Prose – Page 33 – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Sunday Walk 76 – Uniformitarianism

³Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, ⁴And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
2 Peter 3:3-4 King James Version

Belief in millions or even billions of years of deep time, rather than thousands, rests on assumptions of uniformitarianism. These assumptions include asserting that no global catastrophes occurred in the past such as a high-energy global flood that would have accelerated change, that only low-energy processes built the mountains and carved out the canyons, and that currently measured rates of low-energy change were constant throughout time.

Assuming no global catastrophes and constant rates of change would allow these low-energy processes to be used like clocks extrapolating billions of years of deep time into the past. However, this extrapolation works just as well into the future. The rates of change coming from erosion and entropy give us a maximum age of how long current structures would survive. That means the age of the present structures cannot be older than the amount of time it would take to erode them away.

For example, if the entire fossil record would be eroded away in 10 or even 50 million years, the fossil record could not be older than that. It might be younger, but not older. If someone claimed that a fossil was over 100 million years old, the first question should be how did that fossil survive the effects of day-by-day, low-energy, uniformitarian erosion?

Although low-energy processes can effect a lot of change over millions of years they do not explain how the structures we see today, the mountains and canyons, got there in the first place. To explain them one needs high-energy catastrophes working faster than the low-energy erosion that would wash them all away.

Deep time uniformitarianism attempts to discredit Biblical events that explain why the earth is as it is and where it is going: Creation, Fall, Noah’s Flood, Babel, the Resurrection of Jesus and His Second Coming. When one begins to see that the present state of the earth confirms the view that it is young then a creation and global flood account as described in Genesis becomes plausible. When that becomes plausible the rest of the narrative does as well. When one realizes that all of this is more than plausible one’s whole life renews.

³⁷But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
³⁸For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
³⁹And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Matthew 24:37-39 King James Version

Weekly Bible Reading: Acts and Romans
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Acts, Part 8, Romans, Part 9, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Acts 1-12, Acts 13-28, Romans 1-4, Romans 5-16
Weekly Torah Readings
20 Shevat, 5782, Yitro: Parashat Exodus 18:1-20:23; Haftarat Isaiah 6:1-7:6; 9:5-9:6

Juice – Six Sentence Story

George cut the lemon into halves. He squeezed the juice from each half into his water container. Then he cut the squeezed halves into quarters and ate them.

Distracted by the harmony of clouds and ocean during the morning’s sunrise, he almost forgot. He thanked God for lemons, even the most bitter ones. He thanked God for the one he received today.

Denise offers the word “juice” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Eugenia offers the word “harmony” to be used in this week’s Weekly Prompt.

Sunday Walk 75 – Amoral Sexual Behavior As A Strong Delusion

Of men aged 18 to 49, 67 percent say pornography is morally acceptable. And of all Americans who say religion is not very important, more than two-thirds (76 percent) find pornography morally acceptable.
Joe Carter, Fact Checker: Do Christian Men Watch More Pornography?, June 8, 2020

But I want to argue that the sexual revolution is not actually about expanding the bounds of sexual behavior. It’s about fundamentally challenging the notion that there is such a thing as wrong or right sexual behavior. It’s about blowing apart the whole notion of sexual morality.
Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Lecture 1, starting about 21:55, May 1, 2021

Paul wrote in Romans 1:28 that God gives the disobedient over to a depraved mind. He wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 that God sends a strong delusion so the disobedient will believe the lie.

What lie might that be? Perhaps the lie is that there is nothing morally right or wrong with our sexual behavior nor how we deal with the consequences of it such as abortion or divorce. That means we don’t think we have to repent. That suggests that we don’t believe that there is any God to Whom we owe repentance. And all of that makes us forget about the “pursuit of holiness” that Jerry Bridges rightly pointed out is not an option.

The lie confuses us about repentance, God and holiness. The lie affects our beliefs and our beliefs affect our behavior.

If you don’t behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.
Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, quoted by revivedwriter

I am grateful to Michael Wilson for the link to the statistics source on moral attitudes towards pornography. I am grateful to Jim Lee and Mandy Sweigart-Quinn for calling my attention to Carl R. Trueman and Jerry Bridges. I am grateful to Jenna at revivedwriter for the quote from Fulton Sheen.

Weekly Bible Reading: John and Acts
Commentaries:
David Pawson, John, Part 6, Acts, Part 7, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, John 1-12, John 13-21, Acts 1-12, Acts 13-28
Weekly Torah Readings
13 Shevat, 5782, Beshalach: Parashat Exodus 13:17-17:16; Haftarat Judges 4:4-5:3

Express – Six Sentence Story

In the dining car of the express train to hell Ryan motioned for the waiter. When the waiter arrived he complained about the quality of the food saying, “Any decent chef would know how to prepare steak and don’t forget I’m riding your train first class.”

Sitting across the aisle from Ryan was a woman who escalated her protest of his butchery of sentient life forms as soon as she heard him order the steak special. Pointing to her with his thumb Ryan asked the waiter, “And could you, please, do something about that?”

The waiter apologized saying he would personally scold the chef, however, he regretted that he could not do anything about Ryan’s fellow passenger since she also held a first class ticket. Not wanting to further alarm the woman the waiter bent down and whispered an assurance in Ryan’s ear that shortly after reaching their destination he would never see her again.

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

GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley's six-sentence-stories icon — GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley’s six-sentence-stories icon

Sunday Walk 74 – Carbon-14

The half-life of carbon-14 is under 6,000 years. No carbon-14 should be detectable in fossils claimed to be over 100,000 years old. But that is what has been found. Carbon-14 has been found in both dinosaur soft tissue and also in diamonds claimed to be many millions of years old.

Ian Juby shows how the presence of carbon-14 undermines the reliability of dating methods in the video below.

Weekly Bible Reading: Luke and John
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Luke, Part 4, John, Part 5 Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Luke 1-9, Luke 10-24, John 1-12, John 13-21
Weekly Torah Readings
6 Shevat, 5782, Bo: Parashat Exodus 10:1-13:16; Haftarat Jeremiah 46:13-46:28

Charm – Six Sentence Story

Beatriz’ sister told her that she could get her six-year-old son healed from his stomach pains that often left him wincing and crying for a mere $70. The bill from the hospital had already reached thousands of dollars with no hope that her son would ever get better.

Beatriz had no doubt that what her sister offered would work since she knew many who were healed through those means. However, she also knew there would be hidden costs living under the charm of a deceitful lullaby.

Within two months her son breathed his last and was buried in the church cemetery attended by friends who had prayed for them seemingly without success. However, right up to her own death forty years later Beatriz was grateful for those prayers which gave her the strength to reject her sister’s screaming, blaming and hell-bound insistence that she exchange her and her son’s souls for temporary relief.

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

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.
Proverbs 31:30 (NASB)

Atlantic Ocean sunrise seen from Florida

Sunday Walk 73 – Contested Bones

The evolutionary view claims that some transition from animal to man occurred over millions of years. There are four general objections to this view: (1) the small amount of fossil evidence allegedly confirming the transition is contested even by evolutionists, (2) radioactive dating of the age of those fossils exaggerates the amount of time between fossil layers, (3) genetic evidence shows we have less in common with animals than previously suspected, and (4) genetic entropy shows that random mutations filtered through natural selection, the supposed mechanism of evolution, leads to extinction, not evolution.

The following video is a presentation by Christopher Rupe, co-author with John Sanford of Contested Bones discussing the contested fossils.

Chris Rupe, New Book Shows That Fossil Record Supports Biblical View Of Human Origins

The other author, John Sanford, added genetic entropy as evidence showing that there could have been no evolutionary path from animal to man through random mutations. Genetically we are too different from animals. Furthermore, random mutations are deleterious. What they lead to is mutational meltdown which precedes extinction.

Only from a Christian perspective is there any hope out of this mutational meltdown scenario for life on earth. We look forward to the second coming of Jesus, the new heaven, the new earth and our resurrection bodies.

John Sanford, Down – Not Up

After rereading this I wondered: Aren’t we already “animals”, even if evolution is false? To make sure I have a biblical worldview let me check what Genesis 1 says about creation order.

There I read that we were a separate created kind made in the image of God and specifically made as male and female on day six. We (adam אָדָם) have the same Creator as animals (behemah בְּהֵמָה) and we were made to live on the same earth where plants are food for both animals and us. This accounts for the similarities we have with them, but we are not animals anymore than we are birds or fish.

Weekly Bible Reading: Matthew and Mark
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Matthew, Part 2, Mark, Part 3, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Matthew and Mark
Weekly Torah Readings
28 Tevet, 5782, Va’eira: Parashat Exodus 6:2-9:35

Fair – Six Sentence Story

Johnny didn’t trust anyone because he knew they were a lot like himself and knowing himself he knew better. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with his own behavior because when dogs ate dogs the rats better watch out.

After all, wasn’t it the point of the game, the purpose of life, to get more stuff than the other guy before one died? He just didn’t like it when someone pulled a fast one on him and wasn’t fair.

Surveying his wealth Johnny was proud of all he had been able to accumulate before he died. However, on the final day of his life, too weak to chase them off, he watched dogs fight over his treasures and rats clean up the crumbs.

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

Sunday Walk 72 – Language

אדם ADaM, Aleph-Dalet-Mem, means man, Adam, man of earth or earthling.,דמ דממה Dalet-Mem means silence [DUMB]. A +DM could mean the one species (Man) that is “NOT silent,” as the world’s only speaker.
Isaac E. Mozeson and Edenics.org, E-Word: Edenics Digital Dictionary 2021, page 27

Men and women did not evolve from animals over millions of years of either random or guided-by-God evolution. Genesis 1 makes it clear that we were a separate creation from animals made in the image of God on the sixth day. Genesis 2 shows that Eve was created from Adam and they were given dominion over the plants and animals. We also learn that God spoke with Adam and Eve. In Genesis 3 we learn how the Fall happened which brought a curse on all of the universe. Counting the generations recorded in the Old Testament we can estimate when these events occurred. It wasn’t billions or millions of years ago, but only a few thousand.

After creation and the global flood a major event for our ancestors was the confusion of language at Babel (Genesis 11) making them spread around the post-flood Earth. Prior to Babel only one language was spoken (Genesis 11:1). Traditional Jewish commentators, including Isaac Mozeson, claim that the original language is best found today in Biblical Hebrew, the language in which Moses wrote the Torah.

The Origin of Language – Edenics Introductory Videos Part 1 of 4 from Edenics.

Men and women were created with the ability to use language. No other creature has that ability. Other creatures might communicate with each other and understand something of the sounds we make, but they do not communicate through language.

Our use of language has a moral component. We should not confuse this with a sense of justice we might see in the actions of some animals. By our words we will be justified or condemned according to Jesus in Matthew 12.

³⁴You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. ³⁵The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. ³⁶I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, ³⁷for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Matthew 12:34-37 ESV

Weekly Bible Reading: Malachi and Matthew
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Malachi, Part 60, Matthew, Part 1, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Malachi and Matthew
Weekly Torah Readings
21 Tevet, 5782, Shemot: Parashat Exodus 1:1-6:1; Haftarat Isaiah 27:6-28:13; 29:22-29:23

Junk – Six Sentence Story

Jeff looked at the cracked mug he found among his father’s possessions after the funeral. He recalled how its glaze brought to his mind calm waters under a blue sky when he saw his father drinking from it.

Wondering why his father had not thrown it away as useless junk long ago Jeff took the mug home and set it on his desk to hold pens. Decades later that’s more or less where it still sat charged with the duty of caring for odds and ends.

As Jeff reached his own last days he explicitly put the mug on a list of items that his son would inherit with an explanation that although the mug no longer served its original purpose it was something his grandfather drank from. Besides, it still made a great place to put pens and it had a beautiful glaze like calm waters under a blue sky.

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

When I think of junk I think of the junkyard of Gehenna and the yearning that we, broken as we are, should all have to be saved, salvaged, born again, so we may be found useful once more.