My earliest recollections of my father were a series of deep red welts across my back from a beating he gave me at 5 years old.
That night sleep never came and in the morning, after an apologetic embrace, life went on as usual.
There was always a deep vein of passion that ran heavy in my home. Sometimes that passion expressed itself in pain, and at times in love.
It would be one of the last memories my father and I would share before he would be taken from me.
At 6 I would have a new life with a new family. My birth mother –who I was reacquainted with- had converted to Judaism and my new father Dr. Goodman was brilliant, even tempered, and patient. For most of my life I considered myself Jewish and remember laughing at the thought of Jesus, an obvious charlatan, having the nerve to call himself God.
Religion was not a looming concern in my youth. I was proud, strong, and happy to indulge in life’s pleasures. I enjoyed popularity and relished in my youthful vigor. I was a nice guy, sure, but there was a darker side that unfortunately some had to see.
At around 16 I started attending a church with an attractive girl I met through a friend. I knew my bible through common curiosity and infrequent readings so nothing that was said was effective since I chose to shut off that part of myself.
It was then I met a man named John Serrano. John was extremely bright and served his country in the United States Navy as I would later do. He had a way of expressing his faith that was alive, powerful, and convincing. John’s words had a strong effect on me and his faith penetrated my prejudice.
Within a month I would be baptized in Jesus name, flush with the Holy Spirit, and electrified with a powerful awareness of God in me.
It would not last.
As I fell away I began a new life in Florida and began new relationships and carried new hopes for the future. I was amazed how fast I met people from all walks of life and I allowed myself to celebrate life to its fullest. Alcohol was pleasurable as were other drugs and though I still had my faith, I knew I was still quite young and figured that I was able to resume my relationship with God whenever the time was appropriate.
Church for me had been cathartic and I was grateful for the experience, but I began to cherish more the concerns of day to day life and God was soon becoming nothing more than a pleasant cherry on my psychological entrée.
As time continued on I became quite the religious pluralist. I read the books of Deepak Chopra, Carlos Castaneda, Sonia Choquette and the other spiritualists I came across. I embraced the reinterpretations of Jesus as “enlightened” and “spiritual”.
While I pulled away from the literal understanding of the bible I gained the respect of many who admired my ideas of religious commonality. There was no sin. I attended church after smoking pot believing I was accessing the power of marijuana’s transcendental nature while mixing in the light of prayer and meditation.
I opened my chakras. I released the negativity of darkness, self obsession and anger while nursing within me an encompassing light of wisdom, life, power and love. Eventually this would dry as well.
I was like a thirsty man who had found soda drinks to quench his need but it could not quite satiate the thirst. In the end I turned to the one thing that had never let me down and could not let me down or disappoint.
Myself.
Over the next several years I pulled away from all spirituality. Although, I never considered atheism as a valid world view.
Sure I understood the perspective and would have had no problem calling myself an atheist at one time. Yet throughout the entirety of my life it would be what lied beyond the seemingly apparent that influenced me.
There was no sense that the natural world was solely affected by the natural. I felt at ease within the orchestra of pain, love, desire, loss, and victory that we all chalk up to life’s randomness.
But it was never random to me. I always had an understanding of the minute threads within the paper, the blood beneath the skin that coursed with mystery and suspicions of something more. The play we all play part and the part that could never fit beneath the microscope.
Even without God I could not deny it. But deny it I tried and for the next several years I did what any young man desires to do.
Pleasure.
Around this time I traveled extensively around the world in my years as a Naval STG. I had the privilege of serving on board 2 different ships and spending time in some 19 countries. I met excellent people from every walk of life and built friendships (and a family) that last me to this day. The Navy was tough for me, but well worth it.
On one hand you could say I had everything. After the Navy I got a great job at Liebherr Mining. My wife is the most beautiful person I have ever known and a source of life for me.
My child is vivid, wild, creative, and loving. (Just how I like ‘em!)
And we live together in a nice home, close to family and the people we care about.
But the melody will always play.
The subtle symphony of life and circumstance. I knew I could not forget the fact that there was more to everything, more to me than the pleasant family Christmas card I send out every year.
Home, family, warmth, and security were all wonderful things but where someone could have been content to wait till death to join everlasting, I felt my heart beckon towards divinity.
Like a call to come home I felt compelled to pray. I began with a simple prayer every night before I slept.
“In Jesus name –Lord I want you in my life. I repent of anything that separates me from God's will and I hope that I could stay with you Lord, now and forever."
And here I am.
Let me show you how I got here.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
A Good Book
I always find it puzzling when people proudly exclaim “I have good morals…why do I need God?”
“I’m happy..I don’t need God”.
Transforming God into a checklist of amenities, and not much more, I imagine someone saying “Why should I buy a car? I have air conditioning and radio at home”.
I suppose the best reason to make God a part of your life is because God exists. But we’ll tackle that later.
Right now it’s best if I reveal why I believe Jesus is God.
Well, for starters, it’s the most important thing worth taking away from scripture.
(Even if you are the doubtful type who frowns upon scripture's reliability on such things.)
Being raised to respect the Jewish people I recognized early the intelligence and honesty of a people who for millennia have shed their blood for nearly every race of man on earth. It was a great discipline they used to preserve and later write down the accounts of Solomon, Elijah, Isaiah, and of course Jesus of Nazareth.
I do not understand when some say “The bible is not reliable as God’s word as it was written by men not God.” Since the bible is mainly a historical account of what Jesus said and did, it would be just as odd to say “all the first-hand accounts and 19th century books written about Abraham Lincoln are not reliable or accurate as they are written by men”.
Archeologists have unearthed over 5,000 copies of ancient Christian manuscripts. There are more separate, independent, first-hand accounts of Jesus than any other character in ancient history.
Within days of his death Christianity spread like wild fire across the known world. World population exploded from 200 million to near a billion and the perfect storm of a temporarily small world population, Roman rule and peace, and the incredible wide-spread testimony of the resurrection led 1st century rulers to wonder how and why all these Christians were popping up so suddenly?
There is not a claim about Yahweh that is not ascribed to Jesus. There is not a single glory withheld or power not shared.
God made flesh, manifest and humbled to lay down his life for man.
All scripture is inspired and "breathed" out by God through the lives and experiences of men. In it we witness both the hand of man and the creative force of heaven.
Man feels at once separated from his spirit but drawn to it. This invisible transcendence that has compelled mankind towards it for all of human history. And yet we feel its distance. And perhaps we feel our own brokenness. Fallen from a reality that should be but isn't.
Forever pushing towards a world that ought to be within our grasp, but always just beyond it.
For we live in a moral universe. A universe with laws and rules that are not "part" of God as they are part of us, but are indeed the very essence of God. Like love that emanates from the heart of heaven.
We live in a moral universe that God has revealed in the old days before the birth of Jesus and then revealed in Him. You see morals aren’t something we invented. They exist outside of us.
Eternal and external.
We discover them, we learn them, we ignore some and embrace others. But they obligate us always.
Greeks and other cultures used to kill off their own babies. Some Asian and Middle Eastern cultures treat women deplorably. We find that detestable but there are cultures ancient and modern that would find the way we treat one another deplorable. The way we treat our poor, immigrants and hungry, the manner in which we feast on every conceivable delight. Our incessant self fixation.
We can trade moral priorities back and forth as we see most befitting modernity, but beyond our grasp of the appropriate lies the Word of God. The Word made flesh. And that flesh is bridging the gap between our hatred (strong word but what else would you call it?) of God and His love for us.
Estranged as we are from God there is never a moment God’s blessings aren’t pouring from heaven for the sick, destitute, and suffering.
To the atheist life is meaningless outside of our combined desires. People learn, love, procreate, and die. People cry and suffer and die. People manipulate, deceive and feast. People do whatever they can in life and then pass. Yet amongst the hypocrisy of men the atheist cries out “Why would a God allow this suffering?” “How could God permit this suffering?” “Why are Christians so evil?”
Because what every other spirituality tries to cover up, what all philosophy and mortal wisdom wishes weren’t so, is also the most dangerous secret in the universe.
We are all contaminated with sin.
It oozes and bursts forth from our pores. It hangs on our breath and sticks to our teeth. And faith is not the cure for sin. The cure for sin is death. Jesus Christ is the cure for death.
And that’s why God chose to live among us, leave his story in the hands of 12 and die horribly in the hands of men. And rise again!
So his story would play out as history tells. 1st century Christians would explode in fervor, confounding the world’s power by dying willingly, eagerly for the promise delivered in Christ’s resurrection.
A miracle witnessed by hundreds who took that testimony passed the stones, through the whip, up the cross and to the grave.
So we could have our bible. Our words written by men.
Written by men for all of mankind. Inspired by God to tell us the story of a resurrection so miraculous that only witnesses who were either entirely mad, or untrue, or blessed of God could retell it!
Men, apostles, who lived humbly and willing to serve, to learn, and to teach, to give and to work, to pray and to love all they came across in honesty, victory and hope.
That is my faith. Reasoned through rationality, believed through experience.
“I’m happy..I don’t need God”.
Transforming God into a checklist of amenities, and not much more, I imagine someone saying “Why should I buy a car? I have air conditioning and radio at home”.
I suppose the best reason to make God a part of your life is because God exists. But we’ll tackle that later.
Right now it’s best if I reveal why I believe Jesus is God.
Well, for starters, it’s the most important thing worth taking away from scripture.
(Even if you are the doubtful type who frowns upon scripture's reliability on such things.)
Being raised to respect the Jewish people I recognized early the intelligence and honesty of a people who for millennia have shed their blood for nearly every race of man on earth. It was a great discipline they used to preserve and later write down the accounts of Solomon, Elijah, Isaiah, and of course Jesus of Nazareth.
I do not understand when some say “The bible is not reliable as God’s word as it was written by men not God.” Since the bible is mainly a historical account of what Jesus said and did, it would be just as odd to say “all the first-hand accounts and 19th century books written about Abraham Lincoln are not reliable or accurate as they are written by men”.
Archeologists have unearthed over 5,000 copies of ancient Christian manuscripts. There are more separate, independent, first-hand accounts of Jesus than any other character in ancient history.
Within days of his death Christianity spread like wild fire across the known world. World population exploded from 200 million to near a billion and the perfect storm of a temporarily small world population, Roman rule and peace, and the incredible wide-spread testimony of the resurrection led 1st century rulers to wonder how and why all these Christians were popping up so suddenly?
There is not a claim about Yahweh that is not ascribed to Jesus. There is not a single glory withheld or power not shared.
God made flesh, manifest and humbled to lay down his life for man.
All scripture is inspired and "breathed" out by God through the lives and experiences of men. In it we witness both the hand of man and the creative force of heaven.
Man feels at once separated from his spirit but drawn to it. This invisible transcendence that has compelled mankind towards it for all of human history. And yet we feel its distance. And perhaps we feel our own brokenness. Fallen from a reality that should be but isn't.
Forever pushing towards a world that ought to be within our grasp, but always just beyond it.
For we live in a moral universe. A universe with laws and rules that are not "part" of God as they are part of us, but are indeed the very essence of God. Like love that emanates from the heart of heaven.
We live in a moral universe that God has revealed in the old days before the birth of Jesus and then revealed in Him. You see morals aren’t something we invented. They exist outside of us.
Eternal and external.
We discover them, we learn them, we ignore some and embrace others. But they obligate us always.
Greeks and other cultures used to kill off their own babies. Some Asian and Middle Eastern cultures treat women deplorably. We find that detestable but there are cultures ancient and modern that would find the way we treat one another deplorable. The way we treat our poor, immigrants and hungry, the manner in which we feast on every conceivable delight. Our incessant self fixation.
We can trade moral priorities back and forth as we see most befitting modernity, but beyond our grasp of the appropriate lies the Word of God. The Word made flesh. And that flesh is bridging the gap between our hatred (strong word but what else would you call it?) of God and His love for us.
Estranged as we are from God there is never a moment God’s blessings aren’t pouring from heaven for the sick, destitute, and suffering.
To the atheist life is meaningless outside of our combined desires. People learn, love, procreate, and die. People cry and suffer and die. People manipulate, deceive and feast. People do whatever they can in life and then pass. Yet amongst the hypocrisy of men the atheist cries out “Why would a God allow this suffering?” “How could God permit this suffering?” “Why are Christians so evil?”
Because what every other spirituality tries to cover up, what all philosophy and mortal wisdom wishes weren’t so, is also the most dangerous secret in the universe.
We are all contaminated with sin.
It oozes and bursts forth from our pores. It hangs on our breath and sticks to our teeth. And faith is not the cure for sin. The cure for sin is death. Jesus Christ is the cure for death.
And that’s why God chose to live among us, leave his story in the hands of 12 and die horribly in the hands of men. And rise again!
So his story would play out as history tells. 1st century Christians would explode in fervor, confounding the world’s power by dying willingly, eagerly for the promise delivered in Christ’s resurrection.
A miracle witnessed by hundreds who took that testimony passed the stones, through the whip, up the cross and to the grave.
So we could have our bible. Our words written by men.
Written by men for all of mankind. Inspired by God to tell us the story of a resurrection so miraculous that only witnesses who were either entirely mad, or untrue, or blessed of God could retell it!
Men, apostles, who lived humbly and willing to serve, to learn, and to teach, to give and to work, to pray and to love all they came across in honesty, victory and hope.
That is my faith. Reasoned through rationality, believed through experience.
The Quilt Maker
“And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:35)
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28)
When I first fell away from the faith it was merely a slight psychological loss for me. I loved God with most of my mind for sure, but had little experience with any real relationship.
Like a boy who needs to learn how to ride a bicycle, you cannot help him much by explaining to him the nature of weight distribution, velocity, and so forth. No, we can only ride that bike, by riding the bike!
Likewise my knowledge and appreciation for theology and scripture could never hope to sustain me. It is why I was so fast to turn to many other religions and spiritualities.
It wasn’t until I began a real prayer life and an active talking relationship with God did I discover the secret of Christianity.
Jesus is, in fact, Lord and very much alive and real.
So why is God hidden?
If he loves us why isn’t he in the sky pronouncing his plan for all to see?
I suppose that would change things. There could be an intellectual argument made that God would have stripped many of us of our precious gift of free will. I suppose an evident God would begrudge us to acknowledge divinity. That sort of knowledge would frighten more than inspire. But I think I have an even more common sense and experiential answer.
It relates to my own son and how I understand the need to let him grow. I used to spend more time dressing him than I do now since I've pulled away –under his protest- to let him dress alone. When I refuse to dress him it’s not because I don’t know how to dress a child or that I’m not inherently willing. But now that he dresses himself I understand that I’m doing right by him.
I’m raising him.
The bible tells us God has a plan for us. Like any adolescent we are also being raised, nurtured, for an eventual maturity and if you think God showing up in fiery pillar of fire would have changed your heart you’d be in opposition to thousands of years of experience. The Jews frequently recorded amazing revelations of God as he led them through the persecutions of the Babylonians, Canaanites, Assyrians, and more.
Yet for men who saw God, who understood God, many still did not love God.
Though there were the faithful, it was no guarantee that God’s appearance would change the heart.
For it was both the Old Testament prophet Isaiah and Jesus who proclaimed that “This people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Both Matthew 15:8 & Isaiah 29:13)
When we refuse to believe in God we actively begin to work against him. Without even realizing it we become offended by the cross.
The apostles understood how offensive the cross was and the uncomfortable result that many had around talk of Jesus Christ, and they frequently wrote to help our hearts deal with the natural affront we have for Christianity. Jesus added…
“And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” Matthew 11:6
But God has an amazing ability to take every vice, every negative, every obstacle and transform it into strength, love, and opportunity. Like a quilt maker who smoothes out every wild strand and crumpled string, God weaves the imperfections of our lives into a tapestry of unblemished glory.
Yet it is in faith that this endowment can work in our lives otherwise we continue to refuse God, run from God, and without even realizing it, hate God.
“My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
So the question clarifies into an important crossroad.
Why is Jesus Lord? Why not Buddha? Muhammad? Or the tens of millions of Gods in Hindu? Why don’t all roads lead to heaven?
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28)
When I first fell away from the faith it was merely a slight psychological loss for me. I loved God with most of my mind for sure, but had little experience with any real relationship.
Like a boy who needs to learn how to ride a bicycle, you cannot help him much by explaining to him the nature of weight distribution, velocity, and so forth. No, we can only ride that bike, by riding the bike!
Likewise my knowledge and appreciation for theology and scripture could never hope to sustain me. It is why I was so fast to turn to many other religions and spiritualities.
It wasn’t until I began a real prayer life and an active talking relationship with God did I discover the secret of Christianity.
Jesus is, in fact, Lord and very much alive and real.
So why is God hidden?
If he loves us why isn’t he in the sky pronouncing his plan for all to see?
I suppose that would change things. There could be an intellectual argument made that God would have stripped many of us of our precious gift of free will. I suppose an evident God would begrudge us to acknowledge divinity. That sort of knowledge would frighten more than inspire. But I think I have an even more common sense and experiential answer.
It relates to my own son and how I understand the need to let him grow. I used to spend more time dressing him than I do now since I've pulled away –under his protest- to let him dress alone. When I refuse to dress him it’s not because I don’t know how to dress a child or that I’m not inherently willing. But now that he dresses himself I understand that I’m doing right by him.
I’m raising him.
The bible tells us God has a plan for us. Like any adolescent we are also being raised, nurtured, for an eventual maturity and if you think God showing up in fiery pillar of fire would have changed your heart you’d be in opposition to thousands of years of experience. The Jews frequently recorded amazing revelations of God as he led them through the persecutions of the Babylonians, Canaanites, Assyrians, and more.
Yet for men who saw God, who understood God, many still did not love God.
Though there were the faithful, it was no guarantee that God’s appearance would change the heart.
For it was both the Old Testament prophet Isaiah and Jesus who proclaimed that “This people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Both Matthew 15:8 & Isaiah 29:13)
When we refuse to believe in God we actively begin to work against him. Without even realizing it we become offended by the cross.
The apostles understood how offensive the cross was and the uncomfortable result that many had around talk of Jesus Christ, and they frequently wrote to help our hearts deal with the natural affront we have for Christianity. Jesus added…
“And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” Matthew 11:6
But God has an amazing ability to take every vice, every negative, every obstacle and transform it into strength, love, and opportunity. Like a quilt maker who smoothes out every wild strand and crumpled string, God weaves the imperfections of our lives into a tapestry of unblemished glory.
Yet it is in faith that this endowment can work in our lives otherwise we continue to refuse God, run from God, and without even realizing it, hate God.
“My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
So the question clarifies into an important crossroad.
Why is Jesus Lord? Why not Buddha? Muhammad? Or the tens of millions of Gods in Hindu? Why don’t all roads lead to heaven?
Chasing The Dragon
Before science, mankind had little explanation for the natural events that occupied our lives.
Brilliant civilizations which held fantastic insight into human philosophy and deep generational wisdom had laughable ideas about things like the sun, the stars and life around us.
The ancient Chinese screamed at the sun during solar eclipses because it was taught that the darkness was a dragon coming to eat the light. Ironically, the same traditions in time that brought about the profound wisdom of Confucius while simultaneously managing to scientifically calculate the correct 365 day/year would hand in hand yell at the sun to come back!
Some eastern traditions hold we exist on the back of giant turtle!
Buddha taught that we were all once beings of pure radiant light (subsequently giving birth to every new age religion on the planet) and as he later wrote in the Agganna Sutta, we became the prideful, self absorbed, mortal beings we are by gorging ourselves on earth, mushrooms, rice and turnips (yum) each having a particular negative effect.
So why is this story of creation any different than the Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve, told by God not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil “lest we surely shall die”?
The one thing that most of these stories hold is a unifying moral theme. As Buddha stated, humans do indeed gorge themselves on physical delights blinding us to spiritual truths.
And like the Bible’s story it should be revealed that everyone one of us will follow the example of Eve and pull away from God’s lead into rebellion.
(It’s interesting to note that Satan used the desires of her mind, body, and soul to lure Eve. First her mind by assuring her that by eating it her “eyes would be opened” and she would be wise, so then her body as she noticed the fruit “was good for food and delightful to her eyes” and finally her spiritual temptation and fall as she succumbed to apostasy and self exaltation to be “like God” and claim her prominence.)
But is this a story that actually happened or an important insight or metaphor?
A talking snake is as ridiculous as an entire nation yelling at the sun but at one time so was the account Moses gave of the universe’s creation.
So uniquely and completely different is Moses’ account of creation from everything he would have learned growing up in Egyptian privilege, that explaining how it’s even possible that a story so at odds with Egyptian narrative sources and influence is a mystery for historians.
But what is even a greater mystery is how accurate Moses’ account resonates with what scientists have discovered in the modern age.
When the theory of the Big Bang first revealed that the universe had an abrupt and violent beginning it was outright opposed by many scientists as an impossible fraud.
The records of the science community’s attacks are harsh.
The universe is supposed to have no end. It exists and has always existed and would always exist. But now we had a theory straight out of the bible that all of the sudden “Let there be light”!
In fact the Universe isn’t really that old. Trillions of years? Hundreds of Billions? Try almost 14 billion.
Relatively old to be sure but we’ll get to that later.
Moses wrote vividly of his encounter with God and began to reveal God’s nature to man and that nature is order, righteousness, and love. We learned there was an order to everything. Order to the universe, order to biology, and order to our lives. This order gave birth to science and it is no surprise that the great thinkers and scientists throughout history were often devout and prayerful Christians.
Atheists might say that back then nearly everyone was a "theist" but that’s not true. Even the bible records atheist musings in Psalms 14:1 and 53:1. And men like Isaac Newton were fervent Christians to be sure.
But Moses revealed much more.
He revealed that the world was once dark and void and unable to view the sun and the moon in the sky. Eventually waters parted and clouds as thick as Venus’ separated and fell giving way to earth, seas, and vegetation. Soon our own lights were revealed, and from earth’s perspective we see our seas bursting open with life and plants producing seed. We see creeping things and small animals begin to crawl the world and then finally and lastly man. And what’s amazing is that all this coordinates with what most modern scientific thought teaches about earth’s creation order.
Remarkably rational when compared to the creation myths that circulated over 3,000 years ago.
How tempting it was for every other ancient culture in the world to put man always first and foremost, to say countries, kings, or pharaohs were the very beginning of existence.
Religions often included our small perspectives and petty differences as our created "gods" battled and destroyed each other all the while enslaved to similar passions and desires as us. Gods were petty and lustful, greedy and hungry.
Indeed we have something far different in the Bible.
Though skeptics try to tell the world that there are similar foreign stories of creation, floods, and even resurrections none of these biblical accounts are singularly impressive, but collectively special when they are grounded in the historic, scientific, and philosophical truth of the Bible, especially when cast against the far greater differences of the giant turtles, dragons, and salad hungry ghosts haunting the world’s other religious texts.
But there is another claim to the word of God that adjusts the accounts of Moses, Elijah, Peter and Paul. Another religion that professes the inerrant scripture is but a revelation of a deeper religious insight.
Yes there was a time when I had a chance to befriend a few Muslim adherents and I too held the Qur’an in my hands and asked myself
“Is this the final expression of Yahweh’s righteousness?”
“Is this what Jesus died for?”
“Did the Holy Spirit inspire this account?”
What I found surprises me to this day.
Brilliant civilizations which held fantastic insight into human philosophy and deep generational wisdom had laughable ideas about things like the sun, the stars and life around us.
The ancient Chinese screamed at the sun during solar eclipses because it was taught that the darkness was a dragon coming to eat the light. Ironically, the same traditions in time that brought about the profound wisdom of Confucius while simultaneously managing to scientifically calculate the correct 365 day/year would hand in hand yell at the sun to come back!
Some eastern traditions hold we exist on the back of giant turtle!
Buddha taught that we were all once beings of pure radiant light (subsequently giving birth to every new age religion on the planet) and as he later wrote in the Agganna Sutta, we became the prideful, self absorbed, mortal beings we are by gorging ourselves on earth, mushrooms, rice and turnips (yum) each having a particular negative effect.
So why is this story of creation any different than the Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve, told by God not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil “lest we surely shall die”?
The one thing that most of these stories hold is a unifying moral theme. As Buddha stated, humans do indeed gorge themselves on physical delights blinding us to spiritual truths.
And like the Bible’s story it should be revealed that everyone one of us will follow the example of Eve and pull away from God’s lead into rebellion.
(It’s interesting to note that Satan used the desires of her mind, body, and soul to lure Eve. First her mind by assuring her that by eating it her “eyes would be opened” and she would be wise, so then her body as she noticed the fruit “was good for food and delightful to her eyes” and finally her spiritual temptation and fall as she succumbed to apostasy and self exaltation to be “like God” and claim her prominence.)
But is this a story that actually happened or an important insight or metaphor?
A talking snake is as ridiculous as an entire nation yelling at the sun but at one time so was the account Moses gave of the universe’s creation.
So uniquely and completely different is Moses’ account of creation from everything he would have learned growing up in Egyptian privilege, that explaining how it’s even possible that a story so at odds with Egyptian narrative sources and influence is a mystery for historians.
But what is even a greater mystery is how accurate Moses’ account resonates with what scientists have discovered in the modern age.
When the theory of the Big Bang first revealed that the universe had an abrupt and violent beginning it was outright opposed by many scientists as an impossible fraud.
The records of the science community’s attacks are harsh.
The universe is supposed to have no end. It exists and has always existed and would always exist. But now we had a theory straight out of the bible that all of the sudden “Let there be light”!
In fact the Universe isn’t really that old. Trillions of years? Hundreds of Billions? Try almost 14 billion.
Relatively old to be sure but we’ll get to that later.
Moses wrote vividly of his encounter with God and began to reveal God’s nature to man and that nature is order, righteousness, and love. We learned there was an order to everything. Order to the universe, order to biology, and order to our lives. This order gave birth to science and it is no surprise that the great thinkers and scientists throughout history were often devout and prayerful Christians.
Atheists might say that back then nearly everyone was a "theist" but that’s not true. Even the bible records atheist musings in Psalms 14:1 and 53:1. And men like Isaac Newton were fervent Christians to be sure.
But Moses revealed much more.
He revealed that the world was once dark and void and unable to view the sun and the moon in the sky. Eventually waters parted and clouds as thick as Venus’ separated and fell giving way to earth, seas, and vegetation. Soon our own lights were revealed, and from earth’s perspective we see our seas bursting open with life and plants producing seed. We see creeping things and small animals begin to crawl the world and then finally and lastly man. And what’s amazing is that all this coordinates with what most modern scientific thought teaches about earth’s creation order.
Remarkably rational when compared to the creation myths that circulated over 3,000 years ago.
How tempting it was for every other ancient culture in the world to put man always first and foremost, to say countries, kings, or pharaohs were the very beginning of existence.
Religions often included our small perspectives and petty differences as our created "gods" battled and destroyed each other all the while enslaved to similar passions and desires as us. Gods were petty and lustful, greedy and hungry.
Indeed we have something far different in the Bible.
Though skeptics try to tell the world that there are similar foreign stories of creation, floods, and even resurrections none of these biblical accounts are singularly impressive, but collectively special when they are grounded in the historic, scientific, and philosophical truth of the Bible, especially when cast against the far greater differences of the giant turtles, dragons, and salad hungry ghosts haunting the world’s other religious texts.
But there is another claim to the word of God that adjusts the accounts of Moses, Elijah, Peter and Paul. Another religion that professes the inerrant scripture is but a revelation of a deeper religious insight.
Yes there was a time when I had a chance to befriend a few Muslim adherents and I too held the Qur’an in my hands and asked myself
“Is this the final expression of Yahweh’s righteousness?”
“Is this what Jesus died for?”
“Did the Holy Spirit inspire this account?”
What I found surprises me to this day.
The Prophet
“For Allah loves not those who do wrong, For Allah loves not any ungrateful sinner, For Allah loves not the arrogant, the vainglorious” (Sura 3:57; 2:276; 4:36)
“I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, smite them above their necks and smite all their fingertips of them, it is not you who slew them; it was Allah. (Sura 8:13-17)
“For the unbelievers are open enemies to you” (Sura 4:101)
“Seize them and slay them wherever you find them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war” (Sura 9:5)
How different this seemed to me from God of the Bible, who is undoubtedly both righteous and holy -yet still compassionate for the sinful and full of love for the unbeliever.
Too often we tend to focus on a handful of Old Testament stories where God is justifiably affronted or rightfully demanding for an important purpose.
We forget that Jesus was often just as aggravated, stern, and commanding of men as the Old Testament accounts of Yahweh. But throughout the entire bible, God always reveals his great love for even the worst of us. Especially for the worst of us.
Though I try to be careful not to use any verse or story out of context -Muhammad was, in fact, brilliant and ruthless in war- and I have read prose in the Qur’an that is both sweet and loving, yet there are deeply troubling facts about Muhammad that even he had no qualms revealing.
Muhammad was a prophet of war. It is ingrained in the very fiber of his being. He united Arabia but he did so by so by amassing so much blood –men, women, and children- on the blade of his sword that I wonder if he had nightmares.
Muhammad may have been deeply troubled. He would abusively discipline himself with “devout” prayer that caused him to stand and cry endlessly, praying feverishly with blistered feet in punished devotion. Some are proud to call it religious devotion but there seems to be a darker history here.
Muhammad had 11 wives and wrote of his great sexual appetites. Alarmingly Muhammad displayed the characteristics of a pedophiliac. His youngest wife “Aishah” was only 9 years old when he laid on top of her in sexual subdual. Of woman he wrote:
“Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?” The woman answered “Yes” “This is because of the deficiency of the woman’s mind”. (Hadith 3.826)
“I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you (women)”. (Hadith 2.541)
“What rights does a woman have with a man?” “He should feed her if he eats, clothe her if he dresses, avoid disfiguring her or beating her excessively or abandoning her, except at home. (Hadith 7.62.77)
Often the rebuttal to such teachings are shallow attacks on Old Testament scriptures. Yet these are far different than what we see in Leviticus and with far less historical explanation.
Again I would be dishonest if I said that the Qur’an doesn’t have its share of pleasant verses about women, about love, about patience, and forgiveness.
Yet there are two very stark sides of Mohammad that clash and contradict time and time again in the Qur’an.
There is a good side that cherishes his clan, his family, and his Muslim people. And there is a darker, bloodier side that expresses every conceivable evil I can think of. The God of the Qur’an is far worse than even the most blatant of lies regurgitated by Old Testament critics who assert Yahweh is a vengeful demanding Lord.
The God of the Qur’an does not care whether you perish or live. There are no tears shed by men that are carefully noticed by Allah. If you are not a Muslim there is no chance for any recognition whatsoever. If you are a Muslim then there is still very little hope for you as Allah could very well cast you into hell for any reason Allah wishes.
Allah wants work, Allah wants submission, and while there are glimpses of Allah’s love and mercy, you’d be lucky to enjoy it.
The truth is it makes far more sense when you delve deeper into the history of Islam, which isn’t that old, that evidence mounts which shows that Muhammad changed scripture as he saw fit, subjugated a people, and built an empire. He displayed a brilliant mind and conceived a religion that fit the needs of his conquest.
Yet there are many many fine Muslims who focus on the beauty and philosophy of the Qur’an. Being a Muslim does not mean you need to emulate Muhammad to the letter. Most are good loving people full of strength and hope.
But there is still an overwhelmingly strong argument that Muhammad was not a prophet of God and had no connection to Judeo-Christian deity.
And so it was that not that long ago I found myself in this particular position. I appreciate the beauty evident throughout the world's religions. And of course, I respect the God-given right of every human to worship as they please. Or not worship at all....
But with an honest critique it's relatively simple to dismiss most religions as easily identified man-made creations.
And it made perfect sense that if there were at all any true word of our Lord existing among men then there would have to be “one body, and one Spirit –just as I was called to the one hope that belongs to my call- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all”. (Ephesians 4:4-5)
It is in the Bible that I see that undeniable truth.
Tested by time, scrutiny and examination from every great mind in history, the bible today is celebrated by believers and atheists admirers among the highest levels of academia. It is still intellectually studied and pondered the world over.
In the Bible I find an unprecedented level of prophecy. Words that shook the history of the world from the ancient Jewish prophecies of King Nebuchadnezzar, the conquest of magnificent Tyre, the desolation of Edom, and Daniel 11:2-4’s prophecy of Alexander the Great nearly 200 years before his birth!
Not to mention the collection of over 100 prophecies outlining the birth, life, and death of the Jewish Messiah who Daniel prophesied (Daniel 9:24-27) would live 490 years after his inspired scripture promised the rebuilding of the (then) demolished Temple. Nehemiah 2:1-8 fulfilled that Temple prophecy exactly 490 years from the date of the crucifixion. The study of biblical prophecies is a rich garden of knowledge.
In the Bible I find an explanation for every important question a man would have for God.
The reasons for His hidden presence, our suffering, good and evil, and why we exist at all. I found a superb case to make for the divine authority of Jesus Christ and the reliability of scripture’s account. Furthermore, I found an experiential claim to my Lord’s ascendency.
I testify to you with every fiber of my being that I can declare Jesus is Lord.
I’m far from perfect and I have many flaws, but I don’t need to work my way into God’s good graces.
I put aside my rebellion and embraced the truth of the cross. I don’t know entirely what happens those who rebel against God their entire lives only to die in sin and separation. But I would bet my life that God is faithful.
What about the person who would believe?
There are still many challenges to faith. Science seems to suggest a seperate truth apart from God. Many believe they are at odds. Are they right?
What if I told someone that they could indeed find God under the microscope? Would that person dare to look?
Would you?
“I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, smite them above their necks and smite all their fingertips of them, it is not you who slew them; it was Allah. (Sura 8:13-17)
“For the unbelievers are open enemies to you” (Sura 4:101)
“Seize them and slay them wherever you find them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war” (Sura 9:5)
How different this seemed to me from God of the Bible, who is undoubtedly both righteous and holy -yet still compassionate for the sinful and full of love for the unbeliever.
Too often we tend to focus on a handful of Old Testament stories where God is justifiably affronted or rightfully demanding for an important purpose.
We forget that Jesus was often just as aggravated, stern, and commanding of men as the Old Testament accounts of Yahweh. But throughout the entire bible, God always reveals his great love for even the worst of us. Especially for the worst of us.
Though I try to be careful not to use any verse or story out of context -Muhammad was, in fact, brilliant and ruthless in war- and I have read prose in the Qur’an that is both sweet and loving, yet there are deeply troubling facts about Muhammad that even he had no qualms revealing.
Muhammad was a prophet of war. It is ingrained in the very fiber of his being. He united Arabia but he did so by so by amassing so much blood –men, women, and children- on the blade of his sword that I wonder if he had nightmares.
Muhammad may have been deeply troubled. He would abusively discipline himself with “devout” prayer that caused him to stand and cry endlessly, praying feverishly with blistered feet in punished devotion. Some are proud to call it religious devotion but there seems to be a darker history here.
Muhammad had 11 wives and wrote of his great sexual appetites. Alarmingly Muhammad displayed the characteristics of a pedophiliac. His youngest wife “Aishah” was only 9 years old when he laid on top of her in sexual subdual. Of woman he wrote:
“Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?” The woman answered “Yes” “This is because of the deficiency of the woman’s mind”. (Hadith 3.826)
“I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you (women)”. (Hadith 2.541)
“What rights does a woman have with a man?” “He should feed her if he eats, clothe her if he dresses, avoid disfiguring her or beating her excessively or abandoning her, except at home. (Hadith 7.62.77)
Often the rebuttal to such teachings are shallow attacks on Old Testament scriptures. Yet these are far different than what we see in Leviticus and with far less historical explanation.
Again I would be dishonest if I said that the Qur’an doesn’t have its share of pleasant verses about women, about love, about patience, and forgiveness.
Yet there are two very stark sides of Mohammad that clash and contradict time and time again in the Qur’an.
There is a good side that cherishes his clan, his family, and his Muslim people. And there is a darker, bloodier side that expresses every conceivable evil I can think of. The God of the Qur’an is far worse than even the most blatant of lies regurgitated by Old Testament critics who assert Yahweh is a vengeful demanding Lord.
The God of the Qur’an does not care whether you perish or live. There are no tears shed by men that are carefully noticed by Allah. If you are not a Muslim there is no chance for any recognition whatsoever. If you are a Muslim then there is still very little hope for you as Allah could very well cast you into hell for any reason Allah wishes.
Allah wants work, Allah wants submission, and while there are glimpses of Allah’s love and mercy, you’d be lucky to enjoy it.
The truth is it makes far more sense when you delve deeper into the history of Islam, which isn’t that old, that evidence mounts which shows that Muhammad changed scripture as he saw fit, subjugated a people, and built an empire. He displayed a brilliant mind and conceived a religion that fit the needs of his conquest.
Yet there are many many fine Muslims who focus on the beauty and philosophy of the Qur’an. Being a Muslim does not mean you need to emulate Muhammad to the letter. Most are good loving people full of strength and hope.
But there is still an overwhelmingly strong argument that Muhammad was not a prophet of God and had no connection to Judeo-Christian deity.
And so it was that not that long ago I found myself in this particular position. I appreciate the beauty evident throughout the world's religions. And of course, I respect the God-given right of every human to worship as they please. Or not worship at all....
But with an honest critique it's relatively simple to dismiss most religions as easily identified man-made creations.
And it made perfect sense that if there were at all any true word of our Lord existing among men then there would have to be “one body, and one Spirit –just as I was called to the one hope that belongs to my call- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all”. (Ephesians 4:4-5)
It is in the Bible that I see that undeniable truth.
Tested by time, scrutiny and examination from every great mind in history, the bible today is celebrated by believers and atheists admirers among the highest levels of academia. It is still intellectually studied and pondered the world over.
In the Bible I find an unprecedented level of prophecy. Words that shook the history of the world from the ancient Jewish prophecies of King Nebuchadnezzar, the conquest of magnificent Tyre, the desolation of Edom, and Daniel 11:2-4’s prophecy of Alexander the Great nearly 200 years before his birth!
Not to mention the collection of over 100 prophecies outlining the birth, life, and death of the Jewish Messiah who Daniel prophesied (Daniel 9:24-27) would live 490 years after his inspired scripture promised the rebuilding of the (then) demolished Temple. Nehemiah 2:1-8 fulfilled that Temple prophecy exactly 490 years from the date of the crucifixion. The study of biblical prophecies is a rich garden of knowledge.
In the Bible I find an explanation for every important question a man would have for God.
The reasons for His hidden presence, our suffering, good and evil, and why we exist at all. I found a superb case to make for the divine authority of Jesus Christ and the reliability of scripture’s account. Furthermore, I found an experiential claim to my Lord’s ascendency.
I testify to you with every fiber of my being that I can declare Jesus is Lord.
I’m far from perfect and I have many flaws, but I don’t need to work my way into God’s good graces.
I put aside my rebellion and embraced the truth of the cross. I don’t know entirely what happens those who rebel against God their entire lives only to die in sin and separation. But I would bet my life that God is faithful.
What about the person who would believe?
There are still many challenges to faith. Science seems to suggest a seperate truth apart from God. Many believe they are at odds. Are they right?
What if I told someone that they could indeed find God under the microscope? Would that person dare to look?
Would you?
The Cloud Gazer
Imagine you are looking deep into the random sky on a hill of lush green lawn. Up in the air you see a white billowy cloud that reacts to the winds above and begins to transform into an A shaped cumulus. You might smirk to yourself as you make out the well known letter. Perhaps you’ll use your imagination just a bit to get that angle right but there it is, right in front of you.
A
Through completely random means information has appeared in the sky. You’ve interpreted it and recognized the shape and the means by which it came together. Now imagine if someone came up to you and said that given enough time not only will every letter in the alphabet eventually arise but with even more time they will arise in the precise order specifically needed to write out the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner.
O….H…..S……A……Y……C…..A……N…….Y…….O……U…….S…….E…….E…..
This is exactly what science is telling us, and here’s the reason why. Everything in the universe, from the farthest super nova to the smallest cell in your body is amazingly connected, correlated, and controlled by the unfathomable minutia of force, control, and (magic word) design. Physics, astronomy, chemistry, biochemistry and anthropology all represent those clouds in the air with the one unmistakable common discovery amongst themselves. Every realm of science continues to look into the sky and finds.
….B…Y….T….H….E….D…A….W….N….S…E….A...R….L….Y…L…I…G…H….T…!
Evolution! We see it every day. Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Plants become resistant to bacteria. One day that goo under the microscope looks like a floating P. After some dosing and exposure, we’ll observe future generations and that P will look like a floating F! And that floating F is resistant to whatever we kept hitting it with. Evolution! We tinker with dogs and plants and new breeds arise, we observe birds that have beaks that grow or shrink over the years to fit surroundings. Evolution?
A
Now someone may notice these bacteria letters floating around and say to themselves “step by step, over enough time this bacteria could become something far greater! In fact I see now that all life was at one time like this simple floating F here and given enough time…
.W..H..A..T..S..O..P..R..O..U..D..L..Y..W..E…H..A..I..L..E..D…!
Which is universally a wonderful idea. Microevolution is a fact, and should be used to justify Macroevolution which might as well be a fact. This would explain why, biologically, everything relates to each other with an impressive precision. To give you an idea of just how precise everything in our universe lines up let us go beyond biology. Let’s go to the beginning!
The Big Bang. An explosion of light and raw unbridled power. Uncontained and unleashed on an unsuspecting cosmos of complete nothingness, from nothingness, by nothing, for us. But what existed before the Big Bang? God? Nothing? Only one thing is for sure. What existed before the Big Bang, was order.
(Takes a deep breath)
Before the Big Bang reached the size of an atom, the entire event was contained by a strong Nuclear constant in resonance with a precise weak nuclear constant held by an exact gravitational constant and electromagnetic constant by the precise ratio of electron to proton mass (and number) within the absolute set expansion of the universe governed by the definite speed of light which is moving along the entropy level of the universe held by the fixed density of the universe sustained by the exact age of universe finely structured by a (relatively) narrow distance between stars ensuring that everything in the universe works.
And what I mean by “works” is this. Astrophysicists have rigorously concluded that if any of these laws were even slightly (and I’m talking 1 in 100 Trillion) reduced or increased nothing would exist. And I mean nothing. Bonds couldn’t hold, atoms couldn’t form, molecules would melt away and galaxies would never form because the Big Bang would have never gotten bigger than half an atom or oppositely it would have spread out instantly like marbles on a floor, aimless and unable to cling and coalesce as it disintegrated into nothingness.
But lucky for us the Big Bang was a controlled explosion of sorts. Everything was in place so stars could form and explode releasing carbon (and so much more) into the universe so it could stockpile everything it needed to create the jewel of the cosmos we ever so humbly call Earth. So now us humans have these beautiful clouds to gaze and connect with, but was an insanely precise universe all we had to contend with before looking up at floating A’s?
Not really, in fact the axis of the earth is methodically placed to support the only temperatures we could survive in. Within a space of a couple degrees winters would freeze the continent and summers would scorch the sky. Our distance from the sun is exactly where it needs to be to prevent an ice planet with no liquid water or a boiled hot gas planet. We have a moon which is crucial, but even more crucial is that our moon is exactly the size it is and where it’s correctly located to regulate our Earth’s tides, rotation, and atmosphere, all of which require these precise levels to allow even the most basic of life to exist. The Earth’s crust is correctly measured to allow just the right amount of tectonic activity to ensure our atmosphere doesn’t give up its oxygen to an overly thick crusted planet, which is lucky for us because our planet’s gravity holds atmospheric water perfectly but also is weak enough to prevent larger ammonia and methane retention in the atmosphere which would kill anything that breathes. Even our days are perfectly aligned because any longer would force obscene temperature changes, any shorter and atmospheric wind velocities would sand blast our entire planet.
Astrophysicist Hugh Ross has discovered 32 of these minutely distinct parameters for Earth alone.
But let’s say for the sake of argument and fancy that there are multiple universes all over the place. Trillions and Trillions and Trillions of universes and we got the one that can sustain cellular life and here we are on this perfect oasis of interstellar pandemonium. For about a billion years the earth was a molten ball of rock and then it cooled right where it needed to. An asteroid hit our planet destroying everything but luckily forming a perfectly sized moon from the massive impact. So give or take several hundred million years and we begin with the life lottery. Let’s play!
As the waters part and land forms the primordial stew that is our early ocean presumably had some basic make-up of amino acids floating around. Then one day these amino acids bumped together in just the right way to form a simple protein that could replicate…and evolution! Really?
Not really. Cytochrome-C enzyme (A basic tiny protein) takes about 100 amino acids in a very precise specific order (seeing a trend?) to form. Now there are special enzymes that assist in the bonding of these acids that come exclusively from actual cells –which are nowhere to be found. But never mind the chicken or egg scenario there because mathematicians have surmised that the odds of a set of even the simplest proteins forming by random collisions and attractions are 1 in 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
I had to count all those zeroes!
Now once upon a time scientists could simply do what they always did when confronted with the improbability of evolution. They could throw time at it. “Oh over billions of years you reduce the chances”. Or they could attempt to reduce the overwhelming odds by inventing clever scenarios where simple structures form and hold and wait for more and more complex structures to add on.
The problem is now we know the universe is around 14 billion years old, and we know the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. This really burns the candle on both ends. Furthermore we see evolution is absolutely racing towards a fixed position. From the moment life started evolution takes off! As if hurriedly rushing towards complex systems like bodily symmetry, and my favorite…eyeballs. (But we’ll get to that later)
For instance the Trilobite is one of the most common fossils found. And we find lots of fossils. But our most abundant fossils are from the explosion of life scientist call the “Cambrian explosion”. In this strata life explodes from single cell life into multi-cellular complex life. But there’s a problem. Evolution is not supposed to work this way. Trilobites are supposed to be as simple as imaginatively possible, but they are surprisingly more complex than modern Horseshoe crabs. They have complex imaging capabilities in their eyes and highly sophisticated axial symmetry in their bodies. These things were around 600 million years ago! But what do you think was around at the beginning? Say 3.4 billion years ago?
At this age you’d expect any fossil that was found to be a molecule sized simple celled goo. But what we have are Stromatolites. And Stromatolites are no simple goo. They are sophisticated cyanobacteria that still exist today. Not only that but they have bewilderingly complex protections for their DNA like cell walls that malign the idea that these things evolved at all.
The overarching problem for evolutionists are the constant pitfalls, dead ends, and plain errors that exist all over the macroevolution minefield and evolutionists know it. They say Intelligent Design is simply inserting God into the gaps of scientific knowledge but if the gaps hint at a divine fingerprint, then it is the foundations of scientific thought that forcefully cry out for an intelligent mind.
…A..T..T..H..E..T..W..I..G..H..L..I..G..H..T..S..L..A..S..T..G..L..E..A..M..I..N..G…
Remember Lucy? Irda? Ida? Each had an enormous following of fanfare on TIME, CNN, Newsweek, and FOX as the next great link in mankind’s evolutionary history. But about a month later, on the back of a dusty peer reviewed paper the claims were scaled back. Waaay back.
http://www.icr.org/article/scientists-back-off-ardi-claims/
Never heard about that on PBS.
And we never will because like the Piltdown man, evolutionists make extravagant promises only to be disappointed over and over again when more scientific information pulls us farther away from the wishes of neo-Darwinists. And you’ll never hear about it.
Have you heard that Chimps are 99% identical to us?
Of course you have, but did you know the test compared human genetics against the back drop of the far smaller chimp code. Does it surprise you that the similarities are simple things like hair, skin, teeth, eardrums, tongues, nails. 99%? When it comes to things that matter, evolution publication “Nature” as recent as last month found more information that chips away at this long held belief.
http://www.icr.org/article/new-chromosome-research-undermines/
When you think about it evolutionists hold on to several dozen fossils they believe to be transitional fossils from a species to a next, but even their best evidence fails to make sense in the light of their own evolutionary presuppositions. If you’re going to tell me elephants, squirrels, and sharks are all related then I should see millions of transitional fossils everywhere.
Our extensive fossil record has distinct and extinct showcases of life but what it doesn’t have is convincing evidence for evolution. The evidence should be so overwhelming that it would be inconceivable to question it…like the Big Bang when scientists hated that idea.
And evolutionists are so aware of these facts that they suppose any explanation is better than God. So eminent scientists start playing Mother Goose. Sophisticated stories of alien seeding, asteroid life, and transcendent life on some other plane of imaginary existence..anything! Anything they can think of, to never have to admit that God may exist, because to the evolutionist, that is greatest nonsense of all.
Ironically many Christians could care less if evolution were true. Why should they? There’s no reason why God isn’t the force rushing biology towards the goal of DNA –which is so sophisticated it boggles the mind- or the spectacular machine that is the eye.
All across life evolution tries to prove it did the impossible over and over again. The eyes of the octopus, the eyes of the eagle, and the eyes of a human all as far as possible on an evolutionary tree yet performing the miracle of random natural selection again and again. You would think neo-Darwinists like Dawkins would embrace the mind numbing complexity of life.
But he doesn’t.
In fact he dumbs it down.
A
Through completely random means information has appeared in the sky. You’ve interpreted it and recognized the shape and the means by which it came together. Now imagine if someone came up to you and said that given enough time not only will every letter in the alphabet eventually arise but with even more time they will arise in the precise order specifically needed to write out the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner.
O….H…..S……A……Y……C…..A……N…….Y…….O……U…….S…….E…….E…..
This is exactly what science is telling us, and here’s the reason why. Everything in the universe, from the farthest super nova to the smallest cell in your body is amazingly connected, correlated, and controlled by the unfathomable minutia of force, control, and (magic word) design. Physics, astronomy, chemistry, biochemistry and anthropology all represent those clouds in the air with the one unmistakable common discovery amongst themselves. Every realm of science continues to look into the sky and finds.
….B…Y….T….H….E….D…A….W….N….S…E….A...R….L….Y…L…I…G…H….T…!
Evolution! We see it every day. Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Plants become resistant to bacteria. One day that goo under the microscope looks like a floating P. After some dosing and exposure, we’ll observe future generations and that P will look like a floating F! And that floating F is resistant to whatever we kept hitting it with. Evolution! We tinker with dogs and plants and new breeds arise, we observe birds that have beaks that grow or shrink over the years to fit surroundings. Evolution?
A
Now someone may notice these bacteria letters floating around and say to themselves “step by step, over enough time this bacteria could become something far greater! In fact I see now that all life was at one time like this simple floating F here and given enough time…
.W..H..A..T..S..O..P..R..O..U..D..L..Y..W..E…H..A..I..L..E..D…!
Which is universally a wonderful idea. Microevolution is a fact, and should be used to justify Macroevolution which might as well be a fact. This would explain why, biologically, everything relates to each other with an impressive precision. To give you an idea of just how precise everything in our universe lines up let us go beyond biology. Let’s go to the beginning!
The Big Bang. An explosion of light and raw unbridled power. Uncontained and unleashed on an unsuspecting cosmos of complete nothingness, from nothingness, by nothing, for us. But what existed before the Big Bang? God? Nothing? Only one thing is for sure. What existed before the Big Bang, was order.
(Takes a deep breath)
Before the Big Bang reached the size of an atom, the entire event was contained by a strong Nuclear constant in resonance with a precise weak nuclear constant held by an exact gravitational constant and electromagnetic constant by the precise ratio of electron to proton mass (and number) within the absolute set expansion of the universe governed by the definite speed of light which is moving along the entropy level of the universe held by the fixed density of the universe sustained by the exact age of universe finely structured by a (relatively) narrow distance between stars ensuring that everything in the universe works.
And what I mean by “works” is this. Astrophysicists have rigorously concluded that if any of these laws were even slightly (and I’m talking 1 in 100 Trillion) reduced or increased nothing would exist. And I mean nothing. Bonds couldn’t hold, atoms couldn’t form, molecules would melt away and galaxies would never form because the Big Bang would have never gotten bigger than half an atom or oppositely it would have spread out instantly like marbles on a floor, aimless and unable to cling and coalesce as it disintegrated into nothingness.
But lucky for us the Big Bang was a controlled explosion of sorts. Everything was in place so stars could form and explode releasing carbon (and so much more) into the universe so it could stockpile everything it needed to create the jewel of the cosmos we ever so humbly call Earth. So now us humans have these beautiful clouds to gaze and connect with, but was an insanely precise universe all we had to contend with before looking up at floating A’s?
Not really, in fact the axis of the earth is methodically placed to support the only temperatures we could survive in. Within a space of a couple degrees winters would freeze the continent and summers would scorch the sky. Our distance from the sun is exactly where it needs to be to prevent an ice planet with no liquid water or a boiled hot gas planet. We have a moon which is crucial, but even more crucial is that our moon is exactly the size it is and where it’s correctly located to regulate our Earth’s tides, rotation, and atmosphere, all of which require these precise levels to allow even the most basic of life to exist. The Earth’s crust is correctly measured to allow just the right amount of tectonic activity to ensure our atmosphere doesn’t give up its oxygen to an overly thick crusted planet, which is lucky for us because our planet’s gravity holds atmospheric water perfectly but also is weak enough to prevent larger ammonia and methane retention in the atmosphere which would kill anything that breathes. Even our days are perfectly aligned because any longer would force obscene temperature changes, any shorter and atmospheric wind velocities would sand blast our entire planet.
Astrophysicist Hugh Ross has discovered 32 of these minutely distinct parameters for Earth alone.
But let’s say for the sake of argument and fancy that there are multiple universes all over the place. Trillions and Trillions and Trillions of universes and we got the one that can sustain cellular life and here we are on this perfect oasis of interstellar pandemonium. For about a billion years the earth was a molten ball of rock and then it cooled right where it needed to. An asteroid hit our planet destroying everything but luckily forming a perfectly sized moon from the massive impact. So give or take several hundred million years and we begin with the life lottery. Let’s play!
As the waters part and land forms the primordial stew that is our early ocean presumably had some basic make-up of amino acids floating around. Then one day these amino acids bumped together in just the right way to form a simple protein that could replicate…and evolution! Really?
Not really. Cytochrome-C enzyme (A basic tiny protein) takes about 100 amino acids in a very precise specific order (seeing a trend?) to form. Now there are special enzymes that assist in the bonding of these acids that come exclusively from actual cells –which are nowhere to be found. But never mind the chicken or egg scenario there because mathematicians have surmised that the odds of a set of even the simplest proteins forming by random collisions and attractions are 1 in 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
I had to count all those zeroes!
Now once upon a time scientists could simply do what they always did when confronted with the improbability of evolution. They could throw time at it. “Oh over billions of years you reduce the chances”. Or they could attempt to reduce the overwhelming odds by inventing clever scenarios where simple structures form and hold and wait for more and more complex structures to add on.
The problem is now we know the universe is around 14 billion years old, and we know the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. This really burns the candle on both ends. Furthermore we see evolution is absolutely racing towards a fixed position. From the moment life started evolution takes off! As if hurriedly rushing towards complex systems like bodily symmetry, and my favorite…eyeballs. (But we’ll get to that later)
For instance the Trilobite is one of the most common fossils found. And we find lots of fossils. But our most abundant fossils are from the explosion of life scientist call the “Cambrian explosion”. In this strata life explodes from single cell life into multi-cellular complex life. But there’s a problem. Evolution is not supposed to work this way. Trilobites are supposed to be as simple as imaginatively possible, but they are surprisingly more complex than modern Horseshoe crabs. They have complex imaging capabilities in their eyes and highly sophisticated axial symmetry in their bodies. These things were around 600 million years ago! But what do you think was around at the beginning? Say 3.4 billion years ago?
At this age you’d expect any fossil that was found to be a molecule sized simple celled goo. But what we have are Stromatolites. And Stromatolites are no simple goo. They are sophisticated cyanobacteria that still exist today. Not only that but they have bewilderingly complex protections for their DNA like cell walls that malign the idea that these things evolved at all.
The overarching problem for evolutionists are the constant pitfalls, dead ends, and plain errors that exist all over the macroevolution minefield and evolutionists know it. They say Intelligent Design is simply inserting God into the gaps of scientific knowledge but if the gaps hint at a divine fingerprint, then it is the foundations of scientific thought that forcefully cry out for an intelligent mind.
…A..T..T..H..E..T..W..I..G..H..L..I..G..H..T..S..L..A..S..T..G..L..E..A..M..I..N..G…
Remember Lucy? Irda? Ida? Each had an enormous following of fanfare on TIME, CNN, Newsweek, and FOX as the next great link in mankind’s evolutionary history. But about a month later, on the back of a dusty peer reviewed paper the claims were scaled back. Waaay back.
http://www.icr.org/article/scientists-back-off-ardi-claims/
Never heard about that on PBS.
And we never will because like the Piltdown man, evolutionists make extravagant promises only to be disappointed over and over again when more scientific information pulls us farther away from the wishes of neo-Darwinists. And you’ll never hear about it.
Have you heard that Chimps are 99% identical to us?
Of course you have, but did you know the test compared human genetics against the back drop of the far smaller chimp code. Does it surprise you that the similarities are simple things like hair, skin, teeth, eardrums, tongues, nails. 99%? When it comes to things that matter, evolution publication “Nature” as recent as last month found more information that chips away at this long held belief.
http://www.icr.org/article/new-chromosome-research-undermines/
When you think about it evolutionists hold on to several dozen fossils they believe to be transitional fossils from a species to a next, but even their best evidence fails to make sense in the light of their own evolutionary presuppositions. If you’re going to tell me elephants, squirrels, and sharks are all related then I should see millions of transitional fossils everywhere.
Our extensive fossil record has distinct and extinct showcases of life but what it doesn’t have is convincing evidence for evolution. The evidence should be so overwhelming that it would be inconceivable to question it…like the Big Bang when scientists hated that idea.
And evolutionists are so aware of these facts that they suppose any explanation is better than God. So eminent scientists start playing Mother Goose. Sophisticated stories of alien seeding, asteroid life, and transcendent life on some other plane of imaginary existence..anything! Anything they can think of, to never have to admit that God may exist, because to the evolutionist, that is greatest nonsense of all.
Ironically many Christians could care less if evolution were true. Why should they? There’s no reason why God isn’t the force rushing biology towards the goal of DNA –which is so sophisticated it boggles the mind- or the spectacular machine that is the eye.
All across life evolution tries to prove it did the impossible over and over again. The eyes of the octopus, the eyes of the eagle, and the eyes of a human all as far as possible on an evolutionary tree yet performing the miracle of random natural selection again and again. You would think neo-Darwinists like Dawkins would embrace the mind numbing complexity of life.
But he doesn’t.
In fact he dumbs it down.
The Incredible Irreducible Eye
Dr. Michael Behe is the biochemist who coined the term irreducible complexity. The idea is simple. If evolution asserts small gradual changes over time then what would explain the incredibly complex systems of interdependent mechanisms that cannot exist without a dozen other incredibly complex systems. If you can’t build it piece by piece then how did blind chance build it?
This argument sparked off a fury of rebuttals. And rebuttals to the rebuttals. And..well more rebuttals. But I’ll give a single example best exemplified by the eye. Behe insisted that the eye was a perfectly designed machine with thousands of interdependent working parts. Dawkins immediately asserted that the eye was not only flawed (blind spot) but teamed with PBS to make a documentary on just how it evolved. (See YouTube). I.D.ists shot back that the eye’s flaws are not flaws at all and benefit the eye.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-blind-leading-the-blind/
This is where it gets interesting. PBS’s video became gospel. Wikipedia, TV, and radio embraced the simple and easy to understand explanation for the long debated “eye problem”. Darwin starts off with some light sensitive cells, and adds a dimple with a little concave giving some directional capability. Soon we’re lucky to evolve some gel and a simple lens to protect the fortuitous gel and viola! It’s all so simple. I could draw it for you on a sheet of paper. The problem is it’s a lie for people like you and me to gobble up and regurgitate when one of those pesky Intelligent Designers starts talking about the “amazing eye”.
It’s a lie and Dawkins knows it’s a lie. Here’s why.
(Takes a deep breath)
Let’s start with those handy light sensitive cells in the beginning. You could imagine those on the earliest and simplest of life forms. Simple light and darkness recognition to regulate biorhythms. Probably evolved over the weekend. Here’s how it works.
First, a photon enters the light sensitive cell and interacts with the necessary rhodopsin protein (which luckily is nice and neat right there for us). You see this protein is special it contains organic dyes that absorb energy from the photon causing the protein to change shape.
The reconfigured protein rhodospin is now able to bind to another protein called transducin. However this leads to an remarkable instability that forces a part to drop to make room for a GTP molecule which stabilizes the structure. This megamolecule is now able to bind to a molecule of photodiesterase which is fixed on the wall of the cell’s outer membrane.
The cell wall has a series of ports which open and close to allow charged ions such as sodium and calcium to cross in and out of the cell. These ports are controlled by a membrane molecule called cGMP. More cGMP keeps the ports closed, less allows the ports to open. When the megamolecule (officially called GTP-Transducin-metarhodopsin II) binds to the photodiesterase on the cell wall, so now some of the cGMP is displaced, thus lowering the cGMP concentration.
This allows some of the ion ports to open up, which in turn allows positively charged sodium ions to enter the cell. Since the ions carry an electrical charge, this induces a charge imbalance across the cell wall, which results in a voltage being established across the membrane. The voltage naturally seeks equilibrium by propagating along the cell membrane, until it gets to the neighbor cell and jumps the gap to begin the propagation of an electrical signal, from one cell to the next.
And that is the process required to explain the simplest part of the very first step in Dawkin’s evolution of the eye scheme.
I think I liked Youtube’s version better. (Exhales)
And this is the problem with the debate today. It’s too easy to lie because no one understands anything. A website gives a version of its “facts” and we lap it up because we’re too ignorant to say “well are you sure that the GTP molecule effectively stabilizes the Rhodospin/Transducin combination?”
So the common debate becomes “What are you an idiot? Eyes evolved easy! Read Wikipedia moron”
Even though I have a simple 2 year college level of Biology (though I got a B and an A :) I do know is there are far more politics involved in the evolution debate than facts.
And if you get to view an actual debate like last week’s http://www.apologeticsreview.com/?p=335
Facing the critics panel, you’d see that 80% of what gets put out on the web doesn’t fly in a real debate because everyone is too smart to cite Youtube.
This argument sparked off a fury of rebuttals. And rebuttals to the rebuttals. And..well more rebuttals. But I’ll give a single example best exemplified by the eye. Behe insisted that the eye was a perfectly designed machine with thousands of interdependent working parts. Dawkins immediately asserted that the eye was not only flawed (blind spot) but teamed with PBS to make a documentary on just how it evolved. (See YouTube). I.D.ists shot back that the eye’s flaws are not flaws at all and benefit the eye.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-blind-leading-the-blind/
This is where it gets interesting. PBS’s video became gospel. Wikipedia, TV, and radio embraced the simple and easy to understand explanation for the long debated “eye problem”. Darwin starts off with some light sensitive cells, and adds a dimple with a little concave giving some directional capability. Soon we’re lucky to evolve some gel and a simple lens to protect the fortuitous gel and viola! It’s all so simple. I could draw it for you on a sheet of paper. The problem is it’s a lie for people like you and me to gobble up and regurgitate when one of those pesky Intelligent Designers starts talking about the “amazing eye”.
It’s a lie and Dawkins knows it’s a lie. Here’s why.
(Takes a deep breath)
Let’s start with those handy light sensitive cells in the beginning. You could imagine those on the earliest and simplest of life forms. Simple light and darkness recognition to regulate biorhythms. Probably evolved over the weekend. Here’s how it works.
First, a photon enters the light sensitive cell and interacts with the necessary rhodopsin protein (which luckily is nice and neat right there for us). You see this protein is special it contains organic dyes that absorb energy from the photon causing the protein to change shape.
The reconfigured protein rhodospin is now able to bind to another protein called transducin. However this leads to an remarkable instability that forces a part to drop to make room for a GTP molecule which stabilizes the structure. This megamolecule is now able to bind to a molecule of photodiesterase which is fixed on the wall of the cell’s outer membrane.
The cell wall has a series of ports which open and close to allow charged ions such as sodium and calcium to cross in and out of the cell. These ports are controlled by a membrane molecule called cGMP. More cGMP keeps the ports closed, less allows the ports to open. When the megamolecule (officially called GTP-Transducin-metarhodopsin II) binds to the photodiesterase on the cell wall, so now some of the cGMP is displaced, thus lowering the cGMP concentration.
This allows some of the ion ports to open up, which in turn allows positively charged sodium ions to enter the cell. Since the ions carry an electrical charge, this induces a charge imbalance across the cell wall, which results in a voltage being established across the membrane. The voltage naturally seeks equilibrium by propagating along the cell membrane, until it gets to the neighbor cell and jumps the gap to begin the propagation of an electrical signal, from one cell to the next.
And that is the process required to explain the simplest part of the very first step in Dawkin’s evolution of the eye scheme.
I think I liked Youtube’s version better. (Exhales)
And this is the problem with the debate today. It’s too easy to lie because no one understands anything. A website gives a version of its “facts” and we lap it up because we’re too ignorant to say “well are you sure that the GTP molecule effectively stabilizes the Rhodospin/Transducin combination?”
So the common debate becomes “What are you an idiot? Eyes evolved easy! Read Wikipedia moron”
Even though I have a simple 2 year college level of Biology (though I got a B and an A :) I do know is there are far more politics involved in the evolution debate than facts.
And if you get to view an actual debate like last week’s http://www.apologeticsreview.com/?p=335
Facing the critics panel, you’d see that 80% of what gets put out on the web doesn’t fly in a real debate because everyone is too smart to cite Youtube.
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