An Open Letter to an Atheist.

Dear Atheist,

There is a growing number of websites on the Internet which looks to be pouring ridicule on intelligent people like myself who have a firm belief on a Young-Earth Creationism, along with the conviction that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. Websites such as Atheists Against Pseudoscientific Nonsense, which at present has 78,283 Facebook likes, is just one of several sites of the same theme which in between them have hundreds of thousands of views, likes, and subscribers. Another Facebook website is Going to Hell in every Religion, with currently 120,368 likes. Then there is also Atheists Republic, with 1,556,910 likes. On You-Tube, one example of atheism is a seventeen-year-old rising video star, Cosmic Skeptic, whose real name is Alexander O'Connor. With currently 80,000 subscribers, one of his videos, Flat Earth Debunked, is at present credited with 333,230 views, and rising. The video is specifically aimed at Creationists who are seen as taking the Bible word-for-word in a literal sense, and in turn advocate a flat Earth, covered by a solid glass-like dome which the Bible refers to as the Firmament, and within this dome both the Sun and Moon hover at a fixed plane several thousand miles above the Earth's flat surface. In turn, other videos supporting the flat-Earth view includes Death to the Globe - 238,842 views; Flat Water - 439,336 views; and V Sauce: Is Earth Actually Flat? - 13,223,252 views - and all constantly rising, and most if not all of flat-Earth supporters are in favour of Biblical Creationism.

All this, any many more, has provided me with quite a fascinating research on how atheists, agnostics, and Christians feel about Creationism and Darwinism, a flat Earth or a spherical Earth. And within this line of thought, may I write what could be classed as an apologetic defence of the faith, which included Creationism and the historicity of Holy Scripture.

Photo from a Facebook Website.

Certainly, the book of Genesis opens with the six literal days of Creation. But I have never had a problem with applying the concept of a spherical Earth to the Biblical narration. Over forty years as a Christian believer, never once had I ever doubted that our home planet is round like a ball, which itself is orbiting a much larger fiery ball we call the Sun, which is our nearest star. In turn, our Sun is orbiting the nucleus of our Galaxy, which is itself one of many specks in a vast Universe. The narration of a six literal days of Creation, with the seventh day taken as a day of rest and inactivity does tell me something, and it's this: The forces of Creationism at work throughout those six days are not in operation now. In other words, there is no form of positive creation taking place at the present day. Rather all I can see is the opposite effect of entropy at work - the decline from highly organised to disorganised, a downward spiral. But do you want proof of Divine Creationism above Evolution without the existence of any superior intelligence? Then all you need to do is look at the mirror!

The Book of Genesis endorsing the truth of entropy? As seen from the lifespans of the early patriarchs, which averaged 912 years of age (with Methuselah living up to 969 years), what I can see is the shortening of longevity down to Joseph son of Jacob, the last character whose death is recorded in Genesis, as reaching only 110 years of age. Such a testimony does not bode well for Charles Darwin, who advocated an upward evolutionary spiral from apes to Homo Sapiens with an increasing lifespan. Rather, the narration found in the fifth chapter of Genesis seems to give credit to the scientific principle of entropy.

Yet as I look in the mirror every morning, there is something incredibly unique - life. To be alive, to be conscious, and have the ability to make decisions. Considering that everything I see and touch is made up of molecules, itself an arrangement of atoms, with each atom consisting of a twofold nucleus of protons and neutrons, with the electron orbiting the nucleus, rather like a microscopic Solar System. The type of matter discerned by how many protons, neutrons and electrons in each atom, and how the molecule is made up on what these atoms are and how they are arranged, whether the matter at hand is a solid, a liquid, or gas. Yet as I perceive living things, including myself, what is it between lifeless bedrock, a boulder, sand on a beach, or for that matter, the metal of which a rotating cog of a functioning engine consists. And these have no life in themselves, yet I perceive three kinds of solid matter under the Sun - inanimate objects, plants - including trees, and all fauna. The type of thinking which I find rather striking. I feel pain, I am concious of the world around me - as with most, if not all other animals. Yet all Homo Sapiens like myself, I have emotions which is stimulated by both my thoughts and by my environment - what I can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell - these can all have an effect on my feelings. On top of this, I can read, write, and solve difficult mathematical problems. These three seem to be unique to us humans alone, with not even our "closest relatives" of the Primate can achieve.

Yet what about the wooden trunk and branches of a tree? It is inanimate, the wood can be cut and from it, items such as furniture can be made. When cut, the wood feels no pain, it does not protest like I would if and when threatened. It cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, neither does it feel any emotion. The wood of the tree looks to be just as inanimate as a stone or a lump of iron. Yet at just the right time of the year the tree buds and puts out leaves and flowers, has the knowledge of pollination, and able to reproduce. And so the sapling, like a baby, puppy, or kitten, starts small and grows on its own accord. Although the baby, kitten, and puppy all need feeding by the mother, the sapling grows into a tree without any assistance, as if a higher I.Q. is credited to the tree through total and complete independence.

Yet everything consist of atoms. Everything! From the simple atom of the hydrogen gas to the fiendishly complexity of the DNA molecule found within every living cell - all consisting of atoms - a nucleus orbited by electrons with quite a volume of empty space between the orbiting electrons and the nucleus. If all the atoms making up my body were to collapse within themselves, with every electron actually touching the nucleus, then I would be reduced to the size of a grain of table salt! I, like everything else in the entire Universe, consist mostly of empty space!

Yet I have life. Every animal are lifeforms of its own kind, whether on land, in the water or in the air, all having an awareness of its own environment. So how can it be that one group of atoms can cause a lump of rock or metal to exist in its lifeless form, whilst another group of atoms makes up a living organism? What is life anyway? What is the real difference between me, who can express myself to others through writing, and that of the computer which will publish my work with a single click of the mouse? No matter how sophisticated robots of a future age might be, artificial intelligence will never match real intelligence, as robots don't have a soul as we all do, both human and animal alike. And what is the soul anyway? How can one mass of atoms possess a soul, whilst another doesn't? And when an animal dies, the rapid decay which follows - what would be the actual change of the atoms taking place within the corpse?

I am fully aware how much you dislike the Bible anyway. And there are parts which even I at first have found rather disturbing. Take the stoning of a man to death for collecting sticks on the Sabbath. It is found in Numbers 15:32-36. For many years I took in this situation as someone who simply placed his needs above the law of the land. Or to someone who has forgotten what day it was. Now I realise neither were the case. It was the final fruit of years of willing rebellion. This man hated God and hated his laws, maybe because he knew that he was unable to keep them. Throughout his life he must have been warned over and over again. First by his parents, then later by his colleagues. Then one day he decided to put God to the test. And he faced the consequences. But why such a harsh punishment? And I have to admit to myself that the penalty was harsh.

If he had gotten away with it, the rebellion would have rapidly spread across the whole nation, and the Sabbath would have been eventually forgotten throughout Israel. What I find amazing is that because the Sabbath was instituted in Israel by God himself, we enjoy the weekend to this present day. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Sunday began to be observed as the day of worship. But Sunday was never the Sabbath. The Sabbath was for Israel only, who were told to stay at home to rest, and not to go out to worship. But as our Saturdays were meant to prepare us for Sunday, by the time Jesus was around, the Jews had the Day of Preparation which always preceded their Sabbaths. It was on a Day of Preparation when Jesus was crucified, but this preparation day was to precede the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Jewish Passover was also eaten. It was a special Sabbath, or "a high day" - John 19:31.

Which brings us why God gave the Sabbath to the Israelites in the first place. To commemorate the rest from six days of Creation. Since God himself rested and so to speak, was refreshed, so he wanted his own people to rest and be refreshed from their daily work. So each weekend, most of us are actually acknowledging God's Creation week. Then again, are you married? If so, then you are acknowledging the truthfulness of the Bible and its historicity, when God created Eve to be a helpmate and companion to Adam, both whom God declared as husband and wife. This event was endorsed as history by Jesus Christ himself, from whom salvation comes (Matthew 19:6, Genesis 2:21-25). Also Paul the Apostle acknowledged Adam as a historic figure (Romans 5:14) - and he was later imprisoned and executed for his faith in Jesus Christ, who he called, "the Second Adam" - Romans 5:12:21. One very important fact emerges here. If Adam and Eve had never existed, then the whole of the Christian faith can be discredited, because without Adam's fall into sin, the crucifixion of Christ could not have happened. The same fallacy applies to Theistic Evolution. If death existed among Adam's parents and throughout all of his ancestry, then the Resurrection of Christ would have been meaningless, and leading to the reason that it couldn't have ever happened.

The same as with the Fall itself. Adam and Eve made aprons out of fig leaves sawn together, a way of reconciling themselves to God by self effort, that is, by religion. God had totally disregarded their aprons and had an innocent beast slain in order to clothe them with its skin. Our need for clothing is not due to an inadequacy in human evolution, but a verification of the need of an innocent substitute to atone for our fall from innocence. Even animistic African and jungle tribes who go about topless in the tropics always wore some form of belt to cover their groin. Does it look as though our unwillingness to go out absolutely naked, even on a hot summer's day, is an exact parallel to the shame our first parents had immediately after their Fall, and had to hide behind a bush when God appeared, apparently physically? (Genesis 3:6-10).

These are the three issues we take for granted each day of our present lives: Weekends, Marriage, and Clothing - all three had their origins in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. And wary or not, we acknowledge the truthfulness and historicity of Holy Scripture every day in our lives through these three issues. Yet you insist that the Bible is nothing more than a book of myths.

I am aware how repulsive the Old Testament can look to be. Here a nation is led by God to invade Canaan and slaughter all the indigenous inhabitants. Dreadful, isn't it? Until I came to understand that the Canaanites were sacrificing their babies and toddlers to their pagan idols every day. Just imagine for a moment. A newborn is taken from its mother's breast by the priest, who is standing in front of a statue of a beast, probably a cow or some other animal, or some demon-like entity. In front of the image is a brazier of burning coals. He places the child, completely naked, onto the glowing embers. For a few moments, perhaps up to twenty or thirty seconds, the baby screams. Then it falls unconscious and dies, and the flames chars its body. And then imagine this taking place up and down the land every day. Then I begin to understand what an abomination to God such a practice really was, and had to be stopped. There was also the grave danger of the Israelites adopting such a practice, and during the days of Elijah, for example, child sacrifices were made to Baal by the Israelites, a sin which led to their exile to Assyria and to Babylon. On top of such abominations, many of the Canaanites were giants by comparison to the Israelites, and posed a threat of eliminating the Jewish nation from the Earth altogether. If that had happened, then Jesus Christ wouldn't have been able to come, for he could only come after the Covenant made by God himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Then finally, the bit which frustrates a great many church-goes, especially Roman Catholics, is how a sinner can be saved. If the word could be so misunderstood, it has to be the word Repent. In the original Greek, with which the whole of the New Testament is written, the word is Metaneo - to change your mind. What the Bible is asking you to do is to change your mind from thinking that this Jesus of Nazareth was an imposter, a mere good man or moral teacher - to a heart-belief that this Jesus is the Christ, the Jewish Messiah, risen physically from the dead, and by his death on the cross, atoned for all our sins, and by his Resurrection, had defeated death, and eternal life is given to everyone who believes. It is that simple. But around 386 AD St. Jerome, when translating the Bible into the Latin Vulgate, instead inserted another word for Repent, which means Do Penance. This changes everything, turning simple faith into religion - a system of infused grace through human merit and good works, and such grace being lost by committing a mortal sin - unless an act of penance is carried out by the believer.

I can understand what a sheer frustration all this is, and believe me, I was an atheist myself during my teenage years. I have found out by experience that any works added to faith is soul-destroying heresy. And that included the need to turn from sin in order to be saved instead of just believing that this Jesus from Nazareth is the risen Christ.

We may say that we have sinned against God, which is true of course, but very few realise that we, through Adam, were also sinned against. The serpent lied to Eve, and she was deceived. And Adam was taken in by the deception. I guess that's why God has made every effort to redeem us, but made no attempt to redeem the Devil or his hordes. The Old Testament is a demonstration of a fierce battle taking place between God and the invisible evil forces in the air. These forces had tried to do everything in their attempt to thwart the coming of Christ to make atonement for us. And these forces were defeated by his Resurrection. But they are still blinding everyone who refuse to believe, and trying to convince them, through Science or otherwise, that the Atonement made by Jesus Christ had never occurred.

But Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who was born of a virgin, and was crucified, died, was buried, and three days later rose physically from the dead. And since God has done it all, all that remains is for you to believe in your heart.

Yours Faithfully,

Frank E. Blasi. 

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.