Author Archives: randomraindrops

Answers In Heresy (I mean Genesis)

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AIG apologist Isaac Bourne claims Christians are going to hell (cannot be saved) because they fail to follow AIG theology. Here is his argument. It depends on having a belief about the age of the earth (being young).

Issac Bourne

That’s because the worlds education requires one to accept the worlds views. You cannot be educated with secular degrees and expect not to be rejected by the groups that educated you if you proclaim God and the Bible. God plays second fiddle to no man’s: Education, opinion or whatever. Period. And when this person gets to Heaven, God won’t be opening a science book either. And Darwin won’t be sitting next to Him giving judgment on how well every accepted evolution.

Which creation belief can you use to draw people forward to salvation?

God used evolution to create? Nope.

God used millions and billions of years to create? Nope.

God’s creation is literally true aka YEC? Yep. Happens everyday.

This is why you won’t see God used evolution to create do alter calls.

This is why you won’t see God took millions and billions of years do alter calls.

Because there is no God in it therefore God will not draw people unto his Son through a lie. So those 2 teachings come back void while YEC does not.

“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” James 4:17 KJV

When you know what the truth is and you instead decide to believe a lie.

Then what you believe becomes a sin because you knew better. That is why the word knoweth is used. Do you know God’s Word say nothing about using evolution during creation? Of course you do. Do you know God’s Word and tracible time line supports 6-24 hour days and 6.000 years? Of course you do.

And yet you believe something else right? So your belief is now a sin, not by my opinion, but what God’s Word states. And if you do not respect God’s Word enough to accept correction then you are already lost in that sin.

Here’s what happens when you mess with God’s Word.

“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Revelation 22:19 KJV

And can you enter Heaven without you name in the book of life?

“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” Revelation 20:15 KJV

And because you now know, you can never claim true ignorance which is covered by grace because this ignorance is on purpose. YEC is just a literal belief. God’s Word judges what happens when you go outside of such things, not those who believe YEC, Did I not back up everything concerning that? Then your problem is not with YEC, it’s with God’s Word. And all we do is abide by that is that also is what you have a problem with. prove me wrong.

I said to him

Issac Bourne Origins theories have nothing to do with salvation as far as I can figure. Ive started to ask lifelong bible scholars, ordained ministers, and theologians about this. Is Christianity dependent upon a particular narrative or belief about origins? The answer I get is “no”. Salvation depends on Jesus of Nazareth and his death, burial, resurrection, and propitiation for sin, etc, etc, and faith in him and his work Age of the earth? Has nothing to do with that except you have constructed a narrative and turned it into a doctrine. The sorting of sheep and goats will depend on response to the Christ, not on opinion about origins. Unless you create some kind of “new and different?” doctrine that says judgement does depend on a believer’s opinion about origins. I dont see that requirement in the scriptures. It looks to me like this doctrine, if it is a doctrine at all, did not exist in the 1st and 2nd century but was added in modern times. Which adds doctrine to the scriptures. Its either modern additive doctrine or its not doctrine at all but instead is just personal opinion. A bit hard to tell.

I dont see the core beliefs of christianity being affected by your world view here.

Dustin Burlet, another AIG apologist says no, their belief about the bible and theology does not affect salvation per se. But if not accepted it does destroy the truth in the bible.

There is a lot to unpack here – if I have understood the scenario (about YEC) correctly much hinges on Jesus. Allow me to explain (citing C. John Collins, Science and Faith: Friends or Foes, pg. 106)

Collins states:

“The argument for a young earth . . . goes like this: the phrases ‘from the beginning of creation’ (Mark 10:6) and ‘from the beginning’ (Matt 19:4, 😎 do not refer to the beginning of mankind [sic] but to the beginning of creation itself. Therefore, Jesus was dating the origin of mankind [sic] to a time very shortly after the initial creation of Genesis 1:1. If there is any kind of time very shortly after the initial creation and the beginning of the creation week, or if the week itself lasts much longer than an ordinary week, then we must conclude that Jesus was mistaken (or worse, misleading), and therefore he can’t be God. “

Collins goes on to clarify:

“If this argument is sound, I’m in trouble, because . . . I cannot follow this reading of Genesis 1. On the other hand, I firmly believe in the traditional Christian doctrine of Christ, and tremble at the thought of doing anything to undermine it. But the argument is not sound. It finds its credibility from the way the English “from the beginning” seems so definite; but the Greek is not fixed in meaning. “

NB: Specifically, the use “of the article in Greek is not like use of the definite article in English, not least because Greek does not have the same choice of forms . . . Once a Greek speaker or writer chose to use the article, there was not a choice whether an indefinite or definite one would be used. Therefore, the presence or absence of an article does not make a substantive definite or indefinite.” Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (London: Sheffield Academic 2nd. ed, 2005) 103. See too Middleton, Doctrine of the Greek Article (London: Rivington, 2nd ed, 1841). Notably, though, the term ἄρχη is not actually articular in any of the texts cited above save Matt 19:4 (Cf. John 1:1).

Irrespective of the minutia, what is clear from the above is that Collins does not dismiss the question of the age of the earth as a secondary issue. Instead, he (rightly) ties a proper understanding of these matters to biblical authority via connecting them to the doctrine of Christ (cf. John 18:37).

As such, In a similar way, Terry Mortenson asserts: “Exodus 20:8–11 resists all attempts to add millions of years anywhere in or before Genesis 1 because in Exodus 20:11 . . . God says He created the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them during the six days described in Genesis 1. He made nothing before those six days. It should also be noted that the fourth commandment is one of only a few of the Ten Commandments that contains a reason for the commandment. If God created over millions of years, He could have not given a reason for Sabbath-keeping or He could have given a theological or redemptive reason as He did elsewhere (cf. Exod 31:13 and Deut 5:13–15) . . . Ultimately, the question of the age of the earth is a question of the truth and authority of Scripture. That’s why the age of the earth matters so much and why the church cannot compromise with millions of years (or evolution).” Terry Mortenson, “Young-Earth Creationist View Summarized And Defended.” No Pages. Online. Italics original. https://answersingenesis.org/…/young-earth-creationist…/

Elsewhere, Mortenson also opines: “The . . . larger controlling thesis for this book is that the age of the creation is foundationally and critically important for Christian doctrine. It really does matter what we believe on this issue. To be sure, we are not insisting that a person must be a young-earth creationist to be saved and in a right relationship with God. Faith in Christ alone is sufficient for that. But what we believe on this topic does relate critically to inerrancy, hermeneutics, and Scripture as the final authority in all matters that it addresses.” Terry Mortenson, “Foreword,” in Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth, 20. New Leaf (2008).

Lastly, another YEC scholar (Joanthan Sarfati) maintains:

“OK, let’s assume for the sake of the argument that firstly, creation was by evolution, over millions of years of death and suffering—and that Jesus did perform some sort of lobotomy7 on Himself, so that He could no longer recall what really took place. So He just understood Genesis in the most natural straightforward way, not realizing what the real truth was. What you’re claiming in that case amounts to this: That God the Father, knowing the real truth, permitted not just the Apostles, but His beloved Son, while on Earth, to believe and teach things that were utter falsehoods. Furthermore, it means that the Father permitted these false teachings to appear—repeatedly—in His revealed Word. With the result that for some 2,000 years, the vast majority of Christians were seriously misled about such things as not just the time and manner of creation, but gospel-crucial matters such as the origin of sin, and of death and suffering.”

The doctrinal position of AIG

What you’re claiming in that case amounts to this: That God the Father, knowing the real truth, permitted not just the Apostles, but His beloved Son, while on Earth, to believe and teach things that were utter falsehoods. Furthermore, it means that the Father permitted these false teachings to appear—repeatedly—in His revealed Word. With the result that for some 2,000 years, the vast majority of Christians were seriously misled about such things as not just the time and manner of creation, but gospel-crucial matters such as the origin of sin, and of death and suffering.”


Wow, all of Christianity has been misled for 2000 years? Really?


AIG Fragility?

What I am left thinking:

Seems to me that if Adam ever stepped on a bug, or ate a bug, then death came into the world before the sin of Adam and their entire theological world view instantly collapses.

A Re-evaluation

If all the truth in the Bible were to be destroyed then how does anybody come to a saving faith in Jesus of Nazareth as their saviour? So, truth be told, perhaps the AIG belief really is about who can be a Christian? It is all about heresy.

Caveat: Is it possible for the bible to be true but AIG simply does not understand what it says? BINGO!

Is it possible for God to have spoken in parables in Genesis and the bible is still true? You see, AIG claims if Genesis is parables then the bible is not true. That is based on their opinion. Only on their opinion.


Mr Market Meets Spike Dragon.

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So it looks like on Feb 22 UAN spiked, probably upon announcement of a $10.50 dividend. This after a period of doldrums based on energy volatility and lack of retail faith. As Mr Market spread the word the price rose and rose to about $117. Then this morning, the day of the ex date, we see a plunge to $103, and the market is riding at just under $106 at about the level of the Feb 22 spike.

Hmmm. I am going to rake in the dividend.

But it is clear the time to buy, for believers, was in the $92 (and under) doldrums. It took faith. At the time I was rotating to less risk and did not want to overweight on fertilizer. Natural gas was high at the time and faith was thin fumes found somewhere in the stratosphere.

This is play money for me and it is not for the faint of heart. Still, I suppose I am addicted. The world will starve without this mineral being added to grain crops.

The only question is how to safely play the volatility. Not whether, but how.


Raindrops Caught My Eye:

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Scientific knowledge is of two types: knowledge of the properties of physical objects, like the size and mass of a raindrop, and knowledge of what we call “laws of nature.” One of the first human beings to formulate a law of the physical world was Archimedes, more than two thousand years ago. Archimedes “law of floating bodies”:

Any solid lighter than a fluid will, if placed in the fluid, be so far immersed that the weight of the solid will be equal to the weight of the fluid displaced.

We can speculate on how Archimedes arrived at his law. At the time, balance scales were available for weighing goods in the market. The scientist could have first weighed an object, then placed it in a rectangular container of water and measured the rise in height of the water. The area of the container multiplied by the height of the rise would give the volume of water displaced.

Finally, that volume of water could be placed in another container and weighed. Undoubtedly, Archimedes would have performed this exercise many times with different objects before devising the law. He probably also performed the experiment with other liquids, like mercury, to discover the generality of the law. 

All laws of the physical world are like Archimedes’ law. They are precise. They are quantitative. And they are general, applying to a large range of phenomena. Most importantly, all laws of nature discovered by scientists are considered provisional. They are considered to be approximations to deeper laws. They are constantly being revised as new experimental evidence is found or new (and testable) ideas are proposed. 

It is in the process of revision that we see the strongest differences between the methods and beliefs of science and religion.

Knowledge and believing

Everything that we know about the physical world – the domain of science – is subject to revision. Everything must be tested and proved. The knowledge of religion, coming from either the divine authority of the sacred books or from the irrefutable personal transcendent experience, is not subject to revision. It is not an approximation. It is certain. And it cannot be proved. It must be taken on faith.

Paradoxically, all of the knowledge of religion is considered certain, and all of the knowledge of science is considered uncertain. Still, science has done pretty well with its uncertainties and approximations. The approximations of science have been good enough to give us antibiotics and smart phones and rocket ships that can land men on the moon.

Science demands proof for what it believes, even though those beliefs are constantly changing as new experimental evidence becomes available. There is something that scientists believe in that cannot be proven. It is a principle I call the Central Doctrine of Science: The physical world is lawful. All properties and events in the physical universe are governed by laws, and those laws hold true at every time and place in the universe. Graduate students in science absorb this belief through every pore of their skin. It is an unconscious but powerful commitment.

I call the Central Doctrine of Science a doctrine because, despite its success in the past, it cannot be proved. It must be accepted as a matter of faith. No matter how lawful and logical the material cosmos has been up to now, we cannot be sure that something illogical, unexplainable, and fundamentally unlawful might happen tomorrow. Our faith in the Doctrine is so strong that when we find physical phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of current laws, we attempt to revise those laws rather than abandon our belief in a lawful universe.

When it was found in the 19th Century that the orbit of Mercury could not be completely explained in terms of Newton’s law of gravity, scientists did not attribute the discrepancy to an unsolvable mystery or to the breakdown of order in the physical world or to the intervention of a whimsical god. Instead, they recognized a physical problem that required a more advanced physical understanding.

That more advanced understanding was provided by Einstein’s theory of gravity. In fact, I cannot imagine any event in the material world that would cause most scientists to label the event a miracle, unexplainable by science. If a wheelbarrow began to float, a scientist would look for magnetic levitators or, if necessary, assign the phenomenon to some new kind of force. But a natural and lawful force, not a supernatural force. 

So, perhaps I am a person of faith after all. I will have to share this discovery with Micah.

Memphis native Alan Lightman is a physicist, novelist and professor of the practice of the humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His new book, “Searching for Stars on and Island in Maine” is published by Pantheon.

Cannot resist.

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An atheist was seated next to a dusty old cowboy on an airplane and he turned to him and said, “Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.”

The old cowboy, who had just started to read his book, replied to the total stranger, “What would you want to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the atheist. “How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?” as he smiled smugly.

“Okay,” he said. “Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?”

The atheist, visibly surprised by the old cowboy’s intelligence, thinks about it and says, “Hmmm, I have no idea.”

To which the cowboy replies, “Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, Heaven and Hell, or life after death, when you don’t know crap?” 😁

Don’t Let Christians Bully You

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How I was called a fanatic for defending religious liberty against statism.

-or-


Why Christians want Hegemony, why Christians Suck, and why the ASA sometimes sucks too.

In 2012 I spoke up in favor of civil rights. Only to be chided by a high priest of Christianity named George Murphy.

Here’s what I said:



“I need to say something pro-Islamic here. We have the case where Muslim tax drivers don’t want to convey alchohol. The question is whether government can “unlicense” that sort of concientious objector to force them out of the marketplace and take away their livlihood if they are unwilling to yield away their conscious. Seems to me the answer is no, government needs to accommodate the cab drivers, and the public can best be served by putting something on the cab to the effect “No Alcohol Transported”. So the rider moves on to a friendlier cab. But listening to some Democrats it seems after they would get done government will be taxing the Muslim taxi drivers to pay for alcohol stamps. Because religious conscience doesnt count with them. Remember – they came for the Catholics first and they are coming for you next.”




I wasn’t sure what teachers in public schools had to do with cab drivers. Teachers are agents of the state. Cab drivers are not agents of the state. Yes, George Murphy, scientist, philosopher, activist, board member of the ASA, was indeed confused. Did George want cab drivers to be made agents of the state so the state can intrude into the affairs of ride sharing?

I replied,

“No, thats absurd. You really don’t understand that what goes on in a private association is different than what goes on in a government agency? We begin to see the root of your confusion.”

George ignored this, dismissed me, and talked down to me in his typical fashion. Why? because he wants to bully creationists. BTW, let me explain that I am neither a creationist nor a libertarian. I merely believe in civil rights.

So, conflating the issue of over-regulation of Muslim religious beliefs with government payments to religious institutions seemed like a red-herring and surely is another topic altogether. Anyway, he called me a fanatic for advocating simple libertarianism, as follows:

I replied,

“Muslim cab drivers using contraceptives? Say what?”

But here was my final actual reply:


Reposted from Can Congress Force a Reprehensible Action?

When you go monkeying with what a church believes, trying to dictate what they spend money on, or trying to get them to take government money or support a government program they think is evil, well, you have to be a bit careful. The following seems good guidance on such matters. This is from Epperson v. Arkansas. “the State may not adopt programs or practices in its public schools or colleges which “aid or oppose” any religion. Id., at 225. This prohibition is absolute. It forbids alike the preference of a religious doctrine or the prohibition [393 U.S. 97, 107] of theory which is deemed antagonistic to a particular dogma. As Mr. Justice Clark stated in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, “the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them . . . .” 343 U.S. 495, 505 (1952). The test was stated as follows in Abington School District v. Schempp, supra, at 222: “[W]hat are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution.”

Now, that’s about schools per se, where the state has a vested interest.

But does the state have a vested interest in forcing Americans to purchase car insurance? Seems to me the interest is somewhat less, and may be on very weak ground. That strengthens the mentioned principles.

What is it about “the prohibition is absolute” that is soooo hard for cretins and cavemen to understand?


George stopped replying after that. His purpose had been all along to inhibit other people’s beliefs, even though this is ruled against in Abington School District v. Schempp, supra, at 222.

I dropped my membership in the ASA after that because George Murphy was a board member. It was very clear the ASA was being bent off it’s statement of faith and toward the purpose of protecting certain Christian religions and factions (and religious viewpoints such as George Murphy’s interpretation of Christianity) from views distasteful to him and his fellows.

Ten years later I have rejoined the ASA. Perhaps I should reconsider.

The organization seems to not be behaving towards the ends of suppressing the beliefs of other people in the fashion of the “woke brigades”. I think they certainly gave aid and support to the wokeness movement. Christianity may become banned in America thanks to their efforts. That is one of the fruits of piety.


Tear down the good?

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The people who think America’s legacy is so terrible need to go live in North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela, or even Hong Kong and try their rioting in those countries. Will they remain so smug? They haven’t got a clue about “justice” or “injustice”.

Democrats Hate God?

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Seems like they sure do hate religious choice. Democrats are the anti-choice religion. This is exactly why the constitition prohibits government from having a preference. Democrats ignore the constitution. Such a Society of Good Fellows aren’t they?