Welcome to the wacked-out wonder-worldof photographer and sometimes poet, Dr. Kirkwood Op: DO. MD. GI.
(Doctor of Odd-Thought, Maker of Ditties, General Idiot.)
If you are looking for some other Kirk...Perchance that debonair government worker (Wave Retention Specialist)- who would be your wedding photographer; even as he feigns functional normalicy -- STOP HERE. Turn Around. You can find that Kirk at ((site yet to be developed.))
On the other hand..
If you sometimes skip in the rain, cry in your soup, yodel in Yiddish, or stand stark startled in the parking lot by the mere presence of asphalt...please proceed.
Truth is, this site is not so much a BLOG as is it is a CROP (Creative Repository of O-stonishing Poems.) My goal: To post a body of my written works, and read yours as we interact about all things creative. (Or even, about what it means to be created!)
If you are new to my stuff- Incredible Math - is a good place to start. It showcases some of the common themes of this site. After that, folks who think in a rational manner can work downward. Folks with ADD can start anywhere they want.
Enjoy. And don't forget to sign the *guest book.
Doc Op/ aka: Kirk
to:
All those everywhere who are
Startled by Existence:
.
This site exists to add to the pleasure of the world.
Should you dally at this site, your sense of the world as an astonishing, haunted, and altogether bedazzling place should increase … adding to your pleasure. Should you visit the individual entries, the counter that shows me the number of visitors who visit each page will climb, in turn triggering a rush of pheromones to my brain. Better yet, should we respond to the glory in our midst by taking off our shoes (And finding in God our deepest pleasure...Then He who finds great pleasure in Himself, may share of His bountiful joy... and the pleasure of the world will increase. (or something like that.)
Mini Intro
Kirk Jordan (b 1960) is a musician' musician* who lives with his wife and three daughters in Central Arkansas.
* People who know Kirk, do not think of him as a musician. That is because Kirk does not play any known instruments. (He does, however, hear the most incredible music inside his head --- Something like Arabian-Celtic Rock, or the older hymns as sung by the trees.)
As a musician who can not play any instruments, Kirk is forced to work out the music in his head through other means. He is a photographer by trade, and a poet by disposition. As a photographer, Kirk knows the ropes. He knows what his pictures will look like before he views them on the back of his digital camera. As a poet, he's lost. Kirk likes writing poems for the simple reason he has no earthy idea what he is doing --- so it still feels dangerous and fun.
This site holds what would be one very big book, or - a series of books born of a common source. Sometime before the last millenium I gathered together most of poems, along with a number of transcribed cassette-journal entries (those given to "odd thoughts" )- then threw them together in a big three-ring binder. I called my book "Bones in My Soul."
As a photographer I am intrigued by the stuff and light and sight and consciousness. When contrasted with the material world, we tend to think of light as "lite" - that is, airy -- kinetic, and without dimensions. But given a contrast to a non-material soul, light andthought and dream, take on the weight of syrup. Then there are those ideas that live in us with such force that they become like bone. Beyond that, I am given to idea that that the realms of sense and spirit are deeply twined.
It appears that I write in waves: The following is a quick chronological guide to my life and the stuff you may enounter.
With a few exceptions, the works in this volume belong to one of four periods.
1980-1989. age 20-29. Esoteric mumbo-jumbo from a weird guy on a bike with a tape-recorder. Epoch closes with marriage and the need to get real.
1990-1991. age 30-31. Took a college class in poetry. First attempts to distill mumbo-jumbo into coherent forms. Epoch ends in diapers and strong body of poems.
1997-2002. age 37–42. Kids now feed themselves. Started with an effort to reclaim old journal entries. Followed by a explosion of new poems and an effort to remember the intermittent years of chaos and glory.
2003 and beyond. The poems have slowed to the point of rare. New enerigies given to the Mighty Works Project, a photo-based email highlighting the ongoing artistry of Jesus - the Word. (If you would like to be on my photo-art email list, please contact me at mightyworks@conwaycorp.net .
To all those who take the time to walk with me for a step or two along the way: Thank you. I appreciate your company.
Kirk Jordan (b 1960) is a musician' musician* who lives with his wife and three daughters in Central Arkansas.
* People who know Kirk, do not think of him as a musician. That is because Kirk does not play any known instruments. (He does, however, hear the most incredible music inside his head --- Something like Arabian-Celtic Rock, or the older hymns as sung by the trees.)
As a musician who can not play any instruments, Kirk is forced to work out the music in his head through other means. He is a photographer by trade, and a poet by disposition. As a photographer, Kirk knows the ropes. He knows what his pictures will look like before he views them on the back of his digital camera. As a poet, he's lost. Kirk likes writing poems for the simple reason he has no earthy idea what he is doing --- so it still feels dangerous and fun.
This site holds what would be one very big book, or - a series of books born of a common source. Sometime before the last millenium I gathered together most of poems, along with a number of transcribed cassette-journal entries (those given to "odd thoughts" )- then threw them together in a big three-ring binder. I called my book "Bones in My Soul."
As a photographer I am intrigued by the stuff and light and sight and consciousness. When contrasted with the material world, we tend to think of light as "lite" - that is, airy -- kinetic, and without dimensions. But given a contrast to a non-material soul, light andthought and dream, take on the weight of syrup. Then there are those ideas that live in us with such force that they become like bone. Beyond that, I am given to idea that that the realms of sense and spirit are deeply twined.
It appears that I write in waves: The following is a quick chronological guide to my life and the stuff you may enounter.
With a few exceptions, the works in this volume belong to one of four periods.
1980-1989. age 20-29. Esoteric mumbo-jumbo from a weird guy on a bike with a tape-recorder. Epoch closes with marriage and the need to get real.
1990-1991. age 30-31. Took a college class in poetry. First attempts to distill mumbo-jumbo into coherent forms. Epoch ends in diapers and strong body of poems.
1997-2002. age 37–42. Kids now feed themselves. Started with an effort to reclaim old journal entries. Followed by a explosion of new poems and an effort to remember the intermittent years of chaos and glory.
2003 and beyond. The poems have slowed to the point of rare. New enerigies given to the Mighty Works Project, a photo-based email highlighting the ongoing artistry of Jesus - the Word. (If you would like to be on my photo-art email list, please contact me at mightyworks@conwaycorp.net .
To all those who take the time to walk with me for a step or two along the way: Thank you. I appreciate your company.
Preface
Preface
K ayla T alk
My Dear Little Kayla:
Preface
K ayla T alk
My Dear Little Kayla:
What deep joy we find in a stalwart tap, as you our ballerina in the bag
Poke about with fist and foot …Banging on the temple walls …
Does that have a familiar ring?
It was over 11 years go that I wrote that poem to you. And guess what? I was right … About something! Not about the brothers, but about you.
When I wrote those lines I didn’t really know that you would be a Kayla. These days, doctors have ways of telling. But we didn’t look.
Who knows … It may be a Dad thing, or a GOD thing … God just made it so you would be a Kayla so I could keep that poem!
Well,
I’m not sure that God works that way … and on a chance level it was something like fifty-fifty. But as far as you being you …. I believe that is something God knew about way before you were born. In fact … and this is a hard idea; I think God knew about you before time itself.
How?
How would I know! It’s just that we think of time as something behind or ahead of us, or—if we can grasp it, right now. But some folks think that God doesn’t live in our kind of time. Instead, every moment -- past, present, and future -- is right before Him like you might look at a book.
Now, you know you can hold a book – and if you’ve read the book, you can hold part of the beginning and parts of the middle and parts of the end in your head, almost at once. You probably still have to think through the sequence in a kind of shortened time … but if you simply hold it in your hand …you really can hold the book that holds a story that is told across time – all at once.
Maybe this is how it is right now for God. He sees the world with everything from dinosaurs to space cars to you, in his “brain” right now. Like a story in a book that he knows. Maybe even a story that he helped write.
Anyway … I didn’t mean to get off on that. People get to disagreeing when you guess just how much of the story God has written himself, or how much He lets us write, or even how much of it, He doesn’t want any thing to do with. I’ll save some guesses for later. But I do want to tell YOU a kind of story. The part of the story that I know, because it’s happened.
Note: (when I started this Kayla, was asking the questions. Now they all do. This could have been written for Edith or Anna just as well.)
These days, you are full of questions. And I like that. I live in questions. You should never be afraid of questions. Any way of thinking, worthy of your living should bear the scrutiny of whatever you can throw at it. But I’ll be honest … you surprise me. Not so much for your questions, but that you are asking them now at this tender age.
You are ten …and petite. You still like dolls. You climb into my lap, or let me hold your chin and lift your face toward me like a kind of adoring pup-doll. And I see only trust, and little pools of moss staring back at me. Your eyes are stainless. But still you say … “I’m not sure if there is a God.” I am not sure if I’m a Christian, “or What about the Big Bang? Or even … Does God love the Devil?
Now, part of this is parroting. Or freedom. I think you’ve heard your mom or me throw some questions around in the abstract. But I know too, that some these thoughts are your very own.
Teenagers and some adults talk like this … But you? My little first-born with something of your new-born face, all round like a pumpkin, still showing in your face – How do these questions come from you?
Of course I am not scolding, only wondering …
Wondering whose genes you got – or where you got this penchant for asking questions.
Wondering how best to treat your mind … how much to spoon feed, how much to declare, and how much for you to work through on you own.
And finally, wondering how we … a mom and dad who have built our life around declarations of faith and loving God, have done such a shoddy job of living it.
I think it is the most reasonable thing in the world, and a most human thing to do, to ask if there is a God, or gods, or if you are it just dust in the wind … anything … but I have to think that some of your uncertainty has something to do with adult lives that are out of kilter. Some people ask: Where is God when children starve? But for you the question is much closer. Where is God when my parents can’t seem to stop from fighting? – and yet they tell me that God answers prayer, or that He is the author of beauty.
You have not seen such a God well through us. And I tremble.
We have been given a tremendous trust. I believe you and your sisters are God’s great gift to us … and part of how we give you back, is our gift to Him.
You know … right now, God is in the process of healing our family. I wish it were overnight and with a blaze of light … but I think you know it too. God is doing good things in us and for us … and I believe that some of those questions that you ask now will be answered in ways that you have yet to see. Perhaps even in bigger ways than we might ever imagine. On the other hand, I want to make it my goal to talk with you about everything under the sun. It is a good thing to use your mind and you have a good one.
So if you will, let me pontificate a little. That means speaking like a dad – and just telling you the way things are. But I also mean for you to think with me and beside me.
I want to tell you where you came from and why you were made. I want to tell you what I’ve seen … and some of the things that baffle me. And I guess I want to protect you, even as you learn to become your own person.
Get textbook Quote
Kayla talk, Continued…
I see from a question on one of your school papers, that they are beginning to introduce you to the idea of evolution. At this point they don’t call it evolution*. They may not even address evolution as a specific idea until you are a tad older, but I see that someone is priming the pump.
And that both delights, and frightens me.
I am pleased to see that you are being exposed to “new” and creative ideas with great explanatory power. On the hand… I’m frightened -- because you are being exposed to new, and creative ideas with great explanatory power.
If what I just said sound contradictory --- it is, though I hope it will make more sense by the time we get through.
--
As is, the general theory of evolution has reached the status of the dominant view, and is assumed by many to be a means by which to explain our present existence. Even so, a lot of folks – including myself – approach it as an over-reaching theory. We live in Arkansas, not far from the third hole in the belt, and the intellectual capitol of the universe. (Not really) …But really, evolution still hasn’t made favored-nation status around here. So its proponents don’t argue it too loud at this point. But they will, and in ways you won’t see. And soon, if you think only by osmosis, you will find that you * believe in evolution for no other reason than it seems the thing to believe.
There are, however, good reasons to question the idea of evolution as a system. Maybe not everything in the evolutionary model, but certainly the evolutionary framework as it seeks to explain the transformation of particles to people.
There are books that say the things I’d tell you with far more detail and information than I can give you here. But then it wouldn’t be your dad talking. Besides, a lot of books about all kinds of things don’t really start at the start of an idea. I hear a lot of discussion in the popular press about primate evolution … but very little about plant evolution, and even less about the “evolution” of light. . So let’s go a little farther down the tree, and think about what evolution entails, from the roots up.
Note: In subsequent review of literature by evolutionists, I have encountered several different definitions of evolution. The writers of Origins-talk argue that what I have often called evolution (a method whereby non life is transformed into life, and simple life forms into ever more complex forms) is NOT evolution-but rather, a potential ramification of applied evolution. These same authors state that the Big Bang theory is a Cosmological argument, and not an evolutionary argument. According to xx a good definition
While have taken note of this limited use of the term evolution, both common use and use of the term in evolutionary literature allow for its application to what is sometimes called “macro-evolution.” Indeed, I believe the same defenders of the limited use of the term “evolution” would be distraught if the “ramifications” of evolution were somehow ignored. I hope any readers who assume the focused definition will tolerate my sometimes sweeping, philosophic, (and common use) of the term evolution, even as I refine my usage of the term farther in.
Now it appears that a majority of scientists, and a growing number of people in the population at large, accept some form of evolution as a means by which to explain how we came to be here. Or at least, why we look the way we do. And I certainly don’t think those people are stupid. To the contrary, many of the people who lead with the evolutionary banner are our culture’s biggest and brightest. But I also believe that smart people, even a majority of very smart people, can think with a pack-mentality and go wrong. Even more – they (like we) think by faith -- and certain presuppositions. It something of a human condition that we see beyond what wee see, and then – in the light of desire.
I am not a scientist. I’m not really even a philosopher. I take pictures for a living. But I don’t let that stop me from trying to look below the emulsion. You shouldn’t either. Don’t be afraid to think on your own, or different from the pack (sometimes even the religious pack). And while you should respect folks with credentials, don't let a specialist tell you that you can't meddle in his arena ….
Chapter 2b – Commandeered.
Or
My Dear Little Eakins
(or Edith)
I hope you will not mind that I have commandeered a book that I started writing to your elder sister some six years ago. As with many things in life, my best intentions find their way into boxes, and I have now a book with only parts of chapters and slurry of thoughts. Kayla is seventeen, and given probing thought, but perhaps not with the intensity you bring to the table. (She presses her questions into her art or music, but as time has passed, it turns out that you are the daughter most willing to question the status quos, out loud and with a manic laugh.
You are indeed a maverick soul. You wear your hair in funky shapes even as you declare that poetry “sucks.” (I hate that word.)
You go with your girl friends to the school dance, then stick your finger in the eye of “hip” by doing square dance moves to modern rap. You are at once gracious, then tenacious, and given to a weird sense of humor. You question. You read. You argue. You declare your brilliance out loud and often.
(declare humor)
Beyond that, you have firmly rejected the faith which gives meaning to my life.
You have declared that you are not a Christian, and that, your are an agnostic when it comes to the question of God’s existence. Finally you are prepared to embrace (in the abstract) the idea that the Cosmos we see is itself self existing and not made.
I must confess that your wholesale rejection of God saddens me I am grieved that you can sometimes be so glib about the thing (or the person) I count as the center of my universe. Make that our universe. It is my persuasion that knowing and delighting in God is the very purpose for which our lives are written.
On the other hand, I must commend you for your willingness to stand alone and question deeply.
Pleased, because I certainly don’t want you to have “MY” faith. I wish for you to be embraced by a living faith which is all your own. And such a faith will most likely not be fashioned in my terms.
Just the same, I hope you will not mind as I contend with you, and challenge to you to think, think, and think again. If in the end, you are arrive at a different understanding of how we came to be, then I hope our relationship will be grounded in love and mutual respect.
--
Anyway, enough pontification! I want to build on what I started some years back, and tell you just some of the reasons I have rejected naturalistic evolution, and find its cousin, theistic evolution, highly problematic.
What is the Fall..”
Rock formations can be spectacularly beautiful. So it’s not surprising to find them featured in books or other items in Christian bookstores. A coffee table book or calendar might have Grand Canyon pictures accompanied by, say, “The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the Ends of the Earth.” (Isaiah 40:28) ((However))
Today’s canyons, including the Grand Canyon, are the consequences, not so much of God’s creative design, but of the forces He unleashed in divine judgment on sin. So when we contemplate the Canyon’s awesome beauty, as simplistic “God made this” is really inadequate. In fact, everything around us is not the world which God made, or at least not the way He first made it. Whether geological or biological, all aspects of it have been marred by a real, historical curse on all creation. (Genesis 3, Romans 8:19-22). This universal change came about because of a real, historical rebellion by a real, historical man, Adam. (Grand Canyon, a different view section by Carl Wieland. P 90)
When Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance humming birds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that is going to make him blind. And [I ask them], “Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an inn0cent child’s eyeball? Because that doesn’t seem to me to coincide with a God who’s full of Mercy. “
From M. Buchanan, Wild, wild life, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guide, pg 6 March 24 (As quoted in the New Answers Book, edited by Ken Ham p 260
Does that have a familiar ring?
It was over 11 years go that I wrote that poem to you. And guess what? I was right … About something! Not about the brothers, but about you.
When I wrote those lines I didn’t really know that you would be a Kayla. These days, doctors have ways of telling. But we didn’t look.
Who knows … It may be a Dad thing, or a GOD thing … God just made it so you would be a Kayla so I could keep that poem!
Well,
I’m not sure that God works that way … and on a chance level it was something like fifty-fifty. But as far as you being you …. I believe that is something God knew about way before you were born. In fact … and this is a hard idea; I think God knew about you before time itself.
How?
How would I know! It’s just that we think of time as something behind or ahead of us, or—if we can grasp it, right now. But some folks think that God doesn’t live in our kind of time. Instead, every moment -- past, present, and future -- is right before Him like you might look at a book.
Now, you know you can hold a book – and if you’ve read the book, you can hold part of the beginning and parts of the middle and parts of the end in your head, almost at once. You probably still have to think through the sequence in a kind of shortened time … but if you simply hold it in your hand …you really can hold the book that holds a story that is told across time – all at once.
Maybe this is how it is right now for God. He sees the world with everything from dinosaurs to space cars to you, in his “brain” right now. Like a story in a book that he knows. Maybe even a story that he helped write.
Anyway … I didn’t mean to get off on that. People get to disagreeing when you guess just how much of the story God has written himself, or how much He lets us write, or even how much of it, He doesn’t want any thing to do with. I’ll save some guesses for later. But I do want to tell YOU a kind of story. The part of the story that I know, because it’s happened.
Note: (when I started this Kayla, was asking the questions. Now they all do. This could have been written for Edith or Anna just as well.)
These days, you are full of questions. And I like that. I live in questions. You should never be afraid of questions. Any way of thinking, worthy of your living should bear the scrutiny of whatever you can throw at it. But I’ll be honest … you surprise me. Not so much for your questions, but that you are asking them now at this tender age.
You are ten …and petite. You still like dolls. You climb into my lap, or let me hold your chin and lift your face toward me like a kind of adoring pup-doll. And I see only trust, and little pools of moss staring back at me. Your eyes are stainless. But still you say … “I’m not sure if there is a God.” I am not sure if I’m a Christian, “or What about the Big Bang? Or even … Does God love the Devil?
Now, part of this is parroting. Or freedom. I think you’ve heard your mom or me throw some questions around in the abstract. But I know too, that some these thoughts are your very own.
Teenagers and some adults talk like this … But you? My little first-born with something of your new-born face, all round like a pumpkin, still showing in your face – How do these questions come from you?
Of course I am not scolding, only wondering …
Wondering whose genes you got – or where you got this penchant for asking questions.
Wondering how best to treat your mind … how much to spoon feed, how much to declare, and how much for you to work through on you own.
And finally, wondering how we … a mom and dad who have built our life around declarations of faith and loving God, have done such a shoddy job of living it.
I think it is the most reasonable thing in the world, and a most human thing to do, to ask if there is a God, or gods, or if you are it just dust in the wind … anything … but I have to think that some of your uncertainty has something to do with adult lives that are out of kilter. Some people ask: Where is God when children starve? But for you the question is much closer. Where is God when my parents can’t seem to stop from fighting? – and yet they tell me that God answers prayer, or that He is the author of beauty.
You have not seen such a God well through us. And I tremble.
We have been given a tremendous trust. I believe you and your sisters are God’s great gift to us … and part of how we give you back, is our gift to Him.
You know … right now, God is in the process of healing our family. I wish it were overnight and with a blaze of light … but I think you know it too. God is doing good things in us and for us … and I believe that some of those questions that you ask now will be answered in ways that you have yet to see. Perhaps even in bigger ways than we might ever imagine. On the other hand, I want to make it my goal to talk with you about everything under the sun. It is a good thing to use your mind and you have a good one.
So if you will, let me pontificate a little. That means speaking like a dad – and just telling you the way things are. But I also mean for you to think with me and beside me.
I want to tell you where you came from and why you were made. I want to tell you what I’ve seen … and some of the things that baffle me. And I guess I want to protect you, even as you learn to become your own person.
Get textbook Quote
Kayla talk, Continued…
I see from a question on one of your school papers, that they are beginning to introduce you to the idea of evolution. At this point they don’t call it evolution*. They may not even address evolution as a specific idea until you are a tad older, but I see that someone is priming the pump.
And that both delights, and frightens me.
I am pleased to see that you are being exposed to “new” and creative ideas with great explanatory power. On the hand… I’m frightened -- because you are being exposed to new, and creative ideas with great explanatory power.
If what I just said sound contradictory --- it is, though I hope it will make more sense by the time we get through.
--
As is, the general theory of evolution has reached the status of the dominant view, and is assumed by many to be a means by which to explain our present existence. Even so, a lot of folks – including myself – approach it as an over-reaching theory. We live in Arkansas, not far from the third hole in the belt, and the intellectual capitol of the universe. (Not really) …But really, evolution still hasn’t made favored-nation status around here. So its proponents don’t argue it too loud at this point. But they will, and in ways you won’t see. And soon, if you think only by osmosis, you will find that you * believe in evolution for no other reason than it seems the thing to believe.
There are, however, good reasons to question the idea of evolution as a system. Maybe not everything in the evolutionary model, but certainly the evolutionary framework as it seeks to explain the transformation of particles to people.
There are books that say the things I’d tell you with far more detail and information than I can give you here. But then it wouldn’t be your dad talking. Besides, a lot of books about all kinds of things don’t really start at the start of an idea. I hear a lot of discussion in the popular press about primate evolution … but very little about plant evolution, and even less about the “evolution” of light. . So let’s go a little farther down the tree, and think about what evolution entails, from the roots up.
Note: In subsequent review of literature by evolutionists, I have encountered several different definitions of evolution. The writers of Origins-talk argue that what I have often called evolution (a method whereby non life is transformed into life, and simple life forms into ever more complex forms) is NOT evolution-but rather, a potential ramification of applied evolution. These same authors state that the Big Bang theory is a Cosmological argument, and not an evolutionary argument. According to xx a good definition
While have taken note of this limited use of the term evolution, both common use and use of the term in evolutionary literature allow for its application to what is sometimes called “macro-evolution.” Indeed, I believe the same defenders of the limited use of the term “evolution” would be distraught if the “ramifications” of evolution were somehow ignored. I hope any readers who assume the focused definition will tolerate my sometimes sweeping, philosophic, (and common use) of the term evolution, even as I refine my usage of the term farther in.
Now it appears that a majority of scientists, and a growing number of people in the population at large, accept some form of evolution as a means by which to explain how we came to be here. Or at least, why we look the way we do. And I certainly don’t think those people are stupid. To the contrary, many of the people who lead with the evolutionary banner are our culture’s biggest and brightest. But I also believe that smart people, even a majority of very smart people, can think with a pack-mentality and go wrong. Even more – they (like we) think by faith -- and certain presuppositions. It something of a human condition that we see beyond what wee see, and then – in the light of desire.
I am not a scientist. I’m not really even a philosopher. I take pictures for a living. But I don’t let that stop me from trying to look below the emulsion. You shouldn’t either. Don’t be afraid to think on your own, or different from the pack (sometimes even the religious pack). And while you should respect folks with credentials, don't let a specialist tell you that you can't meddle in his arena ….
Chapter 2b – Commandeered.
Or
My Dear Little Eakins
(or Edith)
I hope you will not mind that I have commandeered a book that I started writing to your elder sister some six years ago. As with many things in life, my best intentions find their way into boxes, and I have now a book with only parts of chapters and slurry of thoughts. Kayla is seventeen, and given probing thought, but perhaps not with the intensity you bring to the table. (She presses her questions into her art or music, but as time has passed, it turns out that you are the daughter most willing to question the status quos, out loud and with a manic laugh.
You are indeed a maverick soul. You wear your hair in funky shapes even as you declare that poetry “sucks.” (I hate that word.)
You go with your girl friends to the school dance, then stick your finger in the eye of “hip” by doing square dance moves to modern rap. You are at once gracious, then tenacious, and given to a weird sense of humor. You question. You read. You argue. You declare your brilliance out loud and often.
(declare humor)
Beyond that, you have firmly rejected the faith which gives meaning to my life.
You have declared that you are not a Christian, and that, your are an agnostic when it comes to the question of God’s existence. Finally you are prepared to embrace (in the abstract) the idea that the Cosmos we see is itself self existing and not made.
I must confess that your wholesale rejection of God saddens me I am grieved that you can sometimes be so glib about the thing (or the person) I count as the center of my universe. Make that our universe. It is my persuasion that knowing and delighting in God is the very purpose for which our lives are written.
On the other hand, I must commend you for your willingness to stand alone and question deeply.
Pleased, because I certainly don’t want you to have “MY” faith. I wish for you to be embraced by a living faith which is all your own. And such a faith will most likely not be fashioned in my terms.
Just the same, I hope you will not mind as I contend with you, and challenge to you to think, think, and think again. If in the end, you are arrive at a different understanding of how we came to be, then I hope our relationship will be grounded in love and mutual respect.
--
Anyway, enough pontification! I want to build on what I started some years back, and tell you just some of the reasons I have rejected naturalistic evolution, and find its cousin, theistic evolution, highly problematic.
What is the Fall..”
Rock formations can be spectacularly beautiful. So it’s not surprising to find them featured in books or other items in Christian bookstores. A coffee table book or calendar might have Grand Canyon pictures accompanied by, say, “The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the Ends of the Earth.” (Isaiah 40:28) ((However))
Today’s canyons, including the Grand Canyon, are the consequences, not so much of God’s creative design, but of the forces He unleashed in divine judgment on sin. So when we contemplate the Canyon’s awesome beauty, as simplistic “God made this” is really inadequate. In fact, everything around us is not the world which God made, or at least not the way He first made it. Whether geological or biological, all aspects of it have been marred by a real, historical curse on all creation. (Genesis 3, Romans 8:19-22). This universal change came about because of a real, historical rebellion by a real, historical man, Adam. (Grand Canyon, a different view section by Carl Wieland. P 90)
When Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance humming birds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that is going to make him blind. And [I ask them], “Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an inn0cent child’s eyeball? Because that doesn’t seem to me to coincide with a God who’s full of Mercy. “
From M. Buchanan, Wild, wild life, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guide, pg 6 March 24 (As quoted in the New Answers Book, edited by Ken Ham p 260
Doc Op 
Post a CommentWhat is Teleology
What is Naturalism?
What (or Who) is MAN
What is Intelligent Design?
Each member of the Rate team holds to a high view of Scripture. This means that we regard the Bible as a uniquely inspired book given to mankind by the Creator. The original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text of Scripture includes a rich variety of literature. These forms include historical narrative, poetry, law, apocalyptic writings, and letters. Of special interest to the study of earth history is the proper interpretation of the Genesis creation account. The details of creation are recorded in the 34 verses of Genesis 1:1-2:3. Over the years there has been much discussion and debate over the meaning of this passage, and three distinct views have surfaced. First, some readers of Genesis assume the book is an outdated, pre-scientific document which is riddled with errors and is simply wrong. Genesis is said to be just one of many mythical stories form the distant past. Clearly, this view does not recognize Scripture as uniquely inspired by the Creator. In the second approach to Genesis, the creation passage is seen as a form of poetry which should not be read as literal history... It is said to convey a sense of truth about origins, but it is not a literal description of actual events. The days of creation may represent long geologic periods in deep time. That is, the biblical creation week is a figurative expression for gradual changes which occurred on the earth, perhaps millions or billions of years ago.
The third view takes the creation account a literal narrative history. The RATE group filmy holds to this third position, regarding Genesis 1:1-2:3 as a literal description of how the world and the universe began. The Book of Genesis describes the supernatural, literal, creation week with 24-hour days. Certainly God could have created the physical universe in just six microseconds, or in contrast, over pan of trillions of years. It is clear, however, that the six day period is pattern established for the benefit of humanity. In fact, these six days, plus the day of rest, give rise to our calendar system with its seven-day week.
(The non-literal view) is somewhat inviting because the alternative, the young-earth creation view, conflicts directly with the well established conventions of modern science. However, the important question remains, whether it is legitimate to read the Genesis account as non-literal poetic literature.
Dr. Don DeYoung (Physics Professor, young-earth creationist) Thousands, not Billions P 158-59
Thousands… Not Billions: Challenging an Icon of Evolution (Questioning the Age of the Earth) c2005 Master Books.
“It appears to me,” Vincenzio stated in his Dialogue of Ancient and Modern Music, “that they who in proof of any assertion rely simply on the weight of authority, without adducing any argument in support of it, act very absurdly. I on the contrary, wish to be allowed freely to question ad freely to answer you without any sort of adulation, as well becomes those who are in search of truth.”
(Vincenzio Galilei, father of Galileo Galilei as quoted in Galileo’s Daughter p 16, Dava Sobel.)
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MORE ABOUT THIS WEBSITE
Welcome to a site which few people visit, and even fewer stay. (Okay, it's new)
The president of Argentina came to this site and did not stay, 8 days later he left a red magic marker in the wash and dyed all his clothes pink. A man received a link to this site and immediately started reading the poems... his surprise was winning the lottery. Alberto Martinez was invited to sign the guest book, but did not. His cat landed on its back and his wife ran away with the spoon. This site will transform your life. Send to 10 people and in the next 10 years something startling will happen.
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Each member of the Rate team holds to a high view of Scripture. This means that we regard the Bible as a uniquely inspired book given to mankind by the Creator. The original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text of Scripture includes a rich variety of literature. These forms include historical narrative, poetry, law, apocalyptic writings, and letters. Of special interest to the study of earth history is the proper interpretation of the Genesis creation account. The details of creation are recorded in the 34 verses of Genesis 1:1-2:3. Over the years there has been much discussion and debate over the meaning of this passage, and three distinct views have surfaced. First, some readers of Genesis assume the book is an outdated, pre-scientific document which is riddled with errors and is simply wrong. Genesis is said to be just one of many mythical stories form the distant past. Clearly, this view does not recognize Scripture as uniquely inspired by the Creator. In the second approach to Genesis, the creation passage is seen as a form of poetry which should not be read as literal history... It is said to convey a sense of truth about origins, but it is not a literal description of actual events. The days of creation may represent long geologic periods in deep time. That is, the biblical creation week is a figurative expression for gradual changes which occurred on the earth, perhaps millions or billions of years ago.
The third view takes the creation account a literal narrative history. The RATE group filmy holds to this third position, regarding Genesis 1:1-2:3 as a literal description of how the world and the universe began. The Book of Genesis describes the supernatural, literal, creation week with 24-hour days. Certainly God could have created the physical universe in just six microseconds, or in contrast, over pan of trillions of years. It is clear, however, that the six day period is pattern established for the benefit of humanity. In fact, these six days, plus the day of rest, give rise to our calendar system with its seven-day week.
(The non-literal view) is somewhat inviting because the alternative, the young-earth creation view, conflicts directly with the well established conventions of modern science. However, the important question remains, whether it is legitimate to read the Genesis account as non-literal poetic literature.
Dr. Don DeYoung (Physics Professor, young-earth creationist) Thousands, not Billions P 158-59
Thousands… Not Billions: Challenging an Icon of Evolution (Questioning the Age of the Earth) c2005 Master Books.
“It appears to me,” Vincenzio stated in his Dialogue of Ancient and Modern Music, “that they who in proof of any assertion rely simply on the weight of authority, without adducing any argument in support of it, act very absurdly. I on the contrary, wish to be allowed freely to question ad freely to answer you without any sort of adulation, as well becomes those who are in search of truth.”
(Vincenzio Galilei, father of Galileo Galilei as quoted in Galileo’s Daughter p 16, Dava Sobel.)
SEARCH
NAVIGATION
MORE ABOUT THIS WEBSITE
Welcome to a site which few people visit, and even fewer stay. (Okay, it's new)
The president of Argentina came to this site and did not stay, 8 days later he left a red magic marker in the wash and dyed all his clothes pink. A man received a link to this site and immediately started reading the poems... his surprise was winning the lottery. Alberto Martinez was invited to sign the guest book, but did not. His cat landed on its back and his wife ran away with the spoon. This site will transform your life. Send to 10 people and in the next 10 years something startling will happen.
LOGIN
Origin of Thesis
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Select Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design links (note: since I cannot alter the order on links, this is true hodgepodge.)
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highly recommended weekly email, via centurion51@aol.com
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this entry starts a series of exchanges between Bob Churchill (atheist with striking wit) and Regis Nicholl (Christian) covering a small range of topics related to religious belief and the nature of knowledge
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In as much as I will largely highlight links to those in the Creationist and Intelligent Design Communities, I thought it approriate to provide this master link - link. Origins/Talk furnishes links to a wide specturm of sites, including creationists.
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Foremost Intelligent Design site
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with a fascinating report on Baylor University's unfathomable, pathetic, and deplorable shame.
-
Parody site (of Brights)
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Persons who advocate a world-view free of supernatural and mystical elements
- Select Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design links (note: since I cannot alter the order on links, this is true hodgepodge.)
-
highly recommended weekly email, via centurion51@aol.com
-
this entry starts a series of exchanges between Bob Churchill (atheist with striking wit) and Regis Nicholl (Christian) covering a small range of topics related to religious belief and the nature of knowledge
-
In as much as I will largely highlight links to those in the Creationist and Intelligent Design Communities, I thought it approriate to provide this master link - link. Origins/Talk furnishes links to a wide specturm of sites, including creationists.
-
Foremost Intelligent Design site
-
with a fascinating report on Baylor University's unfathomable, pathetic, and deplorable shame.
-
Parody site (of Brights)
-
Persons who advocate a world-view free of supernatural and mystical elements
-
Vicki McCormick
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