Category Archives: Blog

Gift, Office, Titles, Part 5.

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The Difference Between the Gift, the Office, and Titles. (Part 5)

By Kevin Baird

*This is a series of posts which might be of benefit for the first time reader to begin at the “Introduction” for continuity sake.

Obviously, for a prophet to be a prophet, there has to be some disposition to prophesy. That appears to be a simplistic statement, but apparently it needs to be stated. Titles abound in modern Christianity and many of those titles are self-conveyed. People declare themselves to be established in a certain office (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Elder, Deacon, Minister, etc.) without any fruit of such establishment or endorsement from a local church body. I believe these offices exist, but how it is appropriated as a title might need further evaluation. The Bible certainly presents these offices as a reality, but tends to present them as job descriptions more than titles. Nowhere in Scripture does Paul refer to himself as “The Apostle Paul”, but rather, “Paul, an apostle”. A strong case can be made that these offices are descriptors more than titles.

That said, I don’t think titles to necessarily be bad, but I do think they can be used for silly and self-aggrandizing purposes. I also believe there is an appropriate respect one might bestow upon another as a display of honor. My son is my pastor and I have called him by his first name for years. I still do at family functions and get-togethers. However, I find it important to refer to him as “Pastor” when I am amongst the people of the church and especially the children. If children are required in school to refer to their teachers as “Mr. or Mrs.”, rather than their first names, I would hope our church kids would do no less for their Pastor. Now, no one is required to do that. I am not required to do that, but I choose to do that to demonstrate that he has embraced an important role in corporate life and in my life. I need to break my familiarity and recognize the demonstrable call God has placed on his life. It is simply being respectful. In much the same way I have called my physician, Doctor; or my overseer as Bishop. Sure, I know their first names, but I simply demonstrate my respect because “I am to give honor to whom honor is due” (Romans 13:7).

I am also willing to convey that respect and honor upon other spiritual offices as they are established and endorsed credibly. But here is where some important parsing needs to take place. Not all who say they are a prophet, really are a prophet. In much the same way, not all who say they are an Apostle, Evangelist, Pastor, or Teacher, may actually be one. Before we bestow titles, we may need to distinguish between gifts and offices.

Everyone can potentially prophesy (Numbers 11:29; Romans 12:6; I Corinthians 12:10, 14:1-5, 14:31), but not all are prophets (I Corinthians 12:28-29; Ephesians 4:11). Granted, it might look and operate the same by outward appearance, but apparently there are distinctions to be made. I would suggest the following for consideration:

  1. The “gift” of prophecy can be released to anyone at any time subject to the will of the Spirit. (See I Corinthians 12:11) The office of prophet does not appear to be subject to certain arbitrary releases of the Spirit, but instead can function prophetically out of the resident gift and calling. (See 2 Timothy 4:2) None of the offices of Ephesians 4:11 are subject to certain heightened times of God’s presence, but rather are a part of the resident, internal equipment imparted by the Lord through His calling to function “in season or out of season” as required. Therefore, prophets can move into arenas not normally conducive to the moving of God’s Spirit, yet have a word from the Lord. (Example: government, education, businesses, etc. See I Kings 22 or Jeremiah 1:5)
  2. The gift of prophecy has more of an encouragement, exhortative, and edification aspect to it when released to individuals or the church at large. The office of prophet has more of an assignment attached to it (I will discuss this in next post). The office prophet carries impartation, instruction, and potentially activation. (See Romans 1:11 and 2 Timothy 1:6)
  3. There may also be certain “levels” of leadership and anointing within the expression of prophets, in much the same way we see it with evangelists and pastors. There are many called “evangelists”, yet few with the scope and influence of a Billy Graham or Ray Comfort. Yet, no matter the scope, one can be a legitimately called and equipped evangelist. The same could be said of pastors. Some pastors oversee works of 10’s, 100’s, 1000’s or even 10,000’s, yet all are legitimately called pastors. I don’t think every apostle has to arise to the stature of Paul. Biblically there were apostles relatively unknown, so we know this to be true. The same could be said of prophets. There were scores, if not hundreds of biblical prophets which are obscure to us. Yet, they were legitimate prophets. So not every prophet need look like Elijah.
  4. This may be somewhat controversial, but I am convinced the gift of prophecy almost exclusively confirms what God has already put in the believer’s heart, but the office prophet carries a “creative” or maybe ineptly stated a “conceptual implanting” of God’s Will into a person’s imagination. Isaiah appears to acknowledge such a possibility when he writes:

“You have heard; See all this. And will you not declare it? I have made you hear new things from this time, Even hidden things, and you did not know them.
They are created now and not from the beginning; And before this day you have not heard them, Lest you should say, ‘Of course I knew them.’”

  • Isaiah 48:6-7 NKJV

Again, every word from the Lord which arrives this way to us is to be tested by the Scriptures. The reason simply put is that the Lord is able to speak to all His people and any potential decision made from a prophetic word is still subject to each individual’s consideration, faith, and responsibility. (Hebrews 4:2)

As I conclude this post, the prophetic ministry is recognized, not self-declared. No apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher should have to blow their own horn for recognition. It becomes self-evident by their fruit.

Hope that offers some clarity.

Until next time.

Avoiding Health Cliffs

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Dr Peter Attia shares guidance on exercise, nutrition, relationships and more
Longevity expert Dr. Peter Attia says most people experience a steep decline in their 70s — but it doesn’t have to be that way. 

“At 75, both men and women fall off a cliff,” the Stanford-trained physician, who runs a medical practice in Austin, Texas, said in a recent interview with “60 Minutes.”

During the interview, Attia shared some of his top strategies for not only living longer, but also remaining strong, healthy and engaged, so the last decade is as enjoyable and independent as possible.

This is what experts refer to as “healthspan” — the period of life when one is free from “age-associated maladies,” according to Douglas E. Vaughan, M.D., director of the Potocsnak Longevity Institute at Northwestern University in Chicago.

“There are certainly things that people can stop doing to extend healthspan,” he told Fox News Digital. Some examples include stopping smoking, drinking less, maintaining a healthy weight, getting regular exercise, avoiding processed foods and having good sleep habits.

Below are the five strategies that Attia shared with “60 Minutes.”

No. 1: Train like life is a sport

Attia recommends approaching life — particularly in advanced age — like an athlete would approach a sport.

As people age, their level of fitness, strength and mobility matters more than many traditional markers, he noted.

The longevity expert said he logs about 10 hours per week of exercise — a mix of fat-burning cardio, high-intensity intervals (to boost VO₂ max), and strength training to maintain muscle.

Attia said he alternates between “zone two” exercise, which entails steady cardio activity that allows you to maintain a conversation, and higher-intensity “zone four” training.

No. 2: Use meaningful tests — not just standard bloodwork

Attia recommends closely tracking VO₂ max, which measures the maximum amount of oxygen the body uses during strenuous exercise. 

VO₂ max is usually measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml/kg/min).

“Your VO2 max is more strongly correlated with your lifespan than any other metric I can measure,” Attia said. “It predicts your risk of death from any cause, even more than your blood pressure, cholesterol or smoking status.”

“I think this is the neglected part of medical testing, is how fit are you, how strong are you, how well do you move?” he said. “And in many ways, these tests are even more predictive of how long you’re going to live than what I might get out of your bloodwork.”

Attia also uses scans like DEXA (short for dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry), which measures bone density, muscle mass and body fat.

“When you look at things like cardiorespiratory fitness, when you look at muscle mass, when you look at strength, they have a much higher association than things like even cholesterol and blood pressure,” he added.

Attia also is a proponent of full-body MRI scans, which can detect cancers and other conditions earlier for better outcomes, although he warns of the potential for false positives. 

He also recommends getting tested for APOE, the gene that indicates an elevated risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Having one copy of the gene roughly doubles or triples the chances of developing the common dementia, while two copies raises the risk by 10 times and lowers the average age of onset by five to 10 years, data shows.

No. 3: Eat more protein than standard guidelines suggest

Boosting protein intake has been linked to increased muscle mass and strength, stronger immune function and reduced disease burden, studies show.

Attia recommends consuming more than twice the protein recommended in current nutritional guidelines.

The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, which would be 55 grams for a 150-pound person or 73 grams for a 200-pound person.

No. 4: Prioritize emotional, mental and relational health

Emotional and mental health are just as important as physical health, according to Attia.

“It’s as much a practice as what I put into exercise, blood work and cancer screening,” he said.

“By working hard on our physical health, we can reduce the rate of decline,” Attia went on. “But if we’re being deliberate and active on our emotional health, it can actually improve.”
The expert credits his wife of more than two decades for enabling his progress.

“Just like the exercise data, I don’t think this is just a correlation,” Attia said in the interview. “I really think that there is also some causality that flows from the end of having great relationships to living a longer life.” 

Vaughan echoed that the common denominator in “super agers” involves a supportive community, a healthy social environment and regular contact with people who care for one another.  

No. 5: Optimize the ‘marginal decade’

While decline is inevitable, Attia said his goal is to make what he calls the “marginal decade” as enjoyable as possible.

“The marginal decade’s not going anywhere. We will all have a final decade of life,” he said. 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE HEALTH STORIES

“The way I explain it to my patients is, that last 10 to 15 of your years — if you don’t do anything about it, you will fall to a level of about 50% of your total capacity, cognitively [and] physically.”



Sean Carroll and Materialism

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I saw an interesting discussion written by Michael Egnor in 2023 about Sean Carroll’s view of the immaterial mind here: https://mindmatters.ai

Who is Michael Egnor?

Michael Egnor

Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics, State University of New York, Stony BrookMichael R. Egnor, MD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has served as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and is an award-winning brain surgeon. He was named one of New York’s best doctors by the New York Magazine in 2005. His book, The Immortal Mind: A neurosurgeon’s case for the existence of the soul, co-authored by Denyse O’Leary, was published by Worthy on June 3, 2025.

Now this article is talking about the human mind and and effects on the physical world or physical body:

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins University who takes an atheist and materialist philosophical perspective on nature and on science. I have disagreed with him often — I’m in no position to judge his scientific acumen, but his philosophical acumen leaves a lot to be desired. An example of this is a question he asks in a recent documentary about free will (which I haven’t watched yet). In the trailer for the movie, Carroll asks, How in the world does the immaterial mind affect the physical body? Carroll’s denial of libertarian free will is based on this question, and of course, he believes that the immaterial mind does not exist and, if it did exist, could not affect the physical body. Thus, he believes that libertarian free will is nonsense.

Well that is an interesting comment about Carroll’s philosophical acumen. My interest is on the immaterial mind of a transcendent being such as God. Can that mind affect the human mind? Or matter? If miracles are possible then the answer would be yes.

Carroll, however, seems to be a reductionist. Lets leave that until a bit later. Meanwhile, let’s learn some aspects of causation theory. Egnor uses a statue as an example.

1. Material cause is the matter (marble) that the statue is made of. The matter of what something is made is one of the causes of the thing – without the marble, the statue could not exist.

2. Efficient cause is the agent that gives rise to the effect – in the case of the sculpture, the efficient cause is a sculptor.

3. Formal cause is the design principle that underlies the effect – in the case of the sculpture, the formal cause is the idea in the mind of the sculptor of what the sculpture will look like. The formal cause is quite real and is indispensable to an understanding of causation – after all if the form of the sculpture did not exist in the mind of the sculptor as he was working, there would be no sculpture.

4. Final cause is the ultimate goal, purpose, or final state of the causal chain. The final cause for the sculpture might be the sculptor’s desire to express himself artistically or it might be the sculptor’s desire to be paid for his work.

Egnor comments, “In the Aristotelian paradigm, a complete understanding of cause must entail an understanding of all four causes in nature. In causation without a visible efficient agent, formal and final causes are often the same. The formal cause of an acorn growing into an oak tree is the design principle of the oak tree, which is also (in the Aristotelian perspective) the final cause of the acorn growing into the oak tree. The ultimate final cause, according to Aristotle, is God.”

PATTERNS AND PURPOSES IN NATURE

Egnor argues, “Aristotle was right – material and efficient causes alone are inadequate to understand nature because there are patterns and purposes built into nature that we can’t deny.”

He goes on to criticise Carroll, “So, Carroll’s implicit assertion that the immaterial mind could not affect the physical body is predicated on his belief that the only kinds of causes that exist in the physical world are material and efficient causes.“

To me this assumption of Carroll’s is Philosophical Naturalism, which itself is an a priori metaphysical assumption and is not part of science. So I think Egnor is right. My observation is Egnor is Augustinian and Neo-Platonist in his thinking here, whereas Carroll is neither.

MATHEMATICS?

 Egnor says, “Ironically, Carroll’s own scientific discipline – quantum mechanics – is a prime example of the importance of formal causes in nature. The scientific description of quantum processes is entirely mathematical, which is a description of formal causes. Matter and individuation disappear at the quantum level. What remains are the mathematical descriptions of quantum particles and dynamics. Contrary to Carroll’s implicit insistence that only material and efficient causes act in nature, quantum mechanics shows that formal (immaterial) causes are fundamental to nature.”

Hmmm.

BIOCHEMISTRY

Egnor makes a point about drugs and biochemistry, “Thus a mental (formal) state can cause a physical state in a way that is currently understood in physics. A particularly striking example of the importance of formal causes in science is the phenomenon of chirality. Chirality is a property of mirror image molecules in which the molecules contain exactly the same number and kinds of atoms connected in exactly the same kind of way except that one is a mirror image of the other. In other words, the matter comprising chiral molecules is exactly the same although the form of the molecules can be radically different. For example, all biological amino acids that make up proteins are L enantiomers (one mirror image). Amino acids that are identical materially but are R enantiomers (mirror images) play no role in protein manufacture. The difference between L and R enantiomers can be a matter of great medical importance and even life and death – Darvon is an analgesic but its enantiomer Novrad is an anti-cough agent. Penicillamine is used in the treatment of arthritis, but its enantiomer is very toxic.“

PHILOSOPHICALLY VACUOUS?


Egnor’s conclusion: “Formal causation is ubiquitous in biology and Carroll’s argument that we cannot have libertarian free will because the immaterial (formal) mind cannot affect matter is philosophically vacuous.”

Fascinating!

I knew Carroll and one other person debated Dinesh D’Souza in 2014, and his debate partner (whose name I do not recall) was a reductionist. It seems Carroll is as well. Now, what does this mean for quantum mechanics? To me there are two questions and they may be the same question.

1. Who is the observer?
2. What is measurement?

As you know, when you take a measurement in the quantum world you perturb the wave function and cause quantum collapse. So a wave suddenly localizes into a particle-like phenomenon. Can a mind function as the observer? How would we ever know?

If God is in the universe (ie, immanent) can his mind perform a measurement (or observation?). What kind of observations are possible? We do not know. But ignorance is not proof of non-existence. So, I am still pondering these questions. I am looking for input on these subjects from a variety of sources. This includes Sean Carroll’s lectures on quantum mechanics. I really enjoy listening to him. I think one just has to be aware of his presuppositions.

If you want to be more aware of issues related to the soul you might check out his new book The Immortal Mind .

Now, it may be worth considering the following definition: Naturalistic evolution, or evolutionary naturalism, is the philosophical concept that all of life, including the human condition and morality, arose through natural processes, rather than supernatural or intentional design.  (This is an AI summary.)

I am not happy with AI summaries. The problem is the definitions are taken from websites that are reactions to chatter, are not real propositions, and are mere hyped up opinion. There is no substance underneath. The concepts are fabricated and imaginary.

Note, I can only find one book written on the subject in 1922. Everything else I have found is propaganda from creationist websites where the terms are re-defined to support the war between science and God. ( a political viewpoint, not a scientific one). The book itself is a philosopher’s response to other philosophers in order to find a better naturalism. This is because naturalism was considered to be broken or inadequate.

BTW, this linkage with natural processes would fit neatly with Sean Carroll’s view that there is no free will. It also is congruent with nihilism – the view that human values and maybe even human minds themselves are mere illusions – all in the imagination and not real at all.

I will contend that what scientists do is based on methodological naturalism (MN), not philosophical naturalism (PN). MN produces science. PN produces scientism. PN, being metaphysical, is not a statement about either science or reality. MN is a statement about science, is not metaphysical, and is a statement about an approximation of reality, or a part of reality, but not all of reality. Just the physical part of reality in which humans live.


What I have noticed is the biologos people are adamantly against PN. The young earthers totally ignore PN as if it does not exist. Old earthers and ID people are somewhere in between.

DISTORTIONS – WHY I DONT TRUST MANY CHRISTIANS

Speaking of which … another interesting article: https://www.str.org/w/if-naturalistic-evolution-is-true-people-are-not-equal. I disagree with this person’s definitions of naturalism. The STR people are concordists and distort both philosophy and science.

Then there is another voice: Masters U. These are horrible statements about naturalism at Masters University, which seems to be associated with John MacArthur. https://www.masters.edu/thinking_blog/creation-believe-it-or-not-part-1/. Masters miscontrues and distorts the meaning of almost all of these concepts.

I have come to think that Christians are either terribly dumb or they are terrible liars.

TRANSCENDENCE

The real problem I see in Christianity is somebody in history philosophized that God is “transcendent only.” Yes, God is transcendent. But He is also immanent. I.E., In the world. Affecting the world. Affecting physical reality. He is not entirely outside the physical reality. This is difficult to understand – indeed, no human really grasps it just like no human really grasps the trinity. But the bible and Christianity do not teach that God is purely transcendant (purely supernatural). That is a lie held to by atheists.


Young earth creationists (and concordists?) teach that God can only “create” from outside the physical universe by overturning the physical laws of the universe. To me that is *not* a Christian belief. It is not what the bible teaches. I think the bible teaches that the laws of the physical universe are held fixed by God, and God often creates by using these laws. Can create by using these laws. That is not, BTW, naturalism.

These two cases of Masters and of STR may be the subject of future posts just on them.

Summing Up

So we started with Sean Carroll’s issues with free will. But the real issue is far larger. Free will is really just a side topic.











Indesign Images.

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Putting everything in Creative Cloud raises issues. I found the following article that may affect design approaches.



InDesign Secrets: Embedding your images so they don’t go missing

Anne-Marie Concepcion

Authored byAnne-Marie Concepcion

Digital publishing workflow trainer, consultant, and therapist for InDesign-using designers and the editors who love them. LinkedIn Learning instructor 25+ courses. amarie@senecadesign.com Ask me anything!

October 5, 2012

This article addresses the dreaded lost image phenomenon, which occurs when Adobe InDesign can’t find your linked images and lets you know with glaring red question marks.

The presence of glaring red question marks in your actual layout (and not just your Links panel) is courtesy of InDesign CS6, but the lost images phenomenon is familiar to users of earlier versions of InDesign as well.

Anne-Marie’s solution is simple: embed your images. That way they can’t get lost if you move the image folder or send the document off to a client without a separate file full of graphics. An embedded Photoshop file even retains its layers.

The first step is to find the original image and relink it (you’ll have to solve that challenge on your own). Then right-click on the image in the Links panel and choose Embed Link.

Your image is now permanently part of your file.

As easy as this is, you should be aware of two potential disadvantages to embedding your file. First, when you embed your images you no longer have the benefit of automatically updating links, but if your graphic is stable and not going to change (like a logo), then it’s really not a an issue. Second, embedding images makes your InDesign file significantly larger. But as Anne-Marie notes, it’s not 1993, and while you may not want to embed hundreds of images, the increased file size you’ll see from embedding a handful of images for an in-house document is not the obstacle it used to be.

One other note: you can’t embed a video file or another InDesign file.

What I find particularly fascinating is if you embed a graphic file within your InDesign document, the encompassing InDesign file behaves in some ways like a zipped archive. If you wish to unembed the graphic later, you can create a new “original” right from InDesign. For certain scenarios, this is an elegantly simple solution to the lost image syndrome.

Weak Hebrew

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Someone writes:


“Genesis 7:20 says the floodwaters were 15 cubits high, and they covered the mountains. To me, that says the whole eretz (earth or land) which is in the scope of the narrative is an extremely flat place where the mountains are less than about 22-25 feet. This describes Sumer very well. Eden, Noah, and Babel all have overt Sumerian contexts, and versions of each story exist in Sumerian literature as well.

Every modern translation makes an interpretationally driven edit to the syntax of that verse to turn it into “the flood waters rose fifteen cubits [above the tops of the] mountains” and I have never run into anyone who can suggest a Hebrew rule or a parallel passage that might suggest that this is a possible reading. It’s just Second Temple and post-Second Temple doctrine being injected back into the text.”

OK, I do not know Hebrew. But some YEC’s have told me after the flood the mountains rose over 7000 feet in some places, including the Rockies and including Flagstaff Arizona and the western north american continent. According to this hypothesis humungous geological upheaval was required to preserve the global flood myth. Based on weak Hebrew interpretation.


My sarcastic conclusion might be: “Sure it is. Next they will be telling me I get to have 70 wives if I decide to become a martyr.” In other words, I think the credibility of the global flood story is incredibly low.

I am more concerned about these ideas being based on weak arguments, weak evidences, and weak interpretations of ancient languages. I fail to understand the headlong plunge into premature commitment to poorly supported ideas. And the demand that all of humanity must join in that headlong plunge. I would very much prefer a very solid case be made for biblical ideas. Why do people insist on making a weak case instead of a strong case?

Book Review of Believing Is Seeing

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Book Review of Believing is Seeing

or

https://medium.com/@pkajjohnson/book-review-believing-is-seeing-a-physicist-explains-how-science-shattered-his-atheism-and-4b5f5a60d812

My thoughts: If Seeing isn’t believing and believing isn’t seeing then what you get is a sort of a form of voodoo like what the Catholic Church adhered to in the time of Copernicus. If that is Christian then I am a monkey’s uncle. Seems to me it is anti-Christian. It is toxic to Christian faith. But there are organizations that tell humanity that science and bible are at war with each other.

View at Medium.com

Bible and Science, Two Views.

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There are two main views Christians seem to have about science.

1. The Unified View. Science and the bible portray one unified truth.
2. The Conflict View. Science and bible are in conflict and are at war.

Young earth creationism (YEC) promotes the Conflict View as the only way to understand the bible.

Reasons To Believe (RTB) goes with the unified view. They make way more sense to me that the conflcit view.

YEC’s consistently tell me the conflict view is the only view because for science and bible to not be in conflict means the bible is not credible. I think they fabricated that and it is a lie.

Mark 13:32 states that no one, not even the angels in heaven or the Son, knows the day or hour of the end times, only the Father. This verse emphasizes that Jesus in his incarnation, while fully human and fully divine, did not have full access to the knowledge of the father and the holy spirit. So YEC’s overclaim about what jesus knew about Genesis. His knowledge came from the Septuagint.



Family Genetics, Genealogy, and YEC.

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Unbelievable that I have to explain this.

In America we pass property to blood relatives. What is a blood relative? They came from your parents. Or your grandparents. Or your great grandparents. Or your great great grandparents. Etc. Until you go back so far you A) have no legal paperwork trail or B) have no indentifiable DNA patterns in common. You have to have one of those to have blood relatives. That is what genetic FAMILY is.

Every child you have gets about 1/2 your DNA. Their children get 1/4. The next generation get 1/8th. And so on. Until autosomal DNA is so diluted it is at noise level. So when we compare individuals we cannot tell if they are genetic blood relatives. You cannot be a blood relative of everybody on earth.

But there is an exception. Y-DNA passes intact from father to son. And so on. All the way back to the first man. Adam.

We can measure the SNPs. We see mutations and they accumulate. Sometimes living people will have the same Y chromosome where the common grandfather is back 10 generations. Or 50 generations.

We can also dig up bones and match them. Even if they are 10,000 years old they will contain the same SNP sequence minus the recent mutations.

The point is, we can trace where our patrilineal blood relatives died. And their ancestors too!

I know where my ancestors were all the way back to pre-history. And I know where my brother in law’s ancestors were too. So no, we are not blood relatives, our ancestors never went anywhere near each other. But, pontificating Answers in Genesis YECs (Young Earth Creationists) at church want to tell the whole church that I am related to my brother in law. Its kind of like saying I am Chinese. This claim of theirs is completely baseless.

Science people will claim that celts came from the eastern Ukraine. Science deniers claim no no no, they came from Noah’s Ark. Which is true? If they came from Noah’s Ark then they would be buried down the road from the Ark, and the next few generations would be buried a bit further down the road, until they got to western Europe. That trail is completely missing. I mean, the skeletons aren’t there.

What I see is that YECs do not evaluate the evidence.

Why Look At This?

Why did I start talking about this? Because of the YEC claim that I am related to my brother in law. No, it didn’t mean “we are all children of Adam”. People tell me “oh, we all have DNA, we must all be family”. No, that is not what they are talking about. They are talking about Moral Obligation to Family. Meaning blood relationships. In the context they used it it meant I have a moral and Christian obligation to let my in-laws continue to abuse me. Because I am related. So I therefore am obligated. And I am a sinner if I by chance just want to get away from it. Move to another state, don’t look back. However, that is not acceptable. Because? Because, as they claim, I am related to my inlaws. WHAT THE HELL? They are talking about blood relatives, not strangers on the street. Not sons of Adam due t all sons of Adam possess DNA. No. It was a statement about close family.

Now, how do I know I am not related to my in-law family? The above explanation on DNA. That’s how. And I had told this to a 12 step group at church. I study the family’s genealogy and DNA. But there is another reason. It is because the leader is a self entitled fundamentalist YEC asshole. So he instantly overrode me and took a vote. He got the group to vote! WHY? Because he says so. Thats it! I thought I would die of a heart attack. I didnt go back to church for months after that. Here I had been deciding to be free of the abuser and they could not live with this. They think their job is to fix people! But we know really only God can fix people.

I put these folks in the category of RAPIST. Fundamentalist rapists. They live in a fantasy world and use the bible to justify themselves. I am not the only victim of the fundamentalists. I saw a lot of victims at that church. People who endure a lot of false religious shaming from fundamentalists.

They had made it very clear they are fundamentalists and follow young earth creationism and believe in a world-wide global flood. And are against Christians studying modern science. Or reading books. You see, books, even Christian books, might make you think, and thinking will lead you astray to the point where you wont take the word of fundamentalists just because “they say so.”

Back to the science. There is a conscept called admixture. It means what percent Scottish are you? Irish? French? African? Etc. Compared to current living populations. I myself don’t put much stock in it, but most people want to know if they are 45% Scottish, for example. That is based on autosomal DNA.

My inlaws come from a patrilinial viking line where we share a grandfather in 44000 BC. So we are cousins that are so far apart that we may as well be Japanese and Black. If you think Japanese and Black people are the same family you are nuts. Stark raving mad. They are not the same family lines. What cousins are we? 400th cousins 400 times removed? The point is IT WAS CAVE MAN DAYS. It doesn’t matter.

OK, OK, I can call my brother in law a cave man, I guess, have it your way. The real point they were making was science denial. That really is the whole point of YEC. Science is at war with God. Why? Because they say it is. And they use morality arguments as a weapon for brainwashing. Which is ministerial abuse.

This is part of why my presbyterian elder neighbor tells me Answers in Genesis is a satanic conspiracy.













SMS tip for admins

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Sending emails to SMS or MMS

Email to Text settings

For services such as Voicemail Email Notification, you can enter the text message email address in the field.


To send a text message via email, you must use a SMS or MMS to email gateway. Just substitute a 10-digit cell number for ‘number’ for each carrier below:

What use are DATASETS really?

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A bunch of people are trying to use datasets to implement permissions and ACLS via the GUI.
I use a zsh shell via ssh and give normal debian commands and scripts and automations. You cannot automate hardly anything via a gui. That is the #1 reason I abandoned TERRA-MASTER OS.

However, on TrueNAS there is the dataset dilemma.

Willnx says about datasets on truenas:

If it helps, here’s how my box at home is set up (with the datasets and such):
Vol1
+Berkeley (Unix dataset)
–>So many exports…
+Redmond (CIFS dataset)
–>Two different shares for my only two Windows boxes. Unique permissions for each.
+FTP (Unix dataset)
–>For the crap I always have to re-download when I make a new VM/ build a new PC.

I don’t have any quotas set up on these datasets either. I don’t care how big any of them get, provided it doesn’t fill my NAS 100% and turn it into a big brick.
Instead, I set up a reserve space on Vol1.

To me, the real power/ benefit of multiple datasets are:
More granular snapshots (Clones too)
Different compression preferences
More granular Deduplication control

Using datasets (in my option) for permission control is kind of like using a big wrench to hammer a nail; it works fine, but not it’s intended use.



My thoughts:

So, what I am hearing above is snapshots and clones are a reason to use datasets. Plus, if you have a windows and want SMB (because NFS is hard to do on windows) you do not want files being accessed by NFS and SMB at the same time because SMB does collaborate on file locking.

I use NAS for backup of desktops. But I also want virtual machines and server like Plex and Home Assistant, etc, and I want them in their own dataset space.

Further thoughts: First thing I plan to do when creating the first NAS test bed is to see if the superuser can cp directories in dataset A to directories in dataset B.

I am used to different users having their own private file space in their home directory and see no need for anything else to separate them. Datasets seems like something that comes from non-nix operating systems. Nix has been great for 40+ years and there is no need to overcomplicate it. Debian is debian is debian.

Why use RAID-10 in a 4 BAY NAS?

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ZFS: You should use mirror vdevs, not RAIDZ.

Has to do with lowest stress and quickest resilver.
Could use 3 bay RAIDZ1 with hot spare, but that is more stressful on all drives.

My plan A.

System 1: The back end. (Lower performance CPU). A 4 bay terramaster F4-424 pro should use 2 mirrors in raid 10 format.

System 2: The front end.

A 6 bay terramaster F6-424 MAX (higher performance a bandwidth:
Should use 2 mirrors or if 2 extra drives are added use 3 mirrors, all in RAID-10 format.
Have a cold spare available. Back up system 2 to system 1. Back up both to external USB drives and rotate offsite. 1 to back, 1 to cloud.

Have a third system in another location for fault tolerance.