Thte Murder of Charlie Kirk: Something Miraculous on the Wing?

 Even the young men shall faint.  But they who wait upon the LORDD shall renew their srength;  they shall rise on wings of eagles, they shall run and not walk, they shall walk and not faint.

That's  from Isaiah forty something.  I'm also rememberinga line from Psalms somewerhe I think that says They shall bear fruit even in old age.  

Sinc I'm in old age I'm clinging to that one.  I've wanted to die off and on for years now because I think there's nothing for me to do here as I grow blind and lose more and more options in other ways as well for accomplishing anything, as even writing this blog has become almost impossible.  I'm grateful to the Lord that I can still more or less dothis although since I can't read it I'm tying blind and make an awful lot of mistakes I an only hope dn't too seriously garble up the message.  Usually they don't seem to, when I can listen back on the Read Aloud function to find out.  So that is a lot to be grateful for.

But this is to be bout Charlie Kirk.  I was surprised at how hard it hit me.   I like Charlie Kirdk,  he's on the radio here from nien to eleven at night and I often hear at least some of it.  But I didn't have much of a sense of him as a person or personalitiy.  I saw some of his debates on college campuouses that would come up from time to time on You Tube.  To my mind he was one of many patriotic oivoices on the right to celebrate, but he didn't stand out from the crowd in my mind.   Of course to hear he'd been shot wuld be upsetting, but I was surprised at HOW upsetting it was.  I sank into a very sad mood.  I prayed hard during that first hour for his survival.  

But strange things ere already happening.  I kept having the thought as I prayed that maybe it would be a good thing if he died, maybe that would get some TTENTION FOR THE CAUSE, BUT i FELT ABOUT BAD ABOUT THINKING THAT AND WULD APOLOGIZE TO TEH lORD FOR THINKING IT AND TRY TO REDOUBLE MY EFFORTS TO PRAY.  tHEN HE DIED AND i CRIED.     

bY THE STRANGE STUFF i MEAN EVIDENCE OF THE HAND OF gOD IN IT, EVEN IN MY OWN LITTLE HEARING OF IT AND LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM AND LITLE APPRECIATION OF HIM.   i HAD BEEN DOING SOMETHING IN ANOTHER WROOM BUT FINISHED UP AND SAT DOWN TO LISTEN TO THE MORNING TALK SHOW ON THE RADIO AND THE MOMENT i TURNED ON THE RADIO OUT CAME THE WORDS "bREAKING NEWS, cHARLIE kIRDK HAS BEEN SHOT."  thAT MAY NOT BE A VERY BIG THING BUT THAT KIND OF PRECISE TIMING USUALLY ONLY  HAPPEN S WHEN SONETHING IS EVERY IMPORTANT TO ME OR ON MY IND, THE SITTING DOWN AND TURNING ON THE RADIO EXACTLY TAT THE MOMENT BEFORE THE WORDS bREAKING nEWS COME ON.  eXACTLY.  tHEN vINCE cOLOGNASE, THE TALK SHOW HOST SPOKE ON THE SUBJECT UNTIL THE ENDING OF HIS SHOW NOW LONG AFTEREWARD, WHILE AS FAR AS WE KNEW cHARLIE WAS STILL ALIBVE AND WE WERE ALL PRAYING FOR HIM.   tHEN i WAS HAVIG ALL THESE THOUGHTS ABOUT HOW MAYBE IT WOULD BE BETTER IF HE DIED AND THINKING i NEEDED TO REPENT FOR SUCH THOUGHTS.  iT WAS OVER AN HOUR AFTER THAT THAT THE NEWS CAME IN THAT HE HAD DIED.   i'D REALLY THOUGHT WE MIGHT HAVE ANOTHER MIRALCCLE LIKE THE ONE THAT SAVED tRUMP.   eVEN THOUGH THE REPORTS WERE THAT BLOOD HAD IMMEDIATELY GUSHED FROM THESIDE OF cHARLIE'S NECK SHEN  HE WAS HIT, WHIH DOES NOT SOUND LIKE SOMETHING ONE SURVIVES EASILY IF AT ALL i'D STILL HOPED, EVEN AGAINST ALL THOUSE OTHER THOUGHTS.  tHEN HE DIED AND i SANK INTO A TEARFUL STATE FOR ANOTHER HOUR OR SO, AND ANGRY, ANGRY AT THE lEFT WHO ARE ALWAYS CALLING cHARLIE AND tRUP AND ALL US CONSERVATIVES FOUL NAMES, FASCIST, HATERS, ALL LIES TO PROVOKE PEOPLE INTO HATING US AND MAYBE WANTING TO KILL US.  tHAT'S WHAT KILLED cHARLIE, i KNEW IT THEN AND i KNOW IT NOW, ALTHOUGHT ALL THESE SUPPOSED REASONABLE VOICES CAME ON SAYING hEY WE DON'T KOW WHAT MOTIVATED THIS SHOOTING, HOLD OFF UNTIL WE KNOW.   yEAH YEAH  YEAH, SURE THERE COULD BE SOMETHIG TOTALLY WEIRD ABOUT THE PERSON'S MOTIVSTION BUT NO, NOT REALLY.  pWEOPEL WHO HAVE BEEN CONDITIONED BY THE lEFT TO HATE cHRALIER AND gRUMP AND ALL OF US ON THE rIGHT ARE THE REASON cHRARLIE WAS SHOT, i KNEW IT THEN ALTHOUGH i REFRAINED FROM WRITING A BLOG POST UNTIL i KNOIEW MORE OFR SURE.  aND NOW THAT i DO i JUST KNOW THE SAME THING ONLY i KNOW IT FOR SURE.

bUT THERE WAS THIS ODD THING THAT gOD HAD LED ME TO HEAR THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS BEING SHOT AT EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOMENT.  nOW i'M THINKING HAT WAS THE hoLY sPIRIT TELING ME THAT cHARLIE WAS GOING TO DIE AND IT WOULD BE A GOOD THING, THE THOUGHT i KEPT FEELING i NEEDED TO APOLOGIZE FOR.  i DON'T THINK THAT WAS MY OWN THOUGHT NOW, i THINK IT WAS gOD SAYING cHARLIE IS GOING TO DIE AND i WAS TOO OBTUSE TO RECOGNIZE hIS VOICE.  

nOW i'M EVEN THINKIUBG HOW THAT PERFET SHOT TO THE JUGULAR WAS A SORT OF MIRACLE LIKE THE MIRACLE THAT SAVED tRUMP, ONLY IN THIS CASE IT WAS A CLEAN DEADLY SHOT cHARLIE COULD NOT POSSIBLY HAVE SURVIVED.  gOD ENGINEERED THIS ONE TOO THOUGHT.  hE COULD HAVE MADE IT MISS AS HE DID THE SHOT AT tRUMP, OR hE CULD HAVE MADE IT ISS IN SUCH A WAY THAT HIS LIFE WOULD HAVE LINGERED QUITE A BIGT LONGER BEFORE HE DIED, BUT NOW IT WAS A CLEAN DEADLY SHOT, ONE SHOT, TO THE JUGULAR.  eVEN AT CLOSE RANGE THAT IS A PRETTY MIRACLULOUS SHOT.

tHEN OVER THE LAST COUOPLE OF DAYS i'VE HEARD VOICES ON THE RADIO OF PEOPLE WHO KNEW chARLIE, SO MANY OF THEM,  ALMOST PICTURING AN USUNUSUAL GREAT MAN, A GREAT SAINT, A GIANT AMONG MEN.   i THOUGHT BUT WOW IS THIS BECAUSE OF THEIR GRIEF THAT YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING SO OVER THE TOP LAUDATORY OF THE PERSON?  sURELY HE WAS A VERY GOOD GUY WHO WORKED HARD AND HAD A BIG TALEN FOR HIS CALLING TO THE YOUNGER ENERATION, i DON'G DOUBT THAT, BUT THEY WERE MAKING HIM INTO SOMETHING BIGGER THAN THAT.  aND WHEN i HEARD HIS WIFE'S SPEECH YESTERDAY AND THEN THE PROGRAM HE USUALLY HOSTED IN WHICH FOUR OF HIS STAFF REMEMBERED HIM, THE IMPRESSION CONTINUED THAT THEY WERE SAYING HE WAS BIGGER THAN YOUR ORDINARY HARD WORKING cHRISTIAN PATRIOT.  i THINK NOW THEY MEAN IT, THEY SEE HIM THAT WAY, ALTHOUGH HE WAS ONLY THIRTY ONE.  hE WAS SOME KIND OF DYNAMO AND RULY DIRVEN BY HIS FAITH IN THE lORD jESUS TO ACCOMPLISH AN AENORMOUSJ UNDERTAKING TOWARD BRINGING THE YOUNGER GENERATION TO A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF THE aMERICAN VISION AND TO cHRIST AS WELL.   tURNING poiNT IS WHAT HE NAMED HIS ORGANIZATION, AND IT SOUNDS LIKE IT'S BEEN STAFFED WELL BY HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUGHSANDS OF OTHER HARD WORKERS FOR THE CAUSE AND IT WILL GO ON, AND HIS WIFE SOUNDED  STRONG AND DETERMIEND TO MAKE IT GO ON.  i'M VERUY IMPRESSED AND NOW i'M THINKING THIS IS gOD'S PLAN, gOD IS GOING TO ELEVATE tURNING pOINT AND ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING GRULY MIRACLULOUS BY THE DEATH OF cHARLIE kIRK.

i HAVE MANY HOPEFUL THOUHTS ABOUT WHAT COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED , MAY MANY MANY.  aND i COULD WRITE A LOT MORE BUT NOWT NOW, MAYBE LATER.

qWLL AT LEAST  A LITTLE MORE NOW.   

i HEARD AN NTERVIEW WITH THE UOING MAN AT THE UNCERSITY IN uTUAL WHO WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TO CHALLENGE cHARLIE AT THE MIRACLE  GOOD GRIEF i WROTE MIRACLE AND MEANT TO WRITE MICROPHONE.  aNYWAY HE WAS TRYING TO CONVINCE cHRARLIE THAT HE WAS WRONG ABOUT THE VIOLENCE ON THE lEFT, ESCPECIALLY AMONG THE TRANSGENDERS i THINK, WHEN THE SHOT RANG OUT AND HE WITNESSED cHARLIE BEING HIT.  aCCORDING TO THE DESCRITPIONS i HEARD THE YOUNG MAN PUT HIS NANDS OVER HIS FACW AND VERWAS VERY SHAKEN UP.  fUNNY THAT MANY HAD SPECULATED THAT MAYBE HIS QUESTION WAS SOME KIND OF SIGN OT THE SHOOTER, MAKING HIM INTO A CONSPIRATOR TO KILL cHARLIE BUT AS HE HIMSLEF DESCRIBED HIS EXPERIENCE IT BECAME VERY CLEAR THAT HE WAS IN NOW WAY INOVLVED.  hE WAS TRULY SHAKEN AT THE DEATH OF cHARLIE AND SPOKE AS IF TO THE SHOOTER, HAVE E LOST TRACK OF THE FACT THAT THIS IS A HUNAN BEING.  hE DIDN'T AGREE WITH cHARLIE ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS BUT HE WAS A HUNAN BEING, A HUSBAND AND A FATHER, AND SO SAID THE YOUNG MAN WAS HE WHO HAD ASKED THE QUESTION.  wqE DON'T KILL THOSE WE DISAGREE WITH.  hE WAS CLEARLY TRULY UPSET AND i'M VERY GLAD TO HEAR A PERSON ON THE lET SAY SOMETHING SO CLEARLY HEARTFELT AGAINST THE OTHERS ON HIS SIDE WHO ARE ALL GLEEFULLY BLAMING cHARLIE FOR HIS OWN DEATH, SAYING HOW HE WAS A DIVISIVE VOICE AND A PROVOCAGEUR WHEN ALL HE WEVER DID WAS QUIETLY AND KINDLE STATE HIS OWN CONSERVATIVE OPINION ON MANY SUBJECTS.  tHEWY ARE THE HATERS, NOT cHARLIE.  tHEY ARE THE FASCISTS, NOT cHARLIE    bUT THIS YOUNG MAN, APPARENTLY ALSO A HUSBAND AND FATHER, ALTHOUGH HE IS ALSO ON THE lEFT, ALSO A dEMOCRATE, aLSO IN OPPOSITION TO cHARLIE ANDTHE REST OF US ON THE rIGHT.  HE DOESN'T SHARE THOSE ALL TOO COMON HATEFUL CALLS TO KILL PEOPLE THEY DON'T AGREE WITH, FIRST DEHUAMNIZING THEM AS EVIL FASCISTS AND HATERS.  sOMEHOME ON ONE OF THE SHOWS LIKENED THIS ATTITTUDE TO THE VOICE ON THE RADIO IN sWANDA THAT CALLED THE tUTSIS "COCKRAOSCHES" AND DEHUMANIZED THEM IN THE SAME WAY, SETTING THEM UP FOR THE GREAT SLAUGHTER OF THEM THAT SOON FOLLOWED.  tHAT'S THE PREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCE OF DEMOMIZING HYOUR OPPOSITION AND THAT IS WHAT GOT cHARLIE KILLED.  aND WHY THEY KEEP TRYING TO KILL tRUMP.  tRUMP IS NOTHING BUT A STRONG PATRIOT AND HARDPOWRKING pRESIDENT WHO WANTS TO RESTORE THE TRUE VALUES OF aMERICA BUT THEWY TRY TO TURN HIM INTO SOME KIND OF MONSTER AND APPARENTLY A SCARY LOT OF THEM BELIEVE THE PROPAGANDA.

i WAS RECENTLY PRAYING ABOUT ALL THIS.  hOW TDO WE FIGHT THE LIES?  sOME LISTEN FROM TIME TO TIME AND ACTAULLY CHANGE THEIR MINDS.  tHAT'S WONDERFUL , BUT IT'S VERY FEW AND THERE ARE EVEN SOME WHO APAPRENTLY CAN SEE THEY'VE BEEN LIED TO AND STILL DON'T CHANGE THEIR VIEWS THAT WERE BASED ON THOSE LIES.  i DON'T GET IT BUT i'VE SEEN IT HAPPEN.  sO THE TAKS OF CHAING MINDS SEEMS INSURMOUNTABLE.  i WAS PRAYING ABOUT THAT.  hOW, lORD, DON'T yOU HAVE TO ACT?  wE CAN'T DO ANYTGNG.  tHEY HAVE US SILENCED.  tHE lEFT HEARDS ONLY THE PROPGANDA MACHINE AND THEY DON'T BOTHER TO GO LOOKIN FOR ANY OTHER POINT OF VIEW.  iT'S ALL OUT HERE BUT THEY WILL; NEVER FIND IT BECAUSE THEY HAE NO REASON TO LOOK FOR IT.  lORD, yOU MUST ACT.

i WAS PRAYING THAT NOWT LONG BEFORE i GOT THE NEWS ABOUT cHARLIE kIRDK.  nOW i'M THINKING HOPEFULLY THAT MAYBE i'M SWEEING THE BEGINNING OF THE ANSWER TO THAT PRAYER.   cHARLIE HAD THE EAR OF MANY IN THE YUYOUNGER GENERATION.  tHAT WAS HIS MISSIO.  i'M HOPING IT WILL ONLY GROW FAST AND FURIOUS FROM NOW ON.

aND i WAS VERY IMPRESSED WITH cHRARLIE'S WIFE eRICA AS SHE SPOKE ABOUT HIM, TEARFUL BUT ABLE TO CONTROL HERSELF.  a TRUE cHRISTIAN SPIRIT COMES FRO HER AND FROM cHARLIE.  tHAT'S WHAT WE NEED.  tHE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE lORD IS IN CHARGE OF ALL OF IT EVEN WHEN WE DON'T KNOW WHAT OR WHY hE IS DOING ANY OF IT UNTIL AFTER WE START TO SEE THE RESULTS, SOMETIMES LONG INTO THE FUTURE.   bUGT i THINK WE CAN SEE HIM WORKING ALREADY.  i CAN.   aND eRICA SOUNDED so SRONG IN HER DETERMINATION TO KEEP tRUNING poINT A DRIVING FORCE IN aMERICA.  kNOWING THAT THE lORD IS IN CHARGE, i WAS SAYING, THAT'S THE cHRISTIAN MINDSTET.  eVEN WHEN hE TAKES OUR BELOVED HUSBAND WITH A PROMISING , VERY POROMISING CALLING IN THE WORLD, YOU KNOW hE KNOWS WHAT hE IS DOIG EVEN IF YOU DON'T.  cHARLIE HAD TO DIE.  uNLESS A GRAIN OF WHEAT FALL TO THE GROUND A ND DIE IT BEARS NO FRUIT, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, jESUS SAID.  iT WAS FALL TOT HE GROUND AND DIEDE AND THEN IT WILL BECOME A GREAT AND FLOURISHING PLANT.    jUST THE FACT THAT SO MANY OF US WERE SO FIRED UP AT HIS DEATH IS A START.  i HAVE NO PARTICULAR REASON TO BE FIRED UP AT THE DEATH OF cHARLIE kIRK, AS i KEEP SAYING.  sAD, SURE, O H THEY GOT ANOTHER ONE OF US BUT WE'LL JUST KEEP GOING ETEC ETC ETC.  nOW THERE'S SOMETHIG MUCH BIGGER AND CSTRANGER TABOUT THIS ONE.  lETT IT BEAR FRUIT, lORD.

eRICA ALSO COMES ACROSS AS A TRUE cHRISTIAN IN HER SOLID BELIEF THAT SHE WILL SEE cHARLIE AGAIN, THAT HE IS OF COURSE ALIV AND WITH THE loRD.  sOMETIMES PEOPLE SAY SUCH THINGS BUT IT DOESN'T CARRY MUCH CONVICTION.  wITH eRICA YOU KOW SHE BELIEVES IT.  sHE KNOWS gOD HAS A PLAN, SHE KNOWS gOD KNOWS WHAT hE IS DOING,  SHE KNOWS HER JOB IS JUT TO KEEP THE PLAN ALIVE AND WORK HARDER THAN EVER, SHE KNOWS THAT aLL THINGS WORK TO THE GOOD FOR WTHOSE WHO LOVE OD AND ARE THE CALLED ACCORDING TO hIS PURPOSES.  sHE QUEOTED THAT AND i THINK i HEARD cHARLIE QUOTE IT RECENTLY SOMEWHERE TOO.  rOMAND EIGHT?  TWENTY EIGHT.    

oH oLORD  oH lORD, IS THIS THE REVIVAL SO MANY OF US HAVE PRAYDED FOR OVER THE YEARS?  fINALLY?  oH ONE MORE THOUGHT.   fUNNY THOUGHT.   aS cHARLIE'S tURNING poINT STAFF WERE TALKING ABOUT HIM ON THE RADIO SHOW LAST NIGHT  ONE OF THEM MENTIONED THAT HE HAD SOME RATHER PECULIAR EATING HABITS, APPARENTLY DUE TO HIS CONCERN TO STAY HEALTHY.  sUCH AS EATING NOTHING UBUT ONE FOOD FOR A WHOLE MEAL, SUCH AS ALL MEAT FOR ONE MEAL FOR INSTANCE.   

oNE OF HIS MEALS MIGHT BE A GIANT BOWL OF NOTHING BUT BROCCOLI.  aND THAT MADE ME LAUGH, BECUASE i'V HAD THAT SAME MEAL MIYSELF TWICE ISN THE LAST WEEK.  i COOK THE BROCCOLI FOR ABOUT TEN MINUTES IN CHICKEN BROTH AND EAT THE WHOLE THING, ABOUT A , NO, ABOUT TWO HEADS OF BROCCOLI CHAPOOED UP ACCORDING TO THE INSTRUCTION FO cHRIS wARTK IN HIS BOOK cHRISTS   cHRIS bEAT cANCER WHICH i'VE BEEN LISTENING TO LATELY.   hE GIVES GENERAL ADVICE FOR A DRASTIC HEALTH PROMOTING DIET IN HIS CHAPTERS EIGHT AND NINE AND i'VEW BEEN LISTENIG OVER AND OVER TO THEM AND TRYING TO ICOROPORATE THE ADVICE INTO MY OWN SITUATION AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.   hE WOULD EAT THE BROCCOLI RAW AS PART OF HIS GIANT DAILY RAW SALAD, BUT i DON'T LIKE IT RAW ALTHOUGH i LIKE ALL THE OTHER VEGETABLES RAW, SO i EAT THEM IN A SALD OR SOMETIMTES JUIST MUNCH THEM WHOLE IF i'M TOO TIRED TO MAKE A SALAD, BUT i COOK THE BROCCOLI AND EAT IT SEAPRATELY.  cHRIS wARD WOULDN'T ADD CHICKEN BROTH BECAUSE HE GENERAL AVOICES MEAT PERODUCTS, NOT EXCLUSIVELY BUT MOTCSTLY AND CHICKEN BROTH GRANULES ARE OF COURSE A PROCESSED FOOD WHICH IS TO BE SHUNNED BY ANYONE TRYING TO GET HEALTHY.   aNYUWAY IT HELPS WE LIKE THE BROCCOLI BETTER.  sO i'LL EAT THIS GIANT BOWL OF CHICKEN BROTH FLAVORED BROCCOLI.   aND THEN i FOUND OUT THAT cHARLIE kIRK MIGHT EAT SOMETHING SIMILAR ONCE INA A WHILE.     

jUST ANOTHER LITTLE WAY THE lORD SEEMS TO BE LINKING ME UP WITH cHARLIE, SAYING HPERHAPS i'M TO WORK TO SUPPORT HIS MISSION SOMEHOW OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, WHICH i'D BE QUITE HAPPY TO DO IF THERE IS ANY WAY i CAN DO IT.  wELL, i CAN WRITE ABOUT IT AS i'M DOING HERE, AND THAT MAY BE THE BEST i CAN DO BUT IT'S SOMETHING.  i SUPPOSE THE lORD IS LINKING UP A LOT OF chRISTIANS TO cHARLIE'S WORK THESE DAYS.  i'M STARTING TO THINK tURNING pOINT IS hiS BIG PROJECT RIGHT NOW AND WE'RE ALL BEING DDRAWN INTO IT.

Food for a Fallen World

Even Chrtistians don't always remember that this is a fallen worldm meaing it's under a curse since our first parents disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit.,  We fell, we changed, that is, Adam and Eve changed and passed on their new changed and deficient nature to their progeny, us.  We inherit their weakened condition because of the Fall, proneneess to diseases of all sorts, and death of course, which didn'

t exist in the original world.  The world itself was changed, grew up thorns and thistles as ascripture put it, required heavy labor to tame it for gorowing food and  gave us all kinds of pesky creatures that can cause disease and eat all our food to deal with.    Qw were changed initially through the loss of our original ability to commuicate with God.  We lost thje faculty or sense for that, a spiritual sense akin to the physical senses.  We became "but flesh" as God puts it in Genesis Six  As a result we have no innate sense of the existence of Hodf and atheism is an easy state of mind to afall intyo.  We may believe because we are taught to believe, or see things in the world athat suggest that there must be a God, but Adam and Even had a built in sense of God, a direct sense of Him abdnd ability to ommunicate with Him that we olw lack.  

But here i want to talk more about the fallen world and our fallen bodies since we are But  Flesh.  Both our health and the world that supplies the means to keep us healthy are deteriorating due to the Fall.   The foods we eat are treated ijn ways that make them toxic in various ways, and our bodies themselves are  always acquiring new diseases, thought genetic mutation that keeps killing off what must have originally been a very rotective genome.  I don't know how much of what has been called Junk DNA is really junk and how much may have some function or other, but surely since it makes up 98 percent of the genome most of it must be junk rather than regulatory, which is the main fucntion I've heard ascrivbed to it.    That's of courtse my uneducated buess but there are lots of scientists who insist that it really is junk DNA and I uess I'mwit them.

So to my mind junk DNA is one of the results of the FAll, of the ongoing deterioration of our bodies.   We do awfully weell considering thgat.  And then there is the deterioration of the foods, which I just mentioned.   So for these resons we do need to work at dealing with our health, which is why we have these alternative diets that proliferate all the time.  We're always looking for the wmost nutritious and health giving way of deating.  that is, some of us area, some ofth etime.  I guive up easily mself and just eat whatever is easy, but then I geet all fired up to try to be more careful and eat better, which is where I am at the moment.  It's ot easy, that's why I fall away from it. it.  I'm elderly and not in the greatest health, tired all the time for instance, which makes food preparation a chorse that I'm sometimes not up to so I fall back on something easy like opienininhg a can of something.  Cleaning fresh vegeytables is a chorse.  Jucing them ins a HUGE chosre and I'd really like to be able to do that because I believe it would benefit me enormously.  But I did it the other day and it took an hour and a half to clean the begetables, juice them and clean the machine afterward and I was absoluely exhasuseted.    I'm eatierh going to try commercial juices which I know are inferior, or maybe just make a lot less juice.  Or both.  

Years abgo I got into following Chris Wark who cured , well ono, prevented the recurrence of, his colon cancer by changing his diet to  stufing himself with vegetables in many different ofrms, fruits and vegetables that is, juicineg them in huge amounts, making huge salads, and making smoothies.  I'd olike to be up to that.  He had cancer as an incentive and also he was young when he had it and still hjad the energy to do all tit takes to ursuie such a cdiet.  I can't even do my own shopping.     But I love love love carrot juice, esepciallt with beent  bet  beet and celery and green apple, and that's the hardest thinh.  Cleaning and cutting up all the cruciferous vegies for big salads takes work too but not qute as much.  I'm  looking for the right level that I can manage because I've been feeling really worotten lately , even tireder than usual, and really want to do this thing however I can amanage it.d ate the fruit of the forbidden 

Later:  I hope this is the post about the Antichrist but I always have to guess and I'm not sure since I can't see well enough to read anything I write.  Anyway, Just wanted to add to that post that even before the final days when the final Antichrist is to rule the world and be worshipped by all who are not to be saved, the Pope are worshiped.  Think of all the thousands of eope who gathered to hear the announcement of the new Pope, standing in the square praying repetitively with their roasaries and that sort of thing, talking about the Popes in tones of revenerence or awae, calling him "holy fahter" etc.  That's worship.   "If someone comes in his own name, him youi will receive" says Jesus, in the context of saying they won't receive Him.  They'll receive His subsitutte though, whic hch is what the Popes are.  Vicarivs Fiklii Dei which adds up through its Roman numberal s to the infamous uimber of the Antichrist means just that, subsitutte for the Son of God.  The Popes have usurpried His title and His role among the people.  We can alk to Jesus directly, we need no Popes of confessors and we dcertainly don't need the so called Virgin Mary who was ot a virgin after she cagave birth to Jesus but the Catholics dey that obvious fact as scripture presents it.  He is our intercessors, not Mary and not any other stand in for Him.  The Popes usurpr His title as Head of the CHurch.  I remember ewhen God showed me in scripture the two laces where that is stated, that Christ is the head of the Church, when I was disturbed by the claim I'd read in a Catholic book that the Popel is the head of the CHurch.   

Yes  he is worshiped.  So is Mary.  They use different terms for it but it's worship, that belongs to Christ and God the Father and the Holy Spirit and not to any human being.   And the usurpation of God's place among His people really ought to aleret anyone who is thinking scripturally to the fact that the Popes really are the Antichrist.  How the Pre Tribbetrs got seduced off that obvious fact is hard to understand.  

Antichrist FOur

 No real news about Leo Fourteenth lately.  He did write somethig along with others supportive of Ukraine but I forget what that was all about, and that is a reminder that he is one of the top workld leaders.  The popes are that, always at least one of the top world leaders.   Head of an actual nation too, yes the Vatican has that status.  

But at the moment I' responding to something I heard recently, about how people are calling Donald Trump the Antichrist.  The Christian who reported this said it can't be so because the Antichrist comes from the Revised Roman Empire and Trump doesn't.  Well, strictly espeaking neither does Leo fourteenth which I guess ends my own opinion.  But not really.  A popae wherever he is from is a Roman, the head of the only real Roman Empire we have on earth these days.  The European Union is geraing up for a role as part of the Roman ystem but still Rome is Rome and the head of Rome right now is the papacy, which is how it has been for about fifteen centuries.  

The Antichrist depicted in the beast from the sea of Reelation THirteen is not just FROM  the Roman Empire, the way it reads he is practically synonymous with the Roman Empire.  The beast is clearly the empire, with the symbolicmsm of the leopard, the bear and the lion from the visions ofr the book of Daniel which identify the Roman Empire as the fourth to rise after Babylong, Medo Persia and Greece, althouh in those days while the first three were known, the Roman Empire was stil an unknown for the future.  But now we know that is what Daniel was all about.  Rome rose to power before Christ was born and although it died  or at least the Caesars stopped ruling, by6 the sixth cetury the BIshop of Rome of the Christian Church was in a position to delcare himself Universal ope and become over the next few centuries a rule of the west avery much akin to a Caesar.   There is no doubt that the papacy is the Antichrist dsystme and hat the world rule r single Antichrist to come at the very end will be a Opope.  It is frustrating how the Pre Tribbers keep talkinab out some unkonw man who is yet to be revealed who comes from the Roman Empire to rue the world.   Nope.  Pope.

The whole story of the Antichrist is Rome  Rome Rome.  The beast of Revelation THirteen and the Harlot CHurch of Revelation Seventeen are Rme Rome Rme.    Not jus a person FROM Ruome, but the leader of what is the only Roman power bow in the world, the Vatican of the city of Rome.    

Yes I believe in some of the futurist end times scenario, but not the identity of the ANtichrist, who was revealed back in the seventh century.  

Message for President Trump

 Would somone please tell President Trump that working for peace between Russia and Ukraine won't get him to heaven?  He aapparently doesn't undersand that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross and that's how we get to heaven, by believing in Him, that He died for us so that we don't have to pay for our sins ourselves, and tht He rose again from the dead.  If you believe all tghat, then you are saved and going to heaven.    THGEN you should work for peace, because it is the right thing to do and because the Lord would want you to do it.  But it won't earn you heaven.  Either you are already saved by Jesus' death for you, or you need to be saved by believing Him and thank ing Him for it.  Also, while we are to do what we can as Jeus calls us to do it, we are not resposible for the outcome.  You are not responsible for what Putin and Zelensky decide to do, you are only responsble for doing what you can to further the prospects of peace between them.  It is God who is responsible for the outcome.

Sio, relax.  Give yourselve to Christ and relax.  Do what you can and relax.  It's in God's hands.    Scripture i very clear that we are not to try to work our way to heven.  If we could then we'cd get the credit for it, but since God did it for us He gets the credit and our wrole is gratitude and commitment to do His will as best we can, kowing we are fallible creatures and only God can work miracles.

Someone needs to ge this across to Catholics too beause they have been misled to believe they must work for their wsalvation.  

********

Now I have a message for Glenn Loury.  I heard his latest talk with his frequent talking partner John McWhorter on the subjec tof Isareael versus Hamas, what's going on in Gaza.  My message to Mr. Loury is:  You are believing the liars, you are believing Hamas.  All those statistics are made up by Hamas.  It is Hamas who are interfering with the aid getting to their people, it is not Israel's doing.  You need to listen to sme different sources on this one.  I usually like Loury's comments betwtter than I like McWhorter.  This time McWhorter was getting it more right than Loyry.

All for now.

Zygosity and the Camellama

 On the biological side of things, a few weeks ago I hit on somethig I thought was pretty interesting although I may ot fully grasp it yet.   Back in the nineties I read a book I think was titled Creation Science, which I think was authored by Henry Morries and someone named Gary Partker although I may not have his name right.  Whoever he is, and I haven't been able to find out anything about him, or maybe a little but I'm not sure it's hjim,  he presented a model of how Adam and Ever could have carried all the genetic material for all the skin color variations known to humanity, which of course means hey carried all the genetic material offor every kind of variation that ever cooccurs to the human race.  He drew it up in one of those boxes I think is called a punnet square?  I'm not rememberung uch this morning, am I?

But tthat has stuck with me since then and leads me from time to time to think about how variations are built into the genome by simple zygosity, meaning heterosqugosity, meaning the fact that genes that are  capable of variation are made up of two alleles or versions of the trait they code for, such that the offspring in sexual recombination can receive one or the other ersion fo the trait.  If many genes for a trait combine with different versions of each, there can be a huge range of different ways a trait can vary.    This is all based on Mendeian genetics, very simple stuff, bu I've come to realize that it has enormous postential for creating variations.

Some genes no doubt don't produce variations because in the design of the creature they need to be stable, such as gthe body plan or the imune system.  But there are all sorts of characteristics that can vafry, the most common one we always think of being eye color.  Skin color is another.    Hair type and color, and in animals fur tye and so on,  all may variy freely and produce all sorts of interesting traits.  Birtds may have the most ineresting and colorful variation possibilityies with dramatic plumage possibilities and so on.   But it's through variation that you get say, the different herds of wildebeests, that vary in size, hide color and antler shape from herd to herd.  In humans we get the races but there are many more fraces than the few we usually think of.  If you put ten people on a desert isolaned, or no you can't put them there, if they happened to get there a few centuries ago and couldn't leave, by now they would have a very distinctive look to them due to the combination from generation to generation fo whatever genetic material was in the group that fisrst landed on the island.  There could be a huge poulation by now, but they would all have similar characteristics, a generalized look to them, in size for instance as well as facial features and proabably temperament and capabilities of many sorts.    It's how we get all our different kinds of cats and dogs etc etc etc.  The body plan doesn't alter much so you always know a cat is a cat and a dog a dog, but otherwise they may vary eomrously, dogs from the Great Dane to the St Bernard to the Husky to the spaniel to the chihuahua etc etc etc.

It is these vartiation s that evolutionists mistake for evolution and built their whole system o them.  As if the variations could keep changing the creature until it eventually becomes a differentr kind of creature.  Can't happebn.  For one thing, the body plan doesn't change, only the what to call them appearance is pary of it but there's more to it, I'm sure there's a word for it somewhere.   It's variation built into the genome, it's not evolution.  When you get a purebrfed of any kind of animal for inatance, no further variation happens, .  It took me some time to recognize that this is the piont where the genes for the slaient characgteristics are all or mostly all homozygouds for particular traits.   In fact somewhere I foudn that that is a defintiion of a pure breed according to some breeding organization.  Homozygodisity is the same as a fixed trait.    If the whole population is homozygous for particular traits, there is no opportunity for variation of that trait to be expressed in theiur offspring.  YOu have to have heterozygosity for that to be possible, but all the alleles for the trait that do not produce the varsion that belongs to the particular breed ahhave been eliminated from the population over time and unless there's a stray one here or there  thevariations of that btrait juist aren't going to show up again in that breed.  So calle "evlution" has come to an end that that point.    

So I began to appreciate that the mdel of genetic possibilities in Adam and Ever I'd found in that book back in the ineties is a model of heterozygosity in all the genetic matieral that is capable of variation in the genome.  Heterozygosity, or the simple fact that each gene has two different versions of the trait it codes for, is all it takes to produce all possible variations in any creature, including human beings.  as they reproduce generation after generation.  When a particular breed sis being develoeped by domestic breeding, or intentional breeding, or when a small population gets accidentally isolted in the wild from the parrent population and breeds only  with its own members over many generations, that's when you start to get more homoszygosity connected with particualr traits within the new breed or popualtion.  

jI  know this is oversimpliefied and there are other actors to gtake into account, such as epigenetic inflence no doubt, though I don't see how that would inlufnece this particular situation, but generally this simple Mendelian sstem should be able to account for enojrmous variatiey in living things.  A very simple design producing a lot of effects over the generations.

So when the topic came up on the Let's Talk Creation podcast of how the llama came out of the camel, if it did, and that was one of the questions, igt occurred to me that this Mendelian principle could very well explain it.  You wouldn't need both a camel and a llama on the ark if they are related woto each other as they are, and would wouldn't need a generalized "camellama" either that somehow contianed the genrteic material for both animals and didn't look eaxactly like either one of them.   It occured gto me that if the camel type has the dominant allele for most of its genes that produce its salient traits, that would mean that three our of four offspring would get the came type inheritance, which is a Mendelian statistic.  The camel thype would show up in the heterozygous genetic formula, as well as in the homozygous dominant formula, two heterozygous possibilities and one homosyfou, for all the traits that make the camel the camle.  Whih would no doubt be a huge number of traits and genes for those traits.  But if a small portion of the population of camels got separated from it that just happeneed to contain a lot of the recessive forms of those genes, then as that new poup;lation inbred over the gwnerations it could well develop into the llama type or any other varsion of the camel .    All it takes, I was thining, is the common accidnet of isolaution of a small number of animals with a new gset of gene frequencies that favor the recessive version of most of the generaes for tthe salient characteristics that in the camel type are built on the dominant alleles.    I hope I'm getting this said clearly.  

So, no Camellamas needed, just heterozygosity in the genome which is a very flexible design factor we usually don't appreciate as such.

Catastrophic Plate Tectonics

After send around my previous post in an email to a frew friedns and family I started looking up some geological concepts on You Tube.  Just to be doubly sure I did't say anything too wrong but also just wanting to find out about some things I've had on hold for a whie.  Like Catastrophic Plate Tectonics.  WEell, ther's a very long You Tube video that comes up with that as the search term and it's very informative but so packsed with information and so rast moving I can't possibly get much out of it in one sitting.  It's something I'll need to hear many times before it comes together for me.

I do keep having a particualr issue with this concept however that hasn't  yet been put to rest.  The catastrophic plate tectonics theory is that the Flood of Noah was begun and continued throughtoyut along with erewextremely violent movements of the continents, up heavals thropugh rapid subduction of the sea floor undre the continents, upheavals on the sea floor sending up hot magma and so on.   What continuies to bother me about these scenario is that I don't see how the Geological Column could have been laid down and remained intact een to the extent it has been with all the violent upheaval going on throughout the period of its laying down.  

Ghere is also evidence that I have been promoting for years that the disruptions brought about by tectonic movvment occurred after all the strata were laid down.  That has been a major arugument of minde and I'm still  convinced by it, even after watching this video that gives this completely different scenario .     I've argued it many times before, on this blog and probably on the one called Fatasy of Evolution, and also at EvC forum.  It's based on a particular cross section of the Grand Canyon/ Grand Staricase area and although I can't see it any more I remember it as being very clear, there is no disruption whatever to be seen during the period of the laying down of the sedimentary layers, but lots of activity afterward.  Something   before too, but I don't and that's part of my oaargument.  

But I'm not going to go into it here.    I do hope my email about the  geological column layers gets some people interested enough to think about it and have some opinions.  Then I can go on to other arguments.

By the way the video I was watching was interrupted every few minutes or so buy on particular ad that coplainted about our Nevada rrepresentative voting for tax cuts for the rich which according to the ad are going to cost us all a lot of money are amount to his seelling us all out, and I get SO tired of this kind of liberal deceit.  Tax cuts for the rishch, which are NOT as big a thing as they claim anyway, since the tacsx cuts extend to all of us, but the tax cuts for the rich are designed to stimulate the economy, which they have always succeeded in doing whever a President has had the foresight to be willing to brave the stupidity of the Left and doin do it anyway.    Tax revenuse themselves double in some cases, jobs increase, etc etc.  That is just one of ma000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000ny lying manipulative prop0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000aganda ads.

Later:  I'm discoveing that this video just moves way too fast for me to follow it, and on this new computer I don't  know how to do the usual things like back it up.  Someone will have to show me that some time, but meanwhile I'm lost to this video.  

IF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY DROPPED DEAD ON A REMOTE ISLAND OF A BLOG, WOULD ANOYONE HEAR THE CRASH AS IT HIT THE GROUND?

 Overy the years rguing Creation versus Evolution I've brought ofup various problems witht e geoligcal column, such as that there isn't any indication on the surface of any of the separate layers of its every having been on the surface of the earth as anormal landscape.  They are mostly all straight and flat as a tabletop, not uneven the way a normal landscape eis, even the flattest.  They don't have gullies or deep erosion, certainly no canyons.  You don't see plant roots growing down into them anywhere.  There's nothing about them to suggest they ever were the surface of the world during a former time period, whichis what is claimed for eah of them.   Some are supposed to have been underwater but there too you wouldn't expect perfectly straight flat surface or such a homogeneous sediment either,    These conversations never went anywehre of course.  They just get ignored somehow, ,but they raise serious questions about the whole idea that the geological column is made up uof successive periods of time mrked by identifiable types of sediment which have become rock over supposed misllions of years since they were deposited.  Some of the time periods are over a hundred million years,, some tens of millions, but huge periods of time in which very particular animal life is found in fossilized form.  Each layer of sedimentary rock has its own collection of fossilized life forms.   These are understood to be creatures that lies in these time periods, which over time evolved into more odern kinds.  They seem to be less complex near the bottom of the stack of layers, getting more complex as you look toward the uppoer layers, ending in modern mammals and so on at the very top which isd considered to be modern time.

Doesn't irt seem odd thhat the history of the earth would be marked off in clearly identifialble time segments defined by specific kinds of sedimentary rocks?  Sometimes I wonder how that idea got so easily accepted in the first place, but it certainly has been accepted and is foundational to the idea of the fossil record which underlies much of evolutionary theroy.   Nobody coments on the actual physical situatio of the rocks that I've run across, they are just taken for granted to represent these time periods in which sepefic creatures lived, each period demonstrating some evolutionary change as they see it.   

It certainly is interesting that there does seem to be such a clear separate collection of fossil life forms characteristic of a particular rock layer which is identified as a pecrticular time period.   And in a rough way they do seem to exhibit some kind of development from something more primitedve to something modern.  It's easy enough to see how the fossil record idea got going on that simple fact.  And it's a strange fact no matter how you look at it, but it is a fact.  

But again, how is it that the earth could have been divided into time periods of millions of eyears so clearly marked by a very particular kind of sedimentary rock, very straight and flat, continaing a fery specici colelction of fossil forms?  When we look at the surface of the earth we live on it certainly doesn't look straight and flat and ceratinly isn't of one kind of sedimentary rock, or..    Should we expect our own time eperiod to somehow or other get reduced down to such a situation as is found in each of the layers beneath us?   How does that make sense?

Of course nobody does, but then nobody is really thinking about any of this from this point of view Fof course nobody is thinkiung about these things from this point of view.  

Sometimes I try to think through how it could ereally have been a time period that produced a particular rock layer and how that could have come aout.  Many of the layers extend across huge geographical areas, some covering whole continents and even can be found in soe form on all the continents or a umber of them anyway.  There are ideas about how the sediments were laid down originally, mounstains eroding and windo blowing the sediment into flat layers among other things, b tu none of that is very convincing.  SOme are explains by an incursion of water over the land, which seems to me to make more sense but even then it's hard to think the result would have been such a flat horizontal layer that eventually got overlaid by other layers and hardedned into rock.   

Whenver I try to figure this out I end up with the recognition that any amount of such esediment existing on the surface of the earth would have makede it impossible for any creature to surfvive there, either in it or on it.  Creatures can't live on a pure sand deposite.  So maybe the sand came layter and the animals lived on a normal surface that was eventualy covered over by the sand or other sediment?  But when it was covered over then the animal life would die, it couldn't go on living, and if it died then it didn't pass on to the next time period where an evolved form went on living, it just died because there was no place for it to go on living.      So maybe it lived on part of the surace that wasn't yet covered over by this sediment.  But since it was eventuqally covered over, as we can see from the rock layers in the column today, then they would have died there too.  Nobothing could live wherever these sedimentary deposits were the surface they had to live on.

So maybe thy formed beneath the surace or something like that, and then the surface was somehow eroded away and left only the sedimentary layer which got covered over by a new kind of sedienyt as the next supposed time period began to develop.   But it's the same problem.  When the livable surface is gone, erotded away or whatever, leaving only the sedimentary deposite we see as rock in the scolumn today, wheaever had been living on that surface would die because it couldn't live on that bare sedimentary surface.  Or in it if we're talking water deposition and sea creatures.

No nmatter how you try to rearrange the possibilityies, you end up with an unlivable environemnty.  For every one of the rock layers we see in the stack of layers we call the geollgical socolumn.   Nothing could have lived in any environmentin which those sedimenyts were actually present as the surface of the earth which for at least some wshort period they had to have been becaue there they are now in that stack of layers.  If nothing could live in that environment then clearly those are not time periods those rocks represent, othing ever lived there, it's all a great delusion.   There is no Geological time scale in which living forms evolved.  There just isn't.   It's all a delusion.     There are plenty of dead things encased within the sedimentary rocks, but they could never have lived in an environment of csuch sediments,  they had to have been carried within the sedimentas and deposited  with them.  Or something like that.  There was never anything living whever those sedimentas lay on the surace of the earth or on the sea floor either.    Nothing could have lived there.  That seems to me to be perfectly clear even if it's hard to thingk all this through and rearrange things in your mind.

Without the fossil record, what happenes to the theory of ewvolution?  Can it keep going on biological and genetic considerations alone without the geoloigcal suport of the fossils?  I don't know.  I'm sure those who believe in evolutio woud try to keep it alive one way or another.  I'm sure if they every thought about what I'm writing here they'd be concvinced I must be wrong one way or another and try to prove me wrong and maybe even manage to convince themselves that I'm wrong.  The theory would just go limping along on the basis of what they think must hve happened rather than on any clear evidence that it did happen.  But then that's the way it has always been.  Evolution has always been  an imaginary construct, building from the real biolgoical fact of the variations we  see all the time in living things m,  each species having a large range of ways it can vary its apparenantce, that's all real enough but they imagine from thant fact that the variation can just keep going from species to species and there's really no way it could.   

That's another line of thought that undoes the etheory of evolution.  I just finished listining to a wbook by Seteven Meyer, Darwin's Doubt , in which he diescusses instance after insnace in which the evolutionary biologicals themselves question the claims of the theory and shows ythat it is never resolved.  tThe same problems remain after every attempt to find a way to solve it or get around it.   Meyer gpoint out many times that variation or change only occurs in existing entitties.  If there is no docode for it it can't happen.  the code is convinced to the genome of each species.  There is no way to get outside of that code, the genome of the species, to form any kind of new thing.  

But that's another whole direction of argument I'm not up to going into right nwo.    I think the faiure of the idea of the geological time scale is enough to kill the ehtthroy of evolution.   There are certainly many ogther ways to kill it.  I think it's really been shown to be  dead for years but  so many people are so committed to the idea they just keep beating the dead horse expectin git to get up and move again.  Oh well.

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mAYBE i SHOULD ADD A DEFINITION OF THE gEOLOGICAL cOLUMN FOR THOSE WHO AREN'T SURE WHAT IT REFERS TO.  iF YOU CAN FIND A PICTURE OF A WIDE SECION OF THE gRAND cNYON LOOKING DOWN INTO IT, THE LAYERS YOU SEE IN THE WALLS OF THE CANYON, EACH OF A DIFFERENT SEDIMENTARY ROCK, ARE THE LOCAL VERSION OF THE gEOLOGICAL cOLUMN.  tHE PICTURE PROBABLY SHOWS THE LAYERS FROM THE LOWEST HORIZONTAL LAYER WHICH IS THE cAMBRIAN TIME PERIOD, DATED TO ABOUT FIVE HUNDRED MILLION YEARS AGO, AND THE LAYERS CLIMB UP FROM THERE THROUGH THE oRDOVICIAN, THE sILURIAN, THE dEVONIAN, THE cARBONIFEROUS, TO THE pERMIAN WHICH FORMS THE RUM OF THE CANYON , DATED TO ABOUT TWO HUNDRED FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO.  oRIGINALLY THE STACK OF LAYERS CLIMBED UP ANOTHER MILE OR SO OR ANOTHER TWO HUNDRED MILION YEARS BUT ALL THT WSHED AWAY IN THE CANYUON AREA.   tHEY CAN BE FOUND INTACT A HUNDRED OR SO MILES TO THE NORTH, HOWEVER, IN uTAH'S gRAND sTARICASE FORMATION.  iT'S IN THAT SECTION OF THE COLUMM THAT THE jURASSIC TIME PERIOD IS FOUND, WHERE ALL THE DINOSAUR FOSSILS COME FROM, THAT AND THE cRETACEOUS LAYER AOVE ITY.      

oOPS,      I see the caps lock was on.  Drat.  Sorry aout that.  

By the way I wrote out other arguments against evolution here and there on this blog, in particular some last Fall around September and Octorber.

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I also keep forgetting to put in my new email addres which is managed by my daughter.   faithswindow@mail.com