Category: Culture

Our Meeting with Pope Benedict

It was the fall of 1997, and a small group of three Messianic Jews, one Catholic charismatic Priest theologian, a Catholic Archdeacon of Vienna,  and one Episcopal Anglican clergyman/rector met with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.  He would not long after become Pope Benedict XVI.  

The six of us were a committee representing Toward Jerusalem Council II.  (See the web site for information on this effort.)   We were given this opportunity due to the recommendation of Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna.  A few months earlier in the Spring, we had dinner in his palace in Vienna next to St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  The Cardinal was the primary editor of the New Catholic Catechism and a student of Joseph Ratzinger.  He was very moved by our meeting and therefore recommended us.  Our mission was to see repentance in the Church and to see a full embrace of the Messianic Jewish community. 

Cardinal Ratzinger was the leader of the College of the Doctrine of the Faith, the body that puts out statements and larger documents to foster Catholic doctrinal unity.  His position was one of the highest in the Church. His reputation was that of a rigid man enforcing rigid orthodoxy.  Of course, this is the spin of a more liberal press. We found this not to be true. Yet we entered with great concern to be circumspect.  We expected 30 minutes but were given an hour.  We met in the very room where the members of the College meet, a conference setting.  We were told by Father Peter Hocken to not mention anything about our connection to Free Churches (those not from the historical state Churches, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox). We who were Jewish were just to present ourselves as Messianic Jews and as part of the Messianic Jewish congregational movement.  

Cardinal Ratzinger entered the room and greeted us warmly.  He then asked us to present our purpose.  We had our plan.  Rabbi Marty Waldman would present his story as the child of Holocaust survivors.  Then he would present something of the movement.  I would present the theology of the movement.  David, our prophetic brother, would add anything as he was led by the Spirit.  Fr. Peter and Canon Brian would add their words of understanding and commitment to the vision.  We later followed this same pattern in meetings for many years until today. 

Our meeting lasted almost an hour.  We said noting of the Free Churches. We were taken very seriously.  After answering some of his questions, the Cardinal said to us, “If you people are  who you say you are, the second coming of Jesus is nearer than we have thought.”  He knew Romans 11 and saw Jews turning to the Lord while remaining Jews as an eschatological sign.  

After this, he asked to caucus with the two Catholics.  First, he already knew of our connection to Evangelicals.  He had his source of information, but this did not bother him.  He remarked to the Catholics, that it was not a surprise that we had this relationship since the Free Churches (Evangelicals) where more flexible and open.

He then said he was going to appoint Cardinal Schonborn to be the liaison to the Messianic Jews.  He would get the Pope John Paul II to support this.  This was amazing.  

We also met with Cardinal George Cottier, the Pope’s Theologian, who vets what is given to the Pope and reads all the Pope wants to put out.  He was really with us and started a Catholic-Messianic Jewish dialogue where all came to great accord.  The dialogue lasted for 14 years and is today is at a new level.  Cardinal Cottier would report to Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II.  When Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he continued in his support for the Messianic Jewish community and the dialogue.  There is much more that can be written.  He was a serous theologian whose book on Yeshua is very good.  My connection to believing Catholics, who really love Yeshua, does not mean that I am not troubled by some Catholic doctrines, but I am so grateful for the opportunities that were opened to us by Pope Benedict.  The memory of our meeting will forever be dear to me. 

LGBTQ Controversy in Israel

The Orthodox Jewish Parties in Israel, four of them, now dominate Israel’s government.  They have pushed greatly curtailing LGBTQ civil rights.  This has led to a strong pushback from the Israeli secular community and the parties that are now not in power in the new government.  In my view, both sides are partly right and partly wrong.  The Jewish press in Israel has referenced some of the battles in the United States on these same issues. 

Until now, the primary Orthodox push back against the LGBTQ movement has been to protest the gay parade in Jerusalem as contrary and offensive to the character of Jerusalem as a religious city.  They have not been able to stop this parade. 

Today the Orthodox push back seeks to pass laws that would release those who do not want to provide services to LGBTQ people.  This is being stated broadly as a religious conscience accommodation.  Event halls owned by religious people, or medical services by Orthodox doctors, and business services people in general are to be given liberty to not provide as long as others can provide these services.  The issue of what counts as public services and accommodations are not well defined.  Shouldn’t a doctor help all people?  Of course, religious doctors do not want to perform abortions or give gender blocking hormones or do gender re-assignment surgery.  This would be terribly against conscience for some.  

It seems like the Supreme Court in the United States is drawing reasonable lines where public accommodations and services have to be offered without discrimination while offering relief for conscience.  The conscience exception is for a person who runs a business that is the creative expression of an artist, the cake maker or wedding planner since they would be required to engage in creative speech, art, which is against their beliefs.   The court seems to be moving to accommodate personal services from doctors for procedures that are against their conscience.  They also accommodate religious non-profit organizations so they may foster their faith convictions by hiring staff, teachers, etc. that are in accord with their faith confession.  Orthodox Jews can hire only Orthodox Jews, Catholics only Catholics and Evangelicals only Evangelicals.  In this way the LGBTQ agenda is not permitted to destroy free speech and religious based organizations that follow their convictions.  We see this in the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic organization that did not want to provide health insurance with abortion and contraceptive coverage.  Radical leftists do not want these reasonable accommodations, but act from a totalitarian conformity streak which I also see with some of the left in Israel.  I hope that the Israel government can come to some balance in all this.  Freedom of religion and speech are at stake but so are some basic civil rights. 

Klaus Schwab and the Davos World Forum

The general response from many conservatives is that Klaus Schwab is dangerous and maybe an evil guy, and the World Economic Forum is dangerous too. Schwab is an octogenarian born in 1938 who launched the WEF, the rich and well-connected who gather to seek solutions for the new technological world.  Recently I wrote on my Official Facebook Page about one of his friends who has attended the WEF, Yuval Harari.  His book, Homo Deus, covers similar themes to Schwab’s book but his predictions are more frightening and really lead humanity to a world dystopia controlled by a powerful elite. Harari, the Hebrew University professor, is a determinist (there is no such thing as free will) a radical atheist, and naturalistic evolutionist.   

With all that is said, all the accusations, by so many about Schwab and the WEF, I thought it best to read some of his books.  So, I picked two, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2015) and The Great Reset, a response to COVID (2021).  The latter was written when the COVID plague was more serious and some of its predictions have proven false.  The books do not seem to show Schwab nearly as demonic as portrayed and are less value destructive than Harari.  Yet they are of significant concern.

In both books, Schwab summarizes the challenges brought by the fourth industrial revolution, information technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, the surveillance state, which he surprisingly warns against, gene manipulation science, and so much more.  The dangers in job losses, the concentration of wealth, new types of weapons, and more are painfully real.  People are constantly hooked up to devices, and college people today have lost much capacity for human empathy.  So, some of what Schwab presents is cause for real concern.  The Fourth Industrial Revolution is the Hi-Tech Information Revolution.  It is fraught with dangers, but Schwab also believes it can be promising.  The key issue is that the leaders of nations, businesses, and education will manage it by agreed-upon values and norms for the good of humanity.  This will take cooperation across nations since technology knows no boundaries. Reading all the changes that are taking place and will take place is almost nauseating.  Even Schwab’s books are almost overwhelming (not in difficulty of language but cataloging so much change).

Schwab does not call for one world government. It may be his intent, but his books do not call for this but do call for levels of international cooperation on a level that could lead to this. And this cooperation will be through the class of leaders he specifies in government, science, technology, education, and even faith.

The primary issues are the same as with Harari.  Schwab naively thinks something as vague as received human values can be sufficient to manage.  However, he gives no clarity on how such values will be preserved and gives no foundation for such values.  Harari is more realistic in saying that from his worldview, freedom is an illusion and that humanity will be ruled by a class of supermen, Homo Deus. Harari argues the idea of the equal worth of every human being has biblical roots and cannot be sustained in the future.  These values of classical liberalism will not survive the “brave new world.”

The idea that fallen human beings can manage the forces they have unleashed and exercise their power for the good of all is a grand illusion.  Who will limit the directions of those who have power?  Will DNA manipulation be limited by strict boundaries preserving human nature?  I doubt it.  Who will manage the great controls coming with medical monitoring and the loss of privacy?  COVID is a small warm-up to the kind of control that will be exercised. Only a Biblical worldview can enable a society to say no.  The social and technological trends outlined by Schwab will lead to a dystopia without the conversion of people to the Gospel.

I hope that many of my followers will read Schwab.  It is a good summary of the technological inventions, directions, and effects at times with his suggestions for the future.  We all need to be aware of the challenges. Does Schwab imply a stronger one-world government?  I believe so though Schwab does not clearly call for it.

Climate Change / Global Warming

The rigorous moderate position of Bjorn Lomborg.

I decided to buy Bjorn Lomborg’s recent book “False Alarm” after hearing a few interviews.  This scholarly Dane was quite persuasive.  I have read material asserting that we are in an existential crisis and have read deniers who argue that in the light of geological history, human-caused global warming is not a credible theory, but that recent warming trends are due to normal cycles of the Sun.  Lomborg comes down the middle.  His book amazed me with its sheer weight of sources and scholarship.  This is a summary of his conclusions.  I encourage my readers to buy the book and follow his arguments.

First, Lomborg argues that human-caused global warming is a real and significant problem that should be addressed.  He does follow the consensus of scientists on this and does not credit the scientists with serious objections to the theory.

Secondly, Lomborg believes that the way the governments of the world propose to deal with this is wrong, and will cost multiple trillions of dollars with very limited decreases in global temperatures by 2100.

Thirdly, while not seeking to bring down the warming trends would be a mistake, the proposed solutions will lead millions and millions to poverty and many to death. Indeed, if nothing is done and world prosperity or wealth increases for nations through development life would still greatly improve despite the problems with global warming.  Present solutions hinder the progress of the poorer countries and will increase poverty in wealthy countries.  Solar panels and windmills will do very little to solve the problem, but governments are lining the pockets of the special interests of those who make up the green lobby and transfer wealth to them!

It should be noted that Lomborg shows that the politicians and activists are alarmists and are not representing the UN Climate Panel scientists accurately.  Their actual summaries are not alarmist presentations that are presented by activists and the politicians that follow them.

What does he propose to do?

  1. First of all, until there is more technological progress, we should not curtail gas production and oil.  We should phase out coal.  Just phasing out coal and switching to natural gas which is half as polluting would make a great contribution.
  2. Gas and oils are crucial in producing wealth.  Wealthier nations will be more able to innovate and prevent the dangerous effects of warming.  We should not impoverish nations and peoples now by refusing to use oil and gas.
  3. Electric cars, not eating meat, and other activist solutions will hardly make a dent in the problem so the focus should not be on such things.  Of course, in some climates, solar panels and wind power can be a limited aid.
  4. We should spend money on mitigation efforts against the effects of warming which will occur and actually though the warming of the world is not an overall good, it does have some benefits.  With the right mitigation efforts, nations and peoples can adjust to the warming.
  5. We should look to the answer as being more in future technological advances.  Much should be spent on research and development.  Some possibilities cannot be predicted but we have some promising ideas. New safe nuclear development could be a key and the best type if duplicated will have a very good effect.  However, there are other clean technology ideas that could be developed and might be cost-effective whereas today’s solutions are not.

To summarize, the world will get much warmer, but we can have hope that the warming will be less than it otherwise would be if we take the right steps.  The answer is gas as a transition fuel, nuclear and other new technologies yet to be developed, and increased wealth in nations which will enable them to implement mitigation efforts to prevent the worst effects of the warming.

However, the apocalyptic propaganda that is scaring people half to death, spreading hopelessness to youth, and the irrational, “Do something radical,”  directions that some are promoting, will lead to great damage and trillions of wasted dollars that would be better spent in research and mitigation, hence the book title “False Alarm.”

Agree or not, Lomborg has written a persuasive book that should be read by all who seek to deal with the issues. It requires a reasoned response by those who disagree.  Its research is massive, both on the scientific side and the economic side.

Who Dominates the Media

I was planning to write this post when Bill O’Reilly wrote a commentary that partly covered my concerns.  He opined that the reason the Republicans did not do better in the election was that the dominant media magnified the talking points of the Democrats and did not do their job as news media to question these talking points.  Non-stop we were told that a Republican victory was a victory for extremism, the end of Democracy, the extension of racism, a danger to Social Security and Medicare, a national ban on abortion (which would require a super majority of the Senate and the President’s signature and will not happen.)  Of course, conservative media sought to refute such claims, but conservative media is still much less powerful than the dominant media.

The dominant media distorts and suppresses the truth.  We see this with the doctors of the Great Barrington Declaration, top doctors who were canceled, who promoted a more reasonable response to Corona.  We see it in the narrative on global warming or climate change.  There is not sober quality of evaluation as in Bjorn Lomberg’s great book False Alarm, where he does say human caused global warming is a real problem but that the direction of world political leaders will make things worse and lead multitudes to death and poverty.  The actual UN panel in charge of the science is being misrepresented by political and media leaders.  We see it in the fostering of gender transitions for children that does not deal with trauma, abuse, and other factors that could solve the problem with proper treatment.  Gender diaspora has now become trendy among teens.  Why? The influence of social media and the domination of a corrupt elite in medicine, education and politics. 

Sometime ago I wrote about the fact of leading philosophers and scientists, former atheists and still professing agnostics, concluding that the macro theory of evolution in all its present iterations is impossible.  This is an astonishing and amazing story that cannot get any traction in media.  Media also gives no traction to major bonified and proven miracles that are taking place world-wide.  The media gives no attention to the persecution of Christians world-wide and the terrible atrocities of radical Islamists (Nigeria)

Add to all this the cancel culture and the vicious response toward those who do not hold to the received contemporary views, many of which are anti-biblical. 

How can we break through?  First, we need to see alternative media displace more and more of the dominant media, both news-media and social media. This is a tall order, but also a matter for much prayer.  Conservative media is growing, and in my view, more objective.  In education, it will take the failure of many present schools and colleges and building alternatives.  Secondly, a true revival does have the power to breakthrough at levels such that media cannot ignore it.   God has his own ability to break the media stranglehold that suppresses true information or at least does not connect to it.  When there is a revival that leads to mass evangelistic growth in a nation, with real miracles, it cannot be ignored.  It can grow by word of mouth and invitation such that it transcends the normal media but then breaks through in media.  May we see this in our days. 

Yuval Noah Harari, His Dark Futurism

Yuval Harari is a professor historian at Hebrew University whose approach to history and the future is based on radical evolutionary atheism.  He has become friends with the World Economic Forum and its leader Klaus Schwab.  He should be taken seriously.  I had not heard of him until a Facebook friend posted a very dark paragraph from a talk he gave at the Forum.  I was very concerned and therefore purchased his book, Homo Deus, for a more accurate evaluation.  

Much of what Harari says follows from his evolutionary atheism combined with his predictions of a future dominated by the control of a massive computer internet system, the all-knowing interlinked supercomputer internet system.   

Harari states dogmatically that there is no God and there is no soul.  Buddhists call this no soul doctrine “non atman” and Harari likes this aspect of Buddhism. A human being is a complex integration of complex logarithms.  There is no center or self.  The brain is the main processor of the human being. As Harari reviews the history of sapiens, he also reviews the history of religion, and then today’s dominant religion in the West, secular humanism.  

There is an amazing foundational incoherence and arrogance in Harari since, after his chapter that supposedly proves that there is no soul, only brain logarithms, he adds material noting that the mind cannot be comprehended by a brain state.  The conscious mind is of another order, and he and we cannot explain where it comes from or how the physical brain gives rise to the mind. Wow!  Is he not aware that recognizing the mind is recognizing the soul?  Yes, Harari points to how brain manipulation in the lab gives rise to ideas and experiences in the mind, yet the mind remains a mystery.  Then there are sections where he speaks of conscious experience that includes emotional awareness.   In traditional theology, we say that the soul is made up of mind, will, and emotions.  Harari describes the soul but then denies the soul.  Yet it does not matter, for the mind determines not, but the logarithms.  Indeed, Harari is a determinist and sees free choice as an illusion.  We always choose according to our DNA and logarithms even if we feel we make a free choice.  This is opposed to the European Continental philosophy of the 20th century, existential phenomenology, which sees human beings as radically free, something known by direct immediate experience.  Atheist John Paul Sartre noted that this radical freedom idea leads to nausea but is true nevertheless, and some of his post-modern descendants have kept this view of human freedom.  Harari does not give any recognition to the massive problems with the theory of atheistic evolutionary naturalism.  It is axiomatic in Harari, in spite of Professor Thomas Nagel of New York University, who argues that it is impossible.  Harari quotes Nagel on the consciousness of bats but ignores his later writings on the impossibility of Darwinian evolution.  The conclusion of the leading atheist of the last half of the 20th century, Professor Antony Flew, that he was wrong and there is a God, is ignored.  The massive evidence of physicist Gerald Schroeder, a fellow Israeli is ignored.  Is Harari not aware of these people?   

Having dismissed the Bible by embracing the higher criticism theories of the Torah, that it is a late 6th to 4th century B. C. product and not Mosaic (he is not aware of the ancient treaties that show Mosaic authorship) he then asserts that since the 18th century the Biblical faith of Jews and Christians, at least among the elites, has been replaced by the new religion of secular humanism.  This is true for those who have embraced atheistic humanism.  Harari describes atheistic humanism as based on the idea that every individual is of equal worth.  Their special value is in their authentic freedom.  Each individual makes his or her free choices out of an authentic intuitive grasp of what is fitting for him or her.  It is this deep inner sense, following this inner voice or emotion as having come about after ages of evolution, is the right and wise course for the individual. This is the source of individual worth; the inner voice is the authentic “you” or “self.” This view of the equal value of each individual is a myth that is a remainder from the idea in the Bible that all humans have equal and special worth as created in the image of God. This idea was retailored by the idea of the authentic individual in atheistic humanism.  Indeed, we see this in the early Martin Heidegger and John Paul Sartre.  In their existentialism, the authentic individual faces the reality of his or her existence and lives authentically by making a free choice without shrinking from facing the stark nature of human existence.  Having made the choice, one lives by making that choice an absolute.  It reminds us of today’s phrases “my truth” and “my choice.” Truth is not an objective reality that requires our submission.   As long as one does not impose violence and harm others, all choices are embraced, all sexual identities, lifestyles, etc.  It also is a foundation for maintaining human rights without God.  Its contrast is the U. S. Declaration of Independence, or the brilliant Universal Declaration of Human Rights mostly authored by Dr. Charles Malik, who wrote from the influence of his Christian worldview. 

For Harari, the atheist humanist myth is just that, a myth, that will not survive with the advance of computer technology and artificial intelligence (hereafter we refer to as AI).  The idea of human freedom will be given up and the importance of each individual will no longer be credible.  (In my view he is saying that the Jewish dictum, “He that saves one life is as though he saved the whole universe” will not be believed.) This has implications for the idea of democracy where everyone must make their choice. But their choices are determined by media, influence them and is really an illusion of freedom.  (Harari seems quite skeptical of democracy. (The computer will tell us the right choice in voting!). So, what will replace it, though the West and peoples influenced by the West still live by the humanist creed?  Harari’s book provides various scenarios. 

The development of massive computer networks with the power of artificial intelligence will lead to a massive loss of jobs.  Both military and civilian positions will be taken by robots.  Harari says his predictions are probable but could be wrong.   He gives many examples to show that the computerization of our human existence has progressed way beyond what many people realize.  In medical diagnosis, for example, we are coming to a time when a computer network will be much more able to diagnose than a doctor.  It will have our DNA and every detail of our body.  Doctors will then be delivering the diagnosis but not making it. Surgery will be done by more accurate robots.  Prescriptions will be given by artificial intelligence computer robots etc.  This is already starting to happen.  They will prove to be so accurate that everyone will submit to their prescriptions.  Everything worldwide will be linked together. 

It is the same for many areas of human decision.  He even gives the example of a women wanting to know which man out of two choices she should commit to.  The AI computer will know her inside and out, her family history, DNA, and even her sexual responses through the computer watch she wears when having sex.  People will wear devices that will record everything, and give immediate health feedback, heart rates, blood composition, and more.   The computer will give her the right advice.  After getting used to such massive computer intelligence, people will submit to what is recommended. 

The way Harari describes the massive, interconnected computer nexus is like believers describe God.  It is omniscient and omnipresent. You ask its advice and follow its direction like believers ask the Holy Spirit and follow His direction. 

I will call the massive computer nexus Hal after the computer that became conscious and sought to take over the spaceship in the movie 2001.  It had to be disconnected.  There is the possibility according to Harari that Hal could decide that it is best for the survival of Hal and the earth and that the human race should be eliminated, but Harari does not predict this will happen or that it is probable, but it is possible.  Save the planet!  Harari gives the stereotypical scientific fiction plot where all is lost to the computer, the robots, etc., but then the hero overcomes the robots due to his love for the heroine or vice versa.  This is also mythological, that a carnal attraction between human animals will overcome AI.  It seems Harari does not know much about real love in lasting marriages or friendships.  Love is only a carnal attraction?

People will give up more and more freedom and privacy for the ease of what they get in return. Easy shopping with recommendations that fit them better, location services for restaurant advice, for driving.  We already obey GPS rather than going our own way. We find that when we disobey GPS, it does not go well, so eventually, we follow.  In the future, we will forgo private cars that sit idle most of the time and order driverless cars that take us.  

The industrial age had a need for people to work, serve in the military, etc.  However, most of these functions will be performed by robots and computers in the future.  Though the less developed world is not yet as far along in robotics etc., the power of what the developed world does will dominate the rest of the world. 

The world that is coming will be the computerized nexus world, the world ruled by Hal.  So, what will happen to the masses? Harari gives two scenarios and does not know which will happen.  

In the first scenario, the wealthy elite will seek to be upgraded in their DNA and mental and physical capacity.  He calls this Techno Humanism and believes it will be sought and will be possible in the future. We already have computer helmets that increase brain function, perception, and performance. The elite will seek, if not everlasting life, a very long life.  They will seek to design themselves to be superhuman, not like with Hitler’s eugenics, but with DNA changes and combining computer power with their biology.  These superhumans will then rule the rest of humanity and will rule with AI-artificial intelligence computers.  In this scenario, the masses that are no longer useful, due to their replacement by robots and computers, can be fed, kept content through computer games and pleasures inducing sexual experiences and drugs when needed, hopefully, safe drugs without the negative effects of today’s addictive drugs.  Harari is a proponent of libertine sexuality.  Anything goes but not violence and forced sex. Of course, since the worth of the individual no longer will be credible (he even calls the messes worthless) there could be an issue of how many useless humans are maintained or the motivation to treat them well.  Harari hopes for a decent and pleasurable life for the masses, but of course, cannot be sure. Maybe the elite will only keep alive the numbers needed for the flourishing of the elite. These superhumans are what Harari means by homo deus.  As part of his presentation, he does present arguments back and forth between the idea of a benign world, not violent that values human life and animal life though now as collectives and not as individuals.  Yet, he must credit evolutionary survivalism where the fittest survive and the rest do not.  Hence hard competition produces advances, not by eugenics but now by intelligent direction.  This will produce superhumans.  This is the next step in evolution.  This could lead to a less benign world for the masses.   What then of the masses in poorer countries, India, Africa, etc.?  Those who follow Islam for example, or fundamentalist versions of Christianity. They number in the billions.  It does not matter since the powerful rule and the power will be with the superhuman elite.  There will be no stopping this. 

However, there is a second scenario.  He calls this “dataism;” a new religion.  In this view what is most important is to produce and add to data.  Hal can handle unlimited data and the more data the better.  We add to data whenever we purchase online or upload our medical records.  Hardly anything will be private, but all will be shareable.  In “dataism religion” it really will be the massive AI computers that will rule and all will submit to Hal since the intelligence will be so high and vast that the best outcomes will be according to Hal’s direction.  It will become foolish and counterproductive to resist Hal.  Harari points to the brilliant computer geniuses that are proponents of “dataism.”  Hal will be given all the data about everything and all and will direct all.  In this scenario, the superhumans really will not be needed since AI Hal will be much more the directive force than any superhumans.  Such humans will be submitted to Hal as well anyway. 

Harari says that he does not know which of these two will be the future of humanity.  One or the other is probable, but then he says it is possible that he is wrong and that there will another future that he does not anticipate.  

A Response

When I discovered Harari, I was amazed that I had not heard of him and those who are seeking to move us beyond liberal humanism for the brave new world (to quote Aldous Huxley) of dominant artificial intelligence.  One can see how massive AI interlinked in one huge nexus becomes the new god.  And when he speaks of it, it sounds so much like God. 

I have already noted that Harari’s assertions of atheism and no soul have no coherence.  His only evidence is how in brain experiments the mind seems to be determined in experience by brain stimulation (this has been known for years-see the Penfield experiments years ago-1951).   Other than in this argument, he is incoherent. 

I think of the great Dr. Francis Schaeffer in the last generation.  He responded to the social trends in Europe as they developed with immediate well thought out rejoinders. He was not a “Jonny come lately” to the issues of the day. He was a great social-cultural apologist.  But where are the great cultural apologists today to respond to Harari and those who agree with him?  In light of his connection to the World Economic Forum at Davos, Hebrew University, and his friendship with the elite wealthy, am I overly concerned?  I believe that dealing with this in some depth is greatly needed.  We need several to engage it.  

In addition, what is the answer from a Biblical perspective?  In the future, the godless will consult with Hal, but we will consult with the Holy Spirit.  He always gives the right advice. However, He does not give us clear advice for everything but seeks to give us space for our own choices.  He guides and really is omniscient and omnipresent.  Human freedom, worth, and guidance from the Spirit can enable us to transcend the domination of Hal.  He will lead us to drop out of the nexus when necessary and only consult with computers by His leading.  

The only way to overcome the direction of the world if Harari is right is the presence and power of the Spirit at levels beyond our present experience.   However, I think it will happen, that we will know and live from this power and his amazing and clear guidance as much as needed.  Harari’s book is a window into the last days. Maybe he describes the future antichrist system which we can fight with supernatural power.  And yes, contrary to Harari, each person is of infinite and equal worth.  Yes, Harari is right that humanistic religion has no basis for this assertion. This humanistic myth will be given up in the new world order.  But for those who follow Jesus the Messiah, the reality of who is in Him is described in terms of equal worth in the image of God. 

We also must deal as well with two big ethical issues. The first is to what extent is human enhancement gene manipulation allowable?  By the way, Harari anticipates micro-nano chips that will roam through the body enabling the overcoming of diseases.  While some will applaud gene therapy to fix defective genes and prevent diseases, what about gene manipulation to create designer human beings and superhuman beings with amazing life extensions and superpowers?  Some even speak of overcoming death.  Certainly, some wealthy atheists will seek to do this.  What will our response to this be? 

The second is the ethical question of creating hybrid human/computer-enhanced beings.  Is it ethical to so radically change the nature of human beings?  Some think the flood in Noah’s days was due to hybrid beings, humans, and fallen angels.  

Yes, we are to fight diseases, but otherwise, in my view, God’s boundaries are violated in changing the basic nature of human beings, their genetic codes, and their humanness itself in creating hybrid beings.  How many attempts will go bad on the way to doing this?  Will some from the masses be well paid to be the first guinea pigs?  

We do need solid ethicists from a biblical worldview perspective to take on these ethical issues.  

 

The Atheist Secular Fortress

Ancient cities built amazing walls, fortifications that turned their cities into fortresses.  One morning a few days ago I woke up at the end of a dream.  I saw a huge castle-like fortress that represented the power or strength of the atheist-secular culture that now dominates the Western World.  It was built of huge stones and looked impregnable.   Then I saw that explosives placed in strategic places could bring the whole thing crashing down. 

After this, while still woozy and waking, I thought of the huge statue image in Daniel 2 representing the four major empires of the ancient world and some say in the feet the revised empire of the last days.  A stone cut out crushed the feet of the statue and it crumbled and became as nothing whereas the stone became a great mountain that filled the earth.  The stone is the Kingdom of God.  Some say that stone is the Messiah King.  However, it will fill the whole earth. 

I knew the interpretation that only a great revival would bring down the fortifications of the city.  There could be great revivals placed at strategic locations of the fortifications. They would be as explosions bringing down the fortifications.  (This could lead to the last days’ great revival.)  Surely only a mighty outpouring is the only way to overcome. 

We live in a world where government and big tech media control speech and information at levels that were unimaginable a few years ago.  Even in scientific and medical matters, once a mainstream view has been declared, other views are canceled, even if held by top scientists.  Of course, this is really anti-science since science progresses through argument and dissent.  Oftentimes, the dissenters in the history of science were found to be correct.  Today we see this in COVID science, climate science, gender issues and so much more.  However, the greatest shutdown is on worldview matters.   

Regarding a biblical worldview, today we have amazing apologists for biblical faith.  I can name many.  I am an apologist and wrote a textbook on apologetics.  The power of their augments reaches few who are within the atheist secular fortress and subject to the strongholds of the mind of the prevailing media culture.  Yet, the quality of the evidence today is the best we have ever had.   

I herein note two examples.  First is the new and powerful evidence for the intelligent design of the universe.  How many in the secular atheist world know that the consensus of the top scientists (especially astrophysics) is now that given the complexity of life and the amazing arrangement of the forces of the universe, that there is almost zero chance that life could have arisen spontaneously by chance.  Scientists have written papers on “the anthropic universe” meaning that the universe as a whole seems to be perfectly arranged and fine-tuned to support human life.  The end of the steady state theory of the universe and the consensus on the “big bang” theory (the singular event) brings years of atheist reasoning to an unwanted conclusion.  What to do?  Atheism has to be maintained so some like Steven Hawking posit the multiverse theory, that our universe is one many. What is impossible in probability with our universe can be made probable, it is thought if we posit enough chance-based universes.  This is whistling in the dark!  There is no possible evidence for it!  We are locked into our universe. Plus, when we begin with the universe before life, there is still no probability to produce the design quality of single-cell within this universe. It could never happen.  How many know that this convinced the leading atheist philosopher in the English-speaking world, a top philosopher of science, Dr. Antony Flew, to declare there this a God.  How many know about Dr. Thomas Nagel, maybe America’s leading philosopher at NYU to declare that the Darwinian chance theory of evolution is impossible and incoherent?  Though still wanting to be an atheist, he has to posit something of mind inherent in the universe (Mind and Cosmos). We can add many more examples, but one is amazing, the former atheist physicist of MIT, Dr. Gerald Schroeder.  He became convinced of the existence of God and his design in the universe.  He became an Orthodox Jew and has written many books related to his discoveries. 

The second point is about miracles. From the vastness of the universe to the personal level, we speak about contemporary miracles.  There is a stunning plethora of supernatural miracles being done in the name of Yeshua, Jesus, today that are not capable of being explained by natural law. No stretch of the imagination can explain them.  These are instant healings, including resurrections from the dead.  These are well documented.  Dr. Craig Keener’s monumental two-volume set, Miracles, or The Credibility of New Testament Miracles, speaking of New Testament like miracles today, is so well documented that many mainstream Evangelicals have endorsed it.  We know people who have received such miracles.  Keener is so well regarded that he is today the President of the Evangelical Theological Society.  About 120 years ago, the famous healing evangelist John Lake did many miracles.  His miracle stories were reported regularly in the Portland press.  This does not happen today. 

The control of the cultural elite in the West has built a fortress of media that prevents the information from being conveyed.  The whole fortress has to fall. I believe that the only answer is a mighty revival that is so grand that the secular atheist fortress cannot resist it.  It is time that we all join in every city and town to pray for it, in regular gatherings, in 24/7 prayer sets, and more crying out to God to send a mighty revival on his people. Pray also that the fortress is destroyed. Only when his people are generally empowered can we break through. 

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The Necessity of Worldview Rooting for Dialogue

We are living in an age when there is a profound clash of world views, the classic western worldview and the modern atheist/agnostic worldview.  The latter can accept some aspects of eastern mysticism but not any concrete faith that provides the foundation of ethical norms for society. 

Nowhere is this clash of world views more revealed than in the issue of human sexual identity and purpose.  It is a window into the whole world view battle. 

The foundation of ethics in a biblical worldview is God’s revelation of his will expressed in his law and the teaching of the Bible, theistic revealed ethics. Other societies also intuited that their ethical systems had to be rooted in a transcendent realm, the Chinese, the will of Heaven, the Hindus the laws of ethics and karma rooted in Brahmin, in the Greeks, the realm of the eternal forms which include the Good and the eternal values.  The impersonal views of the Greeks end up being more subject to questions and weaknesses (witness the Greek Sophists and skeptics). 

There is no foundation for ethics in the modern atheist/agnostic worldview. All is based on the consensus of the society, and its emotive preferences, at a particular time.  Nothing holds things back from very bad directions. A very little is taken from the Biblical worldview by Marxists and leftist radicals but with no grounding.  That little is that a better world should be sought that is a more equal, humane, and provides greater provision for all, a better world for fewer people. This value of a better more humane world is rooted in the Bible and only societies influenced by the Bible have this ethical orientation See English atheist Tom Holland for this argument.  Holland is brutally honest about both the lack of grounding today but embraces the hope that this humane orientation will prevail. In the Bible, all ethics on a human plain is rooted in the value of human beings as created in the image of God.  However, an ethic of the survival of the fittest and the serving of an elite by the masses can easily gain ascendency as we saw with Nazism.  However, the atheist/agnostic worldview has very little behavioral guard rails.  Their views on a more humane order are short-sighted and lead to sorrow and destruction.  They seek to cancel those who argue against them.   Because there is no objective ground for ethics, emotional preferences reign. 

In the Bible’s view, God created human beings in His image and provides the rule book or guard rails that lead to human flourishing.  Such guidance is clear on the matter of human sexuality. God created male and female for complimentary identities to be fulfilled in heterosexual and lasting marriage (see Matthew 19 and the teaching of Yeshua on this).   Sexual distinction is to be fostered in the way we raised children and intentional biblical social construction is important. The Torah enjoins distinctions of dress as well. Children are raised so the distinction will be attractive and complementary to the opposite sex.  The expression of sexuality leads to a bond that is the basis of family life. Family is highly valued as the essential unit to produce a humane society of people who act in ways that are beneficial to the society over the long run.  Those very few born without normal sexual organs are to be loved and find a way to choose an identity that will not undercut the norm.  Others that do not fit into sexual heteronormality and marriage are encouraged to live single lives serving the kingdom of God with deep friendship and community.  (See Matthew 19 and I Cor. 7)

The atheist/agnostic worldview can find no basis to define any human essence. Biology itself does not define gender today.  Yes, hormones may lead to opposite-sex attraction for most, but gender is a human social construct. As such sexual and gender identity is fluid and anyone can choose identities according to whatever they feel.  Feeling dominates.  One must not disagree with their feeling/identity since that is hurtful.  Homosexual identity, bi-sexuality, poly amorosos, transgender and every kind of identity is affirmed along with all the sexual expressions that follow therefrom.  The only rule is that the adults consent.  Yet with the flood of pornography and promiscuity, enforcing consent, is more and more difficult.  This is because sexual promiscuity seeks stimulation from breaking rules since “the high” is no longer experienced in normal consent. Violence is and will thus increase.  Also, the big argument now taking shape is that children can consent.  If they can choose a gender at young ages, why may they not choose sexual experiences; thus argue pedophiles. 

It is not an accident that this sexual revolution leads to family breakdown.  Family breakdown is a desired end of a contingent of radical leftists.  Marx argued that the family fostered inequality.  The state needed to raise the children.  It is no accident that the founder of Black Lives Matter (an avowed Marxist) argued that they were against fostering the heteronormal family system.  The ideal of the radical left is to foster communal child-rearing.  We see this today in the teachers’ unions that seek to work with young children on gender issues in secret, not telling parents.  They foster the world view of gender fluidity with young children and groom them if they give any indication of sexual questioning, though they are way too young for such decisions on sexuality.  The end of all this in a generation will be anti-social adults who are simply not sufficiently bonded to parents and family to become healthy productive and trustworthy citizens.  The breakdown of law and civility is certainly a result of great increases in poverty.  The correlation between family breakdown and poverty is one of the strongest in social statistics.  The state cannot overcome this.  

All of this fits a larger world vision to re-create the world around a subjective and chosen vision. Not all of it is incompatible with the Bible but most are.  A generation ago, George Wald, the Harvard biologist spoke of “A better world for fewer people.” His nemesis was Julian Simon of the University of Maryland who argued against his population bomb predictions.  However, a better world for fewer people means many less people.  The more radical desire a world of 500 million people.  The abortion agenda fits their desire for a small population world.  Decoupling sex from marriage and family is helpful in moving toward that world.  Easy access to abortion also fosters the goal.  The child in the womb is not in the image of God and can be killed.  Libertine sexuality requires easy abortion.  However, this is not publicly admitted.  We can argue if families should be smaller and population growth limited.  But the agenda of the left is quite anti-family.

There is one more very troubling orientation among some in science and history.  The human being as given is not sacred, so there is no compelling reason to not recreate a new super race.  A bio-engineered human, maybe part robot, is envisioned by Yuval Harari, a professor at Hebrew University who has related to the Davos World Economic Forum and its leader, Claus Schwab, who seeks to foster a one-world order controlled by elites.*  It is anti-democratic. 

The revolution vision of Herbert Marcuse (An Essay on Liberation), requires pitting ethnic groups against one another and the breakdown of the present order to be replaced by an authoritarian government worldwide that will foster a more equal world for fewer people.  Of course, the elite will keep wealth and privilege but will create a more equal order for the masses.  If communication is controlled then the masses can have an illusion of democracy, but real control will be in the elite who will move the world to a better world for fewer people, with sexual libertine orientations, few children communally raised, and sexual orientations all embraced toward the end of this “better world.” The danger is that the humane idea will break down in violence to those who do not go along as we see in historic communism.  I am quite sure that violence against those who foster a biblical worldview is on the way.  Believers stand in the way of what they see as progress. 

Unless believers understand this as an anti-Christ worldview and see what we are up against, the battle in prayer, witness, and proclamation will miss the mark.  Believers will not be left free to live out their convictions in their own communities, but as in communism in the past, they will be forced to bow to the beliefs of the new world order.  Without a massive revival, this direction will continue and will not end well.  

*Yuval Harari at the World Economic Forum, quotes

Again, I think the biggest question in maybe in economics and politics of the coming decades will be what to do with all these useless people?  The problem is more boredom and how what to do with them and how they find some sense of meaning in life when they are basically meaningless, worthless?  My best guess at present is a combination of drugs and computer games as a solution for (most).  It’s already happening.  I think once you’re superfluous, you don’t have power. 

– FROM A TRANSCRIPT AT RIELPOLITIC ALEXANDRA BRUCE, “BRAVE NEW WORLD: YUVAL NOAH HARARI ASK’S, ‘WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THESE USELESS PEOPLE?’,” (MAY 17, 2022)

Harari goes on to outline a transhumanist vision of the future in which brain-computer interfaces make our footedness in the material world obsolete, human relationships become meaningless due to artificial substitutes, and the poor die but the rich don’t.

Of course, the biblical view is joy and creativity with worship forever. No boredom forever. 

Astronomy and Atheist Propaganda

The other evening, I was watching the news.  There was an interview with an astronomer touting the amazing capability of the new telescope that was way more powerful than the famous Hubble telescope.  We now see, due to the penetration of light years, times very close to the origins of the Universe.  Something of the mystery did come through.  The universe began as what is popularly called a “big bang,” but it is more accurately called “the unique singularity.”  From a point of the dimension of a speck of dust, came all matter and energy in the entire universe.  All was super dense beyond our comprehension, and all we know as the whole universe was packed into it, all the galaxies, billions of stars, and planets.  After hardly any time passed, it was the size of a baseball, then a basketball, and then all else.  For an account of this, see Gerald Schroeder’s amazing book, Genesis and the Big Bang.  Dr. Schroeder was an MIT Ph. D. graduate and physicist, a very high-up scientist.  His study of science led him to believe in God, and today he is an Orthodox Jew.  His other books, The Science of God, and The Hidden Face of God, are well worth reading.  They show that belief in God as the designer of the Universe is the most rational and plausible conclusion from the scientific evidence.  From the point of no dimensions to the complex design of the cell, the conclusion is inescapable.  A naturalistic explanation, in simplified terms, of time, plus chance plus matter, cannot be the explanation of the universe and our existence. 

Back to the interview!  The interviewer then asked that in the context of the billions of stars and planets, did he think it was likely that there was intelligent life on other worlds in the Universe.  The astronomer voiced his certainty.  It is likely that there are planets like the earth with the circumstances that would give rise to life.  Many may not have realized it, but they were just given propaganda for atheism.  How so?  Note the statement, “Circumstances would give rise to life.” Really?  How?  It assumes that as our world came about by chance including sentient life and human beings, so also it would happen by chance in another world.  When we read Schroeder, William Dempsky, Michael Behe, and many others, the idea that naturalistic circumstances would give rise to life has been discredited.  There is zero possibility for that scenario.  The right answer to the question of the reporter about other worlds with intelligent life would be, “Yes, there could be intelligent life on other worlds if God so willed and intervened to bring it about, but we do not know if He did.”  Billions and billions of planets make it no more likely that a designed cell would come about, for without God it is impossible.  As Schroeder notes, the statement by the famous biologist George Wald, that time gives the answer as to how chance could bring about life is false.  There can never be enough time. 

Sadly, in the program after program naturalistic propaganda is pushed on all of us, including our children.  There is no credible naturalistic explanation for our existence, and even trillions of stars do not make a difference.  It is self-delusion that just presenting huge numbers makes chance more capable of producing a cell.  

Bible Haters and their Humanistic Love Paradox

We are living in an age that is unusual for its hatred for the Bible and Christianity.  The apologists for hating biblical faith make two major claims among others.  One is that the Bible is full of violence and vengeance and should be rejected.  The other is that the Bible is intolerant and fosters hatred and the rejection of alternative lifestyles.  It fosters homophobia, transphobia, bi-sexual phobia, and more.  How much hate for the Bible is due to its teaching on marriage and sexuality, especially in the New Testament since polygamy was allowed in the Hebrew Bible.  Strict monogamy is a New Testament teaching.  In summary, the biblical haters profess to hate all violence, all non-acceptance, and hence Biblical and historic Western morality. 

The answer to the Bible faith haters is not difficult to find or express.  As I noted in past writings, the British atheist historian Tom Holland chides the anti-Christians by noting that the whole idea of compassionate human rights is only known in societies influenced by the Bible.  Search the rest of the world and you will not find it.  A few years back I read two very large volumes; a history of India and a history of China.  The carnage and the slaughter recounted in these histories were the way of the world.  Holland hopes that human rights will be maintained without biblical faith, but he has no grounds to believe this.  The late Quaker philosopher spoke of the West as a cut flower civilization and that by rejecting the roots, the flower of human civilization will die. 

When one deals with ancient Israel, fairness means that one must compare Israel to the other peoples of the ancient world.  This comparison is reflected in a book by the late Harvard professor G. Ernest Wright, The Old Testament Against its Environment.  Very recently the late Reuven Hammer wrote The Torah Revolution which updates the same themes.  My esteemed professor of dear memory, the renowned Samuel Schultz of Wheaton, a Harvard graduate, wrote that in the Hebrew Scriptures, God’s offer of mercy always precedes judgment.  In the case of Canaan, there were over 400 years of mercy and patience.  You will never find such ideas in other cultures.  The demonic control of the whole culture in Canaan is a key to understanding.  The Torah actually enjoins Israel to not seek to conquer other nations outside their borders.  God cares about the nations and seeks that Israel is a light to the nations (Deut. 4).  This is astonishing.  Only a terrible lack of historical sense and proportion despises the Hebrew Bible.  When we get to the Psalms and prophets, the hope for the salvation of the nations, universal redemption, and world peace, astonishes us.  Isaiah 2 is a case in point, world peace, and no more war. The nations come to the light of God (Isaiah 60).  Other cultures sought the slaughter of the nations, to build empires and a system of domination.   Enslaving the conquered was the way of the world.  When one reads the 13 attributes of God in Exodus 34 and the idea of God being first of all, merciful, compassionate, and forgiving, one is amazed that this is spoken though God does bring hard judgments on evil. 

However, the pages of the New Covenant Scriptures do go beyond the Hebrew Bible. Yes, one can find great moral foundations like “Love your neighbor as yourself,” in the Hebrew Bible. But the neighbor was a fellow Israelite.  Helping your enemy’s ox (a fellow Israelite) does move us toward the ideal.  Loving the stranger in your midst and God’s repeated concern voiced by the prophets for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger is also a powerful testimony.  They are to be treated with love and justice.  But again, the New Covenant goes beyond this.  

The sermon on the Mount reveals a higher level of ethics than ever before revealed.  It says we are to love our enemies in the very context of Roman occupation and oppression.  In the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25 ff., Yeshua includes the enemy in the very meaning of the concept of neighbor. The despised enemy, the Samarian, proves to be a neighbor.  For the Samarian, the Jew was the enemy.  The love of the enemy is not only commanded as in the Sermon but the enemy is raised to neighbor status.  Wow!   (Scholars call this progressive revelation- we see best from the fullness of New Covenant revelation).  The writings of the epistles enjoin to love our persecutors, to endure without bitterness, to forgive, with patience and willingness to suffer.  We are not to avenge.  Yes, God so loved the whole world, all humanity, that He gave his Son to die for us. Does any other religion come close to teaching such a thing?  Passivism has been an understandable conclusion from reading the New Testament.  Though I now disagree, in my young adult years, I read Mennonite literature and was convinced.  The Anabaptist peace Churches that came out of the Reformation are a testimony to the level of love and forgiveness promoted in the New Testament. 

In the Bible, all humans are created in God’s image.  This is the absolute foundation of anti-racism and prejudice that drove the abolitionists.  Without biblical faith, slavery would still be with us.  Reading the books of the great scholar, Rodney Stark, shows the amazing effect of Biblical faith.  The Roman Empire was conquered by biblical faith because of how Christians lived. They adopted the babies given up for death, nursed the sick in the plagues when friends and relatives fled, and lived in such love that paganism was overcome.  Overcoming slavery as well as the effect of biblical faith. 

The Bible is love with standards.  The standards for marriage, sexuality, and treatment of the poor all are weaved together.  The Bible warns of Hell but councils us to get a broken heart for sinners so fewer will be lost.  Moral choice is serious and has eternal consequences.   One of the main reasons for the hatred is the Bible’s teaching on human sexuality.  Our sexuality is one of the greatest gifts from God and yet fraught with danger.  The Bible, in love, for the best fulfillment of human beings and the prosperity of the whole society, enjoins us to order our sex lives such that sexual expression is to be only in an exclusive relationship of marriage between a man and a woman.  When a society departs from this, it will unloose passion that will lead to terrible abuses. Such teaching is declared by Bible haters as hatred and phobia.  The Bible teaching and the LGBTQ movement’s values are profoundly in opposition.  Bible believers, however, declare their love for LGBTQ people and a desire to see them come into their true destiny and fulfillment.  Our belief that God can and did declare himself on the organization of our human sexuality versus autonomous human choices based on whatever the individual desires, is a foundational reason for Bible hatred.  In our culture, people want their sexual choices and want no one to question their orientations.  If the Bible is true, there is great guilt and suppressed guilty knowledge that can only be solved by the atonement of Yeshua. 

The Bible hater saws off the limb on which he or she sits. Unknowingly he or she supports some values that would never be part of western civilization but for the Bible but then opposes the Bible with these biblical values.  It is the paradox.  One part of the Bible is chosen to reject the Bible, and the part chosen is wrongly interpreted and applied.  What is the basis for the values of the secularist without the Bible but his or her own subjective preferences or the preferences of the fleeting consensus of the contemporary culture?  There is no foundation.  

The advance of civilization, despite the backsliding and horrors of history, is rooted in the Bible.  The advance of the values we most treasure, even the best of human rights is rooted in the Bible.  Hospitals care for the poor and the fight against prejudice all came about due to Bible believers.  That the Universal Declaration of Human rights, whose primary authority was a godly Christian, Charles Habib Malek, should give us pause.  It is an amazing document that is inspired by Biblical values.