LoveForWisdom

Reaching out, sharing the love of the wisdom of the Lord with the world.

Friday, March 05, 2010

Why can't Evolution co-exist with Christianity

A topic of debate for a long time has been whether or not Evolution can co-exist with Christianity. The topic has been addressed on creationontheweb.org on numerous occasions. First it would be good to define our terms.

The definition of Evolution is changes that have occurred over time allow increases of information content to produce a hierarchical structure of animal and plant life forms. What does Christianity say about how the animal kingdom was created? First of all, in Genesis 1:11, it states that - 11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." In regards to the term "according to their various kinds" this infers that God created plants to have a certain form in the beginning, not that they evolved by genetic means over time. Genesis 1:12 states - "The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good." Initially there were no changes that occurred over time to produce life, it was created so from the outset.

The same can be applied to animals. Genesis 1:21 states "So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." From the initial, animals were created the way they were supposed to be. What happened to the animals? They would not become different kinds according to God again, as its stated in Genesis 1:24 - And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so.

Thus, right here there is a problem from the Evolution and Christian mixture. What have people done to try to mix the two together? First we have the framework hypothesis. This states that Genesis is poetic and figurative. HOWEVER, this is not in line with the way that Genesis was written. According to http://creation.com/is-genesis-poetry-figurative-a-theological-argument-polemic-and-thus-not-history there are only two verses in Genesis that state anything poetic. In their own words - "The Hebrew verb forms of Genesis 1 have a particular feature that fits exactly what the Hebrews used for recording history or a series of past events. That is, only the first verb in a sequence of events is perfect (qatal), while the verbs that continue the narrative are imperfects (vayyiqtols).4 In Genesis 1, the first verb, bara (create), is perfect, while the subsequent verbs are imperfect.5 A proper translation in English recognises this Hebrew form and translates all the verbs as perfect (or past) tense. Genesis 1–11 also has several other hallmarks of historical narrative, such as ‘accusative particles’ that mark the objects of verbs. These are not translated into English (e.g. Hebrew ‘et’ in Genesis 1:1). Terms are often carefully defined. Also, parallelisms, a feature of Hebrew poetry (e.g. in many Psalms), are almost absent in Genesis.6" Thus, being that the book of Genesis does not follow a fictional prose of writing from the ancient time period, it would necessarily follow that Genesis is to be taken literally, thus nullifying the framework hypothesis.

Another argument made can be utilized by both Evolutionists and Creation Scientists. This is called the Gap theory, the theory that over the course of Genesis 1:1 and 2, there was a lapse of billions of years. Creation comments on this again - Exodus 20:11 says, ‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is …’ This is the definitive verse outside Genesis concerning the time frame of creation. It states categorically that God created everything in six days. There is just no allowance for a gap.6 " http://creation.com/from-the-beginning-of-the-creation This reiiteration found in Exodus 20:11 states that there was 6 days needed, no more than that. Thus there was no creative process over the course of billions of years. Also, to refute another gappist argument - "The Hebrew words bara (‘create out of nothing’) and asah (‘make’) are used in the Bible. Genesis 1:1 uses bara and Exodus 20:11 uses asah. This is used by Gappists to claim that Exodus 20:11 means a recreating and forming of a destroyed world. But Genesis 1:26 uses bara and asah interchangeably. Asah in Nehemiah 9:6 is also used to mean creation out of nothing.

"You alone are the LORD. You made (asah) the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you." http://creation.com/from-the-beginning-of-the-creation

Finally the words tohu and bohu from Hebrew meaning "without form" and "void" respectfully. Gappists argue that this indicates a judgmental destruction by God of the world and a recreation. However, it only tells us that the earth was unformed and unfilled in Hebrew. Out of context is taken Jeremiah 4:23, which is a prophecy sacking of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

Thus the Gap Theory is incorrect.

Another way to try to piece everything together is through Progressive Creationism and Theistic Evolution. A major problem with Theistic Evolution and Progressive Creaitonism is Mark 10:6, where Yeshua states - "'at the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female'" Also the Greek word apo means "at the beginning", another problem for both of these positions. Also, animal sacrifice, as we talked about in a previous article, is immoral according to these two views. Moses writes in God's Decalogue "thou shalt not murder." Yet, if God tells us to sacrifice our own kinds, we are committing murder. Thus, what we have on our hands is a self defeating God, an illogical God if Natural Selection is used as a creative force to create humans. If we kill other members of the animal kingdom, we have God creating a world that is forced to kill each other from the get go. Sin becomes meaningless as God's will is to provide penal substition of animals to help forgive us of our sins before Yeshua, as is willed and provided a guideline in Leviticus 17. Thus in the end, Theistic Evolution, or Progressive Creationism become self refuting concepts from the Christian, Muslim or Jewish perspective. And Monotheism is the only possible God scenario. Polytheism is self refuting, because if God creates other gods....then God creates God and God = another god which means that God is not God, but must be God by very nature. Thus we have a contradiction through the principle of Identity. So Theistic Evolution and Progressive Creationism are purely contradictory ideas both Scientifically and Philosophically.

In the end Evolution is purely secular Science. It proposes that we can know everything about the past through experiment, but thats absurd because on can not put the past into a test tube. It is important that we as true Christians stand up against this ideology, and follow Science the way the one True God wants us to follow it; through God's doing, intellectual honesty and the Scientific method.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

I am not without fault

While I didn't write a lot of the stuff on the site, I did write some negative things to Venganza. Especially when I called everybody there a moron. Just know that all of those negative things that are under my name were NOT stated by me. They were people posting as me. And people were getting confused on that site, as was I at times. I'm not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination. I've come to accept shalom however, and instead of trying to antagonize people, I am loving towards people now. I could have handled the situation a bit better. At the time I was new in the Apologetics faith, and did not know how to minister properly to people. I have changed my approach since, and am hoping by the grace of God that my approach will be more effective. All I can say is that I am turning over a new leaf.

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Addressing a few things

I'd like to mention a disclaimer against a certain individual named Glenn Morton. He is quoted as saying "Today I got one of THOSE emails from a creationist. He claimed that
Hitler created evolution (his granddaddy knew Hitler and told him
this). He said Hitler hallucinated the galapagos. His grandmother told
him that Timothy Leary wrote the Humanist manifesto. What a strange
guy. Anyone heard of him on the creationist circuits?" He seemed quite upset when he and I debated his article about More and More Evolutionists becoming Creation Scientists. As a result of being corrected on several matters on this article he went to go to a groupthink website http://groups.google.co.uk/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/c560c0d145a80966/de2b7c04caae90b0?hl=en to smear my name. Its quite amazing that he would have taken "The Darwin Code" seriously. Glenn Morton deliberately took that out of context and posted to his wonderful science goons at google. The Evolution community tends to be a community of groupthink. Its not impressive to me at all. The Darwin Code was an attempt to make fun of Materialism, by distorting its message in the same way that Dan Brown distorted the message of the Bible in "The Da Vinci Code." It was meant as a work of fiction, and not as a work of literal worth. That Glenn Morton could not have been truthful of that situation should speak volumes of his character. To see Glenn Morton's character in debate see - http://truthmatters.info/2007/12/18/107/

At any rate, I don't care about this anymore. They can do what they wish, both of them. All I care about is clearing the matter up. I've already cleared my name of this in other arenas. I do not plan on ever bringing this up again, as I am disgusted at the dishonest nature of this forum. I do not recommend venganza to anybody.

I wish shalom to all.

Casey Powell

Sacrifice: A Cruel Invention by God?

Recently I was approached with an issue about a practice that appeared up until around the beginning of the 1st millenia. The issue was on sacrifice, and whether it was a morally right thing to do. To understand this issue we have to understand what God's purpose was in creating the world to begin with. Initially it is stated in Genesis 1:26 - "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' The word dominion is defined as - dominance or power through legal authority. God has thus given mankind dominance or power through legal authority over animals. The idea of sin must also be understood. The word sin literally means "missing the mark." The Torah was established to exemplify a law of what man must not do in missing the mark. All of the Torah must be followed. If someone has missed the mark on any of these issues, they have sinned.

Sin began in the Garden of Eden, where God told Adam and Eve that they could eat of any tree within the garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If they did not follow this plan "they would surely die" according to God. In Romans 6:23, it describes what the penalty for sin is: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Yeshua ha Mashiach our Lord." As far as the Yeshua issue we will get to that point. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a tree if eaten from, would give Adam and Eve worldly wisdom, rather than Godly wisdom. With this worldly wisdom, they would separate their focus from God onto God's creation. When man decided to fall against God for the first time, it was then that the sinful ways of the world were established, where man would become prideful, lustful, greedy, envious, slothful, wrathful, and gluttonous. These characteristics are at the root of all sins. These are linked to the 6 things that God hates and the 7 that are abominations to him. " There are six things which the Lord hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: 17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, 18 A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil, 19 A false witness who utters lies, And one who spreads strife among brothers .(Prov 6.16ff)" God had a choice to make, and his choice was to allow mankind to either die for their sin, or have a proper sacrificial ceremony. The first institution of animal sacrifice was when God gave Adam and Eve clothes to wear, thus separating them from their sin. Many people think of this as a very brutal punishment for sin. However, the sacrificial animals went to feed the Levites and the people. Animals do not contain human souls, they were never intended for that. Thus this is no different than having slaughterhouses that kill animals to provide healthy food for people in today's world. Rather than us having to die right away from having commited a sin, God provided this as an alternative. Leviticus 17 states how this alternative was to be applied - 1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites and say to them: 'This is what the LORD has commanded: 3 Any Israelite who sacrifices an ox, [a] a lamb or a goat in the camp or outside of it 4 instead of bringing it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the LORD in front of the tabernacle of the LORD -that man shall be considered guilty of bloodshed; he has shed blood and must be cut off from his people. 5 This is so the Israelites will bring to the LORD the sacrifices they are now making in the open fields. They must bring them to the priest, that is, to the LORD, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and sacrifice them as fellowship offerings. [b] 6 The priest is to sprinkle the blood against the altar of the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and burn the fat as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. 7 They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols [c] to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come.'
8 "Say to them: 'Any Israelite or any alien living among them who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice 9 and does not bring it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to sacrifice it to the LORD -that man must be cut off from his people.

10 " 'Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood—I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people. 11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life. 12 Therefore I say to the Israelites, "None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood."

13 " 'Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, 14 because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, "You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off."

15 " 'Anyone, whether native-born or alien, who eats anything found dead or torn by wild animals must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be ceremonially unclean till evening; then he will be clean. 16 But if he does not wash his clothes and bathe himself, he will be held responsible.' "

Since the life is in the blood of something, its either our blood, or something else's blood that must be taken. Matthew 6:25-34 talks about how the life of a single human being is worth more than animals or any of God's other creations. Do Not Worry
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[a]?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

What are we then allowed to sacrifice? It is not children. Ezekiel 20:26 states "26 I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn [a] —that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.'" Often people illustrate the example of Abraham and Isaac as a challenge to this. Genesis 18:17-19 states - "17 Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." We see here that the Lord has every intention of making Isaac something great. He will not harm Isaac. So when God says in Genesis 22:2 " 2 Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." what is he attempting to do? It is obvious that Abraham knows that his son will be taken care of when this scenario occurs " Genesis 22:6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, 'Father?'
'Yes, my son?' Abraham replied.
'The fire and wood are here,' Isaac said, 'but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?'

8 Abraham answered, 'God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.' And the two of them went on together." Abraham knew that Isaac would be provided for. When the Angel of the Lord states in Genesis 22:12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son," then we know this was for something else. This was supposed to mark the symbolism of when God would come down in the form of human and sacrifice himself. The only son reference is utilized in John 3:16. The answer to the question then is only clean animals and God's penal substitution, himself in the form of Yeshua, may be sacrificed.


Beyond that, if this isn't a good enough explanation for some people, animal sacrifice may not seem good, which reflects our conscienceness. God has shown us now that animal sacrifice is wrong and no longer needed. God created animals initially without eating each other and our conscience bears witness to that because we care about animals. God wanted to make known how sin hurts others because of God's love for us, and he wanted to make it so humans would think hard before sinning. Having to sacrifice a first born of livestock would have been very shameful to the Jews at the time period because other Jews would know what it was for, so they would be very careful not to sin.

When man gained worldly wisdom, he turned against Eve after she had given him the fruit. This caused evil to come into the world by the beings who had dominion over all other animals. This in turn caused animals to turn against each other, and it sent the world into sin, which resulted in animals killing other animals. Through Adam's disobedience God brought about sacrifice to show consequences of wrongs and a selfless nature towards God, instead of our selfish sinful nature. Giving something up for God. When God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he was beginning to help eliminate the need for sacrifice at the temple. The story of Abraham and Isaac had nothing to do with killing Isaac, because through Isaac, the child of promise, God was going to establish many nations. Abraham, knowing this and even to the point that God was going to send a lamb in Isaac's place as sacrifice, went through the procedure that God had in store for his covenant with us. This was in demonstration for mankind to be able to find the Messiah so that God's people would turn to him and follow him. The ultimate sacrifice has already been fulfilled through Yeshua Ha Mashiach, God in the form of man. And because of God's glorious self-sacrifice, all we must now do to eliminate shame from our lives is to take up our cross and follow Yeshua's commands on a daily basis. Penal substitution is a moral idea as long as it is a voluntary action approved by the lawgiver. In this case, Yeshua approves his own action.

Nor is he out to destroy animals. Another question to address was whether God was cruel to animals or not. In Psalm 147:9, it says he provides food for animals. Also in Luke 12:6 - "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God." Animals were also to be treated properly as well. They weren to be overworked per Exodus 23:12, not to be underfed per Dt 25:4 and not to be hunted to extinction per Dt 22:6-7. There are actions we see in today's society where people mistreat and abuse animals prior to killing them, even in certain cases not allowing animals to walk on their own two feet. While this may be true of today's society in certain circumstances, it was and is not at all to be condoned by our mighty God. This sin is not to be put upon those eating of the food, however. It is to be put only onto those who are acting in the manner they do. The purpose for sacrificing animals was to harvest animals, not to destroy and kill them off. They were used by the Israelites as clothing and food. This is perfectly justified and does not contradict a nature of a loving God.

God is a god who demands justice. And as we see here, he is not a blood thirsty God either. "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. 7 Like Adam, they have broken the covenant- they were unfaithful to me there. 8 Gilead is a city of wicked men, stained with footprints of blood. 9 As marauders lie in ambush for a man, so do bands of priests; they murder on the road to Shechem, committing shameful crimes. (Hosea 6.6ff)" This demonstrates not a God who is ready and willing at every angle to destroy mankind, but a passionate God who loves his creation, and wants them to follow structure and order. The giving of animal blood by mankind was to give the blood of his possession in a statement that says that you would give your life up for God.

As a whole, we find the argument that sacrifice is a cruel invention by God to be without merit and simply an argument from outrage. This is a logical fallacy that argues against something without offering arguments besides saying that the thing would be unacceptible, or outrageous, or "wrong", or "silly", and so on. Humans are simply different from animals. Ignoring this is being hypersensitive to something that is not of God's will. From a logical perspective, sacrifice is not contrary to God's nature. Death is the exact opposite of life, and when people sin against God, the cost is their death. Having animals as a sacrifice by which we have dominion over does not violate his law. As a matter of fact, if God did not establish this law of penal substition, he would have contradicted his nature of being a loving God, because love requires justice. The shedding of blood leading to loss of life satisfied Yahweh's just demand that violation of his holy will results in death. For the time period before Yeshua coming to Earth as a man and taking our punishment upon himself, the only repentence was to shed the blood of ourselves, or the blood of a substitution. God gave us a substitution, and we should be grateful for that. God can use whatever method he deems necessary to save mankind. He has done so very carefully with a fine-toothed comb for enough time that we can record prophecy to a finite world so that everyone can be without trouble in understanding that Yeshua is ha Mashiach.

SHALOM and Hallelujah to our great God!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

COMING SOON!

Within the next couple of months, I will be writing a few interesting articles. I have already written a few writings on the Talmud, and will be following this up with some writings on the Apocrypha, and where the early church fathers from the Catholic side got it wrong. I will also be looking at dualism vs. monism in regards to the brain vs. the mind and how one relates to the other. The other interesting thing I will be doing is I will be going to church services besides the Messianic Jews and will be taking notes of their practices. I will be doing a thorough analysis of these practices. This will lead into a book that I will be hoping to write soon as well.

All of this I will be doing with the guidance of Yeshua Ha Mashiach, in his name I pray,

Casey Powell

Does God Cause Suffering? The Problem of Job

Recently there was an issue that was brought up to me in a conversation that I had with a gentleman questioning the justice system of how God operates. The question was, if God is a just God and omniscient, why would he need to prove to Satan that Job would need to overcome obstacles to sustain his faith? And secondly, why would a just God allow Satan to do the things that he allows Satan to do in the book of Job.

For starters, lets answer objection no. 1. Nowhere in the text of the book of Job does it say or even infer that God needs to prove ANYTHING to Satan. Thus, the first question about whether or not God's omniscience is in danger is null and void.

The 2nd question is why would God allow these things to happen to Job? This is an interesting question and requires more detail to answer. More detail is to come, however, I will give a short answer before we jump into details. The next time that I am able to update, this will be addressed more thoroughly, but just for those who need an immediate answer, one will be provided right here. It seems this is how God and Satan used to interract before God banished him from heaven altogether. God can not be approached by sin, he can only be approached when that sin is gotten rid of. And because of this, Satan was able to jump on the opportunity to take advantage of something that is never really mentioned regarding Job's character. What people often overlook is that while Job was a good person, he was also highly overly self righteous and prideful. That is a sin. As a result, Job believing he should make judgments that only God could make about humankind. He often within the book asks why people who are unrighteous not being punished. He fails to realize that people who are not being punished by his standards are being punished by God's standards, and that those people are punishing themselves in the long run (though it appears they are being rewarded, their actions will eventually catch up with them). Because of this sinning attitude that Job has, God allows Job to suffer. Suffering could only be taken in the form of evil, and one type of evil that exists of course is Satanic influence when he is invited in. Essentially when we sin, evil is invited into the scenario in different forms by ourselves. It could be disease or many varieties of things. Eventually, Job learns from his attitude, and becomes a stronger person in dedication to the Lord, and eventually is rewarded twice as much as he was when he displayed a self-righteous attitude. This is a short answer to this question and we will get into more detail in the ensuing weeks, as well as site some specific passages from the Bible to further explain my answer on this issue. However, with the Christian mentality often being one that Job did no wrong, the wrong that Job did is often overlooked. Sin is punished by consequences, and thats the way it has always been since the Garden of Eden.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Is the Talmud a holy religious text from God

Some Jews consider the Talmud, consisting of the Gemara and Mishna to be an authoritative law from God. Why is it that Messianic Jews and Christians reject this notion, and why can it be said that the Talmud is not an authoritative text of God?

Lets take a look at what the Tanakh from the Bible which is accepted as the word of God by Jews (especially the Torah) and compare it with the Talmud. One problematic scenario existing within the Talmud is within the Torah when Joshua and Caleb are discipling to the nations. Caleb remarkably enough is the person who was engrafted as a Jew and chosen to represent the important tribe of Judah. He was a Gentile. Why was this important? All Gentiles were considered unclean. The Kenizzites, the group of people that Caleb was from, were referred to by the Jews as an unclean people. They were referred to as "dogs." He was allowed to not alone be included within the Jewish population, but also to lead the tribe of Judah. Where then does the problem arrise?

When we look at passages from the Talmud, here is what we have:

"The Jews are called human beings, but the non-Jews are not humans. They are beasts."
Talmud: Baba mezia, 114b



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"The Akum (non-Jew) is like a dog. Yes, the scripture teaches to honour the the dog more than the non-Jew."
Ereget Raschi Erod. 22 30



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"Even though God created the non-Jew they are still animals in human form. It is not becoming for a Jew to be served by an animal. Therefore he will be served by animals in human form."
Midrasch Talpioth, p. 255, Warsaw 1855

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"A pregnant non-Jew is no better than a pregnant animal."
Coschen hamischpat 405

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"The souls of non-Jews come from impure sprits and are called pigs."
Jalkut Rubeni gadol 12b

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"Although the non-Jew has the same body structure as the Jew, they compare with the Jew like a monkey to a human."
Schene luchoth haberith, p. 250 b

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"If you eat with a Gentile, it is the same as eating with a dog."
Tosapoth, Jebamoth 94b

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"If a Jew has a non-Jewish servant or maid who dies, one should not express sympathy to the Jew. You should tell the Jew: "God will replace 'your loss', just as if one of his oxen or asses had died"."
Jore dea 377, 1

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"Sexual intercourse between Gentiles is like intercourse between animals."
Talmud Sanhedrin 74b

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"It is permitted to take the body and the life of a Gentile."
Sepher ikkarim III c 25

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"It is the law to kill anyone who denies the Torah. The Christians belong to the denying ones of the Torah."
Coschen hamischpat 425 Hagah 425. 5

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"A heretic Gentile you may kill outright with your own hands."
Talmud, Abodah Zara, 4b

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"Every Jew, who spills the blood of the godless (non-Jews), is doing the same as making a sacrifice to God."
Talmud: Bammidber raba c 21 & Jalkut 772

Now this is from an antagonistic source http://www.missionislam.com/nwo/talmud.htm.

If Gentiles were associated with the Old Testament writings or the Tanahk which are referred to as the Holy Scriptures, unlike what the Talmud is referred to as, why would the Jews put Caleb, an important figure from their own history and one who was endorsed or chosen by their own God Yahweh himself in the light of a heretic? This attitude can very well be seen as contradictory attitude from Orthodox Jews who are trying to preserve Phariseeic laws and traditions.

Not only is there a metaphysical difference needed to be addressed, but also it is commanded by God that we only follow Torah related writings and teachings. The Talmud is based on oral law. The question becomes, did Joshua receive an oral law from Moses? Joshua 8:30-34 states ""Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD, the God of Israel, in mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones, upon which no man had lifted up any iron; and they offered thereon burnt-offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace-offerings. And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote before the children of Israel. And all Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on this side the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, that bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, as well the stranger as the home-born; half of them in front of mount Gerizim and half of them in front of mount Ebal; as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law." When Joshua is about to die, he claims in Joshua 23:6 ""Therefore be ye very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left." There is never a mention of the oral laws that were allegedly received or sent down from Moses.

What does the Torah say about adding to its written contents? "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you." Deuteronomy 4:2
"What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." Deuteronomy 12:32 By this it means that any oral law mentioned alongside the written Torah is to be rejected.

Some people claim that the Jewish writings of the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim (the other scriptures) are oral and were not written down, and this somehow reduces the mitigation of the sources. Anyone making this claim should refer back to the Talmud which states that the contents of the Tanakh were compiled by the Men of the Great Assembly as it refers to it as by 450 B.C., which is what both Messianic Jew and Orthodox Christian agree with. Also a good study of Hebrew would do well here, as the Tanakh is derived from the Hebrewic word Miqra, which means "that which is read." Not that which is orally spoken, but this infers that it was written down. The Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls and other texts also refute this argument.

Is Rosh Hashanah the Hebrewic New Year?

Just recently, as I'm coming to become more familiar with the Messianic Jewish Theology, I was approached by a Theology minor on the issue of whether or not Rosh Hashanah was the Jewish New Year holiday.. I took the liberty to discuss with him what the first day of the New Year Hebrewic calendar was. He directed me to the all important Torah passage Leviticus 23:23-25. We will take a look at that in a while.

Its important to know first what Rosh Hashana means in Hebrew. In Hebrew Rosh Hashana literally means "head of the year." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah It is oberserved on the first day of the Jewish month Tishri, which is the seventh month of the Hebrewic calendar. Thus, what the Orthodox Jewish community claims is that Rosh Hashanah is the start of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar. Where it must be asked did this New Year commemoration originate from.

The answer to this is in legalistic texts. Originally, and according to the holy text of the Bible, the Feast of Trumpets was noted to be a holiday known as Yom Teruah. This was the literal Hebrewic and Biblical term for "Festival of Shofars." The Mishnah and Talmud later on would change this into Rosh Hashanah, or the New Year observance due to its very unfounded belief that this was the representation of when the creation of the world or universe began. As to why its unfounded, we shall address in a future article. In short, while the Mishnah is considered to be Orthodox Jewish oral law and was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and the Gemara completes the Talmud between the 2nd and 5th centuries C.E., there is no legitimate reason to accept them as an authoritative word of God.

Lets see what God says about Yom Teruah. Is Yom Teruah the holiday that should be used to commemorate the New Years? As it reads from the New International Version "23 The LORD said to Moses, 24 "Say to the Israelites: 'On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. 25 Do no regular work, but present an offering made to the LORD by fire.' " No where in this claim is it stated that God comes down and reveals to Moses that this is to be the New Year. That is only in later traditional man made accounts that this is the case. So what is the first of the year that God commands us to keep?

This does actually to my surprise included, exist. The reason that there is no way that the New Years can be commemorated by what the Orthodox Jews of today claim is that Exodus 12 prohibits it. In Exodus 12, we read of the holiday, Pesach, which is to commemorate the New Years. "1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb [a] for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD's Passover.
12 "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

14 "This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD -a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all you may do.

17 "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread."

21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. 23 When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

24 "Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' 27 then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.' " Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.

29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead."

Thus we have our answer. Rosh Hashanah is not the Hebrewic New Year. It is what the Orthodox Jews follow incorrectly today as the New Year.

Is Rosh Hashana the Jewish New Year

I am a Messianic Jew

I would like everyone here to know that I have decided to renounce my Christian beliefs......kind of. I have agreed with Messianic Judaism for many years and have always described myself as an Orthodox Christian with Messianic Jewish leanings. As of now, I have decided to abandon the Orthodox Christian and simply refer myself now as a Messianic Jew. If one has any questions about this, you may contact me at loveforwisdomjc@yahoo.com and I'll be happy to explain it to you.

God bless in Y'shua Ha Mashiach's name may the Apologetics war continue until the day we win over the nation of Israel,

Casey Powell

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Are the 10 Commandments that we have the real 10 Commandments, or are we mistaken about what they are.

A question that seems to persist in the not so well researched world of the Atheism web can be found at http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.htm where it is discussed which set of 10 Commandments are really the true 10 Commandments. This is simple to answer, there is only one set. Positive Atheism states this on its website: "As the tale goes, Moses smashed the tables of stone, and God said he'd make a new set of tables containing "the words that were on the first" (Exodus 34:1). However, as we see on the second page, the second Ten Commandments in no way resemble the first set. To popularize this knowledge is to knock the wind out of this entire move to place "The" Ten Commandments in our schools." Now its interesting that what is cited afterwards regarding the 10 commandments are two different sets of decalogues. At first glance this looks convincing enough to say that there are two different sets of 10 Commandments, and that God did not know which one was the actual decalogue, that God was somehow confused. The cite goes on to cite two different "sets" of decalogues: Which Ten Commandments?

First Tables of Stone (Exodus 20)
("which Moses didst break")

Second Tables of Stone (Exodus 34)
("the words that were on the first")


1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.

1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).


2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.


3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.


4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

4. All the first-born are mine.


5. Honor your father and your mother.

5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.


6. You shall not kill.

6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.


7. You shall not commit adultery.

7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.


8. You shall not steal.

8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.


9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.


10. You shall not covet.

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.


While this seems like its got a great point, anything could when attempting to pick and choose what to include within a citation. If this author had decided to cite some passages that preceded these laws, he would have noticed the errors of his ways. The Decalogue is translated from the Greek as actually meaning, "The 10 Words." The "Words of the Covenant" actually is synonymous with the term "The 10 Commandments." He begins Exodus 20 off with: Exodus 20:1 "And God spoke all these words." The words that followed were an entire covenant with Israel. 10 that were mentioned were the ones that were mentioned in Exodus 34. However, the point to remember is in Exodus 34, the words, "These words" are not mentioned. Rather simply a covenant was mentioned. There were many covenants mentioned within the Bible. The first part of Exodus 34 is no more than simply a covenant, but not the "Words of the Covenant." Those are reserved for when we look at Deuteronomy 4-5, which was conveniently left out of the reference to the 10 commandments on the Atheist cite. What is mentioned in Exodus 34 after the 10 laws were mentioned to be abided by the Hebrewic people, which were not actually the 10 Commandments, is that after Moses is to write those things down, he is to THEN write the 10 Commandments out. Again, this is missed by Positive Atheism's source, Jyoti Shankar. The 10 Commandments are more clearly stated out in Deuteronomy 5, once again, conveniently left out by our source Shankar.

The rest of this source should be called, "10 things I want to manipulate out of the Bible to make it sound bad." Its abuse of context is quite pathetic and need not be mentioned too much here. The 1st law from Exodus 22:20 is very accurate. If one is to worship another besides almighty Yeshua, then he will be destroyed. Sin leads to corruption, and ultimately to ones downfall. Such is the same for Leviticus 24:16. Exodus 31:15, 21:15, 21:17, 22:19, Leviticus 20:13 and 20:10 are almost right except now we have the ultimate sacrifice given to us by Yeshua, so that he shall be put to death is no longer necessary as their is now forgiveness offered for these sins. They were applicable to the early Hebrewic culture, but since Yeshua has come some of the laws have been changed. Mark 16:16 missed half of the quotation: "16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." which is the ninth law he simply doesn't like. As to why this is...well he doesn't seem to want to make the point that Mashiach's atonement is the only way to be forgiven of sin. So he just chooses to not address that important point. And the tenth law...way out of context as well. This does not apply to modern day priests. It applies to a Wicked land of people known as Edom. Again, poorly researched material breeds poorly researched internet articles.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

The True Origins of Species

This is a writing from Answers in Genesis that I thoroughly enjoyed reading as I found it to be rather informative. In the past I have not been a big fan of AIG, but this is a remarkable piece of writing. I hope you all enjoy reading it as I did:

In the last two chapters we’ve taken a tour—and a rather ugly tour—of the implications of evolutionary and racist thought. Sociologically and culturally, the implications are far-reaching. They reach from the policies of entire nations to the day-to-day discrimination of a particular individual in a particular place. The question of racism cannot be understated. But what is the answer? Where do we turn for a biblical and truthful response to this situation?

Thankfully, God has not left us in a void of information. The answers are there. From the special revelation of His written Word and from the natural revelation that we have from science, we can not only expose the roots of racism and evolution as lies, but we can uproot Darwin’s plantation and plant new seeds—seeds of truth from God, rather than seeds from the prejudiced wisdom of fallen man.

Thin Soil
Darwin’s plantation was planted in very thin soil, but no one knew that at the time. The theory of evolution seemed to coincide with accepted scientific facts of the day, particularly among the secularists who had abandoned the truth of Scripture.

When Darwin jumped on the Beagle, the famous ship that would take him to exotic locales of the world, some of his basic ideas about evolution were already intact. He already believed in an earth that was millions of years old and he had already abandoned his faith in a Creator. As he sailed around the world, he began to notice different types of animals—animals that shared similarities but also showed great variety, depending on where they happened to live. He also noticed that some animals with close similarities also live in close proximity to each other. He began to theorize that all life began from a single living creature and that over much time this animal changed or “evolved” into something more complex. Over more time, Darwin’s theory said that different kinds of animals branched off and became something totally different.

The theory claims that crude human-like beings eventually evolved and branched off into various hominids. Darwin, like many evolutionists, believed that some hominids developed larger brains faster, leaving others behind. The most advanced species (in the evolutionist’s evolved brain at least) was a 19th-century European gentleman who was supposedly far more evolved than an Australian Aborigine. This revolutionary, evolutionary idea added fuel to racist thinking and vice versa.

Darwin’s theory seems to make sense on a surface level to many people. But there was a basic biological problem with this theory, though very few people knew it at the time. Darwin was a “Lamarckian” in his evolutionary beliefs. Lamarck believed that the environment could cause a living organism to change and that these changes could be passed on to the next generation. For example, Lamarck believed that a giraffe originally had a short neck. But because the giraffe stretched his neck to eat the leaves from tall trees, early evolutionists believed that the giraffes’ neck actually became longer. They believed that these longer necks were then passed on to the next generation (inheriting acquired characteristics), each time growing a little bit longer by being stretched again and again until we have the extremely long neck of the modern giraffe.

Again, this seemed fairly logical. Given enough time, any level of change seemed possible—and the new science of geology that was developing in the late 1700s and early 1800s gave them that time. Early geologists were already toying with the idea that the earth was many millions of years old. Darwin took these ideas and applied them to biology. It was a short step with far-reaching implications. The Lamarckian belief (that environment alone could cause changes to an organism that would be passed on to the next generation) and the concept that the earth was millions and millions of years old allowed the seeds of Darwin’s plantation to take root. In this environment, the plantation of Darwinism flourished—and in its shadows, racism fed off evolution’s godless philosophical and immoral implications.

The problem is that these seeds of evolutionary thinking were planted in extremely thin scientific soil. Darwin and the scientists who initially embraced his theory had no way of knowing that an extremely intricate and complicated code of information governed life from within an organism. They had neither the technology nor the observational skills to discover that God had placed a phenomenally amazing blueprint for life inside every cell, inside every organism, inside every human being.

They had yet to discover the world of genetics.

What’s in Your DNA?
Through modern technology and countless hours of painstaking research, modern scientists are uncovering the wonders of biological life that are immeasurably more complicated than anything scientists could have conceived of in the 1800s.

In the area of biochemistry, for example, scientists have discovered the world of intricate design far beyond the imagination of the early biologists. In his book Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Michael Behe describes the phenomenal chemical machines that make up the foundations of life . . . and he shows how it would be absolutely impossible for them to come into being by the process of Darwinian evolution.

The same goes for the science of genetics. Genes are pieces of DNA that contain the information necessary to build a living organism. They are like the blueprint for a building—except that they are far more expansive and complicated than any blueprint for any building that has ever been built. Through sexual and asexual reproduction, genes are passed from generation to generation, carrying the information required for organisms to reproduce.

It is important to understand some of the basic (easy to comprehend) principles of genetics, so we can then apply this to the human race. Even those who don’t believe in Darwinian evolution are often perplexed by how all the different people groups with differing shades of skin color, differing eye shapes, and so on could arise if we are all descendants of just two people—Adam and Eve.

In this discussion, we will use dogs to lay down some basic genetic principles—and that will make it easy to understand how the different people groups have arisen. This will also help us to provide the right foundation of understanding to deal with racism and prejudice.

A dog/wolf has 19,300 genes. Like all animals, they inherit two copies of each gene (one from each parent). That means that they not only inherit the information, but they can also inherit great varieties of information.

The variation in just three different genes could result in five different variations of offspring (and many more are possible). When you consider all of the possible genes and all of the possible combinations, we can see that the possibilities are nearly limitless.

The number of atoms estimated in the entire universe is in the order of a 1 followed by 80 zeros. But the number of combinations of unique children that a male and female human could potentially procreate is even more than this. There’s phenomenal variability in our genes. DNA is the most complex phenomenal storage system in the universe. When one considers the amount of information that God put in our DNA—one just has to stand back in awe of our Creator. It is mind-boggling.

The genetic code that God created for Adam and Eve was perfect. But the consequences of the Fall and living in a fallen environment cause mutations. Mutations are glitches in the genetic code that can change the way an organism was originally designed, and these changes are often passed on to future generations of offspring.

As the discovery of DNA began to be understood, Darwinists were sent scrambling to come up with new ideas on how evolution might have occurred. No longer can changes in the organism be attributed simply to external forces. For organisms to change, and for those changes to be passed on to future generations, there must be genetic alterations.

Darwinists were forced to try to concoct new theories that incorporated these new understandings about genetics and integrate them with observations about natural selection (the process that allows certain varieties of organisms to survive better in different environments). And they tried to explain how this phenomenal genetic code might have come into being by itself. If evolution happened as they claimed, then the code system and information must have arisen from inanimate matter by natural processes. (Absolutely no realistic scenario has ever been presented to explain how this could happen.)

The battle between evolution and creation is now being fought on a new front. The Bible says in Genesis 1 that when God made the animals and plants, He made them after their “kind.” Darwin postulated that not only did life arise by natural processes out of dead matter, but also that over millions of years one kind totally changed into another. He theorized that fish evolved into amphibians, amphibians evolved into reptiles, reptiles evolved into birds, and so on.

The question then becomes this: Can genetic mutations, combined with natural selection over millions of years, account for the vast amounts of new information that are required for one kind of organism to change into an entirely different kind of organism?

Mutations: Friend or Foe?
I first need to point out that genetic mutations cause flaws in the genetic code. They don’t add new information, they simply alter existing information . . . and in almost all situations, this is not good for the organism. Some mutations could result in a beneficial effect, in a limited sense. If a beetle on a windswept island harbors a mutation that results in no wings, it would be less likely to be blown into the sea. Although this mutation would be beneficial to the beetle and its offspring in their current environment, the information in the DNA for wing-making has been lost. This is not evidence for molecules-to-man evolution; it doesn’t add any new information to the gene pool.

Another important point to make here is that most mutations result in corruption of information. Most animals with serious mutations cannot not survive “naturally” in the environment, and they die before reproducing. However, humans can keep domesticated animals alive by feeding them special food, cutting their hair, taking them to veterinarians for medicine and operations, etc. But in nature, mutations are almost always destructive—the opposite of what molecules-to-man evolution requires. Many mutations not only corrupt information, but they also remove variability from the gene pool. For example, a recently discovered genetic mutation keeps certain breeds of dogs very small. Dogs of this breed can no longer grow to a larger size.1 Unless the dogs are again bred with other varieties of dogs, this size limit caused by the mutation will be passed on to all subsequent generations. This is the way it works with all living organisms. As each succeeding generation of creatures (including man) comes into being, mutations from the former generation are passed along. After six thousand years, we have a significant collection of such mistakes in the gene pools of all the animals and humans on this earth.

In fact, genetic mutations make time the enemy of evolution, rather than its friend. The more time that passes, the more genetic mutations will accumulate in the gene pool.

Let me tell you this: mutations never, ever produce brand-new information and only operate on the information that’s there. That’s what the students at schools and colleges aren’t told and don’t understand. For Darwinian evolution, you need brand-new information that never previously existed, which is what you never see.

Can you imagine what would happen if you taught this in the secular school classroom? I’ll tell you what happens, because I used to do it! I taught biology in Australia during a time when we still had the freedom to present all the facts about evolution. I would spend 45 minutes giving a lesson on natural selection, and I had teachers come to me afterward, yelling at me, because I wasn’t endorsing Darwinian evolution. But once you teach students the basic facts about genetics—that mutations do not create new information—they will never forget it . . . and the next time their teachers try to tell them they do, they know the right questions to ask . . . and the next time someone claims to be a higher evolved race (like the Ku Klux Klan), they will know that’s a lie and that all have been created equal.

Natural Selection
Natural selection is the observed process of certain varieties of animals being selected out of the gene pool because they are not equipped to survive in their environment. The process of natural selection is extremely well documented. Natural selection tends to only sort out fairly minor characteristics (color, size, proportions, etc.). In a short period of time, as the organisms with advantageous genes reproduce more successfully, the disadvantageous genes can be bred out of the gene pool. Remember, whether the genes are advantageous or disadvantageous depends on the environment (as with the wingless beetle on a windy island). The result is that certain varieties of an animal will be unable to reproduce the traits that their ancestors originally had in their gene pool. Outwardly, then, we see increased outward diversity among different breeds regarding their size, the length of their fur, or the color of their eyes, etc. But this actually represents a decrease in the variety in their gene pool. “Pure breeds” no longer have the ability to reproduce the type of diversity that the original pair of the kind had.

But is this evolution in the molecules-to-man sense? Absolutely not. It’s the exact opposite of Darwinian evolution—and yet many evolutionists point to this type of diversity as evidence that evolution takes place . . . and some use it as justification for prejudice and racism.

Proper Interpretation of the Evidence
If you wanted to find evidence for Darwinian evolution, you’d expect to find it in London, England, near Darwin’s home territory. Secular scientists are very proud of Darwin; he is a hero in many circles. On the second floor of the London Natural History Museum is one of the most expansive displays regarding Darwinian evolution that can be found. It’s kind of like a memorial in Darwin’s honor.

In the exhibit labeled “The Origin of Species,” a sign says this: “Before Charles Darwin, most people believed that God created all living things exactly in the form we see them today; this is the basis of the doctrine of creation.”

The next sign says this: “But Darwin supported the view that all living things have developed into the forms that we see today by a process of gradual change over long periods of time; this is what is meant by evolution.”

This is the way evolution is taught in the museums and in the secular school textbooks in America (and around the world). They give lots of examples of animal diversity, and then they say that this is evidence of molecules-to-man evolution. By misinterpreting the evidence available from genetics, the evolutionists use sporadic bits of information to create an entirely wrong picture of how things came into being.

In the process, evolutionists set up what is called a “straw man” argument against creation. You need to understand how students are brainwashed, programmed, and led astray. Let me show you what they’re doing.

They begin by saying, “Ah, creationists believe God made everything just as we see it today, but we’re going to show you in this exhibit that animals change. Because animals change, creationists are wrong and because creationists are wrong that means that evolution’s right.”

But wait a minute. Is that correct? Do informed creationists believe that all living things were created exactly in the form we see them today? Absolutely not! Evolutionists are establishing a “false premise” by saying creationists believe something that we do not.

We know from Scripture that God created the animals according to their “kind” (such as the canine or feline “kind”). Within each of these kinds, God created the genetic ability to reproduce a vast variety within the different types of animals.

Let’s consider dogs for a moment.

When the pair of dogs/wolves got off of Noah’s Ark, these dogs mated and began to reproduce. Eventually, small groups of dogs started splitting away from the other groups and went off by themselves in different directions. This split up the gene pool, resulting in a number of dog populations with different combinations of genes from the original pair. Some of the combinations of genes resulted in features that were better able to survive in the particular environments to which they migrated. For instance, in cold climates dogs that carried the genes for big furry coats survived better than their companions that carried genes for thin coats. The big furry dogs were more likely to survive and pass on those genes. The short hair or medium hair length dogs tended to die out of the population because it was too cold for them. In time, these populations ended up having only genes for thick fur and none for the thin. These dogs became specialized to cold areas and displayed a diversity not displayed in their original ancestors.

This specialization came about through natural selection by getting rid of the genes that code for thin fur. The new breeds of dogs have less genetic information (and less variability) than the original types from which they were bred. That’s called “natural selection” or “adaptation.” It’s not necessarily survival of the fittest; it’s survival of those that have the right characteristics to survive in that environment. They might be the fittest in that environment, but overall they might not be the fittest dog.

If a group of animals that share a common ancestry are separated from each other for long enough, it’s even possible that they would no longer be able to breed with each other. By separating the gene pool, decreasing certain traits by natural selection, and experiencing different types of mutations, groups could be formed that could only breed with one another. Researchers are carefully considering the possibility that genetic mutation, size disparity, and behavior changes can result in breeding isolation. But this is not Darwinian evolution! This is not a genetic improvement for the species as a whole. No new information is being added to the blueprint. The “new” species have less genetic variability and less chance of survival in a changing environment. Certainly there are new combinations of information that may result in some different varieties—but this only happens as a result of the information already available in the gene pool for each kind.

Natural selection is not an onward-upward process with new information added in order to get entirely new organisms. Natural selection cannot create totally new characteristics that were not possible from the information already in the particular gene pool. It can only select from what already exists in that gene pool. It causes changes that take place within a species or within a kind by weeding out certain characteristics that are not advantageous in a specific environment. It can’t cause one kind to change into another. Natural selection does not cause reptiles to evolve into birds—reptiles don’t have the information for feathers; only birds do. You’d have to have brand-new information to get something brand new that never previously existed or was possible from the information available. That’s not what’s happening; natural selection is basically a downhill process (or a conserving process). Natural selection results in a loss of genetic information and/or redistribution of pre-existing information.

Yet the public school textbooks by and large say, “Darwin observed that animals change. Look at all the different varieties and species of animals we have today!” Young people read that and they say, “Well I guess that is evolution. Look at all that variety and the changes. Wow, given enough time, those sorts of little changes can actually add up to big changes to cause molecules-to-man evolution.” That’s the progression that they want you to believe when you walk through the Darwin exhibit in the museum in London. Do you hear what they are saying? Creationists believe God made everything just as we see them today, whereas Darwin saw that animals change, and therefore the creationists are wrong because we observe change; therefore evolution is right.

And we know that’s absolutely false. Informed creationists do not believe that God made the animals and plants just as we see today. Creationists understand that God created specific kinds of animals with the potential to reproduce in great variety. Also, sin changed everything and harmful mutations entered the once perfect world. Mutations and natural selection cannot add anything to gene pools; they can only take away or alter what is already there.

This helps us answer some questions, too. How did Noah get all the different varieties of animals on the ark? He didn’t! He only needed to take one pair from each kind of land-dwelling, air-breathing animals, each with tremendous genetic variability. Some say that there may have been 16,000 animals on Noah’s Ark; some say as few as 1,000. It’s likely that the world’s environment was much more diverse and demanding after the Flood than it was before. The forces of natural selection, combined with the effects of genetic mutations and other possible built-in genetic factors, immediately began to cause a narrowing of the gene pool in certain groups that disbursed to certain areas, causing the vast amount of variety and speciation that we observe today.

Animals and plants do change within their kind, but there is no evidence or explanation for how they could change from one kind into another—because genetic mutations never add new information, and the process of natural selection can only take away information.

Unnatural Selection
In nature, environmental and other issues affect which organisms with specific collections of genes will survive. Humans, however, can intentionally limit which animals breed with each other in order to eliminate certain characteristics and emphasize others. This is called artificial selection—and this process developed the enormous varieties of domestic breeds in the time since the Flood, about 4,300 years ago. Compared to their dog/wolf ancestors, many of these breeds are next to (dare I say) worthless. Their gene pool is about one millimeter deep. I should know; I have one of these mutants living in my home. She may look cute, but the science of genetics is confirming what I’ve always said about her. I call her “a degenerate mutant affected by sin and the Curse.” The problem is that the rest of my family calls her “Mintie”—and this mutant thinks that she is the queen of our home. She prances about as if she owns the place, often sleeping in my chair in the living room. (After my family reads this chapter, I’ll be the one “in the dog house,” so to speak. But if I can use our little dog to help people understand science and the Bible, then surely our dog Mintie can become a hero . . . actually, a heroine.)

Mintie is a bichon frise, a variety of dog that was bred over time like all the other domestic varieties of dogs (probably in France or Germany, up to 700 or more years ago).2 We could say that God created the original dogs and bichons and poodles were developed by man from that original—but only using the information God put there in the first place. So in a sense one could say God made bichons and poodles—but only in the sense that God created all the original perfect information for these breeds of dogs which existed in the Garden of Eden. But let’s be honest, this cute little fuzzy thing that rules my home is no genetic improvement—it’s a mutant suffering from the effects of the Fall and sin. Our dog has to have her hair cut each month (because of a mutation affecting the shedding of hair) and is susceptible to bladder stones (it had to have a very expensive operation). Mintie now lives on pricey prescription food and needs estrogen tablets regularly. I’m thinking about health insurance for the dog! The list of physical problems due to mutations is extensive in domestic breeds. See the following for some problems in poodles, for instance.

Miniature poodle problems: congenital (and acquired defects)
Achondroplasia (bone cartilage problem producing abnormal short limbs)
Adult onset GH deficiency
Amaurotic idiocy
Atopic dermatitis
Atypical pannus
Behavior abnormalities
Cancer
Cerebrospinal demyelination
Congenital deafness
Cryptorchidism
Cushing’s disease
Cystinuria (Heart valve incompetence)
Distichiasis (two rows of eyelashes)
Ear infections
Ectodermal defects (skin problems)
Ectopic ureters
Entropion (eyelid turning inward)
Epilepsy
Epiphora (excessive tearing)
Epiphyseal dysplasia (hindleg joints of puppies sag)
Glaucoma
Hairlessness
Hemeralopia (day blindness)
Hemophilia A, Factor VIII deficiency (prolonged bleeding, hemorrhagic episodes)
Hypospadia
Hypothyroidism
Intervertebral disc degeneration (spine problem)
Juvenile cataracts
Lacrimal duct atresia
Legg-Perthes disease
Lens-induced uveitis
Microphthalmia
Missing teeth
Narcolepsy
Nonspherocytic hemolytic anemia
Optic nerve hypoplasia
Osteogenesis imperfecta
Patellar luxation
Patent ductus arteriosus (aorta and pulmonary artery problem)
Persistent penile frenulum
Progressive retinal atrophy (sluggish retinas, leads to blindness)
Progressive rod-cone degeneration
Pseudohermaphroditism
Pyruvate kinase deficiency
Renal dysplasia
Retinal atrophy
Retinal detachment
Robertsonian translocation
Trichiasis
Von Willebrand’s disease (prolonged bleeding, reduced platelet adhesiveness)
Bichons and poodles (like all domestic varieties) are the result of a downward process. They have not just developed from dog genes, but from cursed copies of dog genes! Sorry about that—but it is true that dogs like Mintie are the result of the Curse! Each time I arrive home and our pet bichon races to the door to meet me, I am reminded of my sin—that I, in Adam, sinned and ushered in the Fall. (Now my wife may think I’m nuts, but I’m trying to illustrate an important point here.) After God pronounced every created thing as “very good,” Adam sinned, resulting in the whole of creation being cursed. Everything began to run down, no longer upheld perfectly by the sustaining power of an infinite Creator. When we unnaturally select out certain traits and create “pure breeds,” we aren’t creating anything new. We are actually filtering out diversity that God created in the original kind and passing on mutations that are detrimental. When one breeds poodles with poodles (why people do this is hard to come to grips with), only poodles will be produced, sadly! In a sense, a poodle is near the end of the line for a dog—there is not enough variety left for anything different to develop. (At least nothing of value, in my opinion!) If one were to start with wolves and breed generations of dogs, breeding the right combinations together with all the same sorts of mutations occurring all over again in the right sequence, then one could theoretically breed a dog with poodle characteristics. But one could never breed a wolf from a poodle, because the necessary information for wolves has been corrupted or deleted.

Even with all the variety that we see in the dog world, however, both the Bible and the best of scientific research show that they are all descendents of one specific kind—the dog kind. This is exactly what we would expect from a biblical perspective and a straightforward interpretation of the creation account, Noah, the Ark, and the Flood. In the journal Science, November 22, 2002,3 secular scientists reaffirmed something that has been well known and accepted. All dogs (from wolves and dingoes down to poodles) are all closely related, the descendents of the same pair:

The origin of the domestic dog from wolves has been established . . . we examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence variation among 654 domestic dogs representing all major dog populations worldwide . . . suggesting a common origin from a single gene pool for all dog populations.4
Two-kilogram teacup poodles; 90-kg mastiffs; slender greyhounds; squat English bulldogs: For a single species, canines come in a vast array of shapes and sizes. Even more remarkably, they all come from the same stock. . . . Only subtle differences distinguish dogs from coyotes, jackals, and other canines, making family trees difficult to construct and the timing of the transition from wolf to dog hard to pinpoint.2
If all dogs share a common gene pool, how many kinds of dogs are there? There’s only one; only one kind of dog. You can have different species within a kind, right? But they’re still dogs. From a biblical perspective, this means they are all within the same kind (one of the kinds that God created “after their kind” as we read ten times in Genesis 1, who reproduce their own kind). Our domestic dogs (like Mintie) were produced by artificial selection—since humans do the selecting, rather than the environment or other factors. And, as is the case for most of our domestic dogs, we have selected for mutations (basically “mistakes”) that we like!

A Quick Summary
We have covered a lot of material about Darwinism in this chapter. Let me briefly summarize and then show why this is so important in our discussion about racism.

Natural selection can only operate on the information that exists in the gene pool.
Most students in evolutionary-biased education come to believe that mutations and natural selection result in one kind of creature changing into a totally different kind over long periods of time. The fact that mutations do not add new information to the gene pool is rarely mentioned. All we have ever observed is variation within a kind. Science has never observed a change from one kind to another kind.
Over time, mutations and natural selection lead to a loss of genetic information. Biophysicist Dr. Lee Spetner (who was a fellow at Johns Hopkins University) stated: “All mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it . . . not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome.”5
There are no natural mechanisms by which new information can be added into the gene pool. For a reptile to change into a bird, vast amounts of new information would have to be introduced to the gene pool (for example, information on how to make feathers).
Natural selection and mutations lead to physical diversity, not increased genetic information. Dr. Gary Parker, in chapter 2 of the book Creation: Facts of Life, stated it this way:
Any real evolution (macroevolution) requires an expansion of the gene pool, the addition of new genes and new traits as life is supposed to move from simple beginnings to ever more varied and complex forms (“molecules to man” or “fish to philosopher”). Suppose there are islands where varieties of flies that used to trade genes no longer interbreed. Is this evidence of evolution? No, exactly the opposite. Each variety resulting from reproductive isolation has a smaller gene pool than the original and a restricted ability to explore new environments with new trait combinations or to meet changes in its own environment. The longterm result? Extinction would be much more likely than evolution.
The changes observed with both natural selection and mutations are the opposite of those needed for evolution to work. Scientists know this is true, but sadly it is not widely published nor is it usually explained to students in schools or colleges.

Conclusion
Darwin was correct about natural selection. We do observe small changes in living things. However, now that we understand more about genetics and biochemistry, we know that the process of natural selection and mutation can never form new kinds of animals and plants. They can only cause more diversity and varieties within the same kind. Dogs always reproduce dogs, cats reproduce cats, elephants reproduce elephants, apes reproduce apes . . . and humans have always reproduced humans. Period.

This revelation destroys the possibility of Darwinian evolution and uproots the weeds of racism. A proper interpretation of the evidence makes it clear that humanity (and all living communities) thrive on diversity and unity but are weakened by forced uniformity. When we unnaturally select out certain traits as being more valuable than others, we ignore the necessity for diversity within our culture, gene pool, society, and world. Think about it. We are all of one kind (one biological race), just as the Bible says, no matter the shade of our skin, the length of our bones or the contours of our face. We always have been and always will be brothers and sisters with a common heritage and ancestry. In a following chapter we will explain, using the basic genetic principles outlined in this chapter, how different people groups exist within the one race of humans—thus showing conclusively there are no different biological human races, just different groups within the one race.

Did you know that Darwin studied theology, Stalin studied for the priesthood, and Hitler was a member of the Church until the day he died? Even Mao lived in China during a period of great Western missionary activity. Yet tragically, all these men rejected truth—they rejected Scripture—and that led to the greatest ethnic cleansing policies in all of history. They attempted to unnaturally select certain arbitrary characteristics that they found desirable and tried to eliminate those who appeared to be different. They used their own criteria to sift out what they thought was valuable and invaluable in the human gene pool . . . and in the process millions and millions died.

How different things might have been had these men simply believed the only source for all truth and that our common origin is from a wise and powerful Creator. They would have adopted a different, biblical philosophy for living together as one kind—just as we can, when we embrace the scientific and biblical reality that we are all “one blood.”

Footnotes
www.USAToday.com/tech/science/discoveries2007-04-06-minimutts_N. Back
L. Gilbert, Pet Crests, April 1, 2003; Standard Poodle, ThePuppyShop.com, April 1, 2003; The American Kennel Club, The Complete Dog Book (New York: Howell Book House Inc., 1979), p. 609–617. Back (1) Back (2)
E. Pennisi, “A Shaggy Dog History,” Science 298 (5598), November 22, 2002: p. 1540–1542. Back
P. Savolainen, Y.P. Zhang, J. Luo, J. Lundeberg, and T. Leitner, “Genetic Evidence for an East Asian Origin of Domestic Dogs,” Science 298 (5598), November 22, 2002: p. 1610–1613. Back
Lee Spetner, Not by Chance (New York: Judaica Press, 1998), p. 138, 159–160. Back

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/dp/true-origin-of-species