Dennis Muses on "Science, falsely so called."

1 Timothy 6:19-21

Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)

¹⁹ In this way they will treasure up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may lay hold of the real life.

²⁰ Oh, Timothy! Keep safe what has been entrusted to you. Turn away from the ungodly babblings and the argumentative opposition of what is falsely called “knowledge.” ²¹ For many who promise this “knowledge” have missed the mark, as far as the faith is concerned. Grace be with you.

1 Timothy 6:19-21

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁹ Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

²⁰ O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:

²¹ Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.

As usual, we are not told just exactly the problem was here in the Church.  We aren't told what constitutes vain babblings, fake knowing or science , falsely so called.  These scriptures can be used to resist any idea one does not agree with and are often used so. 

This quote on "science, falsely so called" is telling and typical of literalists who are frightened, intimidated and pis..., angered by the implications of science done well.  This quote goes beyond stupid and is full of lies that the author needs to believe to cope with science done well which threatens his world.

"I’ll go even further: science cannot speak with any authority about when the universe began, how it came into being, or how life originated on earth. Science by definition deals with what can be observed, tested, measured, and investigated by empirical means. Scientific data by definition are facts that can be demonstrated by controlled, repeatable experiments that always yield consistent results. The beginning of the universe by its very nature falls outside the realm of scientific investigation.

To state the case plainly: there is no scientific way to explain creation. No one but God actually observed creation. It did not happen by any uniform, predictable, observable, repeatable, fixed, or natural laws. It was not a natural event or a series of natural events. The initial creation of matter was an instantaneous, monumental, inexplicable miracle—the exact opposite of a “natural” phenomenon. And the formation of the universe was a brief series of supernatural events that simply cannot be studied or explained by science. There are no natural processes involved in creation; the act of creation cannot be repeated; it cannot be tested; and therefore naturalistic theories purporting to explain the origin and age of the universe are unverifiable.

In other words, creation is a theological issue, not a scientific one. Scripture is our only credible source of information about creation, because God Himself was the only eyewitness to the event. We can either believe what He says or reject it. But no Christian should ever imagine that what we believe about the origin of the universe is merely a secondary, nonessential, or incidental matter. It is, after all, the very starting point of God’s self-revelation."

http://www.gty.org/blog/B100513

"Science, falsely so called" is one of the great catch phrases and oft quoted ones used by those who simply cannot or will not consider anything other than "God did it" as the answer to how did this all come to be and how did we arrive here.  "God did it."  That's the answer to where did time and space come from.  It is the answer to how did the universe come to be , all the elements , the stars, the galaxies, the planets and life.   The above quote is probably one of the most ignorant and telling quotes I personally have ever read from a person who is trying ever so hard to bolster faith over facts and religion over science well done.  In my view, the bolded comments are simply lies and reveal a profound ignorance on the part of the one who simply cannot allow the concept of science well done to enter into the equation.  Equations are also scary to the ignorant fundamentalist thinker.

Most creationists argue against human origins emotionally and tend to revert  when not well studied or versed in the actual science done well to "God did it."   I think we are all familiar with the concept of "God said it. I believe it. That does it for me."   Well, that doesn't do it for me and while one can be accused by religionists as "ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth...", I consider that a defensive statement spoken when one begins to fear that science done well or even theology , archaeology and history done well becomes very threatening to one's beliefs, which are not truths we should remember.  They are merely beliefs and for some, beliefs can change.  For others, they can not change because it is too threatening and frightening. The reason people argue endlessly over such topics is that one feels they had it all "figured out" and now here comes "science" or "theology" , falsely so called, to screw up my beliefs.  "What are you saying...I am wrong?"   Well, sometimes.  Aren't we all at times?

I grew up saying the Apostles Creed every week from the time I could talk. The Creed, of course, was not written or spoken by any of the original Apostles in the NT Church.  The concepts are too advanced and represent the evolution, may I use that word, of theological thought.  It is an article of faith not facts and theology, not science.  Not one sentence in the Creed can be proven to be true.  Every sentence in it is subject to questioning and is simply taken as a matter of faith.  That is ok.  It is religion after all.    I remember as a child asking  why, if we were Presbyterian, did we believe in the "the holy catholic church"?   That just meant "universal" evidently meaning the whole big church somewhere God only knows.  We didn't have to know where the church wasn't.  We just knew where it was and it was US.  I remained suspicious of the phrase all my life.  Everything the author of the above on his view of science, falsely so called , can be said of the religious and faith oriented Apostles Creed.   The emotional arguments related to science well done versus faith and theological issues are endless.  I don't tend to participate in them myself , even here on Banned, because they are so endless and fruitless.  No one says, or at least I ever read it here, "Amazing...I never thought of thought or knew that.  Thank you for the information. I will search it out more."  Well, I have heard it but it was in dripping sarcasm.

APOSTLES' CREED

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

      creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

      who was conceived by the Holy Spirit

      and born of the virgin Mary.

      He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried;

      he descended to hell.

      The third day he rose again from the dead.

      He ascended to heaven

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

      From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting. Amen.

In my older years now, and one only gets older if you are lucky it seems, I can only speak for myself and my own  Creed of Science Done Well.  I appreciate science well done. Highly educated human beings today are not in the business of trying to make fools out of themselves or be considered as such.  While there is always "fringe science" much like the reality of "fringe religion", it is not the goal of scientists in any field to muck up or come to wrong conclusions. I assume it is also not the goal of literalist theologians either.   If they do, the research goes into the pool of knowing and the search continues.   I have grown up in a time where we have learned more in the last 50 years about the how and why of origins than in the previous 100,000 years.  My parents were taught the galaxy WAS the Universe.  Now we know better through the hard work of science done well.  

For decades I soaked in religion. As a child, I soaked in Sunday School and Church and knew most of the Bible, the stories and the characters very well, Old Testament and New,  before ever going into the Worldwide Church of God.  As a child I had shelves of astronomy and dinosaur books.  I spent countless hours as a child and teen at the local library looking sideways at books that may catch my interest. I libraried in the mornings and played hockey all afternoon anywhere I could find a good game.   I don't think I have changed much at all since being a kid and the ministry of the Worldwide Church did not change much of my perspectives on such things along the way.  The stories of creation and Adam and Eve had meaning to the Hebrews who wrote them which I have written about elsewhere, but they were not meant to be scientific in meaning.  The "science, falsely so called, " was not the science of today.  Whatever the writer of Timothy (it was probably not the Apostle Paul) was getting at, and they always never seemed to actually tell us what the problem actually was or the topic of that problem,  it was something that still after 2000 years was not something about science well done.  The problem could have been astrology or the ideas of well read pagan philosophers of the day, but it is not stated.  

I can only think off hand of three problems actually defined in the New Testament as troublesome to the church.  Some were teaching the resurrection was already past, go figure.  Some were teaching that Jesus had not really come in the flesh which seems odd at such an early date and some were mockers concerning the delayed coming of Jesus.  There were other problems of course, but these three stand out as odd problems for the young church.  I always thought thinking Jesus had not really come in the flesh was like denying Elvis or John Kennedy of just a few years ago and that those who got antsy about the promises of Jesus coming again were correct after all.  I have no idea why one would teach the resurrection was a thing of the past in such an early stage of the church but then again I have never figured out just how "nature itself teaches us it is a shame for a man to have long hair."  Go tell Mr. Lion.

At any rate, here is MY Creed.  It does not have to be YOURS.  We are all where we are on whatever the path is.  There is NO chance in this life that any group of people on this earth, religious or otherwise can "all speak the same thing."  There is almost no other more ignorant verse in the New Testament as to how people actually are.  To "all speak the same thing," one would have to be brain dead and hold no personal views.  To "all speak the same thing," one would have to lie to themselves and be one way to the group and hide personal beliefs and doubts about the group way of being behind a mask of compliance.  IT IS IMPOSSIBLE IF NOT DEPRESSING TO THINK THAT ANY GROUP OF PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO ALL SPEAK AND BELIEVE THE SAME THINGS.  To me, that has always been spoken by those who put themselves in charge and want compliance to THEIR thinking.  In the real world, this is just not a healthy way to be as an individual.  It is an impossible goal and suspect at best when the bully pulpit tell the congregation how they must think.   A Dave Pack comes to mind along with far too many others.  

I speak my truth.  You can speak yours.

The Science Done Well Creed

I believe that something Banged and it was Big

I believe that whatever banged has banged many times before creating other universes, both parallel and multi.

I believe there is much more to be learned about this in the thousands of years to come

I believe that what banged produced the hydrogen needed for stars to form , live and die.

I believe that stars that died produced all the elements seen today in our world sufficient to produce billions of galaxies each with billions of planets. 

I believe that life must be everywhere in the Universe, in many forms

I believe this is not the only Universe

I believe life evolves and our Universe took 13.7 billion years to do it. 

I believe that in our genes and in our bodies lie the remnants of countless lifeforms before us.   

I believe in my inner fish, amphibian, reptile, mammal,  ape, Homo  habilis, Erectus, Neanderthalis and Sapien

I believe the trigeminal nerve is so convoluted and long because the fossil record shows our inner ear bones originated in the jawbones of reptiles long past. 

I believe it when told Europeans have 2-4% Neanderthal Genes in their spit

I believe humans uniquely have come to be conscious and aware that we are aware

I believe our conscious awareness that we have a limited shelf life and will die has produced most of our religious needs and thinking.  

I believe religious anger and wars are the results of the threatening nature of the beliefs of others and how it upsets our worldview

I believe science done well threatens theology done badly

I believe in the mystery of human consciousness and the wonder of it all

I believe I am stardust and in science done well

I believe beliefs can change as knowledge increases

I believe that knowledge that increases is a sign of the end for ignorance about just what and who we are in the Universe

I believe in the vast differences between Religion and Spirituality

I believe what I learned in Sunday School about the Bible being earthly stories with heavenly meanings.

I believe what i have since learned about not all earthly stories portray literal events

I believe in the vast differences between Literalism and Reality

I believe reality is always our friend

I believe I like that...

What's Your Creed?

(You know...the one deep inside you and not dictated by others...)

OSI House of Yahweh: Women, WHO Can You Turn To? Certainly Not Mary, Mrs. Claus or Mrs. Easter Bunny!!!!!!!

Post by Official House of Yahweh.

Here is a creepy video from the House of Yahweh.  House of Yahweh members homes are getting broken into and the OSI crime team is on the scene. Something just doesn't smell right!

There are criminals on the loose!  A cross is involved!

It's Mrs. Claus and Mrs. Easter Bunny's committing the crimes!  But they are part of a more sinister plot which has a bigger ring leader that is directing them to commit these crimes.

It's Mary, the Queen of Heaven, who is pissed off that the Pope is not carrying out her instructions to the extent she wants.  She is the person ultimately committing the crime.  How did they figure that out?  She had a cross on her!

Get behind me Satan!  I am not of your house!

Buffalo Bill Hawkins Blames Women For STD's

Here is an excerpt from Hawkin's (House of Yahweh) latest article NO! It's NOT Your IMAGINATION... The WORLD Is GETTING WORSE..

 Look at the morals across America today, or rather, the lack of morals. Compare the sickness in every family. Your children are born with hidden death. All doctors know that sexual acts, forbidden by Yahweh’s Laws, such as women having more than one mate, which is called adultery and fornication, causes STDs. 

These STDs are known to cause a variety of cancers in women. STDs are the main cause for hundreds of millions of organ diseases throughout the whole body, from the head to the toes, in women, men and children, even newborn children. STDs are the main cause of birth defects in children. Thousands of children die at birth, because their mother gave them a shot of STDs that she acquired through forbidden sexual acts. Thousands of other children die each year because a man committed a sexual act, forbidden by Yahweh’s Laws, such as fornication, adultery, bestiality or sodomy and got an STD. He then shot some woman with the STD, which ricocheted off the mother and hit the child. Millions of children are shot with STDs every day of every year.

Notice that it is the woman's fault that STD's are spread.  Nowhere does he mention the promiscuous men that gave her the disease in the first place.

The main reason he does not mention the men is because he himself is a serial adulterer.  He has slept with all kinds of women while married to his first wife (she writes about his adultery here: The House of Yahweh: My Side of the Story.  He is also a bigamist. 

Sexual impurity is common place in the House of Yahweh and its members.  Men have the right to take on more than one wife, as long as Hawkins gives the OK.  There have also been several police investigations into sexual abuse of minors by Hawkins and other men.

Did You Know Satan Was A Woman and That She Appoints All World and Religious Leaders?

One of Armstrongism's weirdest cult break-offs was The Houe of Yahweh in Texas.  It is lead by Buffalo Bill Hawkins.  Hawkins has been in and out of jail, is a serial adulterer, bigamist and all around con artist who rewrote the Bible to support his deviant beliefs that call for the Nuclear Baby to destroy the world.

Hawkins cult is listed in the "6 Insane Cults (That Would Probably Be a Lot of Fun)"

Unlike popular religions which try to bore us with things like scripture and goodness, the House of Yahweh is all about making sure we know what the fuck is going wrong out there in the world. For instance, did you know Satan is a woman who appoints all political and religious leaders, with the probable exception of Buffalo Bill? Or that by mid-2001 80 percent of the world's population will be killed by a nuclear war and then it won't rain for over 1,000 days? And when Y2K hits, you better make sure you're on the right side of Jesus or you're gonna be so screwed.

Fortunately, Buffalo Bill is a prophet so while those Catholics are caught on the toilet when the Rapture hits, he will have found all of his followers the right mountain top to stand on to make it easier on God to take us all away and we will have all had time to have some snacks and pee before it happens.

While some might argue that, as a prophet, maybe his dates should make sense or maybe he should have known he was about to be arrested for bigamy back in February of 2008, we believe this is probably all just part of the master plan. Look at the video again. There's totally a master plan.

Dennis muses on the boxes we all live in...

“Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.” 
― Anne Rice,

I have rarely, very rarely,  found  minister or member in any church I have experienced, whether Presbyterian, Baptist or the those in the near countless splinters of the WCG, all that interested in growing in either Grace or Knowledge....especially knowledge.   Everyone wants grace, i.e. forgiveness and understanding when dearly needed.    But most have all the knowledge about life, death and purpose they need, just ask them.  That's what the box of organized religion can do for them.  Get in the box of one's  choosing , stay, pray, pay and obey and life is good.  On the other hand, step outside the box one's organized religion provided for them and it gets real uncomfortable very quickly.  In the box you either keep things to yourself and go along to get along, or you risk just about everything 

In the Churches of God, if you wish to know why there is so much "unusual weather" (it's not really all that unusual really), you ask Bob Thiel who knows it is the hand of God trying to get people to repent.  God uses weather you know, Bob will tell us.  Not always, but sometimes for sure.  Then he supplies the appropriate texts from ancient times when weather was attributed to Baal and other malevolent deities and demons to prove to us that this is all so.  Changes of seasons, hot and cold, low and high pressure along with convection and the dynamics of fronts can't account for the all the misery inflicted on humans when weather gets scary.  Just ask Bob.  It curls my toes when Bob says,  "as I correctly predicted," because we all know he is so desperate to be right and a true prophet of YHVH.  He's not of course and Internet surfing for insights and possibilities does not count as much as visits in the night and voices in the mind from God telling one what to tell the people.  Bob is not going to risk being that kind of prophet.  You'll never hear him say, "Thus said the Lord to me and I pass that on to you..."   He'll just quote the thus saiths from those Biblical prophets and want to give you the impression he and them are one and the same.  A silly game actually...

Ok...Listen up.  God wants me to tell you.....

If you wish to know the future and how it will all play out, one needs to follow the teachings of Ron Weinland , Dave Pack and Gerald Flurry.  These men know.  They have had a direct line to the mind of God for decades.  Their stunning accuracy has been nothing short of miraculous.  The truths and spectacular insights of  "just around the corner", "by 2016" , "not sooner than 2017", and the awesome events of August 31, 2013 from which are still gyrating in our seats over are absolute proof that one need look no further and not expand the size of the box they control in any way to know the "truth."

Ok, I'm just kidding.  These men are not so good at telling their flocks how it all will be.  Pretty terrible actually.  But as Dave Pack says,  "the prophecy is very much still 'on'"   I prefer he say he was wrong but that's not how living in boxes that know it all and have all you need to know contained within work.

Seriously though, in my experience, most people get far more defensive over what they already are sure they know than excited or fascinated by what they may yet come to know if they only stepped outside those boxes.  Why consider evolution and do the hard work of study and thought about the wonder of it all when you can drop back to the story of Adam and Eve, probably coming on the scene a mere 5000 ish years ago.  In my box, that's a myth and while it has meaning, the origin of humans is not the intended meaning nor was it ever the meaning any Hebrew writer gave it.  The myth has taken on a life of it's own and is used to explain everything from how humans arrived on the planet to why we are all guilty of Original Sin no matter how nice we are.   It informs us all we  deserve the fires of hell unless we come to  the Jesus  found in this or that box or the Christ of those like the authoritative sound of that word.   I can see why it is such a threat to see it as intended and not imagined.  For the story to not be literally true has "implications" for other theological concepts.  Few wish to go there and defensiveness goes on high alert. 

I have quoted Huxley a few times who encouraged those who were willing and able to look over the edges of the boxes they now abide in, to sit down before the facts as a little child and let them take you where they will, or one learns nothing, but then I have had to put up with "facts" being not facts at all and unworthy of consideration.    If you step outside your church box you'll get blasted with...

"My ways are not your ways saith the Eternal..."

"There is a way that seems right to a man but the ends there of are death..."

"The wisdom of man is foolishness with God..."

and so on.

These are what you say when you have nothing really left to say.  It's all the Priests ,who actually wrote these texts,  could come up with to bully those who found thinking outside the boxes priests wanted folk to stay in.  It's thought control,  putting the blame for thinking outside the box on the thinker  and using "God" to deliver the message.   No one ever actually heard God say these sentences.

Gee...I wish you hadn't pointed that out.  I worked hard on that.

It's not uncommon to get accused of "trying to destroy people's faith" when one is actually endeavoring to open the mind a bit more to wonderful things.   The Jews of Jesus time were not all that pleased with Jesus , in the story, explaining that one could not successfully keep new wine in old wine skins and there was need for new perspectives.  We know how that worked out for him.  I'm all for faith but not when it has to yield to the facts of a given topic.   The average member of the Church of God, or any fundamentalist and literalistic organization  is not really interested in "the truth."  They are interested in "this truth" as usually presented by one man who thinks he knows just what that truth is.  I am not being judgemental about motives for truth seeking.  It is just that the idea that one finds it all in one small box as defined by a few other humans should give one pause for thought on the topic of the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  Did we not learn anything from the demise of the WCG which was the bastion of truth as the few explained it to us?

Oh I forgot...If you want to know how living under the Old Covenant would be like, just let James Malm lead you.  In my view, his Wonderful World Tomorrow" would be my worst nightmare but that's maybe just me.  EWKing is rather different.  He seems to watch lots of YouTube videos on human origins and cosmology and then weave them into a fantastic tale of how it all fits perfectly together.  He tends to sit down before the facts as a little child, twist 'em up a bit, jumble the Bible in with YouTube and the findings of paleontologists, cosmologists and the Nephilim and Space Invaders , and tell his folk how it all is.   If you need the code unlocked , again you have to refer back to Dave Pack and if you are puzzled, Art Mokarrow can solve that for you. 

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
Buddha  (Or some insightful guy...)

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
Mahatma Gandhi 

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.
Winston Churchill 

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
Mahatma Gandhi 

Now I totally realize all the "yeah but" going on in the minds of those who read such concepts.  I have never met anyone who believes that what they believe is not the truth.  I suppose that's why we use the term, "my truth."  I never met anyone who attends the wrong church or one that teaches that which is not true.  One would not attend such a church if they really thought it was untrue.  Remember the meme..."So how did you come into the truth?"   Now that truth has been trashed for new truth which has split into a thousand other true truths with endless options as to whom you wish to present it to you.  

Everyone is totally entitled to their plain truths.  They are actually merely present truths but the boxes people allow themselves to look around in vary in size from the very small and compacted to the very large and ever expanding.  I prefer the latter.  Usually when one gets criticised by another it is someone in a small box having it out with someone in a much bigger one.   Sometimes those in the bigger boxes attempt to expand the territory of those in the small ones but that doesn't seem to work well.  Only when the person in the small one realizes just how small the box is will they seek to look over the top and see it's not the only one to live in.   Even people in big boxes are still in a box.  No one lives boxless as far as I can tell and those who think they don't live in a box at all, are often those who live in the small ones.


Believe those who are seeking the truth.  Doubt those who find it.

All truth passes through three stages.  First, it is ridiculed.  Second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident

...even if your voice shakes....

Reality is our friend