One Glorious Proclamation!

 And so the scientists have spoken, our Government ministers have listened to them. No, the present one-size-fits-all national lockdown wasn't enough, according to these great academics. And that despite the Coronavirus infection rate is falling just about everywhere, which had started doing before the start of the lockdown. When this lockdown ends in the middle of the coming week, instead of breathing a sigh of relief and celebrating the return of something resembling normality, instead, the whole of England - except for Cornwall and a couple of offshore islands - will enter the 2nd and 3rd tier restrictions. This is just another lockdown but with a different name.

London under lockdown - Westminster Bridge.

Never mind the high probability that those who live in the neighbouring Devon city of Plymouth could cross the River Tamar into Cornwall for a drink at the first pub they come across - unless border controls resembling the old Checkpoint Charlie of the East/West Berlin frontier will be installed, complete with barbed wire and soldiers patrolling with guns - the ease with which the crossing is made could tempt anyone who has a car or even a cheap train ticket to make the crossing. After all, the view from the two bridges over the river is quite spectacular.

Then there will be cases of a small, isolated village trapped into Tier Three, the band with the severest restrictions, simply because it would be lumped with cities such as Manchester, some 25 miles away. At the same time, London gets away with Tier Two, a lesser restrictive band. After all, these City executives and slickers must be given all priorities to go about their business. After all, the entire British economy rests on their shoulders, does it not? Never mind that the virus could have a field day in a busy office, a crowded underground train or coffee bar.

All this makes me wonder whether wearing a facemask in enclosed public spaces such as a shop, train, taxi or bus, had really been a valuable asset. According to my observations, whenever I'm out and about, to take a glimpse of someone without a mask in an enclosed space is so rare, that I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning than seeing a maskless face. At least all this is where I live, in the Bracknell Forest area. Maybe there are other towns and cities where mask-wearing hadn't taken such a hold, hence allowing the virus to spread.

If there are any cries of protest going on, then the deafening silence I find overwhelming! Then again, this is Britain, the land of stoicism and submissive obedience - even to the point of banning hugs, handshakes, and yes, board games on Christmas Day, and the encouragement to wear a facemask whilst over the cooking stove or watching TV, while at the dinner table, each one should be given a place name and sit at his assigned seat, well away from the next person. If the large table happens to resemble the outline of Great Britain - something you see every day, of course - then sitting at coastal towns such as Brighton, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Blackpool, or Skegness would all be feasible. But trying to sit at inland places such as Birmingham, Manchester or even London could present a problem - the latter which not even the Thames Estuary would be able to solve!

Am I making all this up? Er - No. This seating arrangement according to geographical locations was a proposal put forward by one of the Government's scientists, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if our ministers look upon such a proposal with favour. After all, we must all play our part in keeping the virus from spreading. Not to mention the pro-lockdown crowd who accuse the rest of us as wimps, and feel obliged to compare the loss of our freedoms to our grandfather's compulsory call up to fight in World War II more than eighty years previously.

I sit and rest my head in my open palms. How much longer will this insanity go on? Until the Spring next year? Here I should make myself clear. I could be referred at as a Lockdown Sceptic, or if you like, a Covidiot. However, that is quite different from a Covid Sceptic, one who believes the virus doesn't exist. Rather, I'm fully aware that it does exist. Oh, I know that our ministers mean well. Personally, I'm sure that Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister, imposes such rules with a heavy, reluctant heart. It's the scientists who dream up all these rules and proposes them, to whom the onus ought to fall.

And so, to add to the stress, within the last two weeks, my wife and I had to pay for a taxi ride to an out-of-hours GP surgery for her to submit to a blood test. Her sample was sent to a hospital lab for analysis to see whether she can receive a special medicine through an intravenous dose - Zoledronic Acid. The benefit of this clear fluid is to strengthen her bones which might have been weakened by her cancer tumour. Zoledronic Acid can have some severe side-effects, which her neurological condition could well amplify, that is, intense muscle pain, possibly with flu-like symptoms.

Therefore I had a very heavy heart at the thought of her taking the dose, fearing the possible consequence. Listening to her scream in agonising pain is no novelty, such as happened in the past, yet I need to go with the flow. Therefore, with a reluctant heart, Alex and I took another taxi to Frimley Park Hospital, where, in a large ward-like room filled with other patients, all receiving the same treatment, Alex settled in. No sooner had the catheter had been inserted into her arm and the drip-feed began when her back flared up into intense pain, causing quite a scene in the otherwise quiet but busy ward.

Doctors and nurses flocked around my beloved, and I was questioned about her medical past. Her procedure was aborted, and while she afterwards lay on the bed within a side room, the doctors will have to decide the next move, to discuss whether she is still suitable for the dose. If so, then she would be called back in due course for a second attempt.

A catheter.

Did I have a premonition that something was about to go wrong? I was very unhappy about the dose of Zoledronic Acid, a feeling I did not have for any of her other treatments - the mastectomy itself, followed by a course of chemotherapy, then by her radiotherapy course and the daily transport problems which came with it. Neither any doubt about the hormone pills she presently takes. By the time all these were behind us, I felt hopeless, powerless and adrift in spirit. The next morning I joined a Zoom prayer meeting with other members of Ascot Life Church and I shared with them everything which occurred on the previous day. One of the Elders suggested that for some reason we are not aware of, God had interceded by causing her back to flare up and so, abort the dose.

I guess it's the Romans 8:28 ethic - which we know that all things work for good for those who love God and is called according to his purpose - all things, not just good things. Her sudden back pain might have saved her from a much worse condition which might have demanded hospitalisation for heaven knows how long.

We had a TV-free evening on that day and so we tuned into YouTube. We came across some videos under the title Our Daily Bread, and one series was presented by Dr Con Campbell, a devout Christian. He shot a series of videos tracing the life and journeys of the apostle Paul. It was essentially a Travel series, detailing some of the cities Paul stopped at, including Ephesus, with the ruin of its classic library, along with the Greek amphitheatre where a riot took place as a result of Paul's crusade. Both are still reasonably intact. As for the great Temple of Artemis, one of the largest in the ancient world, only one lonely column remains standing on swampy ground. The rest of the temple had vanished. Being into Travel myself, this series I found to be very edifying, as he diverts his devotion from the life of the apostle to Jesus Christ himself, with the Gospel of salvation thrown into his narration from time to time.

It was after the video had finished and Alex went upstairs to bed, by clicking onto the home page, a short extract from the atheist Alex O'Connor came up. The short clip, lasting about seven minutes, was about his denial of the Resurrection as history. O'Connor, or Cosmic Skeptic by username, was the highly successful graduate and full-time YouTuber with whom I had the privilege to meet in person and talk to in Oxford back in February. 

I checked through his comment forum under his video, There were many comments, but all of them fully agreeing with him in his stance against Christ and the Gospel. What a contrast between O'Connor and Dr Campbell! But I didn't allow the atheist's reasoning to bother me. Instead, I added my own comment to the forum:

Jesus of Nazareth: He has risen. HE HAS RISEN INDEED!

I went into the kitchen feeling jubilant, a vivid contrast to how I felt throughout the week. Jesus is alive. He has risen from the dead, proving He is the Christ and guaranteeing my salvation. I called out, Jesus has risen! Jesus has risen! Jesus has risen! Suddenly, I felt some kind of release from my fears, worries and anxieties. Jesus has risen. That is the centre point of everything in life.

Bringing the reality of Christ's Resurrection into daily reality is helping me cope better with our present Coronavirus situation and with our health as well. Yes, living with heart failure means trips for me to the hospital as well, like next week's visit for a cardio scan. But knowing the Resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth I found to be a boost for morale.

But does that mean that I didn't believe in the Resurrection before then? Yes, of course, I did, as faith in the Resurrection is absolutely vital for a rebirth of the spirit. But this was a reminder as if God was saying, look, I'm here. My Son Jesus of Nazareth is alive, and this must be central to everything in your life.

Well at least someone read my comment, for he replied with the words:

HE HAS RISEN INDEAD.

It just goes to show how O'Connor and his follower's embracing of Darwin's evolutionary theories is absolutely exclusive with faith in Jesus Christ. As one who is wholehearted committed to Divine Creation as described in the first two chapters of Genesis, how easy this fits in with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The very proof of Him being God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. The Jewish Messiah, the one who came to fulfil the Promise made by God to our first parents as well as the expectation of the Jews. And here is something of a mystery for all who deny the reality. That is, close to two thousand years after the event, we are still talking about it. Surely, had it never happened, such an issue would never have arisen.

Indeed, as one example, at least I'm aware that Pythagoras existed and he was the one who worked out that the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the square root of the other two sides added together, eg, if side A is 4cm, side B is 3cm, then (4x4)+(3x3)= √25=5cm. This brilliant Greek discovered that regardless of the size of the right-angled triangle, the theorem is always the same. Another example, let's say, side A is 12cm, side B is 8cm, therefore the hypotenuse is (12x12)+(8x8)= √208=14.42cm approx.

The longest side is the Hypotenuse.

Pythagoras' theorem works well, indeed, professions such as architects and engineers can benefit well by using it, but no temples, churches or shrines were ever built to honour or worship him. Yet he died and has been dead for the last 2,500 years, yet we know about him to this day. So far, like all other humans deceased, he's still awaiting his resurrection. The very fact that a church building is easily found across the Western World (including Israel) testifies that something special must be attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. So far, He's the only human to have risen physically from the dead. So far, nobody else ever had, and I take it that after two millennia, we are still celebrating the event every Spring. How can the atheist be so blind?

Maybe as a lockdown sceptic, I'm asking whether this two-tier restriction farce is sensible. Maybe I'm as blind to Science, especially in virology, as the atheist is blind to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Hyper-Creationism - A Great Shame

A was a beautiful clear mid-Spring afternoon in the late 1980's. We were at a Christian Conference Weekend which was held annually at the Links Hotel in the East Sussex resort of Eastbourne. Being Saturday, it was a couple of hours after lunch when we took a rest from ongoing worship, sermons, and note-taking. Whilst many in our group decided to visit a farm nearby, I preferred a lone stroll along the top of Beachy Head Cliffs, just west of the town. These chalk cliffs, being 162 metres (531 ft) high, making these the highest cliffs in Britain. From the summit I was able to look westwards over a wide expanse of sea to see the spine of the Isle of Wight, more than sixty miles away (100 km). This was possible by the coastline receding slightly northwards between Beachy head, itself a promontory jutting into the Channel, and that of Ballard Down, a chalk cliff at the start of the Isle of Purbeck (a peninsula) some eighty miles (approximately 130 km) as the crow flies, west of Eastbourne. The Isle of Wight, unlike Purbeck, is an island proper with ferries linking it from the mainland.

Beachy Head dwarfs the Lighthouse.

If it wasn't for the ridge of the Isle of Wight, there was that distinct possibility of just making out the summit of Ballard Down from where I was standing. Nevertheless, I was still impressed with the island itself within visibility across sixty miles of uninterrupted water. Then as I walked on, the cliff got lower until I wasn't that far above the beach. When I turned towards the where the spine of the Isle of Wight is located, it was gone. It was as if the entire island had just sunk beneath the sea.

This of course, isn't true - or was it? A repeat of history: the sinking of the island-continent of Atlantis? Or maybe the Isle of Wight remains exactly as it always has been - with myself moving in relation with the curvature of the Earth? If the latter explanation is correct, then this might explain the odd phenomenon I have noticed in the sky. Where I live, I have always been familiar with the Constellations of Orion, the Big Dipper and the Polar Star. Then how I could forget such a magnificent sight as I stared up into the night sky from the bottom of the Grand Canyon in 1995? (That was on the second trip - during my first trip in 1978 the sky was overcast with rumbles of thunder echoing through the vast natural chasm.) A magnificent display of countless stars, the vast majority I had never seen from where I live! My home in the UK is about 51 degrees North of the Equator. The Grand Canyon is 36 degrees North. So not surprising that from where I was standing near the Colorado River, all the stars appeared to have shifted North by about fifteen degrees. So where angle is concerned, it's not much of a difference to write home about. However, far more astonishing was when I was backpacking Australia in 1997. Right above my head was the Southern Cross, immediately recognisable by the same pattern on the Australian and New Zealand flags. Also a misty band of the Milky Way crosses the entire sky. The sight was stupendous, and there were many nights during that trip when I stood on the beach with my neck craned to stare into the heavens.

But all these experiences I had strongly suggests a curvature of the Earth. In other words, our home is a spinning ball orbiting the Sun, as the third Rock in the Solar system. And that was the belief held by the ancient Greek philosophers, at least that the Earth was round rather than flat. One Greek, by the name of Eratosthenes, who lived around 200 BC, not only knew that the Earth was round, but he actually calculated the circumference of the Earth without leaving his homeland of Egypt. He did this by measuring shadows during the Summer Solstice, when the sun was directly overhead at an Egyptian city of Syene, very close to the Tropic of Cancer, and comparing the length of a shadow cast by a vertical pole driven into the ground at the port of Alexander, some 500 miles (810 km) to the north, and by measuring the angle of the shadow's tip from vertical, which was just over seven degrees, an angle which was 1/50th part of a circle of 360 degrees, which gave an approximate answer of 25,000 miles (because 500 miles - the approximate distance from Syene to Alexander - times 50 {that is ~7 degrees} equals 25,000 miles). The actual mean circumference of our planet is 24,900 miles (40,075 km). I can't help but stand back and gasp in astonishment at this ancient Greek's intelligence, his mathematical and astronomical abilities, who was also able to work out the angle of the tilt of the axle from vertical.

Another Greek of superb intelligence was Pythagoras, who was living around 520 BC. He was the one who calculated that the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle was equal to the square root of the two adjoining sides squared. To take a school-level example: a triangle with one angle of ninety degrees has one side three cm. squared, and the adjoining side four cm. squared. The combined total of the two areas - that is one square measuring nine square cm. and the other measuring sixteen square cm. is equal to 25 square cm. The square root of 25 is five, which is the length of the hypotenuse. However, although it was Pythagoras who made the calculation, many scholars are aware that this theorem was well known by the Babylonians long before Pythagoras' day.

Then whatever happened some time after the Crucifixion, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth? How could the Roman Catholic Church usher in the Dark Ages? Could the Bible be so scientifically ignorant as to teach that we are living on a flat world? This blog is written after a website link came up out of random from a You-Tube advert slot, and it was titled Celebrate Truth, whilst browsing the main video website. It was a serious two-hour documentary detailing by means of interviews with serious-looking professional men who wholehearted believe in the historicity and the truthfulness of the Bible. And this included belief of a gigantic Satanic conspiracy to deceive the entire human race, getting us to believe that NASA has lied to us about sending men to the moon, and the photo-shopping every photo taken of earth from space to deceive us that the Earth is round. This conspiracy affecting the whole of the Media, through all television, newspapers, and textbooks alike to make us all believe that we are accepting a lie. Celebrate Truth was certainly hostile to Pythagoras and Eratosthenes, as well as assigning numbers and mathematics in general as the work of the Devil to keep us from knowing God.

Celebrate Truth is by no means the only website available. Just type in Flat Earth on You-Tube, or simply Google Flat Earth, and a long list of websites and videos advocating the Flat-Earth theory comes up on the screen, from five minute clips to two-hour documentaries, all favouring the idea being linked to what the Bible teaches. Celebrate Truth lashes out against Darwinism, and fair enough, I'm a Young-Earth Creationist myself, who don't have a problem with the six literal days of Creation some six millennia ago. Nor do I have a problem with believing in Adam and Eve being our first parents, and the non-existence of death before the Fall. But to advocate that NASA has deliberately lied to us, along with labelling "Satanic" great men such as Pythagoras, Eratosthenes, Aristotle, and for that matter - Galileo - is what I have labelled Hyper-Creationism. Don't bother to Google it, it was a title I coined up myself for want of a better description. 

Of the documentary Celebrate Truth, I felt so discouraged that I turned it off after about ninety minutes. There was nothing edifying about the documentary, nothing to rejoice about, nothing to praise God for. There was nothing about God's love for a helpless race of mankind, and nothing about the Atonement Jesus Christ has made by dying on the Cross and his bodily Resurrection. On the contrary it was all about a worldwide Satanic conspiracy of universal deception, and I felt my spirit deflate as one interview followed another, and even feeling a sense of condemnation for believing in a round Earth and in a way, calling God a liar. It was also rather boring to watch, with no drama to illustrate their opinions. Other Flat-Earth videos I have watched has enabled me to build a picture on what they believe the Bible teaches. Much of this is based on Isaiah 40:22 which reads:

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its peoples are like grasshoppers. He stretches the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

Fig 1. The Medieval interpretation of the Universe. 

Fig 2. The modern Flat Earth Model

Flat-Earth advocates links this verse of Scripture to that of the first chapter of Genesis, where on Day Two, when God separates the waters above from the waters below, with what the King James version calls the Firmament, implying a solid shell-like dome over the Earth. The Septuagint, which translated the Hebrew into Greek between the third and second centuries BC, translated the Hebrew word Raqiya, which has a meaning for expanse, into the Greek word Stereoma, which implies something solid. And since these Christians believe that the Bible is infallible to the extent that every scientific evidence and proof are all Satanic lies and deception, the concept of the entire Universe contained in a solid dome as illustrated in Fig 1 is held as Biblical truth above everything else.

And here is something I consider an issue with the model depicted in Fig 2. The modern concept does not look at all like in Fig 1. First of all there is no dome, or firmament covering the flat disc, and secondly, all the other heavenly bodies are spread out across the vastness of the Universe, as taught by modern science, and not all contained within a solid dome. And thirdly, Fig 2 shows the Sun and the Moon orbiting each other on a fixed plane some distance above the disc. The sunlight distribution would have posed massive problems in defining day from night, as well as looking at a completely different sky over Australia from over the United Kingdom or from over America. Yet Fig 2 is as much Biblical truth to the Flat-Earth advocates as in Fig 1, although how will all the stars fall to Earth in the Fig 2 model, I cannot even speculate. Yet rather than thinking that our Earth is flat and is covered by a solid shell and the entire Universe is within that shell, I have always accepted that the firmament depicted in Genesis is merely a zone of the antediluvian atmosphere, enveloped by a sphere of dense water vapour, or expanse, as translated in the New International Version of the Bible.

It is this vapour which may, in my opinion, be the reason why man was able to live as long as 960 years, and the canopy might have made the antediluvian sky red rather than blue during the daytime. If this is true, then there was the likelihood that all the colours of creation were enhanced to a level we cannot experience at present. I wonder if this was why the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge looked so appealing to Adam and Eve? The collapse of the canopy, probably caused by volcanic dust particles thrown up when the fountains of the deep were opened, and the condensation which resulted, brought on the Deluge. And a quick read of post-Diluvian genealogy listed in Genesis 11, revealing the rapid shortening of human longevity. Put in proper scientific context, I find the Bible verified by Science when put into context of a spherical Earth orbiting the Sun within a vast Universe.

Over forty years of being a Christian myself, I have never come across a single brother or sister who believed in a Flat-Earth theory. Conversely, the majority of graduates I knew personally over those years were advocates of Theistic Evolution, which is Darwinism under the supervision and direction of God in opposed to being by chance alone. This line of reasoning is no doubt an attempt to present the Christian faith to the unbeliever without sounding or appearing out of touch with reality, or to feel foolish or ridiculous. But if death was not brought into the world through the Fall of Adam, but instead existed for countless pre-Adamic generations, then the Atonement made on the Cross by Jesus Christ would be totally ineffective. Really, it is impossible to be a true Christian and still believe in Evolution, theistic or otherwise.

But the rise and revival of Flat-Earth theories is just a click away on the Internet. It is so easily accessible. And it is dangerous. Dangerous because these videos and websites have followers by the multiple thousands. If there is a Satanic conspiracy going on around us, it is through these videos themselves promoting a flat Earth. The conspiracy is to make the Bible appear all so more ridiculous in content in the eyes of unbelievers - whether they be scientists or laymen. And the more ridiculous the Bible appears to unbelievers, even honest enquirers, the less likely for conversion and faith in God. Far more of the unsaved would scorn the Bible if they thought it taught a domed flat Earth. It would be flammable fuel for the fires of Richard Dawkins and other noted atheists.

The result will be that the scientific truth of a spherical Earth will always be advocated by unsaved academics to a vast crowd of unbelievers, confining the Bible and its believers to a realm of pseudo-science and crackpot ideas on the level of ancient space-god theories and the like. Indeed being a true Bible-believing Christian may be a source of shame and embarrassment within a well-educated and science-based world.