Thoughts Before The Alarm Sounds

A Noah’s Ark Theme Park has opened in Kentucky, and according to those who have seen it, it’s a wonder to behold. Its sheer size and workmanship are obviously the work of modern day craftsmen, which raises the question of how unskilled artisans using the tools available at the time of Noah could have created such a massive structure. Even its shape resembles that of a vessel of today, which also begs the question as to how Noah was able to create a craft four thousand years before its time. Of course, since it was designed merely to float, the problem of a propulsion system never came up; this greatly simplified the task. As a theme park the ark indeed appears to be an interesting attraction, but the term appears to be designed to cover up the real intention of the founder, Ken Ham, and the organization for which he fronts: Answers in Genesis . This is an effort at mass indoctrination into the belief in Biblical inerrancy by the proponents of Creation Science. I do not intend t...

I have just finished reading James A. Michener’s book, Space . Published in 1982, the semi-historical novel follows the development of America’s space program from the acquisition of the German rocket scientists at Peenemünde in 1945 to the flyby of the planet Saturn by Voyager 1 in 1980. After the highly successful moon landings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the public’s interest in science waned, and was replaced by a wide-spread return to fundamental religion. In my opinion it is regrettable that the interest in science was replaced ; I believe that science and religion can flourish in complementary harmony. The biblical writers were performing exactly the same sort of activities as those of today’s scientists. Using the resources at their command, they were looking at the ongoing flow of the Universe, and trying to make sense of it. Their tools for physical measurement consisted of a straight edge and a compass – there were no clocks, thermometers, or telescopes. ...

      A recent newspaper story out of San Antonio tells of a 15-year-old student who is fighting her school district's “locator” chip embedded in her student ID badge. According to her, the chip is a “mark of the beast” as described in the Bible's Book of Revelation. This “mark” is a combination of letters and symbols that will be physically and permanently placed on one's forehead or right hand, indicating that the bearer is a follower of “the beast.” There will be severe penalties for refusing the mark and great rewards for getting it. Among other things “. . . no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."      Within the church itself, the Book of Revelation has had many different interpretations, ranging from a condemnation of the Roman Empire, an allegory of the ongoing fight between good and evil, or a forecast of the “end times.”      Throughout the ages...

     I received an email purporting to quote Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham Lotz. According to the email Ms. Lotz was speaking at a “Superintendent of Schools Seminar.” When she was asked what she thought was leading to the decay of morality and self-respect in the young students today, she supposedly replied, “...when the Courts [decided] to take God (Lord's Prayer) and respect for our Country (Pledge of Allegiance To Our Flag), and took down the symbol of our Country (picture of George Washington) out of the Classroom".      An exhaustive search failed to find any evidence of Ms. Lotz having spoken at such a seminar, nor could I verify that she had ever made such a statement. The closest I could find took place on CBS's “The Early Show” on September 13, 2001. Interviewer Jane Clayson asked, "I've heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God let this (the September 11 attack) happen? To that, ...

      I first published this post on November 7, 2009, with the title “A Christian Dichotomy.” I think it bears repeating.       In 2007, Jamie Leigh Jones testified at a Congressional hearing that she had been gang-raped in 2005 by as many as seven co-workers while working in Iraq for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. After an Army doctor examined her and gave forensic material to her employer, she was placed under guard in a shipping container, where she remained without food or drink for 24 hours. Finally a friendly guard gave her a cell phone which she used to call her father. She was released only after her father asked the US embassy to intervene.       When Jones tried to take legal action, Halliburton/KBR used a clause in her contract, which required disputes to be settled by arbitration, to block such action.       In 2007, Jones filed a joint civil suit against Halliburton/K...

      [The Lord] said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”       Genesis – New Revised Standard Version.       One of the tasks I had to perform at my job as a cost accountant was to speak to factory foremen to determine the cause of irregularities in production costs. In particular, one man stands out in my memory; his first response when I asked about a problem was always, “Whose responsibility is that?”       It was not my job to establish responsibility – my job was to 1.) pinpoint the problem, 2.) fix it, and 3.) set up safeguards so that it didn’t happen again. But the foreman’s first impulse was to determine where to point the finger. (No, not that finger.)       When I had my accounting busin...

      Recently I acquired The Book of Genesis Illustrated , by R. Crumb, an illustrator whose work is quickly recognizable through the style of his drawings. According to Wikipedia, “The book includes annotations explaining his reactions to the stories. It is reported on NPR in October 2009, that it was a four-year effort and does not rewrite any part of the text. Much research was done by Mr. Crumb in the earlier language versions of the text to support the interpretations. It contains all fifty chapters of Genesis and comes with a warning on its cover: ‘Adult Supervision Recommended for Minors.’”       It is interesting to observe most people’s first reaction when I mention the book: “How does he depict Adam and Eve?”       Well, they look a lot like the rest of us, and of course they are dressed in whatever attire the Bible calls for. In the beginning they are wearing nothing, and yes, they are anatomically ...

      Most of the people who believe in a young earth think that the creation occurred on October 23, 4004 BCE at 9:00 o’clock in the morning. No such date can be found in the writings of the early church – it was calculated in the 17th century by Bishop James Ussher and Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge       How did the good gentlemen make this calculation? The original writing is extremely difficult to follow (See for example Bishop Ussher Dates the World: 4004 BC , but an explanation follows:       Ussher began his calculation by adding the ages of the twenty-one generations of people of the Hebrew-derived Old Testament, beginning with Adam and Eve. If the Bible is to be believed, they were an exceptionally long-lived lot. Genesis, for example, tells us that “Adam lived 930 years and he died.” Adam’s great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Methuselah, claimed the longevity r...

      In his State of the Union address on Wednesday night, President Obama asked anyone with a health care plan that would cover all citizens, control costs, etc. to come to him; he wanted to hear from them.       I am guessing he will not get many suggestions from either side of the aisle. The Democrats and the President seem to be copying an early 20th century comic strip: Alphonse and Gaston, a pair of overly polite Frenchmen, whose "After you, Alphonse.", "No, you first, my dear Gaston!" routine entertained readers for more than a decade. Nobody seems to be in charge.       As for the Republicans, apparently the only plan they can think of consists of 2,000 pages covered with the word “No!”       Will the real leader please stand up?       Granted, any health care plan will be expensive, will probably cause doctors’ waiting rooms to overflow, at leas...

      Last night Barbara and I watched the 1960 movie Inherit The Wind starring Spender Tracy, Fredric March and Gene Kelly. Although based on the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, names and some of the plot were changed somewhat from the original event. But we enjoyed it – as we expected, the acting was superb.       The original case was sparked by the ACLU, which wanted to test the constitutionality of the state’s Butler Act, which decreed "That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."       A further contention was that while the Butler Act prohibited the teaching of the ...

      On January 16 I listed alternate definitions of the word “theory”: 1.) A coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena. 2.) A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of fact.       At that time I suggested that Joe Sixpack distrusts scientists because certain interests have inundated him with the second definition, and downplayed the first. Actually, with a caveat, both definitions apply to the scientific mindset.      Every scientific “theory,” e.g., theory of gravity, theory of relativity, etc., is understood to be conditionally covered under the first definition. The caveat is that thousands of scientists all over the world are diligently trying to disprove any such theory. In the event that an example can be found that is contrary to the theory, the the...

It has been over 150 years since Biblical scholars have begun examining certain writings in the New Testament. The basis of this activity has been the way the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke overlap. Most scholars agree that Mark was written first, and that Matthew and Luke used his writings as a common reference. About 45% of the writings of both Gospels repeat stories from Mark, using the same order and even the same words in many cases. But in addition, approximately 25% of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels contain writings that agree with each other, but are not found in Mark. The implication is that there is some other document to which they referred. That document is simply called Q after the German word Quelle , or “source.” First things first – why is it assumed that Mark’s Gospel precedes the other two? There are several reasons: 1.)                        ...

For the past several thousand years certain members of the human race have been accepted as people who knew what God had in mind for the rest of us. Through their study of the Torah, Bible, Koran, Vedas and other writings sacred to various religions, the prophets, rabbis, priests, pastors, seers and others have been the purveyors of the contents of God’s mind. It’s their job, and we respect their expertise. But when the workings of God’s mind are revealed by nuclear physicists, that’s not their job – that’s news – and we are rightly a bit skeptical. It’s the suggestion of Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, that an expected event in the near future is something that God does not want us to create, hence He is causing a ripple to travel back through time from that event to the present day in order to sabotage any possibility of its occurrence. It’s like the paradox of going back...