171 The Carpet Cutters that Killed Capitalism

Where would we be without the press to tell us (and remind us over and over again of) what we are to believe?

In the Spiegel article What the World Can Learn from 10 Years of Excesses three diligent journalists worked hard to save us all from the effort of using our own overcapacitated brains and wrapped up the past decade for us in a nutshell, joining many other writers from probably every other major newspaper around the world.

I suppose that in order to keep their job, a journalist in the 21st century must simply stick to the one great commandment: "Thou shalt uphold the official version of 9/11," since that is obviously what each of those wrap-ups of the decade portray.

Only the Spiegel has given it a special little twist by saying that the carpet-cutter-wielding "radical Islamists" who allegedly pulled 9/11 also brought down Capitalism per se.

Not only that, but the great 19th century German Jewish prophet Karl Marx even prophesied their heroic deed.

I guess we're really going to have to spank those naughty Muslim's butts now that it's becoming known that not only did their envoys bring down the Twin Towers, but also the sacred cow of Capitalism herself.

Other people make resolutions for the new year on December 31st, we pick a specific Bible verse as a guiding motif for the coming twelve months. Mine for 2010 will be Mark 12:2. "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known."

It just thrills me, that the Creator of Heaven and earth should have given us a Promise that some day - whether near or far - we're going to be told the truth for a change after all this never-ending hogwash from an army of fairy-tale makers.

Since I don't believe in coincodence, I'm beginning to wonder about a deeper significance to the name "Spiegel" (=mirror) this reflector of "truth" has chosen as its trademark, and am immediately reminded of Don Quixote's battle with the knight of mirrors, who finally brought Quixote "back to his senses" with his version of "reality," heralding the sad ending of the story.

What's the lesson to be learned from this? Don't listen to the tales of the "Knight of Mirrors" if you want to live a happy life, because what he may sell you as reality may turn out to be another - howbeit extremely well written - fairytale spun on behalf of the darker powers that be.

170 Supernaturally Spiritual

"God is a Spirit," Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well. That is something a lot of people have a problem with: spirits. Just because it isn't visible, it must be inferior (or scary). We only allow things we can see to impress us, even if they're totally unreal, like most of the special effects we see in the movies.

As long as it can be seen, it impresses us. Anything that's not seen, immediately receives the label "inferior," if not "irrelevant."

Perhaps if we exchange the word "spirit" for "supernatural," though, we might get a little bit more attention.

Pretty much everyone is somewhat interested in the supernatural, even if they have no interest whatsoever in spirits. Spirits are stuff for stories they used to scare kids with in the olden days. Supernatural is more like "now you're talking," because the stuff they watch on TV deals a lot with those things.

In reality, "spiritual" and "supernatural" is one and the same thing. Everything that cannot be explained in natural, physical terms stems from a realm that is beyond our natural realm we have thus far been able to observe, which is the spirit realm, and everything supernatural stems from the spirit world - of course, both sides.

It's just that by avoiding the term "spirits" we can avoid the biblical and conventional aspect of the supernatural.

Just as he did with sex, magic and a bunch of other things, the devil would like to claim the domain of the supernatural exclusively for himself, which he unfortunately manages to a large extent because of people's (and particularly Christians') fear of the supernatural.

C. S. Lewis wrote in his book “Miracles,” the following:

“Only Supernaturalists really see Nature. You must go a little away from her, and then turn round, and look back. Then at last the true landscape will become visible. You must have tasted, however briefly, the pure water from beyond the world before you can be distinctly conscious of the hot, salty tang of Nature’s current. To treat her as God, or as Everything, is to lose the whole pith and pleasure of her. Come out, look back, and then you will see…”

That’s in essence the point I’m trying to make with my ongoing eBook project “The Deeper Meaning of Everything:” that there is something more to see in nature than meets the eye, the handwriting and footprint of the supernatural, (that which we dare not call spiritual) … of God.

169 Meet My New Friend Malcolm Muggeridge

The dead seem to be more alive than the living these days.

At least it seems to me that I'm finding more that I can wholeheartedly agree with among the writings of the deceased than among the ceaseless, ever more superficial and pseudo-intelligent babble of the large bulk of my contemporaries.

Well, as member of a group who never had a problem with life after death, and ever more evidence surging for it, including some refreshing accounts of how the dead seem to be alive and kicking and joyously communicating with those left behind on this side of the veil, I'm not too shocked. Although, who wouldn't wish he had a few more friends we can actually feel and see?

But then it's hard to come across minds even remotely comparable to some of those who dared to make a difference in the decades and centuries gone by - minds like that of Malcolm Muggeridge, whom I only recently discovered and find out I'm having more in common with than most of my living acquaintances.

I doubt, for instance, if I would find among the living anyone able to put into words as appropriately and eloquently my very own opinion on the topic of education as he did in his book "Jesus Rediscovered:"

"Education, the great mumbo-jumbo and fraud of the age, purports to equip us to live,

and is prescribed as a universal remedy for everything, from juvenile delinquency to

premature senility. For the most part, it only serves to enlarge stupidity, inflate

conceit, enhance credulity and put those subjected to it, at the mercy of brain-washers

with printing presses, radio and television at their disposal."

"The most powerful instrument of all in bringing about the erosion of our civilization was none other than the public education system set up with such high hopes and at so great expense precisely to sustain it."

-- Or on the topic of science:

"We are perfectly capable of believing other things intrinsically as improbable as Christ's incarnation. Towards any kind of scientific mumbojumbo we display a credulity which must be the envy of African witch-doctors. While we shy away with contumely from the account of the creation in the Book of Genesis, we are probably ready to assent to any rigmarole by a Professor Hoyle about how matter came to be, provided it is dished up in the requisite jargon and associated, however obliquely, with what we conceive to be 'facts'.

I suppose every age has its own particular fantasy. Ours is science. A seventeenth-century man like Pascal, though himself a mathematician and scientist of genius, found it quite ridiculous that anyone should suppose that rational processes could lead to any ultimate conclusions about life, but easily accepted the authority of the Scriptures. With us it is the other way round."

--Or organized religion (aka "Churchianity"):

"Professing Christians and ostensibly Christian societies and institutions have by no means been true to the cross and what it signified, especially today when the nominally Christian part of the world is foremost in worship of the Gross National Product—our Golden Calf—and in pursuit of happiness in the guise of sensual pleasure. Yet there the cross still is, propounding its unmistakable denunciation of this world and of the things of this world."

The way I came across my new heavenly friend was by means of one of his quotes on evolution, to which, of course, I also couldn’t agree more:

“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. I think I spoke to you before about this age as one of the most credulous in history, and I would include evolution as an example.”

Since there are such wonderful aspects awaiting someone like me in the afterlife, of finally actually meeting folks on the same weird wavelength as mine, I can only agree with his following statement as well:

“As I do not believe that earthly life can bring any lasting satisfaction, the prospect of

death holds no terrors.“

To round off this train of thoughts, I’ll end this with a quote from wee little me:

When even that which is considered the worst that can possibly happen to a person – death – turns out to actually be the best that can possibly happen, then what is there to fear? What is there to lose? (April 20, 2008)

--

“That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14, 15).

168 Sunday Morning Truths

Contrary to popular religion, manifested in the same style as rock-festivals or sports events where masses gather together in arenas to do things for a few hours that they wouldn't be caught dead doing anywhere else, like praise the Lord & shout Hallelujah, Jesus said that the path of truth wasn't going to be a thing for the masses, but rather that there were few who would even find it, and that many were called and few chosen.

Nothing has changed about that, as far as I have experienced, because the vast majority actually chooses to reject the truth when they hear it.

The truth, as in, how we are really supposed to serve God, namely by going out to find those who haven't found Him yet, instead of letting it all hang out in front of all our fellow believers on Sundays and show off how saintly we are.

Why I'm still addressing this point?

Because I keep experiencing it: People coming to us, claiming that they're looking for the truth, but when they actually hear it, they go, "But what I want is a place where I can get together on Sundays and confess my sins and sing a few songs... etc."

So much for "looking for the truth"

The truth, as in actually acting out your faith 7 days a week, praising and worshiping the Lord anytime and anywhere and helping others to do the same sounds much too unappealing for those who are comfortable with the Sunday-mornings-religion-truth that was fabricated over the past 17 centuries.

Comfortable and delicious truths are much more elaborately produced than those slap-in-the-face sort of truths that some Savior just comes around and slings around our ears, saying "Take it or leave it!"

Accepted and popular, politically correct truths go out of their way to make it easy for people: "You don't have to do all that hard stuff the Boss said to do: you don't actually have to forsake your belongings to live communally or tell anyone else what you believe. Why should you, when just singing some songs together and listening to a sermon can be such a comfortable replacement?

You know, the world isn't really that bad, and they don't need Jesus all hat badly, and if they want Him, they can come to our church. As for the rest of some of them, well, it's not really our fault if they don't come... You know, there really isn't room in Heaven for all of them, anyway... So, don't worry..." Zzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzz....

In my opinion, what the world doesn't need is just one more religious outfit practicing their faith in the conventional "let's get together once a week" style.

Not as badly as it needs just a handful of people really meaning business for the Lord, who when they say they "really want to do something" mean something other than just that: "Let's form another group and get together once a week."

Imagine you were running for president and the folks you hired to lead your election campaign only got together for an hour or two a week to talk about how they were going to get you elected, instead of taking to the streets with posters and fliers and talking to folks to convince them of what a cool dude you are.

Well, that's how Jesus must feel.

It seems to be so much easier to rally behind some politician who breaks his promises faster than he can make them, than behind the only One Who actually keeps His Word.

The conclusion: Liars are more popular. And whatever is popular rules, right?

Errrr.... What was that stuff again about "few there be that find it...?"

167 Welcome to the New Dark Ages!

There are still furious voices for the truth around, Hallelujah! And one of them is Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com who just inspired this post with his piece on "The Taxi Driver Who Drove Us to War."

Mind you, in our age of supposed enlightenment and nearly blinding illumination, up here on the peak of Evolution in the 21st Century, some of what these voices for truth like Raimondo have to say isn't always exactly popular, and perhaps at times downright politically incorrect.

After all, he dares to insinuate at the end of his article that we are headed for a new set of Dark Ages, instead of the long heralded New Age of blissful New World Order, enlightenment and peace and happiness for everyone.

And now, isn't that just the type of stuff we all dread to hear!

We want news of happiness and sunshine, of Nobel peace price winning presidents and starlets turning filthy rich over night, and tales of long lasting plenty and opulence for all.

After all, don't we deserve it?

- For like having made it all the way to the frosty ol' peak of Mt. Evolute?

Maybe so.

But maybe not so.

Well, I don't have to tell you why I liked that article, since any of the handful of readers of this blog know by now that my world view would rightly grant me the title "Mr. Bad News" (since "Dr. Doom" is already taken), and when I look around, I can only confirm Mr. Raimondo's observation:

Smells like Dark Ages.

Am I a pessimist?

Perhaps.

But then, if you know me, I'm also very optimistic when it comes to the ultimate destiny of our home planet.

I know we're in good hands.

The problem is, "Good Hands" also has a mouth, and His prognosis only confirms the Dark Ages forecast.

So, I'm not really a pessimist as I'm simply a believer in a different Source of information than all those false prophets of peace and fair-weather-happily-ever-after.

A much more reliable Source, as far as my personal experiences are concerned...

To put it bluntly: eventually, it seems as if sooner or later, at some point in time, some of us are probably going to die. (This may come as a shock, but cheer up, here's the good news:)

The good news is, that it may turn out to be not all too bad in case we should.

And here's why:

According to Dinesh D'Souza, the evidence for a life after death is sufficient to enable him to safely make the statement that it is both reasonable and "good for us" to believe in such.

Again, my personal Source of information has been confirming that statement and observation since just about forever.

So, cheer up! Things could be worse. And they probably will be, but only in order to get a lot better.

What is there to be grumpy about when the worst thing that could possibly happen to you (as in "kicking the bucket") is simultaneously probably the best thing that could possibly happen to you? - Unless perhaps you're on the list of those who are working so feverishly on converting our former paradise into hell on earth for a good lot of us...

And you can't evade reaping what you've sown.

(But then you're not exactly a likely candidate for reading this blog, either, so I don't have to worry about you.)

For the rest of us, it's "Bring on the night!" - Because that's what it will take in order to bring a New Dawn for real.

Again, the bad news about our new Dark Age is: it's real, and it's going to be bad.

I mean really bad: the worst ever.

The good new is: it's not going to be a very long "Dark Age" this time around, at all, because our Friend in Charge promised He's going to even shorten that time for us.

So, the proper term for what's expecting us might be: A Super-Dark Mini-Age.

That doesn't sound all that bad anymore, does it? So how's that for an amateur optimist? Am I doing good, or what?

And always keep your focus on what's coming after it! It's going to be well worth the pain in the behind that our politicians are currently bestowing upon us.

Happy Ending guaranteed!

Just be sure you only pack the essential for the journey ahead. "Travel lite!" is the slogan of the hour: Whether it's Jesus or the Inquisition coming for you, you most likely won't be able to take your furniture with you!

166 Power Corrupts!

If there is one conclusion that has to be drawn from not only my personal experiences, but also that of others with different backgrounds, stories and faiths, it is that power inevitably, and seemingly without exception, corrupts those who are ushered into it.

In some cases the corruption is manifested in the obvious ways of dictatorial and tyrannical behavior and abuse of their position for their own personal benefit. With others, the corruption takes place in the far more subtle way of compromise with the status quo of the silent majority in order to preserve the position: Former convictions and beliefs are being compromised for the sake of personal security and preservation of position and power.

While this may not be any great revelation, but simply an observation, there are implications related to this phenomenon, concerning the history of Christendom or Christianity per se, that only occurred to me in that shape last night: Another aspect of the vast difference between Christianity in the years ranging from 30 A.D. until 313, in which the Roman emperor Constantine declared it to be "okay" for anyone to be a Christian, and its role in the history that followed.

Before Christianity became officially recognized, it was actually dangerous to be a Christian. Anyone professing to be a Christian for the first 3 centuries of the existence of that faith was daily risking their lives by adhering to the teachings of Jesus. They were members of an ill-reputed sect (Acts 28:22), and the penalty for membership was often no less than a cruel public execution.
It was guaranteed back then, that anyone who would hold on to that faith until death, would also receive the promised crown of life (Rev.2:10).

Paul even went as far as saying that one could not really be a Christian without suffering persecution (2Tim.3:12).

And for nearly 3 centuries, the enemies of Christ tried to stomp out this new religion until Satan finally must have realized that it was useless, and a new tactic occurred to him: "If you can't lick'em, join'em!"

Within a few relatively short years, Christianity became something totally different, if not in some cases the actual opposite of what it had been until then.
The formerly persecuted sect became the official state religion, and the greatest proof in history of that sad fact and observation as stated above: power corrupts.

Religious minorities of often simply other variations of the Christian faith that didn't adhere to all the countless new dogmas and traditions of the Roman Catholic church that were not found in the original teachings of Christ were persecuted with the same cruelty by their "brethren" that their predecessors had experienced at the hands of the Romans.

To be a "Christian" from then on meant to be one of the in-crowd, part of the established majority, not a sufferer of persecution for his faith, but often a persecutor of others of different faiths. To be a Christian now meant something completely different than what it had meant for the original Christians of the first 3 centuries. To remain a believer until their dying day simply meant to be enjoying the privileges of power and status of the rest of society's hotshots, barely deserving the "crown of life" Jesus had promised to those who were going to bear persecution and slander for His sake until their dying day.
Of course, there have been numerous exceptions of outstanding Christians who did not conform to the status quo of the new officially recognized version of their faith, who left their home countries in order to fulfill Christ's commandment to "go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature," often to be persecuted and martyred there by the very souls they were trying to save.
But as for the vast body of what was hence called "Christendom," it went on to become the single greatest reason why a large percentage of seeking, honest minds and good people refuse to believe in a God Who would have fathered and initiated such a religion. The official representatives of Christianity became those who defied the command - among many others - of Christ to "judge not that ye be not judged (Mt.7:1)," and created the brand of religious bigotry Paul addresses in the 2nd chapter of Romans, summarized by the verdict: "'The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,' as it is written" (Rom.2:24).


Of course, it's natural to want to avoid persecution. It's natural to want to blend in and be accepted, accumulate recognition, to want to be popular. But it can also be dangerous, because if the sort of convictions are being lost in the process that once made you stand out and apart from the "norm" and made you the salt of the earth, then what did all the popularity in the world get you?

It's normal and only human to want to reign in the here and now, as well as there and then. But is it realistic? Aren't those who are promised to reign with Him those who suffer with Him (2Tim.2:12)? Isn't it so that there's no rose without a thorn, no crown without a cross?

Isn't it still so that the path unto life is narrow, and few there be that find it (Mt.7:14)? That "there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few," (1Sam.14:6) in other words, God still stubbornly refuses to be impressed by numbers?
- And that the world is still waiting for people to really make a difference and resemble the way Jesus and His disciples truly lived, and refuse to let power corrupt them?

...Just a few thoughts to take with you on your way up to the top of the hill...

165 Chronicle Of A (Small) Financial Miracle

The problem I'm having with a God Who was just supposed to have kicked off some process of evolution gazillions of years ago and then told His prophets to write down a story of creation only to be saying afterwards, "I was just kiddin' folks - I used Evolution to do it" is that He would most likely be gazillions of miles away from me. If He was too busy to be involved in the creation of at least the first man (and woman), the way the Bible said He was, but instead let man gradually evolve from a looooooong line of monkeys and other mammals, reptiles and tadpoles, making who or whatever was capable of being called the first man resemble a cross between Frankenstein and King Kong rather than the image of God Almighty, then He would also be way too busy to count the hairs on our heads the way Jesus said He would, and make that statement just another one of countless lies, exaggerations and "not-so's" in the Bible.

Certainly He'd be to busy to be involved in my financial problems, and one of the first chapters I'd have to rip out of my New Testament would be Matthew 6, in which Jesus admonishes His disciples not to live for physical things, but promises that if they would seek first the Kingdom of God, all these things would be added unto them.

Not that that chapter would have much actual relevance in the lives of probably 99% of existing Christians in the 21st century. But it does to me. It has, ever since I met the Family International at the age of 13. I had been reading the New Testament on my way to school and got so turned on about it that I got in trouble even with the leaders of our local faith community because I told the parents of one of my school mates that I took Matthew 6 literally (and they called up the community inquiring whether I was the only loony).

Many local community leaders later I still believe in it.

I remember the time in Argentina in 1984 when my future wife, another team member and I traveled 3000 km within 3 weeks for our radio show, having 50 Dollars in our pockets, and never having spent one dime of them. Actually, we returned with more than what we had left with, and yet we had traveled in comfortable buses, spent the nights in pensions or hotels and had 3 meals a day in different restaurants, all donated. We held meetings for our listeners in half a dozen different towns in halls, hotel lobbies or similar places without having to pay a dime for their usage.

I know what it means when God says "I have set before thee an open door that no man can shut."

That's why I get so upset when "Christians" call Him a liar and say, "No, He was just kidding in the Bible, and we can scientifically prove it."

Probably if I were a professor at some university teaching my students all the many reasons why Charles Darwin makes more sense than all the prophets in the Bible put together, I'd have to believe my own b...sh.t, too in order to be able to live with myself.

Perhaps fortunately for some and unfortunately for most, I don't receive a big check at the end of the month for pursuing any such activity.

One of the few things I have done for a living in order to help God a little bit keep that Promise about "all these things shall be added unto you" has been to play a little bit of music every now and then. And the older you get, the more you can relate to the old chieftain in "Little Big Man" in the "Good day to die" scene where he performs the magic ritual in preparation for his entrance into the eternal hunting grounds: "Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't."

This past month was one of those months when "it doesn't," since we didn't have a single gig, and the bills kept coming anyway.

We have those months every once in a while, and so far, He has always done it and never let us down. Did I mention that I faithfully give my tithe ever since I earned my first income at the age of 17 before I bid my mom goodbye to follow Jesus?

I know God wasn't kidding either about His Promise "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10). Some say it's "unscriptural" to tithe. Well, I'm not the right person to be taught that sort of theology. I might just tell you in your face, "Man, why don’t you be honest and just admit that you're stingy?"

Once in Spain in 1980 I had to come up with my daily contribution to the rent of the local community I had just joined and had to "pioneer" and open up new singing contacts in a town where I had just tried to do so a few days earlier with a partner to no avail. I was pretty desperate. God likes us to get desperate sometimes. So I prayed, and I received that verse. Sure enough, at the end of the night my pockets were bursting with cash, and I had been blessed with 15 times the amount I needed.

He had not forsaken me.

The funny thing is, though, that no matter how often these miracles happen, you always tend to forget them, and as soon as the due date for the rent is in sight and the cash is not around, nor any gig on the schedule that promises to bring it in, one starts wondering and whining again, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

It's like that film "50 First Dates," in which a girl with extreme memory loss had to be wooed each day anew by her lover.

So I decided to write down this month's miracle while it's happening, to make sure I won't forget it next time:

On Monday we somehow realized that we had the money for our utilities bill (water and electricity) and so transferred that money, leaving us at zero: "Welcome to Rock Bottom Club!"

We still had to come up with our rent, though. This was a job for Super-God. But we knew we had to do our part, too.

So we decided to follow up on some contacts and spent about an hour witnessing to the owner of a local gravestone company, who seemed thankful that we brought a little light into his confusion. "Thanks," he said! "One never knows what to believe anymore these days."

When we wanted to move on, we realized we weren't going to get very far with our summer tires in the snow, So we turned around, stopped by a junkyard in the nearby Swiss town of Schaffhausen, and the owner donated 4 pretty decent winter tires, which Sparkles, my better half and also the better mechanic between the two of us, mounted the next morning at a friend's place who owns the local Toyota garage.

On that day we couldn't go witnessing because I had a guitar pupil coming in and our daughter had school theater rehearsals, meaning we had to stay with our dog, so our adventure continued on Wednesday.

We didn’t get very far that day before I felt like I needed a coffee as we walked through the closest larger size town. So we stopped at a restaurant whose owner Sparkles knew and who might donate a coffee since we were still broke...

We showed the owner lady our new Christmas CD and were going to leave it for her to listen to. But she didn't want to let us go without paying for it, and in the process also bought two more of our CDs for her son.

We had just become richer by the sum of one sixth of our rent.

On our way home we passed by another restaurant Sparkles knew and the owner lady said she had just been thinking about her. She also gladly took a Christmas CD and gave us a bottle of Uruguayan wine on top of it...

On Thursdays we have a small prison ministry in a German town that's about 40 km from our place where we visit and sing for a group of 5 to 10 prisoners. On our way there we passed by a gas station belonging to a very sweet couple who had called earlier this week saying that they would like to have our Christmas CD (we had sent out an email on Monday attaching one of the best songs from it, something we’ll keep doing until Christmas), and so they gave us another donation that brought us a bit closer to the full amount of our due rent, along with a Swiss highway vignette (a yearly sticker you need on your car in order to be able to use Swiss highways).

When we returned home later that evening, another person had bought our Christmas CD online, and we were slooowly but surely getting toward about half our rent.

This morning, Sparkles went to visit a friend she sees regularly, and he just so happened to be inspired to help us with another sixth of our rent, plus a new 4 GB USB stick smaller than a finger nail (he's a shop owner)...

Then in the afternoon some unexpected visitors came: a very sweet couple from a nearby Swiss division of our faith community stormed in unannounced and said they wanted to leave us a gift, which turned out to be yet another third of our rent. There is a God, and He loves us.

Finally, (after a break of about a year or so), Sparks and I grabbed our guitar and took it to some Restaurants we had played in when we had hit previous dry spells. The last few times had been another example of when the magic doesn't work. But tonight it did.

The rent was in!

And when we got home we found out that another sweet couple from our Family had sent us another generous donation in appreciation of our German albums which we've made available for free download, and now we're just about able to pay our upcoming health insurance bill, too.

Of course, we know people who have testimonies of how God supplied hundreds of thousands of Euros or dollars for them, and these are probably easier to remember than those little miracles that keep us going and prove to us over and over again that He loves us and won't forsake us, in spite of the mess we are.

Perhaps that’s why I just can’t bring myself to believe that He’s just supposed to have flipped a switch to turn on the evolutionary machinery and then headed for the highlands to leave us evolving and fending for ourselves. Either God’s philosophy is “survival of the fittest,” or “The meek shall inherit the earth” – it can hardly be both.

Well, if you would like to become part of the continuing miracle of our simple faith life, you'll find the "donate" button on our site, so feel free. Rest assured that every small gift will be genuinely appreciated.

And if you should not yet have experienced personally that God is not too far away or too busy to help you make it through your financial dry periods, perhaps our little testimony managed to encourage you. If He did it for us, there's no doubt He'll do it for you.

164 Evolution by Numbers (Open Letter to an Atheist)

Dear Scott,

first of all I want to thank you for having replied to my recent comment in such a calm, kind and patient manner. It has confirmed to me once again that atheists, as different in their world views from my own as they may be, sometimes possess the very "Christian" attributes of kindness and patience, etc., that we, the believers, aren't exactly always famous for.

Probably a large part of the world doubts the existence of our God at least in part due to to our failure to behave the way He would want us to.

But you have to see our dilemma: We're up against a huge construct, the matrix of science, that has left very little room for an excuse for living for our kind, the ones you refer to as those possessing "medieval" views. While others may refer to religion as the matrix that holds certain people captive (and I strongly agree when it comes to many of the dogmas of the established churches and religions), what bothers me is that a large part of what is being conveyed as "facts" on behalf of the scientific community is in actuality a far cry from the right to be referred to as thus, and is often only a theory at best (if it is based on observation) or (if not) some paradigm based on yet another assumption that we are never told how vague it actually is.

In my opinion, the authority that a lot of our current science apparatus is based on, is raw power: man power fueled by the gigantic flow of resources poured into the effort to uphold and elaborate on the philosophy and theory that has become the only acceptable one in our society. In my opinion, it is comparable to the force dictatorial regimes such as the Soviets under Stalin, the Nazis under Hitler or the Communists under Mao have used, to only name a few, and coincidentally, the paradigm of Evolution is the one common factor between those regimes and our supposedly free democratic world.

Thus you can perhaps understand how frustrating it may be to fend against your giant construct when all we, the Creationists have, is one chapter of a Book that is supposed to give us the only alternative, which seems totally absurd in the light of what the scientific community claims are the facts.

I want to thank you also for pointing out the one argument which in your opinion speaks in favor of the existence of our God, and you're doubtlessly right that without having personally experienced the Presence and Power of such a God, I would not be wasting my time on writing this.

One thing however, you seem to have ignored completely about my previous comments, and that is the issue of the discovery of information as a necessary ingredient for any formerly conceived as "simple" or even simplest life form, and the fact that never in the history of mankind has any force or process been observed that should have brought forth information from lifeless matter without an author.

It is here where the Bible gives us a clue that confirms this. It starts out with the same three words as that infamous first chapter of the Bible that makes those who take the rest of the Book literally the laughing stock of the scientific community, "In the beginning...," but then continues with the thought, "...was the Word." A word (Greek: logos) is a means to transmit or convey information, and the German Creation scientist Dr. Werner Gitt has elaborated on this further in his book "In the Beginning was Information."

So, we - the community of believers in the Author of that Information - know that at the beginning of creation (you may prefer to call it the universe) there was, evidently, Information. And I'm talking information not of the kind that a bunch of chimpanzees could have randomly produced by hacking away on typewriters for gazillions of years (very lousy argument, btw.), but specific information necessary to produce a functioning universe with complex life, written in the specific language or code that the existing receptors of that information were (and continue to be in every cell of your body) able to process. we're not talking Hamlet here, but something far more complex.

Now, you and your distinguished colleagues from the science community tell us that there is nothing that a few billion or trillion years could not accomplish, along with a little bit of luck, and, well, perhaps the aid of an infinite amount of parallel universes to keep trying their luck at this cosmic casino, which happened to enable ours to hit the jackpot.

In other words, the difference between your Gospel and ours is, "In the beginning there was time." Lots of it. I mean really, lots and lots of it. So much time in fact, that it is totally impossible for us to comprehend it, seeing that even the alleged 6000 years of world history the Bible comes up with seem like a dozen eternities to us. So much time that it would sound utterly ridiculous to even start arguing against it.

The power of your argument then lies in, as I stated above, in the sheer power of numbers:

1. The astronomical sum of money that has been poured into keeping the evolutionary science apparatus alive over more than a century (Apparently the Vatican isn't the only entity dedicated to financing religious beliefs). It would probably be no exaggeration and perhaps even modest to speculate that a dollar or ten or even a hundred for every year that is supposed to have passed since the Big Bang may have been just what kept that theory being drilled into every earth child's head for the past 70 years.

2. The legions of employees of those resources: teachers, media personnel, professors, palaeontologists, archaeologists, geologists and members of other sciences who only stand a chance to last in their profession if they obediently allow their findings to confirm the existing paradigm (What happened to some of those who didn't can be seen in Ben Stein's movie "Epelled - No Intelligence Allowed!"

3. And, as mentioned before, the number of years it is supposed to have taken for "all of this" (= Evolution) to have taken place. - A number, by the way, which seems to be subject to the same sort of inflation over the decades as the currencies that keep the theory blasting in living rooms and class rooms alike.

Let's be honest, Scott: We are very easily impressed by numbers. With numbers that you and your colleagues come up with, it's easy to stay calm. I'm having to struggle to even pay my rent, because nobody wants to support a lunatic who seriously believes in the biblical account of Creation. It is definitely safer to swim with the current of the mainstream of the evolutionary matrix. - Especially since I'm not part of the machinery of the religious establishment matrix, either.

The only thing I've got going for me is a God Who couldn't care less about numbers and all the odds against Him and His Cause. He has always, throughout history (the history that you wouldn't seriously grant us, because you've read dozens of book that told you "It wasn't really so...") - well, throughout what we believe to be history, in that case - won His battles with one or two or a handful of people against largely superior armies.

If I'm wrong and you're right, then the wielders of the sheer power of wealth, mass and numerical superiority may have the world for good, and our brand of lunatics will disappear before long (especially since it's our brand of people that is coming dangerously close to be branded as the sort of "terrorists" that are to blame for all the evils in this world, soon to justify a new, global kind of holocaust).

However, if - against all the astronomic odds - I and my brothers and sisters should turn out to be right, after all, it shall be the meek, not the dinosaurs, who will inherit the earth.