dAWKINS iS rIGHT aBOUT iSLAM

 i WISH i COULD READ THE TITLE OF THIS INTERVIEW i'M LISTENING TO, A RATHER CHUBBY FACED GUY INTERVIEWING HIM BUT i CAN'T SEE HIS NAME OR THE TITL EOF THE INTERVIEW.

bUT dAWKINS IS ABOLUTLY RIGHT ABOUT ISALMA.  I WISH HE DIDN'T ELIDE IT WITH cHRISTIANITY BUT i HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT HE'S TALKING MOSTLY ABOUT MIDEIEVEL "cHRISTIANITY" WHICH IS OF COURSE rOMAN cATHOLICISM WHICH USURPED THE CHURCH IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY, AT THE SAME TIME, INCIDENTLY;LY THAT iSLAM WAS GETTING STARTED IN THE eASTERN PART OF THE eMPRIE.    tHE TWO RELIGIONS DO FORM THE TWO LEGS OF THE STATUE OF nEBUCHADNEZZARS DREAM DESCRIBED IN dANIEL tWO, THE TWO LEGS OF THE EMPIRE ITSELF REALLY AS THE bISHOP OF rOME REALLY DID INSINUATE HIMSELF INTO THE POSITION OF cAESAR IN SOME COCKEYEED FASHION.  aND PRESIDED OVER SOMETHING HE CALLED THE hOLY rOMNAN eMPIRE, WHICH AS vOLTAIRE CALLED IT, WAS NOT hOLY, NOR rOMAN NOR AN eMPIRE AND SO MUCH FOR THAT.  bUTG IT WAS THE REVIVAL O THAT EMPIRE IN SOME IMPORTANT SENSE, AND hITLER TRIED TO FOLLOW IT WITH HIS tHIRD REIGH.  

BUT ISALM REALLY IS THAT EVIL RELIGION dAWKINS IS TALKING ABOUT.  aND cATHOLICISM'S ATROCITIES HAVE BEEN PUT ON A BACK BURNER AS IT WERE FOR A S LONG AS pROTESTANTISM HOLDS OUT IN SOME FORM OF POWER, THOUGH UIT'S NOT LOOKING GOOD .  pERHAPS WE WILL BE RAPTURED SOON AND THEN THE pOPE WILL SHOW HIS TRUE COLORS AS THE aNTICHRIST AND THEN THE COUNTDOWN WILL BEGIN TO THE RETURN OF jESUS cHRIST.

iSLAM WAS THE WORLD OF THE DEVIL THORUGH THE DEMON THAT CALLED ITSELF gABRIEL WHO TALKED TO mOHAMMED IN THE CAVE, BUT cATHOLICISM WAS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL IN OTHER WAYS, GRADUALLY INSINUATING THE PAGAN RELIGION OF GABYLON THROUGH rOME INTO cHRISTIANITY.  THERE IS NO JSTIFICATION FOR MURDERING APOSTATES IN cHRISTAINTIY, BUT THERE IS IN cATHOLICISM.\\\\

iT'S TINE INTERVIEWER, HOWEVER HE IS, WHO IS THE SILLY ONE, THE WRONG ONE, IN THE PART OF THE DISCUSSION ABOUT iSLAM.  HE ISN'T GETTING IT AT ALL.  DAWKINS IS VERY VERY RIGHT IN THIS ONE PART.

hOW VERY NICE IT WOULD BE IF HIS GOOD FRIEND aYAAN hIRSI aLI COULD INFLUENCE HIM OUT OF SOEME OF HIS SILLY IDEAS ABOUT RELIGION.

i'VE LOST TRACK OF THIS POST UNFORTNATELY.  i THINK IT WS ABOUT iSLAM AN dAWKINS BEING RIGH TABOUT IT?

wELL i'M GOING TO TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE ANYWAY.

HE GOES ON IN THT DISCUSCION TO SAY HE DOESN'T WANT TO INDOCTRINATE ANYOE INTO ATHEISM, SAY IN THE SCHOOLS.  gREAT.  HE WANT SOT TEACH CRIMTICAL THINKING, HOW TO THINK THROUGH EVIDENCDE AND THAT SORT OF THING.  wONDERFUL.  eXACTLY WHAT i THINKI WE SHOULD BE TREACHING.  aND i THINK HE HIMJSELF FAILS AT IT MONUJENTALLY AS I;VE BEEN TRYING TO POINT OUT.  

TGHEN HE GOES INTO HOW RELIGIOUS aMERICA IS AND WHAT A BAD THING THAT IS AS IT SUPPOSEDLY PRODUCES PVERTY AND SO ON.  BUT HE'S ABSOLUTELY OFF TRACK ON THIS ONE.  aMERICA BECAME THE MOST PROSPEROURS NATION ON EARTH beca*se WE WERE cHREIRTIAN, AS tOQUEVILLE SAID.  aMERICA IS GREAT BECAUSE SHE IS GOOD IS ATRIRBUTED TO toquevill, and I know it may not hvae been from him originally but it does express the point he ws making in his book Democracy in Ameri a.  Chrtsitianity is THE engine that created America and I'm glad to thini we still ahve enough of it still left that there might be hope that we could revocvoer from the onslilaught of all the forces Dawkins would like to bring back against us.   No.  Christianity is the reason we prospered and the reason we are able to have such a free socieyt.  As John Adams said our governemtn was made for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate for thte governing of ay other.  yes yes yes.  But we've been losing that religious charcter and that's a tragediy.  becaue that could dump us right into the totalitarian grinder.   As it looks like could happy with this coming election.

Dawkins needs to hera from his friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali about how America was founded on Christianity and all our benefits come from it, and that the cause of our success can't be attributed to anything else and can't be trans[lantedywhere else because it is built on Christian culture.    Europe has some of th

\\ut unforutnately it has centuries of catholic totalitarianism behind it.

and is now getting overrun by Islam too, which could happen to us as well if we are unsuccessful at doing what needs to be done in this next electionj.  

tHE sIMPLE bDEOLOGICA\\\\\\\tHE sIMJPLE gEOLOGICAL eVIDENCE aGAINST tIME pERIODS AND THE fDOSSIL REOCRD AND THEREFORE AGAINST EVOLUTION

tHE SEDIMENTARY ROCK STRATA THAT ARE FOUND STACKED DEEP IN THE gRAND cANYON AND PRESUMABLY ONCE WERE ALSO THAT DEEP EVERYWHERE ELSE, CA'T POSSIBLY BE TIME PERIODS BECAUSE  THEY ARE NOTHIJG BUT ROCK, HUGE SLABS OF ROCK, ALL OF ONE SEDIMENTARY COMPOSITION IN MANY CASES, SUCH AS LIMESTONE OR SHALE OR SANDSTONE.  nOTHING EVER HAPPENED TO DISTURB THEM EITHER AS WE SEE IN THE gRAND cANYON, THEY ARE ALL LYING THERE ONE ON TOP OF ANOTHER IN NEAT PARALLEL FROM TOP TO TOBBTTOM OF THE STACK WITH NO SIGNS OF ANY OF THE USUAL ACTIVITY TO BE FOUND ON THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH , AS WE SLIVE ON IT NOW FOR INSTANCE.  iTG'S NOTHING BUT HOMOGENEOUS ROCK.  eACH LAYER.   nOTHING COULD LIVE ON IT OR IN IT AND YET IT'S ALL THERE IS FOR MANY THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES AND SAID TO PRESPRENREPRESENT A VERY LONG PERIOD OF TIME ON THE PLANET.  HUNDREDS OF MILLIONJS OF YEARS IN OMSE CASES.   

yOU CAN'T ANSWER THIS.  yOU REALLY CAN'T.  iT KILLS THE IDEA OF TIME PERIODS.

aND WITH THAT IDEA DEAD IT ALSO KILLS THE IDEA OF THE FOSSIL RECORD.  tHERE ARE INDEED FOSSILS INSIDE THESE LAYERS OF ROCK, AND THEY DO SORT OF LOOKS LIKE THEY MAKE A PROGRESSIONFROM SIMPLE TO COMPLEX.  rAELLY THE SHOW MORE OF A

THEY SEEM TO PROGRESS FROM SIMPLE TO COMPLEX AND FROM SMALL TO LARGER BUT THIS HAS TO BE SOME KIND OF ILLUSION BECAUSE THE ROCKS THEAT REPRESENT THE TIME PERIODS IN WHICH THEY ARE FOUND CAN'T POSSIBLY REALLY HAVE OCCURRED IN THOSE TIME PERIODS.  tHEY DO NOT REPRESENT TIME PERIODS.  sO THE FOSSILS DO NOT REPRESENT AN EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY.

WATER LAYS DOWN SEDIMENTS SEPAREATELY IN RIVER DELTAS AND ON SHORELINES.  THAT'S THE BEST WAY TO UNDERSTAND THE STRATA   .  THERE ARE ALSO STUDIES DONE IN LABORABTORIES. FLUME STUIDES i THINK THEY ARE CALLED, IN WHICH MOVING WATER IS SHOWN TO DO THE SAME THING, LAY DOEWN SEDIMENTS SEPARATELY FROM ONE ANOTHER.   

sO THE FOSSILS HAD TO HAVE BEEN LIVING THINGS THAT WERE CAUGHT UP IN THE STREAM OF A PARTICULAR SEDIMENT, A LAYER OF WATER, A CHANNEL, A N UNDERGROUND RIVER, i'M LOOKING FOR THE WORD FOR THAT STREAM IN THE COEAN THAT RUND GREAT DISTANCES, CAN'T THINK OF IT, BUT WATVEST THEMSELVES SEEM TO SORT SEDIMENTS JUGING BY THE FACT THAT THEY ACCUMULATE T SHORELINES IN SEPARATED LAYERS.  

sOMETHING cURRENT.

sO DESPITE THE SEEMING PROGRESSION OF THE LIVING THINGS REPRESENTED BY THE FOSSILS, THEY ARE MOST CERTAINLY THE CORPOSES OF ALL THE LIVING THINGS THAT ERE KILLED IN THE WORLDWIDE fLOOD, WHICH OF COURSE gOD BROUGHT THE fLOOD ON THE EARTH IN ORDER TO BRING ABOUTR.  tHE DEATH OF ALL LAND LIVFE.  sOME SEA LIFE REMAINED BUT EVEN THAT WAS KILLED OFF IN THE BAZILLIONS.

nOTHING HAPPENED TO DISSBTURB THE PARTICULAR LAYER, IT LIES THERE QUIETLY WITHOUT A TREE ROOT OR A VOLCANO TO DISTURB IT.  tHE VOLCANOES DISTURBED THE WHOLE STACK ALL AT ONCE, FROM BOTTOM TO TOP, THE STACK BEING ALREADY IN PLACE, THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION FOLLOWING THEIR LAYING DOWN.  \\

tHAT IS EVIDENT ON THAT CROSS SECTION.L  tHAT IS THE EVIDENCE THAT THE TIME PERIODS DID NOT HAPPEN AND THE FOSSILS ARE NOT A RECORD OF EVOLUTIONARY STAGES.

qed

oR SOMJETHING LIKE THAT

FcOULD nATURAL sELECTION REALLY pRODUCE THE cOMPLEX eYE WE hAVE?

tHINKING ABOUT NATURAL SELECTION AS dAWKINS PRESENTS IT IN THE EXAMPLE OF THE EYE, IF i'M REACLLING THT ARGUMENT CORRECTLY.  tHE FACT THAT THERE ARE ALL THE PARTS OF A VERY COMPLEX EYE OF THE SORT WE POSSESS SCATTEROUED AROND THE TEAXONIMC TRE, AVARIOUS FUNCTIONS OF IT SHOWING UP IN DIRRFERENT CREATURES, NTHOUGH NOT IN ANY LINEAGE FROM ONE TO ANNOTHER OR TO OUR OWN EYE./.  tHE ARGUMENT IS THAT IF ALL THE PARTS ARE THERE IN NATURE, ALTHOUGH SCATTERED AS THEY ARE, THIS IN ITSELF IS SOME IIND OF EVIDENCE THAT THE EYE EVOLVED THROUGH ALL THOSE FUNCTIONS TO THE CURRENT COMPLEX EYE WE POSSESS.  wHILE IT IS AN INTERESTING PLAUSIBILITY, IF YOU TRY TO APPLY NATURAL SLEECTION TO EACH PHASE IT RAISES FAR MORE QUESTIONS THAN IT ANSWERS.

fIRST OF ALL, TO BE SELECTED, A TRAIT MUST BE PRESENT.  iN A CREATURE POSSESSING A PARTICULAR FUNCTION IT'S BEEN WELL ESTABLISHED ALREAYD , LAREADY SELECTED AS IT WERE AND PUT INTO ITS USEFUL PLACE IN THE ORGANIZSM.  aSSUMING THE EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATION OF COURSE.    bUT TO GET TO THE NEXT PHASE OR STAGE TOWARD THE COMPLEX SYSEYE AS dAWKINS PUTS THE PICTURE TOGETHER REQUIRES THAT THAT NEXT PHASE COME UP PRESENT IN THAT ORGANISM.   bUT HOW IS IT GOING TO COME UP.  tHROUGH MUTATION?  mUTATION OF WHAT?  mUTATION IS AN AERROR IN REPLICATION OF THE dna, RIGHT?  wHICH GENE IS GOING TO BE MISREPLICATED AS IT WERE TO PRODUCE THIS NEW FUNCTION?  tHE ONE THAT CODES OF RTHE TRAIT THAT PREDCEDES IT IN THIS SUPPOSED PROGRESSION THROUGH THE SGTAGES TO MODERN COMPLEXITY?  bUT THAT WOULD DESTROY THAT TRAIT.  sO IT HAS TO OCCUR IN A DIFFERENT GENE.  tHE GENE HAS TO BE THERE ARE ALREADY WHATEVER IT IS.  wHAT ELSE IS THERE FOR MUTATION TO WORK ON?   iT WOULD HAVE TO CODE FOR SOMETHING ALREADY ATTACHED TO THE EYE TOO.  iT ISN'T GOING TO DO ANY GOOD TIF A GENE FOR SAY THE EAR PARTS GOT MUTATED INTO THIS NEW PHASE IN THE EYE EVOLUTION, WOULD IT?  sAY THE NEW SEQUENCE OF CHEMICALS THAT MUTATIONJ PRODUCED REALLY DID GIVE A BETTER LENS OR WHATEVER THE NEW PHASE OF THE EYE SHOUILD BE, IT WOUDLN'T HELP UNLESS IT WAS A GENE THAT ALREAYD JOINED WITH THE OTHER GENES THAT BULD THE EYE.  bUT WHAT GENE COULD BE SPARED FOR THAT PURPOSE?   hOWE OFTEN DOES dna COME UP WITH A GRANAD NEW GENE?  i THINK IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE POSSIBLE ALTHOUGH HARD TO IMAGINE THAT A WHOLE NEW SEQUENCE OF THOUSANDS OF CHEMICALS WOULD JUST INSERT ITSELF BETWEEN A COUPLE OTHE GENES WHERE IT HAPPENS TO BE NEEDED , OR MIGHT TURN OUT TO BE USEFUL,AND HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN ANYWAY?

sO THEN LET'S SAY YOU GET THIS NEW FUNCTION IN THE RIGHT PLACE AND SO ON,  IT WOULD HAVE TO BE IN SOMETHING LIKE A HUMAN BRING OR SOMETHING CLEARLY PRECURSOSR TO THE HUMAN BEING AND NONE OF TEH XAMPLES IN THE SCATTERED COLLECTION OF EYE FUNCTIONS IS IN THAT LINEEAGE.  iT ISN'T GOING TO HELP IF IT SHOWS UP IN SAMY THE OCTUPOUS CLAN SINCE  ALTHOUGH THE OCTOPUS MIGHT BENEFIT FROM A BETTER EYE IT ISN'T GOING TO GET US TO THE EYE dAWKINS HAS IN MIND.

i USUPPOSE i'M GEING NAIVE OR SILLY IN SOME WAY BUT i'M REALLY SERIOUSLY TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW SELECTION WOULD DO THE JOB dAWKINS SAYS IT DOES.  

aS i WAS ARGUING RECENTLY, VARIATION OCCURRS IN THE GENOME ITSELF AS ALREADY CONSTITUTED, IT DOESN'T WLRK ON SOMETHING NEW BECAUSE THERE'S NO WAY FOR SOMETHING RULY NEW TO OCCUR, UNLESS YOU MEAN THE OCCASIONAL SUPPOSELY GENEFICIAL MUTATIONJ.  aGAIN IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A KTUATION IN   aGAIN IT WOULD HAVE TO BE MUTATION IN A GENE ALREADY PART OF THE EYE, SO LET'S GET THAT SAID.  

ok, i GIVE UP.  iT SORTA COUNDS GOOD AS THEORY BUT IN PRACTICAL REALITY IT JUST CAN'T HAPPEN.  aND i DON'T THIJK dAWKINS EVENCAME CLOSE TO SUGGESTING HOW IT COULD, HE JUST KEEPS MARVELING OVER THE SEEMING UTILITY OF NATURAL SELECTION FOR THE PURPOSE.

wELL, GO BACK TO dARWINS DOMESTING BREEDING FOR A MOEMTN.  hE GOT SOME DRAMATIC CHANGES IN HIS PIGEONS BY SELECTING THEM FOR PARTICULAR TRAITS.  THE TRAITS WERE ALREAYD THERE, HE SIMPLY PICKED THEM AND MATED THEM WITH OTHERS WITH THE SAME TRAIT.     iS THIS EYE FUNCTION THAT FOLOLOWS WHATEVER STAGE OF EYE A PARTICULAR CREATURE HAS ALREADY PRESENT?  HOW COULD IT BE?  

i GUESS i HAVE TO GIV P AGAIN.  i'M SURE dAWKINS CAN MANIPULATE ALL THIS TO MAKE IT SEEM PLAUSIBLE FOR HIS CASE BUT i THINK THAT'S THE BEST HE CAN DO.  i DON'T THINK IT'S POSSIBLE IN REALITY AT ALL.

hERE'S HOW VARIATION REALLY WORKS IN REALITY.  tHE VARIATION IS A VARIATION ON SOMETHING THAT IS ALREADY PRESENT, A DIFFERENT EYE COLOR ON THE EYE COLOR GENE, A DIFFERENT FUR TEXTURE ON THE FUR GTEXTURE GENE AND SO ON.  IT'S A FUNCTION THAT IS ALREADY THER EIN THE GENOME AND DOESN'T HAVE TO BE MADE NEW.  THAT IS OF CORUSE THEY THINK INSIST ON MUTATION SINCE IT DOES COMPLETELY CHANGE AHTE SEQUENCE OF THE GENE CODE, USUALLY FOR THE WORSE WHICH THEY DON'T  BOTHER TO MENTION, OR TO NO PURPOSE AT ALL SINCE NOTHIHJG CHANGES IN THE PHENPOTYPE, BUT IF SOMETHING NEW REALY WERE TO HAPPEN THAT'S THE ONLY WAY IT COULD BECAUE NORMAL VARIATION VARIATION IS JUST AN ALTERNATIVE EXPRESSION OF SOMETHING AHT IS ALREAYD PRESENT IN THE ANIMAL'S COLLECTION OF CHARACTERISTICS.  

wE HEAR A LOT OF THEORY ABOUT HOW MUTATION COULD HAPPEN AND GET SELECTED AND SO ON BUT IT REMAINS THEORY.  YES IT DOES, IT NEVER BECOMES FACT.

Later  Don't think I got it said vey clearly, not sure I can do better now, but 

Domestic breeding, Darwin's pigeons etc., just works on traits that rae already pret in the animal, whih can be greatly enlarged by repeated breeding of the same trait.  this is what happened with the pod mrcaru lizards.  and wht happened with Darwin's exaggerated chests in pigeons.  

And from there the idea of natural selection took off.  

The problem is that evolution requires new traits, not the preexisting traits that Darwin and other breeders work with.  Something tht does not occr in the genome of the species,  brand new gene etc.

Mutation changes an existing gene.  Some traits are apparently coded for by may genes working together.  How is that oging to happen?  It's rare enough to get one useful mutation, but many in a number of different genes and the right kind and so on, no.

besides how is theis really something new?  Changing the sequence in a n existing gene doesn't change what that gene normally produces, it just varies how it produces it, or tomething fairly superficial in its appearance.  You mgith get a new color on the fur color gene but surely it would be a change in the fur color and onot some other function, just fur color.    How do you get a new function from a mutation of a preexisting gene?  

I haven't run awcross an answer to these quetsions anywwhere.  maybe it's out thre somewhere but I doubt it.  Dawkins seems content to point out tht natural selection seems to be a viable mechanism for change in an organis without addressing these questions, change yes but Darwin didn't get any changes outside the given trait already present in the organism, but evolution requries that.   You can't select a gtrait that isn't in the genome, nd there doesn't seem to be any way to bring abour a really new trait in an organism.  Mutation isn't going to accomp,.luish that, it's jut going to vary an existing trait at lbest.

Etc Etc Etc.

ok, hERE'S hOW i eXPLAIN THE eVENTS ON THAT cROSS sECTION

 yES IT STARTS WITH THE WORLDWIDE fLOOD OF nOAH.  PICTURE NOTHING FOR STARTERS JUST TO MAKE IT EASIER TO BUILD UP THE SCENARIO.  tHEN PICTURE THE STRATA ALL LAID OUT FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE FRAME TO THE TOP, ALL NEATLY STRAIGHT AND FLAT AND UNDISTURBED.   i'M NOT SURE HOW THE STRATA WERE ALL DAID DOWN BY THE fLOOD, MAYBE SOME CREATIONISTS HAVE THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION.  ITHER SESDIMENTS PRECIPITATED OUT OF THE STANDING WATER AT SOME POINT OR WAVES WASHED UP OVER THE LAND, LADEN WITH THE SEPARATE SEDIMENTS ONE AFTER ANOTHER.  PERHAPS BOTH METHODS OCCURRED.

JbUT AT SOMNE POINT THEY AWERE ALL LAID DOWN AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PROBABLY TO A DEPTGH OF ABOUT THREE ILES IN THE gRAND cANYON AREA, JUDGING FROM CLUES ON THAT CROSS SECTION.  

tHEN, AFTER THEY WERE ALL IN PLACE, SOME GREAT UPHEAVAL OCCURRED.  tHE fLOOD MAY YHAVE BEGUN TO ABATE, OR PERHAPS IT WAS THIS GREAT DISTURBANCE THAT BETGAN ITS ABATEMENT, i'M NOT SURE HOW TO THINK ABOUT THAT.  bUT THE TWO EVENTS PROBABLY HAPPENED MORE OR LESS IN THE SAME MOMENT OF TIME.  pROBABLY THE DISTURBANCE COINCIDED EXACLY WITH THE BEGINNING OF THE fLOOD'S DDRAINING AWAY.  

tia MAJOR PART OF THIS GREAT CATACLYMSMIC EVENT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE TECTONIC SEPARATION OF THE CONTINENTS.  tHE aTLANDNTIC rIDGE IS OBVIOUSLY WHERE THEY SPLIT BETWEEN THE aMERICAS AND eUROPE AND aFRICA WHEN IT WAS ALL ONE BODY OF LAND.  tHE LAND BROKE APART AT THAT POINT, LALONG THTA LINE OF MAGMA WE SEE AS THE aTLANTIC rIDGE.  tHE CONTINENTS MOVE AWAY FROM THAT LINE IN BOTH DIRECTIONS, AWAY FROM EACH OTHER.   

i 'M THINKING OF THIS OCCURRING ABOUT THE SAME TIME THE fLOOD BEGAN TO DRAIN BUT THE TIMING COULD BE DIFFERENT TO SOME EXTENT THOUGH NOT BY MUCH.  tHE MOVEMENT OF THE TECTONIC PLATES TRIGGERED THE VOLCANOES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CROSS SECTION AND NO DOUBT HUNREDS OF VOLCANOES AROUND THE WORLD,.  iT WOULD ALSO HAVE BUCKLED THE LAND IN VARIOUJSUS PLACES, FORMED THE aPPALACHIAN MOUNTS AND COMPARABLE MOUNTSINS IN ewUEROPE, EVEN PUSHING UP THE rOCKIES IN THE FAR WEST, THE aLPS IN eUORPE ETC.  tHIS WAS ONE HUGE WORLDWIDE CATASTROPHE, ALL RELATED IN SOME WAY TO THE fLOOD. 

aLL THE ssTRATA WERE ALREADY IN PLACE.  iT WAS THEIS GREAT UPHEAVAL THAT BROKE IT UP HERE AND THERE AROUND THE WORLD, TILTED IT, TWISTED IT AND SO ON.  i THINK IT ALL HAPPENED DURING THIS ONE GREAT TECTONIC EVENT, ALL THE FOLCANOES AND THE REARRANGING OF THE LAND IN VARIOUS PLACES.  tHE PUSHING UP OF THE REGION IN THE CROSS SECTION.  tHE CRACKING OPEN OF THE gRAND cANYON AS THE LAND WAS PUSHED UP BY THE BREAKING UP OF THE ROCK UNDERNEATH THAT AREA THAT BECAME THE gREAT uNCONFORMTIY.  tHE MOUNDING OF THE LAND WOULD HAVE BROKEN UP THE LSTRATA ABOVE IT AND    MORE VIOLENTLY THAN IN OTHER PLACES IN THE AREA SO THAT IT WASHED INTO THE OPENING CRACK OF WHAT BECAME THE gRAND cANYON AND WASHED ALL AROUND IT TOO, SCOURING OFF THE kAIBAB PLATEUA.   tO THE NORTH THE PUSHING UP OF THE LAND BROKE OFF THE PIECES THAT LEFT THE CLIFFS THAT BECAME THE gRAND sTAIRCASE.  

i THINK THIS WAS ONE HUGE WORLDWIDE EVENT.  nOAH AND FAMILY WERE THE ONLY LIVING HUMANS LEFT, RIDING OIN THE ARK OVER THE mIDDLE EST AREA SO RELATIVELY FREE OF THE EFFECTS OF ALL THIS UNDERGROUND OR UNDERWATER DISTURBANCE EXCEPT NO DOUBT FOR SOME PRETTY HEAVE SWAVE ACTION.    aND aRARAT WOULD SOON APPEAR WHERE THE ARK CAME TO REST.  aFTER WHICH THEY WANTED SOME TIME FOR THE WATER TO FULLY DRAIN AWAY AD THE LAND TO DRY OUT.

TGHERE WAS ONE PROBLEM AT FIRST THAT KEPT COMING UPT.  cREREATIONISTS \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

tHERE WAS ONE PROBLEM AT FIRST THAT KEPT COMING UP.  THIS WAS THE gREAT uNCONFORMTIY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE gRAND cANYON.  iT SEEMED FOR SOME REASON TO HAVE TO HVE BEEN THERE BEFORE THE STRATA WERE LAID DOWN AND THAT'S WHAT i'M DISPUTING.  cREATIONISTS AS i'VE RUN ACROSS THEM DON'T ATTIRUBTE all OF THE STRATA TO THE fLOOD, BUT ONLY THIS OR THAT PART OF THE COLUMN, DIFFERENT CREATIONISTS ALLOTTING DIRFFERENT SEGMENTS OF IT TO THE fLOOD.  i DON'T SEE HOW THE REAST OF THE STRATA CAN BE EXPLAINED THEN.  tHEY SWERE ALL PRETTY CLEARLY FORMED BY THE SAME PROCESSES, THEY ALL HAD TO HAVE BEEN LAID DOWN BY THE fLOOD IT SEEMS TO ME.  bUT THAT LEFT ME WITH HAVING TO EXPLAIN THE gREAT uNCONFORMITY AS OCCURRING AFTER THE fLOOD SO THAT THE STRATA IN THE ROCK BENEATH THE CANYON ARE ALSO EXPLAINABLE AS CRETED BY THE fLOOD.

i FORGET WHY THIS WAS A RPBOJE AT ALL i GUESS BECAUSE MY OWN ANSWER SEEMS TO OBVIOUS TO ME NOW, BUT IT WAS A PROBLEM FOR SURE.  

mY ANSWER IS THAT 

oh IS THIS WHY?  tHEY ALWAYS EXPLAIN UNCONFRMITYIES OF THIS TYPE, THAT IS aNGULAR uNCONFORMITIES, AS HAVING OCCURRED IN STAGES, THE LOWER PART BEING LAID DOWN OVER TIME AND THEN TILTED, AFTER WHICH THE UPPER STRATA ARE LAID DOWN ON TOP OF IT.  tHAT'S HOW THEY EXPLAIN ALL ANGULAR UNCONFORMITIES.    ok, THAT MUST HAVE BEEN WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS.

i SPENT UITE A BIT OF TIME PROBVING TO MYSELF THAT ANANGULAR UNCONFORMTIY COULD BE CAUSED BY A TECTONIC FORMCE FREOM THE SIDE PUSHIHNG THE LOWER STRAT UP AGAINST THE UPPER COLUMN SO THAT IT LOOKS TILTED AS IT BREAKS OFF AND THE UPPER PART APPEARS TO LIE OVER IT.  wELL IT DOES LIE OVER IT BUT IT WAS ALREADY THERE, JUST THAT THE LOWER PART BUCKLED UNDER IT AND SLIDE UNDER IT LEAVING THE UPPER PART HORIZONTAL MORE OR LESS. 

yES, TGHIS IS HOW i ENDED UP EXPLAIING THE WHOLE SHEBANTG, INCLUDING ALL THE ANGULAR UNCONFORMITIES EVERYWHERE ON THE PLANET.  tHEY ALL WER ECREATED AT THE SAME TIME IN THIS ONE MAJOR TECTONIC EVENT THAT CAME AT THE END O F THE fLOOD JUST AS IT WAS DRAINING WAWAY.  aLL OF THEM INCLUDING THE gREAT uNCONFORMITIY UNDER THE gRAND cANYON.   THE FORCE CAME FROMJ THE SIDE AND BUCKLED A SECTION OF THE LWER STRATA UNDERNEATH AN UPPER BLOCK OF STRATA AT SOME POINT WHERE THERE WAS SOME TEXTURAL SLIDING POSSIBILITY BETWEEN THE TWO ROCKS.  iN THE gRAND cANYON THE UPPER STRATA WERE STACKED TO A GREAT DEPTH, AT LEAST TWO MILES, MAYBE STHREE AND THEY SWITHDSTOOD THE BREAKING OUP THAT OCCURRED AT OTHER ANGULAR UNCONFRMITIES THAT IN MANY CASES LEFT JUST ONE HORIZONTAL LAYER INTANCT ON TOP OF THE TILTED LOWER STRATA.

tHE MOST FAMOUS ANGULAR UNCONFRMITY IS PROBABLY THE ONE AT sICCAR poINT WHEICH i SPENT UITE A BIT OF TIME INVESTIGATING.  

sORRY, BOT TO TAKE A BREAK.  

tO BE CONTINUED.

tHE pERPLEXING dAWKINS

oF COURSE i KEEP RUNNING ACROSS dAWKINS INTERVIEWS AND i'M LISTENING TO ANOTHER ONE.  i'M GETTING VERY ERPLEXED BY HIM.  oF COURSE i'M PARTICULARLY ANNOYED WSITH HIM THAT HE LUMPS cHRISTIANITY IN WITH ALL THE REST OF THE RELIGIONS SEEMING TO THINK THAT IF THEY ALL CAN'T BE RIGHT THEN NONE OF THEM CAN BE RIGHT, WHICH IS OF COURSE FALSE.  \\

bUT HE'S PERPLEXING BECAUE HE REALLY SEEMO THINK THAT DARWINISM HAS BEEN PROVEN AND IT REALLY HASN'T.gE SEEMS TO THINK THAT BECAUSE NATURAL SELECTION MIGHT EXPLAIN THE APPEARANCE OF DESIGN IN NATURE THAT THEREFORE IT DOES EXPLAIN IT, AS IF IT HAD BEEN PROVED, BUT IT HASN'T.  aLL HE'S EVER SAID IS THAT IT EXPLAINS IT BUT HE HASN'T EVER SOWN ONE IOTA OF ACTUAL EVIDENCE THAT IT HAS DONE SO.  iT REMAINS A PLAUSIBLE POSSIBILITY AND NO MORE THAN THAT BUT HE DOESN'T SEEM TO RECOGNIZE THAT FACT.

iT SOUNDS PLAUSIBLE ENOUGH i SUPPOSE BUT IF i THIHNK ABOUT IT SERIOUSLY FOR A WHLIE i REALIZE THAT IT'S IMPOSSIBLE, NATURAL SELECTION CAN'T CRETE ANYTHING THAT LOOKS DESIGNED.  aND AGAIN THERE ISN'T A TSHRED OF EVIDENCE THAT IT COULD OR DOES.  tHERE IS JUST A STRING OF PLAUSIBILITIES THAT SEEM LESS AND LESS PLAUSIBLE AS i THINK ABOUT THEM.

bUT THERE IS NO ANSWERING THIS SORT OF THING, IT'S SELF JUSTIFYING AND UNANSWERABLE, UNFALSIFIBLE TO USE pOPPER'S TERM.  yETR HE THINKS HE'S GOOT ACTUAL PROOF SOMEWHOW.  hE'LL SPEND LONG SESSIONS SHOWING HOW mOUNT piMPROBABLE IS TO BE CLIMBED SLOWLY AROUND AND AROUND RATHER THAN STRAIGHT UP WITHOUT SHOWING THAT IN FACT THAT'S EVE ACTUALLY HAPPENED AS AN EVOLUTIONARY PATTERM.  hE LIKES ANALOGIES LIKE THE BLIND WATCHMAKER BUT HE REALLY NEVER GETS AWAY FROM MERE ANALOGY INTO ACTUAL FACT.  nEVER.  aND HE DOESN'T SEEM TO KNOW IT.  hE CALLS IT ALL FACT WITHOUT ANY JUSTIFICATION.

lATER:  aS i GO ON LISTENING TO THE LATEST INTERVIEW WITH dAWKINS i FIND HIM AGAIN COMPLAINIHNG THAT THE oLD TESTAMENT IS AN EVIL BOOK AND THAT YOU WOULDN'T WANT TO KNOW ANYONE WHO LIVED BY ITS MORALITY.

sIGH

fIRST OF ALL NOBODY RECOMMENDS LIVING BY THE oLD tESTAMENT LEAST OF ALL THE oLD TESTAMENT ITSELF.  iT IS A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE iSRAL AND OF THEIR DEALINGS WITH THEIR gOD.  sOMETIMES A HISTORY IS GIVEN TO SHOW A MODEL BY WHICH TO LIVE BUT OFTEN IT REVEALS SINS AND ERRORS AS A WARNING not TO LIVE BY THEM.  

hOWEVER, HE IS AGAIN LISTING THE LAWS OF iSRAEL NOT JUST THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, AND HE THINKS THE LAW OF STONING TO DEATH SOEONE FOR BREAKING THE sABBATH IS A HORROR OF INJUSTICE, AS IS STONE WITCHES TO  DEATH, AND "PERSECUTING" HOMOSEXUALS.  i DN'T KNOW WHERE ANYONE IS SEEN TO BE PERSPECTUIGNT HOMOSEXUALS IN THE ot, BUT THERE IS A LAW FORBVIDDEN THE HOMOSEXUAL ACT AND THE SENTENCE FOR THAT IS PROBABLY DEATH THOUGH i DON'T REMEMBER THE EXACT PASSAGE.  

sO.

sIGH.

wE ARE NJOT A THEOCRACY, WE cHRISTIANS ARE NOT A THEOCRACY, iSRAEL WAS A THEOCRACY THOUGH IT ISN'T TODAY.  iN THE oLD tESTAMETN iSRAEL WAS A THEOCRACY AND THE LAWS WERE GIVEN BY gOD.  aND WE COULD, IF WE WERE WISE, LEARN FROM THOSE LAWS, THAT CERTAIN ACTS ARE TRULY THE ABOMJINATIONS THAT DESERVE THE PUNISHEMENTS THEY ARE GIVEN THERE.  nOT THAT WE ARE TO ENACT THOSE PUNISHEMTNS, WE ARE NOT, WE ARE IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DISPENSATION, BUT WE could LEARN THT THEY DESERVE THEM, THTA BREAKING THE sABBATH WAS A HORRENDOUS EVIL IN THE CONTEXT OF iSRAEL'S CULTURE, AND SO WAS THE SIN OF WITCHCRAFT.   tHE sABBATH IS A PICTURE OF THE REST gOD OFFERS TO THOSE WHO KNOW hIM AND LIVE BY hIM, A REST TO BE BOUGHT BY THE BLOOD OF THE mESSIAH YET TO COME, WHO IS PROPHESIED INDIRECTLY IN THE LAW OF THE sABBATH.  dAWKINS WOULD HAVE NO SENSE OF ANY OF THAT AND COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT IT SINCE HE RESFUESE TO BELIEVE ANYH OF IT ANYWAY.  bUT IT IS A HIGH RTTREASON TO BREAK THE LAW OF THE sABBATH IN THE CONTEXT GIVEN.  dAWKINS IS JUST THE USUAL SIMPLETON WELL i GUESS i SHOULDN'T CALL HIM A SIMPLETON, BUT HE'S JUDGING BY HIS OWN MODERN CULTURURAL CONTEXT WHICH IS USUALLY CONSIDERED TO BE A BIG MISTAKE BY SOPHSITCATED PEOPLE AND YES, SCIENTIESTS.    tHE sABBATH IS A TRIVIAL OBSERVANCE IN MODERN bRITAIN, CARRYING NONE OF THE WEIGHT OF THE oLD tESTAMENT lAW.  

aND OF COURSE HE HAS NNO FEELING FOR THE SIN OF WITCHCRAFT, WHICH IS THE CONSORTING WITH DEMONS.  oF COURSE DEMONS DON'T EXIST FOR HIM SO IT'S EASY FOR HIM TO P[OOH THE POH THE WHOLE THING AS A BIG NOTHING.  bUT THERE ARE REALLY DEMONS, AND AT LEAST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THEY BELIEVED IN THEM AND THEY SHOW UP THROUGHOUT THE GOSPELS IN THE nEW TESTGAMENT AS WELL, NOT VERY NICE SPIRTIT BEINGS WHO HATE HUMANITY AND PROBABLY RESPONSIBLE FOR MANY THINGS IN THIS WORLD THAT ARE HURTFUL TO US THT WE ASCRIBE TO UOTHER CAUSES.     cONSORTING WITH DEMONS ALSO DRAWS PEOPLE AWA Y FROMTHE TRUTE cgOD WHO IS THEIR PROTECTOR AND GIVER OF ALL GOOD THIJGS, AND THEY WOULD LEAD EVERYBODY TO hELL.  yOU MGIHT WANT TO AVOID DEMONS IF YOU CAN, mR. dAWKINS., BUT OF COURSE THEYH ARE VERY HAPPY WITH HYOU BECAUSE YOU DON'T RATTLE THEIR CAGES AT ALL SINCE YOU DON'T EVEN BELIEVE THEY EXIST.  uNFORTNATELY SOME DAY YOU WILL FIND OUT THEYU DO AND i PRAY YOU WILL HAVE FOUND cHRIST AND BEEN SAVED BEFORE YOU DO.

i SUSPECT HOMOSEXUALITY HAS A DEMONIC ORIGI BYSELF, AS A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR THE DEATH PENALTY THERE BUT AT LEAST A VIOLATION OF THE NORMAL SEXUAL PATTERN HAS A CORRUPTING EFFECT ON THE COMMUNITY.  wHEN IT IS A THEOCRACY AND TOTALLY DEPENDENT ON gOD AND ONE ANOTHER AS THEY WERE BACK THERN.    tHAT'S MY THJOUGHT ON THAT SUBJECT.  wE ARE NOT ENJOINED TO PUNISH HOMSEXUALS TODAY.  aLTHOUGH WE'D BE A LOT BETTER OFF i SUSPECT WIF WE DIDN'T GIVE THEM PERMISSION TO PARADE DOWN OUR STREETS SHOWING OFF THEIR ABERRATION FOR ALL TO SUPPOSEDLY ADMIRE.  that IS A CUPORRUPTING INFLUENCE ON THE COMMUNITY WE COULD WELL DO WITHOUT.  aS IS ALL THIS TRANSGENDER HORROR OF THE MUTILATION OF CHILDREN AND SO ON, WHICH i THINK YOU DO OBJECT TO, AND THANK YOU FOR THAT MUCH.

aS HE GOES ON i AM REMINDED THAT HE NATURALLY THINKS cATHOLICISM IS cHRISTIANITY.  hE POINTS TO THE mIDDLE aGES AS A TIME IN cHRISTIANITY   AS A TIME IN cHRISTIANITY WHEN WE WERE SUPPOSEDLY DOINT ALL THE SAME ATROCITIES THAT ISLAM DOES, AND i SUPPOSE THAT IS RIGHT IF YOU ARE TALKINGA BOUT cATHOLICISM BUT cATHOLICISM REALLY IS NOT cHRISTAINITY, WHICH IS WHAT THE pROTESTANT rEFORMERS FINALLY DISCOVERED WHEN THEY TRIED TO REFORM IT.  THEY DISCOVERED THAT IT IS THE aNTICHRIST SYSTEM, THAT THE pOP HOIMSELF IS the aNTICHRIST, AND THEY PROVED IT FROM SCRIPTURE.  cATHOLICISM MAINTAINES ENOUGH OF THE BIBLICAL TEACHING TO GIVE IT A VENEER OF cHRISTIANITY AND EVRYBODY FALLS FOR THAT, NOT THE LEAST BEING THOSE WHO ARE BORN INTO IT AND ARE OF COURSE LOYAL TO IT FOR THAT REASON AND THINK IT IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY.  aLTHOUGH IT IS REALLY A DISTORTED FORM OF cHRISTIANITY WHICH DOESN'T EVEN TEACH THE WAY TO GET SAVED, AND HAS ACCUMJULATED ALL THE PAGAN TRAPPINGS OF THE PAGAN RELIGIONS OF ROME WHICH HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH cHRISTIANITY.  

tHAT'S NOT dAWKINS' FAULT BUT i WISH HE HAD SPENT MORE TIME EDUCATING HIMSELF ON THSE THINGS BEFORE HE CAME OUT SWINGING AGAINST ALL OF cHRISTINAITY.

\

tHE rOMAN cHURCH IS STILL THE SAME CHURCH IS TWAS IN THE mIDDLE aGES, IT'S JUST GONE UNDERGOUNRD AS IT WERE BECAUSE O THE pROTESTANT rEFORMATION WHICH GAVE IT A GHUGE SMACKDOWN THAT DESTROYED THE POWER IT HAD HELD THROUGH OUT THAT MEDIEVAL PERIOD.  IT IS STILL REELING FROM THAT SMACKDOWN ALTHOUGH IT IS SLOWLY MAKING INROADS AND MAY EVENTUALLY RECAPTURE THAT LOST POWER.  IT CERTAINLY WILL IN THE VERY LAST DAYS WHEN THE aNTICHRIST WILL ONCE AGAIN RULE THE WORLD AND THE LIKES OF A dAWKINS WILL BE PUT TO DEATH FOR MERELY BEING A cULTURAL cHRISTAIN.  tHE iNQUISITION NEVER WENT AWAY, IT IS QUIETLY SIMMERING AWAY BENEATH THE SURFACE, NEVER REPUDICATED, NEVER REFORMED.  IT IS EVEN STILL PRACTICED I sOUTH aMERICAN IN SOME PARTS.  IT WAS NEVER CONFINED MERELY TO THE sPANISH iNQUISITION BUT SPREAD OVER eUROPE KILLING AND PERSECUTING SOE FIFTY MILLION DISSIDENT TRUE cHRIATIANTNS IN A PERIOD OF ABOUT SIX HOUNDRED EARS.

dAWKINS HAHAS HAD A VERY  C;PSE RFROEMDSJO[ WOTJ aUAAM jORSO a;O AMD OT WPI;D BE MOCE. MPW TJAT SJE OS A cJROSTOAM  WJP SPIMDS ;OLE SJE OS REA;;U PM TJE ROGJT TRACL WOTJ OT. OF SJE CPI;D OMF;IEMCE JO, PIT PF JOS MPMSEMSOCA; ODEAS ABPIT TJE WPR;D/

eXOPANDED vERSION OF THE GEOLOGICAL aRGUMENT aGAINST EVOLUTION

 tHE GEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT I TRY TO MAKE AGAINST EVOLUTION FOCUSES COMJPLETELY ON TWHAT IS CALLED THE GEOLOGICAL cOLUMN, OR THE STACK OF LAYERS OF SEDUMENTARY ROCKS THAT IS FOUND JUST ABOUT ALL OVER THE EARTH.  wHEN YOU FIND AT LEAST PART OF THE STACK IN ONE PIECE IT LOOKS LIKE A LAYER CAKE OF SORTS, ONE LAYER OF ROCK ON TOP OF ANOTHER TO WHATEVER DEPTH IS INTACT AT THAT PARTICULAR LOCATION.  

fiN MOST PLACES THAT ARE VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE THE STRATA ARE BROKEN UP IN VARIOUJSUS WAYS, BROKEN AND TILTED INTO CHUNKS IN SOME CASES SUCH AS IN THE bRITISH iSLES WHERE THE WHOLE STACK FROM EARLIEST TIMES, AS THEY ARE RECKONED, TO RECENT TIMES, IS FOUND SCATTERED IN BLOCKS ACROSS THE WHOLE ISLAND.  iN SOME PLACES THE STACK IS TWISTED  INTO A SPIRAL SHAPE, AND SO ON.  iT IS RARE TO FIND A SECTION OF THE COLUMN THAT IS INTACT TO ANY APPRECIABLE DEPTH, LYING FLAT AND STRAIGHT AS ORIGINALLY LAID DOWN. 

aND THERE WAS A SCIENTIEST NAMED sTENO WHO FORUMULATED A LW THAT SAYS THEY WERE ORIGINALLY LAID DOWN HORIZONTAL AND FLAT AND STRAIGHT.  sTENO'S lAW OF HORIZONTALITY.  sO ALL THE SEGMENTS THAT ARE FOUND BROKENAND TILTED AND TWISTED HAPPENED AFTER THEY WERE LAID DOWN.

tHE ONLY PLACE ON EARTH, AS FAR AS i KNOW, WHERE ANY APPRECIABLE DEPTH OF THE ORIGKINALLYU OHORIZONTAL STACK IS STICILL INTACT AND VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE IS IN THE gRAND cANYON IN ARIZONTA.  tHE LAYERS ARE VISIBLE IN THE MAIN PART OF THE CANYON TO A DEPTH OF ABOUT A MILE FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, AND THEY REPRESENT THE TIME PERIODS FROM cAMBRIAN TO pERMIAN, THE LAYERS ABOVE THE pERMIAN HAVING BEEN WASHED AWAY OVER THE CANYON AREA, LEAVING THE SURFACE OF THAT pERMIAN LAYER AS THE PLATEAU INTO WHICH THE CANYOJN IS CUT, A LIMESTONE PLATEAU THT STRETCHES A FEW HUNDRED ILES TO THE NORTH INTO uTAH.  oN THE sOUTH THE EXPOSED LAYER IS SANDSTONE, AND IT IS KES TO  A FEW HUNDRED MOILES TO THE SOUTH OF THE CANYON ..NOWN AS THE cOCONINO pLATEAU.  iT TOOK STRETCHES FOR HUNDREDS OF MILS

sORRY, i GARBLED THAT LAST SENTENCE UP SOMEHOW AND UNFORTUNATELY CAN'T SEE WELL ENOUGH TO FIX IT.  

cREATIONISTS ARE DRAWN TO TEH gRAND cAYON BECAUSE IT SHOWS SO MUCH OF THE STRATA INTACT.   iT IS PROBABLY INTACT IN OTHER PLACES WHERE IT IS BURIED AND NOT OPEN TO OBSERVATION.  iN THE MIDWESTERN uNITED sTATES  THIS IS PROBABLY THE CASE AS CORE SAMPLES DRILLED INTO THE GROUND A VARIOUS PLACES COME UP WITH MILES OF STRATA ON DISPLAY, i THINK MILES, BUT CERTAINLY AT LEAST THE DEPTH OF THE gRAND c ANYONJ AND THE uTAH AREA TO THE NORTH COMBINED, ABOUT TWO MILES IN DEPTH TOGETHER.

iT IS WITHIN THESE SEDIMENTARY ROCK LAYERS THAT THE FOSSILS ARE FOUND WHICH CONVINCED SCIENTISTS THAT THEY ARE VEGIDENCE OF EVOLUTION BECAUSE THEY SEEM TO REPRESENT ANIMAL FORMS THAT PROGRESS FROM THE LOWEST ROCKS TO THE HIGHEST IN A PROGRESSIVE INCREASE IN COMPLEXITY, FROM THE SIMPLEST ON THE BOTTOM ON UP.  i'M NOT SO SURE OF THAT MYSELF AS THE INSECT FORMS IN WHAT IS CALLED T cAMBRIAN eXPLOSION, THE LOWEST ROCK FOUND TO HAVE FOSSILS, SEEM TO BE JUST AS COMPLEX AS ANY HIGHER ANIMAL.  BUT ANYWAY.

tO bE cONTINUED.

iN RECENT POSTS HERE i TOOK THE POSITION THTA THE STRATA THEMSELVES ARE PHYSICALLY  SO FLAT AND HOMOGENOUS, BEIG MOSTLY ALL MONE DSEIDIMENT , AND SO GEOGRAPHICALLY WIDESPREAD THAT THEY CAN'T POSSIBLY REPRESENT THE TIME PERIODS THEY HAVE BEEN MADE TO REPRESENT, THOSE PERIODS FROM THE cAMBRIAN THROUGHT HE sILURIAN, dEVONIAN, pERMIAN, jRURASSIC AND SO ON, THT ARE HELD TO DEFINE THE FOSSILS THEY CONTAIN.  sO THE jURASSIC IS HIGH IN THE GEOLOGICAL COLUMN, IS FOUND IN uiTAH AND NOT THE gRANDE cANYON FOR INSTANCE, AND IS WHERE DINOSAURS ARE TO BE FOUND.  tHE DINOSAURS ARE UNDERSTOOD TO HAVE LIVED IN THAT PERIOD LABELED jURASSIC AS WELL AS THE cRETACIOUS THAT FOLLOWS IT, AND THEN DIED OUT AS THE RESULT OF A CATASTROPHE WHICH IS EVIDENCED BY THE PRSENCE OF IRIDIUM, A METAL FOUND IN METEORS, AT THE TOP OF THE cRETACIOUS FOCK.  tHIS IS USED TO EXPLAIN THE ABSENSE OF DINOSAURS HIGHER IN THE COLUMN, REPRESENTEING A METEOR THT WIPED THEM ALL OUT AT THAT TIME.    tHESE ROCKS DEFINITELY REPRESENT TIME EPIERIODS ALTHOUGH i'VE BEEN TOLD i'M GBEING TOO LITERAL OR SOMETHIHG WHEN i MAKE THIS CLAIM.  I DON'T SEE HOW.  tHE TIME PERIOD SPANS THE ROCK IN EVERY CASE, AND IS DATED TO HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS PER PERIOD IN A TYPICAL TIME PERIOD.  i DON'T KNOW ALL THE DIFFERENT TIME SPANS FOR THE DIFFERENT PERIODS.  bUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE CONTINUOUS WITH THE ROCKS.

lOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT.  i STARTED OUT JUST WANTING TO REVISIT THE IDEA FROM THE PREVIOUS POSTS THAT THE PHYSICAL FACTS OF THE STRATA COULDN'T POSSIBLY REPRESENT TIME PERIODS BECAUSE THEY ARE NOTHIJNG BUT SLABS OF ROCK THAT SPAN THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES IN MANY CASES, SOMETIMES ALL ONE SEDIMENT TO TA GREAT DEPTH OF HUNDREDS OF FEET OR EVEN THOUSANDS, AND OBVIOUSLY IF THAT IS WHAT EXISTED SDURING THE TIME PERIOD NOTHING WHATEVER COULD HAVE LIVED THEN.  aND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO FIGURE OUT HOW IT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED FOR ONLY A SHORT PART OF THE TIME PERIOD.  aLL THE CREATURES WOULD DIE AT THAT POINT ANYWAY AND THERE WOULD BE NOTHIJG ALIVE TO AEVOLVE TO THE NEXT STAGE.   tHESE SLABS OF ROCK EXTEND FROM THE GRAND cANYON AREA ACROSS THE mIDWESTERN usa AND SOME EVEN ACROSS THE aTLANTIC INTO THE uk AND eUROPE.  nOTHIG COULD HAVE LIVED SDURE ING SUCH A "TIME PERIOD."  

bUT i'M ARGUING SOMETHING DIFFERENT HERE.  i WANT TO POINT OUT THAT NOTHING EVER HAPPENED during THOSE TIME PERIODS THAT IS EVIDENCED IN THE ROCKS THEMSELVES.  wE KNOW THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH TO BE ANYTHING BUT STRAIGHT AND FLAT AND ALL OF ONE SEDIMENTARY ROCK, SO PRESUMABLY WOULD THE SURVRFACE TDURING ANY OTHER TIME PERIOD HAVE BEEN.  nO?    wOULD'T YOU EXPECT TO FIND TREE ROOTS AND RIVER BEDS AND ROCKS OF MANY SIZES  AT LEAST IN WHAT IS REALLY A TIME PERIOD?  bUT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF ANY SUCH THING.  tHE ROCKS ARE ALL STRAIGHT AND FLAT AND HOMOGENEOUSLY OF ONE SEDIMENT IN MOST CASES.   aLL THE ACTIVITY TO BE SEEN ON THIS REPUTADLY VERY ACTIVE PLANET IS TO BE SEEN AFTER ALL THE STRATA WERE IN PLACE, AND NONE OF IT DURING THEIR LAYING DOWN.

yOU MAY FIND PARTIAL BLOCKS OF STRATA HERE AND THERE RATHER THAN THE WHOLE COLUN SO SOME THINGK THAT MEANS THERE WERE TIMES WHEN THE LAYING DOWN WAS INTERRUPTED AND ACTIVITY OCCURRED THEN.  bUT ALTHOUGH THAT MIGHT BE AT LEAST A PLAUSIBILITY, SINCE ALL THE STRATA REPRESENT EACH THE SAME TIME PERIOD, MEANING THOSE THAT RESUME THE BUILGIND OF THE COLUMN AFTER THE INTERRUPTION JUST GON ON IN THE SAME PATTERN AS THOSE WFOUND IN THE PLACES WHERE THE STRATA ARE COMPLETE, THE MOST REASONABLE IDEA IS THAT THE WHOLE COLUMN WAS LAID DOWN EVERYWHERE IN THE SAME TIME PERIOD, WHATEVER TIME THAT TOOK, CERTAINLY NOT MILLIONS OF YEARS, AND THEN VARIOUS FORCES ACTED ON IT TO BREAK IT UP AND TWIST IT AND WASH MUCH OF IT AWAY AND SO ONJ.

i LIKE TO DEMONSTRATE THIS WITH A CROSS SECTION OF THE gRAND cANYON TO gREAND sTAIRCASE AREA FROM aRISZONA TO uTAL WHICH IS TO BE FOUND ON THE gRAND sTAIRCASE WEBSITE.  iT SHOWS THE gRAND cANYOHN ON THE FAR RIGHT AND THE gRAND sTAIRCASE ON THE LEFT AT THE TOP OF THE CHART, STEPPING DOWN FROM THE HIGHEST POINT AT cEDAR gROVE uTAH TO THE kAIBAB pLATEAU WHICH IS THE SURFACE INTO WHICH THE gREAND cANYON IS CUT.  

oN THIS CROSS SECTION ALL THE STRATA ARE DEPICTED AS ANINTACT BLOCK FROM THE cAMBRIAN THROUGH THE hOLOCENE ON THE LEFT.  tHEY ARE AN UNBROKEN COLUMN OF LAYERS OF ROCK STRETCHING FROM NORTH TO SOUTH OVER THE HUNDREDS OF MILES BETWEEN THE TWO FORMATIONS.   tHE WHOLE BLOCK IS AFFECTED, HOWEVER , AS A BLOCK, BY VARIOUS FORCES.  iT IS NOT PERFECTLY STAUGHT AND FLAT BUR  IS PUSHED UP AT THE LEFT END AND SLOPES DOWN TOWARD THE gRAND cANYON TO THE rIGHT, NTHEN RISING IN A MOUND OVER THE GRAND cANYOHN AREA.  THE WHOLE STACK FOLLOWS THE SLOPE AND RISE AND SO ON AS A UNIT.  

iN THE GRAND cANYON AREA, BENEEATH THE CANYON THERE IS A FORMATION CALLED THE gREAT uNCONFORMITY, WHICH IS MADE UP OF TILTED PIECES OF STRATA OVER WHICH THE MOUNDED STRATA ABOVE RISE.  tHE TILTED STRATA APPEAR TO PUSH UP THE COLUMN ABOVE AND i THINK THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED.  

tHE STANDARD EXPLANATION OF THIS IS THAT THE STRATA BENEATH, THE GREAT UNCONFORMITY, WAS ALREAYD THERE BEFORE THE STRATA ABOVE WERE LAID DOWN, BUT HAT WOULD REQUIRE THOSE UPPER LAYERS TO LAY DOWN OVER THE MOUND ONE BY ONE AND KEEP THEIR BASIC THICKNESS.  tHAT VIOLATES sTENO'S lAW OF HORIZONTALITY AT LEAST, AND JUST SEEMS COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE TO MY MIND.  iT HAS TO BHAVE BEEN THAT THE UNCONFORMITY WAS THE RESULT OF SOME KIND OF FORCE BENEAT THAT AREA THAT TILTED THE LOWER ROCKS AND PUSHED UP THE WHOLE COLUMN ABOVE THAT WAS ALREADY IN PLACE.  THAT IS THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES SENSE.  

tHERE IS LAVA IN THE CANYON ITSELF WHICH SUGGESTS THAT IT WAS A VOLCANO THAT CAUSED THE BREAKING AN TILTING OF THE LOWER ROCKS.  tHERE IS A VOLCANO SEEN IN THE DIAGREAM ON THE FAR LEFT TOO, OR AT LEAST THE MAGMA RISING FROM IT THROUGH THE STRATA TO THE VERY TOP OF THE COLUMN M TO cEDAR bREAKS WHERE IT SPILLS OUT FINALLY.  tHE VOLCANO IS BENEATH THE ENTIRE COLUMN SO OBVIOUSLY IT HAPPENED AFTER THE WHOLE COLUMN  WAS IN PLACE, THE MAGMA RISING UP THROUGH EVERY LAYER TO THE TOP.   

iT LOOKS TO ME LIKE WHAT HAPPENED TO THE gRAND cANYON WAS THAT THE FORCE BENEATH THE AREA WHICH RAISED UP THE COLUMN IN THAT MOUNDED SHAPE, WHICH WAS PROBABLY A VOLCANO SINCE THERE IS ALSO GRANITE AND SCHIST THROUGHOUT THAT AREA, BOTH VOLCANIC ROCKS, AND THAT IT TOO OCCURRED AFTER ALL THE STRATA WERE IN PLACE AND NOT BEFORE AS THE ESTABLISHMENT THEORY HAS IT.

tHEN THE DISTURBANCE WHICH IS CLEARLY SEEN AT THE TOP OF THE WHOLE FORMATION FROM NORTH TO SOUTH IS EASILY EXPLAINED AS THE RESULT OF THOSE FORCES DEEP IN TEH EARTH THAT OCCURRED AFTER THE STRATA WERE ALL IN PLACE.  tHAT IS, THE gRAND cANYON ITSELF WAS CUT, PROBABLY FIRST AS A CRACKING OF LAYERS WHTAT HAD BEEN STACKED HIGH ABOVE THE CURRENT RIM LEVEL, AND CRACKING THE CANYON OPEN DOWN TO THE GREAT UNCONFORMTIY ITSELF, THE BROKEN UP LAYERS ALL WASHING AWAY IN THE UPHEAVAL.  oN THE NORTH, gRAND cSTAIRCASE WOULD HAVE BEEN THE RESULT OF THE SHAKING UP AND FORCING UP OF THE LAND THAT BROKE OFF PIECES OF THE UPPER STRATA LEAVING THE STESPS OR CLIFFS THAT FORM THE STAIRCASE FORMATION.  i COULD EXPLAIN THIS BETTER WITH A POINTER AND THE CHART IN FRONT OF ME BUT OH WELL.

aNYWAY THE POINT IS THAT THE STRATA WERE LAID DOWN before ALL THESE DISTURBANCES OCCURRED, ORIGINATING BENEATH THE EAREA AS FVOLANOIC ERUPTIONS AND NO DOUBT CAUSING AN ENORMOUS EARTHQUAKE OR SEIRES OF EARTHQUAKES.  tHERE ARE SIGNS IN THE gRAND cANYON THAT ARE INTERPRETED AS i THINK THREE SEPARATE EARTHQUAKES.  i WOULD GUESS THEY ARE ALL PART OF THIS ONE GREAT EVENT THAT OCCURRED AFTER ALL THE STRATA WERE IN PLACE, THOUGH IN STAGES OR ONE AFTER THE OTHER.

aLL THIS ADDS UP TO EVIDENCE THAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A RELATIVELY SHORT TIME FRAME, NOT THE MILLIONS OF YEARS PER LAYER OF ROCK THAT IS USUALLY ASCRIVED TO THE FORMATION.

sTRATA FIRST, DISTURBANCE FOLLOWING.  tHAT FITS ALL THE PLACES WEHRE PARTIAL BLOCKS OF THE STRATA OCCUR TO, WHERE THEY WERE BROKEN OFF AND TWISTED AND TILTED AND SO ON.  tHE STRATA THEMSELES WITHIN THE BLOSK ARE INTACT, TBUT THEN SOMETHING BROKE AND TISTED THEM AS A UNTT.  THE WHOLE STACK WASN'T INVOLVED IN MOST PLACES BECAUSE TI WAS BROKEN ITO THESE SMALLER CHUCKSNKS BUT EACH CHUNK SHOWS INTANCT STRATA AS A UNIT BROKEN OFF AS A UNIT, TWISTED AS A UNIT, TILTED AS A UNIT AND SO ON.  sTRATA FIRST, DISTURBANCE FOLLOWING.

tHIS PATTERN IN ITSELF SUGGESTS SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE IDEA THAT THESE LAYERS OF ROCK REPRESENT TIME PERIODS.  wHY WOULD  SAY THREE OR FOUR TIME PERIODS ACCUMULATE THEIR REPSECTIVE SEDIMETARY REPRESENTATIONS AS AN UNDISTURBED UNIT, AS FLAT STRAUGHT LAYERS AND THEN AND ONLY THEN UNDERTGO THESE DISTURBANCES, THE VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS ADN EARHTUAKES .    sTRANGE HISTORY FOR THE EARTH TO HAVE HAD.  tHE TIME PERIODS AS ROCKS ALONE MAKES AFOR A STRANGE HISTORY FOR THE EARTH.  wHY SHOULD THE EARTH BE DIVIDED INTO TIME PERIODS AT ALL, LET ALONE TIME PERIODS MAKRED OFF BY SPECIFIC SEDIMENTARY SLABS OF ROCK?  \\

sCIENCE  THINKS THE gREAT uNCONFORMTIY AT THE BASE OF THE gRAND cANYON WAS ALREADY THERE BEFORE THE LAYERS ABOVE WERE LAID DOWN, BUT i FORGET WHY THEY THINK THAT.  THEY THINK IT IS THE ROOT OF WHAT WAS ONCE A MOUNTAIN RANGE THAT ERODED AWAY TO THE TILTDED ROCKS, ON TOP OF WHICH THE CURRENT gEOLOGICAL cOLUMN WAS THEN BUILT  TIME PERIOD BY TIME PERIOD IN THOSE HUNDRES OF MILLIONSOF YEARS INCREMENTS.

\\

eVIDENCE FROM THE CROSS SECTION THAT THE DISTURBANCE OCCURRED AFTER THE STRATA WERE IN PLACE ARE THE MOUND OVER WHICH THE STRATA WOULD HAVE HAD TO TRAVEL IF IT WAS THERE GBEFORE;  THE VOLCANO TO THE FAR LEFT WHOSE MAGMA RISES UP THROUGH THE ENTIRE COLUMN TO THE TOP CLEARLY OCCURRED WHEN IT WAS ALL THERE FOR IT TO RISE UP THOGYUTH;  THE TILTED STRATA TO THE FAR FAR UPPER LEFT OF THE CHART WHICH MUST HAVE HAPPENED WHEN A GRET JOLT OF SOME SORT SPLIT THE COLUMN VERTICALLY AT THE POINT, CAUSING THE STRATA ON THE LEFT TO DROP AND TILT UP AGAINST THE FAULT LINE;  MORE  AS i RECALL BUT i CAN'T REMEMBER AT THE MOMENT. WHAT

oN THE CURRENT WAY OF THINKING, HOW CAN THEY EXPLAIN WHY ONE SEDUEMTN WOULD GIVE WAY TO ANOTHER IN SUCH AN ABRUPT FASHION AS IS EVIDENCET IN PICTURES.  uP CLOSE IN THE CANYON YOU CAN SEE THAT ONE SEDUIMENTARY ROCK, SAY A LIMESTONE, SITS ABSOLUTELY FLAT ON TOP OF A SANDSTONE, SAY, WITH A KNIFE-EDGE CONTACT BETWEEN THEM.  hOW CAN THI SPOSSIBLY BE EXPLAINED ON THE ASSUMPTIONSO FHTE CURRENT THEORY?  wHY WOULD ONE TIME PERIOD BE LIMESTONE AND THE NEXT BE SANDSTONE AND SO ON, LET ALOEN THIS EXACT SHART P LINE WHERE THE ONE SUCCEEDS THE OTHER?

\

nOT BEING ABLE TO SEE WHAT YOU ARE DOING SURE PUTS A CRAMP IN A PERSON'S WRITING STYLE.  oR IS IT CRIMP.  wHATEVER.  

ssTANDARD gEOLOGY SAYS A MUNTAIN RANGE ONCE EXISTED IN THE AREA OF THIS CROSS SECTIN i'M TALKING ABOUT, IT ROSE UP, PERSISTED A WHILE, AND ERODED DOWN TO NOTHING, LEAVING THAT TILTED ROCK JUST BELOW WHERE THE CANYON FORMED LATER.  tHEN THE LAYERS STARTD GETTING LAID ODOWN, HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS AT A TIME.  oNE KIND OF SEDIMENT FOR ONE FOLLOWED ABSRUPTLY BY ANOTHER KIND OF SEDIMENT FOR ANOTHER HUDNREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS.

THEN FOR SOME REASON ABFTER ALL THOSE HUNDREDS OFHUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS OF PLACID LAYING DOWN OF DIFFERENT SEDIMENTS, ALL THAT DISTURBANCE YOU SEE THAT THE TIME OF THE PICTURE, AND INDEED IN THE SLOPING OF THE WHOLE STACK ITSELF, THEN FOR SOME REASON ALL THAT HAPPENED.  AFTER THOSE HUNDREDS OF UNDREDS OF WMILLIONS OF YEARS.  

i'D LIKE TO WRITE OUT MY OWN VIEW OF IT BUT i GUESS i SHOULD WAIT UNTIL i'M LESS TIRED.

to e continued.

i KNEED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE lORD FOR ANYTHING i DO RIGHT HERE BUT SINCE IT'S SUCH A MESS i'M NOT SURE hE WOULD WANT CREDIT FOR ANY OF IT.  bUT i COULDN'T UNDERSTAND ANY OF THIS IF hE HADN'T BEEN GUIDING ME.  sO tHANK YOU lORD.

aYAAN hIRSI aLI fELLOW cHRISTIAN wARRIOR fOR THE tRUTH

sHE'S MY LATEST HERO.HEROINE.  sHE BECAME A cHRITIAN NOT TOO LONG AGO, A MATTER OF MONTHS i THINK, BUT SHE ALREADY UNDERSTANDS THAT cHRISTIANITY IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL THE BENEFITS OF wESTERN cIVILIZATION AND aMERICAN CULTURE.  i JUST WANT TOaYAAN hIRSI aLI iN hER oWN wOREDS cONVERSATIONS WITH gLEN sCHREINER PUT HER NAME OUT HERE FOR NOW.  sHE'S WONDERFUL.

aN eXPANDED vERSION OF THE bIOLOGICAL aRGUMENT aGAINST eVOLUTION

sINCE i WAS ABLE TO FIND rICHARD dAWKINS' BOOK, tHE gOD dELUSION, ONLINE AS AN AUDIO BOOK, i THOUGHT i MJIGHT ALSO FIND HIS BOOK, tHE bLIND wATCHMAKER ONLINE TOO BUT IT ISN'T TO BE FOUDN, SO FAR ANYWAY.  iT WAS WRITTEN IN THE EIGHTIES WHIH MAKES I OLDER THAN THE gOD dELUSION BUT APPARENTLY NOBODY HAS SEEN FIT TO LOAD IT ONTO yOU tUBE.

hOWEVER, i DID FIND AN INTERVIEW OF HIM IN WHICH HE COVERS THE BASICS OF EVOLUTION STARTING WITH dARWIN'S DISCOVERIES, AND i THINK HIS REASONING IS PRETTY EASY TO GRASP ANYWAY SO MAYBE i DON'T NEED TO FIND THE BOOK.  iF i FIND IT OLATER THEN i'LL KNOW OF COURSE BURT FOR NOW ALL i HAVE IS THIS INTERVIEW.

iT IS INTERESTING THAT HE REGARDS THE PATTERN OF , OR DISTRIBUTION OF, DIFFERENT VARIATIONS ON ANIMALS , IN AREAS SURROUNDING A MAIN AREA, SUCH AS ISLANDS AROUND A MAINLAND IN THE SCASE OF THE gALAPAGOS ISLANDS WHERE dARWIN OBSERVED THE TURTLE THAT DIFFERERS SLIGHTLY FROM THAT ON THE MAINLAND,  ...FINDS THIS DISTRIBUTION PATTERN TO BE "CONSISTENT WITH EVOLUTION" OR "WHAT WE WOULD EXPECT IF EVOLUTION IS TRUE."   wHEREAS HE THINKS THAT IF THE STORY OF nOAH'S ARK WERE TRUE THEY SHOULD ALL BE FOUND IN THE AREA AROUND aRARAT WHERE THE ARK CAME TO REST.  

tHE PEOPLE SPREAK D OUT FROM THE ARK, AND OBVIOUSLY SO DID THE ANIMALS, WHY DO DEBUNKERS LIKE dAWKINS ALSWAY THINK THEIR SILLIEST MOST TIRVIAL NOTIONS MUST BE THE TTRUTH ANYWAY?    

aNYWAY i AM SURPRISED THAT HE NEVER SEEMS TO ADDRESS THE FACT OF WHAT IS CALLED "MICROEVOLUTION" AS THE EXPLANATION OF THE VARIATIONS WE SEE THAT ONLY SLIGHTLY DIFFER FROM EACH OTHER.  i IMMEDIATELY KNOW, AND WHY DOESN'T HE, THAT THESE VARIATIONS ARE 

wHAT IS CALLED MICROEVOLUTION IS THE VARIATIONS THAT ARE BUILT INTO THE GENOME OF EACH SPECIES BUT HE TALKS AS IF THETERE IS NO LIMIT TO THE VARIATIONS POSSIBLE.  bUT THERE IS.  hE KNOWS VERY WELL THAT THERE ARE TWO FORMS OF A SINGLE GENE, TWO ALLELES, ONE OF WHICH FROM EACH PARENT IS SELECTED BY SEXUAL RECOMBINATION AT THE CONCEPTION OF A \\OFFSPRING OF ANY SEXUALL REPRODUCING ORGANISM.  aN ALLELE FROM THE FATHER AND ONE FROM THE MOTHER FOR EVERY DGENE IN THE SPECIES GENOME IS WHAT MAKES FOR THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE OFFSPRING, WHICH OF COURSE LOOKS LIKE THE PARENTS BUT ALSO SLIGHTLY DIFFERS FROM THE PARENTS BECAUSE OF THE SELECTION PROCESS AT CONCEPRTION.

tHEIS IS THE MOST COMMON SELECTION PROCESS AS A MATTER OF FACT, NOT NATURAL SELECTION BUT SEXUAL RECOMBINATION AS THE GENETIC POTENTIALS IN THE SPECIES GENOME ARE SHFUFFLED AS IT WERE TO MAKE A NEW CREATURE SLIGHNTLY DIFFERYING FROM THE PARENTS.  tHAT IS HOW VARIATION TAKES PLACE.  nO OTHER SELECTION IS N EEDED, THE ALLELES ARE ALREADY PRESENT IN THE GENOME, THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO BE PRODUCED BY MUTATION OR SELECTIOED FOR THEIR FITNESS TO THE ENVIRONMENT OR SURPRIVAL POTENTION, AND COOF COURSE AT THIS STAGE COUDLN'T BE ANYWAY, THEY ARE SELECTED AT RANDOM, AS FAR AS WE KNOW,  AT CONCEPTION DURING THE PROCESS KNOWN AS SEXUAL RECOMBINATION.  i HAVE BLUE EYES BECAUSE i GOT THE BLUE ALLELE FROM MY FATHER'S BLUE EYES IN COMBINATION WITH THE BLUE ALLELE FOMR MY MOTHER'S HETEROZYGOUS BROWN EYES.  sHE HAD ABLUE AND A BROWN ALLELE, i GOT THE BLUE ONE, RANDOMLY.  mY SIBLINGS ALL GOT THE BROWN ONE AND HAVE BROWN EYES.  aCTUALLY THEY HAVE LIGHTER THAN BROWN EYES AND i DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN THAT GENETICS, SOMETHING ABOUT MULTIPLE GENES GOVERNING ONE TRAIT i SUPPOSE, BUT THEY DON'T HAVE BLUE EYES.

iN THE CASE OF, SAY, THE gALAPAGOS TURTLES, SOME SMALL NUMBER FO TURTLES FROM THE MAINLAND PRESUMABLY MANAGED TO GET ONTO THE ISOLAND WHERE THEY REPRODUCED TOGETHER FOR SOME NUMBER OF GENERATIONS UNTIL THEY BEGAN TO LOOK SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT FROM TTHOSE ON THE MAINLAND.  sICNE THEY WERE A SMALL NUMBER TO BEIN WITH THEY WOULD HAVE HAND THEIR OWN SET OF "GENE FREQUENCIES" FOR ALL THE GENES IN THEIR GTURBLE GENOME, AND THIS DIFFERNET FREQUENCIY OF GENES WHEN MIXED OVER A NUMBER OF TGENERATIONS WOULD BGING OUT WHATEVER CHARACTERISTICS ARE PRETENST IN GREAT FREQUENCY IN THEIR GROUP THAN THOSE OF THE TURTLES ON THE MAINLAND, AND THOSE THAT HAD A SMALLER GENE FREQUENCY, FEWER OF A PARTICULAR ALLELLE FOR INSTANCE, WOULD EVENTUALLY DROP OUT OF THE GROUP APPARENTCE.  iT'S THE NEW GENE FREQUENCIES IN COMBINTATION THAT CAUSE THE NEW VARIATIONS TO EMERGE IN DAUGHTER POPULATIONS WHEN ISOLATED FROM THE PARENT POPULATIONJ.  iT'S ALL JUST A PRODUCET OF HOW GENETICS WORKS, NO NATURAL SELECTION NEEDED, NO FITNESS PRESSURE, NO SELECTION PROCESS OTHER THAN THE ISOLATION OF THIS SMALLER NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS ALONE.  that'S THE SELECTION PROCESS THAT BRINGS ABOUT THE NEW VARIATION IN THE NEW POPULATION.  

bUT EVOLUTIONISTS DON'T THINK ALONG THESE LINES FOR SOME REASON.  tHEY WILL TALK ABOUT GENE FREQUENCIES AS A DRIVING FACTOR IN EVOLUTION BUT THEN SEEM TO NEED TO ADD ;A SEECLECTION PBASED ON FITNESS TO THAT.  bUT NO SUCH FITNESS SELECTION IS NECESSARY, GENETICS ALONE WILL BRING OUT NEW CHARACTERISTICS WHEN A NEW SET OF GENE FREQUENCIES IS ISOLATED AND INBRED OVER SOME NUMBER OF GENERATIONS.

iT IS CERTAINLY TRUE THAT ADAPTATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT IS SEEN IN MANY CASES, CSUCH AS THE DIFFERENT FINCHES WITH DIFFERENT BEAK TYPES THAT EAT DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD S THAT THEIR BEAKS ARE BEST SUITED FOR, BUT THERE IS NO REAON OTO THINK THE ENVIRONMKENT IS DRIVING THE SELECTIN SINCE GENETICS ALONE WILL BRING OUT DIFFERENT BEAK TYPES WITHINT  A GROUP OF NEW GENE FREQUENCEIES, SHARED GENE FREQUENCY AMONG THE GROUP i MEAN, AS OVER TIME IF THERE IS MORE OF THE ALLEL FOR A PARTICULAR KIND OF BEAK IN THIS GROUP IT WILL COME TO BE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE GROUP, AND THEN THAT FINCH WOULD NATURALLY GRAVITATE TO WHATEVER FOOT ITS BEAK TYPE IS BEST TSUITED FOR, IF A LONG SLENDER BEAK IT MAY PROVE UNDER TREE BARK FOR INSECTS, IF SHORT AND THICK THEY'LL GO FOR NUTS THEY CAN CRACK AND THAT SORT OF THING.  bUT THERE IS NO NEED TO THINK OF THE ENVIRONMENT AS DRIVING THE ADAPTABLION.  iN FACT IF IT WERE THE CREATURE IN MANY CASES WOULD DIE OUT BEFORE IT CAME UP WITH THE NEEDED ADAPTATION.  bUT THERE ARE BOTH UTES AND INSECTIONS  INSECTS THAT IS, IN TREE BARK ON ANY GIVEN ISOLATND AS A FMATTER OF FACT.  tHERE IS NO NEED FOR NATURAL SECLECTION OR FITNESS SELECTION, THE BEAK ITSELF THROUGH THE ACCIDENTAL BCOMBINATIONS OF GENES WILL FIND THE FOOD IT CAN BEST MAKE USE OF.

i DID HAVE TO SPEND A LONJG TIME THINKING ALL THIS THROUGH BUT BY NOW IT ESEEMS SO OBVIOUS i DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW IT ISN'T THE USUAL WAY OF THINKING ABOUT THESE THINGS, HOW NATURAL SELECTION EVER ACQUIRED SUCH STAYING POWER AS THE THEORY OF CHOICE.

bUT ANYWAY, THAT'S ABOUT ADAPTATION.  aS FOFR EVO.LUTION ITSELF IT SEEMS PRETTY OBVIOUS THAT AN ENORMOUS RANGE OF VARIATIONS ARE BUILT INTO THE GENOME OF ANY GSPECIES, THAT YOU CAN BGET AN ENOMROUIS RANGE OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF BIRDS FROM THE SAME BASIC GENEOME JUST BEAUCSE OF THE PAIRING OF DIFFERENT ALLELES FOR EACH GENE.   aS A PARTICULAR BREED FOR  TYPE EMERGES FROM ITS GENETIC ISOLATION OVER GENERATIONS IT DEVELOPES MORE HOMOZYGOSITY FOR ITS SALIENT CHARACTERISTICS, BUT IN THE GENEOME AT LARGE, SCATTERED THROUGHJOUT THE GREATER POPULATION OF THE SPECIES, THERE ARE \\\\ARE MANY MANY MAN VARIATIONS POSSIBLE.  

bUT IN ANY GIVEN LINJE OF EVOL;UTION, SAY THE DEVLOPMENT OF A SLENDER BEAKED FINCH, THAT LINE, WHICH WILL BECOME HOMOZYGOUS OVER TIME FOR THE CHARACRTERISTICS RELATED TO THAT BEAK, WILL BE MOVING IN THE DIRECTION away from EVOLUTION, AWAY FROM VARIATION, AWAY FROM THE POSSIBLEITLITY FO FURTHER CHANGE.  hOMOZYGOSITY IS HOW THIS LIMITATION SHOWS UP.  eVENTUALLY A PURE BREED, USUALLY FOUND ONLY IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS , OR IN THE WILD IN GEENDGAGEREDSPECIES WHICH HAVE UNDERGONE A SEVERE BOTTLENESSCK, IT CAN RACH A POINT WHERE NO FURTHER CHANGE IS POSSIBLE AT ALL.  tHE CHEETAH AND THE ELEPHANT SEAL ARE THE NATURAL EXAMPLES OF THIS.  i THINK THERE ARE DOMESTIC CATTLE FOR WHICH IS TIS TRUE ALSO.  tHEY GETO TO A POINT WHERE THERE IS SO MUCH HOMOZYGOSITY OR FIXED GENES THAT THEY CAN'T "EVOLVE" ANY FURTHER.

aND THAT'S WHAT i'VE IDENTIFIED AS THE EVIDENCE THTA EVOLUTION IS LIMITED BY GENETICS, THAT "EVOLUTION DEFEATES EVOLUTION.
  bECAUSE WEHREEVER YOU FIND CHANG OCCURRING OVER MANY GENERATIONS YOU ALSO FIND THIS GTREND CTO GENETIC DEP.LENTION DEPLENTION.  dEPLETION, REDUCITON IN GENETIC VARIATBILITY, EXPRESSED LARGLY AS INCREAED HOMOZYGOSITY.     tHERE MAY BE LOTS AND LOTS OF GENETIC POTENTIAL IN THE LARGE POPULATION OF THE SPECIES, AS IN THE CAT SPECIES FO RINSTANCE, WHILE THE EVOLVING LINE HAS REACHED A DEAD END, SUCH AS ABHTHTHE CHEETAH,

bUT THAT'S THE POINBT, WSEHREVER THE SPECIES IS EVOLUTION IT GECOMES LESS CAPABLE OF EVOLVING, AND THAT'S MY EVIDNEC ETHA TEVOLUTION IS IMPOSSIBLE, THAT IT'S LIMITED TO WHEGVER THE GENEOME POSSESSES AND EVOLUTIONJ REUES THE VARIABILITY OF WHAT IT POSSIESSES.  yOU CAN STILL GET LINONS AND TIGERS, BT YOU CAN'T GET ANY THING AFTER THE CHEETAH.

aND YOU CAN'T GET ANYTHIHG "OUTSIDE" THE GENOME" AS IT WERE.  tHE VARIATIONS BUILT INTO THE GENEOME ARE SELF LIMITING.  

aND i REALLY DO THINGK THAT THERE IS A BUILT IN LIITATION TO THE BODY PLAN OF EACH SPECIES, THAT YOU DONB'T EVER GET VIABLE VARIATIOHNS ON THE GBODY PLAN ITSELF, SOMJETHNING TO TODO WITH HOW THE GENES ARE ALREADY FIXED OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.  bUT A BIRD SPEKELETON IS ALWAYS THE SAME NO MATTER WHAT BIRD YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, THE BODY SHAPE IS THE SAME AND THE LIMBS ARE ATTACHED IN THE SAME PLACES AND SO ON.  tHE BODY PLAN DOES NOT CHANGE WALTHOUGH THE SIZE AND FEATHER TYPE AND COLOR AND TEXTURE AND SPECTACULAR PLUMABE IN SOME CASES, CAN VARY ENOMRMOUSLY FROM BIRD TO BIRD.  iT'S ALL BUILT INTO THE GENEOME.  iT REQAUIRES NO MTUATIOHNS OR FITNESS SELECTION TO BRING IT OUT, IT'S BROUGHT ABOUT BY CHANGIN G GENE FREQUENCIES THAT BREED TOGETHER IN ISOLATION FROM OTHER GROUPS.  pERIOD.

sO dARWIN'S gALAPAGOS TURTLES WERE JUST THE RPODUCT OF THE NEW GENE FREQUENCY OF THAT GROUP THAT MIGRATED TO THE ISLAND FROM THE MAINLAND.  iT'S GO T NOTHING TO DO WITH EVOLUTION BECAUSE THIS IS JUST VARIATION THAT IS BUILT INTO THE GENEOME. eVOLUTION WOULD REQUIRE CHANGE IN THE BODY PLAN AND i THINK THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE GIVEN THE GENETIC ENDOWMENT OF EACH SPECIES.  

i

iT HAS SEEMED TO ME THAT RING SPECIES MAKE A PARTICULARLY GOOD EXAMPLE BECAUSE THEY APPEAR TO BE POPULATIONS THAT FORM FROM PREVIOUS POPULATIONS THAT WILL ALREADY HAVE UNDERGONE SOME DEGENERAEE OF REDUCTION OF GENETIC  VARIABILITY WITH THEIR NEW GENE FREQUENCY SET THAT DIFERS FROM THAT OF THE ERLIER POPULATION, SO THAT YOU ARE GETTING POULATIONS OF TREATER REDUCTIO FO GENETIC DIFVERSITY WSITH EACH NEW MIGRATION FO OF A SMALL NUMBER OF INDIVIDULAS FROM THE PREVIOUS OPUATION.  yOU ARE LIKELY TO GET QUITE DRAMATIC NEW PHENOTYPES, THAT IS, VISIBLE CHARACTERISTICS, ESPEICALLY IN BIRDS WHICH CAN HAVE VERY DRAMATIC PLUMAGE AND COLORATION, BUT IT WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY THE LOSS OF ALLELES FOR OTHER TRAITS WHICH IS THE REDUCTION IN GENERITC DIFERCDCTION.  tHE NEW CHARACTERISTICS ARE ALSO VERY LIKELY TO BE HOMOZYGOUS.  aS YOU GO RAROUND THE SERIES OF POPULATIONS YOU SHOJULD READH THE LAST ONE WHICH HAS ALMOST ALL HOMOZYGOUS SALEINT STRAITS.   THIS IS LIKELY BUT i DON'T THINK IT HAS BEEN SHOWN.  i'D WANT TO SET IT UP IN A LABORATORY IF POSSIBLE TO CONTROL THE ISOLATION FROM POUOPULATION TO POPULATION.

aND i LIKE THE POD MRCARU EXAPLE OF THE LIZARDS THAT DEVELOPED LARGE HEADS AND STRONG JAWS ON THIRY YEARS FROM A FOUNDING POPULATION OF TEN INDIVIDUALS RAMDOMLY TAKEN FROM THE LARG POPULATIO ON THE MAINLAND.  THE NEW GENE FREQUENCIES IN THE SMALL POPULATION WERE OBVIOUSLY CONDUCIVE TO THE DEVLOPEMENT OF THOSE LARGE HEADS AND STRONG JAWS AND AS A RESULT THE LIZARDS ON THE ISLAND GRAVITATED TO A NEW DIET OF SOMETHIHGN A LOT ROUGHER THAN THE DIET THE POARENT POPULATION ON THE MAINLAND HAS.   THIRDY YEARS WOULDN'T BE LONG ENOUGH FOR NATURAL SELECTION ACCORDING TO THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION, BUT IT'S PLENTY LONG ENOUGH FOR A NEW GESET OF GENE FREQUENCIES IN TEN INDIVIDUALS TO WORK THEIR WAY THROUGH THE WHOLE POU;LATION FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION UNTIL THERE MIGHT BE THOUSANDS OF INDIVIDUALS ON THE ISOLAND.   hUNDRED AS ANYWAY.

aNYWAY, THAT'S THE BIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE AAINST EVOLUTION THAT i WORKED ON FOR TEWETNY YEARS.  tHERE'S ALSO GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE AGAINST AN OLD EARTH AND THE IDEA OF THE FOSSIL RECORD,K WHICH i'VE WRITTEN ABOUT IN RECENT OSTS.  iT TOO NEEDS A MORE EXPANDED DISCUSSION BUT i'M NOT UP TO IT IAT THE MOEMNT.

IT IS SO FRUSTRATING TO KEEP MAKING MISTAKES AS i TYPE, AND i'M JUST GRATEFUL TO FIND THAT FOR THE MOST PART THEY DON'T MANGLE THE MEANING BEYOND ALL RECOGNIZTION.

Liberal Drift in the right Direction

I hope it's a good sign that RFK has endorsed tRUMP.  bRET wEINSTEIN ALSO SIAD HE'D BE WILLING TO FVOTE FOR tRUMP WITH rfk ON THE TEAM.  i HOPE THERE ARE OTHERS WHO WILL DEFECT FROM THE TOTALITARIAN JUGGERNAUT OF THE dEMOCRATIC pARTY WHICH IS GOING TO DESTROY aMERICA IF THEY WIN THIS ELECTION.  i HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING TO GE TMY FLYER TOGETHER, MAYBE TOO BIG A PROJECT FO RME AND TIME IS RUNNINNG OUT BUT i'M GLAD THERE ARE LIBERALS WHO SEE THE PROBMES WE ARE FACING AND IF MORE OF THEM DO THEN THERE IS STILL HPOE.

TGhinking About Diet, the Fall and Evolutiohn

 Two or three years ago I got sensitized to the fact that we are living in a fallen world, we are fallen human beings living in a fallen world.  I already knew that of course, it's standark Christian theology, but it hit me hard because of somje spiritual experiences I was going through mysef and I came away from those with a heightened sense of the fallenness of this world and of our own bodies.   

hrough the problems of the creation-evolution debate that the fact that we die which is the nimber one symbpto of fallenness is what people take for granted in the theory of evolution.  Death is just part of life, just a normal thing as people think of it who have no belief in fallenness or even anya awareness of the concept.   Bu in the biblical creatinist context death is unnatural, it's the producet of disobedience to god:  The wages of sin is death says the scirpture.  We die because we disobey God, which is what he told Adam and Eve would happen when they were told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.   They disobeyed and began to die ritght away, starting with their spiritual connection to god Himself.

Every kind of disease is part of the deathk and every kind of calamity too.  It's all the result of sin whether direct or indirect, immediately related to our own actions or remotely conntected to somnething in the distant past we know nothing about.  We inherit our ancestors sins too.  

DNA would of course also be affected by the Fall.  It provides a different basis for explanation of how genetics works of course, for instance mutationjs make sense as the mistakes we know them to be when we aren't tryint to force them to be the cause of evolution itself.  They are concequences of the Fall, part of the deterioration process the world is undergoing as a result.  They may not do immediate damage but over time and especially if they accumulate in one place they are no doubt the cause of genetic diseases of all kinds.  I think they are also the caue of junk DNA.  I think the fall has killed that much of our genetic system, which originally would have been designed to provide protections and sttrengths to our bodies to make life easier in the physical world.  So much has been lost if this is the explanation that it would seem we were once of superhujan streth to compare us with what we have left to protect us inj this world.  

Lately I've been thinking about this carnivore diet, and in fact all the different diets we've heard about over the last few decades.  The standard diet is treated as poisoous, we need to cut out this or that to be healthy they dsay.  We know sugar is a problem and we eat too much of it, and then they pointed the inger at fat, and then at red meat, told us to eat whole grains and fuits and vegetables.  then we got variations on regional diets that emphasize different sorts of fats and plant footds.  Then we got Atkins and the ketogenic diets, meat is good after all, it's carbs that are bad, particularly the powderingy floury kind, sugards of course but also flour , rice, potatoes, bread, antyhign starchy.  that sort of faded away for a while but now we're hearing about this carnivore diet which seems like a ketogenic diet on steroids.  Only it isn't particularly promjoted for weight loss, it's been disocvered in many cases as a healer for various diseases.  So now meat is good for us, even the despised red meat.

Through the dietary changes I kept reminding myself that the bible has people eatig every kind of food.  Mildk and honey is how the Promised land was described, the land of milk and honey, so dairy which is often made a villain in toda's regimens, is OK in the Bible, and honey which is of course sugar.  God told Noah to eat meat after the flood so meat is good too, red meat, the meat of lambs and cattle particularly .  butter is good.  Abraham served his angelic guests butter along with their meat.  Some sort of meal or flour and oil seems to have been a stabple in blibcla times.  The women in the Elijah story of the nevernednging supply of those ingrediencets is a case in point.  No meat in that sortory.  She was gpoor.  But Elijah himself had been fed a "cake" with water when he was camped by the brook as the famine got underway.  This "cake" made with oil is mentioned many times.  And then Ezekiel has a meal of a mixture of grains and beans.  lentiles are eaten.    then we hear about the "dainties" served at the tables of the pagan kings such as Nebuchadnezzar though they aren't described beyond that.   Daniel and his friends rejected them and asked for "pulse" instead, p[romiseing ti twuld keep them healthy.  Vegetables ofsome sort we assume.  And it did keep them helathy as they trust God to protect them when they rejected the no doubt idolatrous meats of the king, meat sacrificed to idols that is which they wouldted to avoid.

In Jesus' time it seems to have been a lot of bread and fish, at least among  the disciples.    In any case the range of foods presented as normal food is pretty broad.  Why should we think of any of it being bad for us now?

Probably, I would guess, becaue the Fall is a progresive thing.  It gets worse as time goes on.  Sins accumulate and their consequences accumulate.  More genes are destroyed by mutations for instance so the bodies' natural protections keep diminsihing.

That alone woudl explain why some foods may not be good for us, or not good for some of us.  People with particular diseases through genetic mutations would have to avoid foods that tohers wouldh't who don't have those genetic problems.  Gluten is a problem for sonme now.  It's a perfectly good fod, wheeat that is, but somme people lack the ability to tolerate it.  Dairy is a perfectly good food but same thing, some of us can't tolerate it well enough.    

Animal meat no doubt contains mor nutriesnts than plant fopods being made of the same stuff as our own bodies, so it may be that it's an all purpose solution for people who have specific problems with other foods.  

Anyway.  these are the lines I tend to think aloeg these days when \\\\concerning diet.  I thik it would be a more productive directio for science to take in understnading how we need to eat for health, different people needing different kinds of foods and so on, but o course nobody thinks in terms of the Fall, we are sddlesd with this ridiculous evolutionary system intead.

NThe world is deteriorating too of course, and that means foods may also be deteriorating, but science can find ways of dealing with these problems if we focus on them in the right way.

ot to leve us with no hope here:  we have God who still rpvodes what we need and we can ask Him for help with all of it.

Dawkins and Ali on Her Christian Faith

 I mentioned in a post below somewhere that Dawkins responded to the idea that his friend Aayaan Hirsi Ali, and I have no idea how close I got iwth that spelling, who now calls herself a Christian after being an atheist  for years, is not really a Christian because she's too intelligent to believe all that stuff about the virgin birth and the resurrection and the miracles and so on.  

So I just now  am listening to a discussion between Dawkins and Ali in which he says the same thing and she tries to answer rthat she is indeed a Christian, and he does come around to seeing that she is although of course he cosiders it nonesense and says so.  

She's a new Christian and seems to be struggling to say what she actually believes, has to ut it in terms of different planes of perception in which the Christian miracles Dawkins disdains are true but in some kind of different way than we know things to be true normally.  This is rather confusing and disturbing.  i think it's because she hasn't yet let go of her scientific frame of reference and knows how these things are going to be heard by Dawkins and others so she doesn't yet have either the courage or the certainty to know that she does in fact believe these things in the same way we all believe anything to be true.  There is no other way to believe anythingis true.  The resurrection is an actual fact, so is the virgin birth, jesus reallyh is the Son of God.  God really did put Himself in the womb along with Mary's DNA to make a God Man, Jesus God from all eternity, now also fully Man.  And He did really rise from the dead.  He died on the Cross and came back to life in the tomb and talked with His disciples after that.    that is what you must believe if you are a Christian, and I think Aayann is struggling to recognize that she does believe that, she can't believe thst she believes it yet, or something like that.  She doens't think it's really possible to believe that sort of thing literally yet so although she knows she does belive it she has to couch it in some other language or terminology that removes it from the usual category of true things.

Dawkins is of coruse struggling to mjake sense out of her confusing way of talking about it.  He does say something I have to agree with, which is that the realityh of God as believed by Christians is far bigger and imore imortant than any story of person al comfort or morality based on the stories and so on.  Yes, he's right, ahnd I hnop;e she comes around to recognizing that the Christian miracles are true in the real sense of the word true so that Dawkins can at least know that's what is meant for sure not just by her but by all Christians.

Yes, Richard, the fact that it's comforting or has a high morality doesn't make it true, and Aayaan is struggling with the fact that she can't prove those thihgs true that you ogjvet to for that reason, so she wants to claim truth for them in some other dimension or plane of perception.  But the fact is she does beieve them to be true the way we all believe anytihing to be strue.  ShJesus really did literally rise from the dead, really did die, really did come backt to life.  SE

There is no proof inj the scientific scnece of course because they ese are historical facts and you cant prove historical facts the same way you p;rove scientific or pheyical facts which persist in the wold throughout timje.  Historical fact are one time events.  THE ONLY EVIDENCE WE HAVE IS TH EYEWITNESS EVERIDENCE.  and tghat is perfectly good evidence.  they saw the events that she can't show you.  They are written down, they ahve been written down for thousands of years.  You are wrong that there is no evidence, it's just that you refuse to acept eyewitness evidence, you insist on imosing your own prejudices on it.  You cany it can't be true simly because it seems outlandish to you no matter how many others claim to have actually witnessed it.  They are stuid, yuou are in the right.  that's all it is, Richard, you refuse to believe the testimony.  

Since we can't know these things firsthand the sway scientific facts might be known, we have to believe them and that is what faith is.  Fatih is the "evidence of things unseen"  because it is how we know these things, actually know them, by believing the terestimony to theml.  Jesus even let us have the example of "doubting" Thomas, to show us that the thing was true that he was refusing to believe simly because he had not personally witnessed it.  When he was literallly shown it by Jesus then he believed, but Jesus chided him saying those are blessed who belived the terisony.  And that's all we have who weren't even there.  Thomas was there and had the privilege of being shown the actual fact of Jesus having beein riased from the dead.  but we don't have that privilege.  What we have is faith in the tertimony of those who saw it, and faith in the Lord Jesus Himself for the promises He gives to save us for eternal life.

Eric Metaxas' Book Letter to the American Church

 I still think along the line of printing out flyers for distribtion to cars in shopping malls and under apartment doors and that sort of thing, because all the electronic avenues of speech are shyut down by evil forces these days, including even the postoffice although I wouldn't want to add the cost of postage to the project anyway.    Flyers under windshield wipres isn't perfect either of course since one can esily enough imagine zealous liberals running round ripping them off cars and tearing them up, but it at least it would tire them out in a way just canceeeling a you tube channel wouldn't.

The idea, again, is to try to get the truth to the half of the population who won't uotherwise get it because of all those blocked eavenues as well as the ingrained prejudice that keeps them from looking for the truth where it might be found.    

I did think of a way it could be done without needing billions of dollards, and that would be to distribute them in small barches, being sure to get them first to conservative sources who could make more copies and also distribute them in small batches, just a dozen or a hundred cars in the shopping mall lot by each participant.  The more people the better, the less strain on any one source and the less easy it would be for the enemy to tear it all done wisince it wouldn't be focused in any one place.  One parking lot might only get a dozen scattered here and there for instance at any one time.  Nobody can afford to get thousands of copies, let alone gather others to help with the work, but if it's donw by volunteers in amsmall batches and sporadic efforts it could accomplish quite a lot with less oranization.  Each person culd send a few to freidns across the country so that the same pattern would be getting repeated everywhere.

The truth about the political situation, exposing all the lies put out by the Democrats, against Trump for instance, and also how they are pretending to support the auses that the right is promoting these days, although they will just take them back when they have the power again.  Every lie to be corrected that you can think of.  I suppose there shoudl be a main text for the flyer, but then maybe that too could be just whatever people come up with.  

But I was just listening again to an interview Jordan Peterson did a while back with the Christian writer Eric Metaxas and was reminded that the Church is where turth should start.  The Church is the watchdog of society if it's doing what it should be doing, the salt and light.  And the Church is not doing what it should be doing, it has capitulated to the government manadate to shut down for the pandemic for instance, or most of them did.  As Metaxas points out in the interview that is to abandone the whole point of being the Church.  If we believe what we say we believe wesshould have th courage of lions in the face of every kind of threat to our ewellbeing, our livelihood, our reputation, our survival ofor that matter, becuase we should have the faith that God will protject us whenever we act according to what He would want us to do , which is always to put our own wellbieing on the line when truth fis at stake.  In this case the survival of western society is at stagke.  And Metaxas wrote his most recent book to the Church in response to what he strongly felt to be a call from God, to inspire the Church to be the Church and confront these forces of fevil.

I heard about his book some months ago but there's no point in my getting it since I can't read it, unless I have people to give it away to who would read it and frankly I can't think of any.  I haven't learned how to do the audio bversion of new books and the free audio versions aren't available for new books, only those past the date when they becomine public property.  

But I wanted a friend to take a copy to his pastor and he didn't do it.  That was months ago.  Metaxas saiys in this interview that it has been read and made a difference for many pastors alreayd so I'm happy to hear that at least.

I didn't give the title, did I?  Letter to the American Church is the book.  We need a huge upridsing of Christians to face down this tsunami of evil and such a book shouold be helpful but I'm aware of too many even now who say no we're just for teaching the gospel, not to get plitical.  Metaxas makes it very clear that that is anabandom ent of what the Church is supposed to be in thie world.

I don't understand why she denies cetainty about the persistence of her soul after death, becaue what Jesus promises us is eternal life.

The Tone of Evangelicalism

 I am often promoting Protestant or evangelical Christianity over catholicism , which of course I have to do because that's where the truth is, BUT even as I do so I'm uncomfortable with what I think of as the imageage it has in the public eye.  The telebvangelists of course who are a huge embarrassment, but even just the everyday average evangelical congregation behaves in ways that make me cringe.  

Whyu do they always have to sound like they are at a football game when something is said up front that they approve of, erupting into whistles and yhells and whoops.  God grief.  WAnd ehwn a speaker they like is brought onstage you get the same reception for him or her a Hollywood celebrity might get, all hyped up by the introducer of the person, put em together for  so and so and all that.  It couldn't be sounding more like a worldly event of the worst kind.  

I don't hear the Holy Spirit in any of that and it makes me wish I didn't have only evengelicalism to offer when I talk about the problems with other religions.  There doesn't even seem to be a particular denomination I could prefer either, mmy own favorites often carry on in the same tone, not always but enought hat the recommendation is muddied.

Catholic discussions I've herd online end to be quiet and serious and respectful and although they are rpomoting a pagan monstrosity of a religion I have to say I much prefer their general tone to that of evangelicalism.  

 

Meannwhile the World Godes Careening On

 I feel a need to apologize for not addressing either the poltiical situation or the prophetic much lately, and getting off on what must seem to be peripheral concerns at best  considering the sire straits the world is in at the moment.  I just want to say I'm not ignoring it in my own mind, just don't have anything very useful to say about it right now.  There's either too much or too little to say.  I feel hopeless and yet I keep hoping.  Maybe I'll have something more to say soon, I don't know, but I just had to get this much said for now.

Cheers.

Oh not that I think anyone is waiting for my pronouncmenets on these things, just that I'm remiss not to bring them up.

Diet, Religion, Philsophy, COnfusion

 After listening to so many different opinions on so many different subjects over the last few weeks, or even months by now, I lose track, It can become a sort of congested wad of stuff in my head that needs sorting out.   I'm talking about the interviews with Dawkins and Musk and Peterson, especially the carnivore diet and of course religion.  Tammy Peterson becdame a Catholic during her bout with cancer and her discovery of the diet practices that made the biggest difference for her health.  Dawkins grumbles about religion all the time, Musk kind of evades the topic, Peterson likes it but more as a pschological exercise or therapy, the diet the diet the dieit seems to work miraculously and I'm pondering it still.  Where do I start with this blob of stuff.

Well, the first thing I thought after writing that was how I can't afford this carnivore diet.  It's all well and good to say yes it's expensive but sickness is expensive too when you happen to be literlaly not able to afford it, period, whih is my situation.  I wouldnm't want to start out cold turkey anyway, as they say, I'd want to ease into it which would takene the edge off the expense as well as the dietary shock so its affordability may be in the end inconsequential anyway.  But it's a fact, and I'm not thinking of trying to eat steaks, or even steak at all ever, just fatty hamburder chicken, hotdogs perhaps and so on, and I still can't figure out how I could manage an entire month of eating nothing but those things .  But again , at the moment it's not a crucial element in myh decision as I'm going to start with the simple stuff, the ketogenic basics, uctting out the really bad carbs and going from there.  

I just heard an interview of tammy Peterson, Jordan Peterson's wife, about how she arrived at her carnivorous diet and the specific eaways she's adapted it to her own particular needs.  She and her huasband and daughter together have quite a collection of immune deficiency problems that the carnivore diet turns out to be the best way of eating for all of them.  Very convincing testimony it seems to me, and inspiring.  as far as I know the only genetic disease I have is my maculary degeneration and although I think it might be helped in some ways by the right diet I'm not expecting a cure for that.  It's other conditions I have I hope would benefit, and I don't think I need the drastic solution of all meat, but I don'tr relaly know.  I'll have to give it a serious try, easing into it birt by bit and see what I find out.

Tammy's becoing a Catholic of course bothers me.  How did she choose that particular route?  She prays the rosary in the mornings, that's what Catholics think prayer its.  It's very distressing to a protestant to think Catholics think that.  At the intd of the interveiw her friend who is also a Ctholi prayerd ten times the prayer fromj the Orthodox Church that is familiar tro me from the time I was reading up on the mystics of that traitions.  Lord jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  Ten times.  Repetition of these rote prayers is not prayer to me, but it had effects on the mystics, visions and clairvoandce experiences and that sort of thing.  Is that from God?  

Well, no.  Thanks to Watchman Nee's book on Soul Power I can now recognize that phenomena as psychic phenomena , not psirutual phenomena.  Ther is a big difference.  We are body, soul and spirit, and we are only fully spirit if we are born again, but people who are not born again can have experiences that they regard as spiritual thorugh "soul power" or psychic power.  Psyche is the word for soul, as pneuma is the word for spirit.  These are spcyhic powers.  Visions and claiboyance and the lieke.   If the person is not born again they are not coming from God at all, thoughj people who are born again sometimes have such experiences and may mistake them for spiritual also.  Spiritual means they are connected to God, through the quickened or regenerated spirutal faculty given to us at salvation.

Catholics don't talk about salvation or if they do it's not the way Protestants do.  Jesus is a spiritual guide more than He is a savior, even if He's called the Savior.  It's rather disturbing to think that there may be healings that are not coming from God, messages that seem to come from God or Jesus that are really coming from some other source.  I want to say hororay for Tammy that she's healed, but then I get the heebiejeebies thinking about her being a Catholic.

Salvtion comes from recognizing thta Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins in your place, Jesus the Son of God and perfect Man who alone could perform such a feat.  We are fiorgiven our sins because He is able to forgive sins.  Our sins are all paid for by His death and if we don't reckon ourselves dead and buried with Him we are not saved, we are still "in our sins" as scripture puts it, and not saved from Hell.  Which is of course a far more important blessing than any healing of our physical bodies in this life.

BBut so many people of the educated classes particularly consider the true Christianity to be intellectually untenable, and someone who chooses Catholicism is probably in that camp.  Jordan Petersonj is prbably influenced by such thinking, considering his Jungian views mor eintellectually defensible than the simpleminded tuff of evangelicalism or something like that.  Dawkins can go on and on about how stupid Christianity seems to him although he likes the morality.  As a truth claim he thinks it ridiculous.  Well, scripture has his nmber of course, decribing the gospel s a tubling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks.  In that frame of rejference Dawkins in a Greek,k which is the New Testametn equivalent of "Gentiles" in the Old Testament.  You are a Jew or a Gentile, a Christian or a "Greek".  Dawkins ins a Greek.  And so is Peterson.   The Greeks were very proud of their intellectual prowelss, their Athenian ponderings of the big questions , their eillusrtrious philosophers.   They considered the apostle Paul to be a puny little contender on Mars Hill as he tried to teach them about their "uinkhown God."

It's all such a perfet picture of the mentality that is the exact opposite of what jesus preaches to us, about how we must become as little children in order to inhertie the kingdom of God.  You must become as a little child even to believe that Jesus died for our sins of course, that that being born again which is the result of that self humbling to a little child is given onlyh when you give up all that pretense to sophsitication and intellectual highmindedness.  Yes, they think you very silly when you choose the true gospel, they think you stupid, intellecutally deficient.  Even if you had before that choisdce always enjoyed a respet for your mind, as I had, when you choose the lowely simple gospel you become an idiot in their eyes.  I had tht experience.  I lost a lot of friendss.  But I'd rather be a small child for jesus.

Dawkins goes on and on about a friend of his who can't possibly be a real Christian because she's too intelligent for tht.  She doesn't really believe all that foolishenss, that there is a an old man in the sky who hears prayers, that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the death.  And she probably doesn't, she just lieks the cultural forms of Christiansity as heeven Dawkins himself does, but to believe it, no, that's just beneath him, and possibly beneath her too, but I haen't heard her side of it, just his.  He's quite contemptuous of what CHristians elieve.  It's just too too silly to be believed.   The earth only six thousand hyearrs old?  Pretty silly I agree.  It made me laugh when I first heard it

Byt But I was laughing happilty ebecause I believed it and thought it very funny that we've been taught it's really billions of years old and how silly six thousand looks next sto such a n august number as billions.  

And by the eway we don't believe in a n old man in the sky, we believe that God is Spirit and pervades all creation, is everywhere at once.  Sometimes scripture pictures an "ancient of days" on a throne in the visions of a prophet int he OT, but that's because scripture isn't snobbish, it aims to save everybody from the very bright to the very intellecutally challenged.  Thew very bright are the elast amenable unfortunately.

Where was I?  Have I unraveled that intlelectual sticky mess I started out with ?

Oh I don't know, but I'm getting tired.

Ponjdering the Carnivore Diet

 Coming off some interviews of Jordan Peterson I got interested in the carnivore diet, because he's been on it for some time and says it's helped him with many medical problems, and also his daughter who has had serious medical problems since childhood, specficially rheumatoid arthritis from age two.  After trying many things and finally eliminating various foods she arrived at eating nothing but mea and found that it cleared up her problems.  then her father tried it and found the same thing.  Then I found other people online giving similarly dramatic stories about how they cured verious problems with nothing but meat.    Beef in particular but any kind of meat including chidken and fish and other kinds of seafood are included in this diet.  But nother other than meat and eggs, which is also a protein of course,  Meat and eggs with plenty of animal fat and salt and water and that's it in most of the cases though some people add some amounts of other things.  

I'm surious enough to want to give it a try but I don't think I can ever n afford the thirty day trial.  Meat is very expensive especially in these days of Biden inflation.  Nevertheless I'm trying to work out a way to do it.  Cheap meats of course, going to see what I can amanage.  Besides macular degeneration, which notoby is promising to cure with this though they think it can be stopped from egetting worse.  I don't know but I have other tinggs wrong with me I'd like to see cured.  I made a list of all my ailments and it came to sixteen.  There are probably more but that's what I'm aware of.  It insludes minor skin problems and other small things but also some problsmes that are more serious though not lethal.  

But some of these advocates say some pretty silly things.  The idea that plants are tring to kill you for instance.  They make toxins to kill you because they want to go on surviving and don't want to be eaten.  A pretty laughable verison of evolutionary thinking there.  Utter stupidity.  No, in fact I know of some people who have cured some pretty serious conditions with plant based eating.  I think it's possible that different people need dirfferent approaches to diet for different reasons.  My brother absolutely curfed cured his Meuniere's disease with a plant based diet that includes small amounts of chicken and fish.  Menier'es seems incurable and the idea that food could affect it that much is really hard to believe, but ti did.  He sufefered with it for years before he found a little book by a former sufferer that got him onto the diet and has nhad nomore dizzy spells since then.   Meniere's is a condition of the ear or balacnce related to the ear with tinnities and dizzy spells that make it nearly impossible to live your life since it can hit any time.  If you are driving you have to stop becaues of dizziness.  It's not a disease it's easy to live with at all.  So it was amazing that he was able to find a cure for it that involved food.  Nand not the carnivore diet.  

Wvewrybody mayay have eheard of Annette Larkins too, the lady in Florida swho looks forty years younger and is lean and trim in her mid eighteies, who gave up metat altogehter about forty years ago, started a garden in her yeard and eats almost entirely raw vegetables and fruits from that agardern.  She wasn't trying to cure any particular condition but she's a model of vigratn youtherful heatlth.    Not a carnivore.

Nevertheless I think the testimonies to this all meat regimen are pretty convincing, and since it seems to cure a great variety of medical problems it's the sort of thing I'd want to try.  I don't know if I caould stand it, eating just one food forgever just seems intolerable but they do it, or some p;eople do it so who knows.  

Speaking of evolutionary thinking gone berserk, it is annoying that people are always coming up with some evo type explanation for this or that reason to eat or not eat somethin or do or not do sometihng .  It's all made up of course because nobody knows anything, you can just fantasize to your heart's content with everything evolutionary because it's all made up.   Plants are given to us by God, so are grains so there's nothing poisonous about what or corn.  After the Flood God told Noah that they were now to start eating meat, meaning animal food, whereas before the flood both man and animal were vegetarians.  So animal food is also good for us.  

The way I think about all this is that we are living in a fallen world in which diseases of all kinds attack us, and it stand st to reas that this sort of thing would increase as time goes on, as for instance carriers of a disease on one allele would pair up with each other and then the disease would manifest in the offspring.  That's what happened in my family with macular degeneration.  A lot of that is going to be ahhappening so when people try to explain the fact that dsisesase of this sort are increasing I think this is the more likelyh reason than that it's something in our diets as I've heard sggested.  it's a genetic disease.

Genetic diseases are now occurring in the thousands.  Chrisitians at least sohould be thinking in terms of the Fall when we talk about these things but I don't hear any of that, all we hear is stupid evolutionary explanations for everything.  If you think in terms of the Fall then the increase in genetic diseases seems to me to go along with the fact that mutations are a disease, an aberration, a mistake.  Evolutionary thinkers try to make mutations into this evolved metchanism for evolutionj, but that flies in the face of the known fact that it's a mistake in replication of the DNA.  They know this and yet they go on fantasizing about how it's the cfcause of evolution.   I think it's far more likely it's the cause of all that Junk DNA.  Yes I think Junk DNA is a very likely result of the disease factors we face because of the Fall.

When it comes to diet it makes sense in a fallen world that different people might be genetically disposed to different dietary problems and need different kinds of solutions.  Overall we may all need to be strickter and more careful about what we eat because of our vulenerabilities due to the Fall.  It would help if the Fall were recognized so we'd stop thinking of our conditon as normal.

The Meaning of Life

 Yes, i seems we re very cose to the end and the lord could come back very soon, and yes the world seems to be coming apart at the seams, well no, not at the seams , just coming papart, being ripped apart, and it doesn't look like there's any way aback barring an intervention from God, and yes I think I put my finger on a major reason for our continuing deterioration in our failure to put the Christian God above all other gods, and es I think smashing the theory of evolution would go a long way to restoration if God would be so mwerciful as to grant us tht great victory over the forces of darkness.  

All that and then things keep turning up on the You Tuve page I get into watching so now it's Jordan Peterson interviewing Elon Musk.  It's come up before but I got intrigued by Musk's talkinga bout how he read all the religions texts and some of the philosophers at the age of eleven or twelve because he was having an existential crisis, a feeling that there is no meaning in life.  Somehow he got it answered sufficientyly for him when he read A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and realized there are still too many unanswered questions to be expecting ansers right how and our job is really just to keep looking for the answers, or something like tht.  

I'm not happy with his answer, in a way I suppoose I'd prefer it if he hadn'tg come to an answer becaue I'd like to hear more about the existential crisis.  And especially about what on earth he made of the Bible at somuch a young age.  I don't think fallen humanity can understand the Bible, let alone a twelve year old, so that's why I'm interested.  Both he and Peterson are fallen men groping around in the dark for answers to the big questions that theyh have no chance of answering at all, so think I from my advantageous position as a born again Chrtistin.

It's interesting to me now for some reason to be thinking about how fallen      Of course I was subjected to all of that before I became a believer and all of it was incredibly frustrating.    

Especialoly the evolutionistic stuff, that delusion of all delusions based on the physicalistic experience of fallen humanity.  Fallen humanity is tsuck in the physicalistic universe.  They are looking to answers about that universe.  They have no sense of any other universe, or any other form of consciousness than the consciousness of that universe.  Evolution is the physicalistic way of accounting for origins of course.  We're primarily physical beings in this fallen world.  And truly we are because we lack the ppsiritual sense god created us with that would open us up to a different order of eveing and of consciosunsness.   

but even as a mere physicalistically bound human being we can know there is something missing because somewhow we never do bget to the answers we want.  Consciousness as a mere bproduct of the physical universe?  Ridiculous.   I more or less believed in evlution before I became a believer but it frustrated me too and I was always raising questions about it.  

Dawkins loves poetry and music and it seems to be just fine with him to think iof it as a byproduct of billions of years of physicalistic evolution.  I remember crying over a Mozart symphasy once  because there is nothing in this world that deserves such music.   There is something just brutally uninteresting about the physicalistic answers to the big questions.  Because we're supposed to take them as most interesting since that's the highest we can get in our fallen condition.  And it gets us owhere.  Don't we just know we are more than that?  Why doesn't Dawkins know it?   I wasn't thinking of God when I had such thoguhts, I was just thinking how amazing the human being is and how we aren't just physical beings and how brutally reductinistic it is to make us try to accept the physical world as all there is.  All there is and ever can be or whatever it was that Carl Sagan so sonoroudsly intoned.  A big  idea bout a little fact.  Liek Darwin's puffery about how there is grandeur in the evolutinistic view of things.  Yeah a cold grandeur, ultimately unhuman, inhuman.    I wasn't thinking of God at all, just the nature of umanityh which does seem to me to be deserving sosf some grand words beyond the physiclism of the fallen condition.

So it took God's opening my eyes to give me the answers I was looking for.   And when I discoverfed creationism I hoped it would lead me to demolishing all those physicalistic notions.  I think it did.  I'm sure it did.  Now if only I could convince others. humanity tries to answer these questions without any reference to the true God.

They ekeep trying to derive consciousness from the phsycial.  but consciousness precedes the physical.  God is Spirit, he precedes it all.