My name is Everette Hatcher III. I am a businessman in Little Rock and have been living in Bryant since 1993. My wife Jill and I have four kids (Rett 24, Hunter 22, Murphey 16, and Wilson 14).
Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]
Stearns Speaks on House Floor in Support of Balanced Budget Amendment Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Nov 18, 2011 Speaking on House floor in support of Balanced Budget Resolution, 11/18/2011 ___________ Below are some of the main proposals of Milton Friedman. I highly respected his work. David J. Theroux said this about Milton Friedman’s view concerning […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!! Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008 PRINT PAGE CITE THIS Sans Serif Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]
Milton Friedman on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” 1994 Interview 2 of 2 Uploaded by PenguinProseMedia on Oct 26, 2011 2nd half of 1994 interview. ________________ I have a lot of respect for the Friedmans.Two Lucky People by Milton and Rose Friedman reviewed by David Frum — October 1998. However, I liked this review below better. It […]
Milton Friedman on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” 1994 Interview 1 of 2 Uploaded by PenguinProseMedia on Oct 25, 2011 Says Federal Reserve should be abolished, criticizes Keynes. One of Friedman’s best interviews, discussion spans Friedman’s career and his view of numerous political figures and public policy issues. ___________________ Here is a review of “Two Lucky People.” […]
Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
In his lyrics to “Awaiting on You All”, Harrison espouses a direct relationship with God over adherence to the tenets of organised religion. Influenced by both his association with London-based Hare Krishna devotees, known as the Radha Krishna Temple, and the Vedanta-inspired teachings of Swami Vivekananda, Harrison sings of chanting God’s name as a means to cleanse and liberate oneself from the impurities of the material world. While acknowledging the validity of all faiths, in essence, his song words explicitly criticise the Pope and the perceived materialism of the Catholic Church – a verse that EMI and Capitol Records continue to omit from the album’s lyrics. He also questions the validity of John Lennon and Yoko Ono‘s 1969 campaign for world peace, reflecting a divergence of philosophies between Harrison and his former bandmate after their shared interest in Hindu spirituality in 1967–68.
Several commentators have identified “Awaiting on You All” as one of the highlights of All Things Must Pass; author and critic Richard Williams likens it to the Spector-produced “River Deep – Mountain High“, by Ike & Tina Turner.[1] The track is featured in the books 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery and 1001 Songs by Toby Creswell. A similarly well-regarded live version, with backing from a large band including Clapton, Ringo Starr, Preston and Jim Keltner, was released on the 1971 album The Concert for Bangladesh and appeared in the 1972 film of the same name. Harrison’s posthumous compilation Early Takes: Volume 1 (2012) includes a demo version of the song, recorded early in the 1970 sessions for All Things Must Pass.
In his book While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Simon Leng describes George Harrison‘s musical projects outside the Beatles during 1969–70 – such as producing American gospel and soul artists Billy Preston and Doris Troy, and touring with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends – as the completion of “a musical-philosophical circle”, which resulted in his post-Beatles solo album All Things Must Pass (1970).[2] Among the songs on that triple album, “My Sweet Lord” and “Awaiting on You All” each reflect Harrison’s immersion in Krishna Consciousness,[3][4] via his association with the UK branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known as the Radha Krishna Temple.[5] An ISKCON devotee since 1970, author Joshua Greene writes of All Things Must Pass providing an “intimately detailed account of a spiritual journey”, which had begun with Harrison’s embracing of Hinduism while in India in September–October 1966.[6]
Having long disavowed the Catholic faith of his upbringing,[7] from 1966 Harrison was inspired by the teachings of Indian yogiSwami Vivekananda.[8][9] The latter’s contention that “Each soul is potentially divine, the goal is to manifest that divinity” particularly resonated with Harrison in its contrast to the doctrine of the Catholic Church.[10] By 1967, Harrison’s religious awakening had progressed to include Gaudiya Vaishnava chanting,[11] a form of meditation that he shared with his Beatles bandmate John Lennon[12][13]and would go on to espouse in “Awaiting on You All”.[14] Further to Vivekananda’s assertion, chanting the Hare Krishna or other Sanskrit-worded mantras has, author Gary Tillery writes, “the ability to send spiritual energy through the body, leading to the enlightenment of the person chanting”.[15]
Whereas Lennon’s interest in spiritual matters waned following the Beatles’ visit to India in 1968,[16][17][18] Harrison’s involvement with the Radha Krishna Temple led to him producing two hit singles by the devotees over 1969–70, “Hare Krishna Mantra” and “Govinda”.[19][20][nb 1] While Lennon and his partner, Yoko Ono, undertook a highly publicised campaign for world peace during 1969,[24][25] Harrison believed that all human suffering could be averted if individuals focused on addressing their own imperfections rather than, as he put it, “trying to fix everybody else up like the Lone Ranger”.[26][27] This divergence in philosophy also formed part of Harrison’s subject matter for “Awaiting on You All”,[28] a song that, Greene writes, “projected his message to the world”.[29]
I was cleaning my teeth … and suddenly in my head came this “You don’t need a dum dada-pmm pa-pmm-pa, you don’t need a bmm papa-bmm.” All I had to do was pick up the guitar, find what key it was in, and fill in the missing words.[30]
– Harrison, on writing “Awaiting on You All”
In an October 1974 radio interview with Alan Freeman,[31] Harrison recalled writing “Awaiting on You All” while preparing to go to bed, and mentioned it as a composition that had come easily to him.[32] In his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison states that his inspiration for the song was “Japa Yoga meditation”,[33] whereby mantras are sung and counted out on prayer beads.[34]Musically, the composition has elements of gospel and rock music;[35] Leng describes it as “gospel-drenched” and cites Harrison’s production of “Sing One for the Lord“, which Preston recorded with the Edwin Hawkins Singers in early 1970, as a “catalyst” for the new composition.[36] The song opens with a descending guitar riff,[37] later repeated after each chorus,[1] which ends on the melody’s root chord of B major.[38]
In his lyrics to “Awaiting on You All”, Harrison conveys the importance of experiencing spirituality directly, while rejecting organised religion as well as political and intellectual substitutes.[28]Author Ian Inglis writes that the lyrics recognise the merit in all faiths, as Harrison sings that the key to any religion is to “open up your heart“.[39] The choruses proclaim that individual freedom from the physical or material world can be attained through “chanting the names of the Lord“,[40] implying that there is a single deity who happens to be called by different names depending on the faith.[39][41]
The song’s three verses[42] provide a list of items or concepts that are unnecessary to this realisation.[41][43] The opening lines – “You don’t need no love-in / You don’t need no bed pan” – serve as a criticism of Lennon and Ono’s bed-ins and other forms of peace activism during 1969.[28][39] While Inglis views these words as indicative of a possible rift in Harrison’s relationship with Lennon,[39] Leng identifies the “tongue-lashing for John and Yoko” as the singer dismissing “all political-cum-intellectual musings”.[28][nb 2] Harrison then uses what Christian theologian Dale Allison terms “the language of pollution” to describe the problems afflicting the world,[46] and offers a method by which to cleanse oneself spiritually.[15]
In verse two,[47] Harrison sings of the futility of passports and travel for those searching to “see Jesus“, since an open heart will reveal that Christ is “right there“.[48] Allison remarks on the song expressing Harrison’s “syncretistic view of Jesus”, a view he shared with Lennon, and cites comments that Harrison later made to Radha Krishna Temple co-founder[49]Mukunda Goswami, that Christ was “an absolute yogi” yet modern-day Christian teachers misrepresent him and “[let] him down very badly”.[50]
Pope Paul VI, whose papal office in 1970 Harrison scorned in his song lyrics
In the song’s final verse,[51] Harrison states that churches, temples, religious texts and the rosary beads associated with Catholic worship are no substitute for a direct relationship with God.[41][43] These symbols of organised religion “meant searching in the wrong places”, Tillery writes, when in keeping with Vivekananda’s philosophy, “the spark of the divine is within us all. Every person is therefore the child of God …”[52]AllMusic critic Lindsay Planer comments on Harrison’s “observation of [religious] repression” in the lines “We’ve been kept down so long / Someone’s thinking that we’re all green.”[43]
Harrison’s most scathing criticism is directed at the Pope,[41] in the lines: “While the Pope owns 51% of General Motors / And the stock exchange is the only thing he’s qualified to quote us.“[28] Contrasting this statement with Harrison’s song-wide message that God “waits on us to wake up and open our hearts”, Allison concludes: “whereas the Lord is about the business of helping human beings to wake up, the Pope is about the business of business.”[53]
In his book No Sympathy for the Devil, Dave Ware Stowe writes of the effect of “Awaiting on You All” on Evangelical Christian sensibilities: “this was dangerous stuff. Harrison’s lyrics exemplified what many in the Jesus Movement considered a lure and snare of the devil. No doubt the song was spiritually resonant, even reverent, but it leaves the all-important object of veneration vague.”[54]
While identifying a similar ISKCON-inspired theme in Harrison’s 1973 song “The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord)“, Allison discusses “Awaiting on You All” as a precedent for further statements by Harrison against organised religion, particularly Catholicism.[53] Among these, Harrison parodied the Last Supper in his inner-gatefold artwork for Living in the Material World (1973),[55] dressed as a Catholic priest and again mocking the “perceived materialism and violence of the Roman church”, according to Allison.[56][nb 3] In addition, in his role as film producer, Harrison supported Monty Python‘s controversial parodying of the biblical story of Christ in Life of Brian (1979),[60] about which he said: “Actually, [the film] was upholding Him and knocking all the idiotic stuff that goes on around religion.”[61]
Harrison and American producer Phil Spector began discussing the possibility of Harrison recording a solo album of songs in early 1970,[62] after they had worked together on Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band single “Instant Karma!“[63] Before then, to show his support for Spector’s comeback from self-imposed retirement, Harrison had supplied a written endorsement of the producer’s work on the Ike & Tina Turner album River Deep – Mountain High, when A&M Records issued the three-year-old recordings in 1969.[64][65][nb 4] Long a fan of Spector’s sound,[68] Harrison praised River Deep – Mountain High with the words: “a perfect record from start to finish. You couldn’t improve on it.”[69]
Beatles biographer Peter Doggett suggests that Harrison had intended to make an entire album of devotional songs but, with that not being “an appropriate dish to set before Phil Spector”, Harrison chose to delay starting work on All Things Must Pass and instead continued his activities with the Radha Krishna Temple.[70][nb 5] It was only after Paul McCartney‘s departure from the Beatles, and the band’s break-up,[72] that Harrison finally began sessions for his solo album – in late May 1970, at Abbey Road Studios in London.[73] Noting Spector’s application of his signature Wall of Sound production on “Awaiting on You All”, Inglis writes that, but for Harrison’s lyrics, the song “could be mistaken for the instrumental track of a song by the Ronettes“,[74] one of Spector’s girl-group protégés during the 1960s.[75]
The line-up of musicians on the basic track included Harrison and Eric Clapton, on electric guitars; bassists Klaus Voormann and Carl Radle, one of whom plays six-string bass;[76] and drummer Jim Gordon, who formed Derek and the Dominos with Clapton and Radle during the sessions.[77] In addition, Bobby Whitlock, the fourth member of the Dominos – all of whom were formerly part of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends[78] – recalls playing Hammond organ on the song.[79] Authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter note the presence of a piano part on the recording as well.[76]
Derek and the Dominos, including Bobby Whitlock (third from left), founded in 1970 by former members of Delaney & Bonnie’s band
In his 2010 autobiography, Whitlock writes of Lennon and Ono visiting the studio during the All Things Must Pass sessions, during which Lennon “got his socks blown off” by the music Harrison was recording.[80][nb 6] The Hare Krishna devotees regularly attended the sessions also;[82] Spector later cited their presence as an example of how Harrison inspired tolerance in non-believers, since the Temple devotees could be “the biggest pain in the necks in the world”, according to Spector.[83][84] Among the many unreleased songs from the All Things Must Pass sessions, Harrison recorded his all-Sanskrit composition “Gopala Krishna”,[85] which Leng describes as “a rocking companion to ‘Awaiting on You All'”.[86]
Just listen to the leaping guitar/bass riff which opens the cut, or the great contrasting rhythms on maracas and tambourines, or the guitars sliding down at the end of each chorus before being cut off sharp by one of those cosmic thumps … The difference Phil Spector can make to a record becomes clear.[1]
Madinger and Easter view “Awaiting on You All” as one of the more “heavily Spectorized” productions on All Things Must Pass,[76] due to Spector’s liberal use of echo and other Wall of Sound techniques.[87] Among the extensive overdubs on the basic track, Harrison added what Leng terms a “virtual guitar orchestra” of harmonised slide guitar parts,[88] and former Delaney & Bonnie musicians[89]Jim Price and Bobby Keys supplied horns.[90] Whitlock and Clapton sang backing vocals with Harrison,[79] credited on the album as “the George O’Hara-Smith Singers”.[91]
The recording also features prominent percussion such as tambourine and maracas.[1] While the precise line-up on many of the songs on All Things Must Pass continues to invite conjecture,[92][93]Badfinger drummer Mike Gibbins has said that Spector nicknamed him “Mr Tambourine Man” due to his role on that instrument throughout the sessions,[94] and that he and future Yes drummer Alan White played most of the percussion parts on the album, “switch[ing] on tambourine, sticks, bells, maracas … whatever was needed”.[95]
Apple Records released All Things Must Pass on 27 November 1970,[96] with “Awaiting on You All” sequenced as the penultimate track on side three, in the original LP format, preceding the album’s title song.[97] Of the 23 tracks released on All Things Must Pass, it was one of the few overtly religious songs.[98][nb 7] Concerned at the potential offensiveness of the lyrics, EMI omitted verse three of “Awaiting on You All” from the lyric sheet.[39] Madinger and Easter write that the lyrical content of this verse “probably shot down any chances of it being the hit single it could otherwise have been”.[76]
Issued during a period when rock music was increasingly reflecting spiritual themes,[100]All This Must Pass was a major commercial success,[101][102] outselling releases that year by Harrison’s former bandmates,[103][104] and topping albums charts throughout the world.[105] Describing the impact of the album, with reference to “Awaiting on You All”‘s exhortation to “chant the names of the Lord”, author Nicholas Schaffner wrote of Harrison being “rewarded with a Number One single all over the world” with “My Sweet Lord”.[106]
On release, Rolling Stone critic Ben Gerson described “Awaiting on You All” as “a Lesley Gore rave-up in which George manages to rhyme ‘visas’ with ‘Jesus'”.[107] While he considered that lyrics such as “You’ve been polluted so long” “carry an air of sanctimoniousness and moral superiority which is offensive”, Gerson added: “Remarkably, he vindicates these lapses.”[107] Writing for the same magazine 30 years later, Anthony DeCurtis opined that “the heart of All Things Must Pass resides in its songs of spiritual acceptance”, and grouped “Awaiting on You All” with “My Sweet Lord” and “All Things Must Pass” as Harrison compositions that “capture the sweet satisfactions of faith”.[108] In his 1970 review for the NME, Alan Smith described “Awaiting on You All” as “a rapid fire thumper with good chord progressions” and “one of the better tracks” on the album.[109][110] AllMusic critic Richie Unterberger views “Awaiting on You All” as a highlight of a collection on which “nearly every song is excellent”,[111] while author and critic Bob Woffinden lists it with “My Sweet Lord”, “Isn’t It a Pity” and “What Is Life” as “all excellent songs”.[112]
In his book Phil Spector: Out of His Head, Richard Williams writes that, unlike Lennon and McCartney on their 1970 solo albums, “Harrison concentrated on pure joyous melodies – the kind of songs that had made the group so loved”, and he says of “Awaiting on You All”: “Spector repaid Harrison for his benediction on the Ike and Tina Turner album cover by turning it into a virtual remake of ‘River Deep – Mountain High’.”[113] Mark Ribowsky, another Spector biographer, writes of the producer’s contribution to this and other songs on All Things Must Pass: “Phil’s rhythmically pounding basses and drum feels sutured George’s sentimentality with cheerful energy and made Indian asceticism into dance music.”[114] Simon Leng describes “Awaiting on You All” as a “hot gospel stomper” and “the most successful example of Spector’s work on the album”.[115] Writing for NME Originals in 2005, Adrian Thrills named “Awaiting on You All” and “Wah-Wah” as examples of “a tendency to over-egg the mix” on the otherwise “magnificent” All Things Must Pass, adding: “it is hard to think of another big rock album on which the tambourine is shaken quite so relentlessly.”[116]
In his AllMusic article on the song, Lindsay Planer views it as “somewhat of a sacred rocker” with “ample lead guitar”, and comments that Harrison’s lyrics “cleverly [draw] upon an array of disparate imagery to convey a conversely simple spiritual revelation”.[43]Harrison biographer Alan Clayson considers the track “more uplifting” than “My Sweet Lord” and remarks on the aptness of Harrison’s subject matter in 1970–71, when religious texts such as the Bible, the Koran and ISKCON’s Chant and Be Happy “now had discreet places on hip bookshelves”.[117] Former Mojo editor Mat Snow describes the song as “glorious white gospel”, in which Harrison “rejects the Catholicism of his Liverpool upbringing”.[118]
“Awaiting on You All” has featured in the music reference books 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery[119] and 1001 Songs by Australian critic Toby Creswell.[35] The latter describes the combination of Harrison’s “tasteful” guitar parts and the “galloping” rhythm section as “sublime and divine”.[35] In Dimery’s book, contributor Bruno MacDonald writes of the track: “‘Awaiting on You All’ has a timeless exuberance that even Beatles-haters should experience.”[120]
“Awaiting on You All” was one of the songs Harrison played at the Concert for Bangladesh,[121] held at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 1 August 1971.[122] Featuring backing from a band including Clapton, Voormann, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner and Jim Horn,[123] Harrison performed the song at both the afternoon and the evening shows.[124] The latter performance was included on the Concert for Bangladesh live album, which Spector again co-produced,[125] and in the film of the concert.[126] Joshua Greene comments on there being a “logical chronology” to the first three songs in Harrison’s setlist for this second show: “starting with ‘Wah Wah,’ which declared his independence from the Beatles; followed by ‘My Sweet Lord,’ which celebrated his internal discovery of God and spirit; and then ‘Awaiting on You All'”.[29]
Writing in Rolling Stone, Jon Landau compared the less-polished performance of “Awaiting on You All” with the studio version’s “perfect production” and concluded: “it is exhilarating to hear his voice clearly singing the song for the first time, likewise the excellent guitar.”[127] In his album review for Melody Maker, Williams wrote of Harrison’s opening trio of songs: “Unbelievably, they’re as good as the originals, and in some ways even better, because they combine the power of the arrangements for horns and rhythm with a sense of joy that comes only in live performance. The two drummers (Ringo and Jim Keltner) are just breathtaking on ‘Awaiting’ …”[128] Planer also compliments what he calls “the tag-team percussion” of Starr and Keltner, which “driv[es] through the heart of the performance”.[43]
In February 2001, during his extensive promotion for the 30th anniversary reissue of All Things Must Pass,[129] Harrison named “Awaiting on You All” among his three favourite tracks on the album.[130][131] The electronic press kit accompanying the release included a scene where Harrison plays back the song at his Friar Park studio and isolates certain parts of the recording in turn, such as the backing vocals and slide guitars.[132] In the CD booklet, Harrison’s liner notes conclude with a thank-you to “the amazing Mr. Phil Spector” and the acknowledgement: “He helped me so much to get this record made. In his company I came to realise the true value of the Hare Krishna Mantra.”[133] The Pope-related lyrics in “Awaiting on You All” were again omitted from the booklet;[133] they similarly do not appear on the lyric sheet supplied with the 2014 Apple Years reissue.[134]
Part of the 2001 playback scene was included in Martin Scorsese‘s documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World,[135] and an early take from the 1970 sessions appeared on the bonus disc accompanying that film’s DVD release in late 2011.[136] This demo version, which Harrison introduces as “Awaiting for You All”,[137] was included on the compilation Early Takes: Volume 1 (2012).[138] Referring to Harrison’s stated regret at the amount of echo Spector used on All Things Must Pass, compilation producer Giles Martin says of the song’s sparse arrangement on Early Takes: “I think this is really cool, it’s got a good basic band groove, I think of it as George breaking down a wall of sound.”[137]
In 1971, Detroit band Silver Hawk released a cover version of “Awaiting on You All” as a single,[139] which peaked at number 108 on Billboard magazine’s Bubbling Under listings.[140] In Canada, Silver Hawk’s single climbed to number 49 on the RPM Top 100.[141] A cover “worth mentioning”, according to Planer, is a version recorded by pedal steel guitarist Joe Goldmark, released on the 1997 tribute album Steelin’ the Beatles.[43]
Jump up^Among his non-musical activities on behalf of the Hare Krishna devotees, Harrison served as co-lessor for the Temple’s new premises in central London,[21] and he financed the publication of ISKCON’s 400-page KRSNA Book.[22][23]
Jump up^In an April 1970 radio interview in New York,[44] Harrison referred to his difference in ideology with Lennon: “This is really where I disagreed with John … I don’t think you get peace by going around shouting: ‘GIVE PEACE A CHANCE, MAN!’ … [Instead,] put your own house in order; for a forest to be green, each tree must be green.”[45]
Jump up^Among his later songs, Harrison sent up the Catholic faith in the posthumously released “P2 Vatican Blues“.[57] In one of his final recordings before his death in November 2001, “Horse to the Water“,[58] Harrison sings of a “truth seeker” being denied access to God, Leng writes, by “religious civil servants for whom the organization and the rules have become more important than the message”.[59]
Jump up^Produced by Spector in 1966, the Turners’ album was withdrawn from release following the disappointing commercial reception afforded its title song in America.[66] Considering “River Deep – Mountain High” his masterpiece, Spector temporarily withdrew from the music industry after the single’s failure.[67]
Jump up^Harrison made a promotional visit to Paris with the ISKCON devotees in March 1970,[70] in addition to carrying out further recording in London for what became the Radha Krsna Temple album (1971).[71]
Jump up^In light of Harrison having had many of his songs turned down by Lennon and McCartney during the Beatles’ career, Whitlock recalls Harrison’s satisfaction after this visit, and suggests: “George’s new album was better than anything John had ever done, and [Lennon] knew that as well.”[81]
Jump up^In author Robert Rodriguez’s estimation, “My Sweet Lord” and “Hear Me Lord” are the only other tracks that directly express a religious message.[98] Leng similarly writes of “two key spiritual songs” on an album that focuses on Harrison’s “attempt to break free from his Beatles identity”.[99]
The New Mysticism What about the spread of Eastern religions and techniques within the West – things like TM, Yoga, the cults? We have moved beyond the counterculture of the sixties, but where to? These elements from the East no longer influence just the beat generation and the dropouts. Now they are fashionable for the middle classes as well. They are everywhere.
What about those who take drugs as a means of “expanding their consciousness”? This, too, is in the same direction. Your mind is a hindrance to you: “Blow it”! As Timothy Leary put it in The Politics of Ecstasy (1968): “Our favorite concepts are standing in the way of a flood tide two billion years building up. The verbal dam is collapsing. Head for the hills or prepare your intellectual craft to flow with the current.” So we see again the rejection of the mind. The verbal dam, the concepts, the intellectual craft? These must be bypassed by the “new man.”
Wherever we look, this is what confronts us: irrational experience. We must be careful not to be bewildered by the surface differences between these movements. We are not saying they are all the same. Of course there are differences. The secular existentialists, for example, disagree with one another. Then, too, secular existentialists differ with religious existentialists; the former tend to be pessimistic, the latter optimistic. Some of the movements are serious and command our respect. Some are just bizarre. There are differences. Yet, all of them represent the new mysticism! The problem with mysticism of this sort is, interestingly enough, the same problem we considered earlier in relation to all humanistic systems. Who is going to say what is right?
As soon as one removes the checking mechanism of the mind by which to measure things, everything can then be “right” and everything can also be “wrong.” Eventually, anything and everything can be allowed! Take a simple example from life: If you are asking for directions in a city, you first listen to the directions your guide is giving and then you set off. Let us say the directions are: “Take the first turn on the right, called Twenty-fourth Street; then the next turn of the left, called Kennedy Drive; and then keep going till you come to the park where you will see the concert hall just past a big lake on your right.” Armed with there directions, you go along – checking up on what you have been told: “Yes, there is Twenty-fourth Street. Yes, there is Kennedy Drive,” and so on.
In other words, you are not just told words; you are able to see if these words relate to the outside world, the world you have to operate in if you are going to get from A to B. This is where your mind is essential. You can check to see if the information you have been given is true or false.
Imagine, on the other hand, that someone said, in answer to your request for directions, “I don’t know where or what B is. It is impossible to talk about a `concert hall.’ What is a `concert hall’ anyway? We can only say of it that it is the `Unknowable.'” How completely ridiculous for you to be told, “Go any way – because this is the way”!
The trick in all these positions is to argue first of all that the End – Final Reality – cannot be spoken of (because it cannot be known by the mind) and yet to give the directions to find it. We should notice, however, that in this setting we can never ask questions ahead of time about the directions we receive. They are directions only for blindfolded experience, the blind “leap of faith.”
We cannot ask, “How will I know that it is truth or that it is the divine I am experiencing?” The answer is always, “There is no way you can be told, for it is an answer beyond language, beyond categories, but take this path [or that one, or another one] anyway.”
Thus, modern man is bombarded from all sides by devotees of this or that experience. The media only compound the problem. So does the commercialism of our highly technological societies. The danger of manipulation from these alone is overwhelming. In the absence of a clear standard, they are a force for the control of people’s minds and behavior that is beyond anything in history. In fact, there are no clear standards in Western society now; and where there is an appearance of standards, very often there is insufficient motivation to lean against the enormous pressures. And why? In part, at least, because there is an inadequate basis for knowledge and for morality.
When we add to this that modern man has become a “mystic,” we soon realize the seriousness of the situation. For in all these mystical solutions no one can finally say anything about right and wrong. The East has had this problem for thousands of years. In a pantheistic system, whatever pious statements may be made along the way, ultimately good and evil are equal in God, the impersonal God. So we hear Yun-Men, a Zen master, saying, “If you want to get the plain truth, be not concerned with right and wrong. Conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind.”
Society can have no stability on this Eastern world-view or its present Western counterpart. It just does not work. And so one finds a gravitation toward some form of authoritarian government, an individual tyrant or group of tyrants who takes the reins of power and rule. And the freedoms, the sorts of freedoms we have enjoyed in the West, are lost.
We are, then, brought back to our starting point. The inhumanities and the growing loss of freedoms in the West are the result of a world-view which as no place for “people.” Modern humanistic materialism is an impersonal system. The East is no different. Both begin and end with impersonality.
Francis Schaeffer has correctly argued:
The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there.
Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94)
We looked earlier at the city of Lachish. Let us return to the same period in Israel’s history when Lachich was besieged and captured by the Assyrian King Sennacherib. The king of Judah at the time was Hezekiah.
Perhaps you remember the story of how Jesus healed a blind man and told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. It is the same place known by King Hezekiah, approximately 700 years earlier. One of the remarkable things about the flow of the Bible is that historical events separated by hundreds of years took place in the same geographic spots, and standing in these places today, we can feel that flow of history about us. The crucial archaeological discovery which relates the Pool of Siloam is the tunnel which lies behind it.
One day in 1880 a small Arab boy was playing with his friend and fell into the pool. When he clambered out, he found a small opening about two feet wide and five feet high. On examination, it turned out to be a tunnel reaching back into the rock. But that was not all. On the side of the tunnel an inscribed stone (now kept in the museum in Istanbul) was discovered, which told how the tunnel had been built originally. The inscription in classical Hebrew reads as follows:
The boring through is completed. And this is the story of the boring: while yet they plied the pick, each toward his fellow, and while there were yet three cubits [4 14 feet] to be bored through, there was heard the voice of one calling to the other that there was a hole in the rock on the right hand and on the left hand. And on the day of the boring through the workers on the tunnel struck each to meet his fellow, pick upon pick. Then the water poured from the source to the Pool 1,200 cubits [about 600 yards] and a 100 cubits was the height of the rock above the heads of the workers in the tunnel.
We know this as Hezekiah’s Tunnel. The Bible tells us how Hezekiah made provision for a better water supply to the city:Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might, and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?(II Kings 20:20). We know here three things: the biblical account, the tunnel itself of which the Bible speaks, and the original stone with its inscription in classical Hebrew.
From the Assyrian side, there is additional confirmation of the incidents mentioned in the Bible. There is a clay prism in the British Museum called the Taylor Prism (British Museum, Ref. 91032). It is only fifteen inches high and was discovered in the Assyrian palace at Nineveh. This particular prism dates from about 691 B.C. and tells about Sennacherib’s exploits. A section from the prism reads, “As for Hezekiah, the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke, forty-six of his strong walled cities, as well as small cities in their neighborhood I have besieged and took…himself like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city. Earthworks I threw up against him,” Thus, there is a three-way confirmation concerning Hezekiah’s tunnel from the Hebrew side and this amazing confirmation from the Assyrian side.
The Bible and Archaeology – Is the Bible from God? (Kyle Butt 42 min)
Amanda Hamilton is a contemporary American artist working in various media. She produces large installations, intimate paper works, videos and more. Hamilton received a BS in Drawing and Painting from Biola in 2000, and then she went to complete an MFA in Painting in 2004 at Claremont Graduate University. She shows her work throughout the United States.
The natural, and especially non-human, world is a recurring subject in her work. Many of her projects explore the unsettling “otherness” of nature: the sense in which the natural world seems indifferent toward and beyond human cares. This theme strongly resonates with a Romantic sensibility that looks for the sublime in nature as a way of transcending and disrupting human culture and society, the worlds of our own making. When one thinks of Romantic painting, the usual suspects come to mind: Theodore Gericault, J. M. W. Turner, David Caspar Friedrich, etc. These painters, especially Gericault, produced paintings of immense size and power, and one does not view them as much as one becomes enveloped by them.
Although drawing upon this tradition of the sublime, Hamilton complements it with the theme of domestication. In a recent installation titled The Life of Perished Things, Hamilton explores the interplay between the sublime and the domestic in profound ways by drawing upon her careful observation and themes in Marilyn Robinson’s Housekeeping (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980). In an essay published on Hamilton’s website, Janice Neri writes:
In today’s world the lines between art and everyday life have been increasingly blurred, and the practice of keeping house is seen by many as a means of empowerment and mindful living. Mindfulness has its risks as well, as evidenced by the sense of unease Hamilton repeatedly mobilizes in The Life of Perished Things. Sitting alone in nature brings with it a feeling of terror because it reminds us of our mortality, but in a more mundane sense it reminds us that there is much work to be done in the here and now. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, bills—the effort to keep up with these tasks is only matched by the effort to keep thoughts of them at bay. Like the daily chores of keeping house, art making can be both joyful and burdensome. The comfort and solace that comes from each is the result of continuous effort on the part of the homemaker or the artist, but these Sisyphean undertakings hold within them the constant possibility of their own undoing.
Not only does Hamilton explore the interplay between the sublime and the domestic, but also with the interplay between permanence and impermanence. In an installation titled On Floriography, Hamilton renders numerous plants and flowers as delicate paper cuts, which are protected in glass cloches. Stunning in their beauty and simplicity, these paper cuts speak both of timelessness and a time long forgotten. One is reminded of a medieval world in which flowers and herbs possessed symbolic power. Now lost and unused, these symbols point again to the “otherness” of nature.
She also produces videos that sometimes accompany her installations. I was particularly drawn to her 2009 video Beautiful Terrible, which is about the 2005 disappearance of a Russian lake due to the collapse of underground caverns. She “re-enacts” the disappearance through the meticulous creation of a model of the lake. Like her paper cuts, the model accentuates the tension between the sublime and the domestic, the powerful and the delicate.
There is a great deal to explore on Hamilton’s website. I encourage you to take the time to look at her work and watch her videos. I have included some examples of her work below:
“Coriander,” 2010.
“Rue,” 2012.
Film Sill No. 11, from “Beautiful Terrible,” 2008.
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Shaking off his love for Manhattan, the witty and sexy concoction that is “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is writer-director Woody Allen’s fourth consecutive European project. The title refers to the names of two American women traveling in Barcelona, Spain for a summer vacation.
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson, Allen’s newest muse) are completely diverse best friends, who meet and are offered to be seduced by a suave painter/Casanova, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), for a weekend full of wine and lovemaking. The strait-laced Vicky is married to a boring white man, while Cristina is the more adventurous one. Soon, Cristina settles into a lusty three-way relationship with Juan and his unpredictable, loose-cannon ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz, who won an Oscar for her fiery performance).
Allen’s breezy and perhaps “Frenchiest” piece of work is cast to perfection and the attractive stars are engaging in their performances, heightened by a palpably laid-back atmosphere, but it’s not without its flaws. Christopher Evan Welch’s narration is way too obvious, an unnecessary and condescending device used rather than allowing the images and performances to speak for themselves. Even the exotic Spanish country is a character in itself, and Javier Aguirresarobe’s cinematography gorgeous.
And even if this trifle ultimately doesn’t add up to a lot, the writing is smart, the music charmingly quirky, and the characters richly written.
Whatever Works (2009) 92 min., rated PG-13.
Grade: B
Woody Allen dusted off an old script once intended for Zero Mostel and re-wrote it to suit the talents of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”‘s Larry David. Behind the camera, Woody is in fine fettle with “Whatever Works,” the auteur’s first comfort-zone return to New York City in five years after going European. In fact, it works as a time warp to earlier Woody.
David is the right replacement for Allen’s archetypal nebbish, eccentric persona, playing Boris Yellnikoff, a limping, crotchety, cynical old Jewish misanthrope who talks down to everyone, including us directly. Right off the bat, Boris breaks the fourth wall and bitter Boris makes it loud and clear that he’s not a likable guy. And this is not “the feel-good movie of the year,” so if we want to feel good “go get a foot massage.” A self-absorbed, self-professed genius who thinks all children are imbeciles and a germaphobe who sings the “Happy Birthday” song twice when washing his hands, Boris attempts suicide by jumping out his apartment window but hits the canopy. He shows a hint of humanity (after a while, of course) when taking in Melodie St. Ann Celestine (a beguiling Evan Rachel Wood), a Mississippian runaway waif begging for food. Melodie develops a crush on him, Boris thinks it’s inappropriate, but whatever works.
The Boris character is off-putting, but he warms up, and his courtship with Melodie is happily treated with charm, not smarm. David (seeing his chicken legs in shorts) and Wood are excellent, as are Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr., as Melodie’s divorced parents, who evolve their characters into interesting directions.
“Whatever Works” may not be quintessential Woody, as it’s scraps of his other work, but still a sharply written, enjoyable diversion with New York flavor, so whatever works.
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
98 min., rated R.
Grade: C
Woody Allen rejuvenated himself five years ago with “Match Point” in London, and now returns to the European city, filling his yearly quota. Like the film points out from the start and at the end, Woody’s trifling “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” is just like the old Shakespeare quote, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Although Allen is no idiot, this entry is more of a meaningless exercise filled with a talented cast reading his Allen-y dialogue in a poorly used London.
As this joyless tale of marriage foibles and extramarital lust would have it, everyone desires something in their unfulfilled lives, but hasn’t Allen said enough on the subject? The daffy Gemma Jones and Anthony Hopkins play a newly separated older couple when the old guy, working out, tanning, and teeth-whitening to seek his lost youth, marries a flashy ex-prostitute (Lucy Punch), while she listens to a fortune-telling friend who tells her she’ll meet someone great. The couple’s daughter (Naomi Watts) has her own marriage unravelling with her self-absorbed novelist husband (Josh Brolin), who’s attracted to their soon-to-be-married neighbor/muse (Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto) while said wife’s tempted by her handsome boss (a wasted Antonio Banderas).
Most of these characters are unlikable whiners that we don’t care about, don’t deserve what they want, and stay the same throughout.
“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” has its moments and has the tone of a feather, but it’s a shruggable effort from Woody Allen of all people. The narration is grating by Zak Orth, sounding a lot like Allen himself, and feels more like a demonstration. And Brolin has to be the most misguided candidate to impersonate Allen’s neuroses or call his love object “a hot little number.” Pinto, loved by the camera, and Punch, an absolute floozy hoot, land the most impression.
Allen tries to say that illusions work better than the medicine, but his new movie is only an illusion of his earlier, better work.
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__ Woody Allen The Dean Martin Show Happy Birthday Woody Allen: 15 Quotes By The Maverick Filmmaker News18.com First published: December 1, 2016, 3:30 PM IST | Updated: December 1, 2016 One of the most celebrated filmmakers of Hollywood, Woody Allen turns 81 today. Born and raised in Brooklyn as Allen Konigsberg he is arguably […]
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This interview below reveals Woody Allen’s nihilistic views and reminds me of his best movie which is CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS!!!! Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989 Woody Allen Woody Allen Crimes and Misdemeanors Nihilism Nietzsche’s Death of God An Interview with Woody Allen Woody Allen’s World: Whatever Works Robert E. Lauder April 15, 2010 – 2:31pm Woody […]
Top 10 Woody Allen Movies Woody’s Cold Comforts Robert E. LauderApril 19, 2010 – 1:36pm Friends have often asked me about my interest in the films of Woody Allen: Why is a Catholic priest such an ardent admirer of the work of an avowed atheist, an artist who time and again has insisted on […]
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
Marcus was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Esther (née Cohen) and Myer Marcus. His interest in the sciences began at a young age. He excelled at mathematics at Baron Byng High School. He then studied at McGill University under Dr. Carl A. Winkler,[7] who had studied under Cyril Hinshelwood at the University of Oxford. At McGill, Marcus took more math courses than an average chemistry student, which would later aid him in creating his theory on electron transfer.[8]
Electron transfer is one of the simplest forms of a chemical reaction. It consists of one outer-sphere electron transfer between substances of the same atomic structure likewise to Marcus’s studies between bivalent and trivalent iron ions. Electron transfer may be one of the most basic forms of chemical reaction but without it life cannot exist. Electron transfer is used in all respiratory functions as well as photosynthesis. In the process of oxidizing food molecules, 2 hydrogen ions, 2 electrons, and an oxygen molecule react to make an exothermic reaction as well as H2O (water). Due to fact that electron transfer is such a broad, common, as well as essential reaction within nature, Marcus’s theory has become vital within the field of chemistry.
2H+ + 2e− + 1/2 O2 → H2O + heat
A type of chemical reaction linked to his many studies of electron transfer would be the transfer of an electron between metal ions in different states of oxidation. An example of this type of chemical reaction would be one between a bivalent and a trivalent iron ion in an aqueous solution. In Marcus’s time chemists were astonished at the slow rate in which this specific reaction took place. This attracted many chemists in the 1950s and is also what began Marcus’s interests in electron transfer. Marcus made many studies based on the principles that were found within this chemical reaction, and through his studies was able to create his famous Marcus theory. This theory gave way to new experimental programs that contributed to all branches within chemistry.[11]
Before receiving the Nobel Prize in 1992,[2] Marcus received the National Medal of Science in 1989,[12] the Irving Langmuir Award of the American Chemical Society in 1978,[13] the Willard Gibbs Award in 1988, the Theodore William Richards Award in 1990, the Pauling Medals in 1991, and the Remsen and Edgar Fahs Smith Awards in 1991, the Peter Debye Award of the American Chemical Society in 1988, the Robinson Award in 1982, the Centenary Medals of the Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1988, Columbia University‘s Chandler Medal in 1983, Ohio State‘s William Lloyd Evans Award in 1990, the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1985 and the Hirschfelder Prize in Chemistry in 1993. Marcus has been a Member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1970, and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1973.[13] He won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1984.[14]
In the first video below in the 47th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
______
Below is a letter I sent to Dr. Marcus and I respond to his quote:
Enjoy the pictures of an amazing life
Harry Kroto with his father above
Margaret with David and Stephen
leaving Liverpool for Canada 1964
Kroto and his wife, Margaret.
______________
July 20, 2016
Dr. Rudolph A. Marcus, Chemistry Dept, Cal Tech,
Dear Dr. Marcus,
I was very sad to learn of the passing of the great scientist Harry Kroto. Judging from comments of his close friends, Kroto was not only a great scientist but an even better man personally.
Tim Logan, chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State: “What always brought out the best in Harry was his wife, Margaret. Margaret and Harry were always together, until the end of Harry’s life. She served as his business manager, scheduling his many speaking engagements around the world, organizing the travel, and supporting him in many, many ways. What I found so remarkable is that even after 57 years together, they were so obviously in love. Harry would include photos and sketches he made of her in his lectures, and he always acknowledged her as his moral compass.”
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHY I WAS PROMPTED ORIGINALLY TO WRITE YOU? It was because Harry Kroto took the time in 2014 to correspond with me. After I wrote him in the spring and summer of 2014 he emailed me twice and then sent me a letter in November of 2014. In that letter he referred me to a film series Renowned Academics talk about God that featured your comments.
Prof Rudolph A Marcus
Published on Jul 30, 2012
Transcription and spotting: Francesca Palummieri & Elena Irene Palumbo
Linguistic supervision: Francesca Bianchi (Università del Salento)
Scientific supervision: CarloAlberto Ratti (Università del Salento)
Video from: http://www.vega.org.uk/video/programm…
YOUR QUOTE FROM THE FILM ON THE VEGA WEBSITE WAS THIS: Rudolph Marcus
When my wife died I did see how comforting religion would be if you believed in an afterlife. But that is the way it is. I don’t know what makes some of us believe one thing and other people believe in something else, I haven’t found it and this is true in science also. Some people may feel they have to understand everything. I don’t feel that. I feel that eventually a lot more will be understood. It deals with the subject. It has nothing to do with religion. I believe that tackle certain problems, try to understand those, realize there are other problems that I just won’t be able to solve. I don’t have the expertise. Even if I did I may not be able to solve them, but I’m okay to live with that as long as I can find some problems that I feel excited about, that I know the experimental data and results are there and there has to an explanation. It is that fact actually which has driven us to formulate theories about those things.
Just like Kroto I have always been fascinated by brilliant individuals and recently I had the opportunity to come across a very interesting article by Michael Polanyi,LIFE TRANSCENDING PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY, in the magazine CHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING NEWS, August 21, 1967, and I also got hold of a 1968 talk by Francis Schaeffer based on this article. ISN’T IT AMAZING THAT JUST LIKE KROTO’S FAMILY POLANYI HAD TO FLEE EUROPE BECAUSE OF HITLER’S INSANE GRUDGE AGAINST THE JEWS!!!!I know you don’t believe in God or the Devil but if anyone was demon-possessed it had to be Hitler.
Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of in animate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry. Further controlling principles of life may be represented as a hierarchy of boundary conditions extending, in the case of man, to consciousness and responsibility.
_
Francis Schaeffer (30 January 1912 – 15 May 1984[1]) and his wife Edith (November 3, 1914 – March 30, 2013)
James Watson (1928-) and Francis Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004)
Michael Polanyi, FRS[1] (11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976)
John Charles Polanyi, (born 23 January 1929)
I sent you earlier two CD’s of this talk because I thought you may find it very interesting. I was wondering if you had a chance to listen to them or if you can’t find them I would be glad to send them again to you. It includes references to not only James D. Watson, and Francis Crick but also Maurice Wilkins, Erwin Schrodinger, J.S. Haldane (his son was the famous J.B.S. Haldane), Peter Medawar, and Barry Commoner.
___
John Scott Haldane (2 May 1860 – 14/15 March 1936)
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
In his lyrics to “Awaiting on You All”, Harrison espouses a direct relationship with God over adherence to the tenets of organised religion. Influenced by both his association with London-based Hare Krishna devotees, known as the Radha Krishna Temple, and the Vedanta-inspired teachings of Swami Vivekananda, Harrison sings of chanting God’s name as a means to cleanse and liberate oneself from the impurities of the material world. While acknowledging the validity of all faiths, in essence, his song words explicitly criticise the Pope and the perceived materialism of the Catholic Church – a verse that EMI and Capitol Records continue to omit from the album’s lyrics. He also questions the validity of John Lennon and Yoko Ono‘s 1969 campaign for world peace, reflecting a divergence of philosophies between Harrison and his former bandmate after their shared interest in Hindu spirituality in 1967–68.
Several commentators have identified “Awaiting on You All” as one of the highlights of All Things Must Pass; author and critic Richard Williams likens it to the Spector-produced “River Deep – Mountain High“, by Ike & Tina Turner.[1] The track is featured in the books 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery and 1001 Songs by Toby Creswell. A similarly well-regarded live version, with backing from a large band including Clapton, Ringo Starr, Preston and Jim Keltner, was released on the 1971 album The Concert for Bangladesh and appeared in the 1972 film of the same name. Harrison’s posthumous compilation Early Takes: Volume 1 (2012) includes a demo version of the song, recorded early in the 1970 sessions for All Things Must Pass.
In his book While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Simon Leng describes George Harrison‘s musical projects outside the Beatles during 1969–70 – such as producing American gospel and soul artists Billy Preston and Doris Troy, and touring with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends – as the completion of “a musical-philosophical circle”, which resulted in his post-Beatles solo album All Things Must Pass (1970).[2] Among the songs on that triple album, “My Sweet Lord” and “Awaiting on You All” each reflect Harrison’s immersion in Krishna Consciousness,[3][4] via his association with the UK branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known as the Radha Krishna Temple.[5] An ISKCON devotee since 1970, author Joshua Greene writes of All Things Must Pass providing an “intimately detailed account of a spiritual journey”, which had begun with Harrison’s embracing of Hinduism while in India in September–October 1966.[6]
Having long disavowed the Catholic faith of his upbringing,[7] from 1966 Harrison was inspired by the teachings of Indian yogiSwami Vivekananda.[8][9] The latter’s contention that “Each soul is potentially divine, the goal is to manifest that divinity” particularly resonated with Harrison in its contrast to the doctrine of the Catholic Church.[10] By 1967, Harrison’s religious awakening had progressed to include Gaudiya Vaishnava chanting,[11] a form of meditation that he shared with his Beatles bandmate John Lennon[12][13]and would go on to espouse in “Awaiting on You All”.[14] Further to Vivekananda’s assertion, chanting the Hare Krishna or other Sanskrit-worded mantras has, author Gary Tillery writes, “the ability to send spiritual energy through the body, leading to the enlightenment of the person chanting”.[15]
Whereas Lennon’s interest in spiritual matters waned following the Beatles’ visit to India in 1968,[16][17][18] Harrison’s involvement with the Radha Krishna Temple led to him producing two hit singles by the devotees over 1969–70, “Hare Krishna Mantra” and “Govinda”.[19][20][nb 1] While Lennon and his partner, Yoko Ono, undertook a highly publicised campaign for world peace during 1969,[24][25] Harrison believed that all human suffering could be averted if individuals focused on addressing their own imperfections rather than, as he put it, “trying to fix everybody else up like the Lone Ranger”.[26][27] This divergence in philosophy also formed part of Harrison’s subject matter for “Awaiting on You All”,[28] a song that, Greene writes, “projected his message to the world”.[29]
I was cleaning my teeth … and suddenly in my head came this “You don’t need a dum dada-pmm pa-pmm-pa, you don’t need a bmm papa-bmm.” All I had to do was pick up the guitar, find what key it was in, and fill in the missing words.[30]
– Harrison, on writing “Awaiting on You All”
In an October 1974 radio interview with Alan Freeman,[31] Harrison recalled writing “Awaiting on You All” while preparing to go to bed, and mentioned it as a composition that had come easily to him.[32] In his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison states that his inspiration for the song was “Japa Yoga meditation”,[33] whereby mantras are sung and counted out on prayer beads.[34]Musically, the composition has elements of gospel and rock music;[35] Leng describes it as “gospel-drenched” and cites Harrison’s production of “Sing One for the Lord“, which Preston recorded with the Edwin Hawkins Singers in early 1970, as a “catalyst” for the new composition.[36] The song opens with a descending guitar riff,[37] later repeated after each chorus,[1] which ends on the melody’s root chord of B major.[38]
In his lyrics to “Awaiting on You All”, Harrison conveys the importance of experiencing spirituality directly, while rejecting organised religion as well as political and intellectual substitutes.[28]Author Ian Inglis writes that the lyrics recognise the merit in all faiths, as Harrison sings that the key to any religion is to “open up your heart“.[39] The choruses proclaim that individual freedom from the physical or material world can be attained through “chanting the names of the Lord“,[40] implying that there is a single deity who happens to be called by different names depending on the faith.[39][41]
The song’s three verses[42] provide a list of items or concepts that are unnecessary to this realisation.[41][43] The opening lines – “You don’t need no love-in / You don’t need no bed pan” – serve as a criticism of Lennon and Ono’s bed-ins and other forms of peace activism during 1969.[28][39] While Inglis views these words as indicative of a possible rift in Harrison’s relationship with Lennon,[39] Leng identifies the “tongue-lashing for John and Yoko” as the singer dismissing “all political-cum-intellectual musings”.[28][nb 2] Harrison then uses what Christian theologian Dale Allison terms “the language of pollution” to describe the problems afflicting the world,[46] and offers a method by which to cleanse oneself spiritually.[15]
In verse two,[47] Harrison sings of the futility of passports and travel for those searching to “see Jesus“, since an open heart will reveal that Christ is “right there“.[48] Allison remarks on the song expressing Harrison’s “syncretistic view of Jesus”, a view he shared with Lennon, and cites comments that Harrison later made to Radha Krishna Temple co-founder[49]Mukunda Goswami, that Christ was “an absolute yogi” yet modern-day Christian teachers misrepresent him and “[let] him down very badly”.[50]
Pope Paul VI, whose papal office in 1970 Harrison scorned in his song lyrics
In the song’s final verse,[51] Harrison states that churches, temples, religious texts and the rosary beads associated with Catholic worship are no substitute for a direct relationship with God.[41][43] These symbols of organised religion “meant searching in the wrong places”, Tillery writes, when in keeping with Vivekananda’s philosophy, “the spark of the divine is within us all. Every person is therefore the child of God …”[52]AllMusic critic Lindsay Planer comments on Harrison’s “observation of [religious] repression” in the lines “We’ve been kept down so long / Someone’s thinking that we’re all green.”[43]
Harrison’s most scathing criticism is directed at the Pope,[41] in the lines: “While the Pope owns 51% of General Motors / And the stock exchange is the only thing he’s qualified to quote us.“[28] Contrasting this statement with Harrison’s song-wide message that God “waits on us to wake up and open our hearts”, Allison concludes: “whereas the Lord is about the business of helping human beings to wake up, the Pope is about the business of business.”[53]
In his book No Sympathy for the Devil, Dave Ware Stowe writes of the effect of “Awaiting on You All” on Evangelical Christian sensibilities: “this was dangerous stuff. Harrison’s lyrics exemplified what many in the Jesus Movement considered a lure and snare of the devil. No doubt the song was spiritually resonant, even reverent, but it leaves the all-important object of veneration vague.”[54]
While identifying a similar ISKCON-inspired theme in Harrison’s 1973 song “The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord)“, Allison discusses “Awaiting on You All” as a precedent for further statements by Harrison against organised religion, particularly Catholicism.[53] Among these, Harrison parodied the Last Supper in his inner-gatefold artwork for Living in the Material World (1973),[55] dressed as a Catholic priest and again mocking the “perceived materialism and violence of the Roman church”, according to Allison.[56][nb 3] In addition, in his role as film producer, Harrison supported Monty Python‘s controversial parodying of the biblical story of Christ in Life of Brian (1979),[60] about which he said: “Actually, [the film] was upholding Him and knocking all the idiotic stuff that goes on around religion.”[61]
Harrison and American producer Phil Spector began discussing the possibility of Harrison recording a solo album of songs in early 1970,[62] after they had worked together on Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band single “Instant Karma!“[63] Before then, to show his support for Spector’s comeback from self-imposed retirement, Harrison had supplied a written endorsement of the producer’s work on the Ike & Tina Turner album River Deep – Mountain High, when A&M Records issued the three-year-old recordings in 1969.[64][65][nb 4] Long a fan of Spector’s sound,[68] Harrison praised River Deep – Mountain High with the words: “a perfect record from start to finish. You couldn’t improve on it.”[69]
Beatles biographer Peter Doggett suggests that Harrison had intended to make an entire album of devotional songs but, with that not being “an appropriate dish to set before Phil Spector”, Harrison chose to delay starting work on All Things Must Pass and instead continued his activities with the Radha Krishna Temple.[70][nb 5] It was only after Paul McCartney‘s departure from the Beatles, and the band’s break-up,[72] that Harrison finally began sessions for his solo album – in late May 1970, at Abbey Road Studios in London.[73] Noting Spector’s application of his signature Wall of Sound production on “Awaiting on You All”, Inglis writes that, but for Harrison’s lyrics, the song “could be mistaken for the instrumental track of a song by the Ronettes“,[74] one of Spector’s girl-group protégés during the 1960s.[75]
The line-up of musicians on the basic track included Harrison and Eric Clapton, on electric guitars; bassists Klaus Voormann and Carl Radle, one of whom plays six-string bass;[76] and drummer Jim Gordon, who formed Derek and the Dominos with Clapton and Radle during the sessions.[77] In addition, Bobby Whitlock, the fourth member of the Dominos – all of whom were formerly part of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends[78] – recalls playing Hammond organ on the song.[79] Authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter note the presence of a piano part on the recording as well.[76]
Derek and the Dominos, including Bobby Whitlock (third from left), founded in 1970 by former members of Delaney & Bonnie’s band
In his 2010 autobiography, Whitlock writes of Lennon and Ono visiting the studio during the All Things Must Pass sessions, during which Lennon “got his socks blown off” by the music Harrison was recording.[80][nb 6] The Hare Krishna devotees regularly attended the sessions also;[82] Spector later cited their presence as an example of how Harrison inspired tolerance in non-believers, since the Temple devotees could be “the biggest pain in the necks in the world”, according to Spector.[83][84] Among the many unreleased songs from the All Things Must Pass sessions, Harrison recorded his all-Sanskrit composition “Gopala Krishna”,[85] which Leng describes as “a rocking companion to ‘Awaiting on You All'”.[86]
Just listen to the leaping guitar/bass riff which opens the cut, or the great contrasting rhythms on maracas and tambourines, or the guitars sliding down at the end of each chorus before being cut off sharp by one of those cosmic thumps … The difference Phil Spector can make to a record becomes clear.[1]
Madinger and Easter view “Awaiting on You All” as one of the more “heavily Spectorized” productions on All Things Must Pass,[76] due to Spector’s liberal use of echo and other Wall of Sound techniques.[87] Among the extensive overdubs on the basic track, Harrison added what Leng terms a “virtual guitar orchestra” of harmonised slide guitar parts,[88] and former Delaney & Bonnie musicians[89]Jim Price and Bobby Keys supplied horns.[90] Whitlock and Clapton sang backing vocals with Harrison,[79] credited on the album as “the George O’Hara-Smith Singers”.[91]
The recording also features prominent percussion such as tambourine and maracas.[1] While the precise line-up on many of the songs on All Things Must Pass continues to invite conjecture,[92][93]Badfinger drummer Mike Gibbins has said that Spector nicknamed him “Mr Tambourine Man” due to his role on that instrument throughout the sessions,[94] and that he and future Yes drummer Alan White played most of the percussion parts on the album, “switch[ing] on tambourine, sticks, bells, maracas … whatever was needed”.[95]
Apple Records released All Things Must Pass on 27 November 1970,[96] with “Awaiting on You All” sequenced as the penultimate track on side three, in the original LP format, preceding the album’s title song.[97] Of the 23 tracks released on All Things Must Pass, it was one of the few overtly religious songs.[98][nb 7] Concerned at the potential offensiveness of the lyrics, EMI omitted verse three of “Awaiting on You All” from the lyric sheet.[39] Madinger and Easter write that the lyrical content of this verse “probably shot down any chances of it being the hit single it could otherwise have been”.[76]
Issued during a period when rock music was increasingly reflecting spiritual themes,[100]All This Must Pass was a major commercial success,[101][102] outselling releases that year by Harrison’s former bandmates,[103][104] and topping albums charts throughout the world.[105] Describing the impact of the album, with reference to “Awaiting on You All”‘s exhortation to “chant the names of the Lord”, author Nicholas Schaffner wrote of Harrison being “rewarded with a Number One single all over the world” with “My Sweet Lord”.[106]
On release, Rolling Stone critic Ben Gerson described “Awaiting on You All” as “a Lesley Gore rave-up in which George manages to rhyme ‘visas’ with ‘Jesus'”.[107] While he considered that lyrics such as “You’ve been polluted so long” “carry an air of sanctimoniousness and moral superiority which is offensive”, Gerson added: “Remarkably, he vindicates these lapses.”[107] Writing for the same magazine 30 years later, Anthony DeCurtis opined that “the heart of All Things Must Pass resides in its songs of spiritual acceptance”, and grouped “Awaiting on You All” with “My Sweet Lord” and “All Things Must Pass” as Harrison compositions that “capture the sweet satisfactions of faith”.[108] In his 1970 review for the NME, Alan Smith described “Awaiting on You All” as “a rapid fire thumper with good chord progressions” and “one of the better tracks” on the album.[109][110] AllMusic critic Richie Unterberger views “Awaiting on You All” as a highlight of a collection on which “nearly every song is excellent”,[111] while author and critic Bob Woffinden lists it with “My Sweet Lord”, “Isn’t It a Pity” and “What Is Life” as “all excellent songs”.[112]
In his book Phil Spector: Out of His Head, Richard Williams writes that, unlike Lennon and McCartney on their 1970 solo albums, “Harrison concentrated on pure joyous melodies – the kind of songs that had made the group so loved”, and he says of “Awaiting on You All”: “Spector repaid Harrison for his benediction on the Ike and Tina Turner album cover by turning it into a virtual remake of ‘River Deep – Mountain High’.”[113] Mark Ribowsky, another Spector biographer, writes of the producer’s contribution to this and other songs on All Things Must Pass: “Phil’s rhythmically pounding basses and drum feels sutured George’s sentimentality with cheerful energy and made Indian asceticism into dance music.”[114] Simon Leng describes “Awaiting on You All” as a “hot gospel stomper” and “the most successful example of Spector’s work on the album”.[115] Writing for NME Originals in 2005, Adrian Thrills named “Awaiting on You All” and “Wah-Wah” as examples of “a tendency to over-egg the mix” on the otherwise “magnificent” All Things Must Pass, adding: “it is hard to think of another big rock album on which the tambourine is shaken quite so relentlessly.”[116]
In his AllMusic article on the song, Lindsay Planer views it as “somewhat of a sacred rocker” with “ample lead guitar”, and comments that Harrison’s lyrics “cleverly [draw] upon an array of disparate imagery to convey a conversely simple spiritual revelation”.[43]Harrison biographer Alan Clayson considers the track “more uplifting” than “My Sweet Lord” and remarks on the aptness of Harrison’s subject matter in 1970–71, when religious texts such as the Bible, the Koran and ISKCON’s Chant and Be Happy “now had discreet places on hip bookshelves”.[117] Former Mojo editor Mat Snow describes the song as “glorious white gospel”, in which Harrison “rejects the Catholicism of his Liverpool upbringing”.[118]
“Awaiting on You All” has featured in the music reference books 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery[119] and 1001 Songs by Australian critic Toby Creswell.[35] The latter describes the combination of Harrison’s “tasteful” guitar parts and the “galloping” rhythm section as “sublime and divine”.[35] In Dimery’s book, contributor Bruno MacDonald writes of the track: “‘Awaiting on You All’ has a timeless exuberance that even Beatles-haters should experience.”[120]
“Awaiting on You All” was one of the songs Harrison played at the Concert for Bangladesh,[121] held at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 1 August 1971.[122] Featuring backing from a band including Clapton, Voormann, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner and Jim Horn,[123] Harrison performed the song at both the afternoon and the evening shows.[124] The latter performance was included on the Concert for Bangladesh live album, which Spector again co-produced,[125] and in the film of the concert.[126] Joshua Greene comments on there being a “logical chronology” to the first three songs in Harrison’s setlist for this second show: “starting with ‘Wah Wah,’ which declared his independence from the Beatles; followed by ‘My Sweet Lord,’ which celebrated his internal discovery of God and spirit; and then ‘Awaiting on You All'”.[29]
Writing in Rolling Stone, Jon Landau compared the less-polished performance of “Awaiting on You All” with the studio version’s “perfect production” and concluded: “it is exhilarating to hear his voice clearly singing the song for the first time, likewise the excellent guitar.”[127] In his album review for Melody Maker, Williams wrote of Harrison’s opening trio of songs: “Unbelievably, they’re as good as the originals, and in some ways even better, because they combine the power of the arrangements for horns and rhythm with a sense of joy that comes only in live performance. The two drummers (Ringo and Jim Keltner) are just breathtaking on ‘Awaiting’ …”[128] Planer also compliments what he calls “the tag-team percussion” of Starr and Keltner, which “driv[es] through the heart of the performance”.[43]
In February 2001, during his extensive promotion for the 30th anniversary reissue of All Things Must Pass,[129] Harrison named “Awaiting on You All” among his three favourite tracks on the album.[130][131] The electronic press kit accompanying the release included a scene where Harrison plays back the song at his Friar Park studio and isolates certain parts of the recording in turn, such as the backing vocals and slide guitars.[132] In the CD booklet, Harrison’s liner notes conclude with a thank-you to “the amazing Mr. Phil Spector” and the acknowledgement: “He helped me so much to get this record made. In his company I came to realise the true value of the Hare Krishna Mantra.”[133] The Pope-related lyrics in “Awaiting on You All” were again omitted from the booklet;[133] they similarly do not appear on the lyric sheet supplied with the 2014 Apple Years reissue.[134]
Part of the 2001 playback scene was included in Martin Scorsese‘s documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World,[135] and an early take from the 1970 sessions appeared on the bonus disc accompanying that film’s DVD release in late 2011.[136] This demo version, which Harrison introduces as “Awaiting for You All”,[137] was included on the compilation Early Takes: Volume 1 (2012).[138] Referring to Harrison’s stated regret at the amount of echo Spector used on All Things Must Pass, compilation producer Giles Martin says of the song’s sparse arrangement on Early Takes: “I think this is really cool, it’s got a good basic band groove, I think of it as George breaking down a wall of sound.”[137]
In 1971, Detroit band Silver Hawk released a cover version of “Awaiting on You All” as a single,[139] which peaked at number 108 on Billboard magazine’s Bubbling Under listings.[140] In Canada, Silver Hawk’s single climbed to number 49 on the RPM Top 100.[141] A cover “worth mentioning”, according to Planer, is a version recorded by pedal steel guitarist Joe Goldmark, released on the 1997 tribute album Steelin’ the Beatles.[43]
Jump up^Among his non-musical activities on behalf of the Hare Krishna devotees, Harrison served as co-lessor for the Temple’s new premises in central London,[21] and he financed the publication of ISKCON’s 400-page KRSNA Book.[22][23]
Jump up^In an April 1970 radio interview in New York,[44] Harrison referred to his difference in ideology with Lennon: “This is really where I disagreed with John … I don’t think you get peace by going around shouting: ‘GIVE PEACE A CHANCE, MAN!’ … [Instead,] put your own house in order; for a forest to be green, each tree must be green.”[45]
Jump up^Among his later songs, Harrison sent up the Catholic faith in the posthumously released “P2 Vatican Blues“.[57] In one of his final recordings before his death in November 2001, “Horse to the Water“,[58] Harrison sings of a “truth seeker” being denied access to God, Leng writes, by “religious civil servants for whom the organization and the rules have become more important than the message”.[59]
Jump up^Produced by Spector in 1966, the Turners’ album was withdrawn from release following the disappointing commercial reception afforded its title song in America.[66] Considering “River Deep – Mountain High” his masterpiece, Spector temporarily withdrew from the music industry after the single’s failure.[67]
Jump up^Harrison made a promotional visit to Paris with the ISKCON devotees in March 1970,[70] in addition to carrying out further recording in London for what became the Radha Krsna Temple album (1971).[71]
Jump up^In light of Harrison having had many of his songs turned down by Lennon and McCartney during the Beatles’ career, Whitlock recalls Harrison’s satisfaction after this visit, and suggests: “George’s new album was better than anything John had ever done, and [Lennon] knew that as well.”[81]
Jump up^In author Robert Rodriguez’s estimation, “My Sweet Lord” and “Hear Me Lord” are the only other tracks that directly express a religious message.[98] Leng similarly writes of “two key spiritual songs” on an album that focuses on Harrison’s “attempt to break free from his Beatles identity”.[99]
The New Mysticism What about the spread of Eastern religions and techniques within the West – things like TM, Yoga, the cults? We have moved beyond the counterculture of the sixties, but where to? These elements from the East no longer influence just the beat generation and the dropouts. Now they are fashionable for the middle classes as well. They are everywhere.
What about those who take drugs as a means of “expanding their consciousness”? This, too, is in the same direction. Your mind is a hindrance to you: “Blow it”! As Timothy Leary put it in The Politics of Ecstasy (1968): “Our favorite concepts are standing in the way of a flood tide two billion years building up. The verbal dam is collapsing. Head for the hills or prepare your intellectual craft to flow with the current.” So we see again the rejection of the mind. The verbal dam, the concepts, the intellectual craft? These must be bypassed by the “new man.”
Wherever we look, this is what confronts us: irrational experience. We must be careful not to be bewildered by the surface differences between these movements. We are not saying they are all the same. Of course there are differences. The secular existentialists, for example, disagree with one another. Then, too, secular existentialists differ with religious existentialists; the former tend to be pessimistic, the latter optimistic. Some of the movements are serious and command our respect. Some are just bizarre. There are differences. Yet, all of them represent the new mysticism! The problem with mysticism of this sort is, interestingly enough, the same problem we considered earlier in relation to all humanistic systems. Who is going to say what is right?
As soon as one removes the checking mechanism of the mind by which to measure things, everything can then be “right” and everything can also be “wrong.” Eventually, anything and everything can be allowed! Take a simple example from life: If you are asking for directions in a city, you first listen to the directions your guide is giving and then you set off. Let us say the directions are: “Take the first turn on the right, called Twenty-fourth Street; then the next turn of the left, called Kennedy Drive; and then keep going till you come to the park where you will see the concert hall just past a big lake on your right.” Armed with there directions, you go along – checking up on what you have been told: “Yes, there is Twenty-fourth Street. Yes, there is Kennedy Drive,” and so on.
In other words, you are not just told words; you are able to see if these words relate to the outside world, the world you have to operate in if you are going to get from A to B. This is where your mind is essential. You can check to see if the information you have been given is true or false.
Imagine, on the other hand, that someone said, in answer to your request for directions, “I don’t know where or what B is. It is impossible to talk about a `concert hall.’ What is a `concert hall’ anyway? We can only say of it that it is the `Unknowable.'” How completely ridiculous for you to be told, “Go any way – because this is the way”!
The trick in all these positions is to argue first of all that the End – Final Reality – cannot be spoken of (because it cannot be known by the mind) and yet to give the directions to find it. We should notice, however, that in this setting we can never ask questions ahead of time about the directions we receive. They are directions only for blindfolded experience, the blind “leap of faith.”
We cannot ask, “How will I know that it is truth or that it is the divine I am experiencing?” The answer is always, “There is no way you can be told, for it is an answer beyond language, beyond categories, but take this path [or that one, or another one] anyway.”
Thus, modern man is bombarded from all sides by devotees of this or that experience. The media only compound the problem. So does the commercialism of our highly technological societies. The danger of manipulation from these alone is overwhelming. In the absence of a clear standard, they are a force for the control of people’s minds and behavior that is beyond anything in history. In fact, there are no clear standards in Western society now; and where there is an appearance of standards, very often there is insufficient motivation to lean against the enormous pressures. And why? In part, at least, because there is an inadequate basis for knowledge and for morality.
When we add to this that modern man has become a “mystic,” we soon realize the seriousness of the situation. For in all these mystical solutions no one can finally say anything about right and wrong. The East has had this problem for thousands of years. In a pantheistic system, whatever pious statements may be made along the way, ultimately good and evil are equal in God, the impersonal God. So we hear Yun-Men, a Zen master, saying, “If you want to get the plain truth, be not concerned with right and wrong. Conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind.”
Society can have no stability on this Eastern world-view or its present Western counterpart. It just does not work. And so one finds a gravitation toward some form of authoritarian government, an individual tyrant or group of tyrants who takes the reins of power and rule. And the freedoms, the sorts of freedoms we have enjoyed in the West, are lost.
We are, then, brought back to our starting point. The inhumanities and the growing loss of freedoms in the West are the result of a world-view which as no place for “people.” Modern humanistic materialism is an impersonal system. The East is no different. Both begin and end with impersonality.
Francis Schaeffer has correctly argued:
The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there.
Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94)
We looked earlier at the city of Lachish. Let us return to the same period in Israel’s history when Lachich was besieged and captured by the Assyrian King Sennacherib. The king of Judah at the time was Hezekiah.
Perhaps you remember the story of how Jesus healed a blind man and told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. It is the same place known by King Hezekiah, approximately 700 years earlier. One of the remarkable things about the flow of the Bible is that historical events separated by hundreds of years took place in the same geographic spots, and standing in these places today, we can feel that flow of history about us. The crucial archaeological discovery which relates the Pool of Siloam is the tunnel which lies behind it.
One day in 1880 a small Arab boy was playing with his friend and fell into the pool. When he clambered out, he found a small opening about two feet wide and five feet high. On examination, it turned out to be a tunnel reaching back into the rock. But that was not all. On the side of the tunnel an inscribed stone (now kept in the museum in Istanbul) was discovered, which told how the tunnel had been built originally. The inscription in classical Hebrew reads as follows:
The boring through is completed. And this is the story of the boring: while yet they plied the pick, each toward his fellow, and while there were yet three cubits [4 14 feet] to be bored through, there was heard the voice of one calling to the other that there was a hole in the rock on the right hand and on the left hand. And on the day of the boring through the workers on the tunnel struck each to meet his fellow, pick upon pick. Then the water poured from the source to the Pool 1,200 cubits [about 600 yards] and a 100 cubits was the height of the rock above the heads of the workers in the tunnel.
We know this as Hezekiah’s Tunnel. The Bible tells us how Hezekiah made provision for a better water supply to the city:Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might, and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?(II Kings 20:20). We know here three things: the biblical account, the tunnel itself of which the Bible speaks, and the original stone with its inscription in classical Hebrew.
From the Assyrian side, there is additional confirmation of the incidents mentioned in the Bible. There is a clay prism in the British Museum called the Taylor Prism (British Museum, Ref. 91032). It is only fifteen inches high and was discovered in the Assyrian palace at Nineveh. This particular prism dates from about 691 B.C. and tells about Sennacherib’s exploits. A section from the prism reads, “As for Hezekiah, the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke, forty-six of his strong walled cities, as well as small cities in their neighborhood I have besieged and took…himself like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city. Earthworks I threw up against him,” Thus, there is a three-way confirmation concerning Hezekiah’s tunnel from the Hebrew side and this amazing confirmation from the Assyrian side.
The Bible and Archaeology – Is the Bible from God? (Kyle Butt 42 min)
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Harrison, Arkansas, is about as small town as it gets.
There are about 11,000 people in town and one unspoken rule: If it’s Friday night, you’re going to the Harrison High football game. And the only thing bigger than high school football in Harrison — or anywhere else in Arkansas — is Razorback football.
Arkansas doesn’t have a pro football team — I don’t even know if a pro team could survive here. But almost every boy growing up in the state wants to be a Razorback. That’s the dream.
It was my dream, too, and I sure worked hard at it. But I didn’t have that natural talent. Not like my younger brother Brandon. Boy, did he have the size and did he have the skills.
I was 16 years older than Brandon, so I was already out of the house, married and raising my own boys by the time he was of any age. But I’d do anything for that kid. Of course, he was my brother and you do anything for family, but things were a little tougher for him. Our parents divorced when Brandon was just two years old. On top of that, Dad had trouble with drinking and wasn’t really in our lives when Brandon was a little boy. So I did whatever I could to be there for Brandon.
If it meant bringing a basket of baseballs to the park so he could work on his hitting and pitching, I wanted to be there.
If it meant going over to Mom’s house to help him with homework, I wanted to be there.
There’s no explanation for it. He was my brother and I just wanted everything for him. I’d do anything I could for him.
So when Brandon got it in his mind that he was going to be a Razorback, I was all in.
See, Brandon started out a little scrawny. He spent his first season of high school football as a sophomore on the sidelines. I don’t even think he played one game. But that summer Brandon had two things going for him: His work ethic and, luckily, a pretty big growth spurt.
“Dang, Marty, what have you been feedin’ that boy?”
His high school coaches couldn’t believe his size when he came back for his junior season. By that point he was about six-foot-two, over 200 pounds and still growing. And he just dominated on the field — didn’t matter if he was on defense or offense. He played on both sides of the ball and would just blow the field up. He’d be all over the line, right off the snap. Opposing teams made game plans just to handle Brandon. He was that good.
Almost every boy growing up in the state wants to be a Razorback. That’s the dream.
He spent as many days as he could in the weight room getting stronger. And it paid off. By his senior year, Brandon was an all-conference and all-state player and played in the state’s All-Star Game. But as good as he was, Brandon was also a late bloomer — he was only 17 his senior year — and he was still a little undersized for college ball. He wasn’t as tall or as heavy as D-I colleges wanted him to be.
But Arkansas was the dream. And if Brandon was doing whatever he could on the field, then I sure as heck would do whatever I could to help get my brother there.
So I started calling coaches and seeing where he could play. And the first call I made was to the recruiting coordinator at Arkansas. He took my call, but I couldn’t tell just how interested he was.
“Sure, bring him on up for a game,” he said.
So Mom, Brandon and I piled into my minivan and we drove over to Fayetteville. We’d been to a couple of Razorbacks games before, and Brandon had seen the stadium and sat in the stands. But this was on a different level. We watched the game from this conference room at the top of the stadium. It had this outdoor patio that you could stand on and look down on the field. As Brandon and I were standing out there, the offensive linemen came out, running on the field with their helmets on. And boy, was he soaking it in. So was I.
“That looks good, doesn’t it?” I said.
“I like that,” he responded.
At that moment, we both felt so close to his dream coming true — something that wasn’t even a possibility for a boy who had been sitting on the sidelines just two years ago.
But I knew we still needed a scholarship.
I don’t how many times I’d call to check in. Coach, ya need anything? I’d sit every week with the newspaper. I go straight to the sports and see if any scholarships were offered. I kept track of how many might be left for Brandon. O.K., they gave one to that boy, that’s 12 so far. We may still get one.
In the end, Brandon got invited to be a walk-on. It was disappointing, but Brandon wanted to go to Arkansas more than anything and, well, he didn’t want any regrets. And I didn’t want him to always be wondering what could have been. It was the Razorbacks. This was the dream.
A couple of weeks before Brandon left for school, one of the Arkansas coaches called me.
“We want Brandon here, but if he can’t handle it I can see what I can do to get him to a smaller school,” he said. “I want him here, but he’ll know and we’ll know.”
“Coach, don’t worry about it. He won’t be going down.”
Brandon belonged on that field, and he knew it. He was a Razorback.
“Well, that’s good,” he said, sort of laughing. “I know he’s working hard, but he’ll know and we’ll know.”
“Coach, mark it down. He’s not going down.”
Brandon belonged on that field, and he knew it. He was a Razorback. Some of his teammates have since told me how red his face would be during practice, how hard he went, how he never gave up.
Brandon didn’t dress the first two games of his freshman season, but we found out that he’d be on the field for the third. We were going to Fayetteville for the game and I called him early in the week to tell him where our seats would be.
“So you just walk down this side of the stadium, O.K.? And I’ll get a photo of you in your uniform. It’ll be real cool.”
And then he walked out and there it was: BURLSWORTH.
I was so proud.
After the season, over the holidays, we got a call. The school was going to give Brandon a scholarship.
For the next three years, Brandon started for the Razorbacks. And for the next three years, every Friday at 5:30 p.m., I’d close up the photography studio I owned in Harrison, pick up my mom, and my wife and kids, and drive to Brandon’s football games. Whether it was in Fayetteville, or in Knoxville or Tuscaloosa, we had an unspoken rule: We were going to Brandon’s games. We probably put 30,000 miles on my minivan each season. We drove it to death. I had about 212,000 miles on it by the time I got rid of it.
One weekend when I was driving with Brandon to campus — I think maybe it was his junior year — a thought crossed my mind.
“Man, you might get to play at the next level.”
“Ah, I don’t know, I just gotta focus on this season.”
Brandon was so single-minded, so focused. He didn’t take one summer off the entire time he was at Arkansas. Other boys would go home after school got out in May and stay there until camp started in late July. But Brandon would stay on campus, working — painting the stadium, setting up dorms, things like that — and taking classes. So by his fourth year at Arkansas, he was already finishing his masters degree.
By the time he was a senior, we both knew that if we wanted to keep playing football he was going to have to enter the NFL draft. I tried bringing it up to him again.
“You know, Brandon, you could think about entering the draft. You’ll have all your coursework done and can graduate at the end of the year anyway.”
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “I’ve kind of been planning it that way.”
And would you believe, all these NFL agents started flying into Harrison wanting to sign Brandon. He asked me to help him, but there’s all this certification that goes into being an agent. I wasn’t sure. But this was my brother. So before he started his senior year, I started working on getting my certification. And that spring, the Burls boys found themselves in Indianapolis at the combine.
As we walked by one of the pro shops, we joked to each other.
“Should we get some Colts gear?”
“Yeah, let’s go buy some Colts stuff.”
When we got back home to Harrison, the day of the draft was just filled with anxiety. We didn’t expect Brandon to go real high, and we had been told that he wouldn’t. Still, with each pick, even in the first round, you get more and more nervous. People were swinging by all day. And I remembered to do what other agents had advised me to do, I kept multiple lines open. I kept gaming out who was left.
“Has he been picked yet?”
“No!”
Finally, in the third round Brandon answered the phone and gave us the thumbs-up. Then we looked to the TV: Brandon’s picture came up on the screen and they were calling his name from the podium.
And would you believe it, it was the Indianapolis Colts who took him. We suddenly needed that gear, because we would be rooting for the Colts.
The next week, Brandon flew to Indianapolis for minicamp. He called to check in a couple of times. “Now, if you find yourself at that Colts shop,” I told him, “You make sure and get us some gear this time.”
Brandon Burlsworth, NFL player. The struggles that he had gone through to get where he was were over. He could finally reap the rewards of everything he put into the game — all the training, all the schooling, all the dedication, all the hard work. I was high as a kite.
Mom and I picked him up at the airport when he came home. I was just so proud of him. In a few weeks he’d be heading back. And I couldn’t wait to be right there with him. We planned to move out to Indianapolis with him.
But before all that, Brandon made one last trip to Fayetteville to visit with his Razorbacks teammates. He was determined to drive home the same day so he could attend evening church service with the family.
Faith. Family. Football.
That’s the order of things for us.
Every week, Brandon made the drive home. Faith and family — they meant everything to Brandon. And every week he was right on time with his little white Subaru parked in Mom’s driveway. So when he was two hours late that evening, Mom started to get worried.
She called me just before six o’clock, with panic and worry in her voice.
“He should’ve been home by now.”
“I’m sure he just got stuck in traffic, or maybe ran out of gas. He’ll show up and everything will be fine.”
I didn’t mean to dismiss Mom’s concerns, but I just figured there was some sort of reason or explanation. But as it got later in the evening and Mom got more and more worked up, I hopped into my own car to head over and see if we could find out what had happened.
Mom called me just before six o’clock, with panic and worry in her voice. “He should’ve been home by now.”
When I turned on to the street behind Mom’s house, I could see her driveway through this little opening between houses. And I could see a little white car parked in her driveway.
I let out a little sigh of relief. Brandon was home.
But as I turned the next corner onto Mom’s street and pulled up to her house, I got a good look at the car.
It wasn’t Brandon’s white Subaru.
It was a police car.
One of my sons, who was in my car with me, started asking what was wrong, what had happened. I opened the door to Mom’s house and she was in a state.
Brandon, the officer told us, had collided head-on with a semi. He died instantly.
***
If it’s difficult to describe the love for a brother, it’s impossible to explain the loss of a brother.
I wanted everything for Brandon, and within a few moments, it had all been taken away. Less than two weeks before, I had watched as Brandon stood on the front lawn of Mom’s house and gave interviews to local TV crews about getting picked in the NFL draft. Now, I was taking calls from the same stations about Brandon’s death.
That’s what it’s all about: What you do while you were here.
We still don’t really know what happened that afternoon. I don’t think anyone was at fault. It was just one of those things — when it’s time, it’s time. And it was Brandon’s time.
To this day, people tell me where they were when they heard the news. It was a terrible day for Harrison, it was a terrible day for the state. We had to have the funeral at the high school gym. There just wasn’t enough space anywhere else. Two buses of Razorbacks players arrived. It seemed as if the whole town was there to support Brandon and who he was and what he meant to everybody.
That’s what it’s all about: What you do while you were here.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BETH HALL/AP IMAGES
And Brandon did a lot in his 22 years.
I can only hope I did as much as I could to help him.
Brandon wanted to do more, though. After the draft, he spoke to me a lot about helping other kids in Harrison. Brandon knew what it was like to be doubted, to be told you weren’t good enough. He said he wanted to hold football camps and bring kids to his NFL games. So a few months after his death, we started the Brandon Burlsworth Foundation, where we do all of that and more.
I think Brandon would be proud of the work we’re doing in his name. He may be gone, but I still want to do whatever I can to keep his dreams going, to keep his legacy going.
There’s never a day where I don’t think about Brandon. Whether I’m driving around town, past the baseball park where we used to play catch, past the Razorbacks signs on front lawns, I feel his presence.
I never used to worry before Brandon died. But now that my own boys are older, if they’re even ten minutes late, I get a little concerned and think that maybe they’re in trouble, maybe something went wrong.
And when it’s Friday night here in Harrison and the whole town is at the football game, I think about Brandon.
And I know…I feel him here with me.
***
Greater, a film depicting the life and tragic death of Brandon Burlsworth will be released in theaters on August 26th. Locations and showtimes are available on www.greaterthemovie.com.
Brandon Burlsworth
Uploaded on Aug 31, 2011
Brandon was a walk on turned All American at the University of Arkansas. He was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts and 11 days later was tragically killed in a car accident. The Brandon Burlsworth Foundation was founded in his name and has several programs: The Burls Kids program takes underprivileged children to all Arkansas Razorback and Indianapolis Colts home games. The BBF in partnership with Walmart provides eye care to 14,000 pre-K thru 12th grade students whose working families are trying, but still cannot afford extras like eye care and do not qualify for state funded programs. We hold football camps each year in Harrison and Little Rock and we have several football scholarship and awards including the Burlsworth Trophy, a national award given out to the most outstanding Division One college football player who began his career as a walk-on.
First Person video of Joplin MO tornado 5/22/11 The video i took while at Fastrip on east 20th street. We huddled in the back of the store until the glass got sucked out , then ran into the walk in storage fridge. Sorry for the lack of visuals but the audio is pretty telling of […]
God On Trial Uploaded on Jan 8, 2012 God on Trial is a 2008 BBC/WGBH Boston television play written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, starring Antony Sher, Rupert Graves and Jack Shepherd. The play takes place in Auschwitz during World War II. The Jewish prisoners put God on trial in absentia for abandoning the Jewish […]
On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said: …Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975 and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them. Harry Kroto _________________ Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto: ____________ Debate […]
On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said: …Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975 and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them. Harry Kroto _________________ Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto: ____________ Debate […]
______ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR The Roots of Hitler’s Evil by Richard Weikart Professor of History California State Univ., Stanislaus [This essay first appeared in Books and Culture: A Christian Review (Mar./Apr. 2001): 18-21] What shaped the life of the man who today is the symbol of evil and brutality, but who […]
Peter May rightly notes, “Peter Singer is arguably the most famous and influential modern philosopher, offering the most radical challenge to traditional Judeo-Christian values.” Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis Schaeffer: Whatever Happened to the Human Race Episode 1 ABORTION Published on Jan 10, 2015 Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Abortion […]
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Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]
Stearns Speaks on House Floor in Support of Balanced Budget Amendment Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Nov 18, 2011 Speaking on House floor in support of Balanced Budget Resolution, 11/18/2011 ___________ Below are some of the main proposals of Milton Friedman. I highly respected his work. David J. Theroux said this about Milton Friedman’s view concerning […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!! Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008 PRINT PAGE CITE THIS Sans Serif Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]
Milton Friedman on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” 1994 Interview 2 of 2 Uploaded by PenguinProseMedia on Oct 26, 2011 2nd half of 1994 interview. ________________ I have a lot of respect for the Friedmans.Two Lucky People by Milton and Rose Friedman reviewed by David Frum — October 1998. However, I liked this review below better. It […]
Milton Friedman on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” 1994 Interview 1 of 2 Uploaded by PenguinProseMedia on Oct 25, 2011 Says Federal Reserve should be abolished, criticizes Keynes. One of Friedman’s best interviews, discussion spans Friedman’s career and his view of numerous political figures and public policy issues. ___________________ Here is a review of “Two Lucky People.” […]
Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]
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George Harrison – Awaiting On You All (Backing Track – Early Take)
George Harrison – ‘Awaiting On You All’ – Original Audio
Francis Schaeffer in his book HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? gives us some insight into a possible answer to that question WHY WAS DRUG-TAKING AND EASTERN RELIGIONS SO POPULAR IN THE 1960’s IN USA?
The younger people and the older ones tried drug taking but then turned to the eastern religions. Both drugs and the eastern religions seek truth inside one’s own head, a negation of reason. The central reason of the popularity of eastern religions in the west is a hope for a nonrational meaning to life and values. The reason the young people turn to eastern religion is simply the fact as we have said and that is that man having moved into the area of nonreason could put anything up there and the heart of the eastern religions is a denial of reason just exactly as the idealistic drug taking was. So the turning to the eastern religions today fits exactly into the modern existential methodology, the existential thinking of modern man, of trying to find some optimistic hope in the area of nonreason when he has given up hope on a humanistic basis of finding any kind of unifying answer to life, any meaning to life in the answer of reason.
An article called “Holy Wars” was based on Francis Schaeffer’s writings primarily and it noted:
Then came the Beatles. John Lennon had declared that his group was more popular than Jesus. But they weren’t willing to stop there. They sought to supplant the true God with everything false. After the rock icons returned from India they brought with them not only the music of the Hindu guruRavi Shankar, but also his religion as taught by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They were so impressed with that guru’s Transcendental Meditation woo woo that they just had to convert the whole Western World to it. The counterculturalists took it all in, hook line and sinker.
On the way home from work one afternoon I listened to the George Harrison song Awaiting on You All that I had copied along with other songs by this artist from his album All Things Must Pass. Hearing this song after so many years (it was on a CD that I had lost and just found again) was an interesting experience, and as often happens when you unearth some part of your past and compare it with your present, I heard it almost with fresh ears. I am not the same person that I was then. I was in my twenties when I followed George Harrison both musically and spiritually. Though the Eastern religious views he espoused most of his public life were similar to mine at that age, it didn’t take long for me to outgrow them. ‘Outgrow’ is not exactly the right word, though. I didn’t really outgrow them. You could say I traded them in, new lamps for old. I never struck a better deal.
Still, listening to the song I was amazed just how spot on he was in much of what he was saying. I can still relate to almost all of it. I don’t think that either of us, George or I, was aware of the fuzzy thinking that made us combine devotion and belief in Krishna and Jesus without noticing the two aren’t the same. I’m not talking about doctrinal or religious differences. Hinduism and Christianity are distinct religions, granted, but anyone who believes in God knows, ‘God is God. There is no thing you can compare to God. God is God.’ We tend to believe that at best other religions are wrong in the details but right in the big picture. This may be true, but no one can say so without denying his faith community. In youth, I think we were bored with dogmatic strongholds, and wanted the freedom to meet God on our terms, not according to those of our ancestors. How little did we understand that ‘the ancestors in stone armor calling for loyalty untrue’ seeking ‘to make a zigzag of the arrow’s flight’ were doing no such thing.
No, they knew that the shortest path between two points is rarely a straight line, though arrows may fly to their mark, being projectiles aimed at a target. Unfortunately people are not projectiles, and our destination is not really a target, no matter how much we wish we could hit the bullseye. We are beings fashioned in the Divine image and likeness. We live in more than three, more even than four, dimensions, and the paths we tread cannot be traced, planned or prophesied by mortal logic or the magic of music. They are no more than mere beginnings, our thoughts and feelings, before we bump into the aweful reality which we glibly like to call ‘God.’ Meet Him on our terms? Hardly possible, unless He allows it, and only as a sign that He is there, hidden behind our wall, waiting for us to…
No, that is also just what we glibly like to think, as George Harrison sings in his song…
You don’t need no love in You don’t need no bed pan You don’t need a horoscope or a microscope To see the mess that you’re in If you open up your heart You will know what I mean We’ve been polluted so long Now here’s a way for you to get clean
By chanting the names of the Lord, and you’ll be free The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see…
You don’t need no passport And you don’t need no visas You don’t need to designate or to emigrate Before you can see Jesus If you open up your heart You’ll see he’s right there Always was and will be He’ll relieve you of your cares
You don’t need no church house And you don’t need no Temple You don’t need no rosary beads or them books to read To see that you have fallen If you open up your heart You will know what I mean We’ve been kept down so long Someone’s thinking that we’re all green
… The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see By chanting the names of the Lord, and you’ll be free
I purposely left out the stanza about the pope owning controlling interest in General Motors and not being qualified to quote us anything but the Stock Exchange. This is childish talk and hatchets all the good things he has to say. This, I find, is true of youthful thinkers in every generation. It’s true of otherwise noble and idealistic youth today. It was true of me as a Vietnam War draft resister. We ‘let the cat out of the bag’ about ourselves when we pounce on anyone, especially an authority figure we don’t approve of, and show that, however pure we think our motives, however lofty our ideals, we’re still no better than the fallen heroes we no longer believe in. What George Harrison says in this song I still agree with. Where I have a problem, is what he proposes as a solution to the mess we find ourselves in. As much as I enjoyed chanting Hare Krishna, it didn’t save me, or the world, and it never will.
But the rest is, amazingly, true, as I have found out in the intervening years. The words about Jesus are almost straight out of the Bible. The words about churches and temples, the same. Somebody went to Sunday School as a child. Yes, you’re right. I did.
I know that for sure, and guess what?It stuck. What started out as an incomprehensible religious upbringing somehow became comprehensible when it finally collided with what I was made for.
Yes, my parachute failed to open, and the earth received my bruised and broken body. I was alive for just a moment, just long enough for me to realize I was about to die. Then His gentle hands slipped under my head and shoulders as He lifted me up from what should have been my grave. He had already been there, aeons before I came to birth or leapt to my unintended death. No, this did not literally happen. I’ve never used a parachute. But His hands are real.
Awaiting on You All, a great song,
but He is waiting only from our point of view.
On His side, we are either already with Him, or without Him.
Michelle Mackey is a painter who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Dallas, TX. She has exhibited extensively in both of those locations, as well as other places inside of and outside of the United States. In 1999, she received an MFA from Pratt Institute. Her work has been featured in several publications, including The Christian Century and New American Paintings.
A variety of everday textures, surfaces and structures make up the visual repository from which Mackey’s paintings emerge. She describes her process in this way:
The story of my process is embedded in layers of paint (layers of choices) visible on the canvas: a trail of past decisions shutting off certain paths to allow other possibilities. I’m searching, tweaking, scratching, both my mind and the image on the canvas, to uncover what I am really seeing and the process of how I see. On my microcosmic-level, I am looking into a larger system beyond the individual. I do not believe in chance or events without purpose, so I do feel that my search will reveal certain truths or aspects of a larger truth.
How do you paint a memory? Memory is a constant theme in Mackey’s work. We all have some idea of what it might mean to paint from our memories, but Mackey’s paintings are more like the memories themselves.
Like a memory, one peers into the amorphous forms that haunt her canvases, and one has the sense of staring backward into time. These images are often vague and nebulous, and they tantalize us with the distance between what could be and what really is. Her 2011 Black Series (see Intermezzo below) is an excellent example. Although these paintings are bare and monotone, Mackey achieves a remarkable sense of depth and ambiguity. Forms emerge and disappear. Mackey gives us representation with one hand, while she simultaneously takes it away with the other.
Like a memory, viewing one of Mackey’s paintings can be spatially disorienting. Her collages of textures, surfaces and structures do not obey the laws of the physical universe. One texture bleeds into another. What appears, at first glance, to be up may on a second viewing strike us as upside down. In Fashion Awards (below), the lines and structures that appear are actually old blueprints for television-show scenery. These plans, which no longer serve any function, are so covered that spatial orientation and dimension is difficult to decipher. They are the remains of a television image; a memory of a memory.
Like a memory, Mackey’s paintings are layered. Our deepest memories are colored and warped by the passage of time. What they mean to us change and shift along with us. A painting like Blue Spring (below) is suggestive of process of layering that builds up over time. Although much is covered, there is very little in this painting that seems dispensable.
Memories form an essential component of our sense of identity. Who we believe our selves to be, and what we believe ourselves to be capable of becoming, is inextricably connected to our own memories and the memories that have been handed down to us. For many of us, these memories bear the dead weight of regret and failure, and they tell us that history will only ever repeat itself. Mackey’s process suggests, to the contrary, that we are free to explore our memories and that we are graciously and mysteriously free to imagine new ways of relating to our memories.
Memory is really only one aspect of a very rich body of work. If you would like to learn more about Mackey’s work, I encourage you to visit her website. There, you can view online galleries, an artist statement, video of her painting process and more.
‘Intermezzo’. 2011. Acrylic and Enamel on Resin Coated Panel. 47″x47″.
‘Fashion Awards’. 2009. Acrylic and Pencil on Paper, Mounted on Panel. 9.5″x11″.
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Although there’s no universal truth for the last time Woody Allen made a great picture (his last five or so were enjoyable if not great), “Match Point” marks Allen’s true comeback and full-hearted accomplishment. It’s uncharted territory, meaning it’s not a comedy and he leaves his beloved New York for a literal change of scenery in London. And it’s his longest work to date.
Sure, this dramatic film still opens classically with the same white fonted credits over black, but it’s all scratchy opera records rather than the old jazz standards. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, not asked to mimic Allen’s fumbly neurosis, plays Chris, a slick Dublin-born fellow who comes to London to work as a club tennis pro. He meets rich good chap Tom (Matthew Goode) and is quickly taken into the high-society family fold that he’s soon in a relationship with Chris’s sweet sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer). Chris’s attention is instantly absorbed by Nola (Scarlett Johansson), a flirtatious starving actress from Colorado, also Tom’s fiancee. Eventually, he’s welcomed into the father’s business firm, flourishes, and marries Chloe. But when Tom unexpectedly dumps Nola, Chris decides to have his cake and eat it too, as he embarks on a secret affair with Nola and things just get complicated from there.
Bubbling through “Match Point,” as voiced by Meyers’ Chris, is a metaphor of luck over morality that’s first represented visually by a tennis ball hitting the net. The coolly deliberate story starts with its class distinctions, then has some beats as an adultery drama, and changes gears into a high-stakes thriller but in plausible fashion. Allen covers some of the same themes and philosophies—infidelity, lust, obsession, morality—from his previous work, especially his “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” as he evokes Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and Hitchcock albeit with subtlety and without clichés. The ending is not mechanical either but more of a meditation on crime, chance, and fate.
Meyers brings the right kind of surface charm and outward composure to the increasingly immoral Chris whose consequences of his actions turn out lucky, not great. Johansson is absolutely enticing and seductive with her throaty, come-hither sex appeal as Nola, although her character becomes more of a nag even after a crucial plot development. Meyers and Johansson smolder on screen together. Mortimer is lovely but her Chloe is so damn naïve and passive-aggressive even when she’s pushy about having a baby (her character and a key scene recall Mia Farrow’s Hannah in “Hannah and Her Sisters”).
Most unlike any other film the auteur has made, “Match Point” is sexy, smart, serious-minded, and Allen’s most confident, elegantly shot filmmaking in a while. The man’s 70 and this is his 36th feature film, if you’re keeping track, and that’s not just from years of hard luck.
Scoop (2006)
96 min., rated PG-13.
Grade: B
“Minor Allen” was nothing new before last year’s “Match Point,” Woody Allen’s most original and Hitchcockian piece of work in a good while, but now the auteur is back to his trifling tricks. No matter, Allen’s follow-up “Scoop,” also set in London, is light, beguiling good fun.
Sondra (a likable Scarlett Johansson), a Brooklyn journalism student visiting the Big Ben city, gets handpicked to go on stage by magician Sid Waterman (Allen). Inside a box, she comes across the spirit of famous reporter Joe Strombel (Ian McShane) who hands his scoop over to Sondra—he knows the identity of the Tarot Card Killer. She decides to go undercover, and together Sondra and Sid contrive to meet the suspect, Peter Lyman (a suave, charming Hugh Jackman), at a private club pool (she’s posing as an aspiring actress and Sid is her father). But of course, Sondra begins to fall hard for Peter even if he’s a murderer.
The droopy-eyed Allen is really beginning to look his age (70) on screen, last appearing three years ago in “Anything Else,” but his one-liners still pop (“I was born into the Hebrew persuasion, but when I got older I converted to narcissism” or “I never gain an ounce, because my anxiety acts like aerobics so I get the exercise.”). His bug-eyed expression behind the wheel of a European smart car is hilarious. Johansson, still a cutie behind those mousy Mia Farrow glasses and night-time retainer, is a good foil for Allen, like the next Diane Keaton. Thankfully, Allen’s more of a father figure than a love interest for her, but trying her hand at fostering the Jewish kvetch’s mannered-neurotic shtick, the leading lady is not much of a bumbler. McShane, first shown on a ship guided by the Grim Reaper (a nod to Allen’s Love and Death?), is mostly a plot device for the film.
Music by Peter Tchaikovsky and Johann Strauss Jr., as well as “In the Hall Of The Mountain King,” add to the lark-ish charm.
A slight effort, borrowing a bit from “Manhattan Murder Mystery,” “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion,” and “Small Time Crooks,” and the whodunit mystery isn’t really worth solving, but “Scoop” is a silly charmer that simply wins you over.
Cassandra’s Dream (2007)
108 min., rated PG-13.
Grade: C
Oh, how far the great Woody Allen has fallen. On the British heels of “Match Point” and “Scoop” now comes “Cassandra’s Dream,” an ineffectively weighty thriller about money, class, family, and murder, and it seems the filmmaker’s stuck this time in London without a passport.
Allen’s fresh new players Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell play two Cockney blue-collar brothers who dream of striking it rich and having a boat to call their own. Terry (Farrell) is a gambling mechanic in a steadily happy relationship and Ian (McGregor) is a would-be entrepreneur who pawns himself off as a rich tycoon to earn the fancy of a self-obsessed actress (newcomer Hayley Atwell). When both run into financial ruins, they ask for help from their well-off Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson). He agrees to assist them but on one condition: whack a colleague who could put Howard away for life.
McGregor’s Ian is too much of a whiner when it comes to the romance but he becomes more confident than Terry and oddly keeps his cool after the deed is done. Farrell gives the more interesting performance of the two, feeling his head spinning and the sweaty apprehension and then the post-murder guilt. Together, their brotherly chemistry feels relaxed, and their British accents maybe too relaxed. Wilkinson, as usual, is amusingly persuasive in his limited screen time.
Allen’s reworking a lot of the same morality themes he did in “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and “Match Point,” but the writer-director doesn’t get away with murder here. You wish there was more giddyup in the story and pacing, and less bombast in Philip Glass’s musical score, and this time, Allen’s dialogue has more exposition than it does wit. The leading up to the murder is staged like darkly humorous, mischievous Hitchcock and decidedly bloodless, the right touch by Allen’s pan-left, but the film’s abrupt ending is Greek tragedy or just an ironic shaggy-dog joke.
Said “Match Point” still wasn’t just a fluke, but the “earlier, funnier ones” are looking real good right about now, as “Cassandra’s Dream” is anything but a dream, especially for Woodyphiles.
_ Woody Allen Bob Hope Tonight Show 1971 Woody Allen Actor Director Writer Date Title (click to view) Studio Lifetime Gross / Theaters Opening / Theaters Rank 7/15/16 Cafe Society LGF $11,103,205 631 $359,289 5 18 7/17/15 Irrational Man SPC $4,030,360 925 $175,312 7 36 7/25/14 Magic in the Moonlight SPC $10,539,326 964 $412,095 17 […]
__ The Woody Allen Special [1969] (Guests: Candice Bergen, Billy Graham and the 5th Dimension) Published on Sep 8, 2016 For all the Woody Allen/television fans, here is the rare 1969 CBS special! Featuring the flawless stand-up of Woody, and skits such as: Woody and Candice having to rehearse nude for an artistic play. A […]
__ Woody Allen The Dean Martin Show Happy Birthday Woody Allen: 15 Quotes By The Maverick Filmmaker News18.com First published: December 1, 2016, 3:30 PM IST | Updated: December 1, 2016 One of the most celebrated filmmakers of Hollywood, Woody Allen turns 81 today. Born and raised in Brooklyn as Allen Konigsberg he is arguably […]
___________ Justin Timberlake Talks ‘Trolls,’ Family Life and His New Album With Pharrell Williams Andrew Barker Senior Features Writer@barkerrant TOM MUNRO FOR VARIETY NOVEMBER 1, 2016 | 10:00AM PT Settling into a hotel bar in Soho after a long day shooting a film for Woody Allen in the Bronx, Justin Timberlake wastes no time ordering […]
_ Woody Allen – standup – ’65 – RARE! Happy 81st Birthday, Woody Allen December 2, 2016 1 Comment Woody Allen turns 81 today. And he shows no signs of slowing down. Allen spent his 80th year being remarkably prolific, even by his own standards. The end of 2015 saw that year’s film, Irrational Man, […]
_ Everything We Know About Woody Allen’s 2017 Film With Kate Winslet And Justin Timberlake October 16, 2016 3 Comments Woody Allen has, it seems, wrapped production on his 2017 Film. The new film stars Kate Winlset and Justin Timberlake. And despite some very public days of shooting, We still don’t know that much […]
_____________ Woody Allen – The Atheist At 79, Woody Allen Says There’s Still Time To Do His Best Work JULY 29, 2015 5:03 PM ET When asked about his major shortcomings, filmmaker Woody Allen says, “I’m lazy and an imperfectionist.” Thibault Camus/AP Woody Allen is a prolific filmmaker — he’s been releasing films pretty much […]
Midnight in Paris: TAP’s Movie of the Month for June 2015 JUNE 1, 2015 by TAP Adventures Each month in TAP, we select a Movie of the Month to help prepare our students for their overseas trip. This month we’re starting to prepare for our 2016 adventure in France and the Benelux countries, so we’ve selected […]
This interview below reveals Woody Allen’s nihilistic views and reminds me of his best movie which is CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS!!!! Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989 Woody Allen Woody Allen Crimes and Misdemeanors Nihilism Nietzsche’s Death of God An Interview with Woody Allen Woody Allen’s World: Whatever Works Robert E. Lauder April 15, 2010 – 2:31pm Woody […]
Top 10 Woody Allen Movies Woody’s Cold Comforts Robert E. LauderApril 19, 2010 – 1:36pm Friends have often asked me about my interest in the films of Woody Allen: Why is a Catholic priest such an ardent admirer of the work of an avowed atheist, an artist who time and again has insisted on […]
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
I really starting following the work of Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge when I happened to watch the program DID DARWIN GET IT WRONG? on the show NOVA in 1981 on PBS. I was so taken with the show that I ordered the transcript. In this show the scientists attacked the evolution of the horse exhibit in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. The funny thing is the next day in college my professor brought up that very exhibit as proof of evolution and I was able to correct him and later provided him with the transcript of the program. Below are a few quotes from that program.
“It is, indeed, a very curious state of affairs, I think, that paleontologists have been insisting that their record is consistent with slow, steady, gradual evolution where I think that privately, they’ve known for over a hundred years that such is not the case. …It’s the only reason why they can correlate rocks with their fossils, for instance. …They’ve ignored the question completely.” (Eldredge, Niles, “Did Darwin Get It Wrong?” Nova (November 1, 1981), 22 p. 6.)
While I was on vacation last week my daughter and I went into NYC and one of the places we visited was the Museum of Natural History. As we were walking around, I couldn’t help but reflect that if Neo-Darwinians set out to self-consciously build a Neo-Darwinian Cathedral, it would be the Museum of Natural History.
Everywhere you looked the displays and exhibits put evolution and materialism front and center. It was almost as though the curators wanted to make absolutely sure that anyone entering into the building might have a chance to take in the materialist gospel – “from nothing, came everything, and to nothing, everything shall return.” This was glaringly apparent in displays like “The Hall of Human Origins” which supposedly traces
“the remarkable history of human evolution from our earliest ancestors millions of years ago to modern Homo sapiens.”
and the Hayden planetarium, which rather than giving us a view of the majesty of the universe as it is, instead takes visitors on a fantasy-land ride through the universe as the Neo-Darwinian faithful believe it was built (or more correctly, randomly assembled):
“The bottom half of the Hayden Sphere houses the Big Bang, where visitors will be transported to the beginning of time and space, experiencing a dramatic, multisensory re-creation of the first moments of the universe. From here, visitors continue on an awe-inspiring journey that chronicles the evolution of the universe by following the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway — a sloping walkway that takes them through 13 billion years of cosmic evolution.”
Even a display on the amazing history of the horse couldn’t help but highlight the supposed evolution of the horse from other creatures.
But what is never pointed out to the visitor are the gaps, the guesses, the blind-leaps, and the overwhelming mass of data that contradicts the totally outdated assumptions of the Neo-Darwinians. In short, the museum doesn’t let on that what it is really doing is pedaling a self-contradictory and increasingly intolerant faith. The Neo-Darwinians and the forces behind this God denying movement (Romans 1:18-32, Eph. 6:11) have a vested interest in not doing so. But pastors, elders, and parents have a responsibility to the lambs that Christ has entrusted to expose Neo-Darwinianism for what it is, because Neo-Darwinianism is not science, but a false faith that is as resistant to questioning and critique as the Roman church in the middle-ages ever was. The purpose of this post, therefore, is merely to point out a few of the more glaring errors in the Neo-Darwinian matrix and then recommend some good resources so that OSP pastors and elders might equip their congregations and be informed themselves.
First, lets deal with the theory of “phyletic gradualism.” Whether or not you know what that is, you can’t go into the American Museum of Natural History without seeing it in chart after chart of supposed chains that indicate how a presently living species developed from another earlier species. Usually, the chains are drawn by making connections between fossil animals that have similar features. A few species are found that resemble another species and then there are speculations that this is an “ancestor.” Scientifically, this is the equivalent of finding a Camaro in the junk yard at one level in a stack, and a Corvette beneath it and speculating that the Camaro developed from the Corvette based on functional similarities between the two.
If evolution were working according to the traditional hypothesis referred to as “phyletic gradualism”presupposed by Darwin, we would see an easily discernable pattern of chains in the fossil beds, as species clearly “mutated” into other species. This however is not what we find, and even evolutionary paleontologists are aware of it. For instance, the following quotes are from Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould, both paleontologists and supporters of evolution:
“No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of changeover millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that’s how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution.” (Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate, 1996)
“It is, indeed, a very curious state of affairs, I think, that paleontologists have been insisting that their record is consistent with slow, steady, gradual evolution where I think that privately, they’ve known for over a hundred years that such is not the case.” (Eldredge, “Did Darwin Get It Wrong?” Nova 11/1/81))
“Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study. …The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change I usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’” (Gould, The Panda’s Thumb, 1980)
“Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with their presumed ancestors.” (Eldredge, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks, 1989)
Then there is the famous Cambrian Explosion, or what some scientists call “the Biological Big Bang”, that would be the death knell of phyletic gradualism if Neo-Darwinianism rested on data and not blind faith:
“The “Cambrian explosion” refers to the geologically sudden appearance of many new animal body plans about 530 million years ago. At this time, at least nineteen, and perhaps as many as thirty-five phyla of forty total (Meyer et al. 2003), made their first appearance on earth within a narrow five- to ten-million-year window of geologic time (Bowring et al. 1993, 1998a:1, 1998b:40; Kerr 1993; Monastersky 1993; Aris-Brosou & Yang 2003). Many new subphyla, between 32 and 48 of 56 total (Meyer et al. 2003), and classes of animals also arose at this time with representatives of these new higher taxa manifesting significant morphological innovations. The Cambrian explosion thus marked a major episode of morphogenesis in which many new and disparate organismal forms arose in a geologically brief period of time.
To say that the fauna of the Cambrian period appeared in a geologically sudden manner also implies the absence of clear transitional intermediate forms connecting Cambrian animals with simpler pre-Cambrian forms. And, indeed, in almost all cases, the Cambrian animals have no clear morphological antecedents in earlier Vendian or Precambrian fauna (Miklos 1993, Erwin et al. 1997:132, Steiner & Reitner 2001, Conway Morris 2003b:510, Valentine et al. 2003:519-520). Further, several recent discoveries and analyses suggest that these morphological gaps may not be merely an artifact of incomplete sampling of the fossil record (Foote 1997, Foote et al. 1999, Benton & Ayala 2003, Meyer et al. 2003), suggesting that the fossil record is at least approximately reliable (Conway Morris 2003b:505).” (Meyer, PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 117(2):213-239. 2004, “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories”)
What paleontologists like Gould and Eldredge have have realized is that rather than showing a gradual progress of one species to another, the fossil record shows not the development, but the existence of complex biological structures with no record of earlier “transitional” structures.
“Stepping way back and looking at too broad a scale, one might discern some sort of progress in life’s history. …But the pattern dissolves upon close inspection. Most structural complexity entered in a grand burst at the Cambrian explosion, and the history of Phanerozoic life since then has largely been a tale of endless variation upon a set Bauplane. We may discern a few ‘vectors’ of directional change – thickening and ornamentation of shells…–but these are scarcely the stuff of progress in its usual sense.” (Gould, “The Paradox of the First Tier: an Agenda for Paleobiology,” Paleobiology, 1985)
Regarding why Neo-Darwinians are so tied to theories that are actually disproved by the evidence, Gould (who was himself an anti-theist) noted in his famous essay “Darwinian Fundamentalism” the distressing fact that Neo-Darwinianism had been transformed from a Scientific theory into the new unshakable faith of the present age. He and his colleagues criticized the willingness of educational establishments to continue teaching portions of Darwinian evolution that had long since been scrapped, as well as their unwillingness to embrace modern theories such as the “wonderful monster” concept of change via simultaneous rapid mutations (Punctuated Equilibrium). In fact, although he held creationists in utter contempt, he too was embarassed by the tendency of text-book publishers to print pictures of hypothetical “transitional life forms” that no fossil evidence has ever uncovered and which are biologically untenable.
For instance, Gould and many other paleontologists were only too well aware that a structure in-between an arm and a wing that was actually neither, made for a life-form that even under the concept of “survival of the fitest” would be “deleted.” As most modern paleontologists point out, we have fossil arms and we have fossil wings, we have fossil arms and fossil flippers, but no transitional forms in between. They’ve generally given up on searching for biologically untenable “links” and because design and creation are immediately ruled out (materialism is after all the ruling philosophy in the academy) as possibilities, they have generated a series of increasingly bizarre and unlikely theories such as punctuated equilibrium which speculates that at some point a lizard gave birth to a bird, and said bird found another similar mutant and the bird species began. At some point you have to step back and scratch your head and say, “and we Christians are the kooks because we believe God made birds and lizards?”
So the fossil record far from proving Neo-Darwinianism actually does the opposite. Darwinians always assumed they would find “transitional life forms” showing the development of one species into another. They haven’t, and in fact, recent digs particularly in the Cambrian strata in China are showing that the classic Darwinian tree, which went from a single common ancestor to an increasing diversity of life is actually upside-down. As we’ve mentioned there was a sudden “explosion” of life in the Cambrian period, and much less diversity afterwards, in other words, there are fewer and fewer lifeforms as one goes up the tree, not more and more. The fossil record tells us that species became extinct, but it doesn’t tell us new ones evolved from the existing ones. All the assumptions, taken on faith, by Darwinian scientists in the 19th century have failed to pan out in the fossil record.
But even more damaging to the Neo-Darwinian faith are the advances in DNA research and Biochemistry, areas that Darwin had no knowledge of and which are proving antithetical to his theories. The discoveries in these fields are showing to the chagrin of Darwinians that there is no natural mechanism for ADDING information to the DNA sequence that would allow, for instance, for a change of species. What this means is that while we can tinker with DNA in a lab, “nature” simply doesn’t have a mechanism for changing DNA in the way that would allow for Flatworms to become Field Mice. It simply can’t be done, and it doesn’t matter how much time or mutation one posits.
Proteins are made up of long complex chains of organic chemicals called “amino acids”, various proteins are brought together to form structures within cells each of which has a highly complex role to play – they are in essence the “engines” of the cell, the composition of these amino acid chains is determined by the information contained in DNA. It is the DNA code that instructs the cellular machines that put together the Amino acid chains in what order they are to go. Nothing in Darwin’s theory can account for the creation of the information in DNA or, most importantly, how amino acids were assembled in the correct order to form proteins prior to the creation of DNA. Proteins cannot precede the DNA necessary to construct them and inorganic chemicals cannot create information.
Also, natural selection cannot occur without the driving force of life and death and thus “genetic favoritism” and gradual change. What this means is that prior to the existence of life-forms Neo-Darwinianism lacks an engine to drive it. Natural selection actually presumes the existence of at least cellular life-forms before it can operate. So it cannot explain the combination of organic chemicals or even their creation.
Thus the “Deus Ex Machina” that powers Neo-Darwinian theory, natural selection, cannot account for the formation of life from non-life or the formation of actual information. Which means that while Genesis 1-2 can account for the creation of life, Neo-Darwinianism cannot.
Obviously this is only a very brief sketch of the information out there, and I present it merely to hopefully whet your appetite for your own studies. The following are a few links which I hope will be of value to you as you train-up your own flock, there are many more I could list, but this should be enough to get you started.
Horse evolution prominently appears in textbooks as a supreme example of the evolution of one body style into another. All students remember the “horse series” sketches, tracing the development of a small browser named Hyracotherium (formerly known as Eohippus) with four toes on the front feet and three on the rear, into the large one-toed horse of today. Intermediate steps included the three-toed Mesohippus, a modified horse with one toe touching the ground; the one-toed Merychippus; Pliohippus, also with only one toe; and finally our modern horse, Equus, who along the way had acquired high-crowned molars and other adaptations.
Of course, modern horses exist in great variety, with many unusual adaptations that allow them to cope with widely varied environments. Numerous species are recognized, almost all of which are known to hybridize. Obviously, there is a great deal of latitude in horse characteristics. Furthermore, various strains can be bred to accentuate one trait, such as the tiny horses about as large as a dog. Horses display a great deal of adaptability.
Early evolutionary theories hypothesized progress in a direct line from one type to another, and fossils were displayed within that framework. In recent decades, this view of directed evolution has been generally disavowed, and no particular form is now considered to have been the goal of “non-directed” mutation and natural selection. Once free to examine the data without this “directed” overprint, evolutionary scientists were quick to recognize that changes among horses had been abundant, extensive, and unpredictable.
There are some things to note, however. During the same time period that some of the descendants of Hyracotheriumsupposedly developed into full-blown horses and elephants and other mammals, others persisted unchanged. It seems that evolution does not always change things–often it leaves them alone. Selection pressures that acted so strongly to produce major modifications in some life forms left others in stasis. Their fossils are found in the same strata intervals, so they must have lived in the same environment. Evolution apparently does not apply across the board. If a theory can accommodate any possibility, it is a weak concept indeed.
It is now acknowledged that horse evolution as recorded in the fossils follows no recognizable pattern, and that the evolutionary “tree” looks more like a multi-branching “bush.” The successive forms indicating straight-line evolution appear only in textbooks; they do not appear in the fossils. Sometimes fossils of different types that supposedly lived at different times appear together in the same strata layer. In Oregon, the three-toed grazer Neohipparion (very much like Merychippus) has been found with Pliohippus. In the Great Basin area, Pliohippus has been found with the three-toed Hipparion throughout the timeframe supposedly represented. Evolutionary scientists freely admit this situation–and to their credit often attempt to correct the misconceptions–but still the horse series appears in the textbooks.
Any three fossils can be placed in a line and an evolutionary story can be told about the transformation of one into the other. And a different story could be told if the fossils were arranged in a different order.
It is interesting to note that Hyracotherium was so named because its specimens looked similar to the hyrax. This little “rock badger” can be seen alive in many zoos, complete with an interpretive sign listing its varied evolutionary antecedents. It looks very, very different from a horse, but most of its reputed predecessors could possibly be true variants of the horse. If you took the tiny three-toed ones out of the line-up, then the fossils would fit the creation picture, showing variety within a created kind.
* Dr. Morris is President of the Institute for Creation Research.
Cite this article: Morris, J. 2008. The Mythical Horse Series. Acts & Facts. 37 (9): 13.
This article is about the paleontologist and science writer. For the science fiction writer, see Steven Gould. For the 19th century businessman, see Jay Gould.
Stephen Jay Gould
Born
September 10, 1941 Queens, New York, United States
Died
May 20, 2002 (aged 60) Manhattan, New York, United States
Gould’s most significant contribution to evolutionary biology was the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which he developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972.[2] The theory proposes that most evolution is characterized by long periods of evolutionary stability, which is infrequently punctuated by swift periods of branching evolution. The theory was contrasted against phyletic gradualism, the popular idea that evolutionary change is marked by a pattern of smooth and continuous change in the fossil record.[3]
Gould was known by the general public mainly from his 300 popular essays in the magazine Natural History,[5] and his books written for both the specialist and non-specialist. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named him a “Living Legend“.[6]
Gould married artist Deborah Lee on October 3, 1965.[19] Gould met Lee while they were students together at Antioch College.[8] They had two sons, Jesse and Ethan, and were married for 30 years.[20] His second marriage in 1995 was to artist and sculptor Rhonda Roland Shearer.[19]
In the third video below in the 147th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
___
QUOTE by Stephen Jay Gould
“Whatever happened to the idea that we are a higher being put on the earth for a higher purpose and we are at the top of the evolutionary ladder?”
Defined by whom? If I were a bacteria I would be quite satisfied that I was dominating the planet. I have been here 3 1/2 billion years. There is more of me than there is of you. There is no way you can nuke me into oblivion. You humans can nuke yourselves and I will be here till the sun explodes and you won’t. The only difference is that as a bacteria I wouldn’t have the consciousness to imagine that but I don’t know why consciousness should be seen as any state of higher being especially if you use the evolutionist primary criterion of success measured by duration. I wouldn’t place any bets on consciousness assuring our long survival on this planet.
Consciousness is a big deal and it goes against the Dr. Gould’s argument here. The Bible says that humans were put here for a reason and that we were created in the image of God. Let me respond further by using the Fine Tuning Argument from Antony Flew.
The Fine Tuning Argument for the Existence of God from Antony Flew!
Imagine entering a hotel room on your next vacation. The CD player on the bedside table is softly playing a track from your favorite recording. The framed print over the bed is identical to the image that hangs over the fireplace at home. The room is scented with your favorite fragrance…You step over to the minibar, open the door, and stare in wonder at the contents. Your favorite beverage. Your favorite cookies and candy. Even the brand of bottled water you prefer…You notice the book on the desk: it’s the latest volume by your favorite author…
Chances are, with each new discovery about your hospitable new environment, you would be less inclined to think it has all a mere coincidence, right? You might wonder how the hotel managers acquired such detailed information about you. You might marvel at their meticulous preparation. You might even double-check what all this is going to cost you. But you would certainly be inclined to believe that someone knew you were coming. There Is A God (2007) p.113-4
I have more articles posted on my blog about the last few years of Antony Flew’s life than any other website in the world probably. The reason is very simple. I had the opportunity to correspond with Antony Flew back in the middle 90’s and he said that he had the opportunity to listen to several of the cassette tapes that I sent him with messages from Adrian Rogers and he also responded to several of the points I put in my letters that I got from Francis Schaeffer’s materials. The ironic thing was that I purchased the sermon IS THE BIBLE TRUE? originally from the Bellevue Baptist Church Bookstore in 1992 and in the same bookstore in 2008 I bought the book THERE IS A GOD by Antony Flew. Back in 1993 I decided to contact some of the top secular thinkers of our time and I got my initial list of individuals from those scholars that were mentioned in the works of both Francis Schaeffer and Adrian Rogers. Schaeffer had quoted Flew in his book ESCAPE FROM REASON. It was my opinion after reviewing the evidence that Antony Flew was the most influential atheistic philosopher of the 20th century.
On May 15, 1994 on the 10th anniversary of the passing of Francis Schaeffer I sent a letter to Stephen Jay Gould and here is a portion of that letter below:
I have enclosed a cassette tape by Adrian Rogers and it includes a story about Charles Darwin‘s journey from the position of theistic evolution to agnosticism. Here are the four bridges that Adrian Rogers says evolutionists can’t cross in the CD “Four Bridges that the Evolutionist Cannot Cross.” 1. The Origin of Life and the law of biogenesis. 2. The Fixity of the Species. 3.The Second Law of Thermodynamics. 4. The Non-Physical Properties Found in Creation.
Evolution Fact of Fiction Adrian Rogers (same message I put on cassette tape back in 1994)
Uploaded on Nov 13, 2011
The Theory of Evolution Destroyed!!
In the first 3 minutes of the cassette tape is the hit song “Dust in the Wind.” Below I have given you some key points Francis Schaeffer makes about the experiment that Solomon undertakes in the book of Ecclesiastes to find satisfaction by looking into learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).
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.”
Here the first 7 verses of Ecclesiastes followed by Schaeffer’s commentary on it:
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 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. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
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 sun between birth and death and the answers this would give.
Solomon doesn’t place man outside of the cycle. Man doesn’t escape the cycle. Man is in the cycle. Birth and death and youth and old age.
There is no doubt in my mind that Solomon had the same experience in his life that I had as a younger man (at the age of 18 in 1930). I remember standing by the sea and the moon arose and it was copper and beauty. Then the moon did not look like a flat dish but a globe or a sphere since it was close to the horizon. One could feel the global shape of the earth too. Then it occurred to me that I could contemplate the interplay of the spheres and I was exalted because I thought I can look upon them with all their power, might, and size, but they could contempt nothing. Then came upon me a horror of great darkness because it suddenly occurred to me that although I could contemplate them and they could contemplate nothing yet they would continue to turn in ongoing cycles when I saw no more forever and I was crushed.
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; …that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.Bertrand Russell
The British humanist H. J. Blackham (1903-2009) put it very plainly: “On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. If there is a bridge over a gorge which spans only half the distance and ends in mid-air, and if the bridge is crowded with human beings pressing on, one after the other they fall into the abyss. The bridge leads nowhere, and those who are pressing forward to cross it are going nowhere….It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility“( H. J. Blackham, et al., Objections to Humanism (Riverside, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1967).
Let me show you some inescapable conclusions if you choose to live without God in the picture. Schaeffer noted that Solomon came to these same conclusions when he looked at life “under the sun.”
Death is the great equalizer (Eccl 3:20, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”)
Chance and time have determined the past, and they will determine the future. (Ecclesiastes 9:11-13 “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.”)
Power reigns in this life, and the scales are not balanced(Eccl 4:1; “Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.” 7:15 “In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness. ).
Nothing in life gives true satisfaction without God including knowledge (1:16-18), ladies and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and great building projects (2:4-6, 18-20).
There is no ultimate lasting meaning in life. (1:2)
By the way, the final chapter of Ecclesiastes finishes with Solomon emphasizing that serving God is the only proper response of man. Solomon looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture in the final chapter of the book in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, “ Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
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. In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas when it rose to #6 on the charts. That song told me that Kerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had and that “all was meaningless UNDER THE SUN,” and looking ABOVE THE SUN was the only option. I remember mentioning to my friends at church that we may soon see some members of Kansas become Christians because their search for the meaning of life had obviously come up empty even though they had risen from being an unknown band to the top of the music business and had all the wealth and fame that came with that.
Livgren wrote, “All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
Both Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgren first tried Eastern Religions and Dave Hope had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible Church. Hope is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida.
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Adrian Rogers is pictured below and Francis Schaeffer above.
Watching the film HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? in 1979 impacted my life greatly
Francis Schaeffer in the film WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?
Francis and Edith Schaeffer
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This might interest you that good friend in Little Rock Craig Carney had an uncle named Warren Carney and Warren was born in 1917 and he was the last living witness of the Scopes Monkey trial but he died in June of 2015. His father took him to the trial every day since they lived in Dayton and it was the biggest happening in the town’s history. Also I attended the funeral of Dr. Robert G. Lee (1886-1978) at Bellevue Baptist in Memphis and he is the minister who presided over William Jennings Bryan’s funeral in 1925. I have posted Dr. Lee’s most famous sermonPAYDAY SOME DAY on this blog and it continues to get lots of views everyday.
On January 5, 1982, Judge William R. Overton of the District Court in Little Rock handed down a decision holding that the Arkansas Act for Balanced Treatment of Creation-Science and Evolution-Science violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, academic freedom, and due process, in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education. The judge is one of more than 400 U.S. District Court judges, and another federal or state judge can reject Overton’s reasoning and reach an opposite result.
At the trial from December 7-17, 1981, many well-qualified creationist scientists appeared as expert witnesses. They gave outstanding scientific testimony, but the defense was not adequately prepared and did not do adequate questioning. (Neither ICR nor attorneys Bird and Whitehead were involved in the trial or discovery.) The news media grossly distorted their testimony. Part I of this article is a summary by Dr. Duane Gish, who was present during the trial, of the actual testimony given. Part II is a brief of the judge’s decision.
John Scopes:
I. WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED AT THE TRIAL
By Duane T. Gish, Ph.D.
The plaintiff’s first witnesses consisted of a group of theologians, philosophers and historians. Included were Father Francis Bruce Vawter, Prof. of Religious Studies, De Paul University, Chicago, Dr. George Marsden, Prof. of History, Calvin College, Grand Rapids; Rev. Kenneth Hicks, Methodist bishop, Little Rock; Dr. Langdon Gilkey, Prof. of Theology, School of Divinity, University of Chicago; Dr. Michael Ruse, Prof. of Philosophy, University of Guelph, Ontario; and Dr. Dorothy Nelkin, Prof. of Sociology, Cornell University, New York.
The testimony of this group of witnesses was directed towards linking creation science with Biblical Christianity. Marsden claimed that the Arkansas law gave this view preferential treatment. In cross-examination Nelkin admitted that evolution is based on an a priori assumption of no creator.
During cross-examination it was established that Ruse had published an article in which he had stated that Dr. Stephen Jay Gould (slated to be one of the plaintiff’s star witnesses) could not be a scientist because he was a Marxist. Ruse accused creationists of quoting out of context but then later quoted a portion of Gish’s book Evolution: The Fossils Say No flagrantly out of context.
The plaintiffs’ next group of witnesses included four scientists: Dr. Francisco Ayala, Prof. of Biology, University of California Davis; Dr. G. Brent Dalrymple, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California; Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, Prof. of Geology, Harvard University; and Dr. Harold J. Morowitz, Prof. of Biophysics, Yale University. The purpose of this group of witnesses was to argue that creation had no scientific validity, and to describe evidence from science supporting evolution theory. Ayala cited evidence from molecular biology, Dalrymple cited radiometric dating, and Gould described evidence from geology and paleontology. Morowitz attacked the creationist’s use of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as evidence against evolution.
The plaintiffs’ final list of witnesses included several educators, who all claimed they could not implement the Arkansas law. Dr. William V. Mayer, Director of the Biological Science Curriculum Study, made the astounding statement that presenting an alternative interpretation of origins would confuse students and so should be avoided! All of the witnesses had apparently been coached by the ACLU staff of lawyers to maintain that they knew of no scientific evidence to support creation and that creation science was altogether religious.
The State’s first defense witness was Dr. Norman Geisler (Ph.D. in philosophy, Loyola U., Chicago), Prof. of Systematic Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary. To many, Geisler’s brilliant testimony destroyed much of the plaintiffs’ case. Citing much historical evidence, he established that belief in a creator does not necessarily involve religious worship or commitment, that the source of inspiration for a belief or proposition is independent of the evidence used to support the proposition, and that belief in creation is a logical inference based on valid evidence. In an attempt to discredit Geisler’s testimony, the ACLU lawyer quoted Geisler’s published belief that UFO’s were under the control of Satan. In most of the media this was headlined in order to mute the effect of Geisler’s testimony. Dr. Larry Parker, a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Georgia State U., maintained that teaching the two models of origins would give students a valid choice, teaching them how to think rather than what to think.
The scientist witnesses for the state included Dr. W. Scot Morrow, Prof. of Biochemistry, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC; Dr. Donald Chittick, a chemist engaged in biomass to energy conversion; Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe, a mathematician-astronomer and Professor and Head of Department of Applied Mathematics, University College, Cardiff, Wales; Robert Gentry, a physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratories; Dr. Wayne Frair, Prof. of Biology, The King’s College; Dr. Margaret Heider, Ph.D. in botany; Dr. Ariel Roth, Prof. of Biology, Geoscience Research Institute; and Dr. Harold Coffin, Prof. of Geology, Geoscience Research Institute.
Dr. Morrow, although an evolutionist and an agnostic, maintained that creationists actually look at more data than do evolutionists and that an inquiry approach involving multiple working hypotheses was a superior teaching method.
Dr. Wickramasinghe, one of England’s foremost scientists, also spoke for Sir Fred Hoyle, famous British astronomer with whom he has co-authored several books. Although both have long been identified as atheists, Wickramasinghe testified that they had concluded through a study of information science that the probability of an evolutionary origin of life was essentially zero—no greater than the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard would assemble a Boeing 747! They also now disavow the Big Bang theory and the idea of biological evolution via mutations, both of which involve degradation of information. Prof. Wickramasinghe chided evolutionists for their arrogance and intolerance of creationist views.
Excellent testimony was given by zoologist Frair (taxonomic studies supporting creation), botanist Heider (botanical studies supporting separate origin of major plant groups), chemist Chittick (evidence for catastrophism and a young age), physicist Gentry (evidence from radiohaloes supporting a recent rapid creation), biologist Roth (studies on rapid coral growth), and geologist Coffin (paleontological evidence for creation and catastrophism).
From his decision it is obvious that Judge Overton (as well as most of the news media) completely ignored the scientific evidence presented by the defense witnesses while accepting without question evidence offered by the plaintiffs’ witnesses. Many remarks made by Judge Overton during the trial revealed his bias against the creationist side.
II. A BRIEF STATEMENT ON THE ARKANSAS DECISION
By John W. Whitehead, J.D.
The Arkansas district court gave a constitutionally erroneous and factually inaccurate opinion in McLean u. Arkansas Board of Education, No. 81-322 (E.D. Ark. Jan. 5, 1982). It is regrettable that the Arkansas defense did not adequately present or adequately support the strong constitutional arguments that could have been made in favor of balanced treatment of creation-science and evolution-science.
A. No Violation of Separation of Church & State. Teaching creation-science along with evolution-science does not violate separation of church and state. Creation-science can be presented solely in terms of scientific evidence and related inferences and without any religious concepts. The primary effect and purpose are to teach all of the scientific evidence on the subject of origins. See generally Bird, “Freedom of Religion and Science Instruction in Public Schools,” 87 Yale Law Journal 515,554-70 (1978); Bird, “Freedom from Establishment and Unneutrality in Public School Instruction,” 1979 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 125, 165-74.
B. Constitutional Errors. (1) The Arkansas court is incorrect in stating that creation-science is Genesis (pp. 17, 19). Creation-science consists of scientific discussion rather than biblical discussion or concepts. Reference in public schools to a creator and consistency of public school curriculum with religion is permitted by the establishment clause under all U.S. Supreme Court precedents. (2) The court is also incorrect in saying “that creation science has no scientific merit or educational value as science” (pp. 32, 28). Examples of positive evidence are the abrupt appearance of complex life in the fossil record and the systematic gaps between fossil types. (3) The Arkansas court is incorrect in defining science as limited to “natural law,” and in contending that creation-science is not “explanatory,” “testable,” “tentative,” or “falsifiable” (p. 22). The scientific method cannot exclude evidence, and true science cannot define evidence away, on the basis of bias against the supranatural. Creation-science is as explanatory, testable, tentative, and falsifiable as evolution-science. (4) The opinion is incorrect in arguing that “[t]he two model approach of the creationists is simply a contrived dualism which has no scientific factual basis or legitimate educational purpose” (p. 20). That there are only two basic scientific explanations of origins is acknowledged by many evolutionist scientists, is required by logical analysis (the universe either always existed or was created, life either evolved or was created, etc.), and is strongly supported by educational research. (5) It is incorrect in stating that a balanced treatment requirement violates the academic freedom of students on the ground that teachers who despise creation-science will refuse to teach evolution-science and thereby will deprive students of “the cornerstone of modern biology” (p. 35). Presentation of all the scientific evidence on origins obviously expands rather than restricts students’ academic freedom, and any deprivation results from teachers’ choice rather than from a balanced treatment requirement. These constitutional issues will be discussed more fully in a forthcoming Impact article, and are treated exhaustively in the above legal articles.
C. Factual Inaccuracies. The Arkansas opinion also contains numerous factual errors, of which the following are only examples. (1) Paul Ellwanger in supporting model legislation was not “motivated by … desire to see the Biblical version of creation taught in the public schools” (p. 13), which he opposes, but instead to see all of the scientific evidence on origins taught. (2) “Creation from nothing … and subsequent destruction of the world by flood” is not “unique to Genesis” “among the many creation epics in human history” (P. 17), but in fact appears in most of them. (3) A “relatively recent inception” of the world and life does not mean “between 6,000 and 20,000 years because of the genealogy of the Old Testament” (p. 24), to which it has no relation, but a comparatively young age as opposed to the equally unspecific and variable old ages assumed by evolutionists.
III. THE LOUISIANA LITIGATION OVER CREATION-SCIENCE
The constitutionality of balanced treatment of creation-science and evolution-science is also being litigated in the U.S. District Court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in Keith v. Louisiana Department of Education (No. 81989B, filed Dec. 2, 1981). This lawsuit to declare the Louisiana Balanced Treatment Act constitutional was filed by Louisiana legislators, science professors, science teachers, and religious spokesmen (Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Agnostic) who are represented by attorneys Bird and Whitehead as special assistant attorneys general for Louisiana.
We are optimistic that the Louisiana lawsuit will result in a judicial opinion that public school instruction in creation-science is constitutional, directly contrary to the Arkansas decision, because it involves a different statute, new and different arguments and support, different expert witnesses, new and different scientific evidence, a different legislative purpose, and an adequate defense. Inquiries can be directed to the Creation Science Legal Defense Fund, P.O. Box 78312, Shreveport, LA 71107. (318) 226-9784.
Prof. Derek Ager of the University at Swansea, Wales, in Proc. Geol. Assoc. Vol. 87, p. 132 (1976) has stated
“It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned as a student, from Trueman’s Ostrea/Gryphea to Carruther’s Raphrentis delanouei, have now been ‘debunked.’ Similarly, my own experience of more than twenty years looking for evolutionary lineages among the Mesozoic Brachiopoda has proved them equally elusive.”
This admission by Prof. Ager (no friend of creationists) fits in very well with the title of this article—a significant part of the changing scene in evolutionary circles is the changing attitude of evolutionists concerning the fossil record—more and more are now admitting that the missing links are still missing, that they have little or no evidence for gradual change in the fossil record.
In his article in Natural History 86:22 (1977) entitled “The Return of Hopeful Monsters,” Stephen J. Gould, leading spokesman for evolutionists in the U.S. today, said that
“The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change…. “
“All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.”
From an article published in Paleobiology, Vol. 3 (1977) by S.J. Gould and Niles Eldredge we find the following on p. 147:
“At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic morphological designs, gradualism has always been in trouble, though it remains the ‘official’ position of most Western evolutionists. Smooth intermediates between Baupläne are almost impossible to construct, even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like Archaeopteryx do not count).” In his review of Steven Stanley’s bookMacroevolution by D.S. Woodruff (Science 208:716 (1980)), Woodruff says (I believe he is quoting Stanley):
“But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition.”
The clatter has become so loud that even the popular press has picked it up. Newsweek in an article entitled “Is Man a Subtle Accident?” published Nov. 3, 1980, stated
“The missing link between man and the apes, whose absence has comforted religious fundamentalists since the days of Darwin, is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures …. The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated.”
Some evolutionists have come to realize that the fossil record is so bad relative to evolution theory that they want to avoid it entirely as support for evolution. Mark Ridley, a British evolutionist, tells us in his article published in New Scientist 90:832 (1981) that
“No real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.”
One might immediately wonder, then, where does Ridley believe we find all the marvelous evidence for the “fact of evolution?” Why, from the “observed evolution of species, from biogeography, and from the hierarchical structure of taxonomy,” Ridley tells us. He apparently disagrees with his fellow evolutionist and the most distinguished of all French zoologists, Pierre Grasse´ , who states in his book Evolution of Living Organisms (English translation, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 4):
“Naturalists must remember that the process of evolution is revealed only through fossil forms. A knowledge of paleontology is, therefore, a prerequisite; only paleontology can provide them with the evidence of evolution and reveal its course or mechanisms. Neither the examination of present beings, nor imagination, nor theories can serve as a substitute for paleontological documents.”
What Grasse´ says in his book is that biology offers us no help in our attempt to understand the mechanism of evolution. He says that evolution is a mystery about which little is, and perhaps can be, known. He says certainly mutations and natural selection cannot possibly provide that mechanism.
Many others in more recent times, in view of the growing knowledge that the fossil record produces no evidence for gradual change and that the gaps in the fossil record, particularly at the level of the higher categories, are systematic and almost always large, are now abandoning the neo-Darwinian theory of slow gradual change. Gould has said that as a general principle, neo-Darwinism is dead, although it is still textbook orthodoxy.
In his comments on a new mechanism for evolution postulated by Edward Wiley and Daniel Brooks, Roger Lewin (Science 217:1239-1240, 1982) says,
“Natural selection, a central feature of neo-Darwinism, is allowed for in Brooks and Wiley’s theory, but only as a minor influence. ‘It can affect survivorship’ says Brooks. ‘It can weed out some of the complexity and so slow down the information decay that results in speciation. It may have a stabilizing effect, but it does not promote speciation. It is not a creative force as many people have suggested.”‘
Let me point out first of all that all of this sounds familiar—it is the source that is astounding. The view just stated is precisely what has been said by creationists ever since Edward Blyth in 1830. Natural selection is a stabilizing force. It is not a creative force, the driving mechanism of evolution, which has been responsible for the conversion of one organism into another, all the way from amoeba to man. But now, notice who is saying this—evolutionists!
Even more, they are saying that natural selection is not only not the mechanism for evolution, it actually retards the evolutionary process. They say that natural selection slows down the information decay that results in speciation. That statement is absolutely astounding on two points.
First of all, their admission that natural selection not only is not the mechanism of evolution but actually acts contrary to evolution is most revealing. Secondly, that speciation, and thus evolution, occurs by the decay of information. Now that is really startling! We creationists have long pressed the point that the random processes supposedly at work in evolution cannot possibly account for the origin of new information required for increase in complexity and the generation of new functions and organs required by evolution. Evolutionists have, on the contrary, insisted that this was possible.
Now Wiley and Brooks are claiming that all of us were wrong, both creationists and evolutionists. Evolution, from the primordial single-celled organisms to the millions of present-day organisms, including man with his 30 trillion cells of over 200 varieties, including a three-pound human brain with twelve billion brain cells and 120 trillion connections, is the result of the decay of information!
Whatever anyone might think of that theory, certainly we can all recognize that they are rejecting Darwinism. As I have said earlier, many others are doing the same. Science Digest (Sept.-Oct. 1980, p. 55) had an article entitled “Was Darwin Wrong.?” The British Broadcasting Company produced a television program a year or two ago entitled “Did Darwin Get It Wrong?” Stephen J. Gould, Niles Eldredge, Steven Stanley and others have abandoned neo-Darwinism for what they call “punctuated equilibrium.” They suggest that what we see in the fossil record is that species abruptly appear, fully-formed. They remain virtually unchanged for the duration of their existence, up to ten million years or even more, and they then abruptly disappear and are replaced by other species that also abruptly appear fully formed with no evidence of transitional forms.
They suggest that the evolutionary transitions occur somewhere out in an isolated area on the periphery of the main population and that the transitions occur very rapidly in small populations. The change is so rapid and the numbers are so small, we are told, that there are no opportunities for fossilization of the transitional forms.
Let me point out, first of all, that this notion of punctuated equilibrium is no mechanism at all. It is simply a new scenario. They are saying that since we don’t find transitional forms, evolution could not have occurred slowly and gradually, so obviously, then, it must have occurred rapidly. How and why evolution occurs so rapidly, no one knows. As a matter of fact, the idea that multiplied millions of rapid bursts of evolution have occurred is contrary to the science of modern genetics. The genetic apparatus of a lizard, for example, is totally devoted to producing another lizard. The idea that by some random evolutionary process the genetic apparatus of a lizard could be rapidly reorganized to produce something really significantly different is clearly contrary to everything we know. Evolutionists simply have no mechanism for evolution.
Secondly, the notion of punctuated equilibrium doesn’t solve the really serious problem evolutionists have with the fossil record. In fact, it doesn’t even address that problem. The idea of punctuated equilibrium was invented to explain the lack of transitional forms between species. But that is not the real problem. The really serious problem is the absence of transitional forms between the higher categories, that is, between families, orders, classes and phyla. The total absence, for example, of transitional forms between invertebrates and the fishes, a vast gulf supposedly spanning 100 million years. We have no transitional forms between basic morphological designs, or what creationists call the created kinds.
Evolutionists find themselves in a most embarrassing position today. They can find neither the transitional forms in the fossil record that their theory demands nor can they find a mechanism to explain how the evolutionary process supposedly occurred. I am reminded of what Owl said in the Pogo comic strip. He said, “If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs for breakfast—if we had some eggs!”
Certainly we are witnessing a changing scene in evolutionary circles today. They are finally admitting that the fossil record shows little or no evidence for gradual change (which is precisely what we must predict on the basis of creation). Many are now rejecting Darwinism and are suggesting radical new theories concerning the evolutionary process. But, almost all chorus in unison—evolution is a fact!
Isn’t that amazing! One hundred and twenty-years after Darwin the missing links are still missing, and that wonderful, marvelous Darwinian mechanism that was responsible for swinging the majority of scientists over to evolution is now becoming rapidly discredited. Yet, somehow, we are told, everyone knows that evolution is a fact! Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, said in a talk he gave at the American Museum of Natural History, November 5, 1981, that he now realizes that in accepting evolution he had moved from science into faith. In a recent BBC program Dr. Patterson stated that all we really have of the evolutionary phylogenetic tree are the tips of the branches. All else—the filling in of the trunk and of the branches—is simply story telling of one kind or another.
*Dr. Duane T. Gish is Vice President of the Institute for Creation Research.
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
There are some things to note, however. During the same time period that some of the descendants of Hyracotheriumsupposedly developed into full-blown horses and elephants and other mammals, others persisted unchanged. It seems that evolution does not always change things–often it leaves them alone. Selection pressures that acted so strongly to produce major modifications in some life forms left others in stasis. Their fossils are found in the same strata intervals, so they must have lived in the same environment. Evolution apparently does not apply across the board. If a theory can accommodate any possibility, it is a weak concept indeed..jpg)
