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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump, the RNC, Elon Musk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

star of bethlehem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More About the Antichrist Pope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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