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Chapter 5

REALITY CHECK, SPIRITUAL SANITY CHECK

CHECK-MATE

News 410

An Aspect of Ben Stein's DISMISSED DVD

THE STATE OF THE KINGDOM THE SECULAR KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD
 

WITH ITS FLAGS UNFURLED

DIM DEALS

McCarthyism in the classroom

It is apparent, as one listens to the DVD sent from Creation Ministries International, entitled "Expelled", that there is need of some clarification in terms of Creation's attestation and Intelligent Design self-positioning (IND).

In the USA, there has been a long culture of Christian teaching which though now heavily eroded, still has a massive cultural residue, with considerable active involvement in such fields as education.

For long, court cases have been fought over what has normatively been, the issue whether the power of Caesar can legally control the body Christ or not, in the State; or put more precisely, whether rabid missionaries of atheism, and servants of reductionistic philosophy may be given State sanction for their task. It is of course a war, and it has been put in general terms in that field by Paul as in Ephesians 6. The devil would like to sever the bonds between humanity and God; and THEREFORE lends all his power and aid to various preliminary manoeuvres to this end. Accordingly, there is a lack of normal perception: it is like having a morning of mist and cloud, with little sign of the sun, with some bush fire smoke to add to (II Timothy 4:1ff., 3:13, II Peter 2, Ephesians 6).

.

Hence if you can get the Lord's Prayer out of schools, or elsewhere in State institutions, even if democratically most would like it, use the law. Do not allow it to be urged effectively, that if a school wants this, then that is its liberty to have it, and once the rights of those who do not like it have been preserved, by their not being required to attend this part, there is no issue. Rather say that this or that part of the Constitution, or Bill of Rights^*A, though in fact aimed not least at liberty to worship God in this or that way, prohibits this singular instance of provocative misalliance, or something like that. It sounds good, and stifles any national expression of its cultural past, and perhaps can be made to do the same to the statistical expression of its wishes now.

Again, if people who want to believe the never seen, never attested, never experimentally verified, never rationally established second rate alternative to what alone has rational, empirical and verificatory confirmation, then in some other way (obviously, since in this case it is the Naturalistic Prayer which is being heard in amplified form in science and other courses) this must be stifled, if the devil is to have his will. It would unthinkable to him, to have to allow his subsidiaries, whether conscious or not of that fact, and others who might provide from his viewpoint, choice pickings to be converts or even to become missionaries for his cause, to be exposed to the teaching of creationism, despite its unique scientific validity. Further, once this part is sold, that creationism not be taught, while evolutionary myth must be, there is the next step, which the DVD noted above shows at the tertiary level, baring its grisly visage.

You can reach a point whether what appear otherwise rational devotees of something allied to liberty and democracy, if no more, can object to someone MENTIONING even what to some extent represents a gleam from one facet of creationism, namely intelligent design, as the name has so widely secured public knowledge, with  a tenure denied to many of its professors. You can even, it appears from this DVD, which instances cases, have someone censured or worse, for MENTIONING 'intelligent design' without disapprobative force so great as in this very context, to establish that it does not reside within the concourse of rational things.

This is McCarthyism in the classroom. Indeed, it exceeds it, for there is nothing even beginning to savour of mere offence against a position here, but rather failure to demolish it (if it were possible) in the mention, if mention must be made. Is it meta-McCarthyism, or merely hyper-McCarthyism ? The latter would seem better, although the former has one point in its favour. With McCarthy, the object of his desire was a possible deadly infestation with a virus that had swallowed up nations, with an irrational work of the utmost folly and anti-human virulence^*1.

With this, the object of the desire appears increasingly, and from the devil's viewpoint, whatever be the alliance or allegiance of others (in complex political situations there are those who have specific drives, those who follow them knowing their leaders, and those who proceed as desired, without realising it), to swallow up the biblical testimony together with rational creationism, to the extent his can be so, from other grounds, and to smash it to the point of making it a straw-man viewed either as an excrescence to learning, or even excrement requiring immediate hygiene.

THE BIBLE ON THE TOPIC

Meaning from History

In this way, the tainting of America proceeds apace, for it is like removing Dettol from a case, and calling it dirt, while injecting with Aids.

This sort of turning of things upside down and calling good evil and vice versa is by no means new. It is thousands of years old. It is part of the sin-syndrome in mankind, which often has this particular symptom, but notoriously so in the day of Isaiah, as attested in Isaiah 5. There the prophet is moved to speak directionally -

"Therefore my people have gone into captivity ... therefore hell has enlarged itself and opened its mouth beyond measure... " (5:13,14).

This is spoken in terms quite aptly applied to the movement in the USA, for it has gone from having a great University with a Christian foundation to having termination without tenure, denial of tenure or dismissal on the adherence to Christian grounds, WHATEVER the rationality of the situation; and of course as shown on this site, there is NO rational resolution for man's mind, but that of the Creator and the Bible, of Jesus Christ^*2. This of course is not to say that all should not be reviewed as the case may require, since it is good to test all things, and to hold fast to what is good. It is however to say that this subservience to myth has political and academic, as distinct from rational, teeth. The USA is coming under its spell, not only in having children exposed to this Pagan Lord's Prayer, in class-rooms, in teaching format, but their teachers excluded if they do not offer it!

No nation which suffers such things can long go without being brought low. The USA, like Britain before it has been amazingly charged with the Gospel, RELATIVELY, in institutions of various kinds, in missioning to the world, in educational materials, in publishing houses, in Church presentations, in Christian Presidents, in creation attestation. Now as in the Isaiah 5 case, that it is turning from the marvellous grounds that were prepared for it, as Israel did in its day, that it is flirting with folly and become increasingly a cultural concubine to irrationality and myth, it is not enough that this is fulfilling the prediction of Paul in I Timothy 4. To fulfil a prediction is not to please God, any more that it would be, if a father told his chronically smoking son, Boy, if you continue, you will have lung cancer. Getting this disease has no whit of moral or paternal approbation. It is a desolatory conclusion of an irrational urge.

"Woe," continues Isaiah, "to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity,
And sin as with a cart-rope,

That say, 'Let Him make speed and hasten His work,
That one may see it ..." ( from 5:18-19).

"Woe," he declares, "to those who call evil good, and good evil,
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness,
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter."

In Isaiah 29:13ff., you find further characterisation of this type of invasion from hell or its spirit or perspective.

^"Therefore the Lord said, Inasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips honour Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men: therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.

^"Woe unto those who seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say,

'Who sees us ?' and 'who knows us ?'

"Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for will the work say of him who made it, He did not make me? or will the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding ? "

This was the position for those who drew near to God with their lips (an earlier stage) but were far from Him in heart (Isaiah 29:13).  Even at that stage, they had "removed their hearts far from Me." It was, in other words, a sort of removal van exercise, leaving an establishment in search of another.  What is the marvellous work spoken of ? It is one which will make of the wise men of this seceding movement, a matter of folly, for their wisdom will in such lairs and changes, perish. "Woe," he proceeds to deliver his message from the Lord, "to those who seek to hide their counsel deep from the LORD."

As you see in TMR Ch. 1 in particular, and SMR Ch. 2, but also in the composite work, The gods of naturalism have no go! this is precisely what is happening. If you ask for experimental evidence of the new look non-creation 'arising', you get nothing; if you ask for the original cause, often you get nothing, but if not, you are given a simple, question-begging something from nowhere, equipped with law and form, exquisite susceptibilities and in much, sensibilities, and endless seeing corridors for communication of orders and exemplification of technical skills leaving man's (by comparison) pitiable offerings an expression of his folly in not recognising his Creator.

Thus this is a perfect parallel to the case of ancient Israel, of seeking "to hide deep their counsel", whether from man or God; but it is as successful as was our cat who used to love being chased, and would depart with tail conveniently slung sideways, in order to assist fluent motion at speed, and putting her head in a clump of Acanthus, diminished by Summer, effect to hide, while all the time, there was her rump sticking out! Apparent ? it was obtrusive!

The marvellous work then that the Lord had in mind in delivering such a rebuke to a nation formed, forged, blessed, enabled, made wealthy and strong, an exhibit and a testimony to truth, one delivered by divine power ? it was that of sending a King (Isaiah 32) who would supply  a refuge, a hiding place from tempest (not from truth), from whom there would come understanding of knowledge, even for those hitherto rash. It is the One who (Isaiah 28:16) was to be foundational , "a precious cornerstone, a tried foundation", whose works would include miracles of healing (Isaiah 35) and vicarious atonement (Isaiah 50,52-53), leading to a new name for His people, to be drawn from Jew and Gentile alike (42:6, 49:6, 62:2), and a free entry to His kingdom (55). His works would be more expansive than this, but not less (cf. Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32).

ADVANCE WARNING FROM GOD

Demeaning Decline  in Current History

In the case of the USA, and it is in part paralleled in Australia, Great Britain, and parts of Europe, the new movement away, different parts of a movement illustrated in the USA case, which is not by any means entirely alone, there is thus a new eradication, stray-way career being carved out. It is FROM THE GOSPEL and the BIBLE and even creation's testimony that these institutions are turning, and as they turn, there are groans and creakings, as when you move a heavy engine from its base, its foundation. They are turning from the remedy! There is then no further remedy (cf. Hebrews 10). It is no coincidence merely that the USA is now happily ? but at any rate actually turning to borrowing more trillions of dollars, in the end, it would seem, to support a life-style way beyond its income, compromising its national capital, and putting future generations, if any, to the debtor's auction block increasingly, with a burden needing repayment.

Is this the wealthy ? is this the strong ? In a word, no. It has power yet, but just as the debtor tends to be servile to the lender, so is the vulnerability undeniable, and the position unenviable, as new weaknesses aggregate about a nation which as is increasingly apparent during and since the Vietnam war, is surging into expediency, shallow superficiality, such as dead Darwinism (in this joining the pope^*3), or somewhat better, but still irrational, dead alternates, recklessly suggested as the flag-ship of desolation sinks too obviously for defence, except by religious means, be this secularity's disguise for myth, or other.

How many nations are in the same flood! How many are keeping to the biblical prophetic script as if their very lives depended on it, whereas in fact, it is rather nearer to be their deaths which depend on such delinquencies and dilapidations, despising the word of God and the testimony of reason, persecuting those who do not follow their dismal disfaith, and exposing an intolerance and even vitriolic impenitent impatience and impenitence, which is more reminiscent of the USSR than the USA. Australia has had its own hand in such things as attested in Lead Us Not into Educational Temptation!  TMR Ch. 8 along with Government Composite, and in Beauty for Ashes Ch. 3, you see a British dip into the tip.  It is far from innocent, as it too plunges into financial deep waters, where sharks dwell, and perils lurk. There is such a thing as prudence, and such a thing as dream, but you have to choose between them: wedding them is disastrous. It is in God only, according to His word, that ideals and reality meet with power and purity, for from Him they come, indeed man's capacity to have them, the moral appetite and the aspirational envelopment are not the work of dust. Forget the whole and the parts can chaff.

Indeed, this very morning, February 23, 2009, in The Australian, we find reference to Secretary of State for the USA, Hilary Clinton in Beijing with some interesting emphases. Firstly, there is the stress that it is "smart' for China to continue to add to its already massive library of USA securities, perhaps two trillion, while she reportedly affirmed that the two nations have much in common, are 'thankfully' moving in the same direction^*3A. That an atheist State should be going in the same direction as the USA speaks for itself. That it should be supporting its way says even more. That there is reference in the same article in The Australian to an overview which involves downplaying of human rights issues on the part of this emissary of the USA, echoes the danger of spiritual servility when dreams are not based on deity. What then is envisaged ? The concept of a long  term moral stale-mate with an active face, between the two countries, as 'together' they get out of the current predicament, is yet more eloquent.

HOW do you expect to have power to propel and lead when you are charging accounts to the funding from those whom you wish to change! Such is the beginning of movement as the bonds rise in number, bonds in more ways than one, and such is the flow.

Meanwhile, however, there is an added element in the biology assault on the American system (very much like on Mansoul in Bunyan's book of that name). Now the Intelligent Design people, as shown in the DVD noted at the outset today, are declaring that they are by no means creationists in this, that they have agnostics and many others in their bosom. Far from being a biblical outfit, they are even not involved in God at all, as an organisational selection! ID is statedly this!

A MATTER OF METHOD

Being Reasonable is not Treasonable

but an Operative Mode of the Truth

This situation then makes the USA vulnerable, and in this they may not be alone!

The assault shown in the DVD includes this element.

It is dishonest, says one of the ID body, it is misleading, it is an attempt to secularise a religious flavour, it is stealth and so on. There is apparently a dread that the incontrovertible, brought out in an area too ludicrous to deny with the normal torrent of abuse, but felt to need more acid, may weaken the generic resistance to God, the Bible and to Jesus Christ so cherished by so many now for so long in this country, in its increasingly blatant retreat from the Lord.

That is not to say that such an accusation is valid; but it might apply to some who are pushing this intelligent design approach, in its official body. How you can have a design without a designer, a conglomerate of considerations which merit the term 'design' without having the agent for the construction of such an edifice is of course like other school-boy howlers, an amusing wrinkle, and it resides in this little matter^*3B. Some like Aliens to have had a hand or probe-unit or whatever else they may like to imagine in their fatuous and unevidenced constructions, in creation. Others like a teleological entity to be impelling (instead, as in creation, of propelling) things into increasingly wonderful formats. Some speak of an inducing 'spectre' drawing things upwards! Others again, like to crown King Chance, and thus make a name for non-intervention in any system the counterpart of having the system in the first place. Acronyms for each: AL, TS, KC.

These three are the irrational trilogy, or IT if you like, except that this happens to be an acronym already heavily in use, so that we could substitute for it, IRTGY. They void the demonstrable ways of observable creation which man constantly exhibits, avoid the necessities of logic and insist on the unattested, rollicking in the arenas of antilogies and antitheses (cf. Deity and Design ... Section 8). Thus we can speak of IRTGY I (AL), II (TS) and III (KC), with unique meaning.

However, the ID camp's official position as cited in the DVD, is not capable of coalescing with Creationism, which some even misrepresent as if in some Gilbert and Sullivan comedy of sparring verbiage and uproarious licence. One spoke of people believing in the Bible and wanting to try to force science and its domain into conformity with it, or to achieve a harmony with it, and so mark them out as non-scientific in what must be one of the greatest inversions of truth of all time.

While some people do amazing things in any camp, and some do not seem to understand at all that when God speaks, demonstrable by reason and applied by faith always in the end rewarded in reality, when you come to characterise an approach, it is best to be aware of the facts first. It DOES help, quite a lot. Just as the knowledge, in a practical sense, and love of God has impelled many leading and original scientists, stars in the history of that discipline, such as Newton, Maxwell, Faraday, Von Braun, and many more, indeed a galaxy of them is there, so the love of God and His truth is OBJECTIVE, in that when one sees and swims in the ocean, it has subjective results, you get wet, but objectively the ocean is the medium which produces this change (cf. TMR Ch. 5).

There is delight, when the Truth is your God, who is also the Way and the Life, to join conscience with conscientiousness, and adventure with conviction, so that the integrity of the pursuit is energised by faith, and its zeal is coincident with the acclaim of its source. However, just as the deaf have difficulty in appreciating, perhaps, the experience and ways of music, or the blind, the texture of visual reality, so those spiritually deceased, or blind or deaf (cf. Matthew 13:14ff.), invent nostrums and unscientifically depict their opposition! Scientists of whatever persuasion, are by no means immune from the ways of flesh; and this is adequately empirically demonstrated.

Let us take one case.

When if the efforts of IRTGY III, subjects of King Chance,  for example, are so extreme in ignoring evidence in terms of verification or otherwise, for their special hypotheses, imagining diverse progressive action in kind,  without even once achieving observation of it^*4, and setting the irrational into dream form which so disgusts exponents in this or that corner of their own building, that they show almost as much abhorrence to one another's point of view, as all of them do to Creationism! (cf. Wake Up World Chs. 4  -6)! Why not defend by attacking first, and accuse others of doing such things! That seems to be the course taken.

What however of the position of INT in the field of religion ? Not only is there in fact  no need for this INT position to be considered useful by creationist's, but it is a weakness in itself.  If you do not pursue the logical necessities and scientific method realities at the first, and show as often on this site, that IRTGY III for example, is post-rational, post-empirical, post-scientific in method, the last post indeed for logical-evidential discipline, then you limp in limbos which include what shares the confusion with the advocates of IRTGY.

In fact, it is IRTGY which ignores the discipline of science in its multiple dimensions, and it is creationism, and in particular biblical creationism as here pursued,  which because of systematic considerations of method, alone meets the harsh requirements of scientific method. This it does as it pursues rationality to its ultimate, its nature and its results. Then the result is obtained with comparative ease. It is like using over-drive, and when the car, or directional dynamism is of the Lord, whose word is basic and whose thrust is shown in it, the assistance is like that of a following wind, and a well-prepared road.

With the result, there is not even competition. It is like a soldier in full battle-dress, equipped with rockets and sitting in a space-ship capable of enlisting various powers at will, fighting an ant. It is difficult to see why it could be called a contest. But then the nations put the ant in a prism and hide it, not always even willing to have debate (as in the case of S.A. for decades of request for the same). After all, the experiences of Dr Duane Gish, for example, and Philip Johnson^*5 on campuses have been elemental in their results. Resistance tends to be vituperative or assured, but without answers. Such books as From Fish to Gish, by Marvin L. Lubenow, tend to document this; and as to Johnson’s debating testimonial, it seems like a crop for multitude.

Just as NO ONE could produce the corpse of Christ in the day of the resurrection, since He had moved out from the tomb, so no one can produce the evidence for this misnamed organic evolutionary position, in fact nature myth. They search, but they do not find; they speak, but they do not adorn their speech with examples of testable reality to fulfil this, their myth. It remains an isolate, orphan, in the confinements of imagination.

They muse, they imagine, they postulate, but they find anti-verification as a garland, for the prize of the least plausible and utterly incapable, resting on their non-laureate brows (cf. SMR pp. 140ff., TMR Ch. 1, SMR Ch. 2, Wake Up World!...). You have something of a parallel in the opponents of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the resurrection, you could postulate that enemies moved Christ's body out, though the reason is hard to find, and then that they failed to display it to void the resurrection because they had a tummy ache, or something like that; but it fails to impress reason. Enterprises of such labour, risk and alleged success are not in the line of avoiding triumph when opportunity presents itself.

Again, you could imagine that disciples removed the body, by paying soldier's money, so that the latter could risk the severance of their military necks, the ire of the State and the wrath of the Sanhedrin in the palace of Pilate; or pursue the thought that the mere removal of the boulder from the tomb in the presence of the consigned soldiery was nothing, that the performance was a breeze, that removal of guard intervention was a joy, that they even paid money, which the guards found more important than death and so forth. You can imagine that these imaginary disciples happily committed their souls to hell as inveterate, unspeakable liars, in order to achieve the appearance of success for the One who would thus have ground to damn them; or that those who performed continual miracles in His name, and participated in Christ's actions and ways, were in fact atheists, but insanity is a large ask. Moreover, insanity is not a good basis for suborning guards exposing their lives to death for the gratification of such desires.

You could submit^*6 that the disciples got muddled up about the prestigious private tomb of the wealthy Joseph of Arithmathea, and had not the wits to recall which it was, despite the fact, which is almost impossible to even imagine otherwise, that the women carefully marked out where he lay (Luke 23:55).

You could even imagine that the reason why the disciples suddenly got enormous assurance and fearlessness towards death as they confronted the authorities and condemned their murder, was this: that they knew that God would condemn their ferocious pretence and their evil souls for specious, spiritual folly, and they felt they might as well be slain for a sheep as a lamb; and in view of their then assured destiny below, that they acted as if death were a deliverance rather than a dread. Hence they tried to make things nicer for the reputation of the One to literally give them hell...

Indeed, you can imagine anything; but when it comes to empirical evidence, NOTHING allows any channel for rational thought except the resurrection^*6A, and the continuation of the miracles of healing of Christ and His power, as planned (Luke 24, Isaiah 35), after His death. Rebuttal at Pentecost would be the channel to meet deceit, had Christ not acted with such power of word and deed, being notorious for both, and disclaimer, had not the apostles shown the continuity in their own movements, as sent; but the cup overflowing, the authorities had no answer but obvious lie: the soldiers being asleep, found out as if awake, that the body had been stolen, so that deceit could deviously populate hell with the cunning tricksters!

When it is a matter of what ONLY God can do, and you rely on it for your case, before man and God, it is more than difficult to induce deity to do it and spread a lie, when all He had to do was what He said, raise the corpse. Fulfilled prophecies were the canons and the criteria for the faith from the beginning to the end, and this was no mere event, but a performance amidst many of the type, as with the immediately preceding raising of Lazarus; so that there was confidence not only in action, but in continued action, not only in prophecy, but in constantly fulfilled prophecy attested and never able to be evidentially refuted, near or far, in the day and very date of the death of Christ, as in the day after! (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4).

Every consideration is fulfilled in only one direction; and it is precisely the same in the case of creation. If you want aliens, where did they come from; what is the earthly use of having unearthly beings when the SAME POWER and creativity is needed, and you just change the name. Who bred the aliens ? who made them capable of action in this milieu ? how could they just 'be' when the evidence is zero, and the logical relief from this imagination does not even exist! +

It appears that it has just become fashionable to imagine the most intensely, immensely undocumented, and unverified absolute nonsense, precisely as in fairy tales, and controlling the facial muscles, actually state it, when it comes to creation. Creation without a Creator ? Let's go for it.

Right then, start with nothing, and you definably will never have anything. Since the effort is to account for what is rather than what is not (there is a limit even to fairy tales, or as Paul calls it in his prediction of this state of the case in the late days of our era, 'myths' - II Timothy 4), this is not even relevant. Start then with something.

What sort of a something ? Will we try one adequate or inadequate for the logical basis of all laws, procedures, modes of cognition, mental discipline, engineering skill, concatenation, ratiocination, investigability and the cogent coherence of the mind of the investigating agent and the investigable matrix ? for the product, man!

Inadequate then ? But inadequate by definition CANNOT do it.

Let's then try the adequate. This basis has to have everything; and it is logically useless to have it come from this or that, since this merely displaces into needless and irrelevant backgrounds,  the remaining logical necessity, and is cut off by Occam's razor amongst other points (cf. SMR Ch. 1). In the first place, it has to be there, and without dependency, which presupposes system delimitation to compress as an outside agency, and hence is merely a way-stop on the way to what has to be there.

It is amusing that Richard Dawkins acknowledges, as one writer puts it, defeat on the beginning, on the topic of what was there, with which to start the entire coming into being! As to that, he acknowledges that he does not know, and that he has no theories  about it. It just is^*7.

Try it on magnetism: it just is. Marks ? Zero. This is science, not elocution. You have it or you don't. If you can't, fine; but that is you. If you want science, you have it and test it and adjust it as required, or try again. But until you have it, you are proto-science; and if you reject what works, you are anti-science. Of course, you can try changing the definition of science and some try this, like making the definition of an aeroplane, air. It does not however alter the vacuity.

What is adequate for the worlds of matter with intensive laws, small and great, mind with its intensive rational modes of procedure and investigation and spirit, with its capacity to imagine and apply, test and consider diverse perspectives and overarching considerations ? What is enough to provide validity (for if it were absent, the model which would have it so, cannot allow for ANY rational defence of itself) for mind and availability for its work, in matter, and susceptibility of its findings for will ? It is what is true, for if truth lacked in the model under review, then no argument could weigh anything. This would include statements initially or at any other time, used for perspective or for progress alike. Your contribution is zero by model type.

If then there is originally what is true, constitutes truth, and has all this capacities what on earth or elsewhere is the use of inventing something drawing from in front (however the stuff behind it got there, just forget that!), or undisturbed systems doing their stuff, when this is not a system (which involves delimitation and specification and hence action on it or before it, for it to be at all), and you need what is not a system back of truth, and depending on nothing, if reason is to have any part in it.

The normal name is God, and the necessary (for scientific method to be followed) requirement is that you investigate the results of this in terms of consistency considerations on all sides, and compare these with those of any other approach, and expose the results of such a position with those from any other position. It involves exposing your results from any specifiable basis (nothing, remember, is excluded from the first, at the first), and comparing these from this basis. When you exclude all other models by fiat, decree, anger, emotion, law or whatever, and then say you know NOTHING about the entire commencement situation, force, power, content, there is a double whammy, or in more dignified address, a double deficiency. You act as if you know enough to make use of condign authority like a dictator, and then act on the basis that nil is your basic ingredient, necessary for anything.

THE TIDINESS OF TRUTH

and the Spurious, Furious Falsetto of Falsity

There is only one religion which has statements of fact multiply and continually up for verification or non-verification as the case may be, and that is that of the Bible, of Jesus Christ, its centre. This has been done for you^*8. The result is unchallengeable rationally. That is the way things are; for God has indeed not left Himself without a witness, and unwise is the person who ignores it, supplants it with mouthings without methodically sound ground or verifiable presentation. There is, as stated, no competition, secular or religious. This works everywhere, all the time; nothing else does^*9.

Thus there is the scientific and logical method more generally, as a mode of procedure, and this is the rational position, unique, in the Bible's deposition. We are asked in the Bible to give a reason for the faith to those who ask, and if any ask, consciously or unconsciously, openly or covertly, it is the same. This is done, in this instance, here.

There are the other three contestants, IRTGY. They fail in all. Things have been surveyed, but they fail (as in Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 13, SMR Chs.   3 and   10, and in the works noted in *2).

Moving then with IND, when it fails at the outset, at the beginning,  to follow the necessary rational and scientific rigour is like following Mussolini into Abyssinia in his early days, and not noting his method. In the end, it counted ... a lot. His mode of extermination of those poor folk, being no worse than that accorded to himself in his own country! Intention is one thing; mode is another.

This is just for clarification, to set the record straight. Let us however leave this point, and return to organic evolutionism situation.

That the gross, outrageous, invidious and insidious procedures of those who in other respects may be scientific (you see this in many walks of life, this Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde self-harassment), who not only avoid the rational realities in their total and necessary scope, but EXCLUDE others WITHOUT DEBATE from professional post or security, from teaching, from having their varied positions with others considered and presented objectively: that this should dare to exist, what is this ? To what has such action progressed (in time) or regressed (in equity) ? It becomes increasingly the indictment of a nation, the publishing of myths, the fabrication of fiction and the misleading of a (coming) generation. Degeneration is the result of deprivation, in the end, to the extent that the latter is 'successful'.

Debt is merely one of the emblems of this process. Debt to God for being created is of course always there; and those who plan to increase it by denying it are merely in the front line for divine denunciation. Reading Romans 1 shows in what detail the process proceeds.

Playing God is always unwise; it does not work

The works that worked for man were not evasion and myth, but action and agony, anguish in vicarious suffering and dealing with death, liberation of life and exhibition of the power, holiness and love of God. Without such love, man's self-destruction would be quite assured, as Christ foretold (Matthew 24:22). Unless this current climate, expounding the prophecies of the end of the Age (as detailed in Answers to Questions Ch. 5) were to be interrupted by God, as Christ announced, man would assuredly destroy himself -  "no flesh would be spared"! That was foretold before the atom bomb, and indeed, the final end of this universe, as detailed in II Peter 3 as a matter of great heat and noise, was likewise declared in kind, before man's little knowledge began to see something of this implied for his universe! Knowledge has caught up with wisdom, here a little.

In the meantime, it is not the coming or going of created cosmoi, such as our own, or legislated universes, that is most important, but the coming and going of life in the interim. This is a stage, and players are now at work and at play, some playing while they work, with life, with their minds, with their destiny. The beautiful thing is this, that whatever the case, the past, the errors and the misdirections of any mortal, any sinner, the mere call in faith and repentance, the mere capitulation in fealty to Jesus Christ as God, Lord and Saviour, whose blood covers the penalty of sin, the mere trust in God in His provision and pardon, His power in the bodily resurrection of Christ as in the construction of man's body in the first place, the mere commitment to Him and to His word and His free salvation (as free as was the creation in the first place, likewise - Romans 3:;23ff., Ephesiasn 2), THIS APPLIES as GIVEN.

If one is in a desert, here is the water. If one is lost, here is the orientation. If one is ashamed, here is the washing and its ground. If one is confused, here is clarity, if one is hateful, here is charity, if one is abounding in pride and self-will, here is the living alternative.

It is found by faith. It is given by grace. It is attested by reason.

NOTES

*A

A Preliminary Point

Of interest is the purpose of the USA. This is constantly being seen and appears to be continually changing. Thus we learn this: that

The Supreme Court declared in 1897, the Constitution is the body and letter of which the Declaration of Independence is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.

Then we read the said Declaration (1776) in a relevant point:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station
to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...

 

Then we read in the US Constitution, these words, as the First Amendment, in the first ten which constitute the Bill of Rights.

 Text

“	Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

A Preliminary Point

Of interest is the purpose of the USA. This is constantly being seen and appears to be continually changing. Thus we learn this: that

The Supreme Court declared in 1897, the Constitution is the body and letter of which the Declaration of Independence is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.

Then we read the said Declaration (1776) in a relevant point:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station
to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...

Then we read in the US Constitution, these words, as the First Amendment, in the first ten which constitute the Bill of Rights.

 Text

Then we find that there is a concerted effort to ensure that the very existence of the Creator, and of man AS His creation is not now in vogue and it is by no means part of the presuppositions, principles or preludes to action in the nation in terms of any conformity; but rather that the results are hard indeed to differentiate at the political level, from atheism BY EXCLUSION, of any particular, and often by a strange subterfuge, all religion: so that what spurns it, not only seeks but often obtains the practical parameters of atheism, AS an expression of liberty. That is, this becomes IN EFFECT the law, a monopoly on teaching, an exclusivistic approach to learning.

In fact, it is a monopolising, tyrannous religious invasion by an approach of a highly specialised religious kind, where for man's ultimate and fundamental basis, in Government practice, as in colleges or schools, in the field expressly of origins and destinies, God is excluded and anything of a diverse sort of parallel, whether negative, positive, synthetic, is susceptible to inclusion on the ludicrous postulate, conscious or other, that what mentions a word like God or religion is the only way to relate to, involve or make an establishment of religion in a given situation or phrasing of words.

Obviously, if liberty is to be clear, and the Declaration of Independence is to give the spirit of the Constitution and it is safe as a basis for understanding it, and it is emphatic that the very existence of the USA (as stated as justification in its Declaration)  is derivable from the fact of God and what He does and desires: then the application of the non-establishment of religion to remove any religious reference, action or activity at the State level, while allowing parallel propositions in the area, arena or disposition reserved for God,  to replace this, is not merely a change. It becomes a radical mutation, as if a frog developed two heads instead of one, or in this case, changed on head for another.

Let us be quite clear: the USA is over time replacing one head with another. When you TRAIN people, with whatever subtle, sophisticated or even artful phrasing, in this way, it is quite vain to pretend that you are a godly people, let alone one founded BECAUSE OF GOD and His actions and desires. Consequently, history must and will change; and short of repentance, will do so more and more. Of course, the USA is one of the points of particular interest to Satan because 1) it is powerful 2) it was rich 3) it is fast-acting and imaginative 4) has had the makings of a formidable adversary, and thus 4) it is imperative to get it on side, whether to help the work of destruction of adversaries to himself, or if this fails, so that it may lose its power and so not matter so much anyway.

Intense is the irony that the head to which its new form is changed, is in effect what denies its stated ground for existence, and affirms what is contrary to it as a ground; and on this, in fact, the whole fact of America will largely turn. Indeed, as it moves into massive debt after wallowing in uncertainties and twistings for decades, with Vietnam a strong example, its aims and methods, as in the CIA, and in government in various episodes, being either confused or wholly other than this, it is becoming quite a different nation. Clarity and simplicity of purpose is receding. Contests in confusion grow. It is like the marriage of two of radically and actively contrary religions. Growing weakness reflects it.

A certain beauty of holiness seen in millions, is fast receding: education tampers, sin simpers, rights to sin, and their protection abound; wrongs are made a protected species and it becomes dangerous even to mention them as such, not only here, but in many another land as well, and this increasingly. What parody of liberty is this! Australia has been visiting this house of spiritual ill fame not a little as well, and England has not been immune from such pressures. But since the USA is the one in focus at this point, let us return to it.

What then of starting a new Declaration of Independence, to keep up with the times:

Holding that it is essential that the existence of Almighty God be never implicit or explicit in the field of education, and that we have rights not dependent on Almighty God, and that it is better never to mention Almighty God in national events, or State matters, and giving exclusivistic rights to many States by law, for the teaching of the negative parallels, using verbal quibbles about what is said or not said, despite the intent and perspectives in view, we the people of the United ...

Is this the NEW DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, telling you that although you can have private inclinations, yet in public at the governmental level, the ONLY valid and verified account of our origins MUST not be provided or promoted, debated or given equal research with any other option (cf. SMR pp. 140ff., TMR). To the extent this is IN PRACTICE becoming so, or perilously close to it,  the affair is becoming ludicrous.

That it appears with help from Phillip E. Johnston, the State of Ohio in 2003 actually passed, with aid from his professional insight about the way things go in law, a law that positive and negative approach to Darwin, or evolution, could and should be considered, is a very happy moderation of this negativity. That it does not as far as is known, manage to have God brought into the matter, while anti-God is, does not obviate its attainment; but it does show its limitations.

In science, there is no mandate for excluding parameters, principles or positions in advance. All must be tested by results. Otherwise, man is maimed by the incompetence of mere preference, and blinded by the failure to look at accomplishments, in the way science has built its reputation by not doing. When this is ignored, in all plainness of speech, it is NOT IN SUCH CASES science at all, but to shanghai the term, and more importantly, its educational application, till a race of religious fanatics is being formed, by the most intense irony, through the non-establishment of religion. This is now beginning to rise, or rather fall, to the obviously perverse practice in the USSR where maintaining religious freedom, they vastly denied it, persecuting what did not keep to the Party line, BY WHATEVER METHODS seemed best for the purpose on the part of the apparatchiks.

Academics or scientistic apparatchiks, that is the question. It is not holus-bolus, but operative as in any failure or breach, at the point where it occurs.

Lastly, since as shown (cf. *2 above), in fact the Bible alone does meet all the logical criteria for verification and validity at all levels in covering such topics, and those related, then this exclusion becomes war on God. No one would, in biblical terms anyway, want force to be used to substitute for faith by intimidation, in the way such as al Qaida appear set to do, evoking the desirability of getting once more, territories torn to them by force in the past. That is not the question. The testing of all things is biblical principle. In fact, the result speaks, as shown above, for itself. It is not contrary to faith to evidence the realities of the case (as seen in Elijah in the Mt Carmel episode). There it was PUT to the test.

However to exclude the case with withering and calamitous scorn, with existential passion contrary to rational reality and eminent verification, as is so often done in such countries as the USA, this is to exclude the salvation of God as well as fair play in education. Attacking by strenuous perversity, the account of the one aspect, which in fact verifies the Bible, it thus is soiling the entry for another aspect, that of salvation. These are dangerous practices (Matthew 18:1ff.), not only for one, but for all involved.

It is to burn the children as did ancient Israel in the extremities of its anti-God, religious follies (cf. II Chronicles 33:6). Manasseh caused his sons to pass through the fire, we read; and in countries like the USA which is here merely an example, are they not doing the same, adding contempt to error, and passion to deprivation as scientistic substitutes for science are rammed into the hearts of those who are unfortunate enough to suffer as prey, victims or collateral, in the process!

*1

This sort of virulence one has met in a number of different situations, in each case when the name of God, the truth of the Bible, or the name of Jesus is involved.

There is usually some kind of trade-mark, or syndrome marker, and it tends to include the following:

	an hostility so great that it affects the look on the face, the set of the mouth, the atmosphere of the speaker;
	a sense of quiver or agitation so extreme, and above all profound, that it is reminiscent of a fly-wheel spinning at great speed, with some entangling object attached, which may fly off in ANY direction at any time;
	a sentiment of harshness, remorseless, unrelenting, impeccable in passion, with patent or latent jeering, sneering, leering or some combination with an almost unearthly ferocity, like that of a charging rhinoceros, though this does not seem so much animal as a spiritual lust;
	a sense of equity be damned, licence be removed, policy be extreme, extermination proceed with rustling speed, as if cattle were being driven from their home, before the owner found out, a sense of the intemperate, the uncontrolled and a sort of negative aspiring, like an arsonist determined to light his fire, even if the police ARE watching;
	a sense of raging flame, unkempt, undisciplined, rejoicing in its destructiveness as if the flame had a mind towards this, consuming whatever lies in its path, furious if prevented, heartfelt in desire for destruction. In such a tempestuous temper, atmosphere, environment, employment can be crushed, almost as if without thought, equity can be abased, as if it had never been heard of; ministry can be quashed, pastoral relationships treated with contempt, and the least can be aspiring to do anything to anyone, with an intemperate disregard especially for reason, weight given to phrases more than substance, to  crushing rather than arguing.

It is as with Stephen, that in my own experience, this kind of spirit is sensed, and it appears
fully operational in the USA now in the academic area. It is only one reason for it, that there is
no answer from reason for what is being attempted, a tour de force to take over all learning concerning, beginning and end, with myth - that is, alleged grounds which lack causative force,
competent bases or assessable evidence, thrust with imagination instead of understanding, with impatience and impetuosity rather than wisdom.

In fact, this is often done with a sort of nervous tic to condemn, rather than evaluate.
It seems in some ways a combination of fear and ferocity, as if it MUST
be grinding the opposition down furiously,
lest that self-same foe should not only live,
but occupy the place for learning.

The feeling often is this: they must fight lest the name of God be relieved of its aggressors,
this with the same kind of audacious intemperance as was shown in the day of Christ on this earth.
Almost ANYTHING must be done, lest the name of God, the power of Christ, such as started Princeton in its academic adventure at the first, should be stored to the place where the nation heeding it, is blessed.

Appeal to prejudice is almost uniformly found to be displacing truth, and efforts to distort,
to be removing reality.

The power of God is needed to overcome, and it was this which in His divine grace I have experienced over and over again, in writing or in person, as such attacks, at any biblical point, on His name are made (cf. Luke 21:15). Praise God that He is not only the truth, but the life (John 14:6).

*2

For this, see, for example:

Design and Deity...,

Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ,
Who Answers Riddles, and here He is, Darkness Departs,

SMR, TMR, The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy.

Repent or Perish Ch. 7, History, Review and Overview Ch. 5 and

Ancient Words and Modern Events Ch. 9,

Secular Myths and Sacred Truth,

Swift Witness    6.

*3 On this and related topics, see:

Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 4,  and  8 ('free among the dead'),
with the Epilogue and Ancient Words and Modern Events Ch.   9,

Stepping Out for Christ Ch.  9, for the necrotic and the contrasting wonder of reality;

Deliverance from Disorientation Ch.   7, 

Sacred Myths and Sacred Truth Ch.   7 (with attention to scientific method q.v).

On Gregory XII, see:  http://atheism.about.com/od/popejohnpaulii/a/evolution.htm

 

*3A

An interesting OPINION presentation, featured at length and prominently in The Australian (February 24, 2009) looked with some independence of spirit at the considerations underlying more and extensive purchase of Rio Tinto shares by Chinalco, a Chinese national body involved in such acquisitions, many billions being on the table for such acquisition by that large and cashed-up nation.

Why not ? asks the editorial. Is not China increasingly obviously non-Communist in its economic ways, a market economy in direction, with a political basis of its own ? Not at all, it concludes, it is a materialist aspirant with its own desires, and the company the basis  for acquisition, Chinalco,  is part of the Government, so that ultimately what it takes is taken by such a power with such as aspirational opera card. This, it affirms, is a matter of strategic implications. We have our strategies and their sources; they have theirs and their sources: these are disparate, and they are wholly other in ultimate desire. Such at least was the direction of flow which appeared in the presentation.

Although this is a secular newspaper, and the nature of our aspirations and strategy were not spelt out, the fact that an implicit nod in a differential direction from that of China could occur, was encouraging; and limited though this aspect was, the whole presentation did include something like a prudent warning.

Prudence does not, however, always appeal to some; and when it does not, often the reason is this: that the dream of humanity, fragmented and dispersed often to the point of vice and vitriol, is left in our hearts from the creation; and when mere prudence, or wealth or comfort or continuance becomes the effective situation, there is such an energy of imagination, a drawing to something better, that when it is not informed by the Lord and inspired by the reality of the Lord, exposed to His sanity check of our ways, it can become a frustration to some.

With a situational shrug,  they often become subject to passions such as nationalism, racism, triumphalism, swaggering oppressiveness or dilettante imaginations, so irrational as to make those who watch the busloads of the nations move on their various low-ways, sad for their folly and hopeful that some at least may be rescued before they reach their initially divergent, but finally convergent and undesired destination.

*3B

On this, see Deity and Design ... Section 2.

*4

In fact, the OPPOSITE is what is found. On this see, "The True God has Go ..." Ch. 5,

To the point, as indeed more generally on the irrationality the IRTGY III approach, see :

 Wake Up World! ... Chs.4-6, TMR Ch. 1,

History, Review and Overview Ch. 5,

A Spiritual Potpourri Ch.  9, *2,

The gods of naturalism have no go!

Design and Deity...,

Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ,
Who Answers Riddles, and here He is, Darkness Departs.

On more of IRTGY, see News 57. To have a leading edge ahead, it has to BE in order to be ahead, and hence to exist in order to have influence; and thus is either God or a special creature. If the former, this is the basis of delimited existence, and accounts for it, not for its leading, which in any case as the above references show, is contrary to what is found. This is rather like the Aristotelian position. That writer saw, like Einstein, the existence of realism, law, direction, intensive form and order; and this same Aristotle postulated a continuing approximation in 'nature' to the designs implicit, like perhaps a sculptor constantly slapping away at the 'stuff' to conform it at last to his wish, which was somehow contained from the first.

In that case, he had a strange old sort of a god, meditating away, but much in the manner of what some criticise in the present pope, too far off to be sufficiently involved (as detailed with sources in The Australian, February 23, 2009). Any effort to escape the first creation involves quite simply, begging the question. If it, or something to prove adequate, is not there, then nothing is and nothing is the outcome. Failed by fact.

If something inadequate, we do not come: failed by fact.

If something adequate is always there, there is no room for diverting thought to stuff arising from nothing and being drawn by something, somehow there, in the midst of a system which is as useless logically to have 'around' as any other contrivance of mysticism. What is there from the first is evidenced to the last; and what is last is in power and capability, present in causal capacity from the first. It is this or nothing, which for its part, does not work.

Facts are exceedingly rigorous in this case, leaving Gould mystified, Darwin downcast, himself seeing the eye as an impossible thing and paleontology as quite unco-operative,  and biological Research Institute Director W.R. Thompson dauntless, creationism itself indefectible (cf. Wake Up World! ... Ch. 6, SMR Ch. 2, esp. pp. 199ff.,  pp. 203, 222-226, The gods of naturalism have no go! 34; and see Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis Ch. 14, pp. 327ff.,  ).

It is so simple: you follow reason, gift of God, to demonstrate God, and thence the Bible. Evolutionism cannot follow reason as demonstrated in SMR and TMR, but assumes what it wants, and then sets to, to laugh at what is demonstrated. Bad taste, really, but bad logic, worse!

Still, it is now so very simple. We compare the product of unreason, with its imaginings never demonstrated, verified or exhibited, with the product of reason movement to the Bible, and simply check them out on an even basis, in terms of verifications. You do not have to 'be there' to check out some things, for some things follow. Do they ? What is the evidence. On this basis, there is, as noted above, no contest. How unwise therefore for creationists to reckon with IND. It being off course makes a false synthesis in the wrong direction.

It is merely one of the spin-offs when man refuses to be reasonable (in this case, to insist on following it to the end). We are operators, as a matter of simple fact  (indeed, simple in perspective but  complex in conception, though conceptually investigable and expressible conceptually formulated components). IF we do not move to God, who explains all with such vivid and effective certainty (cf. *2 above), then man tends to do a number of substitutionary manoeuvres. This is not to say this is deliberate, but rather the result of an innate nature.

Being run on a writable plan (increasingly complete in recognition nowadays), with a series of hierarchical controls from nerves to brain components to consciousness (Glory, Vainglory and Goodness Ch. 1) to will, to understanding, to spirit, we are by actual nature an INTEGRATED composition; yet not one like the old 'BSA' children's talk, 'bits stuck together', but a coherently integrated and integrally expressible nature.

Everything in our bodies as it is increasingly investigated, including this at the micro-biological level, has point, plan, provision, right down to varied and remarkable disease fenders, and psychic stabiliser provisions, including purpose, reflection, perspective, orientation review, analysis and the like. There is NOTHING oddly arbitrary in the systematic inter-connections which IN FACT enable or rather forward their usage as ONE system for the pursuit of ONE objective at any one time. If there are more, then these are able to be dominated by ONE overall purpose, for which even a large number of subordinate purposes are either partly merely means, or wholly so.

The evidence for purpose is structure or behaviour, or both in consort with such action, if you cannot ask the party concerned. We evidence this constantly, and in our subordinate powers to subordinate systems to our purposes, we have an inordinate provision to deal with this trilogy, mind, matter and spirit, called man, as ONE entity.

That unity is essential to man and in him, is obvious. That he tends to act with a unitary overall plan, is effective, and when he wavers from this, he tends to be much less so. That one mind made the one language (DNA throughout visible life)  in which the integrality of system inter-responsiveness occurs, and the minds which are able to have one overall purpose, is a causal necessity

(cf. Causes, History, Review and Overview Ch. 5,
Ancient Words and Modern Events Ch. 9,
Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch.   3 ,    7 
The Wit and Wisdom of the Word of God Ch. 2,
Deity and Design ... Appendix I and II for example).

Matter simply cannot be induced to do anything like this at any level of the least comparison. It is not made that way. We are. We are integrable in the pursuit of purpose, and in the accomplishment of what are for means,  integralities within, we by enablement, find permission.

Naturally, man looks for something that is the ultimate integration, and since causally a series of such beings is itself as a delimited system,  in need of a delimiting genesis, he looks for God. However, often God is not convenient. I remember one of my acquaintance telling me that the reason he left church when young was no type of offence, but simply that it was not CONVENIENT.  God is often not convenient; for to have someone inordinate over you is very limiting, if you like to be top, first, the chief. To achieve this, man will go to almost any extent, seek to pass any limit, be it logical or psychological, political or military,  be it shrouded in concepts of race or individual, philosophy or history.  (On historicism see  The gods of naturalism have no go! 32.)

Buddhism has tended to say that it IS all one, and that is that. It is a form of atheism, though it allows for different imports of this type and that, and so bypasses the point. Hinduism tends to be a collection of gods and their sayings or doings, so that bits of the elements of things have their chiefs or gods, over the members of which clans they see, if they can see, or operate in some way; although the concept of "roaring silence" when you seek to probe (cf. News 122) , is not very illuminating for the sound of the purpose of what is supernal, being an oxymoron rather than an explanation.

Islam seeks to fulfil a conquest concept, a submission program,  reciprocally for itself on the head of what is not itself, for the sake of a thrust statedly not of itself; and taking this as God, it would have all submit. Force has been operative and has many bases in its books (as in Divine Agenda Ch. 6, More Marvels ... Ch. 4). What however is mandated by force has no place with faith, for this is entirely of a different order. Force CANNOT create faith, and hence the insistence on the latter is not even the province of the former.

Submission is part of what is needed, but to what evidences itself as requiring it, and to what in faith, can be received. Otherwise, you have a convoluted combination of opposites.

Of such things, partialities at best, none can point to reason. None attest their activity sources. One has a multiplicity, the other seeks a singularity, and for one,  the singularity is dumb or numb, while for the other,  militant and thrusting, in fact absorbing much of the Old and New Testament concepts, changed this way and that. This it does, as it pursues what would make the Arabian peninsula the source of command, but without ground; and this synthesis is imposed on bits of the Bible, with suitable seeming additions, as a mutated ground for acceptance.

If however, the prestige of the Bible is in view, Islam completely rejects its heart (cf. SMR pp. 1079ff.). If it is not, then it has no evidential basis whatever. Such an almighty does not achieve almighty goals, and such a device for deity, cannot operate at the level of reason or force alike. Indeed, the use of force, which almost subdued Europe ('almost' is decisive here), is so irrelevant to reason and attestation, with which God has mercifully endued our race, that to have it sitting as here as in Islam (cf. SMR pp. 65ff., 977ff.) in such a position, is irrational, as well as abusively intrusive against those members of the human race it seeks to subdue, in which to induce submission.

If God be God, let Him act. If not, let there be no credence: such is reason's position.

Some worship the concept of mind, and what mentality to be God, though it is simply one of the dynamic ingredients in creation, by which much may be wrought as it is tempered in precise terms for operation on the rest of creation; though without the inspiration from its source, it is too limited to achieve much in the end. Power, and not only a procession of precepts, is needed.

You need ALL, all phases and facets,  or access to them, to do ANYTHING enduringly well. Knowing about missiles is not enough, for example, if war is your religion; you need to know about the A-bomb, or all your relevant reasonings will crash in due course; and if you know of this but not of the H-bomb, then the same applies ... and so on. If ignorance is your lot, and omniscience is your need, you remain or are at last made barren.

All or nothing is the price of the thing. If nothing, failure is by subscription. If all, triumph is through endurance, and gift; for the nature of God's divine creation in man,  being led astray from the very ingredients of his construction, that is, through man's will,  which is alien to that of millions of others, there is and can be no peace for man without Him who made him; nor can there be with Him, unless there be remedy. Nor can there be any of this, without God's OWN provision, which in the Bible as in fact, is attested in Jesus Christ: Him crucified and risen. It is simple, not a sample, but a manifest exhibition of God, by pre-arrangement, and precise fulfilment.

Not accepting it is wholly unscientific, because it alone meets all the criteria for checking which we possess; less is sloppy, and makes for a slippery world, continually finding out where it went wrong. Why ? Because when you ARE wrong, there is, in the end, not much else to do than find out, sooner or later if you last long enough;  and two thousand years is a fair test time. When the deity has in fact disclosed the nature of the failure in advance, and specified its lairs, lurks and horrors, the case is then not only open and shut, decisive on all sides, reason and reality, scientific method and application, verification and validity all purring in unison under the scrutiny of reason: but it is also decisive and incisive (cf. LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST, WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS).

Man with his soul crushed in not only an invalid, but in-valid. What is against reality cannot in the end live, but it is dependent, with the illusion of independence. Accordingly, where the two part, man and reality,  after due testing and exhibition by the Deity of the nature of the case for all time over all history, illusion as always meets confusion, and dies without being desired. It was a vice, and its kick is vicious, for a wayward will meets an unresponsive hill, and the impact is ruinous.

It takes time; but time is something you cannot take with you. It comes and it goes, and test concluded, sheep and goats have their pens (Matthew 25).

*5

Johnson's strong involvement in the Ohio case of 2003 where a law was passed enabling the criticism of certain theories of origins to be balanced, so that they could be defended OR attacked, is a fine result for a skilful and experienced lawyer, in a milieu where flashpoints do not at all seem to be limited to non-professionals! An interesting coverage may be found at the URL below -

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/johnsonp.html

*6

 See:

Great Execrations ... Greater Grace   Ch.    7;
Biblical Blessings Ch. 15, Extended Endnote 2,  BIBLE TRANSLATIONS 33
The Magnificence of the Messiah, Endnote 1, 
Dastardly Dynamics ... Immovable Faith Ch.  11,
SMR Ch. 6 and  Index,
The Kingdom of Heaven Ch.  9, Section 14, JJ 25,
Stepping Out for Christ Ch.  5,
Things Old and New Ch.  2, Excursion 2A; Light of Dawn Ch.   3,
Beyond the Crypt ... Ch.  2;
Dizzy Dashes ... the Brillian Harmony of Inevitable Truth Ch.   2; \
Spiritual Refreshings ... Chs.  5, 6,
The Frantic Millenium ... Ch.   4.

 

*6A

Frank Morrison's Who Rolled the Stone, and J.N.D. Anderson's presentation, "The Evidence for the Resurrection" are sound expositions in this field.  One a lawyer, one a Director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in the University of London, they have a case indeed!

When love of truth becomes anxious deceit;

	when abundant,  candid power and deadly determination with the power of God available for a continuation of the power of Christ, meets His people as required, but is the hallmark of deceit (the Book of Acts, I Peter, the Gospels);
	when man can play God by merely changing a record,
	when cowardice becomes audacity,
	and slowness becomes speed, while all other options are clouds in the tempest of contrivance,
	when frank truth is the name of the pursuit in the annals of sublime innocence and constant devotion, while lying blasphemy is the reality;
	when unutterable defeat is the means for indescribable victory: then thought might be given to other impossibilities, such as a grave-gracing decaying body of Christ!

However, reason has not gone on vacation, and truth is not available for assassination. It is only its exponents are in this position, such as some of the apostles, such as Paul who declared this:

"For me to live is Christ, to die is gain!" (Philippians 1:21).

On this topic,  a more extended list than that in *6 follows. 

SMR Ch. 6 and  Index

Great Execrations ... Greater Grace Ch.   7;

Barbs ...Appendix 3, 
Biblical Blessings Ch. 15, Extended Endnote 2,  
BIBLE TRANSLATIONS 33,
Acme... Ch.  11, With Heart ... Ch.  3,     
Spiritual Refreshings Chs.   5, 6,
The Magnificence of the Messiah, Endnote 1, 
Dastardly Dynamics ... Immovable Faith Ch.  11, ,
The Kingdom of Heaven Ch.  9, Section 14,
Joyful Jottings  25,
A Spiritual Potpourri Chs.  15, 16,
Stepping Out for Christ Ch.  5,
Things Old and New Ch.  2, Excursion 2A;
Light ... Ch.   3,
Beyond the Crypt ... Ch.  2;
Dizzy Dashes ... Inevitable Truth Chs.   2,    6 (and New Zealand),
Ancient Words, Modern Events Ch.    8
(on resurrection and Lazarus, yes and both with Jerusalem),
Let God be  God Ch.  2 contrasting Greek bodily terms ;
The Frantic Millenium ... Ch.   4;
Bewilderment, Bedazzlement, Bedevilment
or the Beauty of Christ's Holiness Ch.   1.

 

*7 

From American Policy Round Table, May 29, 2008

http://www.aproundtable.org/tps2.cfm?ID=2481&issuecode=id

we have this concerning Ben Stein, of the film  'Expelled'.

In other words, the nescience, the ignorance, the frank rank oblivion on the point of WHAT began it, is out in two aspects. Firstly, they do not know what it is; and secondly, they do not know how it did it. This is total failure in any theory and in not really worthy of any consideration, at the constructive level.

If in an endeavour to solve a problem, you admit that ALL that was required to create the things that happened is TOTALLY unknown to you, and all you can consider IN and FOR what you do not know, its articulation and input, modes and methods, procedures and powers, outcomes and their resultant status, is to prescribe by equally rank, frank prejudice from back of beyond, then you have nothing whatsoever to do with science.  This is the position as it always has been, when it is teased out, though here it was substantially admitted, concerning organic, evolutionary materialism; just as applies in any other evolutionary theory which omits the start for WHATEVER REASON.

What makes it worse is this: the need for information, for input, the same as at the first, so at the last, is bypassed. It is assumed. It comes, as all at the first, literally from nowhere. Its basis is obliterated; and even Gould, he merely phrases it in while he phases it out.

Let's talk about performance. If you want to explain something, you will be marked on the competence, consistency, verifiability (by ANY logical means), validity, precision and basis and preferably background for your presentation.

In this case, evolutionism without rational and attested beginning coverage and provision: the WHOLE and ENTIRE basis for the beginning is ZERO. First mark. Competence ? in presenting a zero as the entire basis, you have no articulation to follow, and second mark is hence zero, a total gap of ALL at the outset. Third mark: consistency ? It is totally inconsistent to presuppose that survival of the fittest is a mode of arrival of the fittest, in terms of a ZERO knowledge of the commencement situation, since quite obviously, going as a mode has NOTHING to say concerning coming. HOW you die is not HOW you are born.

Leaving aside the underlying basis, an original power, presence, whatever you wish to call this, removes the facility for arrival. Death is differentiable from life and not an exercise in replacement technology.

Verifiability then ? NOTHING is the TOTAL expression of verification of new information being produced by non-intelligence; and this information is a pre-requisite for any movement into the formation of a type or kind, with its internalised modification procedures, equipped with the elasticity neither more nor less than that empirically observable and exhibitable.  Breeders can influence wonderful dynamics; but they do not create information

(cf. The Desire of the Nations Ch. 2, Epilogue
Dancers, Prancers ... Ch.     5,
Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ... Ch  4,
and see Gitt).

Validity ? There is nothing valid if systematically you have no truth in a system, merely response and reaction,  and wish to affirm what is the truth concerning it. What it does not have, YOU cannot have.

Precision and basis is likewise missing. If you tell someone that the way to create life is to start with what you have no ideas about, no index for finding, and no conception to ratify or indicate, then your prescription is of course of zero value: IF one works by it.

That is the case, at the scientific level, for any theory of evolutionism which has no initial basis, or if basis, no reason, ground or understanding concerning its delimitation into confined existence.

When you come to God, however, there is no delimitation. He is precisely what He wants to be, is constrained by nothing, required by no restraint, is what He wants to be, wants to be what He is, does whatever He pleases in the heaven and the earth (Psalm 115, 135), is without lack in infinity of wisdom (Psalm 145) and is beyond the limitations of time, which is already a constraint in any system. That as shown in SMR, is the logical necessity (cf. Romans 1:17ff.).

Moreover, evidence as supplied in sequence in SMR, not only ENABLES but REQUIRES His existence, and the word from Him which is likewise there shown to be a logical necessity for such a world as this empirically is found to be, has a decisive advantage. It is this. It is able to be VERIFIED and is, to the uttermost point; while the validity of having an eternal being who has evinced and evidenced Himself is total, and unique for any ascription of grounds and cause to the universe, which of course, starting in time, is not God but a creation.

Further, in terms of collateral knowledge and exemplification, as far as such a case permits, WE constantly create, using rationality we did not create, validity which depends on God beyond us, processive, evanescent, but innovative and illuminative imagination which we can account for, but only by creation, and forensic fashioning at the interface of logic and imagination; and such a function as creation is one of the most adequately documented that there is. All normal persons, clad in clay or derivatives, on this earth, are mini-creators.

In this, what is NOT yourself, but has spirit, indeed IS Spirit - power to envisage, imagine, discern, use discretion, use will, make surveying, rational choices and so forth - is ground of your creativity. You are endued with it by what endowed you with existence, gaining mini-parallel production facilities, constantly exposed to analysis and exhibited in action. It is, indeed, precisely the unlimited nature of the Creator's power and creativity, which in man in His image, finds a certain éclat, vast thrust of aspiration and delight in innovation, as if from an essential ingredient which, when suppressed, tends to lead to reaction, as of what is contrary to nature.

Your creativity is less systematically than that from which it is derived, as the case ab initio, would require; but similar functionally, as being made in God's image would indicate. You do not create functions of the felicity and depth of mankind, for example. Man is beyond man, and is managed only by what is adequate for his mind, matter and spirit, and their synthesis in operational integrity.

The logical need and the experimental exhibition match. The method is available in TYPE by internal and literary and historical inspection, to the tune of billions.

Indeed, the propositions themselves of God are testable by the hundred, over millenia, and the consequences of creation are testable and falsifiable, though in the last 50 years they have been superabundantly confirmed in the cosmoi of conceptual containment, increasingly evident even in the simplest cells (there being NO actually simple cells as such, only those relatively so, these immensely complex in co-ordinated instruction entwined in their basis for action, relating to their genetic basis, and operative in construction over the generations).

It is not just that question-begging evolutionism is irrational, arbitrary and gets a competitive score of zero on 9 counts, where BIBLICAL CREATIONISM gets nine out of nine, meeting every constraint and answering every issue rationally, empirically where testable, while being exposed to test abundantly; nor is it just that embracive evolutionism is wholly unscientific and totally prejudicial as a consequence, using academic strong-arm tactics with which to invade much of an entire generation. Rather the eminent feature of this degradation is this: it is failure masquerading as success, ignorance as knowledge and anti-experimental stuff masquerading as science, where even intellectual experiments - those with outcomes testable intellectually, intellectual experiments - yield only the classification: antinomy.

It is spectacularly apparent, the more so than ever before as our civilisation approaches its Niagara Falls (as in Matthew 24:12), that not only is the God of the Bible, manifest as Jesus Christ, needed for power in dealing with these derivative centres known as man, for their individual stability and reasonable spirituality, psychiatry becoming as common as limited, but He is needed for grace and kindness, courtesy, self-control and co-operation instead of silly shoutings and abrasive intimations based on desire or secreted from nowhere in particular; and He is needed to fill as well as to still.

When people wish to go in many diverse directions with increasing power and pugnacity, their irrational thrusts are quite predictably lethal. For a time, they will hope to make such things work, as always, by force (cf. Hitler, Mao, Stalin); but since reality is opposed to the force, "sudden destruction", as with a breaking spring, is the result.

As all the rest, so this: it is foretold (cf. I Thessalonians 5:1ff.).

Praise God, Christ is to come first, Dr Life in the presence of the dilettante dynamics of mankind's game with death.

*8

See *2 and *4 above.

*9

It is not that the method of Phillip E. Johnson has not had an important and useful impact: by no means! It has forced on the simple plus or minus approach, a look at what this or that theory in fact does. This has always been crucial as shown in SMR, first published in 1992.

However, it is when you do not dismiss, avoid, ignore or bypass (for methodological or other reasons, associated with a political situation or not, cleverly or otherwise) the necessities of reason, but pursue them to the end (perfectly consistent to do, incidentally, for a Bible believing person, since he is apt to believe that rationality being a gift of the Creator, the Logos (John 1:1-3), is a good instrument which can, rightly used according to correct logical principles, and can only lead to the testimony of God.

We do this in three stages: proving first that He is; then  that He has spoken, with the simple additive of locating this, moving  to identify what He has said, before all potential competition, enabling due test in kind; and then, that in investigation, this that is said meets due criteria in terms firstly of testability, secondly, verifiability, thirdly, validity and fourthly consistency within itself.

THIS DONE, it is easy to compare for any theory about beginnings or any other aspect of the deity and His work, the ranking of that theory next to what the Bible declares. It is open to all, markable for any.

It is then that the ludicrous failure of what is NOT God's word becomes amazingly apparent, and indeed, nothing even approaches its score as shown in detail in SMR, TMR,  and other works as noted in *2 above, for example.

In addition, we then return to the ultimate validity of the ENTIRE apologetic, in that nothing else is able to have a beginning which meets first of all logical consistency and validity, and secondly, testable confirmation by numerous and adequate means for verification as such. Therefore both in terms of initial validity and of applied empirics, we find the word of God, the Bible, and hence Jesus Christ, the only and necessary Saviour for mankind, can be rejected indeed (made in God's image we can reject at WILL); but this liberty to exclude is not liberty to annul.

The facts and the Christ remain, and His offer remains precisely as first made, while the world wavers and wanders on to its day of judgment. Man is so prone to judge, the one the other; and it is no surprise that man as such is to be judged. John 3:15-17 shows the positive side; John 3:19 and 3:36 the negative, first at man's hand, and then from the Lord.