Dust, Ashes, Loyalty, and Treachery.

Why are we here? I was once told that there have always been highly trained philosophers throughout history who were never able to answer that question. In a quest to leave religion out of the debate, one fellow had taken a look at a cliff-face of stratified rock layers, often containing fossils of long-dead organisms, and came up with the theory of Uniformitarianism. I know, it's one heck of a long word - and typing it in here may give an impression of being a graduate. However, the person referred was Scottish geologist Charles Lyell, who in 1837 published his book, Principles of Geology. In a nutshell, it was about his theory that the rock strata were laid down very slowly by water over millions of years.

Charles Darwin, after sailing around the world in The Beagle, finally arrived at the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, and from observing the wildlife thriving on these volcanic peaks, and taking into consideration Lyell's book, in 1859 he published his more famous book, On the Origins of  Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, normally known simply as On the Origin of Species. It was the book which changed the world and liberated society from "the horrible shackles of religion" which included giving an account to a God in heaven.

Charles Darwin

Darwin changing the world? I would go as far to say that what he had written and published has caused a hypothetical earthquake which ripples could be felt today. And the ripples, rather than fading away as in a physical quake, these are constantly intensifying, right to the point where not only the earth is shaking but the heavens too.

Strange really, on how such a book could have an effect, both directly and indirectly, upon the lives of millions. As mentioned in previous blogs, Hitler's henchmen, academics such as Dr Josef Mengele, Dr Joseph Goebbels, Dr Alfred Rosenberg and Reinhard Heydrich were all former Roman Catholics - until they entered university and became more aware of the theory of evolution by means of Natural Selection being far more "in tune with reality" than their religious faith could ever offer, and all renounced their former religion, embraced Darwinism, and allowing this to be their mindset to get behind Hitler to launch the Holocaust.*

There is something about the university as a recognised institution. It was successful in transforming former Catholics into atheists, any beliefs in Creationism into Darwin's evolution, from being potential medical carers to mass killers. Furthermore, the university seems to have the ability to transform a man into believing he is a god. Not only is this accumulation of knowledge raises the student's status towards supposed divinity, but verifies the Edenic Lie to be fully historic.

Sure enough, there are talking animals recorded in the Bible. The serpent, or snake, was one of them. It was it which made Eve reconsider God's motive in not allowing them to eat of a certain tree in the garden and then promising divinity just by eating of its fruit (Genesis 3:1-7). Then there was the case of a talking donkey ridden by the prophet Balaam, recorded in Numbers chapter 22. The prophet was so engrossed with the king's reward to curse the young nation of Israel, that an angel, invisible to the prophet, stood in front while Balaam urged the donkey on. Then in exasperation, the donkey spoke human words. What astonishes me was that Balaam took all this in his stride, as if it was an everyday occurrence, without any hint of shock or surprise! I wonder how a present-day jockey, competing at Ascot Racecourse, would react if his horse told him in plain English to ease up?

To the secularist, such divine breaches to the natural order have made the whole Bible disbelievable and far from reality. And I guess this includes the story of the Tower of Babel, recorded in Genesis 11:1-9. Here, after a few generations, the descendants of Noah grew into quite a sizable community. Although meant to spread across the Earth by God's command, instead they deliberately disobeyed, preferring to confirm their status as gods by building a city and tower "to reach unto heaven". Their pride and ambition to climb the ladder of divinity, in this case literally, was so intense, that God himself had to intervene. Indeed, the snake spoke to them at Babel, and keeps on speaking, saying the same sort of things to us, right up to this day.

And from this divided community arose one man, Abraham. Married for many years to his beautiful wife Sarah, but remaining childless, this man knew his own worth before God. He was so different from his contemporaries. Instead of thinking he could make himself divine through hard work and in trusting natural selection to raise his descendants to godhood, he thought of himself as just dust and ashes, as recorded in Genesis 18:27-28.

Abraham had a very healthy perception of himself. Because to think of himself no more than dust and ashes was an acknowledgement for the need of a Saviour. And that is why we are here. To know God, our Creator, and a Saviour to save us from our godhood-obsessed sinful natures. And that is how I want to think myself as - dust and ashes by nature, yet regenerated and transformed into a son of God, to be "a little Christ" (the correct meaning of the word Christian), and to spend all eternity in God's presence. And hand-in-hand with this is to acknowledge that every person born is the very image of God, regardless of skin colour, nationality, religion, occupation or wealth.

Creationism recognises that every person is made in the image of God. Evolution discriminates against the weak and favouring the strong and the fit in the struggle for life, allowing the weak and the unfit to perish through extinction. And that can apply to race and nationalism, too.

Charles Darwin himself acknowledged this. He actually believed that the English were the superior race, more advanced in the evolutionary scale than all other nations. His cousin, Englishman Francis Galton, redirected Darwin's evolutionary theory from general biology to social evolution, something still sticking to us up to the present.

Tower of Babel.

And so this passing week, where social evolution seems to be the underlying motive involving loyalty against treachery in the political world here in the UK. It was all about Brexit, and after months of failed negotiations with Brussels, at last, our Prime Minister, Theresa May, has come up with a deal which if passed by both Brussels and Parliament, will keep the United Kingdom united and at the same time, keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic open, without a physical barrier, which was removed after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on 10th April 1998. The deal includes the restriction on people movement - the main sticking point of the 2016 Referendum - as well as better fishing rights and freedom from the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. But the issue also involves remaining in the single market for tariff-free and borderless trading.

For example, much of our necessary medicines are manufactured in the EU and shipped here in the UK. If May's deal is passed, any threat to our medicine supply will most likely be lifted, and our supplies should continue as they always have. But if the deal falls through, and that can still happen, then it's either a No-deal Brexit, which could see our medicine supply, for example, restricted or even cut off - or no Brexit at all, therefore remaining in the EU (wishful thinking!). This is really important to us, as both my wife and I are dependent on a regular supply, in my case, for life.

Theresa May admits that her deal is far from perfect, but it is the best on offer. She spent months working hard at it, to bring it to an agreement with Brussels. When a draft agreement was made, immediately a number of Tory MP's started to write letters to the Party Chairman for the Prime Minister to be given the vote of no confidence, in other words, to oust her out from power.

One of the leading "hard-Brexiteers" who was to write such a letter was Jacob Rees-Mogg, sometimes known as the Englishman's darling. Despite May's hard efforts over the months to knock out a deal, in him, we see treachery in its worst form - campaigning to have the Prime Minister kicked out of power while she is in a vulnerable position. 

For the benefit of those who are regular readers of my blogs, I have made known my disagreements with the Conservative Party. For example, I have always been against any form of privatisation of the NHS, I was never keen on big business making big profits at the expense of its workers and its customers, I never had any time for rich, idle aristocrats or posh people, I have always been on the side of the low-income earners and their rights to benefits. I have favoured re-nationalisation of the railways, and I was even sympathetic for socialist Jeremy Corbyn in power as Prime Minister. 

But this case is different. I actually admire Theresa May for her sheer determination to get a deal through, and I admire her for her resolute stance in not giving to these hard-line Brexiteers who are in a sense, baying for her blood. And I admire her husband, Philip May. By reading on how supportive he is towards his beloved during her most difficult moments is heart-moving. And I hope, as a daughter of a vicar and both regular church-goers, they feel free to call on God's grace to empower her in her endeavour. She is going to need it!

But I cannot say the same about the treacherous Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ilk. Immediately after the deal was announced, he immediately campaigned for her to be voted out of office. He was the very first to write a letter of no-confidence. For a leader who has tried her hardest, to be kicked while she is already down is disgraceful. Yet Rees-Mogg is a practising Catholic. He claims to be a devout Christian. Like May, he too goes to church each week. Yet he does this to her. It is because of his religious and educational background that I have singled him out among hard Brexiteers.

Therefore, what has Rees-Mogg's bad behaviour to do with Darwin's evolutionary theory and its consequences? Here I take the guidance of Jesus himself:

Ye shall know them by their fruits.

Matthew 7:16 AV.

Simply this: Despite his Catholic upbringing, I also believe him to be a devout evolutionist despite that he never said this in public. By accepting Darwinism, he also accepts the biologist's idea of racial superiority, that is to say, he believes that the English are a superior nation to all other nations. Charles Darwin himself believed this. His cousin Francis Galton also believed this. therefore it's no surprise that Rees-Mogg also shares their beliefs, as it can be so clearly seen whilst in the public eye.

Having been to Eton, one of Britain's most prestigious schools, and then studied at Oxford, Rees-Mogg never leaves his house without a tie. He even takes his sons out on holiday, each dressed in suit and tie, regardless of the warm Summer weather. Therefore he constantly poses as the ideal English gentleman. And of course, very patriotic, seeking sovereignty, independence, and a hopeful future glory for England. Before now I would have passed all this off as a mere eccentric. But after his campaign to have the PM thrown out whilst in her lowest ebb - that is not eccentricity. Rather it's downright wickedness!

Jacob Rees-Mogg on holiday in New York, 2018.

And here is what I find rather distressing: There are Christians, some even in my own church at Ascot, who supports Jacob Rees-Mogg, and uphold him as a shining beacon of Brexit and the return of traditional Englishness. Furthermore, he is given full credit for his educational and social backgrounds, his patriotism, his stiff upper lip, and year-round smart dress. Indeed, with such support given by those who call themselves Christian but are really graduates, it makes me wonder how I could possibly remain one myself, identifying as being of the same faith. Then again, before now, it's quite likely that they didn't know any better.

Really, I hope their eyes are suddenly opened by the MP's act of treachery and betrayal. To add to this, I have a hope that God's mercy does pierce any veil the Church has over Rees-Mogg's eyes, and to see what his has done, and repent, afterwards letting his colleagues know of his change of mind and give that much-needed support for Theresa May and her struggle to complete a momentous task. 

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*Jerry Bergman, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, Joshua Press, 2014.  

Stephen Hawking Praises Human Effort

As with the opening ceremony of the Olympics, Alex and I watched the opening of the Paralympics, another thrilling party held at the same London 2012 stadium. The guest star of this ceremony was (now retired) Professor Stephen Hawking, of Cambridge University. Here is one brilliant mind imprisoned in a body paralysed by Amyotrophic Lateral Disease, a form of Motor Neurone Disease, first diagnosed in 1964 when he was only 22 years old, and while studying for a doctorate degree at Cambridge.

Professor Stephen Hawking

During the Paralympics, Hawking gave a speech which fitted perfectly the tremendous effort and training put in by the athletes, all with some kind of disability, whether it was an amputated limb, a birth impairment or mental disability. The professor likened the determination of the athlete to the same determination the academic had contributed to the rise and advance of scientific knowledge, with Britain itself being the chief founding nation, hence the speech delivered while the games were hosted here, making his speech so appropriate.

Britain has a lot to be proud about with its academic achievements. For example, the invention of the steam engine, leading to the mobility of the "horseless chariot" - resulting of the rise of the railways, the industrial revolution and the advance of medicine all having taken place here. Even the Internet has its origins here in the UK, as featured in the opening of the Olympics. And not forgetting two prominent scientists and authors who were to revolutionise our understanding of our origins and that of our planet itself. The first of these two was Scottish Geologist Charles Lyell, author of his book, Principles of Geology. In it, Lyell proposed a theory known as Uniformitarianism, an idea rising from his observation of the stratified rock layers, each layer laid by water over a long period of time, and the type of fossils each rock layer contained determining the age of the rock. As such, from these rock layers, the Geological Time Scale was worked out, with the earliest signs of life appearing some 2,000,000,000 years ago.

The other great scientist who was born and grew up here was none other than Charles Darwin, author of On the Origin of Species. He was the more famous of the two, and unlike that of Lyell, Darwin's name is spoken in every household, and he is upheld as Messiah of Evolution by such atheists as Richard Dawkins. Darwin based much of his research on Lyell's book, and the Theory of Evolution began to take its place in the academic world. Through these two Charlies, Britain was to play a leading role in turning people away from the truth of the Bible and the credibility of the Christian faith.

Basing his speech on our academic achievement, Hawking encouraged us to reach for the stars, so to speak, in human endeavour and effort, and never give up. Neither let any bias or prejudice from the ignorant discourage us. Primarily, his exhortation was addressed to the athletes, encouraging then never to let their disabilities hamper or to get in the way of their determination and progress. And this can be applied to all of us, particularly in schooling and higher education. If possible, why not go for the doctorate degree, like he did despite his degrading health, and reach for the stars? After all, his discipline, alongside mathematics, is on how the Universe originated, without the need for a God to get in the way of its evolution.

In short, reaching for the stars and reaching for Heaven is basically one and the same thing - by human endeavour and something to be proud of. After all, like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking is an atheist who has dismissed any possibility of an afterlife, but without Dawkins' aggressive take on this issue.

Reaching for the stars, or as in this case, the moon.

What a contrast all this is to the Gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ! The very word "salvation" itself depicts a rescue of someone by another. Sure, Hawking does have a point about academic achievement and endeavouring to train hard to win a Paralympic gold. But winning a gold medal through human effort is one thing, trying to pull himself out from the bottom of a deep pit by clutching his own hair is quite another!

Our nation, and England in particular, as I was born and grew up in England, relish on the pride of its own achievements. Being of Italian parents, therefore Italian through and through, together with a mild mental retardation as a boy, complete with an odd accent to my speech, had made it difficult for me to blend in with my fellow countrymen. Not only did I fail at school to near disaster level but I had to endure classroom and playground bullying. If I tried reporting this to the staff, the one-size-fits-all response was, "Don't tell tales!" Little wonder I had to keep all my sorrows bottled up. Bullying, mostly verbal, continued during my first years at work until I was about twenty, when I found another job as a poolside lifeguard in 1973.

The verbal abuse mainly centred around my nationality. The times my accent was mimicked, and even nicknamed "Spaghetti" or "Spaghetti face" are too numerous to count, as being called a dimwit for failing at school and "puny" for not performing at team sports. I believe that any ambition I might have had was all but destroyed.

I had, in my twenties, become antagonistic against the British social class system, which I believe, lay behind the abuse. As explained in one of my blogs, Alan Sugar at the Kerith? - even as a Christian adult, I felt an air of prejudice. And this is felt to this day. At Ascot, back in 1997, I gave a short talk touching on the Second Advent of Christ. After the service, I was told by one listener that during the discourse, a couple sitting behind was muttering on how could I know anything, I'm just a window cleaner after all. (For readers outside the UK, domestic window cleaning is a well established British trade, where the need for the ladder is off-putting to many residents, hence they are happy for someone to clean their windows for a payment, the source of income.)

At present, the son of a London professor has blocked me on Facebook, because I asked him to connect to my profile, after watching this young lad grow up, then leave our church to attend University. The reason given for the blocking, was that I disregarded Englishness in its true form and "he was uncomfortable," meaning that I showed too much affectionate emotion during his youth. I was aghast in discovering his website, that he had posted videos pertaining to the occult. With such attitudes, and there are quite a few among unbelievers displaying exactly the same attitude towards me to this day, little wonder I have a degree of delusion over our culture which is full of praise for the strong, the well-schooled, the academic, the wealthy, the sporting celebrity and the successful, yet also have a disdain towards those, like me with no deliberate fault of my own, who don't quite fit in.

Just as with the case of blind former Health Secretary David Blunkett. After reserving his seat at the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics, he was refused admission by "a jobsworth" because of his guide dog, Corby. Another seat, at a wind-swept area next to a gantry, was instead assigned to him and his dog. This was almost as bad as forty years earlier, when a pub landlord refused his admission to his bar because of the presence of his guide dog Ruby, an incident which caused sensation among newspapers the next day.

But in this blog, am I asking for pity? No, by no means! Because, the whole of this article is not about "poor little me," but how great is the love of God.

As a one-time evolutionist and a highly-strung young individual, God knew me from eternity past, long before I was even born. So my Heavenly Father knew that way back in 1973, I put faith in Jesus Christ. I have written enough here that in this world, I am a nobody, but in the eyes of God, I am a trophy of grace. All I had to do was believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I was welcomed into his family. And not an ounce of self effort, not a single penny paid towards the cost of the gift. Jesus Christ paid for my salvation, all I had to do was take it. Absolutely free. None of me, all of Jesus Christ, who loved me enough to die on the cross for me. And dare to say, that throughout my difficult first twenty years of life, God was with me all the time, from the moment of conception, waiting for me to turn to his beloved Son.

Stephen Hawking was absolutely right. The disabled athletes deserves heaps of praise for their outstanding endeavour and self effort, commitment to their training with absolute determination to overcome their disabilities. Their winning medals are well deserved and worthy of praise and my admiration.  But as for salvation, there is nothing I can do about it, but believe. God alone can rescue.

How I wish for God to rescue Stephen Hawking!

 

Answer To An Evolutionist

On the fifth of February 2012 I published on this website the article:
Our Eternal Home. In the comments thread which follows it, I received a severe rebuke from one believing in Evolution on why, as a Creationist, I disregarded the work of many scientists who devoted their lives to the work of Charles Darwin's theories. Also in that blog, I dwelt on John's vision of the New Jerusalem described in Revelation chapters 21 and 22, and using maths based on the density of the population in the UK, made a guess on how many of the saved will live within its walls. The commentator, after pointing out that I was arrogant to make such an estimation, then concluded that because there is a moderating system in place, that I would reject his contributions.

But I was willing to pass his comments for publication. The moderation system is not there to dissuade discussion. It is in place to deter advertising. Rather, if my blogging stirs controversy, first it shows that somebody is reading my contributions. Secondly, I quite enjoy a discussion! One reason being that it enables me to look deeper into the topic referred to and to brush up on any gaps in my knowledge or understanding of the subject at hand. But most important of all, that such a debate allows me to stand up for the Lord Jesus Christ and his revelation of salvation to us, such written revelations collected into one volume we call the Bible.

I take the Bible literally as the inerrant Word of God. What it says I believe and bow the knee to. Now if the Bible hints that Man and Dinosaurs co-existed within the same time frame, then who am I to say otherwise? How could I even dare make such an assumption, and in effect, calling God a liar? Yet that was exactly what this commentator was aiming at, basically sidelining my beliefs and opinions into the realm of the lunatic fringe.

But reading the first two chapters of Genesis does give a strong impression that all species of land animals walked past Adam as he gave each of them names. And he also noticed that with every species there was a male with its female mate. And many of these species must have included those we refer to as Dinosaurs today. It was then that Adam realised that he had no mate of his own. He could not pair himself up with any of the animals that he named. That was when God, who made every life form, knew that it was not good for Adam to be on his own. Therefore God then performed history's first surgical operation, under what we now call anaesthesia, to remove a rib with which God created Eve - Adam's lifelong mate. It is a beautiful story, but very real, not a fairy-tale. After all, today's top surgeons use exactly the same method of induced sleep to perform life-saving operations!

For many centuries since the beginning of the Church Age, here in the UK and for the rest of Europe, Genesis was seen as the authoritative record of all life's origins. Great men such as Martin Luther and John Calvin as well as Jerome, all believed in the historicity of Genesis for our origins. Our church founders, the twelve Apostles believed in it, as all the early church fathers. But most important of all, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ - God incarnate - not only believed in Genesis as history but quoted it as authoritative. Such examples of this include Matthew 19:3-6, where Jesus himself endorsed the sanctity of marriage. Peter, too also confirms the Noachian Deluge as history (2 Peter 2:5-8, 3:3-6) In fact, the apostle actually prophesied that in the latter days "scoffers" will arise who will question the historicity of the Flood and deny catastrophism altogether.

So are you, the reader, married? If so, then you are confirming the historicity of Genesis. And do you have a respite from work at weekends? Then this too, stems from Genesis. (2:1-3). And the hospital operating theatre? The idea of induced sleep by means of anaesthetics - yep - Genesis again (2:20-25). If Jesus Christ and his Apostles endorsed our origins as history, then it is sheer arrogance on our part to deny this or think otherwise.

Much of British history was centred upon the Bible being the authoritative revelation of God, right up to the 18th Century. Sure, the churches went through very turbulent times, mainly due to the Catholic/Protestant debates. But all believed in the history of Genesis, as well as all the Bible with its record of all supernatural miracles left without question or doubt.

But Peter's prophecy stood, as in defiance of the universal belief in Creationism and the Flood. It was if, despite the universal belief by both clerical and the public alike - the schooled and the ignorant - right across the known Christian world, God knew that the tide of times would eventually change.

The first person to question the authority of Genesis and the young Earth theory was George Buffon (1707-1788), who in 1767 wrote: The Epochs of Nature, after observing a cliff of stratified rock layers, and decided that the Earth must be more than 6,000 years old for this to have formed.

The Grand Canyon provides a good example of Stratified rock layers

Then Scottish Geologist James Hutton (1726-1797) who studied Buffon's observations and produced his own thesis, Theory of the Earth (1788), and coined up the word Uniformitarianism which meant that instead of catastrophism, as the Bible implies, the Earth evolved by slow gentle depositing of sediments by means of shallow seas, river estuaries, and lakes to form the stratified rocks we see today, over a much wider period of time. This is a very important turn of events, as this is the beginning of the true departure from the truthfulness of scripture, just as Peter prophesied some 1,700 years earlier.

The works of Buffon and Hutton provided the bedrock from the geological thesis to the biological theory of evolution. French Biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, (1744-1829) a strong atheist who had a contempt for Christianity, wrote in 1809; Philosophie Zoologique which theorised that all living organisms came about by means of evolution by mutation (a word meaning change). He believed that as migrating lifeforms encountered different environments, its offspring had a slight change in its body structure adapted to suit the new environment in which it had found itself. Examples of this included fishes which gradually developed legs and lungs as they began to leave its watery environment to migrate on land. Thus from fishes, amphibians and then reptiles evolved.

The result of the studies done by these brilliant minds was that the theory of Uniformitarian Geology and its bedfellow, Evolution by mutation, began to spread particularly among the academics, while belief in the authority of the Scripture, particularly Genesis, began to wane.

It was then French Anatomist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) who wished to give some credibility to Scripture by retaining the historicity of the Genesis Flood. But at the same time, after observing the stratified rock strata, hit upon the idea of multiple-flood theory. He wrote, Research of the Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds (1812). Cuvier refuted the works of Buffon and Hutton, and advocated that the geological history of the Earth consisted a series of universal floods which were responsible for the layers of rock strata with their fossil content so frequently found. The danger of his theory was that the Noachian Deluge of Genesis was stripped of much, if not all, of geological influence. In other words, the Flood of Genesis, although acknowledged by Cuvier as the final universal flood in history, it had little or no impact on present geological stratum.

But Buffon and Hutton were to have another follower to arise, who refuted Cuvier's multi-catastrophic theory. He was Scottish Geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875) who wrote, Principles of Geology in 1833. Lyell became the chief spokesman for Uniformitarian Geology and his work became the bedrock for thinking behind Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1892).

Charles Robert Darwin

Between 1831 and 1836, Darwin sailed around the world in a merchant ship HMS Beagle. When the ship moored at Galapagos Islands, in the Pacific west of South America, the rich diversity of wildlife became the source of his studies. He noted on how one group of finches was diverse from those of another group as a result of a natural barrier such as a mountain range or stretch of sea or ocean preventing the two groups from interbreeding. Darwin concluded that the inability to interbreed allowed the two groups of finches to diverse to the point when they were no longer able to interbreed, therefore two separate species arose from what might have been the arrival of just one original pair of birds to the islands. Darwin summoned his observations in his now famous book: On the Origins of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Races in the Struggle for Life (1859), a title now shortened to Origin of Species.

Darwin's book became the classic on which the author is regarded as the discoverer of Evolution. Darwin's theory is somewhat different from Lamarck's as where the Frenchman's idea was evolution by mutation - a theory based on the rise of each species due to the slight change of the offspring's body structure to suit the new environment. Darwin's theory, in turn, was that new species branched off as a result of a natural barrier preventing the original species to interbreed. Darwin's theory became the standard yardstick for the theory of Evolution to this day.

While all this was going on, the Noachian Deluge recorded in Genesis suffered a loss of potential in shaping the Earth's surface in geological terms.

With Cuvier's theory of multiple floods, the Genesis account was already under threat of loss of geological impact. Here we can ask whether these developments were really the result of scientific research - or bias against Scripture. Although Darwin did profess a belief in God, his predecessor, Jean Lamarck, was a staunch atheist. So was English scientist Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) who lived about the same time as Darwin, was another atheist who fully supported Darwin's theory - not so much of substantiation by scientific proof as was his own hostility to Scripture.

Cuvier had a follower, William Buckland, a Professor of Geology at Oxford University, who wrote in 1820, The Connection between Geology and Religion Explained, and again in 1823 wrote, Relics of the Flood, which were both essentially Cuvier's theory of multiple floods.

In fact Cuvier himself gave credit to Buckland's work in his later book, Discours sur les Revolutions de la surfaie du Globe (1826).

Then also in 1826, Scottish minister John Fleming coined the Tranquil Flood Theory. This means that the universal flood recorded in Genesis was so tranquil in nature, that the waters rose to drown a corrupt race of men without harming a single tree, let alone causing any geological upheaval.
But this idea was realised that it could not be supported by physics, especially hydraulics, as it was observed that even a minor flood caused havoc to the environment it affected. Thus the Tranquil Flood theory went to oblivion as quick as it was thought up.

Then, at last the Local Flood Theory was put forward by English theologian John Pye Smith (1774-1851). He wrote, On the Relation Between Holy Scriptures and Some Parts of Geological Science, (1839). It is interesting, going by the dating, that this book was completed twenty years before Darwin wrote his Origin of Species. If all the dating is true, then it shows that the forces bent in destroying the credibility of the Genesis Flood was well underway when Charles Lyell was researching for his book which was to be the basis of Darwin's work.

John Pye Smith advocated the theory that the Flood of Genesis covered only the Mesopotamian Basin, and insisted that the antediluvian population was small enough to be confined to that area. There are many problems with the local Flood theory, I am not able to cover them here. But one major problem was how a flood could gain enough depth to cover Mt Ararat without covering a much larger territory. It would take several blogs to deal with this objection alone. But Pye Smith had many followers who were keen to admit the possibility of a flood which purpose was to destroy mankind without it interfering with Uniformitarian Geology. Biblical scholars began writing books supporting the local-Flood theory, the following are just few of many:

E.F. Kevan, The New Bible Commentary (1953).
Fred Wight, Highlights of Archaeology in Bible Lands (1955).
Werner Keller, The Bible as History (1956).
Nelson Keynes, Story of the Bible World (1959).

Today, as the commentator so demonstrated on one of my earlier blogs, the Genesis accounts of Creation and the Deluge has gone from historic to the level of legend, now even further to the level of complete nonsense in the face of Science. Academics as well as the general public who claims to possess common sense now confines true believers of the Bible's historicity as on the lunatic fringe.

In my next blog I will show something that will shatter the entire theory of Uniformitarianism, on which organic evolution rests. Watch this space.