I found the premise of the movie concerned itself with the basis of freedom in the academic world and its effect when that freedom is removed. If science is seeking answers to the big questions of life then what is incorrect in the process of discovering that there might be something that explains science apart from natural processes?

The idea of finding an alternative from God creating life and or the universe based on natural processes was hailed back in the days of Darwin for the same reason it is now. Explaining life without God gives those who want no God a reason to live the type of life they choose. Without God means no moral absolutes to deal with. Using Darwinism as reasonable explanations makes anyone who disagree with you a religious baboon. The attitude of Richard Dawkins in the movie was demonstrated by his glee in being asked what he had said about God. Stein went on to quote him saying something hateful but Dawkins smirked and said that was not entirely correct and opened his book to read a longer more venomous diatribe on what he said concerning God. This performance by Dawkins, represented the hateful attitude that evolutionists have toward religion and in particular Christianity. Comparing a holy God to their sarcasm by calling Him the Flying Spaghetti Monster openly shows their arrogance and hostility.

If they can use evolution to justify their denial and refusal of God they most certainly will. If they find any breach of that paradigm they will use the full force of their politics and authority to deny anyone questioning it. Expelled shows where this thinking and attitude leads people to go when they embrace Darwinism for explanations for the big questions of life. If you happen to get in the way you will be expelled. It’s that simple.

Attempting to Explain the Incarnation of Jesus.

Why is it so important that Jesus was born of a virgin?

This question usually can be answered quickly and easily in that it was to fulfill prophecy. Isaiah 7:14 ESV… therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. (Immanuel means God is with us)

This however is only a surface answer when defending the faith we are to contend for as Christians. This is only the tip of the iceberg as we shall see.

When posed with this question from those outside Christianity it usually has an undercurrent that wishes to pull the unsuspecting Christian under and drown him/her into causing doubt in their mind to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation.

Muslims who ask these questions do not seem to comprehend that Allah or whom Christians call God (Jehovah) would volunteer he to become human.

If a defender of Islam is asked if he could become a human since he is all-powerful. The Muslim apologist will not answer the question and proceed to argue that God being the almighty creator has no need to become a man. They delight in using an analogy similar to this:

An engineer who invents a VCR does not need to become a VCR to know what it will or will not do. They will stretch their analogy to absurdity to convince an audience the foolishness of asking such a question. This reasoning does not answer the question if God could become a human if he so wished to. It is only intended to intimidate the person asking the question.

Is there something that intrinsically prohibits God from becoming a mere mortal?

We find answers to this question in the Christian Bible, which asserts and teaches that He did indeed enter his creation to become human yet remain God at the same time.

Philippians 12:6-8 ESV

Vs. 6 Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

(Jesus released voluntarily his position of God to become human keeping his nature as God but also taking on the nature of a man.)

Vs.7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form,

Vs 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Refer back to the Old Testament this truth from Isaiah 9:6 ESV

For to us a child is born, -(human birth)

to us a son is given; - (Son of God)

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, -(God almighty)

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

The verse above talks about Jesus as God enters his creation as God in human form. He comes in as a baby who grows to be a man.

The proof text that supports this is in the next chapter where he is referred again by the same Hebrew word translated:

He is referred to be Mighty God = God almighty -Isaiah 10:21

A remnant will return the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God.

The same Hebrew word is used in both instances to make clear that it is not just someone calling themselves a god but God himself. Mighty God means God Almighty.

New Testament support for Jesus being God

The next beautiful phrase we see to support this is found in the New Testament.

John 1:14 ESV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus the Word of God (LOGOS) did not cease being the Logos (The Word) but at the same time became a human being. Jesus took on the very nature of a human being but remained in His divine nature at the same time. This is the basis of the Incarnation.

The Church wrestles with the problem of explaining the truth of the Incarnation

The reading of the Bible can bring about a number of interpretations. The politics of who is popular or powerful can amplify that interpretation whether it be true or not.

For the next three hundred years the Church would undergo terrific persecution and tumult. The Church regardless had to discover from the Cannon of Scripture the truth of the matter. That truth would emerge to be articulated as the orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation. Along the way the Church had to deal with some thoughts and interpretations that had to be resolved.

Appolinaris the Bishop of Laodicea A.D. 361 declared that Jesus had a body but not a human mind or spirit. This was later labeled a heresy called Appolinarianism. Which did the other church leaders reject out of hand. They countermanded that the mind and spirit needed redemption and not just the body by the Redeemer. Jesus’ Sacrifice was in totality for the redemption of believers. His sacrifice was total and perfect for body, mind and spirit.

Nestorius a popular preacher in Antioch A.D. 428 taught Jesus had two beings in one body (i.e. two persons in one body); one divine being and the other not divine. Church leaders rallied against Nestorius and forbid him from his office of preaching. They said that there was nothing in the Bible to support this new thought about Jesus and went further to explain that if two persons were in the one body then there would be two separate wills by two separate people inside the same Jesus. A double-headed deity would not work for them and so Nestorius was out of a job. Nestorianism would later be the title for this heresy.

Eutichus around the same period tried to reconcile the Incarnation by teaching that there was a mixture of divine and human natures that made a new and separate entity apart from being either divine or human. It would be something like sodium and chloride combining to form a new compound called table salt. The new mixture was now something separate and distinct apart from the original “ingredients” of divine and mortal. This absurdity was deemed heretical and also rejected later to be given the name of Eutychianism.

Church Council of Chalcedon A.D. 451

Finally the Church was called to convene at the city of Chalcedon A.D. 451 to resolve this issue. They attempted to put forth an orthodox definition that Jesus was both divine and human at the same time. They denied all the previously discussed interpretations as unorthodox and heretical. Their definition was lacking in that it said what the nature of Jesus was not more than what his nature was.

The creed stated that Jesus has both a separate and distinct human and divine nature and not a mixture. Those natures are found in the one person of our Lord. There are not two persons present but only one. That person is coequal to the Father and the Holy Spirit and share in their same divine nature as the one God. This is part of what is called Chelcedonian Christology by theologians.

More truth from the Incarnation to be articulated by the Church

This would set the basis for further articulation of the truths of Scripture regarding the Trinity. The distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature is being preserved. The theological term is called the hypostatic union. The definition is the union of Christ’s human and divine nature in one person (being).

This is a difficult thing to understand with what we have revealed in Scriptures. Whether or not we understand it does not make it untrue. Here is a problem that cannot be easily resolved if stated as follows:

Difficulties with the Incarnation

Jesus at all times has been and remains fully and truly God when either as a baby or asleep on a fishing boat. He maintained and maintains the universe as the Second Person of the holy Trinity. Jesus when he died his body and human nature disconnected but his divine nature remained intact. His divine nature was not affected by his human nature disconnecting from his body during the three days he was in the tomb. We can humbly submit that we do not understand that part but the human part of his death we can agree that all see it’s effect. Physical death happens to us because of our own human nature. All men and women before us have experienced death because we are human by nature and subject to death. However when it comes to our Lord Jesus it is not the same, for Scripture states:

Colossians 1:7 …and he is before all things and in him all things hold together.

Jesus is both divine in nature and human at the same time and at all times. That is why Jesus could truthfully say to the Pharisees that “before Abraham was I am” - John 8:58. There was no clearer statement understood by them because they gathered up rocks to kill him after he said that. They understood perfectly that he was saying he was God. They could only see him as a man, but he in fact was also God to be able to say that.

He said to the disciples that he was leaving them but then said he would be with them always. He can say that without contradiction because of His hypostatic union. In other words; Anything done by one of his natures is also done by the whole person of Christ.

For example; I can wash the dishes with my hands and my feet have nothing to do with that, yet I can say that I washed the dishes. What my hands did, my feet were not washing dishes. This was done at the same time by the same person. The person washing the dishes existed as a person and did the action but the two parts were separated (hands and feet) and only the hands did the action. The feet had nothing to do with what the hands were doing but they still were there at the same time as the hands were when they were washing dishes.

Christ can be human and be doing what his nature allows as a man but can also be doing what He does as God at the same time.

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, back in Revelation 6:9-11 the saints who were tortured, raped and murdered for their faith in Jesus were asking for justice. They were told to wait. Finally we see that those prayers are answered in Revelation 18 with the judgment of Babylon the Whore that caused their suffering.
This judgment can be symbolized away to mean a lot of different things but I think that it is a literal fulfillment of the prophecy here of a real city or civilization in whose capitol is located in a literal place on this planet in a literal time in the future.
How she is judged is key to understand what city this might be. She is burned. Fire is her judgment. It is sudden and takes place in an hour and finishes in twenty-four.
The first and obvious candidate is a city built on 7hills. It probably isn’t San Francisco she is also built on 7 hills and probably deserves some judgment but I doubt it is her.

The initial part of fulfillment could be ancient Rome. Rome was burned with fire but she was only half burned. It also took five days before Great Fire of Rome burned itself out. This happened during the reign of Nero. Christians were really persecuted after the fire and even more so by the Caesars that followed him, so this might not be the right city mentioned in Revelation 18 because of the more heavy persecution that followed.
Out of the fourteen districts, four of the districts were destroyed completely and seven others severely damaged in the Great Fire of Rome. This was reported by The Roman historians Pliny the Elder and Tacitus

The text in Revelation says the city is explicitly obliterated in one hour and in one day she receives all the plague, famine and pestilence she deserves (Revelation 18:8-10). Her devastation is so complete that she is not even rebuilt since nothing will occur in her again. Why is that?
What can be so devastating and so quick to destroy an entire civilization and or city in one day and in one hour no less? We do know from the prophecy, it is by fire, that it is sudden, it is terrible in delivering tremendous physical suffering and what remains is uninhabitable.
What could do this? I submit that it is from a nuclear detonation(s).

 

Nuclear Blast
When Revelation was written it would be another 1300 years before four new continents would be discovered; North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica.
The advances in learning and science have developed exponentially since the first centuries when Revelation was penned. Nuclear fission and fusion weapons which use the same elements and processes of the sun have only been used in anger  only twice in history. From those two events of the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki plus the testing done thirty years afterwards there is sufficient evidence that delivering a single nuclear device can do exactly what is described for us by John in Revelation 18.

In one hour a 13 kiloton warhead did to Hiroshima and a 21-kiloton device did to Nagasaki the same sort of disaster yet to be fulfilled on Babylon but on a mini-scale.
It must be understood that a nuclear bomb is different from a conventional bomb. Although both use explosive shock, the nuclear device is different in its effect in that it uses thermal energy as its main destructive component. That means fire. Fire and burning are the judgment of the Whore.
The three components from nuclear detonation

The three components from nuclear detonation effect are explosive, thermal and radiation. The explosive component exposes all habitable structures to the fire that follows. The main effect is not the blast and not the radiation but the fire. Fire is the main destructive component of a nuclear blast.
The thermal emission at ground zero Rebuilding-Ground-Zero for a 100 kiloton device is at the temperature of the sun. All surrounding environment within the diameter of a mile are vaporized, everything else within the next ten miles ignites in what is called a firestorm by firefighters.

 

This fire is started by the blast and things that are part of the city contribute to the fire. This includes everything mentioned in chapter 18; that is so valuable to the inhabitants of the city of Babylon. Their slaves, their clothes, their jewels (diamonds are pure carbon and burn like charcoal you know) gold, metals, whatever else mentioned, is ignited by the initial blast. This is not fanciful speculation. Models for this type of scenario exist from the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo from World War 2. Revelation is replete with descriptions of burning and fire.

 

Only a blast of this nature could do such devastation so absolutely and so rapidly. This begs the question if it is divine in nature or human. I submit that people have become so adept at killing one another that God could easily use the depravity of man to do this for Him. He already has in using Babylonians, Egyptians and Assyrians to make his point with Israel in her past history. Why not again?

Consider the following from the website AtomicArchive dot com:
Many fallout particles are especially hazardous biologically. Some of the principal radioactive elements are as follows:
Strontium 90 is very long-lived with a half-life of 28 years. It is chemically similar to calcium, causing it to accumulate in growing bones. This radiation can cause tumors, leukemia, and other blood abnormalities.
Iodine 131 has a half-life of 8.1 days. Ingestion of it concentrates in the thyroid gland. The radiation can destroy all or part of the thyroid. Taking potassium iodide can reduce the effects.
The amount of tritium released varies by bomb design. It has a half-life of 12.3 years and can be easily ingested, since it can replace a hydrogen in water. The beta radiation can cause lung cancer.
Cesium 137 has a half-life of 30 years. It does not present as large a biological threat as Strontium 90. It behaves similar to potassium, and will distribute fairly uniformly throughout the body. This can contribute to gonadal irradiation and genetic damage.
When a plutonium weapon is exploded, not all of the plutonium is fissioned. Plutonium 239 has a half-life of 24,400 years. Ingestion of as little as 1 microgram of plutonium, a barely visible speck, is a serious health hazard causing the formation of bone and lung tumors.
The city or civilization is left desolate. The number of injured eventually die a painful death within weeks due to their injuries and the third component of the blast which is radiation. The hair falls out of the heads of women and the sores from the burning that don’t heal from nuclear radiation become infected and lead to death. The residual radiation remains deadly for years. Some of the half-lives of the radioactive components remain fatally dangerous past twenty-eight years.
With all this in mind it clear to me at least that Revelation 18;21b states that,” …the great city will be thrown down with violence and will not be found any longer.”

 

A World without Electricity
In our discussion of crossing the mighty Euphrates River in Revelation 16:12-16 we discussed the sixth bowl and the events that lead to the armies fording the river.
One of the arguments that ensued was that it had to be dried up to cross effectively and congregate at Megiddo without being destroyed before crossing.
The preceding events to the crossing would have the entire world in a different situation as far as infrastructure remaining. The one part of the infrastructure that would be nearly missing is electricity. Without electricity there is little that our modern world can do without.
Consider the fact that electricity is used to refrigerate foods, power computers that we depend on and turn motors for everything imaginable including our transportation.
One thing that happens in a nuclear blast is what is called an EMP pulse. Here again from AtomicArchive dot com I present:
Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is an electromagnetic wave similar to radio waves, which results from secondary reactions occurring when the nuclear gamma radiation is absorbed in the air or ground. It differs from the usual radio waves in two important ways.
First, it creates much higher electric field strengths. Whereas a radio signal might produce a thousandth of a volt or less in a receiving antenna, an EMP pulse might produce thousands of volts.

Secondly, it is a single pulse of energy that disappears completely in a small fraction of a second. In this sense, it is rather similar to the electrical signal from lightning, but the rise in voltage is typically a hundred times faster. This means that most equipment designed to protect electrical facilities from lightning works too slowly to be effective against EMP.
There is no evidence that EMP is a physical threat to humans. However, electrical or electronic systems, particularly those connected to long wires such as power lines or antennas, can undergo damage. There could be actual physical damage to an electrical component or a temporary disruption of operation.
Interestingly enough the article finishes with a historic event:
On July 8, 1962, the EMP from the high altitude (250 miles above Johnston Island) “Starfish Prime” test (1.4 Megaton test) turned off 300 streetlights in Oahu, Hawaii (740 miles away)!
Imagine that! Source cited below
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/effects21.shtml

Where is Babylon in Revelation 18?
I have not speculated on which city it is or if it is yet to be built. I am simply saying that Babylon is a city or a civilization that is real, tangible and inhabited by human beings that are of the immoral ilk of the hapless inhabitants of Sodom and Ghomora.
It is not just a symbol as much as it is a real place and time that this event will take place in the future and finally fulfill itself in prophecy that John wrote in this chapter.
I think it should be understood literally as well as symbollically I do not hold that understanding the passages are mutually exclusive of one another. I take a more literal view of it myself.
Furthermore, I do not like to weasel out of questions when it comes to the Bible so I would have to say that the city/civilization exists now, today, April 2008.
What God has in mind is beyond us and we can only speculate but the crosshairs are already on Babylon, It’s just a matter now of pulling the trigger.
That blessed hope we have in Christ that he is coming back in our lifetimes is what keeps me looking up, Scott.
Yes I do believe He is coming soon and I can’t hardly wait to be with Him as all of us here do as well.
Hallelujah!
THE EFFECTS OF A NUCLEAR ATTACK ON THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY
5th ed./5 June 2001
by Wm. Robert Johnston
copyright 1983, 1999, 2001
How powerful are modern nuclear weapons? The following describes the effects of the use of a single intercontinental ballistic missile against the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas. This is not a description of the effects of a nuclear war: it is assumed that no other nuclear weapons are used anywhere in the world (not that the U.S. would not go to war over the loss of the Valley!). However, this may be about what the Soviets had in mind for the Valley had an all-out nuclear war occurred in the 1980s.
A note on how to read this: the discussion of the explosion’s effects in Brownsville lists many locations throughout the city (each in bold print), so the reader may concentrate on locations of interest.
The weapon described here, the SS-17, was retired in 1994; since 1983, the SS-17s in use had slightly smaller warheads than what is described here. This description uses population figures and conditions for spring 1993.
click or paste into your address bar the URL below
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nukergv.html