Uncategorized – What's in your backyard?

A TALE OF TWO TABLES

Happy New Year! I haven’t written anything in a while. I’m slowly deconstructing and reconstructing the site which is the main reason. But it’s not the only reason.

It’s a new year and time for new perspectives. I may have told you that I was an atheist from ages 18 through 39. So I fully understand why people dislike “religion” and also dislike anything that does not walk lock step with the idea of evolution. That used to be my perspective as well.

I talk a great deal about Jesus Christ. I spent over half my life believing that Jesus and “religion” were one and the same. My perspective was faulty.

A TALE OF TWO TABLES

I’ll bet that a lot of you hate “religion”. So do I. “Religion” is a series of rituals and liturgies. Webster defines “liturgy” as “prescribed ritual for public worship”.

Do you know who else hates “religion”? Jesus does.

You may find that odd. You may not even believe me.

So I’m going to relate two stories found in scripture. Interestingly they are written back to back and represent the entirety of John chapter 2. The scriptures frequently present one point and immediately follow it with the diametrical opposite point to drive home an illustration. These two stories illustrate the freedom that Jesus offers us.

I call the story “A Tale of Two Tables”. I’ll paraphrase it for you. Then I hope you will go check it out. Don’t believe me merely because I tell you something. Don’t believe anyone merely because they tell you something. Always verify it.

So the story goes something like this:

A large group of people gathered at a number of tables to have a big party. Theirs was a night of revelry. They ate and drank and drank and ate. They were joyous and having a great old time. But they drank so much that the wine gave out. These tables were full of lots and lots of tipsy sots!

Table number two was entirely different. These tables were manned by those who would help people perform their required religious ritual. They were there to provide the necessary materials for “religion” to reign. And they went about their business with stone cold sobriety.

Jesus chose to bless one group. To the other group He administered a good old-fashioned ass whoopin’. (Okay, I just know that some of you are more concerned about my using the term “ass” than you are about spreading the word of the freedom, love and grace of Jesus Christ. May I suggest that you take your seat at table two.) Back to the story. Jesus has to favor religious piety over raucous celebration….. right? The end of these stories may surprise you.

In story number one, when the wine ran out Jesus had the headwaiter fill six stone pots to the brim with water. Each pot contained twenty to thirty gallons. Then the headwaiter tasted the beverage and discovered that it was wine. And it was not just any wine. It was top shelf. That’s 120 to 180 gallons of wine that Jesus provided for these folks. The headwaiter was astounded at the quality. He remarked that usually the best wine is served first and when the guests have drunk freely and they lose their sense of discrimination, then the bottom shelf stuff comes out. But this time the best wine was saved for last. (Much to the chagrin of many or the “second table” crowd, the wine of the bible was definitely alcoholic.) Jesus blessed this crowd with $80 a bottle wine.

The religious crew at the second set of tables was not so lucky. Jesus fashioned a scourge and drove them out of the temple along with their sheep and oxen. Then He overturned their tables and poured out their “blood” money. Such is Jesus’ anger with those who would tie you up in knots with “religiosity”.

You may think you know Jesus because you’re looking at all the “religious” people you know. You may think Jesus is concerned about rules and regulations and observation of rituals.

He isn’t. The people at table two are.

You may think Jesus is a party pooper who demands that you clean up your act before you get to know Him and certainly before He would ever consider sitting down at a table with you.

He isn’t.

Jesus was celebrating right along with everybody else at table one.

You may think that you know Him. Many of you don’t. He invites you to get to know Him. Actually He cries out for you to get to know Him. And when you do He promises to never abandon you.

He would love to have a relationship with you, and perhaps a glass of wine.

He has a way of turning the tables.

THE MORALLY MUTATED MONKEY

Romans 7:18 “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of good is not.”

Somebody took the time to take a video of this guy in action.

They took a video because it’s kind of funny. They took a video because the monkey pilfering lunch makes for entertaining viewing.

And no one would hold this guy morally responsible for lifting your lunch.

On the other hand….

Cheating on your diet — Stealing donuts with a hook on a white background

If I lifted your breakfast without your consent no one would be taking any videos.

And no one would think it was funny.

And everyone would hold me morally responsible.

So if humans are morally responsible and monkeys aren’t we have to ask ourselves where that responsibility came from.

In a totally natural world where everything only has natural causes there must have been a morality mutation that occurred somewhere in the old great ape/human common ancestry link.

Hmmmmmm…… has that mutation been isolated on the human genome?

More importantly, what was the benefit to humans to develop it?

I thought it was a battle of the survival of the fittest. In that world the guy who eats is the guy who wins.

Some might argue that morality is collectively beneficial to the entire human species.

That may be true.

But the first individual to lose his “me first” attitude is not likely to have that mutation passed on to a bunch of others. And of course he would not only have to pass it on to others, but it would have to thrive in the community and dominate the more aggressive and selfish natural tendencies until it took over the entire species.

As evolutionists stress, it is a brutal world out there and only the strong survive. So that scenario goes against every principle of the theory of evolution.

Mr. “You first…… no really….. you first” is also last in the reproductive line.

Another question I have is if morality works so well for humans why don’t other creatures get on board the morality train?

And one more question.

If morality really is genetic

WHY IS IT SO DARNED DIFFICULT FOR US TO PRACTICE IT???!!!!!

I mean it’s in our genes right?

Or maybe not so much.

Perhaps morality comes from a different origin.

Perhaps it comes from a higher origin.

Perhaps it comes from the author of all life in whose likeness we are created.

DIRTY LAUNDRY

Proverbs 12:17 He who speaks truth tells what is right, but a false witness, deceit.

As I have said, The Theory of Evolution is not science. It is philosophy. I have dubbed it “Kitchen table science”. What I mean by that is every time evolutionists run into yet another problem with their theory they sit down at a kitchen table somewhere and concoct some new angle that allows them to ignore the problematic data. Of course the new angle is always untestable as well. That’s “science made easy”. That’s philosophy.

I wasn’t too far off in my description of the theory being kitchen table science. As it turns out, one of the “major break-throughs” of the theory occurred in a Michigan Laundromat. As it all ends up, it was no break-through at all.

However, the text books and media presentations will never tell you that. As a matter of fact they will never tell you about any of the problems the theory suffers. Nor will they tell you the little secrets that evolutionists try to hide.

So I think that a Laundromat is the perfect place for the Theory of Evolution to try to evolve. It’s perfect because…… well….. quite frankly the folks behind the theory have a lot of dirty laundry.

Evolutionist Niles Eldredge was trying to clean his clothes when he reached into his pocket to remove one of the trilobites he had been collecting in the Midwest. He was perplexed and downtrodden when he had to face the reality that of all the trilobites he had collected and studied he saw no evidence of gradual change as his favorite theory told him to expect.

No problemo!

If there was one form of creation Eldredge was familiar with it was…..

A creative mind.

Put in simple terms Eldredge was aware that stasis, or the lack of change, was the rule. It was always the rule. It had always been the rule.

But it was a rule that was kept secret by evolutionists.

Why? Well it flew in the face of their philosophy and was proof against the gradual change that their beloved philosophy demanded.

So….. let’s keep that little problem safely under the rug, shall we.

Eldredge and his compadre Jay Gould realized that “stasis was data”. He realized that “absence of change” was “a very interesting pattern” (1). Both Gould and Eldredge admitted that most species, “during their geological history, either do not change in any appreciable way or else they fluctuate mildly in morphology, with no apparent direction”.

Eldgedge went on to say, “Stasis……was by far the most important pattern to emerge from all my staring at (trilobite) specimens.” He continued, “Traditionally seen as an artifact of a poor record, as the inability of paleontologists to find what evolutionary biologists going back to Darwin had told them must be there, stasis was, as Stephen Jay Gould put it, ‘paleontology’s trade secret’ – an embarrassing one at that.” (1)

Bet none of your professors ever told you about that stinking little secret kept hidden in the laundry hamper!

Okay, so here was the solution to the problem:

Change is never seen because it does not occur in the main population of a species. Somehow a small group of the species becomes isolated and the change occurs there. It overtakes that entire group. Then that group somehow returns to the main population and the change is completely distributed among the main group. So we don’t get fossils of change because there just aren’t enough organisms to leave any fossils behind.

They called it “Punctuated Equilibrium”. It means that all of nature is in perpetual equilibrium that is occasionally punctuated by brief moments of profound change.

However, the paucity of organisms involved in the change was both the solution as well as the problem that eventually caused punctuated equilibrium to sink into the quagmire and itself become a fossil.

Darwinism needed variation for natural selection to work on. But they had no idea where that variation came from.

Enter genetics and mutation. That became the force believed to cause the variation.

And the evolution boys jumped on that bandwagon and rode it hard through every textbook and town. Well, for a while anyway. Then the wheels started coming off that cart.

It was discovered that almost all mutations are harmful and are eliminated. It would require immense amounts of time, far more than earth has been in existence, to produce enough positive mutations to get anywhere.

And here is the bigger problem for punctuated equilibrium.

With a paucity of organisms required for this theory to work the number of required positive mutations becomes even more scant….. exponentially so.

Well…… back to the Laundromat.

“Darwin’s Doubt” – Stephen C. Meyer

“LUCY, YOU’VE GOT SOME “SPLAININ” TO DO”

Genesis 1:27 “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

“I Love Lucy” was a favorite television show when I was a kid. Week after week Lucy would get herself in hot water. She was always into some hair-brained scheme that was misleading. She fancied herself as skilled in the art of deception.

And she was.

For a while.

But invariably the truth would come out and then Ricky would hit us with his famous line, “Lucy, you’ve got some “splainin” to do.”

It was all in fun. And we couldn’t wait to tune in next week.

But there’s another Lucy whose antics aren’t quite so funny. She’s a deceiver as well. Actually she’s just one in a long line of deceivers.

You may know her as “Lucy the hominid” or “The Mother of all Mankind”.

What she is is another in a long line of failed “missing links”.

Lucy’s bones were uncovered in Ethiopia in 1974. As mammals go she was one of the most complete skeletal fossils ever discovered. Even so, only 40% of the skeletal bones were recovered. The skull was essentially absent. There was a grand total of two skull bones. There were no hands or feet. The arms, legs and vertebrae were present in only small pieces, so there was no real idea as to how tall she was nor how long her legs or arms were.

But evolutionists don’t question evolution. They are not here to view data objectively. They think evolution is fact. So it is not a matter of “if” Lucy fits into the evolutionary process. It is merely a matter of “where” she fits in.

Apes have long arms and short legs.

Humans have long legs and short arms.

Can you guess how the evolutionists “interpreted” the complete skeleton of Lucy even though she only had small fragments of either leg bones or arm bones.

You guessed it!! Lucy got long legs and short arms, making her very human-like. Even so, they could only get her up to 3 and a half feet tall. Not very tall for a human ancestor.

She also got human-like hands and feet. Never mind that no hands or feet were found. I mean, come on, let’s not get overly concerned with details!

Then they needed her to stand erect and walk like we do.

One of the reasons they were so quick to think that she stood erect and walked like we do was because of a set of fossilized footprints that were clearly human. That set of foot prints was found in Laetoli, Tanzania…… 932 miles away! Both the footprints and the length of the gait was clearly human-like. And the prints were slightly older than Lucy. So 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 +1 +1 = 7 and by Golly they must be hers!

So they made her as tall as they could in an effort to make her able to take that kind of stride. At 3 1/2 feet that stride would still have been difficult. Kinda like that little “Keep on truckin'” fella whose legs extend out with each step like they are made of elastic. They gave her virtually totally human feet as well in order to match the footprint. And they gave her virtually totally human hands as well. Well…… they kinda had to.

Here’s another little ditty. A number of years later a hand was found that belonged to Lucy. It was virtually totally ape-like. But that didn’t change the evolutionists’ presentation of keeping those totally human-like feet.

Hey! You do what you gotta’ do! So she was Lucy, the humanoid with ape-like hands and human-like feet.

Lucy. Oh Lucy. It’s not your fault. After all, you’re only human. Ummmm…. Well, you’re only trying to be human.

And how about the way her face looked? There are over 100 depictions of her face, most of which are made by evolutionists, and all are different. They range from totally ape-like to totally human-like. Eye color, hair color, density of hair, nose shape are at the artist’s discretion. None of that was evident merely by looking at the skeleton.

In this picture the center frame is what Lucy’s skull has been determined to look like. All four of the other frames could be what Lucy looks like once she is “fleshed out”. And there are over 100 more depictions as well.

Lucy has been determined to be an extinct ape. She has never been shown to stand erect nor to walk like a human, no matter how much the evolutionists wish it was so.

While I don’t Love Lucy I do sort of like her. I like her because she is probably an honest mistake. And a lot of her missing link companions have not been so forthright.

Just like the television series had a new episode every week, the missing link story has a new player every decade or so.

Neanderthal Man – 1856 – Oooops….. a fraud

K wait

Java Man – 1891 – Ooooops….. another fraud

K wait

Piltdown Man – 1908 – Ooooops….. another fraud

K wait…….. K wait

Nebraska Man – 1922 – Ooooops…. another fraud

K wait

Lucy – 1974 – Ooooops….. an extinct ape

K wait

Orce Man – 1984 – Oooooops…… another mistake

K wait

Just like I couldn’t wait for the next episode of “I love Lucy”, I just can’t wait for the next hero to fill the role of “Missing Link”.

Lucy, Lucy….. and all of the rest of you….

You’ve got some “splainin” to do!!!!!

TWEENERS

“And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:25

One of Stephen King’s novels featured people called “Tweeners”. Tweeners were folks who went back and forth between two worlds or dimensions, not solely belonging to one or the other.

Evolutionists have sought to explain the origin of different classes of animals by the gradual progression of “tweeners” between one group to the next. Evolutionists call these tweeners “intermediates”.

For example, evolutionists tell us that birds evolved from reptiles. Birds differ from reptiles in a number of important ways. Birds have wings. Birds have a lighter, hollowed-out and reinforced skeletal system that decreases their weight and allows them to fly. Birds have feathers, which are a marvelously complex structure in their own right. Birds could not fly with nearly as much agility without them. Birds have an entirely different respiratory system featuring the “avian” lung. And birds are warm blooded while reptiles are cold blooded.

All of these major changes have to occur virtually simultaneously and completely intact or nothing, for lack of a better term, “gets off the ground”. And evolutionists say they occur through random mutation and natural selection.

That requires an enormous number of miniscule changes and an unimaginable number of intermediates. And each tiny mutation was a random mutation. That means it occurred….. well….. randomly. There was absolutely nothing that caused each mutation to miraculously move in the correct direction to produce the majestic creatures that soar so easily above us.

And remember, as unimaginable as it is to have just one of these systems develop in this manner, they all had to come into being simultaneously. Then one day, after what must have been millions of mindless tweaks and an incalculable number of intermediates, one of these creatures flapped its new found wings -complete with its new found bone structure, with its new found respiratory system, with its new found feathers, with its new found warm bloodedness – and surprised even itself by lifting off the ground and into the sky.

Darwin admitted that complex structures would have untold numbers of intermediates and should be found in the fossil record. Unfortunately for Darwin they were not found in the fossil record. He blamed this total lack of intermediates on the paucity of fossils recovered at his time. One hundred and fifty years later we have an extensive fossil record….. but still no intermediates.

But I have a bigger problem with this whole picture. Evolution should not be static and complete. It should be dynamic and alive. After all, evolutionists claim that evolution is occurring around us all the time. And in a very limited sense they are correct. However, the same amazing creative force that supposedly turned reptiles into birds in the first place should be functioning in all its glory today. Forget the fossil record. (It’s pretty forgettable anyway.) Those intermediates should be flourishing everywhere today. Our hillsides and valleys and woods and backyards should be teeming with them.

I’ve been all around the world and have never seen a single one. But perhaps I am missing something.

So help me out……

What’s in your backyard?

God created every creature in its kind. Yes, evolution occurs within the canine, feline, equine, porcine, and pachyderm families. But that is its limit.

God didn’t create “tweeners”. And evolutionists can’t find them.