Creation Science and Heresy

First off let me say that I am absolutely not saying that Young Earth Creation Science is heresy. Although some people I respect are convinced that the Earth is millions of years old and that this proposition is compatible with a literal scripture I am not one of them and never was able to be.

But time and time again I have seen creation scientists, in arguing for a young earth, slip into rank heresy

For example, one scientist here is speaking of his atheistic youth

"I did not need a creator so I did not need to obey his laws," he said

 I was aghast, for  with this opening  statement he shows that though his science may be brilliant his theology is not. This is so  for NO ONE OBEYS the Law of God. And why is this? In the letter of James in the New Testament  it says that  he who breaks one commandment breaks all, so only the sinlessly perfect obeys the Law. So he is claiming to be sinless and perfect?  Clearly not. Scripture denies this also. It says that if any claim to be without sin he is a liar and the truth is not in him. The letter to the Romans says in plain language that no one is justified by works of law. I submit that the letter to the Galatians, by St Paul the Apostle, the same author as that to the Romans says that by works of Law no flesh is sanctified either, but not in exactly the same form of  words.

The Law shows we are dead. It does not impart life. So a creationist scientist tells is he needs to obey God's laws?

If this man needs to obey God's Laws to be saved, or even to only live the Christian life  he risks being irretrievably damned for no one does or can obey the Law. And to attempt to do so is to deny Christ, forsaking Him for  for the Law - an error so egregious that Paul rebuked the Galatians as fools  where he actually praised the Corinthians for their gifts when members  of that assembly were given to drunkenness  at communion dinners and even worse, there was one case  incest with his step mother.

Another example of this kind of heresy was when a man lecturing in creationism was speaking of driving down a coastal road in my own home country. The sea was on one side, snow capped mountains on the other.  He spoke of the glorious beauty of a clear and wonderful summer's day. But did he thank God for this sheer delight? He did not. He had to stop himself, he had  to tell himself that the creation is fallen. What is this if it is not ingratitude for the gift of God? There is evidence of fallenness all around. To ignore the testimony of the love of the Father in the beauty of  Creation is to downgrade matter and the Creation which I hold is part and parcel of the mind set that formed the gnostic heresy.

Another example is when a creationist, at the end of a brilliant lecture about how genetic entropy demolishes  the very posssibility  of evolution,  gave his own account of the cursedness of creation because of Adam's sin. He said that as Adam had sinned he had lost his dominion over the earth which passed (note the passive language) to Satan, and so Satan it was who cursed the earth. But the psalms make it perfectly clear that the Earth is the Lord's and every thing in it,  and not only that  but that it always has been so.  It was God who cursed the earth because of our sin.

When a creationist berates theist evolutionists for not taking the words of Genesis literally as to the age and sequence of creation it is rather rich when he denies that it was God who cursed the earth when that is plainly and literally said

To deny this is to show that they cannot believe in a God who is both love and  the author of calamity or judgement. And I have seen this time and time again. We carnal minds hold one or the other, were we to be honest about what we really believe, something else we disincline to. So such a  faith in God's love, love as indulgence logically sidstepping the wrath and the cursing God does is a straw man, for Isiaah 45 makes it clear that God is the author of both good and evil, though in this instance evil means calamity and judgement, not the moral evil we now call sin. Such a view, which is common in pentecostal circles for i saw it there with my very eyes many times,  is also gnostic in that it gives too much power to Satan, over playing the fact that he is the god of this earth. This  kind of thinking tends to dualist heresy.

The final example I would cite is a website and ministry I no longer support for though I agree with it science I find its tending to the errors aforementioned troubling but even worse its arrogance. They show by this that thy are puffed up by their knowledge. Creationism is not a stick to beat evolutionists with. It is even worse when they claim that what is in fact quarrelling over words, something At Paul rebuked and forbade,  is a godly means of responding to challenge. They can call it challenge/riposte model all they like. To respond with ridicule and sarcasm is always sin except one is led prophetically to do it, but to be in a position to claim such a leading is to have repented of an immense amount of sin, so much so as to be able to claim to be dead and buried with Christ. No one I know has such fruit as to rightly dare to claim this, and I certainly would not dare to. Moreover such is what common sense says it is, minus a leading by the spirit they cannot claim: tt is ego competition from boys of all ages who refuse to back down from a fight. Thus it is pride, idolatry and sin

Let us not be too excited by creation science. At best it returns us to the level of the Pharisees who were, it must be remembered,  the closest to Christ in terms of doctrine at that time. But they earned the greatest rebuke. Although I agree with creationists that Genesis is the logical core of what follows, and that without it  the gospel is compromised, what is built on genesis is not the same things as a literal genesis itself. We are saved b y our faith in a real and living person, not by our doctrine of origins

It troubles me that Creation Scientists pay so much attention to proving evolution false that they show an ignorance of what the Bible actually says about other matters. I have seen this quite often - heresy from creationist scientists -  and  hope to have demonstrated it by example here,

But it  does prove to me that even creationism can  and has become an idol. For what good is the most solid creation science  if as a legalist one has fallen into the heresy of the Galatians or if in over emphasizing the fall one falls into a gnostic like attitude to creation?

There is more to Christianity than creationism. They forget this at their peril

The Most Astute Commentary

Many years ago, long before there was an Internet and we got our magazines in bookshops or news stands. I saw a cartoon of a man in a line of people queuing up to kiss the backside of a statue. And he was saying to his fellow next in line "you know, this is the part of paganism I really hate.

This is one of the most astute commentaries of paganism I have ever seen.

For regardless of whatever licentiousness pagans might think they can get away with there is a humiliating consequence - hence kissing the backside of an idol

I wish I had thought of it, but as I had not so I can dare entitle this piece as I have, for I am not speaking of anything I invented

Of course when Christians churches treat God Almighty like a pagan godling they show themselves as pagans so come under the rubric of this cartoon. What is even sadder is that insofar as they think they cannot  get away with sin, namely the legalists, they have the misery without the licentiousness, the bondage without even the false liberty, so, as Jesus said of the Pharisees, they are worse than the harlot and the money lender for they are further from the Kingdom of heaven than these

They do this when they think that God is corrupt enough to be brought off by our bribes or stupid enough to fall for our deliberate flattery. Moreover our gifts and praises  become bribes and flattery when done under compulsion for fear of loss or punishment. So we who do or have done this are pagans.

It makes no difference as to the name of the pagan idol we do these things to, but be assured be blasphemy is enormously enhanced when we worship Jesus Christ as said idol.

Considerations on the Dynamic of Belief

I said something online and was accused of historical revisionism, this by a revisionist, and also arrogantly and abusively.

I have been pondering what it means to believe something for some considerable time now. I now see the belief is a matter of choice, that people do in fact choose what to believe and the idea that men are so honest as to be constrained by facts and evidence is naïve nonsense.

It is as if a switch clicks in the head of someone and when it does they have chosen to believe. The thing is it is only after this that evidence is marshalled. However if the belief is false  such a person, now deluded, will not let the paucity of facts, or the abundance of facts refuting his stance get in the way. So these are denied  with al the passion. What matters is the personal sense of safety and security  insofar as it pertains to worldview.

Thus the facts that the Signers of the US Declaration of Independence despised the mass of people and designed the Electoral College to exclude them, that they were Deists not Christians, and founded a State resolutely not based on the Christian faith. as the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli clearly stated, and for all their empty rhetoric about the evils of slavery they were slave owners - invoking these plain facts is to bring down unholy fire from those, usually of the Religious Right, who accuse us of being historical revisionists when they themselves have breached the  ninth commandment and tell lies about American history.

Thus it is as personal considerations rule the issue that when something is believed all too often any matters of fact that might refute the belief are themselves denied without observation.

Given this there is absolutely no point in even attempting reasoned discourse for there is nothing on which to reason when matters of fact have already been selected not on the basis of evidence or observation but according to their usefulness in confirming the prejudice, for prejudice it is when it comes before observation and indeed  trumps it.

Education systems have not overcome this because this is a moral issue and education is powerless to deal with moral issues. Yet Man calls himself Homo Sapiens - man the Wise. This last is the biggest misnomer in history when reason is rejected for shibboleth and facts do not judge the belief but are judged by the belief.

There is no almost intellectual integrity to speak of. So there is no point in seeking to appeal to it. Moreover if we cannot see that this is in part why we are doomed then our doom is utterly certain. Man may enjoy his empty tribalisms and superstitions - and this modern age has its own superstitions. Indeed man must enjoy them for he has forsaken anything else.

What distresses me deeply is that even with my best and oldest friends some issues are now no go zones .  I know that there is not enough love on this  woeful and  fallen world to agree to differ in a civilized manner. All that phrase means is "treat the issue as a  no go  zone. . .

And when I realize that I am not necessarily immune to these things I can only fall into blank despair.

Or cry to the Lord knowing that this is merely another example of the carnal mind, sunk in lies.  I am also forced to concede that except for those very few who will acknowledge this and repent of it, for scripture said if any would be wise let him become a fool - ie acknowledge he is a fool, that this will only get worse.

For it is this darkening of the mind whereby Man will be primed and ready to accept the reign of Antichrist when he comes that is so necessary to this malign and prophesied event.

God have mercy on us who know we are carnal minded, and alos on those who think they are not

An Early Marriage. A Messy Divorce

I was married very young. In my teens, in fact.

She was pretty. Still is. But I never even liked her very much. She was and still is,  selfish, vain and demanding. What really swamped my own better judgement was that she  could really tart herself up to look absolutely ravishing in some lights; and she knew how to thrill me.

With my twenties looming I was terrified of being alone, so we tied the not.

There was no love on my part, only lust. And the ecstasy she could give really only addled my adolescent brain

It has been over forty years. And she is as gorgeous as ever.  . . . .

But then came the endless demands and the resulting endless guilt.

We cut a fine appearance as a couple. My dinner suit, which she soon demanded I wear every time we went out, set her off with an air or studied and refined elegance.

And she gave me the air of the young master. It looked to all and sundry as if the world were at our feet

We achieved the praise of many, but I soon learned that I was not respected for myself, only for being her husband. Of course I bitterly resented it. She  of course  regarded it as no more than her due, and I was churlish not to give it to her. As a matter of course.  Of course

The demands never ceased. She insisted on day and night attention. again as her due. Had I given her her  way on this I would never have had any friends other than those few in the same predicament as me, and would never have even gone out except that she required it. So, no, I did manage to stand up for myself to some extent. But the constant nagging and the endless guilt was never going to end.

It was all too much.

It was endless work, or should have been, with her as my goddess. But I was no longer a teen and worshiping such was no longer to my taste.

But still she could give me thrills, from time to time, however with ever decreasing frequency. It would be crass to call such sex but it was definitely analogous.

We separated just on eleven years ago.

But now I can only hate her all the more, for though separated we are not truly divorced for I am having difficulty letting  her go. I kept hovering around our mutual haunts, and kept seeing  those friends of us both. I even kept talking of returning to her. And these people were delighted to hear this for they only saw the appearance, what a fine couple we made, we belonged to each other. They only smiled indulgently when I spoke of the abuse the nagging and the guilt. We were too good together for this to be anything other than a talk of a depressed person. They thought, if they did not say, that I was mentally ill. Or they said that she was so stunning - were their marriages as bad as mine?  that any price was worth it. Anyone who appreciated her would put up and pay up . . .

But my heart was and still is in agony.

I gave up the token of my servitude some three years. ago. It got destroyed while in transit to the dealer who was to sell it. This was an exquisite irony, a blessing in fact. Even, I would go so far as to say, a sign.

The thing is the pain is not over. This is not because we belong together. There is enough objective evidence that this is not the case. But I am dogged by the conviction, nagging and guilt empowered, that we do belong together. After all we did make some wonderful music together. . . . . .

So my orbit, so to speak,  around her and her domain has not ceased even though it is now broader than it was and so much slower -  more like Pluto's orbit about the sun rather than Mercury's.

I need a true divorce, to let this go completely, and stop hanging around, to stop clinging to the empty husk of a dead relationship. . No it is not stalking. And I will tell you why.

Who is this woman who obsesses me so much?

It is no woman. I have more respect for women than that

This was the music profession, or music for short.

The token of my servitude was not a wedding ring but my musical instrument, my double bass, destroyed in transit to the dealer who was going to sell it some three years ago

For so it is, as I wrote here before, that if one is to serve music, which is no less than what being a professional demands  - to marry it so to speak - one is either crazy or adores her totally. Being neither, or rather recovering from the craziness that kept me a musician for so long after knowing it was all in vain. I know clearly that  I am not suited to being a musician of any kind.

Yet dogged by guilt engendered by the high praise of my former colleagues, some of whom still want me back even after all these years, the pain continues. But the objective evidence, namely  - not the performances they heard -  but the total lack of dedication to the trade as shown by my refusal to do any private practice, this speaks for itself, though they of course never saw this.

The Lord has granted me liberty to do my own heart on this matter, which is to reject the music trade, and that includes amateur playing for the very word amateur means a lover of something, something I never was, forever.

And when I realize that I viewed the entire living of life as analogous to my being a musician, namely guilt driven brute force against my own heart - what they falsely call discipline - and when I  repudiate this, I shall be free

Free indeed, as the Son of God promises me

A Small Matter

This is a small matter, but to me it has ominous portents

My local city council now want to put tags on our rubbish bins. Because mine were not tagged as they were not out when the taggers  came round of foot to tag them , and this as I am very frugal in my production of trash, I got a note informing me of the necessity of said electronic tag - no tag no rubbish pickup.

Affronted by this I phoned the  number offered number on the flyer stuck in my mail box. The reason, as the appointed bureaucrat informed me on the phone, is to save money, and the excuse is the dislocation due to the earthquakes in my town whereby people have moved house and the council owned rubbish bins are being abandoned or taken with those shifting, thus doubling up their numbers in places people have moved to.  Or remaining unused.

This is all very plausible,  of course, for government infringement on liberty is always plausible and health safety security or fiscal responsibility are always the reasons.

 But to my knowledge none of us were told beforehand and it is heavy handed. Thus an electronic tag was attached to an appurtenance of my household without my consent, nor to that of my neighbours.

It smacks of surveillance to me. You see when surveillance is done this does not increase security.

It destroys trust. Those doing it do not trust the populace. And those surveilled if they know it, cease to trust the authorities. All in all it is an exercise in control simply because they can. Of course they regard their reasons as invincibly sound, for bureaucrats have destroyed their consciences in order to obey orders - the Nuremberg defence which, if their behaviour were valid  is  only ever specious when the other fellow invokes it.

Of course this is a small thing, tagging trash bins. I know this

But it is a step on the way to a total surveillance society and there is no good faith reason for it.

Needless to say there is no point in complaining, for there is nothing so invincibly arrogant as a petty bureaucrat, who thinks he is God in his or her own sphere

And when the time comes we will be expected to submit to being tagged with the mark of the Beast as meekly

Now that is what chills me to the bone.

At my age, 58 I have a reasonable hope of being dead before it happens. But one never knows

Free or Licentious Speech?

In response to a youtube video I wrote this:

When people insult certain prophets they then claim the high moral ground while crying "persecution" and other such bleatings when that prophet's followers seek revenge. I now understand that those who provoke such persons in the name of free speech simply do not know the difference between liberty and licentiousness. In this they are rather like the typical run of immature teenagers do not know the difference. So much for the wisdom and liberty of the West

I may likely develop this further

My Old Pastor Speaks

Years ago the pastor of my church  got up and told the congregation that they (I had long since left that church but was told of this by a witness I trust) did not love one another

What are the implications of we Christians not loving one another? They are so crystal clear and so unacceptable to the carnal mind that though I have been declaring them for years I have not really grasped them and have been accused, ignored etc for years, even to the extent of being kicked out of a house church attached to this very  church I speak about here.

I John spells out the implications of lack of love: "He who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar" "How can you say you love God who you cannot see when you do not love your brother who you can see?" and the clincher "He who does not love (agape) does not know God for God is love."

There it is: if we do not love we do not know God. We are backslidden, walk in the flesh, and we have forsaken Him usually for the Law especially if we are devout and serious about our faith. Moreover all the resolves strategies and efforts to remedy this will not change it one iota. They are symptoms of the lovelessness not its remedies, just as legalism is the very sin it fights not the antithesis. For if we are in the flesh we cannot submit for our minds are set on the flesh. Oh, as believers we can be led to submit but this is by our seeking the Lord the Spirit for as long as it takes. The rest is dead work of the flesh we will love one another when and only when we have been convicted and cleansed of the sins of failing to do so ("He loves much who is forgiven much") and are in a relationship with the Spirit.

This relationship  is EVERYTHING ("Seek ye the kingdom - ie the personal rule of the King- and his righteousness, and all these will be added to you").

Of course my ex pastor showed his complete ignorance of the issue by offering what he did as the solution: "OK let's love, then."  As if we could simply turn it on like a tap and God would help us to do so. But because I have already pointed out what lacking love means this will never happen. That church was in the dark then and may very well still be so, And certainly I know I am in the dark, but am hearing a Voice in said darkness which is calling me to Himself.

But I know that I do not know Him.

So will the average run of church believer  acknowledge that they do not know God? I should not be surprised that they will not for my own constant resisting of conviction of sin from the Holy Spirit I now know to be nothing untypical. So though I am in the relationship  which will bring it to pass  not because I want it but know full well I need it they the average religionist is not, for all his talk to the contrary. We will not admit we do not know Him if our self definitions preclude this, if we think our sincerity is axiomatic, our faith genuine; not if we define being born again as one who does love God; and not if we ignore our fruit, our spontaneous and careless reactions and words; and certainly not if the Holy Spirit does not persuade us who are so self righteous as to think we are doing Him any favours  by our religious activities.

Love? For all our trying, because of it even, this is why the world thinks, rightly, that we are hypocrites