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After Life #1 Trailer

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After Life 2 Trailer

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On Saturday April 18, 2020 at 6pm in London and noon in Arkansas, I had a chance to ask Ricky Gervais a question on his Twitter Live broadcast which was  “Is Tony a Nihilist?” At the 20:51 mark Ricky answers my question. Below is the video:

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Ricky Gervais plays bereaved husband Tony Johnson in AFTER LIFE 

Tony and his wife Lisa who died 6 months ago of cancer

(Above) Tony and Anne on the bench at the graveyard where their spouses are buried.

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May 11, 2020 
Ricky Gervais 

Dear Ricky,  

This is the 24th day in a row that I have written another open letter to you to comment on some of your episodes of AFTER LIFE, and then I wanted to pass along Ravi Zacharias’ testimony of surviving a suicide attempt like Tony was thinking of and then I wanted to pass along some evidence that indicates the Bible is historically accurate. Finally I wanted to pass along Francis Schaeffer’s comments on Solomon’s search for meaning in ECCLESIASTES which is the only pessimistic book in the Bible because Solomon limits himself to life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture. 

Tony : I guess a good day is when I don’t go around, wanting to shoot random strangers in the face and then turn the gun to myself.

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https://youtu.be/EQnkCmUOTIE

Article ByRavi Zacharias

I have shared that my mother once brought an astrologer to our house to read our palms and tell us our future. Examining my hands, the soothsayer confidently pronounced that I would not travel far or much in my life. “That’s what the lines on your hand tell me. There is no future for you abroad.”

I was deeply disappointed to hear this, but oh, how mistaken he was! After 45 years of spanning the globe and speaking in countless countries, I am persuaded that God alone, the Grand Weaver, knows our future and knits our lives. He has brought lasting change not only in my own life but in my family as well. Sometimes this has happened seemingly instantaneously; hearing Jesus’s words in John 14:19, “Because I live, you also will live,” literally brought me from the brink of death in a hospital room to new life. Other times, such as in the remarkable conversion of my father years later, many seeds were planted prior, but the change was no less profound.

I recall, too, that I was never much of a reader growing up, preferring to watch movies or discuss issues with people. I very rarely picked up a book out of interest. But then one evening in my late teens, and a few months since coming to Christ on a bed of suicide, I walked out the back door of our house and saw something lying on top of the garbage heap in the alley. As I looked closer, I saw it was a book with no cover—an old, tattered copy of a volume I realized my dad must have thrown out.

Curious, I picked it up and read the title page: The Epistle to the Romans: A Commentary by a man named W. H. Griffith Thomas. I had no idea who this author was, but my hunger was so fierce that I immediately opened it and began to read. Over the next few days, I devoured that book—of all things, a Bible commentary! It became a treasure, and I still have the tattered copy of that commentary in my possession.

Just like that, I was plunged into a world I’d never known—the world of reading. One of the first volumes I was presented with was The Cross and the Switchblade, an amazing story of the conversion of Nicky Cruz the gang leader and of the work God was doing in the lives of such young people through the ministry of David Wilkerson. I loved the book so much that I began seeking out biographies. I lapped up the stories of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army; David Brainerd, the missionary to American Indians; and, most intriguing of all to me, C. T. Studd, the English cricketer who gave up everything to become a missionary. Studd had been the captain of Cambridge’s cricket team, had turned down an opportunity to play for his country, and even refused his family inheritance—all to help take the gospel into China and India.

https://youtu.be/WJdAN5N5RMg

As I read about these inspiring lives, the old adage became true for me: “Fire begets fire.” The standards these Christians set by their examples raised the bar for me. Though I later learned, as I grew in my faith, that these saintly lives weren’t as perfect as their biographers made them out to be, the basic truths were undoubtedly in place, and their examples stoked my consciousness as to what the Christian life could be.

For the first time, I felt my mind being stretched—and I loved it. I realized that thinking could be fun, and with that simple realization I was sent headlong into the lifelong discipline of reading.

I also cannot say enough about the significance of the role that Youth for Christ (YFC) played in those early days of my conversion. On the day that I tried to take my life, it was these friends who prayed for me. A man named Fred David—sent, I would discover only recently, by YFC Asia director John Teibe, another gift from God—brought a Bible to my hospital room (and, by proxy, the words that breathed eternal life into my broken body). Both before and after my suicide attempt, they showed me that I meant something and that God loved me as an individual. It was my relationships at YFC that gave me hope of coming back to a caring group. And it was they who, as time passed, gave me opportunities for leadership.

So there it all was, the unlikely strands that came together, weaving the small patch of fabric that was my conversion: a soft-spoken man who drew me to the message of truth, a group waiting to share the love of Christ with me in my time of greatest need, a Bible brought to my mother for me, and a passage of Scripture that sprouted in the moisture of God’s sovereign grace. It all came together for me in the hospital room, but Youth for Christ is where those seeds were sown. I had now found a new home in my faith—and I could say I was finally home.

https://youtu.be/AzTeniSROnY

Saul Perlmutter comments:

“There are so many places we could go with that same information that I am not sure it nails the case of is there apurpose that is written in the universe.” 

Peter Atkins comments:

“I think a lot of theology is grappling with phantoms. So theologians have invented this almost self-consistent subject which has no contact with physical reality at all. And they invent all sorts of questions which they then taunt humanity with . One of them is cosmic purpose. They say ‘there must be a purpose; you and your science can’t explain it.’ And typical of theologians, they don’t respect the power of the human intellect anyway. And they infer that no one will ever understand it; it is ineffable; God’s purpose cannot be discerned. And of course that’s – those are fine words, but utterly meaningless–why should the thing have a purpose?” –Peter Atkins, world-reknowned Oxford professor of chemistry (NOW BACK TO PREVIOUS ARTICLE BY Ravi Zacharias)

Along with everyone else, I wondered how such a turnaround could have taken place, and so swiftly. The key was that now I looked at life through a window of meaning. And that was the one thing I had been desperately longing for: meaning. Now everything in my life was packed with it: my studies had meaning, my family had meaning, my friendships had meaning, my sports had meaning.

All the things I had thought were the causes of my despair—my failing studies, my senseless wandering, my hopelessness—had actually been the results of my despair. The Austrian concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl wrote, “Without meaning, nothing else matters. With meaning, everything else falls into place.” If you can’t see the why, you cannot live for the what. And as soon as I was able to answer the “why,” even my failures began to make sense.

The rapid changes taking place in me daily were beyond my power to describe. Yet, from everything I had learned in my life with Christ, I knew that He had not just changed what I did but what I wanted to do. One day, I had been a creature of despair, irresponsibility, and failure. Then I became a creature of hope, diligent and accomplished in the things to which I set my hand. To me, the reversal was staggering. Nobody fully understood the dramatic transformation on the inside. This was the work of God.

It was also a huge paradigm shift for me to suddenly see life—my own and others’—through the eyes of God. For years, I had looked at life the way a kid might work through a puzzling, new toy, taking it apart but not knowing how to put it back together again. He wonders, “What makes this thing tick?” So he takes a screwdriver and tries to unpack it, but with each piece he removes, it makes less sense.

Only Jesus could legitimately explain the multifarious strands of human personality locked within me. He could explain my emotional life, my actions, and my reactions. He could explain why I longed for human touch, and why it was actually the touch of soul that I was ultimately after. Without Christ, I still would have the gnawing undercurrent that had run through everything in my life and that had led me to the tragic choice that very nearly brought me to an end.

Jesus wasn’t just the best option to me; He was the only option. He provided the skin of reason to the flesh and bones of reality. His answers to life’s questions were both unique and true. No one else answered the deepest questions of the soul the way He did. And because Christianity was true, it was emotionally experienced. There was no greater example of this than my own life.

The story of my early days was that only God’s grace could have brought about this new life for me. This was a new DNA, a new birth. There simply was no other explanation. The songwriter George Wade Robinson said it well:

Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green! Something lives in every hueChristless eyes have never seen; Birds with gladder songs o’erflow, Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine, Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.

This article appears in the 25.4 edition of our award-winning magazine, Just Thinking. Click the button below to download a PDF of this edition

Step 1 – God loves you and has a plan for you!

The Bible says, “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, [Jesus Christ], that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”—a complete life full of purpose (John 10:10). But here’s the problem:

Step 2 – People are sinful and separated from God.

We have all done, thought or said bad things, which the Bible calls “sin.” The Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The result of sin is death, spiritual separation from God (Romans 6:23). The good news?

Step 3 – God sent His Son to die for your sins!

Jesus died in our place so we could have a relationship with God and be with Him forever. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). But it didn’t end with His death on the cross. He rose again and still lives! “Christ died for our sins. … He was buried. … He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Jesus is the only way to God. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me” (John 14:6).

Step 4 – Would you like to receive God’s forgiveness?

We can’t earn salvation; we are saved by God’s grace when we have faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. All you have to do is believe you are a sinner, that Christ died for your sins, and ask His forgiveness. Then turn from your sins—that’s called repentance. Jesus Christ knows you and loves you. What matters to Him is the attitude of your heart, your honesty. We suggest praying the following prayer to accept Christ as your Savior:

“Dear God, I know I’m a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe Jesus Christ is Your Son. I believe that He died for my sin and that you raised Him to life. I want to trust Him as my Savior and follow Him as Lord, from this day forward. Guide my life and help me to do your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

You want some evidence that indicates that the Bible is true? Here is a good place to start and that is taking a closer look at the archaeology of the Old Testament times. Is the Bible historically accurate? Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject: 1. The Babylonian Chronicle, of Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem, 2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription. 3. Taylor Prism (Sennacherib Hexagonal Prism), 4. Biblical Cities Attested Archaeologically. 5. The Discovery of the Hittites, 6.Shishak Smiting His Captives, 7. Moabite Stone, 8. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 9A Verification of places in Gospel of John and Book of Acts., 9B Discovery of Ebla Tablets. 10. Cyrus Cylinder, 11. Puru “The lot of Yahali” 9th Century B.C.E., 12. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription, 13. The Pilate Inscription, 14. Caiaphas Ossuary, 14 B Pontius Pilate Part 2, 14c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology., 

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https://youtu.be/VfqBN9iW0_Q

Francis Schaeffer comments on Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes 7:11-12

¹¹ Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. ¹² For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.

Solomon when at work takes off his hat and he stands by the grave of man and he says, “ALAS. ALAS. ALAS.”

But interestingly enough the story of Ecclesiastes does not end its message here because in two places in the New Testament it is picked up and carried along and put in its proper perspective.

Luke 12:16-21

¹⁶ And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, ¹⁷ and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ ¹⁸ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax,eat, drink, be merry.”’ [ALMOST EVERYONE WHO HAS PROCEEDED HERE HAS FELT CERTAINLY THAT JESUS IS DELIBERATELY REFERRING TO SOLOMON’S SOLUTION.]²⁰ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ ²¹ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Christ here points out the reason for the failure of the logic that is involved. He points out why it fails in logic and then why it fails in reality. This view of Solomon must end in failure philosophically and also in emotional desperation.

We are not made to live in the shortened environment of UNDER THE SUN in this life only!!! Neither are we made to live only in the environment of a bare concept of afterlife [ignoring trying to make this life better]. We are made to live in the environment of a God who exists and who is the judge. This is the difference and that is what Jesus is setting forth here.

I Corinthians 15:32

³² What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

There is no doubt here he is reaching back to Solomon again and he is just saying if there isn’t a resurrection of the dead then let’s just follow Solomon and let’s just eat and drink for tomorrow we die!!!! If there isn’t this full structure [including the resurrection of the dead] then just have the courage to follow Solomon and we can eat and drink because tomorrow we die and that is all we have. If the full structure isn’t there then pick up the cup and drink it dry! You can say it a different way in the 20th century: If the full structure is not there then go ahead and be an EXISTENTIALIST, but don’t cheat. Drink the cup to the end. Drink it dry! That is what Paul says. Paul  the educated man. Paul the man who knew his Greek philosophy. Paul the man who understood Solomon and the dilemma. Paul said it one way or the other. There is no room for a middle ground. IF CHRISTIANS AREN’T RAISED FROM THE DEAD THEN SOLOMON IS RIGHT IN ECCLESIASTES, BUT ONLY THEN. But if he is right then you should accept all of Solomon’s despair and his conclusions. 

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002

PS: What is the meaning of life? Find it in the end of the open letter I wrote to you on April 23, 2020. 

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Below is the workforce of THE TAMBURY GAZETTE 

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Seen below is the third episode of AFTERLIFE (season 1) when Matt takes Tony to a comedy club with front row seats to cheer him up but it turns into disaster!!!

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Part 1 “Why have integrity in Godless Darwinian Universe where Might makes Right?”

Part 2 “My April 14, 2016 Letter to Ricky mentioned Book of Ecclesiastes and the Meaninglessness of Life”

Part 3 Letter about Brandon Burlsworth concerning suffering and pain and evil in the world.  “Why didn’t Jesus save her [from cancer]?” (Tony’s 10 year old nephew George in episode 2)

Part 4 Letter on Solomon on Death Tony in episode one, “It should be everyone’s moral duty to kill themselves.”

Part 5 Letter on subject of Learning in Ecclesiastes “I don’t read books of fiction but mainly science and philosophy”

Part 6 Letter on Luxuries in Ecclesiastes Part 6, The Music of AFTERLIFE (Part A)

Part 7 Letter on Labor in Ecclesiastes My Letter to Ricky on Easter in 2017 concerning Book of Ecclesiastes and the legacy of a person’s life work

Part 8 Letter on Liquor in Ecclesiastes Tony’s late wife Lisa told him, “Don’t get drunk all the time alright? It will only make you feel worse in the log run!”

Part 9 Letter on Laughter in Ecclesiastes , I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” Ecclesiastes 2:2

Part 10 Final letter to Ricky on Ladies in Ecclesiastes “I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” Ecclesiastes 2:8-11.

Part 11 Letter about Daniel Stanhope and optimistic humanism  “If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” (Francis Schaeffer)

Part 12 Letter on how pursuit of God is only way to get Satisfaction Dan Jarrell “[In Ecclesiastes] if one seeks satisfaction they will never find it. In fact, every pleasure will be fleeting and can not be sustained, BUT IF ONE SEEKS GOD THEN ONE FINDS SATISFACTION”

Part 13 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon realizing he will die just as a dog will die “For men and animals both breathe the same air, and both die. So mankind has no real advantage over the beasts; what an absurdity!” Ecclesiastes

Part 14 Letter to Stephen Hawking on 3 conclusions of humanism and Bertrand Russell destruction of optimistic humanism. “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms—no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”(Bertrand Russell, Free Man’s Worship)

Part 15 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon and Meaningless of life “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes Book of Ecclesiastes Part 15 “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes 2:17

Part 16 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon’s longing for death but still fear of death and 5 conclusions of humanism on life UNDER THE SUN. Francis Schaeffer “Life is just a series of continual and unending cycles and man is stuck in the middle of the cycle. Youth, old age, Death. Does Solomon at this point embrace nihilism? Yes!!! He exclaims that the hates life (Ecclesiastes 2:17), he longs for death (4:2-3) Yet he stills has a fear of death (2:14-16)”

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Mandeep Dhillon as Sandy on her first assignment in ‘After Life’. (Twitter)

A still from ‘After Life’ that captures the vibe of the Tambury Gazette. (Twitter)

Michael Scott of THE OFFICE (USA) with Ricky Gervais 

After Life on Netflix stars Ricky Gervais as a bereaved husband (Image: Netflix)

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Psychiatrist played by Paul Kaye seen below.

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Tony Johnson with his dog Brandi seen below:

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If Death is the end then what is the point Kath asks below:

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Kath: You are an atheist?

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Adrian Rogers on Evolution

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Charles Darwin Autobiography

https://youtu.be/cYOhlCZv6iU

Francis Schaeffer “The Age of NONREASON”

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After Life #1 Trailer

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After Life 2 Trailer

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On Saturday April 18, 2020 at 6pm in London and noon in Arkansas, I had a chance to ask Ricky Gervais a question on his Twitter Live broadcast which was  “Is Tony a Nihilist?” At the 20:51 mark Ricky answers my question. Below is the video:

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Ricky Gervais plays bereaved husband Tony Johnson in AFTER LIFE 

Tony and his wife Lisa who died 6 months ago of cancer

(Above) Tony and Anne on the bench at the graveyard where their spouses are buried.

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May 10th, 2020 
Ricky Gervais 

Dear Ricky,  

Francis Schaeffer below:

In 1992 I got a series of cassette audio tapes that covered the discussions that Ravi Zacharias had at Harvard and I used them as part of my apologetic letters to skeptics across the world and I also used material on ECCLESIASTES from Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer. This open letter today to Ricky Gervais with the below quote from Malcolm Muggeridge is from page 116 of Ravi’s book CAN MAN LIVE WITHOUT GOD?

Adrian Rogers 

Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias

This is the 23rd day in a row that I have written another open letter to you to comment on some of your episodes of AFTER LIFE, and then I wanted to pass along some evidence that indicates there are Old Testament prophecies that have been fulfilled already in history. 

As you know I am writing you a series of letters on Solomon’s efforts to find a meaning and purpose to life. Solomon tried to find a meaning and purpose to life UNDER THE SUN in the Book of Ecclesiastes in all of the 6 “L” words and looked into  learning (1:16-18),laughter, ladies, luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor(2:4-6, 18-20).  Today we are looking at Solomon’s great works and his LABOR and if it brought him any satisfaction or meaning to his life!

Francis Schaeffer looks at Nihilism of Solomon and the causes of it!!!

Notes on Ecclesiastes by Francis Schaeffer

Solomon is the author of Ecclesiastes and he is truly an universal man like Leonardo da Vinci.

Two men of the Renaissance stand above all others –Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and it is in them that one can perhaps grasp a view of the ultimate conclusion of humanism for man. Michelangelo was unequaled as a sculptor in the Renaissance and arguably no one has ever matched his talents.

The other giant of the Renaissance period was Leonardo da Vinci – the perfect Renaissance Man, the man who could do almost anything and does it better than most anyone else. As an inventor, an engineer, an anatomist, an architect, an artist, a chemist, a mathematician, he was almost without equal. It was perhaps his mathematics that lead da Vinci to come to his understanding of the ultimate meaning of Humanism. Leonardo is generally accepted as the first modern mathematician. He not only knew mathematics abstractly but applied it in his Notebooks to all manner of engineering problems. He was one of the unique geniuses of history, and in his brilliance he perceived that beginning humanistically with mathematics one only had particulars. He understood that man beginning from himself would never be able to come to meaning on the basis of mathematics. And he knew that having only individual things, particulars, one never could come to universals or meaning and thus one only ends with mechanics. In this he saw ahead to where our generation has come: everything, including man, is the machine.

Leonardo da Vinci compares well to Solomon and they  both were universal men searching for the meaning in life. Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life. His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life. Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is  a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it since. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.

We have here the declaration of Solomon’s universality:

1 Kings 4:30-34

English Standard Version (ESV)

³⁰ so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹ For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. ³² He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. ³³ He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish.³⁴ And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.

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Here is the universal man and his genius. Solomon is the universal man with a empire at his disposal. Solomon had it all.

Ecclesiastes 1:3

English Standard Version (ESV)

³ What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?

Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes.

(Added by me:The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” )

Man is caught in the cycle

Ecclesiastes 1:1-7

English Standard Version (ESV)

All Is Vanity

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

² Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
    vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
³ What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?
⁴ A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.
⁵ The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
    and hastens to the place where it rises.
⁶ The wind blows to the south
    and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
    and on its circuits the wind returns.
⁷ All streams run to the sea,
    but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
    there they flow again.

⁸ All things are full of weariness;
    a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
    nor the ear filled with hearing.
⁹ What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done,
    and there is nothing new under the sun.
¹⁰ Is there a thing of which it is said,
    “See, this is new”?
It has been already
    in the ages before us.

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Solomon is showing a high degree of comprehension of evaporation and the results of it. Seeing also in reality nothing changes. There is change but always in a set framework and that is cycle. You can relate this to the concepts of modern man. Ecclesiastes is the only pessimistic book in the Bible and that is because of the place where Solomon limits himself.He limits himself to the question of human life, life under the sunbetween birth and death and the answers this would give.

Ecclesiastes 1:4

English Standard Version (ESV)

⁴ A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.

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Ecclesiastes 4:16

English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁶ There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind.

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In verses 1:4 and 4:16 Solomon places man in the cycle. He doesn’t place man outside of the cycle. Man doesn’t escape the cycle. Man is only cycle. Birth and death and youth and old age. With this in mind Solomon makes this statement.

Ecclesiastes 6:12

¹² For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?

After wisdom Solomon comes to the great WORKS of men. Ecclesiastes 1:14,  ^“I have seen all the works which have been doneunder the sun, and behold, all is ^[p]vanity and striving after wind.” Solomon is the man with an empire at this disposal that speaks. This is the man who has the copper refineries in Ezion-geber. This is the man who made the stables across his empire. This is the man who built the temple in Jerusalem. This is the man who stands on the world trade routes. He is not a provincial. He knew what was happening on the Phonetician coast and he knew what was happening in Egypt. There is no doubt he already knew something of building. This is Solomon and he pursues the greatness of his own construction and his conclusion is VANITY AND VEXATION OF SPIRIT.

Ecclesiastes 2:18-20

¹⁸ Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. ¹⁹ And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity. ²⁰ Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun.

He looked at the works of his hands, great and multiplied by his wealth and his position and he shrugged his shoulders.

Ecclesiastes 2:22-23

²² For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun? ²³ Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity.

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On page 116 of Ravi Zacharias Book CAN MAN LIVE WITHOUT GOD? is the following quote:

Apologist Ravi Zacharias speaks during Wilberforce Weekend 2017 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland on May 19, 2017. | (Photo: The

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Sunday Quote: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith

“I may, I suppose, regard myself, or pass for being, as a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets–that’s fame. I can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue–that’s success. Furnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions– that’s pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time–that’s fulfillment. Yet I say to you — and I beg you to believe me–multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing–less than nothing, a positive impediment–measured against one draught of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.”

– Malcolm Muggeridge

Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith, p. 97.

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In season two of AFTER LIFE there is the following discussion: 

Matt: Okay everyone listen up. That was Mr. Middleton. Some of you know that he owns everything, the newspaper and the building. He wants to stop running the paper. He wants to close the paper and then sell the building. 
Tony: Probably sell it to a property developer. This would be luxury flats. 
Kath: I will be alright. Tambury Brewery already said they would take me on. I think the boss fancies me. 
Tony: Well that is the end of the Tambury Gazette kids. Don’t worry we will just get another [crappy] job that barely pays enough to live. 

Sandy: This is the only job I have ever liked. I won’t have a job. My mum is disabled and my daddy can’t work. My brother and sister are in school and they get nothing as it is. (Starts to cry.) 

Tony: Okay. 
Sandy: So I got to find another job that I hate. 
Tony: Okay we will save the paper. 
Sandy: How?

Tony: We will get more revenue. Kath will get more. 
Kath: How?

Tony: You are really good at your job. You will charge more for advertising, like Tambury Brewery. They will pay more, won’t they. Or we will get a loan. Happens all the time. We will buy the building and we will pay back the loan with the profit from the paper and it will be our business to make it work. So don’t worry. 
Sandy: You promise? You will save the paper? 
Tony: Yeah. We will. 
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Tony is involved in a very worthwhile effort to save the newspaper but ultimately will it being meaning to his life UNDER THE SUN?

Douglas Osheroff comments:

“I certainly have no idea of what God might be, if he was some great deity that created the universe and defined the physical laws…umm, so be it. But I personally doubt that God intervenes in my own life.”

Fulfilled Prophecy as Evidence for the Bible’s Divine Origin

• 2,000 prophecies including some 300 prophecies and implications about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
• There are no prophetic failures.
• While there are both obvious and subtle prophecies, most are very detailed and specific.
• No other religion has specific, repeated, and unfailing fulfillment of predictions many years in advance of contingent events over which the predictor had no control.
• Studies of psychics show only around 8% of their predictions come true and virtually all of these can be attributed to chance and a general knowledge of circumstances.
• Mathematicians have calculated the odds of Jesus fulfilling only 8 of the Messianic prophecies as 1 out of 10¹⁷ (a 1 followed by 17 zeros). This is equivalent to covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars 2 feet deep, marking one of them, mixing them all up and having a blind-folded person select the marked one at random the first time. For more on this, see What Are The Odds?
• Fulfilled prophecy is powerful evidence that the Bible is divine rather than human in origin.
• Objection: Jesus manipulated events to fulfill prophecy. Answer: (a) Many prophecies were out of his control (ancestry, place of birth, time of death). (b) His miracles confirmed Jesus to be the Messiah. (c) There is no evidence that Jesus was a deceiver. (d) In order to manipulate all the people (including his enemies) and even his disciples to make it appear that he was the Messiah, Jesus would have needed supernatural powers. If he had such powers, he must have been the Messiah he claimed to be.

Examples of Non-Messianic Prophecies

• The Succession of Great World Kingdoms (Daniel 2:37-42). Even negative critics agree that Daniel foretold the governments in order of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.
• Cyrus King of Persia (Isaiah 44:28-45:1). Since Isaiah lived between about 740 and 690 BC and Cyrus did not make his proclamation for Israel to return from exile until about 536 (Ezra 1), there would have been no human way for him to know what Cyrus would be named or what Cyrus would do.
• Israel to Be Returned to Its Land A Second Time (Isaiah 11:11-12). The first time God reclaimed a people was from Egypt through the Exodus; the second time is from the Babylonian Exile (Isaiah 51:9-11).
• The Closing of the Golden Gate (Ezekiel 44:2-3). The Golden Gate is the eastern gate of Jerusalem, through which Christ made his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday before the crucifixion (Matthew 21). Ezekiel predicted its closing and in 1543 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent closed the gate and walled it up, not knowing he was fulfilling prophecy. It remains sealed to this day exactly as the Bible predicted.
• The Destruction of Tyre (Ezekiel 26:3-14). The prophecy was partly fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city and left it in ruins. Alexander the Great later attacked the seemingly impregnable Island of Tyre by taking the stones, dust, and timber from the ruined mainland city to build a causeway to the Island. This prophecy is comparable to saying that Chicago will be destroyed and never rebuilt.
• The Doom of Edom (Petra) (Jeremiah 49:15-17). Given the virtually impregnable nature of the ancient city carved out of rock and protected by a narrow passageway, this was an incredible prediction. Yet, in 636 AD it was conquered by Muslims and today stands deserted but for tourists.
• Flourishing of the Desert in Palestine (Ezekiel 36:33-35). Since before the turn of the twentieth century, Israel has been renovated and Israel’s agriculture is flourishing.
• Destruction of Jerusalem (Mark 13:1-2). Fulfilled literally when the Romans completely destroyed Jerusalem and the temple buildings. According to historian and eyewitness Josephus, some of the stones were 37 feet long, 12 feet high and 18 feet wide. Stones were even pried apart to collect the gold leaf that melted from the roof when the temple was set on fire.

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002

PS: What is the meaning of life? Find it in the end of the open letter I wrote to you on April 23, 2020. 

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Below is the workforce of THE TAMBURY GAZETTE 

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Seen below is the third episode of AFTERLIFE (season 1) when Matt takes Tony to a comedy club with front row seats to cheer him up but it turns into disaster!!!

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Part 1 “Why have integrity in Godless Darwinian Universe where Might makes Right?”

Part 2 “My April 14, 2016 Letter to Ricky mentioned Book of Ecclesiastes and the Meaninglessness of Life”

Part 3 Letter about Brandon Burlsworth concerning suffering and pain and evil in the world.  “Why didn’t Jesus save her [from cancer]?” (Tony’s 10 year old nephew George in episode 2)

Part 4 Letter on Solomon on Death Tony in episode one, “It should be everyone’s moral duty to kill themselves.”

Part 5 Letter on subject of Learning in Ecclesiastes “I don’t read books of fiction but mainly science and philosophy”

Part 6 Letter on Luxuries in Ecclesiastes Part 6, The Music of AFTERLIFE (Part A)

Part 7 Letter on Labor in Ecclesiastes My Letter to Ricky on Easter in 2017 concerning Book of Ecclesiastes and the legacy of a person’s life work

Part 8 Letter on Liquor in Ecclesiastes Tony’s late wife Lisa told him, “Don’t get drunk all the time alright? It will only make you feel worse in the log run!”

Part 9 Letter on Laughter in Ecclesiastes , I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” Ecclesiastes 2:2

Part 10 Final letter to Ricky on Ladies in Ecclesiastes “I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” Ecclesiastes 2:8-11.

Part 11 Letter about Daniel Stanhope and optimistic humanism  “If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” (Francis Schaeffer)

Part 12 Letter on how pursuit of God is only way to get Satisfaction Dan Jarrell “[In Ecclesiastes] if one seeks satisfaction they will never find it. In fact, every pleasure will be fleeting and can not be sustained, BUT IF ONE SEEKS GOD THEN ONE FINDS SATISFACTION”

Part 13 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon realizing he will die just as a dog will die “For men and animals both breathe the same air, and both die. So mankind has no real advantage over the beasts; what an absurdity!” Ecclesiastes

Part 14 Letter to Stephen Hawking on 3 conclusions of humanism and Bertrand Russell destruction of optimistic humanism. “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms—no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”(Bertrand Russell, Free Man’s Worship)

Part 15 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon and Meaningless of life “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes Book of Ecclesiastes Part 15 “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes 2:17

Part 16 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon’s longing for death but still fear of death and 5 conclusions of humanism on life UNDER THE SUN. Francis Schaeffer “Life is just a series of continual and unending cycles and man is stuck in the middle of the cycle. Youth, old age, Death. Does Solomon at this point embrace nihilism? Yes!!! He exclaims that the hates life (Ecclesiastes 2:17), he longs for death (4:2-3) Yet he stills has a fear of death (2:14-16)”

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Mandeep Dhillon as Sandy on her first assignment in ‘After Life’. (Twitter)

A still from ‘After Life’ that captures the vibe of the Tambury Gazette. (Twitter)

Michael Scott of THE OFFICE (USA) with Ricky Gervais 

After Life on Netflix stars Ricky Gervais as a bereaved husband (Image: Netflix)

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Psychiatrist played by Paul Kaye seen below.

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Tony Johnson with his dog Brandi seen below:

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Related posts:

Taking on Ark Times Bloggers on various issues Part I “Old Testament Bible Prophecy” includes the film TRUTH AND HISTORY and article ” Jane Roe became pro-life”

April 12, 2013 – 5:45 am

I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control  and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on fulfilled prophecy from the Bible Part 2

August 8, 2013 – 1:28 am

I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too.  I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

John MacArthur on fulfilled prophecy from the Bible Part 1

August 6, 2013 – 1:24 am

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If Death is the end then what is the point Kath asks below:

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Kath: You are an atheist?

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Francis Schaeffer THE AGE of FRAGMENTATION

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After Life #1 Trailer

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After Life 2 Trailer

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On Saturday April 18, 2020 at 6pm in London and noon in Arkansas, I had a chance to ask Ricky Gervais a question on his Twitter Live broadcast which was  “Is Tony a Nihilist?” At the 20:51 mark Ricky answers my question. Below is the video:

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If Death is the end then what is the point Kath asks below:

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Kath: You are an atheist?

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Adrian Rogers on Evolution

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Ricky Gervais plays bereaved husband Tony Johnson in AFTER LIFE 

Tony and his wife Lisa who died 6 months ago of cancer

(Above) Tony and Anne on the bench at the graveyard where their spouses are buried.

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May 8th, 2020 
Ricky Gervais 

Dear Ricky,  

This is the 21st day in a row that I have written another open letter to you to comment on some of your episodes of AFTER LIFE, and then I wanted to pass along some evidence that indicates the Bible is historically accurate.

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 Adrian Rogers visiting with President Reagan

Quote from Adrian Rogers (1931-2005):

Did you know that all atheists are not atheists because of intellectual problems? They’re atheists because of moral problems. You say, “But I know some brilliant people who are atheists.” Well, that may be so, but I know some brilliant people who are not. You say, “I know some foolish people who believe in God.” Well, I know everyone who doesn’t believe in God is foolish.

In other words there are brilliant and stupid people on both sides of the fence and it is not an intellectual issue but a moral one. Let’s take a look at the history of science that was handled down to us from Western Europe and take a closer examination of those great men’s religious views and if their religious views were corrosive to their scientific pursuits? This is the accusation of many modern day evolutionists.

I grew up at Bellevue Baptist Church under the leadership  of our pastor Adrian Rogers and I read many books by the Evangelical Philosopher Francis Schaeffer and have had the opportunity to contact many of the evolutionists or humanistic academics that they have mentioned in their works. Many of these scholars have taken the time to respond back to me in the last 20 years and some of the names  included are  Ernest Mayr (1904-2005), George Wald (1906-1997), Carl Sagan (1934-1996),  Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920-),  Brian Charlesworth (1945-),  Francisco J. Ayala (1934-) Elliott Sober (1948-), Kevin Padian (1951-), Matt Cartmill (1943-) , Milton Fingerman (1928-), John J. Shea (1969-), , Michael A. Crawford (1938-), Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), Sol Gordon (1923-2008), Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Barbara Marie Tabler (1915-1996), Renate Vambery (1916-2005), Archie J. Bahm (1907-1996), Aron S “Gil” Martin ( 1910-1997), Matthew I. Spetter (1921-2012), H. J. Eysenck (1916-1997), Robert L. Erdmann (1929-2006), Mary Morain (1911-1999), Lloyd Morain (1917-2010),  Warren Allen Smith (1921-), Bette Chambers (1930-),  Gordon Stein (1941-1996) , Milton Friedman (1912-2006), John Hospers (1918-2011), Michael Martin (1932-).Harry Kroto (1939-), Marty E. Martin (1928-),Richard Rubenstein (1924-), James Terry McCollum (1936-), Edward O. WIlson(1929-), Lewis Wolpert (1929), Gerald Holton (1922-),  and  Ray T. Cragun (1976-).

George Wald Nobel Prize Winner from HARVARD

Francis Schaeffer pictured above

Below are some comments by Francis Schaeffer in 1968 on the Book of Ecclesiastes: 

Pursuing Learning

Now let us look down the details of his searching.

In Ecclesiastes 1: 13a we have the details of the universal man’s procedure. “And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.”

So like any sensible man the instrument that is used is INTELLECT, and RAITIONALITY, and LOGIC. It is to be noted that even men who despise these in their theories begin and use them or they could not speak. There is no other way to begin except in the way they which man is and that is rational and intellectual with movements of that is logical within him. As a Christian I must say gently in passing that is the way God made him.

So we find first of all Solomon turned to WISDOM and logic. Wisdom is not to be confused with knowledge. A man may have great knowledge and no wisdom. Wisdom is the use of rationality and logic. A man can be very wise and have limited knowledge. Here he turns to wisdom in all that implies and the total rationality of man.

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Francis Schaeffer in his book “HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE?” stated that according to Alfred North Whitehead and J. Robert Oppenheimer, both renowned philosophers and scientists of our era (but not Christians themselves), modern science was born out of the Christian world view. Whitehead said that Christianity is the “mother of science” because of the insistence on the rationality of God. In the article, “Christianity and Technological Advance – The Astonishing Connection,” by T. V. Varughese, Ph.D, he observed:

Without question, “technology” has now become the new magic word in place of the word “science.” Since technology represents the practical applications of science, it is clearly consumer-oriented. Herein is bright economic promise to all who can provide technology.

In terms of technology, our present world can be divided into at least three groups: countries that are strong providers of technology, both original and improved; countries that are mass producers because of cheaper labor; and countries that are mostly consumers. Without a doubt, being in the position of “originating” superior technology should be a goal for any major country. The difficult question, however, is “how.”

An obvious place to start suggests itself. Why not begin with the countries that have established themselves as strong originators of technology and see if there is a common thread between them? The western nations, after the Renaissance and the Reformation of the 16th century, offer a ready example. Any book on the history of inventions, such as the Guinness Book of Answers, will reveal that the vast majority of scientific inventions have originated in Europe (including Britain) and the USA since the dawn of the 17th century. What led to the fast technological advances in the European countries and North America around that time?

The answer is that something happened which set the stage for science and technology to emerge with full force. Strange as it may seem, that event was the return to Biblical Christianity in these countries.The Epistemological Foundation of Technology

According to Alfred North Whitehead and J. Robert Oppenheimer, both renowned philosophers and scientists of our era (but not Christians themselves), modern science was born out of the Christian world view. Whitehead said that Christianity is the “mother of science” because of the insistence on the rationality of God.[1] Entomologist Stanley Beck,though not a Christian himself, acknowledged the corner-stone premises of science which the Judeo-Christian world view offers: “The first of the unprovable premises on which science has been based is the belief that the world is real and the human mind is capable of knowing its real nature. The second and best-known postulate underlying the structure of scientific knowledge is that of cause and effect. The third basic scientific premise is that nature is unified.”[2] In other words, the epistemological foundation of technology has been the Judeo-Christian world view presented in the Bible…

Perhaps the most obvious affirmation that Biblical Christianity and science are friends and not foes comes from the fact that most of the early scientists after the Renaissance were also strong believers in the Bible as the authoritative source of knowledge concerning the origin of the universe and man’s place in it.[4] The book of Genesis, the opening book of the Bible, presents the distinctly Judeo-Christian world view of a personal Creator God behind the origin and sustenance of the universe (Genesis 1:1; Colossians 1:17; etc.).

Among the early scientists of note who held the Biblical creationist world view are Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and Samuel Morse (1791-1872) – what motivated them was a confidence in the “rationality” behind the universe and the “goodness” of the material world. The creation account in Genesis presents an intelligent, purposeful Creator, who, after completing the creation work, declared it to be very good (Genesis 1:31). That assures us that the physical universe operates under reliable laws which may be discovered by the intelligent mind and used in practical applications. The confidence in the divinely pronounced goodness of the material world removed any reluctance concerning the development of material things for the betterment of life in this world. The spiritual world and the material world can work together in harmony.

 References –

1. Francis A. Schaeffer: How Should We Then Live (Revell, 1976), p. 132.
2. Henry M. Morris, Biblical Basis for Modern Science (Baker, 1991), p. 30.
3. Schaeffer, p. 131.
4. Henry M. Morris, Men of Science, Men of God (Master Books, CA, 1988), 107 pp.

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Tony Johnson with his dog Brandi seen below:

In episode 2 of the second season of AFTER LIFE is the following discussion: 
Tony: I drink in times of trouble. I can’t help it the world is filled with trouble. It is a horrible place. Everyone is screwed up in someway. Everyone has worries like money or health or famine, war. We are chimps with brains the size of planets. No wonder we get drunk and try to kill each other. It is mental.

Matt: Always good to talk.

Tony: I was just explaining my new plan is to drink myself to death till I eventually implode in on my own evolution. 
Kath: Do you believe in all that? 
Tony: What? The proven fact that there is evolution? Yeah. 
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Atheist Biologist Steve Jones

Quote:“In all frankness I do think religion and science are in many ways antithetical. I know there’s endless argument about this particularly by the many scientists who are religious. But the problem is that religion is something that depends on faith and once a scientist starts depending on faith, he or she is finished as a scientist. You cannot believe that something is true in science without evidence. And you cannot study mystery which is of its very nature mysterious and that’s what religion is all about. It’s filled with mysteries of its own making, designed to be insoluble. The nature of the trinity. The indivisibility of the three parts of god. The father and the son, are they the same thing or are they different? There’s no answer to that question you can debate it endlessly, humankind spend a 1000 wasted years doing that. Science asks smaller, simpler questions and most of all questions that can be answered. So I think it’s actually antithetical to religion.”

R. C. SPROUL

R.C. Sproul

Self Creation and Chance

16th, defending faith, October, 2009

Self Creation and the concept of ‘Chance’

Last time we looked at the concept of Self Creation and it’s various varieties; self generation, gradual self generation and multiple universes coming into being and so on. Lastly, we concluded within contemporary language that the counter to theism is brought on by some type of appeal to what we call “chance creation.” This is what we are going to look at in this session. Sproul has written a book on this subject. Where it covers an analysis and the role of ‘chance in modern cosmology and cosmogony’. He wrote it because as he explored different offerings in the field of science which were trying to work out some of the most difficult concepts for the scientist to deal with and how many scientists have assigned worth to this exploration.

Sproul’s beef or dissent was not with their experimentation but with there articulation of the results of their experiments and the inferences they were drawing from the data that they had worked with. Sproul says he doesn’t have to be a physicist to analyze the content — the significance — the coherence of statements. Yes, propositions which philosophers major in and can work through very swiftly are not just the scientists own tools of reasoning. Sproul can give a logical analysis of the truth values of propositions that scientists articulate as to why things function. So, when physicists characterize and articulate their theories in ways which, ultimately, are nonsense, then it is time for the philosopher to blow the whistle, step up to the plate, and say, ‘we don’t understand what you are trying to say here’ because what you are saying is absurd and unintelligible. And please go back to the drawing board and try to rephrase and develop your statements; or simply say, ‘you don’t what you are talking about.’ For the way you are talking about it demonstrates that you don’t know how to talk about it. It reveals that you are not communicating intelligible speech as it refers to your conclusions on you reasoning.

In Sproul’s book, in the preface, he refers to Arthur Kessler which said, “as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism.” Sproul picked up on that for it’s insight. And Sproul would like to go farther. It is not that chance has to rule for this to be true, Sproul thinks that all that has to be demonstrated is that “chance exists” in order to make God into an anachronism. That there is really such a thing as chance out there in reality which is involved with the creation of things.

So, if chance has any authority it deposes God altogether. This comes by the merit that this something called chance – exists. The mere existence of chance is enough to rip God from his cosmic throne. Chance doesn’t need to rule – it doesn’t need to be sovereign – but if it, ‘chance‘, exists in any form, even a most humble servant framework, it leaves God not only out of date, but, out of a job.

Leonard Mlodinow

Quote from Leonard Mlodinow taken from the video found above:

I am not one who believes in the Bible. I find it very hard to see how people could believe in the Bible, but on the other hand I am somewhat religious. I go to synagogue sometimes. I am more of what you would call an agnostic, but I see science as being separate and religious belief as being separate, and one doesn’t affect the other.

Sproul and the Harvard Professor

The basic thesis in his book, in the final analysis according to Sproul, that there is no such thing as chance. The greatest myth in modern mythology is the myth of chance. That is what we are going to address here. What provoked this work of the book in the first place was a discussion Sproul had with a professor at the graduate school of Harvard in the Philosophy of Science. They were discussing the origin of the universe. This professor denies a creation moment. So Sproul asks where did it come from then — this first Singularity event. The Harvard guy said it came to BE as result of chance. He said the universe was created by chance. So Sproul asks him again, so, the universe was created by chance? He said yes. So Sproul took out of his pocket a quarter and flipped it up in the air – caught it and turned it over and it turned up ‘heads.’ He asked the Harvard professor, what happened? He said it is going to come up either heads or tails 100% of the time. This procedure is going to be either 50% heads or 50% tails. Sproul says if he[the Harvard professor] put it to the test and designed a system that would spin and toss the coin the same way each time, within a vacuum and all other parameters and forces on that coin were constant and repeated in such the same manner, what would happen? Sproul asked him if the professor could bring up his variable percentage of it coming up ‘heads’? And the professor said, of course! This would increase the likelihood. Which is true for what Sproul said initially, they both understood this, that the causal agencies that are involved in coming out with this effect of whether this coin comes up either heads or tails has nothing to do with some mythological power called chance. It has to do with, in this causal experiment, of how we tossed the coin. All the factors that one would establish so it was identical each time you tossed the coin. All variables of physical space and motion are consistent and the outcome is always the same. And with all that for the certainty of one result; we can nevertheless say that it is always 50-50. 

Serindipity as chance

There is nothing at all wrong with the word chance in a particular setting. It is a perfectly meaningful word when we use it to describe mathematical possibilities.The word becomes a synonym for the odds of such and such. We also use it in a meaningful way when we speak of ‘chance encounters.’
Sproul describes a train trip where he got on a train and went to various cities on his trip. He had a lay over and there was traffic going the opposite direction and he encountered a friend he hadn’t seen in ten years. They conversed and went their ways. Ten hours later when the train came for Sproul the same teeming masses of people were in this Chicago train station and he sees the same friend he saw ten hours ago. What are the odds of that? It is called a serendipitous encounter. A chance happening. But chance doesn’t explain why it happened. Because chance didn’t cause it. The reason that we happened to meet each other was because we happened to be at the same place at the same time; for a host of different reasons. All these things converging in time and space.

Again, chance is a perfectly legitimate word when we use it in the particular popular way to describe these kinds of unintentional meetings or mathematical probabilities we find ourselves in. But what has happened in modern jargon is the word ‘chance’ has subtly been elevated to something far more than just mathematical odds or probabilities. Where actual causal POWER is attributed to chance. So when he talked to his professor friend they agreed on the incapacity of chance to have Being and gave no chance for ‘chance’ to cause the coin to flip a certain way. Based on this simple illustration of this coin toss this Harvard man literally banged his palm into his head and said, ‘I guess I shouldn’t have said that the universe was created by chance.’ 

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In the series AFTERLIFE you can obviously see how well read you are and like many atheists it is obvious that Richard Dawkins is one of your heroes.

I am not an atheist but I have read about a dozen of Dawkins books also. Dawkins’ favorite book in the Bible is Ecclesiastes because of the poetry found in the King James Version and not the spiritual lessons.

Blaise Pascal was one of the most brilliant scientists of all time and a believer

I have also  corresponded with many intellectuals such as you who were committed humanists. For example,    (Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), Sol Gordon (1923-2008), Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Barbara Marie Tabler (1915-1996), Renate Vambery (1916-2005), Archie J. Bahm (1907-1996), Aron S “Gil” Martin ( 1910-1997), Matthew I. Spetter (1921-2012), H. J. Eysenck (1916-1997), Robert L. Erdmann (1929-2006), Mary Morain (1911-1999), Lloyd Morain (1917-2010),  Warren Allen Smith (1921-), Bette Chambers (1930-), Daniel Dennett (1942- ), and   Gordon Stein (1941-1996).

I know your secular philosophy is based on your scientific understanding of the world. Mine is too. That is why I have corresponded with many scientists too. For example, Carl Sagan (1934-1996),  Ernest Mayr (1904-2005), George Wald (1906-1997),Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920-),  Brian Charlesworth (1945-),  Francisco J. Ayala (1934-) Elliott Sober (1948-), Kevin Padian (1951-), Matt Cartmill (1943-) , Milton Fingerman (1928-), John J. Shea (1969-), and  Michael A. Crawford (1938-).

Today I want to ask you to match your wit with King Solomon’s words from 3000 years ago.

I want to start looking at the 6 L words that Solomonpursued UNDER THE SUN to try to get meaning and satisfaction in this life without God in the picture in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Today’s word  is LEARNING. Can one find a lasting meaning to life  in the area of education? Solomon had a lot to say about that in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

WHAT DOES SOLOMON HAVE TO SAY ABOUT PURSUING LEARNING in the Book of Ecclesiastes?

Francis Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” 

As you know Solomon was searching for  for meaning in life in what I call the 6 big L words in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He looked into LEARNING (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).

Here is his final conclusion concerning LEARNING:

ECCLESIASTES 1:12-18, 2:12-17 LEARNING

¹² I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.¹³And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. ¹⁴ I have seen everything that is done UNDER THE SUN, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

¹⁵ What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.

¹⁶ I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.”¹⁷ And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

¹⁸For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

¹²So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. ¹³ Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. ¹⁴ The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.¹⁵ Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. ¹⁶ For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!¹⁷ So I hated life, because what is done UNDER THE SUN was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

 Ecclesiastes was written to those who wanted to examine life UNDER THE SUN without God in the picture and Solomon’s conclusion in the final chapter was found in Ecclesiastes 12 when he looked at life ABOVE THE SUN:

¹³ The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. ¹⁴ For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

In an earlier letter to you I quoted Psalms chapter 22. Why not take a few minutes and just read the short chapter of Psalms 22 that was written hundreds of years before the Romans even invented the practice of Crucifixion. 1000 years BC the Jews had the practice of stoning people but we read in this chapter a graphic description of Christ dying on the cross. How do you explain that without looking ABOVE THE SUN to God.

Let me quote from a July 13, 2013 article by Jonas E. Alexis entitled God and the Intellectuals (Part II): 

Formerly an atheist, Alister McGrath didn’t come to believe in God until he went to Oxford and began to rethink things he had taken for granted. He soon discovered that neither the intellectual foundation nor the existential description for atheism could stand up to reality.[68]

Antony Flew, one of the most trenchant and articulate atheists in the twentieth century, renounced his atheistic beliefs late in life.[69] Lee Strobel was a staunch atheist throughout his time at Yale, until he began to reexamine the claims of Christianity.

Francis Collins, former head of the Genome Project, did not become a Christian until he started practicing medicine.[70]Cosmologist Frank Tipler started his career as “a convinced atheist,” but changed his views when he seriously studied Christianity.[71]

And the list of individuals throughout history who believed in God is long. Let’s just name a few here:

Antiseptic Surgery, Joseph Lister (1827-1912)

Bacteriology Louis, Pasteur (1822-1895)

Calculus, Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Celestial Mechanics, Johann Kepler (1571-1630)

Chemistry, Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

Comparative Anatomy, Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)

Computer Science, Charles Babbage (1792-1871)

Dimensional Analysis, Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919)

Electrodynamics, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

Electromagnetics, Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Electronics, Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945)

Entomology of Living Insects, Henri Fabre (1823-1915)

Field Theory, Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Fluid Mechanics, George Stokes (1819-1903)

Galactic Astronomy, William Herschel (1738-1822)

Gas Dynamics, Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

Genetics, Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)

Glacial Geology, Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)

Gynecology, James Simpson (1811-1870)

Hydraulics, Leonardo de Vinci (1452-1519)

Hydrography, Mattew Maury (1806-1873)

Hydrostatics, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Ichthyology, Louis Agassiz (1807-1873)

Isotopic Chemistry, William Ramsay (1851-1916)

Model Analysis, Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919)

Natural History, John Ray (1627-1705)

Non-Euclidean, Geometry Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866)

Oceanography, Matthew Maury (1806-1873)

Optical Mineralogy, David Brewster (1781-1868)

Paleontology, John Woodward (1665-1728)

Pathology, Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902)

Physical Astronomy, Johann Kepler (1571-1630)

Reversible Thermodynamics, James Joule (1818-1889)

Statistical Thermodynamics, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

Stratigraphy, Nicholas Steno (1631-1868)

Systematic Biology, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)

Thermodynamics, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)

Thermokinetics, Humphrey Davy (1778-1829)

Vertebrate Paleontology, Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)

Absolute Temperature, Scale Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)

Actuarial Tables, Charles Babbage (1792-1871)

Barometer, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Biogenesis, Law Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

Calculating Machine, Charles Babbage (1792-1871)

Chloroform, James Simpson (1811-1870)

Classification System, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)

Double Stars, William Herschel (1738-1822)

Electric Generator, Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Electric Motor, Joseph Henry (1797-1878)

Ephemeris Tables, Johann Kepler (1571-1630)

Galvanometer, Joseph Henry (1797-1878)

Global Star Catalog, John Herschel (1792-1871)

Kaleidoscope David Brewster (1781-1868)

Pasteurization, Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

Reflecting Telescope, Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Self-Induction, Joseph Henry (1797-1878)

Telegraph, Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872)

Thermionic Valve, Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945)

Mathematical Analysis, Leonhard Euler (1707-1883)

Number Theory, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855)

Botanist and Inventor, George Washington Carver (1864-1943)

Mathematician and Astronomer, Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806)

And who can talk about the world of literature and classical music without William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Franz Joseph Haydn, Franz Liszt, among others?

Are all these people deluded? And if so, what is so powerful about Christianity

that it can deceive so many brilliant people throughout the centuries? As Francis Collins pointed out,

“If faith was a psychological crutch, it must be a powerful one.”[72]

This psychological crutch has also kept noted figures such as John Polkinghorne into intellectual bondage for far too long.[73] Polkinghorne, who played an instrumental role in the discovery of quark and other theoretical particles, did not become an idiot by accepting Christianity.[74]

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The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002

PS: What is the meaning of life? Find it in the end of the open letter I wrote to you on April 23, 2020. 

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Below is the workforce of THE TAMBURY GAZETTE 

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Seen below is the third episode of AFTERLIFE (season 1) when Matt takes Tony to a comedy club with front row seats to cheer him up but it turns into disaster!!!

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Part 1 “Why have integrity in Godless Darwinian Universe where Might makes Right?”

Part 2 “My April 14, 2016 Letter to Ricky mentioned Book of Ecclesiastes and the Meaninglessness of Life”

Part 3 Letter about Brandon Burlsworth concerning suffering and pain and evil in the world.  “Why didn’t Jesus save her [from cancer]?” (Tony’s 10 year old nephew George in episode 2)

Part 4 Letter on Solomon on Death Tony in episode one, “It should be everyone’s moral duty to kill themselves.”

Part 5 Letter on subject of Learning in Ecclesiastes “I don’t read books of fiction but mainly science and philosophy”

Part 6 Letter on Luxuries in Ecclesiastes Part 6, The Music of AFTERLIFE (Part A)

Part 7 Letter on Labor in Ecclesiastes My Letter to Ricky on Easter in 2017 concerning Book of Ecclesiastes and the legacy of a person’s life work

Part 8 Letter on Liquor in Ecclesiastes Tony’s late wife Lisa told him, “Don’t get drunk all the time alright? It will only make you feel worse in the log run!”

Part 9 Letter on Laughter in Ecclesiastes , I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” Ecclesiastes 2:2

Part 10 Final letter to Ricky on Ladies in Ecclesiastes “I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” Ecclesiastes 2:8-11.

Part 11 Letter about Daniel Stanhope and optimistic humanism  “If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” (Francis Schaeffer)

Part 12 Letter on how pursuit of God is only way to get Satisfaction Dan Jarrell “[In Ecclesiastes] if one seeks satisfaction they will never find it. In fact, every pleasure will be fleeting and can not be sustained, BUT IF ONE SEEKS GOD THEN ONE FINDS SATISFACTION”

Part 13 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon realizing he will die just as a dog will die “For men and animals both breathe the same air, and both die. So mankind has no real advantage over the beasts; what an absurdity!” Ecclesiastes

Part 14 Letter to Stephen Hawking on 3 conclusions of humanism and Bertrand Russell destruction of optimistic humanism. “That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms—no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”(Bertrand Russell, Free Man’s Worship)

Part 15 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon and Meaningless of life “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes Book of Ecclesiastes Part 15 “I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind” Ecclesiastes 2:17

Part 16 Letter to Stephen Hawking on Solomon’s longing for death but still fear of death and 5 conclusions of humanism on life UNDER THE SUN. Francis Schaeffer “Life is just a series of continual and unending cycles and man is stuck in the middle of the cycle. Youth, old age, Death. Does Solomon at this point embrace nihilism? Yes!!! He exclaims that the hates life (Ecclesiastes 2:17), he longs for death (4:2-3) Yet he stills has a fear of death (2:14-16)”

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Mandeep Dhillon as Sandy on her first assignment in ‘After Life’. (Twitter)

A still from ‘After Life’ that captures the vibe of the Tambury Gazette. (Twitter)

Michael Scott of THE OFFICE (USA) with Ricky Gervais 

After Life on Netflix stars Ricky Gervais as a bereaved husband (Image: Netflix)

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Psychiatrist played by Paul Kaye seen below.

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Tony Johnson with his dog Brandi seen below:

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Charles Darwin Autobiography

https://youtu.be/cYOhlCZv6iU

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The basis for human dignity by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop

https://youtu.be/VfqBN9iW0_Q

Dust in the Wind by KANSAS

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Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of KANSAS on 700 Club Part 1

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Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of KANSAS on 700 Club Part 2

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Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins

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XXXX November 21, 2019

November 21, 2019

Richard Dawkins c/o Richard Dawkins Foundation, 
Washington, DC 20005

Dear Mr. Dawkins,

I have enjoyed reading about a dozen of your books and some of the most intriguing were The God Delusion, An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist, and Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science.

I enjoyed your latest book Outgrowing God which is one of my favorite books that you have written. 

However, there are some some weak parts of the book. For instance, your spin on Genesis 22 in chapter 4 implies you think that Abraham was just taking a blind leap of faith when that is not what occurred:

Chapter 4 

“Imagine that, when you were a child, your father woke you one morning and said, ‘It’s a fine day, how would you like to come with me for a walk in the country?’ You might quite fancy the idea. So off you go for a nice day together. After a while, your father stops to gather wood. He piles it up and you help him because you really enjoy bonfires. But now, when the bonfire is ready to light, something terrible happens. Utterly unexpected. Your father seizes you, throws you on top of the pile of wood and ties you down so you can’t move. You scream with horror. Is he going to roast you on top of the bonfire? It gets worse. your father produces a knife, raises it above his head, and you are now in no doubt. Your father is about to run his knife through you. He’s going to kill you and then set fire to your body: your own father, the father who told you bedtime stories when you were little, told you the names of flowers and birds, your dear father who gave you presents, comforted you when you were afraid of the dark. How could this be happening? 

Suddenly he stops. He looks up to the sky with a strange expression on his face, as though carrying on a conversation with himself in his head. He puts away the knife, unties you and tries to explain what has happened, but you are so paraysed with horror and fear that you can scarcely hear his words. Eventually he makes you understand. It was all God’s doing. God had ordered your father to kill you and offer you up as a burnt sacrifice. But it turned out to just be a tease — a test of your father’s loyalty to God. Your father had to prove to God that he loved God so much that he was even prepared to kill you if God ordered him to do so. . . As soon as God saw that your father was really, really, prepared to go through with it, God intervened just in time. Gotcha! April Fool! I didn’t really mean it. Yes, it was a good joke, wasn’t it?” (chapter 4)

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Gleason Archer responds below:

How could God condemn human sacrifice in Leviticus 18 and 20 and yet command it in Genesis 22, or at least accept it in Judges 11? It is a mistake to interpret Genesis 22:2 as a command by God for Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar. On the contrary, God actually (through His angel, at least) restrained Abraham’s hand just as he was about to plunge the knife into his son’s body, saying, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me” (Gen. 22:12, NASB). While it is true that the Lord instructed Abraham previously to present Isaac as a burnt offering (`olah), and Abraham himself undoubtedly understood it as a command to kill his son on the altar, the point at issue was whether the doting father was willing to surrender even his only son (begotten by Sarah) to the Lord as a proof of his complete surrender. But v.12 is conclusive proof that Yahweh had no intention that Abraham should actually go through with this human sacrifice. It was simply a test of his faith. 

As for the episode of Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11, see the article that deals with that passage. There is good reason to believe that in her case also, as in Isaac’s (in both instances the term `olah is used; cf. Judg. 11:31), the presentation did not eventuate in the death of the human “burnt offering.” Rather, she was devoted to the service of the Lord as a virgin attendant in tabernacle worship for the rest of her life. 

Leviticus 18:21 defines infant sacrifice as a profanation of the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel. Leviticus 20:2 prescribes the death penalty for any parent who does so– 89 particularly in the worship of Molech, which especially featured infant sacrifice. It is logically indefensible to assume that God would expect or condone infant sacrifice on the part of Abraham or Jephthah, or any other of His servants, after such a stern prohibition of it in the Mosaic Law

—

Francis Schaeffer in his book The God who is There noted:

It is often said that Soren Kierkegaard, the Dane (1813-1855) is the father of all modern thinking. And so he is. He is the father of modern existential thinking, both secular and theological thinking….Why is it that Kierkegaard can so aptly be thought of as the father of both? What proposition did he add to the flow of thought that made the difference? Kierkegaard led to the conclusion that you could not arrive at synthesis by reason. Instead, you achieve everything of real importance by a leap of faith.

[Kierkegaard] in his more philosophical writings he did become the father of modern thought. This turns upon his writings of Abraham and the “sacrifice” of Isaac. Kierkegaard said this was an act of faith with nothing rational to base it upon or to which to relate it. Out of this came the modern concept of a ‘leap of faith’ and the total separation of rationality and faith.

In this thinking concerning Abraham, Kierkegaard had not read the Bible carefully enough. Before Abraham was asked to move towards the sacrifice of Isaac (which, of course, God did not allow to be consummated), he had much propositional revelation from God, he had seen God, God had fulfilled promises to him. In short, God’s words at this time were in the context of Abraham’s strong reason for knowing that God both existed and was totally trustworthy.20

—-

Dr. Dawkins, you have a 150 year advantage over your hero Charles Darwin and the archaeologist’s spade has continued to dig. Take a look at this piece of evidence from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? (Under footnote #96) by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop:

We should take one last step back into the history of the Old Testament. In the previous note we looked first at the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to around 100 B.C. Then we went back to the period of the Late Monarchy and looked first at the siege of Hezekiah in Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 B.C. and also at the last years of Judah down to about 600 B.C. Then we went further back to about 850 B.C., to Ahab and Jezebel, the ivory house, the Black Obelisk, the Moabite Stone and so on–then back again to about 950 B.C., to the time of Solomon and his son Rehoboam and the campaign by Shishak, the Egyptian pharaoh.

This should have built up in our minds a vivid impression of the historic reliability of the biblical text, including even the seemingly obscure details such as the ration tablets in Babylon. We saw, in other words, not only that the Bible gives us a marvelous world view that ties in with the nature of reality and answers the basic problems which philosophers have asked down through the centuries, but also that the Bible is completely reliable, EVEN ON THE HISTORICAL LEVEL.

The previous notes looked back to the time of Moses and Joshua, the escape from Egypt, and the settlement in Canaan. Now we will go back further–back as far as Genesis 12, near the beginning of the Bible.

Do we find that the narrative fades away to a never-never land of myths and legends? By no means. For we have to remind ourselves that although Genesis 12 deals with events a long time ago from our moment of history (about 2000 B.C. or a bit later), the civilized world was already not just old but ancient when Abram/Abraham left “Ur of the Chaldeans” (see Genesis 11:31).

Ur itself was excavated some fifty years ago. In the British Museum, for example, one can see the magnificent contents of a royal burial chamber from Ur. This includes a gold headdress still in position about the head of a queen who died in Ur about 2500 B.C. It has also been possible to reconstruct from archaeological remains what the streets and buildings must have been like at the time.

Like Ur, the rest of the world of the patriarchs (that is, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) was firm reality. Such places as Haran, where Abraham went first, have been discovered. So has Shechem from this time, with its Canaanite stone walls, which are still standing, and its temple.

Genesis 12:5-9New American Standard Bible (NASB)

⁵ Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the ^[a]persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they ^[b]set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan. ⁶ Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the^[c]oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land.⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your ^[d]descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. ⁸ Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord andcalled upon the name of the Lord. ⁹ Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the^[e]Negev.

Haran and Shechem may be unfamiliar names to us but the Negrev (or Negeb) is a name we have all read frequently in the news accounts of our own day. 

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221, United States

XXXXXXX

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Francis and Edith Schaeffer at their home in Switzerland with some visiting friends

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Schaeffer with his wife Edith in Switzerland.

Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

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Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, Harris 

Canary Islands 2014: Harold Kroto and Richard Dawkins

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Francis Schaeffer pictured below:

—

The Basis of Human Dignity by Francis Schaeffer

https://youtu.be/VfqBN9iW0_Q

Richard Dawkins, founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Credit: Don Arnold Getty Images

—

Francis Schaeffer in 1984

Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer in 1982

—-

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Episode 1

—

—

–

Garik Israelian, Stephen Hawking, Alexey Leonov, Brian May, Richard Dawkins and Harry Kroto

—-

—-

—-

HENRY F SCHAEFER III
Fritz Schaefer
BORN	Henry Frederick Schaefer III June 8, 1944 (age 73) Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States
RESIDENCE	United States
NATIONALITY	American
ALMA MATER	Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University
AWARDS	ACS Award in Pure Chemistry(1979)Centenary Medal of the UK Royal Society of Chemistry (1992)ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry (2003)Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize(2005)ACS Peter Debye Award (2014)
Scientific career
FIELDS	Computational Chemistry
INSTITUTIONS
DOCTORAL STUDENTS

—

_

Featured artist is Michelangelo

Michelangelo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to navigationJump to searchFor other uses, see Michelangelo (disambiguation).

Michelangelo
Portrait of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra
Born	Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni 6 March 1475 Caprese near Arezzo, Republic of Florence (present-day Tuscany, Italy)
Died	18 February 1564 (aged 88) Rome, Papal States (present-day Italy)
Known for	Sculpture, painting, architecture, and poetry
Notable work	DavidPietàMosesThe Last JudgmentSistine Chapel ceiling
Movement	High Renaissance
Signature

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (Italian: [mikeˈlandʒelo di lodoˈviːko ˌbwɔnarˈrɔːti siˈmoːni]; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known best as simply Michelangelo (English: /ˌmaɪkəlˈændʒəloʊ, ˌmɪk-/^[1]), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance born in the Republic of Florence, who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered by many the greatest artist of his lifetime, and by some the greatest artist of all time, his artistic versatility was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival, the fellow Florentine and client of the Medici, Leonardo da Vinci.^[2]

A number of Michelangelo’s works of painting, sculpture and architecture rank among the most famous in existence.^[2] His output in these fields was prodigious; given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches and reminiscences, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. He sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. Despite holding a low opinion of painting, he also created two of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and The Last Judgment on its altar wall. His design of the Laurentian Library pioneered Mannerist architecture.^[3] At the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. He transformed the plan so that the western end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification, after his death.

Michelangelo was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive.^[2] In fact, two biographies were published during his lifetime. One of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that Michelangelo’s work transcended that of any artist living or dead, and was “supreme in not one art alone but in all three”.^[4]

In his lifetime, Michelangelo was often called Il Divino (“the divine one”).^[5] His contemporaries often admired his terribilità—his ability to instil a sense of awe. Attempts by subsequent artists to imitate^[6] Michelangelo’s impassioned, highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance.

Contents

• 1Life
  • 1.1Early life, 1475–1488
  • 1.2Apprenticeships, 1488–1492
  • 1.3Bologna, Florence and Rome, 1492–1499
  • 1.4Florence, 1499–1505
  • 1.5Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1505–1512
  • 1.6Florence under Medici popes, 1513 – early 1534
  • 1.7Rome, 1534–1546
  • 1.8St Peter’s Basilica, 1546–1564
• 2Personal life
  • 2.1Faith
  • 2.2Personal habits
  • 2.3Relationships and poetry
  • 2.4Feuds with other artists
• 3Works
  • 3.1Madonna and Child
  • 3.2Male figure
  • 3.3Sistine Chapel ceiling
  • 3.4Figure compositions
  • 3.5Architecture
  • 3.6Final years
• 4In popular culture
• 5Legacy
• 6See also
• 7Footnotes
• 8References
• 9Further reading
• 10External links

Life

See also: List of works by Michelangelo

Early life, 1475–1488

Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475^[a] in Caprese, known today as Caprese Michelangelo, a small town situated in Valtiberina,^[7] near Arezzo, Tuscany.^[8] For several generations, his family had been small-scale bankers in Florence; but the bank failed, and his father, Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni, briefly took a government post in Caprese, where Michelangelo was born.^[2] At the time of Michelangelo’s birth, his father was the town’s judicial administrator and podestà or local administrator of Chiusi della Verna. Michelangelo’s mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena.^[9] The Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa—a claim that remains unproven, but which Michelangelo believed.^[10]

Several months after Michelangelo’s birth, the family returned to Florence, where he was raised. During his mother’s later prolonged illness, and after her death in 1481 (when he was six years old), Michelangelo lived with a nanny and her husband, a stonecutter, in the town of Settignano, where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm.^[9] There he gained his love for marble. As Giorgio Vasari quotes him:

“If there is some good in me, it is because I was born in the subtle atmosphere of your country of Arezzo. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, with which I make my figures.”^[8]

Apprenticeships, 1488–1492

As a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino.^[8][11][b] However, he showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of other painters.^[11]

The city of Florence was at that time Italy’s greatest centre of the arts and learning.^[12] Art was sponsored by the Signoria (the town council), the merchant guilds, and wealthy patrons such as the Medici and their banking associates.^[13] The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence.^[12] In the early 15th century, the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, having studied the remains of Classical buildings in Rome, had created two churches, San Lorenzo’s and Santo Spirito, which embodied the Classical precepts.^[14] The sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry, which Michelangelo was to describe as “The Gates of Paradise”.^[15] The exterior niches of the Church of Orsanmichele contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence: Donatello, Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Nanni di Banco.^[13] The interiors of the older churches were covered with frescos (mostly in Late Medieval, but also in the Early Renaissance style), begun by Giotto and continued by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel, both of whose works Michelangelo studied and copied in drawings.^[16]

During Michelangelo’s childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence.^[13] In 1488, at age 13, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio.^[17] The next year, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay Michelangelo as an artist, which was rare for someone of fourteen.^[18] When in 1489, Lorenzo de’ Medici, de facto ruler of Florence, asked Ghirlandaio for his two best pupils, Ghirlandaio sent Michelangelo and Francesco Granacci.^[19]

The Madonna of the Stairs (1490–92), Michelangelo’s earliest known work in marble

From 1490 to 1492, Michelangelo attended the Humanist academy the Medici had founded along Neo-Platonic lines. There his work and outlook were influenced by many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day, including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano.^[20] At this time, Michelangelo sculpted the reliefs Madonna of the Steps (1490–1492) and Battle of the Centaurs (1491–1492),^[16] the latter based on a theme suggested by Poliziano and commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici.^[21] Michelangelo worked for a time with the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni. When he was seventeen, another pupil, Pietro Torrigiano, struck him on the nose, causing the disfigurement that is conspicuous in the portraits of Michelangelo.^[22]

Bologna, Florence and Rome, 1492–1499

Lorenzo de’ Medici’s death on 8 April 1492 brought a reversal of Michelangelo’s circumstances.^[23] Michelangelo left the security of the Medici court and returned to his father’s house. In the following months he carved a polychrome wooden Crucifix (1493), as a gift to the prior of the Florentine church of Santo Spirito, which had allowed him to do some anatomical studies of the corpses from the church’s hospital.^[24] This was the first of several instances during his career that Michelangelo studied anatomy by dissecting cadavers.^[25][26]

Between 1493 and 1494 he bought a block of marble, and carved a larger-than-life statue of Hercules, which was sent to France and subsequently disappeared sometime in the 18th century.^[21][c] On 20 January 1494, after heavy snowfalls, Lorenzo’s heir, Piero de Medici, commissioned a snow statue, and Michelangelo again entered the court of the Medici.^[27]

In the same year, the Medici were expelled from Florence as the result of the rise of Savonarola. Michelangelo left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna.^[23] In Bologna, he was commissioned to carve several of the last small figures for the completion of the Shrine of St. Dominic, in the church dedicated to that saint. At this time Michelangelo studied the robust reliefs carved by Jacopo della Quercia around main portal of the Basilica of St Petronius, including the panel of The Creation of Eve the composition of which was to reappear on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.^[28] Towards the end of 1494, the political situation in Florence was calmer. The city, previously under threat from the French, was no longer in danger as Charles VIII had suffered defeats. Michelangelo returned to Florence but received no commissions from the new city government under Savonarola. He returned to the employment of the Medici.^[29] During the half year he spent in Florence, he worked on two small statues, a child St. John the Baptist and a sleeping Cupid. According to Condivi, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, for whom Michelangelo had sculpted St. John the Baptist, asked that Michelangelo “fix it so that it looked as if it had been buried” so he could “send it to Rome … pass [it off as] an ancient work and … sell it much better.” Both Lorenzo and Michelangelo were unwittingly cheated out of the real value of the piece by a middleman. Cardinal Raffaele Riario, to whom Lorenzo had sold it, discovered that it was a fraud, but was so impressed by the quality of the sculpture that he invited the artist to Rome.^[30] [d] This apparent success in selling his sculpture abroad as well as the conservative Florentine situation may have encouraged Michelangelo to accept the prelate’s invitation.^[29]

Pietà, St Peter’s Basilica (1498–99)

Michelangelo arrived in Rome on 25 June 1496^[31] at the age of 21. On 4 July of the same year, he began work on a commission for Cardinal Raffaele Riario, an over-life-size statue of the Roman wine god Bacchus. Upon completion, the work was rejected by the cardinal, and subsequently entered the collection of the banker Jacopo Galli, for his garden.

In November 1497, the French ambassador to the Holy See, Cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas, commissioned him to carve a Pietà, a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of Jesus. The subject, which is not part of the Biblical narrative of the Crucifixion, was common in religious sculpture of Medieval Northern Europe and would have been very familiar to the Cardinal.^[32] The contract was agreed upon in August of the following year. Michelangelo was 24 at the time of its completion.^[32] It was soon to be regarded as one of the world’s great masterpieces of sculpture, “a revelation of all the potentialities and force of the art of sculpture”. Contemporary opinion was summarised by Vasari: “It is certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh.”^[33] It is now located in St Peter’s Basilica.

Florence, 1499–1505

Main article: David (Michelangelo)

The Statue of David, completed by Michelangelo in 1504, is one of the most renowned works of the Renaissance.

Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1499. The republic was changing after the fall of its leader, anti-Renaissance priest Girolamo Savonarola, who was executed in 1498, and the rise of the gonfaloniere Piero Soderini. Michelangelo was asked by the consuls of the Guild of Wool to complete an unfinished project begun 40 years earlier by Agostino di Duccio: a colossal statue of Carrara marble portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom to be placed on the gable of Florence Cathedral.^[34] Michelangelo responded by completing his most famous work, the statue of David, in 1504. The masterwork definitively established his prominence as a sculptor of extraordinary technical skill and strength of symbolic imagination. A team of consultants, including Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, was called together to decide upon its placement, ultimately the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. It now stands in the Academia while a replica occupies its place in the square.^[35]

With the completion of the David came another commission. In early 1504 Leonardo da Vinci had been commissioned to paint The Battle of Anghiara in the council chamber of the Palazzo Vecchio, depicting the battle between Florence and Milan in 1440. Michelangelo was then commissioned to paint the Battle of Cascina. The two paintings are very different: Leonardo depicts soldiers fighting on horseback, while Michelangelo has soldiers being ambushed as they bathe in the river. Neither work was completed and both were lost forever when the chamber was refurbished. Both works were much admired, and copies remain of them, Leonardo’s work having been copied by Rubens and Michelangelo’s by Bastiano da Sangallo.^[36]

Also during this period, Michelangelo was commissioned by Angelo Doni to paint a “Holy Family” as a present for his wife, Maddalena Strozzi. It is known as the Doni Tondo and hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in its original magnificent frame, which Michelangelo may have designed.^[37][38] He also may have painted the Madonna and Child with John the Baptist, known as the Manchester Madonna and now in the National Gallery, London.^[39]

Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1505–1512

Main article: Sistine Chapel ceiling

Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; the work took approximately four years to complete (1508–12)

In 1505 Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II and commissioned to build the Pope’s tomb, which was to include forty statues and be finished in five years.^[40] Under the patronage of the pope, Michelangelo experienced constant interruptions to his work on the tomb in order to accomplish numerous other tasks. Although Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years, it was never finished to his satisfaction.^[40] It is located in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome and is most famous for the central figure of Moses, completed in 1516.^[41] Of the other statues intended for the tomb, two, known as the Rebellious Slave and the Dying Slave, are now in the Louvre.^[40]

During the same period, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately four years to complete (1508–1512).^[41] According to Condivi’s account, Bramante, who was working on the building of St. Peter’s Basilica, resented Michelangelo’s commission for the pope’s tomb and convinced the pope to commission him in a medium with which he was unfamiliar, in order that he might fail at the task.^[42] Michelangelo was originally commissioned to paint the Twelve Apostles on the triangular pendentives that supported the ceiling, and to cover the central part of the ceiling with ornament.^[43] Michelangelo persuaded Pope Julius to give him a free hand and proposed a different and more complex scheme, representing the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Promise of Salvation through the prophets, and the genealogy of Christ. The work is part of a larger scheme of decoration within the chapel that represents much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.^[43]

The composition stretches over 500 square metres of ceiling^[44] and contains over 300 figures.^[43] At its centre are nine episodes from the Book of Genesis, divided into three groups: God’s creation of the earth; God’s creation of humankind and their fall from God’s grace; and lastly, the state of humanity as represented by Noah and his family. On the pendentives supporting the ceiling are painted twelve men and women who prophesied the coming of Jesus, seven prophets of Israel, and five Sibyls, prophetic women of the Classical world.^[43] Among the most famous paintings on the ceiling are The Creation of Adam, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the Prophet Jeremiah, and the Cumaean Sibyl.

Florence under Medici popes, 1513 – early 1534

Moses for the tomb of Pope Julius II

In 1513, Pope Julius II died and was succeeded by Pope Leo X, the second son of Lorenzo dei Medici.^[41] Pope Leo commissioned Michelangelo to reconstruct the façade of the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence and to adorn it with sculptures. He agreed reluctantly and spent three years creating drawings and models for the façade, as well as attempting to open a new marble quarry at Pietrasanta specifically for the project. In 1520 the work was abruptly cancelled by his financially strapped patrons before any real progress had been made. The basilica lacks a façade to this day.^[45]

In 1520 the Medici came back to Michelangelo with another grand proposal, this time for a family funerary chapel in the Basilica of San Lorenzo.^[41] For posterity, this project, occupying the artist for much of the 1520s and 1530s, was more fully realised. Michelangelo used his own discretion to create the composition of the Medici Chapel, which houses the large tombs of two of the younger members of the Medici family, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, his nephew. It also serves to commemorate their more famous predecessors, Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, who are buried nearby. The tombs display statues of the two Medici and allegorical figures representing Night and Day, and Dusk and Dawn. The chapel also contains Michelangelo’s Medici Madonna.^[46] In 1976 a concealed corridor was discovered with drawings on the walls that related to the chapel itself.^[47][48]

Pope Leo X died in 1521 and was succeeded briefly by the austere Adrian VI, and then by his cousin Giulio Medici as Pope Clement VII.^[49] In 1524 Michelangelo received an architectural commission from the Medici pope for the Laurentian Library at San Lorenzo’s Church.^[41] He designed both the interior of the library itself and its vestibule, a building utilising architectural forms with such dynamic effect that it is seen as the forerunner of Baroque architecture. It was left to assistants to interpret his plans and carry out instruction. The library was not opened until 1571, and the vestibule remained incomplete until 1904.^[50]

In 1527, Florentine citizens, encouraged by the sack of Rome, threw out the Medici and restored the republic. A siege of the city ensued, and Michelangelo went to the aid of his beloved Florence by working on the city’s fortifications from 1528 to 1529. The city fell in 1530, and the Medici were restored to power.^[41] Michelangelo fell out of favour with the young Alessandro Medici, who had been installed as the first Duke of Florence. Fearing for his life, he fled to Rome, leaving assistants to complete the Medici chapel and the Laurentian Library. Despite Michelangelo’s support of the republic and resistance to the Medici rule, he was welcomed by Pope Clement, who reinstated an allowance that he had previously granted the artist and made a new contract with him over the tomb of Pope Julius.^[51]

Rome, 1534–1546

The Last Judgement (1534–1541)

In Rome, Michelangelo lived near the church of Santa Maria di Loreto. It was at this time that he met the poet Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara, who was to become one of his closest friends until her death in 1547.^[52]

Shortly before his death in 1534 Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint a fresco of The Last Judgement on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. His successor, Paul III, was instrumental in seeing that Michelangelo began and completed the project, which he laboured on from 1534 to October 1541.^[41] The fresco depicts the Second Coming of Christ and his Judgement of the souls. Michelangelo ignored the usual artistic conventions in portraying Jesus, showing him as a massive, muscular figure, youthful, beardless and naked.^[53] He is surrounded by saints, among whom Saint Bartholomew holds a drooping flayed skin, bearing the likeness of Michelangelo. The dead rise from their graves, to be consigned either to Heaven or to Hell.^[53]

Once completed, the depiction of Christ and the Virgin Mary naked was considered sacrilegious, and Cardinal Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua‘s ambassador) campaigned to have the fresco removed or censored, but the Pope resisted. At the Council of Trent, shortly before Michelangelo’s death in 1564, it was decided to obscure the genitals and Daniele da Volterra, an apprentice of Michelangelo, was commissioned to make the alterations.^[54] An uncensored copy of the original, by Marcello Venusti, is in the Capodimonte Museum of Naples.^[55]

Michelangelo worked on a number of architectural projects at this time. They included a design for the Capitoline Hill with its trapezoid piazza displaying the ancient bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius. He designed the upper floor of the Palazzo Farnese and the interior of the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, in which he transformed the vaulted interior of an Ancient Roman bathhouse. Other architectural works include San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, the Sforza Chapel (Capella Sforza) in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore and the Porta Pia.^[56]

St Peter’s Basilica, 1546–1564

Main article: St Peter’s Basilica § Architecture

The dome of St Peter’s Basilica

While still working on the Last Judgement, Michelangelo received yet another commission for the Vatican. This was for the painting of two large frescos in the Cappella Paolina depicting significant events in the lives of the two most important saints of Rome, the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Crucifixion of Saint Peter. Like the Last Judgement, these two works are complex compositions containing a great number of figures.^[57] They were completed in 1550. In the same year, Giorgio Vasari published his Vita, including a biography of Michelangelo.^[58]

In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.^[41] The process of replacing the Constantinian basilica of the 4th century had been underway for fifty years and in 1506 foundations had been laid to the plans of Bramante. Successive architects had worked on it, but little progress had been made. Michelangelo was persuaded to take over the project. He returned to the concepts of Bramante, and developed his ideas for a centrally planned church, strengthening the structure both physically and visually.^[59] The dome, not completed until after his death, has been called by Banister Fletcher, “the greatest creation of the Renaissance”.^[60]

As construction was progressing on St Peter’s, there was concern that Michelangelo would pass away before the dome was finished. However, once building commenced on the lower part of the dome, the supporting ring, the completion of the design was inevitable.

On 7 December 2007, a red chalk sketch for the dome of St Peter’s Basilica, possibly the last made by Michelangelo before his death, was discovered in the Vatican archives. It is extremely rare, since he destroyed his designs later in life. The sketch is a partial plan for one of the radial columns of the cupola drum of Saint Peter’s.^[61]

Personal life

Ignudo fresco from 1509 on the Sistine Chapel ceiling

Michelangelo, drawn from sight by Francisco de Holanda in the late 1530s.

Faith

Michelangelo was a devout Catholic whose faith deepened at the end of his life.^[62] His poetry includes the following closing lines from what is known as poem 285 (written in 1554); “Neither painting nor sculpture will be able any longer to calm my soul, now turned toward that divine love that opened his arms on the cross to take us in.”^[63][64]

Personal habits

Michelangelo was abstemious in his personal life, and once told his apprentice, Ascanio Condivi: “However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man.”^[65] Condivi said he was indifferent to food and drink, eating “more out of necessity than of pleasure”^[65] and that he “often slept in his clothes and … boots.”^[65] His biographer Paolo Giovio says, “His nature was so rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid, and deprived posterity of any pupils who might have followed him.”^[66] He may not have minded, since he was by nature a solitary and melancholy person, bizzarro e fantastico, a man who “withdrew himself from the company of men.”^[67]

Relationships and poetry

It is impossible to know for certain whether Michelangelo had physical relationships (Condivi ascribed to him a “monk-like chastity”),^[68] but the nature of his sexuality is made apparent in his poetry.^[69] He wrote over three hundred sonnets and madrigals. The longest sequence displaying a great romantic friendship, was written to Tommaso dei Cavalieri (c. 1509–1587), who was 23 years old when Michelangelo met him in 1532, at the age of 57. These make up the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed by one man to another; they predate by fifty years Shakespeare‘s sonnets to the fair youth:

I feel as lit by fire a cold countenance That burns me from afar and keeps itself ice-chill; A strength I feel two shapely arms to fill Which without motion moves every balance.— (Michael Sullivan, translation)

Cavalieri replied: “I swear to return your love. Never have I loved a man more than I love you, never have I wished for a friendship more than I wish for yours.” Cavalieri remained devoted to Michelangelo until his death.^[70]

In 1542, Michelangelo met Cecchino dei Bracci who died only a year later, inspiring Michelangelo to write forty-eight funeral epigrams. Some of the objects of Michelangelo’s affections, and subjects of his poetry, took advantage of him: the model Febo di Poggio asked for money in response to a love-poem, and a second model, Gherardo Perini, stole from him shamelessly.^[70]

The openly homoerotic nature of the poetry has been a source of discomfort to later generations. Michelangelo’s grandnephew, Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, published the poems in 1623 with the gender of pronouns changed,^[71] and it was not until John Addington Symonds translated them into English in 1893 that the original genders were restored. Even in modern times some scholars continue to insist that, despite the restoration of the pronouns, they represent “an emotionless and elegant re-imagining of Platonic dialogue, whereby erotic poetry was seen as an expression of refined sensibilities”.^[70]

Late in life, Michelangelo nurtured a great platonic love for the poet and noble widow Vittoria Colonna, whom he met in Rome in 1536 or 1538 and who was in her late forties at the time. They wrote sonnets for each other and were in regular contact until she died. These sonnets mostly deal with the spiritual issues that occupied them.^[72] Condivi recalls Michelangelo’s saying that his sole regret in life was that he did not kiss the widow’s face in the same manner that he had her hand.^[52]

Feuds with other artists

In a letter from late 1542, Michelangelo blamed the tensions between Julius II and himself on the envy of Bramante and Raphael, saying of the latter, “all he had in art, he got from me”. According to Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Michelangelo and Raphael met once: the former was alone, while the latter was accompanied by several others. Michelangelo commented that he thought he had encountered the chief of police with such an assemblage, and Raphael replied that he thought he had met an executioner, as they are wont to walk alone.^[73]

Works

Madonna and Child

The Madonna of the Steps is Michelangelo’s earliest known work in marble. It is carved in shallow relief, a technique often employed by the master-sculptor of the early 15th century, Donatello, and others such as Desiderio da Settignano.^[74] While the Madonna is in profile, the easiest aspect for a shallow relief, the child displays a twisting motion that was to become characteristic of Michelangelo’s work. The Taddeo Tondo of 1502 shows the Christ Child frightened by a Bullfinch, a symbol of the Crucifixion.^[37] The lively form of the child was later adapted by Raphael in the Bridgewater Madonna. The Bruges Madonna was, at the time of its creation, unlike other such statues depicting the Virgin proudly presenting her son. Here, the Christ Child, restrained by his mother’s clasping hand, is about to step off into the world.^[75] The Doni Tondo, depicting the Holy Family, has elements of all three previous works: the frieze of figures in the background has the appearance of a low-relief, while the circular shape and dynamic forms echo the Taddeo Tondo. The twisting motion present in the Bruges Madonna is accentuated in the painting. The painting heralds the forms, movement and colour that Michelangelo was to employ on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.^[37]

• The Madonna of the Steps (1490–92)
• The Taddei Tondo (1502)
• Madonna and Child. Bruges, Belgium (1504)
• The Doni Tondo (1504–06)

Male figure

The kneeling angel is an early work, one of several that Michelangelo created as part of a large decorative scheme for the Arca di San Domenico in the church dedicated to that saint in Bologna. Several other artists had worked on the scheme, beginning with Nicola Pisano in the 13th century. In the late 15th century, the project was managed by Niccolò dell’Arca. An angel holding a candlestick, by Niccolò, was already in place.^[76] Although the two angels form a pair, there is a great contrast between the two works, the one depicting a delicate child with flowing hair clothed in Gothic robes with deep folds, and Michelangelo’s depicting a robust and muscular youth with eagle’s wings, clad in a garment of Classical style. Everything about Michelangelo’s angel is dynamic.^[77] Michelangelo’s Bacchus was a commission with a specified subject, the youthful God of Wine. The sculpture has all the traditional attributes, a vine wreath, a cup of wine and a fawn, but Michelangelo ingested an air of reality into the subject, depicting him with bleary eyes, a swollen bladder and a stance that suggests he is unsteady on his feet.^[76] While the work is plainly inspired by Classical sculpture, it is innovative for its rotating movement and strongly three-dimensional quality, which encourages the viewer to look at it from every angle.^[78] In the so-called Dying Slave, Michelangelo has again utilised the figure with marked contraposto to suggest a particular human state, in this case waking from sleep. With the Rebellious Slave, it is one of two such earlier figures for the Tomb of Pope Julius II, now in the Louvre, that the sculptor brought to an almost finished state.^[79] These two works were to have a profound influence on later sculpture, through Rodin who studied them at the Louvre.^[80] The Bound Slave is one of the later figures for Pope Julius’ tomb. The works, known collectively as The Captives, each show the figure struggling to free itself, as if from the bonds of the rock in which it is lodged. The works give a unique insight into the sculptural methods that Michelangelo employed and his way of revealing what he perceived within the rock.^[81]

• Angel by Michelangelo, early work (1494–95)
• Bacchus by Michelangelo, early work (1496–97)
• Dying slave, Louvre (1513)
• Bound slave, known as Atlas (1530–34)

Sistine Chapel ceiling

Main article: Sistine Chapel ceiling

The Sistine Chapel ceiling was painted between 1508 and 1512.^[41] The ceiling is a flattened barrel vault supported on twelve triangular pendentives that rise from between the windows of the chapel. The commission, as envisaged by Pope Julius II, was to adorn the pendentives with figures of the twelve apostles.^[82] Michelangelo, who was reluctant to take the job, persuaded the Pope to give him a free hand in the composition.^[83] The resultant scheme of decoration awed his contemporaries and has inspired other artists ever since.^[84] The scheme is of nine panels illustrating episodes from the Book of Genesis, set in an architectonic frame. On the pendentives, Michelangelo replaced the proposed Apostles with Prophets and Sibyls who heralded the coming of the Messiah.^[83]

The Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508–12)

Michelangelo began painting with the later episodes in the narrative, the pictures including locational details and groups of figures, the Drunkenness of Noah being the first of this group.^[83] In the later compositions, painted after the initial scaffolding had been removed, Michelangelo made the figures larger.^[83] One of the central images, The Creation of Adam is one of the best known and most reproduced works in the history of art. The final panel, showing the Separation of Light from Darkness is the broadest in style and was painted in a single day. As the model for the Creator, Michelangelo has depicted himself in the action of painting the ceiling.^[83]

• The Drunkenness of Noah
• The Deluge (detail)
• The Creation of Adam (1510)
• The First day of Creation

As supporters to the smaller scenes, Michelangelo painted twenty youths who have variously been interpreted as angels, as muses, or simply as decoration. Michelangelo referred to them as “ignudi”.^[85] The figure reproduced may be seen in context in the above image of the Separation of Light from Darkness. In the process of painting the ceiling, Michelangelo made studies for different figures, of which some, such as that for The Libyan Sibyl have survived, demonstrating the care taken by Michelangelo in details such as the hands and feet.^[86] The Prophet Jeremiah, contemplating the downfall of Jerusalem, is an image of the artist himself.

• Studies for The Libyan Sibyl
• The Libyan Sibyl (1511)
• The Cumaean Sibyl
• The Prophet Jeremiah (1511)
• Ignudo

Figure compositions

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Michelangelo’s relief of the Battle of the Centaurs, created while he was still a youth associated with the Medici Academy, is an unusually complex relief in that it shows a great number of figures involved in a vigorous struggle. Such a complex disarray of figures was rare in Florentine art, where it would usually only be found in images showing either the Massacre of the Innocents or the Torments of Hell. The relief treatment, in which some of the figures are boldly projecting, may indicate Michelangelo’s familiarity with Roman sarcophagus reliefs from the collection of Lorenzo Medici, and similar marble panels created by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, and with the figurative compositions on Ghiberti‘s Baptistry Doors.

The composition of the Battle of Cascina is known in its entirety only from copies, as the original cartoon, according to Vasari, was so admired that it deteriorated and was eventually in pieces. It reflects the earlier relief in the energy and diversity of the figures, with many different postures, and many being viewed from the back, as they turn towards the approaching enemy and prepare for battle.

In The Last Judgment it is said that Michelangelo drew inspiration from a fresco by Melozzo da Forlì in Rome’s Santi Apostoli. Melozzo had depicted figures from different angles, as if they were floating in the Heaven and seen from below. Melozzo’s majestic figure of Christ, with windblown cloak, demonstrates a degree of foreshortening of the figure that had also been employed by Andrea Mantegna, but was not usual in the frescos of Florentine painters. In The Last Judgement Michelangelo had the opportunity to depict, on an unprecedented scale, figures in the action of either rising heavenward or falling and being dragged down.

In the two frescos of the Pauline Chapel, The Crucifixion of St. Peter and The Conversion of Saul, Michelangelo has used the various groups of figures to convey a complex narrative. In the Crucifixion of Peter soldiers busy themselves about their assigned duty of digging a post hole and raising the cross while various people look on and discuss the events. A group of horrified women cluster in the foreground, while another group of Christians is led by a tall man to witness the events. In the right foreground, Michelangelo walks out of the painting with an expression of disillusionment.

• Battle of the Centaurs (1492)
• Copy of the lost Battle of Cascina by Bastiano da Sangallo
• The Last Judgment, detail of the Redeemed. (see whole image above)
• The Crucifixion of St. Peter

Architecture

Michelangelo’s architectural commissions included a number that were not realised, notably the façade for Brunelleschi‘s Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, for which Michelangelo had a wooden model constructed, but which remains to this day unfinished rough brick. At the same church, Giulio de’ Medici (later Pope Clement VII) commissioned him to design the Medici Chapel and the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo Medici.^[87] Pope Clement also commissioned the Laurentian Library, for which Michelangelo also designed the extraordinary vestibule with columns recessed into niches, and a staircase that appears to spill out of the library like a flow of lava, according to Nikolaus Pevsner, “… revealing Mannerism in its most sublime architectural form.”^[88]

In 1546 Michelangelo produced the highly complex ovoid design for the pavement of the Campidoglio and began designing an upper storey for the Farnese Palace. In 1547 he took on the job of completing St Peter’s Basilica, begun to a design by Bramante, and with several intermediate designs by several architects. Michelangelo returned to Bramante’s design, retaining the basic form and concepts by simplifying and strengthening the design to create a more dynamic and unified whole.^[89] Although the late 16th-century engraving depicts the dome as having a hemispherical profile, the dome of Michelangelo’s model is somewhat ovoid and the final product, as completed by Giacomo della Porta, is more so.^[89]

• The vestibule of the Laurentian Library has Mannerist features which challenge the Classical order of Brunelleschi’s adjacent church.
• Michelangelo’s redesign of the ancient Capitoline Hill included a complex spiralling pavement with a star at its centre.
• Michelangelo’s design for St Peter’s is both massive and contained, with the corners between the apsidal arms of the Greek Cross filled by square projections.
• The exterior is surrounded by a giant order of pilasters supporting a continuous cornice. Four small cupolas cluster around the dome.

Final years

In his old age, Michelangelo created a number of Pietàs in which he apparently reflects upon mortality. They are heralded by the Victory, perhaps created for the tomb of Pope Julius II but left unfinished. In this group, the youthful victor overcomes an older hooded figure, with the features of Michelangelo.

Self-portrait of the artist as Nicodemus

Portrait of Michelangelo on a medal for his 88th birthday by Leone Leoni.

The Pietà of Vittoria Colonna is a chalk drawing of a type described as “presentation drawings”, as they might be given as a gift by an artist, and were not necessarily studies towards a painted work. In this image, Mary’s upraise arms and upraised hands are indicative of her prophetic role. The frontal aspect is reminiscent of Masaccio‘s fresco of the Holy Trinity in the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

In the Florentine Pietà, Michelangelo again depicts himself, this time as the aged Nicodemus lowering the body of Jesus from the cross into the arms of Mary his mother and Mary Magdalene. Michelangelo smashed the left arm and leg of the figure of Jesus. His pupil Tiberio Calcagni repaired the arm and drilled a hole in which to fix a replacement leg which was not subsequently attached. He also worked on the figure of Mary Magdalene.^[90][91]

The last sculpture that Michelangelo worked on (six days before his death), the Rondanini Pietà could never be completed because Michelangelo carved it away until there was insufficient stone. The legs and a detached arm remain from a previous stage of the work. As it remains, the sculpture has an abstract quality, in keeping with 20th-century concepts of sculpture.^[92][93]

Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564, at the age of 88 (three weeks before his 89th birthday). His body was taken from Rome for interment at the Basilica of Santa Croce, fulfilling the maestro’s last request to be buried in his beloved Florence.^[94]

• Statue of Victory (1534), Palazzo Vecchio, Florence
• The Pietà of Vittoria Colonna (c. 1540)
• The Rondanini Pietà (1552–64)

In popular culture

Movies

• Vita di Michelangelo (1964)^[95]
• The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), directed by Carol Reed and starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo^[96]
• A Season of Giants (1990)^[97][98][99]
• Michelangelo – Endless (2018), starring Enrico Lo Verso as Michelangelo^[100]
• Sin (2019), directed by Andrei Konchalovsky^[101]

Legacy

Main article: List of works by Michelangelo

Michelangelo’s tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.

Michelangelo, with Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, is one of the three giants of the Florentine High Renaissance. Although their names are often cited together, Michelangelo was younger than Leonardo by 23 years, and older than Raphael by eight. Because of his reclusive nature, he had little to do with either artist and outlived both of them by more than forty years. Michelangelo took few sculpture students. He employed Francesco Granacci, who was his fellow pupil at the Medici Academy, and became one of several assistants on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.^[43] Michelangelo appears to have used assistants mainly for the more manual tasks of preparing surfaces and grinding colours. Despite this, his works were to have a great influence on painters, sculptors and architects for many generations to come.

While Michelangelo’s David is the most famous male nude of all time and destined to be reproduced in order to grace cities around the world, some of his other works have had perhaps even greater impact on the course of art. The twisting forms and tensions of the Victory, the Bruges Madonna and the Medici Madonna make them the heralds of the Mannerist art. The unfinished giants for the tomb of Pope Julius II had profound effect on late-19th- and 20th-century sculptors such as Rodin and Henry Moore.

Michelangelo’s foyer of the Laurentian Library was one of the earliest buildings to utilise Classical forms in a plastic and expressive manner. This dynamic quality was later to find its major expression in Michelangelo’s centrally planned St Peter’s, with its giant order, its rippling cornice and its upward-launching pointed dome. The dome of St Peter’s was to influence the building of churches for many centuries, including Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome and St Paul’s Cathedral, London, as well as the civic domes of many public buildings and the state capitals across America.

Artists who were directly influenced by Michelangelo include Raphael, whose monumental treatment of the figure in the School of Athens and The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple owes much to Michelangelo, and whose fresco of Isaiah in Sant’Agostino closely imitates the older master’s prophets.^[102] Other artists, such as Pontormo, drew on the writhing forms of the Last Judgement and the frescoes of the Capella Paolina.^[103]

The Sistine Chapel ceiling was a work of unprecedented grandeur, both for its architectonic forms, to be imitated by many Baroque ceiling painters, and also for the wealth of its inventiveness in the study of figures. Vasari wrote:

The work has proved a veritable beacon to our art, of inestimable benefit to all painters, restoring light to a world that for centuries had been plunged into darkness. Indeed, painters no longer need to seek for new inventions, novel attitudes, clothed figures, fresh ways of expression, different arrangements, or sublime subjects, for this work contains every perfection possible under those headings.^[104]

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Woody Allen On Bergman

https://youtu.be/npHqAO3hj54

Woody Allen On Bergman

https://youtu.be/o_ev-c4rINA

Woody Allen Show

Essay on Woody Allen films

Match point Trailer

Match point

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Crimes and misdemeanors

Part 2

Part 3

Woody commenting on Midnight in Paris

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https://youtu.be/EnHX7MQDV4E

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November 4, 2019

Woody Allen c/o Randon House, 1745 Broadway, New York,NY 10019

Dear Woody,

You ask the right questions but you have not looked closely at the answers that the infinite personal God of the Bible has given. Richard Land makes that very point in the below article:

Dr. Jack Graham Challenges Agnostic Woody Allen’s ‘Hopeless State of Mind’

By Nicola Menzie , Christian Post Reporter | Aug 23, 2013 4:51 PM

Prolific Hollywood filmmaker and religious skeptic Woody Allen maintains in a recent interview that human life on earth is “just an accident” filled with “silly little moments,” and the “best you can do to get through life is distraction.”

The filmmaker also has many diehard fans, surprisingly it seems, among evangelical Christians, according to a Washington Post “Under God” blog entry published in 2011 and titled “Woody Allen and evangelicals: A surprisingly romantic pair.”

“Many of Allen’s films wrestle in a complex way with core moral themes, such as the nature of forgiveness, what to do with sin, whether life can have any meaning without God. And he does this as an agnostic,” Michelle Boorstein writes in the blog post.

Richard Land, seminary president, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and executive editor of The Christian Post, is “a huge Allen fan and can rattle off an amazing amount of dialogue,” according to the article.

Land suggested that Allen had lost some of his “light touch” and “confidence,” and that his more recent movies expose an awareness of “his own mortality.”

The Southern Baptist leader said Allen “asks all the right questions, he just doesn’t have the right answers.”

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Christianity is different than every other religion for two reasons according to Francis Schaeffer:

In every other religion we have to do something–everything from burning a joss stick to sacrificing our firstborn child to dropping a coin the collection plate–the whole spectrum. But with Christianity we do not do anything; God has done it all: He has created us and He has sent His Son; His Son died and because the Son is infinite, therefore He bears out total guilt. We do not need to bear our guilt, nor do we even have to merit the merit of Christ. He does it all. So in one way it is the easiest religion in the world….

In the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, and especially in the extensive notes of fifth chapter [shows] the way the Bible measures up to history. Once we say that, this is very exciting. It is very exciting because other religions are not founded in history, they are “out there” somewhere, or you can think of them as inside your own head–whichever way you are looking at it. On the other hand, the Bible claims to rooted in history. 

Taking a look at the holy books of Islam and Mormonism and  you find many historical inaccuracies.  For instance, the Book of Mormon was wrong about horses, cows, steel, honey bees and barley existing in North America 2000 years ago. Furthermore, in 2012 during the Presidential Race Harry Kroto also asked why no one seemed to ask Mitt Romney if he actually believed that Christ visited North America 2000 years ago as the Book of Mormon claimed.

Blaise Pascal asserted, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”  In other words, the spiritual answers your heart is seeking can be  found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Let me close by talking to you about the ROMAN ROAD TO CHRIST.

1. Rom. 3:10, “As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one . . . “
2. Rom. 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
3. Rom. 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”
4. Rom. 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
5. Rom. 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
6. Rom. 10:9-10, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”
7. Rom. 10:13, “For whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

Midnight in Paris trailer

The movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS offers many of the same themes we see in Ecclesiastes. The second post looked at the question: WAS THERE EVER A GOLDEN AGE AND DID THE MOST TALENTED UNIVERSAL MEN OF THAT TIME FIND TRUE SATISFACTION DURING IT?

In the third post in this series we discover in Ecclesiastes that man UNDER THE SUN finds himself caught in the never ending cycle of birth and death. The SURREALISTS make a leap into the area of nonreason in order to get out of this cycle and that is why the scene in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS with Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Luis Bunuel works so well!!!! These surrealists look to the area of their dreams to find a meaning for their lives and their break with reality is  only because they know that they can’t find a rational meaning in life without God in the picture.

The fourth post looks at the solution of WINE, WOMEN AND SONG and the fifth and sixth posts look at the solution T.S.Eliotfound in the Christian Faith and how he left his fragmented message of pessimism behind. In the seventh post the SURREALISTS say that time and chance is all we have but how can that explain love or art and the hunger for God? The eighth  post looks at the subject of DEATH both in Ecclesiastes and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. In the ninth post we look at the nihilistic worldview of Woody Allen and why he keeps putting suicides into his films.

In the tenth post I show how Woody Allen pokes fun at the brilliant thinkers of this world and how King Solomon did the same thing 3000 years ago. In the eleventh post I point out how many of Woody Allen’s liberal political views come a lack of understanding of the sinful nature of man and where it originated. In the twelfth post I look at the mannishness of man and vacuum in his heart that can only be satisfied by a relationship with God.

In the thirteenth post we look at the life of Ernest Hemingway as pictured in MIDNIGHT AND PARIS and relate it to the change of outlook he had on life as the years passed. In the fourteenth post we look at Hemingway’s idea of Paris being a movable  feast. The fifteenth and sixteenth posts both compare Hemingway’s statement, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know…”  with Ecclesiastes 2:18 “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” The seventeenth post looks at these words Woody Allen put into Hemingway’s mouth,  “We fear death because we feel that we haven’t loved well enough or loved at all.”

In MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Hemingway and Gil Pender talk about their literary idol Mark Twain and the eighteenth post is summed up nicely by Kris Hemphill‘swords, “Both Twain and [King Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes] voice questions our souls long to have answered: Where does one find enduring meaning, life purpose, and sustainable joy, and why do so few seem to find it? The nineteenth post looks at the tension felt both in the life of Gil Pender (written by Woody Allen) in the movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and in Mark Twain’s life and that is when an atheist says he wants to scoff at the idea THAT WE WERE PUT HERE FOR A PURPOSE but he must stay face the reality of  Ecclesiastes 3:11 that says “God has planted eternity in the heart of men…” and  THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING! Therefore, the secular view that there is no such thing as love or purpose looks implausible. The twentieth post examines how Mark Twain discovered just like King Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes that there is no explanation  for the suffering and injustice that occurs in life UNDER THE SUN. Solomon actually brought God back into the picture in the last chapter and he looked  ABOVE THE SUN for the books to be balanced and for the tears to be wiped away.

The twenty-first post looks at the words of King Solomon, Woody Allen and Mark Twain that without God in the picture our lives UNDER THE SUN will accomplish nothing that lasts. Thetwenty-second post looks at King Solomon’s experiment 3000 years that proved that luxuries can’t bring satisfaction to one’s life but we have seen this proven over and over through the ages. Mark Twain lampooned the rich in his book “The Gilded Age” and he discussed  get rich quick fever, but Sam Clemens loved money and the comfort and luxuries it could buy. Likewise Scott Fitzgerald  was very successful in the 1920’s after his publication of THE GREAT GATSBY and lived a lavish lifestyle until his death in 1940 as a result of alcoholism.

In the twenty-third post we look at Mark Twain’s statement that people should either commit suicide or stay drunk if they are “demonstrably wise” and want to “keep their reasoning faculties.” We actually see this play out in the film MIDNIGHT IN PARIS with the character Zelda Fitzgerald. In the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth posts I look at Mark Twain and the issue of racism. In MIDNIGHT IN PARIS we see the difference between the attitudes concerning race in 1925 Paris and the rest of the world.

The twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth posts are summing up Mark Twain. In the 29th post we ask did MIDNIGHT IN PARIS accurately portray Hemingway’s personality and outlook on life? and in the 30th post the life and views of Hemingway are summed up.

In the 31st post we will observe that just like Solomon Picasso slept with many women. Solomon actually slept with  over 1000 women ( Eccl 2:8, I Kings 11:3), and both men ended their lives bitter against all women and in the 32nd post we look at what happened to these former lovers of Picasso. In the 33rd post we see that Picasso  deliberately painted his secular  worldview of fragmentation on his canvas but he could not live with the loss of humanness and he reverted back at crucial points and painted those he loved with all his genius and with all their humanness!!! In the 34th post  we notice that both Solomon in Ecclesiastes and Picasso in his painting had an obsession with the issue of their impending death!!!

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In MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Gil Pender ponders the advice he gets from his literary heroes from the 1920’s. King Solomon in Ecclesiastes painted a dismal situation for modern man in life UNDER THE SUN  and many modern artists, poets, and philosophers have agreed. In the 1920’s T.S.Eliot and his  house guest Bertrand Russell were two of […]

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