Just found this band, and I can't stop listening to this album:

Today I wrote another non-rhyming poem. I'm calling this one "Submission".

----------------------

Like a stalk of wheat,
I wait for the harvest.

Cut down by the reaper,
I learn how true love is expressed.

Though my sheaved body cracks in the heat,
I know this chaff will be taken from me.

Will I be scattered
making many more like me?

Will I be crushed
into something beautiful?

Willingly I die, knowing
the reaper was also the sower.

------------------------

Being loved by an infinite being is not exactly an easy thing to accept. God is constantly behaving in ways which we don't understand; especially by choosing not to enable us to understand it. Nonetheless, there's no doubt that it is indeed love, and that it is indeed for our good.

"It's nobody's strong point. It's not even its own strong point!"

Can't help myself today after reading this article, by Pulpit and Pen, which comes really close to presenting legitimate criticisms of Apologia Church, but seems to preferentially spend words misrepresenting Jeff Durbin.

Don't get me wrong, I am the last person on earth who has any right to criticize someone for wasting words on unworthy topics; it's the misrepresentation that bothers me. I don't think we should misrepresent our friends or our enemies if we can help it. The truth is always best, even if it means truthfully divulging the actual content of beliefs with which we disagree.

I went to Apologia Church for a while, and so I hope I don't poison the water when I say I quite like Jeff, and I find his ministry and theology to be generally agreeable. I do disagree with him on a few adiophoral points (about eschatology and politics, mostly), but for the record, I don't personally see a problem with Christians drinking alcohol together as long as it does not lead people to sin. The difference between medicine and poison is the dose, right? You get a little alcohol whenever you use vanilla extract; there's nothing wrong with it. Scripture plainly allows alcohol, but draws the line at drunkenness.

The argument made in the article is that "most consider [alcohol] a vice". I don't know what weight P&P puts on the word "vice", but I think it's fair to say that there's a difference between partaking in something which "most" consider to be a vice, and partaking in sin. Again, scripture draws the line at drunkenness, so any distinctions prior to drunkenness are left to the conscience of each person. The question, then, is, 'has Apologia caused someone to sin by drinking'? P&P gives the example of White's son-in-law. I happen to know a little about that story -- details which I'm fairly certain P&P does not know -- because I was attending the church at the time. I do not believe that White's son-in-law's actions were a result of either Apologia's tattoo-fundraiser or the beer-flights which the article references over-and-over. And I think it's very insensitive of them to use the event as an attack on Pittman; what if White's daughter reads P&P's article? The only legitimate example I see of Apologia potentially causing someone to sin is when P&P heard about Apologia's ministry and then judged it in a way contravening Romans 14:3b.

And to answer their quote from Ryan Denton (who I've never heard of), let me give a quote from Martin Luther: "Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!"

But on to the misrepresentations in the article. I don't want to spend much more time picking apart the article, so I'll just give a few. One should be enough, really.

First, they evidence that they haven't really kept up with Jeff's teachings by saying, "Durbin claimed only several years ago to hold to theonomy". I mean.... try several weeks ago! When was the last time these guys listened to any of Jeff's sermons? There're tons of them on youtube!

Second, They say that Apologia is not confessionally reformed. That's a surprising statement, since all the kids in the church are memorizing Piper's Baptist Catechism, and when I was attending, Jeff introduced nearly every sermon and communion by describing the church as one which adheres to the 1689 Baptist confession. I get that they don't mention 1689 on the website, but does that really matter? Really?

Third, they say "Durbin seemed to agree with Robert Jeffress last year that there are many saved Roman Catholics". I mean, wasn't there some context to that statement? Jeff Durbin regularly preaches on why Catholicism is wrong. I used to think Catholics were saved, until I listened to Jeff! Not surprisingly, the link for P&P's reference on this point was to one of their own articles. But even if we only look at what P&P actually did quote from Durbin in their article, how does the clause, "despite the Roman Catholic church", add to the meaning of that sentence? It seems like an important clause to me. I have to give credit where credit is due, though -- they used the word "seemed", which basically means they have no idea what Jeff actually meant, and everything after that word is an extrapolation intended to support their prior points.

In any case, P&P and JD Hall are primary reasons why I intentionally do not categorize my blog as a polemics journal, Christian news outlet, or really anything else if I can help it. What I write here are just my thoughts -- mine alone. I'm sure P&P does plenty of good when they're not skipping the first two steps of Matthew 18:15-17 (which, in a sense, is what I've just done). The world needs more Christians writing good things about Christianity online, so God bless and sanctify us all.

"Durbin again made headlines when..."

This week, I caught myself remembering things I regret from when I was young. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and so I wrote another non-rhyming poem to blow off steam. Since I suppose poems should be named, I'll call this one, 'Slow to Speak'.

--------------------------------
A bat hangs sleepily below the frame of a window, decorated with etchings of false gods. Here, midway up the towering walls of a weathered castle, the bat is gently stirred by a cool wind, alleging a lack of security here.

This structure is haunted by the ghost of a nameless king, who impersonates a thief, taking things which are already his. And, though the walls are here and there preserved by invisible tapestries, depicting a tragic beauty, she is only ever an unseen image on the wall.

If words alone could build shape back into that cloth, then the sound of it might echo against those otherwise flat and colorless threads, but there are no meaningful sounds here; only wind. The bat learns nothing, sees nothing, fails to perceive the safety just beyond these easily surmountable barriers, and prepares to leave.

Black, featherless wings beat chaotically against a wind that ebbs and flows like an oncoming tide. Looking for shelter, it passes a bird, whose eyes search the ground. The bat passes a statue of a dog with a gift in its mouth. The oncoming horizon seems to grow taller, but the bat pushes forward, determined not to ask, "was that place better than this?". It has never wandered far from home, and it never will.

Humble raindrops transform the bat into a heavier creature, which falls slowly toward a small and well-hidden residence. The bat waits hungrily for quiet, its senses battered by loud calls from a great shepherd, driving dark grey sheep with quick strokes of his rod and staff.
--------------------------------

I might come back and edit this, because I don't feel 100% content with it.... but for now, I'm thinking I'll go ahead and post it here just to finalize the process of releasing these thoughts.

So I have three topics I want to touch on today; I don't expect this to be a long blog, but you never know, right?

Here's what I'm listening to right now:

-----1-----
First, the current state of the epistemological argument I've been working on: I drafted a speech, and I was thinking that if I could get that speech past my wife and my pastor, with their blessing, then I would ask the ASU atheist society for an audience to really test it in full by delivering it and then taking questions or challenges. My typical testing grounds for arguments has been YouTube comments, but it's hard to get a full argument out in those comments, because if you say too much then the other person won't read it, and if you say too little then they'll easily forget that the point you're making in this comment is logically tied to the points you made in earlier comments.

Anyhow, I wrote a speech, got it spellchecked by my mom (my mom was a professional English teacher, so she's really good for that.). After having her check version 1, I delivered version 2 to my wife for feedback. She said that it needs a slideshow, and that it comes across as disorganized. She told me to rewrite it so that it is more relatable, and present every point in terms of the relationship between its premises and conclusions. I'm still working on version 3, which will have my wife's advice worked into it.

-----2-----
Up next, I've been listening to the news a lot lately. They've been talking about Chinese re-education camps for Muslims. It's a pretty tragic situation over there. The Chinese government seems to feel threatened by the potential for Muslims to radicalize in their land. In any case, one of the broadcasts had an interview with a man from Kazakhstan who grew up in China with his Muslim family. The man described the re-education camps and the unpleasantness therein, and his life after he got out. (He was released after a suicide attempt). He said that, having been "re-educated", he has not given up Islam, but has become thoroughly, and in some instances which he described from his recent history, senselessly hateful towards all Chinese people. I guess that's a small picture of the imminent future if China doesn't submit to the Prince of Peace. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

A segment of the interview which I thought was interesting was when they talked about the kinds of things that the Chinese forced the Muslims to chant in the camp. They included some miscellany about how wonderful the communist party is, and a few statements about the role of religion. One such statement stood out to me, a familiar proverb, "religion is the opiate of the masses". I thought about that a lot since I heard it. I can't imagine that the Chinese government really believes that statement, since they're hoping to prevent religious radicalization.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the statement seemed to me. "Religion is the opiate of the masses". Whoever said that must have been completely ignorant about religious history, religious psychology, the weight of human conviction, and really, psychology in general. I mean, where was the "opiate of the masses" during the Sumerian Wars, or the Jew's conquest of Canaan, or Sennacherib's campaigns, or the Roman persecutions, or Muhammad's conquests, or the Crusades, or the Reformation, or the Inquisition? When will ISIS realize that what they've been taking is actually an opiate? Maybe they're just suffering withdrawals! Maybe ISIS has too many atheist members. We just need to give them their religious fix and then they'll calm down. [/sarcasm] It's a laughable sentiment entirely!

The only time when religious people have ever been settled and relaxed was when they lived in a land whose laws did not conflict with their religious convictions -- for example, if they live in a land whose government was founded on principles which they believed to be fundamentally rooted in consideration for their own religious values. For example, Christians in the west.

Who said that anyway? [Googles it]. It was Karl Marx! Ha! That explains a lot.

-----3-----
Last item on my list, the recent elections in AZ. Well, me and Chowon did some research on the candidates and I voted based on what we thought was best for our ideals, our way of life, and for Arizona as a whole. In the end, I voted for a mix of democrats and republicans. I thought I was weird, because the country seems so polarized. But in the end, the people who won the vote were a mix of democrats and republicans. Hmmmm.... in order for that to happen, a significant group of people in Arizona would have to have voted for a mixture of democrats and republicans! If everybody voted either "all red" or "all blue", then I suppose all the winning candidates would have been from the same party (whichever party had more people voting). But it looks like a significant group of people voted somewhere in the middle.

I'd like to suppose this means that the party binaries, which are the entire context of all discussion on the news, do not actually represent a significant majority of Americans, or that a significant portion of Americans are not being really thought about by the news. That is, the many Americans who think for themselves and don't vote just along one party for the sake of that party's name. Praise God for those people!

But while both parties are throwing mud at each other, it's this group of people in the middle who get hit. At this point, I don't suppose it's profitable to advocate the establishment of a "third political party", necessarily. Rather, I advocate a complete restructuring of the electoral process in light of modern technological advancements. I realize that people are afraid that if computers govern things then the elections will get hacked... but a lot of resources have been put towards hacking bitcoin, for example, and it's still pretty secure. The point I intend to make by that reference to bitcoin is that electronic elections aren't really all that insecure if they're done right.

The way it's done now, I feel like the electoral college is an aristocratic filter through which all our votes are cast and ultimately depreciated. That said, I do not necessarily advocate a pure popular vote for president. Rather, at this point, I advocate more transparency and segmentation at the local level. A more complicated government, maybe, but one which empowers a plethora of tiny local governments, and where land is not the dividing apparatus. I don't have time to go into detail about the government model which I currently advocate here, but I suspect the changes which I advocate are radical enough to be rejected by most Americans.

"Falls like oil down Aaron's beard"

Time for more bullets. Today I'm going to give points related to the means of delivery for the special revelation.

Really enjoying this song right now:

14.

Q. Special revelation must have been communicated in a way which is exempt from potential for human fabrication.

E. People are not perfectly trustworthy. The testimony can't be entirely dependent on a few dudes in the woods who say they saw God and wrote a book about it. The method has to be more broad than just revealing it to one small group of invested individuals.

15.

Q. Special revelation must have been confirmed by a supernatural sign.

E. I hesitate to use the word "supernatural" because the source has its own nature, so since nothing is really above the nature of the source, nothing truly fits the face-value definition of the word "supernatural". What I mean by this is that the revelation should be confirmed by some proof that the source is above our nature, to demonstrate that it is capable of doing things which we are not able to do. The goal, then, of this point is that the source first communicate to us that it satisfies the prior points, and then demonstrate that to us by exercising its prescriptive governance on the universe.

16.

Q. The method for delivering special revelation must have included direct, verbal communication from the source.

E. We've already established that special revelation must be delivered externally in addition to its derivation from necessity. Vision and dream-type prophetic encounters are useful without words, but they are too abstract to deliver concrete, qualitative information about the source's character which can be retransmitted from person to person without deviation from the initially intended meaning. Special revelation is important, so we need it to be spelled out for us, and words have the unique quality of being limited to their lexical domain, enabling communication with objectively similar interpretations. (If I didn't firmly believe that this was the case, I wouldn't bother communicating with words.) 

17.

Q. The primary contents of the verbal communication, and the record of the signs, must be available today in a form which inherently demonstrates the supernatural origin of the information while satisfying #14.

E. It's not necessary that the source continually deliver new, direct communication, as long as the record of prior delivery satisfies the points for validity above.

18.

Q. The contents of special revelation must be accessible for anyone who desires to know the source.

E. The revelation doesn't have to be known by everyone, but it has to be available to everyone. Anyone who desires to learn it must be able to acquire access to it, and everyone who seeks it must succeed in finding it. However, it is not necessary that everyone aware of the information accepts it, because (in the context of this discussion) it only serves the purpose of relatably validating the qualities and existence of the ultimate source whose qualities and existence can otherwise be derived in theory (i.e. utilization of the general revelation does not depend on acceptance of the special revelation). Furthermore, it does not have to be the case that every person has immediate means to access the information, but the source may (and must) by prescription enable each person who genuinely seeks the information to find it.

-----------

I think these points really drive home the personal nature of the source. With that, I think we're down to basically just a few options, and to the best of my knowledge we are left only with the mainstream sects of the Abrahamic "Book" religions. (Maybe soon, in another post, I'll describe how these religions are presently able to satisfy #14, #15, and #17. That information I think isn't directly relevant to the study, so I won't include it in this series.) I am content with the way that #18 rules out the possibility of some unknown tribal religion out there being the true religion, and it highlights the question for Christians about people groups unreached by the gospel.

To touch that in one paragraph, it is the case that God decrees every aspect of everything, and God is honest, and so when God said "you will find me when you seek me with your whole heart", and "I will call them my people who are not my people", and "the foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord...these I will bring to my holy mountain", he did not exclude anyone from the promise. Furthermore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that there may be very large people groups with no inclination to seek after God, as it was written, "the Lord looks down...and finds no one who seeks after God" (Psalm 14:2-3).

The I don't know enough about Islam to identify why the differences between the God of Judaism and the God of Islam are representative of essential qualities necessary for intelligibility; I have never done a careful comparison of those two religions with one another, because I believe them both to be misguided on account of the comparisons I've done between them and Christianity. The trinity is useful as an explanation for how God fulfills parts of His own revealed plan, it fits the Biblical evidence, and it works well as a demonstration of God's relatability, but I do not yet know how to present it as a self-justifying fact, without presenting it as a comparison against the failures of nontrinitarian religions. Likewise, the Son of God appeared too late in history to act as "the" relatable revelation for the first humans, but the prophesies about him make him a good means to satisfy conditions for self-evidence in modern records of the prior revelations without needing continued, direct, verbal interaction from God. However, I have not yet reached the point where I can derive why it is an absolutely necessary condition for intelligibility.

I can see that there is a road which will take me to that place, but it is going to take a lot of time meditating to derive information from our current points before I can articulate it well; and that's time I haven't spent yet. It could be months or years before I've completed this last step... So unless God blesses me with insight in the very near future, I'll suspend the series with this post, and return to my normal pattern of blogging until I have made substantial progress.

As it stands, though, I think we've done a good job ruling out other religions so far: the source can't just be a component internal to humans (humanism); it can't just be nature (Darwinism); it can't be "logic itself" (rationalism); it can't be polytheistic (Hinduism, some paganism); it can't be capricious (Greek-Roman and Egyptian gods); its revelation can't depend on modern prophets who disagree with one another (Mormonism); its revelation can't have been essentially lost for any period of time, only to be restored by some jerk in a suit (Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses); the source can't be impersonal (Deism); it must be omniscient, unable to be tricked, and omnipotent, #8 (many tribal religions); and it can't be illogical (Hinduism again). The source definitely fits into the category of religious thought, and I can't think of any other religions satisfying all these except the Abrahamic ones.

Briefly, I'll give the reason that I believe Christianity is the superior Abrahamic religion. First, the Jewish prophesies say that the Jews will be blind to their messiah, and in spite of texts such as Daniel 9, which defined that the messiah would arrive within 100 years of the destruction of their temple (which happened in 70 AD), they are still waiting for the messiah. Second, Muhammad said to measure his teachings for validity against the teachings of Jesus, because he taught that Jesus was a true prophet and no true prophet may issue even one single false word from God. Well, Jesus disagrees with Muhammad on some pretty important points, so without getting into the textual criticism and the history of the books, Muhammad summarily invalidates himself.

I've talked about parts of my epistemology with my brothers in Christ, but I've never articulated it this fully. As far as I know, this work of thought is original to myself... When I finish the posts on Abrahamic religions, I'm going to rewrite my points in a shorter, presentation format (with a slideshow maybe). I'll present this to my pastor and ask him to help me by correcting my mistakes and sharpening or challenging my points. Then, if he blesses my argument, I'll also ask for his blessing on a plan to schedule a meeting with the ASU Atheist Club and present the argument to them for feedback. If my pastor blesses it, and if the Areopagites will hear me, then I'll definitely post their best criticisms/derisions here.

"Then what advantage has the Jew?"

It's a boy! My wife is pregnant with a boy! We just had the anatomy ultrasound and found out! Woo!!!

I've got to work hard and iron out my epistemology so I can teach it to my kids...

Listening to this song at the moment:

So I've spent some time thinking about how to progress the list, and where to go next. We've got a lot of options, because at this point we've at least partially opened up the world of sense perceptions. I've been tired lately, and the options are a little overwhelming to me, so I want to use this post to make a roadmap for where I expect things to go in the next couple of posts. I intend to spend some time focusing on how we learn about the special revelation, in hopes that it will teach us more about the source of the revelation. Here are the angles of approach I'm considering:

a. Start looking at the way this revelation must have been revealed to mankind initially, and to what extent or by what means it must be available to us today.

b. Derive more points by diving deeper into the qualities we've already examined which the source must have. (For example: look at what we can derive about the means of acquiring special revelation, given that the source prescribes every detail of our lives.)

c. Examine the minimum set of information required under the term "relatable" with respect to the special revelation. Articulate what it means for revelation to be relatable, specifically.


Now, I want to add something small but important to our thought process. There's an axiom which I've been applying implicitly in this process, and I think it deserves to be stated and explained before we continue.

"Everything which is true is necessarily true."

Stating it like that, it's just a tautology, but the meaning I intend to communicate by it will actually affect our interpretive processes when we're deriving future points.

By it, I mean that if a statement about reality is true, then all intelligibility depends on it being true. So, a couple of examples of how this affects practice. First an easy one, "It is true that 1+1=2". If that weren't true, then nothing would make sense. Now a more difficult example, "It is true that I own a dog". In order for that to be untrue, we would have to change something about the universe as it exists, and while the impact of that change seems at a glance to be small, it is essentially equivalent to taking something which is A and making it NOT A; a breach of logical rules as we know them. In spite of that violation of the essential nature of reality, complicated examples such as that one allow us to make limited, partial comparisons between the fictional world and the existing world, in order to suppose how the hypothetical case would affect events which are relatively, temporally immediate. Whereas I could say, "if I didn't have a dog, then my apartment would be cleaner, I would have slightly more money, and my life would have one less source of joy.", the reality of the case is that in order for me to not have a dog, the entire sequence of events leading up to me getting the dog would have to be altered. I would have to like dogs less, and so I would probably have not had a dog growing up, so my parents would have to like dogs less, and so their parents raised them differently,  maybe because my grandfather never went to war, etc, etc, etc., or perhaps dogs never existed (there're lots of ways to build this hypothetical world).

In order for those alterations to take place we would effectively have to change a chain of events spanning from the beginning of time until now, and make a change in the character of the ultimate source. The impact of even a small change to current events becomes very large when extrapolated backwards in time. Such changes result in a universe which is entirely unpredictable to us, and on close examination the hypothetical universes all amount to nonsense universes, because they started under conditions which were different from ours, and the conditions under which our universe formed were essentially logical in all respects, so the hypothetical universe formed under conditions which were not essentially logical.

But to bring this into application for us, we will be utilizing the axiom when we examine statements such as, "It is true that not all people are aware of the special revelation by which the ultimate source of knowledge makes itself relatable to us.". The question we will be asking ourselves when we consider this in order to derive further points is, "why is it completely necessary that this statement is true?" And I predict that the answer will prove beneficial to our study.

As a side note, it's for this reason I do not like to use the phrase, "in all possible universes", when I speculate about what's possible or impossible. There are no other possible universes.

"You're the God who stays the same."

I'm dissatisfied with the explanation on point 12 from my prior post, so I want to use this post to organize my thoughts on the topic, restate the problem, and rethink whether that point is necessary as I delivered it, or if it needs some adjustment.

The reason we're generating this list at all is: there is a certain set of information operating in the mind of every individual, upon which every thought depends. That information includes, and enables such assumptions as, the uniformity in nature, induction (knowing tha the future will be like the past, from moment to moment), laws of logic (and their universality), etc..

The problem is: we don't know where that information came from, and if we credit the wrong source then we undermine the credibility of the information, or we contradict the information itself. If the information is not reliable, then we are unable to ascertain truth. Therefore, in any worldview which claims to be true, there must be a proper source for that information, and worldviews may be defeated on the grounds that they do not include a source capable of providing the information.

So, in working out a solution to the problem, we've established a set of criteria which a source must meet in order to function as a source. Having thus determined, we suppose, that a singular creator god must exist, we now have two sets of information at hand. We have the information which is intrinsic to our thinking process, which we are attempting to justify, and then we have the justification itself, which is not required for thought, but is required for justification of the thought process. (We called them "general revelation" and "special revelation" respectively. Please note, if you're already Christian, that I'm using these terms in a way different from their common use in theological conversation).

While general revelation is held by everyone, the content of special revelation is hereby derived as a set of necessities, and so special revelation must be something which we can learn by means of our faculties with the support of general revelation. The question which must be answered for #12, though, is this: Are our internal (reasoning) faculties able to produce sufficient grounds for the full acceptance of the proposed criteria as contents of general revelation, or should that information be corroborated with data collected by means of our extrinsic (sensing) faculties?

Certainly, I hold that it is not sufficient for us to derive the information blindly. Rather, information about the source must be made available to us by the source. So, in order to answer that question, we have to first determine if the special revelation is, in fact, contained within the general revelation. If it is, then everyone already has the special revelation, and we should probably come up with another name for it. Given that the general revelation is unique in that it is given to us without the use of our faculties, we can say that if the special revelation is not contained in the general revelation, then it is not issued to us without the use of our faculties, and therefore must be delivered to us from an external source by means of our sense perceptions, specifically the source to which it pertains. It is fortunate, then, that the general revelation enables us to rely on our faculties to some extent, so that we can examine the external source.

Here's the reason for my dissatisfaction: if what I have called "special revelation" is not contained in the general revelation, then my intentions have not been aligned with a proper method of executing my proposed means for deriving the information contained in special revelation, and so that proposition needs to be clarified in a way which broadens the scope of things considered by this study. Where I proposed to derive the information by simple examination of the human condition, I meant internally to derive the information by means of reason alone, but examination of the human condition must include consideration of sensory input, meaning that external sources of evidence used in conjunction with reason are allowable, given that the prior points in my list are true.

However, if the special revelation is contained in the general revelation, then it may be the case that I am very nearly done with my list, and that I should remove the word "verifiably" from point 12. This would seem to be the path of least resistance, but it doesn't make sense for that to be the case since I derived the information by means of my reasoning faculty. Information obtained by reason alone is theoretical, and a theoretical particle is quite a different thing from an observed particle. If reason alone were sufficient to discover the truth of the universe, then we would have no need of sensory data. After much deliberation, I am forced to conclude that a theoretical source is not sufficient grounds for a worldview. At the very minimum, the source or some relatable communication from it must be have been observed by at least one person who lived to tell about it, and that person must have been the same as, or able to communicate with, the first human being to ever live, and the story which that person told must have been passed down so that it is available to mankind today, for anyone desirous to learn about it. (With some refining, these will likely be points 13+)

This means a shift in the way that I am accustomed to thinking. In order to argue with atheists, I spend so much time attempting to reduce the validity of our internally facilitated information in order to demonstrate to them that sensory data and reasoning itself is not sufficient grounds on which to build a functional worldview. Now it is time to take a cue from the humanists; the sensory data is, indeed, valid, because the worldview we're building supports it by means of the ultimate source and its special revelation.

So, future bullets might (or might not, I'm not sure yet) make use of physical phenomena for support.

"They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them."

Alright, so following up on my last post, I have some comments, and then I hope to make progress on that list somehow.

To start, I think that #8 deserves more explanation to avoid confusion or objections. It's an important point, so I want to make sure I've nailed this one down.

So, here's the conundrum: The ultimate source has to be above the law without being exempt from the law. The laws I'm talking about are the physical and logical laws which govern everything. It has to be above them because it must be able to perform an action which is totally impossible for any other part of creation to perform. It can't be exempt from them, because that would undermine the points specifying that the rules governing intelligibility are universally applicable, making the source itself potentially unintelligible, internally contradictory, or untrustworthy. 

I cannot think of any way to solve this problem except by relinquishing creative and prescriptive control over every part of the universe to that source. In that case, the source is able to prescribe a universe which is more limited than the source, but which does not violate the laws which characterize the source. For my sake, I offer it as a request to anyone reading, "Please come up with an alternative explanation which doesn't undermine intelligibility". But that has been the challenge for philosophers all along, hasn't it? And to this day the ancient Biblical wisdom still holds true, "The fool says in his heart, 'there is no god'"; I am not aware of any viable alternative ever presented.

So per the above and the points in my previous blog, about which I feel confident, for lack of a viable alternative, the source of the information which comprises our ultimate foundation for all knowledge is a singular, all powerful, creator of everything, exercising full and complete control over every minutia of the entire universe by its prescriptive decree. Furthermore, everything in existence is a self-expression of that source's own character, and we say that the source has a personal character from which our personalities are derived, but that character is so far beyond us that it also derives from itself all of the universe. 

So, to some small extent it is valid to attribute human characteristics to this entity, but only inasmuch as it reveals itself as such. That's the next bullet in the list from my previous blog:

11.
Q. The source itself must be apprehensible to the human mind, to an extent which would enable us to know that it fulfills all of the above characteristics without deviating from them. (Note: not "comprehensible").

E. Obviously, we have to be able to know all of the prior points about the source somehow, and although they are necessary preconditions for an intelligible universe (afaict), we are not always consciously aware of those points, necessarily. The involuntary revelation itself was just the groundwork enabling us to know the extent to which our senses were trustworthy, and at this time I'm not sure about how to articulate the specific contents of that involuntary revelation. In this discourse, I'm not trying to explore the contents of the revelation, as much as to develop a philosophical framework which justifies the existence of that information in our minds.

12.
Q. The knowledge comprising that apprehension of the source must be verifiably available to humanity in some form.

E. We can derive the information directly by means of this kind of philosophizing, but due to the limitations on my imagination, I acknowledge that I'm depending heavily on everyone else's inability to explain things better than me. Thus, the physical substance of this information must exist somewhere in the world, or else the foundations of our worldviews are left to the most imaginative bidder. (This is not to say that the form of this substantive revelation must be such that everyone would instantly accept it as truth upon seeing it; the truth of our ability to use logic is not dependent on our acknowledgement of the source of our reasoning faculties, but the information must at least be available.)

To rephrase the points 11 and 12 for common application, (this is allowed because we've established that the source has a duck-typed personality), we can say that the source has to be predictable and relatable to some extent. No wise person trusts their neighbor before they know something firsthand about their neighbor, and that knowledge is used as a reference point for making predictions about the behaviors of that neighbor. As it happens, the human mind functions in this manner, and so in order for us to be able to say that we live in a world revealed to us by a trustworthy ultimate revelator, it is necessary that the revelator accommodate us in the area of trust by providing a relatable point of reference within itself.

The source must have revealed itself to us in human-relatable terms. Given that the above points are derived without direct reference to such a revelation, it is not necessary that every person alive be aware of the relatable revelation. However, it is necessary that the relatable revelation be available to the very first humans who ever lived, and it is necessary that the revelation be available on earth today, in some form. Development of personal trust is a voluntary process; and although the revelator is plainly deserving of our implicit trust, we are evidently not forced to invest in it.

So, for future posts, let's make a distinction in terms. We will call the revelation by which the source enables us to live intelligibly, "General Revelation", because everyone knows it involuntarily. And, the revelation by which the source makes itself relatable and available for personal apprehension, in order for us to build trust, we will call "Special Revelation", because it comes to those who put effort toward a desire to know the revelator.

To ground all this in personal anecdote, the only reason I'm able to do this kind of thinking, and the only way that I've come to these conclusions, is by spending a lot of time meditating on the Holy Bible, (which I hold to be the sufficient source for all wisdom pertaining to life and Godliness), engaging with my Christian brothers in meaningful dialog about it, and watching the debates wherein atheists repeatedly fail to address it.

"How good and pleasant it is
    when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
    running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
    down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
    were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
    even life forevermore." - Psalm 133

Today I'm going to cover two topics, touched on in my previous post. The first one is easy enough, so I'll knock it out quickly at first, then spend a lot of time on the second.

I. "Why can't it be 'evolution' or 'nature driving evolution' which reveals the pathologies to us"?

Nature, being impersonal, does not reveal to us that our faculties are accurate to any degree; it only reveals to us that we have faculties. Attempting to utilize nature/evolution as the external source for the information which acts as ultimate foundation for intelligibility leaves us right where we started. It doesn't progress us toward having an intelligible universe. Nature/Evolution doesn't work here.

II. "What are the characteristics which an ultimate foundation must have in order to fulfill the preconditions for intelligibility?"

So, I looked back at my post in April 15, 2017 and saw that it was centered around examining the characteristics of God to see how they satisfy the preconditions for intelligibility. Also, it had a lot of ugly typos. I spent some time considering how best to approach the question in this post, and I figure I'll try to examine the situation I'm in, existentially, and just work from there to figure out what qualities an ultimate foundation must have to satisfy intelligibility. I'm not going to pretend to be unbiased, but I do intend to consider the grounds as they are first, and then compare them with God at the end, rather than the other way around.

That methodology, to start elsewhere from God and then conclude with God, may seem at first to be a deviation from the requirement elsewhere stated that all correct reason must start from the ultimate foundation. It's tolerable here, however, because I'll be starting with the a assumption that there is an ultimate foundation at all, and that we have received information from it which is necessary for intelligibility. If that ultimate foundation is God, and if the information we received from it was a qualitative self-revelation, as the Bible may lead us to believe, then I shall make no error by concluding as much. This will be a thought experiment to either demonstrate or disprove the methodology which I advocate.

I'm using Q and E to stand for "Quality" and "Explanation", (where explanation goes into more detail about why a thing is necessary), so that a bored reader can skip the explanations and just read the qualities.

As you read, remember this driving principle: If a worldview is to be called "true", it must allow for its adherents to have sure knowledge of truth.

----------------------------

1.
Q. Source is able to reveal things to us in a way which bypasses, supersedes, and justifies our reliance on our internal faculties to observe all things other than said revelation.

E. This was the most obvious starting point for me, since it is the very point by which I so often say atheism fails.

2.
Q. Active revelation, rather than passive. The ultimate standard acts on us and changes us to deliver its revelation; it doesn't passively exhibit information.

E. This follows from 1, and is important because the revelation must not depend on us acting to receive it. Or else, lacking the revelation in the first place, we would be unable to know when we had surely received it in full.

3.
Q. Involuntary universal revelation; nobody is excluded.

E. This is important, because either everyone has it, or nobody can be sure that they have it. We're talking about the preconditions for an intelligible world, so environments where nobody is sure about the revelation are not permissible.

4.
Q. Trustworthy revelation. The source of the revelation is incapable of delivering false information.

E. This one is pretty straight forward. If we can't trust the source, then the information is unreliable. We're aiming for a world where our senses can be called reliable to some knowable degree.

5.
Q. Internally consistent revelation.

E. I'm talking about the laws of identity and noncontradiction here. Anything contradictory is false, and everything is itself. These are descriptions of reality, and so the information we received which describes reality must conform to this model.

6.
Q. Universally applicable revelation

E. There must be no place or time in existence where the revelation ceases to be true, or ceases to provide for intelligibility. If there were, then we would have no way of knowing whether or not we were in that place or time.

7.
Q. Universally identical revelation; we all get the same information

E. The nature of this revelation is that it's necessary for an intelligible universe; if any part of it is lacking, then there's no way of knowing whether or not we got the whole thing.

8.
Q. Ultimately and universally prescribing source (or "source which prescribes everything", as opposed to "describing source", or partially prescribing source)

E. #1, #2, and #3 are not achievable by any natural means (or else the ability to reveal is a matter of technological advancement, and thus is open to the advantage of potentially untrustworthy revelators who stumble upon the capability). That is to say, the source of the revelation is capable of performing actions which surpass the boundaries set for us by the physical laws which otherwise govern the universe. We can't say that the ultimate source is above the universal laws of intelligibility, or else we undercut #6. That leaves us with only one option capable of providing for an intelligible universe: the ultimate source governs the intelligible universe, and so the intelligibility of the universe (if not the existence of the universe as one which is intelligible) is dependent on the prescription of the ultimate source.

9.
Q. The ultimate source is the only source capable of providing revelations by these means and of this type

E. This follows from #8. If anyone else may ever discover a means by which they can produce an equivalent revelation including information of their own design, then we undercut #4, #5, and #6.

10.
Q. The source is limited in its behaviors by certain qualities which characterize it

E. This is implied by #4, but deserves restating in broader terms. Suppose, for example, that the source prescribed the existence of multiple universes, some intelligible and some not; we would not know if we were in an intelligible universe or an unintelligible one. It is therefore necessary for the source to have a nature of its own, distinct from ours, yet (because of #8) which in itself fully qualifies our experience. In that sense, and given #2 and #3, we may conclude that the revelation is a self-expression of the source (because the revelation itself is limited by the nature of the source, and the prescriptions from the source are defined by its limiting characteristics). #8 doesn't stop there, though. Since the entire universe and all its details exist only as a contingent on the prescriptions of the source, and since the source's prescriptions define the universe without deviating from the boundaries of the source's defining characteristics, we conclude that the universe itself is a self-expression of the source.

----------------------------

This is by no means a comprehensive list! I'm stopping here for lack of time, and because I want to make one more point before I actually run out of time for this post.

So, for some time I've been contemplating the definition of a "person" or a "personal" being. Mostly, because I'm not satisfied with my previous discussions on the necessity that God be personal, and although I recognize the importance of it from a Christian perspective, I recognize that I have a very limited understanding of the meaning of the word anyway. After spending a significant amount of time trying to figure this out, I concluded that the word "person", in all common uses, is synonymous with "human". (This means I'm going to have to pick a new word when I talk about the trinity, but I already have some issues with the way people talk about the trinity in general, so I think it's better to avoid ambiguity. To touch the topic, in case anyone is curious, I don't think that we understand the nature of the trinity half as well as we act like we do during debates about it, and that's granting that during those debates we say plainly that it's incomprehensible.)

However, the word "personal", is not always used with reference to "persons". My dog is not a person, but he has a personality, and my dog has personal preferences which differ from other dogs in its breed. As to having real emotions which are at minimum analogous to my own, I think that any person would be hard pressed to convince me that my dog doesn't love me. So, the word "personal" seems to be made with reference to anything whose behaviors are limited by preferential and emotional considerations. Given that, for lack of appropriate evidence, I can't be sure my dog's behaviors actually represent actual emotions (like a human's), I'm going to call my dog's personality a "duck typed personality". He quacks like he has a personality, and he swims like he has a personality, so I say, "he has a personality".

Now then, emotion and preference represent generally predictable responses to environmental conditions, but which vary from personality to personality. These variances are necessary distinctions for personalities; if there is one robot with a very human-like set of behavioral traits then one might be persuaded to attribute a duck-typed personality to it. If there are multiple robots with identical human-like sets of behavioral traits, then they're just a bunch of machines. So every personality must be unique, but for each individual personality the behaviors must be predictable to a certain degree with respect to itself.

There is one last component to the word "personal", which I think finalizes the definition I've been working on. That is, a personal thing preferentially chooses to be known to other personal things in order to interact with them "on a personal level". The ultimate goal thereof is to share mutual emotional experiences regarded by at least the one as positive. This knowledge and interaction does not have to be vocal. For example, when my dog wants to go out, he stands in front of me and jumps up and down until I tell him I'll take him out. In order to avoid expending too much imaginative effort on this point, I'm going to concede any type of communication at all as valid for this purpose.

That said, since we've already established that preferences and emotions represent predictable responses to environmental conditions, and that these responses are predicated on traits unique to the individual personality, and that the method of communication is irrelevant... I think that a combination of the above #2, #8, #9, and #10 (see 10.E) allow for me to, at minimum, ascribe to the source of that revelation a duck-typed personality. And, as a very important note on that point, full compliance with #8 and #10 requires that calling said personality "duck-typed" is not to imply that it is derivative from our own personality. Rather, it is necessarily the case that our personalities are components of the ultimate source's own self-revelation.

If I had more time, I'd have continued writing bullets, but I thought this last point was most easily explained in paragraph form. Again, this blog only gets you part of the way there. I'll continue the topic more later. I hope you guys can see the road ahead of us. There is only one fully consistent set of facts comprising reality, and so there is only one destination for the truth-seeker. You guys can do it! God bless.

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."

Alright, so finally to talk about the debate I've been wanting to talk about. Here's the debate:

If you skim through the comments, you'll see my knee-jerk reactions in them. I'm almost embarassed to point it out, because I commented mid-video and then commented again on my own comments, and because nobody took the bait; maybe because I wrote too much. I'll restate those comments here in this blog, so please don't read them as I would be embarrassed if you knew that they were made by the same Zac who writes this blog. And even moreso, don't check my youtube profile, where you may find me admitting defeat in a debate about tithing. I leave that video on YouTube as everlasting proof that I'm don't think too highly of my own opinions to occasionally admit being wrong.

So this debate was between Himes, a member of an atheist club in CT, and Alex, a Christian family man with an appetite for presuppositional apologetics. (I use Himes' last name and Alex's first name for brevity).

So, Alex did a great job presenting the presuppositional apologetic as it is taught and issued by apologists Durbin, Sye, and others. More importantly, he did an excellent job presenting the straight-forward message of the gospel in his opening and closing statements. I might not have put as much of an emphasis on the prospect of avoiding eternal hellfire, but Jonathon Edwards was effective as such, and so I know that God uses all types for the expansion of His Kingdom. Alex, if you ever read this, I applaud your effort for the Kingdom. I loved the contrast between your introductions, too. Look at all the pomp atheists ascribe to themselves these days! A Christian spends just a few years studying the Bible diligently every day, and he goes toe to toe with "The Director of Something Something Atheism".  Good job, and God bless you.

However, from a strictly technical standpoint, and in order to emphasize the points I will make, I'm going to side with the atheists in their critique of this debate by saying that Alex lost the debate.

Why do I say that he lost the debate?

Every single debate I've seen between a presuppositional apologist and an atheist has included the same exact questions from the atheist. It's always something like: "If not Atheism, then why Christianity and not Islam?". The question is especially troublesome to answer, as issued by the atheist, because even if the Christian somehow gave an excellent one-minute answer to "why not Islam", the atheist would just propose another religion; "why not Hinduism?", and the question would still be equally valid. The unanswered status of that question itself is not enough to say that the Christian lost the debate, since as Alex points out, the debate is between an Atheist and a Christian, so to rebut every single other religion at once is both out-of-scope and something for which there may not be enough time in the world if they took a conventional approach. However, I do believe that the question is answerable in a reasonable ammount of time, and with respect to all other religions simultaneously; the method I take is to examine the characteristics which an ultimate foundation must have in order to satisfy the preconditions for intelligible experience (more on this later).

I say that Alex lost the debate because, in addition to the above, Himes did something which I have not seen an atheist do in formal debate yet, and it is something which undercuts a typical application of the presuppositional argument. Himes gave an answer for the question, "how do you know that?". Himes proposed an ultimate standard which he said was consistent with atheism -- logic. Specifically, he grounded his assertions on Peano's Axioms.

I'd never heard of Peano prior to watching that debate. I read his wikipedia article, and it seems like the stuff he proposed is not too different from the axioms of thought, or the fundamental principles of boolean arithmetic I learned in school. Nothing new here, but boy Himes sure did sound smart when he named "The Axioms of Peano Arithmetic". I think that it's counterproductive in a debate to use references to things which your opponent does not know as a way to beat their argument. What if Alex had a great rebuttal to Himes' dependence on Peano's Axioms, but just didn't know those axioms by the name "Peano"? Indeed, I think that a knowledge of Peano's Axioms as such is not really necessary for a rebuttal, and I'll explain why.

The general form of the presuppositional argument is an attack; the Sye/Durbin application first attempts to destroy the atheist worldview by pointing out its lack of a foundation, and then to build up the Christian worldview in its place. (I hope my readers don't need me to explain what I mean by "foundation". If so, I recommend my post on March 18, 2018, which makes reference to a bunch of other blogs where I talk about it a lot.) If you watch presuppositional debates, you'll see that typically a short verbal bludgeoning leaves the atheist saying something to the effect of, "I'm content not knowing anything with absolute certainty", and perhaps, "we don't need absolute certainty of anything", which is bread and butter for the experienced presuppositional apologist. I think I differ from common presuppositionalists here, in that I think it's not productive to argue in favor of absolute certainty in such broad terms the way they do, since first of all I've often seen Christians fall into the trap of attempting to extrapolate absolute certainty to the rest of their physical experience, and second I maintain that if an atheist can prove to me "by scripture and plain reason" that I am wrong about God or the existence of God, then perhaps I'm wrong. I prefer to argue in favor of the strict necessity of an absolute foundation which must be capable of providing preconditions for intelligibility, and then to examine what can be readily assessed about the preconditions for intelligibility in order to demonstrate their distinct likeness with the description of God in scripture. I leave open the possibility that I may be proved wrong about the nature of that foundation, but I insist, like Himes in this case, that the foundation itself is discernible by means of our reason and faculties, although the utilization of it is not entirely dependent on our conscious acknowledgement of it. I disagree with Himes in that I assert that our reason and faculties themselves are incapable of functioning as that foundation. This insistence is not incompatible with Christianity, as indeed Romans 1 says, "...what can be known about God is known to them, since God has made it plain to them.", and after God makes himself known, Psalm 19 says, "Day to day pours forth speech.".

I think that, as far as descriptions of reality go, Peano's rules seem efficacious to say the least. However, it is precisely because they are descriptions that they are not eligible candidates for epistemological ultimacy. A description of something may be true despite our knowledge of it, but it must be learned and verified before it can serve us as an antecedent for any knowable conclusion. Anything which is learned is itself a conclusion, and the means by which it is learned is the antecedent. As it happens, we depend on our internal faculties to provide us with antecedent for knowledge about everything learned. So, the question for Himes was, from what source do we learn that our internal faculties are reliable? Indeed, if we suppose that they are generally reliable, then we can readily ascertain instances where they have been unreliable, or where other people have used their own faculties unreliably. (I'm not just talking about our sense perceptions, but the entire use of them in conjunction with our capacity for reasonable interpretation). Given that our internal faculties are unreliable, it follows that the information they provide is unreliable. Furthermore, since we have no reference point to measure them against other than themselves, they are unreliable to an unpredictable degree.  It is for this reason that when Alex asks, "what if 2+2 does not equal 4, relative to the simulation?", Himes is at fault for utilizing Peano's Axioms to say that it is impossible for Alex's hypothetical scenario to be the case; he learned Paeno's axioms by means of the same unreliable faculties with which he utilizes Paeno's axioms.

Here's where absolute certainty comes into play, and only here. We all must, and do, have absolute certainty about the information by which the ultimate foundation makes the world intelligible to us. That information is unique, because we may not even be able to easily quantify what that information is by means of ordinary words. These are the axioms; the "pathologies" that Himes mentioned.

We have absolute certainty of them; Himes is right. But we cannot say that we have absolute certainty of them if we learned about them by means of, (and if our knowledge of them is dependent on), our unreliable internal faculties; Himes is wrong.

Since our internal faculties are not sufficient to provide us with the information which we so self-evidently have, we are left with only one option: the information came to us from an external source.

Talking about the specific characteristics necessary for an ultimate foundation takes a lot of space, and this blog is pretty long already. I'll update/restate those characteristics as I now understand them in a future blog, but for the time being you can check out my post on April 15, 2017, which is my most recent attempt at qualifying them.

Last thing, as to the specific "contradiction" in scripture to which Himes kept referring, I'm honestly a bit curious if he ever Googled it... because I did after the debate, and I was quite satisfied with the answers I found after some studying. He says he's very interested in an answer, but I'm not sure that he is, or he might have done more research on that point prior to the debate. In any case, I'm surprised he would expect any Christian debate opponent to have, off the top of their head, an answer to such an obscure detail about Scripture. Himes, if you ever read this, that was silly of you.

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened."

So I really want to talk about that debate, but first I want to iron out one more thing on the topic of #EndAbortionNow. This angle on the topic was brought to my attention by my lovely and excellent wife, Chowon.

My objection to #EndAbortionNow, on the 14th of this month, was that they are attempting to conform the government to Biblical Law by advocating an incremental change to the government as a whole, whereas they decry incremental changes in the area of abortion on the grounds that abortion is opposed to Biblical Law. To be clear, I am of the opinion that #EndAbortionNow is the best and most consistent anti-abortion movement to date. I recognize that in their general discourse they do advocate "a return to Biblical standards" in America, they are solid theonomists, my brothers and sisters in Christ for which I have the utmost respect and love, and I am 100% in agreement with the idea that abortion should be stopped immediately. I would not by any means tell them to stop what they're doing, but I want to encourage them to perhaps apply their worldview more thoroughly, if not more consistently, in the way they go about attempting to change politics and law.

In this blog, I want to take a closer look at the implications of this distinction, between advocating change to individual laws and advocating a change to the entire system. I'm picking on #EndAbortionNow because I know that they are theonomists, and I honestly don't think there are very many of us out there, so if anyone might be able to sympathize with me, then I think it's them.

The top 5 reasons for wanting an abortion, according to a few studies (here's a website), were:

1. Unready
2. Can't afford a baby
3. Done having children
4. Don't want to be a single parent
5. Not mature enough to be a parent

-- and for the record, the top 3 outweigh all others by a significant percent.

I want to suggest the following:

A. These are legitimate reasons for a newly pregnant woman to be distressed about her circumstance, (although not legitimate reasons to murder), and they need to be addressed
B. Biblical law addresses and resolves these issues directly, and in good ways
C. American law does not provide any good resolution for these issues

After some discussion of those points, I will conclude that if abortion is made illegal right now without also immediately conforming the rest of the government to Biblical law, then both the mother and the father will be made vulnerable to cascading legal injustices.


Alright, so first let's talk a little about the way that U.S. law handles the situation, and what injustices would take place if abortion were made immediately illegal without a complete overhaul of the government. To save space, because I tend to write long blogs, I'm going to just give one example. I think this example categorically touches "reasons" 1, 2, 4, and 5. I think the situation in this example is not too uncommon to be used in argument.

I want to take a look at the case where a young unmarried person becomes pregnant, and the boyfriend refuses or is unable to marry or provide, and perhaps threatens to abandon her on account of the baby. Many (most?) states require the father to provide child support if the baby is born, and if he is unable to pay then he may be put in jail, or he may be simply commanded to make the payments in the future, or on a certain schedule. Jail itself is an unjust penalty, not beneficial for the inmate who is surrounded by other criminals for an extended time, expensive for the taxpayers who feed him, and not mentioned as a penal sanction in any part of Biblical Law. Furthermore, if he is put in jail or never pays child support, then the woman receives nothing from him. The compulsion for men to pay child support is weak, and the penalty if he doesn't is counterproductive. As it would stand, in the case where a  new mother, identifying that the man will seek to abandon her, decides to pursue abortion illegally, but without the man pressuring her to do so directly, she alone would be penalized.  It's unjust to penalize only the mom, and to so weakly compel the father to provide, because the man must be required to take responsibility for his role in producing the child. The role of justice is to make the victim whole again, and to penalize the criminal in a way that restores the land and deters other would-be criminals. In short, U.S. Law minus legal abortion does not justly hold the father accountable for his role in the production of this new life, it doesn't make the woman whole again, and it doesn't deter other would-be unsupportive fathers. But this point is difficult to really demonstrate without comparing it against the Biblical standard.


Let's look at the way that the Bible addresses the issue.

I have to start by addressing the most obvious thing, (don't give up and stop reading when I say) abstinence. If you're not ready to have kids, even by accident, the Bible makes it pretty clear that you shouldn't be having sex (do I need to cite verses for this?), and if you are overcome by physical passions, then you should get married (1 Cor 7:9), and if you're married, then you shouldn't be holding back (1 Cor 7:5, Mal 2:15). There's no such thing as consequence-free sex.

Now let's get into what I really wanted to talk about: holding the father accountable in a just way, and in a way which protects the woman and ensures that she and the baby will be provided for.

In scripture, if two consenting unmarried people have sex, then they are required to get married, except if the woman's father forbids it. Biblical marriage involves the father of the bride giving a dowry to the newly married couple (Gen 24:53, 1 Kings 9:16, Matt 28:18), and the husband of the bride giving a bride price to his new father-in-law (Gen 31, 24:12, 1 Sam 18:25, Ex 22:16-17)[*see note at bottom about "bride price"]. After the marriage, the woman has "marital rights", including food, clothing, money, and self-sacrificing love, which the husband must provide for her (Ephesians 5:25-33, Exodus 21:10). If the husband fails to provide for her, she is allowed to divorce him (Exodus 21:11 demonstrates this for the case of a wife who was taken while she was a slave; if she divorces, then her debts are forgiven as part of the divorce). There is no legal requirement for a father to give a dowry, but the legal requirement for a bride price is expressed in several passages. Women in the Bible are legal co-owners of the family property (Numbers 27, Proverbs 31). If they divorce, she may take half of of his assets with her.

If an unmarried woman becomes pregnant by consensual intercourse, then she and the man are required to get married, and he is required to provide for her per the laws above. If the father of the bride refuses to give his daughter to the man, then the man still has to pay the bride price. (Exodus 22:16-17)

If she is betrothed, and is raped, then the rapist gets the death penalty (Deut 22:25). If she is not betrothed, and is raped, then the rapist is legally bound to her family. He has to pay her parents the bride price, and then he has to pay a fine of 50 shekels of silver** to the father, he has to marry her, and the man cannot ever initiate a divorce (Deut 22:28-29). The father may refuse to give his daughter to the man, as he is capable of negating any oath taken by members of his family until they are given away by him in marriage (Ex 22:16-17, Numbers 30). In this marriage, as stated above, the father of the bride is not required to give a dowry, and the wife is not restricted from initiating divorce. If she chooses to divorce him, as stated above, she will take a portion of his assets with her in addition to what he already lost in the bride price and the fine. If he is unable to pay the bride price and the fine, in accordance with the rules about failure to pay off debts, he becomes a slave to the father of the bride at a state-defined wage until the fine is paid off.

Now, I know that atheists like to portray these laws by paraphrasing them as "you must marry your rapist", but if you look at the way this practically works out, the man is put at the mercy of the bride's family. Not to mention, the way atheists summarize this is just plain inaccurate, because the father can refuse to let her marry him and she can initiate a divorce.  Let's do a quick comparison:

In America, a rapist is put in jail for a period of time. For the entirety of his sentence, the bride and her family pay for his food, bedding, and clothing with their taxes. He is surrounded by other criminals for a few years, and then he returns to society a hardened man who has difficulty finding employment. The bride's family is harmed by the offense, and then they are forced to pay again for it in taxes, and society doesn't benefit from his time in jail. Under Biblical law, the rapist has to pay the bride's family a bride price, plus 3 years wages, plus half of his remaining assets, and if he can't afford it immediately then he pays it off by becoming the slave of the bride's father. Which one gives back to the bride's family? Which one is more burdensome on society?


So, to bring this back around, my point is that the man has certain responsibilities which he must justly perform for any woman who he has sex with. To simply demand that a woman should not be legally allowed to murder her children without also demanding that a man must be legally required to take responsibility for his actions in the matter, is neglectful to the woman and her family. I'm completely in favor of saving the baby, and justice has to be done fully, not in part.

But here's the thing. Suppose we make abortion illegal and we also enact all the Biblical the laws mentioned above in this blog. In that case, we would still be exposing people to further injustice for lack of other intertwined Biblical Laws which I haven't even mentioned here! (For example, imagine implementing slavery as a penalty without first defining the parameters around it, such as the rules limiting physical punishment on slaves, the rules about how slaves can't be kept for more than 7 years, and the rules about how slaves can't be people who were kidnapped and sold, and how the kidnapper and any person found in possession of the victim are given the death penalty.) God doesn't deal in partial packages. If you change gravity a little bit, then everything falls apart. Justice, like all the rest of God's reality, is a complete package. If you change justice on one point, then it is no longer justice (James 2:10).

So, to conclude, it's not acceptable to correct the U.S. law on just one point, even though it is a very important point. The only way to approach this is to advocate the complete removal and replacement of all U.S. laws with Biblical laws.

---------------
Notes:
*The practice of paying a bride price does not imply or necessitate any objectification of the woman. Nowhere in the Bible is there any indication that women are to be seen as a commodity. In fact, a virtuous woman is said to be priceless (Proverbs 31:10); the language used to describe her parallels the language used to describe Wisdom itself (Proverbs 3:15, Job 28:15-17). Instead, the bride-price fulfills the responsibility of the bride to care for her parents on her behalf, and reimburses (in part or full) the dowry. A careless and uninformed atheist may attempt to rebut this point by quoting Leviticus 27, which describes the price to buy back people who have been dedicated to God, and which effectively penalizes men more than women for otherwise neglecting their responsibilities toward God.
**The fine in this case was 50 shekels, which is about 575 grams of silver according to my footnotes. The value of a shekel varied significantly over time and location, but to give us an idea we can look at the value of a denarius, which was 4.5 grams of silver. From what information I can find, 1 denarius would cover 10 days worth of food for a soldier, and was reasonably close to 2 days pay. Applying this back, the bride price required in this case can be said to have been just over 3 years wages.

I realized recently that I seem to have a revolving set of viewers. I seem to typically generate between 3 and 12 views per post. Google tells me the country of origin of my viewers, the browser they use, and their operating system. Views on consecutive posts seem to have, predictably, the same viewer statistics, as long as they are on the same topic (in my mind, topics I generally cover include philosophical arguments, scientific arguments, poetry, politics, and personal life). The topic I discuss generally depends on my mood and environment.

Well, anyway, since I'm able to identify that my viewership changes regularly, I've been thinking that there's no harm in repeating myself from time to time.

But before I get into repeating myself, allow me to repeat myself. I've made this point before, but in light of my previous blog, I'd like to make it again in brief. In my previous blog, I talked about secession from the American government; at best, on the terms that they haven't provided sufficient structural freedom to local governing authorities; at worst, on the terms that they are godless.

I anticipate that some will object by citing Romans 13, which states that we should submit to governing authorities inasmuch as they are instituted by God and derive their authority from God. The short form of the rebuttal to this argument is that Romans 13 defines "authority" in terms which are incompatible with the current form of authority in the U.S. when it says, "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong". Now, we know that the Bible defines right from wrong. So, that is to say, when we want to apply Romans 13 to some human who claims authority, we should ask ourselves, "Does this person/group hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong?". If the answer is "no" to that question, then the person or group is not a ruler.

As a caveat to that, I do not deny that God utilizes wicked governments to penalize the world. I'll be the first to cite Isaiah 10, "Assyria is the rod of my anger". God used Assyria to punish Israel, and then God punished Assyria for their wickedness. So, Assyria was temporarily granted authority by God. However, God preserved a remnant, which did not bow the knee to Assyria's gods. The remnant outlives the tyranny of Assyria and re-establishes righteous government in the wake of its destruction.

The paradox in my mind is, how does the Bible at once say, "love...against such things there is no law", and then say, "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, on these two commandments the whole law is built." If God's standard of perfection is love, and if the law is God's standard for perfection, and if then the Law of God which tells me to "rescue those who are going to slaughter" is an extrapolation from love, then why does the law in the U.S. forbid me from blocking the way to an abortion clinic (for example)? It would appear that there is a law against loving my neighbor.

Here is where we find another precedent in the Bible. "I looked for a man to repair the wall and stand in the breach..." (Ezekiel 22). Unjust laws are a breach in the walls which otherwise defend us from the wrath of God. I'd like to suggest that the dividing line between coexisting with tyranny and standing in the breach is drawn on the near side of laws which punish good and promote evil. At that point, the remnant of God openly disobeys the government in the land (Daniel 3, Acts 5:29), and if that land is so blessed as to have sufficient concentration of Christians that they can locally execute just law, then they are able to create for themselves a walled city, with just laws protecting them from God's wrath. So if we believe that we are really Christian, then we've got no recourse except to suppose that we are the remnant of God. Christians, why should we pull the wall back to protect only our families, rather than establishing the city of God and placing that wall around our entire neighborhood?

Lastly, I want to respond to the all-too-common objection, "the world is in bad shape. It will never happen". That's a ridiculous prophesy, an example of the kind of thinking which has inhibited the greater good since the birth of the modern government. It's self-fulfilling. If everybody refuses to do something on the grounds that "it will never be done", then in fact it will never be done. But great change requires individual decisions to be different; to act in spite of the odds. Brothers and sisters, do we really believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and that God told us what his perfect standards of justice are, and that God then declared to us that His law is good and carries with it his blessings for prosperity and general equity? If we really believe that, then it doesn't make sense for us to advocate anything else. And if we believe that it is sin to act differently from God's expressed commands, then it doesn't make sense for us to submit to anything less than God's Law. By refusing to even attempt good on the grounds that it is likely to be temporally unsuccessful, we deprive ourselves and our children of a better world.

I hoped to comment on a debate I recently watched between a Christian and some atheists, but I'll save that for my next blog because this one is long enough.

"Choir inside and it sings to the king; to the king; to the king."

So, if I don't precisely characterize agreement with Theonomy as a political and ethical theory, then I'm very, very sympathetic to it. But I don't know if I can really identify with the movement or not, because I'm not sure if the adherents to that view are extreme enough for me. I'll explain.

I generally think that it's a good idea to try hard to take my worldview to its logical end or extremes, and then ask myself, "Does this still seem true? Do I still agree with this?". If I find that the answer is "no", then I need to find out why. The way I see it, in that scenario I have a few options (which are not mutually exclusive): A) I'm making an emotional objection, not based on fact, B) I'm wrong about my source material, or C) my source material is wrong about reality. On the other hand, if examination yields that the answer is "yes", then it's very important that I apply these "next logical steps" to my life -- because truth matters.

So here's what I've been thinking. I agree with the Theonomists when they say that OT Law, with its fulfillment by Jesus Christ in mind, is the very same imminent morality which defines and divides all right from wrong, justice from injustice. We all agree that the Bible is the Most Just Law, as defined by The Perfect and Most Just Law Giver, God. It is for this reason that I do not agree with them when they say things to the effect that, "...therefore we need to restore America's adherence to the constitution".

I understand that they make this kind of statement on the grounds that the American constitution was drafted by Christians and based on Biblical principles. However, it seems to me that the constitution is on the one hand extremely vague, if it is indeed intended to bind people to the Biblical Law, and on the other hand it is contrary to Biblical law on certain points as I understand them (namely the religious test for office).

So, if our intent is to bring people in line with Biblical Law, then rather than saying, "...therefore we need to restore America's adherence to the constitution", it seems to me that a more productive statement would be, "...therefore we need to reform America so that its entire government conforms to the model defined for us in Holy Scripture."

The thing that brought this to my mind also serves as an example of the way this works out in practice. I was meditating to refine my worldview, and Apologia Chuch's campaign, #EndAbortionNow came to my mind. It's a righteous campaign with which I wholeheartedly agree on principle. Abortion should be ended "now, completely" and not "later, incrementally". But by what means?

Why do they appeal specific Biblical laws to a government which is not fundamentally Biblical? Granted, it may be "more Biblical" than other governments, and it may even be rooted in good intentions or Biblical sentiments, but I don't see any lawyer appealing to Scripture in his case, nor any member of the judiciary appealing to Scripture in his judgments. They appeal to the law of America, which is not the Bible because it is different from the Bible. So, when #EndAbortionNow petitions the government to conform its laws to Biblical Law, they petition it to make only a partial change, and they petition the government to utilize an extra-Biblical process (the American legislative process) to perform the change.

What they're doing, in effect, is campaigning for incremental changes to the government, as opposed to demanding the immediate implementation of Just Law. Sure, they don't want incremental changes in the area of Abortion, but by campaigning for the addition of individual laws to an inherently non-Biblical system, they're advocating an incremental change to the entire standard.

Now, in either case, there's a major road block in their way. The Government at this time seems to be comprised primarily of nonChristians, whereas God commands, "Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite." (Deuteronomy 17:15b). -- Now, bear in mind that the Bible defines elsewhere that "Israelites" are the Covenant people, descended from Abraham by Covenant and not by flesh (Romans 9:8). So the "Foreigner" in this scenario is any nonbeliever, and a careful examination of OT Law and prophesy reveals that this was, without a doubt, the original intent of the law, even in those days. -- So to demand that a government comprised of nonbelievers conform itself to Biblical law is a contradiction in terms. Either the entire government would have to first accept Jesus Christ as Lord, or the composition of the government would have to be replaced entirely.

That's what I'm suggesting. An outright rejection of the entire American government, in favor of small groups of Christians who establish their own local governments, derive their own currency from the Biblical standards for value and measures, and execute justice locally. To be clear, I do not advocate any kind of violence, nor any kind of subterfuge. No violence. No lies. No tricks.

Unfortunately, execution of Biblical law in such a community would eventually be contrary to American Law. Things would get quite complicated, and it might be very difficult to do it righteously.  If it can't be done righteously, then it shouldn't be done. What I long for, then, is a community isolated from secular supervisory forces which harm the innocent and penalize us for acting according to our conscience. A separate country; a new land, where the Biblical standards can be studied carefully and implemented directly as law.

"Behold, I long for your precepts...for my hope is in your rules."
"I will also speak of your testimonies before kings
    and shall not be put to shame,
for I find my delight in your commandments,
    which I love."
"When I think of your rules from of old,
    I take comfort, O Lord.
Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,
    who forsake your law."
"The law of your mouth is better to me
    than thousands of gold and silver pieces."
"Let your mercy come to me, that I may live;
    for your law is my delight."
-- Excerpts from Psalm 119

[P.S. I'm adding this here so I don't forget. I had some thoughts about the fundamental principles of reason, or the Laws of Thought, as presented in scripture, notably starting with the Law of Identity.]

Did another GRE practice essay tonight. I think I made a mistake here by saying "social security benefits" when I should have said "401K", and I'm not certain if it has happened, or if the government just gave itself the legal authority to do it. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the GRE won't be fact-checked, because they aren't giving me the freedom to get online and research my facts during the test, they said they want examples, and I really don't know that much about the prompt topic except that I have a principled disagreement with whoever said it.

I timed myself this time, and I had my phone next to me with the timer. But my phone screen kept going dark, and when I wanted to check the time I had to unlock my phone first. I use a pretty lengthy combo lock on my phone for no reason... I managed to check the time at 16 minutes remaining, and again at 6 minutes remaining. I was essentially done with the essay at 6 minutes, so I spent the last few minutes doublechecking my grammar.

Also, I made the mistake of neglecting to read the instructions on this prompt. After having written the essay I took a closer look and realized that both this and the previous prompt had instructions which differed from those given for my first essay. Fortunately, I think the distinction was small enough that I might be able to get away with what I wrote, but still it's something I'll do better next time.

Anyway, here it is:

[PROMPT]
Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.
[/PROMPT]

[ESSAY]
It's true that scandals tend to capture public attention in a unique and powerful way. When a scandal has come to light, the public latches onto it, and this widespread focus tends to lead to quick resolutions. The people have proven time and time again that when they speak to the government with a unified voice, the government is forced to listen, for what government can exert authority over a people when the people do not recognize its authority?

However, scandals are not only useful as a method to apply pressure towards resolving a problem, they are also useful as a means to distract the population from more pressing issues. Someone famously said, "never let a good scandal go to waste". For example, when the government of the United States took away veterans benefits or social security benefits from its citizens by a lottery, or when the government emptied the bank accounts of a random selection of citizens in order to pay for certain pressing expenses, these events were reported briefly, but then scandal conveniently struck in an area of some less consequential misconduct, having to do with either government or business at the time. These scandals succeeded in turning the attention of the public away from the hurting individuals who lost their fortunes, and away from its own unsure futures. Instead, the public turned its eyes towards problems which ultimately did not affect them directly. The populace at large said, "that will never happen to me", and then turned their eyes towards scapegoats which were more interesting, or more entertaining than the fact that our government has both the capability and the will to sweep our futures out from under our feet.

Furthermore, while the statement seems intended to identify the silver lining surrounding scandals, the scandals themselves must nonetheless be recognized as a symptom of a problem. The scandal only captures the public eye because it points out that there are problems in existence which require public attention. It should rather be the case that neither the originating problem, nor the resultant scandal, ever came into existence. I see no benefit to attempting to cast any positive light on either the scandal or its cause. The statement, then, is akin to saying that prison is a positive thing because it keeps criminals off the street. Naive as the following sentiment may seem, I'm certain that it would be better to have neither criminal nor prison. For this reason, I believe that such a statement in itself is not useful. Rather than lauding the consequences of the crime, let's attempt to improve the society in ways which remove incentive to commit the crime at all.

So, while scandals do indeed serve the purpose of quickly resolving specific issues, they also may serve as a cover for much more serious problems. For this reason, I disagree with what I perceive to be the heart of the statement. Furthermore, I find that the statement itself is not worth making, because there is little use to be found in identifying positive aspects in the consequences of crime; it would be better to direct our energy towards preventing the crime before it becomes a scandal.
[/ESSAY]

I've been going through Genesis again. I particularly like this book, and if I haven't already said so, I'm quite convinced that the available evidence best fits a young earth, but I may differ from some other young-earthers out there. I was thinking today I might get into my understanding of the science behind that, and some of the steps I take on my road to that conclusion. Also, I feel like I've been writing a lot about things I don't know these days. I feel like I floundered through my past few blogs.... I'm not an expert on this topic either.

I'm tempted to just post links and references to some of my favorite "summarizing" lectures... I'll do that here, but in case you're like me and you'd rather have things explained to you in brief and all in one place, I'll also explain myself in text. I'm not going to go back and watch the lectures to make sure my information is correct; I'm just going to explain myself as I currently understand things. You're getting "Zac" here, not anyone else necessarily. This isn't intended to be a scholarly article.

Here's a good lecture by Bahnsen on evolution. Some of his points are dated, but in general it's still relevant (I hope you'll excuse the background music. I really hate when youtubers do that):

Here's the beginning on a well conceived, though perhaps poorly produced, documentary on creationism. Pretty sure the rest of that is available on youtube if you follow the links:

I also want to recommend "Is Genesis History?", the netflix documentary. I skimmed through the bad reviews, and the ones I read seemed mostly to be frustrated that it only presented creationism as offered by creationists. I honestly can't imagine why that bothers them, though, considering that for 12 formative years of our lives in America we're fed nothing but Darwinism as offered by Darwinists in school, and anyway the movie is about creationism! [...thinks about it some more...] oh I get it, the title is misleading. Well, considering how readily available the other points of view are, I still think the movie is best as it is.

OK, now onto my personal thoughts etc.

When I have a discussion about science or "the evidence" with atheists, they tend to throw key words at me. For example, "what about the big bang?", "what about the fossil record?", "what about the layers of the earth?", "what about the polar ice caps?", and "what about carbon dating?", etc.. The problem is, neither me nor the people I talk to are experts in the fossil record, the polar ice caps, the geological layers, or the big bang. So after the first challenge, even if I actually do know a good answer for it (and I suppose I do), it's not as if either of us have the ammunition necessary to meaningfully discuss it, so they just present the next keyword! The most frustrating thing about it in my mind is that they present these topics without explaining them, as if I should just already know that the thing they are talking about is so obviously against Christianity that I have to present a wild convolution of the available data to frame my worldview. That's actually what they may think, though, and I can't blame them for acting consistently with their worldview, especially because of the way schools indoctrinate us against Christianity these days. Praise God for parents who receive their kids home from school and ask, "what did you learn?" and then say, "well, you know, your parents believe differently from what you were just taught. Let's talk about the different perspectives." -- because that's how you foster critical thinking.

It's the same in formal debates on the sciences. You can't expect a single person to be an expert in every field of science, so it's extremely frustrating to me when I see Christians go to debates where they're hit with rapid-fire broad questions about entirely distinct fields of study, and as soon as they fail to answer one of the questions all the atheists in commentary jeer at them as if they've decidedly lost the debate. Atheists suppose they don't have to prove anything simply because they read a textbook written by more decorated atheists who agree with them.

Anyway, for the above reasons, I think the epistemological argument is the best and most valuable argument for everyone to consider, scientist and layman alike, because it cuts through all the BS and asks, "are your premises actually capable of bringing you to these conclusions?"

[/RANT]

OK, now I'm going to give my understanding of the events surrounding creation, and I'll try to hit each of the keywords I listed above while I'm at it. Also, I intend to point out some of the stuff that confuses me. Atheists complain to Christians all the time for presenting "God of the gaps" on issues where Atheists are ignorant; I nonetheless expect Atheists to present to me "Atheism of the gaps" in areas where I'm ignorant. What I present here isn't a perfect explanation of everything; rather I hope that it leads you to conclude, as I have, that there are perfectly reasonable interpretations of the available evidence which do not necessitate against Christianity. In fact, I suppose that these interpretations are "more reasonable" than the ones taught in schools, primarily because of the philosophical argument I've alluded to.

In the beginning, God expressed his will, and the universe exploded into existence.

Here's where I differ from some other young earthers, and I hesitate to post this opinion because I secretly wish that a Hebrew grammarian would correct me. I think that the Bible leaves room for a wide gap of time between Genesis verses 1 and 3. During this time, it makes sense to me that God spun the planets into alignment, crashing them into one another over the course of who-knows how many years. This is where my understanding of physics also breaks down, because it appears that God, again by means of His will, manifested light on the first day, after creating the universe. So, what boggles my mind is how he created stars without creating light.

The earth was formless until God brought dry land to surface on the earth. This was what we call Pangaea; the single giant continent. I personally suppose it was probably a bit larger than just "all our current continents stuck together", and I think we'll see why in a bit. The earth was internally full of warm water at the time, causing a mist to rise up from the ground all around the land, and there was a lot of water in the atmosphere, creating an exceptionally fertile climate.

God created all the creatures, including mankind, in the 5 days following his decision to create light. I guess this is a good time to talk about the fossil record. So the issue is that there is no fossil record. I mean, even Darwin said that a major issue with his theory was that if we really did have billions or trillions of years of evolution, we should be kicking around intermediate fossils in our back yards. What we have instead is a systematic lack of fossils in between major groupings, and that interbreeding is still possible among all species in each major grouping  (See Ken Ham's version of the evolutionary tree of life). It is the common ancestor from each of these evolutionary types which populated the ark (getting ahead of myself).

I know that certain scientists have gone out in search of human/ape missing-link fossils and found tiny fragments of bone, which they then extrapolated into exactly what they were looking for. Truly, I don't know much about their methods for extrapolating. Here's my understanding: even if they did an excellent job of extrapolating, what we now know is that as people age far beyond 100 years, their bones begin to take on features similar to those we look for in "missing link" bones. (As it happens, the Bible records a time when people were living that long.) And even if it's not a 600 year old guy, we do have people with weird skulls alive today. The existing "evidence" for evolution is sparse, questionable, and even if they did a good job, it can still be interpreted just as easily by creationists in favor of creation, without much stretch of the imagination. The latter being the case, why do I still assert that it's questionable? It's because it is. The scientific method explicitly calls for us to attempt to disprove our own hypotheses. I don't see atheists (or many Christians, for that matter,) doing that at the moment.

Alright, moving on from evolution, all the creatures are created, sin enters the world, cool stuff happens in society, and then we have the flood. Genesis 7:11 says that water came up from underground and came down from above ground simultaneously.

So, all at once, in the span of about 190 days, Pangaea split and the entire Atlantic ocean came up out of the ground. The outer edges of the continents were grinding against the rest of the earth, producing a nice seam of fault-lines surrounding the pacific. As the oceans receded, they washed over the land repeatedly, depositing soil and producing the wide, thin layers we see in the earth. The dramatic changes in the earth caused a quick-onset ice-age over a big chunk of the planet, and water was pulled up into ice-caps (another thing I don't understand). At this time, however, a big portion of the Atlantic ocean was still warm (because the water had recently came up from under ground), and the warmth from it was blown eastward over the middle-east. When the water receded enough, this warmth allowed for a warm patch right were Noah's ark landed, enabling him to exit the ark with the animals and begin farming easily.

So I think the only things from my list which I haven't covered are the ice caps and carbon dating. As I understand it, atheists are saying that the ice caps prove that the earth is old because they are very thick, and we can see that the ice gets more dense as you go downward, and we can measure the snowfall in a year, and use that information to extrapolate millions of years of snowfall into a few inches of deep ice. The problem here is that ice doesn't keep compressing indefinitely, so you can't keep extrapolating downward and putting more years into each inch as you go down, and so it's just as easy for me to say that it all froze in a year and then compressed under its own weight as it is to say that it all froze in a million years and compressed under its own weight.

And finally, carbon dating. It doesn't work. There have been multiple studies where scientists used modern methods for carbon dating to measure the age of still-living animals. They discovered that the animals were tens of thousands of years old! The whole process depends on assumptions about the levels of various chemicals in the atmosphere at the time which we predetermine that our target must have come from, and those assumptions are based on models of global history designed to support the methods which employ the assumptions.

Alright, that's it for tonight. I hope this helps someone out there. The most important thing I'd like to tell a reader here is that God is good, and we are designed to experience joy and peace in His presence. He is so good and perfect that it is impossible (and even dangerous) for any person who has ever done wrong in their life to approach him and act on our design. So, since everyone has done wrong, God's son volunteered to come down, become a human, live a perfect life, and then receive the penalty for our sins on behalf of all who believe in him. If you believe, then pray to Jesus and tell him about it! The Bible says that we can talk to Jesus as a friend, and so you don't have to be shy or stumble over your words; just tell him that you want that relationship, that peace, that forgiveness, and that joy.

"It's close to 11."