Five Myths About Christianity

Myth #1:  Everyone who calls himself / herself a Christian, wears a cross necklace, prays “religiously”, and does good works is a true born-again Christian.

This is not true. Many people who call themselves “Christians” are actually not Christians. Instead they are following a satanic counterfeit (false gospel) and are following “another Jesus” (not the Jesus that the Holy Bible talks about).

Any person that claims that you have to do something else such as being baptized or doing sacraments in addition to being saved, is a false teacher (2 Peter 2:1-3).

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ — Matthew 7:21-23 (NASB)


Myth #2:  Christianity is about trying to be perfect.

Actually Christianity is about doing our best to be like Jesus Christ (1 John 2:6), realizing that we will never be perfect until we are in Heaven (2 Corinthians 5:1-6).


Myth #3:  Someone can lose their salvation in Christ Jesus.

The Bible is clear. You cannot lose your salvation.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” — John 10:27-28 (NASB)

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Romans 8:38-39 (NASB)


Myth #4:  Christians cannot trust the Bible’s account of creation, because today’s authoritative scientists says that the earth and universe is billions of years old.

There is no evidence for evolution (evolutionary molecules-to-man,  evolutionary natural selection, etc.).

People have heard of the evolutionary concept of natural selection. Creationists, for the most part, agree with this concept in the sense that animals can be killed off. Here is an example: Two moths are in a forest. One moth is white the other is black. If the birds in the area can see the white moth more easily, then the white moth will most likely not survive, hence killing off the white moth in the forest. However, the evolutionists will take this a step further and say that animals evolve into other types of animals. This is not true.

There is no supporting evidence of any evolutionary natural selection that has occurred, is occurring, or will occur. Nothing has been observed to show that, for example, a cat can eventually evolve into a cat-bird with wings. Dogs give birth to dogs. Cats give birth to cats. Cats do not come from dogs, and dogs do not come from cats. Each animal has a variety in the gene pool for that particular animal, but nothing new is added to the gene pool.

Remember what the Bible says about people who contradict God’s Word:

“Of course not! Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. As the Scriptures say about him,

“You will be proved right in what you say,
and you will win your case in court.” – Romans 3:4 NLT


Myth #5:  “Turning from your sins” is apart of obtaining salvation.

The Bible never mentions about “turning from your sins” – trying to stop sinning – as a part of being saved. The Bible says:

“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” – Romans 10:9 NLT

Nowhere in that verse says or implies “turning from your sins to be saved”. In other words, you do not have to try to forsake your sins as a part of being saved. That is not Biblical. Unfortunately people who believe this way are not true born-again believers and are bound for Hell.

However if by “turning from your sins” you mean repentance (a change of mind), then that is correct.

Please take note, I am not saying that once you become a true born-again believer, you can just keep on sinning and say to yourself “I can now do anything I want, since I will go to Heaven anyway!”. That is not what I mean. I just want to be clear.


Posted in Christian

Do You Really Need to Use Antivirus Software?

Pretty much everyone who has used a computer knows what anti-virus software is and what is does. In case you don’t know, anti-virus software basically gives you the potential to know if malware is trying, has tried, or maybe even has successfully infiltrated your computer system.

More and more people are starting to do away with anti-virus software because “they don’t need it”. Well I personally see anti-virus software as a tool…a tool that helps secure a computer system. When someone says that they “don’t need anti-virus software”, I think of the example that I gave to someone a while back on the Internet :

Let’s say you go around telling people that you don’t need to see a doctor to test for cancer, because you do not have cancer, nor will you ever get any. How do you have the potential to know that you do not have cancer, *if* you are not checked by a doctor? How do you know that you will *never* get *any* cancer at all? You don’t!

Your logic would not make sense in that situation because you are assuming something as fact, when *in fact* you are just guessing! The same applies to someone who says that they “don’t need anti-virus software” because they “know that they won’t get any malware” on their computer system or “I know that I am careful, hence I don’t need anti-virus software”. Sorry people but that logic just doesn’t add up!

Also it seems in my experience that many Linux users believe the idea that they won’t get any malware on their Linux systems, or at the very least they “don’t need an anti-virus” program running on their Linux system.

Like I have asked several times before, how can you have the potential to know if you have malware on your Linux system, if you do not run anti-virus software on your Linux desktop / server?

You are just guessing that you will not get any malware. You are even guessing when you say that you do not have malware currently on your Linux system!

Sure Linux has a lot less malware than Windows, but that is no excuse for ignoring security! 🙂

Also, I know that anti-virus software can have (and does have) security problems in of itself. However keep in mind that the companies that write the anti-virus software do update their software to fix security problems, so this is not necessarily a big deal (depends upon your situation).


Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, Software

Difference between Historical and Observational Science

Historical Science:  Non-repeatable, non-observational, non-testable   (e.g., the origin of the universe — Yes, the origin of the universe is historical science because no human was alive to observe it happening, nor could anyone repeat what happened even *if* they did observe it!)

Observational Science:  Is repeatable, is observable, is testable   (e.g., the study of medicine or the study of mechanics — You can actually observe things happening (e.g. mechanics), test and verify your findings.)

Read more about historical and observational science here:  https://answersingenesis.org/what-is-science/deceitful-terms-historical-and-observational-science/


Posted in Christian

How Good is pfSense?

About six months ago, I started using pfSense (uses FreeBSD) for my main router. I have been very pleased with it and will share a short description of my experiences with it.

Please take note this is not a “how-to” tutorial on installing pfSense. I am just giving my general opinions and experiences with using pfSense.

Install Procedure

The install has two different paths. 1) A quick install, or 2) a more detailed, custom install. I just went ahead and used the quick install. The actual installation took about 3-4 minutes to complete. The process was quick and painless.

Initial Setup

After pfSense installs and reboots, you will have the opportunity to tell pfSense which network card is for your WAN and which network card is for your LAN connections – all basic, routine information a router needs to know.

pfSense will give you the opportunity to setup a VLAN if needed. I had no problems with this part of the setup.

General Router Configuration

You can now access (via a web browser) the newly installed pfSense router using the default local (LAN) IP address pfSense assigned you.

Once in, you will need to modify the router’s basic settings (e.g., WAN settings, LAN settings, etc.). Having your old router configuration with you while setting up your new router helps a lot.

I setup a VPN (using OpenVPN) to my place of work. This has helped a lot in providing a safe and encrypted mechanism to transfer data between home and work.

I also assigned static IP addresses to the different computers at the location.

Powerful Gateway Control

pfSense gives you total control over your firewall’s gateway. For example, let’s say I have the following local networks: 10.x, 11.x, and 12.x Each of these networks are sand-boxed from each other for extra security.

Now let’s say I have computers on the 11.x network that only need to process data locally (e.g., computers that render 3d animated graphics). They have no need to use the Internet at all. All their work is assigned via a local computer.

I can now go to pfSense and tell it not to allow the 11.x network through the Internet gateway. So now I have the 10.x and 12.x networks with Internet, while the 11.x has absolutely no Internet access. This is a very good and effective way to secure important workstations from an outside attack.

I am pretty sure none of the consumer-grade routers you can purchase from your local retailer will have this ability out-of-the-box.

Backup and Restore

pfSense allows you to backup your entire router configuration. You can restore at any time you need to.

Upgrades

pfSense seamlessly upgrades to newer versions, keeping your previous configuration. This is one of the reasons I enjoy using pfSense. No more wasting time fixing configurations due to a system update.

I used to use OpenWRT (a Linux-based router OS) that required a complete reconfiguration, every…single…upgrade (no joke). I about had a heart-attack when I found this out. OpenWRT definitely was not a good fit for me.

Overall Opinion of pfSense

I am very pleased with pfSense. I have had almost zero trouble with it. pfSense handles many Internet connections well, allows for major flexibility in configuring my networks, and works perfectly with SSD drives.

If you want a extremely powerful router, but do not want to shovel out the money to buy a commercial setup, pfSense gives you a really great alternative.

To sum it up, pfSense is a great solution, open source, and available for free. I recommend you try it out for yourself. Click here to go to pfSense’s home webpage.


Posted in Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, Software