Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Del BIgtree, Zev Zelenko, Simone Gold: Murder by the Withholding of HCQ

The link below is to a recent Del Bigtree podcast.  I'm sketching in some points on the counter to check out but I'm having computer problems so I have to leave this in an unfinished state.

55:30  A Dr. Corey testifying in Congress about the efficacy of Ivermectin and his anger about the attitudes against useful drugs    59:20  Bigtree

101 Zev Zelenko

104 or so  the value of alternative treatments Quercetin and ECGC

Zelenko up to about 115, Simone Gold is coming on next and I'm afraid I can't do any editing on this post because I keep gettting annoying popups that interfere, probably a virus, not sure what to do about it.  Anyway the first part of this podcast is about the new vaccines and their possible dangers.  Then Zelenko who has been advising the Whit4e House is interviewed.  At the end of the interview he calls the AMA murderers.  At some point in the interview he says that 84% of all those who have died of COVID could have been saved if HCQ had not been banned.  He also recommends Ivermectin.  And again Quercetin with Zinc and ECGC with Zinc.

THE VACCINE EXPERIMENT BEGINS - The Highwire

Klutzily Imagining the Future Life

 In the previous post I tried to say something I didn't get said very well so I deleted it and will try again though I don't think I'll do a lot better this time.  Some better at least maybe.  

Lately I find myself thinking about the future life with Christ.  I never used to think about that much, but since I got persuaded of the Pretribulation Rapture and listened to MacArthur's series on the Book of Revelation I often find myself wondering about it.  What will it be like to have a glorified body and live in the Millennium where there will still be people in their ordinary bodies?   What will the glorified body be like?  What will it be like to live in the New Jerusalem which is so unlike any earthly city it's really beyond my imagination.  

What came to mind in the previous post was who is going to be there, who we will meet, and who will form the group we are placed among.  I do think of us as being placed in groups or families though I may be wrong about the way I think about that.  What I imagine is being grouped with like-minded spirits, people we most appreciate in this life for their Christian work and t4eachings.  Large groups I suppose.  It's what I think "many mansions" must refer to,  not just the fact that we will live in "dwelling places" but that there are many different kinds of "houses" there for different groups.  There are different kinds of angels after all, so there must be different groups of people.  I was thinking how I hope I'm assigned to the house where Chris Pinto is assigned.  But that;s an awfully narrow thought since he's just one of hundreds of teachers now living as well as having lived down the previous millennia who should live in the "house" I want to be assigned to.  Or at least next door.

  Or perhaps we will all be so taken up with Christ Himself we'll hardly notice each other.  

As for who will be there and who we will meet.  Probably the ones I most want to meet are Adam and Eve. 

Beyond that I hope I get to hug a lion. 


Later:  I didn't get it said very well here either.   Finally I'm getting my own thought together and the idea is that I'm thinking we'll be grouped according to our interests and talents.   We'll have work to do there same as here though that's certainly beyond my ability to imagine.  Nevertheless it suggests that we'll have work according to our particular gifts.   Say, blogger types like me in one group, artists in another, scientists in another, legal minds in another and so on.  

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Christmas Under Siege by the World but Strongly Displayed by our President

Finally listened to Chris Pinto's Christmas podcast.   He finds information not heard anywhere else.  

In this podcast he talks about the origins of Christmas and the hatred for Christianity expressed by Islam and Communism.  There's actually a song about coldly killing Christians with rage in the name of Allah.  Such a charming celebration of the season.    That's the theme of the first half of the podcast.

In the second half Pinto airs Trump's Christmas speech which I hadn't heard, pointing out that if it isn't unique as a Presidential expression, which he says he doesn't know, it's a strong presentation of the gospel of Christ that he's never heard before from a President.  Nor have I.  It makes Trump even more  one of our very best Presidents that he so boldly proclaims the Christian message that did in fact form the foundations of America despite conflicting messages about that.  

Pinto's latest documentary is out now, The True History of the Christian Foundations of America or something like that.  I think I have the title wrong but it's the same idea.  I am hoping to see it through Amazon but last time I looked it wasn't there yet.    Since earlier documentaries he made about America show the NONChristian elements that went into the founding, I'm glad he finally made one that focuses on the Christian elements.  

Anyway, here's his Christmas podcast.  It's about half an hour long:

NOTR - THE ANNUAL CHRISTMAS SHOW - 12.25.2020 - Show Downloads - Noise of Thunder Radio with Chris Pinto

Monday, December 28, 2020

Pondering The Star of Bethlehem

 

As part of my small effort to recognize if not exactly celebrate Christmas this year, I watched the Star of Bethlehem video by Rick Larson. I own it but couldn’t find it so I watched the one at You Tube. As often happens I end up with a feeling of… inconclusiveness, even doubt. In a way I’m convinced by it but if asked to explain it I don’t think I could. It all goves by very fast with little time to ponder each point, and it was only after watching it about three times plus reviewing short segments that I had some grasp of how it all fits together. However, I still had questions, even wrote an email to Larson who may not be able to answer me, and now I want to try to spell it all out to see if I can make it clearer.

The thing I think throws me the most is that he almost seems to want to avoid identifying the time of Christ's birth as shown by his own research. He finds what he says is the brightest star ever seen, on the very date all his study leads him to conclude was the birth of Christ, but without even pausing to note the exact date he rushes on to other interesting points in the story. This seems to me quite odd since the title of the film leads us to believe that the whole point was to identify that star on that date. I think he succeeded. I’m convfinced. I think he makes a great case for it and that he did show that there really was an actual brightest astronomical occurrence or “star” that appeared on the day of Christ’s birth exactly as we are told in the second chapter of the gospel of Matthew.

Since scripture doesn’t identify the date of His birth it’s not of major importance in itself but if the whole point of the study was to find the star it seems odd that he doesn’t even mention the date on which it occurred, which appears to have been a day in June of the year 2 BC based on his researches. The star he found was an extremely close conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Venus, the “father” and “mother” planets which is of course very appropriate for the occasion, and he claims that this conjunction was the brightest thing any of the Magi would have seen in their lifetimes. Since he considered the star to be independent evidence of Biblical truths, and in my opinion he succeeded in demonstrating that, it seems to me he should have been emphatic about the date and the claim that the star he found really was the brightest star ever seen. If it really was THE star that marked the birth of the Savior it has to be more than the brightest thing the Magi had seen in their lifetimes, it has to be the brightest thing in the sky anyone has ever seen, period.

In a recent interview on a Fox podcast I found at his website he admits that conjunctions between Jupiter and Venus occur from time to time, so that his claim is not that the conjunction itself is unique, but that this particular conjunction was the closest of them all and therefore the brightest. This needs more than a passing and vague reference. It took many viewings of the film for me to be able to pin down the doubts I kept having and this reason for them. I believe he made his case, I wish he’d made a bigger production of it so there would be no doubt he’d made it.

He’d been led to that date after some time of study and he doesn’t spell out all the steps that led him there, but it started with learning about Johannes Kepler’s attempts to find the star of Bethlehem. Kepler failed and Larson explains that as his having relied on a date for the death of Herod the Great given in the history of the Jews by Flavius Josephus. Herod ordered the killing of male babies up to the age of two when he heard of the birth of the “King of the Jews” as the Magi called Him, to eliminate competition for the throne of Israel, so he had to have still been alive at the time of Jesus’ birth. Josephus gives the date of his death as 4 BC so Kepler looked for a great star marking Christ’s birth in the years preceding that date.

But Larson found someone who showed that the date in Josephus was wrong, a printing or copying error. It turned out that all the copies of Josephus’ history printed before the year 1544 had 1 BC instead of 4 BC for Herod’s death. So that of course became the date Larson used for his investigation. (If you Google the date of Herod’s death you will find that the erroneous 4 BC is still used.)

So working from 1 BC as the latest year for Christ’s birth Larson used the astronomy program "Starry Night" to look for an unusually bright star in 2 and 3 BC. He doesn’t describe how he went about this investigation but what he arrived at was some very interesting heavenly phenomena starting in September of 3 BC. And by the way, earlier in the film he’s explored various candidates people have proposed to explain the star and eliminated all but the planets of the solar system, so he’s looking particularly at Jupiter, the largest planet, and looking for conjunctions of planets, where they appear so close together they look like one very bright object.

He’s also had to resolve his concern about getting into astrology since he’s finding signs in the planets’ movements through the constellations of the Zodiac belt. All that is interesting and he covers it early in the film as preliminary to his discoveries. It’s astrology in the sense that it’s not about the actual physics of the universe, chemistry and sizes and distances and all that, but about how the sky looks to a person on planet Earth, so that how large or bright an object looks to the naked eye has nothing to do with how large it is in reality or how far from other bodies. How it looks is the whole point. From our position on Earth the sun and planets travel through a belt of fixed or stationary stars that many peoples have arranged into figures to which they have given names. It looks like a ram so we call a particular configuration or cluster of stars Aries etc. There are twelve constellations or signs that make up the belt of the Zodiac, starting with Aries, then Taurus, Gemini and so on, through which the nine planets of the solar system including the sun and moon appear to move at different rates, The sun takes a month to travel through one of the signs, hence the “sun sign” astrologers associate with people’s birth month. In a nutshell Larson concludes that since the Bible itself refers to signs in the heavens that must mean that it’s not forbidden, reasoning that the stars and planets used as signs are indicators, while astrology treats them as controlling our lives and that’s what is forbidden.

So having resolved that question and the date of Herod’s death he goes on to show what he found in the sky starting in September of 3 BC. Looking at the sky from Babylon, which is where he thinks the Magi most likely came from, he finds Jupiter rising in the East in close conjunction with a distant star named Regulus, which of course is a visual effect from the vantage point of Earth, Regulus in fact being behind Jupiter in deep space. King planet Jupiter, named for the highest god in the Roman pantheon, in conjunction with a star also called King, and called that in many languages. Animating the computer program to watch the movement of Jupiter over time he shows that it appears to pass Regulus very closely three times, in a triple conjunction which is a pretty dramatic event.  (Such a movement forward and backward is again a visual effect caused by our seeing it from the moving Earth.) As Larson describes the motion, it looks like Jupiter is “crowning” Regulus.   Then he shows that this movement is occurring within the constellation Leo.

It is significant that this is occurring in the constellation or sign of Leo because the Messiah is prophesied in the Old Testament to come from the tribe of Judah, and Judah is represented as a lion, which is the same creature represented by that constellation:
Genesis 49:9-10 Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come;


"Shiloh" by the way is a term for the Messiah.  The prophecy is saying that the Messiah will come from Judah, after a long line of kings bearing the sceptre of power that precede Him. 

 Then Larson shows that on September 3rd of 3 BC the next constellation after Leo is seen rising in the East and that is the sign of Virgo the Virgin, and the crescent moon is under its feet. This very image is described in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation: 



Revelation 12:1-2 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.



This image is usually interpreted as the nation of Israel, but in this context it may fit the virgin girl Mary better. The time is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and If Larson’s reasoning is correct, this image may represent the moment of Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit, as announced by the angel Gabriel. It isn’t all that clear in the documentary itself, at least not to me, but he makes it clearer on his website that the crowning of Regulus by Jupiter in Leo is actually going on while the sun is in Virgo, simultaneously with the appearance of the virgin with the crescent moon at her feet, representing pregnancy. The triple conjunction in Leo acts as a sort of announcement of the birth of the Messiah though it is occurring at the same time. Either conception or birth is an appropriate interpretation of the rising of Virgo with the new moon beneath her feet. It’s the new moon of Rosh Hashanah or Jewish New Year symbolizing a beginning. It’s interesting that “between his feet” in the prophecy of the lawgiver from the tribe of Judah as quoted above, refers to his descendants, and the moon beneath the feet of the Virgin also signifies a descendant, or birth. Its being a new moon could represent birth or conception but since there is no bright star here the best guess is conception, and to find out Larson takes the computer program nine months into the future.

Which is where he finds that conjunction of Jupiter with Venus that began this post, the brightest heavenly phenomenon ever seen in the lifetimes of the Magi. As I said, I wish he’d made it more evident that he’s claiming it was the brightest heavenly object ever seen by anyone ever, and given the date of its appearance and made some to-do about this as the fulfillment of his research. I’m convinced anyway, but I’ve had to work to overcome some confusion and doubts to get convinced.

Instead of lingering on that point, however, he goes on to describe how the “star” led the Magi first to Jerusalem from Babylon, and then from there to Bethlehem where they bestowed gifts on the baby born King of the Jews according to that star. So they being watchers of the heavens saw this brightest star that had ever been seen rising in the eastern sky nine months after the heavenly phenomena they would also have witnessed, the close conjunction of Jupiter with Regulus in the sign of the lion which is the sign of Judah, followed by the Virgin with the crescent moon indicating a pregnancy. When nine months later the extraordinarily bright conjunction of Jupiter with Venus occurs they understand all these signs together to indicate that a great king has been -- born among the Jews. Larson doesn’t say in what sign this conjunction occurs but since it takes twelve years for Jupiter to circle the sun perhaps it’s still in Leo. I could find out by consulting an Ephemeris, which is a table of the exact positions of all the planets in the Zodiac over thousands of years, and maybe I’ll do that eventually.

One possibly original contribution Larson makes to this story is his conjecture that the Magi were probably Jewish themselves. It makes sense because they are so interested in the birth of this King of the jews. The idea is that they were probably among the remnant of the jews who stayed in Babylon at the end of the seventy-year exile, as Daniel the prophet also did, and trained under his authority. They would have known of all the prophecies of the coming Messiah, known them from Daniel’s own prophecies as well as from the heavenly signs. Even the pagan Magi might have been interested in such a birth as they could see spelled out in the sky, but to travel to Jerusalem to worship Him seems far more likely to be something a Jewish Magus would do. So I think Larson may have hit on something important here.

Something that puzzles me is his saying that at Christmastime this conjunction is shown in the planetaria. Why if it occurred in June? Are they saying this was the star and He was born in June? Larson doesn’t tell us and I remain puzzled. (This occurs around 42 on the counter for the video). In that case the star was already discovered before Larson discovered it. I don’t have a way to resolve this. I’ve written to Larson about this among other questions I have but of course he probably gets too many emails to answer me. We’ll see. It doesn’t change the conclusion that this conjunction WAS the Star of Bethlehem though.

But on we go as the Magi first arrive in Jerusalem and inquire where the child was born, and are told how to get to Bethlehem. If they were Jewish as Larson supposes, they would have been familiar with the Micah prophecy of His birth in the town of Bethlehem, but being from Babylon they might not have known how to get there. That’s how I’m putting this together anyway. They referred to the child as the King of the Jews which is what provoked Herod to murder so many male babies, and after they had seen the child in Bethlehem Mary and Joseph took the baby to Egypt, having been warned of the slaughter to come.

Took time out here to read more of the Star of Bethlehem website including some of the Comments. Plenty of people have strong opinions about the star and the time of Christ’s birth that are different from Larson’s and want to argue with him about it. I continue to think he’s made his case though. And in one of his replies to a comment he says he considers 9/3 of 3 BC to be the time of Jesus’ conception, and 6/2 of 2 BC to be His birth. Finally he gives a date for that, but otherwise as far as I’ve read in the site he continues to slight the birth date and I continue to wonder why. He also makes it clear that he thinks that the brightest star which he’s identified as the Jupiter-Venus conjunction in June of 2 BC would not have attracted the attention of ordinary people but only those who studied the sky such as the Magi. This is to explain why Herod didn’t know about the birth of the Messiah. I guess I’ll accept that explanation, but since people were all very aware of the starry sky in that part of the world in those days it does raise a question why it wasn’t more apparent to people in general.

Larson has given the Magi travel time so that he has them arriving in Jerusalem in November. Now they set course for Bethlehem which is five miles south of Jerusalem, and they have the Star in the south to lead the way. The Star is no longer a conjunction but simply the planet Jupiter which is also a bit of a puzzle. Wouldn’t the Star remain the Star for this event? Wouldn’t it be that conjunction that stood over the town of Bethlehem? But of course both planets wouldn’t go into retrograde at the same time, retrograde meaning the point where from our point of view a planet appears to stop and reverse course. But as Larson shows in his astronomy software, Jupiter did appear to stop over the town of Bethlehem just as the Magi approached it from the north, confirming their calculations about the birth of the King of the Jews. And rather amazingly it came to a stop on December 25th of that year! So that was the first Christmas? Not at Christ’s birth but six months later. The family had moved into a house by then. How long Jupiter remained poised at the point where it stopped Larson doesn’t say, but that’s something I’d like to know. Possibly days at least? Anyway it had led them to the King, they bestowed their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and went home by another route than they’d come by, having been warned in a dream of Herod’s intentions and not wanting to return to report to him as he’d requested.

Lots of interesting celestial phenomena stacking up here. I still think he should have made much more of the conjunction in June of 2 BC which must have been when Jesus was actually born, but the other phenomena he discovers are certainly just as interesting. He goes on from this point to find out when Christ was crucified and to look at the sky on that day. He says that he’s come to regard the heavenly signs surrounding Jesus’ life and death as a Celestial Poem of great beauty, and I think he also makes that case.

Jesus died on Preparation Day which is always on a Friday as it is the day when the Jews prepare for the following Sabbath . Since they are forbidden to work on the Sabbatgh they do all the work of cooking and other household chores the day before. In the year that Jesus died on the cross Passover had to fall on a Friday, and with that clue in mind he tracks the year to 33 AD, April 3rd. And what he finds in the sky there is what he considers to be the ending of the Celestial Poem: Just as Jesus died, at three in the afternoon, the moon rose in eclipse, a blood moon. , and the sign that rose in the sky at that same hour was Virgo with that blood moon at her feet, a full moon now. These events certainly could make one’s hair stand on end, as he says happened to him when he discovered them.

Although I may still need to puzzle through a few things, just writing all this out has answered manyh of my questions. I’m convinced. I was already convinced but I’m more convinced. I think Rick Larson’s study has discovered the meaning of the Star of Bethlehem, the date of Jesus’ birth, and that he’s gone on to demonstrate much celestial drama surrounding the life and death of the Messiah overall, that Celestial Poem as he calls it. I think his study should become better known.


Later addition: The birth date of Jesus that it seems to me Rick Larson seems to rush past, June 2nc of 2 BC, occurs in the sign of Genmini which doesn't have any biblical correspondences that I know of although there are those who claim the entire Zodiac represents the gospel story. And I may be pushing things here but I thought I'd add that Gemini is represented as The Twins, and if there is significance4 to that as Christ's birthdate perhaps it's in the fact that He is known as the God-Man, as having two natures in Himself. Certainly not identical as the concept of twins suggests, but two. On the Star website in the comments section I think on the page about the travels of the Magi someone asks more than once what sign the conjuunction of Jupiter and Venus occurs in and doesn't get an answer. That's a question I had too, since nine months earlier Jupiter was in Leo making that triple conjunction with Regulus. It takes Jupiter twelve years to travel around the sun so it could still have been in Leo or could have moved on to Virgo in those nine months. If its position nine months earlier has significance one would expect it would still have significance on the day Jesus was born. The sun is in Gemini, the question is where was Jupiter.\


Another major sign he doesn't mention in the documentary is of course that the crucifixion occurred in the sign of Aries the ram, and that is very significant because Jesus isknown as the Lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb who died to pay for the sins of those who believe on Him. He died on Passover which for some fifteen hundred years or so since the Israelites were led out of Egypt by Moses was commemorated every year as commanded by God, looking forward to this final one-and-only sacrifice for sin. It was lamb's blood that was painted on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites to mark them to be spared when the angel of death came through. This was the final plague against Egypt God wrought and it launches the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land. That symbolism carries into the crucifixion and so does the sign of Aries the ram. It's all real, it's all real history, it's all God's arranging history to carry symbolism. It's all very amazing. The Star of Bethlehem carries on the amazing story as does the revelation of the Celestial Poem Rick Larson identifies. You can't make up this stuff though they always try to claim you can.

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Merry Christmas Etc.

 As usual for me for the last decade or so I'm not doing Christmas this year.  I may listen to my favorite "Messiah" a few times on You Tube to generate some Christmas mood and put its biblical message into my head, and open the usual cheery emails people always send at this time of your, but that's about it.  

Since the New Testament says the birth of Christ was attended by the announcement of angels to shepherds watching their flocks by night, we can be pretty sure that His birth did not occur in the cold winter of Christmastime, flocks of sheep not being grazed on the hills at that time of year, but since we don't have a known birthdate it's as good a time as any to celebrate it, and it has a lot of nice things to recommend it for that purpose.  Its proximity to the Winter Solstice heralds the lengthening of days towar the fruitful time of Spring which is also symbolized in the ball-shaped decorations on the Christmas tree, which represent the fruits that appear on trees later in the year.  The tree is an evergreen which helps to counter the bare feeling of most trees.  The lights are cheering and hopeful.  And there is something about a glttering lit tree in a dark room that speaks an almost otherworldly sort of cheer in the winter gloom.   All that comes from pagan winter traditions and not from Christianity but it's all been comfortably Christianized with Manger scenes and the like.  The theme of a Savior come into a dark world bringing salvation to all mankind can be found in the symbols if you want to find it.

But of course the holiday is mixed with a lot of unChristianiizable pagan and even anti-Christian elements as well.  Heres John MacArthur on that subject:

The Theology of Christmas (Philippians 2:5-11) - YouTube

Later:  Here's another MacArthur talk for the season, a shorter one delivered at his Master's Seminary, the birth of Jesus from Mary's point of view:  

The Christmas Story by John MacArthur - YouTube

Here's a Christmas themed presentation for anyone who might be interested.  The Star of Bethlehem is a lawyer's presentation of his study of an astronomy program in the light of the Bible to see if he could find the bright star in the sky that scripture says appeared at Christ's birth.  

The Star of Bethlehem - YouTube

Here's a performance of The Messiah I particularly like, with a Czech condutor, Vaclav Luks, of a Czech orchestra.

Handel Messiah -- VĂ clav Luks - YouTube


Merry Christmas!

Did the AMA Lift its Warnings Against HCQ or Not?

 A week or so ago I heard that the American Medical Association had rescinded its objections to the drug Hydroxychloroquine so that now they gave it a tacit approval for use with COVID, but of course when I Google it I get a lot of naysaying instead, or the usual anti-HCQ positions held by others.  My eyes are unfortunately worse than ever and tracking down the truth is beyond me at the moment, so all I'm going to say is that I heard that and it may or may not be true.  

That leaves me with my ongoing position that ththose who have testified in its favor are the credible ones and the objectors are falling for false information.   Its supporters are highly reputable physicians who have either used the drug for COVID with hundreds or in some cases even thousands of patients with as much as 100% success when they've used it in the first few days of the emergence of symptoms, and used it with an antibiotic, usually Azithromycin, or sometimes Doxyclycline, and Zinc.  Dr. Zelenko was apparently the first to use the drug with his own patients and developed his protogocol for its use that can be found online.  The idea to use the drug came up very early on as it is one of the drugs known to be "ionophores" that means they open celles to permit Zinc, which is an ion, tol enter and destroy the virus by interfering with its replication in the cells.  This chemisty was well known long before COVID came on the scene and various ionophores were considered for us.   HCQ appeared to have the most promise and became the therapeutic of choice for many who had studied the literature.  Dr. Zelenko published its use and other MDs followed with their own reports on their own espericned of adminiistering it in the early phase of the virus with good results.  These inclue some I've rported on here such as Dr. Simone Gole, Dr. Dsaniel Wohlgelernter, Dr. Harvey Risch and Dr. Stella Emmanuel.  

The studies of the drug that led to its rejection were ill conceive4d, and one was even completelely faked.   The main problem was using it too late for it to be effective, well beyond the early stage when it should have been used on outpatients, instead using it with hospitalized patients, many of whom were already too sick for the drug to be of any use.  They also didn't discriminate between young and old  or healthy people versus those with underlying health problems, although it iw well known by now that younger and healthier people usually recover completely from the disease while it is those over sixty and seventy or with risk factors that have  severe cases of it or even die.  Administering the drug to both groups indiscriminately and then not reporting the characteristics of those who did well versus those who did not, makes the study useless as far as determining the effect of the drug goes.  Since those who have used it to good effect know that it must be given in the very early stages such studies are as good as utterly useless. 

But used as recommended by the five doctors mentioned above it is known to knock out the virus within days of the emergence of symptoms and save lives.  They re commend using it specifically with the older and higher-risk patients, the ones who contribute the most to the death statistics we keep hearing.  Although there is also good reason to believe that those statistics are not accurage since the cause of death in many cases may not be COVID even though the virus was detected on testing.

So I guess I'm not in a position to report that the AMA reversed its stance right now, but they should since the drug has been known for decades to be safe for use with all kinds of patients through its use in cases of malaria and lupus, and now has been shown by many reputable physicians to cure COVID as well.  I continue to object to the political atmophere which has prevented this drug which could have saved thousands upon thousands of lives from being used.

Although I couldn't get to  the bottom of this question because of my bad eyesight and my inability to navigate the usual obstacle course put up by the Big Tech internet providers to obscure information they consider to be politically incorrect, I hope just saying this much could lead others to the truth.

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

The Gospel of Salvation by the Messiah According to Isaiah 53

 It's all there, in the Old Testament, in one particular chapter of the book of Isaiah the prophet, and John MacArthur does a magnificent job of spelling it out.  This is just Part 1 but it's all here: 

The Astonishing Servant of Jehovah (Isaiah 53) - YouTube

Saturday, December 12, 2020

An "Update" on Hydroxychloroquine

I'm posting a link to a page of information that is supposed to be an "update"  on the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine.  All it doesw is rehash the old bad studies.  Most of them deal with hospitalized patients although the advice of all those who advocate it is that it is to be used within the first week of symptoms and they prescribe it to outpatients.  Used after the virus has become established it is not effective.  

Many of the studies do not discriminate between healthy and unheqalthy, or old and young patients so that the positive results shown are probably not due to the treatment but to the fact that those who did well were younger and healthier in the first place, whereas those who didn't do well or died were probably older or had other risk factors.  There is no way to tell, but what is imputed to the treatmetn is probably not due to the treatment under such conditions.  It's pretty clear that if anyone died at all it would have to be because the treatment was given too late, as all  those who have used it effectively have said many times.   Even to go on reporting such inept studies makes this page utterly untrustworthy.  

And of course those who have adovcated for the drug are not mentioned.  Dr. Zelenko, Dr. Harvey Risch of Yale, Dr. Simone Gold, Dr. Daniel Wohlgelernter, Dr. Stella Emmanuel.  

Some of them are silenced on the internet for "misinformation" because they advocate the drug and disagree with these studies.  This is beyond ridiculous into criminal.

An Update: Is hydroxychloroquine effective for COVID-19? (drugs.com)

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Irreconcilable Differences Part 2

Loose ends flapping around in my head.  In the film on Clarence Thomas I mention below in the post Feed Your Head Thomas explains that he started studying up on the founding documents of America to answer the question "Why do we have the government we have?  Why not a parliamentary system"  and so on.  He and a couple of helpers set about learning all they could about the founding era and the thinking that went into the Constitution.   It made him the Constitutional originalist he is today, even a "bloodthirsty originalist" as he said someone called him.  

The loose ends flapping up a storm in my skull include the thought how sad it is that he'd been through the university system and had a law practice before he knew much about the founding documents of America.   It's saddenibng to think there are probably many politicians who have intoned the oath to defend the Constitution who know very little about it.   I don't know much either, just have a general idea of what it stands for.  People applying for American citizenship probably know more about these things than we citizens do  

I mentioned in the previous post my fantasy of setting up meeting places in towns across the US  for the purpose of promoting such knowledge that most of us lack.  Sort of like Christian Science Reading Rooms with a lot more to them, of far more value than those places of course.  ,   I'd want it to be possible to get a very thorough education in these things if enough time was spent there.  I'd want it to have a library of books on every aspect of the subject, and/or books for sale, also show films from time to time, host lectures, provide summaries of books and lecture topics sort of like Cliff Notes for whoever wants them etc.  But I don't want it to be some stuffy classroom or library atmosphere, I want it to be casual and comfortable and a matter of personal interest how much a person gets involved in it.  A cafe atmosphere, because I have nice memories of cafe life where the regulars get to know each other and have interesting converstaions, or if they choose just sit and read over their coffee.  .Happy daydream.  

All that reminded me of an incident in my own cafe life when I was talking to another regular about his experience as a radical in support of black rights and his early life in South Africa.  He said he'd been pondering how they should word their Constitution to ensure blacks would be given equal status.  I said, How about "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."  He wanted to know where that came from.  He couldn't believe it had anything to do with America because in his mind America is this evil racist place and he assumed that must be enshrined in the system itself.  Of course it's not.  The system was designed for dealing with imperfect fallen humanity, holding  us to higher standards than any of us naturally live up to.   In a sense this is true of all decent governments but it reached its greatest expression in the American founding.  It's sad to think we don't know this, that it isn't common knowledge among all Americans.

One of the most destructive effects of the great uproar of the sixties was the abandonment of required courses in American History and Institutions and in Wester Civilization in the Universities.  The great uproar itselef was largely fomented by Marxist ideologues.  And that's how we got where we are today, our American foundations pretty much destroyed and in their place the makings of the next Communist tyranny with injustice and misery for all.

Cheers.

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Irreconcilable Differences (Political Right vs. Left)

Mentioned to a liberal friend that I was running into problems registering for the new Parler social media platform that promises freedom of speech.  She hadn't heard of ir but when I explained that conservatives are gravitating to it because of the censorship on the other social media, she said "I'd be worried about hate speech."   I was taken by surprise although I shouldn't have been, it's such a standard leftist/liberal way of thinking, but I was and I asked what she meant.  Something about misinformation being spread around, and threats against people on the other political side.    

Neither of those things is what I understand the term "hate speech" to refer to but we kept it to those ideas anyway.  First, of course, the owners and moderators of such websites do not have the expertise to determine what is misinformation, and since they ban discussion of Hydroxychloroquine they prove their incompetence to judge, as well as their tyrannical totalitarian inclinations.  Besides, these are conversations mostly between ordinary people, not experts, and banning their opinions is way out of line.  But they even ban experts, doctors with all sorts of credentials and fine reputations because they are defending what has become a politically incorrect opinion.  You have to trust that people are capable of judging each other as we all have to in everyday life without their nanny intrusion, and that eventually the truth will prevail, censorship is an anti-American form of control  As for threats of violence I thought that was always prohibited speech, not some special category of "hate speech" so if people are getting away with such threats things are getting so bad we're beyond return to civility.

Her being worried about hate speech took a few days to settle in to my mind.  I don't know why I was so surprised but eventually the surprise turned to a kind of shock.  It seemed in the end that it had hit me like a punch in the stomach but I didn't register it as such, and was only now days later able to inhale again.  I thought she'd at least understand that conservatives ARE experiencing unfair censorship but instead it seemed like she distrusts conservatives, or people in general perhaps, to deserve the right to free specch the Constitution gives us.  I was oddly at sea for a few days while the hate speech remark circled around in my head, finally settling into the simple recognition that's not new but hit me as if it were new, that the divide between right and left is truly irreconcilable.

Then this morning I was listening to Rush Limbaugh who toward the end of his program mentioned that he knows many people who think conservatives should secede from the US.  I'd heard this before and I've thought it myself.  I still think it.  I probably think it more today than usual.  Rush said he isn't for it, he thinks that we're in the majority so why should we secede?  But we don't want to be in the position of imposing our unwelcome ideology on them any more than we want theirs imposed on us, and winning elections isn't going to keep that from happening.   If anything it would probably escalate their violence, the rioting, the attacks by Antifa and so on if Trump won again.  I think from the evidence I heard that he did in fact win this election, that the voter fraud does reach to that level, and of course I'd like to see the truth come out, but I don't want a civil war and it could go there whether we win or not.  

Another caller to Rush's show was passionate about finding educational or other civil ways to deal with the problem.  I think along those lines too.  She thought maybe Rush could promote creative ideas about how to go about that, promote organizations dedicated to it and that sort of thing. She mentioned bumper stickers but doesn't she know that would just get cars vandalized?   He answered that he thought he'd been doing his best in that direcrtion for all the time he's been on the air, which is true.    Well, maybe the caller will try to start something going, she sounds like she has the energy for it.

Me, I daydream about starting conservative opinion newspapers full of the best presentations of the conservative point of view, and giving them away by the millions.  Also daydream about establishing meeting places in every town where lectures on the Constitution and the founding principles of America could be taught and discussed, over espresso and pastries or something.  Any such enterprise would take millions and way too much time..  and besides the newspapers would be collected by leftists and chucked in dumpsters, and meeting places would be vandalized and burned down.

Secession looks more and more attractive.   Maybe we could secede in blocks, maybe one huge block, maybe most of the Midwest and South?  Maybe liberals could move to liberal areas and conservatives move into the conservative areas?  Maybe it could start with one state declaring itself for either side and attracting like-minded people to it while the others move out.  They'd still try to kill us, but if we are all in one place we could probably get some decent defenses organized.   Just musing.

My friend says she didn't particularly have conservatives in mind when she mentioned hate speech and maybe she didn't but that means she doesn't really know what hate speech means from her own liberal frame of reference.   I wasn't going to say, of course, that it's a Marxist concept designed for character assassination of the opponent, but maybe I could at least have said it demonizes ordinary conservative politics, but as usual I don't think on my feet very well.  There are many levels of confusion in all this and sorting them out is beyond most of us.  Then we discussed Hydroxychloroquine some, since being able to discuss that is my main reason I'd like to get into a safe form of social media.  She's been persuaded by my arguments about that, or so I thought, but then she pretty much said she didn't think I'd accept it if I saw a really good argument against it.  And that's another punch in the stomach.  I'm persuaded by the evidence, I'm not avoiding evidence.  The evidence against it is bad, some of it rotten, even made up, the evidence for it is excellent.  

Another punch, which I'm sure she didn't mean as a punch but just a statement of her opinion, was that she thinks Trump is guilty of treason and of course I was off guard or upset enough not to find out what on earth she had in mind.  Should just ask and shut up but I didn't, so I don't know.  I do know the Left is treasonous to the core and the voter fraud is itself treason. I don't like being punched in the stomach.  I want to secede.  Better yet, I want the Rapture to come, like tomorrow.

Then she sent me a couple of links, one to a list of things Trump has done that conservatives regard as good things, another a list of things imputed to him that liberals think are bad.   I'm sure she disagrees with most of the positive list and i disagree with all of the leftist list.  Many of them are lies, many of them are standard conservative politics the left demonizes etc.  The radical differences in the two points of view are glaring, good reason for secession in my opinion.  Maybe I'll post some of it eventually.


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I'm going to put a link here to a video I think I've posred before, that I wanted to add to my Feed Your Head post but something has happened that prevents adding to it and it's relevant enough here.  This is the "walkaway" video by the young woman named Georgia who explains what she used to think about conservatives and how she changed her mind.   I Was Wrong About the Democratic Party.

I was wrong about the Democratic Party #walkaway - YouTube

Friday, December 4, 2020

Feed Your Head

UPDATE DEC 8    Just watched the new film about Clarence Thomas:  Created Equal:  Clarence Thomas In His Own Words.   I've seen so much good stuff by and about blacks in the last few months I feel I've taken a course in Black History and learned a lot from it.  A University Black History course wouldn't focus on the conservatives as I've been doing, of course.   This film about Clarence Thomas is a good one to follow Larry Elder's Uncle Tom.   Of course I like Thomas's Constitutionalism but now I like him as a man as well.   Poverty, racism, a strong positive influence by his uneducated grandfather, a time in a Catholic seminary training for the priesthood, followed by a time of sixties style black radicalism, all finally coming together in his immersion in the founding documents of America that now informs his work on the Supreme Court.  He's particularly effective and moving in his response to the Anital Hill attack by the way, especially if you missed it at the time of the hearings, as I did.  Good film. 

UPDATE:  Most of what I link to in the body of this posis political, but at the end I've added the most recent radio show by the Christian ministry Understanding the times radio, and here I want to add Chris Pinto's most recent radio show as well, that deals with the voter fraud as treason and the COVID vaccine at the very end:  NOTR - TREASON, TRIBUNALS & THE LUCIFER VACCINE - 12.2.20 - Show Downloads - Noise of Thunder Radio with Chris Pinto  *

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Here I want to link to some resources I think just about everybody should watch, especially some people I know won't watch them.  I kind of think they will, however, if the Rapture actually occurs soon, which is a reason I want it to come soon.  The main reason, of course, is that I'm ready to leave this fallen world in which I feel so useless.   I can pray of coruse, but that's really about all I can do, and although I can and do pray I have this sinking feeling that we're on the downward slide to the End.  It's all in God's will, we are under judgment and He isn't going to stop it.  

Yes it would no doubt be a lot worse if He weren't restraining the worst, He's no doubt having mercy on us in many ways and that's in response to our prayers.  As Curtis Bowers points out in his discussion with Jan Markell which is one of the videos I link below, a sign of His mercy is how the voter fraud is being explosed, and I agree.  That God would expose the fraud and all the hidden evils is something I pray for a lot.   Nevertheless I know that this exposure is only reaching some of us and there is a total media blackout of the information on the Left.   I hate to be so pessimistic but again I have this sinking feeling.  I don't think the exposure is going to reach the ones who most need to know about it.

In spite of God's merciest I think nevertheless that the time has come, the jig is up, it's over.  If He gives us another four years of Trump that would be a wonderful mercy but the Left will only escalate its horrors if He does, it's not going to stop.  There are too many people on the side of evil who don't want it to stop and God hasn't acted to interfere with them.  Somehow they think that they are doing a good thing.  It's horrifying to consider how it's going to hit them when they finally see what they've been involved in when it's too late.  I'm glad to think, however, that it WILL hit some of them nevertheless, even when there's no way to stop the massive destruction.

Well, here are a few suggestions in the hope that they might open some eyes.

First the interview of Curtus Bowers on Jan Markell's Understanding the Times Radio.  Bowers made two films about the Marxist plot to destroy America.  They can be bought from Markell's ministry or from Amazon, and the films can be watched at Amazon for a rental fee.   Both are titled Agenda, the first subtitled Taking Down America, or something like that, I'll have to go look it up, and the second Masters of Deceit.   Here's the interview:

Game Over? – Curtis Bowers - YouTube

I also recently watched an inspiring show by Candace Owens interviewing a woman originally from Zimbabwe about how blacks are best benefitted by conservative politics, even the Republican Party, while the Democratic Party is really their enemy.

 The Candace Owens Show: Melissa Tate - YouTube\\

Hooray for black America.  Smart, sane, successful black America.   Besides the Candace Owens show I also watched the movie by Larry Elder at Amazon, titled Uncle Tom.  Great anticidote to the leftist violent race-baiting mentality.  

Lots of smart sane successful black Americans everybody should get to know.  Thomas Sowell for instance, Walter Williams, who just died, Larry Elder and Candace Owens too, Allen West, Alan Keyes, Coleman Hughes, John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, and I'm forgetting many others.  They're not all conservatives..

There's also Dinesh D'Souza's Trump Card movie at Amazon.

Added Dec 5:  Jan Markell's latest which gets at al the events that are destroying the US and heralding the Antichrist and the Rapture.   Lawlessness in the Land! – Terry James - YouTube


And I think I'll add in some others I've posted here before:

Yuri Bezmenov, former KGB officer in the USSR:  

Yuri Bezmenov - Deception Was My Job (full interview) - YouTube

=Yuri Bezmenov Full Interview & Lecture - HQ - YouTube

A note beneath the interview video says that it has been taken down as "hate speech" and was reloaded.  It may of coure be taken down again.  The powers that be don't want anyone to know about this Communnist coup that is going on in this country, they want to keep you in the dark.

And the one I've posted many times of the interview with Noraman Dodd who investigated the tax-exempt foundations such as Rockefeller and Carnegie and discovered that they have been working to promote Communism in the country:    Norman Dodd On Tax Exempt Foundations - YouTube

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*  Thinking about something General MacInerney said that Pinto aired, that the voter fraud is actually treason, as is the rioting and the refusal by elected leaders to quall it.  He's right about that and I'm glad he has the courage to say it.  He goes on to give the remedy in a military tribunal to bring the traitors to justice, which also seems like the right idea, though I get this sinking feeling as usual that it's not going to happen because the forces of evil are so strong these days and have succeeded in brainwashing so many people into thinking their cause is the righteous one.   Yes, arrest the trators and bring them to justice.  Yes.  But then he goes on to mention martial law and Pinto objects to that, rightly I think.  We don't need martial law, we just need to arrest those who are guilty which is a numer of identifiable people in particular places and far from the majority in the country who certainly do not deserve to br put under martial law.  But again, the problem is the success of the propaganda.  The Left knows how to commit all the evils but accuse their opponenst of what they are doing and sway much of the public with such lies.  While the leaders of BLM must know the truth about their Marxist intentions, most of those who support them no doubt have no idea at all but really think they are supporting a righteous cause about justice for black people.  They are deprived, for instance, of all the information that would show George Floyd was not the victim of racism since whites get treated the same way, as well as the information that BLM is a Communist front organization.  So their anger gets stirred up against the wrong people and that is maybe the biggest danger at the moment.  It would be right to arrest the traitors and bring them to justice but if public opinion has been shaped by lies that would make such a right action appear to be wrong, fascist or whatever, we've already lost the battle.  

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Another Walk Through the Tribulation Period for Those Who Will Have to Endure It

 Looking at Amazon for Chris Pinto's latest film The True Christian History of America, which isn't there yet, another film caught my eye, From Babylon to America, by some Prophecy group,  Not knowing anything about it I did a search on it.  Seventh Day Adventist.  A cult, but usually pretty well grounded biblically in spite of that.  Except for the seventh-day stuff of course.  But I prayed about it and decided to watch it.   

Needed a break about half an hour into it, hard to take the slow pace of the information, the incessant background music, some of the sound effects, and the narrator's accent.   His narrative is very good but his accent grates on me.  \ t's a very interesting film nevertheless and unless despite its veering into SDA heresy.  .

I could tell he was going to identify the papacy as the little horn of the fourth beast in Daniel's vision, and he did.  He does a great job of showing the connection, quotes Roman Catholic documents that make the case identifying the papacy with the prophetic descriptions.  Nevertheless I have a couple of objections.   Both in Daniel and in Revelation we are given a time period to be aware of in connection with the Antichrist:  "A time, times and half a time" is interpreted to mean three and a half years, and this is confirmed by the synonymous use of "42 months" to refer to the same period of time, as well as "1260 days" also referring to the same time period.   And he starts out agreeing with this.  These are all clearly equivalent, and scripture seems to be treating this time period as extremely important for us to be aware of and to be able to trust to be exactly what it says it is.    The Pretribulation Rapture eschatology puts the Tribulation period into Daniel's as-yet unfulfilled Seventieth Week of the prophecy of Seventy Weeks, 69 of which were fulfilled on the Sunday Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem to announce that He is the Messiah.  After that there is no time period that fits that could finish the 70 weels. in Jesus' time or throughout the last 2000 years.   The 70th week is a "week of years" or seven years, and three and a half years is of course half of seven.  People who are  going to experience this time of tribulation are being alerrted by scripture in a number of different places, in Daniel and in the book of Revelation, to hold onto this time period to help them get through the horrific events they are going to have to endure.  The meaning of those events will probably become much clearer to those going through them than they are to us now.  We have our interpretations to offer now for whatever help they may be, but they may be flawed.

But the narrator of this film takes an unwarranted turn and treats the 1260 days as that many years instead, using scripture reference to make the equation.  But that can't work in this case because the 1260 days is clearly meant to be synonymous with the time, times and half a time as well as the 42 months.  If it's equivalent to those times then it can't refer to years.  Nevertheless he makes it fit by claiming that the papacy was established in 538 AD with a decree of Justinian, and if you count that many years from that year you arrive at 1798 AD when Napolean arrested the Pope and stripped the Vatican of its power.  It's a dramatic point to make.  The Vatican's power was reinstated later by Mussolini, don't remember that year, bso that it again possessed oth its civil power and its religious power.  HOWEVER, I'm used to the Protestant Reformers' identification of the year 606 AD as the year the Bishop of Rome officially became Universal Bishop which made him Pope, by a decreee of the Byzantine emperor Phocas.     That of course changes the timing, and I'm not sure if it can be determined which date is truly the correct one.  But it certainly seems clear that the 1260 days is intended to be the equivalent of three and a half years as well as 42 months and doesn't refer to years s the SDA film maintains.  .  

Of course I also believe the papacy is the Antichrist so I'm on track with the film to that extent.  I've pointed out in an earlier post here that a great many Christians down the centuries have made that identification, not just the Protestant Reformers.   If the Pretribulation Rapture exchatology is correct then scripture is referring to a period of three and a half years during which the papacy will have power over the world at the very end of time, the last half of the seven-yar Tribulation period of the Book of Revelation.  

Yes it's true that the Pope had that power through the Middle Ages also.   The narrator also says it was a hundred million Christians the Church of Rome killed during the Dark Ages.  I've accepted the number of fifty million and so far, about halfway through the film, he hasn't given his source for that number.    

He also interprets the description of the Antichrist as "changng times and laws" to mean even changing the Law of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.  But it wasn't the papacy that did that, it was the early Church that met on the first day of the week which is Sunday in commemoration of the Lord's resurrection.  The Roman Church didn't yet exist  at that time in anything like its current form although there was a Bishop of Rome.  The Roman Church, however, DID change one of the Ten Commandments -- to eliminate the commandment against bowing down to graven images since they are big on graven images and worshiping them, although they try to get away with saying it's not worship, it's "veneration."  Not much difference but it's also true that Catholics do worship the images.  Some do, certainly, perhaps more in Europe or other parts of the world than in the US.  They get down on their knees and even lie prostrate on the floor to worship them, especially images of Mary.  At Medjugorje where there were apparitions of "Mary" women walked on their knees around a statue of her.  So I'd agree with the SDA narrator that the RCC did tamper with the Law of God, but not in the way he has it.

So, two problems I have with this presentation of prophecy, but otherwises I'd say it's a very good study overall, especially of the images in the book of Daniel .  I already agree with most of what he's said.  That's why it tends to move slowly for me.   But he's doing a good job of backing up his statements from scripture.  (I will point out, however, that the claim that it's ENTIRELY based on scripture is not true, since in the early part of the film where he traces the paganisms of the Roman Church back to Babylon he is giving he same information I found in the book The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop..  He doesn't mention the book or any other source but the information about Nimrod and Semiramis and the birth of Tammuz are not in scripture.  The mother-child imagery so prominent in Roman Catholicism is found in many pagan religions and comes down from the original in Babylon.   None of this is in scripture.   I don't object to this use of historical sources along with scripture, all I'm saying is that his interpretation isn't entirely based on scripture.

He does make the good point that the fourth beast of Daniel which is the Roman Empire is depicted in  Nebuchadnezzar's statue is "divided" which i think he gets from its depiction as the two legs of the statue.  And he identifies this division as the formation of the Eastern Empire of Byzantium, with the western part under the Bishop of Rome.  But he doesn't go on to point out that Byzantium fell to Islam under Mohammed and has remained Islam ever since.  This occurred soon after 606 AD when the Byzantine emperor declared the Bishop of Rome to be Universal Bishop, thus launching the Roman Church.  That makes Rome and islam the two legs of the statue.  So it's fair to expecdt that Islam is going to have a part to play in the Great Tribulation, and considering their jihadist bloodthirstiness to ehead everyon who won't bow to Allah their role is certain to add horror to horror  for those who come to Christ during that period.    Those are the "great multitude noone  can count" referred to in Revelation 7.  It will include a multitude of Jews as well as a multitude of former Muslims and former Catholics and former apostate Protestants and former Buddhists and former atheists who recognize the truth during this time of the greatest suffering ever endured on Earth.   And since beheading is the chosen style of murder by Islam that probably explains the desription of the martyrs in Revelation 6 as beheaded.   Chris Pinto has said that he thinks the current effort of Leftists to move many Muslims into the West, both into Europe and America, is prompted by the Catholic Church so make them the executors of their revived Inquisition.  We've already seen murders in France and other parts of Europe by jihadis.  It will no doubt eventually come to America too, if Biden is President, who would certainly continue that policy of Obama's, and after the true Church is Raptured.  

So if nothing else is going to convince people to give themselves to Christ now before these horrors descend on the world, even an inkling that any of this could be true should be incentive enough to seek it with intense prayer.

The SDA film mentioned none of that though.  It also doesn't mention the Seventieth Week of Daniel and its fulfilmment in the Great Tribulation.   Perhaps that's because they accept a "Historicist" eschatology and reject the futurist system of the Pretribution Rapture.   One thing he does mention is that in the effort to wash the Antichrist label off the papacy,  a Catholic invented the futurist eschatology which interprets it all as future, and another Catholic the Preterist eschatology which interprets it all as past.  It apparently worked because hardly any Christians teach that the papacy is the Antichrist although the Reformers made such a strong case for it, not to mention the hundreds of others before them who also made the equation, which I put in a blog post some time ago.  

Although I accept the Pretribution view in general I also see the Pope as having already been identified as Antichrist, 1400 years ago.

The SDA film also identifies the ten kings represented by the ten toes of the statue in Daniel 2 as ten European kingdoms, and the three that the prophecy says are to be displaced by the rise of the Antichrist as the Visigoths, Ostrogoths and I think the Vandals (?), which don't seem to me to qualify as European Kingdoms but then maybe I'm deficient in history on that point.  So I can't judge his interpretation on this point.  He sees Europe as represented by the feet of the statue, made of both iron and clay, which is pretty much shared by the Pretribution people.

There are two beasts described in Revelation 13.  The first beast rises up out of the sea and is clearly an amalgam of the beasts in Danie's vision, understood to represent the Roman empire and the Antichrist.  It is that same beast the Harlot Church sits on in Revelation 17.  The second beast that rises out of the Earth instead of the sea, has two little horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon,  The SDA narrator makes the case that this is the United States of America.  

He makes a barely plausible logical case for this.  The US is certainly not the only Christian country.  After the Reformation the countries of Northern Europe declared themselves Christian.  So did the UK.  The claim that the country has to be in the western hemisphere is pretty weak.  He has to juggle words too often to be convincing it seems to me but I'm not sure there's much point in going into that.    

This beast with the horns of a lamb is understood in the Pretribulation framework to be the False Prophet who causes the world to worship the Antichrist.   

He's interpreted the wound of one of the heads of the first beast, described in Revelation 13,  to be Napoleon's  putting an end to papal power in 1798, but the interpretation I'm most familiar with has the Reformation dealing that wound, which makes a much better argument it seems to me.  Although Mussolini reinstated the civil power of the Vatican (I think the film identifies some other event as the healing of the wound but I forget what) and the Pope goes around acting like he's king of the world, he doesn't yet have anything like the power the Antichrist world leader is to have.   That would restore the Holy Roman Empire in essence on a worldwide scale with the Pope as head, and it's probably coming soon, after the Rapture of the Protestants and other true Christians. That wound is certainly going to be healed by the time the Tribulation is uunder way.  "All the world" is said to marvel at its recovery.  Prpbably the triggering event will be the Rapture after which the rise of the Pope to world leadership over the revived Church-State Roman Empire should be pretty speectabularly marvelous..

So now he goes on to clai that God's seal, which He put in the foreheads of the 144,000 of Revelation 7, is.... the Sabbath Day.  I didn't expect this study to be so aggressively Seventh-Day Adventist.  Ah well.   Oh yes and now he goes on to give quotes by various Roman Catholic leaders about how they changed Saturday to Sunday, and this is the mark of the beast.  But it wasn't the Catholic Church that called the early believers to assemble   on the Lord's Day, which is Sunday, the first day of the week, because the Catholic Church didn't yet exist.  It was a day of worship by the Church.  Acts 20:7 "when the Church came together to break bread."  Sunday is the Lord's Day, it is a mark of the true Church if anything because it is the day the Lord rose from the dead.  So, no, there is no Roman authority to change the Sabbath that is the Mark of the Beast.   The RCC claims they changed it but it was actually the practice of the Church from the time of the Apostles.  No, it was not started by  Constantine later.  

Whatever the Mark of the Beast is it will be soemthing that puts a person under the authority of the Roman Church, and it will cost those their lives who refuse to accept it.

Among other things he identifies Sunday as the day OF the Sun and sun worshippers.  But by the same logic Saturday is the day of Saturn, a planet often taken to represent Satan, which somehow he overlooked.   All the names of the days of the week refer to pagan gods or idols.

Well, that's enough of that.but I would add some thoughts about the role of the US in the last days.  I think he's stretching things a great deal to equate the US with the beast from the land with the horns of a lamb but he makes a good general point about that beast and he's right that the US has been changing for the worse in a direction that  unfortunately fits right in with the Antichrist world order.\

The beast with the horns of a lamb that speaks as a dragon suggests an apostate form of Christianity separate from that of the Roman Antichrist apostasy but of course since this fake lamb causes people to worship the Antichrist it's part of the system in that sense anyway.  

APOSTATE PROTESTANTISM

There's no doubt that plenty of Protestant churches have deteriorated into apostasy in the last century starting with the Liberal movement and now the Charismatic movement and the Emergent Church.  The acceptance of Social Justice and the BLM in some churches very recently is certainly part of it.  Many of them regard the Church of Rome as a Christian denomination.  I left a Charismatic parachurch organization because they prayed for the Pope as a Christian brother.  The Charismatic Movement in general embraces Romanism and there are Roman Catholic Charismatics who claim the gifts of the Spirit.  Some years ago I saw a video of some well known Charismatic Christian leaders visiting the Pope and even bowing down to him to kiss his ring.  Some of them may have been from denominations other than the charismatic churches but I don't remember.  In any case it's no small number of churches that have lost their way and accepted Rome.  

Then we have the depressing phenomenon of George Washington's rumored conversion to Catholicism on his deathbed and his deification in the painting in the rotunda of Congress, painted by a Catholic, a theme about as far as you can get from Protestant thinking.  And tanother depressing phenomenon in  George W Bush's saying he sees "God" in the Pope.  And then we have the Pope's visiting our Congress a few years ago at the invitation of Representatives Pelosi and Boehner who are Catholic.  Wish my memory were better because now I'm remembering that Ronald Reagan made some official move or other that increased the favor of the Pope with the US.  We have lots of Catholics on the conservative side of our politics and Protestants join with them on many political issues because of our shared commitment to such things as the pro-life movement among other conservative causes.  We have many conservative Catholics on the Supreme Court as well as in Congress.   According to Chris Pinto, President Trump is "surrounded by Jesuits."  We have many major universities that are run by Jesuits.  A few years ago one came out and suggested we do away with the Constitution.   I think I have a post on that somewhere either on this blog or the America blog.

In other words, although America started out as a Protestant nation and maintained that identity for over a hundred years since the founding, the fact is that there is an enormous influence of Catholicism in the nation now.  In America Catholics think more like Protestants, but as long as they acknowledge the Pope they represent an anti-Protestant mentality in the country.  The Jesuits of course are formally dedicated to the destruction of Protestantism and Protestant nations historically.  John Adams famously expressed dismay at the opening of nations to receive them again after they'd been banished, saying even that if any man deserved Hell it was Ignatius of Loyola who founded the order of the Jesuits.  And John  Adams was not an orthodox Christian, rather a Unitarian.  Nevertheless like the other nonChristian founders he shared in the general cultural Protestant Christian mindset.

I've also pointed out in a blog post here the revelations Chris Pinto put together in one of his documentaries showing the Catholic influence in the artchitecture of Washington DC.  Congress itself is housed in a replica of the basilica in Rome complete with obelisk in the form of the Washington monument.  The Antichrist himself embodied in plain sight.  Pinto also points out many Greco-Roman influences besides that.  All that apparently got built while nobody was paying attention or recognized the symbolism.  Satan already has his mark on America.  So what the SDA film narrator said about America's being the fake lamb of Revelation 13 may not be the correct reference but there is nevertheless reason to identify the US as eventually coming under the power of Rome in the end despite our strong Protestant origins.

BEAST WITH LAMB'S HORNS WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES?

I've found that beast with the lamb's horns to be quite a puzzle, maybe just haven't heard what MacArthur had to say about it, not sure, but as I was thinking about it a few days ago it hit me that since it must represent an apostate Christianity how about the World Council of Churches?  Aha!  I already posted what my greatnephew talked about in one of his videos, that the Pope and the WCC have been working together.   For the WCC to represent the False Prophet makes a lot of sense.  That's my candidate for the role now. 

All this leads me back to the Pretribulation Rapture scenario and the Great Tribulation.  I was listening to Jan Markell's recent radio shows where as usual they talk about how close it all is but speak of the Antichrist as yet an unkown figure to be revealed after the Rapture of the Church.  Prophecy Roundtable 8 – The Great Re-Set in Bible Prophecy - YouTube

I've veen taking the position of the Protestant Reformation and many of its precursors back to the declaration of the Bishop of Rome as Universal Bishop, that the Pope was revealed to be Antichrist upon that declaration, so his identity has been known for 1400 years already.  And the Restrainer that prevented his being revealed until that point had to have been Caesar, since the Pope in a sense replaced the Caesars and became the head of the revived Church-State Roman Empire embodied in the Roman Church.  The SDA film got a lot of that right in my opinion though they identified an earlier date and made other interpretations I can't agree with.  

A SECONDARY FULFILLMENT OF THE REVELATION OF THE ANTICHRIST AND THE RESTRAINER?

What I'd say now is that although he's been revealed, and I think today's churches are very much in error that they rejected the Reformers' identification of the Pope as the Antichrist, mevertje;ess there may be justification for their view in that he won't be revealed to the world until after the Rapture, and that means that the Church IS in some sense the Restrainer that must be taken out of the way for him to be revealed.  And it makes sense of course, that the true Christian Church would have to be "taken out of the way" because they'd object to the Pope's elevation over all Christiqanity.  

No doubt in my mind , however, that the Pope IS the Antichrist and will be the leader of the World Church-State of the Great Tribulation period.   

And now I'm thinking that the World Council of Churches or perhaps a particular leader of that body, will be the beast with the horns of a lamb, or the False Prophet who causes the world to worship the Pope.

It's going to look like a Christian world though it will be Satan running it all.  Perhaps the scenario envisioned by one of the pastors on Jan Markell's shosw that I link above will characterize its politics, as the most diabolical form of Communism will reign.

GREAT COURAGE OF THE SAINTS TO RESIST IT

And those who are to be saved during that period will have to recognize that the Church of the true Christ is not on the Earth and put their trust in the true Christ even though it will cost them their lives.  This is the "patience of the saints."  Jesus said that "He who would save his life will lose it, but he who will lose his life for My sake will find it" and in losing this earthly life will gain eternal life."   Those who refuse to worship the beast and to take his Mark will be put to death in numbers that will far overshadow those put to death by the Roman Church in the Middle Ages.

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Ticking Off the Main Points Around Why Evolution Can't Happen

At some point way back when, it hit me that evolution -- meaning of course microevolution since there is no other kind --  proceeds by selection, and only by selection, not just what is formally known as Natural Selection, but all the ways that new phenotypes become characteristic of populations are really a form of selection.  By which I mean a portion of the gene pool is selected, most commonly by simple geographic separation, ideally isolated so that gene flow is prevented, and over some number of generations having to do with the number of its founders, it will develop a blended phenotype.  There's probably a name for it but i do't know the name, it's the look that develops from the set of gene/allele frequencies possessed by the founders of the population.  Yes in reality there is likely to be some continued or resumed gene flow and hybrid zones, because reality is messy, but the principle I'm getting at is most clearly illustrated where there is perfect reproductive isolation and only the members of the new population breed together.  \
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That was certainly the case with the Pod Mrcaru lizards.  There were no other lizards on the island where they were released.  The ten founders were the sole source of the genes from which the population developed its own peculiar characteristics, the large head and jaws, and the digestive system to go with them.  

The point I keep making in relation to the validity of the Toe is that selection reduces genetic diversity.   It's the only way a new population with a new appearance can come about, even a new "species," but the only way you can get there is by losing genetically, which is hardly good news for the ToE.  You can't get it by adding anything.  All you get that way is individual changes, even a whole population of different individuals; but unless some of those individuals are selected and isolated you aren't getting evolution..  But the idea of evolution is the creation of new "species" and that means whole populations that are internally more or less homogeneous phenotypically, while differing distinctly from parent populations, and selection is how that comes about.  

Selection can be the mere emigration of a random portion of a population, a random selection of individuals, to a new location some distance from the parent population.  In fact I don't know why this isn't on that list of "mechanisms of evolution" at UC Berkeley's Evolution 101 website.  They've got migration, mutation, genetic drift and natural seletion.  Migration is the same as gene flow, and the migration is the rejoining of two populations.  It's rather an awkward concept that doesn't really say what it means.  And it's really migration OUT of a population to form a new daughter population that is the real "mechanism of evolution".  Well, genetic drift is another form of it, in which the isolaselection ahd isolation occur withihn a parent population without any movement outside of it but it's clearer to think of the movement out of the gene pool  Migration INTo a population isn't evolution.   If it all blends together you could call it evolution, but then what's happening is a form of selection, some alleles dominating others, even some possibly evently dying out of the population altogether.  It isn't evoljution until a gene pool is selected and inbred, and its own gene/allele frequencies are blended into a new group phenotypic appearance.  

Natural Selection as usually understood is probably very rare.  A familiar description is of the removal of a trait or set of traits by a predator, selecting a different set of traits to proliferate because it can survive the predation.  White moths survive against white bark because the birds can't see them, while mottled moths will be picked off leaving the white ones.  But against mottled bark the white ones are picked off and the mottled moths proliferate.   It isn't just the alleles for those characteristics that are affected of course, because it is individuals that are being picked off and individuals possess genes for all the creature's characteristics so that whatever mix they possess is also lost when the individual is lost.  After a number of generations of this change from white to mottled and maybe even back again, the whole gene pool should be genetically depleted, perhaps even approaching a condition similar to clones.  Natural Selection of this sort is genetically costly, and it leads to less ability to evolve, again just what the ToE does not need..  

Of course my arguiment is that any selection is genetically costly, and that eventually, through a number of popujlation splits that bring about the formation of new daughter populations. any creature could eventually reach a state of genetic depletion.  

THE FAST TRACK TO GENETIC DEPLETION IS BOTTLENECK
That state is of course best illustrated by the endangered species, cheetahs and elephant seals for instance.  Bottleneck is really just a drastic form of selection.  Some kinds of domestic breeding may have been as drastic.  The cheetah came through a natural bottleneck of some sort, in which their numbers were drastically reduced, and the elephant seal's bottleneck was brought about by human predation, hunters who nearly destroyed the whole species.  But when protected its few survivors were able to resttore their population to great numbers, despite their being geneticallyh depleted.  The cheetah has also survived and continued to reproduce but it's reprodictively compromised and remains endangered.  

In discusseions I've ahd about this it is usually denied that the genetic depletion brought about by bottlenecks has anything in common with the effects of less drastic selection as I talk about it.  The only difference I see is that bottleneck is a faster route to the same end.  A series of selections would ultimately lead to the same genetic condition.  It's always the trend though it may not become serious until a number of poulation splits have occurred.  The example I like to give is "ring species," in which new populations form from earlier  populations by moving into new geographic areas away from the parent population.  In the new location their collective set of gene/allele frequencies eventually bring about a new "species."  

(I put the word in quotes because "species" is such a vexed term.  It's simply the Greek word for "kind" and any distinctive population, parent, daughter etc., is a "kind."    

THE TERM "RACE"
By the way, I'm pretty sure I've seen the term "race" used to refer to creatures other than human beings but it's probably an older form that's no longer in favor and I'd have to look it up.  It had no controversial connotations originally, it was just a word for the subspecies that form new characteristics in isolation from a parent population.  A race of penguins perhaps?  A race of beetles?  I don't know.  Anyway now there is all this controversy and the claim that there is no such thing as race.  All that means is that the term has come into disrepute, because of racism, but its original use was perfectly objective.  Now we're just to say"population?"  That one is so generic it's meaningless.   I think the clearest terminology is "Species" and "subspecies."  Or if you insist on "Population," then also use "subpopulation."  Or "parent population" and "daughter population." 

The need is to be able to say clearly what group descended from what group.   However, none of this nomenclature is appropriate when talking about people.  People aren't animals though of course that's what the ToE says we are.  Referring to us as "species" really grates on me.   "Race" may be fraught with cultural problems but it's still the clearest term to designate the biological differences between people groups.  I guess you could use "tribe" in some contexts, but the point is to be able to point out the biological differences brought about by genetic isolation.   At least in discussions like this one.  Maybe happily it's not of much use otherwise. 

"SPECIES" TERMINOLOGICAL CONFUSION
 The nomenclature is always a problem,  If you talk about a "species" of penguin you muddy up the whole idea of what a species is in the Linnaean sense.  I dismantle some of the Linnaean system with my way of putting things together as it is.  Or maybe the idea is muddy to begin with.  I'm for designating Bird as a Species myself.  Because I think most likely all birds come from an original pair of birds, all of them from the ostrich to the penguin to the buzzard to the hawk to the starline.  They are morphologically the same creature, and probably genetically also.  If you can look at DNA and tell what creature it belongs to, Bird should be identifiable, as is dog as is Cat..   Some groups would take more thought.  Maybe  Rodent is a species as I'm talking about it because of shared morphology.   I'm looking for shared sharacteristics that belong only to a particular group.   I suppoe any group of characteristics I choose would be disputed, but I do have a very definite idea about it.  Getting it into words may be a problem though.   It's morphological distinctions I have in mid, that much I know.  A rodent always looks like a rodent, they all have a certain skeletal structure in common, they do not look like any other creature.  All cats share a skeletal structure, from the tiget to the lion to the mountain lion to the panther to the housecat.  And it is not shared by dogs, all of which have their own skeletal structure, from the chihuahua to the Great Dane, and also include wolves and foxes.  Seems to me these are the groupings that should be called Species.  If there is a way to identify the genome of each that would help.  Divisions of Species can then be called "subspecies."  

If every daughter population is called a "species" it  then gets used as evidence for evollution.  People still think microevolution is evolution or evidence of it.  That's why this argument that there is a natural limitation to evolution is important.  If the formationm of new populations with their own characteristic traits always occurs through the loss of genetic diversity,  as I'm arguing it does, then what is normally considered to be evolution, the production of such new phenotypes that get called "species" is contrary to the necessary condition for further evolution.  Once you've reached fixed loci for most genes in a subspecies you've reached a point beyond which further change is impossible.  The cheetah and the elephant seal serve as examples for that.  If mutation could restore their genetic diversity it would have by now.  But also if you restore genetic diversity you also lose the speices.  Breeders must know this as they've had to compromise on their desire to produce pure breeds in order to preserve an animal's health, so they breed back genetic diversity into their breeds trying not to destroy their essential characteristics.  But it's a compromise.  The pure breed is the desired end product, the breed with the most fixed genes, or homozygous genes, but that's the condition that produces the most health problems for the animal.  Which is the cheetah's problem.  In the cheetah's case it can't breed with any other cat so it's stuck unless a beneficial mutation comes along.  Dogs don't seem to have that problem, they can continute to breed with other dogs in any case, so at the cost of losing some of their purebred characteristics their health can be preserved or restored.  

SELECTION 
Domestic breeding of animals is an example of selection of course, Artifical Selection.  Darwin made use of his own experience of breeding pigeons as the selection of chosen traits to be bred, which can become the basis of a distinctive new creature, as the process or mechanism that must also happen in nature to explain the variety found there.  This he called Natural Selection.  His observation of the many varieties or "species" of finches is a famous one.  Also the Galapagos turtle.  his basic reasoning is still followed by biologists.  In the case of the finches he reasoned that their different beaks came about by their being limited to the kinds of food that a particular beak could best eat.  He observated that finches with different beaks ate different kinds of food and reasoned that the food selected the beak as it were, that is the food caused the finch to develop the kind of beak needed to eat it.

NATURAL SELECTION BY ENVIRONMENTAL PRESSURE...
This same kind of reasoning is used to explain the Pod Mrcaru lizards.  It is reasoned that their larger head and jaws and tougher digestive systems evolved to adapat to the tougher kinds of food in their new island home.  The lixards that could eat the tougher food would have the better chance of survival and reproduction and so would pass on their genes and that's how the new population developed.

...VERSUS RANDOM SELECTION
That's pretty much classical Darwinism but I don't think that's how it happens in reality.  I think that the new gene frequencies shared among the founding ten individuals simply brought out the larger head and jaw because they just happened to occur in higher frequenciy than the alleles for the original sized head and jaw,.  The new traits worked their way through the entire population over some number of generations until they characterized the entire population.  The people who had released them originally came back to check on then thirty years later and were very surprised to find the whole population so changed in such a short period of time by evolutionary standards.   Evolution supposedly takes millions of years.  That's what is supposedly shown in the fossil record.  But instead of the food's dictating the evolution of the head and haw, it seems more likely to me that the head and jaw came first, the simple repeated recombination of a limited set of allele frequencies shared among the ten founders.  The genetic changes then led the lizards to food that their new heavier jaws could now easily eat  It wasn't that the food they'd eaten when they were part of the parent poulation back on the mainland wasn't available on the island, it's that their new heavier head and jaws could now handle the tougher food, so they gravitated to it.

I think that's what happened with Darwin's finches also.   The finches split into spearate populations and became reproductively isolated from each other and  each split would produce a new daughter population from a few individuals which together possessed a new set ofgene/allele frequencies that would produce a new style of beak.  That beak would enable the bird to eat a particular kind of food.  There are beaks that are suited to digging insects out of tree bark, beaks that can crunch hard nuts or something like that, beaks that do best with soft berries.  I don't know what all the range of beaks and food is but I know there are a lot of different beaks in the finch species and that they define the sort of food each subspecies prefers.  Again, instead of this being the food's calling the shots and the bird having to adapt, I think it efar more likely that the beaks developed from the splitting of the population determine the food eaten.  Again, this is a random selection of a particular, usually smaller, set of individuals that share a new set of gene/allele frequencies that eventually blend together to give the new population a characteristic kind of beak, and proably other traits as well but it's the beak in focus at the moment.  It's the beak that adapts them to a particular kind of food.    It's selection but it's selection brought about by normal sexual recombination within a randomly selected pool of gene frequencies that bring out a type of beak/  As tje mew population continues to breed together in isolation from other finches, their shared genetic material produces the ultimate character of the whole population over time,   The new beak selects the food it is best adapted to.  The environment, the food, does not do the selecting.  The classical case that requires the animal to adapt to the environment occurs occasionally, such as in the example of the black and white moths, and the black and tan pocket mice, but it must be very rare.   

Ring Species illustrate the principle I'm getting at.  This is a series of populations of a particular species that develop as daughter populations each from the previous population, that happen to form around a geographic barrier of some kind until there are many subpopulations of this one species, and each differs from all the others.  If I'm right, the farther you go around the ring in the direction the animals went, the less genetic diversity you should find along with the phenotypic changes you also find from population to population.  It ought to be detectable by analyzing the DNA.  The genetic direction should be to more fixed genes which means less genetic diversity as alleles drop out of the population.  And in some cases perhaps, more dramatic phenotypic characteristics will also be the case.  Maybe.  Because new combinations of alleles can bring out all kinds of interesting variations.   Chipmunks around the Sierra Nevada mountains, salamanders around a California valley, seagulls around the north Atlantic, greenish warblers in northern Europe -- not sure what the barrier is there.   Such a series of populations formed from other populations is particularly evident when there is such a barrier around which they can form, but they also illustrate the principle of how creatures change simply from geographic separation.    The idea that the new population changes in response to the new environment really doesn't hold up when there's nothing particularly different about each new environment from the others.   The changes are driven by genetics as an emigrating set of individuals  takes part of a gene pool to a new location.  I really think this must be the most common way new subspecies develop.  It's a lot more benign than the scenario of the struggle for survival pictured by the ToE where the creature most fitted to a given environment survives and reproduces in greatest numbers while others less well fitted eventually disappear.   Even in this challenging fallen world competition isn't as bloody as the AToE pictures it.

I've used the Wildebeest as an example.  It has two or three populations that differ from ne another.  The main or largest population is more or less brown, one of the others is called "blue" to describe its hide, and it's smaller and I think has different shaped antlers.  This is the kind of thing that would happen if a few of the brown ones just wantered off and got lost and started their own daughter population.  Their new set of gene frequencies in this case brought out the blue hide and the size difrence and the antler difference from the original
There is also the example of the Jutland cattle which I don't remember very well, but the idea is that a large herd split into four isolated smaller herd that in isolation each developed  their own distinctive peculiarities over a matter of years just from the new pool of gene/ allele frequencies possess among the original founders of each separate population.  That's just another illustration of my point, that variation even to the creation of new "species" or really subspecies, is simply a matter of the reproductive isolation of a portion of a gene pool.  No dramatic reason for it, no predator, no scarcity of food, no hostile environment, just reproductive isolation of a new set of gene/allele frequencies.   Period.

If we just notice the variety of types of human beings that have formed tribes in isolation from each other all over the world we see the same genetic situation there too.  Each group over some number of generations develops its own distincive appearance unlike any of the other groups.  Biblically it's how we got all the races of human beings.   There is something called the Table of Nations based on the geneaologies of Noah's family given in scripture, that outlines how the Noah's descendants spread out around the world some years after the landing of the ark in the Middle East.   The children of Japheth went  North into Russia and west into Europe, the children of Shem spread around the Middle East and possibly to Asia, the children of Ham went into Africa.  I'm not sure which group went to India and Asia.   But the point is that each group developed its own characteristic population identity over time simply by blending its own gene/allele frequencies.  

AND EACH DAUGHTER POPULATION IS GOING TO HAVE SOME DEGREE OF REDUCTION OF GENETIC DIVERSITY.  THAT'S HOW NEW PHENOTYPES, SPECIES, DEVELOP.  THAT'S HOW YOU GET NEW BREEDS, YOU LOSE THE GENETIC MATERIAL FOR OTHER BREEDS.  

Same principle of geographic migration and isolation would have brought about all the various subspecies of every animal that had been on the ark too,.

BOTTLENECK DOES THE SAME THING, ONLY FASTER
And speaking of the ark it always comes up in discussions that such a drastic bottleneck sas the Flood, in which only eight human beings and a pair or seven animals were all that survived, hould have made all such further changes impossible.  It took me a while to think all this through.  At first I thought there must have been an enomrously bigger genome in the original species, indlucing humans, but then I reread a creationist book, drat I may not be able to remember the title or the author, I hope it comes back to me.  Anyway they presented a hypothetical Mendel's square from light AA to aa to dark BB to bb  show how ordinary genetics could explain how all the different skin colors found across all humanity could have been possessed by our original parents Adam and Eve.  Since it isn't all just light and dark but also shades of color they could also have had other genes for skin color.  Many genes for one trait is quite common.  Anyway I saw from that presentation how very possible skin tone could derive from a single genome.  So I didn't have to imagine any special kind of genome after all, just a genome that had a full complement of genetic possibilities, meaning no junk DNA for instance.  

HOMOZYGOSITY
This is the crux of the whole situation I'm talking about.  each of us may have homozygous genes for some trait or another.  I have homozygous bb for blue eyes, someone else may have homozygous BB for brown eyes, and many will have the heterozygous Bb which is also brown because the B is dominant.  Perfectly common way the alleles get distributed among people.  Or animals.  But what has happoened with the endangered cheetah is that it has so many homozygous genes for its salient traits it can'[t breed with any other kind of cat.   Same with purebred animals, at least those bred in the days before the dangers to health of the animal through the drastic method of breeding for a given trait or set of traits.  Purebreds were defined as having a great many fixed loci or fixed genes or homozygous genes for the desired traits.  This wouldn't be a problem in the original Created world but it is a problem in our fallen world.  In any case homozygosity is how traits get fixed in a population.  And homozygosity is the result of bottlenecks.   That is why the question comes up about the ark since the Flood certainly created genetic bottlenecks for all living things.

It may have been working through that Mendel's square for skin color based on the book -- Creation  Science I think now though I still can't remember its author --  I began to realize that although greater homozygosity would of course be the result of a bottleneck, back at the   -- oh I remember now.  That book said that we now have something like 7% heterozygoisty so that a bottlneck now would esily reduce genetic diversity to the drastic level of tghe cheetah.  But in the days of the ark, all the creatures saved would have had much greater genetic diversity than any creature has now.  Every gene in the original parents at the Creation would have been heterozygous, and hopmozygosity would develop through sexual recombination in individuals.  On the ark there would still have been a great percentagle of heterozygosity left in each creature so that further variation was possible.  that's how they could have been the progenitors of every variety of living things we see today.  They would not have had the enormous genetic diversity of the original parents but they would still have had enough for the variation that occurred when they all spread out after the FLood.  I don't know how much.  30%?  70%?  Wild guessing.  But a lot more than we have now.  
THEREFORE, although the Flood bottleneck would have led to much reduced genetic diversity, meaning much more homozygosity, it wouldn't even be particularly noticeable since great variation would have continued for each Species.  
Not sure how this works exactly, but my guess is that mutations destroying homomzygous genes that then spread through a population could be a big contributor to the death of genes or Junk DNA.


JUNK DNA
Yes I think Junk DNA IS junk, genes that have died, representing characterestics no longer possessed by the organism, including the loss of things like the appendix and other "vestigial" organs, but also no doubt hundreds or even thousands of capacities and traits we can't even imagine.  Capacities once possessed that have been lost over the millennia because of the Fall that introduced death and disease into the world, many no doubt lost in the Flood.  Mutations are probably the biggest cause now. I think  of mutations as a disease process due to the Fall.  Anything that is a ':mistake" which is how mutation is described, has to be the product of the Fall.  If mutations occasionally produce something new and viable, that's just because it hit on a particular chemical sequence, probably one that had been lost before anyway, nothing really new.  

SPECIATION
This idea is ridiculously bogus.  The idea is that a subspecies branches off a parent population and becomes unable to breed with that population and this makes it a new Species.   My guess is that if you analyzed the DNA of these new "Species" you'd find that they have many fixed genes and are low on genetic diversity compared to the parent population.  In other words they are just another isolated race or variety or breed of that population or Species that has formed in isolation from others of its kind.  It may not be as genetically depleted as the cheetah or the elephant seal but my guess is it has to be genetically reduced.  The term "speciation" implies something from which further evolution could be launched, it implies a point at which one Species can become another Species, according to the ToE, but genetically it can't happen.  If it hasn't reached an absolute end ot its ability to vary further it hasat least reached a poitn of less ability to produce variations, far from the expectation generated by the term "speciation " as defined in the context of the ToE/.  

SOME IMPLICATIONS OF WHAT I AM ARGUING HERE:
  • Species were originally created separately.  What  creationists call Kinds in an attempt to distinguish them from the Species of the ToE   My provisional definition of a Species iw first of all morphological identity, which I would have to spell out eventually for each Species, and secondly genetic.  I assume each is definable by its shared genome, but what that looks like I don't know.  Since geneticists and biologists think in evolutionary terms they aren't looking for what I'd be looking for.
  • Each Species was created with a genome unto itself, with perfect DNA that always replicated without making any mistakes in copying, no junk DNA, every gene functional for some important purpose of creative variation or protection, health, strength etc. 
  • If there had been no Fall every living thing would have been immortal and disease-free, and reproduction would produce endless new varieties or subspecies, while the original parents continued alongside them, never dying.
  • The original genome of each individual Species possessed by the original parents, contained the possibility of an enormous number of variations, every kind of every Species we see now and some uncountable number of others that either died or never got born. 
  • Those others went extinct or never could exist because so many possible allele combinations died out, certainly many subspecies died in the Flood.  Maybe even whole Species.  Well, the Trilobites are one of those.  
  • In this fallen world of disease and death  none of the original parents of any Species is still alive, nor any of those preserved on the ark, nor any of the generations up to present time.  So that when a particular line of variation/microevolution is pursued out to its limits it is vulnerable to disease and extinction, whereas in theoriginal Creeated world before the Fall it would reach that genetic limit without any threat.  Thousands and thousands of such lines of variation could be generated from any original set of parents, just because God loves variety I would have to suppose.   Perhaps we'd have automatically colonized all the other planets if we ran out of room.  They would not have been dead planets as they are now.
  • .
SUMMATION OF THE ARGUMENT
  • Evolution, meaning any kind of phenotypic variation at the population level, is powered by selection and no other "mechanism"
  • Selection means the isolation of a portion of a population either randomly or by intention or necessity, either by separation from the parent population or within it (which is Genetic Drift)
  • Selection always trends to the reduction of genetic diversity, and at the extremes to genetic depletion
  • This reduction means the increase of homozygous genes in the population as alleles for competing traits are ultimately eliminated and those for the selected traits become fixed
  • Selection can be immediate or drastic as in bottleneck and founder effect or a slow accumulation over many population splits
  • The Theory of Evolution assumes an endless ability for a Species to continue to vary, even to the eventual formation of an entirely new Species, even by Natural Selection, but this is impossible.  Selection reduces genetic diversity even to the point of genetic depletion which makes further evolution impossible.  The very mechanism that brings aqbout the phenotypic changes taken for evidence of cpmtinuous evolution actually make it impossible.  Evolution defeats Evolution.
  • Any addition of genetic material into a populatoin interferes with the formation of a daughter population or new species or subspecies, such as gene floow between the parent and evolving population or mutation  There is no evolution where there is addition.  Gene flow is just the reintroctuion of formerly reduced or eliminated alleles.  Mutation may or may not add something that's actually new.  But both interfere with the process of evolution because that cess requires eproductive isolation.   Even the formation of hybrid populations only happens with selection and isolation of the reintroduced alleles.   If the isolation isn't perfect you may still get soe population change but imperfect population homogeneity
  • Mutation is often made to bear a burden it can't really bear.  It is assumed to be the source of all functioning genetic material, the engine that drove the formation of DNA in the first place.   It's assumed, it can't be proved because it can't happen in reality.  Mutation is a destructive event, a mistake.  It destroys a perfectly functional allele to replace it with another, and the new one is usually either deleterious or "neutral," meaning doesn't change the product although it changes the chemical sequence of the original functioning allele to no good purpose.   Very very rarely it has a "benetificial" result in that it produces a new function. First, all it an do is produce a new form of whatever the gene does.  If it governs fur color it will produce a fur color, apparently a new one.  It can't change what the gene does.   And it brings about this change in function by destroying what was porbably the perfectly viable functioning allele  it replaced.  And it probably isn't new, it is probably just the reemergence of a formerly lost function by the accidental fortuitous recreation of a chemical sequence that had been lost at some time in the history of the species.  And then it has to be selected in order to spread in the population and replace the function it displaced at the the population level.   Such a messy business cannot possibly be how DNA came about in the first place.  This ought to be obvious.
  • So all the variety we see in Nature is brought about by the variability of genes built into the genome of each Species.  It can't vary anything but what is already programmed into each gene,   And as new traits get established the alleles for those traits become fixed and the competing alleles drop out, which is the reduction of genetic diversity that fuels the phenotypic change.  It is essential to phenotypic change.  You don't get that population level change that gets called a new species unless it occurs.    Resumed gene flow could in many cases bring them back but then you lose the character of the Species that was supposed to be the evidence of evolution.   
Yes I know I keep repeating myself, though I hope I do it with enough variety of expression to overcome some of the resistance.  I'm trying to unseat an entrenched paradigm and the resistance to such efforts is often insurmountable even if mostly a matter of completely irrational devotion rather than an attempt to grasp the reasoning against it.

Beyond this argument there is also the geological argument about the absurdity of identifying a discrete horizontal slab of sedimentary rock with a unit of geological time in which supposedly unique events occurred as the fossils of a unique set of living things appear in this rock, while a different unique set of living things appear in a different kind of sedimentary rock above and below it.   tje cpmtact betweem tje tpw rpcls os pftem razpr sjar[ amd straight which suggests something other than a time period but the equation nevertheless persists.  If only the fossils of reptiles whow up in one layer and only the fossils of mammals show up in the compoletely diferent rock above it this is taken for evolution from the reptile to the mammal.  I don't know how the absurdity of this is lost on the scientists who accept it.    And of course there's a lot more to say about this but this post is already too long.

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Sometimes people talk about "cultural evolution" as if it exists and has something in common with Darwinian theory.  I don't get it.   Just noting it for now.

I know I shouldn't come back and add to posts later but an afterthought so often just needs to fit into what I've a;readu written.  So i apologize but later versions of this may be different in some ways, mostly new elaborations..  

  I'll try at least to come back and correct typos and my horrific run-on sentences.