"Who Wrote the Books": Who Created the Microdots?

Back in the 60s, one of the best shows on TV was Danger Man, or, as it was known in the US, Secret Agent Man. It starred Patrick McGoohan. Like other spy-genre shows in the 60s every once in a while it would have a story line that featured microdots. Microdots were hot stuff. The idea that man had developed the ingenuity to be able to store a page of information on a dot the size of a period in a sentence was incredible stuff. In fact, I think in one episode, maybe not Danger Man, the microdot actually was the period at the end of a sentence.

So, how does DNA compare to human microdot technology? How much information, for example, could be contained in a teaspoon's worth of DNA? According to molecular biologist Michael Denton, a teaspoon could contain all the DNA information needed to build the proteins for every species of organisms that have ever lived on the earth and 'there would still be enough room left for all the information in every book ever written' (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1996, p. 334). Source: Mario Seiglie - http://gnmagazine.org/issues/gn58/tinycode.htm

If all it took to preserve life on earth was DNA, Noah's ark could have been a thimble.

When you see a microdot with stored, imprinted information, you know that an impressive intelligence is at work.

What do you see when you see DNA, perhaps a billion times more potent and with the same ability to store and specify information?

The human race splits into two on this. Many, those who wield power in western academic circles, say that it is written by no-one, a non-intelligent, non-existent nothing. DNA just happened; dust turned into Dostoevsky. Further, they insist that this, their view, must be the only option presented to students. Others see something else -- evidence of a not-so secret Agent at work.

Some look at a flower and see nothing but molecules arranged by time and chance and environment; others see an Artist.

I see an Artist that I'd like to get to know.

How about you?

It's your call.

Quote of the Day: So That's How God Did It

Henry Schaefer - Computational Quantum Chemist

“The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, ‘So that’s how God did it.’ My goal is to understand a little corner of God’s plan.” (h/t y-origins.com)

American-born Henry "Fritz" Schaefer III is a computational and theoretical chemist. He is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science. For 18 years Dr. Schaefer was a faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, where he remains Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus. Since 1987 Dr. Schaefer has been Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the University of Georgia.

Dissenting from the "received wisdom", he is a Fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, and a signer of the Discovery Institute's anti-darwinian letter, A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism.

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/

http://www.chem.uga.edu/DoC/ResFacHFS.html

* * *

There is a line of Christian philosophical thought that observes that, not only does the universe appear to be improbably fine-tuned for the existence of life, but that man appears to be ideally suited and situated to inquire into and discover the "secrets" of the universe. It is to this joy of discovery that Dr. Schaefer is alluding. It's one thing to have the discovered "facts" presented to us; quite another surely to be the discoverer of those facts. It is for this reason that several prominent skeptics or atheists have converted to theism when staring the improbable facts in the face; while many abandoned their faith because of darwinism, I know of no one who has looked at the recent scientific discoveries, such as the Big Bang, the Fine-Tuning of the universe, or the Cambrian explosion, and renounced theism as a result.

Jesus said, "seek and you shall find", and, perhaps propelled along by this invitation, western scientific inquiry emerged among Christian nations. Man is, at God's invitation (and, one might say, "by intelligent design"), a seeking, inquiring being.

And God welcomes this. Even among materialistic scientists who treat denial of God's existence as a pre-condition of scientific inquiry.

To them I would say, echoing the words of one who preceded me by 2,000 years, "seek, and you shall find".

Misquoting Darwin: Bleak and Bleaker?

Quintessence of Dust blogger sfmatheson (http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/) pointed out an error in one of my previous posts.

Darwin did not say, "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."

It struck me as incongruent when selecting this quote that Darwin, coming out of a Christian worldview and upbringing, would make the leap to such a bleak assessment all in one go. Turns out my misgivings were correct, and websites quoting Darwin, such as these, are wrong:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/charles_darwin.html

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/charles_darwin/2.html

http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/3417

So who gets the credit for the quote?

Richard Dawkins, cited as "Dawkins, Richard. 1995. River Out of Eden. New York: Basic Books, 133."

* * *

Where does this leave Darwin? Biographer Janet Brown provides this assessment of his thought:

"Darwin's view of nature was dark--black…. Where most men and women generally believed in some kind of design in nature--some kind of plan and order--and felt a deep-seated, mostly inexpressible belief that their existence had meaning, Darwin wanted them to see all life as empty of any divine purpose. Browne, Janet. 1995. Charles Darwin: Voyaging, A Biography. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 542.

Darwin was a once-theist, fading-deist, turned agnostic. I think Brown may be over-stating the case of Darwin's bleak view, but I'll leave that for Darwinian scholars to bat around.

If accurate, we could perhaps label Darwin and Dawkins as Bleak and Bleaker.


* * *

For the record, here is a list of sites that CORRECTLY attribute the quote to Dawkins:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/dawkins.htm

http://www.icr.org/article/3513/

http://zanngill.com/6d.html

I could not find a single site that points out this quote being falsely attributed to Darwin. I hope that this post helps set the record straight.

Are You Better Than A Cheezie: A Purposeless Process That Did Not Have [Man] In Mind

George Gaylord Simpson - American Paleontologist

"Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind."

(source: http://www.errantskeptics.org/CaptainAhab.htm)

George Gaylord Simpson was the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century. He is noted for anticipating the concept of punctuated equilibrium and dispelling the mistaken belief that the evolution of the horse was a linear process culminating in the modern Equus caballus. (source: Wikipedia)

* * *

Contrast Simpson's bleak assessment with Willie Nelson's lyrics of imperfect love:

Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind

Willie may not have always been there for her, but at least she was always on his mind -- which is more than can be said for the mindless creator of this magnificent universe we inhabit, a universe whose complexity and mathematical order vastly exceeds that of Willie's song.

Also contrast Simpson's assessment with this poetic passage from Psalm 8:

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

An uncaring, unfeeling, indifferent universe, or a Creator who cares for his creation and has expressed his care redemptively.

Are you better than a Cheezie?

It's your call.

Quote of the Day: We're Completely Irrelevant

Lawrence Krauss - Physics Professor

"We're just a bit of pollution…. If you got rid of us…the universe would be largely the same. We're completely irrelevant." (quoted in http://www.icr.org/article/3513/)

American-born Lawrence M. Krauss is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Physics Department, and Director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. He currently serves on the advisory boards of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, an organization dedicated to opposing the religious right. He is noted for his advocacy against intelligent design. (source: Wikipedia)

Is Infanticide Wrong?

Is Infanticide Wrong?

Apparently not, if it occurs during an abortion procedure. If the "product of pregnancy" happens to be born alive, it's apparently OK to let the now born baby die. The soiled linen room becomes the baby's death chamber. He or she dies from neglect rather than an overt act such as poisoning, scalding, brain extraction, or dismemberment.

This makes some kind of logical sense. Everybody knows that the purpose of an abortion is not just to end a pregnancy -- it is to kill the unborn child. The fact that we call the child when unborn a "fetus" is very convenient; it sounds unhuman; it sounds a world away from a living baby. The purpose of an abortion is to kill the fetus.

So, if in the process of attempting to end a pregnancy and kill a fetus a few slip through, pop into the atmosphere and suddenly become babies, it seems fair to just let the baby die, since that was the intent going into the procedure, and it was the procedure itself that resulted in the unfortunate consequence of the baby being prematurely born.

Whether the unborn child is killed as a fetus or as a born baby is surely a matter of little consequence.

Apparently Barack Obama agrees.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081209.html

Who Wrote The Books: Who Wrote The Code?

"We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects." -- Einstein

It is almost impossible, when describing the nature of DNA, and the function of DNA, to avoid using terms which imply intelligence and intention. This is how Microsoft's Bill Gates put it:

"DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we've ever devised."

A software program is designed. It contains the product of intelligence: instructional information. The information itself is not the same as the medium on which the instructions reside. You can store software instructions on a hard drive, in internal memory, on a printout, on a magnetic disk, on paper tape, or on punched cards. There are two discrete objects involved, the instructions, and the medium on which they are captured.

If we came across 48 feet of library shelves filled with 384 volumes of highly inter-related and inter-dependent information, we would concede that this information was the product of intelligence. We would laugh at anyone who suggested that this information popped into place of its own accord, without a guiding intelligence. Put this same information in the form of DNA encoding, and suddenly we've got zero design and zero intelligence at work. Yet the results obtained vastly exceed anything that supposedly intelligent human beings could ever hope of matching.

We know about software is that it is often written iteratively and progressively, with refinements and extensions and additions of functionality. Yet, we don't hold this against the programmers; we don't accuse them of being engaged in a mindless process; we understand that their iterative efforts represent intelligence at work. Whether a program takes an hour to write, or a year, it's still intelligence at work, regardless of the process used and the time taken.

Another thing we know about software: it may not work as well as we would like; it may contain bugs, or, as Bill Gates might put it, "known issues". A program written by a human being may not even "work", or may not perform a useful function -- yet we still accept the instructions, as faltering as they may be, as evidence of intelligence at work.

Sometimes, a programmer will take a framework of code and use it for other purposes; it's called reusability, and it's considered a desirable design technique. A whole design paradigm, object-oriented design, is based on this concept of extendability and reuse. When programmers use this technique we call them smart, not stupid, or, worse, mindless.

DNA is like a software program that contains more logic than would fit in the world's largest encyclopedia.

And so I ask you to consider, whether the code took six days or six billion years to write, "who wrote the code?".

Who Wrote The Books: 48 feet of library shelves

Albert Einstein was neither a Christian nor a believing Jew. He was, on a good day, a deist. More often and persistently, he was agnostic. The one thing he was not was an atheist.

He describes three levels of religious belief. The first is a wonder at the order, complexity, grandeur and mystery of the universe. The second is commitment to moral order and social betterment; the third, belief in a supernatural creator, which he viewed as childish and superstitious. Our theme quote reflects a level-one view:

"We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."

Turns out, Einstein was more perceptive than he realized. With the discovery of DNA, we now know that life is passed on not through some mindless slimy process but through the transmittal of encoded information that amounts to a language. The quantity of information transmitted to produce a new human being exceeds that of an encyclopedia. In all of human experience, encoded instructional information always comes from intelligence. Moreover, information is understood to be something apart from the medium by which it is transmitted. Instructions for a recipe, for example, could be written in a book, could be orally transmitted, could be encoded in braille, pictograms and symbols, etc. In all of human experience, information implies intelligence. DNA encoding is powerful evidence for intelligence at work. Atheists are forced, as they are when they deny the implications of the fine-tuning of the universe, to treat the DNA evidence as "the exception to the rule".

Over the next several days, I'm going to run quotes dealing with the wonders of DNA. Here goes:

* * *

"The amount of information in human DNA is roughly equivalent to 12 sets of The Encyclopaedia Britannica—an incredible 384 volumes' worth of detailed information that would fill 48 feet of library shelves" -- Mario Seiglie

http://gnmagazine.org/issues/gn58/tinycode.htm

So, let me ask the question: who wrote the books?

Quote of the Day: Someone Must Have Written These Books

Albert Einstein - Physicist

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."

Albert Einstein's contributions to physics include his special theory of relativity, which reconciled mechanics with electromagnetism, and his general theory of relativity, which extended the principle of relativity to non-uniform motion, creating a new theory of gravitation. His other contributions include relativistic cosmology, the conception of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics. (source - Wikipedia)

With regards to belief in God, he was an agnostic.

22weeks

"He was perfect, slightly pale and a little translucent...."

One woman's story.


http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=72811

Quote of the Day: A Superior Rationality

Wernher von Braun - Rocket scientist

“I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.”

German-born Wernher von Braun was a rocket physicist and astronautics engineer. He became one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States. Wernher von Braun is said to be the preeminent rocket engineer of the 20th century.

Von Braun was the chief architect of the Saturn V superbooster launch vehicle that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. He is regarded as the father of the United States space program, both for his technical and organizational skills, and for his public relations efforts on behalf of space flight. (source: Wikipedia).

* * *

Good religion will never be anti-science; good science will never deny the possibility of a divine hand behind the universe. This is the road that I seek to walk; to embrace good religion as found in the words and works of Jesus Christ, and good science, i.e., science that is open to the evidence and ready to follow where it leads. Revelation infuses my worldview, while the findings of legitimate science temper my exegesis of that revelation.

Quote of the Day: Who Created These Laws?

Barry Parker Cosmologist

“Who created these laws? There is no question but that a God will always be needed.” (h/t y-origins.com)

Canadian-born Barry R. Parker (Ph. D.) is a professor emeritus of Idaho State University. His major research interests were relativity, biophysics, and cosmology.

In addition to his scientific pursuits, he enjoys playing the piano (pop, jazz, blues, classical, western) flyfishing, boating and skiing. He lives in Pocatello with his wife, and has a cabin in Island Park, near Yellowstone.

You can check out this renaissance man's website at:

http://barryparkerbooks.com/index.htm

Quote of the Day: Why and Not Just How

Arthur L. Schawlow - Physicist

“It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious.... I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life."

American-born Arthur Schawlow was a Professor of Physics at Stanford University. In 1981 he won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on lasers. He also investigated superconductivity and nuclear resonance. In 1991 the NEC Corporation and the American Physical Society established the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science.

Schawlow, a.k.a. "The Laser Man", used to entertain students and other audiences by shooting a beam through a transparent balloon to pop the darker Mickey Mouse balloon inside. The demonstration showed that the laser could be tuned to pass through the transparent outer balloon without burning it.

Prof. Schawlow, who had an autistic child, helped establish an autistic centre in Paradise, California, which was named the Arthur Schawlow Center in 1999, shortly before his death.

He was a practicing Methodist.

Quote of the Day: Apparent Conflict with "Common Wisdom"

Drs. Dekel and Zehavi, Cosmologists

“This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with ‘common wisdom’.” (h/t y-origins.com)

Avishai Dekel holds the Andre Aisenstadt Chair of Theoretical Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is known for his study of the formation of galaxies and large-scale structure in the dark matter-dark energy dominated Universe.

Idit Zehavi is an astrophysicist. Her research interests include cosmology and the large-scale structure of the universe, galaxy biasing, galaxy formation and evolution, structure formation, clustering of galaxies and cosmic flows.

She is an Asssistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University.

Quote of the Day: Prima Facie Evidence of Design

Edward Harrison - Cosmologist

“The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one. Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument.” (h/t y-origins.com)

British-born Cosmologist Edward R. (Ted) Harrison, was emeritus Distinguished University Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was known for his work on the growth of fluctuations in the expanding universe and his books on cosmology, which include "Cosmology: The Science of the Universe", Darkness at Night, and Masks of the Universe.

Quote of the Day: The Best of all Possible Mathematics

Alexander Polyakov - Soviet mathematician

“We know that nature is described by the best of all possible mathematics because God created it." (h/t y-origins.com)

Dr. Polyakov is known for a number of fundamental contributions to quantum field theory. His formulation of string theory has had profound impacts on the conceptual and mathematical understanding of the theory. For more, consult:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Polyakov

* * *

Another of the conundrums that materialists face is the beauty found in the mathematical equations that define the physics of our wonderful universe. That there should be laws at all is one thing, that man should appear on the scene as a seeking, finding being capable of discovering them another, but, as one apparently perplexed mathematician put it (and I'm paraphrasing), "why should the mathematics be so beautiful?".

Indeed.

One thing that materialists and theists can agree on: The same Guy who paints the skies with rainbows and sunsets is responsible for the mathematical formulas that drive our universe. And both are beautiful. In the case of the theist, this Guy is God; in the case of the materialist, he is an unintelligent, non-existent, nobody.

Speaking of rainbows, I saw a magnificent one this evening, traveling through the Eastern townships of Quebec.

"The heavens declare the glory of God".

Apparently, in more ways than one.

Quote of the Day: Exquisite Order On Display

Vera Kistiakowsky - American Physicist

“The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."

Retired Professor of physics at MIT, Vera served as president of the Association for Women in Science in 1980-81. Her father was a member of the Manhattan Project.

I'm Coming Back to the Heart of Worship: The Beatitudes

All these interactions with my atheist bloggerfriends has got me reminiscing about my own journey towards Christ, and Christian faith.

I had been seeking for two years. I was taking a 2nd year course at university, Introduction to the New Testament. I found myself drawn to the person of Jesus Christ, and, by the time the semester was well underway, I found myself defending him in class against his detractors, even though I was by no means a Christian. I was simply someone drawn to the person of Jesus Christ.

As Matt Redman's worship song puts it, "it's all about you, Jesus".

As God's Spirit drew me, and moved me towards the moment of belief, I remember the central role the Beatitudes played. The goals of the Beatitudes became my goals. But I realized I could not achieve their objectives, as worthy as they were, in my own strength. I simply didn't have it in me. Oh, wretched man that I was! Who could save me from my self?

The Beatitudes

And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I was poor.

"Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted."

I was mourning.

"Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth."

I was not meek.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled."

I hungered.

"Blessed are the merciful,
For they shall obtain mercy."

I was not merciful.

"Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God."

I was not pure in heart.

"Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God."

I was not at peace.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

I did not yet know what this would mean.

Oh, how I loved the man who spoke these words, 'though I did not yet know him.

It's all about you, Jesus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOYhkc4n6Sg

When the music fades
And all is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that's of worth
That will bless your heart

I'll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required
You search much deeper within
Through the ways things appear
You're looking into my heart

I'm coming back to the heart of worship
And it's all about You
All about You, Jesus
I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it
When it's all about You
It's all about You, Jesus

King of endless worth
No one could express
How much You deserve
Though I'm weak and poor
All I have is Yours
Every single breath

I'll bring You more than just a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You're looking into my heart

I'm coming back to the heart of worship
And it's all about You
All about You, Jesus
I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it
When it's all about You
It's all about You, Jesus

-- Matt Redman

A-Team, Messiah Contender

Remember the old TV game show, To Tell The Truth. Three contestants all claiming to be somebody, e.g., a fireman, an olympic athlete, etc. The panelists grill the contestants and try to figure out who is the authentic person and who the impostors are. The show always ended with, "will the real ________ please stand up?!" After one or more false starts, the real deal would stand.

Well, in the spirit of 1950s gameshows, we have a new contender for Messiah... The way the Ball bounces' own... A-Team!!!

[cue frenetic sports music - dun dun-dun, dun dun-dun...]

Here are the contestants:

We have Messiah-A, Jesus Christ; let's throw in Mohammed, not exactly messiah material, but a prophetic contender nonetheless, as Messiah-B; and... wearing the black trunks and in the atheist corner, Messiah-C, A-Team!!!! (OK, the boxing analogy breaks down with three contenders, but, trust me, through random mutation and natural selection, this analogy will evolve into something better!)

OK, A-Team. Give us your best Messiah contender creds.

Here we go:

1. "If that's all it take to convince you of something, fine. I'll say it: I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me. -- A-Team

OK, A-Team! You are 1/10th of the way there!!! Cosmic, eternal words that suggest someone who transcends time and space. Well done!!! (Although, you may lose a few points on the originality/plagarism thing, but, hey, what's a little plagarism among darwinfriends?)

Here's your remaining list of requirements to be crowned Messiah:

2. Demonstrate your compassion and selflessness by going about doing good, healing the sick and oppressed. Demonstrate a variety of healing methods and exhibit compassion as you do so. Oozing divine healing virtue, so that if people of faith even touch your favorite leather jacket they get healed, will result in bonus points being awarded.

3. Engage in a knock-'em-dead teaching ministry. Demonstrate a thorough understanding of human nature and God's nature by talking about the inward disorder within human beings, and contrast this with the righteousness which God requires, which goes to the heart of the matter - inward thoughts and dispositions and not merely outward appearance. Your diagnosis of the human condition must be 100%, and remember, no copying from Contender-A -- that would be "wrong" (I put wrong in finger-quotes because I realize that right and wrong are tough concepts in a purely material, uncreated cosmos that has no purpose).

4. Demonstrate your authority over nature. As a suggestion, you might start with walking on frozen lake water and work your way up (or down, depending on how you make out) from there.

5. Demonstrate your wisdom by refuting your detractors with sayings that reflect a complete understanding of Scripture, God, and the human condition and leave others speechless or plotting your death (or, at least, sending you unflattering blog comments that suggest you have violated the Law of Darwin and/or are a fairy tale).

Speaking of which, A-Team, we are getting some static here. We're receiving a lot of blog feedback to the effect that you have not adequately demonstrated your existence. How do we know it is you, the one real and authentic A-Team, speaking, and not your disciples, and that 30 years after the fact of your alleged existence? How do we know you are not in fact nothing more than an automated internet atheist-comment-generator? How do we know that you are not some phantom, channelling Darwin? And can we even know that you, like cheezies, actually exist, and have "come in the flesh"?

But, I digress.

6. Demonstrate your love for and submission to God, and your oneness with God your Father by willingly submitting to him and obeying him in all matters. Tell us a bit about your existence with the Father prior to your gig down here on earth.

7. Arrange for your Father in heaven to personally commend you on at least one or two occasions, and, no, we will not accept a mere biplane overpass with a trailing message "A-Team is My Beloved Son in Whom I Am Well Pleased".

Doing OK? You're 70% of the way there, only three more to go!

8. Fulfill as many Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah as you can pack into your short 33 year life. You should be able to arrange the riding-on-a-donkey one without too much trouble, and we'll even accept an eco-friendly motorized vehicle as long as it's not an SUV, because we know according to the Goreacle that the Messiah does not do SUVs. The called-out-of-Egypt one you'll have to get working on. I suggest you contact Egypt Air as soon as you've finished reading the list. They're at egyptair.com. You're welcome. Arranging to be born in Bethlehem might be a bit sticky; were you born in Bethlehem, PA, by any chance?

9. Next: die on the cross as an offering to God for the sins of men, including those who love you and those who hate you. Do this without cursing God or man as the nails are pounded in and the cross uplifted and popped into the hole. Let the forgiveness that wells up from inside of you flow out toward those who crucified you. You must not show resentment towards those soldier guys who rifled your pockets and the one who took your iPod and the other guy who took your cell phone with its special Messiah ring-tone you paid for and legally downloaded because you're the Messiah and take the do-not-steal thing seriously. While you are busy dying, make a nod in the direction of any penitent thieves who may be in the area, and make appropriate arrangements for the care of your mother.

OK, that was a big one, but very effective at establishing your Messiah creds. I did, however, forget to mention one small detail. In order for your death on the cross to "count", you must have lived a sinless life. If you would prefer this in non-churchy language, let's just say you lived an exemplary, blameless, faultless, life according to God's original intention and design, and that in every thought, action, and reaction, towards both man and God, you hit the bulls-eye dead-on each and every time -- you were a perfect and exact representation of your Father in heaven and you perfectly loved God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself (including, most importantly if you expect to be my personal Messiah, RkBall).

Any slip-ups, and you're back to step one, which is a bit of a problem (as Basil Fawlty might say), because you're dead. But, look at it this way. You're in good company. The vast majority of messiah-contenders strike out somewhere along the way.

10. You're on the home stretch. Now, rise from the dead. Show yourself, ascend to heaven, pour out your Spirit in real-time on those sincerely seeking to find the way, the truth and the life, and wait for the Big Reveal.

And that's it! You've demonstrated your Messiahship in 10 easy steps!



Let me now ask the contestants.


Will


the


real


Messiah...


please...


stand up!



[cue the frenetic sports music - dun-dun-dun, dun-dun dun...]




[cue the Vegas announcer's voice, reverb on]




Ladies and gentlemen!




In a unanimous decision, by a decisive knock-out, the still Reigning Champion, Lord, Saviour of the World, Only Wise God, Faithful Witness, King of Kings and Lord of Lords...





Jesus Christ !!!!



Hallelujah! Let the worship begin! And may it never end! May unending praise be offered to Him! Inspirer of 10,000 songs, and more on their way!


[cue happy, grateful hearts]

Quote of the Day: Order, Beauty, and Strange Coincidences

Tony Rothman (Physicist)

“When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it’s very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it.” (h/t y-origins.com)

Note: The following blog entry is rated PG - Parental Guidance; it contains a brief reference to nudity. Please guide your parents accordingly.

Tony Rothman is an American physicist and writer. He says of himself, "I am a cosmologist who studies the Big Bang and related events. One of my more recent interests has been the investigation of extremal black holes, black holes on the verge of becoming naked singularities, as well as on the detection of gravitons.

To round things out, he is also an accomplished writer, including the writing of science fiction. This makes him something of a renaissance man.

His website is well-worth checking out.

http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/

Enjoy your day: "this is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it"

or, since this is an equal-opportunity blogsite

Enjoy your day -- even though joy in a purely material world consisting of cold, unfeeling, undirected swirling atoms is a bit of an absurdity, another one of those strange gaseous burps of callous, indifferent darwinian evolution.

Hey -- here's a thought. The God who created joy must be a really interesting Guy. I wonder if He ever feels joy himself? Anybody?

Quote of the Day: A Universe Created Out Of Nothing

Arno Penzias - American physicist

“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say ‘supernatural’) plan.” (h/t y-origins.com)

German-born Arno Penzias won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. Along with Robert Woodrow Wilson, Dr. Penzias discovered cosmic microwave background radiation, the radio remnant of the Big Bang.

Quote of the Day: Simply Callous, Indifferent, Lacking All Purpose

Following on the heels of the Darwin post, A-Team offers us a less-bleak view of atheism.

"Evolution is hardly as bleak as Darwin described it. I suggest you look at the work of Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins for a less bleak depiction of reality."

Here's the quote he offers us from Richard Dawkins:

"Nature is not cruel, pitilessly, indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." -Richard Dawkins

* * *

Since Dawkins is refuting Darwin's statement here, it is necessary to add quotes to correctly follow Dawkins' line of thought:

"Nature is not 'cruel, pitilessly, indifferent' [per Darwin]. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." -Richard Dawkins

So, nature is not really cruel or pitiless, because these imply consciousness and the objective reality of good and evil, which, according to Dawkins, cannot exist in an uncreated universe.

Rather than being a less pessimistic view, this is actually a bleaker view than Darwin, but one which agrees entirely with my assertion that atheism is logically amoral and that, if darwinian evolution is true, the moral sense within all human creatures is an absurdity, a gaseous burp of a mindless evolution-god.

For a second opinion, let's consult the sage Carl Sagan, as A-Team suggests:

"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent."

Well, at least everybody's on the same page.

According to these views, acting in utter indifference towards the well-being and welfare of others would put one in entire harmony with nature.

Everything in me rebels against such a notion. I'll leave it to evolutionary psychologists to ponder what evolutionary advantages my rebellion against absurdity and incoherence and the denial of everything genuinely human affords.

And that's the way the Ball bounces.

I Didn't See This One Coming

We're familiar with the UN. UNESCO. UNICEF. etc. etc.

We're familiar with the various apparatuses of the U.S. government - Congress, the Senate, the FBI, CIA, USDA, etc.

Canadians are familiar with Parliament, the Senate, the provincial legislatures, and the infamous Human Rights Commissions.

But I didn't see this one coming.

The Sanhedrin?!

Christians are familiar with the Sanhedrin as the judicial body that condemned Jesus to death for blasphemy. But it's been out-of-sight, out-of-mind since 70 AD, when the Jewish nation was destroyed (within one generation of the condemnation of Jesus the Christ). In fact, a swing by Wik. indicates that it carried on until 358 AD. It's last binding decision was the definition of the Hebrew calendar.

Well, dust off a relic from the past -- it's back!

In the free Toronto newspaper, The Epoch Times, a headline caught my eye this morning: The Sanhedrin Got It Right. Sounds like a post-crucifixion editorial headline in a conservative Jewish newspaper circa 33 AD, but, no, it's a commentary on the Beijing Olympics being an indirect danger to world peace.

I'm not sure what official status this reconstituted Sanhedrin has within the legal state of Israel, but, regardless, "welcome back".

The reconstitution of Israel is one of the evidences that Christians use to argue for the authenticity of the Old and New Testament prophecies. The Bible speaks of both the dispersing and reconstitution of the Jews from and to their historic land. And this has happened, like the discovery of so many new scientific facts that point to a Creator, in our generation.

This leads us to conclude that God is not only the Lord of creation, but also the Lord of history, with history's pivot point being a Galilean Jew hanging on a Roman cross just outside of Jerusalem, the locus and ground-zero of man's rebellion and God's redemptive act.

Just like the Big-Bang points to a Big Beginning, the Scriptures assure us that there will also be a Grand Finale. And, with events in the scientific and historical spheres unfolding rapidly as they are, it looks like we are getting pretty close to that moment in the Sergeant Pepper reprise: "it's getting very near the end".

And then, the eternal concert in the new heaven and the new earth, with myriads of worshippers and worship leaders, will begin.

It's gonna be heaven on earth.

And you're invited.

Revelation 21: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

And that's the way the Ball bounces.

http://www.thesanhedrin.org/en/index.php/The_Re-established_Jewish_Sanhedrin