From the KJB (Timothy 6:20):

O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:

From the NKJB (Timothy 6:20):

O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge

Paul, writing through the Holy Spirit, warned Timothy about “profane and idle babblings” and “contradictions” falsely calling themselves “knowledge” aka “science”. The Holy Spirit understands the problem we have today, where what we think is knowledge or science is actually not really knowledge. Knowledge is only really “knowledge” when it is proven true. Science today relies on theories that are composed of evidence, but no established facts. Paul via the Holy Spirit urges us to avoid it, perhaps because the Holy Spirit knew that eventually these profane and idle babblings and contradictions would be used against the knowlege of God and the validity of the Bible.

If you look up the word “profane” you will see that it is used to describe the nature of the attack:

Sinfulness or sacrilege, acts which violate the sacred or the good. (Wikipedia)

Science certainly has been used in this manner.

The next word that is interesting is the word “idle” or “vain”. The use of this word implies that the people using Science are doing because they think they have nothing better to do (ie. doing what one is paid to do) or for vain reasons, to enhance their own social standing.

The last word used is “contradictions”. This implies that this “knowledge” frequently contradicts itself. Proponents will simply say that this is the normal progression of science as it is performed over a period of time. The fact is, that these contradictions are simply evidence that what is being offered as “knowledge” is actually really NOT knowledge, because knowledge does not contradict itself.

Lastly I would conclude that we as Christians are to recognise this false “knowledge” for what it is, seeing the contradictions, the vanity and the profane nature of the “knowledge”. By recognizing it, we can avoid it, and not allow it to shipwreck our faith!

Today it was revealed by Julien Assange that the person who leaked emails from the DNC was none other than DNC staffer Seth Rich. Seth Rich was murdered on July 8th while walking around at 4am. In all my long years of watching the news in America, this story left me absolutely gobsmacked. In fact I seem to be gobsmaked a lot recently. There was the story about the IRS delaying the tax exemptions of conservative tea party groups. Then, there were the missing emails from “Fast and Furious” gun running scandal, that just happened to go missing because of a server crash. There was President Obama’s bald-faced lie about “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”. There was Hilary Clinton claiming “no classified emails were on her server”, but the FBI directory said there were. There was also the mysterious afixiation death of Anton Scalia who was found with his CPAP machine turned off (which he had with him to prevent this kind of death). The last time anything like this happened in Washington was when Nixon had his staffers break into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate hotel. While the media went nuts with the Watergate story over 40 years ago, they seem reluctant to make a big issue about these incidents, perhaps because they involve Democrats instead of Republicans.

It used to be that we here in America only heard about such things in 3rd world countries. In my humble opinion, this kind of corruption occurs when a society abandons Christianity. After you abandon an established and fair moral code (which is what the Judeo – Christian ethic is), I guess anything goes!

I sent the following letter to the editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal. I am not sure they will print it, so just in case, I am publishing it here too. UPDATE, they will not publish the letter because I cannot prove the 5% figure. I agree with them, it should not be published unless I can source that information. Curiously, that information has been very difficult to find….

Leftist activists are intentionally using the debate over LGBTQ rights to persecute Christians. Christians do not want to discriminate against LBGTQ people over important things like housing, jobs and voting rights. Activists know this so they decided to make LBGTQ rights about marriage and bathrooms instead. Since gay marriage has been legalized, only about 5% of LGBTQ people have gotten married. When you compare this to the majority of straight people, the 5% figure is minuscule. As for bathrooms, most transgender people used the bathroom of their biological gender unless they had gotten surgery. Both of these issues were not things LGBTQ people complained about very much until very recently. These issues have one purpose, to marginalize Christians. Leftist activists see Christians as their biggest enemy in the culture war, a war that they started in the late 1960’s over free love. Because Christians are opposed to both these issues, activists feel that they can now apply the “discrimination” label to anyone who opposes their agenda. This way, they can tell people that they have no choice but to accept their agenda otherwise any dissent will be described as discriminatory. These activists are making huge changes in our culture, and because people are afraid of the labels, they just back down and let these people do whatever they want. We need to stand up to them otherwise we will be controlled by them, and end up living in a world that is not comfortable for anyone, except the activists.

The Bible says in Matthew 22:14 “Many are called but few are chosen”. Does this seem unfair to you? If choosing God is a life and death decision, then why would God not choose certain people? A lot of people use the word “omnipotent” to describe God, but I would not use this word personally. Why? Because God has limits. “Omnipotent” implies no limits. In Titus 1.2 the Bible says “in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago”. But since the Bible also says in Psalm 34:3 “O magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt His name together.”, I think it is OK to say God is Omnipotent. But isn’t it nice to know that God’s limitation is that He cannot lie?

In Psalm 139:13 the Bible says: “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.” So God knew us before we were even born. Because of this, I believe that God knows who will accept him, and who won’t, omnipotent or not. So in His perfect nature, he doesn’t bother drawing people who won’t ever accept him, because He knows already what they are going to do. But just so people are without excuse, He instructs us to preach the Gospel to everyone. So it is our job to try to draw everyone to salvation in Jesus, but God only personally draws those who He knows will accept the truth.

I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely honored that the God of creation chose me, spent his time drawing me, a “weak thing” to be his servant! Praise God!

In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar set up a statue (presumably a representation of himself) in the plain of Dura. He then required his subjects to worship the statue as a god. If they did not, he threw them into a furnace, where they would certainly be killed. This seems like such an ancient thing, worshiping an idol, and getting killed if you don’t. We who are living today are so much more sophisticated aren’t we? Turns out, we are not.

Leftists in this country have turned science into an idol. Right now, the punishment is ridicule, social ostracizing, losing your job, being sued, and general persecution. They haven’t gotten to the death penalty yet, but I think that is coming. Right now, people are losing their jobs if they don’t support gay marriage. Right now, Exxon is being sued because they didn’t buy into the Climate Change narrative (of which there is no proof). Right now, Bill Nye has accused the Kentucky Noah Museum of “brain washing” children. Right now, a pharmacy is in trouble because it doesn’t want to sell the abortion pill, because of a law that thinks abortions are “emergencies”.

Leftists show, over and over, their hatred of Christianity and Christians because they simply point out the fallacious reasoning they are using. The reasoning they are using is religious in nature, because most of it is based on scientific theories. Theories by definition are not proven facts. They are simply conclusions drawn on available evidence. For example, scientists have found thousands of fossils of animals in the wilderness. These fossils are sometimes made of rock material that has leached into a cavity created by a dead animal. The fossil is assumed to be old because of the rock material in it. Because these fossils are sometimes the shape of animals that do not exist, the assumption is made that the animal is an earlier version of an existing animal, and therefore, because the animal didn’t survive, natural selection has eliminated that version, and has evolved into the new version that we see today. But because the dating of the rock is based on theoretical principals, and the use of a “god of gaps” “millions of years” time frame, and assumptions made on no evidence at all, it requires faith to believe that the theory of evolution is true.

Espousing theories is one thing, but spouting them off as “true” is very bad. Theories that are proven facts are turned into Laws. An example of a Law, is the Law of gravity. This Law has been tested and proven to be true. This is because we can drop an object and measure is speed, notice its motion and measure its impact as it hits a solid surface. We CANNOT do this with evolution. Scientific religious people who like to say that evolution is “true” are using a semantic trick where what they are really talking about is “micro evolution” aka mutation. Micro evolution is a proven fact because we can compare the DNA of bacteria reacting to its environment over a period of time and as the environment changes, the DNA changes. Scientific religious people like to draw the parallel between micro evolution and “macro” evolution. Macro Evolution or just plain evolution is still a Theory because no matter what people say, the bacteria that change their DNA are still bacteria at the end of the test. No bacterium has changed into another type of living being. The parallel between macro evolution and micro evolution is bogus.

As a result, you must “believe” in scientism, because there are no facts involved. This by biblical definition is idolatry. Idolatry is anything that is worshiped instead of God. Because they are putting their faith and trust in scientism, they are Idolaters. If those people promoting “science” really were NOT being religious, they would not have a problem with things like the replica Ark in Kentucky or people doubting if climate change is really taking place. They would instead simply defend the choice they have made about scientific theories. Because scientism is an idol, they instead want to “establish” scientism as the state religion, and force people to believe! They are violating the establishment clause of the constitution when they do this, and this is precisely the reason the establishment clause was added in the first place. These people need to be stopped because they will eventually get to the place where they are killing non worshipers.

Richard Dawkins, a famous Atheist said: “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”(wikipedia). In other words, he’s an Agnostic. Dawkins is also a liberal, and as we all know, liberals love to split hairs when it comes to what words mean. Because he lives his life “on the assumption that he is not there”, he thinks its ok to call himself an Atheist. I would call that assumption a huge mistake. Its sort of like assuming that you can cross a street without looking or playing Russian Roulette with what you assume is an empty gun. If Richard were being honest with himself, he would have to admit he simply prefers to live his life as if there is no God, because believing in God is too restrictive.

God said in the book of Romans (1:20): “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” God is saying (via Paul of Tarsus) that it is obvious that there is a God in spite of the fact that he is invisible to us. There are many things that are invisible to us, such as the wind. We know the wind is real because we can feel it. Atoms are invisible and are an example of many ultra small things that are invisible because of their small size. We know they are real because we can see them with an electon microscope, and we can use mathematics to predict their reaction to certian stimulus. We also know the difference between an accidental action as opposed to a purposeful (by an inteligent actor) action. Accidental action is messy and distructive, and purposeful action is stuctured and constructive. What God is pointing out in Romans 1:20 is that the structured and construtive environment we live in was most certainly the result of purposeful action, and those who deny it are without excuse.

Because the Earth displays purposeful action, it is proof that it is a Creation, and that there is a God. The creation (as we call it) is like a meter that proves the existence of God. An atheist has to deny this reality. In fact, the Atheist HAS to believe in the primorial soup hypothisis, of which there is absolutely NO evidence to support this notion. Atheists like to talk about macro evolultion as proof that the Earth was not “created”, but in actuality, it is illogical to use this as a proof of anything other than how the animals came to be. Abiognenisis, which is what the primordial soup hypothisis is called, is the only logical reason an Atheist can use to say that the Earth existing today could exist without a Creator. So the Atheists assertion that there is no God is based on a hypothisis.

Because you would have to be crazy and illogical to base your world view on a hypothisis, I think that no honest person could ever be a complete Athiest. They always have to have a little Agnostism in them to maintain SOME semblance of intelectual honesty. This is why Richard Dawkins says “I cannot know for certain…”. AND this is why I can say for certain that there is no such thing as an Athiest! God said it best when he said in Psalm 53:1, “The fool said in his heart, there is no God….”.

The recent story about Donald Trump wanting the Hispanic Judge to recuse himself got me thinking. Trump has called for illegal aliens to be deported (most of which are Hispanic), a wall to be built across the border with Mexico, and has made statements about Mexican illegal immigrants being criminals. Then, as soon as he gets the nomination, a law suit is filed against him. The timing of the law suit is obviously political. The judge assigned to the case turns out to be a 1^st generation American with Mexican immigrant parents. Trump thinks maybe the judge won’t be fair because he may be sympathetic toward Hispanic illegal immigrants. Also, it turns out; the judge also belongs to a La Raza (“the race”) lawyers group. La Raza has not been supportive of Trump’s campaign.

Because Trump asked the judge to recuse himself, both Republicans and Democrats have labeled Trump a “racist”. The assumption is that Trump thinks because the judge is Hispanic, he cannot be fair (making an assumption that Hispanics are inherently unfair?). Aside from the fallacious argument Trump’s detractors are using (could it be that Trump thinks the judge may be mad about his positions on immigration?) the use of the word “racist” got me thinking. Being a “racist” implies that you think certain “races” are better than others. So what “race” is a Hispanic? Hispanics can be 100% Spanish European, part Spanish part Amerindian, part African part Amerindian, part Spanish part African, 100% African, or 100% Amerindian. So the “race” of a Hispanic is ambiguous at best. In fact, in my opinion, Hispanics kind of disprove the entire concept of race. The traditional concept of race is that there are 3, Black, White, and Yellow. Hispanics are basically different combinations of all three. So without knowing what combination of heritages the Hispanic judge has, is it correct to call Trump a racist? What if the judge was 100% Spanish? Is Trump still a “racist” then? This is why I think “race” is a ridiculous concept.

I believe that the Ark story is true, and that it actually happened. Based on this, there cannot be 3 races. While there were 3 brothers, the sons of Noah on the Ark, there were also the 3 wives. All these people were descendants of Adam. So where do the 3 races come from? It basically comes from how different Europeans, Africans and Asians look. These people look different, but basically, they are ALL related. Also, the race concept does not take into consideration how people in the in between areas like North Africa, West Asia and the Caucus look sort of a combination of the areas they separate. North Africans look sort of Middle Eastern and African. West Asians look sort of like Middle Eastern and East Asian. Caucasians look sort of like European and Middle Eastern. In fact, if you just look at the extreme ends of Asia, Europe and Africa, people look quite different. But if you consider all the people in between, the concept of race becomes ambiguous.

If you believe we are descended from Adam, or if you think that genetically we are all descended from a Mitochondrial Eve, as a book I read on DNA says, then the concept that we had 3 parallel “races” that developed independently of each other is ridiculous. Fact is, no matter how you look at it, we are all related to people who came from the Middle East. The gradual change as you head North, South and East is basically the result of hunter/gatherer migrations, and people inbreeding with one another, and gradually looking different from each other as they moved further away.

Anthropologists think we are all descended from a guy in East Africa. This is the real “racist” idea. The implication is that Africans, or more specifically Bantu people, are less “evolved” than the people who migrated out of East Africa through the Sahara Desert to the Middle East. I think this is ridiculous, because hunter/gatherer people would find it almost impossible to migrate through the Sahara. I think that the fossils that were found in Africa are not an indication that man evolved there. With the uncertainty of dating techniques and some fossils later discovered to be apes, and not human, the idea that we evolved from there is not proven in the slightest. The evidence shows that we most likely started out in the Middle East and migrated away from there to the North, South and East. Hunter/Gatherer bands can move as fast as a mile a day, so covering the earth in a short period of time is possible. In the 6000 years since Noah got out of the Ark, mankind has migrated away from their initial location in the mountains of Ararat. The Bantu people are simply the descendants of people who migrated through the Sahara fairly recently. The lack of established civilizations is proof of that. The same thing goes for the people who migrated across the Bering Sea to the Americas. Both people groups, the Bantu and the Amerindian needed newer technology to migrate across the huge deserts of the Arctic and the Sahara. Boats, knowledge of ecosystems and knowledge of getting water in the desert were required for these migrations. The evidence shows that these people are actually “newer” (and if you believe in evolution, MORE evolved) than the rest of the earth’s people. I believe that humans did not cross the Arctic desert and the Sahara desert until they possessed the technology and knowledge to do so.

What does this all mean? Basically, calling Trump a “racist” is bogus.

Megan McArdle (a reporter for the Bloomberg news service) decided to write an article titled “Global-Warming Alarmists, You’re Doing It Wrong”. For suggesting that the climate change argument needs people to “talk about climate change like civilized adults”, she got a considerable amount of hate mail, from alarmists that objected to the notion that there was any need for any discourse on something they think is “settled”. My opinion is that the debate is hardly settled, and predictions 100 years into the future hardly qualifies as a reason to ruin our economy. In the discussion that followed, I wrote the following posting:

“You ruffled the feathers of people for whom ‘climate change’ is part of their world view (ie. religion). The reaction you got was a religious one. Its sort of like going into a Baptist church and arguing the case for sprinkling. You think climate science should be an intellectual discourse? So do I. But then, I am am one of those evil “deniers” that are skeptical of science being co-opted for political purposes. Finding logical inconsistencies in the conclusions drawn by journalists (and not scientists) I too, find myself under the same kind of religious condemnation that I have experienced in my own church over theological issues. This is why as a religious person, I think the best thing that can be done for climate science is to take the religion out of it. Religion belongs in churches, synagogues, and mosques, not in scientific research!”

For me, the response of the alarmists is proof positive that what we have going on in the US today amounts to nothing less than a religious war. By portraying themselves as atheists or agnostics, the alarmists think they are not being religious, but the reality is, they most certainly are! God tells us all throughout the Bible not to worship Idols, and Climate Science and Scientism in general have become Idols! By not thinking they are being religious, these alarmists can bypass the constitutional imperative not to establish a religion, and have found a way around it and are now establishing the Idol of Scientism.

I find myself alarmed at Judicial Activism, which seems designed to take away majority rule in the United States. People just don’t seem to notice that majority rule is being eroded by things like judicial activism. Here is a letter I wrote to the Poughkeepsie Journal about this subject:

It is now less than 8 months before the next president takes office, and the leftists in the media are still trying to pressure the Republicans to pick a replacement for Justice Scalia. Why? Because having 5 activists on the court would render the next President and Congress, ineffective. Judicial activism is a pox on our legislative process. By using some semantic trick, the justice branch of our government can nullify any law that it does not like via the process of Judicial Review. This activism is most evident in the recent Obergefell decision. In this case, the Supreme Court decided the 14th amendment meant that a California law defining marriage as being between a man and a woman was unconstitutional. The problem is, equal protection does not apply, because gay people were always allowed to get married! What really happened is, activists redefined marriage and then applied the 14^th amendment. The justice branch cannot redefine marriage; that is the responsibility of the legislative branch. This activism is dangerous for every American. Maybe you liked the Obergefell decision, but imagine if right wing activists got a majority in the Supreme Court and started nullifying things like the environmental protection act! I am guessing that you wouldn’t like that and would be then calling for an end to judicial activism! It is time that Americans stopped supporting the use of un-democratic actions to get their way. It is time to end activism in the courts!

My pastor is from the Houlon Maine area. He asked me to look at the connection between spiritual darkness in that area and the Salem Witch trials. I found a connection! Here it is:

Aaron Putnam and Joseph Houlton started a village in 1807. They named it for Houlton, who had moved to Maine from the more populated part of Massachusetts. Curiously, the Putnam family and the Houlton family may have been from Danvers Massachusetts (a.k.a Salem Town). The Putnam family benefited greatly from the witch trials, ending up with the Nurse homestead after Rebecca Nurse was killed as a witch. Also, a prominent politician during the Revolutionary war called Samuel Holten was from Danvers also. I have not been able to determine if Aaron Putnam and Joseph Houlton are related to the the Putnams and the Holtens from Danvers,

As for the spiritual darkness in Houlton, I would attribute this to the Unitarian church that is prominent in Houlton. The Unitarian movement came out of Harvard University after a prominent Congregationalist pastor of the First Church of Boston named Charles Chauncy, opposed the “Great Awakening” that occurred in the mid 18th century. Chauncy was probably the last Congregationalist pastor of the First Church, and now the church is a Unitarian Church.

The First Church of Boston was also the church where Cotton Mather was Puritan pastor during the Salem witch trials. Cotton Mather and others later tried to diminish his role in the trials, but all the evidence is that Mather was one of the main impetus behind the trials. Robert Calef who was a layman, wrote a book critical of the witch trials and Mather. Calef may be a person I want to emulate as I start this new phase of my life in Christ.