In his basement Brian kept books on mystical mathematics, astrology, post-modern literature, psychic philosophy and occult guides featuring faeries, demons, muses, mother goddesses, and witchcraft practices promoting what was in effect a year-long Halloween for him. As he read those books he was charmed by the writing, but nonetheless they failed to relieve him of his self-loathing and depression.
During a particularly low period and after persistent nagging from a friend who insisted that he had nothing of value to lose by doing so Brian started listening to an online audio Bible along with commentaries. Following a suggestion for deliverance in one of the commentaries he destroyed any occult object he could find in his house including books, tarot decks, pendulums, crystals, and horoscopes all stuff he picked up over the years to help him see into what he thought were innocent spirit realms. Who knows where the devil loves to hide?
Today, far removed from those times and looking back, Brian sees his former ways like the viewer of a video asking himself how he could ever have been that guy, but glad he no longer was.
Dale offers the prompt “repetition” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. I have picked two sunrises over the Atlantic Ocean. Thankfully they repeat on a daily basis.
Robert Carter, The Amazing Braided Baramin Concept Is Intrinsic To Creation, (about 4:30 in the video)
In Genesis we read that God created (bara) creatures which came forth after their own kind (min). From here we get the term baramin, a created kind. A baramin may contain a single species, such as mankind being the only species within its own baramin or a baramin may contain many different species, coming and going, but staying within their own kind as they change. That means what is fundamental is the baramin, not the species.
Peer Terborg notes that pluripotent baranomes provide the source for the diversity of life we see today. Life did not start from something simple and evolve into something complex. It started wondrously complicated, designed for change.
That means that Adam was not a primitive human being who evolved into us over time. He was more advanced biologically than we are.
This view of life and change based on DNA does not require deep time to reach the sort of world we experience today. Indeed deep time, even one hundred million years of deep time, would destroy the fossil record through erosion many times over or destroy life itself through genetic entropy. Deep time, along with evolution, are modern myths unworthy of our attention.
I used to have a science fiction view of reality. I thought our species would continue for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years. We would visit other planets inhabited with intelligent life and settle uninhabited worlds. I did not realize that mutations would stop all of that no matter how many spaceships we sent to other stars.
Today, I don’t think there is life of any sort on those distant planets. The reason is because there is no known mechanism for life to pop into existence outside of God’s deliberate creation.
That realization put a brake on my former fantasies and having given up on the schemes of Man my prayers took root in desperation. We live after the Fall revealed in Genesis and before the Kingdom prophesied in Revelation. It is humbling to realize that there is no way out of this but the coming of the Lord. There never has been. Maranatha!
Breathe over me. I want to hear Your saving Words. With hyssop sweep my heart so endless joy I’ll keep. Your Holy Spirit’s ever near.
I humbly bend my listening ear obeying what You have to say. I praise You through the end of day inhaling Spirit with each breath in gratitude till at my death the path to You leads where I’ll stay.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “sweep” to be used in a B rhyme of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge. I am thinking of Psalm 51.
George was told that the fall colors this year were particularly beautiful near the nature center and so he went there and followed a trail leading from the picnic tables by the river.
He hadn’t thought that he had ever been there before, a place where parents would take young children, but then the fountain of his memory opened. He recalled that there should be a loop up ahead of this trail leading back to the center and sure enough there it was with the remembered rustic rail fencing and signs. He also remembered his father and uncle slowly walking behind him while his mother and aunt were waiting for them with sandwiches and pie.
As George returned to the nature center, having forgotten all about the foliage, a rush of regret and remorse led to repentance, something he should have expressed decades ago, for all of his idle words and rebellious deeds directed against his family. Leaving the center he felt a burden lift from his heart opening a future he had not imagined was even there before, but which had been waiting for him all this time.
Denise offers the prompt word “fountain” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. I was thinking of the last two verses of Psalm 138.
Dale offers the prompt “here comes the rain” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. Although I feel “under the weather” (even though it’s not raining) I do have some photos from the past that might do.
The genetic evidence strongly suggests that Y Chromosome Adam/Noah and Mitochondrial Eve were not just real people, they were the progenitors of us all.
After the Fall, Adam named his wife Eve. (Genesis 3:20) Today geneticists talk about Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. The controversy is over estimates of how long ago they lived. If the estimates are over fifty thousand years ago, and you believed it, that would strongly show the Bible is wrong. If the estimates are under ten thousand years, and you believed it, that would confirm the biblical account.
The Bible also mentions a global flood with three couples, Noah’s sons and their wives (Genesis 6-8). This population bottleneck should appear in the genetic record as well and indeed one can find it. Nathaniel T. Jeanson and Ashley D. Holland in 2019 “confirm a 4,500-year history for human paternal ancestry”.
At about 25:00 in the video below John Sanford provided seven lines of genetic evidence supporting the idea of a literal Adam and Eve.
(1) Mitochondrial Eve (2) Y-Chromosome Adam (3) Population Bottleneck (4) Designed Variants in Genome (5) Babel Dispersion (6) Ape-to-Man Refuted (7) Genetic Entropy
Does that make you look at yourself differently? Do you still think that you are evolved stardust? None of us are.
Additional information on Adam and Eve and other science topics can be found at LogosRA.
I will include the Parashat Torah readings and Haftarah selections from the rest of the Bible in this set of readings since yesterday the reading of the Torah began again in Genesis. I will be using the Chabad.org calendar to find the name of the reading and the Jewish Virtual Library for the verses involved.
Weekly Bible Reading:Isaiah (Audio), Jeremiah (Audio) 26 Tishrei, 5782, Bereishit: ParashatGenesis 1:1-6:8; HaftaratIsaiah 42:5-43:11 Commentaries: David Pawson, Isaiah, Part 38, Jeremiah, Part 39, Unlocking the Bible Bible Project, Isaiah (40-66) and Jeremiah
The storm has passed. The sky is bright. A rainbow rises from the sea. It’s stopped by clouds eventually, but in the sky’s a sail that’s white. We’re thankful for this gift of light. Our gratitude pours out as praise that we were given all these days to listen, hear with renewed hearts, forsaking all deceptive arts, performing service that obeys.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “bright” to be use in an A rhyme of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
Robert looked at the nearly empty jar of oil wondering how to handle the rest of his afternoon. He could read, but even though the words made dictionary sense, together they conveyed no ideas to him. Earlier in the day his retreating fever allowed him to reply to some emails sent by those concerned about his heath. He kept messing things up with his typing making mistakes he would not have made before this cold.
He could sleep more and he might try that if those feverish dreams would stop telling him weird tales of spinning spirals absorbing the cosmos and begging him to help.
Robert realized he should take death seriously since this could be it and indeed, if it were it, he knew he wouldn’t be ready, because there was no way in his present state he could get near enough oil for his lamp.
Denise offers the word “handle” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories. If the oil and the lamp seem puzzling rather than terrifying think of Matthew 25:1-12 about the wise and foolish virgins and the oil only some of them carried for their lamps.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 