Al Mohler, Jack Collins, Francis Collins & YES

In February of last year, Al Mohler and John “Jack”Collins (OT Prof @ Covenant Seminary) had a debate on "Genesis and the Age of the Earth."  The debate did not follow the traditional formal structure, but the interaction was very engaging.  Here's more info on the event.

Dr. Mohler on the question of whether Old Earth Fallacies (OEF's) constitute heresy (@ 20:00 mark).  He pointed out that some doctrines are more essential than others - "theological triage."  We do not need to separate from a brother because he denies the young earth view.

Church leaders throughout history have mostly held that we live in a youthful world (@ 46:30).  Mohler concluded that OEF's may have "potentially dangerous consequences" (@ 40:00).  He also admitted that much of the data argues for an ancient earth yet at the same time pointed out that the basis for many scientists view on the age-of-the-earth controversy is based on a Darwinian framework with its billions of years.  I hold that one can make a strong cases for a relatively new planet based on history, philosophy and science and have written a book on this, YES - Young Earth Science.

Is there a connection between Francis Collins and Jack Collins?  Francis Collins founded BioLogos, led the Human Genome Project and is director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda (where I was born).  As you see there is a connection, but the last man on the list is probably a different Jack Collins (☺).  We responded to Francis Collins' views on origins here. 

  

Andrew Kulikovsky has written an excellent review of Jack Collin's Science and Faith: Friends or Foes.  Jack should listen to the Duke.  John Wayne's character finally realized that Jesus was the Son of God indeed, but what did Jesus have to say on this issue?  He clearly supported the young earth view (Mk. 10:6, Mk. 13:19, Lk. 11:50,51).  Furthermore, God's sovereignty demonstrates consilience with the young earth position.  Collins seems to endorse some form of the gap theory which has serious flaws.

There was discussion of the scientific consensus, but is should not be forgotten that there have been frauds in science as well as undue political influence.

Contact, Carl Sagan and the Pi Code

            

my site: https://totalyouth.us/

Hotep = B @ ☮

In the film and book Contact by Carl Sagan (d. 1996), the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) plays a key role.  Jody Foster was the star of the movie.  In Contact, the intelligent signal arrives in the form of radio waves from space.  Right here on our planet we can find an intelligent signal in DNA!

Icarus is a prestigious planetary science journal.  Carl Sagan was the editor of this journal from 1968 to 1979.  Vladimir shCherbak and Maxim Makukov have written a paper in Icarus suggesting that DNA itself provides the SETI goldmine:

As the actual scenario for the origin of terrestrial life is far from being settled, the proposal that it might have been seeded intentionally cannot be ruled out. A statistically strong intelligent-like “signal” in the genetic code is then a testable consequence of such scenario. Here we show that the terrestrial code displays a thorough precision-type orderliness matching the criteria to be considered an informational signal. [1]

shCherbak and Makukov further state,

The signal displays readily recognizable hallmarks of artificiality, among which are the symbol of zero, the privileged decimal syntax and semantical symmetries. Besides, extraction of the signal involves logically straightforward but abstract operations, making the patterns essentially irreducible to any natural origin. [2]

shCherbak and Makukov make an explosive conclusion, “The patterns are shown to match the criteria of an intelligent signal.”  DNA contains information and info only comes from intelligence!

In Contact, the SETI signal starts with prime numbers (2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37 …). [3]  In the story, Ellie Arroway says, “No astro-physical process is likely to generate prime numbers … this looks like the real thing [a genuine SETI message]. [4]  DNA also applies primes!

Evolution News summarizes the findings:

The proline nucleon [protons and neutrons] transfer is like a decoder ring that makes the signal apparent and all the blocks balance out. Some other signs of artificiality are the fact that nucleon sums are multiples of 037; the stop codons [triplets that specify amino acids] act as zero in a decimal system, and all the three-digit decimals (111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777, 888, and 999) appear at least once in the code, "which also looks like an intentional feature" [according to shCherbak and Makukov].

R=side chain, B=standard block (H₂NCHCO₂H), 37*2=74.  Some Asian countries consider 888 “lucky.”

DNA also has arithmetic progressions!  654 (-1), 789 (+1) and 369 (+3).

The prime number seven also plays a significant role in the genetic code.  Seven Day Week = Six Days of Creation + Sabbath.  If you take the reciprocal of 7 and plot the digits you get an ellipse (1/7=.142857142857…).  Interestingly, every planet travels in an ellipse!

An ellipse is much like a circle (both are conic sections).  In the book version of Contact there is a SETI message in the digits of pi (3.1415926…). [5]  Using base-11 math, the digits of pi provide a picture similar to this:

Sagan provides the clear conclusion:

The universe was made on purpose, the circle said.  In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover a miracle – another circle, drawn kilometers downstream of the decimal point.  There would be richer messages farther in. … In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist’s signature.  Standing over humans, gods, and demons, subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders, there is an intelligence that antedates the universe. [5] 

At the beginning of the chapter “The Artist’s Signature” Sagan quotes the following:

The universe seems… to have been determined and ordered in accordance with number, by the forethought and the mind of the creator of all things; for the pattern was fixed, like a preliminary sketch, by the domination of number preexistent in the mind of the world-creating God.  (Nicomachus of Gerasa, Arithmetic I, 6, c. 100 AD). [6]

Even the denizens of Star Trek® know an intelligent pattern when they find it.  The character Boma in the story “That Which Divides” states, “I was able to detect a regular pattern … Whatever that thing is, it’s not a naturally occurring phenomenon.  Someone or something put it there, deliberately.” [7]  Was DNA put on Earth deliberately?

If we saw two children in the maternity ward today with the labels SPYKE and PEARL, would we conclude that these are codes for the last five digits of their weights in kg (which would be random)?  NO‼  We know that these are their names intelligently chosen by their parents.

One wonders how Sagan would respond to the work of shCherbak and Makukov.  In the very book where Sagan tackles spirituality, he fails to deal with a truly significant work on that topic published 6 years before his death – Truth in Religion by Mortimer Adler.  Adler was the Associate Editor of The Great Books series and co-author of the popular How to Read a Book.  Adler was also the chairman of the Board of Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica for some time.  According to Adler, “The philosophical argument for God’s existence establishes a conclusion affirming God’s existence beyond a reasonable doubt.” [8]  Sagan was very critical of the Anthropic Principle, such as expounded in the film The Privileged Planet. [9]  In response to the question of whether the Lord Jesus Christ was simply written into history, Sagan said, “It’s certainly possible.” [10]

As I watched the four creatures, I saw something that looked like a wheel on the ground beside each of the four-faced creatures.  This is what the wheels looked like: They were identical wheels, sparkling like diamonds in the sun.  It looked like they were wheels within wheels, like a gyroscope.  They went in any one of the four directions they faced, but straight, not veering off.  The rims were immense, circled with eyes (Ez. 1:15-18, Msg).

For more on determining signals of intelligence and SETI, I would recommend the following from mathematician and philosopher William Dembski:

The Design Inference (pub. by Cambridge University Press)
No Free Lunch.
Will Dembski learn the truth about the Age of the Earth?  Read this bold and fresh new book on Young Earth Science (YES):

Special thanks to Francis Hall for the 1st, 2nd & 5th graphics‼

Notes:

1) emphasis added.
2) emphasis added.
3) Contact by Carl Sagan (Arrow Books, London, 1986), p. 83.
4) Ibid., p. 76.
5) Ibid., p. 429.
6) Ibid., p. 422.
7) That Which Divides by Dayton Ward (Pocket Books, NYC, 2012), p. 39.
8) Truth in Religion:  The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth by Mortimer Adler (Macmillan, NYC, 1990), p. 18.
9) The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan (Penguin, NYC, 2006), pp. 53-59.
10) Ibid., p. 237.

Planet Kolob – Chariot of the gods?

              *** UPDATE ***

Be sure to catch our latest video.  We tackle a potpourri of topics:  Thunder & C-14, Tree Rings & Ammonites,  Norman Macbeth (Darwin Retried), OMNI magazine & censorship ... #Rubio #NormanMacbeth #Darwin #AltMed #TreeRings

Hotep = B @ ☮

Are Mormons Christian?  Are there infinitely many gods?  According to Mormonism, Elohim lives on planet Kolob with his goddess wives and they procreate a plethora of spirit children evolving into godhood.

In 1973 the Osmonds put out a record, The Plan, promoting Mormon teaching regarding Kolob and was actually recorded in Kolob studios in Los Angeles.

Mormons (LDS) teach that there are many gods (polytheism), but the one true real God says,

I am GOD, the only God there is. Besides me there are no real gods. I’m the one who armed you for this work, though you don’t even know me (Is. 45:5, MSG).

Some Mormons hold that there are infinitely many gods. [1]

LDS teach that man may become god, but the true message from heaven corrects this fallacy:

Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God (Ps. 90:2).

Mormons hold that the Father, Son & Holy Ghost are 3 gods. [2]

The Book of Mormon is very confused on the Fall and Adam & Eve:

… if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. … And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. … Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. (2 Nephi 2:22-25, emphasis added).

Mormons hold that there are 3 Nephites (supposed Jews who came to America) who are around 2,000 years old!! [3]

Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? by Cowdrey, Davis and Vanick, provide strong evidence that the Book of Mormon was based on a work of historical fiction, A Manuscript Found by Solomon Spalding.  Walter Martin also supported this explanation.  Reviewer William Moore of Pittsburgh summarizes: 

Many of these troubling details would probably never have come to light had it not been for the efforts of Joseph Smith's prime antagonist, a man with the unlikely name of Doctor Philastus Hurlbut. (Doctor, by the way, was his name, not his title.) Shortly after joining the Ohio Mormons in 1832, Hurlbut was sent on a missionary journey to the area of Erie, PA. There he began to encounter people who seemed to be aware of the contents of The Book of Mormon even though they had never seen a copy. Upon inquiring, Hurlbut quickly learned that all of these folks had one thing in common--some of them were members of Solomon Spalding's family, and others were his friends and neighbors from the time he had lived in the area nearly 20 years before. All of them expressed familiarity with the fictional novel Spalding had been writing, and all said it was the same, or much the same, as Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon.

Craig Criddle (Environmental Professor at Stanford) provides powerful evidence that the Book of Mormon is the work of Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery and Parley Pratt working on the basic writing of Solomon Spalding.

Before the temple ceremonies changed in 1990, Christian preachers and Biblical Theology were mocked in the endowment ceremony. [4]  Joseph Smith predicted that a temple would be built in his lifetime in western Missouri, but this never happened.  Joseph Smith was a false prophet (Dt. 18:20-22).

LDS teach salvation by works, but the one and only real God says,

Yet wherever men did accept him [Jesus] he gave them the power to become sons of God. These were the men who truly believed in him, and their birth depended not on natural descent nor on any physical impulse or plan of man, but on God (Jn. 1:12, 13, Philips).

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7). 

Gladys Knight converted to Mormonism in 1997. [5]  What irony, considering this passage from the Book of Mormon:

And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them (2 Nephi 5:21, emphasis added).

According to LDS apostle John Widtsoe, “Since we have a Father, who is our God, we must also have a mother, who possesses the attributes of Godhood.” [6]  Should Mormons then pray to their Heavenly Mother?  Jesus taught otherwise (Mt. 6:9).

The original Battlestar Galactica was based on Mormon teaching. [7]

Bill McKeever’s Mormonism Research Ministry (founded in 1979) is a great resource.  Anthropologist Thomas Murphy and molecular biologist Simon Southerton have shown that Native American DNA does not support a Jewish heritage.  In The Mormon Mirage, Latayne Scott, a former Mormon, documents inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the faith she once loved.  If there is only ONE real God, who is the Intelligent Designer?

Speaking of planets, how old is the Earth?  Is Darwinism valid?  How does the Renaissance of Catastrophism relate to the age of the world?  Is your favorite planet thousands or billions of years old?  Discover the shocking evidence in this powerful new book, YES – Young Earth Science by Jay Hall (at Amazon.com). 

Here are some cool Zazzle items on Young Earth Science (YES):

Notes:
1)  What’s With the Dudes at the Door? by Kevin Johnson and James White (Bethany House, Minneapolis, MN, 1998), p. 77.
2)  Ibid. p. 75.
3)  Ibid. p. 105.
4)  Ibid. p. 121.
5)  Religions of the Stars by Richard Abanes (Bethany House, Minneapolis, MN, 2009), p. 52.
6)  Ibid. p. 55.
7)  Ibid. p. 61.