Religious Humor: Laziness

The Bible actually contains many instances of humor which we may not readily recognize today because our modern culture does not understand the ancient worldviews. Their humor was often based on sarcasm, hyperbole, metaphors, absurdity, ridiculous visual images, and displaying idiocy in full view.  The humor is intended to make a spiritual point. An example occurs at Proverbs 26:15.

A literal translation of this verse from the Proverbs is: Hides a lazy one his hand in the bowl it wearies him to bring it back to his mouth.

The pleasure of eating is not enough of a reward for the lazy man to raise his hand to his mouth. He is too much of a sluggard, too lazy to move at all.

This is a warning against spiritual laziness. If you are too lazy to act on spiritual matters of the moment, like prayer, charity, and Bible study, you will miss out on the immediate pleasures of the spirit and will eventually starve.

In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul uses sports examples while speaking about being intentional, practicing self-discipline, and working to win rather than just being a participant, an also ran. 

Biblical Personal Hygiene Habits

             This is almost never discussed in history classes and certainly not in churches, but, why not? I believe that the churches have been very deficient in their teaching ministry. If we want to really know about the people mentioned in the Bible, we need to know which languages they spoke and whether they were multilingual, what their political opinions were, what they wore, what they ate, what they read and studied, if they told jokes or had any concept of humor, how they settled personal disputes, if they played games, if they kept pets, how they conducted businesses, their prejudices and hatreds,  how their families were structured, their attitudes towards government, etc. They were normal people and were just as smart as we are, but without our accumulation of facts.

            They had the same common personal household and hygiene concerns we have. They had to cook, wash clothing, clean their teeth, take out the trash, clean and straighten the house, clean dirt from under their fingernails, take time to rest, bathe, try not to smell bad, and to clean themselves after urination and defecation. And yes, even Jesus. He was, after all, fully human. That may bother some people, but we must avoid the tendency to view Jesus as being too different from us. He was God and he was sinless and perfect, but he was also a human. To deny that is troublesome.

            There was an early Christian heresy named docetism (from the Greek infinitive δοκεῖν, meaning to appear or to seem to be) which held that Jesus only seemed to be human but was instead only fully divine. This was rejected by the Church because, if it were true, then Jesus only seemed to suffer and die on on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb was not real. Jesus had to be fully human and fully divine.

            Jesus was an orthodox Jewish man. The ancient Israelites, and later, the Jewish people, were one of the personally cleanest peoples. Some of the other cultures around them were only minimally interested.

            The Israelites were instructed in Deuteronomy 23:13-14 to bury their human waste outside their camp. They bathed and they washed their clothing. They were instructed to wash their feet and hands before serving in the Temple. Sick people were quarantined as were persons who had touched a corpse. If a dead animal was found in a water source, that water was not used.

            Certainly, all this cleaning, washing, and bathing was more for ritual purity than for what we now understand, because of our accumulated knowledge, to be proper hygiene.

            Perfumes and spices were used to mask personal body odor but were very expensive and beyond the reach of most of the common people. Washing and bathing was accomplished using clean water. The soaps used were not our modern soaps but were natural mineral products neter (נֶתֶר lye, alkali) and borit (בֹּרִית soap, lye, cleaning agent), which was a vegetable-based lye made from ashes. Jeremiah 2:22,  Malachi 3:2, and Proverbs 25:20.

In the matter of cleaning oneself after defecation, the method was originally to wipe with the left hand and then to rinse the hand with water. Raba (see below) said “Because the Torah was given with the right hand, as it says, ”At His right hand was a fiery law unto them.””

This is a very detailed discussion at https://toilet-guru.com>biblical_old. The left hand was considered to be unclean in many cultures because of its use in this way.

Later, ostraca (pieces of broken ceramic pottery) with smoothed edges were used to scrape and wipe. It made a lot more sense than just using your hand. This is mentioned in the Talmud in Shabbat 81 and Berachot 62a. The concerns discussed by the rabbis were the weights and sizes of the ostraca and when they could be used. The main concern was for ritual purity. www.talmudology.com

The use of the ostraca originated with the ancient Greeks who often wrote the names of their personal enemies on their own personal toilet ostraca.

Yes, scraping with stones sounds a little bit brutal to modern ears, no matter how well smoothed and polished the pieces of pottery may have been. And they were re-used!

The Romans considered themselves to be far more civilized and sophisticated than their occupied non-Roman populations. Instead of a piece of pottery, they used a tersorium (aka xylospongium), a sponge on a stick. Tersorium basically means a wiping thing.

The xylospogium (tersorium) was shared at the communal non-gender-specific public latrines in Roman towns and cities. It is generally believed that several tersori were passed around among all the people at the latrine, of course being cleaned between users, by dipping and swirling the item into a bucket of water and salt vinegar. It sounds lovely.

The tersori were first mentioned in the second century but were surely in use long before that time. The public latrines were surely too vulgar for wealthy Romans who either had their own sponges on a stick or used washable wool cloths.

In the matter of dental hygiene, the mention of cleanness of teeth in Amos 4:6 is a sarcastic reference to famine. Since there was nothing to eat, one’s teeth remained clean.

The ancient Jewish method for tooth cleaning was not as disgusting as the ostraca. They used miswak, chew sticks made of roots and twigs, to clean their teeth.

The Romans considered themselves to be far too advanced and sophisticated to use chew sticks like the barbarians did. They brushed their teeth (and washed their clothing) with urine and also used it as a mouthwash. The ammonia in the urine was believed to whiten the teeth and to remove stains from fabrics. They did not have Crest toothpaste, Tide detergent, or Listerine!

Raba: (I am not a Talmudic scholar, but I believe that Raba is Rabbah bar Nahmani (b.ca. 270 – d. ca. 320 AD/CE) who was considered to be the greatest Torah scholar in Babylon. He quoted Rabbi Akiba (b. 50 – d. 135) who said, “… it is proper to wipe with the left hand and not the right.”

Subjects in the Labels List (Labels Which Begin with the Letter B, with a range of ba to bei)

 This blog is ακωλυτως, unhindered. (Acts 28:31) Any subject is fair game. Below is a listing of the LABELS which begin with the letters ba to bei. All can be searched from the list which follows the last posted article on this page or by using the SEARCH button at the top of the page. Most will call up multiple postings in which they appear.

B.B. King, Baby, Baby Jesus, Babylon, Babylonia, Bach, bacteria, Baghdad, bagpipes, Bahai, Bahrain, baking, Balaam, Baltic States, Baltimore, Baltimore Orioles, Bangladesh, banking, baptism, baptism for the dead, Baptists, Barack Obama, barbecue, barber, barefoot, BarlowGirl, Barnabas, Barnabbas, bars, Barton W. Stone, baseball, basilica, basilisk, basketball, Basque, Basra, Batman, bats, battle, BC, BCE, beach, beans, bear, Bear Bryant, Beatific Vision, Beatles, beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Beelzebub, Beethoven, beginnings, behavior, Beijing.

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This blog is ακωλυτως, unhindered. (Acts 28:31) Any subject is fair game. Below is a listing of the LABELS which begin with the letters am to ar. All can be searched from the list which follows the last posted article on this page or by using the SEARCH button at the top of the page. Most will call up multiple postings in which they appear.

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Subjects in the Labels List (Labels Which Begin with the Letter A, range aa to al)

             This blog is ακωλυτως, unhindered. (Acts 28:31) Any subject is fair game. Below is a listing of the LABELS which begin with the letter A. All can be searched from the list which follows the last posted article on this page or by using the SEARCH button at the top of the page. Most will call up multiple postings in which they appear.

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The Most Important Events in Human History

             The most important and pivotal events in the universally accepted human history, arranged chronologically. Each of these events still have repercussions in today’s modern world. Events related to Christianity are highlighted in bold text. Everything is connected. Read up on each of these events to see why they are of such importance to the modern world.

These are just a few of the major events. I’m sure you could probably add many more.

The use of the BC/BCE and AD/CE temporal designations are just to keep everybody happy.

ca 10,000 BC/BCE: The invention of agriculture. Obviously.

ca 3200 BC/BCE: The invention of writing. Obviously.

6^th or 5^th Century BC/BCE: The life of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. The exact dates

of his life are disputed.

ca 4 BC/BCE – 30 AD/CE: The life of Jesus of Nazareth.

ca 49 AD/CE: At the Council of Jerusalem, the leaders of the young Church decided to

accept Gentiles into the Church without requiring them to undergo circumcision.

70 AD/CE: The Roman military destroys the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

217 AD/CE: The Jian’an Plague kills about 2,000,000 people in China.

313 Ad/CE: The Edict of Milan in which Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity.

325 AD/CE: The Council of Nicea is held in what is now Iznik, Turkiye. The council

condemned Arianism and clarified the church’s christology.

476 AD/CE: The fall of the Western Empire.

541 – 549 AD/CE: The Plague of Justinian kills up to 100,000,000 people in Europe and

West Asia.

            Ca 570 – 632 AD/CE: The Prophet Muhammad and the birth of Islam.

735 – 737 AD/CE: A smallpox epidemic kills about 2,000,000 people in Japan.

800 AD/CE: Charlemagne is crowned as Emperor, uniting church and state.

1054 AD/CE: The Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox

Churches.

            1066 -1071 Ad/CE: The Norman Conquest of England. The strong central state

government which developed persists until this day. 

            1095 -1300 AD/CE: The Crusades. Cultural and religious resentments and hatreds caused 

by this series of wars persist until today.

1346 – 1353 AD/CE: The Black Plague (bubonic plague) kills about 25,000,000 to

30,000,000 in Eurasia and North Africa.

            1378 – 1417 AD/CE: During the Great Western Schism, the Roman Catholic Church split

into political factions over who legitimately held the office of the papacy, resulting in multiple

competing popes in Rome and Avignon, France.  

ca 1440 - 1456 AD/CE: Invention of the printing press. Printing of the Gutenberg Bible.

1492 AD/CE: Cristobal Colon (aka Christopher Columbus) discovers America.

1492 – 1614 AD/CE: The Reconquitsa, in which Muslim rulers were driven from Spain.

1517 AD/CE: The start of the Protestant Reformation.

1611 AD/CE: The production of the King James Version of the Bible.  This Bible, written in the English which was spoken at the time, made the Bible available to any English speaker who could read. 

ca 1760 – 1840 AD/CE: The industrial revolution.

1789 – 1799 AD/CE: The French Revolution.

1914 – 1918 AD/CE: World War I caused between 15,000,000 to 22,000,000 deaths.

1918 - 1920 AD/CE: The Spanish Flu pandemic kills between 17,000,000 to 50,000,000

people worldwide. Some extreme estimates say as many as 100,000,000.

1939 – 1945 AD/CE: World War II. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs caused up

to 246,000 deaths. About 6,000,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust. World War II caused

between 7,000,000 to 85,000,000 deaths.

            1960 to 1990 Ad/CE: The development of the internet.

2019 AD/CE: The COVID- 19 pandemic kill up to an estimated 36,000,000 people.

Subjects in the Labels List (Labels Which Begin with the Letter A, range aa to al)

             This blog is ακωλυτως, unhindered. (Acts 28:31) Any subject is fair game. Below is a listing of the LABELS which begin with the letter A. All can be searched from the list which follows the last posted article on this page or by using the SEARCH button at the top of the page. Most will call up multiple postings in which they appear.

a capella, A Contract with God, AAR, Aaron, abandonment of position, abba, abduction, ability, Abingdon Press, abjad, Abner, abortion, Abraham, Abraham Lincoln, Abram, Absalom Jones, absolute truth, abuse of power, academics, Academy Awards, acoustics, acrobatics, acrostics, acting, action figures, activism, actor, actress, Acts, Acts of the Apostles, AD, Adam and Eve, addiction to pornography, adolescents, Adolf Hitler, Adonai, Adoniram Judson, adoption, adoptionism, Adrian Peterson, Adrienne Barbeau, adultery, adults, advertisements, advice, aeronautics, affective disorders, Affirmation Declaration, Africa, African American, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Afrikaans, afterlife, age, aging, agnostic, agnosticism, Agrippa, Ahab, Ahaz, Ahaziah, Ahmadinejad, AI, AIDS, Air Force, airline, airplane, Akiane, Akira Kurosawa, Akkadia, Al Sharpton, al- Qaida, Alabama, Alabama A&M University, Alabama football, Alabama State University, Alabaster Box, Alaric, Alaska, Albania, Albanian, Albert Einstein, Albert Pujols, alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous, Aldous Huxley, Aleister Crowley, alternate spiritualities, Alexander, Alexander Campbell, Alexander Kazembek, Alexander the Great, Alexandria, Alfred the Great, Algeria, Algonquian, Alice Cooper, alienation, Alistair Crowley, Allah, allegory, alligator, Alon Nil, and alphabet.

Why are there so few contemporary historical references to Jesus?

             Acknowledgment that there was an actual Jewish man named Yeshua who lived in the areas of modern Israel and Palestine (the Herodian kingdom of Judea) during the first half of the first century is almost universal. Virtually no reputable scholars will deny that. That he existed is the only fact on which almost everyone can agree.

So, why are there so few contemporary historical references to Jesus? Well, the truth is there if you look. The best way to get noticed in those times was to be born wealthy or to be politically connected. Or, to cause trouble for those people, the ones who mattered.

Jesus was a nobody because he was not a Roman citizen. Almost none of the Jews of that day were.

Jesus was a nobody because he was from a hick country town. None of the residents of Nazareth mattered until it came time to pay taxes. They were considered to be uneducated, unsophisticated, and to have very odd strong speech accents.

Nazareth was a worker’s residential village of about 200 to 400 people. None of its residents were wealthy or politically important in any way.  John 1:46 echoes what was probably a common sentiment: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

The town is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament, the Jewish Talmud, or the writings of contemporary historians like Josephus. The town was ignored and its residents were ignored.

A literal translation of the Greek text of John 1:46 reads like this: “and said to him nathaniel out of nazareth is able any good thing to be says to him philip come and see.” (There was no capitalization, punctuation, or spaces between words in these texts.)

At first, Jesus was ignored and rejected even in Nazareth. He was considered to be odd and just a carpenter. One time, his brothers went to get him before he embarrassed the family. Mark 3:21. They thought he was Ἐξέστη.

Ἐξέστη means to "to stand out of,” here meaning out of one’s mind, losing one’s senses, becoming irrational, out of one’s wits, or overwhelmed.

After he became established as a respected teacher, Jesus’ ministry was primarily in the rural towns among the poor people. All the Jewish wealth and power was concentrated in Jerusalem.

            It was not until the final three years of his life that Jesus was noticed outside of Nazareth. He soon became a very hot topic of intense discussion and he was quickly disposed of when he became a problem for the people who mattered.

If I had been born in biblical times, I would have probably not have lived very well or very long

             If I had been born in biblical times, I would have probably not lived very well or very long, because of these things:

a.      Because of childhood ear infections and chronic tinnitus, I would probably have been deaf.

b.      Childhood tonsillitis, measles, or mumps, or any infection, could have led to death.

c.       My teeth would have been filled with cavities.

d.      Because of cataracts, Fuch’s dystrophy, and macular degeneration, I would have become blind.

e.      Because of insulin resistance I would have eventually suffered from diabetes.

f.        The bone spur which cut my rotator cuff would have rendered my shoulder useless.

g.      My osteo-arthritis would have frozen most, or all, of my joints.

h.      My damaged meniscus in my knee would have given me a limp.

i.        The stones in my gall bladder, which led to gangrene, would have killed me.

j.        The mycoplasma pneumonia would have killed me. Or any number of respiratory diseases.

k.    My bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome would have rendered my hands useless.

l.     My numerous pre-cancerous skin lesions would have eventually converted to full-blown cancer and led to my death.

m.   Chronic allergic rhinitis would have led to a miserable existence.

n.   You get the picture and you can probably add many of your own ailments to the list.

.

            Television programs and movies about the Bible usually depict everyone as basically healthy. By our modern standards, they absolutely were not. The Bible names a few diseases and ailments, but does not touch on the common limitations the people of the time had to tolerate. It does encourage people to avail themselves of whatever medical treatments are available as a wise use of what God has provided.

            Medical knowledge during the biblical period was, by our modern standards, very limited and elementary. Paul advised Timothy to use a "little wine" for his frequent stomach ailments. Medicinal plants are mentioned, including a fig poultice for a boil (Isaiah 38:21) and the balm of Gilead for healing wounds (Jeremiah 8:22). Luke, the author of the books of Luke and Acts, was a physician (Colossians 4:14). God can work for healing by using doctors and medicine. We are never told to ignore medical advice or to indulge in strange fringe or extreme types of diets.

The concept of Christian bodily stewardship comes from the knowledge that we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and each of our bodies can be viewed as a Temple of the Lord. This implies that taking care of your body is a Christian obligation.  We do not own our bodies. We have been "bought with a price"— the blood of Jesus Christ.

Proper nutrition, physical activities, weight loss, proper rest, presenting a positive and healthy image to others, and avoiding the use of harmful substances are all biblically encouraged. There is a one biblical warning about the concern for physical health. It is possible to become so obsessed with fitness, appearance, or health that these things become idols and replace God in our hearts. He must be the focus.

 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 10:31; Romans 12:1; 1 Timothy 4:8; Proverbs 23:20-21; Exodus 20:8-10.

Science in Antiquity: Part 10

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 1500 BC/BCE: 1. Chinese mathematicians work on permutations and probability theory.

            2. Hindu writers mention ants being attracted to a patient’s urine as a symptom of diabetes.

Ca 1550 BC: 1. In Myanmar/Burma, copper is made into bronze.

            2. An Egyptian physician, Hesy-Ra, mentions frequent urination as a symptom of diabetes.

Ca 1750 BC/BCE:  Babylon: square and cube roots, linear and quadratic equations, Pythagorean Theorem.

Ca 1800 BC/BCE: 1. Bronze is in use in China.

            2. The Berlin Papyrus 6619, found in Egypt, describes algebra.

Ca 1890 BC/BCE: The Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, found in Egypt, speaks of applied mathematics: ship construction, beer concentrations, worker efficiency, Pythagorean triples, etc.

Chanting the Lotus Sutra

 

chanting the Lotus Sutra

only his lips

are busy

This is a poem written by Master Sheng Yen (1930 – 2009), a Chinese Zen Buddhist monk. His criticism is of mindless, repetitive chanting with the mind being somewhere else. This was his final poem. He seems to be saying that real Zen enlightenment cannot be achieved by merely repeating a string of words, by performing a certain prescribed action. Distracting busy work.

The Apostle Matthew spoke on this subject twenty centuries earlier. "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words". Matthew 6:7 in the NASB. Meaningless repetition is just what it seems to be to unbelievers, just a string of words. Busy work with no actual effect on the world.

Christians can easily become mindlessly trapped in the busy work tar baby (look it up) of doing churchy things, attending worship services, singing in the choir, volunteering, providing funds for worthy social activities, working in a child care program, watching Christian movies and reading Christian books, Christian political involvement, running a food and clothing bank for the poor, social justice activities, organizing and attending meetings and events, maintaining a church library, participating in disaster relief programs, yada yada yada.

None of these things are wrong or inappropriate for a Christian, but they must never be allowed to replace or crowd out the truth. The truth is this: Jesus died on the cross and overcame death for me, for you, and for every single individual on the Earth. This was his gift to us, it is the one spiritual gift which every Christian possesses, and it is the one gift which we are commanded to repeatedly give to others. The paradox is that, when we give it away to others, we still possess it.

Subjects in the Labels List (Numbered Labels)

        This blog is ακωλυτως, unhindered. (Acts 28:31) Any subject is fair game. Below is a listing of the LABELS which begin with a number. All can be searched from the list which follows the last posted article on this page or by using the SEARCH button at the top of the page. Most will call up multiple postings in which they appear.

        1 Chronicles, 1 Corinthians, 1 John, 1 Kings, 1 Peter, 1 Samuel, 1 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Chronicles, 2 Corinthians, 2 John, 2 Kings, 2 Peter, 2 Samuel, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, 501

(c )(3), and 666.

Book Comment: Los Hermanos Penitentes

             Los Hermanos de la Fraternidad Piadosa de Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno (The Brothers of the Pious Fraternity of Our Father Jesus the Nazarene) is a catholic lay fraternity active in Colorado and New Mexico. The group is insular and secretive and intensely religious. Membership is only by application to an official of the fraternity.

The group began in the early 19th century, after Mexico achieved independence from Spain. Devout men in isolated Mexican communities with few or no priests organized their own independent religious societies based on strictly orthodox doctrinal stances.

Where the penitentes are considered to be extreme is in their practice of penances to atone for their sins. These penances are said to include flagellation, carrying heavy crosses, cross-shaped incisions on their bodies, and crucifixions where a man is tied to a cross. There is a question as to whether the crucifixions are still practiced.

__________________________________________________________________________

As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises you to think for yourself. Read your Bible and to listen to what it says. Do not believe anything just because someone else told to believe it; let the Holy Spirit guide you to the truth.

A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Information you will need to search for this book: Horka-Follick, Lorayne Ann, Los Hermanos Penitentes: A Vestige of Medievalism in Southwestern United States (New York: Tower Publications, Inc., 1969)

Following the Science on the Issue of Fetal Personhood

    

 This is in response to Wesley Smith’s National Review post, “Medical Journal Screed

Decries All Fetal Personhood Laws,” 18 October 2025.

When does a developing fetus becomes “human?”  Does human life begin at conception

or sometime later in the pregnancy? When, later in the pregnancy? What if you are wrong

about your dating by even a few days? Could you mistakenly be ending a human life because it

does not meet your assigned definitions? Does the developing fetus have legal rights as a

person or are they/is it not yet human? Is it not obvious that an ectopic pregnancy is a

miscarriage and that it becomes a triage situation and therefore, not an abortion?

The overall conversation is seen by many as a religious question, and it is, but a rational

and scientific case can be made for opposition to abortion without any resort to religious

arguments.  Many people will not listen to anything even remotely religious, but they might

 listen if the discussion can be framed in a scientific way.

            We have often been told to "follow the science." This is a good and valid idea. In order to

remain completely uniform in thought, this advice should be consistently applied. This article

will present, in a highly simplified way, the scientific information necessary for a case against

abortion and some forms of birth control.

This is a very simplified presentation of human conception and the passage of genetic

information from the parents to the offspring. The information may seem to be complicated and

overwhelming, but at least a simplified basic understanding is necessary for a scientific critique

of the practice of abortion. That is what I will attempt to provide for you here.  It is necessary to

start at the beginning.

DNA (deoxy-ribonucleic acid) is a molecule consisting of two strands of nucleotide

bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine) paired together in two long strings arranged in

 the shape of a helix.  DNA, a very complex and, at the same time, a very elegantly simple

 molecule, is present in every cell of the human body and contains, in coded form, all the

information necessary to build and maintain the entire body.

Combinations of the four bases in pairs contain the entire human genome; the genetic

code which determines a person's sex, hair color, voice, skin color, height, body type, number of

fingers and toes, fat distribution, eye color, genetic diseases, intelligence level, possible allergies,

digestion, athletic ability, blood group typing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The codes literally

determine everything about your physical body and genetic science clearly says that all the

information about you as a human individual is present from the moment of conception.

A very simplified explanation is this: each spermatozoan carries 23 chromosomes

containing copies of the father’s DNA and each egg cell contains 23 chromosomes containing

copies of the mother’s DNA. At fertilization, the two sets of chromosomes unite to produce the

zygote which has a total of 46 chromosomes (23 from the father and 23 from the

mother). There are, of course, abnormal situations when this process is distorted and birth

abnormalities result.

So, half of the individual’s genetic information comes from the mother and half from the

father. The chromosomal pattern in the fertilized egg is a hybrid of the coded instructions

present in each of the two source cells, made from them but individually different from each of

them; a fully separate genetic code, a totally distinct individual. To the mother’s immune

system, the fertilized egg is “Not Me,” it is a foreign body.   

The human female produces ova (eggs) which her body recognizes as "Me." Except in

rare cases of autoimmune disease, such as in immune oophoritis, the immune system leaves

the ovaries and the eggs alone. In autoimmune oophoritis, the body's immune system attacks

the ovaries as being “Not Me” and causes ovarian inflammation, severe damage, and fibrosis.

            Normally, when a sperm wins the frantic race to the egg, the egg immediately allows

the spermatozoan to enter and mix the DNA which it carries with the DNA which is present in

 the egg.  The resultant mixture of chromosomes is "Not Me," which presents a severe problem

because, if the body’s immune system is functioning properly it does not like "Not Me" and it

begins to makes moves to get rid of the "Not Me." It attacks "Not Me" to protect itself from

viruses, bacteria, and other organisms like yeast or protozoa. This is the reason why transplant

patients must take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives. The transplanted tissues are

"Not Me" and would be killed if the body’s defenses are not properly suppressed.

To protect itself, the fertilized egg starts making proteins which tell the body, "move

on, there's nothing to see here." The proteins serve to hide the "Not Me." The body only sees

the "Me" and leaves the transplanted tissues alone.

Once the embryo implants and begins to increase in size, it rapidly becomes too "Not

Me" for the immune system to ignore, so the placenta takes over, releasing hormones, such as

progesterone, human chorionic gonadotropin, and other factors, to prevent rejection of the

fetus.

            The placenta is a temporary organ which contains both maternal and fetal tissue. Most

people recognize that the placenta nourishes the fetus, provides the fetus with oxygen, and

allows in some of the mother’s protective antibodies since the fetus’ immune system is not yet

functioning. It also allows the fetus’ waste products out into the mother’s blood system where

 they can then be properly eliminated. What people may not realize is that the placenta also

acts as a barrier and filter between the mother “Me” and the fetus “Not Me,” protecting the

“Not Me” from being killed. 

            Because of the placenta’s construction, the fetus and the mother effectively never come

into contact with one another.  Under the best of circumstances, the two bloodstreams never

mix. There are even two different types of hemoglobin at play, adult and fetal. The mother and

the fetus may also have different blood serotypes.

Remember that the fetus is "Not Me, " foreign tissue to the body of the mother. So,

what you have is, mother ("Me") and fetus ("Not Me"). Because the fetus has been effectively

disguised, the mother’s immune system, under normal situations, does not attempt to kill the

foreign material, the developing baby. 

This scientific information is one reason why there is so much controversy over when the

fetus becomes a separate, individual, and legally protected human, but this argument will not

convince everyone. The fertilized egg is clearly human tissue and is clearly genetically distinct

from tissue derived from the mother. None of this can answer the question of whether human

life legally begins at conception, at the first detectable heartbeat, or later.

Thirty-eight of the United States recognize the “unborn child” as a human and, in 2004,

United States President George W. Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act which views

unborn children as humans if they are injured or killed during the commission of specific federal

crimes such as terrorism. The United States courts have declared that these laws do not apply

to legal abortions.  My question is, “Why not?”  Is the only difference that the murdered child is

wanted and the aborted child is not? 

.......................................................................................................................................................
If you wish to know more, see these links.

Very good:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss3/DNA2.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss3/dna.html&h=543&w=351&sz=42&tbnid=8CP_Dkmi3Hub9M:&tbnh=84&tbnw=54&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dimage%2B%2526%2BDNA%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=image+%26+DNA&usg=__DNAoHOES8pL7lQS_Oaj3PGM13so=&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uDw6UOT9OY2s8QTIrYG4AQ&ved=0CCMQ9QEwBA

            Kent, Athol, “Why Doesn’t a Mother Reject Her Fetus?” Reviews in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2009, Winter, : 2(1): 67-68. This web page is from the Journal Article Summary Service of the National Library of Medicine and is published by the National Institutes of Health. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2672992/  (A quotation from this article, “It is a wonder of pregnancy that the fetus is not rejected by the mother’s immune system.”)

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 Simplified:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

DNA to RNA to proteins

http://dna-rna.net/

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Detailed information on proteins:

http://www2.chemistry.msu.edu:80/faculty/reusch/VirtTxtJml/proteins.htm

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Chromosomes

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/D/Down.gif&imgrefurl=http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/C/Chromosomes.html&h=318&w=430&sz=29&tbnid=4sRt4QRwm30RKM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=112&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dimages%2B%2526%2Bchromosomes%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=images+%26+chromosomes&usg=__9giWb2_ajTIbvehrthPPLzjuZwA=&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hkA6UJ36EoT89gS6joGwCg&ved=0CBoQ9QEwAQ

http://images.yourdictionary.com/chromosome

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act (Public Law 108-212-Apr. 1, 2004

https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ212/PLAW-108publ212.pdf

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Arguments on the Abortion Issue, For and Against

https://www.britannica.com/procon/abortion-debate/Con-Quotes

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Science in Antiquity: Part 9

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 582-ca 507 BC/BCE: Pythagoras of Samos stresses the mathematical nature of reality. He declares that “All is number.” Along with metaphysical and religious concepts, Pythagoras teaches other subjects including music, mathematics, vibrating lyre strings, and geometry.

25 May 585 BC/BCE: A solar eclipse ends a war between Lydia and the Medes during the Battle of the Eclipse. The battle stopped because of “day turning into night” and a treaty was signed. The eclipse had been accurately predicted by Thales (Ca 640-546 BC.BCE, WBD), a Greek philosopher. He is considered to have been the father of modern astronomy and geometry.

            The end of fighting resulted in a treaty of alliance cemented by the political marriage of a Lydian princess, Aryenis, to a Median prince, Astyages. 

624-546 BC/BCE:  Thales says the Earth’s surface is curved.

635 BC/BCE: Chinese astronomers notice that a comet’s tail always points away from the sun.

780 BC: The first historical mention of a solar eclipse is made in China.

Book Comment: The Narcissist Next Door

             I am going to recommend a book which, for several reasons, you might never otherwise read. The book is The Narcissist Next Door by Jeffrey Kluger. Among the reasons that some might object to reading this book include: the book is entirely secular, the concept of narcissism is not widely understood, the author is not a Christian, and the book contains some profanities and shocking statements.

The Narcissist Next Door concerns how the psychological condition known as narcissism is present in every level of civilization, in our governments, in every institution, in every business, and even in our own families. It is a self-centered type of personality and occurs in varying degrees of severity worldwide. Symptoms of the disorder include a feeling of grandiosity, an excessive need for attention and admiration, and an impaired ability to be empathetic. It is considered to be a psychiatric condition known as narcissistic personality disorder. The cause of the condition cannot be definitively stated but there are numerous suggestions: childhood parental neglect, childhood emotional or physical abuse, the person may crave the feeling of control generated by being able to abuse others who are too weak-willed to oppose them, the person may have a combination of narcissism and sociopathy with a total lack of normal emotions, the person also could have been the family’s golden child who never learned how to hear the word no.

You probably don’t think that you know any narcissists, but you do. They are around you every day, on television, singing the songs you hear on your car’s radio, one of your co-workers, they may be your political leaders, they may be a family member (particularly distressing), they may even be in your church. They may even be one of your deacons or your pastor or your priest.

Kluger points out that, in order to deal with narcissism, you first have to understand what is actually is. He explains what the arrogant narcissist is actually feeling, and gives examples of the narcissists living around us, going so far as to name the names of real people who are obvious narcissists.

Some of Kluger’s chapters are The Bastard in the Corner Office, The Peacock in the Oval Office, The Schmuck in the Next Cubicle, The Beast in Your Bed, and Death Row and Hollywood: Where the Narcissists Won.

One particularly awful type is the spiritual narcissist. These people with narcissist tendencies seem to be in almost every church. These are the persons who are sure that they are correct and who want everyone else to know it. They come across as overbearing, judgemental, and power-hungry. They assume that they are holy and spiritually knowledgeable and that everyone else falls short. This is the sin of Self, I am special. Hear the words I AM, one of the names of God.

You should not just ignore these spiritual narcissists, because they can poison a church. You should also not just attack or lecture them but you should handle the situation in the spirit of Christ. Never become defensive or hostile towards them, because that can interfere with your good judgement. An excellent approach is not to become part of the power struggle by gossiping and buzzing about the problem but, instead, to bring up the subject with trusted church leaders. Protect yourself, putting on the spiritual armor which the Holy Spirit has provided to you, the whole armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. 

1 Corinthians 7:15, 15:33; Luke 17:3-4; 1 Peter 4:8; Ephesians 3:14-19, 6:10-18.

___________________________________________________________________

As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises you to think for yourself. Read your Bible and to listen to what it says. Do not believe anything just because someone else told to believe it; let the Holy Spirit guide you to the truth.

A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Information you will need to search for this book:

Kluger, Jeffrey, The Narcissist Next Door. Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed – In Your World (New York: Riverhead Books, 2014)

Hyper-Male and Hyper-Feminine Portraits of Jesus

 

God is spoken of in the Bible in mostly masculine terms but there are several feminine references as well. God encompasses male, female, and more. He is other, but has given us the Bible and Jesus to show us what he is like.

We do not know what Jesus looked like but he certainly was not a fair-skinned, blond or light brown-haired, blue-eyed European and he did not look like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_Christ

            Some people believe that he is depicted on the controversial Shroud of Turin but the dating of the cloth is highly, even sometimes hotly, disputed.

            Various Christian artists have rendered Jesus in paintings and drawings. Some have emphasized his masculinity, sometimes to absurd levels, and others have stressed his tenderness by depicting him in ways which many would consider to be effeminate.

Google AI says: “The term "effeminate" reflects modern sensibilities; historically, it was about portraying divine perfection and spiritual grace, not necessarily gender ambiguity in a modern sense, though it challenged traditional notions of masculine strength.”

A few examples:

Stephen S. Sawyer’s Undefeated

https://www.art4god.com/store/undefeated

A display of a series of portraits collected by an objectivist (look up objectivist)

https://oneobjectivistsartobjectoftheday.blogspot.com/2011/03/unusual-depictions-of-jesus-week.html

A controversial portrayal of Jesus as a black woman

https://janetmckenzie.com/joppage1.html

The Christ child as a little girl

https://smarthistory.org/ayala-obidos-child-salvator-mundi/

Book Comment: Star Trek FAQ

            Those who love science fiction television and movies are usually enthusiasts of either the Star Trek or Star Wars franchises, but often not of both. I admit to being a Trekkie.

FAQ, for those who do not know, is frequently asked questions. Clark’s book discusses every question you might ask and then a few more. Subjects include the developmental starts and stops of the television shows and movies including planned but never-released projects, the historical and literary background leading up to the first appearance of TOS (The Original Series), as the original Star Trek is often known, corporate backroom deals, the animated series, actor feuds, clashes with producers, gadgets and props, costumes, special effects, and the pre-Trek careers of the directors, producers, network executives, and the actors, including even the “redshirts” and other minor recurring character actors. Clark pulls no punches about some of the abrasive personalities and faults of the people he discusses.

For the hardcore Trek enthusiast, these things alone make this a good read.

Now, as to why this book is being mentioned on this blog: When they actually look at it in depth and with critical thinking, some are surprised that there are religious undertones in much of science fiction, and even in many horror films. The undertones can show an orthodox Christian slant but often they do not. Even those which are actively atheist can touch on religious themes and atheism can be viewed as a religion or, at the very least, a philosophical stance on the subject of religion.

The creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), was raised in Texas (USA) as a Southern Baptist. As an adult, he rejected organized religion and was often spoken of as an atheist but could more properly be described as a pantheistic agnostic. He thought that in the future mankind would reject religions and become more religiously numinous in an unfocused way with a sort of progressive humanist and secularist religiosity or spirituality. Mankind would not be actively anti-religion but would mostly just ignore it.  Along with this, Roddenberry also exhibited a belief in the ultimate perfectibility of man.

Roddenberry rejected a suggestion from National Broadcasting Company executives to include a chaplain in the Enterprises’ crew. In TOS episodes religious leaders are most commonly troublesome people even when they are genuinely well-meaning. Many are depicted as repressive of original thought.

When seemingly divine almost omnipotent beings occur in the series, they are eventually exposed as being computers developed by long-extinct species or as mortal beings possessing highly advanced technologies.

It was not until the third series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, that a religion was presented as a possibly positive force. The Bajoran people worshipped the prophets, whom other species referred to as the wormhole aliens, not actually divine but highly advanced in their technology.

Some Trekkers (who view Trekkie as a perjorative) will argue for hours about minutiae of Star Trek information, especially about what is canon and what is not. In 1994, Michael Jendra, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, published “Star Trek Fandom as a Religious Phenomenon” in the academic journal, Sociology of Religion. Film director Nicholas Meyer has described Star Trek as a “religion without theology.”

Gene Roddenberry is quoted about this: “I’m not a guru. … I certainly didn’t write Scripture and my feeling is that those who did weren’t treated very well in the end.”

Live Long and Prosper!

Clark, Mark, Star Trek FAQ. Everything Left to Know About the First Voyages of the Starship Enterprise (Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2012)

Science in Antiquity: Part 8

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

fl 450-370 BC/BCE: The Greek philosopher Leucippus teaches that all matter is composed of identical eternally existing, constantly moving particles surrounded by nothingness between the particles.  His student, Democritus, further developed the atomic theory.  Democritus taught that everything is material and is created by combinations of eternally existing atoms.

Ca 475 BC/BCE: Death of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher whose ideas correctly predict one of the main concepts of the modern understanding of the nature of matter. He teaches that solid matter is really made of fire (read this in the modern way as subatomic particles) which is in constant motion.

Ca 490-ca 420 BC/BCE: The Greek philosopher, Protagoras, declares that there is no objective truth and that we all have our own reality.

Ca 500 BC: 1. Cataract surgery is performed in India by Susrata, a surgeon. The use of anesthesia is not mentioned until the 1^st Century AD/CE.

              2. Iron tools appear in China.

              3. Chinese weapon makers invent the crossbow.

               4. In Babylon, mathematical calculations are used to predict the movements and positions of astral bodies.

              5. A Greek physician, Alcmaeon, discovers the Eustachian tubes.

16 July 523 BC/BCE: Ptolemy correctly predicts a lunar eclipse.