Category: religion

Did Dinosaurs Really Exist? Really?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

It came up in the conversation: “We sent our son to a Christian camp, and they taught him there were no dinosaurs–that unbelievers just made them up. He was confused about it for years.”

I’m always surprised when I hear anyone deny that there was ever any such thing as a dinosaur. True, dinosaurs aren’t mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. Neither are ancient China, the polar regions of the earth, or volcanoes, and Spain is the westernmost country mentioned in the Bible (did you know that?). Furthermore, although dinosaur fossils have been found all over the world, the Middle East–the region where most of the action in the Bible takes place– is singularly impoverished in that respect.

It’s also true that a lot of the things we used to “know” about dinosaurs have turned out to be wrong. When all you’ve got to go on is bones and tracks, it leaves a lot of room for error. Compared to what I was brought up on, some of these feathered monstrosities that are today’s representations of dinosaurs look altogether screwy.

And then we’ve got “behemoth,” in Job 40:15-24–a big, fearsome, awe-inspiring animal described as eating grass and having a tail like a cedar, as in a cedar tree. Whatever it was, behemoth was a herbivore–and can you think of any herbivorous land animal today whose tail would remind you of a cedar tree?

What do you suppose God was talking about, when He spoke to Job and used behemoth as an example to teach Job about His divine sovereignty?

Whether behemoth was a dinosaur or not, one thing we do know is that its like is on the earth no more.

Believing that dinosaurs existed should not threaten anyone’s Christian faith. We don’t want to put ourselves into the position of claiming that the bones–say, a Tyrannosaurus skull, or a brontosaur skeleton–were manufactured by the thousands and thousands and seeded all over the earth by some powerful and fiendishly clever conspiracy formed by persons who otherwise can hardly find their way out of a rest room. [Note: It turns out there really is a conspiracy theory that says the government, or “corporations,” or even God just made up dinosaurs as means of either spreading disbelief or, in God’s case, testing our faith.]

Yes, they are not discussed in the Bible. So what? Does anyone know all there is to know about God and His ways? Like, isn’t that what they were trying to teach poor Job?

Christians are at liberty to enjoy dinosaurs as the work of God’s hands, and to be richly amused by the endless revisions necessary to the scientific study of dinosaurs–and even, if so moved, to jump into that study themselves and lend a hand.

A Message from Ezekiel

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It takes a particularly dense clod of clay between the ears, to read the prophets in the Bible and not think that God, through them, speaks to us today.

Take, for instance, Chapter 13 of Ezekiel. “Thus saith the Lord God, Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?” [Ezekiel 13:18]

We can’t be sure exactly what Ezekiel was talking about, because he was describing something that would have been well-known to his audience, the people of Jerusalem, circa 600 B.C. Pillows? Kerchiefs? But it’s obvious that he’s referring to superstitious practices that were the equivalent of a lot of our own New Age mumbo-jumbo. He could just as well be writing about crystals, animal spirit guides, and ouija boards.

And the Lord goes on to say that He will tear away the kerchiefs and the pillows, and punish the false prophetesses who sell them to a foolish and credulous public, “Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life…” [v.22]

I don’t know about you, but that sounds awfully familiar to me. Lies that demoralize the good? Yeah, I think we might run across a few hundred dozen of those every day, issued authoritatively by our glorious leaders, the nooze media, the UN, and the rest of the usual suspects. Lies that convince the wicked that they’re doing just fine, no need to change, just keep on goin’ as they’re goin’? Gee, I guess if I really put my mind to it, I can probably think of a few behaviors that were sins for thousands and thousands of years, but of course aren’t anymore because our leaders and Hollywood and our hip, seeker-friendly churchmen say so.

Meanwhile, false prophets and charlatans promise us salvation, which usually we can achieve by forking over money to them for some sure-fire magic gizmo or self-help scheme. Pillows and kerchiefs. The narrative: lies told in a good cause, like to Save the Planet.

We really are in trouble.

God and Dinosaurs

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There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that God created dinosaurs. No one that we know of has ever seen one, and our interpretations of the fossils are subject to never-ending revision–but still, those great big bones had to fit together some way. Maybe someday we’ll figure out what any dinosaur was really like.

The difficulty is that dinosaurs are nowhere specifically mentioned in the Bible. Oh, and another difficulty–they don’t exist anymore.

We are, however, assured that God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, so that would include dinosaurs. We are also taught that God pronounced His creation good: therefor dinosaurs, at least in His eyes, are good.

I think you will agree that T. rex and his playmates would be a little much for us to handle. So God removed dinosaurs before the human race multiplied and spread throughout the earth. Again, the Bible doesn’t get into this. That doesn’t mean we can’t prayerfully consider the matter and use our brains for something more than cooking up mischief.

It’s my personal belief that God has put the dinosaurs somewhere else, where they can’t eat people, and where numbskulls can’t try to put them into an amusement park and charge money to see them. God has the entire universe at His disposal. Anything we imagine that limits His use of it is almost certainly wrong.

I look at the re-assembled bones, the paintings, the videos, the vast outpouring of human creativity and human reason and emotion evoked by these creatures, and can only marvel at the work of God’s hands. Dinosaurs also make me reflect on how much fun it must be to be God, and able to do things like this–makes it easy to imagine the pleasure our Lord must take in His creation.

What a blast He must have had with dinosaurs!

 

Hymn, ‘Draw Me Nearer’

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Here’s another good old-fashioned hymn, one of my favorites: Draw Me Nearer, Blessed Lord.

Yes, this is another one which very deeply moves me. I have selected a simple instrumental version with printed lyrics.

Listen. Follow the words. Let it sink in.

God is nigh.

‘All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name’

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When I was 11 years old, my folks sent me to the YMCA camp in Blairstown, NJ, for two weeks in the summer. It upset me at first, but I soon got the hang of it.

On Sundays the camp had outdoor chapel service. The chapel was on a hilltop overlooking one of the most gorgeous views of rolling green hills and farmers’ fields you ever saw. I’ll never forget it. And the counselors’ choir sang this great old hymn, All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name. It’s been one of my favorite hymns ever since: hard for me to hear it sung without my eyes getting teary.

The hills, the fields, the cloudless blue sky of that day, and the music, are all the gifts of God.

Enjoy them and give thanks.

The Folly of Mohammed-Mocking

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Do we even know what “freedom of speech” is, anymore?

Happily no one was killed at last night’s “Draw Mohammed” contest in Phoenix. There are a lot of angry people on hand, but there were also a lot of police who were ready to deal with any trouble. You will remember that, when they had a “Draw Mohammed” in Houston, people got shot.

Current events are confusing me. Apparently “freedom of speech” means you have an absolute right to insult religious people and mock their beliefs–something which Christians in America have known for quite some time, and Muslims are just finding out.

But apparently it also means that if you are a religious person, especially if you are a Christian, you may be forced to say and do things that are an outrage to your conscience: to take an active part, for instance, in a same-sex parody of marriage.

It seems to mean that a religious person, especially a Christian, must tamely put up with speech that seeks to refute his beliefs. But at the same time, no atheist has to tolerate seeing or hearing any kind of religious expression. One atheist can stifle a whole town’s prayers.

You can see how it gets confusing.

I don’t think much of Draw Mohammed contests. Other than to provoke Muslims to violence, what’s the point?

If it’s “to exercise free speech,” then it seems to be the kind of free speech exercised by Caliban, the monster in Shakespeare’s The Tempest: all he knew how to do was curse.

As a Christian, I naturally don’t believe in Islam. As a civilized human being, I hate the savagery practiced by Muslims all over the Middle East and Africa.

But is the only use of free speech to curse at things which others hold sacred? Is that all we know how to do with our freedom?

St. Paul preached to pagans. Did he ever try to convert them by telling dirty jokes about their gods? “So Zeus comes home drunk one night, and Hera’s waiting for him with a rolling pin…” No, he did not. Indeed, he cited their own poets in support of his Christian teaching, in his sermon to the sophomoric pagans of Athens (see Acts 17). Mockery was not found in Paul’s evangelistic tool kit.

If Muslims will make war, it’s righteous to make war right back at them, and defeat them–which the West could easily do, if the leaders had the stomach for it. If they will commit acts of violence against their neighbors, it’s righteous to punish them severely–whatever it takes to ensure the domestic tranquility.

But if they will live in peace, then Christians most certainly ought to live in peace with them. We do our Lord Jesus Christ no service by joining the Caliban crowd in gratuitously offending Muslims.

“Hey, guys! Now you know how we feel, when they hand over our tax dollars to some cockroach whose ‘art’ is to dunk a crucifix in urine! Now you know exactly how we feel.”

It’s what the ungodly do. It’s not what we should do.

America’s Ruins

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[The Pantheon, in Rome, is still in use after some 2,000 years: construction began under Augustus Caesar. Two thousand years! But we’re lucky if we get 50 years out of one of our expensive public buildings.]

The UK Daily Mail has a photo spread on some of America’s grandest public buildings and manufacturing centers, now fallen into ruin ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470148/Ohio-photographer-Brandon-P-Daviss-ghostly-pictures-urban-decay.html ).

Look at these colossal ruins. What war, what earthquake, what catastrophic flood could have done this?

Uh, none of the above: public policy conceived by idiots and administered by thieves–that’s what did it. The productive citizens fled from corrupt and incompetent government, leaving no one to carry on the city’s economy.

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. (I Corinthians 1:19)

The wisdom of this world created these great buildings, and the wisdom of this world also turned them into ruins. Hey! Let’s teach people not to work, and reward them for  having out-of-wedlock babies but not having families, and jam them all into our cities, and see what happens!

Well, now we’ve seen. This is wisdom without God. This is the way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Joseph and His Brothers

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

(I’m still sick, but nowhere near as bad as I was Friday night and most of yesterday.Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes!)

When I was a boy, I was fascinated by the story of Joseph. His brothers pretended he was dead and sold him into slavery, he got thrown into prison for a crime he didn’t do–and yet he rises to the top. God gives him the power to read the future from dreams, and the wisdom to make the most of it.

But really the thing that got me was Joseph’s brothers. All right, Jacob was wrong to make Joseph his favorite; that didn’t sit well with the other lads. I got that. But I was too young to appreciate how much trouble Joseph made for himself by telling his brothers that they were all going to bow down to him, because he’d dreamed it. How to make yourself obnoxious!

I was afraid of Joseph’s brothers. In my book of Bible stories there was a picture of them, kind of in a huddle, debating whether to kill Joseph or what. If these weren’t bad guys, I didn’t know who were. And they had the power. They had Joseph at their mercy, and could do anything to him that they liked.

Now I’m older, and there’s another part of the story that impresses me the most. The time came when Joseph had his brothers at his mercy. He could have ordered all their throats cut, or had them all sent as slaves to the mines in the desert, and no one would have stopped him. Think of the temptation! “All right, you creeps–welcome to payback time…” You can easily imagine what Joseph would do if he were the (ahem) action hero of a modern movie.

But what he does do is awesome. He forgives them. “And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” (Genesis 50:19-20)

[For those who do not know the Bible, Joseph’s being sold into slavery in Egypt, and rising there to the highest office in the land, was the means by which the whole family of Israel was saved in time of famine.]

Joseph is great enough not to be seduced by his own greatness. He humbles himself before God. A great man in this world today would be far too foolish ever to do that. “Hey! I am in the place of God, and I can do anything I want!”

When they finally did bow down and honor him, Joseph raised them up again. And that is awesome.