Know Velocity

I preface my comments by giving credit where credit is due, showing a great love and appreciation for Raymond F. McNair being blessed to serve as one of the pioneers in the Worldwide Church of God and have such an active and important role in the holy Work of fulfilling the Great Commission under God’s apostle Herbert W. Armstrong, serving thousands of brethren over the years. I want this on record since he is an elder and deserving of biblical respect, while I respectfully and strongly disagree with him on the sacred calendar, as a brother in the Lord.

I am very happy to see Raymond McNair acknowledge the Jews have a God-given authority to include postponements in the sacred calendar. Some Church of God members reject this plain truth and go off the deep end, creating their own calendars in the confusion of a spiritual anarchy, a Laodicean everybody-decide-for-himself wrong attitude.

I am grieved to see Raymond McNair assume it’s the Sadducees God’s Church should submit to on these matters, rather than the Pharisees whom Christ clearly supported on these biblical issues of the sacred calendar.

Quotes from Raymond F. McNair’s article WHAT ARE THE “POSTPONEMENTS”? -

Modern Jews don’t observe Pentecost (Shavout) on a Sunday. Instead they observe it on Sivan 6. However the early New Testament Church of God (like the Sadducees) followed the biblical command to observe Pentecost by counting 50 days from the Sunday (the “morrow after the Sabbath”) that occurs during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This means that when Pentecost is counted correctly, it always falls on a Sunday-thus creating tandem Sabbaths.

Furthermore, no biblical or historical sources indicate that Christ and His apostles had any calendar disputes with the Jews (the Sadducees were then in control of the calendar and the Temple ritual until a short time before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D!) regarding the calendar that they were using in New Testament times.

What a crying shame that Raymond McNair refuses to submit to the government of God and hear the Voice of the Shepherd who clearly stated THE PHARISEES SIT IN MOSES’ SEAT – not the blind Sadducees that some Church members continue to blindly follow. God has restored this truth to His Church, and some have repented of their vain Church traditions, choosing to get back on track like the early Church that followed the correct calculations of the Pharisees, like the Apostle Paul.

For Zion’s sake,

David Ben-Ariel

Jewish Holidays are Biblical Festivals for God’s Church!

Did God authorize Herbert W. Armstrong to determine when the holy days are to be kept? Did Jesus Christ reject the Jews and decide God’s Church would now be the custodian of His sacred calendar?

The Pharisees

Who isn’t aware of the sins of the Pharisees? Did Jesus have nothing but condemnation for them? You might be surprised.

Passover and Pentecost Differences Settled!

Why do we differ on dates for Passover and Pentecost? Is it because our Father God left us in the dark? Has the God of law and order left us in chaos and confusion? Are we unable to “prove all things” from the Scriptures?

Filed at 6:46 am under A Life Of Religion
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Your anxieties and panic attacks have the best of you and you don’t know where to turn for help. At some point you feel totally helpless as you struggle each day. What do you do as a Christian to manage your panic attacks?

The first step a person should do is to start talking and praying to God. A person can go to church or to a quiet place during the day to tell God that they are having a problem. They should tell God how they feel and ask God for some of his help. A person could also review the Bible and read some articles on trusting in God and then apply these concepts in their life. Each and every day, a person should make it up a habit to talk to God and ask for his help.

When feeling anxious, stop what you are doing and try to do something that will relax you. A person should take a deep breath and try to find something to do for a few minutes to get their mind off of the problem. A person could get some fresh air, listen to some music, or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things.

Remember that our fearful thoughts are exaggerated and can make the problem worse. A good way to manage your worry is to challenge your negative thinking with positive statements and realistic thinking. When encountering thoughts that make your fearful or anxious, challenge those thoughts by asking yourself questions that will maintain objectivity and common sense.

When overwhelmed with worry, a person may encounter a lot of scary thoughts coming at them all at once. Instead of getting upset, remember that these thoughts are exaggerated and are not based on reality. From my interviews with various professionals, I’ve learned that usually it is the fear behind the thoughts that gets us worked up. Ignore the fear behind these thoughts, and your worry should decrease.

Remember that all the worrying in the world will not change anything. I realized that most of what we worry about never comes true. Instead of worrying about something that probably won’t happen, concentrate on what you are able to do. Everything else you can leave in the hands of God.

As a Layman, I realize it is not easy to deal with all of our fears. When your fears and anxieties have the best of you, try to calm down and then get the facts of the situation. The key is to take it slow. All you can do is to do your best each day, hope for the best, and when something does happen, take it in stride. Take things one step at a time, and things will work out.

Filed at 9:34 pm under A Life Of Religion
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As Christians who believe in the Bible, of course we think the events of the Bible happened just as the Bible records them. But when did they happen? This article will examine this question. The Last Common Denominator Young earth creationists say that the world is 6,000 years old, therefore they would say the events in Genesis happened less than 6,000 years ago. Unlike young earth creationists, old earth creationists simply don’t know exact dates (some YECs believe Adam was created at 9:00 A.M., on October 23, 4004 B.C.!) However, old earth theory requires these events to be older, because of the scientific evidence which must match the Bible’s story. We will start with the last common denominator, and work our way back to the Garden of Eden.

There is no way to know for certain what the proper age is for any of these events, but we can make certain speculations about the age. For instance, for many years, scientists thought that the first humans in North America ventured here via a land bridge between Russia and Alaska about 13,000 years ago.

Another site, the Meadowcroft site in Pennsylvania, contains artifacts dated to 16,000 years ago. Based on this and other discoveries, many scientists now believe that North Americans also arrived via boat, prior to the Bering Straight land bridge of 13,000 years ago.2 Thus, for archaeological evidences, the earliest date we have for North America is about 16,000 years ago.

The most recent event, which would be the last common denominator for all human races, is spoken of in Genesis 11. The Tower of Babel tells the story of how God confused the language of the people, and spread them throughout the world. Thus, these early North Americans must have migrated at some point after the Tower of Babel. Therefore, the only thing we can say with any certainty is that the events of Genesis 11 happened sometime prior to 13,000 to 16,000 years ago. This is our starting point for understanding dating of events within our old earth framework, and it is only a rough estimate of the real date for the Tower of Babel. We only know for certain that the Tower of Babel could not be younger than 13,000 years ago (or could it? More on this later.)

However, this assumes that the people spread from the Tower within a few years of God confusing their language. Did they come directly from the Tower to North America…or did they gradually spread in North America’s direction. This could greatly add to the time since the Tower of Babel. The Flood of Noah The next event prior to that would be the Flood of Noah. We do have a good estimate for the time from Noah’s Flood to the Tower of Babel, as you will see.

According to Genesis 9:28, we know that Noah lived 350 years after the flood. Genesis 10 then goes on to list the genealogies of the descendants of Noah’s Ark. It is apparent that the genealogies of Genesis 10 are not necessarily in chronological order with Genesis 11. In other words, the Tower of Babel in Chapter 11 occurred sometime in the middle of these genealogies in Chapter 10. I say this because Genesis 11:1 says “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.” However, we read in Genesis 10:4, 20, that the clans each had their own language. In fact, Genesis 10:25 actually refers to the events of the Tower of Babel. Right in the middle of Shem’s descendants it says “One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided” (NIV). (Other versions say “the inhabitants” of earth were divided up).

Concerning these genealogies, the NIV states that in the original Hebrew, Sons could also mean descendants, successors, or nations. While not significant for the genealogies between the Flood and the Tower, we will come back to this thought later.

The most definitive passage for dating back to Noah’s Flood is Genesis 11:10-19. This gives the descendants, from Noah’s son Shem, to Peleg, who we previously learned was alive when the Tower of Babel incident occurred. Thus… 0 Shem is 98 when the flood ended 2 Shem is 100 when Arphaxad is born 37 Arphaxad is 35 when Shelah is born 67 Shelah is 30 when Eber is born 101 Eber is 34 when Pelag is Born 310 Pelag lived to be 209 Using this chart, the Flood must have happened a minimum of 101 years prior to the Tower of Babel. If the split at the Tower was caused by God near the time of Pelag’s birth, this would lend support to his father, Eber, naming him after this event. However, we can’t be certain of this. The only thing we know with any degree of certainty is that it happened during Peleg’s lifetime. Thus we have a range for the Flood of 101 to 310 years prior to the Tower of Babel.

Adding this to our minimum age of 13,000 to 16,000 years, and we come up with a range of 13,101 to 16,310 years ago for Noah’s Flood. This is assuming the migrations to North America involve post-Adamic men…more on this later. Eve Next we must consider mankind’s origins. The most favored theory now is the “Out of Africa” theory, which shows that a genetic “Eve” from which we are descended came from Africa about 150,000 years ago. This “genetic” evidence is based on mutation rates of mitochondrial DNA of 1 every 20,000 years. Some research suggests a ratio of 1 to 10,000, thus cutting 150,000 to 75,000 years.

Interestingly, the people from this genetic Eve are said to have migrated from Africa to the Middle East, and from there they spread out over the world. Although the African Eve is said to be 150,000 years ago, the migration to the Middle East is said to have occurred around 80,000 years ago. Thus, 80,000 years ago is the last common location for all mankind (using this model).

This brings up an apparent problem. According to the Bible, Eve came from the Garden of Eden, which was located in the Middle East. How could our genetic common ancestor have come from Africa?

It is based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). mtDNA is passed down from mother to offspring. Unlike other DNA, mtDNA is passed down without change, without merging with the male mtDNA. It is subject to random mutations, thus over time, minor differences can be shown.

If I have a specific mutation, and someone else also has it, it confirms that sometime in the past we had a common maternal ancestor. This ancestor could be a few generations, or a hundred generations ago.

Using mtDNA extrapolations, and assuming a mutation rate of 1 per 20,000 years, and by examining mtDNA evidence of fossil hominids, they arrive at the conclusion that there was a genetic Eve from Africa 150,000 years ago. This may be true, but it doesn’t affect our conclusions…more on that later.

Now, on to the next piece of the puzzle. We must consider when migration from the Middle East occurred. Archeological and DNA evidence suggests human migration to Europe about 50,000 years ago, and migration to Australia no later than 40,000 years ago. With the first migration from the Middle East around 50,000 years ago, where does this leave us? We now have a range of 50,000 to 16,000 years ago for the last common location for our ancestors…the Tower of Babel. This is assuming that we are all descended from these migration peoples. However, this may or may not be the case. Will the Real Eve Please Stand Up! How could there be a genetic Eve in Africa 150,000 years ago, and a Biblical Eve in the Middle East? At some point, Adam and Eve (the Biblical ones) were created. Before Adam and Eve, other non-soulish hominids were created by God. We share similarities in mtDNA with these pre-Adamic hominids. For instance Neanderthal mtDNA differs from ours by 7 percent…enough to show similarities (93 percent), but far enough apart to prove that they did not contribute to our current gene pool. The hominids that existed 50,000 to 150,000 years ago also shared a significant portion of their mtDNA with us.

It gives the appearance of God using each successive pre-Adamic hominid to refine the model. Is this saying God could not create us perfectly in the first place? No, it merely is a record of what God did. We cannot infer anything from this about God’s power and abilities…after all, can you create a hominid? No, you can’t…you are not God!

Why He did it that way, we don’t know. We only know that at some point, He created a hominid in His image (with an eternal spirit), and ended the creative process. Therefore, these early hominids from mtDNA evidence, that are said to be our ancestors, may not be at all! They may have spread all over the world, and then when God created Adam and Eve, some 20-30,000 years ago (?), these others went extinct. We share most of our mtDNA with them because they were our “template.” My Proposal for Adam and Eve’s Date of Creation One thing is clear…we now have one hominid species, created in the image of God. Where in the past can we point to a place in time, when the last non-modern hominid went extinct? This would be a good basis for the maximum dating of the Biblical Eve. This would be the Neanderthal, which went extinct around 29,000 years ago.

Although not conclusive, it may be safe to assume that when God made Adam and Eve, his final creation, there were no previous hominids present. This would put the Garden of Eden no later than 29,000 years ago, and would allow plenty of time for the migration to the Americas after the Tower of Babel, which occurred a minimum of 16,000 years ago. With this conclusion, prior dated hominids do not create a problem for us…they were merely non-soulish hominids, not in God’s image.

To tie up loose ends…remember our Tower of Babel date, which had to be at least 13,000 years ago…not so. I give 29,000 years as the oldest date for Eden, but it could have been younger. These 13,000 year old migrators could have died when Adam and Eve were created. Thus, they could have been pre-Adamic, non-eternal hominids. So, we really have a range of 29,000 years, all the way down to 6,000 years, if you like. Hebrew Scholars Dates for the Garden, as given by some of the best Hebrew scholars, place it between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago, with some scholars placing it as young as 6,000, or as old as 60,000 years ago. This is within the range of 29,000 years ago or later which I propose as the oldest possible date for the Garden. Conclusion The bottom line is that we don’t know the exact dates for early Biblical events. All we can do is make an educated guess. Since the last non-modern hominid died out 29,000 years ago, it is safe to assume that Biblical history starts sometime within the last 29,000 years. Does it matter when it started? Praise the Lord that it does not. Our salvation does not depend upon the timing of God’s creation. Thus, you are free to debate these matters and come to your own conclusions. I hope that this article provides you with some food for thought to get you started.

This is a condensed article. For a list of references, access the original page on the Answers In Creation website.

This article comes from the Answers In Creation website (http://www.answersincreatio n.org). The source article is located at http://w ww.answersincreation.org/biblicaldating.htm.

Filed at 9:35 am under A Life Of Religion
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================================================================= =============== On the Hereafter All rights reserved This article is a self-contained section to the Epilogue of my book titled The Mystery of Mind Copyrighted and published in the United States ================================================================= ===============

Ever since the days of Plato, western religious opinion has always been that personal immortality pertains only to the rational parts of the soul. The biological and emotional parts should be allowed to let go with the body. The reason behind this move is not difficult to seek. For one thing, a personal soul without desires and emotions is more likely to be peaceful. For another, nothing but its more divine-like of aspects should be allowed to persist into eternity. But the truth of the matter is that in the more sophisticated of religious deliberations, personal immorality with memory has in fact never been thought of as a desirable commodity. Some, such as the more philosophical of Buddhist schools have always held a more radical point of view. It is that if eventual freedom from all sufferings is to be achieved, to let go of the biological and the emotional is not sufficient. Memory and the identity of self that it entails should also be transcended. The reason is that for as long as memory and self-identity persist, personal ambition would continue to lurk. What that nurtures again would be psychological torment. Thus, if all suffering is really to be overcome, all personal interests and concerns (and thus memories) should also be put to rest. To be able to do that, according to Buddhist thought, is to enter the state of torment-less bliss called nirvana. This is a state of being free not only from the burden old memory, but of any sense of self. It should thus be seen that contrary to popular understanding, nirvana is not a personal kind of place. What that implies is that those who enter would not know who they were. Such a state of being, if I may say so, is quite analogous to the situation of Adam and Eve before they ate the fruit of the ‘tree of life’. Before they ate, according to the story, they had no sense of themselves — being unable to recognize even their own nakedness.

Of course, early Christianity also had much to say about the burden of our old and depraved selves. You see, one of its unique claims is that the human race does not only inherit the genes of Adam and Eve, but also their original sin (what in fact was the emergence of memory and self-identity, as I have just indicated). Thus, one of its key battle cries is about the renewal of incarnated souls (not unlike the Islamic concept of self-directed jihad). It is believed that this could be brought about by an act of faith as facilitated by Divine grace. Only in this way, or so it is said, could the soul be redeemed or made ready for the kingdom of heaven.

The trouble with such a doctrine is that a couple of subsidiary wrinkles need also to be ironed out. One is the belief that departed and redeemed souls are not amnesiacs. They need to know who they were for the purpose of final reckoning. The other is the belief that straight entry for such personal souls into heaven would bring with them traces of human depravity unfit for what is also supposed to be a holy kingdom. It is thus a case of ‘either-or’ but not both. To tackle this problem, some of those who were supposedly in the know were smart enough to propagate the idea that disembodied souls would first be herded into a sort of quarantined center or transit hall; and that it is only after the final judgment that the ones that have really been redeemed would be admitted into heaven. This center or hall is known in Catholic circles as purgatory – a more sanitary sounding kind of place than the classical underworld mentioned in the Apostle Peter’s account of where Jesus went before his resurrection.

However, it should be observed that the introduction of purgatory buys only time but not solution. At the end of the day, redeemed souls with old memories and senses of self would still have to be kept in check. The rebellion of Satan or Lucifer in particular should be kept in view. In this connection, I should like to point out that despite other criticisms that one may level against the Apostle Paul on other issues of doctrine, he was at least quite clear-headed (in my view) about this one. It was to his credit to have taken the Genesis pronouncement of ‘dust to dust’ more seriously than most, and thereby appear to have accepted what it entails. One must take seriously his contention that if there were not going to be any resurrection of bodies of an incorruptible kind, his Christian faith and commitment ‘would be in vain’. Why, may I ask, should he be so desperate for an incorruptible body when he already had a redeemed soul? Let me tell you what I think. He seemed to be saying that old memories and personal identities should be allowed to disintegrate with the body. And the bodies of those who are redeemed would be resurrected new and incorruptible for the new heaven and the new earth. He also seemed to be saying that memory and self-identity are in fact on the side of the body (a touch of what I have referred to as minimal dualism if I may add), and that what is new about these incorruptible bodies is that they are ready to begin afresh with new memories of perhaps a more desirable kind.

The trouble of this scenario, I should like to point out, is that the kind of hereafter being envisioned is as good as none. For in the absence of old memories, new bodies or brains, incorruptible or otherwise, would not be able to know who they were or suppose to replace. That renders empty the hope of reuniting with friends and kin. It goes without saying therefore that this Pauline scenario is not very palatable for most. Thus, for purpose of making the hereafter more marketable, some later theoreticians were again to suggest that these incorruptible bodies would in fact be reunited with old souls and memories that have been kept waiting in purgatory. But the trouble of this move is that it is taking everything sort of back to square one. I said ’sort of’ because the end result might be worse rather than better. Let me explain. Since the new incorruptible bodies and old souls with depraved memories are now both destruction-proof, who is to say what new complications might eventually ensue? Many new dramas of Eden and their aftermath could now be played into eternity. This is why I said that the Apostle Paul was clear-headed about this one. At least, what he envisioned was that in the complete passing away of all that which is old, a new game would be set for incorruptible brains and new memories. That, I suppose, is the only way to erase permanently the quilt of a tormenting soul (for the terrible Roman cruelties he had once personally inflict or helped to inflict on the Christians for instance). Some people, you see, would rather completely forget than to carry their past for an eternity. As you can see therefore, a materialist theory of mind is actually of no real threat to certain religious scenarios when some of their finer prints are taken into account.

For those who are not religiously in the know, let me also point out that this scenario is in fact consistent with the Biblical pronouncements (in the book of Genesis) that “from dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return”, and that to die is to return to “the place of one’s ancestors” – a polite label for the ancient family graveyard. For those who are religiously in the know, let me also say that anyone that takes these pronouncements seriously should also accept what they literally entail. It is that there will not be any personal hereafter, and that this is what is meant to be a human creature. What comes into being, in other words, must in the course of time also peters away. The laments of King Solomon (in the book of Ecclesiastics) on the futility of human existence, if I may also point out, are lamentations about this very fundamental fact. Unfortunately, for reason of our human desire for more personal time in a personal hereafter, this basic truth has remained difficult for many to accept. It is distinctive of human nature not to take literally what it does not like. As always, the neighborhood of truth is always less comfortable than the familiar circle of falsehood. This may also explain why religious dualism is still able to attract and ‘hypnotize’ the immortality crowd.

Author: Peter M.K. Chan http ://www.geocities.com/philosophyofreligion_pmkchan http://www.geoci ties.com/themysteryofmind

=========================================== The strange neighborhood of truth is always less comfortable than the familiar circle of falsehood — PMKC. ===========================================

Filed at 5:22 pm under A Life Of Religion
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As we were sitting there eating the fixin’s the girls brought out to us “hard working men”, I was observing Riley, Devon’s old Golden Retriever. I said, “I bet Riley really likes it out here in the country.” Devon responded, “You know, since we moved out here I’ve really seen his natural instincts come to the surface.” I sat and thought about that for a minute, and replied, “You know what Devon, its the same for men…”

Recently I was visiting my brother in-law Devon Rolf, a patent attorney with Garmin International (Most of you outdoorsmen know Garmin by their handheld GPS units and fishfinders). Our families were getting together, the girls catching up on the news inside while the guys (Devon, me and three of my sons) were out workin’ in the woods. A few years ago Devon moved out on some acreage outside of town, and we were clearing some walking trails… no doubt we were checking out all the signs of deer activity while we were out… rubs, scrapes, droppings, etc. My 8 year old son Christian found a nice antler from a 12 point buck out there. He wants to mount it somehow in his room to hang stuff on.

After we were done with our work, we sat down in the pasture to rest a bit. (You know how good it feels to sit and rest after doing some good ol’ hard work.) The girls, anxiously awaiting our appearance, spied us sitting there from inside the house and they (My wife Nancy and our two daughters, and her sister Becky and her four daughters) promptly brought out some soup, homemade wheat bread with butter, and refreshments. (The men are teaching the boys to work, and the women are teaching the girls to bless the men… ain’t that the way it should be?) As we were sitting there eating the fixin’s the girls brought out to us “hard working men”, I was observing Riley, Devon’s old Golden Retriever. I said, “I bet Riley really likes it out here in the country.” Devon responded, “You know, since we moved out here I’ve really seen his natural instincts come to the surface.” I sat and thought about that for a minute, and replied, “You know what Devon, its the same for men…”

Have you ever watched a dog that is chained up or stuck in a house? All he does is lay around and sleep. He’s depressed! But you let him off that chain… give him some room to roam… he’s running and tracking critters down! Just like ol’ Riley is happy chasing after a couple deer or coyotes… doing things he was created by God to do… (He sure wasn’t created to be cooped-up in a house in the burbs…) Men are happiest when they are outdoors… workin’, sweatin’, freezin’, and gettin’ rained on… you know what I mean. And we’re really happy when the girls bring out the refreshments, and make such a big fuss over their hard working men. There is something about the corporate America scene that robs a man of his manhood. His hands get soft… He doesn’t get out in the fresh air… He’s away from his family… the wife he loves and his dear children. Men, I guess that’s one reason why I have such a passion for the outdoors. It’s more than the hunting. It’s more than the fishing. It’s about getting outdoors, with the ones you love, and feeling like a real man.

Filed at 11:13 am under A Life Of Religion
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