Blog Archives
FINDING OUR ORIGINS: HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Christians believe in a Creator. We believe the Creator made us in His image. Christians are also highly intelligent and knowledgeable, and prove that faith in God and scientific fact are not mutually exclusive.
.
Though proponents of secular science insist there is no God, they are also forced to believe in an unexplainable original uncaused cause. They must admit, no matter how distasteful it may be, that they’ll most likely never make it to the rainbow’s end. They have no idea how Creation, or the “Universe,” came to be at its earliest instant, though they content themselves with the highly implausible possibility they may figure it out someday. In the meantime, the surrender towel they threw into the ring remains there, above the canvas, stuck forever in suspended animation. For them, discovering the origin of Creation has reached a dead end. They can go no further. Though such anti-God proponents et al are saturated with scientific knowledge up to that point, if indeed their vast pronouncements of scientific reality are indeed factual, their otherwise powerful brains come up short at explaining beginnings. Could it be their absence of faith makes the original uncaused cause forever undiscoverable to them?
TRACING OUR ROOTS
For those who engage in the work of genealogy, often inspired to trace their personal family tree, it can be an intriguing and exciting adventure, especially when finding a slightly harder to locate previously unknown link in the chain. They continue going back in time adding more pieces to the puzzle. As they do the effort grows more difficult. The people one searches for become increasingly harder to find. Though one may have success in the early going mapping out ancestral generations, even going back several centuries, one discovers an eventual unwelcome interval when the trail is lost, when he must expend more time and energy on finding the next ancestor in line who has inadvertently perchance made himself scarce, than discovering all the other ancestors up to that point. Inevitably, whether Mr. Scarce or another after him is eventually found, one will reach a dead end. There will be no more ghosts of the past located.
Upon reaching this place, a person must simply face reality. The records grow scarce to the point of non-existence or at least it appears that way. With no written records one has nothing to work with. There is always the hope that maybe something will be found to grant another clue but the odds are against it. Even professionals with relatively unlimited budgets can only go so far.
ONCE UPON A TIME
As a way to remedy such an occurrence, what if one simply started making things up? What if one simply began creating ancestral characters? As an aside, we know that primitive people with no written records have oral histories stretching back into the distant past. They particularly honor the great ones of their bygone times who performed outstanding deeds to better the cause of their people. In time, the honor they give such ancestors becomes ancestor worship. And inevitably, such great ancestors become deified. They transform them into gods. Later generations approaching and appearing in the present accept such “history” without question. They believe wholeheartedly in the legends of their clan. It helps to make them what they are though much of their history is contrived.
Secular science does the same. Rejecting any idea of a Creator, an original personal uncaused cause, they insist on finding purely scientific and factual answers without getting bogged down in foggy legends or what they often term religious nonsense. On the surface, of course, this is good. On the other hand, however, without keeping an open mind to possible spiritual origins beyond their understanding, even though much in such a field is obviously suspect and easily refuted by facts, such people have a decided tendency to grow ever more cynical. It is why many of these people refuse to believe in God. The concept of God looks like a fairy tale. Some of them consider invoking God to be a cop out. And with such unbridled skepticism it is only a hop, skip, and a jump into outright mockery. With such an arrogant attitude which insists only on the use of what their intelligent but extremely limited brains can fathom, they eliminate the very place where the bulk of answers are found.
In the meantime, they must continue with their version of Creation based purely on the discoveries of the scientific method. They continue going back in time (by the billions of years) explaining to the best of their ability how it all came to be. And then they reach the same dead end. They are at a loss to explain it any further. Their only conclusion for the riddle of the Universe is an original uncaused cause. An unknown beginning. Even if they go back to a single point from which the entire Cosmos emerged or burst forth, there is no satisfactory scientific explanation for that single point. How did it get there? Do they think the process of minimizing the Universe to a single subatomic particle in the great distant past it makes it easier to understand and accept our origins? Intelligent thinking people know better. The scientists know better. They still refuse, however, to consider a possible spiritual reality or something or someone beyond their ability to see or perceive.
So they make things up. In much the same way primitive tribes construct a legendary reckoning of ancient ancestors, filling in gaps as they go with fictional stories based loosely on suspect oral histories, so must science, the supposed facts people, come up with “answers” to fill in their knowledge gaps in order to complete the story, or their version of events. For backup they rely on one another. It becomes nothing more than circular logic or baseless biased reasoning. It happened that way because we say it did and we are the ones who know because we are the ones with all the credentials. And thus science destroys their one major caveat by becoming religion.
BREAKING FREE
I understood early in life that there must be something more. Looking around and sizing things up brought me to the conclusion, even as a kid, that things simply didn’t add up. Rather than plunge ahead into life with no thought of trying to figure it out, I always allowed for a belief in what may be termed higher things. Though unknown, of course, there must be something else out there I could not perceive but could at some point possibly discover. Such a belief and inevitable search allowed for a drag of sorts on doing what society expected and demanded regarding full attention toward excellence in completing a prescribed course. We understand that devoting full attention to whatever it is we must do makes the job easier.
However, as we mature and face our responsibilities, we collect out of necessity a growing number of hot glowing irons in the fire at the same time, each of which demands our attention, and therefore the idea of devoting full attention to any single one can only happen on an effective piecemeal basis. For those whose lives are so simple they only engage in a single activity and can thus give full devotion to it, I would think their chances of success would be relatively high in that particular field. For most people, however, they must devote themselves to any number of activities, engaging in them all at the same time in turn, like the guy who juggles bowling balls and meat cleavers. Life gets tricky that way. But it also tells us, through our previously unknown ability to excel at several activities at once, that we can spare some time for higher things as well, even though the latter might not be a top priority.
However, until our personal search for truth moves to the top of the list, we will never excel in that endeavor. And without such excelling God will forever remain in the distance.
© 2020 by R.J. Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
FIFTH COLUMN CHRISTIANS: How the devil Created Unreal Christianity
“FIFTH COLUMN”: Clandestine group or faction of subversive agents who attempt to undermine a nation’s solidarity by any means at their disposal.
“A cardinal technique of the fifth column is the infiltration of sympathizers into the entire fabric of the nation under attack and, particularly, into positions of policy decision and national defense. From such key posts, fifth-column activists exploit the fears of a people by spreading rumours and misinformation, as well as by employing the more standard techniques of espionage and sabotage.” [1]
THE JERK WHO STARTED IT ALL
The devil is the original jerk.
A jerk, in this sense, with a wide inclusion of corresponding names and titles denoting derivative evil and subversive activities, is someone driven to do all in his or her power to mess up a good thing.
The Garden, east of Eden, built by the Lord God, was absolutely perfect.
Adam, the first human, created by the Lord God, was also absolutely perfect.
And Eve, wonderful Eve, the first woman, also created by the Lord God, was not only absolutely perfect but the crown of creation. With all due respect to Adam, there was no possible better created being than Eve. After the Lord God made her He was done. He saved His best for last.
But of course, the devil had to come along and screw it all up. (The devil is such a rotten little reprobate.) He lives to destroy, to rottenize everything he touches, and to do all is his power to transform the perfectly moral and beautiful into gross immorality and ugliness.
The sad thing about this idiot is that he possesses such a powerful ability to lie and cheat and deceive that EVERYBODY ends up listening to all his sorry tripe and most obey him their entire lives with no recourse or ability to stop.
THE ONLY CURE:
He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. [John 1:11-13]
THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL
Adam listened and at first he told the devil to bug off. Adam remained loyal to the Lord God.
Eve listened and at first she fought him. She quoted the Word of God. But the devil kept on in his sly and slimy manner and started making sense to her. Adam was nowhere around. The devil isolated her and caught her on her own. She had never been taught directly by the Lord God but by Adam. Thus, the devil simply attacked her husband’s credibility in order to attack the credibility of the Lord God.
Interestingly enough, Eve began to listen:
“Maybe Adam got it wrong…”
“How do I really know that Adam learned everything he taught me from the Lord God?”
“Maybe this alternative picture the devil is painting in the real reality…”
The devil encouraged her to use her human eyes, her human understanding, and her human imagination. The forbidden fruit suddenly looked good to her, both to her eyes as a thing of beauty and also for food. She also fell for the lie that eating the fruit would make her wise and that she would replace the Lord God. She would be equal to the Lord God. SHE would be the Lord God.
The original fifth columnist gained his first convert.
ADAM’S EVENTUAL FAILURE
What the hell happened to Adam? Why did he no longer resist sin and temptation?
He had successfully defeated the pukey little devil on every other occasion. He was never fooled by his lies before. His education by the Lord God in spiritual things had been perfect.
Why did he not resist his wife’s manipulation?
If you can answer this question you will know how Christianity in general has been almost completely subverted and transformed into something completely different from the original, WHICH IS PERFECT.
The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” [Genesis 3:12] [2]
And with that the devil made his second convert.
Since that time the devil has managed to create many more converts. There are more unreal Christians on the planet than real ones. The faux bros have listened to the devil’s suggestions and eaten the forbidden fruit.
Unreal Christians have never undergone required heart circumcision as per the Lord’s commands, but have certainly succumbed to backbone removal.
Could it be because many of the people you see in pulpits are nothing but undercover Christian Fifth Columnists blinded by the devil and won over to his cause?
It certainly appears that they and their congregations have all fallen into their respective pits.
“FIFTH COLUMN:” Clandestine group or faction of subversive agents who attempt to undermine a nation’s (Christian group’s) solidarity by any means at their disposal.
“A cardinal technique of the fifth column is the infiltration of sympathizers into the entire fabric of the nation (Christian group) under attack and, particularly, into positions of policy decision and national (Christian group) defense. From such key posts, fifth-column activists exploit the fears of a people by spreading rumours and misinformation (false doctrines and teachings), as well as by employing the more standard techniques of espionage and sabotage (lies and deception).” [1]
© 2016 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
Real Christianity—The Nature of the Church
[1] © 2016 Encyclopedia Brittanica
[2] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
DEFEATING THE RULER OF THIS WORLD: Christian Heroes and Villains
Portals of Progress (Part 2)
Hesiod’s story of Pandora’s Box was an obvious take on the Genesis account.
Pandora had been granted authority.
She possessed the freedom to choose.
Freedom allows for the making of evil choices.
Eve discovered evil in exactly this manner.
Evil gives clear perspective to goodness.
Before people know evil, however, they are only vaguely aware of evil in an abstract sense.
This is how God presented evil to Adam—in the abstract. He never taught Adam about evil directly, because Adam could not possibly have known what He was talking about.
There he was—fresh from creation—Adam! Bright and pure and strong, perfectly innocent, with large open eyes and a big smile. He was astounded by the beauty around him and most especially by the majesty of the Lord before him, his Creator.
The Lord and Adam were very close, a very loving Father and son. Though Adam was made of earthly elements in the physical realm, he was filled with the Spirit of God. The very life and presence of God lived within Adam. He was a true son of his Father, and as his Father, the Lord did all possible to teach Adam properly and protect him.
Regarding evil though, the only option God had was a commandment:
The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” [Genesis 2:16-17]
Commandments are just that—they are commands. The reason commands regarding evil must be presented as commands is because the recipient of the command has no understanding of the far-reaching consequences of its violation.
In this, Adam had to learn obedience, and in that He had to trust God.
And this is what faith is.
Of course, Adam had no reason whatsoever to doubt God. He did not blindly obey, either. He knew He was loved. God created him and gave him a great place to live and work.
Adam chose to obey God. He loved his Father.
He must have also understood that his Father should and must be respected, and that his Father knew a whole lot more than he did. He knew the command he received against evil was for his own benefit and protection, though he had no understanding of what those things—evil and death—were. As in the hearts of innocent children, evil and death were only abstractions to him.
In Genesis 2, God reveals Adam’s initial purpose:
Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. [Genesis 2:15] [1]
Adam obeyed the Lord regarding his purpose also. He took good care of the garden in which he lived. As a result of his work, the garden was very fruitful. It grew. It produced.
As Adam continued on he saw the good consequences of his choices, that good things happened as a result, and he saw good fruit come forth that he had never previously seen. It was all new—astoundingly and wonderfully new—and abundant.
But Adam also had to grow. He had to progress. And he did. He became more knowledgeable though remaining in a state of perfect innocence.
There were often times he had to do things, however, that he had never done before. He had to choose. It was always a new portal for him, one in which there was the usual trepidation. Like any of us, he had to figure things out. He put two and two together. He no doubt sometimes learned by trial and error, error being not an evil thing but simply an unfruitful thing. In academic terms, it is referred to as gaining knowledge empirically.
Without making correct decisions, there is no possibility of progress.
He discovered that as long as he kept choosing correctly, good stuff kept happening. In time, he became somewhat less concerned about walking through such new portals, and even began to approach apparent risk with much fervor. He was, after all, obeying God.
Through obedience, faithfulness, personal experience, hard work, dedication, and seeing the fruitful results of planting good seed, he learned that life kept producing good fruit as long as he stayed true to the Lord in his heart and in his work. He saw how fruitful the garden was, and was thankful that every tree was acceptable and good, except one.
And because he trusted his Father, he refused to go down that path.
© 2014 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [To Be Continued.]
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Portals of Progress (Part 1)
The Lord sometimes sets a door before us through which we must pass. It often arrives as a result of much prayer and searching. Upon arrival, we sometimes do not recognize the door as the answer we seek because it doesn’t necessarily appear as an opportunity, but something to avoid.
Walking through such a portal begins a journey into the unknown.
It portends a Door of Discipleship—an Avenue of Advancement—a Portal of Progress.
Going through such a door will cause one to surrender one’s supposed security. It will demand the leaving of one’s safe and guarded sanctuary composed of the known, where all is seemingly predictable and routine, and head into uncharted territory.
This moment will demand great faith. Though one must receive clear confirmation that such a move is God’s will and though one may feel a great tug in the spirit and the Lord’s leading, the much greater tug must actually be a push, in that even though we feel something drawing us forward, it is never enough to force us or carry us along.
We must act. We must choose. We must compel ourselves. We must obey. We must step through.
I wrote a post two years ago entitled He Steadfastly Set His Face To Go To Jerusalem. The Lord knew all along the cross was His fate. It was a portal through which He had to pass. None of His loved ones agreed with His choice, though the choice was made eons before.
We know that God had already integrated the cross into His master plan before He began creating anything.
Regarding the fate of humanity, long before He created Adam, God planned His own crucifixion.
…Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. [1Peter 1:18-21]
The Lord knew in advance of His creation that a sacrifice would be called for. He knew as soon as He began planning to create free-willed beings like Himself that such beings must be allowed to choose, even to the point of choosing against Him, or they would have no such thing as a free will. In this—choosing against God—choice allows for the opposite of what God intends.
We know what Adam and Eve eventually did. We know that at some point they both violated the command against choosing evil. But we also know that prior to their spiritual fall, Adam and Eve spent an undetermined age in perfect purity and union with the Lord, a time in which they continually chose correctly. It was their time of obedience, and thus, innocence.
The Word of God says that Adam and Eve were made in His image. God had created two people who were like He was, with the ability to choose as He did, and thus with a completely free will. He had granted them the ability to make their own choices.
They were thus not robots. Robots, no matter the level of sophistication, are programmed. They are built and programmed by a higher intelligence. Human beings, as the creators of robots, continue to make them as “intelligent” as possible. But regardless of appearances, robots will forever be the result of programming—robots cannot possess free will.
Even so, people who think deeply about such things have long speculated about the possibility of robots eventually gaining the upper hand and becoming so intelligent and pervasive they will somehow take over. After a century or so of such speculation, of predicting the future, and of science-fiction writers coming up with all manner of end results regarding the subject, we can now fully appreciate just how far-thinking many of them were. Most people back then never believed our present was possible and had very little to do with its arrival.
And this is the problem with humanity. People in general have a strong tendency to remain with the tried and true and traditional, to remain in their zones of comfort, to lasso life to their liking and drive it into a small and crude corral. In this they can control their lives, as rudimentary and small as they are.
Now, in their defense, there are certainly good traditional things to establish and limits one knows will cause great problems if transgressed. There is a reason the ancient Greek writer Hesiod penned the tale of Pandora’s Box (actually a jar), in which all the evils of the world were contained. As long as the large jar remained unopened all would be okay. For those who have not heard of the story, it’s not hard to figure out the ending.
This is why some people insist on a low level of progress or none at all. They fear the bad consequences of wrong choices. They see the terrible results of sin in the world and some human beings becoming total idiots as a result of stupid choices. They know well that stupid is as stupid does and would rather do nothing regarding progress for fear of doing something wrong.
They’ve also seen much “progress” that was not progress at all, but the opposite. Thus, they’re content with less instead of risking an advance toward better things and possibly upsetting their small gains. Fear of failure has shanghaied their necessary discipleship, progress, and advancement.
In their effort to stay a million miles away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they also stay a million miles away from the Tree of Life.
© 2014 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [To Be Continued.]
