ALIEN DNA?

It is amazing how ignorance of Science can be used to manipulate the way people think which is the mechanism used by the "elite"to exploit and control the majority of human beings. (ie; man made global warming....CO2 IS A BUFFERED GAS...it can't cause it)  .   Those who do not have a basic knowledge of biochemical processes and what controls these processes can be easily convinced that Scientists have "created"alien life in violation of Pasteur's Law of Biogenesis.  In this article in Nature Magazine, Scientists are claiming they have created a "new" genetic code that results in the creation of new alien life forms.    The truth is they have merely found a "new" way of effecting gene mutation in addition to deletion, addition and rearrangement of NORMAL DNA base pairs caused by natural environmental factors. (ie; radiation, chemical etc.)

 It is important that we realize they have NOT created life....but have merely found a new to way to modify its' characteristics. It is ALSO critical that we understand that even with the mutation of natural DNA codes, 99% are "lethal" resulting in defective protein that causes disease like cancer or even death of the cell. The "key" to understanding what these Scientists have actually accomplished  is in understanding "transcription"
of the genetic code into mRNA (messenger RNA) and "translation" into polypeptide amino acid polymers. (proteins)  It is the "proteins" that determines the biochemistry that occurs in the cell which determines the characteristics of the cell because they are the enzyme catalysts that activate the biochemical reactions that occur in the cells. The DNA  gene codes are just the "blueprints" that determines the specific amino acids, the order sequence and number of them that determines what the protein is and its' function.  The kind of amino acids, the order and number determines the "shape" of the protein molecule that results in the proteins function.

A  specific  "triplet" sequece of the four base pairs along the double polynucleotide polymer chain of DNA, adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine, codes for a specific amino acid in the synthesis of the protein product.  Natural mutations are changes in the "triplet"sequence of the base pairs by deletion, addition or arrangement of a base that results in a "different" amino acid being coded for in the "transcription and translation" into the protein product.   As stated in the above paragraph....99% of these natural changes are "lethal."   It is apparent that the Scientists were able to replace normal  purine and pyrimidine bases  (ATCG) with "modified" ones. Even with these "different modified" base pairings, the "triplet codes" are NOT new or transcription to mRNA and translation into a protein product at the ribosomes (rRNA) would not be possible.   Essentially,  they have created a "new" form of mutation....(and remember...99% are BAD).... AND.... they have found a "new" way to "record" the "antecodon triplets" in the DNA polymer.   The "key" to undertanding this is that the "antecodon triplet code determines the aminio acid in the protein"...NOT modified bases.





NOW READ THIS ARTICLE......



http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-life-with-alien-dna-created-in-lab/?&WT.mc_id=SA_EVO_20140512 



·   
First Life with "Alien" DNA Created in Lab
An engineered bacterium is able to copy DNA that contains unnatural genetic code

May 7, 2014 |By Ewen Callaway and Nature magazine



The addition of new letters to the 'alphabet of life' could enable biologists to vastly expand the range of proteins that they could synthesize.
Credit: National Nanotechnology Initiative
For billions of years, the history of life has been written with just four letters — A, T, C and G, the labels given to the DNA subunits contained in all organisms. That alphabet has just grown longer, researchers announce, with the creation of a living cell that has two 'foreign' DNA building blocks in its genome.
Hailed as a breakthrough by other scientists, the work is a step towards the synthesis of cells able to churn out drugs and other useful molecules. It also raises the possibility that cells could one day be engineered without any of the four DNA bases used by all organisms on Earth.
“What we have now is a living cell that literally stores increased genetic information,” says Floyd Romesberg, a chemical biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, who led the 15-year effort. Their research appears online today in Nature.
Each strand of the DNA's double helix has a backbone of sugar molecules and, attached to it, chemical subunits known as bases. There are four different bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G). These letters represent the code for the amino-acid building blocks that make up proteins. The bases bind the two DNA strands together, with an A always bonding to a T on the opposite strand (and vice versa), and C and G doing likewise.
Test-tube letters
Scientists first questioned whether life could store information using other chemical groups in the 1960s. But it wasn’t until 1989 that Steven Benner, then at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and his team coaxed modified forms of cytosine and guanine into DNA molecules. In test-tube reactions, strands made of these “funny letters”, as Benner calls them, copied themselves and encoded RNA and proteins.
The bases engineered by Romesberg’s team are more alien, bearing little chemical resemblance to the four natural ones, Benner says. In a 2008 paper, and in follow-up experiments, the group reported efforts to pair chemicals together from a list of 60 candidates and screen the 3,600 resulting combinations. They identified a pair of bases, known as d5SICS and dNaM, that looked promising. In particular, the molecules had to be compatible with the enzymatic machinery that copies and translates DNA.
“We didn’t even think back then that we could move into an organism with this base pair,” says Denis Malyshev, a former graduate student in Romesberg’s lab who is first author of the new paper. Working with test-tube reactions, the scientists succeeded in getting their unnatural base pair to copy itself and be transcribed into RNA, which required the bases to be recognized by enzymes that had evolved to use A, T, C and G.
The first challenge to creating this alien life was to get cells to accept the foreign bases needed to maintain the molecule in DNA through repeated rounds of cell division, during which DNA is copied. The team engineered the bacterium Escherichia coli to express a gene from a diatom — a single-celled alga — encoding a protein that allowed the molecules to pass through the bacterium's membrane.
The scientists then created a short loop of DNA, called a plasmid, containing a single pair of the foreign bases, and inserted the whole thing into E. coli cells. With the diatom protein supplying a diet of foreign nucleotides, the plasmid was copied and passed on to dividing E. coli cells for nearly a week. When the supply of foreign nucleotides ran out, the bacteria replaced the foreign bases with natural ones.
Alien control
Malyshev sees the ability to control the uptake of foreign DNA bases as a safety measure that would prevent the survival of alien cells outside the lab, should they escape. But other researchers, including Benner, are trying to engineer cells that can make foreign bases from scratch, obviating the need for a feedstock.
Romesberg’s group is working on getting foreign DNA to encode proteins that contain amino acids other than the 20 that together make up nearly all natural proteins. Amino acids are encoded by 'codons' of three DNA letters apiece, so the addition of just two foreign DNA 'letters' would vastly expand a cell’s ability to encode new amino acids. “If you read a book that was written with four letters, you’re not going to be able to tell many interesting stories,” Romesberg says. “If you’re given more letters, you can invent new words, you can find new ways to use those words and you can probably tell more interesting stories.”
Potential uses of the technology include the incorporation of a toxic amino acid into a protein to ensure that it kills only cancer cells, and the development of glowing amino acids that could help scientists to track biological reactions under the microscope. Romesberg’s team has founded a company called Synthorx in San Diego, California, to commercialize the work.
Ross Thyer, a synthetic biologist at the University of Texas at Austin who co-authored a related News and Views article, says that the work is “a big leap forward in what we can do”. It should be possible to get the foreign DNA to encode new amino acids, he says.
“Many in the broader community thought that Floyd's result would be impossible,” says Benner, because chemical reactions involving DNA, such as replication, need to be exquisitely sensitive to avoid mutation.
The alien E. coli contains just a single pair of foreign DNA bases out of millions. But Benner sees no reason why a fully alien cell isn’t possible. “I don’t think there’s any limit,” he says. “If you go back and rerun evolution for four billion years, you could come up with a different genetic system.”
But creating a wholly synthetic organism would be a huge challenge. “A lot of times people will say you’ll make an organism completely out of your unnatural DNA,” says Romesberg. “That’s just not going to happen, because there are too many things that recognize DNA. It’s too integrated into every facet of a cell’s life.”
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on May 7, 2014.

ILLUSION

  .....civilization will remain enslaved until mankind wakes up and realizes the forces opposed to human dignity and prosperity are EXTERNAL.  The sinful nature of man does NOT cause the problems...it allows the EXTERNAL forces to seduce and control mankind with illusion.

 

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

  (Ephesians 6:12) 

HYPERNATURALISM

..READ ARTICLE BELOW FIRST



.I really liked this article and consider the ideas very plausible....however......it makes the same assumptions that all religions and even Science makes.....a "beginning" to Existence and a God "external" to Creation.  I believe the inherent "need" for a "beginning" clouds our concept of what Existence really is. Atheists claim there is no God.  If you limit God's Existence to being external and "supernatural" like all religions...THEY ARE CORRECT.   If God dwells and works though His Creation and His PERFECT Laws as revealed in the "Flesh" by Jesus Christ 2000 years ago.....atheism becomes an illusion because when we see Creation...WE ARE SEEING GOD. The rejection of God logically makes atheists deny Existence itself and even "themselves."   Atheism is therefore an oxymoron.

Hypernaturalism: Integrating the Bible and Science

March 24, 2014

By Guest Writer

Though the views of naturalism and supernaturalism often pit science and religion against one another, hypernaturalism is proposed as an alternative that combines divine power and natural law. It is hoped that such a synthesis of science and faith can help religious people become more accepting of science, and place Christianity in a logical framework that the scientifically minded can accept.

Much of the modern “creation debate” devolves into two competing perspectives: naturalism and supernaturalism. Naturalism, often considered the scientific point of view, states that the universe and all life-forms came into being via undirected, natural processes. Supernaturalism, considered the religious view, argues that a supernatural God created the entire universe and life itself.

We believe there is a third point of view that can unite religion and science. We call it hypernaturalism.

Defining Terms

Hypernaturalism might be considered a form of progressive creationism. We define it as the extraordinary use of natural law by the God described in the Bible. Hypernaturalism postulates that when God created the universe ex nihilo (from nothing), He also created the laws of nature. He integrated natural law into the created order to make a universe with what has been called “relative autonomy.”1

God the Creator is necessarily outside of the universe He made—hence, He is able to control the forces of nature. Natural law is God’s servant. God has the authority to use the forces of nature to implement His will. Hence, through hypernaturalism, many of God’s miracles can be explained as a combination of divine power and natural law. When God acts hypernaturally, He employs natural law and natural phenomena in an extraordinary way to bring about His will. This encompasses extraordinary timing (including both duration and start and stop time), an extraordinary selection of location, and/or extraordinary magnitude (including severity and intensity). An event is not necessarily hypernatural because it is extraordinary; it is hypernatural if God exercises extraordinary control for a particular purpose (since His miracles always have purpose).

Hypernaturalism vs Supernaturalism

Hypernaturalism differs from supernaturalism, which might be compared to the philosophy of young earth creationism. If God acts supernaturally to effect His will, He operates outside of natural law by overriding the laws of physics, such as gravity and the second law of thermodynamics.

The usual Christian understanding of a miracle is that God supernaturally brings about something that is otherwise impossible. An omnipotent God can surely do this—but hypernaturalism could provide an even greater demonstration of God’s power. A supernatural miracle overriding the forces of nature shows that God has greater power than nature—yet it could also imply nature is God’s adversary. Such a depiction was typical of ancient myths, in which pagan deities representing forces of nature competed to prove who had greater power.

By contrast, a hypernatural miracle demonstrates that God created the forces of nature to serve His purposes. This is evident in Genesis when God commanded Earth and the waters to “bring forth” vegetation and animals, respectively, and nature complied (Genesis 1:11, 20, 24, KJV).

Before the scientific revolution, when humankind could observe but not explain natural phenomena, it seemed logical to believe God acted supernaturally. People believed rainfall (or lack thereof), fertility, and other natural phenomena were God’s supernatural will at work. Today we recognize natural laws and can explain many miracles as God’s extraordinary use of those laws.

Parting of the Red Sea: A Hypernatural Miracle

The Bible explicitly describes some of God’s miracles as the result of hypernatural activity. An example is the parting of the Red Sea (Ex 14:21-28)—one of God’s greatest and most important miracles. Scripture states that God brought this about hypernaturally by causing an extraordinarily strong wind at an extraordinary time in an extraordinary place:

    Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided. The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land…[Then] Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal state at daybreak, while the Egyptians were fleeing right into it (Exodus 14:21–22a, 27a, NASB, emphasis original).

This scene might describe a storm surge, a rather common phenomenon; storm surges as high as 48 feet have been recorded.2 In 1990, meteorologist Allan Brunt found such a storm surge plausible in the northward extension of the Red Sea.3

Alternately, the parting could be likened to a “wind setdown” such as observed on Lake Erie and in Florida. In 2010, atmospheric scientists Carl Drews and Weiqing Han reported a suite of model experiments that demonstrated the plausibility of the biblical account based on a wind setdown on an ancient coastal lagoon in the Exodus area where a strong wind was recorded in 1882. They estimated that a uniform 63 mph easterly wind would produce a land bridge “3-4 km long and 5 km wide, and it remains open for 4 hours.”4

These two peer-reviewed articles demonstrate that it is scientifically plausible that the biblical narrative correctly describes a hypernatural miracle.

Manipulating Probabilities

Another aspect of hypernatural miracles is God’s power to manipulate nature by overcoming ridiculously small probabilities within natural law. The story of Joseph is one example. It was extraordinarily improbable that Joseph could go from slave to prisoner to second-in-command of Egypt to savior of his family—yet God made this happen without any direct evidence of His involvement (Genesis 37–50, especially 50:19–20).5 The same is true of other stories such as the anointing of King Saul (1 Samuel 10), the coin to pay Jesus’s temple tax found in a fish (Matthew 17:24–26), and others. In this context, a straightforward reading of the biblical text suggests that many miracles are indeed hypernatural or, at least, potentially hypernatural.

In closing we emphasize that hypernaturalism is not a new concept, nor is it God’s only tool for interacting with the natural realm. Rather this is a restatement of orthodox Christian beliefs in a modern context—one that we hope will allow the religious and the scientific to find common ground while holding a high view of both science and Scripture.

In future articles we will elaborate on other aspects of hypernaturalism and examine the details of specific hypernatural miracles.

*Article updated March 24, 2014, 11:57 AM (PDT)

James Madison's 15 Points: Separation of Church and State

I certainly cannot argue against Madison's 15 points referred to in the article at the blog site below....Madison is absolutely correct.  Remember...he and the founders of our country understood separation between Church and State is a "2 way principle".....the State should not endorse or establish any one Religion over another NOR suppress ANY Religious expression in the public arena.  ie; suppressing  ANY Religious public expression is a violation of the 1st Amendment...NOT and extension of it.

Separation of Church and State in the Amendment is the most misunderstood Amendment because it puts all other Amendments in jeopardy, especially the 2nd and 4th.

HOWEVER......the atheistic "spin"  in this article   implies Madison wanted to stifle ALL public religious expression and that "Religion" is destroying America is probably the most ignorant statement I have ever heard from ANY atheist.

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/why_we_need_to_lose_religion/

THE GREAT ILLUSION: EVOLUTION DESTROYS FAITH?

  Read article below my enlarged comments before reading my comments!

IF BELIEVERS TRULY ACCEPT AND UNDERSTAND THE GOD REVEALED IN THE FLESH BY JESUS CHRIST 2000 YEARS AGO, SCIENCE WOULD NOT BE AN ENEMY TO ATTACK BUT A "GIFT" OF GOD THAT PROVES THE ABSOLUTE INERRANT TRUTH IN THE BIBLE.  THE ONLY RECOURSE THEY HAVE IS TO REPLACE SCIENCE WITH PSEUDO-SCIENCE. THE RESULT OF THIS IS THAT IT REQUIRES "BLIND FAITH."  JESUS SAID WE SHOULD HAVE THE "FAITH OF A CHILD", NOT "BLIND FAITH."  ONE THING I LEARNED RAISING 2 DAUGHTERS IS THAT THEY DID NOT HAVE "BLIND FAITH" IN ME AND THEIR MOM...THEY HAD "TRUSTING FAITH" WHICH WAS BASED ON "KNOWING" WHO MOM AND DAD WERE!  PEOPLE ABANDON THE BIBLE BECAUSE OF SCIENCE IGNORANCE.....NOT BECAUSE OF UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE. IRONICALLY, SCIENCE REJECTS THE BIBLE FOR THE SAME REASON..."IGNORANCE" OF GOD AND THE BIBLE.

How evolution is driving the clergy to atheism

Abandoning the Bible for ‘science’

by Warren Nunn

Published: 24 April 2014 (GMT+10)

caughtinthepulpit

Atheists have fired another salvo in their ongoing assault on the Bible and, in particular, the truth of Genesis and its importance in the creation-evolution debate.

This time it involves the recent publication of Caught In The Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind1 by Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola.

And it should dispel any doubts in the minds of Christians about how focused atheists are on highlighting how accepting the evolutionary view of the world is a major factor in people abandoning their faith in the God of the Bible.

The book is an extension of Richard Dawkins’ ‘The Clergy Project’, which has been described as “a confidential online community for active and former professional clergy/religious leaders who do not hold supernatural beliefs”.2

If the evidence before your eyes doesn’t support a belief, you cannot will yourself to believe it anyway—Richard Dawkins

It chronicles the struggles of several mostly Christian church leaders who have become unbelievers, and is another sobering reminder of this not-so-surprising reality.

The authors seem to think they have exposed something that believers are unaware of and that it will bring down Christianity. What they see as a growing church exodus gives them that expectation.

The reality is that there always have been—and always will be—people who ‘lose their faith’, whether they occupy the pulpit or not. Consider, for example, Canadian (and Billy Graham colleague) Charles Templeton, whose spectacular fall from mass evangelist to unbeliever was in no small part linked to his doubts over Genesis.3

What the authors discovered from participants interviewed are several things Creation Ministries International and many thinking Christians have long pointed out. Sadly, many in the church:

    have rejected the historicity of the Genesis account including that Adam and Eve were real people;

    have accepted long ages and evolution as fact;

    now deny Christ’s Deity.

    And many seminaries now teach along all of those lines.

Atheist philosopher Dennett4 from Tufts University in Massachusetts, USA, is the author of several books including Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995).

His co-researcher on The Clergy Project and this book is Linda LaScola, a clinical social worker and qualitative researcher.

The foreword to the book—which is available in paperback as well as an e-publication through amazon.com—was written by antitheist Richard Dawkins.

Of the research participants, Dawkins observes:

    “You are allowed opinions about football or chimney pots, but when it comes to the deep questions of existence, origins, much of science, everything about ethics, you are told what to think; or you have to parrot your thoughts from a book, written by unknown authors in ancient deserts. If your reading, your thinking, your conversations, lead you to change your opinions you can never divulge your secret. If you breathe a hint of your doubts you will lose your job, your livelihood, the respect of your community, your friends, perhaps even your family. At the same time, the job demands the highest standards of moral rectitude, so the double life you are leading torments you with a wasting sense of shameful hypocrisy. Such is the predicament of those priests, rabbis and pastors who have lost their faith but remain in post.”5

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins sees clergy leaving the pulpit as a sign the church is dying.

Dawkins makes another telling comment:

    “If the evidence before your eyes doesn’t support a belief, you cannot will yourself to believe it anyway.”6

But Dawkins knows that dissent within the church does not bring the same sort of backlash which even the slightest hint of questioning evolution does, as has been well documented by Dr Jerry Bergman7 and others.

For some it’s unpleasant—like [the fact that] Adam and Eve did not really live—Seminary professor

“It is hard not to feel sympathy for those men and women caught in the pulpit”, Dawkins writes8 as he continues to lay out the framework of his concern for such individuals while also referring to his part in setting up The Clergy Project.

But does Dawkins feel the same sympathy for those who have lost their jobs and been ostracized by evolutionists?

Dawkins makes much of the lengths to which the project and the authors have gone to protect the doubting clergy from being exposed, and is encouraged by the growing numbers (more than 500) who are abandoning Christianity. He sees them as “the thin end of a very large wedge, tip of a reassuringly large iceberg, harbingers of a coming and very welcome tipping point, this book will be seen as—to mix metaphors yet again with pardonable glee—the miner’s canary”.9

Of course, he would hardly see more and more evolutionists abandoning materialism and turning to Christ and the Creation/Gospel message in the same light.

Of the publication, Dennett writes:

    “This book is about men and women who entered the clergy with the best of motives and intentions and have come to recognize that they no longer hold the beliefs their parishioners think they do. Half of the people interviewed still have a congregation awaiting them each Sabbath, trusting them to speak the truth from the pulpit. They come from various backgrounds and have made different decisions about how to deal with their lack of belief in what they think somebody in their position ought to believe.”10

Dennett says the project’s participants believe themselves to be the tip of the iceberg:

    “But they have no way of testing that conviction. In all the commentary we have provoked from experts on religion or spokespeople for religion, nobody—as far as I know—has accused us of making things up or turning a molehill into a mountain. We can say that there are at least a hundred instances, since among the more than five hundred current members of The Clergy Project there are over a hundred who still have a pulpit, still have a congregation. (The rest are all former clergy.) Since that private, confidential Web-based organization for nonbelieving clergy has grown to those numbers in two and a half years, without advertising or canvassing, we can safely surmise that there are many more clergy out there who are in the same boat but haven’t heard about The Clergy Project, or for various reasons would not want to join. Perhaps a nationwide confidential survey of clergy could give us a ballpark number, but the logistics of doing such a survey in a way that maximizes security and anonymity while screening out spurious responses is daunting indeed.”11

Along with the clergy interviewed, three seminary professors also took part. The professors pointed to the ‘scholarly’ way in which they taught students that the Bible was not inspired, Adam and Eve weren’t real people and Christ was not divine.

According to one professor:

    “For some it’s unpleasant—like [the fact that] Adam and Eve did not really live. I did not think anybody could think that they really lived and ran around in Paradise—I just couldn’t have imagined that. So by now I’ve learned to be a bit more careful, just enough not to hurt people’s feelings and take them a bit more slowly into this new way of looking at the Bible.”12

Interestingly, the book includes a swipe at Dawkins by one of the clergy:

    “I picked up The God Delusion [by Richard Dawkins] at the used-book store the other day, and it was the most insufferable reading I’ve ever had to endure. It’s incredibly disingenuous, if not equally as bigoted as the right-wingers. The arguments are laughable to me, and yet he’s earnest and sincere and he really believes he’s pursuing this ethical agenda. But I think he’s willfully obtuse, and it bothers me, because both sides in this debate are yelling past each other. Meanwhile, a way of life that is life-giving to me and to millions of others is completely misunderstood, mischaracterized, and ignored.”13

That same clergyman, though, embraces evolution (bold emphasis added):

The people in my church are very intelligent. They believe in evolution—Disbelieving clergyman

    “The people in my church are very intelligent. They believe in evolution. They also understand that what happens to us as we engage in prayer and worship and mythological imagination is fundamental to what it means to be human, and speaks deeply to the soul, and carries us into becoming better human beings.”14

Dennett also makes an observation that highlights the untenable position many liberal theologians put themselves in:

    “Many commentators have noted a telling symmetry. Fundamentalists and other defenders of the literal truth of the Bible agree with the New Atheists on one thing: Truth claims need to be taken seriously—which means they must be evaluated as true or false, not merely interpreted as metaphors and symbols. Liberal clergy, as noted, are squeezed between these two opposing adherents of the “put up or shut up” school of interpretation. The liberals think both extremes are simplistic; it’s complicated, they say. The New Atheists have shrugged off this charge, accusing the liberal apologists of creating a pseudointellectual smokescreen to cover their retreat, and here the symmetry is extended, since that is also the opinion of many fundamentalists and other conservatives.”15

Dennett also comes to this insightful conclusion:

    “Unlike their conservative counterparts, liberal denominations have made huge, socially conscious changes—performing same-sex marriages, accepting gay and women clergy, and (quietly) accepting the Bible as mythical, not factual truth. And what is their reward? They are losing membership, while the numbers of atheists and people with no religious affiliation are growing.”16

It is hard to fathom how compromising clergy process that reality and fail to make the connection to abandoning biblical truth.

One of the participants who is still involved in ministry as an Episcopal priest, but who describes himself as an atheist, has a curious way of describing believers in his congregation:

    “For many, many people, belief and faith and conviction and a personal relationship with God can be apparently very helpful. I personally feel that perhaps one is not completely and fully human as long as one embraces fantasies and myths about a theistic God who’s personally involved in every aspect of one’s life. But sometimes I’ve found myself perhaps a little bit envious of those who have that certainty and unmistakable peace and joy about death and life and just manage to get through it.”17

But another of the participants clearly understands the problems with the theologically liberal position:

    “My colleagues and clergy friends would ridicule fundamentalists, but at some point I came to realize they are preaching and teaching what they believe. If you read the Bible, they are actually being consistent in what they’re teaching or they’re believing. We’re the ones who are sugarcoating it and trying to contextualize it and put it in other language, and we don’t really mean what we say. And at some point, that just felt kind of mentally weak.”18

Evolution—the elephant in the room

One of the participants admitted to a compromise regarding Genesis and evolution which was similar to what others said as well:

    “It seems like the obvious question: ‘Well, did evolution happen, and if it did, how does it square with the account in Genesis?’ It seems to me that that’s the elephant in the room. And what Orthodox intellectuals would do would be to consider the question so abstractly that the question was left unanswered. When I was teaching Genesis myself in seminary, I was able to perform the same kind of magic trick—a sort of distraction: ‘Well, I’m going to talk over here, and it’s all going to sound very smart, but it’s not actually addressing the question.’ In fact, the only students I ever had that did insist [on the question of evolution being addressed] was in a Sunday school class, because the kids would want an answer, and they would not allow me to get all abstract.”19

It would be easy for Christians to dismiss both the project and this book as merely a sad repository for depressing accounts about people who are no longer part of the body of faith—but that would be a mistake.

This book highlights an even sadder reality—that some of those interviewed remain in pastoral roles, professing outwardly to be Christian while inwardly disavowing that and embracing atheism.

It should spur believers to hold strong to the foundational truths of Genesis that point the world to its need of a Saviour, and to continue to support the efforts of ministries such as CMI. It should also spur believers to prayerfully endeavour to point doubters back to robust faith in Christ with a thoroughly biblical worldview.

Caught In The Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind will most likely satisfy those openly hostile to the God of the Bible, and maybe some compromising Christians, but those with a truly inquiring mind will see it for what it is, another attempt to discredit God and His Word, and to convince the world that the church is in disarray and headed for extinction.

Reading it made me want to say that if you’re fortunate enough to have a solid, Bible-believing pastor, you should seek him out and thank him for his faithfulness as a teacher of God’s Word.

Related Articles

    Atheists in the pulpit—the sad charade of the Clergy Project

    The ‘Trojan Horse’ of deep time

Science vs Miracles and Multiverses?

.I know this stuff drives most people nuts,,,,but try and give it a stab anyway......I REALLY believe Science exposes ALL illusions....even those perpetrated by disinformation Scientists!

READ THE ARTICLE "MIRACLES AND SCIENCE" BELOW MY COMMENTS FIRST...............

  ...I really liked this article (below) ...some good logic used here , BUT.......I believe the "problem" Science and Religion has is dealing with our mortality.   We see birth and death in life and in the non-living like stars) which creates the illusion of "time."  The result of our dependance on this "illusion of time" (as Einstein called it) is a "need" to have a "beginning" to Existence. The Bible is very clear that "God" ALWAYS Existed, "He was NOT Created out of nothing" because HE ALWAYS WAS.   It is my contention that God and His PERFECT Laws always Existed and it is man who "needed" to "separate" God from Creation which implies two SEPARATE EXISTENCES. ie; Supernatural Existence which is God's Realm, the one that always existed and one "Created" ...the Natural Existence which is our Realm, the Universe (or Multiverse) and ourselves.  This concept requires an alleged "miracle"..... (whatever that is, especially when the author of the article admits a miracle is nothing but God's Laws speeded up or slowed down depending on the situation.) for BOTH Science and Religion.....NOTHING being made into SOMETHING.  If the author of the article stating that miracles are God's Laws speeded up or slowed down, he is logically saying "there was no miracle" involved in making something from nothing because Creation IS God's Laws speeded up or slowed down!   The conclusion is obvious...there was always "something" and that "something" is God.  If I am correct (and I suspect I might be) atheism is the most illogical human belief one can accept as reality.

The other conclusion that cannot be refuted, IF I AM CORRECT, is that the Universe is infinite and could indeed be a Multiverse of "many" Creations existing forever as an infinite number of "Bubble" Universes. This is called Bubble Theory and is a highly favored theory in Cosmology today,  Our "Genesis" in the Book of Genesis in the Torah...our Old Testament Bible, is about the "inflation" of just ONE of an infinite number of Bubble Universes.

Where I differ with Cosmologists and their view of the Multiverse is their idea that the "other" Universes would be governed by a different set of Laws.In my opinion that is an illogical assumption. I disagree because there is ONLY ONE GOD, therefore the Laws are identical in ALL the "other" Universes.  I even suspect that "Black Holes" are the "backsides" of "other" Bubble Universes!   My God does not "need" magic and "cheap parlor tricks" to be God....His Laws apply to ALL of the Multiverses and His Laws do the Creating FOREVER in both directions of what we call "space/time."

I came to the conclusion that there is no "beginning" using  "life" itself as a proof.  Science assumes that the elements of biological compounds made inside the fusion furnaces of stars....(carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,phosphorous, sulfur, iron, iodine, calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium and several others)  cooled and by random collisions eventually formed biochemical compounds...(amino acids, proteins, monosaccharide and polysaccharide carbohydrates, fatty acids, lipids, nucleotides and polynucleotides....DNA/RNA and inorganic salts etc.)  Science further assumes these biochemicals eventually coalesced into the highly complex "living" structure known as the "living cell" and eventually into the even more complex multicellular state of tissues, organs and organ systems. Science explains all of this as the  result of Darwinian Natural Selection.with the "beginning" being a "miracle" of nothing becoming the Universe!  Talk about "blind faith!"  Obviously Religion explains all of this as Intelligent Design...namely God being the "intelligent one" and it was He who Created nothing into something by His Will.  I believe Religion is correct that it was by Intelligent Design that Creation Exists although by   because there never was "nothing"except  His Will which always EXISTED!. It is my contention that it is God's Laws that was involved in ALL of Creation, a manifestation of His Will.

I submit that the ideas I have presented above were proved over 150 years ago in an experiment performed by French Chemist Louis Pasteur. (the "S" shaped flask experiment) Science accepts the "Law" this experiment revealed, the Law of Biogenesis which disproves "spontaneous generation" yet because of the "need" for a "beginning" as I stated above.... they  claim "spontaneous generation" had to occur at least once. The Law of Biogenesis is self supporting...."All Life MUST come from pre-existing Life."  The only logical conclusion in light of this Law is that Existence ALWAYS existed because "LIFE" was required to Create Life!

Natural Selection can explain "changes" within a given phylogenetic group as it does in "antibiotic resistance" by pathogens but Intelligent Design is the only possible way to explain the major phyla of both plant and animal Kingdoms.  Religion is correct that God Created these "phyla" by Intelligent Design by His Will but if they really knew the God revealed in the "flesh" 2000 years ago by Yeshua Ben Joseph (Jesus the Christ in Greek) and were not so anti-Science, THEY would realize the mechanism of "The Law" of Intelligent Design as been discovered through Science....RECOMBINANT DNA. (rDNA)

I have no clue why Science rejects Intelligent Design of the major phyla via rDNA except maybe they have been seduced by the entities revealed in Ephesians 6:12 causing them to reject the Truth revealed in the Bible. (Hmmm....or maybe some of them are part of the conspiracy of disinformation?)

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12

When interpreting this Scripture above or ANY other Bible Scripture....remember the words of the illusionist "The Amazing Kreskin....The Supernatural is the undiscovered Natural."   This statement is TRUTH because God's Laws are PERFECT...it is man who limits God with the illusion of the "supernatural" and requires Him to Exist EXTERNAL to His own Creation and Laws!

Miracles and Science

By its very nature, atheism must appeal to science as a basis for its unbelief, for without science it would have little intellectual ground for its beliefs. Of course, most knowledgeable people know that science cannot prove God's existence or disprove it.[i] At best, science can only offer a naturalistic way of looking at things. This raises the question: Are miracles contrary to nature?

Einstein once said there are only two ways of looking at the world—everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle. At first, I did not quite know how to take Einstein's statement. Then I realized that for Einstein, time no longer mattered. He had found the eternal now through his theory on relativity.

You may say: Okay, what has this to do with miracles? It has a lot to do with miracles if miracles are in any way connected to time, which I believe they are. But, before pursuing that thought, it is important for us to clarify the word miracle. The word miracle has been so abused that anything which cannot be explained or creates wonder, for example, the birth of a child, is often spoken of as a miracle. When I use the word miracle, I mean something which is outside the ordinary course of nature if it was left to itself and in that, we could call a miracle supernatural. We could say that miracles do not break the laws of nature, but simply slow or speed them up. In this definition, a miracle is time supercharged or supernatural. For miracles cut through time and in that moment of their occurrence, we enter the eternal now, which is knowable, but can only be experienced by humans in a limited way in a three-dimensional existence. Einstein knew of this other dimension of the eternal now, but never experienced it, at least not in this life.

I have had a number of atheists tell me that the difference between science and religion is that the latter believes in miracles and science does not. However, I do not believe that is true. There are two miracles which both science and religion believe in, though they may not call them miracles. It is the creation of the universe and the beginning of life. I say this because these things happened one time and fall outside of natural law and beyond a reasonable probability. Remember, to be consistent, atheists must conclude that nature and its laws did not exist at the time of the creation for they were created by “the big bang” like the rest of nature.

No one can explain by observing nature as it now is how nothing could be turned into something, and no one can explain how something could turn into something else without a miracle. Of course, there are many who believe that they have explained these things, but we need to remember that the explanation is not the observation and the explanation is not the evidence. Authentic science is based on the scientific method, which says that for a thing to be a true scientific fact, it must be observed and one must be able to reproduce it and falsify it. Now, neither the creation of the universe nor the creation of life was observed by anyone living today or in recorded history, nor can these things be reproduced, which puts these things outside the area of science and into the area of speculative philosophy or religion. It all comes back to the metaphysical or religious question of why there is something instead of nothing. [ii]

Now here's the astonishing thing. Both religion and science believe in the miracles of creation (something from nothing) and in the evolution of life (something turning into something else).[iii] The only difference is the time factor. One believes in fast miracles (religion) and the other in slow miracles (science). Either fast or slow, both fit into the category of miracle. Now, I know that religion does not like slow miracles, and science does not like fast miracles, but remember what Einstein taught: time is relative. Time is an awareness of humans and means nothing to the deity (unless when dealing with humans), or for that matter, it means nothing even to animals. There is no evidence that they are even conscious of time.

By now, I am sure that those who believe in scientism[iv] are about to blow their tops. Well, let it blow; it may help you to get into your right mind. Your right mind is the mind that can discern the difference between facts and the interpretation of facts, between the data and the explanation, and the difference between science and philosophy. Blowing your top may help you get rid of your fuzzy thinking about existence.

 What have we learned? We have learned that when talking about a metaphysical thing like the creation of something out of nothing, i.e., things relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses, that science and religion seem to believe in the same supernatural event. That event is the creation of something out of nothing, which is totally outside of nature and space-time as we know it. Then in space-time, we find both religion and science saying that something changed into something else. In religion, we see God turning the dust of the ground (star dust) into life, and in science we see a similar idea, but a lot slower.

Some of you science buffs are probably saying, “Wait a minute. The big bang theory, science's creation story, is backed up with facts." Well, if there is evidence for the big bang theory, the same facts could prove that God created the universe ex-nihilo out of nothing. The only difference is that instead of referring to God, scientist call the Alpha a singularity, which is a convoluted description of infinite, the nothing or unknown. No matter what you call it, it sure looks like a miracle. It is something coming from nothing. By far, this must be the greatest miracle of all. It even tops one being resurrected from the dead, which is another example of something changing into something else and nothing becoming something.

When someone tells me they cannot believe in miracles, but at the same time tell me they can believe in the big bang theory and evolution, I have to wonder if they either misunderstand miracles or the big bang theory and evolution. The statistical probability of the big bang and life coming from nonlife and then evolving undirected to its apex in mankind is just unbelievable. Yet, many believe in both. Why is it so hard for these folks to believe that God did it? Could it be the conditioning of an atheistic and secular culture? I know nature has its laws and that some believe they are never suspended or superseded by an outside source. However, from my perspective, a miracle is not the deity suspending natural law, but simply speeding nature up or slowing her down to serve His purposes. So, a thing in my thinking is a miracle, whether it happens swiftly or slowly. When Jesus turned water into wine, He was simply speeding up what nature with the help of what man does every season in turning grapes into wine. When Jesus healed people, it was always instant demonstrating that He had the power to speed up the natural healing process. When he calmed the storm, he was not overriding nature's laws, but simply speeding them up. Storms always pass given enough time. However, sometimes God gives them a little nudge. I think some scientists might call this the butterfly effect.

Nature never changes its mind on its own for it is quite dumb. In fact, it is mindless. It is totally controlled by cause and effect in itself. It needs intelligence outside of itself to speed it up sometimes, as when Jesus turned water into wine. I know a lot of people have a problem with this, but it happens on a small scale every time humans exercise their will. When I hit the cue ball and set in motion the law of cause and effect, the laws of nature take over until one of my friends reaches down and quickly removes one of the balls. My friend's action, which came from his will (mind) has changed the game. In essence, the game was started by a will and it was changed by a will every time the players interacted with the balls. The game did not create itself nor did it start the game by itself. The game is the effect not the ultimate cause, nor is the game the maker of the rules for the game. If the game has rules, there must be a rule maker and one of the rules of the game is that the creator of the game can speed it up or slow it down or for that matter, change the rules of the game. Of course, the expression speed up or slow down are completely irrelevant to the Uncreated One who is outside space-time. However, He does seem to respect our finiteness and accommodates the failure of our language to communicate His reality, i.e., His game.

For those wishing to pursue the subject of miracles, I would suggest that you begin with C.S. Lewis's book on miracles and The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton. Both books will give you plenty to think about.

[i] The US National Academy of Sciences has gone on record with the following statement: “Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.” Taken from "Who made God? A Searching for a Theory of Everything by Fay Weldon.

[ii] Note: The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton. . The ultimate question is why they go at all; and anybody who really understands that question will know that it always has been and always will be a religious question; or at any rate a philosophical or metaphysical question.

[iii] Religious people need to remember that God did not make man out of nothing. He formed him out of the dust of the earth or you could say star dust. In this God changed man from one thing to something else. How He did it is debatable for no one was there watching. It could have been fast or slow.

[iv] Scientism is an expression used by some to designate a group of people who have made science into a religion.