Some words in the English language have always invoked strong social disapprobation among the more elegant and cultured among us, e.g. the "f"-word, the "s"-word, used by those persons of the common plebian classes. Other words, once used in earlier times with universal innocence, now have joined the ranks of understood obscenity. The four-letter word love is such a highly-controversial word in circulation today. It has been widely tossed about in society, to signify many varied notions. Thanks mainly to Hollywood and other popular entertainment media, this word love in recent decades has become synonymous with sexual lust, debauchery, lechery, and ruination of virginal innocence. Satisfaction of perverse carnal self-desire has replaced altruistic and sacrificial devotion to the welfare of other fellow human beings, usually segued by an eventual dumping of the objects of one's lasciviousness onto a personal trash-heap of history. A word which once signified the highest and most noble of social approbation has been perverted into a depriviledging of human life to the final extreme. Today, unlike in the generations of an idyllic past, most people lack the temerity to overtly declare their amorous sentiments to other persons, lest mutual understanding of ulterior sexploitive intent be presently extant.
What now do to? Is restoration of a new American Golden Age of Innocence still possible? Or are truly tender-hearted American patriots to believe the Bible's warning, that only The Second Coming, bearing the heavenly message IN HOC SIGNET VINCES will rescue humanity from its present moral mess?
True love signifies a valuing of one's fellow man, for some reason. What, then, to value in man? Physical strength, great monetary wealth, socio-political prestige, sexual attraction and symmetric beauty of external corporeal appearance are often cited as ideal human values. But in God's eternal scheme of things, such values, so typical of the flower of youth, are of light and transcient cause: few of us having these traits at age of 20 years still have them at age of 80 years. Will love still endure, despite degeneration of these very temporary values?
True love, then. seeks foundation and root in the soil of God's eternity, encumbered by values incorruptible by the passage of time.
-LKM
Monday, June 28, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
LKM On God, Israel and The Jews
Reference is made to Bible scriptures I Samuel 16:7 and Romans 2:25-29.
The nation of Israel is unique in the world, in that it was given by God to a people on the basis of a conditional divine contract. When one party to a contract declines to honor their obligations to it, the other party is also free to discontinue their obligation to it as well. What does the Bible record about God and the Jewish people?
The Bible makes it clear that God is not interested in racial hubris, since a)God is not a respecter of persons(Acts 10:34-35), and b)Both Jew and Gentile are under sin, and there is none righteous(Psalm 14:1-3, Romans 3:9-20). The Old Testament records God's use of Gentile powers(i.e. Assyrians, Babylonians) as His instruments of chastisement upon His original people for their straying from His divine statutes. So, obedience to God, and not physical fleshly identity, is the basis of Israel's right to exist. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens(Hebrews 12:6-10). Finally, as the Jews of the Old Testament times intermarried with Gentile pagans and adopted the customs of their nations, God agreed with their wishes by dispersing them into Gentile-world nations. QUESTION: Is God through with His original people? Does God have future plans for the nation of Israel? The answer to this question depends upon whether or not God's prodigal sons come home--in spirit, as well as physically. The apostle Paul wrote, in Romans 11:7-27, of God's original people being given of God a spirit of slumber, while Gentiles are "grafted in" to God's tree. Thus, we know God will save a remnant of His original people, but not all of them. Gentiles will take the place of those physical Israelites who rejected God.
Today, national Israel continues to exist, but as in ancient Old Testament times, it faces constant harassment from pagan Arab nations, while most Israelites are secular "Jews" not caring less about God and His divine statutes. For the most part, modern national Israel has forgotten that being Jewish is a state of spiritual consciousness, not one of physical existence. In such instance, Israel's existence will always be precarious. Still, God is not through with His original people, and will never let the Jew completely disappear from the earth--as evidenced in the 20th century by the failure of the ferocities of even an Adolf Hitler and a Joseph Stalin to completely erase them from all human memory. Many instances in human history can be cited, where, at every major turning point in human history, a Jew was always on hand, either behind the scenes or on center-stage, to make it all happen. No one individual Jewish person could possibly pre-arrange all those major events of history, to make them happen as they did. It must be God at work.
The Jews, for their part, must understand that the title of "God's chosen people" is not a divine priviledge, but rather, a divine responsibility. This phrase refers exclusively to those who accept this divine responsibility, and always walk faithfully according to the Lord's divine statutes for man.
God's promise to Abram, recorded in the Bible, Genesis 12:1-3, was made exclusively to Abram, and not to his descendants. Any of Abram's natural descendants would be blessed by God for blessing Abram, and cursed by God for cursing Abram, with reference to the divine covenant made between God and Abram. The nation of Israel, while promised to Abram, had not yet been created by the time of Genesis chapter 12. So, contrary to popular misapplication of Genesis 12:1-3, the nation of Israel as a whole is not heir to this promise. But it is certainly heir to God's promise of II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, THEN will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land."
-LKM
The nation of Israel is unique in the world, in that it was given by God to a people on the basis of a conditional divine contract. When one party to a contract declines to honor their obligations to it, the other party is also free to discontinue their obligation to it as well. What does the Bible record about God and the Jewish people?
The Bible makes it clear that God is not interested in racial hubris, since a)God is not a respecter of persons(Acts 10:34-35), and b)Both Jew and Gentile are under sin, and there is none righteous(Psalm 14:1-3, Romans 3:9-20). The Old Testament records God's use of Gentile powers(i.e. Assyrians, Babylonians) as His instruments of chastisement upon His original people for their straying from His divine statutes. So, obedience to God, and not physical fleshly identity, is the basis of Israel's right to exist. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens(Hebrews 12:6-10). Finally, as the Jews of the Old Testament times intermarried with Gentile pagans and adopted the customs of their nations, God agreed with their wishes by dispersing them into Gentile-world nations. QUESTION: Is God through with His original people? Does God have future plans for the nation of Israel? The answer to this question depends upon whether or not God's prodigal sons come home--in spirit, as well as physically. The apostle Paul wrote, in Romans 11:7-27, of God's original people being given of God a spirit of slumber, while Gentiles are "grafted in" to God's tree. Thus, we know God will save a remnant of His original people, but not all of them. Gentiles will take the place of those physical Israelites who rejected God.
Today, national Israel continues to exist, but as in ancient Old Testament times, it faces constant harassment from pagan Arab nations, while most Israelites are secular "Jews" not caring less about God and His divine statutes. For the most part, modern national Israel has forgotten that being Jewish is a state of spiritual consciousness, not one of physical existence. In such instance, Israel's existence will always be precarious. Still, God is not through with His original people, and will never let the Jew completely disappear from the earth--as evidenced in the 20th century by the failure of the ferocities of even an Adolf Hitler and a Joseph Stalin to completely erase them from all human memory. Many instances in human history can be cited, where, at every major turning point in human history, a Jew was always on hand, either behind the scenes or on center-stage, to make it all happen. No one individual Jewish person could possibly pre-arrange all those major events of history, to make them happen as they did. It must be God at work.
The Jews, for their part, must understand that the title of "God's chosen people" is not a divine priviledge, but rather, a divine responsibility. This phrase refers exclusively to those who accept this divine responsibility, and always walk faithfully according to the Lord's divine statutes for man.
God's promise to Abram, recorded in the Bible, Genesis 12:1-3, was made exclusively to Abram, and not to his descendants. Any of Abram's natural descendants would be blessed by God for blessing Abram, and cursed by God for cursing Abram, with reference to the divine covenant made between God and Abram. The nation of Israel, while promised to Abram, had not yet been created by the time of Genesis chapter 12. So, contrary to popular misapplication of Genesis 12:1-3, the nation of Israel as a whole is not heir to this promise. But it is certainly heir to God's promise of II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, THEN will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land."
-LKM
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The God Delusion: LKM Answers Dr. Richard Dawkins
The basic thesis of Dr. Richard Dawkin's book, The God Delusion, is that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is the root cause of all the world's troubles, and IF ONLY we would abolish religion from the face of the earth forever, humanity would immediately usher in a new Golden Age of peace, justice, love, prosperity, and brotherhood/sisterhood. He boasts in his book that all persons of any religious persuasion who start to read his book will be confirmed atheists by the time they finish reading it. LKM replies:
1)Dr. Richard Dawkins says Christianity is stupid, for people who do not think. He says it is anti-science.
LKM replies: Science and the Bible clash only over the book of Genesis question of the earth's origin, and how life on it came into existence and subsequently developed. Questions of morality and socio-political relations, discussed extensively in the Bible, cannot be addressed by pure "hard" science. Science concerns itself with delineation in the physical realm between the possible/probable and the impossible, whereas the Bible concerns itself with the human spiritual realm, delineating what should and should not be, regarding moral relations between people. There is a world of difference between "can" and "should". Theologians may be just as educated and intellectual as any scientists. In fact, in Medieval times, there lived Islamic theologians who also were medical doctors or other genres of scientists. An example of this was Ibn Sina, known to the West as Avicenna. In any event, there can be no scientific explanation either in support of or in opposition to the Mosaic Commandments not to kill or steal.
2)Dr. Richard Dawkins decries wars and other physical violence against other people, supposedly instigated by "wicked and evil" Christianity.
LKM replies: There is no Bible New Testament scripture anywhere, in the which Jesus Christ commands that these wars and violences are to be done in His name and for His benefit. Jesus Christ taught forgiveness of moral wrong, love to one's enemies, and response to evil with good.
3)Dr. Richard Dawkins says it is child abuse, for parents to inculcate their children with their(the parents') moral and social values, before the child is old and discerning enough to refute the parents' values.
LKM replies: Child-rearing by other adults, even by government officials, is the same evil: children are being inculcated by some other adult's values, when the child is too mentally incompetent and knowledgeable to refute those views as well. Even in offering moral choices to children, Dr. Dawkins wants to be sure Christianity is not one of those choices.
4)Dr. Richard Dawkins says if only we eliminate religion--especially Christianity--the world would then enter into a Golden Age of peace, virtue, love and prosperity.
LKM replies: Has anyone checked out what life was like for average citizens in godless Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union lately? If atheism is so great, why the blood-baths in Communist China and in Communist Southeast Asian countries? Why do not atheist-Communist countries open their doors to unlimited immigration and emigration? The politics of envy, as well as religion, can instigate wars of race and economic class disparity. These could occur in a totally atheistic socio-political environment.
5)Dr. Richard Dawkins credits natural selection, not divine creation, for order in the biological universe.
LKM replies: Can Dr. Dawkins demonstrate to us with scientific data from experimentation, how the natural selection mechanism works? How is it we have both man and monkeys with us today, but the alleged "intermediary hominid" forms got "selected out" and eliminated for survival? Were they not "higher" on the evolutionary chain for survival than the monkeys, and thus "more fit for survival" than are the monkeys? Dr. Dawkins provides no examples in reality, to illustrate how this natural selection mechanism works.
6)Dr. Richard Dawkins says it is a fraud, to pray for God's divine intervention to improve one's own or other people's physical health situations.
LKM replies: God does not answer prayer or is obliged to answer prayer according to the dictates of men. God may answer prayer in completely unexpected ways, thus suprising even the supplicants. God thus demonstrates His sovereignty and pleasure in not being bound by human demand. Archie Bunker once said too much prayer to God gets to be nagging! Let God do His own thing.
7)Dr. Richard Dawkins decries persecution of scientists by the Christian church.
LKM replies: Communism has been hawked as a "scientific" form of government. All "smart" scientists will become first atheists, and then good Communists, the argument goes. All intellectualism leads to Communism, just as surely as death and taxes, so goes the argument. But under Communism, Christians have also been ferociously persecuted, thus proving Communist desire for thought-policing and control also. Communist regimes have also killed scientists and other intellectuals in great number. The pot calls the kettle "black" here.
8)Dr. Richard Dawkins, like Carl Sagan, says the physical universe is all there is. Anything we cannot sense with one or more of our five natural physical senses does not exist.
LKM replies: As a musician, I feel deeply sorry for Dr. Dawkins, then! He has no ability to aesthetically evaluate a piece of music, any more than does a crocodile. The ability to aesthetically evaluate an art form--music or otherwise--is a spiritual gift unique to man, and not in evidence throughout the alleged process of evolution. The Bible tells us God is a spirit, and if man is not any special form of creation in God's image, what else accounts for the unique human ability of aesthetic evaluation? Well, Dr. Dawkins?
9)Dr. Richard Dawkins says religion, even in relatively benign forms, cannot peacefully coexist with atheism. We must smash all religion, says he, because even religious "moderates" contribute to a socio-political climate of hateful and fanatical persecution of atheists.
LKM replies: In his clarion call to abolish all religion, Dr. Dawkins is proving himself to be guilty of the same intolerant bigotry of which he accuses Christians. When, in America, was there ever a government pogrom targeting atheists? He says no atheist candidate for elected public office could ever win an election. From my Maryland 8th Congressional district, we elected a member of Congress who declined to publicly state any religious affiliation or belief. He got elected strictly on secular merits.
10)Dr. Richard Dawkins says believers in God cannot also do good science, as they are too lazy-brained for that. They are all too eager to attribute to God anything they cannot scientifically explain,and will not exert themselves to do honest research.
LKM replies: The book, Men of Science/Men of God, by Dr. Henry M. Morris, lists many great scientists from the past who also believed the Bible. The more they discovered through honest scientific research, the more convinced they became, how infinitely great God is! The problem now is that science has been hijacked by atheists having an extra-scientific political agenda, and wish to enlist science as their ally, to accomplish essentially socio-political goals.
11)Dr. Richard Dawkins says atheists can behave morally, and do not need religion as a measure of discernment between right and wrong.
LKM replies: This statement is undoubtedly true, but what is the source of the atheist's morality? Dr. Dawkins does not so-state in his book. Atheistic societies and nations have never been moral leaders in modeling ideal human behaviour. Human life in ancient Greece and Rome was held to be extremely cheap without knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most likely, today's atheists are still borrowing moral capital from the larger Christian-American socio-political concensus. Pagan Rome finally collapsed from within under the sheer weight of its own moral debauchery.
12)Dr. Richard Dawkins says the Christian church desires to severely restrict individual socio-political freedom, and stop people from enjoying life to the fullest measure.
LKM replies: I would challenge Dr. Dawkins to find one country on earth where the gospel of Jesus Christ has never before been preached, and still that country has more freedom than does America. Incidentally, it is by no accident or coincidence, that in centuries past, it was Christianity which strongly fostered education in both Europe and America. The Christian church has built countless schools and universities. The decline of academic excellence in American public schools is recent decades is directly tied to the dissociation of God from them. This trend is well-documented in David Barton's book, America: To Pray Or Not To Pray? On June 7, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered prayer out of public schools. Since then, the book illustrates, America's school-age youth have experienced precipitous decline in SAT and GED test scores, side-by-side with exponential increase in such social troubles as premarital sexual activity, STDs, crime, high divorce rates, single parent homes, violence in school, school drop-outs, "shacking up", children running away from home, and even youth suicide. Who. did you say, Dr. Dawkins, is anti-education? Even the U.S. military is worried: young people getting out of high school today still lack the education to master the new and sophisticated technologies today's military uses. In any case, atheistic Communism has most certainly stopped the people living under it from enjoying life to the fullest measure.
13)Dr. Richard Dawkins writes in his book of a "religious center" in the human brain, and cites an evolution of religious belief from primitive pre-historic polytheism to modern monotheism, cutting down on the number of gods worshiped, and then says atheism is the final step in that progression.
LKM replies: Hebraic monotheism is approximately contemporary with Hindu polytheism. Dr. Dawkins offers no archaeologic evidence to support his claim of this historic religious progression from many gods to one. He also offers no scientific evidence for a biologic "urge" of man to be religious, i.e. cannot offer proof of biologic origin of religion. Also, Dr. Dawkins calls religion "wishful thinking". driven entirely by basic primitive human desire and need for comfort and consolation. The answer, in the case of Christianity, is that the Bible often calls for its adherents to forego wish fulfillment, to deny self in the name of spiritual discipline, and put desires and needs of other people ahead of selfish greeds. These concepts run contrary to basic human nature.
14)On page 31 of his book, Dr. Richard Dawkins calls God a "control freak".
LKM replies: If thieves were to break into Dr. Dawkins' private abode to steal his most prized possessions, I wonder if he would call upon human earthly "control freaks" a.k.a. the friendly local police constabulary, to apprehend them? After all, the "unjust, unforgiving control freak" in the sky did say, THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.
15)Dr. Richard Dawkins says evolution is a completely established fact.
LKM replies: But in his interview with Ben Stein on the Expelled DVD, he admits not knowing how life first began. If you do not know how a process began, how can you say its continued progression is a proven fact? Nobody has ever witnessed the process of evolution in action. In his book, Dr. Dawkins gets way off his "home turf" with speculative plausibilities about the cosmos which likewise have never been conclusively proven, e.g. "the Big Bang".
The God Delusion is full of name-calling which does not get the ball rolling in terms of genuine criticism of theology. Dr. Dawkins engages in ad hominem attack and ridicule of religious people, in appeal to the very same irrationalism on the part of his readers which Dr. Dawkins himself so liberally criticizes. This BLOG writer, however, admits to some degree of amusement at the notion of having a divine deity to be called "The Flying Spaghetti-Monster". LKM's reply to this good humor is, "Try him, you'll like him!" What harmless good fun that is! No wonder the apostle Paul wrote in the Bible, I Corinthians 1:18-31, "as the world by wisdom knows not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe"; and, "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise."
Whosoever thinks himself to be wise is a fool! But whoever knows himself to be a fool is wise!
-LKM
1)Dr. Richard Dawkins says Christianity is stupid, for people who do not think. He says it is anti-science.
LKM replies: Science and the Bible clash only over the book of Genesis question of the earth's origin, and how life on it came into existence and subsequently developed. Questions of morality and socio-political relations, discussed extensively in the Bible, cannot be addressed by pure "hard" science. Science concerns itself with delineation in the physical realm between the possible/probable and the impossible, whereas the Bible concerns itself with the human spiritual realm, delineating what should and should not be, regarding moral relations between people. There is a world of difference between "can" and "should". Theologians may be just as educated and intellectual as any scientists. In fact, in Medieval times, there lived Islamic theologians who also were medical doctors or other genres of scientists. An example of this was Ibn Sina, known to the West as Avicenna. In any event, there can be no scientific explanation either in support of or in opposition to the Mosaic Commandments not to kill or steal.
2)Dr. Richard Dawkins decries wars and other physical violence against other people, supposedly instigated by "wicked and evil" Christianity.
LKM replies: There is no Bible New Testament scripture anywhere, in the which Jesus Christ commands that these wars and violences are to be done in His name and for His benefit. Jesus Christ taught forgiveness of moral wrong, love to one's enemies, and response to evil with good.
3)Dr. Richard Dawkins says it is child abuse, for parents to inculcate their children with their(the parents') moral and social values, before the child is old and discerning enough to refute the parents' values.
LKM replies: Child-rearing by other adults, even by government officials, is the same evil: children are being inculcated by some other adult's values, when the child is too mentally incompetent and knowledgeable to refute those views as well. Even in offering moral choices to children, Dr. Dawkins wants to be sure Christianity is not one of those choices.
4)Dr. Richard Dawkins says if only we eliminate religion--especially Christianity--the world would then enter into a Golden Age of peace, virtue, love and prosperity.
LKM replies: Has anyone checked out what life was like for average citizens in godless Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union lately? If atheism is so great, why the blood-baths in Communist China and in Communist Southeast Asian countries? Why do not atheist-Communist countries open their doors to unlimited immigration and emigration? The politics of envy, as well as religion, can instigate wars of race and economic class disparity. These could occur in a totally atheistic socio-political environment.
5)Dr. Richard Dawkins credits natural selection, not divine creation, for order in the biological universe.
LKM replies: Can Dr. Dawkins demonstrate to us with scientific data from experimentation, how the natural selection mechanism works? How is it we have both man and monkeys with us today, but the alleged "intermediary hominid" forms got "selected out" and eliminated for survival? Were they not "higher" on the evolutionary chain for survival than the monkeys, and thus "more fit for survival" than are the monkeys? Dr. Dawkins provides no examples in reality, to illustrate how this natural selection mechanism works.
6)Dr. Richard Dawkins says it is a fraud, to pray for God's divine intervention to improve one's own or other people's physical health situations.
LKM replies: God does not answer prayer or is obliged to answer prayer according to the dictates of men. God may answer prayer in completely unexpected ways, thus suprising even the supplicants. God thus demonstrates His sovereignty and pleasure in not being bound by human demand. Archie Bunker once said too much prayer to God gets to be nagging! Let God do His own thing.
7)Dr. Richard Dawkins decries persecution of scientists by the Christian church.
LKM replies: Communism has been hawked as a "scientific" form of government. All "smart" scientists will become first atheists, and then good Communists, the argument goes. All intellectualism leads to Communism, just as surely as death and taxes, so goes the argument. But under Communism, Christians have also been ferociously persecuted, thus proving Communist desire for thought-policing and control also. Communist regimes have also killed scientists and other intellectuals in great number. The pot calls the kettle "black" here.
8)Dr. Richard Dawkins, like Carl Sagan, says the physical universe is all there is. Anything we cannot sense with one or more of our five natural physical senses does not exist.
LKM replies: As a musician, I feel deeply sorry for Dr. Dawkins, then! He has no ability to aesthetically evaluate a piece of music, any more than does a crocodile. The ability to aesthetically evaluate an art form--music or otherwise--is a spiritual gift unique to man, and not in evidence throughout the alleged process of evolution. The Bible tells us God is a spirit, and if man is not any special form of creation in God's image, what else accounts for the unique human ability of aesthetic evaluation? Well, Dr. Dawkins?
9)Dr. Richard Dawkins says religion, even in relatively benign forms, cannot peacefully coexist with atheism. We must smash all religion, says he, because even religious "moderates" contribute to a socio-political climate of hateful and fanatical persecution of atheists.
LKM replies: In his clarion call to abolish all religion, Dr. Dawkins is proving himself to be guilty of the same intolerant bigotry of which he accuses Christians. When, in America, was there ever a government pogrom targeting atheists? He says no atheist candidate for elected public office could ever win an election. From my Maryland 8th Congressional district, we elected a member of Congress who declined to publicly state any religious affiliation or belief. He got elected strictly on secular merits.
10)Dr. Richard Dawkins says believers in God cannot also do good science, as they are too lazy-brained for that. They are all too eager to attribute to God anything they cannot scientifically explain,and will not exert themselves to do honest research.
LKM replies: The book, Men of Science/Men of God, by Dr. Henry M. Morris, lists many great scientists from the past who also believed the Bible. The more they discovered through honest scientific research, the more convinced they became, how infinitely great God is! The problem now is that science has been hijacked by atheists having an extra-scientific political agenda, and wish to enlist science as their ally, to accomplish essentially socio-political goals.
11)Dr. Richard Dawkins says atheists can behave morally, and do not need religion as a measure of discernment between right and wrong.
LKM replies: This statement is undoubtedly true, but what is the source of the atheist's morality? Dr. Dawkins does not so-state in his book. Atheistic societies and nations have never been moral leaders in modeling ideal human behaviour. Human life in ancient Greece and Rome was held to be extremely cheap without knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most likely, today's atheists are still borrowing moral capital from the larger Christian-American socio-political concensus. Pagan Rome finally collapsed from within under the sheer weight of its own moral debauchery.
12)Dr. Richard Dawkins says the Christian church desires to severely restrict individual socio-political freedom, and stop people from enjoying life to the fullest measure.
LKM replies: I would challenge Dr. Dawkins to find one country on earth where the gospel of Jesus Christ has never before been preached, and still that country has more freedom than does America. Incidentally, it is by no accident or coincidence, that in centuries past, it was Christianity which strongly fostered education in both Europe and America. The Christian church has built countless schools and universities. The decline of academic excellence in American public schools is recent decades is directly tied to the dissociation of God from them. This trend is well-documented in David Barton's book, America: To Pray Or Not To Pray? On June 7, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered prayer out of public schools. Since then, the book illustrates, America's school-age youth have experienced precipitous decline in SAT and GED test scores, side-by-side with exponential increase in such social troubles as premarital sexual activity, STDs, crime, high divorce rates, single parent homes, violence in school, school drop-outs, "shacking up", children running away from home, and even youth suicide. Who. did you say, Dr. Dawkins, is anti-education? Even the U.S. military is worried: young people getting out of high school today still lack the education to master the new and sophisticated technologies today's military uses. In any case, atheistic Communism has most certainly stopped the people living under it from enjoying life to the fullest measure.
13)Dr. Richard Dawkins writes in his book of a "religious center" in the human brain, and cites an evolution of religious belief from primitive pre-historic polytheism to modern monotheism, cutting down on the number of gods worshiped, and then says atheism is the final step in that progression.
LKM replies: Hebraic monotheism is approximately contemporary with Hindu polytheism. Dr. Dawkins offers no archaeologic evidence to support his claim of this historic religious progression from many gods to one. He also offers no scientific evidence for a biologic "urge" of man to be religious, i.e. cannot offer proof of biologic origin of religion. Also, Dr. Dawkins calls religion "wishful thinking". driven entirely by basic primitive human desire and need for comfort and consolation. The answer, in the case of Christianity, is that the Bible often calls for its adherents to forego wish fulfillment, to deny self in the name of spiritual discipline, and put desires and needs of other people ahead of selfish greeds. These concepts run contrary to basic human nature.
14)On page 31 of his book, Dr. Richard Dawkins calls God a "control freak".
LKM replies: If thieves were to break into Dr. Dawkins' private abode to steal his most prized possessions, I wonder if he would call upon human earthly "control freaks" a.k.a. the friendly local police constabulary, to apprehend them? After all, the "unjust, unforgiving control freak" in the sky did say, THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.
15)Dr. Richard Dawkins says evolution is a completely established fact.
LKM replies: But in his interview with Ben Stein on the Expelled DVD, he admits not knowing how life first began. If you do not know how a process began, how can you say its continued progression is a proven fact? Nobody has ever witnessed the process of evolution in action. In his book, Dr. Dawkins gets way off his "home turf" with speculative plausibilities about the cosmos which likewise have never been conclusively proven, e.g. "the Big Bang".
The God Delusion is full of name-calling which does not get the ball rolling in terms of genuine criticism of theology. Dr. Dawkins engages in ad hominem attack and ridicule of religious people, in appeal to the very same irrationalism on the part of his readers which Dr. Dawkins himself so liberally criticizes. This BLOG writer, however, admits to some degree of amusement at the notion of having a divine deity to be called "The Flying Spaghetti-Monster". LKM's reply to this good humor is, "Try him, you'll like him!" What harmless good fun that is! No wonder the apostle Paul wrote in the Bible, I Corinthians 1:18-31, "as the world by wisdom knows not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe"; and, "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise."
Whosoever thinks himself to be wise is a fool! But whoever knows himself to be a fool is wise!
-LKM
Thursday, March 4, 2010
LKM On American Foreign Policy
Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. History has repeatedly proven that whenever single individual nations attempt to rule all the rest of the world, no matter how noble the intent to establish a global empire may be, said countries will eventually reach a breaking point when and where their resources will have become so thinly stretched abroad that internal domestic decline sets in, and leads to the collapse of the would-be empire nation from within.
America has a past history of repeated intervention into the international affairs of other nations, ostensibly for the latter's benefit. Such hubris presumes that America knows best, what is best for the rest of the world, and, in the name of superior virtue, imposes its will upon other nations, by military force of arms if necessary. QUESTION: Is the American government less sinful and corrupt, than those of other countries? Is not all government a synonym for bullying those out of power, by those who are in power? What is the difference, if any, between governing and bullying? Even in nations claiming to be ruled by documented constitutionalism, the citizenry knows all too well this bitter lesson, that mere words on official-looking parchment paper are not self-enforcing, to stay the hands of rulers ever greedy for more control over the masses of ordinary people.
The Bible declares, Jeremiah 10:23-24, that man is spiritually blind in his walk, without God's guidance over his footsteps. Psalm 14:1-3 tells us also that there is no man upon earth who does good, and sins not. Therefore, the substitution of American will over that of a local indigenous government in a foreign country can only mean substitution of one set of sins for another. As former President Ronald Reagan sagely observed, "Government tends not to solve problems, but merely to re-arrange them." President George Washington, therefore, was also wise, to advise America to avoid entangling alliances. Otherwise, God cannot bless America according to His Word, in James 4:4:--"Ye adulterers and adultresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
America must be the guarantor of its own liberty and prosperity, to the exclusion of that of all others.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
America has a past history of repeated intervention into the international affairs of other nations, ostensibly for the latter's benefit. Such hubris presumes that America knows best, what is best for the rest of the world, and, in the name of superior virtue, imposes its will upon other nations, by military force of arms if necessary. QUESTION: Is the American government less sinful and corrupt, than those of other countries? Is not all government a synonym for bullying those out of power, by those who are in power? What is the difference, if any, between governing and bullying? Even in nations claiming to be ruled by documented constitutionalism, the citizenry knows all too well this bitter lesson, that mere words on official-looking parchment paper are not self-enforcing, to stay the hands of rulers ever greedy for more control over the masses of ordinary people.
The Bible declares, Jeremiah 10:23-24, that man is spiritually blind in his walk, without God's guidance over his footsteps. Psalm 14:1-3 tells us also that there is no man upon earth who does good, and sins not. Therefore, the substitution of American will over that of a local indigenous government in a foreign country can only mean substitution of one set of sins for another. As former President Ronald Reagan sagely observed, "Government tends not to solve problems, but merely to re-arrange them." President George Washington, therefore, was also wise, to advise America to avoid entangling alliances. Otherwise, God cannot bless America according to His Word, in James 4:4:--"Ye adulterers and adultresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
America must be the guarantor of its own liberty and prosperity, to the exclusion of that of all others.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Thursday, February 11, 2010
In Search Of The Babel Tower
The many and varied languages of the world: do they all historically derive from a single parent "proto-language"? There is much speculation on that question, especially with the use of computer technology to compare language data in order to find common elements and trends between languages. Happily, some languages have a well-known and well-documented parent language, e.g. Latin, Sanskrit, ancient Greek, Achamenid Persian. Yet, there is no conclusive proof that all human languages arose from a single blissful and proverbial Garden of Eden-type scenario, completely devoid of all communication confusion. Nevertheless, the more we discover similarities between existing languages, the more tempting the speculation of the existence of a prehistoric "proto-language" becomes, as an object of further academic pursuit.
The first most obvious sign of historic kinship between languages is similarity of vocabularies. Yet often, lexical items referring to sophisticated economic, religious and socio-political institutions, as well as to science and technology, may easily be borrowed from one language to another, with no evidence of historic kinship between the donor and recipient languages in question. Far less likely to be mere borrowings, and thus more likely to be relevant and useful to prove linguistic kinships, are words referring to mankind's most primitive state of existence. Those words are: 1)counting numbers, 2)names of body parts, 3)names of family relations, and 4)names of natural phenomena. In considering lexical items for comparison, phonological differences, as well as similarities, may point to a common origin of two or more languages, so long as the phonological differences are correspondingly regular, systematic and predictable.
Also important to compare is language grammar, far less transient than individual words in languages. Do the languages in question have similar sentence structure and word order? How do the languages conjugate their verbs? Do the languages in question decline their nouns and adjectives by means of a series of case endings, or is the spatial relationship between nouns defined only by prepositions and postpositions?
Most importantly, it must be remembered that no one single consideration alone proves and conclusive historic relationship between languages, but all evidences must be weighed together as a whole. The bottom-line point here is that definite and reasonable criteria do exist to guide us, in proving and defining historic relations between languages.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
The first most obvious sign of historic kinship between languages is similarity of vocabularies. Yet often, lexical items referring to sophisticated economic, religious and socio-political institutions, as well as to science and technology, may easily be borrowed from one language to another, with no evidence of historic kinship between the donor and recipient languages in question. Far less likely to be mere borrowings, and thus more likely to be relevant and useful to prove linguistic kinships, are words referring to mankind's most primitive state of existence. Those words are: 1)counting numbers, 2)names of body parts, 3)names of family relations, and 4)names of natural phenomena. In considering lexical items for comparison, phonological differences, as well as similarities, may point to a common origin of two or more languages, so long as the phonological differences are correspondingly regular, systematic and predictable.
Also important to compare is language grammar, far less transient than individual words in languages. Do the languages in question have similar sentence structure and word order? How do the languages conjugate their verbs? Do the languages in question decline their nouns and adjectives by means of a series of case endings, or is the spatial relationship between nouns defined only by prepositions and postpositions?
Most importantly, it must be remembered that no one single consideration alone proves and conclusive historic relationship between languages, but all evidences must be weighed together as a whole. The bottom-line point here is that definite and reasonable criteria do exist to guide us, in proving and defining historic relations between languages.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
In Christ By Whose Hand?
The atheistic secular humanists in America today often brand Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals as "fanatics", "ayatollahs", "bigots", etc. and accuse them of seeking to forcibly impose Christianity upon the entire society by armed violence, torture and mayhem. They equate Christian fundamentalists with Islamic fanatic groups like Hamas, Al-Qa'idah, Hizb-ul-Lah and the Taliban. QUESTION: Can Christianity be spread by force of arms, as the atheistic secular humanist Left supposes?
Certainly, outward superficial expressions of the Christian Establishment can be implemented by military force of arms, as human history more than adequately illustrates. But is this real Christianity per se?
The apostle Paul wrote of men who, in the last days before Jesus Christ returns to earth, would "have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof"(II Timothy 3:5). This statement finds its Biblical antecedant in the admonition of Jesus Christ to "beware of wolves in sheep's clothing", and by spiritual fruits, not outward appearances, would true Christians be identifiable(Matthew 7:15-27). Most importantly, said Christ, men would know His disciples by their love to one another, and by their observance of the Golden Rule. (John 13:34-35; Matthew 7:12). Would those who resort to violence and military force of arms in attempt to impose God's kingdom on earth, care to have this same means to righteousness exercised upon themselves by others? Such coercion certainly is not any loving example to emulate!
Even so, military successes of men cannot necessarily guarantee the realization of God in the hearts and minds of the conquered people: without God's sovereign spiritual drawing of men to Himself, no man can come to God(John 6:44, Romans 9:15-16). God has absolute sovereignty over all men, in choosing out a people for Himself, and in no way can any man force the hand of God in this decision.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Certainly, outward superficial expressions of the Christian Establishment can be implemented by military force of arms, as human history more than adequately illustrates. But is this real Christianity per se?
The apostle Paul wrote of men who, in the last days before Jesus Christ returns to earth, would "have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof"(II Timothy 3:5). This statement finds its Biblical antecedant in the admonition of Jesus Christ to "beware of wolves in sheep's clothing", and by spiritual fruits, not outward appearances, would true Christians be identifiable(Matthew 7:15-27). Most importantly, said Christ, men would know His disciples by their love to one another, and by their observance of the Golden Rule. (John 13:34-35; Matthew 7:12). Would those who resort to violence and military force of arms in attempt to impose God's kingdom on earth, care to have this same means to righteousness exercised upon themselves by others? Such coercion certainly is not any loving example to emulate!
Even so, military successes of men cannot necessarily guarantee the realization of God in the hearts and minds of the conquered people: without God's sovereign spiritual drawing of men to Himself, no man can come to God(John 6:44, Romans 9:15-16). God has absolute sovereignty over all men, in choosing out a people for Himself, and in no way can any man force the hand of God in this decision.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Sunday, February 7, 2010
If There Be No God...
If there be no God, as proponents of Charles Darwin's evolution theories claim, what are the mathematical odds, that the entire universe, starting with the components inside the smallest living cell on upward in creation, would exhibit such complex, systemic and interdependent order without any external cause? In a mirror reflection of universal physical order, why do men so deeply crave spiritual order as well, even at the cost of liberty if necessary, to achieve it through institutions of law and government? The very existence of totalitarian dictatorships of one flavor or another throughout most countries of the world is testimony to the inability of men to live with the uncertainties of liberty. Men seem to have a deep-seated wish to control other men, all in the name of order, that order being to the advantage of the rulers notwithstanding.
Neither evolution nor creation have ever been observed in motion to occur; hence, neither model of life's origin is true science. Both ideas are speculative philosophies, based on partial and plausible evidences at best--nothing finally conclusive. Evolutionists claim an ever-upward march in the complexity of organisms over time, all the while saying too that genetic changes in them are random, and genetic mutations are usually harmful or even fatal to the organism in question. Creationists, for their part, have never produced any physical entity, detectable by one or more of the five human senses, reasonably discernable to be God--Bible claims of Jesus Christ being God in the flesh dwelling among us notwithstanding.
Creationists, in an apparent refutation of Charles Darwin's theory, have concocted a counter-theory of irreducible complexity. This theory states that entire living biological systems appeared abruptly on the scene, with no previous simpler stages of development, e.g. the Cambrian explosion. Every component now extant in the system, the theory goes, is sine qua non to the entire system's existence and function. This is similar to the idea expressed by the apostle Paul in the Bible, I Corinthians 12:12-26: can the ear say to the eye, "I have no need of thee"? Can the brain say to the heart, "I have no need of thee"? Every part of the entire body has a crucial role to play in the survival and success of the entire entity. Important, too, is not just the presence of all component parts, but their order of placement and location within the biological system as well. Is this not the signature of an outside intelligence responsible for the biological system's existence? Note well the high degree of systemic order and interdependence involved in the living organism.
How can life possibly arise from non-life, if there be no God? Transformation requires causation, and the Bible tells us God is before all things. Nothing can arise at any point in time ex nihilo, including the atoms and molecules comprising the alleged primordial slime pits from which evolutionists say early life arose, including those of the atmospheric gases providing the environmental milieu for this prehistoric event.
If there be no God, how otherwise does existence exist? If, with God, all things are possible, such possibility includes science to provide us with the answers by penetrating the alleged wall of separation between itself and religion.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Neither evolution nor creation have ever been observed in motion to occur; hence, neither model of life's origin is true science. Both ideas are speculative philosophies, based on partial and plausible evidences at best--nothing finally conclusive. Evolutionists claim an ever-upward march in the complexity of organisms over time, all the while saying too that genetic changes in them are random, and genetic mutations are usually harmful or even fatal to the organism in question. Creationists, for their part, have never produced any physical entity, detectable by one or more of the five human senses, reasonably discernable to be God--Bible claims of Jesus Christ being God in the flesh dwelling among us notwithstanding.
Creationists, in an apparent refutation of Charles Darwin's theory, have concocted a counter-theory of irreducible complexity. This theory states that entire living biological systems appeared abruptly on the scene, with no previous simpler stages of development, e.g. the Cambrian explosion. Every component now extant in the system, the theory goes, is sine qua non to the entire system's existence and function. This is similar to the idea expressed by the apostle Paul in the Bible, I Corinthians 12:12-26: can the ear say to the eye, "I have no need of thee"? Can the brain say to the heart, "I have no need of thee"? Every part of the entire body has a crucial role to play in the survival and success of the entire entity. Important, too, is not just the presence of all component parts, but their order of placement and location within the biological system as well. Is this not the signature of an outside intelligence responsible for the biological system's existence? Note well the high degree of systemic order and interdependence involved in the living organism.
How can life possibly arise from non-life, if there be no God? Transformation requires causation, and the Bible tells us God is before all things. Nothing can arise at any point in time ex nihilo, including the atoms and molecules comprising the alleged primordial slime pits from which evolutionists say early life arose, including those of the atmospheric gases providing the environmental milieu for this prehistoric event.
If there be no God, how otherwise does existence exist? If, with God, all things are possible, such possibility includes science to provide us with the answers by penetrating the alleged wall of separation between itself and religion.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
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