How an Atheist Mocks the Bible

How fortunate I was to enjoy a warm, sunny day for my birthday earlier in the week. Smack in the middle of September and just a few days before the Autumn Equinox. Officially, it's still Summer. Yet so far, September has proven to be more summerlike than August here in the UK, the latter with its daily overcast sky and almost cool enough to turn on the central heating. 

And so, a trip to London to visit a very unusual shop located right in the heart of the city, a privately-owned business, London Fossils Ltd, just behind the British Museum. Here, I bought two rather outstanding fossils to add to our four smaller specimens already at our home display.

Our Home Fossil Display, taken Sept 2021.

Perhaps, the best one of the six on display is the superb preservation of a petrified Trilobite. The specimen is exactly 7 cm long and 2.7 cm across the widest part of its head. I would say that its overall length is roughly half of a fully-grown fossil Trilobite I have seen on display at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. I try to imagine it when alive. Quite likely, it was fully submerged in the mud of the shallow ocean floor, and with a higher likelihood to escape the attention of predators and - had it survived to this day - also escape the attention of scuba divers.

According to the Palaeontologist, the Evolutionist, and the Historical Geologist, the Trilobite is classed as an Index Fossil, and it thrived throughout the entire Paleozoic Era, a duration of 300,000,000 years between 500,000,000 and 200,000,000 years ago. The Trilobite marks the beginning of the Cambrian Period, and it survived through the Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, and the Pennsylvanian periods - only to die off during the Permian Period.* Bad luck for the Trilobite, as it did not survive long enough to appreciate the rise of the wonderful coral reefs which started to form during the Permian Period of the Geological Age! To be fair, 300,000,000 years is a long time for the species to thrive, and even over such a long span, if you place the youngest fossil next to the earliest specimen, both would look exactly the same. Indeed, the Trilobite seems to have shown hardly any signs of "evolution in action."

Along with the two Trilobite fossils, I also have one complete fully petrified remain of an Ammonite Dactylioceras, along with what looks to be a petrified mud bed with many broken Ammonite coils piled on it. It's a shame that all the shells are broken. Had they remained intact, the fossil would have looked beautiful - almost artificial.

When I was a teenager, I had an interest in fossils. I was also an atheist and a very keen evolutionist. Even then, I instinctively knew that I couldn't reconcile my love of Science with Religion. It was during my adolescence was when I hated anything to do with the church. As a Roman Catholic, I found God to be quite distant and unapproachable! How could I believe that God loves me if all he does is keep a record of my sins - unless I go to confess to a priest, take Holy Communion every Sunday and on every holy day, and do penance whenever I'm called to carry it out. Or else it would be an eternity of unbearable suffering in Hell if I were to die with even just one mortal sin in my spirit. I realised that I could be a devoted Catholic all my life - and still end up in Hell! When the priest once tried to reassure me that God loves me despite my sins, I was unable to believe it. I just couldn't see myself going to church every week for the rest of my life.

Therefore, in a way, I subconsciously perceived God as an uncaring father-figure and Science as an all-embracing mother - a comforting female deity from whom I can expand my knowledge and the pride that comes with it, to give me something to live for, and to build enthusiasm for, a reason for living. For me to look around at the natural world and marvel at how everything, including us, had gotten here by chance, the amoeba-to-man progress spanning billions of years, and wondering how our distant descendants may look like and behave. As such, fossils played a role here, and during school breaks, I used to examine each of the many pebbles placed around the perimeter of the playground to drain away rainwater. Very rarely, an imprint of a scallop shell appeared on a stone picked up at random, which I took home and added to my measly collection. 

I had never kept the original collection for long. Maybe, with tiny, insignificant-looking fossils, I eventually scattered the stones across our back garden flowerbeds (discreetly!) Perhaps, it was just as well that, back in the sixties and early seventies, the Internet hadn't yet existed. Had it, chances were I would never have become a Christian towards the end of 1972. I can now click on a video made by a former Jehovah's Witness turned Atheist. Had he been around more than half a century earlier, I would have continued to laugh with scorn at religion by following his lead that the Bible teaches a flat, disk-like Earth, supported by enormous pillars and covered with a solid dome. 

Taught in the Bible?

After just six days after publishing his video on YouTube, ex-JW Harrison Cother had collected 17,000 views on that video alone, out of the 1,748,000 total views on all his mere eleven videos he began posting on YouTube since the end of January 2021. In his latest video, he insists that the Bible teaches a flat Earth.

Using Scripture verses such as 1 Samuel 2:8; Job 9:6, Job 26:7-10; Job 37:18; Psalm 75:3; Psalm 93:1; Psalm 104:5; Psalm 148:3-6; Isaiah 40:22 - this YouTuber sets out to prove that the Bible teaches the Earth as a flat disk covered by a solid dome, or the firmament, on which the "waters above" still fully submerging the outside of the dome, according to Psalm 148:4. Although by checking out all the other verses and seeing that they're all poetic, with Psalm 148:4, he relates this to Genesis 1:6-8 - the initial Creation of the firmament dividing the waters above from the waters below, as factual history, and this water above the firmament is still there, according to the Psalmist, and therefore, never collapsed during the Flood, believed by many Christians and theologians as the source of "the windows of heaven opened" - of Genesis 7:11.

Also, that the Earth is firm and immovable, according to the YouTuber's interpretation of the Bible. By using Psalm 104:5 as a proof text, Harrison Cother then insists that 1 Samuel 2:8 (KJV) and Job 9:6 teaches that the flat Earth rests on pillars as its foundations. Also, he mocks at the Christian's attempt to read the flat, disk-like circle as a sphere in Isaiah 40:22. A thought crossed my mind. Indeed, if he's referring to looking directly at the disk at a 90-degree angle perpendicular to it, would he be actually looking at a hemisphere - if the flat Earth has a dome over it? Surely, to the uninformed observer, he'll be looking at a sphere and not at a flat disk. Yet, as a child, I thought that both the sun - seen through the thin cloud - and the moon were flat disks. How would I know they were spheres unless I was taught that they were?

Anyone watching this video would be thoroughly convinced that the Bible is so unscientific, that it's laughed at to the level of derision if used as a science guidebook. For example, how can the Earth be "firm on its foundations and immovable" when it actually whizzes around the sun at 107,208 km/hour, or 66,616 mph, and rotates at 1,670 km/hour, or 1,037 mph at the Equator? Little wonder that it takes just one atheist to mock the Bible, and the rest of the unbelieving world laughs with him.

As for the fossils, they could either testify for my faith or against it. For example, the rock strata at the Grand Canyon. They're all water-laid deposits that hardened into rock. Geologists say that each layer was gradually formed in a shallow sea, lake or river. Any thoughts about a widespread or a universal Flood is looked upon with contempt. It is as if the scientific world is hostile towards God and His Biblical testimony.

This hostility towards God by secular scientists, I think, has placed many Christian graduates in a very awkward position. I, for one, refuse to feel embarrassed and I will confess my allegiance to Biblical truth. The most likely outcome to this is to be ignored, to be brushed aside. However, throughout the seventies and eighties, I met and associated with many Christian graduates who solved the problem by embracing Theistic Evolution. It's their attempt to compromise and to look acceptable in a scientific world and not face ridicule.

But I have nothing to worry about. Nor do I need to fear the mocker. I don't have to defend the Bible either. Rather, the Bible defends itself. Anyone who reads the above verses - and many others found in Scripture - can see that much of it is poetry. It seems as if the writers had deliberately put it that way so the reader, who did not possess the scientific knowledge in the same way we do, yet can still understand that the natural world he lived in was created by God for Man to inhabit. And man was originally created for intimacy with God. God had inspired the writing of the Bible as a revelation on how a sinful man can be reconciled to a holy God and enjoy eternity with Him.

One example is the criticism made by Sam Harris in his book, Letter to a Christian Nation, concerning the measurement of a circular bath installed by King Solomon near the newly-built Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 7:23.) According to Harris, this ratio of Pi is the worst and the most inappropriate approximation even in ancient times. The Babylonians can do a far better job in calculating Pi than the Israelites did, and thus proves his point in the way the Bible deals with maths.

But such criticism isn't necessary. The Bible is not a science book. It was never meant to be a book on science. Rather, it's a revelation on who God is and why we are separate from Him through sin, and through faith, we can be reconciled to God in Jesus Christ, who was crucified, buried, and three days later rose physically from the dead. And He gives eternal life to everyone who believes.

And the origin of fossils? Even the Bible gives a scientific explanation for that.

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*John C. Whitcombe Jr. and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, 1961, nineteenth printing, 1975. Baker Books. Page 133. The figures detailed here are American numerics.

1,655 Years of Fascinating History

Dr Andrew Milnthorpe and I boarded a train at our home station in Bracknell for London specifically to visit the London Transport Museum, as trains, in particular, are his speciality. Taking after his father, who can give the name to any insignificant-looking carriage used so nonchalantly by both daily commuters and leisure travellers alike, along with locomotives of both past and present, their love of trains certainly runs in the family.

Therefore, during a chance meeting with Andrew at our local swimming pool - he was about to begin his swimming session just as I finished mine, I suggested visiting the Transport Museum during the following Bank Holiday weekend, after asking me if there's anywhere we can go to together. I watched as his countenance breaking into joy at my suggestion. I knew that I have struck the right note.

And so we spent a good part of the day together at the London Transport Museum, where displays of maps of the developing railway network around London was of greater interest than the trains themselves, although sitting inside an antiquated carriage was intriguing in itself, even if the carriage did not pull out, as my subconscious was expecting, to begin its journey. 

Victorian ladies cabin, London Transport Museum.

The London Transport Museum was by no means the only museum we have visited. Andrew, Alex and I have also visited the British Museum in Bloomsbury, and also the two Natural History Museums, the famous one in South Kensington and the smaller one in Oxford. We also spent a few hours at the Science Museum, next door to the Natural History in London, and some time in the Museum of London located at the redeveloped Barbican district. Just to add here that some years ago, Alex and I spent the day at the Victoria & Albert Museum, also in South Kensington.

So really, what is the museum all about? Isn't it a collection of artefacts made by humans going back thousands of years? And this includes the development of technology, so featured in both the Science Museum and the London Transport Museum. It's all educational, allowing the student to learn something without the keen eye of the teacher wielding a cane, therefore, the museum is often the venue for school trips, at times seen as a treat, instead of being confined to a classroom.

Of course, the collection can be very interesting, intriguing even, or it could be downright boring. It really all depends on individual interest. As for me, I can gaze at a map of the London railway network as it was before the War, for quite a long time, while someone else would walk straight past it, and go for the Victorian ladies dress and men's fashion for that period - the kind of exhibit I would have walked straight past as I ponder on the former possibility for a train to travel from Southampton to Dover via London Waterloo without the need to reverse!

As for Natural History, going by what I have seen over the years, this seems to enjoy universal popularity. Add a computer to the exhibit where the public can play an educational game, and I have seen queues of families with their kids all waiting to have their turn on the computer. As for me, I had my time on these computers, especially in the Natural History Museum in London. All I had to do was turn up during a normal working day during school term, and most of the computers were free and waiting for the next participant. Back then, I even tested the integrity of one device by teasingly pressing the same key when various questions were presented. When a text akin to the words:

You are just messing around. Leave, and let the next person play the game...

appeared, indeed, I felt rebuked, thus demonstrating the programmer's foresight of those who just want to mess around and will not take their learning more seriously.

Perhaps I may have had a point about my messing around. It was in the Evolution gallery, where at that time the statue of Charles Darwin dominated from one corner before it was moved to its present site, which now dominates the cathedral-like main gallery. The computer game was that of Natural Selection demonstrated on two groups of mice, one group dark-skinned the other group light. With the elimination of one group living in an unsuitable environment and thus subject to predation, if anything, this seems to go against evolution rather than support it.

However, it was only last year, accompanied by Alex and Andrew, when, on one sunny Bank Holiday Monday, we visited the Oxford Museum of Natural History. No computers here, nor Darwin's statue, this was an excellent collection of animal skeletons, both extinct and living species. Alongside were displays of fossil marine life, stretching from the Cambrian to more recent periods.

Fossils are fascinating, to me at least. This is where such a vivid demonstration of Noah's Flood is so fervently displayed. These are all features of suffering and death and seems so unlike that of an evolutionary scale where suffering and death are seen as a necessity in organism development. As more and more fossils are discovered, including those of species never seen before, I get the impression that God is trying to tell us something, yet we don't want to hear it, but instead deliberately stick our fingers in our ears to ensure that the truth never settles in our minds.

If only, yes, if only...

If only a bed containing mixed fossils were discovered. Here I'm referring to the Cambrian Trilobite, a fossil of a Coelacanth (a living fossil), several skeletons of Dinosaurs including a Plesiosaur, a Triceratops and a Tyrannosaur. And on the same rock strata and quite nearby, or better still, partially superimposed on the other skeletons, is that of a horse, a domestic cat, and a couple of fully-evolved modern humans. And in the hand of one of the human skeletons, there appears to be what looks like some kind of scientific wizardry, a gadget which features a delicately-cut crystal. And the tail of the trilobite is actually resting on the gadget! What a sensation such a find would bring! Indeed, the whole of the academic world would be left shattered!

Actually, according to one source,* a fossil trail of both dinosaur and human footprints, along with raindrop splash marks, have already been discovered on an ancient Paluxy River bed, near Glen Rose Texas, the rock on which those tracks were found were from the Cretaceous Period, some 100,000,000 years old, the preservation of such footprints indicating a rapid change of the environment enabling such prints to remain preserved. Furthermore, on sites stretching from Virginia and Pennsylvania, through Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and westwards towards the Rocky Mountains, what appears to be human footprints have been found in rocks of the Paleozoic Era (which includes the Devonian and Silurian rock strata) supposedly to be around 250,000,000 years old!

Paluxy River bed, Texas.

The Paluxy River has also revealed giant human footprints, an astonishing phenomenon which suggests the existence of the Nephilim, or giants, of Genesis 6:4. Very similar giant footprints have been found also in Arizona, and near Mt Whitney in California.

 Human footprints testify of "giants in the earth in those days."

It was 1970s geologist Albert C. Ingalls who wrote, concerning these finds:

If man, or even his ape ancestor, or even that ape ancestor's early mammalian ancestor, existed as far back as in the Carboniferous Period in any shape, then the whole science of geology is so completely wrong that all of the geologists will resign their jobs and take up truck driving. Hence for the present at least, science rejects the attractive explanation that man made these mysterious prints in the mud of the Carboniferous Period with his feet.**

Science has rejected these finds as fake news, whether the footprints were made by some undiscovered reptilian species, or whether the human or dinosaur footprints were some elaborate carving, or even if the mud surrounding the human footprint had collapsed into a print made by some other animal and partially filled to form a human print. What I find amazing is how respected scientists would go to extreme lengths to deny the truthfulness of the Biblical record!

I find this so sad. Much of that was because of the Lord himself, back in 1973, gave me the option either to believe the Scriptural record or believe in evolution, with no in-betweens. Without hesitation, I chose the former. But since then, I have developed a fascination with the first 1,655 years of human history within the Scriptural frame. That is the time from the creation of our first parents to the Flood of Noah, the antediluvian world.

What was my present home location like as before the Flood? Was it a jungle inhabited by a wide diversity of species, including dinosaurs? Could my part of the world lay below the antediluvian sea, with great beasts such as the ichthyosaur and the long-necked plesiosaur gliding overhead through the primaeval ocean? Or could my area have been part of a city with highly-developed communication systems and technology? It's this last bit which I find so elusive. As one archaeologist once wrote:

The ancient Egyptians must have had wireless. We've been digging here for years and we have not found a single wire.

This is a referral against Erich von Daniken's book Chariots of the Gods? which this writer advocated the invasion of a super space-civilization to our planet around 40,000 years ago, who then tinkered with the DNA of a group of apes to kick-start their evolution towards homo sapiens. I have read the book after I was lent to me by a work colleague in 1975 after he was convinced that the visions the prophet Ezekiel saw was actually a helicopter, and the tabernacle Moses had built was a gigantic radio transmitter!

I never took Erich von Daniken with any seriousness in the way my friend did, but by reading in the Bible about the tremendous longevity these pre-Flood people lived, which is not far below a thousand years, I can imagine how rapid they may have gained scientific knowledge over the course of time, and may even lay down the foundations of the fabulous Atlantis of Plato's fables. Therefore, I find it a pity that no evidence of such advanced civilisation has never been unearthed, or for that matter, discovered deep under the ocean. Considering how wicked the antediluvians were, it comes to me as no surprise that the bodies of every human being were sucked down to the depths of the ocean and destroyed altogether, and every artefact and every building were atomised in the violent torrents of the floodwaters.

But how the landscape might have looked, and how tremendously beautiful the land might have been, I can only imagine, along with a global tropical climate under constantly cloudless skies, with the brilliant multitude of stars shining by night. And all that despite that the ground was cursed because of the entrance of sin.

Fantasy image of the sunken Atlantis.

And yet, it was by no means a safe place to live. Life was made very cheap. Also, an extraordinary phenomenon was taking place at the time. The angelic sons of God were abandoning their place in heaven to marry the beautiful daughters of men (Genesis 6:1-4). The robbing of the wives from their human husbands might have stirred horrific violence from jealousy, rage and hatred. As a result of such an unholy union, babies with only half-human genome were born and grew up to be giants, famous men, men of renown. These guys were unredeemable, not having a full human DNA from both human father and mother. Unless the Flood came, the Messianic Line from Adam to Christ could have been ineffective or severed, having been polluted with a non-human genome.

Other than destroying a wicked, corrupt human race, the Flood played its role in the redemption of mankind by preserving the Messianic Line from genetic contamination. After the Flood, this angelic-human copulation was no longer permitted by God, thus demonstrating yet again God's love for us and his willingness to save everyone who comes to Christ through faith. 

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*John C. Whitcombe Jr and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, Baker, 1969, 1975.

**Albert C. Ingalls "The Carboniferous Mystery" vol. 162, Scientific American, January 1940, p.14, and quoted in the above book.

Mentoring? Yes, That is Good.

Without a shadow of of a doubt, the Internet has opened up a new world previously hidden from our private lives. And especially You-Tube. And after spending several years browsing through many of the website's numerous videos, by chance I came across one particular channel, and soon after, I became a subscriber of one young atheistic student with remarkable knowledge and insight for one still a teenager, despite that he still has yet to attend university. He has my head spinning despite him being young enough to be my grandson. Okay, his name is Alexander J. O'Connor, bearing the stage name of Cosmic Skeptic. 

Alexander J. O'Connor

Together with his high level of knowledge, whilst on air I found him to be reasonably humble. He does not slag off the ordinary Christian believer. Rather, he respects his beliefs. Rather he aims his guns at the "Big Shots" - the better-known evangelists and televangelists for debunking Science and advocating Supernatural Creationism, especially to a wide audience with their intention to "enslave the minds of young children to religious ignorance and from the wonders of Scientific facts." The "Scientific facts" referred to here are to do with Historical Geology and Darwinian Evolution, a rather small section of General Science, which also includes man-invented contrasts such as between civic engineering and watchmaking, along with chemistry, medicine, thermodynamics, computers, navigation, meteorology, astrology, magnetism, the elements (atoms, molecules, etc.), acoustics, optics, oceanography, volcanic and seismic sciences, plate tectonics, along with many other branches, all growing out of the three most important boughs of the Scientific tree-trunk - Physical Science, Life Science, and Earth Science. Even Physical Science itself has three branches - Physics, Chemistry, and Astronomy. Therefore in such a vast array, Darwinism occupies only a small branch, yet this small branch of science is taken to mean the whole of Science versus Divine Creation.

As a UK resident (Oxford, I believe) he had recently flown to California upon an invitation to make a thirty-minute presentation to an audience at a conference centre, followed by a further thirty minutes of questions from his listeners. And so there he was, a British teenager dressed in an open neck shirt without a tie, most likely the youngest presenter the centre has ever hosted. Yet possessing the knack and ability to challenge the older, more experienced, smart-suited televangelist whose motives sometimes comes over as more financial rather than spiritual or Gospel-centred. His presentation was about why he favoured science and atheism above creationism-based religion. And that includes all religions, not just fundamental Christianity.

There at first seems to be a vast chasm between this lad and myself when I was his age. Where he had accumulated such knowledge for his age I cannot be sure, but one thing I am aware of. That is if I was born around the year 2000, give or take, and happen to live next door, he would be a towering giant in the intellectual sense by comparison to myself, a dwarf. Yet we both have very similar backgrounds. We both grew up as Roman Catholics and by the time we have reached teenage years, we both had become disillusioned with religion. Perhaps his definition of an atheist is more true to himself than it was for me. Because during my teenage years I actually hated God and everything to do with religion, namely the churches. And whether the same applies to O'Connor, that's not for me to say. But there is one area he himself had brought to attention: And that during his presentation, he admitted that he has a fear of Hell, after watching videos of lost souls of people being tormented by the Devil and his minions after their deaths, leaving him with the awareness of the possibility of its existence.

That is not a good position to be in. Such videos can strike fear into those who watch them, and does not generate admiration or worship to God at all. I strongly advice not to watch these videos at all because these videos does not edify, nor does it draw the one who is watching closer to God. In fact, I actually believe that he who watches such videos will doubt the love of God rather than emphasise it. I know. When prompts for such videos had appeared on You-Tube, out of curiosity I clicked to view - with regret. I was left trembling with fear myself, even if I was a true believer in Christ myself for many years. The cause of such fear? Several factors:

a) The awful truth that had it not been for the atonement itself made by Jesus Christ on the cross, then I'll end up in Hell myself, making every achievement accomplished completely pointless. This leads to,
b) Dread of my beloved wife suffering unending torment in Hell herself. I just could not bear such a thought.
c) The cruel reality of the creation of all mankind by God if his destiny is eternal torment after death.
d) Whenever I'm out and about, watching people going about their daily business, including families with babies and young children, then pondering on their eternal destiny.
e) Considering whether I was "lucky" to have been born in a "Christian Country". What chances of Heaven is there if I had been born in a non-Christian country, such as in Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, or other pagan lands? And what about those who are Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, or involved in some other para-faith heresy? And all showing devotion to their particular religion?

And so Alexander J. O'Connor and I have basically the same religious upbringing - adhesion to the Roman Catholic faith. And both of us put off by it. Of course, I cannot see into O'Connor's mind. But I can see into my own. And this is what I have seen:

That the Roman Catholic Church has based its soteriology on a bad translation of their Latin Vulgate Bible. Where I'm referring to is the Greek word for Repent, found in the New Testament. The actual Greek word is Metaneo - a change of mind. The Latin words for change of mind is Mutatio Animi. But the Latin Vulgate Bible, upon which the whole of Roman Catholic theology is built, instead has the Latin word Paenitentia, now translated Repent in the English New Testament. But this Latin word does not mean merely a change of mind. Rather it indicates a seeking for forgiveness of sin by means of specific works, including set prayers. The Church of Rome has a sacrament essential for this way of salvation - Penance.

So if the life of a devoted Catholic is to mind carefully not to sin, go to Mass every Sunday and holy days, confess to a priest at least once a year, and do the penance set by the priest - any trip up, a fall into sin - especially of a severe kind - then it is Hell. One can be a devoted Catholic for an entire life, but still end up in Hell after committing a last minute sin immediately before death. Then we wonder why we either devote ourselves to the Virgin Mary as intercessor between us and God, or to actually hate God or to deny his existence.

And at the age of twenty years of age was when I was told about salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone. It was then when I believed that I was "born from above" acquitted from all sin, a new creation, and became an adopted son of God. The entire transition from death to life was wholly forensic. That is, the act was carried out in the heavenly Court, without any works done on my part.

A forensic judgement of sin might have been made from above. That is a fact, but this does not necessarily mean the reality of it in day-to-day living. Rather, a confusion soon arose in my mind on why there seem to be a conflict between my new faith and that of my former faith. Then to add to the confusion, a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses came to our door and started to debunk the genuineness of both Roman Catholicism and my new faith in Jesus Christ alone, with their insistence that unless I become one of them, I would not receive eternal life at all. What a confusion! However their denial of the reality of the Holy Trinity had quickly made me decide that I will never become one of them, but that did not stop the ongoing debate. Thus, so soon after conversion, I came to realise that there are different facets of Christianity, and all disagreeing with each other as well as each group insisting that they are the ones who are doing the will of God and they alone will inherit eternal life.

To believe in the free gift of eternal life given to the sinner by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone was incredibly difficult for one who grew up believing that salvation is to be earned. Believe me, it took years for me to undo everything I have learnt. And added to this was the idea that eternal life was something earned by holding specific doctrines and belonging to a specific group. There we go again. Eternal life earned, not giving freely as a gift. Hence the intensifying of the confusion, and drifting along a shoreless ocean like a rudderless ship. What I needed was a mentor. And a mentor I accepted. But not in person, for he lived across the Atlantic, but instead, through his writings.

Thus shortly after conversion, I became aware of a large Christian bookshop just opposite St. Paul's Cathedral in Central London. I began to go there every Saturday afternoon to look for anything that would build up my faith and to learn more about different faiths and why they believe their creeds. It was not long before I came across a rather thick book which bore the title: False Doctrines Answered from the Scriptures, by Dr. John R. Rice, D.D., Litt. D. (who died by the end of the 1970's). The very first multi-chapter section dealt with The Errors of Romanism, together with Jehovah's Witnesses and many other groups which had skewed from Biblical orthodoxy. Gradually the picture became clear. However, Dr Rice was an advocate of Eternal Security of the Believer, or as we now refer to as Once Saved Always Saved. Dr. Rice advocated this truth with a passion, something that would have beneficial effects for the rest of my life.

More than a decade later, I became acquainted with someone who had some books he no longer wanted. So he asked if I can have them, and he gave them to me freely. These books were each written by the late Dave Hunt, founder and former head of The Berean Society, whose aim was always to check teachings and sermons with Holy Scripture. I have four of his books, three of them had made an impact on my Christian life. They were:

1. How Close Are We? - Examines how the life of Jesus Christ here on Earth fulfilling Old Testament prophecy right up to the Crucifixion, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension. Therefore the author was able to focus of the imminent return of Jesus Christ without setting any dates.

2. The Cup of Trembling - Concerning the present city of Jerusalem and the ongoing fight for governance between the Jews, the Palestinians, and even by the Vatican. Details the Abrahamic Covenant and how this effects both the Jews and the Arabs and their ancestors.

3. A Woman Rides the Beast -  A detailed history, doctrines and customs of the Roman Catholic Church going back to Constantine and beyond.

These three books all had an impact on my Christian life, something which might have been the motive behind the vision I received in October 1992 to visit Jerusalem and to pray over the city, which I did in 1993. His fourth book, Global Peace, I did not find so inspiring, but that did not hold me back from accepting Dave Hunt as my second mentor. Hunt, like Rice, was also an advocate of Eternal Security of the Believer.

But I did not want to be too reliant on my mentors to believe in Once Saved Always Saved, especially after facing challenges against it from fellow church members and itinerant preachers alike. And getting stuck into the Bible was what I needed. To let the Bible speak for itself. So by persisting reading of Holy Scripture, I have discovered for myself that of the three characteristics of God - Omnipresent, Omniscient, and Omnipotent - all three revealed in Psalm 139 for example - Omniscience had struck me as the most supportive characteristic for Once Saved, even if the other two played a role as well. Other Old Testament chapters such as Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and Zechariah 11:12-13, along with a great many prophecies foretelling the life of Jesus Christ are such revelations of Omniscience! And concerning us believers, God first foreknew, then he predestined, then he called us, and we are yet to receive glory (Romans 8:29-39, Ephesians, chapters 1-2.) Jesus himself promised eternal security, especially in the Gospel of John chapters 6, 10, and 17. It is even "hidden" in some of the parables spoken by Jesus, for example, the Parable of the Wheat and Tares (Matthew 13:24-32) - which indicates that although tares remain as tares, it is also true that wheat remain as wheat, which being a species in itself, does not turn into tares. Then following is the parable of the Yeast (v.33) where a woman mixes yeast into the unbaked dough which not only leavens the dough, but the yeast (which I believe represents the Holy Spirit) cannot be separated again. Hints of Eternal security.

However, reading prophecy - and there are tons of it in the Old Testament - not only from Isaiah to Malachi, but in the Psalms, and in other parts of the Old Testament too, not only foretells the coming of the Messiah but the restoration of Israel as a sovereign State after 2,500 years of none existence (the last of its sovereignty was wiped out with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC) yet around 700 BC, Isaiah asked, "Who has seen such things? Who has heard of such things? Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be born at once?" (Isaiah 66:8).

Yes it can and it did. It took place on May 14th, 1948. That was the day the British Mandate lowered its flag, and the Israel flag was hoisted up in its place. It was the one day Israel once more became a sovereign nation, just as Isaiah prophesied! And I had the privilege to walk the streets of Jerusalem after Israel became a sovereign nation, and I was able to see for myself the revival of its Jewish customs. And like a young sapling of a tree, at first I needed a mentor just as the sapling needed a stick to help support it. But as the sapling puts down its roots deep into the ground, so likewise, as I rooted myself firmly into the Bible, I was no longer in need a mentor, neither does the tree. Instead, I'm ready to mentor somebody else, just as the tree is ready to bear its fruit.

Flag of Israel

The Bible may be a book of fables in the eyes of Alexander O'Connor, but with a large section of prophecy, many already fulfilled to startling accuracy, no other religious book can hold a candle to the verity of Holy Scripture.

Christians - With Lower Intelligence?

It was early Sunday morning of last week, just a few hours after publishing my last blog, that an article making news headlines from the bedside radio shook me fully awake from my dawn snooze. Its BBC newscaster passing on the thrilling revelation that scientific research done in Finland has revealed that religious people have in general a lower intelligence quotient than non-religious people.

My first instinctive response to such a revelation was: Don't be so stupid! This was followed by: From where did these scientists get such evidence from to support their conclusions? After further thinking, and recollection of all the Bible teachings I have received, both from books and orally from the pulpit, had afterwards led me to conclude: Maybe theses Finnish scientists have a point after all! 

Then I had this visual imagination of Richard Dawkins, author of his popular book, The God Delusion, grinning from ear to ear in smug satisfaction, while in the USA, if the same revelation from Finland was broadcast across the Atlantic, neuroscientist Sam Harris would revel in his victory after declaring in his little book, Letter to a Christian Nation, that the whole of the United States, as he wrote:

Among developed nations, America stands alone in these convictions. Indeed, I am painfully aware that my country now appears, as at no other time in her history, like a lumbering, bellicose, dim-witted giant. Anyone who cares about the fate of civilization would do well to recognise that the combination of great power and great stupidity is simply terrifying, even to one's friends.

Neuroscientist Sam Harris.

Despite what my brothers and sisters in my own church would think by reading this, I have also come to the conclusion that the opinions of both Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are not far from the truth. Let's face it: where scientists over the decades, even centuries, had researched all evidence and recorded such results in volumes seldom available to the public, if a discrepancy occurred, these researchers would quietly go back to the drawing board and start over again, or to redirect their conclusions if such new evidence were to fit in their previous results. Laboratories exist to put a theory to the test, to see whether practical experimentation upheld or denied a given theory. But when it comes to religion, different groups holding different beliefs continue to fight against each other, with each side refusing to give in to the other.

And that applies within the Christian faith itself, that particular religion both Dawkins and Harris were really aiming at, along with the late Christopher Hitchens with his book, God Is Not Great. These authors were aiming their arrows at Christianity, even if Islam and other religions had a mention in these books as well. Among this in-fighting within Christendom, Scripture quotes from the Bible are thrown at each other, very much like what children do at a snowball fight in the school playground, except that these quotes are hurled with anger, where in the playground, the motivation behind each snowball flight would be fun, maybe with an edge of teasing. But seldom, if any, of hatred.

Little wonder that with such a testimony, scientists up north in Finland has concluded that we who have a faith also have lower IQ's. Obviously, the rift between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism has never been about whether God exist as a Trinity, the Creation and Fall of mankind, the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ as Messiah, his death by Crucifixion, his Burial, and his Resurrection three days later, and his Ascension. There has never been a dispute between the two parties, whether the Church existing was started by Jesus himself, along with the Resurrection of the Dead. Nor has there been any dispute whether the Bible is the Word of God. In all these key doctrines, both Rome and the Reformers fully agree with them all. The rift between these two has to do with how a sinful person is redeemed. Is it by faith and works, as Rome insists? Or is it by faith in Christ alone, as Reformer Martin Luther taught, and as his followers teach to this day?

Perhaps all that should have been it. But instead, no. Even among Reformers there is a split whether a sinner who has faith in Jesus Christ can lose his salvation and be lost again, or whether the saved believer is an adopted son of God with the righteousness of Christ imputed into him, and therefore eternally secure. Then to add to all that, the question of whether the Biblical Young-Earth creationism should be upheld over the Darwinian concept of a very old Earth with its Evolution of Species.

In my forty plus years as a believer, I have seen it all. I have read both books written by Dawkins and Harris. And by reading these books, it was no mystery to me where they were coming from and where they were going. They were ridiculing us for believing in a vengeful God, in a Young-Earth Creation, and infighting among denominations. But with Creationism in particular, we are accused of being "willingly ignorant" of scientific facts, and therefore have restricted our intelligent learning, held in check by sincere belief in what they call laughable fantasy errors.

Our belief in Creationism is the real target for their fiery darts. These people of high intelligence and learning just don't understand how any person with a sound mind can believe in a six-day creation, when all around us, so according to them, there is evidence everywhere around us that the Earth is billions of years old. They even point to the Grand Canyon as evidence of a gradual up-building of sedimentary strata as proof of uniformitarian geology taking millions of years to achieve, before the plateau was cut through by the Colorado River in comparatively recent geological times. I have stood inside the Grand Canyon myself. And from the vantage of Plateau Point, halfway down to the River from the Rim, I couldn't help but stare at the ledges of Tonto Plateau, the southern ledge of which I was standing on. The northern series of ledges gave me every impression of being raised beaches, because that is exactly what they looked like.

Raised beaches. Does that indicate that there was a time when the Colorado River was much greater in the past than at present? Did the waters of the River lap at the beaches on both sides of the rift, where now are left suspended halfway up inside the Canyon? Maybe the aftermath of the draining away the waters of Noah's Deluge into the Pacific ocean? Dawkins and his ilk may laugh at such a suggestion, or worse, turn away, completely ignoring me as too unworthy of any discussion, a waste of his time. But does this demonstrate my ability to think and analyse the scene according to the record in the Bible? Conversely, does this make me less intelligent than the atheistic Uniformitarian Geologist who holds opinions more in line with unbelieving society? Maybe in my analysis of the Tonto Plateau, I was wrong, and to this day I may be still holding on to error. But otherwise, I would never turn away from or shun the historicity of the Bible.

North and South Tonto Plateau, Grand Canyon

And that was the problem I faced in our church, especially during the 1980's. As our town developed high-tech industry, and became a hub for computer companies to trade, it has also became a magnet for a large influx of graduates. And they began to fill our churches, no longer the exclusive club for established families and senior citizens. Instead, singles groups began to grow and flourish, particularly after the end of the Sunday evening service, when each of us met in someone's private home. Also weekend trips for singles were organised as well, with myself going on one of them around 1980.

These unmarried graduates all believed in Theistic Evolution, that is, Darwinism under the direction of God rather than out of pure chance as advocated by Charles Darwin and his followers. But none of them would embrace a literal six-day Creation as a historical fact. To them, as I saw it, taking the Biblical record in a historical sense was a slur to their IQ's and their impression to the unbelieving world around them. If this is anything to go by, there seems to be some kind of contest between acceptance of secular knowledge and faith in Holy Scripture, creating a compromise between the two views which fails to impress the secularist and the atheist. Also, such a compromise between Creation and Evolution robs the Gospel of all its power. And this form of compromise does not look as if it's confined just to the high-tech computer programmer either.

In refutation of the scientists in Finland, British members of the established clergy are usually of above average intelligence. Take for example the last three Archbishops of Canterbury. They are:

1. George Carey - April 1991-October 2002.

2. Rowan Williams - December 2002-Dec 2012.

3. Justin Welby - February 2013-Present.

George Carey attended Kings College, of the University of London, and achieved a Bachelor of Divinity before ordination. His successor, Rowan Williams, attended Christ College in Cambridge, followed by Wadham College in Oxford, and achieved a Doctor of Divinity before his ordination; while our current Archbishop, who attended the world famous Eton College, afterwards was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, and achieved a Master of Arts in Theology. It is also interesting to read that Archbishop Rowan Williams was against the teaching of Divine Creation in schools and instead, advocated the "truth" of Darwinism, and therefore this should be taught in schools without the alternative. As for the other two, we are not told of their stance in Creationism as a historical fact or whether they held to the idea of Theistic Evolution, as did the Christian graduates did back in the 1980's. But at least George Carey has testified of his conversion to Jesus Christ as a very enlightening, life-changing experience.

Archbishop Rowan Williams - Denies historicity of Creation.

Another theological "great" is, in my mind, David Pawson, now in his eighties, but according to what I have read about him, is still going strong. Pawson, unlike the three aforementioned Archbishops, is from a Methodist background, with one of his ancestors on his father's side personally knowing the founder of the denomination, John Wesley. For his Further Education, Pawson first attended Durham University, then went into further studies at Wesley House of Cambridge University to achieve a Bachelor of Arts in Theology. For the last couple of decades, Pawson wrote many books and made recordings, both read and listened to by many churches, not only in Britain, but around the western world, even as far as Australia. By browsing through one of his other books, Unlocking the Bible, he seemed unsure of the historicity of Noah's Flood being universal, having preference for John Pye Smith's Local Flood Theory, that is, the idea of the Deluge being confined to the Mesopotamian Basin. Yet indeed, Pawson, like the Archbishops, can be perceived as having higher-than-average intelligence, yet maintains his religious stance.

And I say "religious". Because Pawson, like Wesley before him, is a follower of Jacob Arminius, a 16th Century Dutch theologian who refuted Calvinism, and especially Eternal Security of the Believer. Unfortunately for Wesley and Pawson, there is a shady story about Arminius of having lied under oath in order to achieve his place in the church ministry. Throughout his life, Pawson has always been hard against Once Saved Always Saved, with his belief that such doctrine has caused most churches to compromise with the world instead of remaining devoted to God. This made him rather critical of other churches, and so in a belief that by publicly refuting Once Saved Always Saved, he could bring these churches to a closer devotion to God and personal holiness for each individual believer. In short, he uses the fear of Hell as a psychological tool to reform the churches, even expressing in his book, On the Road to Hell, that there are many Christian saints who has died in the past and are now in Hell.

The danger with such theology is that the atonement made at the cross by Jesus Christ is robbed of its power, the believer is left with the Roman Catholic concept of infused righteousness instead of imputed righteousness. The former means that the sinner himself must work to a level of righteousness before being accepted by God. The latter means that God sees us as already possessing the righteousness of Christ here and now in this life, even if we are not yet actually righteous on a daily basis. According to Pawson's teachings, not only is the Crucifixion, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ is emptied of its atoning power, but also the omniscience of God is denied. That is, God himself does not know what's going to happen next concerning each individual believer. Also denied is the omnipotence of God, his hand being too short to save completely without our help and daily co-operation. Added to this is the question whether or not every believer is an adopted child of God, begotten here and now into his family. For these reasons, I have always perceived Arminianism to be a heresy made potentially dangerous by its subtlety to being orthodox, that there are many churches and individuals who are sucked in without realisation of the danger, usually out of admiration for its scholars, advocates and teachers. I have also seen over the years that this kind of theology tend to make its advocates more critical of the churches and of each other, and more prone to be judgemental. I have experienced this kind of abuse, even to a point of hostility, by these Christians on several occasions throughout my life as a believer, along with seeing other believers who had suffered the same. And I'm not exaggerating.

So here am I, actually challenging the knowledge and intellect of someone who is perceived as far more intelligent and knowledgeable than I could ever be. Where does that place me? But a few things I am aware of: That maybe watching our discussion and acceptance of Divine Creation over Darwinism, the history of a major church split from Rome by the Reformers, and then a division within the Reformation over the eternity of our salvation - maybe these scientists in Finland were right after all.

Science Plus Faith - A Potential Mix

In 2011 my wife Alex and I spent a few hours strolling through the ruins of the Asklepeion, the remains of an ancient hospital at Kos, one of the Greek islands of the Dodecanese. The header photo on this page was taken at the Asklepeion, with Alex posing among six of the seven original Roman columns which once supported the roof of the Temple of Apollo. These columns were relatively recent, about AD 200, by comparison to the site on which they once stood, and standing once again after active restoration. Because dating back centuries BC, this hospital was the home of one of history's greatest doctors of all time - Hippocrates (c.460-370 BC.)

Bust of Hippocrates

Hippocrates has always been considered the father of medicine. One of his greatest achievements was to separate science facts from the pagan pantheon of bickering gods whose thoughts and actions determined the decisions made by men. Instead, what he did was observe the erratic behaviour of individuals and associate these behaviours with specific diseases. This idea eventually allowed him to draw up a theory that each human has four body fluids - blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. For good health, each of these fluids must be in perfect balance, according to Hippocrates. But generally, they are not in perfect balance but rather, each person has one, maybe two, dominating fluids which not only bring certain types of physical diseases, but also determine the person's behaviour, particularly in relating to others around him.

Therefore, this theory became known as the Four Humours, or Temperaments, and until recently it was used as a base tool for Psychology. This is the explanation on say; the sight of a partially filled glass. Two of the four humours would say,
"The glass is half full, let's make use of the resource we have." (Optimism.)
While the other two would lament,
"Oh dear, the glass is half empty, what will happen now?" (Pessimism.)

These are the two viewpoints over a half-filled (or empty) glass which psychologists divide personality into just two - extrovert and introvert. But Hippocrates saw that both these characteristics were divided into two sub-divisions, these creating four temperament types. One type of extrovert was people-centred. Hippocrates believed that it was warm blood which made this particular individual talkative, impulsive, very friendly and having a warm heart towards others. Thus this type of person was labelled Sanguine - meaning blood. The other type of extrovert was task oriented. He had good leadership capabilities, less talkative than the first, but very productive - but also had a quick temper and was prone to anger. Hippocrates believed that yellow bile predominated, and referred to him as Choleric - meaning anger-prone. Among the introverts, one was prone to be sad or moody most of the time, but also enjoyed the fine arts and music, and tended to be a critical perfectionist. The ancient doctor believed that black bile ruled the roost in this chap, and labelled him Melancholia - meaning prone to sadness. Finally the fourth type was observed as slow, unmotivated, always tired, and spent much of his time at rest. As such he was referred to as Phlegmatic - meaning that phlegm dominated in this person.

The Four Humours. Clockwise from upper left: Phlegmatic, Choleric, Melancholia and Sanguine.

Hippocrates referred to the fluid imbalance as the cause of various diseases, and his remedy to his patients was to rest and allow the body fluids to re-balance themselves in the effort to recover. He was one of the first to also prescribe herbal drugs to hasten the re-balance. At the Asklepeion, we were able to see the site of patient wards were the sick rested to aid recovery, as well as a counselling room where diagnoses were made.  The only feature which were absent were the operating theatres, mainly due to the culture of the day which forbade dissecting of the body to observe the human anatomy.

However, patients who had terminal illness were allowed to make peace with the god Asklepios, the son of Apollos and considered in ancient Greek folklore as the god of health and medicine. His temple was located on the upper of the three levels. Very much like the chapels found in modern hospitals.

The Asklepeion in Kos

Hippocrates was a brilliant analyst of his day, but modern science had disproved his theory of the four body fluids. However, according to Dr. S. I. McMillen in his book, None of these Diseases, (1964, final reprint 1980) this 20th Century medical doctor lists more than ninety diseases, illnesses and other infirmities brought about by excess stress and the constant over-production of adrenaline fed into the bloodstream. Normally, adrenaline is a hormone which is rapidly pumped into the bloodstream as a result of fright, or imminent danger, allowing the person for rapid action, fight or take flight. However, on the minus side, Dr. McMillen sites anger, fear and worry as the three main causes which activates the two adrenal glands, located on each kidney.  Since this is mainly an emotional issue affecting one's reaction towards an opinion, another person, group of people or a set of circumstances, its debilitating effect on one's health seems to bring a correlation between the research of Dr. McMillen and that of Hippocrates, namely that body fluids determine both behaviour and health. However, for Hippocrates to carry out his research, the major move he had to make was the departure of science from the superstitious beliefs of his day.

At present, we see science as a great benefit to our lives, especially in the area of medicine. But as I stated in my last two blogs, some disciplines of science had taken us away from faith in God and the truthfulness of the Bible. Darwinism is such one discipline. No other branch of science had enticed so many from belief and faith in God, challenging the truthfulness of the Bible. And yet, as a part in preparation of this article, I had checked some statistics. To tell the truth, I was somewhat surprised in what I have found, because according to The Guardian newspaper, printed Sunday 1st February, 2009 - the headline read:
Half of Britons do not believe in Evolution.
This headline came out close to the date of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and at the time such discussion were at its peak. With 2,060 adults questioned, the result of the survey was:
25% believe that Evolution to be definitely true.
25% believe that Evolution to be probably true.
22% believe in creation by intelligent design, with 10% believing in the Young Earth creationism.
The remaining 28% were not sure.

In response to the survey, Professor James Williams of Sussex University commented:
Creationists ask if people believe in evolution. Evolution is a theory and a fact. You accept it because of the evidence. What the creationists have done is put a cloak of pseudo-science to wrap up their religious beliefs.  Evolution is very badly taught in schools so the results of the survey don't surprise me. On the other hand, creationism has traditionally been an issue in North America and there is a big problem in Australia and Turkey. It matters if people don't understand how science works.

Agreeing with Professor Williams, an anonymous commentator added:
Well, what a seriously depressing article! I knew that the Brits were thick, but I didn't realise we were that thick...

Maybe so, but there is a strong correlation between the UK and the United States, where the latest Gallup Poll showed that up to 46% of all Americans believe in Creationism, leaving 32% believing in Theistic Evolution and the remaining 15% believing in Evolution without divine intervention. With this kind of survey result, little wonder that neuroscientist Sam Harris, in his book, Letter to a Christian Nation, (2006) the author lamented:
Indeed, I am painfully aware that my country appears, as at no other time in her history, like a lumbering, bellicose, dim-witted giant.

In writing this blog, it becomes apparent that those who protest against creationism in favour of evolution are mainly post-graduates. This is endorsed by the same Gallup Poll that amongst post-graduates, only 25% believe in creationism, compared with 46% of the rest of the population. In turn, 29% believe in evolution without divine intercession to the 15% by the general population.

This is the hostility of those holding on to science in opposition to faith. But by looking, as an example, to microbiology, it becomes apparent that it is mathematically impossible for the cell to have evolved in the Darwinian sense, a fact that evolutionists simply don't admit, although those who research genetics and such allied studies are fully aware of the impossibility for the cell to have evolved without any form of divine intervention. To read the full details of this, go to one of my blogs,
A Small Block To The Reality Of Evolution, published 26th February, 2012.

But to read how the vastly complex mechanism of the cell works to produce the intricate protein chain needed to sustain life makes fascinating reading. And this knowledge, when mixed with faith in the God who designed it, brings out my awe and admiration to the Creator of life. Science, mixed with faith in a Creator, is a wonderful blessing. Not only does science as a whole makes daily living  less harsh but brings a lot of personal comfort, it is worthwhile noting that the most complex and the most intricate device ever created is the human brain. God has given us brains to learn all about the ins and outs of his creation, and we call that science.

Faith asks why the world works in a certain way. Science asks how. And both complement each other.

A Small Block To The Reality Of Evolution

Although there is a lot to discuss here, I will try to keep this blog as short as possible
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In my last two articles, I was approached by a commentator, Bryce (I hope he doesn't mind me using his screen name here, else I would need to edit). He discredited my views on Biblical Creation when I wrote in the first of the two blogs, Our Eternal Home when I made the suggestion that man and Dinosaurs co-existed within the same time frame, rather than millions of years apart. In my second article on this subject, Answer To An Evolutionist, I gave what was a history lesson, as Bryce called it, and reminded me that I made no referral to the subject of Evolution on a biological sense. He also challenged me to mention incidents in the Bible which could not occur in real life - such as a talking snake or someone coming back from the dead. I finished my last blog with the words, In my next blog I will show something that will shatter the entire theory of Uniformitarianism, on which evolution rests. Watch this space.

As for incidents in the Bible, I will answer that because Bryce had never seen a talking snake, or for that matter, a talking donkey (Numbers 22:28-31). Neither had he ever seen someone rise from the dead. He is walking by sight, not by faith. The Bible itself tells us that faith is believing, and hoping for things not yet seen (Hebrews 11:1-2). Like the skeptics alive during Leonardo Di Vinci's day, who laughed at his suggestion that one day man will fly, and so developed a contraption with flapping wings. When the prototype of the plane fell to the ground, people turned away, shaking their heads. And who would ever thought that one day a small box would play music and sing songs without anybody inside the box or standing near it?

I ended my last blog about Uniformitarianism, because in the days of Darwin, and in the many years to follow, Lyell's Uniformitarian Geology of stratified rocks were classified by the fossils found in them. The famous "Index Fossil" - that of the Trilobite which was found in the Cambrian rock stratum, was one classic example explaining the theory of evolution. Darwin and his followers knew nothing of microbiology, the study of the cell, as the microscope was of a later development. Had he known, it would have been most likely that Darwin would have recanted on his new evolutionary theory. As such, the topic of this blog has been changed from Uniformitarian Geology to that of Microbiology, in answer to Bryce's concern. And I hope it won't be too long for the reader.

Bryce likened my Creationist views, to my mind, to that of pseudoscience, when he asked whether I really believed "with a flick of his finger, God was able to bring life into existence" and then went back on himself when realising that it was not good for Adam to be alone, without a mate, and performed an operation using anaesthetics to put him into a deep sleep. Why not just snap his fingers and - wolla! - Eve comes into existence? Why the rib? Perhaps God did know better - that woman coming out of man would result in a much more intimate relationship. Unfortunately, sin had spoiled this relationship to the point in bringing in divorce laws. But this was not originally intended.

Pseudoscience, or false knowledge. That, I believe, is how Bryce sees my views of Creationism. As total nonsense. But it can be very popular. Author Erich von Daniken had acquired a fame with his book Chariots of the Gods? (1968), still in print today. Here, von Daniken puts forth a theory that around 40,000 years ago our planet was visited by a race of super-human space gods, who allowed primitive man to see their advanced technology. Two cases of this is found in the Bible. First, von Daniken insisted that the tabernacle built by Moses was a radio transmitter through which he can communicate with the gods. That despite the fact that this transmitter was an extremely primitive construction for a race of interstellar space travelers! Then there was this helicopter, so according to von Daniken, that was seen by the prophet Ezekiel (Chapter 1). A proof without doubt that aviation existed some 600 years BC. But unfortunately, von Daniken, when introducing the concept of such an ancient helicopter, deliberately omitted the words, And I saw visions of God, found in verse 1. Visions are not to be taken as literal sights. The author here was dishonest enough to refuse to admit that the visions Ezekiel saw was of God. But von Daniken's main thrust of his argument was that the evolution of primates was deliberately tinkered with by the space travelers for Homo Sapiens to have evolved. In other words, evolution was given a boost to further human intelligence.

But von Daniken was not alone. Atheist author Arthur C. Clarke wrote in 1947 a short novel, The Sentinel. Where von Daniken's theories were propounded as science, Clarke made sure that his book was fiction. In it, about four million years ago, a group of primates saw a large black monolith appear suddenly overnight, in their midst. It was actually a highly complicated computer which not only analysed the primate's original intelligence, but also raised their intelligence to a degree that the primates were now able to use discarded bones as tools. The book was the basis of the 1968 award-winning movie by Stanley Kubrick, 2001 A Space Odyssey where here again, the evolution of primates into Homo Sapiens was given a massive boost. The only other difference to von Daniken's ideas was that where his gods arrived in spaceships which landed on Earth, Clarke's gods had long evolved out of their bodies and exist as pure energy. No spaceships were required.

Why have I gone into all this? Because as we shall see, we shall go back to it in the form of mainstream science as adhered to by Bryce and his ilk.

Now we shall look at on why organic evolution was impossible. No way could it have began in the first place.

I'm talking here about the evolution of a living cell, apparently a amoeba-like single cell organism floating in the primeval ocean. The amoeba today, has within its structure a long molecule known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) which carries the genetic code which acts as a template for the production of protein within the cell, to maintain its life. Being a single cell, the amoeba has no chromosomes in the same way as humans have, but a genophore, in which the DNA, and as such, the genetic code, is stored. The DNA is a very long double helix, or a twisted ladder, the two side chains are of sugar-phosphates. These are held together by the "rungs" of the ladder, known as bases. There are four bases, the adenine (A), the cytosine (C), the guanine (G) and the thymine (T). A, on one side of the helix, always pairs with T on the other side, thus forming a rung on the ladder, while G always pairs with C, forming another rung. Thus each rung is better known as nucleotide bases, or simply base pairs. In the amoeba, there are 290 billion nucleotide or base pairs, each arranged in a specific order for the cell to live. In humans, there are about 2.9 billion base pairs in the nucleus of each cell.

The double helix of a DNA molecule

In the nucleus of a human cell, there are 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent. Chromosome 1, for example, has 247,199,719 nucleotide base pairs, in which there are 4,220 genes. In the two sex chromosomes, the female X chromosome has 154,913,754 base pairs within are 1,846 genes. The male Y chromosome is much smaller, with just 57,741,652 base pairs, with just 454 genes. As such, in the nucleus of each cell of a female, there are 3,022,102,095 base pairs in the DNA molecule, with 31,731 active genes. In the male, there are 2,924,929,993 base pairs with 30,339 active genes in the nucleus of each cell.

The each base pairs must be arranged exactly right for the genes to function correctly. It looks to me that the genes are a far more complex version of a computer program, which have binary numeric digits as bases, a group of eight digits of "1" and "0" making a unit known as a byte. A long chain of ones and zeroes forms the code with which the computer functions properly. If there is an inconsistency in the arrangement of the binary code, the computer will crash. Likewise, if if the DNA base pairs are not arranged correctly, the cell will die.

So far, I have dealt only with the DNA, the genetic template of protein production in the cell. The whole cell is a vastly complicated structure. If I want to go on about the complexity of the cell, this would make this blog way too long. So I will post a general illustration of the function of the cell, with a brief run on its function, then go on to reason that no way evolution by chance could have ever taken place! Yet the central core of evolution by chance was taught for decades, if not centuries after Darwin's time.

Briefly, the genetic code in the DNA is copied on to the messenger RNA (or mRNA) with one of the bases - thymine -being replaced by another base, uracil. Where the DNA is a double helix, the mRNA is a single helix with a row of nucleotide bases. The genetic code is represented here in groups of three bases, known as codons. The mRNA then passes out of the nucleus of the cell, to be decoded by the ribosome. As the ribosome moves along the mRNA, this connects a chain of amino acids, the correct sequence of the amino acids being determined by the codon sequence of the mRNA. When the ribosome had completed the decoding of the mRNA, the chain of amino acid molecules fold up to become one unit of protein, also known as polypeptide. Up to 3,000 units of polypeptides are linked up to form a protein chain. Some of these polypeptide units are enzymes, which are responsible for chemical change in the body, for example, the pancreas producing the digestive enzymes lipase, protease and amylase.

Using the vastly complex cell as a yardstick, there is no way that evolution by chance could have ever taken place. For a demonstration, take the letters of the alphabet, say from a Scrabble board. There are 26 letters in the alphabet, each represented by at least one piece in the game. Take one of each letter, place in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Then carefully empty the bowl onto the floor, making a straight a line as you can. The chance of all 26 letters falling in perfect alphabetical order, including each the right side up and the right way round, is 1 in 26! - that is the factors making what is sometimes known as 26 Bang! It consists of 26 x 25 x 24 x 23 x 22 x 21 x 20... down to 2, which would give a result as one chance in 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 that all the pieces would fall in a perfect alphabetical order on the first throw. If the letters represent the genes of a cell, they must all be in the correct sequence, or the cell cannot function and it will die. Yet the genetic code in the cell can produce a protein structure consisting of up to 3,000 proteins joined together in a long chain. In turn, as already mentioned in the paragraph above, each protein consists of up to 3,000 amino acid residues folded together into precise structures and arranged in proper sequence as directed by the genetic code. With the possibility of a single cell forming by chance, without intelligent design, by means of the protein chain alone would be 1 in 9,000,000 bang! - which would give a result which the entire age of the Universe would not be able to accommodate.

For example, mathematician Sir Fred Hoyle had calculated that the odds of producing just the basic enzymes by coincidence resulted in just one chance in one, with 40,000 zeros after it. By comparison, the chance of picking just one electron out of the entire Universe is one out of one with 80 zeros after it. If every electron in the Universe in itself becomes a Universe of its own, then the odds of picking out an electron out of all these Universes is one in one with 160 zeros after it. On this, Hoyle comments:

This situation is well known to geneticists and yet nobody seems to blow the whistle decisively on the theory...
Most scientists still cling to Darwinism because of its grip on the educational system...You either have to believe in the concepts, or...be branded a heretic.
Source: From an interview by AP Correspondent George W. Cornell, quoted from Times Advocate, Escondido, California, 1982. PP. A10-11.

The Universe simply can't wait for the cell to evolve, for its sheer mathematical impossibility. But there does look to be an evolutionary saviour - extraterrestrial origin. And this is taken seriously by evolutionary scientists.

One example from outer space origins is the meteorite which fell in Murchison, in Victoria, Australia in September 28th, 1969. Because of the location on which it fell, this rock became the Murchison Meteorite.

A fragment from the Murchison Meteorite

This rock contains some amino acid molecules, and it is now become the basic clue to the evolution of the cell, particularly the amoeba. Of course, evolutionists would rather see the whole group of living cells within the meteorite, but some amino acid molecules, which is the building blocks for protein, would have to do. Although there is still an unbridgeable gap between some amino acid molecules and a fully functional living cell, it lends to a very attractive theory that some living cells might have arrived on the primeval Earth billions of years ago. It is a bit like Erich von Daniken's theory of an invading race of space travelers, the only difference was that instead of spaceships, they hitched a ride on a passing meteorite instead! But such absurdity must evolutionists rely upon - otherwise the only alternative is Biblical Creation.

Erich von Daniken pushed as fact that what we call pseudoscience. It was rejected by every mainstream scientist. Could the idea of extraterrestial invasion of cells on an ancient meteorite also be false knowledge?

Erich von Daniken may not be that alone in the scientific world after all.