Category: Prose

The Miraculous and Modern Unbelief

There is no such thing as a Christian worldview that rejects the miraculous.
Daniel Kolenda (video 9 in his series on cessationism at 1:05:19)

Most Christians would agree with Kolenda until one gets specific about what counts as a miraculous event. There are two forms of Christian unbelief which sometimes act as polar opposites.

  1. Unbelief in the Bible as history
    The events reported in Genesis 1-11—the Creation, the Fall, the genealogies, the Global Flood and the the Babel Dispersion—really happened. When you hear a Christian try to allegorize these events away because they are embarrassed by them, you are witnessing unbelief no matter how committed that Christian is to the miraculous gifts of the Spirit.
  2. Unbelief in the ongoing miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit
    When you hear Christians argue that the gifts of the Spirit no longer occur today you are witnessing unbelief no matter how committed that Christian is to the events in Genesis 1-11. Such unbelief should not be confused with an appropriate discernment when testimonies are given: each reported claim of a miracle, whether a healing or a prophecy or whatever, must be tested. The unbelief that is a problem here is the total rejection, in advance, of all modern miraculous testimonies.

A Pentecostal or Catholic Charismatic can not get by with mere belief in the continuation of the miraculous gifts without also accepting Genesis 1-11 as history that really happened. A Reformed Protestant can not get by with mere belief in Genesis 1-11 without also believing in Acts and Paul’s presentation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in his letters as ongoing today.

They go together. They are both biblical. Reject any of this and the Christian who does so undermines belief for himself and for others in the New Testament.

The rejection of the miraculous, either as unbelief in Biblical history or as unbelief in the ongoing miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, is grounded in an atheistic worldview that gullibly trusts in its own rationalized construction of the so-called natural world. Modern unbelief pits a depersonalized and dying natural world against a wondrous reality given to us through its miraculous Creation.

One way to counter this is to reject the construct of the natural world except as a convenient, useful fiction, a crude approximation to reality that allows one to build deterministic, human technology. That is its only value. Then we can look at reality with continual childlike wonder. It really is all miraculous. It is all wonderful.

At the same time we need to be wary of the serpent, that lover of death and deception, even though, thanks to the Resurrection of Jesus, it has been defeated. There are liars still desiring to manipulate or fool others as Ananias and Saphira tried to do. One of the wonderful, miraculous gifts of the Spirit that is still with us today is our ability to discern the truth as Peter did long ago should we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us.

Swirl—Six Sentence Story

Seemingly unprovoked and coming from who-knows-where, certainly not from him, George heard the words enunciate through his mind: Don’t let the devil run your mouth.

“How do I know you’re not the devil giving me that advice?” George countered in self-defense.

Why would the devil give you such advice?

A swirl of confusion funneled through George’s mind reaching down to his heart where it came to rest like soft vanilla ice cream filling a generous cone. When he saw the topping dipped in melted chocolate and offered to him, he didn’t know how to respond to this unexpected kindness, indeed uncalled-for kindness given everything he had done, except to regret pretty much—no—he regretted every wacky thing he ever said.

“Ok,” George cried through tears of joy, “I’ll keep my mouth shut unless it be in praise of You.”

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Denise offers the prompt word “swirl” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Story.

Job 42:1-9 KJV
1 Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
2 I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.
3 Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
4 Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
6 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
7 And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.
8 Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job.
9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the LORD commanded them: the LORD also accepted Job.

Platform—Six Sentence Story

From the platform provided by the Kaibab Plateau George looked down into the Grand Canyon. He saw the water-deposited sedimentation layers on the canyon’s opposite side. He looked deep into the canyon where he saw the Colorado River flowing at the base of a relatively tiny channel it had eroded away.

George realized that no mere river could have eroded such a gorge in the earth after smoothing the huge planation region upon which he stood. Initially he thought some lake or sea must have burst its dam over 50 million years ago, but given erosion rates nothing that old would still be here for him to see.

Then he wondered: maybe, just maybe, some kid in his basement, with nothing better to do, instantiated a simulation of him, his memories and his sensations of this whole canyon riddled plateau, because in George’s stony heart that nonsense would be more tolerable than acknowledging what actually happened.

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Denise offers the prompt word “platform” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Genesis 8:1-3 KJV
1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;
2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

Political Correctness—Six Sentence Story

Brian told Steve that he better be careful. He could tick off a lot of people.

Since Steve was by disposition a hermit wannabe, except for his internet connection, he said that his goal was to tick off everyone who needed it.

And so he did.

And so they did.

And when that was finished everyone lived happily ever after, or, at least Steve (thought he) (knew he) (wondered if he) did.

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Denise offers the prompt word “hermit” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

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Next week I will be away for a couple of weeks after turning off the computer.

Entropy, Evolution, Devolution, Creation

Entropy

Change leads to decay which can be described as entropy. With real natural processes doing their thing, things run down. They don’t run up.

Erosion washes the landscape into the oceans. People grow old and die. Species undergo mutational meltdown leading to extinction. Even stars blow up.

The universe is overrun with death at all levels. Death through disobedience is what the fall in Genesis 3 is all about. If you want to own the universe without the Lord you will have to hold it together all by yourself. Entropy is your enemy.

Evolution

Although entropy is all around us, what we don’t see is evolution (except in the imaginations of some biologists). We don’t see stuff becoming more complex through some natural process before the real natural processes leading to entropy, decay and death expose the fictitious ones as fantasies.

We don’t see pond scum turn into fish, dogs or dragons. Various kinds of living creatures do go extinct because they suffer genetic entropy which leads to mutational meltdown. Dinosaurs (better known in the past as “dragons”) simply died off. They did not evolve into chickens or tooth fairies. They went extinct and some of them left their remains as fossils. Indeed, some of those fossils still contain soft tissue showing that all of this happened not very long ago giving evolutionary magic no time at all to work.

In a similar way we don’t see stars form out of gas clouds (except in the imaginations of some astronomers). They do blow up. Entropy is real; evolution is not.

Devolution

If evolution didn’t happen, what about devolution, the flip side of evolution? If there are no natural processes for evolution (except in the imaginations of evolutionists), then there would be no mechanisms for devolution either. Things just run down, decay, blow up, erode or die. They don’t devolve.

We don’t see dinosaurs turn into pond scum. Pond scum, already present, might eat a dead dinosaur, but dinosaurs don’t devolve into pond scum. Dragons (aka “dinosaurs”) simply died off. They did not transition into an evolutionary biologist’s tooth fairy.

Creation

We do see the effects of creation. We see stars. We see the world around us. We experience ourselves. How do we know the world was “created”? God told us so in Genesis 1.

Someone might ask, “Are you asking me to believe the Bible?”

Sure. Why not? It is the best explanation for what we see around us and why we are here. It is more plausible than the pseudoscientific magic tricks offered in its place to waste our lives.

Conclusion

If you’re an atheist thinking you can overcome entropy, then get off your butt and do so. Stars are exploding all over the universe. What are you waiting for? Species have or will undergo mutational meltdown. Follow the serpent’s lead and hold this universe together all by yourself.

Or, smarten up. Realize that the Lord loves you, even you. He wants none to perish. Stop wasting your life on fantasies.

If you’re a Christian with a pastor, with a Bible school teacher or with a seminary professor promoting the pseudoscience of people like Hugh Ross or the big bang idolatry of people like William Lane Craig, find a real church. Find a real Bible school. Find a real seminary. God has a plan for your life. Follow His lead, not the lead of rebellious men.

If you’re into New Age spirituality, how has that sentimental nonsense been treating you? Gaia does not exist. Neither does the tooth fairy. The devil, on the other hand, does. The only thing the devil wants to do is to get you to waste (that is, abort) your own life. This present life is shorter than you think. Only the real thing, only Jesus, is worth your attention. He won’t lead you astray. Thank Him. Praise Him. You will never be the same again.

No matter who you are, make sure you are on board before the last days end and the Lord shuts the door.

Frequency—Six Sentence Story

With a frequency that annoyed Steve, Brian would tell him, “You better get whatever you were supposed to do done before the world ends.”

“The world’s not going to end,” Steve responded one afternoon putting his attention back on the game which his team was winning.

“You never know,” Brian countered.

“I know.”

“You don’t.”

And just like that, to the surprise of both Steve and even Brian, the world ended.

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Denise offers the prompt word “frequency” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Luke 12:40 KJV
Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.

The Speed of Light, Simultaneity and Genesis

Jason Lisle made some amazing predictions about the data that would come back from the James Webb Space Telescope.

On January 21, 2022, he made his predictions less than a month after the mission launched on December 25, 2021. In July the results began coming in. On September 9, 2022, he announced that his predictions were confirmed.

Essentially, he predicted that there would be more galaxies at further redshifts than anticipated. He predicted that the composition of the stars would contain heavier elements than expected. He also predicted that scientists would claim that stellar evolution went further into the past than they previously thought.

Lisle’s predictions were not randomly contrary to what many scientists expected to see. They were grounded on Hans Reichenbach’s conventionality of simultaneity thesis for relativity theory and Genesis 1.

Reichenbach’s thesis claimed that the constant speed of light posited by relativity theory was best represented by the two-way speed of light, not its one-way speed. No one can measure the one-way speed of light given relativity since two clocks can’t be kept synchronized when one of them moves away from the other. However, the two-way, round-trip speed of light could be measured with a single clock and a mirror.

It is that round-trip speed, the only measurable speed, that is the constant called the speed of light. That means that the speed of light going to the mirror does not have to be the speed of light coming back. So, for example, the speed of light going from the earth to a galaxy 13.8 billion round-trip light years away from the earth could go at half the round-trip speed on the way out taking 27.6 billion years to get there, but come back almost instantly on the return trip. The total distance traveled would be the distance to the galaxy (13.8 billion light years taking 27.6 billion years) plus the distance back (13.8 billion light years taking 0 years) for a total of 27.6 billion light years travelled in 27.6 billion years.

Because of Reichenbach’s thesis what we see in those space telescopes may be happening right now, not billions of years ago. From relativity theory alone, properly using the round-trip speed of light, one cannot tell.

If light from those distant galaxies arrived on Earth almost instantaneously then what we would be seeing would be how those galaxies actually look today. Such galaxies would not be expected to show any hypothesized stellar evolution and, indeed, they don’t. Their light shows heavier elements than lithium, significantly oxygen which with hydrogen are the elements of the water molecule (see Genesis 1:2, 6-8). Their size is too large and orderly. They are too close to that God-surrogate, the big bang.

But if the speed of light incoming from space were nearly instantaneous that would mean that the Earth is very, very, very, very special.

I have wondered if one could save the big bang by acknowledging as nearly instantaneous the speed of the incoming light to the earth. All of that hypothesized stellar evolution would no longer have to be there. However, that would likely be too much for secularists (or even Christians trapped by the charm of the big bang’s unbiblical beginning) to pay. They would no longer be able to assert how old the universe was. They would no longer be able to say that the Earth is just some insignificant blue dot lost in space. Rather they would be admitting that such light were specifically aimed toward the earth. And although it might save the big bang in the eyes of its followers it would demote it to an unfalsifiable, pseudo-scientific myth. So, I guess that wouldn’t save it after all.

Jason Lisle could make his predictions with confidence not only because he accepted Reichenbach’s conventionality of simultaneity thesis, but also because Genesis 1:14-19 told him that the heavens were set there “to give light upon the earth”. And, as soon as God spoke the heavens into existence, “it was so”. When the heavenly lights reached the earth, they did what they were told to do that very day, that very moment, nearly instantaneously.

Genesis 1:14-19 KJV
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.

Genesis 1:2, 6-8 KJV
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.
…
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.

House of Cards—Six Sentence Story

When the scientist complained that just about everything he knew to be true was not, he heard his mind sing, “When the truth is found—duh-duh—to be-e-e-e-e lies!”

“I only said that it wasn’t true, not that it was a lie,” the scientist corrected his mind.

“Sorry,” his mind replied, “but you do know that it was a lie, don’t you?“

“Lie, schmie, who cares?”

“You do, but apparently you don’t know it yet.”

What the scientist did know was this interchange with whatever it was he kept calling his “mind” could go on and on—and on—and on and on and on and on and on and so he put an end to it by saying, “And with that we move on to the confused conclusion of the last sentence of our story.”

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Denise offers the prompt word “move” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

The Liar: Paradox or Deception

In the 19th century logicians simulated, and thereby simplified, the real world understanding of truth by assigning true/false (one/zero) values to logical connectives in truth tables. Although this was ingenious, the ancient liar paradox remained to haunt the simulation.

The liar paradox gets started by assuming the existence of a Liar who always lies. It immediately reaches its punchline by having that Liar assert as true: This statement is false.

What was forgotten in modern attempts to sanitize the liar was that a truth table only discerns between true and false, one and zero, not between truth and lie. The real world ethical understanding of truth gets covered by a coat of white paint in modern logic. Even in the ancient paradox, the ethical problem got a white-wash as well because a real world deceiver is worse than this hypothetical Liar. A real world deceiver is even more deceptive because he doesn’t always lie.

There’s an older story than the Greek one about the Liar. In Genesis 3, we read about the first deception with death being its real world consequence.

There are many today who see themselves as too “rational” to believe that the deception and fall as mentioned in Genesis 3 actually happened. I suspect that their belief in modern rationality has led them to prefer reality white-washed into truth tables containing only ones and zeros. With a truth table it is easy to forget that a falsehood is the word of a lying deceiver. Speaking such deception is an act of evil, not just a zero in a computer program.

A solution to the Liar paradox would be to reject the Liar without taking seriously anything he had to say. This is what people do in the real world. When they hear lies, they reject the liars. They don’t fret about the English language’s ability to express garbage. People are free to lie. The structure of language itself doesn’t stop them.

If falsehood is a lying deception, what then is truth? The truth has been white-washed as well. We find it easier today to think of truth as an “it”. But if one wants to recover the real world significance of falsehood as deception, as I do, then truth would have to be ethical as well.

Only a living person can be ethical. Only an ethical person can show others through His true words the way to life. Such a Person could be seen as being the truth.

It’s Not Just Dinosaurs Anymore

I was aware that soft tissue had been found in dinosaur fossils.

What I didn’t realize until watching this 11 minute video is that soft tissue has now been found all over the fossil record including tissue from a worm that allegedly lived over half a billion years ago.

What can I conclude from this?

Well, for one thing, when I told my aunt decades ago that chickens came from dinosaurs, I was wrong. The only things that come from dinosaurs are more dinosaurs.

Another conclusion I can safely make is that the earth isn’t anywhere near as old as “scientists” claim it to be.