I have been wanting to do a Blogpost on Objective Truths vs Subjective whims for a long time, yet like so many super important topics… I have procrastinated out of fear of not doing these subjects justice.
Esp in relation to my Belief in the Objective reality of Hell… despite not liking the doctrine at all… and wishing it were not true.
I esp want to talk about how a keynote of a Subjective whimsical thinker is that they refuse to believe in anything they find repugnant… esp if admitting ‘their’ possibility will have implications for themselves that they do not want to deal with.
Fear and loathing.
They are like the Ostrich who seeks to hide from any scary reality by putting their heads in a hole in the ground.
There are *many unpleasant realities* and any rational Cosmology/ belief system must be strong enough to encompass these dark truths.
‘The Problem of Evil’ ‘Theodicy’ being one of the greatest of all Theological/ philosophical topics that challenges the faith of many in Divine Providence and goodness, and many think the Doctrine of hell is likewise a fatal proof against the Goodness of the Lord God of the Bible.
Tonight after work I came across the ‘Meme/post’ (At Top) by one Matthew Joseph on a Facebook Group I belong to called ‘Psychedelics and Philosophy’, and as you can see the question Matt put forward perfectly dovetails with these topics, and without saying too much in this introduction… I hope that intelligent readers will be able to follow my rationale as it flows in the dialogue… despite the fact that during the ‘debate’ comments get inserted in.
It is a raw ‘real world’ conversation… not a fabricated dialogue designed by a clever writer to display their philosophical eloquence… its a battle of words between two antagonists… a bible hater vs myself… a King Jame Bible believer.
I will however just make a few quick points before I post the dialogue.
1. From what I have already said above you can see what motive I had for entering on a discussion of the question posed by Matt. It was not as he says… that I was ‘assuming’ some sort of personal attack, but that my initial comment (which is important because I maintain it’s position throughout the whole dialogue and my later comments are all in context of it) was a sincere attempt to draw attention to ‘Why some people believe heinous things’.. and that it is far more dangerous to assume that all heinous things ought to be automatically and subjectively disbelieved.
2. I admit to making some bold assumptions from the get go… as to why Matt may have posted this question… assumptions founded upon years dialogue, study, etc… and from the reaction that swiftly followed my original comment It becomes clear that my assumptions were perfectly correct.
Matt *Is precisely the sort of person I suspected*… yet still it was not my original intention to get into a bun fight… though once the first bun was thrown at me… I was more than ready to retaliate in kind!
3. With these things in mind I hope by the time any reader traverses this dialogue that they will see that Matts final assertion my arguments are all ‘Non sequitur’ is simply another denial of the fact that I was on point the whole time…
My ongoing comments must be taken *In context* of his comments… He fails to appreciate how he himself fills in the sequence of my reasoning… justifies my progressive assumptions, and makes full vindication of my original comment.
Thus I assert it was Matt who started the petty nastiness… Matt immediately responded in a derogatory manner… debasing the conversation by calling me a ‘Jack ass’… hoping to shut me down… not because he could rebut me… but because he did not like my original moot defending belief in the Bible and hell.
I assert that Matt said almost nothing that equates to a rational argument, and that at all points he displayed the Subjectivity of a God hating sinner… a lost soul who does not want to contemplate the possibility of facing Divine judgement and hell, and in fact he has nothing of substance to offer on the topic of belief.
He only wants to believe things that are non-threatening… non-challenging to his modus opperandi… and esp dont lay moral weights upon his back.
Matt is a Hater of The God of the Bible… and thinks Christians are Freaks.
Atheists like to make their own rules.
Even though their world view is ultimately nihilistic… morally sterile and devoid of value they still like to think of themselves as ‘Good people’…and that they are the ‘defenders of truth’, etc.. so they claim to sit on the Lofty Ground and pour righteous indignation down upon the religious.
It’s all Absurd and inconsistent hypocrisy with their own professed beliefs… yet very necessary for their self delusion.
Matt asserts that I went for his throat from the get go.
Yet still He has given me his permission to include his name and though one of his friends jumps in… he says little of substance and I have left his name in there too.
The whole dialogue is Screen shots… verbatim… Pettiness and all.
I assume only 3 mad people will read it in full… yet I intend to use this conversation in the future debates and discussions.
Now the debate is over, and I dont hold any ill feelings, and it is not my intention to use this blog post in malice against him, and in fact I offer an Olive branch to him and will post him the link to this blogpost and have already invited him to make critisisms and defend himself in the comments.
I hope that he will re-consider my arguments.
I dont want him to go to hell.
I dont want *anyone* to go to hell!
Yet I wont deny its objective reality because it was taught by Christ and is in the Divine Revelation… The King James Bible.
One of my most heavy burdens is watching as my friends and family…one by one… enter eternity Rubbishing Christ and assuming Hell and Judgement are not awaiting them.
It breaks my heart when they make it clear that they do not even wish to discuss this topic with me.
That Hell is real is why Christ gave his life on the Cross!
And To prevent people going to hell is not achieved by denying it’s existence… but by preaching the gospel of Gods Grace!
Preaching The Cross.
Matt will not know that I was once an Militant Atheist myself… so I appreciate how *alien* the spiritual truths of the Bible appear to the Natural man… the Materialist.
It has been argued by atheists that Jesus was immoral because he preached about hell, and that to their thinking eternal damnation in torment is too horrific an idea to be expounded by any Good person.
I admit it is a truly horrific proposition and I understand why even many Christians today try to do God a favour by denying the doctrine of hell… saying it is false teaching… bad interpretation, etc.
They want to removed hell because of the obstacle to faith it represents.. and they wish to escape the burden of arguing that God is moral to eternally Damn sinners … that is a hard thing to sell!
, yet I Choose to trust the Bible, and I argue that irrespective of my personal feelings… that *If hell is an objective reality* then I must Trust that God is Righteous in all his judgments, and that it would be immoral for Christ *not to preach about it*… not to warn sinners they were in danger… and it would be immoral for me to go along with the charade that hell does not exist!
Christians who are swayed against the doctrine of hell because of the difficulties it presents are infact involved in a form of Idol making.
They seek to make an Image of God more pleasing to their subjective desires and vain ideas rather than worshiping the God of the Bible… as he has revealed himself to truly be… including his holiness and abhorrence of sin and evil…
Look at all the vile evil in the world!
Look at the wickedness and perversion of humanity!
With one breath Atheist point at Wars and Tyranny… all the suffering of the weak at the hands of the strong, and accuse God of not caring about evil… yet with their next breath they condemn the Doctrine of Divine judgement!
They say The God of the Bible is outrageously Jealous and angry and that his judgments are too harsh!
Am I the only one who sees the contradiction and hypocrisy of the infidels?
Richard Dawkins pandered to the seething rage of millions of Atheists against God and his judgement, and instead of boldly standing on the scriptures and counter-striking with the Doctrine of the Love, Grace, and mercy of God… many Christians Retreated in the face of such an onslaught… just as they have shamefully done on so many issues vital issues like accepting ‘Evolution’… like accepting that Rationalist position on the Scriptures as merely a human construct full of Myths, and Superstitions.
And when they have removed Hell from their beliefs… they also have removed the greatest moral burden and impetus to preach the Gospel of Salvation to the lost!
God’s Judgement is evidence of the *Moral weight* and *Value* and Meaning he places upon Human life and action.
God takes our existence and activities very seriously!
God has managed to show his mighty wisdom and Both Judge and show mercy!
Remember that God himself is not willing that any should perish, and that he commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners , Christ died for us.
Those that end up in Damnation *choose their fate*… by rejecting Christ and the mercy of God.
So here it is…. “Let he that hath an ear to hear… let them hear”.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian Libertarian.
Update: After posting the link to this post to Matt and his friends, he responded with more vitriol and personal insults displaying he is completely incapable of being rational on this topic.
And his friends weighed in too and it is telling that in more that 70 comments that were made… at no point did any of them actually address the content of my argument… and focused on pouring out guile on me personally.
They even wheel in some guy they think is a Philosophical ‘Heavy weight’… yet he proceeds to act as ‘amateur hour’ as the rest!
‘Tim is a Maniac’
‘Tim’s post is too long’
‘Tims writing is shit’… etc etc.
These are the whole tenor of my detractors ‘arguments’ against me… quite pathetic… very telling about their personal spiritual condition.
Of course ‘indifferent’ dialogues of noble and pure thinkers are Myth.
Fantasies invented by philosophers… In the real world most contentious Dialogues are full of ugliness, and so this dialogue fits in well with ‘Keeping it real’.
Anyway here is the discussion … and I will have to add some more of the later comments… I do know it’s ‘quite long’ in today’s short ‘attention span’ culture, yet I think the subject is worth taking time to ponder.
This subject is in the very first rank of importance.
In writing this I hope to be able to communicate with both Believers and Unbelievers… which is difficult because the two extremes favour different approaches… one tends to run away when bible verses are deployed… assuming they are about to subjected to a nutty Bible bashing, yet the other tends to think that unless a post has a bible verse every second line that the post is some sort of Satanic plot!
Yet as has become my style, I will speak in plain ‘Natural’ terms as much as possible yet will stitch in scripture as I deem appropriate.
I believe this topic has value both as a means by which both Unbelievers and believers may gain important insights.
The whole theme is very much one of the most essential aspects of the proper relationship of any thoughtful person to the Almighty.
I will talk about how to deal with ‘struggles and issues’ in believing in Gods good character in due course, yet first I must present the basics of why Faith in his good character is essential.
There are many many vitally important reasons why it is *Faith* that puts us in the right relationship with God, and why he has made it the key to our relationship with himself.
One of the most interesting.. and telling facts is that *Faith in Gods Good Character* has always been… and always will be essential… even after/when we are in his very presence and have walked and talked with him simply because of our Limited capacity for knowledge… and his Infinite Divinity.
There will never be a time when we have full understanding of all things about the Almighty, and thus even though we may have a massive understanding… and countless proofs of his Good character… there will always exist a gap between what we know of him… and his full Glory… and thus Faith will always be needed to bridge this gap.
Then for the well versed and philosophically minded it is also understood that ultimately… all our knowledge… even scientific knowledge rests upon unproven assumptions that are accepted by faith!
At the very heart of the History of the Philosophy of science was the foundational ‘articles of faith’ that came directly from monotheism and is why Theists were responsible for the birth of modern science and why they occupy the Chief seats and hold the chief honours for virtually every branch of modern science… as the Founders.
Primarily the impetus to scientific discovery and secular explanations was born of the belief in a single Creator of everything who made the universe and ordered it according to Divine plans that may be rationally understood, and that the universe functions via Fixed Divinely established Laws… that Man may investigate and understand… because these laws are themselves rational and a testament to the truth and rationality of God Almighty.
Facts like this are not open to debate as they stand as Empirical reality… facts of the history of the philosophy of science… rather than on mere hypothetical intellectual ideology and bias.
One of the greatest delusions people like Hitchens, Dawkins, or Tyson have foisted onto the gullible atheist sheeple is the notion that the advance of Science has been synonymous with the advance of atheism… and the discrediting of faith in the Bible.
So far-be-it from being true that Christian faith… is as Atheists present the idea … as being a ploy to suck in the gullible to abdicate their minds and blindly swallow the delusions of religion… these atheists are displaying an abject ignorance of the dynamics and logic that underpins the Christian call to faith.
That *some False Prophets and priests may plot that way is not a justification to say *All Faith is Irrational and for fools*… and in fact to be an Atheist requires a heck of a lot of faith!
Atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris display both rank ignorance and patent dishonesty when they fail to acknowledge the debt science owes to Theistic cosmology.. yet of course their entire arguments fall over if they were to admit the truth!
They prefer to sell books like ‘The God delusion’… ‘God is not Great…how religion poisons everything’ etc etc.
And millions of chumps who hunger for any reason not to believe the bible swallow their Atheist delusions by the ship load.
Most of these people have blinders over their eyes and hands over their ears… they cannot be reached via reason… and in fact Spiritual truths are completely alien to them.
This being so any reader who has even reached this paragraph in my post and is honestly contemplating what I am saying… has hope!… as their hearts are not as hard as impregnable stone.. and they are more open to Objective discourse.
The Bible’s call to faith is not only Philosophically profound, it is also beautifully exemplified in its explanations as to how and why the world is the way it is…warts and all.
That Faith has always been… and always will be essential is shown to be true by the Fall of Lucifer… who was not like us in that we have never seen God…. He not only existed, came and went from the very presence of God… he also held the most exalted place in the hierarchy God had established In Heaven… and on the original Pre-Adamite Earth.
Lucifer had it all…. except the worship that was due to God alone.
It was the dark seed of Pride in Lucifer that caused him to feel he was worthy of greater honor than what he received that caused him to hate God… ie he began to question the goodness of God’s character.
Satan Seethed with envy… and was overcome with a delusion that God was treating him unjustly.
And Lucifer began to tell them (The Angels) lies.. and so under the weight of his Cunning…it was a naive lack of faith that allowed him to deceive many of the Angels into rebellion against God… and as Satan later on… also deceive Adam and Eve into disbelieving Gods word.
… yet I will mitigate the fall of the angels and of Adam and Eve in this one sense… ‘They were like Children in their innocence’… apart from the wiles of The Devil… the father of Lies…these matters might never have entered into their minds before Lucifer sowed his own mis-trust in the goodness of God’s character into their hearts… like a disease.
Yet still had they maintained faith in the goodness of God, Satan would never have been able to cause them to sin….
That Trust in God’s Good character and his right to be Lawgiver and Judge is clearly seen in the test and singular law that God gave to Adam with respect to the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.
Adam (and Eve) were free to enjoy the fruits of the Garden except the one in the midst which God deemed to be prohibited… and it is a prima facie demonstration of how Satan works.
Genesis 3 King James Version (KJV)
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
From the above we see that Satan was able to sow distrust in Eve about God’s Good character by suggesting God was deceitfully withholding good things from them and had lied to them!
Satan said “Ye shall not surely die…” in direct contradiction to Gods word… and instead of trusting in God Good character and right to make binding laws upon them… she was decieved by this ruse… and fell into sin.
^ in those few words we find why Faith between Conscious Moral Free agents and our Creator is essential… even when unlike today… Humans and Angels dont have to have faith in God’s existence because they experienced him empirically!
They walked at talked with him!
In those few words we also find the key modus opperandi of Satan!
If he can get you to question the Good character of God Almighty and get you to think that God’s word cannot be trusted… Satan has you exactly where he wants you… and in such a condition of accusation against God… Against his word… and against his right to be Moral Lawgiver and Judge… it is impossible for you to please God!
You have switched rolls!
You now claim to be the Judge of the Almighty!
You now think *you can decide* whether or not you will be subject to his Laws and Authority!
You doubt the truthfulness of his word.
And that Satan is now ‘the God of this fallen world’ is demonstrated every day by the perverse Global phenomena of Mankind in their arrogance asserting that The Lord is Unjust… that his judgments are unfair and tyrannical… and that Mankind ought to be allowed to write their own rules… if any!
And there is plenty of Material for the children of Satan to continue to employ to ensure the next generations perpetually believe the God of the bible is a moral monster!
And it is Godless Humanity that have turned this world into a cesspool of filth and violence!
The Height of Human vanity, depravity, and delusion knows no bounds!
I will add links to this post that will some degree expand on many of the monumental points that I have touched upon above only briefly, yet without making this post extremely long I wish to tie in all this with some personal dilemmas I myself wrestle with… and how … knowing the dynamics of faith … I choose to deal with them.
The philosophical and explanatory power of the Book of Genesis is so Gigantic as to be a fingerprint of divine truth!
When contemplated with a sober mind it is not surprising that this text has remained one of the Greatest philosophical/theistic texts of all time!
Not only does it enunciate with clarity the origin of the Universe and humanity, but of equal importance it explains one of the great challenges to faith in the goodness of God’s character… the existence of Evil… and what we today describe as ‘Natural calamities’.
These are things that Satan, and his children constantly use as wedges… as darts … to fire at the innocent and unlearned… and the foolish and rebellious… to undermine any faith they might entertain that God is Good and just.
These accusations require their own rebuttals and The bible contains sufficient facts and demonstrations That God is Holy, Just, and Loving, etc… none the less it cannot be denied that there are things not only in reality but especially within the scriptures that even bible believers like myself *Dont like*… and these test my faith… yet I do not do what so many so-called Christians do… and that is deny the validity of these scriptures… and come with sophisticated excuses why they should not be believed!
The last century saw a massive falling away from bible believing faith… a sad and unnecessary retreat in the face a relentless rationalist onslaught.
Many Christians were deceived into believing the theory of evolution was a scientific fact that conclusively disproved the story of Adam and Eve.
Many were fooled by sophisticated arguments that the God of the Old testament was Cruel and unjust… these people succumbed to the wiles of the devil and instead of clinging to the scriptures and trusting in Gods Goodness and supreme Justice… they caved in and abandoned the very core of their faith.
Had they held fast to their faith… they would not have had to endure long before the evidence would mount up that evolution was a false hypothesis, and that the very complexity of the cell and DNA discovered by the advance of genetics would utterly vindicate the story of Adam and Eve and of Intelligent design. (though of course atheists still refuse to abandon their superstitions and sadly many Christians also have not returned to faith in the book of Genesis as they in fact still have not accepted that a Good God could judge the world by flood)
Now I would never suggest that the question of the existence of Evil and of Natural calamities should never be contemplated!
I believe such questions to be very important… yet we must take extreme care with how we walk on this treacherous soil!
There are great snares and pitfalls that await the stumbling fool.
Satan appears as an Angel of Light!
He and his minions will always present pseudo-moral arguments in accusation of Gods word and contend that believers are guilty of accepting atrocities.
Such as is common with Rationalists who assert the story of Noah’s flood is not only a myth… but also as being a clear demonstration that the God of the bible if he were real… would be a monster!
And falling for these sorts of vacuous… yet powerful delusions has caused untold millions to abandon faith in the Book of Genesis… the very foundation-stone of Gods word!
And I will not deny that the story of the Flood is chilling to the bone!
I will not deny that it would be very satisfying to think that this story is just a fable invented via superstitious and manipulative Priest-craft… and to thereby self-vindicate simply writing the whole business off with the waive of the hand… and then to mock those who cling to these scriptures as Cretins.
And thus thinking we have strong enough science… and moral arguments to subdue *any reasonable debate* We can proudly declare ourselves liberated from Tyranny and myth!
And there is no shortage of Rationalist material… even from so-called ‘Christians’ who argue the Book of genesis is not to be trusted… that it is just allegorical, etc… even though that is not how Jesus or Paul our Apostle saw the Book.
They were Bible believers!
They Knew God was Holy, and just in his judgement, and that his word is trustworthy!
Abraham lived Post Noahs flood… there was probably plenty of empirical evidence for the Flood all about him and when God called him to leave Ur and go to a land in which he would show him… and that God would bless him and make his children innumerable… Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness… saith Paul
Yet still!
Knowing all these things does not fully take away many things that I struggle with… things that I still dont like… things I know are true… yet wish were not.
Yet I accept that Reality and Moral truth are not Subject to my will, and that there are many Objective truths and realities that do not require my assent.
I know that any person who cannot accept the possibility of such objective realities … and still not trust in the Good character of God … but deem anything they dont like as proof that Either The God of the bible does not exist… or that if he does… then he is Not loving and good… to be the height of vanity and self delusion!
These people are the very definition of subjectivists … the very height of Ego-mania… in that they think they… in their ignorance and folly… can stand in judgement of the Almighty!
They have fallen into Satan’s trap.
And the greatest proof of this can be easily found when you investigate what ground it is upon which they base their own moral authority!
Any cursory examination of their moral foundations reveals their feet firmly ensnared in a swamp!
Ie They have no higher moral ground upon which they can justly claim to stand in moral Judgement of the character of God!
And when I read the scriptures I find that most.. if not all the objective realities and Biblical truths that I dont like are also things that God himself has expressed great sadness… such as the Righteous judgement of the lost in eternal torment… and in particular of many of my own friends and family whom I love and sympathize with!
and it is when contemplating this that I begin to understand the terrible burden that is God’s alone to bear.
Who among us would desire to Judge the deeds of humanity with Absolute justice?
None of us are even worthy to throw a stone at an adulterer.
Such Judgments can only be done without hypocrisy by an absolutely Holy Judge.
Yet still who would deny that Evil cannot be allowed to go unpunished?
Indeed another of the great deceptions of Satan and his minions has been the accusation that God seems to allow so much wickedness to prevail… and go unpunished.
Here we expose another gigantic hypocrisy and contradiction in the Atheists contentions against The Lord.
With One hand they curse him for letting the destruction and misery upon the innocent of Sin go unpunished, yet on the other they Curse God for executing Judgement and justice upon the wicked!
Though I would dearly love to believe in the Heresy of *Universal salvation* …. or that the Damned will simply be annihilated… etc etc… I know that this is not the true doctrine of the scriptures… and it is out of the knowledge that Judgement is coming for the lost… for their wickedness… esp the wickedness of rejecting Christ’s sacrifice on the cross… that I busy myself with trying to share the Gospel of the grace of God, and attempt to win souls to faith in the trustworthiness of the Bible as a Divinely inspired and preserved Revelation from God to us.
This entire post has been written in the hope that even a few souls might grasp the truth… and share it with their friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
I am painfully aware that I am a very unworthy vessel of these truths… and that many of my own character faults and evils do not reflect well on Christ or the Gospel… nonetheless I dare not remain silent… my time is short… and my burden is heavy with Fear for the lost… esp for My Friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
I also have no doubt that some of my interpretations and assumptions are still cloaked in ignorance… and I look forward to the day that God himself dispels many of my fears with his light.
Even though I know the gospel truth… That Christ has taken away my sins upon his cross…I still fear my own evils and worry about standing before the Holy and Almighty God… the righteous Judge of the wicked!
All I can do is trust in the gospel truth… and rest in my faith in Gods Mercy and grace is sufficient for a wretch like me!
When I am confronted by challenging moral criticisms or supposed scientific ‘facts’ that are presented as ‘proof’ the Bible is in error for which i have no immediate counter-argument, I have learned to rest in my faith and to search out an answer… and in the 30+ years that I have been a Bible believe *Never* has any such challenge ever proven to undo my rational belief in the scriptures.
Most Often it is not long before the supposed ‘Evidence’ against the Bible is exposed as vacuous… sometimes it may take years before I discover the answer and yet sometimes the criticism is found to be valid yet in these cases they expose an error in my own thinking… and actually help me to discover greater truths that were there all along in the Bible… yet may have been buried under some false doctrine I had picked up along the way!
It is always wonderful when I learn new, and deeper truths as they tend to increase the harmony of the scriptures and dissolve cloudy areas that needed exposing to the light of truth.
So it is that the Christian and Bible believer has nothing to fear from giving skeptical arguments a fair hearing.
For me this has been an ongoing process that has strengthened my trust in the scriptures and made me wiser.
^Not anonymous! Its Proverbs 3vs5,6!
That is in essence the Ultimate position of Faith for the humble soul who knows the limits of his own wisdom yet understands the Truth… that the bible is to be believed… for valid reasons.
I know that I dont know everything, and that I must trust in God in respect to my struggles… and to hold tight to his word no matter what storms of controversy I must face.
I do know God Almighty is Holy, Just, Loving, and good, and that as God he must judge sin… and yet out of love has provided a way for the humble who admit their own sin to be forgiven and saved… by pure grace.
“For God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners…. Christ died for us”
“And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”.
“Faith is the power of an optimistic possibility thinker whereas Doubt is the power of a pessimistic impossibility thinker”
Robert H Sheuller.
The Greatness of the Bible in its explanatory and Value instilling powers is truly Mind-blowing!
Esp when compared to the inescapable nihilism which is what atheism offers!
Faith must overcome skepticism.
Compassion must be stronger than Hatred.
Hope must be greater than despair.
Trust in Gods Word and Good character must overcome the wiles of the Devil.
We have Jesus Christ…and the Gospel of the grace of Grace of God.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian Libertarian.
King James Bible believer.
Dispensationalist.
Today I want to make my rebuttal of a friends defense for Larkin Rose’s expressed position on God/ Deism.
Larken Rose Recognizes the fingerprint of Intelligence within the incredible design of living things yet appears ambivalent towards any further thought or discussion about the ramifications of this Revelation.
He reminds me of the late A Flew… the once High priest of Atheism who in the face of the discoveries of Modern science esp the complexity of living things abandoned his Atheism for belief in Intelligent design… yet never made the full traverse to Bible believing Faith in THE LORD.
Flew was an honest thinker yet ran out of Time…whereas Larken Rose still has time to discover the truth… yet his attitude appears to me to be that of a Man who does not really want to go down that road…and I question his motives.
I argue why Deism may once have been forgivable/ understandable in the distant past, yet is inexcusable today, and that now Reason and Logic are on the side of the Theist.
While both entail the belief in a Creator God, what distinguishes Deism from Theism is that Deism rejects Divine interventions in the affairs of Men… No Miracles to circumvent the laws of Nature… and esp No Divine special Revelations to mankind.
It will be necessary for me to skip over large portions of history and related material for the sake of brevity such as the Deism of the 18th century.
(I will have to do a separate Blog post on these important aspects of this topic at some later date, and insert a link to it here)
Watch Larken Rose Here…
*********
Ten or more years ago I was asked to debate Hamilton based Atheists for the existence of the Christian God.
One of my opponents was Garry Mallett from Act.
Now The only reason I have mentioned this debate is because the 2nd part of my argument was the logical assumption that *If there is in fact a God (in the Full context of the word) and that he made us human beings…as Rational, conscious beings… that it would be a reasonable assumption to think that surely he would communicate with us some how… who he is… why he made us…etc rather than just leaving us Ignorant about such things.
That was my premise for why it is rational to at least consider the possibility that the Bible’s claim to be the Divine Revelation from the Creator of the Universe to be a plausible possibility at least… and that the honest thinking person having first concluded that the Universe and Living things are best understood as the products of intelligent design… that following upon that, that The Bible answers the questions that naturally flow on…. The *Who* is this Great designer of the Universe… and what message does he have for us… his Conscious Rational Moral Free Agent Creations… and most importantly… that such a Revelation is precisely what the rational mind would expect from the God who is there… rather than silence.
This is an argument that places Theism as superior to mere Deism and in fact renders belief in Deism today to be a cop out…poor reasoning at best… mostly willful ignorance.
Deism and Theism both draw upon what has been described as ‘Natural religion’… Ideas about God derived from looking at Nature… looking at what has been described as ‘The Book of God’s works’.
Yet Theism makes an additional claim that we have a second Book that we may also gain direct and infallible knowledge about God.. The Book of his actual words.
Deism/ Natural Religion is great up to certain point, yet severely limited as it can never tell us Human beings *who God is*… only that he is there… and that he is super intelligent and super powerful, and that there is some sort of Objective moral law which We Human beings ought to at least try and live by… that gives our Moral sence some legitimate foundation and purpose… rather than simply being some sort of illusion… mere sentiment… mere feelings.
An Idea such as ‘Kharma’, or ‘Reaping what you sow’… These are the sorts of ideas human beings have arrived at via contemplating nature… ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto you’ … ‘Be Good’… we know that’Theft is evil’…because we hate it when someone steals from us… so dont steal from others… yet still none of this has anything higher than our own opinion to rest upon… or the opinion of ‘wise others’… and is therefore not impervious to arguments of evil men that assert that all such moralizations are vacuous.
Dark minds may posit the question… Maybe the Deity is Malevolent?
Do not Floods and Earthquakes signal that our creator is far from a caring God! ????
Is the only Moral Rule …contrary to what the wowzers would have us believe…that the Strong may subject the weak?
Are they trying to subject the strong to whiles of the weak?
What the heck is really going on?
Deism cant definitively answer this… yet it gives those whom cling to it a certain self-justification for not being Nihilistic… for claiming they are Moral and good. (something that is necessary because of what the bible describes as our innate knowledge/ consciousness of Good and evil)
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:…”
St Paul. Romans 1:20.
Yet Deism says *Nobody can claim to really know*.
Now I love many of the Great heathen thinkers of classical times, whom both believed a God exists, and that Humanity should be moral, and because of the times and places in which *they lived* I accept that they really had taken ‘Natural religion’ to its highest forms and that they had no ‘Rungs upon which they could possibly ascend higher and closer to God’, and that they were Good, wise, Moral men…In the context of how good any man might be under such circumstances. (Separated/ aliens from Israel, mostly living before the advent of Christ)
It is at this plateau that many of the Great Heathen moral thinkers had arrived.
The Stoic Marcus Aurelius is supposed to have said…
Though Aurelius lived post-Christ and had ‘herd’ about the Christians and held negative opinions about them, I am not sure to what degree he had any real first hand communications with them, or any familiarity with the Old testament/ Book of Genesis, thus I tend to consider his situation as very similar to that of the *Pre-Christ* Gentile thinkers… Aliens from the Divine revelation.
He was a very interesting thinker…God will judge him. Here is an interesting link to this Topic
Now As a Christian Theist who believes the Bible, I know there are Mountains of the most vital truths missing from this Natural/Deistic Faith position because I have the Divine Revelation… The Holy inspired and preserved words of God Almighty himself esp the Facts That Humanity is under a curse because of our Sin, and that our Sin separates us from God and puts us in danger of His Judgement and Damnation.
*It is possible*… because it is so obvious… without the aid of scripture to apprehend by the power of reason alone Humanities fallen/ sinful condition… our wickedness… our depravity… our Cruelty…. and perhaps from this a rationale may be conceived of the need to somehow appease the anger of the God(s)… for justice sake… all sorts of weird Ideas have been proposed… *Yet via reason it would be impossible to conceive of the doctrine of Christs virgin birth, and substitutional atonement for our sins, and resurrection*…from nature alone.
Indeed many Naturally minded people find these Doctrines repugnant… which leads to my main contentions for this blog about Deists living today in western civilization… and their willful ignorance/ rejection of the Divine Revelation… the Bible in which all these doctrines are laid out in the most Logical fashion from the very beginning in Genesis.
As I have said Deism is severely handicapped to what degree it can reveal the nature of God to us… limited in its certainty of moral precepts, etc, none the less *Today*…far from these limits as being considered by trendy thinkers as pitfalls… these people actually *enjoy* them!
Most of these are people *Today* … follow a trend that became fashionable from the end of the Great reformation who… for various reasons…good or bad… *hate organised religion* (which tends to be where Theistic claims of having ‘Divine revelation’ are most prevalent) … they also enjoy what they see as ‘the Freedom to do as they please… the only moral restraints being their own conscience… and esp that Deism can make no emphatic claims of Divine Judgement for moral failures… it cant even emphatically state the validity of any Human Judgement derived from Nature.
They will say that ‘Reason’ is the only Authority they will subject themselves to, and as they have reached to limits of Reason… they cannot be subject to any higher Moral authority or law.
Philosophers love to quote Hume … “you cant get an ‘Ought from an Is”.
Its Funny though that ordinary people seem to be able to do just that without much trouble appealing to sentiment… they are not moved by arguments that say we can have no confidence in these… in fact to my thinking …the rational approach to this mystery of consciousness to the ideas of Good and evil is not to say ‘We cant ever know’… but instead to set out *in faith* on a Pilgrimage to discover some means by which our sentiments can find Objective validation… It is a quest of discovery for the Divine revelation from the Intelligent Creator whose existence is testified to by his Natural handiwork.
And It is an Irony that in a work by the great skeptic himself David Hume called ‘Dialogues concerning Natural religion’ in which there is a debate about the existence of God, in which Hume deploys his skeptical arguments in the person of ‘Philo’, yet stunningly… in the final analysis his Book ends by giving the victory to the Theist ‘Cleanthes’!
My contention at the Debate was that not only did the Deity Communicate his existence and expectations of Humanity via Prophets and the written word… He intervened into Human affairs in the Most personal manor…. He visited us… and Walked among us… God was manifest in the flesh.
“Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:…”
Now when you add up all the components I have briefly discussed above you ought to be able to grasp why it is that I myself am a Theist… a Bible believer… That the fact that we westerners have easy access to the King James Bible and the book of Genesis therein, that willfully seeking to remain ignorant of the Divine revelation is inexcusable… and why it is that I have a pet dislike for modern Deism… esp its corruption/heresy of what I call Christian Deism which I see as a pathetic retreat from true Christian Theistic faith…caused by a weakness in faith and Bad reasoning… in the face of Atheist sophistry. (Topic for another Post)
I actually struggle to contain my contempt!
I need to take 5… and chill… and remember that it is only by Gods grace that I myself am a Christian at all.
I need to remember *How alien* I once was… How utterly incapable of apprehending the existence of God let alone the truthfulness of the Bible!
It is with all this in mind that I decided to keep calm and write this post..
Recently A friend of mine tried to justify the Deism of one of his Favorite thinkers Larkin Rose, which I had critisised as being pathetic… because he refused to make the most basic inference that Intelligent design demands *GOD* and that from this obvious conclusion… if he was an honest thinker… would demand he then begin a personal pilgrimage to discover *Who* this Grand designer is.
My friend began to repair to the arguments *of Classical Deism* and the limits that Logic faced in that direction… as if that excuse… which of course appears quite valid when looking back to heathen lands… and times before Christ… aliens to the Divine Revelation, Yet This blogpost is my express rebuttal to that argument when applied to modern thinkers like Larkin.
It is invalid for Thinkers today to simply rest on that ancient Plateau… because they live post Christ and have access to the Bible and history.
This makes them fully culpable for rejecting Jesus Christ.
Socrates on the other hand was not privy to the Bible… and I even conjecture that he would have become a Christian had he been given the opportunity… so many of his conclusions about Divine things being in perfect harmony with the scriptures… that he never had opportunity to read.
I say that If Socrates would have considered the Gargantuan explanatory power for the first chapters in the book of Genesis…plus all the rest… the Biblical explanation for the existence of Evil…The explanation of why God has separated himself from mankind… why we die… why there are Natural disasters, etc etc that it is very possible that he would have realised that this divine revelation gives a great logical basis for Biblical theistic faith when one applies it to the world about him.
That in fact the Bible *Is the Revelation* of the Intelligent designer of everything…his message to us his creatures… esp telling us *Who he is*… and what is *Really* going on.
So I question why it is that though Larken Rose sees through the delusion of atheistic evolution, he still is apathetic towards discovering *Who God is* and challenge him to Read the King James Bible… to really contemplate it’s message… and that in doing so he would no longer be in a position to argue that Logic ends at the plateau of Natural religion.
The Bible is a logical extension from the Plateau at the top of the Mountain… upwards out of the stratosphere all the way… a direct line of communication to the Deity… a logical vindication of Bible believing christian Theism.
Of course Satan and his minions have been attacking the Bible, and via sophistry undermining faith in its veracity as The Bible is the Ultimate Fortress of God for the believer. It is the Ultimate Lighthouse in the storm of life Shining its beams upon the treacherous Rocks of peril, and a Guide of Safe passage… salvation to every soul who sees its light and navigates into the Harbour of God’s love and Grace.
Satan is the enemy Of God and Men’s souls…The Father of Lies… it was by cunning craftiness that he was able to deceive Eve, and get her to disbelieve Gods word and to Eat of the forbidden fruit, and he has been at this game the whole time… Deceiving… yet the word of God remains like a Rock
Happy Resurrection Day!
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Protestant, 1611 King James Bible believer, Dispensationalist, Christian Libertarian.
The last paragraphs of Humes Dialouges concerning Natural religion…
If the whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to maintain, resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, That the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence: If this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular explication: If it affords no inference that affects human life, or can be the source of any action or forbearance: And if the analogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther than to the human intelligence; and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other qualities of the mind: If this really be the case, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs; and believe that the arguments, on which it is established, exceed the objections, which lie against it? Some astonishment indeed will naturally arise from the greatness of the object: Some melancholy from its obscurity: Some contempt of human reason, that it can give no solution more satisfactory with regard to so extraordinary and magnificent a question. But believe me, Cleanthes, the most natural sentiment, which a well-disposed mind will feel on this occasion, is a longing desire and expectation, that heaven would be pleased to dissipate, at least alleviate this profound ignorance, by affording some more particular revelation to mankind, and making discoveries of the nature, attributes, and operations of the divine object of our faith. A person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity: While the haughty Dogmatist, persuaded, that he can erect a complete system of Theology by the mere help of philosophy,
KS 228
disdains any farther aid, and rejects this adventitious instructor. To be a philosophical Sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian; a proposition, which I would willingly recommend to the attention of Pamphilus: And I hope Cleanthes will forgive me for interposing so far in the education and instruction of his pupil.
D 12.34
Cleanthes and Philo pursued not this conversation much farther; and as nothing ever made greater impression on me, than all the reasonings of that day; so, I confess, that, upon a serious review of the whole, I cannot but think, that Philo’s principles are more probable than Demea’s; but that those of Cleanthes approach still nearer to the truth.
Another Meme posted to FB by an atheist who claims…
“To wish to be under a celestial dictatorship is the wish to be an abject slave.” -Christopher Hitchens
…. riding that wooden horse that claims Belief in God is *Anti-Reason*.
Or as Ayn Rand’s Objectivists like to claim… “Faith [In God] is the abandonment of Reason and therefore leads to force”.
Is this True?
Does belief in God require a person to ‘abandon Reason?’ ….
It is *Staggering* to me to see such a Patently absurd assertions like this to hold such weight in the minds of atheists… and that they have the Gall to do this with such an arrogance.
*Yet arrogance* is definitive trait of these sorts of minds because they infer *That they know everything!*
This fails on so many levels as to be almost unworthy of comment.
Yet as it is so prevalent a delusion… we must suffer ourselves to make remarks…
Reason *itself* relies on the *REASON* … the rationality that underpins the Universe… Its laughable that Atheists can delude themselves that *Dead materialism* could ever produce *Reasoning Beings*…. They also confound *Reason with Automatons*… like calculators… yet these cant reason at all!
All the ‘Reasoning’ apparent in automatons *Precedes their reality*… ie happens in the immaterial minds of their creators.
It was the Judeo-Christain Cosmology that Gave birth to Modern science.
The Belief that the Universe was Created in a Rational Orderly fashion….Obeying Divine Laws.
How Old is this planet? Get This straight… The Bible *does not* set a date for the creation of *The Planet Earth*. A person does not have to embrace ‘Young Earth’ Creationism to be a committed Bible believer.
This is a subject that though I have discussed many times on line, I ought to have blogged my definitive argument before now… given how important it is to defense of the Bible believers position in the trustworthiness of the Bible.
Tonight I will at least make a start.
My opening statement makes my position clear, so that it only remains for me to prove/ argue my point.
So many people on all sides of the Atheism vs Christian Theism debate are convinced that a necessary corollary of claiming to believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God (esp the literal interpretation of the book of Genesis) is that such a view *demands* also embracing the arguments of that reviled group of Christians known as ‘Young Earth creationists’ …. whom argue that *The Bible says* God Made the Universe… and the Earth… a mere 6000 years ago.
This date they have arrived at using an Historical Chronology tracing backwards the lineage of Christ to Adam … a practice that has been going on since at least the 17th century… see here the methodology of Ussher chronology
Though this period of time is not precisely recorded and requires some ‘educated guesses’, Most calculations vary by a mere decade, so that the Basic argument… that according to the Bible God made Adam approximately 6000 years ago… is sound.
So then it appears to many that to believe that God created the Earth for Adam and Eve, requires a person to believe the *Earth itself* was created *5 days* prior to his creation of Adam…. so in faith… that is precisely what millions of YEC Christians choose to believe.
In support for their faith, (like myself) they are aware that the Theory of Evolution is Full of holes… most Bible believers in fact see the theory of Evolution (of Man from Ape, from Rodent, from amphibian, from fish, from worm, from germ…) to be the very height of foolishness and absurdity, and also appreciate the *true advances in the science of Biology and genetics* continually validate the ancient claims of scripture… such as the species being locked into ‘Kinds’, and that the entire human race… is *one family* all carrying the genetic tags of being the offspring from a *single woman*… Mitochondrial Eve.
The Myth of Evolution… requires the Magic and imagination of Countless Millions of Years… and countless numbers of fortuitous unguided accidents to blindly transform Magic Bugs that spontaneously generated from the lifeless mud…into people, and so this Godless ideology conveniently postulates *an ancient Earth…in an ancient self assembling/ evolving Universe.
How Old?… well Every Time Evolutionists state their ‘Scientific Facts’… it is only a matter of months rather than years that *some newly discovered ‘Truth’, forces them to extend the Date of the creation of the universe Backwards by hundreds of millions… sometimes billions of years… proving the whole business to be highly dubious… Guesswork… based upon naive ignorance.
And foolish imaginations run wild… the more Billions of Years the Atheists claim … somehow the mystical powers of evolution are supposed to be *more believable*… as to their way of thinking…this multiplies the number of times their Zombie Goddess ‘Mother nature’ gets to roll her dice. They imagine that Germs can … slowly slowly…. become people…
On the other hand the YE creationists *Dont require to pre-suppose a Multi-billion year Timescale for their cosmology… on the contrary… by their interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis appears to Forbade such a Time-frame… They insist the Bible only allows a time scale of a magnitude in the very low thousands of years… that is the pre-supposition they labour under… and contend for.
Without continuing down this diversion, it is sufficient for my purposes to have pointed out the ideological presuppositions, and dubious nature of the ground upon which the the Bible Critics stand to oppose the YE Creationists, and the basis at the heart of Y E Creationist thinking.
Both groups are keen to subject the Data taken from observation and experiment to the explanatory power of their own bents.
Now having to some degree identified the basic positions of the antagonists… that are supposed to stand as a dichotomy.
An ‘Either- Or choice that people must assemble under one banner or the other…. Bible believers must be Young Earth Creationists… People who accept the theory of Evolution… must Reject the Book of Genesis as being Literally believable, and assume that the planet Earth has existed for Billions of years (last count I herd was the Universe is now supposed to being 13 billion years old, and the Earth 4 Billion.)…
Because of the bundles of suppositions entailed in the two camps, The pseudo-scientific Ideas of Darwinian Evolution has driven a rift within the Masses of people whom call themselves ‘Christians… so that in what is now being called ‘the post Christian Era’… a growing percentage of Christians have abandoned faith in the inerrancy of the Scriptures… and walking enmasse to join the camp of the Atheist Bible rejectors… and like them… choosing to place their faith in *Evolutionary Scientists* rather than the literal veracity of the Scriptures.
And they do this without so much a wink…. they claim that in abandoning the traditional Christian beliefs that they are acting in a more ‘enlightened manor’… and are shedding off ‘an ancient superstition’… that only continues to be embraced by Religious whackos….. Luddites whom have no grasp of science.
Ie… Though these Modern Bible rejecting Christians are now Standing with the infidels… and embracing their Skeptical rationale with respect to the believability and veracity of the Bible… they nonetheless claim *That they are the Holy defenders of the faith!*
That *They are saving Christianity from the dustbin*… by synthesizing Evolution with a Neo-Christianity.
This Form of Christianity *Puts Human Scholarship* and *Evolutionary anthropology*… and Many of the Tenets of Materialism… in authority … Not The Bible… that is rendered to be… a collection of Myths and Fables… only believed by the primitive mind.
This is how the modern liberal Christian sees the ‘The cult’ of Young Earth creationism…’The Cult’ of King James Bible believers…. etc.
Thus the Modern Liberal Christians put *Rationalism* ahead of Faith in Divine revelation and preservation of the scriptures.
And what is the greatest tragedy is that they do not appreciate that they have been absolutely deceived… that they have abandoned the high ground… and retreated in the face of Atheist delusions.
They are also now Free to ‘cherry pick’ what portions of the scriptures they find ‘pleasing’… and reject everything else as some sort of Human error or folly.
To them the Bible is no longer a supernatural book, but concur with the atheist anthropologist that the bible is just another collection of ancient religious texts that has been exposed to all the Human factors … priest-craft, etc… over the millennia.
With Glee they abandon *any scripture* that is difficult to defend… such as Noahs Flood, Joshua’s extermination of the Canaanites, The Doctrine of Hell, The doctrine that Homosexuality is sinful, The doctrine that woman ought to voluntarily subordinate themselves to their husbands, etc etc.
Satan laughing spreads his wings.
So when we stand back, we can perceive just how disastrous Darwin’s Ideas have been to Christendom, and how they have caused a great loss of Faith in the literal truthfulness of the Book of Genesis, and in many of the most fundamental christian values… in favor of Godless liberalisms.
Bible believers are becoming an endangered species.
Their faith is under constant attack… not just from Atheist Infidels… but also now from so-called Christian infidels… this Division of Christianity can very accurately be understood as Christian *Theists* who hold the traditional veiw that the book of Genesis is trustworthy and literally accurate, whereas the Modern Liberal Christian whom embraces Evolution may justly be described as ‘A Christian Deist’.
It is now time to state my own position more clearly.
Let me state that while I agree with the Young Earth types that the theory of Evolution is false…and that God Created Mankind as a special and distinct creature totally unrelated in the hereditary sence to apes, fish, etc… thus My cosmology does not demand aeons of time past… nonetheless,…intuitively… when I examine the geology and geography of the world about me, I find the supposition that the Earth has existed for Many aeons as the most plausible proposition.
I do not deny that The YEC’s have produced many interesting scientific arguments and evidences that undermine the assumptions of the Evolutionists time-frame, yet still I tend to agree with the sceptics of YE Creationism about the age of the Earth being a mere 6000 years old.
And Below I will seek to show you how my interpretation of the scriptures allows me to have a foot in *both camps*… thus I contend that the Dichotomy is false… ie That it is possible to be a Believer in the veracity of the Book of Genesis… and still accept the probability that the Earth is of ancient origin.
Unfortunately for me *my position* is not welcomed by either of the two antagonistic groups… yet for opposite reasons.
What is of the greatest weight, and why I disagree with the young Earth creationist interpretation of the First chapters of Genesis is that they make a fundamental error… they miss the fact that ‘The Earth’ as mentioned in these verses *does not represent the creation of *The Planet Earth* but the restoration of *The Dry Land* from a prior state of void inundation.
The importance of this is appreciated when you realise that Genesis chapter one is not the absolute beginning… the Ex nihilo creation of the Universe, world, etc for humanity… but the restoration of the planet and especially the emergence of *Dry land*… that pre-existed in a submerged state of Darkness and deluge… for an indeterminate period of time.
Let me now take you on a journey through time *as I believe the Bible teaches*… which comes to light with a deeper understanding of the scriptures… revealing the fact that A Bible believer *Ought not to assume* the Universe and the Earth are relatively recent creations… and that such a young view only results from an erroneous interpretation.
Above is a Chart by the Late Great Dispensationalist Clarence Larkin. (1850-1924) which shows the existence of Earth Before Genesis 1…
What needs to be understood is that there are two *Different* beginnings in the scriptures.
The one we are discussing in Genesis, and one in the first chapter of the Gospel of John….
John 1Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13 which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
Now it is my contention that this beginning spoken of in John is the real beginning of all creation… the Chronology of events (dispensational scheme) may be understood as follows…
First… before the first ‘beginning’ there was just God the Trinity.
Then he made the angels in heaven (Lucifer and co).
Then God …the pre-incarnate Jesus/The Word made the Universe and the original Earth (This is when the stars of heaven/Angels sang in wonder (Isaiah).
This was in the ancient past possibly billions of years ago.
I believe God created life on earth and put the Dinosaurs here.
Lucifer and the angels would walk upon the earth too.
Next was the Great Rebellion of Lucifer, and the beginning/ origin of evil.
In consequence… God’s Judgement was forthcoming.
God not only judged Lucifer and co but also destroyed the earth/ and maybe even the whole universe by flood.
All the above happened *Before the Time of the Book of Genesis.*
It is *now* that the *2nd beginning* mentioned in the Bible begins… Genesis Chapter 1 starts with the Earth and Universe already in existence… but in a state of Darkness and void. (Text at bottom of this post).
This is when the earth (dry land…not planet) was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep (The scriptures tell us God did not originally create the world without form or void in Isaiah)
…‘Time’ went by and then Gods Spirit moved across the face of the waters.
Genesis 1Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day”…. etc
Here we have the second beginning, or the preparation of the earth for Adam and mankind. Now *this beginning* would have happened in the recent past around 4000bc. This is when God abated the waters and re-established the universe for Mankind…after the fall of Lucifer and the scene was set for the story of the fall of Man.
And it is this *Second beginning* *Virtually Everybody* mistakes as being the time God created the planet Earth, and the universe.
Thus it is at this point… the creation of Adam, that I begin to concur with many of the truly traditional doctrines of theistic Christianity embraced by the Young Earthers… ie that the Book of Genesis is Literally true with regards to the Creation of Mankind, their Fall into sin and separation from God… the story of Noahs flood and God’s judgement of the Wicked… etc.
All things that the Modern Liberal Christian Deist recoils from.
… the rest of the Biblical narrative carries on… From Noah… through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel)…
Another Hidden Spiritual gem that comes to light via this doctrine is the appreciation that when God chose to destroy Wicked humanity by Flood… that he was in fact in keeping with a previous precedent of Judgment *already established*.
Noahs Flood was *the second flood*… a Second judgement of wickedness… The first happened when Lucifer Rebelled… the second when the Earth filled with Violent and wicked Children of Adam.
This is why though I endorse the Book of Genesis, and the whole Bible as being the inspired and preserved revelation from God that I contend such Bible believing faith does not corner me into also having to believe in a young Earth.
So what Age do I suppose the Earth to be?
*I dont know* 🙂
I dont have even a ball park figure… 100 thousand…1 million… 1000 million years?
Probably millions of years is my conjecture.
What is important to state is that The Bible does not say.
I understand *why* the various vested interests seek to overthrow the ideas of their antagonists, I am on my guard… and watching how any novel ‘proofs’ are fielded, and contended with.
I will say that this doctrine teaches us that the Earth has suffered at least two major cataclysms… of a Global scale…and that the Geological evidence is there… yet falsely ascribed to ‘Ice ages’ rather than Divine Floods.
This is a worthy topic for another Blog post.
I must say that though I do not endorse their ‘Young Earth’ premises, I am impressed by much of their ‘outside the orthodox box’ Scientific arguments, such as their evidence that Dinosaur Fossils probably are nowhere as old as the Evolutionists have claimed…
One of the traps of science is how erroneous ideas can become entrenched as ‘Orthodoxy’… and vested interest form that seek to protect these ‘orthodox’ views from challenges… and so via un-objective bias Bad Ideas can remain in currency long after they ought to have been thrown out. We are witnessing this as true not only with 150 years of Darwinism and their failure to conclusively establish anything near a believable lineage of Human evolution (or anything else)… but also with regards to *How Oil reserves are formed*, *That Dinosaur Fossils contain soft tissue*, That Fat in our diets is the chief cause of western obesity, etc etc.
The world needs people capable of questioning ‘orthodoxy’ and of pursuing un-orthodox ideas to see where they lead because so much can be learned when the mind has been unfettered from pre-conceptions and dares to imagine new possibilities.
So it is that though I dont endorse YE Biblical premises as to the age of the Earth, none the less it is exciting to see the sorts of Challenges their un-orthodox thinking is producing.
2.
Important note: It is essential to apprehend the monumental difference between the theory of the ‘Darwinian Evolution’ of life, from the natural processes that are at work in the greater universe… the Laws of thermodynamics, Motion, gravity, etc… by which the whole universe is undergoing constant transformation. that can be thought of as the Hands of a clock changing position via the Cogs … as the spring slowly looses its tension… and the pendulum inevitably reaches a point of rest.
If we are to call the continuous results of the Blind yet Law-bound natural processes of the Material world ‘Evolution’ … then only a handful of dullards will not accept the veracity of these mechanistic activities… ie I in no way dispute the argument that with vast periods of time… the coalescence of clouds of particulate matter could form larger bodies… Barren Rocks, ice comets, etc, and that in fact these very forces are what maintain the semi-stable ‘Galaxies and solar systems.
It is astounding to me that Myriads of sheeple cannot apprehend *The stark contrast* between the sorts of phenomena that can be rightly explained and understood as a result of the interactions of the blind forces of Nature, from that most different and special classification of phenomena that can only be rationally understood as *intelligently assembled* … to the degree that both A fish… and a submarine belong under the same qualification… segregated from such things as Rough Diamonds and ocean currents. (which though at a deeper level are themselves intelligently ordered… they function in blind obedience to simple Laws)
It is at this juncture that the assertions in ‘Payleys Watch’ Lords Rational supreme over the Absurdities of Dawkins ‘Blind watchmaker’… and all the ridiculous Atheist rantings about Celestial teapots, Multiverses, etc.
3.
It is worth noting here that the march of Science has in fact *Vindicated faith in the scriptures* in that today it is well understood by Science… that the universe did indeed *have a beginning* … which was an article of Biblical Faith poo pooed by Atheist materialists whom asserted the universe was eternal.
They were proven wrong… and in such a monumental fashion that the whole materialist argument has been proven false.
The Laws that Govern the Universe are not supreme, but temporal… and so greater… super-naturalism is now the fully vindicated *Rational position*… The Bibles assertion that the universe had a beginning and will also have an end… is now something *virtually everyone concedes.
A Greater *un-created Supernatural reality *of logical necessity* exists* from which this temporal universe… and Mankind… came into being… The Fundamental being of Reality… God.
Vindicating the scripture that says Gods certain existence is easily seen by the things that are made.
“…For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:” Rom 1vs20
You would think that such a devastating Death punch to infidelity would render Materialist Atheism an abandoned superstition… yet so fanatical is the Zeal of the Godless to reject the Bible, that they choose to bury their heads in the sand… They Leap like frogs from their sinking lily pad onto another… pretending the knowledge that the universe had a beginning as being a support for their ‘reformed atheism’… that now hinges on the idea of a Godless Big Bang… and the slow evolution of the Universe via the blind forces of physics as I have already mentioned as being always at work (postscript 2.).
4.
I understand the basic dynamics of their Godless theory… how from their measurements of the size of the Universe they compute a timescale, and Datum for the Big Bang.
I understand the rationale they employ as to *How they attempt to explain the existence of things like our moon*… using computer model simulations… inputting the values of the natural forces… postulating imaginary planet X of convenient size and velocity… working in conveniently calculated time frames… in fortuitous collision angles… stacking the Deck completely… and then claiming the resulting ‘result’ as a confirmation of their scientific Objectivity and the certitude of their whole Evolutionary premises.
They pretend that all their loading of the dice is somehow conclusive proof that God did not thoughtfully order the universe… that it is a mere fluke the The Earth, moon and sun are all so precisely arranged so as to be so fantastically conducive to the sustenance of life.
They delude themselves that they have proven *The whole shebang* to be Godless, Purposeless, meaningless, …
From all this I hope that my readers have apprehended that while I perceive the convoluted plausibility that Natural forces… astronomic impacts… might conceivably… in theory… produce phenomena *like the moon* … a Dead dusty Rock… that this in itself doe not *Prove* the moon was in fact made that way.
It is a symptom of the incredulous modern mind… so trapped in the naturalistic box… that it finds contemplation of anything spiritual, or miraculous painfully unbearable
There is no Science that disproves the idea that God made the universe almost exactly as it appears to us today.
Newton believed this.
He was convinced that the perfect proportionality of the cosmos smacks of the Divine.
The assertion that the moons was formed by natural means is simply an article of faith… stemming from an aversion to Super-naturalism.
Some Modern Liberal Christians whom fully embrace Naturalistic evolution will not wink at declaring that “God made everything… via evolution”.
They are deluding themselves via foolish sophistry….equivocating … ie Re-defining the Term ‘Evolution’ from it’s essential characteristic… that of being an ‘Un-purposed’ ‘unguided’ series of happenstances… into some sort of Divine plan….
I have always argued that if there was *No Earth*… *No Life*… No People… No cars and truck, etc… just a universe full of Burning Stars, and Barren Rocks… like the moon… like Venus, Mars, etc… well then *That sort of Universe* *would be wholly explicable in atheistic terms… Yet The existence of these *Super-natural* things absolutely refutes Atheism.
These things I deem to be *Intelligently designed*… some with the extra special quality of possessing *A soul*… consciousness… all things that *cannot be understood via the purely Materialist paradigm… though Darwinian Evolution does its very best to attempt this very feat.
*Which is in itself the fundamental driving force behind the religious fanaticism of the Atheist materialists*
They are hell bent on maintaining a belief that they have No God to thank for their own existence… No God to answer for how they go about their lives… they must maintain this delusion… at all costs… They simply *cannot allow* the Bible to be believed as scientifically or historically valid.
They delude themselves that they have a rational and scientific basis for their faith… boy are they in for a surprise!
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Hand of the alarm clock strikes the hour … nek minnit roll the credits!
The red ute is OK Go … nekminnit … band members splattered with paintballs of many colours!
Pull the lever … nek minnit rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous flowers!
Let there be light … nek minnit Pee-wee Herman eats his daily breakfast!
Rube Goldberg machines are AWESOME!! 🙂
The essence of a Rube Goldberg machine is that there is a simple starting event … then follows a series of events that happen entirely automatically in a complex causal chain leading inexorably to … breakfast is served, the flowers are watered, there’s lots of pretty colours and the credits roll. No intervention required. AWESOME!!! 🙂
So are you ready for the AWESOMEST Rube Goldberg machine of them all? 🙂
You’re living in it.
Big Bang … nek minnit you’re reading this blog post!
Approximately 13.8 billion years ago there was a singular starting event. An unimaginably small speck containing the mass of the entire known universe and the space-time continuum itself expanded. After the initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies. Later, on a small rock circling an unremarkable star near the edge of a galaxy’s spiral arm, primitive life spontaneously appeared in a primordial ocean. This first cell divided and divided and biological evolution happened. Our species evolved from ape-like mammalian ancestors and human history unfolded. And here we all are.
In brief, the history of everything is no different in principle from a line of falling dominoes. From the moment of the Big Bang, the complex causal chain of events that lead to us happened by itself. Even the Big Bang happened by itself, like the alarm clock going off in the Rube Goldberg machine at the top of this post. While familiar flora and fauna may appear to be intelligently designed, and intelligent design needs an intelligent designer, it is really no more than appearance. A new study hints at spontaneous appearance of primordial DNA. All things bright and beautiful? Abiogenesis and the blind mechanical process of natural selection of chance mutations made them all. Over the epochs the ball bearings of genetic transmission rolled down the available pre-existing causal channels, and the evolutionary tree of life branched and blossomed, in the manner of drought-ending flood waters flowing to the sea down the already etched out causeways of a dry river delta.
So what’s the take-home message?
Evolutionism is true and our world is just a Rube Goldberg machine on a grand cosmic scale. It’s all ball bearings and clockwork writ large.
Checkmate Creationists! Where is your Rube Goldberg God now?
It is quite a shameful thing for me to confess that I have neglected to investigate such an important historical figure as Samuel Marsden… yet it’s true.
All I can say is that he appears to to have been a Man of Iron will.
I have focused my attentions on the Heroic activities of the Church missionaries whom followed soon after, and the amazing *Civilising power* of Christianity… which Light dawned in this land of Savage Darkness… *Before British Rule of law* was established… in 1840.
For an awesome account of the exploits of the Church Missionaries I recommend ‘Mission and Moko’ Aspects of the Work of the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand, 1814-1882 by Robert Glen.
One of the great advances The birth and spread of pre-treaty Christianity bestowed upon the ‘Indigenous people’ was the virtual eradication of Cannibalism, which was universally practised here in Pre-European times.
Many Heroic deeds were performed on the part of the Missionaries themselves and their Early Maori converts to bring about this gigantic change of world-view.
The Mission to New Zealand corresponded with a Humanitarian Enlightenment flourishing in Protestant England … The end of Slavery in Britain… many of the Same Great reformers of English society participating in the same Church societies that sent the missionaries to New Zealand.
This was the Benevolent spirit of the English protestants that it was God’s will that the Maori people receive the Gospel of Grace through Christ… which is a universal message oF Good news to all mankind.
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Libertarian Christian.
Dispensationalist.
1611 KJV Bible believer.
Duaterra [Ruatara] passed the remaining part of the day in preparing for the Sabbath. He enclosed about half an acre of land with a fence, erected a pulpit and reading-desk in the centre, and covered the whole, either with black native cloth, or some duck which he had brought with him from Port Jackson. He also procured some bottoms of old canoes and fixed them up as seats on each side the pulpit for the Europeans to sit upon; intending to have Divine Service performed there the next day. These preparations he made of his own accord; and in the evening, informed me that everything was ready for Divine service. I was much pleased with this singular mark of his attention. The reading-desk was about three feet from the ground and the pulpit about six feet. The black cloth covered the top of the pulpit and hung over the sides. The bottom of the pulpit as well as the reading desk was part of a canoe. The whole was becoming and had a solemn appearance. He had also erected a flag-staff on the highest hill in the village, which had a very commanding view.
On Sunday morning (December 25th) when I was upon deck I saw the English flag flying, which was a pleasing sight in New Zealand. I considered it as the signal for the dawn of civilization, liberty, and religion in that dark and benighted land. I never viewed the British colours with more gratification, and flattered myself they would never be removed till the natives of that island enjoyed all the happiness of British subjects.
About ten o’clock we prepared to go ashore to publish the glad tidings of the Gospel for the first time. I was under no apprehensions for the safety of the vessel, and therefore ordered all on board to go on shore to attend Divine service, except the master and one man. When we landed we found Korokoro, Duaterra [Ruatara], Shunghee [Hongi Hika] dressed in regimentals which Governor Macquarie had given them, with their men drawn up ready to march into the enclosure to attend Divine service. They had their swords by their sides and a switch in their hands. We entered the enclosure and were placed in the seats on each side of the pulpit. Korokoro marched his men on and placed them on my right hand in the rear of the Europeans and Duaterra [Ruatara] placed his men on the left. The inhabitants of the town with the women and children and a number of other chiefs formed a circle round the whole. A very solemn silence prevailed–the sight was truly impressive. I got up and began the service with the singing of the Old Hundred Psalm, and felt my very soul melt within me when I viewed my congregation and considered the state they were in.
After reading the service, during which the natives stood up and sat down at the signal given by the motion of Korokoro’s switch which was regulated by the movements of the Europeans, it being Christmas Day, I preached from the Second Chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, and tenth verse: “Behold! I bring you glad tidings of great joy.” The Natives told Duaterra [Ruatara] that they could not understand what I meant. He replied that they were not to mind that now for they would understand by and by, and that he would explain my meaning as far as he could. When I had done preaching, he informed them what I had been talking about. Duaterra [Ruatara] was very much pleased that he had been able to make all the necessary preparations for the performance of Divine service in so short a time, and we felt much obliged to him for his attention. He was extremely anxious to convince us that he would do everything for us that lay in his power and that the good of his country was his principal consideration. In this manner the Gospel has been introduced into New Zealand; and I fervently pray that the glory of it may never depart from its inhabitants, till time shall be no more.
When the service was over we returned on board, much gratified with the reception we had met with, and we could not but feel the strongest persuasion that the time was at hand when the Glory of the Lord would be revealed to these poor benighted heathens and that those who were to remain on the island had strong reason to believe that their labours would be crowned and blessed with success. In the evening I administered the Holy Sacrament on board the Active in remembrance of our Saviour’s birth and what He had done and suffered for us.
Source: J.R. Elder, ed., The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden 1765-1838, Dunedin: Coulls Somerville Wilkie, 1932, pp.93-94.
Andrew Magdy Kamal – apparently the highest IQ ever recorded, at 231.734. This was accomplished last year (2013) just before he turned 17. This includes an adjustment made for his age (which is done routinely for minors), so only time will tell if he maintains his position, but he is listed in Record Holder’s Republic for Highest IQ and Highest IQ average, and it looks pretty good. He is a he is a staunch conservative and a member of the Republican Tea Party. He is also the founder of the Coptic Orthodox Messianicans Group. Andrew Magdy Kamal hopes to use his talents and intelligence to spread the news of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus Christ) his hero, and he lives in Michigan.
Abdessellam Jelloul – apparently the highest IQ ever scored by an adult in the “advanced IQ test” was by Jelloul, who scored an adult IQ of 198. This was in a 2012 test which included 13 dimensions of intelligence (analytical, spatial, logical, memory, musical, linguistic, philosophical, moral, spiritual, interpersonal, intra-personal, bodily and naturalist). Unlike other tests, the advanced IQ test includes more measures that other tests cannot assess. I tweeted Mr. Jelloul a question about his beliefs in September of last year, and he graciously replied to me that he does “believe in God, a Supreme Architect of the universe” (see a screenshot of this tweet in the slideshow).
Christopher Michael Langan – has a verified IQ of at least 195. Langan achieved a perfect score on the SAT, but dropped out of Montana State University after concluding his professors weren’t qualified to teach him anything. ABC’s 20/20 measured his IQ (as an adult) to be between 195 and 210. Langan has indicated in his writings numerous that he believes in God, for example, in William Dembski’s book “Uncommon Dissent”, he wrote: “…since Biblical accounts of the genesis of our world and species are true but metaphorical, our task is to correctly decipher the metaphor in light of scientific evidence also given to us by God”.
Terence Tao – his IQ was estimated to be between 220 and 230 by the Davidson Institute when he was about ten years old. At eight years old, Tao achieved a score of 760 on the pre-1995 SAT, received a Ph.D from Princeton at 20 and at 24 became the youngest ever full professor at UCLA. I couldn’t find anything about Tao’s metaphysical views. He’s obviously a tremendous mathematician, but doesn’t seem to post much outside of mathematics.
Christopher Hirata – has a verified IQ of 225, calculated when he was in his teens. Hirata skipped middle school, and at 16 was working with NASA on a project exploring the possibility of colonizing Mars. The Daily Princetonian, Princeton’s student paper, where Hirata began attending for his PhD in Astrophysics at 18, reported that his IQ is around 225. Hirata posted the following to his Facebook on October 31, 2013: “Today’s experience: saying the Lord’s prayer with a homeless couple on Colorado Boulevard. It may not feed or shelter them, but I hope that it made a difference in their lives.” So he is clearly both a Theist and a Christian.
Evangelos Katsioulis – has apparently scored a 198 as an adult. Katsioulis is a Greek Doctor/Psychiatrist/Philosopher who has publicly referred to his belief in human souls several times. For example, he did a lecture in 2008 called “BODY AND SOUL”, and made clear that he wasn’t speaking metaphorically in it with lines like: “The soul is not the body. It is not the flesh. It is the spirit.” He is apparently a follower of a strand of Christianity influenced by Teilhard de Chardin.
Rick Rosner – has apparently scored a 192 as an adult, after years of honing his IQ test-taking skills. Has been a writer for the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and appeared on “So You Want to be A Millionaire”. Rosner denied that he was an atheist on Twitter, after an inquiry. He also retweeted this Einstein quote: “God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically” and in answer to the question “You know there’s a God?” he answered “Maybe. Suspect there’s an infinity of gods”.
Mislav Predavec – has apparently scored a 192 as an adult. [Update – I initially had the wrong quote linked here]. His Christianity can easily be confirmed by a beautiful response he wrote to a friend who had become a Christian in one of the groups he belongs to and which was posted online:
“David, I am so glad hearing good news about your convalescence, and more about your enlightenment, you are aware now that your suffer and pain, your giftedness and sense are a part of plan. Truly, all this can´t exist without being leading it intentionally. Atheistic explanation that everything is accidental progress is full of holes. Stay well my friend.
Mislav”
Gary Kasparov – is alleged to have an IQ of 190. He was perhaps the most universally attested-to as a top-shelf intellect, so it was unthinkable to leave him off of this list. In 2003 Kasparov played to a draw against a chess computer that could calculate three million positions per second. He is considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time. Kasparov has described himself as a “self-appointed Christian”
Kenneth Ferrell – has apparently scored a 190 as an adult. If I have located the right Kenneth Ferrell online, it’s abundantly clear from his own words that he’s a Christian. Since I’m not sure, I didn’t include him in my count of believers.
So you can see that the brightest of the bright have not foreclosed on the possibility of the existence of an Intelligent Designer. Juxtaposed with the fact that most Scientists are not atheists, I’d say that the Appeal to Authority on which atheist debators have long relied has dissolved.
Steve J. Williams is the author of What Your Atheist Professor Doesn’t Know (But Should)
“…The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. ”
Genesis 6vs11.
The Bible explains why Mankind is violent.
It has to do with the Fall of Adam into sin, Exile from the Garden, and The loss of God.
Mankind has become rebellious, deceitful, and vicious.
Driven by Lusts, and Damnable.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
We all need to receive >>>> The Gospel of God’s Grace.<<<<
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http://otkman1995.deviantart.com/art/Zombie-Fist-fight-349237696
‘Evolutionary Science’ is Oxymoron-ic.
This is proven time and time again.
When these whack mystics posit such a ridiculous arguments as to suggest that the Human face has been shaped by ‘hand to hand combat’… you know they are absolutely Clueless!
Yes Folks, these idiots would have you believe that you look like you do because your ancestors… for millions and millions of years have been punching each other in the face!
They would have you believe that fist fighting is an ‘evolutionary driver’… that it has effected our Genetics!
This is patently false.
It also shows how vacuous…. how absolutely lacking in Genetic reality… how thoroughly reliant on unscientific imagination the whole theory is.
This latest theory is no better than the previous…. equally imaginative… equally un-scientific hypothesis that…
” the transition in facial structure from apes to early hominins had previously been explained largely by the need to chew on nuts and other hard foods that needed crushing.”
Read about these laughable theories >>>here<<< and >>>Here<<<
This is not science.
This is grasping at straws.
The Truth is Human beings *Did not* Evolve from Monkeys/ apes!
Evolution *Cant* explain why Human beings exist.
It's not Plausible... Its Delusional.
Naturalism is Impotent.
Materialism cant generate life from Dead matter and then trans-mutate it from Algae into humanity.
And the more powerful scientific tools of investigation we Humans invent, continuously *increase* the implausibility of Atheist Naturalistic Materialism with every new insight and revelation.
The only reason Atheists embrace such wild fantasies that constitute the theory of evolution is because they refuse to consider the only really plausible explanation in the light of Genetic Information.... That Living things prove there is a Grand Designer... a Super-mind... whom exists 'outside' the Physical Universe.
Atheists allow their personal hatred of the Idea of 'God' to blind them to the obvious truth, and insodoing they cling to the most ridiculous of delusions about how monkeys can turn into people.
And Science has now proven Materialism to be false and that the Super-natural realm *must exist*.
The Universe *was born* out of this prior-existing eternal Transcendental reality... which is far more *fundamental* and primary than our temporal universe.
Science is catching up with the Book of Genesis.
" In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth."
The Walls are closing in on Atheism… not Theism.
