Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Peter M. Leschak: Getting back to fundamentalism


Peter Leschak is a graduate of Ambassador College Big Sandy is a long-time firefighter and respected author of numerous books on firefighting with many of them including snippets of his life in Armsgrongism.

Getting back to fundamentalism

Peter Leschak   


“Twenty-nine years ago, as the Voyager 1 probe neared the edge of our solar system bound for interstellar space, NASA directed it to photograph the Earth from 4 billion miles away. The picture is known as “the pale blue dot.” Our planet was barely detectable, about a single pixel in an image that astronomer Carl Sagan described as “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

From the lush surface of our world, its vulnerability is not apparent. By outer space standards, even the South Pole is extravagantly hospitable, but the “pale blue dot” expressed how infinitesimal we are in the cosmos. That Voyager scarcely picked out the earth from relatively nearby offers insight into how toilsome it is to find planets orbiting other stars. Despite the technological advances of the 20th century, the first “exoplanet” was not discovered until 1992.

It was a significant scientific achievement, but no surprise. As an astronomy enthusiast in the 1960s, I gazed at the stars and assumed our galaxy must be teeming with planets. Our sun had nine, and surely it couldn’t be the only one among the staggering multibillions of stars. That wasn’t a scientific deduction, but also no great conceptual leap for a child of the Space Age who had proof that the stars were other suns.

How wildly different for Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) the Renaissance philosopher and monk, who without observational evidence deduced that the stars were suns and they must have planets. He also said they were inhabited. One of his books, “On the Infinite Universe and Worlds,” contained the sentence, “There is in the universe neither center nor circumference,” thus anticipating by over three centuries the work of luminaries such as Albert Einstein. For that and other heresies, he was burned at the stake by the Inquisition.

Is it more remarkable that Bruno conjured such keen insights or that he terrified the Inquisitors? “Remarkable” in the literal sense, “worthy of mention.” After all, Bruno was acutely religious, tending to mysticism; his pronouncement could’ve been magical thinking — a wild lucky guess — no more scientific than my childhood assumption of “it must be” or an imaginative plot device by a sci-fi novelist. Why should people feel threatened? They were, and that is remarkable.

In my adolescence I belonged to a fundamentalist Christian sect, subject to a strict code of behavior regulating every facet of life. Outsiders aware of our rules and doctrines considered them strange and oppressive. Why live under a totalitarian regime that dictated menus, hairstyles, sexual practices and reading lists, not to mention thoughts and ideas? For most insiders, however, including myself, the system was congenial. For a while.

I attended one of the sect’s colleges, a bucolic campus in the East Texas woods, an alternate reality fashioned to reflect what the entire world was supposed to be when our god’s plan waxed triumphant. Yes, we sometimes chafed under the strictures, but what kept us more or less happily in the fold (and happiness was mandatory) was a potent sense of belonging, a heady glow of earned righteousness, and a conviction of personal and collective exceptionalism. Everything was certain and we were the chosen. I had yet to discern, as Judge Learned Hand noted: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.”

Ironically, or perhaps inevitably, it was in that restricted, rigorously enforced dreamland where many members comprehended the power of ideas: They could indeed threaten. If you value seamless fraternity, undoubted rectitude and special consideration from the divine, then everyone must stay on the same page. Doubt is contagious and toxic, the “new” is shocking, dissenting opinions are destabilizing and it all sums up to heresy. Heresy is to an authoritarian community as a suicide bomber is to a crowded cafĂ©.

Being locked in the bosom of the sect was congenial because it was mentally safe and comfortable — so long as it remained isolated from change. But human society, the biosphere, and the universe itself do not long tolerate isolation and stability. Questions arise. Opinions develop. Attitudes evolve. Perspectives budge. Minds expand. Winds shift. Orbits stutter. Heresy happens, and the establishment implicitly understands that criticism must be expunged. But Bruno at the stake only expunged Bruno, not his ideas.

All attempts to preserve a closed society are eventually doomed. The universe will not abide it, no matter what society espouses. The Inquisition is gone and a bronze statue honoring Bruno stands in the Roman square where he was burned.

I once wrote a respectful but mildly dissenting letter to a member of the college faculty, a doctor of education. It was handwritten in black ink. His reply was in blue ink, and he wrote over my letter on the same page, thus literally blotting out my words with his own. Unfolding the sheet was chilling. The medium was certainly the message: your thoughts, it shouted, are not even worthy of a civil reply; they are contemptible. My letter was mutilated. Could my body be far behind? It’s not too far-fetched to imagine that only the consequences inherent in the secular legal system prevented it. In a small way, I had an inkling of Bruno’s plight.

The doctor’s reply was juvenile, and I was struck by a sentence in professor H.A. Overstreet’s book “The Mature Mind,” which was widely read at the time: “A person remains immature, whatever his age, as long as he thinks of himself as an exception to the human race.”

Ideas, of course, are intangible, but the fear they engender is rooted in the potential for action. If people act in response to an idea, conditions change. Witness the recent tipping point regarding same-sex marriage in the United States. We are resistant to change because during humanity’s tenure on this planet, change has often been deadly: volcanic eruptions, drought, plague, etc., could and did wipe out entire communities. The invention and propitiation of deities was one defense, but if the existence or efficacy of a deity (also intangible) was called into question, the anxiety of ideological conflict ensued. One more damn thing. Who needed it?

I despise the Inquisition, but can understand it was easier to honor Bruno with a statue in 1889 than it was to openly discuss his ideas in 1600. As a society we are now more tolerant, perhaps because we feel more secure. But is that sense of security slipping? If so, will that breed a resurgence of intolerance? Has it done so already?

Four centuries after Bruno’s execution, the roles of science and religion have reversed, at least in the West. The insights of science have steadily undermined religious faith, affording ever fewer knowledge “gaps” in which to fit the supernatural. No one has “all the answers,” but a literal interpretation of the Judeo-Christian Bible now demands an almost herculean capacity for denial. Millions of Americans manage to do it.

One of the forces that ushered President Donald Trump into power was the “evangelical vote.” The slogan “make America great again” is vague enough to encompass anything, but it seems that to many voters it means re-imposing the primacy of religion over science — breaching the wall of separation between church and state. Recall, the framers of the U.S. Constitution were no friends of theocracy; many were not even professing Christians. “If there were no priests,” wrote Thomas Jefferson, “there would be no infidels.”

Contemporary evangelical fundamentalists view separation as an obstacle to their political aims, the bedrock of which is a theocracy, either de facto or de jure. The theocratic movement encourages the denigration of science — for example, the denial of climate disruption as a hoax, the demonization of the principles of evolution. For those who are puzzled by the devotion of Trump’s base, know that many of them believe he is a chosen instrument of God. Evangelical leader Mike Evans is typical when he compares Trump to the “Biblical Cyrus,” a heathen “used as an instrument of God for deliverance … using him in an incredible, amazing way to fulfill his plans and purposes.”

Theocrats regard science as a modern religion, opposed to more traditional faiths and therefore on equal footing before the law. Not so. Scientific claims are falsifiable — can be rigorously tested — doctrinal claims are not. In any free society, the secular and the religious must be legally distinct. If not, brace for the Inquisition. That is a lesson of history the Framers understood. All are free to express their religious ideals, but no one is free to impose them on others via government.

There is a giant instrument being designed — the High Definition Space Telescope — that could very well detect evidence of life on exoplanets. If so, Bruno wouldn’t be surprised to hear it, nor would he likely be shocked to know that religious fundamentalists are still at war with science.”

--------------------

Books by Peter M. Leschak


87 comments:

DennisCDiehl said...

Beautifully stated and absolutely true. Thanks for introducing us to Peter Leschak.

"Sit down before the facts as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing"

Thomas Huxley

Tonto said...

Most important line in the post...
"All attempts to preserve a closed society are eventually doomed. The universe will not abide it, no matter what society espouses."

It is for this reason and others, that sects like the Amish , become increasingly irrelevant to the societies around them. By attempting to stay froze in time, circa 1800, they get bypassed in relevance and become obsolete and unrelatable to the general populace.

The COG is doing the same thing, staying stuck in 1967 and refusing to modernize its models, styles, and culture. Like the Amish, it has lost the ability to practice "creative destruction" that would allow it to be relevant to modern society.

It is not a matter of changing morality or core doctrine. There needs to be the realization that the COG of today, would be unrecognizable to 1st century Christians in terms of dress , social interaction, custom and practice. There is nothing sacred about 1967 dress codes, Dwight Armstrong Hymns, Centralized worldwide headquarters, or hierarchical top/down for life governance.

Anonymous said...

His toxic environment didn't deny him the ability to build a relationship with God through prayer and bible study. And especially after leaving Herbs church. An evil church can cause some to initially stumble, but a longer life span gives most another chance. People such as this author are spiritual failures, and God does not accept their excuses.

PS, often there's information hidden away in such accounts. God might have answered some of their prayers to establish a relationship with them. Which they then shrugged off.

Anonymous said...

9:07 " People such as this author are spiritual failures, and God does not accept their excuses.'

“Little people need to belittle.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

Anonymous said...

Tonto said... “There is nothing sacred about 1967 dress codes, Dwight Armstrong Hymns, Centralized worldwide headquarters, or hierarchical top/down for life governance.”

Amen to that brother! I just read a similar comment from Neil Roy an ex-LCG member on the “Trust & Obey” sermon video posted about previously. He said:

The last time I tried to attend, I was literally yelled at by a woman because I did not have a suit on. My clothes were clean and respectable, but that was the last straw for me. I do not attend the Sabbath to be screamed at by the deacon's wife no less. When asked to produce clear scripture to back up a clothing doctrine I was literally lied to by the minister at that time. I have no other words to describe it when the minister quotes HALF a verse to backup a clothing doctrine when the last half of the verse he left out, clarified that the verse was not about clothing. The same church totally ignored verses which tell the church to accept people who attend, even if they are dressed in filthy rags.

A minor thing I realize, but one cannot ignore these things when you are yelled at by someone in the middle of the meeting in front of everyone. She didn't come to me privately and quietly, she made sure everyone heard her. It upset me quite a bit, I ended up leaving and was almost suicidal that day I was so troubled. But I got over it. So I sincerely hope that some of the churches doctrines which cannot be backed up by Scripture, but were merely adopted from the Worldwide days are reviewed and examined under t he light of what Scripture actually says rather than the traditions of men as this sort of thing, especially clothing doctrines will drive people away, especially poor people whom Jesus commanded we should help.”


I felt so sorry for him and totally agree. Why can’t we dress in shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops when we go to services on a hot day?! Is God really focusing on our dress or our attitudes?! I didn’t know the American dress of the 50s was the Biblical ideal and commanded as a requirement for services by God. So delusional!

Anonymous said...

1:52am, you are correct 9:07's post belittles Leschak just as Leschak belittles those he disagrees with and just as your comment belittles 9:07.

Trotman's comment can apply to anyone with a differing opinion, and is often used to suppress opinions.

9:07 has as much right to an opinion as you do, and as Leschak does, without being labeled!

Anonymous said...

“Wretched are those preoccupied with insulting, belittling and discrediting others.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

Anonymous said...

God doesn't accept the "excuses" because God does not exist. So there is no problem here. Flee cults and gods in every form, and live a grand life according to your own will.

jim said...

I don't understand much of the purpose in posting this article. I appreciated parts of it, but it also displays a mind that doesn't acknowledge the spiritual aspects of humans. It leads to thinking Science is always right, at least in its method and influence. This too is contrary to the fine quote of Learned Hand regarding Liberty.

Without liberty, God is diminished and humans are dehumanized. Just as the Professor would brook no quarter to a questioning of beliefs, it sounds like the author's view of Science does the same.
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." And, there is Life.
The seemingly inconsequential presence of man on this planet and in this universe has long been considered. David in Psalms rhetorically asks, "What is man that Thou should be mindful of him?" But, David knows the Creator has chosen to be mindful of those He has created and given Life. So much deadness for light years around us and yet we have Life, even sentient Life. The vastness of the universe and its deadness with untold numbers of burning fire balls cannot match Life. The Voyager II was sent out into the cold deadness to see what it may, and at a great distance turned and could scarcely make out where there was Life. Yet, on this tiny "mote of dust within a sun ray" the Lord places before us Life or Death. Life and Liberty seem to be at the crux of the answer to most of the questions.

Anonymous said...

"I appreciated parts of it, but it also displays a mind that doesn't acknowledge the spiritual aspects of humans. It leads to thinking Science is always right, at least in its method and influence. This too is contrary to the fine quote of Learned Hand regarding Liberty."

I appreciated parts of Jim's comment, but he also displays a mind that doesn't understand understand "science." The dogmatic mind looks around and sees dogma everywhere, even where it does not exist. He cannot imagine anyone else being anything other than just as dogmatic as he is. But science is not driven forward by what it gets right—technology and commerce is driven by that.

Instead, it is driven forward by what it gets wrong, by finding its errors, in which we, collectively, as an entire species, failed to imagine the universe as it could be, as it is, and as it must be. The human mind is not well-suited to understanding the universe in which we exist, and there are few of them which have had any success at predicting observations that would later be confirmed. What to the universe must seem as obvious as a straight line is to the human mind as a labyrinth of astonishing twists and turns. It is only through the iterative re-imagining by the best and brightest that we understand the earth is not flat, the sky is not a bronze dome, and the gods really do play dice.

What has religion and "the spiritual aspects of humans" given us? Did it not lead to thinking that religion was always right? Able to tolerate only what was imaginable by feeble minds, for millennia it burned the best and the brightest at the stake. Able to accept only stagnant and putrid dogmatism, it consigned us to ignorance. No one claims to be able to read human minds, but the religious routinely claim to be able to read the very minds of the gods themselves! And that absurdity being a foregone conclusion, is it then possible that "the spiritual aspects of humans" could ever be wrong about anything?

Here a little and there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept, Jim gives away the game that he is peeved by science for no other reason than that it interferes with his ability to think that his religion is always right, and that his complaint is nothing more than the projection of his own dogmatic mind. So much for his opinion of the Learned Hand of Liberty! That was just something that seemed to him in the moment as a useful cudgel.

Anonymous said...

I recall Leschak and his girlfriend. It was at a time at AC/BS when there was a growing faction of dissenters. What I remember most, of course, is what my personal position was in all of this. I was an AC employee and did blue collar work. I wore an AC employees uniform - white shirt and blue pants. And I found myself in an odd place in regard to the student body.

The dissenter students did not like me (and others of my type). When I was around them they became aloof and sullen. In retrospect, I wonder if the uniform was off-putting. I barely knew some of these people and seldom interacted with them. Yet, the hostility was palpable. These people, for all their intellectual pretensions, seemed to be too simple minded to recognize that I was just a young guy trying to do a job.

For the non-dissenting faction, the largest, they became aloof and sullen around me because they were Priestly Caste and I was Worker Caste. Nobody was more acutely aware of this caste distinction than young Armstrongists who had been newly inducted into the Caste System with the special status if conferred on them.

The result was that people like me were not liked by either faction, Conformers or Dissenters, and so we existed in an environment of daily hostility. I was 23 years old, college educated and was undergoing a personal internal revolution regarding my relationship with the WCG. I was discovering with disappointment that the implementation of Armstrongism, exemplified at AC, was much different from the idealism presented from the pulpit. For me, and I think others like me, AC was a place of darkness and shadows - I felt like I was Odysseus in the underworld.

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

Leschak's observations about the fundamentalist mindset ring true. Christians will always be on the defensive and will continue to suffer defeat after bruising defeat as long as they pit their faith against science. They fail to see that setting this up as a contest between faith and science ensures their coming up on the losing side of the contest! The gaps must continue to shrink and disappear as we explore and learn, and what if someday they disappear altogether? Where does that leave the person whose religion is based on explaining/filling in the gaps in human understanding?
What happens to one's faith when history and dna conclusively demonstrate that the Anglo-Saxon peoples cannot be the physical descendants of Abraham? You can bury your head in the sand and ignore the evidence, or you can accept the evidence and modify your belief system accordingly. What happens to a person's faith when it can be easily demonstrated that a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of creation is impossible? If experience has taught us anything, it is that the fundamentalist view of scripture and religion is unsustainable. Hence, if theism (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) are to survive they MUST learn to accommodate science and scholarly criticism. Defending the indefensible is NOT a long-term strategy.
How does one refute the irrefutable? "All attempts to preserve a closed society are eventually doomed. The universe will not abide it, no matter what society espouses." Try to challenge that! All of the available evidence supports this statement!
Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that Leschak is also right about evangelicals with regard to sustaining a democratic republic. He observed "In any free society, the secular and the religious must be legally distinct. If not, brace for the Inquisition. That is a lesson of history the Framers understood. All are free to express their religious ideals, but no one is free to impose them on others via government." We all understand that when you see your view as moral/right/righteous that there is an almost natural inclination on our part to want to see that view prevail - to have it adopted society wide; BUT things do NOT work that way in a democratic republic. Consensus must be the way forward. You are entitled to believe that God mandates marriage as consisting of one man and one woman, but a human society and secular state are entitled to define it (marriage) however they decide to define it!

jim said...

8:36,

I'm sorry that my post came across that way to you. However, I think you jumped too quickly on my understanding of science as I referred to Science as being viewed as always right in "its method and influence". I fully understand that science can be wrong in its findings and still be viewed as right as it is an advancing system as you describe. I understand all that as I have b.s. in engineering and have developed programs for teaching of the scientific method and recognizing the actual breadth and usage of its elements (e.g. the evidence required for a theory being all too often misunderstood). However, too many believe that Science should be the arbiter of all belief and I disagree. As Bruno was right without objective findings, Science could not support him at that point. It cannot support or disprove various other beliefs right now either.

Those disbelieving religion have destroyed more of the best and brightest than have the religious; the 20th century alone proves that. But, rigid dogmas have all been wrong. Further, the "spiritual aspects" of humans are often wrong as you suggest, but they do exist and are part of what makes us human; I tend to support that.

You wouldn't find me to be the dogmatic character you've ascribed for me and I wasn't attributing such dogmatism to the author either, though I suspect he does greatly devalues the spiritual aspect of humans. I'm more interested in the Life that has been created and is offered. I'm not concerned that science is going to change that. Life and the Creator speak for themselves much more persuasively.

Anonymous said...

Just how trustworthy is science?

https://retractionwatch.org

Anonymous said...

The text below is from this site~

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:British_Israelism/Archive_2

I'm not so sure the DNA evidence is as clear cut as anti-BI want it to be.

...............................


There is DNA evidence (or lack of it supporting BI
I'll put this here for now I suppose.

The predominant Y Haplogroup of the Anglo-Saxon / Celtics people of the earth is unquestionably R1b. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b

"However, as Barbara Arredi and colleagues were the first to point out, the distribution of R1b microsatellite variance in Europe forms a cline from east to west, which is more consistent with an entry into Europe from Western Asia with the spread of farming"

The British-Israel message isn't about finding genetic association with modern Jewry. The tenet is the tribes taken captive by the King of Assyria made their way west and north, and settled along the North Sea as Scots, Picts, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Danes et al. Is there evidence of R1b in modern Jewry? Yes, in the Sephardi Jews.. upwards of 30%. Wilfred Brown (talk) 02:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Anonymous said...

Neither science and especially not religion can explain pi known as 3.14159265358.....
It is a "irrational number," meaning its exact value is unknowable.

Computers have calculated billions of digits of pi, but no recognizable pattern emerges in the succession of its digits. The digits of pi continue on the procession all the way to infinity.

Mathematicians, both modern and those from long ago found the entire concept of pi as irrational. It struck them as an affront to the omniscience of God, for how could the Almighty know everything if numbers exist that are inherently unknowable?

pi is a circle, and like life it takes us full course on a journey. One cannot know the path because life is like a river, twisting and turning from the mouth to the end course. This meandering ratio of 'twisting and turning is the length of our lives. The more twisting and turning the more the meandering ratio increases.

In conclusion, the more twisting and turning you go through life, the more you gain from your experiences. You complete your journey as planned. Is this God? You decide.

Personally I believe religion takes us off this course. Its like the devil as known by the WCG. The creature takes us off course so that we cannot achieve our true purpose here on earth. Religion does not serve God, it serves men who made THEIR gods in THEIR OWN image.

Anonymous said...

MillerJones December 5, 2019 at 12:01 PM

Very distinct comment. Excellent, to your credit.

Anonymous said...

With respect the Founding Fathers created a Christian constitutional republic not a secular “democratic republic.” There is a big difference.

Anonymous said...

TPT wrote that pi

is a "irrational number," meaning its exact value is unknowable.

That's not what "irrational number" means at all. The value of pi is knowable precisely. It is the value of a circle's circumference divided by its diameter. However, while we know its value precisely, that value cannot be expressed as a fraction. There is nothing mysterious about this, as we can say the same about the square root of 2 and the square root of 3, each of which is irrational just as is pi.

Anonymous said...

What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious experience concerning unexpected emotions.

Anonymous said...

Anon December 5, 2019 at 1:17 PM

Look in the mirror. Do you see dark skin as in Middle Eastern?

The truth is here. https://hwarmstrong.com/blog/2019/09/21/who-are-the-assyrians/

The article you posted has a disclaimer that reads:Replacement of 'Skepticism' with 'Controversial'
Currently this article is marked as within the scope of the Wikiproject Skepticism. This is misguided.

This article should have it's 'skeptical' marker changed to 'controversial'.

British-Israel is first and foremost an interpretation of Biblical scripture. The 'religious movement' aspect of BI is merely a group or groups of people that believe these interpretations, and publicly express the same. Without these scriptural beliefs, there is no British-Israel. While there may be some non-religious groups that believe the same things, they are not British-Israel.

BI does not fall under the definition of theory. Although it may be part of a larger Philosophy (Christianity), it's relatively smaller number of current and past adherents, as compared to say Catholicism, is completely irrelevant to make it 'skeptical'.

_________________

Posting bullshit does not maker it true but does tell us a lot about the extent that the acog's will go to rope in ignorant people into the movement.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (1:17) "The British-Israel message isn't about finding genetic association with modern Jewry."

Apparently, British-Israelism has had to back away from genetics and focus on migrational patterns. The latter does not support the family connections that would have to exist based on the Biblical genealogies for BI to be true. Just because some people migrated from east to west across Europe supports nothing in particular about racial background. The switch to focusing on migration is to assert and argument of great weakness.

For BI to be true, the Jews and the British must be of the same haplogroup since Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh are descended from Jacob. They must all bear Jacob's haplogroup. And, of course, they do not. The R1b British are a part of the great east to west migration of Steppe Pastoralists that populated Europe from Russian to Ireland.

All Jewish groups contain other haplogroups such as G, R, E and others. This does not reflect their main genetic history but indicates that they absorbed Gentiles. The end of the matter is that Jews are haplogroup J in origin and the British are haplogroup R1b. Some Native American and Black African tribes contain a significant fraction of haplogroup R like the Sephardim. I wonder if he BI fans would like to claim a connection to them?

The incontrovertible genetic evidence is that British-Israelism is false no matter what migrations might have taken place.

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

Thank you for the kind comment, Painful Truth.
Anonymous 12/5 @3:28,
Sounds like you've been reading way too much of Cal Thomas' and Glen Beck's version of American History! While most of our founding fathers would have considered themselves to be Christian, they certainly did not fit the modern fundamentalist/evangelical mold. Thomas Jefferson rejected miracles and wrote his own version of the New Testament. The truth is that most of our founding fathers were true creatures of the Enlightenment - more in the category of what many Christians today would characterize as deists or liberal Christians.
They not only rejected the European political systems of that day - they also rejected the notion of having a state religion. Hence, while the Bill of Rights included freedom of religion as one of our enumerated rights, their writings clearly reflect their belief that no group or person should ever be allowed to impose their beliefs on the whole.

Byker Bob said...

My question for 1:17 is how much mayonnaise can you add to mustard until it is no longer mustard? Is it enough to note that a race of people has a small percentage of a certain dna to specifically label them as that race, in lieu of all their other racial heretages? For certain, that dna has been kept alive, but the race has in reality been assimilated, or in the parlance of the Bible, "Samaritanized".

In your opinion, do the prophecies in the Bible referring to the Jews and Israelites also directly include and affect Samaritans? Samaritans were probably a higher percentage tribal Israel than anyone of British or white American heretage. How about all of the Ishmaelites? The descendants of the illegitimate children of Lot and his daughters? One could also interpret your major premise as "Everyone is everything." And, that's about the only way to make any sense of the Armstrongian national identities. Under your rules or logic, the Lemba tribe and the Ethiopians are correct in claiming that they are the Israelites!

Of course, if I were an Armstrongite, I'd think that that was all cool, because it's about the only way you can bend and twist things to make it appear that HWA was right, and that the end will be coming in 3-5 years. Of course, you'll still have that little problem that today is 7 Kislev, 5780. So 3-5 years is more like 220 years. Oh well. who said that beliefs were required to be reality-based?

BB

Anonymous said...

The Painful Truth (1:17)

Its hard to believe this started with a discussion of Pete Leschak.

You are confusing the properties of the priori world with the real world. The real number systems consists of mostly irrationals. In the previous sentence the term "real" means not imaginary (imaginary involves the square root of -1). The fact that irrational numbers, like Pi, go on and on indicates that the reals are capable of infinite refinement. They may be carried out to as many decimal places as you want. It is kind of like asking how small is small. But this is a priori. For the operation of the real (physical) world, energy and objects may be measured to practical limits. It is the difference between mathematics and engineering.

There is no reason that God would need to know the energy value of a quark, for instance, to a googolplex of decimal places. At some point, the repeating digits of an irrational number become just notational.

nck said...

I thought they were masons who are not Christian perse?

Nck

nck said...

I have difficulty with Miller's statement. In Tunesia the government at one time decided that marriage is between one man and one woman. Democracy would have wielded more Arab results regarding multiple wife's.

I think Tunesia reaped benefits by this policy. (on the other hand they suffered under dictatorship)

My point. Good leaders know how to convince their people or employees into beneficial change. This requires their input and involvement. No words without action.

I believe it was the masonry of the framers, ACTION and words and immediate feedback rather tham their believes that made their succes.

It is the lack of a feedback loop that makes a nation and company stall.

This blogs succes is guaranteed by the allowing of the dissenting person who posted the the stuff in favor of BI. Not by the harping of the "believers" affirming one another.

What in the end is right or wields result is what most believe, therefore BI was right during the Anglo empires up to now. And ridiculous under the Chinese Belt and Road in 50 years.

Nck

Anonymous said...

'All attempts to preserve a closed society are eventually doomed. The universe will not abide it, no water what society espouses.'

Err, there is no law of the universe to back that up. And this from an article that honors science. I suggest the author watch TubeTube videos about life in the
WW1 trenches, if he believes freedom from a potential closed society naturally occurs in nature. Human history is the history of closed systems, and it's only the shed blood of millions and miracles from God Himself, that brakes the stranglehold of these systems. For instance, it was Napoleon's armies that shattered the aristocratic system and broke the back of the Inquisition. Napoleon rightfully observed that he was being used by Providence, and would be discarded when no longer needed.

nck said...

10:25 Yes. What Napoleon called Providence was called "Zeitgeist" by the German philosophers. Some people embody the spirit of their time and lead into the fulfillment of that spirit. Mostly people in arts are in touch too. Beware when politicians act as sorcerers.

Nck

nck said...

"They not only rejected the European political systems of that day"

Hi Miller.

The legal precedent for the "united states" to come into existence was set by the Dutch Republic or the "United Provinces" united without a king.

The legal precedent for secession from the British was the Dutch secession from the Habsburg Empire.

The honorable representatives and lawyers from New York/New Amsterdam were very much aware of the legality of the entire enterprise of course aided by (revolutionary) France.

Don't go Trumpian anti Nato on us.

nck

Anonymous said...

So if Jacob and his sons are supposed to be haplogroup J because modern Jewish men are supposedly comprised in the main of this haplogroup then does that mean Isaac, Abraham, Noah and even Adam were or have to be too?

Anonymous said...

More interesting info for the anti-BI crowd from this site~


https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-haplogroup-we-be.html

...........................................


R, R1, R2, R1a, R1b haplogroups are believed to have originated in NW Asia between 30,000 and 35,000 years ago. R1 is very common in Europe and Western Eurasia. R2 is rare and found only in Indian, Iranian and central Asian populations. R1a is most common among eastern European Slavs and populations in India and central and western Asia. It was thought to be the Khazarian Jewish lineage. They most likely originated in the Eurasian steppes north of the Black and Caspian seas in the Kurgan people who lived there around 3000 BCE and known for the domestication of the horse.
Update: 5/10/2012: Subtypes of R1a1 may have come from Khazaria.
Update 6/25/15: R1a1, R1b, and R1a1a or R1a-CTS6 is the Levite haplogroup. Read www.levitedna.org. for more information. Jeff Wexler discovered this line of Ashkenazi Levites. Analyses posted here. R1a1 is common among Ukrainians-thought to have originated there, Russians, and Serbs (Slavic speakers in Germany, as well as among Central Asian populations with admixture possible with Ukrainians, Poles or Russians.
A later 2005 study by Nebel et al., found a similar level of 11.5% of male Ashkenazim belonging to R1a1a (M17+), the dominant Y-chromosome haplogroup in Central and Eastern Europeans.; R-M269; R1b1a2a; R-V88 are found among Jews. R-L47-from R1a, Jewish

Anonymous said...

Just how do any of you know that Jacob was of the j haplogroup? You don't. That's an assumption based upon the prevalence of j among modern Jews and Arabs. What if, like BB said, the Jews and Arabs have mixed the haplogroups so much that the "mustard" is no longer recognizable? What if Abraham was really of the r haplogroup? According to my post above Levites are claimed to be of the r haplogroup. No one really knows, which is my point. No one knows which haplogroup Abraham was of. To claim that he was j is disingenuous just as claimng that he was r is disingenuous also.haplogroups~

Check out the Ashkenazi Jews haplogroups~

https://binged.it/2YpwjMQ


The Sephardic Jews haplogroups~

https://binged.it/33W24hF


Now the UK haplogroups~

https://binged.it/33Ukwal


Which ones have the most mayonnaise mixed in?


My point isn't that all this proves BI, but that statements like "DNA refutes BI" is pure bunk!

Anonymous said...

NEO December 5, 2019 at 6:49 PM

I was basically using pi as a comparison to life and its purpose.

Anonymous said...

James at 6:10pm next you'll be telling us that the real Jews are black~

https://binged.it/2RnPQeZ

Looks to me like many of them could pass for white~

https://binged.it/2r9lTER


Which is why I stated earlier that Jewish haplogroups resemble Hellmann's.

Anonymous said...

1:17 here, I just wanted to point out that you are misrepresenting what I'm posting. I haven't said that I'm in favor of BI, what I'm saying is that those who claim undeniable proof that DNA refutes BI are wrong. The doubt of whether BI is true or false remains. There's no DNA proof either way.

Anonymous said...

Anon December 6, 2019 at 6:55 AM

Modern day Jewery is made up of European Jews. They are called Ashkenazi Jews
Read this: https://hwarmstrong.com/blog/2019/09/07/a-substantial-prehistoric-european-ancestry-amongst-ashkenazi-maternal-lineages/

nck said...

When do you guys get that Jewish question settled?

Nck

Anonymous said...

Anon December 6, 2019 at 6:55 AM writes:

The mention of "Which is why I stated earlier that Jewish haplogroups resemble Hellmann's" has not been mentioned on this thread. Ctrl + f type in 'Hellmanns.'

-------------------------------------------------
armstrongism teaches that the Assyrians are modern day Germany. Untrue. A delusion.
https://hwarmstrong.com/blog/2019/09/21/who-are-the-assyrians/

There. You have links to refute. But you won't read a thing. Your mind is made up just like mine was once. Go ahead and give the most productive years to those who mislead you.

Anonymous said...

To those writing about genetics and BI:

As regard Khazaria: read about this theory. It is not a theory that posits that the descendants of Israel may be natively haplogroup R. It is a theory that asserts that the Jew absorbed a tribe of gentile people in the south of Russian called the Khazars. (Levi cannot be haplogroup R and Judah haplogroup J and both be descended from Israel.)

We know Abraham was not haplogroup R because both the Adnani Arabs and the Jews claim descent from Abraham and they are both haplogroup J and this comports with Biblical genealogy. And if the descendants of Israel are haplogroup R, who then are the people we recognized to be Jews? And Jesus, born among the haplogroup J people of Palestine, would not be a Jew? (see note below)

Yes, the generations of Adam through Jacob would all be haplogroup J. All the people contained in the clans of the sons of Noah table in Genesis 10 were haplogroup J. They were not the fathers of all the people in the world and the Bible does not claim so.

Note: White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis claim that Jesus was in fact an Aryan (read white European). And they claim the people that we know today as Jews are not the Jews of the Bible. At least these people had the sense to recognize that if the Western Europeans were descended from Israel then the Jews have to be some other race. A WCG minister once stated that the true Jews were not the people we recognize as Jews but the true Jews are located somewhere on the North American continent, I suppose, living in Kentucky or some place.

Haplogroup R existed well before the supposed Biblical dates for Abraham. The earliest verified find in bone structure is 24,000 BP.

the Ocelot said...

I don't own a suit In the late seventies I needed one for just two things Church services and functions and Amway meetings - two of the biggest Fiasco's of my 67 years of existence on this planet

Anonymous said...

If you even looked at the pie graphs of the Ashkenazi and Sephardic haplogroups you'd have seen that about 18% are R haplogroup. How do you know that this 18% aren't the ones carrying on Abraham's haplogroup while all the others were assimilated in? You don't know!

Anonymous said...

NEO troublingly wrote:

It is a theory that asserts that the Jew absorbed a tribe of gentile people in the south of Russian called the Khazars.

People who aren't racist don't use the term "the Jew" to describe an entire race of people. I hope NEO will affirm that he does not personally uphold such racist categorization, despite what he wrote.

Anonymous said...

J being the major haplogroup of Jews today does not prove that Abraham was of the J haplogroup.

Here's a post from an Arab who can't understand why his haplogroup is R1b ~

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/32605-R1b-Arab


I find those who insist that they know Abraham was haplogroup J amusing.

Anonymous said...

James, you seem to not understand that I was referring to the "mayonnaise" comments when I referenced Hellmann's.

Anonymous said...

"We know Abraham was not haplogroup R because both the Adnani Arabs and the Jews claim descent from Abraham and they are both haplogroup J and this comports with Biblical genealogy."


All Jews are not haplogroup J, that is just the major haplogroup among many. There's no way to determine which of the many haplogroups making up the Jewish community was Abraham's. Merely being the major haplogroup proves nothing.

Anonymous said...

NCK wrote: "When do you guys get that Jewish question settled?"

The issue will never be laid to rest. If one were to get in a time machine, go back to visit Abraham and have him give you a cheek swab from his mouth and you sent it off to AncestyDNA and got his haplogroup, some other argument would come from BI fans to keep the belief rolling. There is just too much invested in BI psychologically and financially (and, of course, not scientifically).

The circumstantial evidence is conclusive to any reasonable mind. There are historical connections with the Jews of Palestine back 2,000 years ago to assure us that these are the Jews that the New Testament and Jesus speaks of. Christ was one of them. They are haplogroup J.

Ashkenazi Jews are from 30% to 60% European and cannot be used as a model pure racial strain for making decisions about Jewish origins. At some point they may have absorbed the Khazars who were haplogroup R1a gentiles living in southern Russia. Why the Khazars ended up dominating the Levitical station is unknown. Note that this concept of Levite has no genealogical credentialing. Only very few Jews have some kind of a credential that traces them back to a certain tribe. It cannot be proven that the R1a Levites among the Ashkenazi map to the ancient tribe of Levi.

This could go on. I'm tired. It's like talking to Holocaust deniers. Maybe I will write an article.

Bottom line: BI is mythology.

Anonymous said...

NEO,

There seems to be endless theory's on this BI fallacy. We can expect the armstrongites to argue until the end of time or until the last adherent is dead.

Anonymous said...

Here is a web site claiming that almost 90% of Jews are not J1 haplogroup, and in their mind not really Israelite~

https://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/haplogroup-j-and-the-jewish-cohen-modal-haplotype-ishaq-al-sulaimani/

Their assumption is the same as yours that Israelites are from the J haplogroup. What if that's not the case at all?

Without reading all of their site I'm assuming they are pushing the black Israelite agenda. Again, don't think that I'm pushing a white Israelite agenda. All I'm saying is that until we learn more there's entirely too many assumptions being presented as fact. DNA does not refute BI nor does it prove it! We just don't have enough information.

Anonymous said...

NEO all that you've proven is that DNA doesn't refute BI nor does it prove it. Which was my original position in my 1:17 post. To see how much the DNA waters are truly muddied, and prove nothing, in regard to BI read this~

http://www.jogg.info/pages/11/coffman.htm

As far as BI being mythology, there are some here who think a belief in God is mythology. Does that make them correct?

Anonymous said...

NEO in case you didn't know the only reason the belief that haplogroup J is Israelite is because of a man who claimed to be Cohen, he compared the DNA of others claiming to be Cohen and concluded that haplogroup J was the one that linked them together, thus assuming J is the original haplogroup. A lot of assumptions in there. How is it proven that the priestly line that he's from was really the Aaronic priesthood? Remember that Jeroboam once made priests of those who were not Levite. How do we know that's not where the Cohen line that he was researching was from? Assumptions upon assumptions. Which proves my point. DNA neither proves BI nor disproves it. BI being a myth is irrelevant to the point that I'm making!

Anonymous said...

Like I said above and the posts following: "There seems to be endless theory's on this BI fallacy. We can expect the armstrongites to argue until the end of time or until the last adherent is dead."
Ha,ha,ha!

It never ends.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (3:45) wrote: "DNA neither proves BI nor disproves it. BI being a myth is irrelevant to the point that I'm making!"

I understand what you are saying but there is more to this. I think your argument is simply that the Jews are a composite of different peoples, that reflect different haplogroups so how can we know their haplogroup identity, even if haplogroup J may be the dominant haplogroup. There are arguments based on history and archaeology but the simplest is to go back to genetics.

Haplogroups are only a single piece of genetic data. There are other studies that are referred to as autosomal studies that analyze the entire genome content and not just the Y Chromosome or the Mitochondrial Chromosome. Then this autosomal data can be collected from a sample population and can be plotted as a collection of dots that cluster or diverge. You can find these plots online. I saw a good one recently but don't have time to find it this evening. What you find is that Jews group together. Ashkenazi, Sephardim, Lebanese (modern day Canaanite descendants), and Druze all cluster together (M.Haber, et al, 2013). On the other hand, they do not cluster with the British people.

This analysis was developed to handle such situations as a Black person being haplogroup R1b because of the indiscretions of a slave owner in the Old South and yet is 95% Black. We cannot say the Black Person is Western European even though he has a y chromosome haplogroup commonly found in Western Europe, including Britain. In these plots, the Ashkenazi cluster closer to Western Europeans because they are 30% to 60% European. This is what one would expect. But overall the autosomal evidence is that the British and Jews are unrelated.

We are left with the question of where did R1b-M269 come from in the modern Jewish population? There are plenty of modern opportunities for this haplogroup to migrate into the Jewish community. The burden of proof would be on you to demonstrate that there was R1b-M269 in ancient Palestine that could have given rise to Israel there. I can tell you that history and archaeology are not on your side.

So I stand by my previous assertion. BI is mythology. Definitely.

Anonymous said...

Honestly with this never-ending debate whether the British are descended from Israel or the Jews are descended from Israel I'm starting to understand Paul's warning in 1Ti 1:4 to "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do."

I don't believe we know everything there is to know about our human DNA, haplogroups, etc and how various environments have influenced such over time. Also, as a Christian I don't believe evolutionism and so reject this theory of origins that is promoted by DNA sites (eg "Haplogroup ** originated 50,000 years ago" etc).

I'm inclined to believe increasingly that the descendants of Israel have been mixed thoroughly with non-Israelites to the point that only God knows who is descended from Israel. Further, as Christians our ethnicity is irrelevant under the New Covenant since we are all baptized into one body in Christ Jesus. He is the promised Son of David, of Israel, of Abraham, of Adam. So if we are in Him we are counted as "children of the promise" (Romans 9:8; Galatians 4:28) whatever ethnicity we are. So there's no need to be concerned with who or where are the physical descendants of Israel today.

NEO December 6, 2019 at 9:38 AM said: "Yes, the generations of Adam through Jacob would all be haplogroup J. All the people contained in the clans of the sons of Noah table in Genesis 10 were haplogroup J. They were not the fathers of all the people in the world and the Bible does not claim so...White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis claim that Jesus was in fact an Aryan (read white European). And they claim the people that we know today as Jews are not the Jews of the Bible. At least these people had the sense to recognize that if the Western Europeans were descended from Israel then the Jews have to be some other race."

As a Christian I believe Adam and Eve were the first humans and it is from them via Noah and his sons as recorded in Genesis 10 that all the nations on earth are descended. So I respectfully disagree with your view NEO that everyone descended from Adam to Noah to Jacob "would all be haplogroup J." I also disagree with your view that the sons of Noah "were not the fathers of all the people in the world..." I'm aware, like you stated, various Christian Identity groups believe Adam and Eve were the ancestors of the white race only and pre-Adamites existed at the time of their creation, which they believe comprise the black and yellow races. I completely reject this view. I believe as Paul declared in Acts 17:26 that God "made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation."

Anonymous said...

Continuation from my post (6:17)

The significant presence of R1b and R1a seems to be characteristic of the Ashkenazi. In the US National Library of Medicine there is an article entitled "Population Genetics of the Jewish People" by Ostrer and Skorecki. There are these statements:

"Four of these (E3b, G, J1, J2, Q) were part of the ancestral gene pool transmitted by Jews who migrated from the Middle East, whereas R1b and certain sublineages within R1a may have entered the Ashkenazi Jewish population in Europe."

"R1b is the most common Y chromosome branch of Atlantic Europe. Its occurrence among Ashkenazi Jews may be an indicator of admixture that occurred in the Rhine Valley prior to the Ashkenazi Jewish migration to Eastern Europe or at later time points in certain locales (Nebel et al. 2005)."

If an isolated Middle Eastern Jewish group such as the Yemenite Jews or the Mizrahi have no R1b and no R1a, most certainly these haplogroups were introduced by Western European contact and do no represent any kind of founder effect. I am looking for this information.

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

nck,
Hello again, no danger of me going anti-NATO on you! I'm well aware of the Dutch and the Swiss Republics, and that our founding fathers rejected both models. As you know, the House of Orange exercised a hereditary role in the Netherlands prior to becoming monarchs in the 19th Century. While our founding fathers were familiar with all of the political systems extant in the nations which existed in Europe in the 18th Century (and their political philosophers), most of the US founding fathers used that information in the capacity of what NOT to do here.
In fact, those men were much more familiar with the history of the Greeks and Romans than most of us are today. And, again, they looked to the history of those republics mostly in the guise of what not to do here.
Since that time, all of Europe has moved in a more democratic direction. And the religious fervor and intolerance has largely disappeared from that continent, and more secular states have emerged. Together with the fact that a large part of our ancestry derives from that continent, this new political and religious reality (as well as our shared interest in preserving/advancing democracy and containing Russia's ambitions) makes Europe the natural ally of the United States. Hopefully both sides will remember that and that commonality will outlast Donald Trump!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (6:20) wrote:
"Also, as a Christian I don't believe evolutionism..."
"As a Christian I believe Adam and Eve were the first humans..."

Whether you are a Christian does not have anything to do with believing in these ideas. I am a Christian and I do believe in evolution and I don't believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans. There are many Christians and whole denominations that believe as I do. What you are expressing is a personal opinion and not Christian belief.

The reason why this is important is that there are religious con men who are avidly fleecing their flocks using such bizarre ideas as British Israelism. I believe you will find reality a much more understandable place to exist if you realize that science and the Bible do not contradict eachother.

nck said...

NEO 12:43.

I think that the current Jews and Palestinians in Gaza in spite of your science cannot even come to terms that they are the closest related cousins or perhaps brothers in the world.

Having said that, I believe that until AI takes over from man, myth might be a more potent force in the journey of man than proof. Myth has steered our story so far.

Another problem that arises is that all our current algorythms turn out to be filled with myth, since they use historical data produced by man.

I heard a story about the retreating Germans blowing up and mining historic church towers. A concerned resident architect checked out such tower filled with communication materials AND explosives.

Instead of going into a heated argument with the commander that might have got him shot he just got out and acquired three huge sledge hammers and presented them to the Germans to destroy the communication electronics when leaving. The historic tower was spared when the allies arrived.

My point. I think solutions to puzzles are sometimes very easy plain and simple, but often overlooked.

In this debate we seem to overlook something and although you alluded to 15000 year old bones I think the hardly ever mentioned solution is when the mapping of the genome of ancient bones will be finished or perhaps started.

The answer is not in current populations but in ancient bones AND current population.

Still if in the year 2500 Christianity or any belief is proven to be nonsensical and myth. I will defend this myth from historical viewpoint as a huge driving force of history whatever scientists might think of it in the year 2500.

Nck

Anonymous said...

NEO December 6, 2019 at 8:30 PM said: “Whether you are a Christian does not have anything to do with believing in these ideas. I am a Christian and I do believe in evolution and I don't believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans. There are many Christians and whole denominations that believe as I do. What you are expressing is a personal opinion and not Christian belief.”

We’ll have to agree to disagree NEO. Just because there’s a lot of people who claim to be Christian and believe diametrically opposite to what the Christian Bible teaches doesn’t make them Christian. It makes them sufferers of cognitive dissonance. It’s like a person who claims to be a Christian yet believes the Christian Bible doesn’t teach it’s a sin to practice abortion or homosexuality or usury etc. I’m a follower of Christ not Darwin. If Christ believed and taught Adam and Eve were the first humans specially created by God and Genesis is true history (eg Matthew 19:4-6; Mark 10:5-9) then that’s what I’ll choose to believe too.

Anonymous said...

NEO wrote:

I am a Christian and I do believe in evolution and I don't believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans.

Here's the problem with that. The New Testament clearly believes that Adam and Eve were the first humans. Jesus taught out of the Old Testament, and spoke as if He took its contents literally. Did Jesus believe that He had to lie to the people around Him, yet also believe that in 2,000 years people would have changed enough to discover the truth for themselves? If so, that's a pretty weak and compromised idea of a deity.

Consider this a version of the "liar, lunatic, or Lord" dilemma. Jesus' literal belief in the Bronze Age stories is either a great reason to believe in those same stories, or a great reason to disbelieve in Him.

nck said...

Miller.

You ake a bit to the mythological history of the United States although I admire your knowledge.

For now I will recommend Russell Shortos, The island at the center of the world.

OR If you have time. The untranslated records of New Amsterdam at Albany. For the excellent legal precedent that the honorable representatives of New York State were very familiar with in their discussions and exchange with the more famous people like Jefferson et al.

Nck

Mason said...

Great post I wonder if that educator was Ward he is the exact opposite of humble

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

Anonymous 12/6 @ 11:17 and 12/7 @ 4:28,
Like NEO, I am a Christian (I have repented of my sins, accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, been baptized and received the Holy Spirit), and I accept the science of evolution. I also believe the Genesis account of creation is filled with metaphor, allegory and symbolism and should NOT be interpreted as a literal account of those events.
You present a false dilemma. For you, there are only two choices: It's your way or the highway (or, as I'm sure you would characterize it, God's way or the highway), You have to believe such and such or you're not a Christian, You must accept ALL of the Bible or reject it completely. The problem with this is the clear evidence that there are so many points between the choices you present (as evidenced by the existence of folks like me and NEO - and, make no mistake, there are more than a few of us).
By the way, your references to Christ prove NOTHING! While it is true that Christ was a Jew and clearly from that tradition, his use of stories that were an integral part of that tradition do not constitute an endorsement by him of their veracity. Many authors down through the centuries have referenced Thomas Malory's Arthur since his famous Le Morte d'Arthur was first published - their use of that character did not constitute an endorsement of the actual existence of such a person! It is entirely plausible that Christ was merely approaching those people on the level of their own understanding. Judging by their reactions to his message, how do you think those folks would have reacted if he had told them that Adam and Eve were figments of Moses' imagination?
Finally, are you really a literalist? Do you believe that the talking serpent was just your average run-of-the-mill snake? Do you actually believe that snakes walked upright prior to the curse? Why do you think those trees were named Life and The Knowledge of Good and Evil? Do you think that Eve actually ate a forbidden apple? Knowing what you know about the sun and the earth's rotation, do you actually think that the day/night cycle is independent of that body (the sun) and that phenomenon (the earth's rotation on its axis)? I ask again, How much of a literalist are you really?

Anonymous said...

I don't know who might be still looking at this thread but I appreciate Miller Jones' response. Thanks, Miller. You saved me some writing.

I wrote the following earlier:

"If an isolated Middle Eastern Jewish group such as the Yemenite Jews or the Mizrahi have no R1b and no R1a, most certainly these haplogroups were introduced by Western European contact and do no represent any kind of founder effect. I am looking for this information."

I found a website devoted to Jewish DNA (https://jewishdna.net/R1b-Europe.html) that addresses the issue of haplogroup R1b occurring in the Jewish population. The short text points out that the haplogroup R Jews contain almost no Mizrahi. And hardly any haplogroup R Jews migrated into the Middle East or Africa. Essentially, this means that the haplogroup R found in the Ashkenazi is the consequence of European contact and cannot be an ancient strain that connects the Jews to the ancient British.

BI is a mythology. Or did I say that?


Anonymous said...

The majority of the bible is written to be easily understood by young teenagers, if not younger. This would not be the case if the bible is riddled with metaphors, allegories, and hard to decipher symbolism. This false 'it's too hard to understand the bible' viewpoint, plays into the hands of seminary graduates, and similar, whose wet dream is that Christians will lay down their bibles literally, or effectively, and have them, the superior people, tell everyone what the bible really means. This was the Roman Catholic system, which many still covet.
The above is all nonsense. Read the bible through ones own eyes folks, and ignore all these Christian imposters.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (11:43) wrote: "The majority of the bible is written to be easily understood by young teenagers, if not younger."

The Bible can be understood with value at the level you suggest. But there are also more advanced levels. This is where the Bible leaves off being a storybook and becomes a book of wisdom. It would be sad if young people read the Bible and then stagnated for the rest of their lives at the level of simplistic literalism.

The real imposters are people who claim the Bible is easily understood by denying its substantive challenges and side stepping into thoughtless shallowness.

Note: I am reminded of Gerald Waterhouse who would read a problematic and uncertain scripture and then would say "there is no need to interpret it - it says what it says." He had no recognition of the fact that his reading was an interpretation - and an interpretation among many other reasonable interpretatios.



Anonymous said...

NEO, so it's gone from the Yemenite and Mizrahi Jews having "no" R haplogroup to "almost no" R now? Don't you realize they are just theorizing about how the R got there? They have no way of knowing. I stand by the possibility of Abraham being of the R haplogroup and all the latest haplogroups assimilating into the fold. As I said, there's no way to prove any of this unless as you said somebody goes back and cheek swabs Abraham. I think it would be you anti-BI people who would deny the results if it came back R. BI might very well be mythology, I don't care if it's true or not, it doesn't affect me one way or the other. But the never ending claims that "DNA refutes BI" has as much truth to it as the claim that "DNA proves BI". It's all a bunch of hogwash.

Anonymous said...

NEO
Yes, the bible can be understand at various levels, and many verses can be viewed from different angles. Which is why daily bible is a good idea. How ever I disagree with your 'substantive challenges.' There is inbuilt repetition in the bible to safeguard against honest translation and copying mistakes, and some hard to understand verses. These difficult verses are the minority, and even if unintelligible, or ignored, do not leave Christians with insufficient knowledge to live a Christian life.
I do not believe that at judgment day, God will accept the excuse of 'substantive bible challenges' from those who failed to follow Christ.

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't it be awesome if we could figure out Abraham's haplogroup and it was R. The Jews losing most of their R identity while the British maintaining most of theirs? Mayonnaise indeed.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (9:23): "These difficult verses are the minority, and even if unintelligible, or ignored..."

Let me give you a difficult verse: there is no evidence of a global flood. You can explain to me the reason why you believe this literally.

Those who may find themselves embarrassed one day are the people who denied the truth of science to believe fables.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (9:23)

There is no need to stand by the possibility that Abraham is haplogroup R when there is incontrovertible evidence that he was haplogroup J. If you have evidence that Abraham was haplogroup R, I would like to see it. And I don't mean some malarkey about the British controlling the gates of their enemies. I mean deduced and credible biological and historical evidence. Otherwise, you are just plucking fables out of the air to satisfy you personal inclinations.

Byker Bob said...

Speaking of mayonnaise and mustard, I will give Armstrongites a B+ for consistency. According to their official methodology for assigning racial identity, if you happen to have, oh, say 1/10 African heretage, you are still Negro, Colored, or Black, and will be spending the millennium in Africa, your homeland. if you are 10% Jewish or Hebrew, that qualifies you as being Israelite, meaning that if you don't practice the Sinai rituals (your forgotten culture) you will be punished in the tribulation. But the good news is that it also qualifies you to spend the millennium in Israel, where God and Jesus dwell rather than in the USA, or Africa. I also wonder which takes precedence. What if you are 10% African, and 10% Jewish? What if you are half African, and half Jewish? Man, we surely are putting some difficult judgment calls on God! But, most COGlodytes would opt for skin pigmentation as the decisive factor!

Truly, a Christian church would be much much more spiritually advanced without all of these stupid theories!

BB

Anonymous said...

Anon.11:43

You're right the Bible can be understood by kids. Many verses condone killing, raping, and pillaging innocent people because of God's rotten, worse than a child attidude. Scores of verses on these topics. So as a kid at heart, I take it all at face value and say, No Thanks. I will rely on modern common sense versus Bronze age madness and myth.

Anonymous said...

Daily Bible study is never a good idea, for anyone.

Anonymous said...

Absolute proof that Abraham was R1b

https://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-color-was-abraham.html

LOL

Anonymous said...

"Until recently it was believed that R1b originated in Western Europe due to its strong presence in the region today. The theory was that R1b represented the Paleolithic Europeans (Cro-Magnon) that had sought refuge in the Franco-Cantabrian region at the peak of the last Ice Age, then recolonised Central and Northern Europe once the ice sheet receded. The phylogeny of R1b proved that this scenario was not possible, because older R1b clades were consistently found in Central Asia and the Middle East, and the youngest in Western and Northern Europe."


From this site

https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml#R1b-conquest

Under this heading


How did R1b come to replace most of the older lineages in Western Europe?



Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

Anonymous said...

"when there is incontrovertible evidence that he was haplogroup J."


You're certainly free to believe that but you'll never find a geneticist who would agree.

Anonymous said...

"there is no evidence of a global flood."

Really?

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/evidence-suggests-biblical-great-flood-noahs-time-happened/story?id=17884533

Anonymous said...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/whales-on-mountaintops-81125728/


I guess the whales swam up there.

nck said...

BB

The AICF on 1989 supported good causes through Sammy Davis Jr. So there's your 10% 10% answer.

In the end your entire posting is irrelevant. The "armstrongite BI promise" was directed to the "descendants of Abraham".

Not to "the bearers of haplogroup so and so who practiced ancient rituals".

Going by the standards of the producers of TV program "who do you think you are usa" that may include about a couple of hundred million more people than estimated by haplogroup, including Sammy Davis but excluding (Carthagenian) Frank Sinatra.

Also this whale person poster should study a bit more on the rise of the earth or mountain ranges.

I have seen dinosaur traces WITHIN cave systems UPSIDE DOWN.

Also stepped into dinosaur tracks on mountaintops overlooking huge canyons. Of course the canyons used to be a lakeside where a couple of dinosaurs decided to drink a bit before wandering off to greener pastures.

Also some northern European nations are still rising because the ice receded 180.000 years ago.

Mt Everest and the Himalayas are rising every year because of India plate still bumping toward the Asian plate causing the land to crinkle upward.

Nck

Byker Bob said...

I don't even know why we continue to attempt to debate the possibility of British Israelism. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me. The fact is that combining it with prophecy didn't work, and that was the only purpose of Herbie teaching it to us. At some point, William Miller's acolytes quit trying to reinterpret the math, and they got on with their lives. I believe they concluded that something spiritual had happened up in heaven in 1844, and just let it all float away.

Know what? If we're all still alive in 2022, we should have a big 50 year anniversary party to celebrate the pure wonderfulness of the fact that Herbie's trib didn't arrive in 1972 as he had pencilled in on his calendar. We got to have our lives in spite of all his fearmongering!

BB

Anonymous said...

Re Abraham being of R1b haplogroup or not I don't know and I don't care tbh.

I do remember in reading BI material in the past a few things I thought to throw out in this long conversation. So the BI theory was that Jacob-Israel and his sons were of the white race ie Israelites would predominantly have white, Caucasian or European features. Then I remember reading in the BI material that the Egyptian royal family at the time of the Israelites enslavement was white too and this is how Moses could be accepted into the Pharaonic family otherwise eg if Pharaoh's family were white and the Israelites black (or vice versa) then Pharaoh would've known immediately Moses was a Hebrew slave child and to be executed. What's interesting--or I find it so anyway--is Tutankhamun's Y-haplogroup is supposedly R1b according to iGENEA (see "Half of European men share King Tut's DNA") Of course, whether this means he had white, Caucasian or European features is debatable as this "discovery" has been a source of controversy since.

Re whether Noah's flood was global or local I believe it was a global flood for 2 reasons (although no 1 is mainly why) that:
1) If the flood was local it makes God out to be a liar when He promised to Noah, his sons and all the animals in Genesis 9:8-17 that He would never again send a flood to destroy "the earth" or "all flesh" like He just did since local floods have occurred since.
2) The universality of the flood is a type of the future global witnessing of Christ's coming and the conflagration St Peter refers to (Matthew 24:37-39); 2 Peter 2:5; 3:5-7).

Anonymous said...

2.10 PM
If you think that God dealt too harshly with many nations in the old testament. you should meet some of my relatives. Life and God has been very kind to them, so I strongly disagree with your view.

nck said...

"if Pharaoh's family were white and the Israelites black (or vice versa) then Pharaoh would've known immediately Moses was a Hebrew slave child and to be executed."

Oh man, I should acquire the rights to this premisse and produce a movie along the lines of "cool runnings."

btw: The ptolemeans were greek, but that was way after moses. Perhaps the pharaos after the sea peoples invasions too.


Re: BB

"and that was the only purpose of Herbie teaching it to us."

It is true BB that HWA never investigated the matter scientifically since indeed his entire purpose for BI was twofold......a) to have physical "evidence" for believing (that god kept his promise)......b) to stir people into action or a sense of urgency regarding that faith as he stated many times was his single purpose to harp on prophecy. After all what is the relevance of prophecy when things fulfill.....I told you so??


This also applied to the pyramid measurements that HWA admitted he could not grasp the significance or as he said it, any meaning of those measurements were not revealed to him.
His wife made fun of that in her letters discussing their first egyptian trip.

nck


Anonymous said...

I just want to point out that in this discussion on whether "DNA refutes BI" or not that I haven't brought up HWA, race or any of the discriminatory crap that you anti-BI folks have been trying to force into the forefront!

Anonymous said...

2.10 PM
PS, the other thing is that people become so morally twisted, that only traumatic experiences can cause them to consider changing their ways. This is the voice of personal experience. I've spent decades complaining, trying to reason, screaming at these people, but to no avail. Previous generations understood this, but not this pussy generation, at least not in the west.

nck said...

I was just reading a national geographic article on the ancient black skinned but light eyed inhabitants of stone age Sweden. So far these articles never contain any information on DNA.

It must either be considered a boring topic by popular magazines like natgeographic, DNA science is not yet used to its full potential in modern archeology, or people are pushing a political agenda by the wave of articles about the earliest European (dark skinned blue eyed), inhabitants from the Middle east.

Since I read redheads are Neanderthal I developed a renewed liking for them.

Nck