—Science falsely so called and the Age of the Earth & Truth, “Proof”, Faith & Understanding
Someone emailed:
Hello Robert: I would like to get your opinion regarding the information presented in this article (I do believe you have a scientific background). And if not a scientific background then I definitely think you have an interest in science. Thanks.
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New discovery proves Earth billions of years old by Dr. Ed Berry
https://edberry.com/blog/climate-physics/cosmology/new-discovery-proves…
“A new physics discovery proves the idea that our Earth and universe are 6000 years old is false. Yes, I know, if you are a ‘believer,’ the 6000-year idea is hooked to your ‘religion.’ But the key to intelligence is to test all our ideas against facts. ....
“Using the scientific method, we cannot prove an idea is true. We can only prove an idea is false. We approach truth when we discard ideas that are false.”
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My quick reply:
If this guy is a doctor then that is a sad indictment upon current academia. His entire article is full of invalid false assumptions, paper tigers, ad hominem, and missing middles of logic which require you to put on your 10,000 league jumping boots to jump from a presupposition to an unfounded conclusion; one after the other through the entire article.
If you don’t agree with his invalid, subjective, unprovable opinions, you are rejecting reality. However, based upon his own authoritarian declaration, reality cannot be proven; you can only prove what is not reality. However, his assumption that you can even prove what is not reality (what is not truth) is also wrong based upon the fact that all the evidence is never in. Throughout his article he engages in grandiose false assumption that because someone has developed a feasible theory—and because no one else (whom they know or interview or consider) is able to devise any other feasible theory, then he ignorantly concludes that their theory is not only the only possible theory, but in fact truth (which he said cannot be proven). This is shameless and sophomoric; not academic. It is imperialist rhetoric declared true by by fiat.
He is, it seems, trying to sell Christians the “Step down” Plan to wean yourself off belief in God altogether. It all starts with denial of the Genesis account of Creation. Once that is discarded, nothing else is sacrosanct and every other doctrine will fall like rotten teeth. Like Obama, he says “If you like your insurance provider you can keep it”; only he says, “If you choose the road of reality, you can still keep your belief in God. It only means you don’t agree with how some people interpret Genesis.”
Also, as the majority, either he is ignorant and he, a “doctor”, does not understand the very meaning of “proof”—or he is a liar and he hopes that you do not understand the meaning of proof.
His first “paper tiger” is the inference that Christians believe the earth and the universe are 6,000 years old. If Christians believe this, they are confused. LIFE on earth is 6,000 years old. Scripture says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Notice that he does not even bother to quote Scripture in the attempt to disprove it; because that would send his paper tiger scurrying back to its cage with its tail between its legs. God created planet earth and various different parts of earth’s atmosphere (not the entire universe), way back in pre-history—BEFORE Genesis 1:1. After some point in time, God decided to mold lifeless, unformed, empty planet earth and then bring life to it, which all begins on day 1. God did not make our sun or moon—and stars!—until the 4th day! God created plant life on the 3rd day; which is impossible without Divine activity because without the light and heat from the sun (which takes about 8.5 minutes to reach earth—so we are told) no plant life could live because temperature on earth would be around 100 degrees below zero. However, God created earth itself long before, so it (rocks) could very well be billions of years old—but scientists have no way of measuring that. They guess and expect you to believe their guess is reality. They are God-hating storytellers with vivid imaginations; not scientists. Berry himself says truth cannot be proven (based upon his own imperial decree) so there is no reason why anyone should believe evolution.
His notion of “hooked on your religion” is neither scientific or theological. His statement, “But the key to intelligence is to test all our ideas against facts” is meaningless unless he defines “key” and “intelligence” and “facts”. He has created a smoke-filled, circular obstacle course that he expects you to run through, like rats in a maze, and if you don’t agree with his conclusion you deny reality. However, what he considers “facts” are invalid opinions unsubstantiated by any real facts. He states, “A recent physics experiment proves our Earth and universe are much older than 6000 years.” But he already said truth cannot be proven. Furthermore, it presupposes that you accept his definitions and calculations and “science”. I can use a “yardstick” that is in reality 6 inches long, and then tell you that the property that I am trying to sell you is 1,000 yards by 1,000 yards—why... I measured it myself. The scam only works if your eyes are closed.
He worships the scientific method as if it is the only constant value in the universe that can be trusted; but in reality, the scientific method is unreliable as is much of science (which is continually being replaced by newer science—but LAWS don’t change: if new science replaces old, the old was wrong).
[See Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s Philosophy of Science and Belief in God (now contained in Modern Philosophy); A Christian View of Men and Things; and Historiography: Secular and Religious, for an utter demolishment of all secular unbiblical ideas, philosophical, psychological, theological, and “scientific”. All titles mentioned herein are in stock; inquire.]
Berry says,
“We approach truth when we discard ideas that are false”.
—not if you are going in the wrong direction! Not if your preconceived ideas cause you to discard truth thinking that it is false!
If you program a computer with false data, such as 2 + 2 = 9, when the computer does calculations the answers will be valid and logical according to what it was programmed with, but the answers will not be true.
They want you to step into their pseudo-reality and believe that it is reality.
The author failed to note that in reality very few scientific laws have been discovered in the universe (except maybe in mathematics). Much of what scientists find are not laws, but “approximations” of laws—like that tiny donut in the trunk of your car that you can use in an emergency to hobble to the gas station or home; but it is not meant to go much farther.
The author, while bragging about the fraud Einstein, does not inform you that because man has not actually discovered scientific law, science (or what men consider to be science) is constantly changing. Natural laws do not change, so what man has discovered is not natural law. Aristotelian physics gave way to Newtonian; Newtonian to so-called Einsteinian; and Einsteinian is about to be put to sleep by something else. But none of them were laws if something else disproves and replaces them. They are tools that work in absence of having the proper tool. If you need a shovel but one has never been invented (or discovered), a stick will work; then someone invents metal and makes a crowbar and that works better than the stick; then someone invents a metal bowl and that works better than the crowbar; then someone invents a heavy duty half-bowl and welds it on the end of the crowbar and has a shovel. Someone may invent a better shovel yet. There may be some idea out there that no one has ever thought of that would be superior to a shovel. Of course there is a steam shovel or backhoe and there is an auger for drilling post holes; but there may be something that actually manipulates matter by some energy force and digs a hole by you merely moving the mouse on your computer, even as they have computerized laser surgery. Just because someone has never thought of it does not mean the possibility does not exist.
Yet this entire “scientific” article is entirely based upon the contradiction of the axiom that “The absence of proof is not proof to the contrary”. Simply because 2 + 2 does not = 9 does not mean that it = 8. But the violation of that truth is what is the foundation of this article (combined with paper tigers and missing middles). “I say this [6-inch] “yardstick” is 36 inches long, therefore, this piece of property is 1,000 x 1,000 yards and if you do not agree you deny reality. I used to work for a yard-stick manufacturer!”
He even, shamelessly, several times, suggests that if you do not believe in his reality, you are throwing away the intelligence that God gave you—a God that he does not even believe in; and therefore, a deceitful argument. Of course, he does not offer any verse of Scripture to support his assertion; and of course, he does not tell you that no scientific discovery has ever disproven the Bible. Evolution has not been established by science, but imperialistically decreed by political vote of a God-hating, corrupt, subversive, renegade, Talmudic bureaucracy.
Two separate blackholes (which some scientists do not even believe exist*) 1.3 billion light years away—and he expects you to believe as Gospel truth that he knowns that one “black hole” (before it collided with th other) was 36 times the mass of our sun (which is allegedly 93 million miles from Earth) and the other was 29 times the mass of our sun (allegedly 1.989 x 1030 kilograms, about 333,000 times the mass of the Earth—neither of which have been put onto a scale and weighed: even as the sun is gas, so is a lot of “science”).
[* https://www.iflscience.com/physics/physicist-claims-have-proven-mathema…]
But what the evolutionists do, totalitarianistically and through propaganda and brainwashing, they claim dictatorially, this is the only truth and anyone who believes differently is a cave man (which is argumentum ad hominem and argumentum ad baculum—and thus it has nothing to do with truth or science but imperial decree).
The old scientific argument of circular reasoning exposes their fraud. They scientists claim, “This strata of rock is 14 billion years old”. When asked how they know that, they answer, “because a mollusc that is 14 billion years old was found in that strata”. Then, when asked how he knows the mollusc is 14 billion years old, he replies “because it was found in a strata of rock 14 billions years old”. Evolutionists, when painted into the corner and tied down will admit that the only reason they believe evolution is because they reject creation (they reject creation because they would have to admit there is a God and if there is a God who created and owns all, that would mean they have to submit to and obey Him). Evolutionists so trapped will admit that indeed you have to begin with faith that evolution and the Big Boink is true, and then build upon that foundation. That is not science but pagan religion deceitfully cloaked within the garb of pseudo-science, and it takes us back to the computer program in which 2 + 2 = 9... you have to start by faith that their premise is true in order for their fairy tale to appear logical and believe the results that their paradigm spits out.
They use circular "logic" and also talk around the issue or talk about some other issue and then act as if that proves the issue they did not talk about.
Of course earth itself is quite possibly billions of years old; but life itself is only 6,000 years old. But not according to the “Big Bang”—or more properly the “Big Boink” by which so-called “scientists” have screwed over the minds of 5 or 6 generations. It is this Big Boink that has deceived Christendom into believing the false doctrine of the Universal Brotherhood of man heresy, which has resulted in the destruction of Christendom. God created His people, Adamkind separate and distinct and forbade intermarriage with aliens, foreigners, the people of His curse, corrupt and mingled people (non-Adamite peoples). God commands separation; communism and the Antichrist world says amalgamate: “One race, one religion, one creed”. God commanded separation and since His people, the people of Christendom (true Israel) rebelled, God is now using those very aliens peoples from whom He commanded we be separate and whose peace and prosperity we were never to seek; and Christ commanded “Give not that which is holy to the dogs; cast not pearls before swine lest they turn and trample and rend you”. Because we have violated God’s Law, the Third World* is now invading and overwhelming us—until we repent of our sin against God.
[* The new euphemism for “Third-World nation”—no, not President Donald Trump’s “Shit-hole nation” (which is an anti-euphemism)—is “DEVELOPING nation”. However, they are not “developing” on their own—but feeding off the nations of Christendom (is it not odd that all the nations of Christendom are already “developed” nations—and have been for millennia...?): They are living off handouts “called “international aid”—but in reality it is “International WELFARE”) and stealing our economy with their inferior goods (or that should be “bads”). If that is not enough, they are exporting MILLIONS of their own people in a massive invasion, to lighten their load and they expect us to pay for the individual welfare of all these aliens in our nation, which weakens us and strengthens our enemies.]
God said that He separated us from other people even as He separated clean animals from unclean—and commanded us not to make ourselves abominable with either unclean animals as food, or unclean people by intermixing. To the degree that we have absorbed alien peoples we have made ourselves abominable and those branches shall be cut off and cast into the fire. God did not create all the animals as related species and no species descended or evolved from another (though individual varieties of a certain species were certainly bred). So it is with peoples. God created each special and distinct and commanded no intermixing—not even of livestock or vegetation. Hybrids are the attempt to destroy God’s creation and supplant it with something inferior though claiming it to be superior—and all such are abominations to God. The Big Boink teaches mankind to mix it up and intermarry, based upon the false premise that since it all came from the same source that it is only natural that they join back together. This hogwash, of course, parallels the intergalatic hogwash of the so-called Big Bang: that all matter (where it came from they don’t know) exploded (by what energy they do not know) from one giant glob and all that lifeless matter that blew apart in all directions formed an oderly universe that eventually “evolved” life (violating all known laws of science, specifically entropy); and that it has been continuing to expand outward in all directions is slowing down because it is reaching the limits to which it can expand (why, they cannot say*) and like hundreds of trillions of giant cosmic baseballs on rubber bands, the universe will eventually be able to expand no farther and it will snap back on itself and implode (and they call that “science”).
[* But if it has stretched so far that it cannot stretch any farther, presumably, due to gravity, what unifying force of gravity controls it all over hundreds of billions of light years? Would such powerful gravity not crush everything in between? Why must everything reverse direction and implode? Why can all outward moving stars simply break from free the gravitational pull? Rubber bands do break, you know.]
Life on earth is only 6,000 years old. Those Christians who disbelieve this are certainly “free” to believe whatever fairy tale they choose (just like the “scientists” do), their minds never truly having begun to think or meditate upon the days of creation which were 24-hour periods of time, not ages or aeons. That theory only makes sense if you don’t actually scrutinize it and analyze it, which I have done in detail. God created and made things in a specific order to prevent people from drawing false conclusions; but that does not stop those whose minds He has blinded from thinking like fools. Those who refuse to believe what God has said, imagining that God is limited to being the way their limited minds can conceive, are not worthy of the truth, so God will not let them know it. Of course, people are “free” to believe whatever they want, and once in God’s Presence, if they are so blessed, they will be humbled and then begin to truly learn. God created plant life on the third day and did not create the sun until the 4th day. If the days of creation were thousands of years or aeons or ages, what kept plant life alive for that vast length of time? If the sun were turned off or burned out what would happen to plant life (and all life) on earth? As I wrote in my God, Man, and the Universe:
“If the Sun were to burn out, it would take about 8 minutes and 33 seconds before the Sun’s rays already in motion, would end after they reached Earth, after which there would be no more (since the Sun is 93,000,000 miles away [if scientists’ calculations are accurate] and light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second). .... If the Sun just stopped shining, within a week temperatures on Earth would be below 0° F.; within a year -100° F.”
While we cannot know what the light was that God first declared into existence, or how He separated day from night before the sun existed, we do know that God kept earth warm (the inner magma core was maybe hotter?) otherwise the water on earth would have all been frozen (which it most probably was originally, which is why there is the geological record of an ice age); God may have turned the heat up on day 1 of creation, as the backup generator, until He created the sun, to get plant life through the 3rd day. God did it in that order for a reason. However, to assume that God had plant life growing for thousands of years without the sun or moon, is a grand assumption indeed, and Scripture says faith is derived from the facts of the word of God, not fantasy or assumption (or imperial decree).
Such persons act as if they know everything—as if everything can possibly be known—which they cannot. They cannot know all the factors. They make calculated guesses based upon the information that they have (which may nor may not be valid or accurate). However, this problem is compounded even more by the corruption in science, in which the “truth” is also clouded to some degree, at times, by what they want the truth to be—and especially what is a profitable “answer” to “discover” to please the ones paying them to “discover” it.
When you throw a baseball or fire a bullet, it is faster when first released and then slows down based upon friction and additionally, in terms of the universe the attraction or repulsion by other astronomical bodies. There is no way of knowing how tall Mount Everest was at the time of the Flood, because we do not know the speed at which God caused the mountains, and Everest particularly, to initially shoot up and how that rate slowed down over several millennia to the present speed (it grows about 2.5 inchs a year), even as we do not know at what speed the tectonic plates of the earth were moving when God smashed the one continent and set continental drift into motion in the days of Peleg, after the dispersal at Babel; nor do we know the rate at which it slowed to the present speed.
Science continually gets things wrong, whether out of fraud, incompetence, or just honest mistakes. I remember a few decades ago when a commercial by the EGG INDUSTRY was run frequently showing some laboratory and then claiming that eggs have 33% less cholesterol than we once thought. My first reaction was, “GREAT how many millions of dollars of a refund will we be getting for that BAD SCIENCE that we paid for that told us that eggs had 33% more cholesterol than they actually do...?” In reality, it seems it has to do with the chicken’s diet, health, and exercise, and also if the yolk is broken while heated (like in scrambled or omelets, quiche). Regardless, it also needs to be realized that statistics can be twisted or mispresented to make them appear to say whatever a person wants them to say; like telling half truths or merely making innuendos and allowing people to draw false conclusions in their own minds. God created various distinct and unrelated species with close enough similarity so that those who hate Him will foolishly think that one species “evolved” from another.
God darkened the minds of such to worship the creation rather than the Creator. Initially that was through mythology, but now it is through humanism of a different form— a “pagan history of man and the universe” called Evolution, which is the new mythology: which glorifies creation and man instead of God. Those Christians who reject the 7 - 24-hour days of creation, do err, not knowing the Scriptures and are the blind leading the blind. If the 7 days of creation were 1,000 year periods (or aeons or ages), then after being created at the end of the 6th Day, Adam and Eve had to rest for 1,000 years (and he died under the age of 1,000) and therefore, had no opportunity to reproduce before they died.
The data of such “scientists” as well as Christians with poor theology is confounded with illogic. People are blinded by their own pet paradigms and what they want to believe. Very few persons (like Ivan Panin, David Davidson, Charles Bradlaugh, Ingersol, Paine) bow before the truth when in their attempts to disprove it, it disproves them. If one starts with a false premise he will end with a false conclusion. It matters not how sophisticated the theory or data is presented; it is a fairy tale. Leo Tolstoy keenly expressed:
“Shallow ideas can be assimilated. Ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility. I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusion which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
As I explain in my book, Who Was the Serpent in the Garden...? and the Waters that Covered the Earth:
“In a very interesting report by Brian Thomas, M.S., ‘New Genomes Project Data Indicate a Young Human Race’ it was revealed that in 2008 a very extensive project was undertaken, with international collaboration, to sequence with incredible detail over 1,000 representative human genomes from sample groups from around the world. In October of 2010 some of these results were published which support man’s existence on the planet to be exponentially smaller than the evolutionists have claimed—less than 300 generations, which is consistent with the Biblical account.”
“[My own calculations are as follows: It has been 5,990 years from the creation of life on earth to 2015. 2025 should be the 6,000th year from Creation and also the 120th “Jubilee from creation”—though this “Jubilee” does not coincide with the Jubilee begun at Sinai; it is a different type of Jubilee. Judah was 22 generation from Adam (though the 23rd generation of Adamkind; being born 2256 years from the creation of Adam) Zarah and Pharez were born about when Judah was 42. By the time of King David (born 2922 from Adam) man’s life span seems to have stabilized (David died at age 70, ripe in years); David ruled over all Israel when he was 30 and soon had several children. Thus 2962 years elapsed from the time of creation of Adam to the time that David [the 33rd generation of Adamkind] was 40 years old; which comprised 33 generations and an average age of 90 at which men had their firstborn, or at least the son who constituted the chosen line. 5,990 - 2962 = 3028 (the time left from when David was 40 to the end of this age, using 40 as a conservative average age at which men have had their firstborn born to them from Moses’ day to now = 76 generations. Even if you change the age at which men sire their firstborn to age 20, that only doubles it to 151 generations + 33 from Moses to David’s son = 184 generations maximum from Adam to the present.]
“This study examined the DNA base sequences of 2 families, including the mother, father, and child of each. Science published the results which concluded that each generation of offspring inherit about 60 new mutations from the parent generation of each. Though the purpose of the study—the “1000 Genomes Project”— was to try to learn which DNA anomalies cause disease, the study spat out the additional information about how long man has been on earth. This data was extrapolated using an extremely accurate population genetics modeling program called “Mendel’s Accountant” (developed by a team of scientists from Cornell University; which program is downloadable freely). This program calculates the cumulative effect of inherited mutations in terms of health and survivability (I believe the point being that once any branch of a family tree inherits too many genetic defects, which are cumulative—life-span is continually decreased to the point that the branch of the family tree dies out: it spontaneously aborts or does not even reproduce before it dies). The program reveals that even if starting with a population of 2,000 individuals, even if each mother has 6 children, factoring in the rate of 60 new genetic mutations per generation, humankind would become extinct after only 350 generations (this also factors in natural selection of the least fit having already died out and not passed on their more-highly defective DNA). Thus, man has not been on earth anywhere near as long as evolutionists claim.”
Also, the author (Berry) of this “scientific” article (with which we started this Rumination) does not even comprehend the meaning of the words “prove, proves, proof” as he even uses the word “proves” in the very title of this article, without realizing that proof is an elusive chimera and most people confuse mere evidence (which may be valid or invalid, true or false)—as well as opinion, deception, and delusion—with “proof”. I explain this in detail in my book Does God Repent? — Can God Change His Mind?
“Proof or Faith...?
“There is very little we can truly know or actually prove. We have evidence alone in most cases when we think we have proof. Hard sciences can be proven. In everything else all we actually can do is amass evidence and then make a choice concerning that evidence. No one can prove the Flood was local or worldwide; to claim that one can is arrogant and ignorant and shows mental instability and not being in touch with the real world; not recognizing that there are 10,001 factors of which he is ignorant (especially concerning an event that transpired 4,300 years ago). All the evidence is never in. A lot of evidence is never even admitted to be presented in court. All we can do is form an opinion, an informed, (hopefully) intelligent opinion, but an opinion nonetheless. I used to be able to lift my own body weight over my head in a 1-arm snatch on a full barbell. If I could still do that, I could prove it (actually, I could not prove it, but only demonstrate it, or prove that I could do it, but I could not really prove that I did do it, again, I could only demonstrate it). Then I could. Now I can’t. Someone else saying, “Yeah, I saw him do it” isn’t proof. If I had a video that was made and/or if I had done it in front of accepted verifiable authenticating committee, that may or may not constitute proof (even some official organization saying, “We saw it” really isn’t proof. It is testimony; evidence). Math can be proven, a chemistry experiment can be proven, the philosophy of logic can be proven. Few other things can truly be proven unless they can actually be demonstrated. Doctrine cannot be so proven; that is where faith comes in. History cannot be so proven. The Flood is both theological and historical, but it cannot be proven unless one was on the ark video-taping as it occurred. Everything else is faith. People choose which evidence they wish to believe. Statistical probabilities are not certainties, but probabilities, and they can be accurate or extremely inaccurate following the law of the bell curve; and thus can be probable, highly probable, or remotely probable, but still only probable.
“Very few things can be proven universally 100% of the time, because no event has been proven every single time because every single time is an impossibility that can never be achieved to infinity. Proving something that happened before one was even born is highly improbable, if not impossible. We see how the modern media and journalists and historians and scientists lie and distort the truth now as the events are actually unfolding; this is nothing new (as Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun). So, in reality, people choose which historians from the past will be those whom they choose to believe. Such is not proof. Such is a choice; sometimes sincerely, sometimes sinisterly—but a sincere wrong choice is just as untrue as a sinister wrong choice.
“People choose which testimony or evidence (valid or invalid, real or imagined) they will believe; but they cannot prove that their choice is correct or their conclusion true. Juries frequently convict the innocent and absolve the guilty based not upon proof, but upon their own choice of which presentation of evidence they chose to believe; and if the evidence was false, then it certainly was not truly “proof,” but confused for proof: that would be anti-proof.”
Understand: Nothing is ever “proved” in a court of law. Judges or jurors decide which pile of evidence they deem most convincing (based on how slick the lawyers were, clearly they cannot make their choice based upon the evidence that the judge refused to be admitted, and all the evidence is never in, a lot of evidence is never uncovered, crime labs and dirty cops invent “evidence”, witnesses are bribed to lie, etc., and judges rule or jurors vote base upon their own prejudices or even from being bribed or threatened. Even if someone confesses to a crime, that is not proof that he committed the crime, only that he confessed to it. People often confess to crimes they did not commit for many different reasons: some demented people do it for attention, or possibly a troubled youth in self-destruct mode does it just to be in control, because he does not care, or revenge against a parent to shame him; some do it because they were bribed or threatened; some who are mentally handicapped are tricked by the cops or prosecutor into thinking that if they simply confess they can go home! and some confess to a crime in order to save a loved one who is actually the guilty party.
Such is the difference between proof and evidence; few things are ever truly proven. Until one understands this simple fact, he understands very little and has an unrealistic god-complex in thinking that he can know and prove many things that he cannot (things that he does not even understand: like looking at one-square-inch of a painting and thinking that you understand the painting—or the artist!). Scientists are in many ways like individuals on juries, or judges, or even the accused. Choices are made, and dishonestly (or at least ignorantly), those choices concerning what they will believe are declared to be “proof” when they are not.
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[I never cease to be dumbfounded that people who don’t seem to even understand the English language, who cannot even construct a coherent sentence (which means they cannot construct coherent thought) actually think that they know anything and can prove it; when they don’t even know how to think. Many times I “re-write” the questions or comments that people email, so as not to torture the reader; but in other cases I leave them as is, because it is a glimpse into the confused mind and has bearing on the position that they take. Yet they are so adamant and arrogant that you are right and they are wrong and are oblivious to their own ignorance and anti-intellectualsim. R.A.B.]
This person replied:
Hi Robert, Einstein theory, have very serious doubts that there ever could come a truth out of that. Read it shortly after getting it, but didn’t get to answer right away. If memory serves me right, you are the first besides me that I’ve seen to take the fact that our God has always been into the equation of the earths age. Now, I know too little to know if there’s any truth in the varies dating methods, so have no confidence therein. But, I’ve been observing enough in the mountains and so on to know that this earth is a lot older then the young earth advocates push with blinded eyes. [You wrote]
“Doctrine cannot be so proven; that is where faith comes in. History cannot be so proven. The Flood is both theological and historical, but it cannot be proven unless one was on the ark video-taping as it occurred. Everything else is faith. People choose which evidence they wish to believe.”
Doctrine CANNOT be proven??? So then, your answer is, we got to turn to faith. Well, how are we then go to prove something then? So, what is the Scriptural definition of faith?
You can answer if you want and leave it. But I now understand you as to why you believe the things you do. If doctrine can’t be proven, then we are as a ship without a rudder. This is not to say that ALL doctrine can be proven, but a lot can. Then when we were told to be as the Bereans, that then has no merit and I then would know no way of helping you.
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My reply/comment:
[Where to begin replying is always a challenge in such cases.]
I am assuming when you say “Read it shortly after getting it, but didn’t get to answer right away” that you are referring to my previous email, not Einstein’s theory.
I don’t know what you mean by “I’ve been observing enough in the mountains and so on”.
[I wonder if even he knew what he meant.]
You say, “so, your answer is, we got to turn to faith” as if faith is a BAD thing. That is curious.
You say, “But I now understand you as to why you believe the things you do. If doctrine can’t be proven, then we are as a ship without a rudder.”
No, the fact that you say that shows then that you understand very little. You don’t understand why I believe anything because you have never ordered any of the nearly 100 books that I have written in order to actually read one. And you don’t understand the nature of truth or study or faith, if you think that because we cannot prove something that we are like a ship without a rudder. That is a gross illogical false inference. You think that because I say things cannot be proven that the only alterative is blind faith. Your mind is stymied and stuck in a false binary “this” or “that”—and the “that” that you choose is NOT the only other option. You think that others must operate according to the confused notions in your mind—and therefore, you conclude that those other person are the ones confused and that YOU can’t help THEM. That is both sad and revealing.
Doctrine cannot be proven. How can you prove Bible doctrine to someone who refuses to accept the Bible as true? How can you prove Bible doctrine to someone who believes the Bible is true in some areas but not true in other areas? What then is the litmus test of “proof” that such people use to then determine which parts of the Bible are true and which are not? If a person believes that the Bible is true—but believes that your interpretation of it is in error, how can you prove Bible doctrine? You cannot. In your mind “proof” means that you are “convinced”—but just because you are convinced (which has no bearing on whether what you believe is true or not) certainly does not mean that another person must or will be convinced.
You clearly don’t understand the nature of proof. Most people do not. Semantics is partly to blame (the rest is ignorance). There are many levels of the meaning of proof... (the inferior, common meanings actually being untrue) but I speak only of the true absolute meaning. Some people may say, “I love ice cream”. They don’t “love” ice cream; if they do and they are having an interpersonal relationship with a bowl of frozen sugar and milk then they are psychotic. They either don’t understand the meaning of love, or they are simply using the word in a very weak, improper manner that has become colloquially accepted. A child may see all the flavors of ice cream and say, “Oh, chocolate, my favorite! Oh strawberry, my favorite! Oh, pistachio, my favorite! They’re all my favorite!” Clearly, such children don’t understand the meaning of favorite. If everything is favorite nothing is favorite. If everything is special nothing is special. Thus, the meaning of “like” / “enjoy” is confused with “love” and “favorite”.
So it is with proof / prove / proving. Proof is something that is universal; that every sane person who sees it will agree based upon the evidence, not upon their opinion, prejudice, or any other factor. However, the way that most people use the words proof or prove is meaning nothing more than “it satisfies me enough to believe it”—regardless of what “standards” of satisfaction that person has.
Proof is elusive. All the senses can be completely fooled. The mind can easily be fooled. A slick salesman, debater, statistician, political speech writer, con-man, educator, scientist can devise a plethora of “stories” that the average person will easily believe. Most people do not think logically (except in very simple matters), having never actually studied logic. Though most people think that they are logical, that is because they do not know what logic is. That would be like a person saying, “I am an excellent snow-boarder” having never seen a snowboard, let alone been on one in the snow! I have had a person adamantly assert, “Oh, I assure you I am very logical”—though he did not have a clue what logic was, never studied it, and his thinking was often quite confused.
How then can you prove anything to such a person, when he is unwilling to or mentally incapable of accepting the data that you provide as proof? You might as well be talking Chinese to a Russian. You cannot force a thought into someone elses mind when that other person refuses to believe. You might as well try to push a grape through an anvil! How does that affect the anvil? What does it do to the grape? If doctrine could be proven everyone would be converted and there would be only one denomination.
Such persons think that “logic” means, “it makes sense to my mind” and therefore he thinks that it must be true. How can a person believe that he is logical when he has no clue about what logic even is—and when half of what he says demonstrates otherwise to someone who actually does know what logic is? Many individuals think that they have good singing voices too, but if you have ever watched the auditions of “America’s Got Talent” or similar shows, you will see just how delusional many people are. Most people think that they know a subject, even though they have never scratched the surface of it even a nanometer deep. They think all their own thoughts and project those thoughts onto the topic, without ever studying the topic, or even having the essential building blocks of understanding.
Very little can be proven. History itself is not a science.* History cannot be proven or demonstrated. It cannot be replicated. People choose which evidence they believe to be true, they choose which historians they choose to believe; that is not proof but opinion or making a choice. Imperial decree is not proof. It is edict. Those who think they can prove things like history and doctrine are not proving anything other than their self-appointed imperial issuing of decrees they want people to accept as proof of the truth.
[* However, there is a philosophy of history, a historical method of sound historical investigation and writing; but the vast majority of people are utterly ignorant of it also. See the insurpassable Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s Historiography: Secular and Religious. However, his A Christian View of Men and Things and Philosophy of Science and Belief in God and Essays on Ethics and Politics would probably best be read first (without the information contained in these three, it is safe to say that he has not even begun to think and does not know what true thinking is). His book Logic will easily demonstrate that the average person who thinks that he is logical, who has never studied the topic (nor even realize that Logic is a branch of Philosophy) does not have a clue what logic is, and probably cannot even comprehend it. However, even if the reader should find that he cannot get beyond page 50 (because logic is sophisticated math in its more complex arguments), the reader should not give up, but read those 50 pages as many times as he can; even a few times a year; and learn what he can learn, to the best of his ability. The reader should then read other of Clark’s books on a daily basis to bathe his mind in truth and logical thinking, and it will rub off.]
Can you prove that the moon exists? You can point to what we call the moon and tell someone that it is the moon,* and say, “Look, that is the moon”. If he refuses to look how can you prove it?
[* But again, we come to the fact that this “proof” and even “knowing” is actually very limited. Do you even know who you are? You know who you believe yourself to be, but that is different than who you may actually be. What about the scenarios of Moses being raised thinking he was an Egyptian, the son of Pharaoh’s daughter? What about the scenario of children being switched at birth? If switched young enough, the person does not know who he actually is; though he knows who he has become. Similarly, those who have switched roles (willingly or unwillingly) may know who they are, but the general public is completely deceived, such as in the novel / movie Man in the Iron Mask (which is in Dumas’ The Musketeer series; expertly portrayed in the movie staring Leonardo Dicapprio) or Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper (expertly portrayed in the movie staring Aidan Quinn) or even in the case of a person inventing a false identity and everyone else believes him, such as in Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (expertly portrayed in the movie staring Jim Caviezel). Similarly, how well can you know the moon if you have never been to it? You can point to what we know as the moon; but that is not proof that it is the moon. Even if there was a specific chemical analysis to define what “moon” was, and you had a sample that under testing was shown to have an identical chemical composition, that would not be proof that it was from the moon, but only that it was “moon-like”. For decades astronomers, professional and amateur have to others pointed out planet Pluto. However, poor Pluto has now been downgraded to “space debris”. Talk about an identity crisis! So, how could it have been “proof” that what you (or anyone else back to the year 1930 when “Pluto” was discovered) may have pointed out to someone else as “the nineth planet from the sun, Pluto”, if the “experts” now say that it is not a planet? You pointed out what was known to be Pluto, but it was not a planet. So what did you prove? Thus, truth and “knowing” and “proof” are more complex than people realize.]
If you are actually pointing to the planet Venus, and the person you are showing looks and sees it, have you proven that the moon exists? If you point, correctly, to the moon, and tell someone that is the moon, have you even then proven that the moon exists? Is saying “look” proof...? Even less can man prove God. BUT, that does NOT mean that we are without a rudder. It is reality. God calls us to faith. If He did not, then He would reveal Himself to every single individual whom He wanted to believe in Him, perform a few miracles, and the issue would be solved. Christ said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who see not, but who believe”. Likewise, Scripture tells us, “walk by faith, not by sight”. This does not mean that we stick our head in the sand. Our relationship and knowledge of God starts with God revealing Himself (we prove nothing; we don’t “discover” God) and by God putting within us the faith to believe (we prove nothing; faith does not originate in us and neither does the desire to seek God—God draws the elect that He determined before the foundation of the world). Upon that foundation, we then accept that His Word is True and based upon the unimpeachable internal logic of the Word of God (that is, those who base doctrine upon facts, not their “feelings” or opinions or what they want to believe irrespective of the facts) we are convinced of its truth (again, by the faith that He gives us: for many intelligent people are not convinced by the Bible and could care less about it—because God has darkened their minds). Then the Holy Spirit convicts, gives the desire, and enables those who are regenerated to live as honorable children by studying continually, relying upon the Holy Spirit to lead us into the truth, so that we can truly understand.
However, there are hundreds of denominations (and false religions) and thousands of different spurious ideas. Were there proof, there would be only one denomination. However, there are many because people cannot agree on anything (due to ignorance, selfishness, and even conspiracy). That is also because there is no proof and because most lean unto their own understanding and are not lead by the Spirit of Truth. The majority (who are not of God) would not believe the truth even if there were proof: the majority are selfish and only want to believe that they want to believe.
Just because someone cannot prove something does not mean they are lost without a rudder. How many people understand electricity? or internal combustion engines or computer circuitry and programming? —yet most everyone can turn on a light switch, use an electric appliance, start a car, and use a computer. Faith supersedes understanding in such cases—not a blind faith, but an experiential faith based upon both reputable testimony and demonstration. However, God does not want us to live on a foundation of clouds forever. The purpose of that faith is to study to show yourself approved and understand and then have an answer to give when any should ask you for a reason for the hope that is within you. Sadly, most “Christians” stop growing at the pacifier stage; or they become engrossed with spiritual cartoon science fiction rather than sound doctrine.
However, the difference is, the true Christian life is not a casual experience like using a toaster or blender. God says we are in a war. It behooves each to read the soldier’s manual. The below is from my annotations in my reprinting in an edited version of Ruth Paxson’s 1930 book, Rivers of Living Water:
“Most people go through their daily routines, turning on light switches, a computer, an appliance, a vehicle, etc., without any understanding of all that it took to produce it, or how it actually works. Yet we flip the switch and it works. At times, we may use such devices incorrectly and bad things can happen. That is a picture illustration of faith’s operation outside of understanding; and it is picture illustration of what happens when laws are violated even if one does not realize he is violating any law. The solution, of course, to the concerned individual, is to pick up the owner’s manual and do a little study to better understand the device and prevent future melt-downs. ....
“Some things God calls us to believe, not necessarily understand (at first). Servants are issued commands on a “need to know” basis. It matters not if the servant understands or agrees with the master’s order; all that matters is that he obey. So it is with us. God calls us to obey, God calls us to believe. To ask “why?” before one obeys, is insubordination (which is rebellion; which God actually says that He equates with witchcraft; even as He equates stubbornness with the sin of idolatry). For the servant to ask “why”—after he obeys or as he continues to obey—in order for the master to enlighten him, is certainly proper. However, the enlightenment is still the determination of the master. Sometimes he may enlighten, others he may not; for his own good reasons. In some areas, it may be beneficial for a servant to understand and to “see the big picture”, in order to better accomplish the task. However, other times, understanding is not an issue. On the one hand, a servant / son who does not care “why” is not that conscientious, if he does not truly care about the master’s father’s work, but only going through the motions. However, the motivation should be to better understand (which is not essential to obedience in many cases), not out of arrogance, second-guessing, or challenging the master’s wisdom or authority. Imagine as some kings have done in the past, God setting up a life-size chess board on the lawn, using humans as the chess pieces (and indeed, this is not too far from reality). God is situated up high on a platform from which he has a view of the entire game board; and sees the big picture, the strategy, the plan: everything. Each individual chess piece, when told to step one step horizontally to the right, or 5 steps in a diagonal to the left and forward; or two steps forward and one to the left... each piece cannot see the purpose. It is not essential that any piece see the purpose. Each is a tool in the master’s hand. Those who think it demeaning don’t love or honor their master or understand their own rightful place of subjection. Only by truly and humbly recognizing and maintaining that role by the Grace of God, will one ever be exalted.”
Doctrine cannot be proven; if it could would not the vast majority believe the same thing? Does not everyone believe 2 + 2 = 4? That is an established fact that can be proven; that is why all agree on it. That’s why they don’t generally give Bachellor of Science degrees in history or theology. History is an art, not a science. Theology is neither, but is supposed to be the simple, clear, honest explanation of Divine Decrees and Revelation. While it is true that there is “science” that should dictate true history and true theology’s teaching and understanding—the rules of logic, as well as the rules of historiography and hermaneutics—neither are sciences. Much of what is passed off as history and theology is fiction. Instead of determining which historians, from times earlier than our own, are reliable, modern historians choose the historians who say what they want to hear, and “confer” upon them “legitimacy” and “repute”. Modern “theologians” and “Christians” do the same in regard to theology—which they view as a “Spiritual Baskin-Robbins” in which they simply choose which of the 36 flavors they like, and deem that to be reality. But that is humanism.
Gravity can be proven, or at least demonstrated. It can be replicated by anyone. Just pick something up, hold your hand out away from yourself and away from any other object, and let go. Did what you were holding and let go of... did it fall to the ground?
Okay, similarly, go ahead. Prove or demonstrate the Virgin Birth. Do you have a video tape of Mary’s entire life, every single second, up to the point it was realized that she was pregnant, a video showing every moment of her life up to that point in time as evidence that she had never known any man? Do you then have a sperm sample from God to prove He is the Father? That would be proof.
I BELIEVE the virgin birth 100% without any doubt because that is what the Word of God says. If I list the Scriptures referring to the Virgin birth, I have not proved the Virgin Birth (read the above paragraph again if you still don’t understand); but I will have demonstrated what a collection of Bible verses HAVE TO SAY about the Virgin Birth, but I have not PROVED the Virgin Birth. Thus, the next logical point necessary, in order to prove that what the Bible says about the Virgin Birth, in order to accept the Virgin Birth as true, would be to PROVE that the Bible is the Word of God.
While one can present evidence that the Bible is the Word of God, one cannot “prove” it any more than He can “prove” God. You could only “prove” the Bible to be the Word of God and “prove” God to be God, if you could subpoena God to come down to a court of law, raise His Right Hand and swear by Himself to tell the truth, after which He would need to demonstrate that He indeed is the God Who created the universe and that yes indeed the Bible is His Word. But understand—even then YOU would not have proven that, God would have proven it. You can’t control God. It would have been God’s Testimony and Signs and Wonders that would have proven the issue, not you.
I BELIEVE that the Bible is the Word of God and that it is True. I cannot “prove” it like a chemistry experiment, in which any person who attempted the exact same experiment could replicate it and get the exact same results every single time, if followed according to precise instructions under the same conditions. God has closed all eyes, ears, hearts, and minds and opens only those of the elect. Once converted, the Holy Spirit dispenses understanding according to the measure of God. Those who are unconverted (or those who are converted who are carnal—humanistically minded and carnally behavioured) can understand individual facts, but they cannot understand truth.
This does NOT mean that we should not study or believe—because we are commanded to. The point is that it is not us who can prove truth; it is God who has hidden truth from the world and opened the hearts and minds of His elect to believe that what He has said is true (and to actually understand the correct interpretation of what He has said); and based upon that faith we then endeavor to study to show ourselves approved. Augustine said Understanding is the reward of faith; seek not to understand that ye may believe, but believe that ye may understand. Faith cometh by hearing the Word of God. Understanding is a gift given to “members only”—and membership is handed out to the elect and the membership card is faith deposited in the believer by the Holy Spirit. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Without faith it is impossible to receive anything from God—including understanding.
If doctrine could be proven we would not have those who baptize by sprinkling, others by dabbing, others by pouring, others by dunking—and those who are back dunkers, front dunkers, dippers, side dunkers and double dunkers (and some who believe that baptism itself saves you, and others still who beleive that that you actually have to believe that the water itself is saving you or it doesn’t count). If something could be proved only a fool would not believe it. However, this opens up another can of worms, in that much of what is totalitarianistically forced down the throats and into the minds of the masses is not truth and has not been proveN (evolution, etc.), but it has been dictatorially decreed and ordered and demanded that all bow down to the great image every time that the music sounds and recognize it as god.
No doctrine can be proven. Doctrine can be explained, and it can be explained correctly and incorrectly. If I recall correctly, you don’t believe in the Trinity or Hell. You don’t base this on “proof”, you base this on your opinion of what you think is believeable and what you believe God should conform to in order to be “good” in YOUR mind. You might as well be a Hindu. With a billion people believing a billion different things, there would be a billion different gods—each controlled by the one believing!
God commands us to believe, in order to be saved; He does not command us not fully understand and He does not command us to “prove” doctrine in order to be saved. The understanding and attempting to “prove” (or more precisely, “confirm”) is for our edification, for our strengthening (and witness), and is act of obedience.
Further, as I explain in my, God, Man, and the Universe (pp.32,33):
“No other ancient work contains the same amount of manuscript evidence as does the Bible. The Bible contains 66 books, written by 40 different authors spanning 40 generations and 1,500 years; yet it is consistent, coherent, and entirely reliable. Never has science or archaeology ever disproved a single thing in the Bible—and the Bible was right thousands of years far in advance of secular understanding in many matters of history and science. Modern science and archaeology only serve to prove the Bible. The amount of evidence proving the reliability of the Bible is overwhelming. There are more complete Bible manuscripts than there are of the works of Shakespeare. The 37 plays written by Shakespeare in the early 1600s all contain missing text which forensic experts had to “guess” to “fill in the blanks” to complete the plays. It is also significant to realize that even if all of the Biblical manuscripts had been lost, it is possible to recreate the entire Bible by piecing together Biblical quotes from the early Church Fathers from the 2nd and 3rd Centuries A.D.—all for except 11 verses out of the 31,102 verses in the Bible. That is staggering in significance! There are 24,000 existing Greek New Testament manuscripts (complete or partial) and 5,366 complete Greek New Testament manuscripts. The books of the New Testament were written between the y ears A.D. 40 to 90. The earliest-known copies of New Testament manuscripts date to the year A.D. 125—which means that they were recorded or copied only 35-85 years after the originals; which means that even without God overseeing their copying, the chances of them being accurate are much higher. In contrast, there are only 643 existing Greek manuscripts of the Iliad of Homer, which was first written in 900 B.C., and the earliest existing manuscript was written 500 years (c.400 B.C.) after Homer wrote it. On top of that, they are incomplete and there are 764 disputed lines of text in Homer’s Iliad, while there are only 40 disputed lines in the New Testament. The New Testament and the Iliad are roughly the same size. The New Testament has 7,957 verses of 179,011 words. The Iliad has 15,693 lines of about (an estimated) 154,000 words. Similarly, the works of Aristotle were written between 384-322 B.C., yet the earliest-existing manuscript is 1,400 years old (from c.1100 B.C.) and only 49 manuscripts of his works still exist. Dated much closer to the time of the writing of the New Testament, Julius Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” was written c. 58-50 B.C., yet the earliest known manuscript was written 1,000 years later (c. A.D. 900) and only 10 known manuscripts are in existence.”
Now, does it not take faith to believe that God guided the men who developed our canon and cross-compared all the known manuscripts? Since you or I did not discover, catalog, and cross-compare these thousands of manuscripts, we certainly cannot prove that the manuscripts from which the KJV of the Bible that we use are correct. We have to trust that God directed them in the truth. But you don’t even believe doctrines in the Bible, such as the Trinity, Hell, Satan, demons, angels—so what makes you think that you can “prove” any doctrine, when you don’t even believe a significant portion of what is in the Bible?
[Similarly, if you ever fly anywhere by plane, you have to take by faith that the pilot is actually competent and that the airline did not merely want to be the first to hire a black, muslim trans-gender, blind and deaf quadriplegic as captain commercial pilot.]
Things built upon trust / faith are not proof; though they may lead to understanding and greater faith. It also requires faith that the translators got it right. However, based upon what? —how does a nonscholar without the thousands of Biblical manuscripts to compare determine which version is the best? I believe the KJV is the best, though not without error (the minor error being easily demonstrated). However, people choose what they want to believe in any given area; and they choose whether to believe the evidence that you offer or demonstrate.
People believe what they want to believe despite the evidence. This is a sad fact of reality. If everything was actually provable, people would believe whatever you were able to prove. You could force feed 1,000 rats cyanide, one at at time, successively and show to those watching how every single one of them dies. You can then prepare an equivalent dose for a human, and then ask: “Who thinks that I have not sufficiently proved or demonstrated that cyanide is poison and at this concentration per pound of body weight it is lethal? If you think I have not proven it, step right up and drink this glass of cyanide”.
[However, also realize, just because no one steps up to drink the cyanide does not actually mean that everyone believes that you proved cyanide is lethal poison. Some may not step up for various reasons: 1. A person was deaf and did not hear your challenge. 2. A person is lame and could not respond. 3. Someone did not actually believe you but was too much of a coward to accept the challenge. 4. Some people don’t like public attention. 5. Some people feel no compulsion to prove what they believe. etc.]
If all things were so proveable or demonstratable, everyone would believe—and respect the truth. That is not the case.
God, for His own Purpose, removed the application of punishment, in space of time (that is, delaying the “response” administered long after the “stimulus” appeared), far enough from the crime itself, to the point that most people think that they can get away with violating God’s Law. Their fear has been “extinguished” because the punishment is not immediately paired with their sinful act. In reality, the majority of people—“Christians” included—don’t actually believe that God exists. If they did, they would fear and obey Him. However, even those who adamantly claim that they believe in God (but don’t obey—for whatever reason—what He commands) don’t believe in the God of the Bible; so, in reality, they don’t believe in God (because there is no other God). If you believe what you want to believe about God, not what God says, that is idolatry. Tell me, how many of God’s Attributes can you not believe in and still actually believe in the True God? How much of His Word can you reject and still believe in the True God? Well, only God can discern between soul and spirit and only He can answer the present questions—so the only solution (if you value your soul) is to believe all that He has told us and stop leaning unto your own understanding because it is highly defective and you don’t know what you are talking about.
Clearly, if God threw thunderbolts down from Heaven immediately each time a person crossed any line, very few would ever cross those lines. Similarly, if God answered every single prayer immediately, for every single person... why... of course, EVERYONE would believe and everyone would pray and everyone would pray all the time. But God did not do that. Why? Because it is not His Will that all believe. Furthermore, it would cease to be faith and would become something that most people would take for granted and expect as a right—like a vending machine. Prayer would then be considered a demand: When I pray I am supposed to get what I ask for so give it to me now God! Christ Himself early in His ministry, knowing—determining before Creation who would believe and who would not, purposely spoke some very heavy-duty words that the majority did not understand because they did not realize that it was figurative speech and THEY STOPPED FOLLOWING Him because it confused and offended them. Why then did Christ say it? —because He wanted them to stop following Him because they were not of His sheep.
If you think that you can prove any doctrine, prove to me now... pick any notion out of the air and pray for it right now and prove that the Promises of God concerning prayer are true. Pick something that could not happen on its own, or at least something highly improbable according to the laws of probability. However, one prayer is not proof. You will then need to pick another similarly highly improbable thing out of the air and pray for that, let’s say, 10 days in a row, and inform your whole email list of each thing in advance and then offer proof that it was answered. The easiest thing would be to pray for something globally discernable, like a solar eclipse that caught all scientists off guard... an anomaly .... an earthquake, a tornado where there had never been one... some pestilence on evildoers in Washington or Tel Aviv (there really is little difference)... the earth helping God’s people by receiving the Flood that the Dragon has spewed forth (I pray for that many times a day and have for many years now)... Furthermore, it would not be enough for you to get 10 for 10 prayers answered, but you would then have to get another 100 Christians and have them perform the same experiment to so prove it. Email me and let me know how it works. Do you accept the challenge? Hello...? are you there?
Again, if the Promises of prayer could be proven as easily as putting money into a vending machine, everyone would “pray without ceasing” — but that is not reality because that is not what God has determined. God is separating the chaff from the wheat, by blessing those who see not, yet who believe... who believe even in the face of doubt, impossibility and hopelessness.
We don’t pray because it is easy and because we get everything immediately like driving to Wal-mart or going through the drive-thru at Burger King.
We pray because God commanded us to pray and we pray out of faith and desperation for those things we truly need. And part of prayer entails faithful perseverance because faith must be tested. Before Christ gave the parable of the woman and the unjust judge He said, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint”. If prayer were a simple vending machine, such grueling angst and perseverance in the face of (seeming) denial would not be an issue. Christ did not say to “prove” doctrine; but to believe and then the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth. Verses of Scripture that tell us to prove things, are imprecise translations of those words.
Scripture indeed says, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” (I Thessalonians 5:21) However, the Greek word is #1381 dokimadzô which is something internal, examined for oneself. It does not mean “prove” to someone else that is, “convince someone else beyond all doubt”. We cannot “prove” all things because all things are not proveable; but we can examine, test, discern, approve, and think competently about”, which is what the word means. Clearly we can only do something to the extent that we are able to, and therefore, some things cannot be “proved”—but they can be rationally discerned and tested, scrutinized to the point that the evidence of probability is greatly in their favor of being truth, by which a person can safely make an informed decision.
For example: If there were two glasses of fluid before you and one contained water, and the other contained water with a colorless and odorless DEADLY poison, what level of proof would you require before you selected one of the glasses from which to drink? If instead of poison, one glass contained a colorless and odorless chemical that would give you flatulence, but otherwise not harm you (only the air in the room and your pride and other persons’ olfactory organs), would you require the same rigorous “proof” if you were dying of thirst and needed to take a drink and only those 2 glasses were available?
But also understand: Statistical probability itself is not proof. “Card counters” and those who understand “odds” / “the laws of statistical probability” can go to Vegas and have a better chance of getting rich than someone who merely guesses;* but even then it is still gambling and not a “sure thing” (especially taking into account the corruption of the casino and mixing many different decks of cards into the game). It is still, to some degree “guessing” (but not guessing as blindly), though with a greater likelihood of probability than guessing based upon no evidence. But it is not proof. It isn’t even faith. It is a calculated but unsure “hope”.
[* —if the casino attendants don’t realize that he is trying to use math to “beat the house” rather than simply gamble; in which case, they will threaten him and run him off.]
Similarly, in Malachi 3:10 where God says to prove Him, in that if you tithe He will open the windows of Heaven and bless you, this is not the scientific “proving” something to another person. Again, in reality, it is God proving Himself True, when you are faithful. You have no power over God. He is not your genie in a bottle. If your motive was to make God jump through your hoops God would not answer your prayers or honor your tithing. Obedience, tithing, prayer are not matters of mere mechanical acts of compliance. In any act to be valid and pure, it must include all three of the following factors: the thing commanded + the nature and identity of the doer + the attitude and motive at the time of the doing. Mere mechanical compliance is not obedience and is not honorable. I explain this in several of my books. Consider these examples:
If a mobster donates a small percentage of the blood money that he has obtained from his various crimes, is that a good deed? No.
1. If a husband loves his wife and buys her a bouquet of roses, is that a good deed? Of course.
2. If the same husband is feeling guilty of having an affair and buys his wife the same bouquet of roses, is that a good deed? No.
3. If a derange psychopath is stalking the wife of the husband in example #1 above (but before he becomes an adulterer) and the perverse stalker who has been terrorizing her for months buys her the identical bouquet of roses, is that a good deed? Of course not.
—tell me, why does the wife react differently in all situations when it is the same bouquet of roses? So it is with God and man and everything that man does.
If a person thinks that he has a “magic decoder ring” by which he can divine which Bible texts and manuscripts and parts thereof are valid or invalid (having never seen the extant manuscripts, not even knowing the ancient languages), augmented by dreams or any voices he may hear—that would not constitute “proof” of anything (but it would be evidence that he may possibly be delusional, mentally unstable, and antichrist). Since you deny numerous doctrines of the Word of God, what is your “proof” and by what means did you obtain it?
God calls us to faith... but we are to build understanding upon that faith by diligent study of the Word of God, not walk around blindly in a lovely daydream. While you can present evidence for why you think a certain doctrinal position is the correct position you cannot prove it. You can endeavor to prove it or more properly defend what you believe to be the correct position (which is “apologetics”, logically defending the Biblical position that you believe to be true), but unless you are a fairy and have a magic wand you cannot “prove” it. [If you could so prove things everyone would lay their crowns at your feet and acknowledge every word that fell from your tongue.] Since you cannot do that, you cannot “prove” things. It would be nice if we each had magic wands—or even if just one person did. As I have written for nearly 3 decades, it is not a matter of my wanting to be the person who is right (I have no neurotic need to be right or have the last word). I want to know what is right in order to obey and please God and teach others what is right and obey God because all of Christendom is on the verge of extinction because the majority don’t know (and don’t care) and don’t obey what God commanded and God told us that He would send such evil if we turned from His Ways, but that He would deliver us if we truly repented. It is not a matter of who is right and who is wrong. It is not about us, but about the truth—it is about Christ Who is the Way the Truth and the Life; it is about us recognizing the truth and conforming to it.
That is the purpose of faith and it also separates the chaff from the wheat; which was also the purpose of the Parable of the talents. We are each responsible before God to lean not unto our own understanding but be in tune with the Holy Spirit Who will lead us into the truth. But you cannot “prove” whether person A is led by the Spirit or whether person B who has completely contradictory views is led by the Spirit. You can discern and test the spirits (by discerning the identity of the person, scrutinizing his attitude, and examining his doctrine, whether it is sound and harmonious with the whole of Scripture or not; and whether it is based on the Word of God alone, or some other source); but you cannot “prove” doctrine—you compile evidence and logically arrange it harmoniously.
Again, it is a matter of faith and a matter of honest study and trusting the Holy Spirit to show whether person A or person B is is the one with sound doctrine. However, it seems that God is testing us (not for Himself, but to show to us), like the parable of the stewards and talents; to see who will understand correctly and do what is right.
You ask for the Biblical definition of faith; if you have studied the Bible, I thought you would know this.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
—right there, the first verse in the “Faith Hall of Fame” chapter of the Bible; have you never read that verse? It is quite well known.
Of course, in that definition, you will not find the word “prove” or “proof” anywhere. How can you prove something that you cannot see?
While prove / proving / proof / proved are used in Scripture maybe a total combined 40 times, faith / faithful / faithfulness are used around 340 times.
“For by Grace are ye saved by...” [“proof”...?] no... —by “faith”.
“Without _______ [“proof”...?] it is impossible to please God”...? no... —without “faith”.
Don’t draw another false inference and erroneously conclude that study, testing, examining, discerning are not important; they are.
But faith is the foundation. Which books of the Bible do you believe don’t belong in the Bible, or which parts of which books do you believe don’t belong in the Bible, and what is your evidence, criteria, and authority for such claims? By “looking at the mountains”...? If you are the rightful one to make that decision, then it has nothing to do with “proof”, but your faith in yourself and what you determine is of greater authority than the centuries of true scholars who developed the canon of the Scriptures. Have you even read a book on “how we got our Bible”...? or studied the history of the Bible and the Christian Faith to even know what issues are involved? Have you read any books on the Reformers, the Reformation, the Doctrine of the Reformation or the Puritans? Have you read the works of Dr. Gordon H. Clark? —specifically those dealing with Bible doctrine, logical criticism, and his concise New Testament commentaries...? Did you take any college courses (if you went to college) or have you ever read any books on Logic? If not, then upon what do you base all your “proof”...?
The Bible and Biblical truth is spiritual. It must be spiritually discerned. It cannot be discerned by those who are unconverted or by those Christians who are carnal, not walking in the Spirit, leaning unto their own understanding. Christ said that He would send the Holy Spirit to lead us into the Truth. Those not led into the truth (only deluded into thinking that they have been) are not walking in the Spirit, but in themselves. That is sin itself. False doctrine is sin, since we are commanded to study, hold to sound doctrine—the doctrine delivered unto us—and to walk in the light.
God said that He blinded the eyes, and shut the ears, hearts, and minds of all and only opens those of the elect whom He draws unto Himself. Without faith it is impossible to believe. Without faith and without the Holy Spirit it is impossible to understand the Truth of God’s Word. Granted, those who are unconverted or those who are carnal Christians can certainly understand, to a limited degree, “facts”, “details”, “data”, and “information” in the Word of God but they cannot understand TRUTH and they cannot see the Big Picture, and even if they could see it they would not believe it.
THAT is the purpose of faith and that is the relation of faith to understanding.
Also, I don’t know what you really mean by “you are the first besides me that I’ve seen to take the fact that our God has always been into the equation of the earths age”. Besides that sounding like garbled nonsense, have you never met anyone who believed that God created the heavens and earth? Am I the first one? I really don’t know what you are saying. I find it odd that you think that you can “prove” things when you don’t even take the time to communicate coherently—and I don’t mean that as an insult so please don’t take it as one; take it as a challenge to communicate precisely, otherwise, what is the point in communicating? I trust that despite any flaws in my thinking and expression—I wrote this email once and went over it once or twice, I did not pour over it for a week as if it were a dissertation—but I do believe that I have communicated my position coherently and with detail and meat (not an evanescent vapour of vaguety and confusion). Whether you agree with my position or not, I certainly have given you a lot to think about, rather than merely saying a few things that left you wondering what I was actually talking about.
If you meant, “You are the first person other than myself whom I have ever heard express the notion that the earth itself is older than 6,000 years, while life on earth is only 6,000 years old” then I don’t know why you did not say something coherent like that. I don’t know what “you are the first besides me that I’ve seen to take the fact that our God has always been into the equation of the earths age” means (I don’t know if you do; I don’t know if it can mean anything; is English your first language?), so I cannot comment further concerning what you could possibly have meant by that statement (or your even-less-comprehensible statement about “observing enough in the mountains and so on”). However, I will make a few more general comments concerning the issue of creation as detailed in Scripture.
The 6 days of creation began when God said, “Let there be light”. However, Scripture clearly says that “In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. That was BEFORE day 1—back in an archaic, undefined period of time called “in the Beginning”.
Nowhere does Scripture say that God said, “Let there be dirt. Let there be water. Let there be rock. Let it form a ball and hang in empty space.” For whatever reason, God deemed not to tell us how or when He created Earth itself. But Job 26:7 post-facto does tell us that God “hangeth the earth upon nothing” (contradicting the ancient myths of the earth being on the back of a turtle or snake biting his own tail or elephant or the pagan god Atlas).
The age of the earth is irrelevant concerning the Scriptural account; what is relevant is the age of LIFE on earth, which began with the 6 days of creation (technically, life itself began on the 3rd day). God created the conditions for life on day 1. When He said, “Let there be light”, most probably He ordained the laws of nature, energy, matter, the pre-requisites for life as we know it. He then caused dry land to appear. Of course, He could have created sea life before dry land was to appear, but that is not what He determined to do. He then created plant life on the 3rd day, then sustained it until He created the sun, moon, and stars on the 4th day. After He created plant life He created the animal kingdom on the 6th day, and finally He created and formed Adamkind completely separate from the animal kingdom, during the latter half of the 6th day. All that creation took place in 6 days and then God rested on the Sabbath which He hallowed and commanded us to honor. The young-earth believers, if they understand Scripture, believe LIFE is young, not necessarily that the rocks of the earth itself are young.
However, even secular scientists think that they can “prove” things, when they cannot. No scientist can prove that any rock is a certain age. What he has proven is that he has faith in an instrument that has been calibrated to indicate that a rock is a certain age. I can fix my kitchen scale below zero, to negative one, then when I weigh a hamburger out to 2 lbs. (though it is actually 3 lbs.) I can then “believe” that I am staying within a calorie-restricted diet. I take the meat out. Look, I weigh it. The scale says, “2 lbs.”...! It must be so!
Of course, “science” is a bit more “sophisticated” (or complex in its delusions) and unless you have the club membership and the white lab coat and have taken the Hypocritical Oath (“I believe in science above all other gods”), then you will be told that you don’t have the right to question because you don’t understand: “We are the experts—look, we have white lab coats and pieces of paper on the wall called diplomas and licenses and awards—so trust us.”
[See: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, dead-pan voiced Jewish actor / lawyer / political analyst / commentator Ben Stein, 90 min. DVD; several good used copies in stock for 10.00 + P&H. Stein travels the world & learns awe-inspiring truth that bewilders him, then angers him, then spurs him to action... educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired for the crime of merely believing that there might be evidence of Design in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance “evolution”.]
Of course I over-simplify and over-generalize (exaggerate) and I certainly don’t pigeon hole all science or scientists into the same fraud... but the truth is, a computer spits out answers based upon the “reality” with which it was programmed as “truth”, and thereby gives all answers based upon that standard. As the old saying goes in computers “G.I. - G.O.” (Garbage in, garbage out.) If the data entered was not true, the answer that the computer spits out will be valid in terms of the flawed data with which it was programmed, but it will not be true (this explains the results of the past 4 or 5 electronically determined “elections”).
There are far-more factors that science does not know than it thinks it knows about, so they cannot know what a plethora of unforeseeable factors may be contaminating and confounding the results, giving a false answer that they think is true (and this is not even taking into account those who are engaged in outright fraud and deceit, for personal gain, or to control the minds of the peoples of Christendom and turn them from God). When they say that a rock is however many years old, what are they actually saying? Do they even know? Science cannot even define motion. What is a rock? How can something that is not alive have an age? A rock is comprised of minerals. What are minerals? Minerals are specific conglomerations of specific molecules of various distinct elements. Molecules are distinct atoms bonded together in a specific fashion. So when they are saying a rock is so many years old, are they saying the rock is that age, or the minerals, or the molecular bonds or the atoms? Are they able to separate the age of each? Do they even know what they are talking about? Even as there are forgers who can make a new product and make it appear to be an antique, even as there can be “false positives” in medical tests, is it not conceivable that there are some factors of which the scientists are ignorant, that could “mimic” or “contaminate” their “testing” and give an older date that represents reality? What is the “control”...? Has anyone gone back a billion years in time with the age-testing instrument, to then test that same rock when it was a billion years younger, to then know if the test in our day and time is accurate? Even as I explained that a bullet shot or a baseball hit travels faster and begins to slow down due to friction and gravity, and that the mountains may have shot up quickly at first and then slowed down their annual rate of growth (randomly, or according to a specific rate of deceleration in relation to time)... do they not realize that there are other factors of the envinroment and atmosphere which could have affected the rocks to make them appear to be older than they are? Take 2 wooden-handled shovels. Leave one outside, exposed to the elements, propped up against the house; put the other in the basement. Examine them both again in 10 years. The one in the basement looks brand new. The one outside looks 50 years old. Yet without understanding the circumstances, scientists would think that the older-looking shovel is the grandfather of the younger looking shovel and that the grandfather shovel evolved from a garbage can on which a tree fell.
If I have a pile of sand, a pile of granite dust or very fine gravel, a pile of cement, and a bucket of water, and I mix it together in various ratios and make cinder blocks or a concrete slab... each of those elements had an origin, a history, and an age of its own before I joined them together. The portland cement itself existed as limestone before it was heated to 1,500 degrees F. (or however it is made)—so what is the actual age of the cement and can they distinguish that from the limestone that existed before the cement? Can science determine on its own, without having access to that information, that those various elements were joined together rather recently to make the blocks (not knowing any of the conditions in which I made them, nor the conditions in which that block was subjected for the past however many years, whether it was in a climate controlled environment for 10 years, then under water for 10 years, then outside in the sun for 20 years, then back in the climate controlled environment for 5, before I threw it in a peat bog or tar pit to marinate for 10 years? Can they then also tell me the age of the sand, the age of the granite dust, the age of the cement, and the age of the water (not knowing the conditions or origin of those elements either)...? Can they know that peat and tar were not in the original block, but later saturated the block thoroughly? Maybe I just need a lab coat and a decoder ring and club membership and then I could “believe” in science.
Of course not all science is “flying blind”... but a lot of what is called science is outright fraud, and it is passed off as “proof” when it is not. As the story goes, the Prime Minister of Israel and Einstein were on a ship crossing the Atlantic and they met every day to talk and each day Einstein explained E=MC(2) to him. Ben Gurion said that after Einstein explained it to him every day for a month, that finally at the end of the trip he believed that Einstein actually understood it. Of course, the humor being, Ben Gurion was clueless about what Einstein tried to explain and Ben Gurion did not know Einstein was telling the truth, but he believed Einstein thought he knew what he was talking about. The same may possibly apply to any “science” or any “belief” that is so complex that only a select few understand it (such as many of Stephen Hawking’s* theories in “theoretical” physics) and therefore, everyone else has to just “take their word” that it is true and not a scam. Such is also the nature of government—and both have been scamming the pants off us for a century.
[* I have written a more-recent Rumination [ http://sacredtruthministries.com/articles/%E2%80%94stephen-hawking-%E2%… ] exposing some of the illogical (or dishonest) statements by Hawking concerning the Bible.]
... if you immerse yourself deeply enough in anything you may actually begin to believe it it is true, but that does not make it true (it may be true or it may not; but it always helps to have Imperial power to make a decree and have armies to enforce that everyone else “believe” it too). If a person tells a lie (or an exaggeration) for a long period of time, he will begin to believe it himself and not be able to separate truth from lie / exaggeration, because the lie has been repeated so many times, without being challenged, that is what the mind will eventually remember—therefore, it must be true, right...?
Had God created earth on day 1 or 2 it seems logical (not based upon our own opinion, but based upon the logical format and pattern of God telling us what He created on each day and nowhere does He declare, “Let the earth appear out of cosmic dust” (after having declared, “Let there be cosmic dust”), and then “Let there be light” and then and “the evening and the morning were the first day”). Thus, it seems logical by Scriptural pattern that He would have so told us that He created the earth on day 1 or 2, had He indeed created it on day 1 or 2; but He did not tell us and it adds to the sense of the ancientness of the narrative, and infers that He created earth long back in pre-history—but left it formless and void (empty).
It might be compared to a sculptor purchasing a huge block of granite and then letting it sit, untouched, until he finally had the inspiration (or had completed what he was currently working on) and until he actually decided what He would sculpt out of it. Of course, God did not need to wait for inspiration or for His “schedule to free up” or until He would eventually decide what He would finally do. He always knew what He would do and He does not need “inspiration” and He is quite capable of Omnipotently multi-tasking. Why He so determined to create earth and leave it unformed for some unknown period of time, we can only postulate. This creating earth and leaving it tohu bohu or without form and void until He determined to form it into earth as we know it, has nothing to do with any “gap” theory. All life is the same age, albeit, a day or two separated. It is not that some species are more ancient or didn’t “evolve”—that but God created each species as they are to serve His Purpose. So it is with the time factor. God does things for His Own Good Pleasure, after the Counsel of His Own will. In fact, He created distinct species of life with similarities so that those who hate Him would jump to false conclusions thinking that one evolved from the other. So also, it seems possible, He created the physical earth itself, to cause those who hate Him to falsely infer that life is as old as the rock (if, indeed, they are even correct about the “age” of rocks).
Herein, I have given 100x more evidence of what I believe, than you offered as “proof” of what you claim to believe. My evidence is based on faith based upon the Scriptures understood by logic—Christ is the Truth and the Logos [two short os, as in “hop”]. Logos is loosely translated word, but does not merely mean a word (which is the Greek word hreyma); it means the rational, logical, reasoned word (in a sense, truth)—which is whence we derive our word logic (and all derivatives of it). Your notion of “proof” (whatever that is) is likewise based on faith (whether you realize it or not), but what that faith is in remains to be seen.
I say nothing to be insulting, but to make points. Sometimes shock value and “straight-up truth” (without candycoating it) is necessary. I have no perverse need to be right. Stock in me has not shot up because of my taking 12 hours out of my day to type this out (and then refine it). I have profited nothing. I seek to profit nothing. My sole desire is to glorify God by diligently searching out a matter and presenting coherent thought for others to consider in light of His Word and hopefully be led of His Holy Spirit to understand truth. If God blesses me for my faithfulness, wonderful—but that is not why I do what I do.