Creationists
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‘Darwin gave us a world where miracles happen constantly. How did he know? Things exist; therefore they evolved.
One of the funniest, most ironic quotes about evolution was made in 1929 by D. M. S. Watson. “Evolution,” declared Professor Watson, “…is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or… can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.” (sources: John West, Evolution News; also CMI). Well, well, Dr. Watson. Let’s see what kinds of incredible beliefs are coming from your evolutionist colleagues.
Powered Flight: How Many Miracles?
Researcher questions whether powered flight appeared on non-avialan dinosaurs (University of Malaga, via EurekAlert). Professor Malaga Francisco Serrano Alarcón knows that the emergence of powered flight is extremely unlikely. [How unlikely? Watch these video clips on bird bones, feathers and muscles from Illustra Media and consider how many lucky mutations it would have taken to evolve them.]
Powered flight in animals—that uses flapping wings to generate thrus [sic]—is a very energetically demanding mode of locomotion that requires many anatomical and physiological adaptations. In fact, the capability to develop it has only appeared four times in the evolutionary history of animals: On insects, pterosaurs, birds and bats.
Four times: that’s tolerable. But seven? He simply cannot believe his colleagues that think powered flight arose three more times in dinosaurs. That is simply too improbable to accept!
“Birds are a group of dinosaurs of which we have discovered 150-million-year-old fossils with fully developed wings. Among their closest non-avialan relatives, we have also found fossils with sufficiently developed wings that could provide them with some aerodynamic benefit, whether to glide between trees or get thrust to climb and jump over obstacles. But this does not mean that they could take off by flapping their wings or maintain a powered flight“, explains Francisco Serrano.
Whew. Thank you prof. You saved the credibility of Darwin. Powered flight only emerged four times – not seven! And thank you, Luis Chiappe, for helping him publish this saving grace in Current Biology.
Cartoons by Brett Miller. All rights reserved. Used here by permission.
How Beethoven Evolved
These ‘creativity genes’ allowed humans to take over the world (Live Science). Genes that gave human beings immense powers of creativity in ideas, art and music just popped into existence one day. That’s what Yasemin Saplakoglu, staff writer for Live Science, believes. How does he know? Dr. Claude Robert Cloninger, a professor emeritus in the psychiatry and genetics departments at Washington University in St. Louis., told him.
Creativity could be one of the main reasons Homo sapiens survived and dominated over related species such as Neanderthals and chimpanzees, according to a new study [prepare to be hoodwinked].
Cloninger and his Darwin bigot buddies ran divination on genes and visualized a wonderful story of emerging creativity in our species. With wide mouth, reporter Saplakoglu slurped it up. ‘It exists, therefore it evolved.’ Ooh. Aah.
The emotional reactivity network evolved in monkeys and apes about 40 million [Darwin] years ago, the self-control network evolved a little less than 2 million years ago, and the self-awareness and creativity network emerged just 100,000 years ago, when humans were under pressure from a changing climate that reduced the supply of food and other resources necessary for survival, Cloninger said.
Then, some 40,000 years ago, Homo sapiens with “unprecedented cultural and technological sophistication” began rapidly replacing Neanderthals around the world, according to the study. This sophistication was likely driven by our Homo sapiens ancestors’ creativity and self-awareness, which enabled them to live longer, healthier lives, the authors said.
Readers can forget all this, because at the end of the article, Cloninger gives some caveats about interpreting the genes that basically undermine everything he said. He must have realized this after coming down out of his Darwin science seance. (On Darwinist use of the word “likely,” see 21 April 2021, Evolutionists Are ‘Likely’ Clueless.)
Miracles Earlier Than Thought
58-million-year-old footprints show when mammals began paddling in sea (Krista Charles for New Scientist). Krista begins Tontologically, “An extensive set of fossilised footprints shows that prehistoric large mammals were gathering by the sea millions of years earlier than we thought” (who’s “we,” Paleface?). A little artwork helps the unsuspecting reader visualize the miracle: four-footed hippo-like mammals thinking about becoming whales some day. They were gathering by the imagined seashore in large numbers. Maybe they were having a betting contest to see who could evolve a blowhole first.
Ankle and foot evolution gave mammals a leg up (University of Edinburgh). Evolving mammals needed happy feet for dancing to celebrate their new freedom after the dinosaurs died out, so the Stuff Happens Law gave it to them. What was the process called? Why, “ankle and foot evolution,” dummy. Stop asking silly questions! You underestimate the power of evolution!
The evolution of ankle and foot bones into different shapes and sizes helped mammals adapt and thrive after the extinction of the dinosaurs, a study [prepare to be hoodwinked] suggests.
A surge of evolution following the mass extinction 66 million years ago enabled mammals to diversify and prosper during a period of major global change, researchers say.
Analysis of bones that form part of the ankle and the heel of the foot reveal that mammals during this time – the Paleocene Period – were less primitive than previously thought.
Whatever Exists, It Evolved
Evolutionary biologists discover mechanism that enables lizards to breathe underwater (University of Toronto). Lizards can “re-breathe” air that has been absorbed through the skin. It’s pretty amazing what evolution can do. If an animal needs something, evolution gives it to them free of charge. Watch how the authors use the word “developed” as a synonym for “evolved” – same meaning. Believe it, people, because it is “likely.”
Rebreathing likely evolved because the ability to stay submerged longer increases the lizard’s chances of eluding predators….
As the authors point out, the rebreathing trait may have developed because anoles’ skin is hydrophobic — it repels water — a characteristic that likely evolved in anoles because it protects them from rain and parasites. Underwater, air bubbles cling to hydrophobic skin and the ability to exploit these bubbles for breathing developed as a result.
Ancestors may have created ‘iconic’ sounds as bridge to first languages (University of Birmingham). Herein is the origin of eloquence in speech and thinking: it evolved. That’s all you need to know. Now, a story to make it sound plausible.
The ‘missing link’ that helped our ancestors to begin communicating with each other through language may have been iconic sounds, rather than charades-like gestures – giving rise to the unique human power to coin new words describing the world around us, a new study [prepare to be hoodwinked] reveals.
In this article, “gave rise to” is like “developed” – it is a synonym for “evolved.” Same meaning.
To test this notion (idea is too charitable a word), they tested modern students with silly tests like pointing to a tiger and saying “Tiger… bad.” People from all language groups got it. That must mean that language evolved. How? By “language evolution,” silly. The students got it even quicker when the testers waved their arms. Chaucer and Milton could not be far behind.
Co-author Dr Marcus Perlman, Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, commented: “Our study fills in a crucial piece of the puzzle of language evolution, suggesting the possibility that all languages – spoken as well as signed – may have iconic origins.
Conclusion
Now you know why you must believe in evolution. The alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.
Vestigial organs are thought by evolutionists to be useless organs. Here is what one evolutionist says.
‘A “vestigial structure” or “vestigial organ” is an anatomical feature or behavior that no longer seems to have a purpose in the current form of an organism of the given species. Often, these vestigial structures were organs that performed some important functions in the organism at one point in the past.
However, as the population changed due to natural selection, those structures became less and less necessary until they were rendered pretty much useless. They are believed to be leftovers, only vestiges of the past.
Slow Evolutionary Process
Evolution is a slow process, with changes in species happening over hundreds or thousands if not millions of years, depending on how significant the change is. Although many of these types of structures would disappear over many generations, some keep being passed down to offspring because they do no harm—they aren’t a disadvantage for the species—or they have changed function over time. Some are present or functioning only during the embryonic stage of fetal development, or maybe they just have no function as we get older.
That said, some structures that were once thought of as vestigial are now thought as useful, such as the whale pelvis or the human appendix. As with many things in science, the case isn’t closed. As more knowledge is discovered, the information we know is revised and refined.’https://www.thoughtco.com/about-vestigial-structures-1224771
However, were these organs ever useless? Here’s what two creationists say.
‘First, it is in principle not possible to prove that an organ is useless, because there is always the possiblity that a use may be discovered in the future. This has happened with over a hundred alleged useless vestigial organs which are now known to be essential.
Second, even if the alleged vestigial organ were no longer needed, it would prove devolution not evolution. The creation model allows for deterioration of a perfect creation. However the particles-to-people evolution model needs to find examples of nascent organs, i.e. those which are increasing in complexity.
Wings on birds that do not fly?
There are at least three possibilities as to why ostriches, emus, etc have wings:
a) They derived from smaller birds that once could fly. This is possible in the creationist model. Loss of features is relatively easy by natural processes; acquisition of new characters, requiring new DNA information, is impossible.
b) The wings have a function. Some possible functions, depending on the species of flightless bird, are: balance while running, cooling in hot weather, warmth in cold weather, protection of the rib-cage in falls, mating rituals, scaring predators (I’ve seen emus run at perceived enemies of their chicks, mouth open and wings flapping), sheltering of chicks, etc. If the wings are useless, why are the muscles functional that allow these birds to move their wings?
c) It is a result of ‘design economy’ by the Creator. Humans use this with automobiles, for example. All models might have mounting points for air conditioning, power steering, etc. although not all have them. Likewise, all models tend to use the same wiring harness, although not all features are necessarily implemented in any one model. In using the same embryological blueprint for all birds, all birds will have wings.
Pigs with two toes that do not reach the ground?
Does this mean that the shorter toes have no function? No one has demonstrated this. Pigs spend a lot of time in water / muddy conditions for cooling purposes. Perhaps the extra toes make it easier to walk in mud (a bit like the rider wheels sometimes seen on long trucks which only touch the road when the truck is heavily loaded). Or perhaps the muscles attached to the extra toes give strength to the ‘ankle’ of the pig.
Why do male humans have nipples?
See also Male Nipples Prove Evolution?
This is answered in Bergman and Howe’s book “Vestigial Organs” are Fully Functional (below right). Males have nipples because of the common embryological plan followed during early embryo development. Embryos start out producing features common to male and female — again an example of ‘design economy’. Nipples are a part of this design economy. However, as Bergman and Howe point out, the claim that they are useless is debatable.
What is the evolutionist’s explanation for male nipples? Did males evolve (devolve) from females? Or did ancestral males suckle the young? No evolutionist would propose this, so males nipples are not evidence for evolution or evidence against creation.
Why do rabbits have digestive systems that function ‘so poorly that they must eat their own feces’?
This is an incredible proposition. One of the most successful species on earth would have to be the rabbit! The rabbit’s mode of existence is obviously very efficient (what about the saying ‘they breed like rabbits’?). Just because eating feces may be abhorrent to humans, does not mean it is inefficient for the rabbit! Indeed rabbits have a special pouch called the cecum, containing bacteria, at the beginning of the large intestine. These bacteria aid digestion, just as bacteria in the rumen of cattle and sheep aid digestion. The rabbit produces two types of fecal pellet, a hard one and a special soft one coming from the cecum. It is only the latter which is eaten to enrich the diet with the nutrients produced by the bacteria in the cecum. In other words, this ability of rabbits is part of their design; it is not something they have learnt to do because they have ‘digestive systems which function so poorly’. It is part of the variety of design which speaks of creation, not evolution.
Legless lizards
It is quite likely that the legless lizards, etc. could have derived from the original created kind, and so the structures would be consistent with this. ‘Loss’ of a structure is of no comfort to evolutionists as they have to find a mechanism for creating new structures, not losing them, and there is no such mechanism to explain how evolution from ‘amoeba to man’ could occur. Genesis 3:14 suggests that snakes maybe once had legs. Brown (CRSQ 26:54) suggests that monitor lizards may have been the precursors of snakes.
Adaptation and natural selection are a biological fact; evolution is not. Natural selection can only work on the genetic information present in a population of organisms—it cannot create new information. For example, if reptiles have no genes for feathers, no amount of selection will produce a feathered reptile. Mutations in genes can only modify or eliminate existing structures, but not create new ones. If in a certain environment a lizard survives better with smaller legs, or no legs, then varieties with this trait will be selected for. This might be more accurately called devolution, not evolution.
The Appendix
See also Your Appendix—It’s There for a Reason!
It is known that the appendix contains lymphatic tissue and has a role in controlling bacteria entering the intestines. It functions in a similar way to the tonsils at the other end of the alimentary canal, which are known to increase resistance to throat infections, although once also thought to be useless organs.
Hip bones in whales
These bones are alleged to show that whales evolved from land animals. However, Bergman and Howe point out that they are different in the male and female whales. They are not useless at all, but help penis erection in the males and vaginal contraction in the females.
Teeth in embryonic baleen whales
Evolutionists claim that they show that baleen whales evolved from toothed whales. However they have not provided an adequate mechanism for scrapping one perfectly good system (teeth) and replacing it with a very different system (baleen or whalebone). Also, the teeth in the embryo function as guides to the correct formation of the massive jaws.’https://creation.com/vestigial-organs-what-do-they-prove?utm_campaign=infobytes_au&utm_content=Why+%27vestigial+organs%27+are+an+embarrassment+for+evolution&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailing.creation.com&utm_term=Fortnightly+Digest+-+2021.05.14
Accident or design?
‘Charles Darwin himself shuddered at the thought that evolutionary processes had to explain human vision. He said, ‘To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”‘https://www.creationstudies.org/articles/theory-of-evolution/114-darwin-versus-the-human-eye
Job 9:9-10 “Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.”
‘The entire universe and all its forces were planned and created out of the mind of God. Since He is God, He was not forced to make anything in a certain way.
The study of the universe and its forces is called cosmology. The night sky is a breathtaking vision to anyone who views it far away from city lights. As cosmologists look into space, they see mysteries that cannot be explained. These mysteries can literally cause supercomputers to have nervous breakdowns from pondering imponderables. One would think that the cosmologist would be more likely than most to recognize the genius of God.
Researchers recently gave a supercomputer the task of calculating the results of gravitational collapse of a huge collection of matter in space. The result was what scientists call an “infinity.” This means that the answer to the mathematical problem is so complex that no scientist can calculate it. Even the most powerful computer in the world is not up to the task! The team that arrived at the incomprehensible answer admits that modern science really knows very little about the nature of the cosmos.
Cosmologists know that the universe is not an accident. They expect the universe to have laws and make sense. As they learn more about the universe, they are gaining an even greater appreciation for the Mind from which the universe has come. The study of cosmology has led even some of the most-hardened atheists to admit that sometimes the idea of a Creator God does not seem so far-fetched.’https://creationmoments.com/sermons/gods-mind-is-bigger-than-ours-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gods-mind-is-bigger-than-ours-2&mc_cid=5c0b11324a&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
Biden and his political mates around the world are simply following the bidding of the CCP. That’s one reason why they had to get rid of President Trump! This crazy Net Zero 2050 is their target to ruin the West and make us all slaves to the CCP. Conspiracy theory? NOT!! However, as a Bible believing Christian my hope isn’t in politicians but in the Lord Jesus Christ! Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
‘The Ominous Outlook for 2050
Narrator
There are two different visions out there of what the world ought to look like in 2050. One of them is called Net Zero, which says that within three decades the world must all but eliminate fossil fuel use, and get carbon dioxide emissions down to zero, net of the amount plants and trees absorb. So many politicians, business leaders, bankers and academics around the world are calling for Net Zero that you might think it’s solidly based on science.
John Robson
But it’s not. Many experts dispute the necessity of this 2050 plan and indeed its feasibility. They say the worst case scenario for the impacts of climate change over the coming 30 years won’t be nearly as costly as the impact of getting rid of fossil fuels. They say trying to get to net zero in such a short time could destroy our prosperity and weaken us internationally. And they say we couldn’t get there even if we tried.
Narrator
Despite these objections, and with virtually no public debate, governments throughout the western world are embracing the goal of net zero by 2050 and are preparing to impose the target, regardless of the costs. They’re not interested in the vision of cautious, evidence-based, adaptation to what the future brings.
John Robson
Which funnily enough isn’t even the other vision I want to talk about. You see, there’s yet another, very different idea of what the world should look like in 2050 that you may not have heard of. It’s not exactly a secret, but Western governments and journalists ignore it just as they ignore skepticism about Net Zero.
Narrator
This other vision is called The Hundred Year Marathon. And it’s like a mirror image of Net Zero, because it’s the Chinese Politburo’s elaborate and ambitious scheme to build up their nation’s economy and its global power so that by 2049, the hundredth anniversary of Mao Zedong’s seizure of power, China will be the world’s dominant superpower.
John Robson
Then, starting in 2050, the ideology that guides the Chinese Communist Party will spread around the globe, achieving what they like to call “harmony” though a better name would be “world domination”.
Narrator
You might be tempted to dismiss this warning as paranoia, some kind of warmed-over “Red scare”. But while Chinese leaders are careful not to say much to the rest of the world, they talk openly about this ambition among themselves. The plans are found in high-level speeches and strategy documents, and the implementation is progressing around the world, step-by-step, right in plain sight, including the so-called “Belt and Road Initiative” and the not-so-green investment in coal plants in many Third World nations as well as at home. But most Westerners still know nothing about it and find it hard to believe such a plan could even exist, let alone succeed.
John Robson
Unfortunately, the truth is that these two apparently disconnected visions of 2050 are two sides of the same coin. They both lead us to the same place, with the west hobbled and weak, and China powerful and dominant. And if our governments don’t know it, don’t want to hear about it, the Chinese government certainly does. I’m John Robson and this is a Climate Discussion Nexus Backgrounder on the Ominous Outlook for 2050.
First of all, let me assure you I’m not saying “climate change” is a communist plot. Or a globalist plot. Or a what have you plot. Climate change alarmism isn’t not a plot at all, even if it is mistaken. The whole discussion of carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect arose in Europe in the 1800s out of scientific inquiry, and lots of people believe in it sincerely, and it’s appropriate and necessary that we, in free societies, have a lively legitimate debate about its meaning and importance. Including the necessity and practicality of Net Zero.
Narrator
But we also need to have a discussion about the geopolitical implications of the green agenda, and the illegitimate uses to which it can be put. Including the strange coincidence that a global political movement has arisen that uses the threat of climate change to impose an agenda on the Western world that fits neatly with what The Hundred Year Marathon seeks to do. If it is a coincidence.
John Robson
You’ll notice, the endless chatter about “Net Zero” never seems to include China. They’re building hundreds of coal-fired power plants at home and abroad, buying up oil reserves around the world, including here in Canada, and they’re ramping up their economy as fast as humanly possible without regard for the human cost including due to real pollution as well as the “carbon” kind. And they have politely but firmly told the world to go jump in the South China Sea whenever discussion of global climate policy comes up. Except not always politely.
Sure they like to brag about the occasional solar panel they put up, or their internal carbon trading shell game, and last fall President Xi Jinping made noises to the UN about cutting emissions. That kind of talk always wins them praise from credulous western environmentalists. But the reality is, net zero is a western preoccupation and China isn’t part of it.
When I say “China” I don’t mean the geographical entity, of course. Nor do I mean the people who live there. It’s standard shorthand for a political organization called the Chinese Communist Party or CCP that rules China and its people in a thoroughly undemocratic, brutal manner.
Narrator
The CCP was formed in 1921, and after decades of military insurgency it won control of China in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Zedong. It is an authoritarian communist movement that aspires to be totalitarian and control all aspects of the lives of the Chinese people including their thinking. It now has about 90 million members, but not because it’s popular. Because you pretty much have to be a Party member to have a significant job in Chinese business or government. Until the Party turns on you, that is. And then there’s nowhere to hide, no matter how important, rich or well-connected you seemed to be. There’s no such thing as free speech in China, or separation of powers, or rule of law, or private property, or security of any kind. Westerners by and large have no idea how powerful the CCP is.
John Robson
For instance, China does not have a military the way normal countries do. Instead the so-called “Peoples’ Liberation Army” is the military wing of the Chinese Communist Party. Imagine the hoo-hah if Donald Trump had proposed having the US Army swear an oath of loyalty to the Republican Party instead of the US Constitution. But that’s what the CCP has done, and it now has the largest military in the world as its private enforcers.
China also does not have an independent court system, of course. Judges in China are CCP officials whose sole loyalty is to the Party if they know what’s good for them. The CCP controls the school system, the media, the universities, the internet, all local municipal governments, and of course the central government in Beijing. Leaders in any of those systems have to swear loyalty to the CCP and its ideology to hold their positions. What’s more, all Chinese companies are effectively branches of the state including under the National Intelligence Law that makes enterprises like, say Huawei, explicitly tentacles of Beijing’s espionage.
Narrator
It’s not accidental and it’s not because of any external threat and there is no intention of reforming it. China made a show of moving towards democracy in the 1990s, just long enough to win a membership in the World Trade Organization in 2001. But what was really going on internally was a purge of reformers in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
John Robson
By the time Xi Jinping took power in 2012 the hardliners had cemented their control. And in 2013 Chairman Xi delivered a confidential speech called Document Number 9, which outlines the seven “false ideologies” that the CCP must repress at all costs: Western-style constitutional democracy, the belief in ‘universal values’, civil society (or individual rights), free market economics, independent journalism, ‘historical nihilism’ (i.e. questioning Maoist doctrine), and anything that undermines the socialist nature of China.
Narrator
In that speech he also referred to “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. According to China expert Michael Pillsbury, this is code for righting the historical wrongs that have prevented China from reaching its destiny of being the dominant nation in the world. They don’t simply want to be successful, to be secure, to be an equal and respected partner in a multipolar world. They believe in the saying attributed to Confucius that “there can only be one sun up in the sky.” There can only be one dominant superpower.
John Robson
According to this chauvinistic, belligerent and frankly rather weird reading of history, China was destined to fill that role until its humiliation by the aggressive west in the 1800s. But by 2049 they will have righted that wrong and completed their rejuvenation. Or died trying. Along with anyone who gets in their way.
Delusions of grandeur, you might say. As we said of the Soviet Union and before that Hitler. Yes, I’m putting on that annoying historian’s mortar-board again and saying we’ve been there, we’ve done that and, you’d think, got the point. Instead while we’ve spent decades praising the CCP’s quest for social justice, building statues of Norman Bethune and praising Pierre Trudeau’s youthful visit to China, and indeed taking pity on China as a poor, weak developing nation to whom believe it or not Canada still sends foreign aid, they’ve become the world’s top producer and user of energy, steel, cement and chemical fertilizer (like Khrushchev’s U.S.S.R. before them with similar ambitions). They own over a trillion dollars’ worth of US government debt, they control over 90 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals which gives them effective control over global electronics production, they took over the mobile phone infrastructure in Africa and are seeking dominance over the new 5G global communications network, and through that Belt-and-Road Initiative they have been acquiring vast amounts of transportation infrastructure around the world.
Narrator
The reach of the CCP is astonishing. They own Pirelli tires, Syngenta chemicals, 40 percent of the Philippines’ national electricity system, and ports in Rotterdam, Antwerp, Greece, Bilbao, Valencia, Panama, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nicaragua and elsewhere. In Canada they own Nexen Inc., one of Canada’s major oil and gas companies. And the Canadian government still hasn’t formally barred Huawei from the 5G network’s key infrastructure, the only one of the “Five Eyes” still determined to see no evil here.
John Robson
And bear in mind, we’re not talking about individual Chinese investors buying assets. These are Chinese state-owned, state dominated enterprises, all under the control of the CCP. No Chinese firm is independent of the Politburo no matter what the share certificates or formal laws say. What Chairman Xi wants, Chairman Xi takes, with the People’s Liberation Army to back him up.
Speaking of which, the CCP has built up the largest army and navy in the world, with a target of making sure it is twice as large as the US military by 2050. That’s right. Not as big. Twice as big. What for, do you suppose? With all those hypersonic carrier-busting cruise missiles, killer satellites and military robots?
Well, it’s not to stop climate change, that’s for sure. Throughout this drive for world domination in the name of communist dictatorship, which following Confucius’ policy of the “rectification of names” is exactly what it should be called, their use of fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, have soared, making them the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases by a very wide margin that grows wider every day.
Narrator
Which brings us back to the climate issue. Because a strange thing about Net Zero is that it was never really discussed anywhere, or voted on. It just one day seemed to become the policy of every government, everywhere. Except China, which is applauding us for it while moving relentlessly the other way.
Net Zero has even recently and rather suddenly been embraced by the global financial system. Groups like the World Bank and major private banks have all announced they won’t lend any more money to big fossil fuel-based energy projects, even in developing countries, including coal-fired power plants. Whereas China will.
And as numerous authors have documented, top leaders in the global finance sphere have been the targets for decades of careful, sophisticated influence campaigns run out of Beijing.
John Robson
Hold on a minute, I know what you’re about to say: this is all conspiracy-mongering, which you told us not to do. Besides surely it’s just a coincidence. But we already know that Russia operates this way, funding European green groups who have all but shut down energy development in the EU, forcing them to be utterly dependent on Russian gas exports. It stands to reason that China would use the same strategy. It’s not a conspiracy, they talk about it among themselves. And these days China’s resources vastly exceed those of Russia which, for all Putin’s thuggish delusions of grandeur, has been described with some justice as “a gas station for China.”
So how does this work? Well, as Toronto-based researcher Patricia Adams has documented, western green groups have been conspicuous in their fondness for the ruthless Chinese government. While everyone else has been growing increasingly alarmed at the proliferation of concentration camps, slave labour factories, crushing free speech including in Hong Kong and all the other hallmarks of totalitarian repression under the CCP, even genocide of the Uighur Muslims, environmental groups are conspicuously glowing about the Chinese leadership. As Adams says:
Narrator
The big exceptions – those who have yet to have their eyes opened to the dangers posed by the CCP – are Western environmentalists and their funders. Rather than becoming cautious about China’s role in the world, these groups lavish it with praise for its environmental efforts
John Robson
So do you think it’s just coincidence that, as Adams notes, some $330 million worth of funding for North American green groups can be traced to one single source, Energy Foundation China, which is managed by Ji Zou, a long-time senior official in the Chinese government?
Narrator
Zou, as a paymaster for the Western environmentalists, decides what projects to fund, enabling him to effectively solicit work desired by his former employers in Beijing from the Western environmental organizations, who give it their imprimatur of legitimacy.
John Robson
Front groups are an old communist trick. They’re an established fact, and Beijing has plenty of them. Including in Canada, as you can find scrupulously documented in Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg’s book Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World.
Still, let’s keep the rose-coloured blinders on and say it’s all just a coincidence. It’s still remarkable, and worrisome, how it all happens to work to the CCP’s advantage. Where does the Net Zero doctrine leave developing countries who need to build up their electricity grids? China is now the only place most of them can look to for funding. And it’s a role China has enthusiastically embraced, since the terms they impose on the recipients lock in their control over those governments for decades to come.
So even if the CCP didn’t plan it, they couldn’t have arranged it any better. And nor could the people Lenin famously called “useful idiots” in the free world. Which apparently includes the entire EU leadership, which has decided not to criticize China’s dismal human rights record, intellectual property theft or geopolitical bullying lest it impede the flow of meaningless rhetoric on climate. And these coincidences keep appearing in other places too.
Narrator
Consider BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest financial firm with $6.5 trillion in assets under management. In 2019 its President, Larry Fink, announced a plan to ensure the company’s future growth by aggressively expanding in China. To do this he recruited a team of talented financial executives, headed by Tang Xiaodong, a banker and former Chinese government official, to lead BlackRock’s Chinese operations. And right on schedule, Fink just announced they’re going to use their massive financial clout to force companies they own to commit to net zero by 2050, or face being cut off from financing.
John Robson
Will BlackRock apply this rule to CCP-controlled enterprises, or the entire Chinese economy for that matter? Dream on. Once again, it’s only western companies that will be strangled and tossed in a ditch, after being plundered of their proprietary technology, while BlackRock and the CCP cash in on unrestrained growth in China driven by fossil fuels.
In other countries though, there is a conspicuous connection between governments being overly friendly with China and imposing Net Zero on themselves. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his former Ambassador to China John McCallum have been positively giddy over the regime in Beijing, although McCallum did eventually have to be fired when his handling of a diplomatic row with China caused the Canadian press to wonder aloud where his loyalties lay because he was giving the Chinese advice on how to defeat the Canadian government, in public. Meanwhile Trudeau has, of course, announced that Canada is committing to Net Zero by 2050, notwithstanding the fact that it will wipe out our oil and gas sector and may split our country, while China is allowed to grow theirs without limit or reproach.
Narrator
In the UK, where Net Zero is now gospel, connections between the CCP and the social elite are particularly deep. The 48 Group Club is a Who’s Who of top UK government, banking, university and industry elite who regularly rub shoulders with a select group of high-ranking current and former Chinese officials, ostensibly for the purpose of developing trade relationships and business deals. But as Hamilton and Ohlberg detail in Hidden Hand, the 48 Group Club has really become an organ for the Chinese government to influence British public opinion and politics through their uncritical repetition of CCP propaganda.
In a scathing conclusion, Hamilton and Ohlberg write:
In our judgment, so entrenched are the CCP’s influence networks among British elites that Britain has passed the point of no return, and any attempt to extricate itself from Beijing’s orbit would probably fail.
John Robson
Well, I say try anyway. Especially if it’s all just a coincidence and those nice Chinese government agents are plying westerners with money and flattery, and sometimes other favours as well, out of the stunning benevolence of their hearts. But before accepting that preposterous assertion, or trying to hand me a tin foil hat, ask yourself this question: Suppose the CCP really did hatch the scheme of using its global influence networks to push Net Zero by 2050 on the rest of us as an integral part of its Hundred Year Marathon strategy. How would the outcome look any different from what’s been happening?
If the answer is that it wouldn’t, it’s either a plot or it’s a plan that’s getting a lot of venal, ideological or simply careless support from our side. Remember, Lenin didn’t say that the useful idiots were cynics, but he did say they were fools.
Narrator
Whatever the cause, the world is traveling on two paths towards 2050. And while they seem unrelated, with one all about saving the planet from supposed climate doom and the other a dark totalitarian ambition to rule the world, they converge in a remarkable spot where the West is hobbled economically, politically and militarily by climate alarmism and its misguided schemes to slash energy abundance and squash economic growth, while China’s communist regime secures unchallenged global economic, military and ideological dominance.
John Robson
The two visions are stereoscopic. Even if you close one eye, or the other, you see the same picture. But I want nothing to do it. I say it’s time to open our eyes wide and see what’s in front of us, surprisingly close, big and ominous.
For the Climate Discussion Nexus, I’m John Robson. I was an anti-communist before it was cool, I was an anti-communist while it was cool, I’m still an anti-communist when it’s not cool anymore, and you should be too.’https://climatediscussionnexus.com/videos/the-red-green-menace/
John 11:11-12
“These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.”
‘When you are ill, you need sleep. And when you are sick you are usually sleepy. Medical researchers are now learning that it’s not accidental that illness and sleepiness go together. In fact, the relationship is one of God’s ingenious designs.
Early in the 20th century, scientists isolated what they called the S factor – the “S” being for sleep. Modern biochemists have identified the S factor as a biochemical that is released from the cell walls of bacteria when our bodies destroy them. This chemical finds its way to the brain where it induces sleep. It also stimulates the immune system. Normally, the body breaks down some of the harmless bacteria that live in our digestive systems every day. By the end of the day, enough sleep factor has collected in our blood to make bedtime welcome.
However, when we are fighting a bacterial infection, our body is destroying many additional bacteria and releasing a lot more sleep factor. That sleep factor is also stimulating our immune system to higher levels of activity. Researchers recommend that we give in to our desire to sleep when we are ill. Our immune system and non-dreaming sleep are closely related. In other words, grandma was right when she told us that we would avoid getting sick if we got enough sleep.
It’s no accident that bacterial infections trigger the body to react, not only to rid itself of bacteria but also to strengthen itself for the fight. This ingenious design is yet another indication that our Creator does care about what happens to us. That love is why He sent His Son to win our salvation on the cross of Calvary.’https://creationmoments.com/sermons/sleep-and-bacteria-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sleep-and-bacteria-2&mc_cid=37e758857f&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
I don’t know about you but I have come to reconsider almost everything the state and federal governments tell me. Here in Australia during the China virus almost all one heard from local and federal governments was “We are following the science”. There are many problems with that statement but one is that they were all doing something different so therefore the science they were following was not the same. Anyway, the following article deals with this fact that governments do LIE to us! Dr. Guliuzza write that ‘Perhaps my parents were naïve. They raised me to respect my teachers, the government, and other authorities, and to believe these entities acted in my best interests and certainly wouldn’t lie to me. I was warned about the duplicity of politicians and used-car salesmen, but they were mostly grouped in classes by themselves.
Now I know I was misled by these authorities on some very important things. For instance, in biology class I was taught as scientific fact a totally fanciful—and atheistically religious—story that “survival of the fittest” caused the evolution of life on Earth. Disseminating that lie was an abuse of youthful trust in authority.
The lying has gotten far worse. Back then, I never felt institutional coercion to join a perverse government-led movement that affirms as truth many things I and most other people can clearly see are false. For example, until recently it was basic common sense to recognize that male and female are the two biological sexes. Today, anyone daring to speak common sense is publicly pummeled with disparaging names (or worse) by members of a rapidly growing deviant movement. They use a hostile crowd to systematically isolate people from each other by making everyone afraid to be associated with the pummeled person lest it also happen to them—a method to strong-arm conformity in thinking and control the behavior of an entire group.
As many Christians ponder whether to acknowledge more than the two sexes Christ created, they need to consider more than the “science” that floods schools and the media. The real issue is whether Christians, pastors, and seminary presidents will reject clear biblical teaching just to avoid the nasty social outrage against their ministries or themselves if they dare speak a truth the world finds offensive—that male and female are the only two human sexes.
Christians have faced the decision of whether to cast aside clear biblical teaching and embrace the world’s so-called science for a far longer period when it comes to Darwinian selection and evolution. Lies spread by government-sponsored institutions can be so absurd that they require years of forced, repetitive indoctrination for people to believe them. One government lie sits atop them all: that over a time frame far too slow for anyone to observe—and without the mind and power of God—life spontaneously started and nature exercised a type of selective agency to mold that “proto-life” into the diversity of creatures on Earth. We may not know how many people silently question this lie because dissenting views are quashed through government-tolerated academic oppression.
For illustration we’ll consider the above-mentioned lie that humans can be classified into a sex other than male and female. Perhaps it will serve as a contemporary wake-up call for Christians to refuse to live by the world’s lies.
Biological Sex and the Institutional Lie
In George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, the Ministry of Truth produced lying propaganda and the Ministry of Love dispensed torture. In Orwell’s farsighted story, reality was totally inverted through the government’s highly coordinated actions to manipulate its citizens’ thinking. What’s remarkable in the book is that almost all citizens eventually became willing promoters of government lies themselves.
An NBC News report demonstrates the combined power of government, academia, and the media to bring about a 1984-like adoption of total nonsense. In this case, even highly educated leaders of independent corporations participate. NBC stated that “[the brand] Always announced it will remove the Venus symbol from its menstruation products packaging” in response to protests by “transgender and nonbinary people” who were born female but now believe they’re male.1
Procter & Gamble, Always’ parent company, has come to regret placing the female symbol on their packages. In response to the outrage of these “men,” Always now recognizes that the packages were offensive “by not acknowledging that they [men], too, can experience menstruation,” and they dismiss the criticisms of people upset over the symbol’s removal as being “rooted in the misconception that [male] transgender and nonbinary people cannot experience menstruation—a claim medical experts have debunked.”1
How do you get people to assent to completely bizarre flights of fancy? By repeating them incessantly. Several months after their story on Always, NBC added a personal account and reported, “When transgender model and activist Kenny Ethan Jones experienced his first period, he faced both physical and psychological pain.”2 Kenny Jones was born female but is now considered by many (including “medical experts”) to be male. Perhaps to make it easier for readers to jettison their common sense, NBC adds Jones’ personal testimony:
“Having a period already causes me a lot of [gender] dysphoria, but this dysphoria becomes heightened when I have to shop for a product that is labeled as ‘women’s health’ and in most cases, is pretty and pink,” Jones explained.2
How powerful are the combined forces of government, academia, and the media targeted against individual citizens? Pretty powerful, it seems. After presenting stories like that of Kenny Jones, it’s as if those in power sit back and watch to see if ordinary people will compliantly speak about “his first period” without a tinge of humiliation over the mental confusion or muddled judgment needed to state something so nonsensical. A power that conditions a mass of people to embrace such ridiculous notions should grab the attention of Christians.
We are witnessing authorities use the stamp of scientific authority as a propaganda tool to dishonestly assert that something everyone knows is true—that men cannot have monthly cycles—has been debunked. Most people likely resent being coerced into accepting something that has never been observed and is utterly foolish.
What many Americans don’t recognize is that the train long ago left the station and took our country along the line to nonsensical beliefs. That happened when they swallowed the lie that over a long period of time one kind of creature can morph into another—something else that has never been observed. What’s worse is that these lies about both evolving creatures and interchangeable sexes are not just ludicrous, they’re intellectually and morally perverse.
Government Perverting Its God-Ordained Role
God denounces the government-sanctioned corruption of truth: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20). Moral perversion goes hand in hand with governments acting in perverted ways.
Two passages in the New Testament detail the God-ordained role of government. Those in authority today should rule by these mandates: “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil….For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil” (Romans 13:3-4); and government leaders “are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good” (1 Peter 2:14).
The Bible’s teaching is plain. Government is responsible to promote good and punish evil, but today’s rulers often oppress—if not outright persecute—people doing good and exult in the evil behavior they promote, which they mischaracterize as good. The destruction of the moral fiber of its citizens through lying and coercive tactics is a perversion of government’s mandate and authority.
Lessons Learned from the Soviet Union
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1974Image credit: Bert Verhoeff
Citizens of the United States now face increased institutional deception. People in other lands have endured habitual governmental lying, and their experiences may prove useful to Christians who refuse to live by the world’s lies.
Last year someone forwarded the link to a very helpful essay titled “Live Not by Lies” written in 1974 by the late Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn’s essay isn’t long, and I’d recommend that everyone read it since the actions he encourages other Soviets to adopt are valuable for Americans today. He sets the stage of the sad state of isolation and fear oppressing the Soviet people.
There was a time when we dared not rustle a whisper….[We] heartily complain to each other of all they [the government] are muddling up, of all they are dragging us into!…They put whomever they want on trial, and brand the healthy as mentally ill….Already a universal spiritual demise is upon us…while we continue to smile sheepishly….We have so hopelessly ceded our humanity that for the modest handouts of today we are ready to surrender up all principles, our soul, all the labors of our ancestors, all the prospects of our descendants—anything to avoid disrupting our meager existence…..[We] fear only to take a civic stance! We hope only not to stray from the herd, not to set out on our own.3
Solzhenitsyn then explains why government-sanctioned violence alone can never enslave an entire population. Real enslaving power is wielded through institutional lying.
But it [breaking the oppressive cycle] will never come…if we all, every day, continue to acknowledge, glorify, and strengthen it, if we do not, at the least, recoil from its most vulnerable point. From lies….Violence ages swiftly….To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.3
Thus, the road to freedom is to refuse to live by lies. “And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies!…For when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person.” The first of eight vital behaviors Solzhenitsyn says are necessary to shake off enslavement begins with each citizen declaring they “will not write, sign, nor publish in any way, a single line distorting, so far as he can see, the truth.”3
Creationists have historically demonstrated the courage to resist institutional lying. Maybe that’s why the world uses the name “creationist” as a title of derision. Nevertheless, we must remember “let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). If we don’t want to unknowingly advance any of the world’s lies, shouldn’t we examine ourselves to see whether our own minds have been “evolutionized” to some degree?
Recognizing How Lies Are Built into Terminology
Evolutionists invent terms all the time that simultaneously express evolutionary concepts and are used as more evidence for evolution. For instance, the literature is full of terms like convergent evolution, vestigial organs, pseudogenes, and highly conserved sequences. These terms have a built-in presupposition of evolution that makes them inherently misleading. Thus, just by speaking the jargon, a person is assisting the deceitful evolutionary indoctrination of society. The same type of built-in lying occurs when we talk about people as being transgender—as if that’s a real state of being—just because the world imagines more than two human sexes.
Evolutionary theory is full of imaginary, misleading scenarios. The most egregious is when nature is personified, presented as exercising agency, and then invoked as a substitute god to explain the origin and diversity of life. Selectionists project onto the environment abilities to “select,” “favor,” “act,” “send information,” and similar verbs indicating the work of an intelligent agent. The terminology they use therefore embeds a potent lie—that nature has some type of innate volition. The constant personification of nature as exercising creative agency transfers credit from the Lord Jesus as Creator to the creation itself…the principal lie described in Romans 1:25.
The denial of two biological sexes as illustrated by the Kenny Jones nonsense shows how serious the scope of these institutional lies and the coercion to conform is. The challenge facing Christians is whether we will cast aside clear biblical teaching and embrace the world’s so-called science. We belong to the Lord Jesus, who promised, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). Christians need to be a sanctuary of truth; we must refuse to live by the world’s lies.
References
- Aviles, G. Always to ax female symbol from sanitary products packages in nod to trans users. NBC News. Posted on nbcnews.com October 21, 2019, accessed February 4, 2021.
- Atkins, C. For transgender men, pain of menstruation is more than just physical. NBC News.Posted on nbcnews.com January 11, 2020, accessed February 4, 2021.
- Solzhenitsyn, A. Live Not by Lies, February 12, 1974. Posted on solzhenitsyncenter.org.’https://www.icr.org/article/12773/?utm_source=phplist9395&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=May+Acts+%26+Facts+Is+Now+Available
Psalm 139:14 “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully [and] wonderfully made: marvellous [are] thy works; and [that] my soul knoweth right well.”
‘Do your eyes ever play tricks on you? Our eyes regularly play tricks on us with the help of our brains.
Repeated research has shown that the images we see are not exactly what our eyes see. Our eyes and brains work together to construct the images we call sight. It’s not that our eyes are out to hoodwink us. Most of the time our eyes are working to help us. Working together, our brain and eyes add logical details to the images we see. Each of us has a blind spot in our vision because there are no vision cells where the optic nerve is. Instead of showing us a spot of nothing at the blind point in our field of vision, our brain invents an image from surrounding details. Your brain pulls the same trick on you when you proofread your completed manuscript. While others can still find typos, you may not. Your brain knows what you are saying and so it automatically shows you a repaired version, making many of your typing errors invisible.
Your pupils can reveal your thoughts. Studies show that when seeing unpleasant scenes the pupils retract. Pleasant or interesting scenes cause the pupils to open wider.
Charles Darwin wrote, “To suppose that the eye, with all of its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.” We don’t often agree with Charles Darwin, but this time we do!’https://creationmoments.com/sermons/the-deceptive-eye-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-deceptive-eye-2&mc_cid=6c722ff4e8&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
whatyareckon 