JONES Versus GENESIS - Chapter 1: In the Beginning
The Bible tells us that God created the heavens and the earth 'in the beginning.
' But when was that? Although Christians are divided over the question, a careful reading of the scriptures makes it clear that 'the beginning' was not an instant in time, but an extended period, possibly millions of years, during which a series of important events took place - from Jesus and Wisdom being with God (John 1:1-2, Proverbs 8:32-31), before the earth made, to man and later woman being created later after God created the earth - but still all 'in the beginning.
' Just how God created the universe, we are not told - and scientists are free to use their God-given intelligence to investigate and speculate.
Sadly, I suspect, many are more interested in trying to dismiss God's claim to be the Creator - and of course denying His very existence.
In so doing, science comes up with more questions than answers, with Jones admitting that: 'The deeper it goes, the more indefinite its ideas tend to become.
' Although the Biblical outline of events could lighten that darkness and provide guidance, they choose to ignore it.
Nevertheless, he continues: 'For many of those who toil in its vineyards, obscurity increases the joy of the journey.
' All good fun at the taxpayers' expense, and all aimed at undermining our faith in God.
Just got a new research grant.
Whoopee! Bio-mythology So was there a 'Big bang'? I am not sure, but I am happy for scientists to carry on investigating the physics of that cosmos, after the manner of Newton and Faraday.
But to keep things in perspective, let us just ponder for a moment the fact that science cannot explain - time, energy, matter, electricity, gravity, nuclear forces or electro-magnetism.
Sure they can find out what these things to and perhaps quantify the laws they obey, but just what 'they' are and how they came into being, science has no idea.
So let us not be too quick to dismiss the Word of God.
However, page after page of this chapter consists of what I would describe has a mixture of speculation, exaggeration, and atheistic wishful thinking.
Like Darwin, professor Jones has got things back to front - harbouring the delusion that the Bible is myth, and evolution is Truth.
The Bible, I believe, offers a scientifically correct, and literally true summary of key events - and science is free to discover more details.
Perhaps a more appropriate title for this chapter would 'Bio-mythology.
' Jones downplays the incredible potential of man, who, the scriptures inform us, will one day be literally born of God (1 John 3:2), a simple fact made clear by the Lord's Prayer in which we address God as our Father.
Instead Jones stresses that at present we live in a 'minor solar system' on the edge of a 'suburban galaxy.
' Man may come from humble beginnings, but what is his destiny? Dare we speculate? One of the amazing facts proper science has discovered is that there are enough stars for everybody who ever lived to have one.
In fact, there are enough whole galaxies! Awesome! Vague Verbosity In reading the rest of the chapter, it is important to take note of the way evolution smoothly explains miraculous developments in vague language that actually proves nothing.
The point is that for the Darwinian True Believer, evolution is self-evident and axiomatic.
When you reach that stage, there is no longer any need for specific, logical cause-and-effect explanations.
You know by faith that things just happened according to the evolutionary scenario.
All it takes is for some imagined change to offer an organism an advantage, then Natural Selection will wave its magic wand and make it happen.
You hear that magical incantation being repeated in just about every wildlife programme the BBC has to offer.
So, in reading Jones' 'explanations', keep in mind the simple tool used by Sir Winston Churchill's civil servant helper, Reg Jones, in reducing so-called military experts to gibbering wrecks - three simple questions: How? How? How? Elan vital Jones mentions the old idea that living things contain a magical spark of life, a 'vital force' or 'elan vital.
' The idea was dismissed when a German chemist was able to synthesize the organic chemical 'urea' in the lab, a substance previously only found in living things.
Jones quotes the scripture that tells us that God created Adam and 'breathed into him the breath of life', but fails to mention that the Hebrew wording signifies a duality and that in Hebrew the words for 'breath' and 'spirit' are the same - so that, as Job explains (Job 32:8), God also 'breathed' a spirit in man that impart intellect.
Solomon tells that animals also have a spirit.
In other words, there is more to man and animals than mere atoms and molecules, as any dog lover will know.
Jones is forced to admit that science does not know where 'life' came from, some people claiming it came from space.
He then pushes the evolutionary assumption that wherever there is water, 'life' may evolve.
But How? How? How? He claims, using very inappropriate wording, that on earth it 'burst into flame, soon after the seas and the continents were formed.
' Again, How? So how was DNA formed? Jones speaks of those perilous moments which magically spawned 'a molecule able to take control of its own chemistry.
' More meaningless vague verbosity.
He then speculates that the vital first step toward life may not have been molecules that could copy themselves, but a magic membrane that could offer protection when they did arrive.
We are informed too that 'water was the scaffold of life.
' No comment.
Apparently 'life' then jumped from being 'a closed sac filled with primitive replicators', to become 'a modern cell in all its complexity.
' Pow! Splat! Sorry, that's Superman.
Anyway, apparently, the miracle was accomplished by the action of Natural Selection - 'Darwin's architect' which was also responsible for the creation of the human brain.
Can a professor of biology really believe such infantile nonsense.
And notice yet again, the lack of any credible explanation.
The Fossil Record In another uncharacteristically poor choice of words, Jones informs us that 'the fuse of life was lit in a dark ocean', a very unlikely scenario, which might explain why 'the chances that a relic of the earliest ancestors will ever be found are slim indeed.
' 'The ancient fossil record is so incomplete' he continues, and contains 'almost no reliable clues about the first organisms.
' He then wonders if we might learn more about these mythical organisms by taking a bacterium and finding out what bits could be removed, one by one, without destroying it.
He then does marvel at the incredible complexity of the humble E coli bacterium found in our bodies.
It has 25 million components, of some 2000 different types.
A typical computer contains only a thousand bits.
Yet still the good professor fails to get the message.
Moving on, Jones tells us that evolution did not gain 'real impetus' until the 'emergence of eukaryotes, cells with nuclei.
' They 'emerged'! To get some idea of idea of the utter complexity of what emerged, just search for cell structure on Google images.
He continues:'The Entry of the Eukaryotes was the overture to the opera of advanced existence.
' Wow! Of course, such cells needed energy, a problem easily solved when they got 'hijacked' by primitive mitochondria.
Now we can pay the gas bill.
Ain't evolution wonderful! And them came the 'great leap forward' with the evolution of multi-cellular organisms.
Quite a miracle? No, not really.
Routine stuff.
Apparently it happened several times - creating algae, plants, animals and fungi.
Easy peasy when you have Darwin's Architect in control.
The Magic Mantra Sorry to sound so critical, but do you see, dear reader, how the system works? As top Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin freely admits, evolution has become a Faith.
As a result, Darwin's theory becomes axiomatic.
No solid proof is required.
They just know it happened that way.
A particular point of Faith is that, given enough time, Natural Selection can sift randomly generated DNA copying errors, favouring the good and rejecting the bad, in order to shape the design detail of any part of any organism.
Hence any change that would offer some primitive organism a tiny advantage would inevitably be developed.
'It would give an advantage, so it evolved' - or was acquired, developed, invented.
With that magic mantra in mind, there is no longer any need for dreary details of How or Why.
Spontaneous Generation Jones describes how in the seventeenth century, the notion of 'spontaneous generation', the creation of living things from nothing, was popular, with some people even believing that mice could be created from mouldy hay.
The idea was described as being 'seductive', just as evolution seems to be today.
But it was wrong, and was killed off by Louis Pasteur's famous experiment in which samples of sterile broth were kept in a variety of flasks, some with open tops and some with swan necks.
The broth in the open flasks soon went off and teemed with maggots.
Pasteur learned three important things from the experiment - one, that the air can contain and carry tiny eggs and microbes; two, that heating or 'pasteurizing' kills such organisms; and three, that living organisms cannot be spontaneously generated from inanimate matter.
And so science proved that 'life cannot be made in a flask.
' It is impossible.
It cannot happen...
But the irony seems lost on Jones, because the spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter is precisely what evolution claims, even starting with inanimate matter! Yer wot? You cannot be serious Steve! Several more pages of pseudoscientific waffle follow, but why bother.
I think we have the message.
' But when was that? Although Christians are divided over the question, a careful reading of the scriptures makes it clear that 'the beginning' was not an instant in time, but an extended period, possibly millions of years, during which a series of important events took place - from Jesus and Wisdom being with God (John 1:1-2, Proverbs 8:32-31), before the earth made, to man and later woman being created later after God created the earth - but still all 'in the beginning.
' Just how God created the universe, we are not told - and scientists are free to use their God-given intelligence to investigate and speculate.
Sadly, I suspect, many are more interested in trying to dismiss God's claim to be the Creator - and of course denying His very existence.
In so doing, science comes up with more questions than answers, with Jones admitting that: 'The deeper it goes, the more indefinite its ideas tend to become.
' Although the Biblical outline of events could lighten that darkness and provide guidance, they choose to ignore it.
Nevertheless, he continues: 'For many of those who toil in its vineyards, obscurity increases the joy of the journey.
' All good fun at the taxpayers' expense, and all aimed at undermining our faith in God.
Just got a new research grant.
Whoopee! Bio-mythology So was there a 'Big bang'? I am not sure, but I am happy for scientists to carry on investigating the physics of that cosmos, after the manner of Newton and Faraday.
But to keep things in perspective, let us just ponder for a moment the fact that science cannot explain - time, energy, matter, electricity, gravity, nuclear forces or electro-magnetism.
Sure they can find out what these things to and perhaps quantify the laws they obey, but just what 'they' are and how they came into being, science has no idea.
So let us not be too quick to dismiss the Word of God.
However, page after page of this chapter consists of what I would describe has a mixture of speculation, exaggeration, and atheistic wishful thinking.
Like Darwin, professor Jones has got things back to front - harbouring the delusion that the Bible is myth, and evolution is Truth.
The Bible, I believe, offers a scientifically correct, and literally true summary of key events - and science is free to discover more details.
Perhaps a more appropriate title for this chapter would 'Bio-mythology.
' Jones downplays the incredible potential of man, who, the scriptures inform us, will one day be literally born of God (1 John 3:2), a simple fact made clear by the Lord's Prayer in which we address God as our Father.
Instead Jones stresses that at present we live in a 'minor solar system' on the edge of a 'suburban galaxy.
' Man may come from humble beginnings, but what is his destiny? Dare we speculate? One of the amazing facts proper science has discovered is that there are enough stars for everybody who ever lived to have one.
In fact, there are enough whole galaxies! Awesome! Vague Verbosity In reading the rest of the chapter, it is important to take note of the way evolution smoothly explains miraculous developments in vague language that actually proves nothing.
The point is that for the Darwinian True Believer, evolution is self-evident and axiomatic.
When you reach that stage, there is no longer any need for specific, logical cause-and-effect explanations.
You know by faith that things just happened according to the evolutionary scenario.
All it takes is for some imagined change to offer an organism an advantage, then Natural Selection will wave its magic wand and make it happen.
You hear that magical incantation being repeated in just about every wildlife programme the BBC has to offer.
So, in reading Jones' 'explanations', keep in mind the simple tool used by Sir Winston Churchill's civil servant helper, Reg Jones, in reducing so-called military experts to gibbering wrecks - three simple questions: How? How? How? Elan vital Jones mentions the old idea that living things contain a magical spark of life, a 'vital force' or 'elan vital.
' The idea was dismissed when a German chemist was able to synthesize the organic chemical 'urea' in the lab, a substance previously only found in living things.
Jones quotes the scripture that tells us that God created Adam and 'breathed into him the breath of life', but fails to mention that the Hebrew wording signifies a duality and that in Hebrew the words for 'breath' and 'spirit' are the same - so that, as Job explains (Job 32:8), God also 'breathed' a spirit in man that impart intellect.
Solomon tells that animals also have a spirit.
In other words, there is more to man and animals than mere atoms and molecules, as any dog lover will know.
Jones is forced to admit that science does not know where 'life' came from, some people claiming it came from space.
He then pushes the evolutionary assumption that wherever there is water, 'life' may evolve.
But How? How? How? He claims, using very inappropriate wording, that on earth it 'burst into flame, soon after the seas and the continents were formed.
' Again, How? So how was DNA formed? Jones speaks of those perilous moments which magically spawned 'a molecule able to take control of its own chemistry.
' More meaningless vague verbosity.
He then speculates that the vital first step toward life may not have been molecules that could copy themselves, but a magic membrane that could offer protection when they did arrive.
We are informed too that 'water was the scaffold of life.
' No comment.
Apparently 'life' then jumped from being 'a closed sac filled with primitive replicators', to become 'a modern cell in all its complexity.
' Pow! Splat! Sorry, that's Superman.
Anyway, apparently, the miracle was accomplished by the action of Natural Selection - 'Darwin's architect' which was also responsible for the creation of the human brain.
Can a professor of biology really believe such infantile nonsense.
And notice yet again, the lack of any credible explanation.
The Fossil Record In another uncharacteristically poor choice of words, Jones informs us that 'the fuse of life was lit in a dark ocean', a very unlikely scenario, which might explain why 'the chances that a relic of the earliest ancestors will ever be found are slim indeed.
' 'The ancient fossil record is so incomplete' he continues, and contains 'almost no reliable clues about the first organisms.
' He then wonders if we might learn more about these mythical organisms by taking a bacterium and finding out what bits could be removed, one by one, without destroying it.
He then does marvel at the incredible complexity of the humble E coli bacterium found in our bodies.
It has 25 million components, of some 2000 different types.
A typical computer contains only a thousand bits.
Yet still the good professor fails to get the message.
Moving on, Jones tells us that evolution did not gain 'real impetus' until the 'emergence of eukaryotes, cells with nuclei.
' They 'emerged'! To get some idea of idea of the utter complexity of what emerged, just search for cell structure on Google images.
He continues:'The Entry of the Eukaryotes was the overture to the opera of advanced existence.
' Wow! Of course, such cells needed energy, a problem easily solved when they got 'hijacked' by primitive mitochondria.
Now we can pay the gas bill.
Ain't evolution wonderful! And them came the 'great leap forward' with the evolution of multi-cellular organisms.
Quite a miracle? No, not really.
Routine stuff.
Apparently it happened several times - creating algae, plants, animals and fungi.
Easy peasy when you have Darwin's Architect in control.
The Magic Mantra Sorry to sound so critical, but do you see, dear reader, how the system works? As top Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin freely admits, evolution has become a Faith.
As a result, Darwin's theory becomes axiomatic.
No solid proof is required.
They just know it happened that way.
A particular point of Faith is that, given enough time, Natural Selection can sift randomly generated DNA copying errors, favouring the good and rejecting the bad, in order to shape the design detail of any part of any organism.
Hence any change that would offer some primitive organism a tiny advantage would inevitably be developed.
'It would give an advantage, so it evolved' - or was acquired, developed, invented.
With that magic mantra in mind, there is no longer any need for dreary details of How or Why.
Spontaneous Generation Jones describes how in the seventeenth century, the notion of 'spontaneous generation', the creation of living things from nothing, was popular, with some people even believing that mice could be created from mouldy hay.
The idea was described as being 'seductive', just as evolution seems to be today.
But it was wrong, and was killed off by Louis Pasteur's famous experiment in which samples of sterile broth were kept in a variety of flasks, some with open tops and some with swan necks.
The broth in the open flasks soon went off and teemed with maggots.
Pasteur learned three important things from the experiment - one, that the air can contain and carry tiny eggs and microbes; two, that heating or 'pasteurizing' kills such organisms; and three, that living organisms cannot be spontaneously generated from inanimate matter.
And so science proved that 'life cannot be made in a flask.
' It is impossible.
It cannot happen...
But the irony seems lost on Jones, because the spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter is precisely what evolution claims, even starting with inanimate matter! Yer wot? You cannot be serious Steve! Several more pages of pseudoscientific waffle follow, but why bother.
I think we have the message.
