Month: October 2014

Denialism

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For all of my reading, I don’t think I ever spent time looking in depth as to how it is that Christians (primarily in the United States, because CAPITALISM! MURICA!) manage to talk their way out of agreeing that Socialism is a core tenet of the ministry of Jesus. While I was researching my religio-political post last week, I found the answers, but I just passed over them without too much thought.

I argued pro-Socialism, of course, as you may remember if you read the post. While arguing pro-Socialism, however, I barely touched on the counter-argument, and I think that was a little unfair of me. To that end, I thought I would give the other side some time, and (as you should expect of me) I will propose some counter-arguments.

The primary source of the Christian counterpoints will be drawn from http://tifwe.org/resources/does-acts-2-5-teach-socialism/ which is a masterpiece of fallacious argument and outright denial, at least from my own personal reading of it. If you read the article and find you agree with what it has to say, please let me know in the comments section what causes you to agree.

Helpfully, the author has subtitled his article, so I can give an unusually clear response (I tend to meander, a little, and I do not regret it–but some have used this as a criticism, and I can say with honesty that I completely understand their point). On we march!

Section one of the article is as follows:

The early believers did not sell all their possessions. (Emphasis mine)

I think we are getting off on the wrong foot, here. I do not think there has ever been, in all of the history of the world, any government who has called for Socialism that has also called for the entire revocation of personal ownership rights. Even me, a rather staunch proponent of Socialism would never call for such an overstepping of personal bounds. Okay, so early Christians did not practice 100% communal ownership; that sounds like a (weak) counter-argument to Communism, but says nothing against Socialism. In fact, that they would sell any of their possessions to support each other sounds very Socialist by any working, practical definition.

Now let’s move on to a very aggressively worded sentence by our new friend;

But even if we, for the sake of argument, grant that all believers sold all their possessions and redistributed them among the community, does that prove socialism or communism is Biblical? No, there would have to be state-coerced taking of property and forced distribution of it.

I think this goes more to the core of the issue. The core of the issue here is that the Bible doesn’t support Socialism, in the author’s view, as he or she does not want to donate, and it is unfair for anyone to force him or her to do so. Well, I am glad we cleared that up, then. As my counter point, though, let’s say you want to abolish all taxation (as I’ve heard some propose) or reduce taxation (as I’ve heard many propose). In this ideal, Christian world, who pays for the roads? The schools? What happens if you cannot afford to send little Timmy out? What happens if you cannot afford lunches for little Timmy? Do you propose we all resort to a kind of charity-bartering system, where we go and ask our neighbors for help, instead of the Government? And what difference is there, then, between coerced sharing implemented by the Government and your requesting assistance from your neighbors or community? If they give money to you, what if there was someone who had greater need, but lived off of your block? What if none of his neighbors had a charitable spirit? What if he never found you, great giver that you are, and thus was left without help? These are the cases where the Government, with a wider scope and reach of charity, saves lives.

The second point made is that the early Christians’ sharing was totally voluntary. I think I covered this satisfactorily above, but he takes it up a notch by citing Marx’s Communist Manifesto (no matter who is citing this, it is likely to be in a negative light, and this is certainly no exception). He cites no specific quotation, but does summarize it (albeit with a political slant) fairly well; Marx found the idea of private ownership at least part of the overall problem. He then goes on to say, though, “The Bible does not mention the state at all,” therefore no Socialism, duh!

His third point is thus; the form of Socialism was not a permanent practice, but a temporary measure. It was a measure that requested charity for as long as it was needed. Well! I can see how you make that point, it makes perfect sense! Why, we don’t need charity today at all, so I guess you are right; let’s not give. Here, again, he mentions the words “state coercion”, as though they are some sort of talisman that will keep the pinkos at bay! The author goes on to state that we don’t see any recurrence of this type of giving (specifically citing Acts, chapters 2-4) anywhere else in the New Testament, so we don’t need to keep following it. Again, Q.E.D., we don’t need to Socialism (yes, I made it a verb. Fight me.).

Again, he states that socialism requires the complete abolition of private property, as though throwing around a fear-bomb (Socialism is a dirty word!). He goes on “There was a concern for equitable distribution of goods to the poor,” which is why I generally am happy to pay my share to the Government and ask them to deal with the distribution of these funds. I care about my socialistically (I made up a word. Deal with it.) provided services more than you can know. I care about the roads, the educational subsidies, the universal health care; I know I have had to lean on unemployment, and it wasn’t because I was lazy, it was because I was having major difficulty finding a job in my field. I give to these things, because I know that thanks to them I will likely never have to go without food or medical care, and this knowledge, this safety, it is important to me.

Point four is merely stating “The Bible doesn’t say ‘You have to be a socialist,’ and I don’t want to be a socialist, therefore I am not a socialist and the Bible supports me.

I think I’ve covered that point well enough, and I think my paraphrasing of point four covers how I feel, if you have any questions.

Point five, I think, was just thrown in there to remind you that the author holds a PhD. I am afraid that while my grasp of English is generally considered fairly strong, I would never have crafted the following sentence, and that is why this guy is a PhD.

Point five reads thus; Interpreting narrative by didactic passages is a wise principle of hermeneutics. Well there you go, if you weren’t convinced Socialism is wrong so far, I’ll bet your mind just did a total 180, am I right?! He does have the decency to clarify, thankfully, with the following sentences. Basically, it comes down to his idea that you can’t make a universal command out of a limited first century practice. I would tend to agree, but I am afraid that Socialism, while not made a command in the Bible, is a recurring theme of Jesus’ ministry. He does not command it (Jesus made stunningly few statements that would be considered Commandments), though he does in many places make clear that he definitely likes the idea of shared wealth and supporting the poor.

That covers the bases. I think I have made my point, but I would like to level a challenge to the modern believer.

If you are standing before God on Judgment day, and He asks the following: “Why did you preach the rendering unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and universal charity, but stand against those very same ideals when they were practiced by the government of your nation?”

Would you feel comfortable answering with the following?

“Jesus didn’t say I HAD to practice charity, and I didn’t want to give that money, even though it was used to feed the poor, heal the sick and the lame, even though it provided education those who could not learn otherwise, and housing for the homeless, even though these are the exact things Jesus said we should support, he didn’t say we HAD to support them. So I stood against it.”

The Indiscretions of Youth

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As time goes on, I continue to watch and grow and understand more about the world. I hope you will not see this as arrogant; I’d like to believe it is a natural part of the aging process. You’d be hard pressed to find the person who thought they were wiser at the age of 14 than they are at the age of 40. That being said, it is amazing how well this analogy can be applied outside of the simple process of human aging.

The aging of a religion is a very interesting historical study, and I would say one that is far too quickly, far too easily overlooked.

Look back to the birth of Christianity, while the religion fought to find out what it was. There were two major forces within it, each fighting for dominance, easily compared to a child trying to decide what it will be when it grows up, perhaps the two forces could be likened to its favorite aunt or uncle even. The religion, at this young age, was trying to decide who it would best want to emulate. (For a more in depth look at the internal struggle, see my earlier post at the following link: https://blog42.ca/2014/10/10/almost-too-easy/ ) This was not the only internal struggle, either; there were many Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, Matthew, Luke, Judas, Mary, John, Mark, so many ideas swirling in the head of this child, like any child growing.

As this child grew, it started to learn more of who it was, and who it wanted to be. The Gospels became canon, the battle between James and Paul, which threatened to tear the young group apart entirely, had been resolved. The core ideas became enshrined in Rome, and a Pope had been set at the head, but this child was not a well behaved teenager (as most parents can, I am sure, relate). As the Church entered its teen years (this analogy holds incredibly well if you liken 100 years to 1 year of growth), it began to think it had all of the answers. It knew better than its parents what had to be done to secure its own future. It began to rail against those around it who did not share its own ideas, again as many parents can relate.

Of this conflict, of this anger, and of this feeling of superiority were born two things; the Inquisition, and the Crusades. If we give the birth of the Christian Church as 33AD, give or take a few years, and the formal establishment of The Spanish Inquisition as 1478… Well, just after its 14th birthday (given my 100:1 ratio) was when it began to have ideas that came in direct conflict with those of its parents. The first Crusade, which I would liken to the Church bullying the other kids in the playground (a drastic understatement, if ever there was one) began at just the young age of 11 (1095AD), and the bullying ways continued for hundreds of years.

Perhaps it was just a phase, but the engine of abject *TERROR* (Please note this word, I think it will come up later) that was the Spanish Inquisition ran for almost 400 years, disbanding only in 1838 (and with deaths attributed to it coming even after this date). As the Christian Church entered its maturity, these ideas began to go by the wayside, and there is more (though certainly not universal) tolerance in it. Perhaps, if one permits me to draw another analogy, it is the child of a member of the KKK who has decided that his parents were unjust racists, but who cannot fully get over the indoctrination of his childhood. In any case, Christianity is still (much more mildly) bullying at least one other kid on the playground… And the fight is not fair.

Islam is the younger brother of Christianity (and anyone who argues against this analogy should go and look at some history) born in the 7th century. In fact, it should be having its 14th birthday soon (read: 1400 years since its inception).

In the popular media, both in Canada and the US, in Western Europe and in other nations, the religion of Islam is being criticized for its intolerance, for its anger, for its terrorism. It is being called a religion not of peace, but of war. The intolerance of the world for Islam is strong, and (admittedly) the intolerance of Islam towards the rest of the world is of equal measure; a put-upon teenager will rail against authority, will it not?

But my short history lesson about the Christian Church (and largely headed by the Catholic Church) should show that, at that age, we were not the well behaved child we’d like to believe we were.

So what should we do about it? We should do what any good older sibling would do; we should show them the right way. Certainly, some discipline should be employed, I am not so naive as to think this problem will resolve itself merely by words (certainly, already, it has gone far beyond words, I think you’d agree). But to call Islam a religion merely of war, or calling them warmongering, is to forget what we were like at THAT EXACT SAME AGE. You can argue, if you’d like, that it was just a phase for us, but if you do so I would like to ask why they are denied the ability to have that phase. I am not saying the killings or the terror or the extremism is justified; far from it, but I think we, as the older, more established Church should help them find their way rather than to fight against them.

There are elements in the Muslim world who have lost their way, as there were Christians throughout history who have lost theirs; this is not justification to call for the removal of their beliefs wholesale.

I think it is important, more important than mere words can convey, to quote a certain verse of the Bible as my conclusion:

7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Remember what you were like when you were 14, what you did to so many around you, the injustice and the killing of the people of the middle East, and remember that you got over it. Remember that you came out of it understanding that you made a mistake. Give the adherents of the faith of Islam the same chance; I’d say, at the very least, they deserve the same opportunities in life that you had.

Almost Too Easy

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One thing I have mentioned several times in passing, and at least once explicitly, is the words referenced in Galatians 3:13, and those mentioned in Matthew 5:17-19.

Galatians offers freedom, for Christians, from the curse of the Law! And Matthew 5:17-19 commands Christians to follow the law. It is clearly worded, in the plain English translation (and many have made it a personal war to find a less damning translation of the verses in Matthew 5) that offers two completely opposing viewpoints.

I got curious, how do Biblical literalists deal with Matthew 5 specifically?

I searched for comments on Matthew 5, and found the following written at http://www.gci.org/bible/matthew517 :

“To ask again: Did Jesus mean Christians had to keep all the regulations of the Law of Moses, including the “holy time” regulations of the Sabbath, or strict tithing, or the food laws? Consider what that line of reasoning would demand.

Christians would be obligated to keep all the sacrificial, ceremonial and civil laws described in the Law of Moses. They would have to keep every single law mentioned in Genesis through Deuteronomy — and the rest of the Old Testament. The Jews calculated that there were 613 laws in their Holy Scriptures. Christians, then, based on the idea that Jesus was telling his disciples to keep the regulations of the Law and the Prophets, would have to keep all 613 laws.”

To paraphrase: “No, Jesus didn’t mean we should keep the law, because that would be haaaaaarrrrrdddddd.” (Read in the whiniest voice you have available to your brain.)

Bible Gateway (my general choice for researching Bible verses, as it will show you as many parallel translations as you care to read) offers the commentary as read here: https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Matt/Christians-Must-Obey-Gods-Law

It basically says, in no uncertain terms, that Jesus would have had you follow the Law.

How about historical context? Reza Azlan writes that James, the brother of Jesus, son of Mary–and we are talking literal, here– James, the brother of Jesus, was the first leader of the Christian Church, and he said (in no uncertain terms, to the point where he ended up in a fistfight with Saul of Tarsus, who was called Paul (and who styled himself the thirteenth Apostle, and greatest of the apostles)) that to be a follower of his brother, who was the Christ, you must follow, strictly and to the letter, all of the Law as written by the inspiration of God in the Old Testament.

I mentioned the above casually, but it requires some explanation: James, brother of Jesus, got into an actual fistfight with Paul (who wrote well over half of the New Testament of the Bible), on the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem. James, who followed Jesus, and knew Jesus, versus Paul, who professionally killed Christians prior to his own conversion well after the death of Jesus. Which one, in your mind, would have more likely understood the message of Jesus?

Why do you think we follow Paul’s teachings and nearly forget altogether the brother of Jesus? Hell, James is mentioned in history books more often than Jesus was. He was known in Jerusalem as James the Just, he fought for the rights of the poor, he sat on the Temple Council! What happened?

It all comes down to this: People agreed with the comments written by the GCI. Following the law is haaarrrrrddddd. “I don’t care if this was a theology made up that flies in the face of the teachings of both Jesus and James. Following the law is just really, really, really difficult, and Paul says we don’t have to, and I WANT to go to Heaven, as long as it isn’t so haaaaaarrrrrddddd to get there! Who is James? Nobody, that’s who! Time to follow Paul!”

That explains why Galatians 3:13 is far more readily followed than is the tenets of Matthew 5.

It is also worth noting the reason why you have probably never heard of James, the brother of Jesus (or, if you have, why you didn’t know how prominent he was to the early Church). He was martyred by the High Priest at the time (the Jewish High Priest, mind) because the people liked James more than they liked the High Priest, and he was just a big ol’ jelly-belly. He had James killed, and without James telling everyone to ignore Paul and his (to James) false teachings, Paul was left to evangelize almost without contest. Jesus’ cousin replaced James as the leader of the Christian Church of Jerusalem (it would not have been called that at the time, Christian was not yet a word, but for all intents and purposes it paints a clear picture to use these words), but he never managed to gain the following of James the Just.

And that is your history lesson for the day, I suppose?

If Your Very Own Brother Tempt Thee

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Oh glorious day! Oh happy hour! The folks at Creation Today have released a new video after a long time of silence! (http://creationtoday.org/is-islam-really-a-religion-of-peace-season-3-episode-32/)

The video is a very long diatribe against the tenets of Islam (and if you go to their home page, you will find two additional videos extending the diatribe), in which they profess a rare moment of agreement with Bill Maher. That should set your hackles on guard at the best of times; agreeing with Bill Maher on Religion is inviting Satan into your home, the man is a bigot (or, at the very least, a stereotypist). Bill Maher takes all of the worst parts of every religion and draws with broad brushstrokes over the face of all religions.

That is not the point, here. The point here is that they reference Qur’an 4:8, which states that those who lose faith in Islam should be killed. They state “The BIBLE would NEVER condone such a thing! There is NOTHING like that in our Bible, which is a book of love.” ‘Kay, I am sure if I go looking, I will have to dig very deep to find anything that proves you wrong… Wait. What is this? The top answer on Google? Huh.

Deuteronomy chapter 13 reads thus (KJV translation): If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; 7Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; 8Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: 9But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 10And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

Now, forgive my ignorance, but wouldn’t you argue that this is a very clear call to kill anyone who turns away from Christianity? Maybe I am just the crazy one here.

There are many verses in the Qur’an that could have been chosen to show a disdain for unbelievers, many of which could be taken either in or out of context to prove the point they were gunning for, but they chose this one. They did not find themselves in a glass house before throwing stones, they dragged Islam around the block until they could FIND a glass house, then smashed the door with stones, cut up their feet walking in, then missed Islam with the stone and brought the house down on both themselves and the poor Islam that they dragged with them.

I was looking for a challenge, but they really didn’t put up much of a fight. Ah well, maybe next time.

The End of Days!

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Lately, several parts of my life have found themselves oddly synchronized. My love of bad movies had me in the theater last night watching Left Behind (An Armageddon drama based on a particular interpretation of the Book of Revelations), while my general day-to-day research landed me on the Orange County Harvest Crusade, a Christian Rally. Their most recent crusade dealt with the end of days, and they spent over an hour talking about interpretations of the Book of Revelations, their reasons for believing in Pre-Tribulation Rapture (more on that later), among other things.

The odd thing about the Harvest Crusade is the devastating specificity they claim in knowledge of the end times. They do not just know that Israel is to be attacked by an alliance of ten countries, they claim to know several members in those countries. They also claim knowledge of military strategy based on the book of Revelations (“Why, in the 1970’s, one Priest who is a member of our Church was speaking to the generals of the Israeli army, and he told them to watch out for Iran. Now, at the time, Iran was an ally of Israel, but then just a short while later the government was overthrown, and Iran turned against Israel. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the generals of the Israeli army placed a phone call back to our Priest just a few days after Iran came out against Israel, asking for military advice!”), but their ideas seem somewhat anecdotal. In any case, to claim detailed knowledge of the end times is a little odd to me, as it was said in Mark and Matthew, No one shall know the day nor the hour, not even the son, or the angels, but only God in Heaven.

That being said, this seems to come into stark contrast with this line (found in not one, not two, but THREE of the Gospels!), “Truly I tell you, there are some here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom!”

Do you want to know how people resolve this line, by the way? This is a theory that is not widely known, and I cannot even think of when I last heard it cited; this is generally a section of the Bible ignored for obvious reasons. Strong Literalists do so like to say that the Bible offers specific prophecies, and has never made an incorrect call. How would you justify this line from Jesus? How could some of those there be alive 2,000 years later?

Now, please know that this theory is not popular, even among Biblical Literalists (though I’d love to hear their justifications, as I am not intimately familiar with them), but it does have adherents in any case. It is the legend of The Wandering Jew. Cited as early as 1228 A.D., and perhaps being even older than that in verbal tradition, there is supposedly (walking the world among us to this day!) a Jew who was present when Jesus stated the above. He was given immortality (whether a blessing or a curse is left to the reader to decide), and will walk the Earth until the second coming. This seems an odd way to validate prophecy, to me (We literally cannot be wrong because the immortal Jew could be here until the sun explodes in a few billion years, and that could be interpreted as God’s wrath, so no matter what, we are right!). Whatever, I can let them have their cake.

Now for more oddly specific readings of the Bible, and more things people fight over, in the silliest ways in the silliest forums. Now, there are three primary timings proposed for The Rapture, very creatively named and defined as pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, and post-tribulation. The runny thing is, again, this gives them enough wiggle room that it would not even be defined as wiggle room. If the end of the world happens without the Rapture, it obviously wasn’t Pre-Trib. If the world recovers from the brink, it obviously wasn’t Mid-Trib. Post-Trib is vague enough that the human race could go extinct and then no one else would be left to tell them they are wrong! Boy, with such devastatingly specific prophecy, it’s no wonder that people cling to the Bible! It practically knows what I am having for lunch!

For those not overly familiar with the Biblical displays of the end times, the Tribulation is the time in which God’s wrath is poured out onto the world, and it will be the seven worst years in all of history to be alive. Wars, famine, plague, suffering, all headed by an Anti-Christ. Why do I say “an” Anti-Christ, instead of “the” Anti-Christ? Well, that comes down to the fact that Anti-Christ is a very vague term applied to many people throughout the Bible and beyond. Really, if you are not a Christian, you are an Anti-Christ. Do you want to know the funny thing? Do you want to know how this Anti-Christ comes to prominence? It will make you sad, I fear, for it is silly.

This Anti-Christ will be defined by his or her ability to bring peace. Before the Tribulation, there is (or may be) a single nation world, and all wars will end. You may not immediately see the problem with this yet, it is ok, it is very hard to without speaking with a ton of people who believe in the book of Revelations.

If the worst time in human history is brought on and presaged by one who brings peace and prosperity during his or her rise to power, then any good, Bible-believing Christian must stand against anyone who preaches these values. And there are certainly those who do; people in my very own family have voiced opinions AGAINST bringing the world together. There are people who stand against world peace, for that is the last sign of good times before the end times. I would even go so far as to say that people who hold to this opinion are the reason that this will never, in all of history, be allowed to come to fruition. I would argue that there are enough people out there that believe peace and world-unity are enough of a devastating sign of the proximity of the end times that they would form their own nation in defense. Well, now we’ve got a two nation world, and don’t need to worry about Armageddon. Problem solved!

Forgive me, but to me this is just silliness, and silliness that is dangerous. Christians may stand against Muslim extremism, but the nearer the world comes to unification, I would argue, the more often we will see Christian extremism. And to say that this is something that would never happen, recall the story of George Tiller, a doctor who was willing to provide abortion services who was murdered by Scott Roeder, a Christian extremist. I do not know how one justifies punishing someone they view as a killer by killing him, but his was the picture of an unwell mind. That being said, it shows certainly and clearly that it is possible, and the more downtrodden a people feel, the more extremists will be born.

I suppose I ought to clarify that; Islam is certainly the fastest growing religion in the world, how can they feel downtrodden (as I would argue they do, and as I would argue is the cause of the rampant extremism among the faithful compared to most other religions today)? Their Holy book teaches that the adherents of the religion are truly the most superior, gifted people in the whole world. It doesn’t matter that they may soon be the dominant religion in the world, even in the west, they do not feel that they are the dominant FORCE in the entire world, as they were promised to be by THE GOD OF ABRAHAM Himself. Anything other than a perfect Muslim caliphate is less than they were promised; this certainly does not mean that all of them are going to be extremists some day; like Christians, there are more who are patient and waiting for their gift from On High than there are who are going to fight to create that very gift themselves. That being said, the worse you feel about your position, the higher the chance that you will birth extremists (to use an analogy, the more cornered a scared dog feels, the more dangerous it is), and being as your goal is nothing short of perfection, even 99% completion feels like a drastically missed target.

Ah, I have deviated again, so let’s get back to the point.

Sam Harris said it best, I think. Christian end times, the tribulation, is characterized by death, war, famine, and destruction on a drastic scale (and they are seeing the signs everywhere, in the earth quakes and tsunamis of the recent years), which led the prolific atheist to write “New York City could explode in a massive mushroom cloud, and there are those who would see a silver lining in it; it would signal to them that the best thing that will ever happen is about to happen.”

To this end, I call on everyone to take a step back, think, and seek peace. Do not even stoop so low as to find a silver lining; there is no monstrous act of death that could signal anything good in this world. If God spoke a word, and all unbelievers were killed, and Jesus Himself came to me and told me I was left alive despite my unbelief, and I should rejoice, I would tell Him (though I know he would have foreseen my response) that it is a horrible thing that has happened this day.

For the happiness and life of a massive number of people to be snuffed out, that is a terrible thing. I would say I am happy to hear of their suffering coming to an end, but in this case, the Bible is clear that they are those accursed who shall suffer for eternity.

No, I stand against death, but even more, far more than standing against death, I stand against suffering. I hope you understand this, reader. I hope I have impressed upon you the difference between death and suffering, and the silliness of the end of the world.

Also, Left Behind was hilariously awful. I wholeheartedly recommend it!

About the Creation of Magical Spells

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I’ve decided my content has been way too heavy lately, so I decided to talk about something I’ve thought about a lot, but is a far less serious topic than the ones I usually cover

You know, in a lot of fantasy books, spells are cast via incantations, and more often than not these incantations are either Latin, or faux-Latin. Have you ever thought about life in ancient Rome?

Imagine this scenario; it is winter in the Northern Empire, in the decline of Roman power. A centurion on scout duty, clad in his leather armor with a gleaming, frosted breastplate over it; he is wearing a cap under his cold helmet just to keep the metal from touching his skin. He is shivering, leaning on the wooden shaft of his spear, and he turns his head towards another of his legion, and comments through chattering teeth, “I-I-I c-c-c-ould g-g-go for some f-f-f-fire.”

The words barely intelligible, hardly understandable as true Latin, at the word “fffffire,” his spear shaft instantly bursts into flame. His hands are immediately burned badly, and he throws his spear away from his body, black char marks run down his no longer clean breastplate.

The Centurion drops to his knees and plunges his hands into the snow.

Weeks later, in horrible pain, the Centurion dies of the infection that set in his hands on that fateful day when he accidentally uttered the words that engulfed his spear in flame.

***

The concept for the below story is borrowed from the video game Lost Odyssey, but modified slightly to fit my own narrative. To complete the narrative, of course, this prison is in an ancient, Latin-speaking society.

The prison is pitch black, reserved only for the opponents of powerful men in government. These are people that the powers that be do not want dead; these people are here as part of an ancient tradition that serves two purposes; the first being to make political opponents suffer, the second being to make undesirable people disappear forever.

Internment in this prison is never applied merely for a term; once you enter the doors, you are here for life. No one imprisoned here has ever left, unless they have left as a corpse. Even leaving as a corpse is a rare privilege; the darkness is so deep, so perfect in its blackness, that the guards that are trained to work within these walls seldom know the number or health of the prisoners under their care — if “care” even could be called an appropriate word. They bring food and water, setting it by memory by a small flap in each cell door, neither knowing nor caring if the occupant is even capable of retrieving it.

The sounds of struggle walking down the hall usually reserved only for the guards, the desperate screams of a new prisoner, alert each prisoner that fresh blood has entered. It is the same for all new prisoners, the occupant deemed 1474 thinks to himself. He has been in this prison for a length of time, though even he could not tell you to within ten years how long that time was; he stopped counting the meals the guards brought him, the exercise itself a waste of time and effort. He had been in these cells for so long, he had even lost the ability to really know whether he was awake, sleeping, dreaming (for even his dreams were a black landscape, devoid of sound), or lost in his own mind. He had forgotten the faces of his friends, his family, even the woman he loved more than anything else in the world, his beautiful wife… His thoughts derailed. What was her name?

As he asked himself this question, it occurred to him that the sounds of struggle, the screaming had stopped. This one must have been resigned to his fate, they usually screamed for hours or days before they went quiet, resigned to the eternal night. Then he heard something, the jangling of keys, the opening of a cell door — but it wasn’t a door down the hall, it was his very own. Had they run out of cells? Were they putting a second prisoner in with him?

“Is there anyone here?” The voice was scared, not the confident call of a guard. “I don’t know how to get out, I need light!” At the utterance of the last word, light exploded through the cells. The new prisoner screamed, the old prisoner stared in shock. He had not seen even the slightest flicker of light prior to this brief flash. He has seen the face of the new prisoner, a young man with long, greasy hair, an almost manic look in his eyes. As soon as the flash had come, it was dark again.

The old prisoner tried to speak, but had been failed to use his voice for so long his words came out in nothing but a croak. “Come, help me get up, and I will show you the way out.”

He may not be able to see in the perfect darkness, but he had heard the steps of the guards so many times, the echoing of the halls so intricately mapped by his otherwise unoccupied mind, that guiding the new prisoner out seemed easy to him. They walked for a short time, the prison was not overly large, and arrived at a door that would not open. The old man heard the jangling of keys again, heard the signs of frustration as each key was tried on the door, a slow process due to the darkness. After a time that seemed simultaneously an instant and an eternity, he heard the tumblers in the lock move. He closed his eyes, he knew after that brief flash earlier that his eyes would be very sensitive to the light on the other side of the door.

He heard the squeak of hinges in dire need of maintenance, the squeak by which he had learned to expect a meal, heard the door scrape rocks as it swung wide. He did not see anything but blackness behind his eyelids, so he opened his eyes again. Still black, but they felt irritated, a burning.

“Such beautiful light!” his young rescuer exclaimed. The old man looked left and right in confusion. He couldn’t see it. And then he came to the cold conclusion, and felt a horrible emptiness in him.

That flash of light he saw in the prison, that brief flash of glorious light, was the last light he would ever see.

He was blind.

***

Let that be a lesson to you, kids! When speaking Latin, be careful what you say! Accidental spellcasting is a real problem!

Derivative Creativity

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I have always wondered why the life forms and speciation observed in the modern world is used by YECs (and even your standard, moderate Christians) as indicative of the amazing power and creativity of God. While there are certainly a stunning number of species in the world from certain viewpoints, one would find that they are not very creatively created at all (and, I would argue, the process of evolution explains it far better than God ever could).

How do I mean that? I mean, you could look in your average zoo and see a massive number of creatures and never get them confused with each other! The differences are so numerous, why, you’d have to be mad not to see the creativity inherent in nature!

Ok, there are lots of differences, I will give you that… But do they outnumber the things that most large species (large, in this case, being not rigidly defined; tarantulas stand in stark contrast, but there are few exceptions) have in common with each other? Let’s look at things shared by land dwelling creatures larger than arachnids and insects.

Two eyes? Almost universal.

Two forelimbs, two hind limbs? Almost universal.

Lungs, kidneys, hearts, intestines, livers, blood vessels, bladders, colons, excretory systems? Check, check, check, et cetera.

Sexual organs? Almost universal.

Fingers? Aside from the thumb in a few species, almost universal.

Nervous system? That one IS universal, all things considered.

What about undersea creatures? Well, I will admit to some level of creativity under the sea, but you will find that even there, it is easy to find far more similarities than differences. Hell, comparing whales (mammals) to any given fish will yield a stunning number of similarities.

What point am I trying to make, then? Well, given this information, I would argue that God could be compared to an artist who only knew how to paint 10 shapes, and each work he created after his first is merely those same ten shapes in jumbled up form.

Why do so many skeletons looks so similar (Rib cage? Check. Skull? Check. Hands? Check. Hell, even snakes occasionally have vestigial limbs, though that is uncommon.), and yet get praised for their differences? I would argue (easily, and without reservation) that evolution explains this so simply, and so fully, that it is odd to me that it is not raised more often by non theists when arguing with YECs. Nature is a cold hearted bitch (I apologize for the language) who throws out anything that doesn’t work. She throws it out callously, and is no respecter of persons or species. The reason certain things, certain organs, certain traits, certain behaviours, are so prevalent is that they all originated so long ago that almost all species today carry these traits as a result.

“What do you mean, non theists don’t use this often enough? Every debate devolves (eheheheh) into the non theist saying we all share an ancestor!” Thank you for asking that explanatory question, friend, as I do need to clarify this point!

Saying we all share the same ancestor is not the same thing as bringing into question God’s creativity. I have never seen the debate in which the non theist points out that nearly every species on the planet has a heart and circulatory system, or that the skeleton of species that are nearly completely unrelated look so similar in their parts. You can say “Look at the hand bones on this alligator, and the hand bones on this human! They are practically the same!” That is far too narrow in its scope, friend! Far too narrow, indeed. Looks at the alligator’s two eyes, his front two limbs, his back two limbs, his organs, his brain! Do you think your average layperson can tell the difference between the liver of two different species? Of ten? Of one hundred? Aside from size, they all look so similar! What makes the movies depicting Hannibal Lecter work? They work because those to whom he serves human meat CAN’T TELL THEY ARE EATING PEOPLE! It might as well be pig, or chicken, or cow. Why is that? A stunning lack of creativity on God’s part, or mother nature finding a system that works and replicating it en masse?

Sorry, that cannibalism reference kind of came out of left field. That’s what I get for blogging stream of consciousness style. I do apologize for that, but it is incredibly illustrative (both of my point and of what goes on in my head at times).

Anyway, you are welcome to make your own choice. Is God the most boring artist you don’t know, or is nature just an excellent manager, choosing which parts work best impartially?

Flagrant Cognitive Dissonance

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Alternate title: Fragrant Cognitive Dissonance (because it stinks, you see. I am very funny.).

As I’ve discussed previously, cognitive dissonance is holding two opinions at the same time that are directly contrary to each other. As this blog has taken a decidedly religious slant, I always like to use the example of Matthew 5:17-18 vs Galatians 3:13. For my readers who are unfamiliar with Mosaic Law, it concerns things such as stoning people who try to tempt you away from God, bans on the wearing clothing of mixed fabrics, bans on the use of pig skin (perhaps not as relevant any more as I doubt footballs are made with the actual skin of a pig), as well as considerations one has to make in the owning of slaves, and the required daily and monthly sacrifices. Perhaps you can see, then, why it is odd that in the New Testament you are commanded both to follow the Law and not follow the Law, as it would play a fairly significant part in your day-to-day life if you were following it.

That is an obvious, literal issue with cognitive dissonance in the Bible — but now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s focus on something even more relevant to my general audience, political-religious cognitive dissonance. “Wow, religion and politics in a single post?! I’ll bet you have a TON of friends.” Ignore my social life for a moment, this is more important than that!

I am a Canadian (you might have noticed the .ca in your address bar), but I will use American politics as my baseline (I am, arguably, more familiar with American politics than I am with local politics in any case. I know the general stance of the parties, I know which party I will vote for in future elections [barring a major party-line shift], and I know that in my riding my vote matters very little because we do not use a popular vote system, and that is stupid. That is a rant for another day, though.).

The Republican party is touted as the party that uses “Biblical values,” and I have even heard them called (albeit by a poorly written protest poster) “The party Jesus would vote for.” They are the PERFECT real world example of the party that gets single-issue-votes. Their stance on abortion, primarily.

I will admit, abortion is pretty clear-cut; thou shalt not kill (except you can totally stone non-believers. And witches. And people you think are witches. And people who look like they could be witches. Et cetera), but to take that as your primary political stance is an egregious breach of one’s duty to weigh political policy on the whole. Their stance is that of small government, reducing taxes, and reducing social platforms. They stand in staunch resistance of the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) which, over the course of its time applied in law, could lead indirectly to saving millions of lives.

Why would Republicans stand against Obamacare, and yet gain the vote of the Bible Belt electorate? Cognitive dissonance. You actually don’t have to be a Biblical Literalist for this to apply to you, oddly enough; I know many people who know 4 of the 10 commandments, go to Church twice per year (Easter and Christmas, of course), and couldn’t name the four gospels, yet would vote Republican solely based on “Pro-Life” alone. How prevalent is abortion? Well, that numbers varies wildly, but it seems to be somewhere around 2% of pregnancies in the United States are ended by induced abortion. That is a very high number, but not nearly so high as the number of people dying of otherwise preventable conditions (people who could be helped by the affordable care act). This is a case of failing to weight the scales fairly; being pro-life is easy, as you can simply quantify the number of lives saved (and, despite my previous rants on the subject, this post is not about abortion). The Affordable Care Act, however, indirectly saves lives, and the ability to quantify the number of lives saved by this Act is difficult to quantify. How does one weight the scales? I would argue, for the sake of being fair, that one could use the Bible, but maybe that is just me being crazy (again).

I have read this presented by many conservative Christian media outlets, and it always confused me. If you are Religious and could help me out here, help me to understand this part, I would be forever grateful. It is oft said of the Bible (by various groups, but certainly not all groups) that it stands against Socialism.

Socialism, by the way, is basically the idea that wealth should be shared amongst the people, and that the poor should be assisted (such as by a social safety net). Do you see it yet? The dissonance? Even the dissonance within the Bible, and for the people? The requirement for the proper distribution of weight on the scales? Yes? Then you can skip the next bit (You can skip all the way to the line of stars, but I think you may appreciate this next bit nonetheless), but if not let’s dive into that concept a bit.

The first, and most obvious, is the reduction of taxation on the rich that is advocated by the Republican party and its wealthy donors. It is said twice in the Bible that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom (ie Heaven) (Mark 10:25, Matthew 19:24), so what do the rich defend their greed with? Let’s start by cherry picking some verses, and we can move on from there; 2 Thessalonians 3:10 says that should a man not work, neither should he eat. Social Safety nets, therefore, are the work of the devil! Those lazy freeloaders, say you! Even God speaks against them! To me, this is a very unfair weighting of the scales; social safety nets are not there to allow people to take and give nothing back; they are there to help the unfortunate back onto their feet. They are there to help the person whose job was liquidated during the recession find work. They are there to help those with no skills learn. I would argue the other side of the scale would weigh ten times against this with just a single verse in 1 Timothy (6:10); For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith. Forgive me, but I would say that part is fairly clear cut.

“Ah,” you reply, “But the scale is offset by 1 Corinthians 8:13!” I see you are a veteran picker of cherries, friend! Verse 13 does weight the other side, for it says “I mean not that other men be eased and ye burdened!” Then again, what about verse 14 OF THAT EXACT CHAPTER? Does it not weight the side of socialism? For it says “now at this time your abundance be a supply for their want, that their abundance may be a supply for your want, that there may be equality.” Verse 15 continues “He that had gathered much had no excess; and he that had gathered little lacked for nothing.”

That sounds pretty socialist to me, but I’ve already admitted to being the crazy one. Galatians 6:2 offers something of a direct order to socialism; bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. How about Luke 3:11? He that hath two coats, let him give one to he that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.” I could quote the Bible for days, friends! Come at me, opponents of charity! Come at me, opponents of socialism! STAND AND DELIVER!

How about something that speaks DIRECTLY to the Affordable Care Act? Jesus healed the sick across the land, for free; but maybe that is too anecdotal for you. Perhaps this is more explicit? Go read all of Matthew chapter 25. It’s cool, I’ll wait. Take your time. If you come out of that thinking Jesus would not want you to support universal health care, I cannot help you, friend, for your destiny is that of the Pit, where there shall be fire and the gnashing of teeth.

I leave the scale tipped against the Republican political platform, in favor of the Christian platform. A very small number of verses that could (and only when taken out of context) be interpreted as standing against socialism, weighted against innumerable verses standing for socialism. Even with regards to paying the tax, Christians are tasked with rendering unto Caesar. Perhaps you are attached to your money, but the government uses your money for the public good, for the roads, the schools, the hospitals, the police, the fire fighters. This is in fulfillment of the biblical teachings an hundredfold.

*************************************************************

Woah. Things got weird there. I started to actually *think* in translated English for a few minutes. Welcome back, all readers!

Allow me to summarize what you skipped, if indeed you skipped; I just used the Bible to fight against the Bible. I think I won, but you are free to use your own scoring system. I am not here to force my ideas onto you; I am here to create a conversation. I know I am one of a million voices repeating the same dry message, but for some reason you are here reading it, so I’ll assume you find it at least a little bit interesting.

The point is this; you may vote Republican (or conservative, or Tory, the name is different everywhere) because they are “Pro-Life”, without considering the fact that the BULK (yes, I would argue that bulk is the proper word here) of their policies stand in stark opposition to the Bible, and would (I argue) lead to far more deaths than would those preached by more left leaning parties (Americans, I am sorry, but you really don’t even have the option to vote for a party that follows Biblical teaching; neither of them is even CLOSE). Canada has a wider array of parties that are closer to the Bible, if you absolutely INSIST on using that as your criteria, but I would argue that you should form your own set of values and vote based on those.

Why would I argue that?

I would argue that you should form your own moral framework because the Bible so often disagrees with itself that forming political opinions based STRICTLY upon its tenets is a game that cannot be won. I would say the only winning move is not to play (because I love quoting geek history), but that is not close to the truth; the only winning move is to change the rules of the game.

That’s my political-religious rant. I won’t even tell you who to vote for, I just want you to vote for the right reasons.

Thanks again for reading!

Why do we fight?

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http://creationtoday.org/debate-18-berkeley-hears-the-truth/

I have mentioned it before, but it was only incidentally; why don’t I just ignore the silliness of the YECs? The article linked is exactly why. 160 professors at Berkeley declined to debate Kent Hovind (subsequently indicted and convicted for tax fraud [he OPENS the video linked with ‘thou shalt not bear false witness’ and clarifies that to mean ‘no liars’, and his EXACT conviction shortly after this video was recorded was for bearing false witness regarding his taxes], how odd is that?), and therefore Creation Today has painted that picture as one of showing the weakness of the arguments on the other side.

Again, you might ask, “Why does that matter?” It matters, friend, because this is not a problem that goes away if you ignore it. They are ardent in their spreading of their attempts to spread the word, and they are succeeding (even if in limited numbers). Ignoring them is allowing their numbers to grow, no matter how slowly.

Just thought I’d write something about it specifically before I do my primary post for the day.

Systematic Selection Bias

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An eternal theme in evolution is the act of favoring your own in group. Primarily, this is your family, of course — but your sphere extends beyond your closest members to your friends, and those who share your outlook and/or genes. There are many interesting neurological relationships between who you view as part of your community and who you view as part of the group known colloquially as “others”. This is important.

Selection Bias itself refers to choosing people for a poll or experiment that will yield the desired results. An egregious example of this would be polling a group of white males with the question “Do you think race tensions are a problem in modern day America?”

Surely, some will say it is still an issue, but your answer will be massively skewed in one direction. I would say there are more subtle ways to implement an intentional selection bias while hiding the fact (of course there are), but that isn’t the point of this particular post. This post is pointing out intentional selection bias that is not only NOT hidden, but positively heralded. YEC selection bias in action is almost hilarious in its transparency.

The funny thing is by engaging so thoroughly in systematic selection bias, people outside of their group hardly realize it is happening, like a meeting happening in the sound proof room next door. They could be working towards dark purpose, but without someone actually going into the room, you’d never know. Lucky for us, the room is open!

YEC is the perfect case study for selection bias; their ideas fly in the face of accepted science, and yet, as I have so frequently quoted “At Liberty University we are doing better science than any secular university, because we are Liberty University. Liberty University.” They obviously make claims towards scientific knowledge, and herald to the skies that their scientists, too, publish to peer reviewed journals! They have set up an obstacle course of excuses that I get nothing but pleasure from running.

Let’s take a couple of examples from my very favorite YECs, the staff at the Creation Today show. They have a 4 episode series titled The Origin of Life, which is rich with content, densely packed and well organized in such a way as to give me a point by point series of data to play with. Really, I won’t lie, I am glad they published something that can so easily be played with. I have been passively researching the YEC theories and their evolutionary counterparts for years, over thousands of pages of text and hundreds of hours of videos — there was no way for me, a layperson at best, to compile it all into bite sized chunks. (The entire series is available for free. Episode one is located here: http://creationtoday.org/the-origin-of-life-part-1-s03e09/ )

The first topic they tackle is “Dinosaurs walking with humans.” Their … Well, I hesitate to call it evidence. In court, in a legal trial, the judge would look at you funny if you tried to present accounts written hundreds of years ago whose veracity cannot be ascertained as binding evidence, but here we go.

The evidence they supply that humans walked with dinosaurs is the prevalence of literature and artwork presenting dragons. Dragons, in contemporary lore, are large reptiles. This is, obviously, very descriptive. Why, I could practically draw the biological diagrams of how their internal organs worked with this knowledge!

Alright, enough of the mocking, let’s move on to some of what they present. First is a bronze cast statue of a dragon that comes from ancient China. Here is where selection bias comes in; for verification they send this statue to a very careful researcher! Well, that doesn’t sound so bad… Except for the fact that the researcher they sent the bronze statue to is a fellow YEC who has written a book about dinosaurs walking with humans. And here’s the thing; the guy who put forth the idea that the bronze cast is proof of dinosaurs walking with humans runs his own website (genesispark.com) which is a YEC apologetics site (and obvious parody of Jurassic Park, if you missed the subtle reference). So we have a YEC asking for verification from another YEC. That’s a great peer review process!

Another major form of bias in YEC science their reliance on what they can see today. This is very, very visible when speaking with or to YEC geologists. The Grand Canyon is a major point of concern for YECs, as the standard understanding of its formation is that of millions of years of river water flowing through the canyon and carving the deep chasm. The YEC view cannot, obviously, suffer the idea of “millions of years”, so they have to come up with something of their own. In one episode (again, my favorite guys!) of Creation Today, they perform an experiment wherein a wall of sand is created, and water is run at high pressures against it. Lo! Behold, for a narrow canyon was carved through the wall of sand! Grand Canyon confirmed, the flood water went through and made it in a month or two! Of course, only YEC scientists seem to be able to prove this, so they always send their “research” to other YECs for peer review. Technically, I suppose, those scientists would find something closer to a “peer” in that group, but that is kind of crippling the spirit of science, if not the word of the law.

Another interesting thing done is how they judge “real” science, through a type of article analysis they call “Fuzzy Word Analysis.” (Does it not worry anyone else that their version of science can be reduced to the acronym “FWA” which is the sound I make when I don’t even understand the idea of what a person is telling me? Maybe just me.) Now, Fuzzy Word Analysis in practice is to take popular science articles, and highlight anything that isn’t definite (Things like “It is believed,” or “It seems,” or anything that isn’t “This is exactly how it happened.”). The vacuousness of this approach to science is, again, tough to capture in only a few words. First, why would you target popular science articles? They are the lowest common denominator of science. It is like they believe by going after journalists, they are discrediting scientists. The other reason it is vacuous is that it is very difficult to prove with p>0.0000000 (apparently that is their standard) anything that has happened say billions of years ago. The other thing in science, though, is that you almost want to be proven wrong, or rather, and more explicitly, science continues forth by people making their theories public, and they stand until they can be proven wrong empirically. A fuzzy word is an invitation to be proven wrong; science has pride, but by definition it is not arrogant. A scientist may fight against evidence in defense of a theory, but you will fall if you do not have something to stand on.

Let’s continue onto a systematic attack on science that shows a level of either ignorance or disingenuity that baffles the mind. From just a SINGLE episode of “The Origins of Life” by creation today, these are some quotes that I managed to glean; they “blend frogs in a blender” (they do this off screen, so one assumes they did not do so, what with the fact that there are very few people so morally barren as to kill so indiscriminately), but that’s not the point. The point is what they said afterwards: “We have all of the molecules of life in this blender, and we keep adding energy, but I do not see life. That really proves that you can’t get life from random molecules and energy.” (Emphasis mine)

“If you have some evidence that does not fit a theory, you throw it out. They’ve (evolutionists) invested so much intellectual capital in the model of evolution that they cannot throw it away.”

“We will talk about the origins of life in the coming weeks knowing all along that we’ve got the right answer.”

Oh, where to start? First, performing one completely flawed, scientifically invalid “experiment” and passing that off as factual just seems silly. I know they are more intelligent than that, but the idea that they would say “This proves,” in this context at all shows intellectual dishonesty that is frightening to behold.

They have made numerous accusations that biologists are painting a moving target of evolution, despite (again) accusing them of sticking to a single theory. The theory of evolution is living and breathing; many pieces of the puzzle are locked in, but many have yet to be placed. Biologists are accused simultaneously of being too open minded and too closed minded. The theory is regenerated, changed, and fixed based on new evidence constantly; that is science in a nutshell. We understand more every day, and that is wonderful; if we knew everything (as YECs often profess they do), the world would be devoid of wonder.

They argue that “The Earth had less oxygen in the early stages of its formation” is a presupposition made without evidence (there is tons of evidence, of course, based on mineral analysis, and in more recent years (still going back hundreds of thousands of years) in analysis of ice cores taken from Antarctica)), then, only a SINGLE BREATH later, say “… [K]nowing all along that we already know the answer.” I am open to them making statements, but I would like it if they would at least be even handed enough to play by the very rules they laid out. Science is, if nothing else, internally consistent.

Now, this next bit is not as egregious (though it does offend me personally as much as the rest), but it certainly is a brush stroke on the same canvas. Science does not yet profess to know how life formed; we have theories and models, ideas and guesses that fits the current evidence, but it is not satisfactory. We are building a puzzle with some pieces missing, and then being asked (by scientists) and told (at gunpoint) (by YECs) that we must STAND AND DELIVER! “You have half the puzzle pieces! That is plenty enough to draw the whole picture!!!”

“Oh, you don’t know what the full picture looks like now?” we are asked, indignantly. “THEN YOU WILL NEVER KNOW!” After this outburst, they often run off cackling before we (that is to say, the scientific community, both the professionals and laypeople) have a chance to rebut.

I’ve mentioned in the past the YEC tendency to attack a single idea or person (sometimes going as low as to just make fun of the person) in the effort to discredit the scientific community as a whole. In “The Origin of Life” series, they continue that revered tradition. Panspermia, an outside idea that does not in any way represent a scientific consensus, is the idea that life on Earth began outside of our own atmosphere. (The cores of the idea rely on either an external body impacting Earth with proteins that could have kick-started life, or in aliens seeding the planet intentionally.) The problem is that, while panspermia has some very strong underpinnings (molecules that could represent precursors to life have been found on meteorites under close observation, though anyone will admit that it could be a case of contamination), it is young and very open to changes based on ongoing evidence and research.

In the second episode of the “Origin of Life” series, they speak about (not using these words, but using this idea) cognitive dissonance in science. They say that since scientists (who are all of one mind obviously) sometimes disagree with each other, that means that God created the Earth, life, and all that is in the Heavens. It is odd to throw that stone, given all that is written in the Bible (Am I supposed to follow Mosaic law or not? Matthew 5:17-18 illustrates Jesus himself saying that he has not come to abolish the law, and not even one letter of the law shall be removed until he comes again [ie: Follow Mosaic Law]. Alternately, Galatians 3:13 states that Jesus freed us from “the curse of the law.” [ie: Do not follow Mosaic Law]. Worth noting, of course, is the wording; Paul accuses (indirectly) God of CURSING us with the law.). The dissonance in the Bible is staggering, and which of the opposing sides of the coin you choose says a lot about you as a person.

The point of this whole post is this; if you talk only to people who already agree with you, it will be difficult for you to ever understand where you are flawed. To that end, I read and watch YEC literature, and scientific literature in equal measure. I will not lie, their telling me that science is flawed has led me to a much deeper understanding of evolution, as I go out to learn and educate myself about what they have said. I will not lie, it could be said that I am biased in this regard; the previous sentence read (in revision 1) “… as I go out to prove them wrong,” but that is not really correct, is it? If science agrees with them, as it does occasionally, then I have still learned something new and deepened my understanding.

Don’t just listen to people who agree with you before the race even starts. Try to reach out and understand the world around you, do not apply your ideas to it, let nature apply her ideas to you. Or if, as me, you are not close to one with nature, let scientists do it for you. Maybe not 100% as effective, but I find enjoyment in it. .

As a final postscript, is it odd that the idea of social community (absolutely integral in evolution) is shown so strongly (almost militantly) by the YEC culture? One might find that ironic, I think.