a mESSAGE FOR jORDAN pETERSON ABOUT hIS vERSION OF rELIGION

 sURE IT'S SILLY i SUPPO0SE TO TALK TO SOMEONE FROM MY BLOG WHO IS NOT LIKELY EVER TO SEE MY BLOG BUT SICE i CAN'T SEE WELL ENOUGH TO DO IT ANY OTHER WAY i DO IT ANYWAY AND WHO KNOWS, MAYBE HE'LL COME BY AND SEE IT.  wHAT IF HE SNASWERED ME?  i COLDN'T SEE HIS ANSWER.  i DON'T EVEN TRY TO FIND THE cOMMENTS SECTION ANYW MORE, IT'S BEYOND Y ABILITY TO FIND IT.  i CAN'T READ MY EMAILS.   BUT i CAN STILL SEND A MESSAGE OUT INTO THE ETHER AS IT WERE AND MAYBE IT WILL REACH HIS EAR WHO KNOWS.

i'M THINKING HERE OF jORDAN pETERSON.  i JUST HEARD pIERS mORGAN'S INTERVIEW OF HIM AND HIS DAUGHTER, DON'T KNOW WHEN THAT WAS BU THEY'RE INTERESTING PEOPLE.  lATE IN THE PROGRAM RELIGION CAME UP AND pETERSON REVEALED THAT HE BELIEVES IN GOD AND TRYIES TO ACT AS IF THERE IS A gOD AND THAT'S BECAUSE HE WANTS TO AVOID hELL, WHICH HE BELIEVES IS REAL AND CAN BE AVIDED IN THIS WAY.  bY RECOGNIZING gOD AND BEING GOOD i GUESS.  

sO OF COURSE I CWANT TO TELL HIM, WARN HIM, UH OH jORDAN, THAT ISN'T GOING TO WORK.  iF YOU REALLY WANT TO AVOID hELL, THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO DO THAT.  yES ONLY ONE.  YES cHRISTIANITY IS AN EXCLUSIVE RELIGION.  YES, THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S THE TRUTH AND AOOTH HTE OTHERS ARE JUST HUMAN INVENTIONS OR SATANIC INVENTIONS AND WHILE THEY MAY OFFER SOME INTERETING AND USEFUL PHILOSOPHIES TO LIVE BY THEY WILL NOT SAVE YOU FROM hELL.  oNLY cHRIST CAN SVAE YOU FROM hELL.   

sCRITURE ITSELF SAYS THAT BELIEVING IN GOD WO'T GET YOU ANYWAHWERE, THAT EVEN THE DEMONS OR EDEVILS BELIEVE IN gOD AND THEY AREN'T GOING TO BE SAVED.  BEING GOOD WON'T SAVE IYOU.  iTG MIGHT KEEP YOUFROM THE LOWER REGIOS OF hEL BUT IT WON'T KEEP YOU OUT OF hELL.  jUST ONE SIN IS ALL IT TAKES TO GET US INTO hELL.  wE'RE ALL BORN hhELL-BOUND BECAUSE WE INHERIT THE SIN OF OUR FIRST PARENTS, WE ARE BORN IN THE SIN NATURE OR FLSHLY NATURE, UNABLE TO KNOW gOD PERSONALLY AS THEY DID BEFORE THEY DISOBEYED.  bUT IT WAS BECAUSE WE CAN'T SAVE OURSELVES AND ARE DOOMED TO hELL THAT gOD PROMISED FROM ALL THE WAY BACK IN eDEN AND ALL THROUGH THE oLD tESTAMENT TO SEND US A sAVIOR WHO WOULD SAVE US FROM THE SINS THAT CONDEMN US TO hELL.  

fINALLTHE mESSIAH CAME, FULFILLING ALL THE PROPHECIES OF hIS ARRIVAL, THE PROPHECY OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH, OF THE BIRTH IN bETHLEHEM, OF hIS SUFFERING FOR US AND A LOT OF OTHERS, AND THAT IS jESUS cHRIST.  wHEN hE DIED ON THE CROSS hE TOOK THE SINS OF ALL THOSE WHO WOULD BELIEVE IN hIM UPON HhIMSELF AND hIS DEATH PAID FOR ALL THOSE SINS AND CLEANSED ALL WHO BELIEVE OF THOSE SINS COMPLETELY SO THAT WE CAN ALL START WITH A NEW SLATE, SINLESS JUST AS hE WAS SINLESS.  iF WE BELIEVE THAT, KNOW THAT hE DIDED FOR US AND THAT WE ARE FORGIVEN ALL OUR SINS BECAUSE hE PAID FOR THEM, THEN WE ARE SAVED.  aND THAT MEANS SAVED FROM hELL.  sAVED TO ETERNAL LIFE.  wE ARE BORN AGAIN WHEN WE EMBRACE THAT TREUTH, WE RECEIVE THE hOLY sPIRIT WHICH IS THE LIFE OF gOD WITHIN US WHICH BEGINS THE PORCESS OF FITTING US FOR LIFE IN hEAVEN.  nO YOU DON'T HAVE THE lOGOS WITHIN YOU JUST BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IN gOD, WHATEVER THAT WOULD MEAN ANYWAY, IT'S JUST SOME KIND OF jUNGIAN HOOHA.  bUT IF YOU BELIEVE THE TRUTH, THAT jESUS PAID FOR YOUR SINS WHEN hE DIED ON THE cROSS AND SHED hIS BLOOD FOR US, THEN YOUARE SAVED FROM hELL AND THAT'S THE obnly WAY ANYONE IS SAVED FROM hELL.

si GIEUESS IF i COULD SEE WELL EHNOUGH i'D FIND pETERSON'S WEBSITE AND SEND IT DIFRECTLY BUT UNFORTUNATELY HE'LL HAVE TO DISCOVER IT SOME ONEHTER WAY.  iF HE CARES AT ALL, WHICH HE MAY NOT.  pEOPLE LIKE THEIR OWN VERSIONS OF gOD SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE TRUTH TRUE ONE , SOME DO ANYWAY.  fORTUNATELY OTHERS HAVE THE HUMILITY TO ACCEPT WHAT GOD DID THE WAY gOD DID IT INSTEAD.  

 i i CAN ALWAYS PRAY OF COURSE.    i MAY PRAY FOR LOTS OF PEOPLE BUT WHEN SOMEONE REALLY BELIEVES HE'S DOING SOMETHING TO AVOID hELL AND i KNOW HE'S DECEIVED ABOUT THAT IT GIVES ME MORE MOTIVATION THAN USUAL TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT AND TRY TO STEER HIM RIGHT.  

ooH AND BY THE WAY, cATHOLICISM WON'T SAVE OU.  pERHAPS THERE ARE A FEW WHO GET SAVED IN THAT INSTITUTION BUT IT'S POSSIBLE THAT NOBODY EVER DOES, BECAUSE THEY DON'T TEACH THE RIGHT WAY TO GET SAVED AND THEY MAKE IT SOUND LIKE YOU CAN NEVER KNOW IF YOU'RE SAVED.  tHEY TEACH SOMNE TRUE chRISTIANITY BUT NOT THE PART THAT SAVES YOU.  bELONGING TO THAT cHURCH CERTAINLY WON'T SAVE YOU AND SOME PEOPLE THINK THAT.  aND PRAY8ING TO mARY IS ALWAYSMOST A RECIPE FOR BEING SURE YOU NEVER GET SAVED SO i KNOPE THOSE WHO HAVE MISTAKENLY CHOSEN THE cATHOLID cHURCH THINKYIN G THEY ARE CHOOSING cHRISTIANITY GET THE MESSAGE SOONER RATHER THAN TOO LATE.   

yEAH, i KNOW i'M NUTS.  i SIT OUT HERE HAVING CONVIERSATIONS IN MY HEAD WITH ALL SORT OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW i EXIST AND WOULDN'T CARE ANYWAY.  THAT'S TOTALLY NUTS.  oH WELL.  sOME PEOPLE HAVE COE BY AND CHATED A BIT WHEN i WROTE ABOUT THEM.  yOU NEVER KNOW.

gOT STARTED AND nOW kEEP THINKIGN ABOUT fACETS OF eOVLUTION

sELECTION IS JUST THE ISOLATING OF A PORTION OF A POPULATION IN WHICH A CERTAIN TRAIT OR NUMBER OF TRAITS GROWS TO PROMINENCE IN CONTRAST WITH THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POPULATION FROM WHICH IT SPLIT OFF.  nATURAL SELECTION IS GENERALLY THOUGHT OF AS TRAITS BEING SELECTED BY THE ENVIRONMENT, AS FOR INSTANCE A PARTICULAR KIND OF BEAK WHICH EVOVLES OVER TIME TO BETTER MAKE USE OF A PARTICULAR KIND OF FOOD THAT IS MORE READILY AVAILABLE IN THE ENVIRONMENT THAN SOME OTHER KINDS.  OVER A NUMBER OF GENERATIONS THE PREVANLENCE OF THIS FOOD SOURCE FAVORS THE USE OF A PARTICULAR BEAK SHAPE UNTIL THE BIRD BECOMES CHARACTERIZED BY THAT SHAPE.  

ok, i SUPPOSE THAT MUST HAPPDEN SOMETIMES BUT IT DOESN'T SEEM TO BME TO BE THE MOST LIKELY OR MOST COMMON WAY TRAISTS BECOME CHARACTERISTIC OF POPULATIONS.  wHAT HAPPENS WHEN A NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS SPLIT OFF FROM A LARGER POPULATION AND BECOME REPRODUCTIVELY ISOLATED FROM THE LARGER POULATION OVER A NUMBER OF GENERATIONS IS THAT THERE IS A NEW SET OF GENE GREQUENCIES FROM THEAT OF THE EARLIER POPULATION, SO THAT SOME TRAITS ARE MORE PREVALENT AND SOME LESS EXPRESSED IN THE NJEEW THAN IN THE OLD.  i THINK WHAT MOST OFTEN HAPPENS IS THAT THE TRAITS DO THE ESLECTING.  tHEY FIND WHATEVER IS IN THE ENVIRONMENT THAT BEST SUITS THEM RATHER THAN THE OTHER WAY AROUND.  oF COURSE THEENVIRONMENT MAY ALSO CONTRIBUTE TO THE PROCESS BUT PROBABLY A LOT LESS THAN THE THEORY SUPPOSES.

ii'M THINKING OF dARWIN'S FINCHES.  tHERE ARE QUITE A FEW DIFFERENT POPULATIONS OF FINCHES WITH DIFFERENT BEAK TYPES, SOME SHORT AND STUBBY, SOMELONG AND NARROW AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN.  THEY ARE EACH BEST ADAPTED TO PARTICULAR KINDS OF FOODS AVAILABLE IN THEIR ENVIRONEMNTS  lONG NARROW BEAKS CAN BPROBE BENEATH BARK TO FIND INSECTS, SHORT STUBBY BEAKS CAN CRACK THE SHELLS AND HUSKS OF NUTS AND SEEDS, AND SO ON AND S FORTH.  eACH BEAK TYPE IS FOUND IN THE MOST SUIGTABLE ENVIRONEMTN FOR IT.  dSsURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST AND ALL THATL.  

bUT THE GENOME DOES ITS OWN THING AND EVRY GENERATION OF SEXUALLY REPRODUCING ANIMALS HAS VARIATIONS ON THE ANIMAL'S TRAITS.  wHEN A LONGER NARROWER BEAK HAPPENS TO SHOW UP IN AN INDIVIDUAL THAT ONE WILL NATURALLY FIND ITSELF DIGGING INSECTS OUT FROM THE TREE BARK AND THAT SORT OF THING.  iT WILL PASS ON ITS NARROWER BEAK TO ITS OFFSPRING WHICH WILL ALSO GRAVITATE TO THE KIND OF FOOD THAT BEAK DEALS WITH SO WELL.  tHEY MAY FIRST WANDER TO THE AREAS OF MORE TREES WITH MOR INSECTS AND GET ISOLATED FROM OTHER FINCHES AND THEN PRPAGAGTE IN A NEW EVIRONMENT AND SO ON.   i'D GUESS THIS IS A BETTER SEXPLANATION OF THE VARIETY OF FINCHES THAN NATURAL SELECTION WHICH SEEMS TO ME TO BE AN OAWFULLYH COSTLY WANY OF BRINGING OUT NEW TRAITS , WHICH IS OF COURSE EXPRESSED IN THAT SLOGAN ANYWAY, THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.  THE LESS FIT JUST MAY NOT SURVIVE AT ALL WHERE THEY ARE NOT ADAPTED.  bUT IF THE TRAIT SEEKS ITS BEST MATCH IN THE ENVIRONMENT THANEN THE BIRDS JUST GO WHERE THEY BEST FIT AND SPLIT OFF ACCORDING TO THAT PRINCIPLE.  FORMING NEW POPULATIONS.

i THINK ALSO OF THE pODmRCARU LIZARDS.  THIS WAS AN EXPERIMENT DONE BY SCIENTISTS i DN'T KNOW WHEN.  tEN LIZARDS WERE CHOSEN FROM HE LARGE POPULATION OF LIZARDS ON THE MAINLAND, FIVE MALE AND FIVE FEMALE i THINK, AND LET LOOSE ON AN ISOLAND CALLD pOD mRCARU WHERE THERE WERE NO LIZARDS.  tEHY WERE LEFT THERE AND THE SCIENTIESTS WHENT AWAY BUT CAME BACK THIRTY YEARS LATER TO SEE HOW THE LIZARDS HAD FARED IN THEIR NEW ENVIRONMENT.  THEY FOUND THAT ALL THE LIZARDS ON THE ISOLAND HAD DEVELOPED VERY LARGE HEADS AND STRONG JAWS AND A TOUGHER DIGESTIVE SYSTEM, AND RTHAT THEY ATE A MUST ROUGHER DIET THAN THOSE OF THE ORIGINAL POPULATION ON THE MAINLAND.  

fIRST OF ALL THEY DIDN'T EXPECT THAT MUCH CHANGE IN SO SHORTG A TIME BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY WERE THINKING IN TERMS OF EVOLUTION WITH ITS MILLIONS OF YEARS SO THIS SHOULD MAKE IT CLEAR THEY AWERE WITNESSING SIPLY THE PROLIFERATION OF A PARTICULAR VARIATION THAT WAS BUILT INTO THE LIZARD GENOME AND JUST HAPPENED TO BE MORE PREVALENT IN THE TEN LIZARDS THEY RANDOMLY SELECTED TO PULATE THE ISOLAND.  THAT TRAIT INCREASED FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION JUST BASED ON PRINC8IPLE SOF GENETIC INHERITANCE, NHOT ANY PRESSURE FROM THE ENVIRONMENT.  tHERE WAS ALL THE SAME KIND OF FOD ON THE ISLLAND AS ON THE LMAINLAND BUT AS THE LIZARDS DEVELOPED THE ABILITYT TO EAT THE ROUGHTER TOUGHER FOOD IT BECAME THEIR MAIN SOURCE OF DIET.    tHAT'S THE BEST EXPLANATION OF IT IT SEEMS TO BME.

iFtHERE IS SUPPOSEDLY NO SUCH THING AS RACE AND HAT'S TRUE ENOUGH IN SOME IMPORTANT SENSE, BUT IT'S A SCIENTIFIC TERM THAT DESCRIBES THE VARIETIES OF LIVING THINGS FOUND IN NATURE, OR THAT'S HOW IT WAS ORIGINALLY USED.  yOU COULD TALK OF A RACE OF RACCOONS AND SO ON.  wENEVER A NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS SPLIT OFF FROM THE MAIN POPULATION AND INBRED WITH ONE ANOTHER IN ISOLATION FROM THE GREATER POPULATION A WHOLE PECULIAR SET OF TRAITS WILL EMERGE TO DEFINE THE NEW POPULATION IN SDISTINCTION ROMT HE ORIGINAL, AHND THAT'S TRUE OF PEOPLE AS WELL AS ANIMALS.  aSIANS LOOK DIFFERENT FROM eUROPEANS BECAUSE THEYVE DEVELOPED SEPARATELY FROM EIACH OTHER FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS.  THAT'S ALL A REACE IS.

aNYAY, YES SLECTION IS THE AGENT OF CHANGE OF "EVOLUTION" IN THE SIMPLE SENSE BUT IT INVOLVES THE ELIMINATION OF OTHER TRAITS IN THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING ITS OWN TRAIT PICTURE IN A NEW POPULATION.  THERE IS CONSEQUENCTLY A TREND TOWARD REDUCTION IN GENETIC DIVERISTY.  tHERE IS NOT AN INCREASE.  MANY TRAITS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE NEW POULATION MAY BECOME FIXED OR HOMOZYGOUS THROUGHT THE WHOLE GROUP, TAT'S A LOSS OF THE ALLELES FOR HETEROZYGOSITY.  THIS IS JUST A TGREND IN LARGE POPULATIONS BUT IN SMALL PULATIONS IT CAN BECOME CRUCIAL AS WITH ENDANGERED SPECIES AND PUREBRED AHIMALS WHICH DEVLEOP GENETIC DISEASES.  iN THE ORIGINAL CREATED WORLD WHICH HAD NO DISEASES OR DEATH SUCH GENETIC FACTS WOULD NOT THREATEN THE ANIMAL BUT IN THIS FALLEN WORLD THEY ARE DEFINITELY THREATENEED.  BUT THE POINT i'M TRING TO MAKE IS SIMPLY THAT IT'S AT THESE EXTREMES THAT THE NORMAL TREND OF EVOLUTION IS SHOWN AND IT'S AN IELIMINATION AND A REDUCTION, NOT AN INCRESE, AND THAT IS SIMPLY NOT WHAT EVOLUTION NEEDS IN ORDER TO CONTINUE.  iN FACT AT THESE EXTREMES NO FURTHER CHANGE OR EVOLUTION IS POSSIBLE AT ALL, IT'S COME TO AN END.  

mUTATION ALWAYS COMES UP AT THIS POINT IN THE CONVERSATION.  BUT WHAT DOES MUTATION DO?  aLL IT DOES IS CHANGE THE SEQUENCE OF EXISTING GENES, MOREST FREQUENTLY MAKING NO CHANGE IN THE TRAIT GOVERNMENTED BY THE GENE, BUT OFTEN BRINGING ABOUT SOME SORT OF DISEASE, AND ONLY VERY VERY RARELY IF AT ALL BRINGING ABOUT ANYTHING USEFUL TO THE CREATURE.  AND WHAT IF A MUTATION OCCURS IN THE CHEETAH SAY THAT IS ACTUALLY ENEFICITAL.  wLL IT WOULD HAVE TO BE IN THE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM AND IT WOULD HAVE TO BE PASSED ON TO ALL ITS OFFSPRING AND IT WOULD ACT JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GENE.  TO BE SELECTED IT WOULD DISPLACE OTHER GENES AND SO ON.  a MUTATION IS JUST ANOTHER GENE IN THE END IF IT IS AT ALL USEFUL AND MOSTLY IT ISNIT.

sOME MORE EKETCHY THOUGHTS ABOUT EOVLUTION

 aNOTHER LITTLE OBSERVATION i GOT INTO FAIRLY RECENTLY IN THIE HSITORY OF MY ARGUMENTS AGAINST EVOLUTION IS THAT THE BODY PLAN OF EACH CREATURE IS A CONSTANT THAT DEFINES THE DCREATURE.  nO MATTER HOW MUCH VARIATION GOES ON AS NEW VARIETIES DEVELOP WITHIN EACH GENOME, THE BASIC BODY STRUCTURE NEVER SEEMS TO BE AFFECTED.  yOU CAN STILL TELL A CAT FROM A DOG BY ITS SKELWTON NO MATTER WHAT BREED OF DOG OR CAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, ALL BIRDS SHARE A STRUCTURE, THE APPENDAGES ARTICULATING WITH THE BODY AT THE SAME PLACE AND FOLLOWING SOME APPARENT LAW OF PROPORTIONALITY ACROSS EVERY KIND OF BIRD, FROM THE SPARROW TO THE OSTRICH TO THE PENGUIN TO THE FLAMINGO.  THE BODY PLAN NEVER ALTERS.  a BIRD IS A BID IS A BIRD.  i'LL HAVE TO SEE aRCHAEOPTERYX AGAIN BUT i SUSPECT IT DOESN'T HAVE THE BODY PLAN OF A BIRD IF i RECALL CORRECTIOLY, SO i'D PROABABLY END UP THINKING ANY CLAIM TO THAT IDENTITY IS OBVIOUSLY FALSE.\\a TRILOBITE IS A TRILOBIT E IS A TRILOBITE BY ITS BODY PLAN.  a HUMAN IS A HUMAN IS A HUMAN AND NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY TRY TO CONVINCE US THAT WE MUST HAVE DESCENDED FROM APES, THE BODY PLAN OF THE APES IS DIFFERENT AND SHOULD BE RECOGBNIZESD BY ITS SKELTON.  lUCY HAS GOT TO BE SOME KIND OF DELUSION.

i'M SURE THIS ALL HAS GENETIC FACTORS UNDERLYING IT.  sOMETHING ABOUT hOX DGENES OR OMETHING LIKE THAT.  a PART OF THE GENOME THAT DOESN'T CHANGE WHILE ALL THE OTHER GENETIC MATERIAL CAN VARY IN ALL SORTS OF ITNERESTING WAYS BO GIVE US EVERYTHING FROM SABRETOOTHED TIGERS TO LITTLE FLUFFY PUSSYCATS, sT bERNARDS TO CHIHUAHUAS, cONDORS TO CHICKADEES AN SO ON AND SO FORTH.

aNOTHER TOPIC TO MENTION IS THAT i OFTEN USE THE CHEETAH AS AN EXAMPLE OF WHERE EVOLUTION GOES GENETICALLY IN ALL CASES, WHICH OF COURSE IS CHALLENGED MADLY BY MY OPPONENTS, BUT i THINK IT REMAINS A PERFECTLY GOOD EXAMPLE.  iT'S THE RESULT OF fOUNDER eFFTCT, A SUDDEN REDUCTION IN POPULATION TO A BAREMIONIMUM AT SOME POINT IN ITS HISTORY, THAT BROUGHT ABOUT A DRASTIC REDUCTION IN GENETIC DIVERSITY AS IT CONTINUED TO BREED WITHIN ITS OWN SMALL POPULATION UNTIL IT PRODUCED THE ELEGANT ANIMAL WE KNOW AS THE CHEETAH, WHICH CAN NO LONGER INTERBREED WITH OTHER CATS.  nOT ALL ANIMALS THAT ARRIVE AT THIS LEVEL OF GENETIC PURITY AS IT WERE HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO INTERBREED WITH THE ORIGINAL OR OTHE POULATIONS OF THEIR KIND, BUT IT IS ONE EFFECT OF THE TRENDS THAT ARE NECESSARY TO THE PRODUCTION OF SUCH CHANGES WITHIN A SPECIES.  eVOLUTION DEFEATS EVOLUTION.  yES THE CHEETAH DID NOT EVOLVE ACCORDING TO THE USUAL IDEA OF SOME SORT OF SLOW PROCESS OF NATURAL SELECITON, IT MAKEDE A SUDDEN LEAP DUE TO A DRASTIC REDUCTION IN POPULATION FOLLOWED BY ITS ISOLATION FROM OTHER CATS.  THE SAME IS WSHAT HAPPENS WITH OTHER ENDAGNGERED SPECIES SUCH AS THE ELEPHANT SEAL.  tHE SEAL HAS MANAGED TO PUBUILD UP ITS POPULATION TO GREAT NUMBERS IN SPIRT OF ITS GENETIC DEPLETION, WHILE THE CHEETAH STUGES WITH PROBLEMXS INVOLVING ITS REPRODUCTION BUT GENETICALLY THEY ARE BOTH EXAMPLES OF THE END PRODUCT OF EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES.  iF YOU SLOW DOWN THE PROCES,  TAKE IT IN SPAGES, SAY WITH THE RING SPECIES YOJU SHOULD STILL ARRIVE AT THE SAME RESULT IN THE END.

iN RING SPECIES A SMALL PORTION OF A POPULATION SEPARATES FROM THE MAIN POPULATION AND BECOMES ISOLATED FROM IT GEOGRAPHHICALY IN A NEW LOCATION ARROUND SOME KIND OF NATURAL BARRIER SUCH AS A VALLEY OR A MOUNTIN CHAIN OR THE aTLANTINC oCEAN AMD THEN AFTER THE NEW POPULATION HAS GROWN IN NUMBERS AND DEVELOPED A NEW LOOK FROM ITS NEW SET OG GENE FREQUENCES, A SMALL PORTION OF THAT POPULATIONJ AGAIN SPLITS OFF AND MOVES FURTHER AROUND THE NATURAL BARRIER AND THE SAME PROCESS REPEATS ITSELF.  eACH NEW PORTION OF POPULATION HAS A REDUCED SET OF GENE POSSIBILITIES FROM THE PREVIOUS UNTIL OVER TIME YOU GET A NUMBER OF POPULATIONS EACH WITH A TRAIT PATTERN THAT DIFFERENTIATES IT FROM THE OTHERS BUT MORE FIXED LOCI FOR ITS SALIENT FEATURES AS YOU RMOVE FROM THE ORIGINAL AROUND THE RING.  i THINK THAT HAS TO BE THE SACASE BUT IT WOULD TAKE SOME KIND OF RESEARCH TO PROVE IT

oR YOU COULD SET UP AN EXPERIMENT WITH MICE IN A LAB AND TAG EACH NEW POPULATION AND ANALZE ITS GENETIC SITUATION TO PROVE OR DISPROVE WHT i'M SAYING AFTER QUITE A FEW GENERATIONS.

aNYWAY i THINK IT'S PRETTY OVBVIOUS HAT THE PROCESSES OF EVOLUTION MEAING THOSE PROCESSES THAT PRODUCE PHENOTYPIC CHANGES THAT COME TO CHARACTERIZE A NEW POPULATION IN ISOLATION FROM THE OTHERS ALWAYS LEADS TO A CONDITION OF REDUCED GENETIC POSISBILITIES UNTIL AT THE END THEY WIND UP LIKE THE CHEETASCH, A BEAUTIFUL ANIMAL THAT IS GENETICALLY UNABLE TO PROCUED ANY MORE CHANGES BECAUSE ALL ITS GENES FOR ITS SLIENT FEATURES ARE FIXEXDD OR HOMOZYGOUS.

iF THE AN ANIMAL CAN NO LONGER EVOLVE INTO NEW VARIETIES THEN IT'S REACHED THE END OF EVOLUTION, HASN'T IT?  aND IF THAT IS THE CASE DOESN'T THE WHOLE THEORY JUST COLLAPSE IWHT HTIS RECOGNIZIOTN?  yOU CAN'T HAVE EVOLUTION IF YOU HAVE NO MEANS FOR AN ANIMAL TO EVOLVE.  aND ALTHOUGH THE WHOLE POPULATION MAY CONTINUE WITH LOTS OF GENETIC POSSIBILITIES THAT PAT OF IT ISN'T EVOLVING ANYWAY, IT'S ONLY WHEN IT EVOLVES OR PRODUCES NEW POPULATIONS THAT ARE DIFFERENT ROM THE EARLIER ONES THAT YO UIHAVE EVLLUTION.  yES?  yES.

fURTHER NOTE:  dAWKINS THINKS YOU CAN HAVE NATURAL SELECTION AS THE DRIVING FORCE OF EVOLUTION WITHOUT REALIZING THAT IT IS SELECTION ITSELF WHICH REDUCES GENETIC POSSIBILITIES.  iT DOESN'[T MATTER WHAT THE CAUSE OF THE SELECTION, ALL SELECTION IS IS THE ELIMINATION OF SOME TRAITS IN FAVOR OF OTHERS AND THE PRESERVATION OF THE NEW TRAIT SET THROUGH REPRODUCTIVE ISOLATION FROM OTHER PARTS OF THE POULATION THAT MIGHT MUDDY UP THE NEW CHARACTERISTICS.  aNY GENE FLOW, RESUMED GENE FLOW, CONTINUED GENE FLOW OR WHATEVER, WILL KEEP THE NEW POULATION FROM DEVELOPING ITS NEW TRAIT PICTURE CLEANLY.  iSOLATION IS THE KEY AND IT ISN'T PERFECT IN THE WILD IN MANY CASES.  IT IS PERFECT IN DOMESTIC GBREEDING BECAUSE IT IS ENFORCED BY THE ANIMAL BREEDER.  iN THE WILD PERFECT ISOLATION IS HARD TO BOME BY.  rING SPECIES MAY BRING ABOUT THOSE CONDITIONS THE BEST IF THE NEW POPULATIONS DO MANAGE TO GET GEOGRAPHHYICALLY FAR ENOUGH AWAY TO PREVENT GENE FLOW BETEWWEEENT THE TWO.\

bUT THE POINT i'M TRYING TO MAKE ITIS THAT ANY KIND OF SLECTION WHIS WHAT MAKES EVOLUTION IMPOSSIBLE IN THE END BECAUSE EVERY SELECTION INVOLVES A N ELIMINATION OF SOME OF THE TRAIT POSSIBILITIES, WHETHER THAT SELECTION IS THE KIND OF SLEECTION THAT IS BROUGHT ABOUT BY SURVIVAL THREATS SUCH AS A PREDATOR, OR JUST BY THE RANDOM PROCESSES OF MIGRATION AND GEOGRAPHYIC ISOLATION.  aLL ARE FORMS OF SELECTION THAT ISOLATE A PORTION OF A POUPULATION FROM THE REST OF IT.  THAT'S ALL SELECTION IS AND IT IS IN FACT THE ENGINE OF EOVLUION IF YOU MISINPTERPRET BUILT IN GENETIC VARIATION AS EVOLUTION, BUT THE MORE YOU SLEECT FROM THE POSSIBLE VARIATIONS THE LESS YOU can SELECT BECAUSE THE FEWER VARIATION POSSIBLITIES REMAIN AFTER EACH NEW SELECTION.    THIS SPELLS THE END OF EVOLUTION FOR ANY GIVEN TRACK OF VARIATION.  tHERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.  yOU CAN'T GET NEW POPULATIONS WITHOUT REUCING THE GENETIC POSSIBILITIES FOR FUTHER VARIATION WITH EACH ESLECTION.

cOME ON dsAWKINS, THINK.

sOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE eLECTION

iT MAKES ME SICK, IT LITERALLY CHURNS UP MTY STOMACH, TO HEAR THEIR LIES, TO HERAR kAMALA hARRIS TALK ABOUT THE NEED TO PRESERVE OUR DEMOCRACY AS IF tRUMP IS A THREAT TO IT WHEN IT'S HER OWN PARTY THAT'S THE THREAT TO IT.  aND KJOWING THAT HALF THE COUNTRY TAKES HER SERIOUSLY UGH IT HURTS.  aLL THE LIES THEY TELL ABOUT TRUMP HURT.  yOU STILL HEAR THEM ALL GOING BACK TO THE VERY BEGINNING.

tRUMP CALLED mEXICANS RAPISTS.  nO HE DIDN'T BUT THEY STILL SAY HE DID.  hE SAID THEY ARE SENDING US THEIR RAITS AND ALSO SAID THERE ARE NO DOUBT GOOD PEOPLE AMONT THEM.  BUT NO THE LFEFT LIES AND CALLS HIM A RACIST.    aND EVEN THOUGH i THINK IT WAS pOLITICAO CAME OUT AND CORRECTED THE ACUSATION THAT tRUMP HAD CALLED NEOnAZIES GOOD PEOPLE, THEY7 STILL USE THAT ONE TOO.  bIDEN STILL USES IT, IT'S NPT GOING AWAY ALTHOUGH IT'S BEEN CORRECTED AND IF YOU LISTEN TO TGRUMP'S WHOLE SPEECH ABOUT cHARLOTTESVILLE HEOU'LL HEAR HIM SAY SO IN HIS OWN WORDS THAT THE nEO nAZIES SHOULD E DENOUNCED.  nO MATTER, THE LIES WIN.

tRUMP IS A DISCTATOR AND SAID SO HIMSELF IS ANOTHER THEY USE AOLTHOUGH HE WAS CLERLY MAKING A JOKE AND SAYING WHAT HE PLANNED TO DO ON HIS FIST DAY IN OFICE AS A LEGITIMATE ACT OF HIS PRSIDENCY.  bUT THE LIE GOE ON AND ON ANYWAY.

iT'S ENDLESS, THEY'LL NEVER TOP.  aND UNFORTUNATELY LIES WORK.  

dESPITE WHAT LOOKS LIKE tRUMP IS IN A GOOD POSITION TO WIN THIS ELECTION i'M NOT ALL THAT OPTIMISTIC.  i THINK LIES WORK, i THINK ALL THE MANIPULATIONS THE LEFT DOES WORK, i THINK THEY MAY VERY WELL SUCCEED AT FINALLY TAKING OER aMERICA AND MAKING US THE BNADNA REPUBLIC THEY WANT TO MAKE OF US, THE SOCIALIST TYRANNY UNDER THEMSELVES THEY'VE BEEN WORKING ON FOR DECADES NOW.  i THINK IT WCOULD VERY WELL HAPPEN.  

aND A BIG REASON i THINK THAT IS THAT i KNOW gOD IS IN CHARGE AND i DON'T SEE YET ANY REASON WHY hE SHOLD PULL BACK hIS JUDGMENT AGAINST THIS NATION.  

eVEN IF tRUMP SHOULD WIN THE LEFT IS GOING TO HARASS US ALL INTO OBLIVION ANYWAY. AND eVENTUALLY REVERSE WHATEVER GOOD tRUMP MANAGES TO DO WHEN IT'S THEIR TURN AGAIN.  

Aa vERY bRIEF SKETCHY RESENTTION OF AN AGUMENT AGAINST EVOLUTION, A GENETIC OR BIOLGOCIAL ARGUMENT

 Dawkins likes to spell out the definition of evolution as evolutin by nautral selection, and he once made a little visual of stick figures that change from one kind of figure to another as they roll around, presumabley  undergoing evolution.  they just go on and on changing and changing and changing from one frame to the next.  Ir remember thinking to mysel fthat the man obviously has no notion whatever that there are barriers to that process.  Of course not, but then that was the title of my first post on the subject at EvCforum as I tried to put together my thoughts on that subject for the first ftime and in fact forthe next few times as well.  Natural Barrier to Processes of Evolution or something olike that was my title I think.  

The natural barrier is easily enough statesd as the fact that phenotypic change occurs as the result of loss of genetic diversity.  You can get change from population to poplation as long as you have enough genetic fuel for the change, but eventually as you reduce genetic diversity from change to change you will run out of the ability to change further, and that that point you've reached the end of th epossibility of evolution.l  Evolution itself brings evolution to a halt.  And tall that's really happened is that the variation built into the genome has reached an end down one or another patheway of change.  It's all within the genome, you can't get out of the geneome, but of course the ToE depends on being able to continue change beyond the genome and that's what ADwkins is assuming.

Yes, assuming.  they assume it all, there is no evidence for anyiy of it, evolution is all assumed  it's all theory, meajing ALL theory, not a theory that has evidence backing it, just all theory, theory from beginning to end, fantasy from beginning to end, all imagined, conjured, projected etc and then treated as if it were reality.  His little figures keep rolling along without a hitch, but in reality there are plenty of hitches.  

I always take breeds, domesting breeding, because it's handy and tracing a patho fol of natural eselection itn eh wild is a lot harder.  it can be done I think with ring species but I usually end up thinking it would hae to be donein a laband then it would rapidly become unwieldy although perhaps not impossiblyle.  Anyway I go to breeding becuase I know the processes are identical to what would happen in the wild despite the fact that they are selected by a human being.  Yes I get objections to this idea but such objections are ridiculous, the processres are the same, the source of the selection is really irrelevant, but they always want to make issues out of anyting.  Oh well.  Darwin himself used domesting seslection as a n example to make his case for natural eselection as the mover of evolution.  He'd bred pigeouns and knew how powerful selection is in making changes from generation to generation.  

So pick a breed of dog, there are hundreds you can pick any you like, they all became the breed they are by the same process of selection.  Traits are selected and the same ones selected over and over as new generations are born, always the best examples of the desired traits being breed bred and preserved from contampin ation by the introductionj of other genetic types.

Someone somewhere on the internet wrote that a pure bred is an animal with many fixed loci or many homozygoud genes for its salient tratits.  Homoszyugosity is a crucial element in the defvelopment of breeds or probably ring spiecies or any animal that develops from an isolated number of individuals that inbreed only among themseles.  This is how you get change from population to population, this is what evolution is, although it is really just variation built into the genome and there is no such thing as eovlution ibn the sense the theory requires.  You cN'T EVER GET BEYOND THE GENOME OF THE CREATURE, ALL THE VARIATION IS WITHIN THE GENOME AND YOU CAN GET SOME REALLY DRAMATIC NEW KINDS OF ANIMAL MERELY THROUGH THAT PROCESS, THE ISOLATION OF A POPULATION OF CERTAIN TRAITS .  sO A FEW WILDEBEEST WANTED OFF FROM THE MAIN HERD OF MILLIONS AND GET LOST AT SOME DISTINACE FROM THEHERD SO THAT THEYU BECOME THEIR OWN HERD AND OVER A NUMBER OF GENERATIONS THEY DEVELOP A WHOLE NEW LOOK FROM THE ORIGINAL HERD.  tHAT'S WHAT EVOLUTION IS.  IT'S REALLY JUST THE MIXING OF VARIATIONS BUILT INTO THE GENOME THROUGH INBREEDING UNTIL A NEW TYPE EMEGERES THAT IS CHARACTERISTIC OF THIS NEW POPULATION AND DIFFERS IN DESCRIABLY WAYS FORM THE ORIDINGAL .  tHAT'S HOW YOU GET BREEDS, AND THAT'S HOW YOU GET NEW POPULATIONS IN THE WILD.  yOU WILL ALWAYS GET A GDOG HOWEVER, YOU WILL ALWAYS GET A WILDESBEEST, IT WILL JUTS HAVE ITS OWN PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS ALTHO8UGH ITS BASIC BODY PLAN WILL ALWAYS BE A DOG OR A WILDESBEEST.

wHEN YOU BREED FOR A GREAT dANE, SAY, YOU ELIMINATE ALL THE GENES FOR dACHSCUNDS, CHICHUAUAS, HUSKIES AND SO ON.  yOU elimjinate , THAT'S THE POINT.  yOU REDUCE GENETIC DIFVERISTY IN ORDER TO BRING OUT THE NEW PHENOTYPE.

aND THAT FACT MAKES EVOLUTION IN THE SENSE OF THE tHEORY OF eVOLUTION MJUST PLAIN IMPOSSIBLE.  

yuES i CAN ALSO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS ABOUT MUTATIONS.

i'M TRYING TO BE AS BRIEF AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE USUALLY i GET INTO LENTTHY DRAWN OUT ATTEMPTS TO ANSWER EVERY OBJECTION THAT COMES TO MIND, AND THAT WOUILD STILL HABVE TO BE DONE IN ANY SERIOUS DISCUSSION BUT HERE i JUST WANT TO SKETCH IT OUT KNOWING IT WILL RAISE MORE UESTIONS THAN IT ANSWERS.

nOTE:  aS i LITEN BACK TO MY POSTS OF COURSE i NOTICE ALL MY TYPOS ABUT i ALSO NOTICE THAT THERE SEEMS TO BE A LOT MORE ERROS THAN i MYSELF CREATED.  yES i DO THINK SOMEONE HAS TAMPERED WITH MY BOG AND MAKE MY POSTS EVEN WORSE THAN i MAKE THEM.  yES i THINK THAT.  oNCE WHEN i WAS TYPING ON wORD IN MY OWN COMPUTER AND NOT ON THE ITNERNET i GOT THE MESSAGE THAT SOMEONE ELSE WAS EDING WHAT i WAS WRITING.  sOMEONE DOES THAT TO ME.  DID IT THERE, DOES IT HERE.

Glenn Loury

It's none of my business and maybe I shouldhn't say anyting about it at all, but here I go anyway.  I just notices hat when my eye falls on a picture of Glenn Lowry, or is that Loury Loury, oh well, who is talking with John McWhorter on a page I have open, that a sort of visceral feeling of sadness comes over me.  Physical feeling I mean, something I feel in my stomach.  Maybe it's spiritual though.  I often have the feeling of wanting to comfort him somewhow, I like him, I like his comments, but then I'm feeling his this sadness for him.  I can't say I know why but as I was thinking about it oit occurred to me that I think of him as struggling between two parts of himself and think of him as struggling with people in his life whom he loves but doesn't agree with about very important things.  this is true, he says so himself, and says so

 babout himself and McWhorter in this particular recent show I'm watching.  

So althought it's none of my business and I shouldn't talk about a person in such personal terms whom I don't even know I'm going to go ahead and say I think he's fighting his spiritual nature.   He's mentioned that he was once part of a Christian group and considered himself to be born again.  But no longer practices any of that.  He seems to bme to be trying sometimes to entertain opinions he really doesn't share and they are at least somewhat leftist oriented opinions.  that's a feeling I get, I could be terribly wrong, at this and everythinjg else I'm saying.  But anyway.

I then thought that if he really ws born again he still is born again.  You don't lose the new birth, you are a new creature and you can't unborn yourself and undo your very being itself.  If he ws born again he is still born again, and if this is true then he is going to be at aodds with al kinds of things in this world and it will cause him pain to accept them or try to accept them.  For sure even when we are born again ewe still have ths in nature in us, we still have the Old Man in us and we are still prone to falling into fleshly and worldly swins and thoughts.  But it also hurts if the pisirt has the uupper hand in a particular issue.  I think he struggles a lot with the people he disagrees with, not wanting to alienate them and this is possibly because the spirit in him is suffering fom his attempt to deny that part of himself over and over.  I doubht his wife is born again and I know John McWhorter isn't, so he's in company with people who don't share his spiritual nature.  there is a great sadness in denying it if this is so.  I feel it is so.

I could be completely totally horribly wronjg.  But if I'm right the sooner he recognizes his condition and turns back to god the sonner he will find his ral identity and prhaps bring some joy back into his life .  but perhaps joy is not missing from his life and then who knows where this feeling of sadness is coming from     As I said I probably shouldn't have written any of this.  Maybe I'll com back and delete it.

He Elon... Jordan, Dawkins.... etc Be honsest, be smart and honest, Evolution is False.

Mentioned that I didn't know an7uthing about Elon Musk's spiritual inclinations and thgen saw an interview of him bty Jordan Peterson in which Peterson asked him about that so now I hve some idea of it.  Then in my last post I mentioned wishing I could try to persuade Musk of my arguments against evolution and nex thing I know I'm listening to anothner interview of him in which he mentions his acceptance of evolution.  He was explaining his fervent desire to move humaity to Mars and beyond as a concern to preserve consciousness, which he thinks of as having arisen through evolution I suppose, and said that he thinks such a move is necessary because eventually some sort of catastrophe is bound to come along and wipe us all aout, such as happened with the dinosaurs and is shown in various places in the fossil record.  

Well, of course I expected that he's committed to evolution because well, he'd have to be,not being a Christian, and I know Jordan Peterson is, but somehow this got to me and I was more than ever wishing I coulde  get across how avolution is false.  I have two main or overarching aruments against evolution, but I realize they break down into smaller arguments, or in some sense lead to other smaller arguments as it were, and I started thinking through some of it again.  This I do from time to time anyway, though it gets aharder each time as I get older and I'm aware that my mind really isn't what it used to be, my memory is getting bad and it's very disturbing.  though God will help me remember things when I ask Him.  

Anyway, I wished he could just hear out and take seriously this one little argument for starters.  It's an argument from aburdity I've been told, and that makes it somehow suspect but I don't care.  Everything done against evolution is suspect according to the evol police who have their own brand of plitical correnctness.    This is one of the arguments against an old earth and in favor of the Flood of Noah to explain geological phenomena.  There are many angles this can be taken up from and I think theyu are all killers for the Theory of Evlution.  

the Fossil Record.  What a joke.  Oh sorry I'm not supposed to talk about science that way.  But it is, it's a huge joke when you really grasp the geological situation itself.  Think about the strata the fossils are found in.  Go to the Grand Canyon where the strata are clearly visible a mile deep, one layer of sedimentary rock upon another all straight and flat and extending throughout the entire canyohn area, and in fact across the whole North American Continent .  Yep, those layers of rock cover an enormous swath of geographyt, all straight and flat and in many cases quite thick too, up to hundreds of feet thinck.    In the Grand Canyon the layers climb from the Cambrian to the Permian time periods and bobove that there is a large plateus, or two plateaus really, the Kaibabg plateau on the north side which is limestome and on the south rim the Coconino plateau which is sandstone.  On the north the lplateau sextends a nundred or more miles up through the formation known as the Grand Staircase in Utah, above wshich the layers go on climbing through the dinosaur layers of Triassic, Juracssic, Cretaceous etc to Recent Time.   So the whole geological column as it is sometimes called is split in this area, the lower part showing in the walls of the Grand Canoy and the uppoer showing in the stair step formation of the Grand Staircase to the North.  

There is a lot about these formations that can be usedaas good evidence against an old earth and in favor of the Flood of Noah but a nicesimple one is simply to invite a person to think about the strata, the facts about the strata.  Think about how supposedly these layers represent time periods of millions of years each, in which particular kinds of living things populated the earth and are now memorialized in the fossils found embedded in a particular secimemndary rock associated with that perarticular time period.  This is the physical foundation of the Fossil Record.  

Just think about how these layers of rock extend straitght and flat across an entire continent and even can be found in Europe.  These are rocks, once loose sediments, all one tkind of secdiment in most cases.  We are suposed to believe that a perarticular time period was characterized geolgically by this one kind of sedimentary rock that covered an enormous area, ahnd to imagine that anyh kind of living thing could survive on such a surface.  Really, make yourself think this through.  It's uptterly absurd and impossible.  There is no way the history of the Earth could have been markded off by periods in which one and only one kind of sediment covered the surface flat flat flat.  No way.  Yet isn't that what we would have to expect if the prevailing theory is correct that they do represent millions of years of time and a sequence of living things that evolved from a type in one layer to a type in layers above it?  It' physically impossible.  Are you going to denythis?  Oh I suppose so.  I brought it up at EvC Forum and theyu just kept coming up with objections.  Of course, what else is to be expected of people committed to the theory of evolution.  But    they tried to invent other wasy the strata could have come about but none of the different possibilities holds together any better.  the whole thing is absorud  there is no way the history of Earth could have been characterized by huge ares of a single sediment.

And if it were so how come our own era isnt?

I wanted Elon Musk to think about some of my arguments.  Maybe he could start with this one.  I always think very smart people ar going to get thoings though and then they don't.  I'm nowhere near as smart as Musk or Peterson either for that matter, or Dawkins, I had to struggle to put goether my arguments.  I assume, perhaps wsriongly that people with musch fore evfficent and faster working intelligence wcould grasp the thing aa lot quicker but I'm often disappoinmted.  

Again that's just one little argument, an observation of one geological formation, nothing more.  There's a lot more that can be said about the geological situation that destroyes the idea of the fossil record and suports the idea of Noh's Flood.    

Only water can be the explanation for the separation into separate sediments and the flat layers into which they were ultimately arranged.  See Walther's Law for one explample of hos moving water layers sediments.

I've got a whole scenario in mind that explains Absolutely Everything but I guess I shouild just stop with this bare bones example of an absordity that I think all by igteself blows the ToE into a billi9on bits.

Another topid c to mention is Musk's interest in consciousness as something he wants to preserve, thinking of it as aprecious thing that evolved I guess which means it could just as easily disappear.  Well, being a Christian I know God gave us consciousness.  We are makde in Hi image, scripture tells us, and consciousness certainly destribes Him.  His consciousnesshad no beginning and will hav e no end.  Ours had a beginning but it will persist through eternity tbnow that it has come into existence, and it will persist either through a happy or a tormenting eternity.  But God is omniscient, that's the best word I suppose for His consciosness.  It's one of Hisa attributes, omnipresence, omnipoetnce and omniscience.  He knows everything, His is self aware and He knows us better than we knowourselves.  He wanted a consciousness being to exist so He made us.  He made us both of matter and of Spirit.  Animals He made of matter though He gave them a soulsl,, not a spirit that communicates with Him as ours can with Him, and He made the angels as spirit.  We are the only creature He made to function as both matter and spirit.    But we lost the spiritual ability at the Fall when our first parents disobyedd God and plunged us al into this fallen condition.  So we're all born into the physi8cal univrse with a soul more like animals than like creatures made in the image of God though that does manage to persist in us in some ways doesn't it.  But Jesus died on the Cross to pay for our sins so that we could be reinstated to our spiritul nature and resume constantct with god.  that's what Christianity is, the recoery of fallen humanity, but it's actually a lot better than just re coering.  That's a lot of theology Icon't completely understand and wouldn't or shouldn't try to include here anyway.  

but Hey Elon, and for that matter Hey Jordan, Hey Dawkins, Hey wholever.  THinking  Think anout mylittle observation above.  There's lots more where that came from.

Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk, Richard Dawkins, Fallenness etc.

A few weeks ago I heard that a couple of states were engaged in doing something to restore a Christian perspetive to their people, one by mandating that the Ten MCommandments be posted in every classroom, and I forget what the other was doing, but it made me very happy to hear this.  The nation needs a return to God above al else and these are very heartening events.  

Then I ran across an interview with the givernor or the state of Tennessee , I think it was the Governor, who had recently called the state to a time of fasting and prayer and repentance for thri sins, saying he was afraid of God's judging the state and wanted to avoid that and hopes for His mercy instead.  The show host asked him to pray for his state and the nation before signing off and it brought him to tears.  That's a spiritually blessed man and I hope God blesses his prayers for his state.  And may there be many more such governors acrosso thi nation.  WQe may not be able to expect such a call to come from the national givernment in washington but it's nice to know that there are individual states that would do it.

Without such a return to God I see nothing but an increase in the evils we've been struggling under for years now.  God has no reason to lift these burdens off us as long as we are ignoring Him, not ascknowledging Him and not acknowledging our sins .  We are unders sjudgment as a nation right now but we can still hope for mercy but not unless something like what is happening in Tennessee happens on a wider scale around the nation.    

Earlier I was watching an interiew by Jordan Peterson of Elon Musk and finally the subject of religion came up.  Musk says he likes the Christian principles but doesn't wnt to commit to being a Christian behond that much.  Jordan Peterson likes the Bible and many things about Christinaity but his view is so filtered through his Jungian framework it doesn't really convey a Christian message anyway.  Neither man ins a Christian but it's interesting that both are attracted to Christianity in some way or other.

They are fallen men of course, men borh with the sin nature we are all born with but not born again into the revived spirit that is what a Christian has.  When all you have is the fallen perspective you are btied to this physical world and cut off from the kjowledge of God, it takes the new brith to become spiritually op0en to God.  Jesus talks about this in John Three to Nicodemus.  At the Fall w3e lost the spiritual faculty that connected Adam and Eve to God and all their progeny inherit that deficient condition, but Jesus came to give us the life of God, to renew that life in us that was lost at the Fall, which He did by dying on the cross in the place of all those who believe in Him.  When we believe that we too are on that cross with Him and saved by His blood then our spiritual faculty lost at the Fall is quickened or brought back to life.  Perterson and Musk do not believe and do that have that regenerated faculty.  They are confined to their life in this phyiscla world and the mind that has learned only how to understand that world.  God is not to be fou nd in that physical world without the spiritual faculty.

I think it was Peterson who brought up Richard Dawkins' calling himself a culturual Christian and Musk accepted that as a description for himself as well.  True enough and we shouild be glad that there are cultural christians out there.  Nevertheless we need more spiritual Christians, and of course they need to BE spiritual Christians if they are to have hope of eternal life.  YOu cannot see the Kingdom of God unless you are born aagain said Jesus.

Dawkins cant believe in God because he is a fallen man with the sin nature and lacks the spiritual faclty like Peterson and Musk, so his is committed to the kind of science that can deal only with the phsycial universe, nmo spiritual undiverse being possible to his way of thinking.   He wants evidence and is indignant that those who preach God can't give him any evidence, but you can't give physical evidence of something that is spiritual.  Oh yes many physical evidnets , miracles and so on, hve been done by God, and by Jesus, and that should be good evidence but if he hasn't seen it with his own eyes he won't accept it asx evidence.  But beyond tht there is no evidnece.  God is spiritual discerned and ca't be known through the phyhsical senses or the mind.

So we should of cours pray for all these men.  Christopher Hitchens wouldn't listen and that's very sad but I'd like to think maybe one or three of these men might.  You never know, we can only pray.  

I found myslef wondering this morning if Elon mMUsk would be interested in my arguments against evolution.  I know Dawkins wouldn't and I don'[t think of Peternson as having any inclinations in that direction.  Nor Musk either really, Ithjust lithink of him as a person with a lot of itnerest in a lot of things and a great intelligence and I'd love to try to persuade him of my arguments.  Oh well.  

Trump, the RNC, Elon Musk

 I was in the kitchen making some tea, able to hear the radio in the living room from there, when there was an announcement of breaking news so I perked up m,y ears, and heard the first reports of the assassination attempt on Donal Trump.  He'd suddenly tropped down below the podiu,m while in the middle of a speech, holding a bloodied ear, or the side of his face, nothing was all that clear at the very beginning.  The announcer wsn't sure what had happened but thought he'd probably been shot.  I immiediatly thought, Oh no, they killed him.  

But then the word ame that he was OK and I was relieved, but it was a long minute or so before we got the description of his coming up to face he audience with his fist in the air, omouthing the word "fight "  and then I was really relieved.

It was so close we all knew it was God who had saved him.  there is no other explanation.  He turned his head at precisely the right second and the mbullet missed his skull and hit him in the ear.  That's god and thank You TLord that we now know you are having mercy on us after all.   

Then there was the Republican convention and I am surprised at how much I enjoyed the speeches I heard.  Very cheering, very hopebuilding.   It took some listening to You Tube interviews before I was convinced that J D Vance was a great pick for Vice President but I truly am convinced now.  I just wish he was a free market capitalist instead of whatever that economic weird system is he ascribes to, and I wish when he decided to become a Christian he hadn't gone for Catholicism.  But otherwise he's very much the right choice for trump.

I think my favorite speech of them wall was Ben Carson's and I've lstened over to it a umber of times.  He starts out quoting Isaiah No weapeon formed against you will prosper, nd ends with the quote possibly misattributed to Alexis deToqueveille, though it really doesn't matter since it's a good summation of what Toqueville wrote:  America is great because America is good.  So let's make America good again.    America is no longer so good unforetunately, but the hope is that maybe God will guide us back o it.  

The other main thing I've been thinking about recently is Elon Musk who has come out and endorsed Trump an pledged forty five million a month to his election.  A lot of ehat Musk says makes me very happy but when he gets into things like crypto currency and AI it sets my teeth on edge, mainly I supposed because I don't understand either.  He's super brilliant and his heardt seems to be in the right place when it comes to caring about the future of huimanity and the future of western civilization so I can't really say anything against it.  It just sets my teeth on edge.  

I don't know if Musk has any spiritual inclincations at all, but it's pretty clear he's no Christian at least not in the orthodox sense.  Liek so many brilliant people he's got all his concerns in this world, thinking in terns of making other planets habitable when this wone loses its sustainability for humanity and tht sort of thing.  I don't think anyone with any biblical frame of reference could uentertain such a thought.  This world is the fallen world, it's not the world we are meant to live in.  It's a waystation now to an eternity either in Heaven or in Hell, and that's the only option availble.  Not believing anyh of that of course does not make it untrue, but to the secular mind Christianity is just another religion and this world is all there is and religion just gets in the wayh of threir ambitions for this world.

Later:  I'm adding this much later though what I want to add it simomething I simply forgot to include ihn the original writieng, which is the stepping down of Biden from running for President.   That was annonced ohn Sunday after days of back and forth by the Democrats about whether or not he should step down.  Plus ishis sutubborn refusal to step down.   I don't think there's anyone else who wuld be more popular or pose more of a threat to Trump than Biden, unless it might be Michelle Obama, but although I've been generally more optimjistic since god's savihng Trump's life I nevertheless have doubts that linger on.  Very much because I know the nation is under god's judgment and although He shows us mercies here and there it's hard to imagine that without a major rependance of the nation that He'd take us much farther back than we are.  MAYBE He'd give us another Trump Presidency but even if He did it would be burdened with all the harassment and interference the first one was because the Democrats are determined to destroy him and destroy the country and disenfranchise my half of the polit8ical population.    Without a major rependtance I can't see that God would intervene to reinstate us as the great and good nation we once were.  I'd love to be wrong.  

Sunday night I heard some of Talk Show Host Bill no no Cumings but I can't think of his name, having another senior moment which are becoming way too frequent.  Bill somjething that starts with a C anyhwya.  The Great American he calls himself, which always makes me cringe.  Why do they give themselves such titlces anyway.  Anyway he said that although it's possible, speaking from a humban oint of view, for Trump to pull off a win considering that he has such a good start, it's going to be an uphill battle because the Democrat Machine as he calls it is powerful and very efficient at manipulating elections.  Which is yes, the sort of thing I would expect to kick in at this poinht.  And if, or really because, he are under God's judmgent, there is no reason for Him to interfere with that.  Again, only a massive turning back to god in repentance could possible turn the tigde at this point.    Abd agaubm eveb uf ge wubsm wgucbg wiykd be a great bkessubg ti tge ciybtrtym and again, even if he wins, which would be a great blessing to the country, the Democrats won't leave him alone because they have no respect for America, for voters, for anything we oh the right care most about, they jyust want to destroy everything that gets in the way of their own power and wealth.

So.  Biden has stepped down but I don't see anyitng very good coming from that.  Or from his staying for that matter.

I have one more thing to add here which was also on my mind when I wrote this post though it has nothihjhg to do with politics and that's an interview I heard by Piers Morgan of the author of a new book about Ted Bundy, the author being Bundy's cousin who knew him very well and afte ffifty heyuears finally decided to tell her story.  I won't be reading the book of course and I really only have one thing I want to note about what she had to say.  She describes Budy's coming to her door once and her dog acting violently disturbed by his presence as if he or she sensed something about him, and I noted in my own reading about Bundya a few few years ago that dogs barded and growledged at him.  Then there was her having seen him dancing with one of her freiends at a party once and his face was twisted in an angry grimace and his eyes were not their usual blue but solid glblack.  That too is a feature that was reported in other things I've read about Bundy.  One thing she didn't mention was the sorrority girl who was going out of her room into the hall of her dormitory late at night to bget something and was frightened by a sense of pure evil in the hall, driving her back into her room and locking the door.  TGhe next morning two of her dorm mates were dead.  that same night some olf the girls returning home noticed that the housemother's cat was all bristled out and stnading on titptoes the wsay cats tdo whtne they are scared, and when the door was opened it bolted out and didn't come back for over a wekk as I recall.  

All these things suggest that bundy sort of emancated something evil that animals felt and ven people at times.  And that it turned his eyes black.  Whatg would turn his eyes black>?  I haven't read an explanation of that anywhere.  Was it the expansion of his pulils to comjpletely displace the iris?  the puils expand to let in more lifth.  Was he looking into a very dark place at those moments which causesd that to happen?  I don't know.  I don't know if that explains the black eyes to start with, it's jut the only thing I can't think of.  But the best explanation for all of that seems to me to be that he was possessed by a demon, a particularly evil amalevolent vicious sadistic murderous demon.  I think there are many people who are considered to be mentally disturbed who are demon possessed but of course nobody takes that idea seriously.  Too bad.

star of bethlehem

I was thinking about the Star of Bethlehem film recently, which I've talked about here before, and wanted to see it again to check out some questions I have, but just because I enjoy the film too.  It's been taken off You Tube and what comes up under that title is something that claims the popular view is flawed, doesn't stand up to scrutiny.  That annoyed me and I just tuned it out.  Yeah I guess I should have stuck it out to see if they say more but atually I'm pretty sure they don't, they just wmake that remark and go on with their own presentation which I'm not interested in watching right now.  

Then I found some guy doing a podcast to debunk the Larson film, the Larson film being the one I watn to watch, and he misrepresentes it right out of the gate:  says that Larson claims that the conjunction of Juptiure with Regulus is what th wise men saw, presumably claiming that is the Star of Bethlehme.  no no no and more no90.  Good grief the guy can't even get that much straight.  Noi.  That particular conjunction is very ineteresting but it's presented as a sort of celestial annoyuncement of the coming birth which is foollowed by the sign of Virgo with the image of the virgin clothed in the sun with the moon at her feet, which Larson conclusdes is porbably the conception of the Messiah.  AFTWER the Jupiter Regulus conjucntion which seems to be a sort of herald of such coming events.  

The star itself comes nine months are the image of the virgin with the moon at her feet, occurs in June of three, no I think two b.c. an isa conunction of Jupiter with Venus.  NOT Jupiter with Refulus.  The guy obviously didn't watch the film at all, or didn't pay any attention to it if he watched it.  The Jupiter Venus conjunction is a very likely candidate forthe Star because it's been recognized as the brightest celectial object in the sky EVER according to Larson, recogvnized by astronomers.   And its ocurring nine months after the very lilkely date of the conception, when gabriel announced the pregnancy to Marry, the virgin with the moon at her feet, which is described in Revelation Twelve and libeterally d3epicted in the sky on Rosh Hashanah of Two BC, or three, I can't keep that straight, anyway that timing makes the MJupiter Venius conjustion very very likely to my mind.  And Larson does do a ood job of making that case.  

I know, I'm impatient, a sin I must overcome.  So I didn't stick it out long enough to find out that guy's name who got it so wrong, just as I didn't watch any more of that other film.  Oh well,.   I still want to see Larson's film again and I can't find my own DVD of it but maybe I can borrow it bfrom my brother.

There's more to the film than the revelation of the likely star, a lot more.  I'm so sick of debunkers who don't know what they are talking about.

Later:  Heard just a bit more of that guy who already made the huge mistake of sayinhg Larson claims Jupiter Regulus was the Start which he did not.  Then he says Larson claimsed that the biblical reference to the magi seeing the star in the east means risin gin the east which he did not say as I recall, of if he did it was as a possible alrtternative, because what he did say is that it probably means they were IN the east and seeing the start from there ishich is what this bguy didecides is the case witout noticing that that's what Larson said.    Then he goes on to object to Larson's referring to the childkd the Magi saw as a toddler, and that bothered me too but because I count only six months from his bith which wouldn't make him a toddler yet, but this guy is saying something else and I dind't find out what and don't case.re .  

He also says that retrograde motion is not a planet stopping, which is another really really stupid misrepresentaiton of what Larson said.  HLarson was trying to explain who the star could stop over the town o Bethleheme and he realized that it was at that point that Jupiter went into retrograde, and that AT THAT POINT WHEN THE DIRECFTION FO MOVEMENT C HANGEWD, not DUIRNG retrogrtade but at the moment the direction changed, that the planet would appear to stop AT THAT POINT.    This guy's name is not visible to me unfortunately because I'd love to be able to write it out and get him blasted.

\He's destroying Larson's reputation and getting it all wrong.  This makes me mad.

More About the Antichrist Pope

Hitler's Third Reich was a claim to be the next version of the Roman Empire after the Holy Roman Empire which was basically an extension of the Roman Catholic Church itself.  Hitler was a Catholic, and the Pope didn't have the role of Antichrist as he had it in the earlier version of the empire, but he played a part in his support of Hitler and His role in the organizing of the "ratlines" which were the steady stream of Nazis  to South America after the war to escape prosecution for war crimes.  Hitler also says somewhere that he modeled the Holocaust on the Inquisition.  

So the European Union will be the Fourth Reich or fourth version of the Roman Empire if we follow this trend.  The point is that the Roman Empire has most certainly BEEN revived, we do not need to wait for that event, even for the rising of the European vresion to full prominence in thta role.  It's been revived.  The scriptre that leasds to that expectation has been fulfilled, we do not need to wait for its fulfillment.  

Same with the Great Apostasy.  That was understood by the Protestant Reformers to be the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church istself, as it accumulated the pagan trappings of the Roman Empire at its predecessors and gradually let them eclipse the Christian elements.  It abaonded the Bible and forbade people to have it in their own languages.  It preserved some of the imagery from it but lost most of the substance.  All this is in the book History of Romanism by Dowling I believe.  The rosary comes from the pagan religions, it is not a Christian element.  The image of mother and child also comes from the pagan religions, going back to Nimrod and Simiramis, which can be traced in the book The Two Babylons by Hislop.  The Catholoic Church with its Bishop usurping the title of head of the Church is certainly the heir of the pagan empires.

And those are depicted in the statue of Nebuchadnezzr's dream given in Daniel Two, which shows the succession of the pagan empires from Babylon through MedoPrsion through Greece under Alexander to the Roman Empire.  And the Roman Empire with its heritage from the earlier three is depicted in the beast that rises from thesea in Revelation Thirteen, shown by the symbols of the lion, the bear and the Leopard which all appear in othe visions from the book of Daniel that describe these successive empires.  

So the Antichrist has been revealed, as Paul said he would be after the great falling away or grea apostasy.  The bishop of Roman  Rome, who usupried the position from three other bishops and made himself into a uasi emperor reigning over what came o be known as the Holy Roman EWmpire, names of coruse for the Church that was its core.  We're just waiting for the last one, the lst Pope, after which the great tribulation is to occur.    

Oh and the beast from the esea has the number six six six and since that number fits the most pertinent and blasphemous title of the Pope, vicarius Filii Dei, being the addition of the latin n....roman numberals in the latin title which is in iteslf a deription of the antichrist as substitute for the son of goGod, the Pope isn't oing to be the false prophet.  He must be the Antichrist because that t's the nubmer of the Antichrist.  Gosh it's all Roman, all Latin, and it all ....    

The great harlot is another element in the story.  Babylon the Great is a reerence to the stue with the gold head or Babylon at the top and the Roman Empire in the feet and legs, sitting on a city of seven mountains which of course is Rome.  And there are two legs, the other being understood by many to refer to Islam which arose about the same time as the Bishop of Rome.  two religions that persueute hertics to maintain power.  

It all works together.  We don't need to wait for any further revelation of these things.  The Great Apostasy continues today as the churches are going through an apostasy to add to the earlier Roman apostasy, the Popes continue, the pagan trappings of the Roman Church Continue.  We're just waiting for the finale.  Or perhaps not "we" since if the pretrib scenario is correct the treue Church will have been raptired away from all this.

Catholic Uprisings in Ireland Not what the Catholics Think it Is.

 I want to write something here that may need some correcting later, I hope not much and it may not be much but since I'm going to be writing blind as it were I don't know fur sure.  I did my best considering my literal blindness to research this a little but was unable to make any headway, which is why I'm going to write it blind and hope for the best.   It's risky because it's oging to sound limkeke Catholic bashing to some.  And of course I am biased, being a Protetstant, but I would protest that I' am biased because of what I learned that I'm going to be writing about and was not beiased before I learned it.  So it's not a bias jut built into the situation at all, and perhaps the word doesn't even really apply, it's just that I know some would read it that way.

So.  On the radio Sunday evening I heard talk show host Bill Cunningham talk about his feelings as an Irishman against the Enlgish who accoreding to him killed a third of the Irish over the years out of csheer hatred for their Catholic religion.  YUes he's catholic.  If I ever knew much about the history fo all that I've forgotten it and was aunable to find anything on it in my brief attempt to research it.  What I remember is some years ago finding a talk given by a Protestant Irishman, or that's what I think he said he was, about the historyu of the conflicts in Ireland up through the IRA and all that.  He said that the Catholics are given some false propaganda about all that in order to see themselves as victims in the vonconficts but that as a matter of afact all the conflicts are always started by the raoman Catholic Church and then some are made to look like the Protestants started them.    The Catholics initiate some violence and then the English were forced to bring in tropps to put down the disturbance.  Apprearently that happened many times and there was a lot of bloodshed, but it was always Catholic uprising and English police or military intervention.

One thing that doesn't sound right at all in what Cunningham said is that the English would persecute the Catholics for being Catholic.  That just insn'ta Protestant thing at all.  It's a Catholic thing, however, an official insititutional Catholic thing, to persecute and kill what they consider to be heretics.  It's not that Protestants never engage in such things of course, but it is true that there is no Protestant policy of any sort along those lines while there most definitely is in the Catholic Church.  Inquisition continues wherever they have any way to let it continue.  A Catholic tried to lbloe w up the EnlgishParliament I think in King James's day, celebrated in Englishand as Guy GffAwkes Day though along with all the diminishing of true righteousness in this world that has been less celebrated in recent years as I understand it.  Pope John Paul went to Englihs and had the arrogant chutz;pah to treat Catholics as martyrs who had been exsecute d for crimes against the nation of Englisand.  

Anway, I'm sticking my neck out here to suggest that Bill Cunningham is a victim of the usual propaganda that makes the Irish Catholics the victims and the English the perseuctors althoguh as a matter of actual fact the Catholic Church is behind all the violence i Ireland forever.

Later note:  Chris Pinto has often been my source for information about these things but I'm unable to acces his website any more, or at least it's so difficult to get to it I don't try very often, so Icouldn't look up with he has on this subject.  Hemay hae been the source for this information in the first place, probably was.  

Lost Power, Can Wew Get it Back\\\\

 Just as I'm surprised to find myself reconsidering the question of divine healing, and am now praying for it and continuing to follow the writers on that subject, I'm also surprised to find myself reconsidering the question of the baptism of thed Holy Spirit.  This is another of those  controversial issues that has the church split into factions, some saying that was only for the apostolic era, a time when presumably they needed more miracles than we do, or simply the time when Jesus was being established as the Messiah through such miracles, and\\\, between that and the view that , as with divine healing, the baptism of rht eHoly PSPirit is also for us today.   

Andrew Murray, but particularly R. A. Torrey, have done a good job of convincing me that thebaptism is indeed for today, just as Murray convinced me that so is divine healing for today, and infact part of redembption, Christ forgivng our sins nin pratically the same breath as he heals our diseases in scripture after scripture.  The case for the baptism in the Spirit is made most particularly from Acts two where Peter tells the doubting Jews that the gift is for not only themselves but for their children and for those who are afar off whom the Lord will yet call.  That is so clear it is a wonder anyone can claim that the gift is meant only for the apostonlic age and not for us as well.

The main thing that has made me open to these arguments is the simple observation that the Church today is weak, that we have nothing remotely like the spiritual power of the early Church, and that individually we don't have anyone who exhibits such power either.  I'm aware that there are many vexed questions about these things still of course, and I'm still convinced that the charismatic movement for the most part is folowing a false idea of the spiritual gifts, but nevertheless I am now entertaining the idea that there is a true version of the gifts that God has not withdrawn from today's shcurch weven if we haven't known how to appropriate them and make use of them.  This is an issue because it was at Pentecost that the earlie church received the baptism o the Holy Spirit and it bestowed all the gifts on them that are now claimed by the charismatics though what they actually seem to have are something else than those gifts.

But oh how we need the power for the Holy Spirit today.  I'm praying for both the supernatural healing which I'm now convinced is for us today, and for the baptism in the Holy spirit.

Antichrist Pope

 When I hear someone say that the Antichrist is going to come out of the Revived Roan Empire and we don't know who he is yet, I just get all triggered or somethihg and have to give my own differing view of this.  Based on the Protestant Reformers view of the antichrist as the Pope.  We know who the Antichrist is, and this particular Pope is an Anitchrist just through his vblieevefs and corruptioj even of Roman catholic tenets.  There may yet be another, the final, antichrist to come, the next Pope, but the pope is the ntichrist and we know who he is, we don't have to wiat for him to be revealed.  And as the Reformers understood it, the revived roman empire was creted by the Pope when that office got underway centuires ago, the Holy Roman empire.  This revived empire isn't completely dead and is being revived itself in the new European Union, but the point is it already existes.  It needs to be brought back to9 prominence and the Pope will also rise again to preeminence in the world s he was during all t

\This isn't just an aca\demic point I'm making.  If the Pope is not recognized as the antichrist he is he can operate without opposition and the roman Church can continue as if it were just another Christian denomination, which history shows it is not.  but nobody reads the history of the church any more so of course history will onoly be repeated without anyone seeing it coming.  If you don't recognize the enemy then the enemy gets the upp-er hand over you.  Nice position to be in as we wait for the last days to bring it all to the fore.  catholics aren't going to be warned in time and will struggle mightily to get free of their bondage to the false church.  they need to be warned now.  Protestants are no longer Protestants either, but too many are even favorable to the Pope and the romn Church, ignorant of history.  

A majory struggle of Catholics will be over their confusion when they miss the Rapture.  they may fall for the lie and rationalize it away sbecause they believe they are the true Christians, or they may see that they must not be and the fonfusion will overtaken them and the strugle to sort all that out is going to be a huge turmoil.  

Divine Healing Revisited

 Never would have thought I'd be reconsidering this topic, especially at suchj an age when deth is about the only thing I'd normaly expect to be on my upcoming events calendar.  SAnd not through Andrew Murray either, a writer I appreiciate up to a point, but who usually manages to leave me feeling overwshelmed by a million impossible conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to qualifiy for whatever Christian virture he is writing about, which always end in having to abandon the project he may have at first inspired me to consider.  

the same happens with this topic but it seems to go in waves so that after a plunge into the usual despair I find him offering the encouragement I need by emphasizing that the lord Himself undertakes most of the requirements that usually ubury me before I gt very far into the topic.  So I've been able to read his bbook on this subject a number of times and find it building up my faith instead of dumping me unceremoniously into the gutter where Christians who can't muster the necessary faith or perseverence tend up.  

It's a book of sepearate meditations his did on the subject of supenatuiral healing, rather than a n organized book, but i's arranged welle jough to bulid up the case even if csome of it doulbes back on itself from time to time.  IAnyway, I've actually comje through rereading this book to entertain the possibility that the Lord myight actually heal me of my many infirmities even at the old age of eighty two, sol that I could live a more active Christian life for some years yet to come.  Yes, he is that persuasive.

Healing f t body is a part of the plan of redemption according to his main argument, and this is in fact illustrated by the fact that therer are many biblical passages wshere the two are spoken of in the same sentence with the imjplication that they are almost synonymous, or at lest strongly connected to each other.  One of those many things to be discovered in the Bible that we overlook even if we read and reread it many timnes.  Unless the Lord draws it to our attention, having schosen us for some work connected ith a particular idea.  

Itecame clear  early on that he confuseds the phenomena of supernatural healing, or in fact any supernatural gift, with the spiritual gifts givingen to individuals in the early church.  This has to be said because those who deny that the supernatural gifts have contuinued into the present nevertheless do not reject the fact that God may still perform miraculous and supernatural feats .  As a matter of fact suchj events are also extremely rare and he is right to point out that the Church has lost faith that even these things are offered to us anu more.  

those wsho believe in the fgifts for today can be very annoying with their aggressive insistence that they must be manifested with the gift of tongues, and in the case of the gift of healing that all failures to be healed are due to a scurrilous lack of faith on the part of the sick person.  Murray avoids any such attitude for which I'm grateful.  But he does succeed in confincing me that it is a lack of faith that is depriving today's Christians of healing that gid does in fact want us to have, and he aims much of his book toward restroing that faith in us.  this is quite necessary since faith requries some conviction that god does in fact want us to have this healing and will give it to us if we meed t scertain conditions.  We need to be persuaded that the evidence that god has that will toward us is there in the Bible, and Murray is gdoig a surprisingly good job of convincing me ot that.

He is very awqare that after such a long timne of bijg persuaded that we are not to expect god to give us such healings that it would take a lot of time and much evidence to change our way of looking at it.  We think we are persuaded by biblical evidence so we need bettwer biblical evidence that we've been wrong and that infact we can expect and should expect such healings.    for me reading the book over and over is having the effect of building up that evidence and therefore some degree of faith that I might indeed look for such a divine healing of my many infirmities, pearticularly of course my macular degeneration, but alo my arthritic hips that have onfined me to the use of a walker for many years, and many other malaises that make my life less than available for active work for God.  

Th that wiat upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall rise on wings of eagles, they shall walk and not be earing   they no no, they ahshalll run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.  Oh to claim that one.  

Im'm sucre I'll hav emore to say about all this as time godes on, Lord Willing,.

Later:  Maurray has even made me think it's possible that we c ould have the individual spiritual gifts today as well as miracles from time to time as I think everone agrees is possible, but the fact is that the charistmatics who claim those gifts do not exhibit those gifts but somne kind of counterfeit of them.  I found Watchmjan Nee's concept of Soul Power the most useful way of thinking about his.  that is, it seems that the charismatics are mistaking this sould power for the power of the indwelling sirit.  the tongues that I experienced were some kind of mockeriny of language for instance, which makes it hard for me to accept the claims of some that they are praying in the spirit when they use such a togue.  What is called prophecy is rell psychic power, a power of the soul that can be developed under certain circumstances, a remnant of powers possessed by Adam and Eve but lost at the Fall, and now no doubt available only in a distorted form to some wsho possess them today or have them more strongly than others do.  this is not the Holy Spirit, it is part of the natural man or the sin nature, the flesh and so on.  There seem to be powers of healings too and I suppose they are also soulish and limited to whatever Satan is able to bring about but I don't really know in that case, just that they too don't seem to have the power or scope of the healings fromn the holy Spirit as we see in the sri8ptures for instance.  A piece of evidence that Nee is right as I see it was his observatio that laugjter hacan overtake a crowed of Christians and be mistaken for something spiritual, and since we had a Laugjtoing revival back in the nineties that was misrepresented in the same way I am very grateful for Nee's bringing that up, and it adds credibiltiy to his general discussion of the soul powers as poopposed to the spiritual powers we receive upon being born again.

While as I said it is possible that God has not ceased to give spiritul gifts just as He gives the everyday gifts we all recovnize such as teahcing and preaching and helps and administration and so on, the fact seems to be thta the actual expression of what are called the gifts does not fit the scriptural presentation and if they are bogus then that is evidence that they did ceasese.  Miracles in general didn't cease but the psiritual gifts may have and that seems to have been the most reaxonable conclusion to be taken from the Strange Fire Conference at John MacArthur's church some years ago.

Divine healing is not tied to persons so far as Murray has been presenting it in his gbook, it is something the elders can impart as per James five, or we can pray for on our own, god granting it in answer to such prayer.  Such healers as Kathryn Kuhlman have many makes of being frauds, lthough as I said it may still be possible that god would grant such a gift to an individual.