Bible Study not to be conducted like the "scholars"

"It is the first and highest duty of every rational being to learn from the scriptures what is truth and then to walk in the light and encourage others to follow this example. 

We should day by day study the Bible diligently, 

weighing very thought and comparing scripture with scripture. 

With divine help, we are to form our opinions for ourselves as we are to answer for ourselves before God.

The truths most plainly revealed in the Bible have been involved in

doubt and darkness by learned scholars who with a pretense of great wisdom teach that the Scriptures have a mystical, a secret spiritual meaning not apparent in the language employed. These are false teachers. It was to such a class that Jesus declared, "Ye know not the
scriptures, neither the power of God." Mark 12:24.

*The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning unless a symbol or figure is employed. 

If people would but take the Bible as it reads, if there were no false teachers to mislead and confuse their minds." 

E.G.W.

Creation Moment 9/16/2026 - Idolatry and natural selection

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The Creator of all things is the Lord Jesus Christ, who has no equal in authority and status. The first two commandments reiterate that this high position is His alone: “You shall have no other gods before Me. . . . You shall not make any . . . likeness . . . . You shall not bow down to them nor serve them” (Exodus 20:3, 4).

Darwin’s clever link between idolatry and the evolutionary worldview is natural selection and the concept behind that term. Scientists initially criticized natural selection as a personification. As a science historian explains, “One source of trouble was that Darwin liked the term ‘natural selection’ because it [a mental concept] could be ‘used as a substantive governing a verb [a real agent that can act]’ (F. Darwin, 1887, vol. 3, p. 46). But such uses appeared to reify, even to deify, natural selection as an agent.”

Q: Do evolutionists invoke natural selection as a substitute creator? 

A: Let’s hear from them.

"This was Darwin’s fundamental discovery, that there is a process that is creative, although not conscious. . . . It was Darwin’s greatest accomplishment to show that the complex organization and functionality of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process—natural selection—without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent."

"Natural selection is a creative process that can explain the appearance of genuine novelty."

Natural selection is venerated as the creator of biology, so why not for the entire universe? As one evolutionist put it, “Charles Darwin .

. . [has] brought the entire natural world under a single law of natural selection . . . [the] starting point [of my theory about the universe’s evolution] is the remarkable theory of cosmological natural selection proposed by the physicist Lee Smolin.” It follows that “the universe could be further understood as a self-coherent and self-creating whole, without the need for anything outside itself to give it law, meaning or complexity.”

Natural selection is idolatrous in the basest of ways. Not only does it ascribe rational powers to unconscious environmental features, like any other idol, but it also induces people not to give the Lord Jesus credit for the incredible intelligence and machinery He has built into His creatures that enable them to adapt to their environment. Consider the Lord’s declaration in Isaiah 42:8: “I am the LORD: that is My name: and My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” . . . or to nature as creator." ICR

Modern culture vs. Christ

"Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.

Modern culture says follow your heart. 

Jesus said deny yourself." 

MattMason

IN the NEWS - Father in Uganda Beaten by Muslim Sons for Accepting Christ

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Matthew 5:11

"A 52-year-old Christian in eastern Uganda was recovering from injuries after his Muslim sons attacked him for leaving Islam, sources said.
In Nakalama village, Iganga Town Council, Kibirige Abumusa returned home on Aug. 9 after an extended stay in Jinja City, where he had put his faith in Christ on June 1. One of his adult sons, 28-year-old Kibirige Budallah, confronted him about his conversion, said neighbor and eyewitness Alice Naigaga.
Abumusa converted to Christianity after attending an open-air evangelistic event organized by Pastor Zakalia Sserwada of Evangel Church in Jinja City.

Abumusa’s son, Budallah, had learned about his conversion from Imam Kisige Musitafa of Jinja mosque, which Abumusa had previously attended. The imam had accompanied Abumusa to the evangelistic event, according to the friend. Immediately after Abumusa’s conversion, the imam informed Budallah, the source said.
Budallah questioned his father upon his return about abandoning Islam, calling him a kafir (infidel), and told him that he did not deserve to live because of his decision to leave Islam, Naigaga said. Budallah struck Abumusa with a stick, and his four other sons joined in beating him, said Naigaga, who took photographs of the attack from a distance before calling for neighborhood help.
By the time neighbors arrived, Abumusa was weak, bleeding from the nose and had wounds on his hands, legs and back, she said.
Naigaga said she heard Budallah referring to Islamic teachings concerning Muslims who leave Islam and claiming that killing such persons would earn the killer paradise.
Abumusa was taken to Iganga Hospital, where he received treatment for about a week. After being discharged, he took refuge at a friend’s house in another village, where he was continuing to recover.
Abumusa said he has not reported the assault to police, fearing his sons could further endanger him." MorningNews

Creation Moment 9/15/2026 - Effects of the Curse

"At the end of the sixth day of creation, God saw that everything He had made was very good: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” (Genesis 2:1, KJV). The creation was now complete, functional, and interactive from heaven to Earth and throughout the waters. 

Following his temptation, man’s disobedience to God’s command regarding “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” brought sin into this world, and with it the full force of God’s Curse fell upon the first man, Adam (Genesis 2:17, KJV). As the creation was comprehensive, so was the punishment.

This same Curse affected all of mankind during about the first 1,656 years of history, culminating in a global judgment and repopulation of Earth through one righteous man and his family.

Since then, effects of the Curse have continued into recent history.

Over the last 200 years, a progressive accumulation of philosophers and scientists have promoted a purely imaginative story: the ground (earth), all elements within it, all plants and animals made from it, mankind with dominion over it, and the vast complexity of the cosmos have evolved through a lifeless force described as nature. Therefore, Darwin’s false god of natural selection (selectionism) became an alternative creator of the universe and everything in it. Clearly, man has “changed the truth of God into a lie” and worships the creature more than the Creator (Romans 1:25, KJV).

God’s Word reveals the true history of creation.

We never observe nature as a creative mechanism of increasing order and complexity.." 

ICR

The way God phrases things

I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; 

I will shatter the doors of bronze 

and cut through their iron bars. 

I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places, so that you may know that it is I, the Lord,.... who calls you by your name. 

Isaiah 45:2-3

Creation Moment 9/14/2026 - A bad worldview

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things.... Isaiah 40:26

"In the evolutionary view, early earth was not a pleasant place to live. A recent article summarizing research on the “origin of life” described early earth this way: “Earth’s first few hundred million years brought relentless impacts, intense volcanism and an atmosphere almost entirely devoid of oxygen.” And yet this new research claims the “last universal common ancestor” (LUCA) somehow evolved a mere 400 million years after earth formed.

New genetics research—entirely based on evolutionary assumptions and interpretations of genomes—now places LUCA “astonishingly early” in earth’s history. That’s surprising in the evolutionary view, given how complex life is and how uninhabitable early earth is assumed to be. But the problem is actually worse than that because they don’t believe LUCA was the first life-form.

"The name can be misleading. “Last” means most recent in relation to all living lineages, while “universal” refers to the sampled

cellular tree. LUCA was not necessarily one individual, the only organism alive, or the first self-replicating system. It is better imagined as a population whose descendants won a vast evolutionary survival contest. . . This boundary changes the timing implication. If LUCA already lived 4.2 billion years ago, the origin of life must be older still. The estimate does not say how much older, because lineages that vanished without contributing genes cannot be reconstructed from modern genomes."

In other words, our supposed last common ancestor evolved 400 million years after earth’s formation, but before it evolved, other life-forms surely must have evolved and died out, leaving just LUCA to continue evolving; so the origin of the very first life-form must have occurred even closer to the origin of the earth. Even with over 4.5 billion years to work with, evolutionists are running out of time!

This is why many evolutionists now believe that life didn’t evolve here on earth at all but rather was brought here from a distant planet, either intentionally by aliens or by lucky accident. But that just shifts the same problem to another planet! So the answer to a lack of time for life to have evolved here is to push the origin of life out into the universe where there’s more time (in the evolutionary view, the universe is believed to be 13.8 billion years old).

It doesn’t matter how much the evidence contradicts the evolutionary worldview, the model will mold to fit the new evidence or the problem will just be pushed out to where we can’t study it (the depths of outer space).

Evolution isn’t science; it’s a worldview being used to interpret the evidence we have in the present. And I would argue it’s a bad worldview that doesn’t explain the evidence consistently." AIG

The Great Deception

"That verse reads: “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Romans 5:12.
Whosoever believes that, and grasps the fact there stated, is prepared to understand the fullness of the salvation that the Lord Jesus brought to the world.

If each person in the world would hold upon his heart, would hold in his very consciousness, the truth that death has hold on him,—that to death he is subject, as expressed in the Scripture, though not in our translation: “Death is their shepherd,”—that death is the watchman over all mankind,—that death is to each one as a shepherd herding his flock,—there would be a universal readiness to believe the gospel.

The deception of thinking that they have life in themselves has been for ages, and is still, the bane of mankind. This deception is couched in the conception of the immortality of the soul. 

Vast multitudes of the human race, and indeed the whole human race, naturally, as it is, have come under the power of that deception—of

thinking that they have life themselves so certainly that even the Lord himself cannot deprive them of it. Through the deception in which they are involved, they have come to believe that a part of themselves is “immortal,” and, logically enough, that, therefore, it is “a part of God”—and then the conclusion, “How can God destroy a part of Himself?” By that argument they convince themselves that the Lord himself could not destroy them, if He wished to.

The whole human race is naturally under that deception. But the Lord spoke otherwise. Before this deceiver spoke, the Lord had said: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Genesis 2:17. And this was the truth. It was the truth when He spoke it; it was the truth the day they ate of the tree; and it is the truth forever." A.T. Jones

Creation Moment 9/13/2026 - "Mystery for science"?

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 

Genesis 1:1

"The origin of the universe is a mystery for science, surely for the

present one. It is a disturbing mystery ... The same applies to the origin of life and of Homo sapiens .... The concept of God .... helps us to make decisions in the right direction. We should be very different, I fear, if we did not have that concept."

E.P. Wigner, Nobel Prize for Physics (Princeton University)

How to have a foretaste of heaven

"Love's agencies have wonderful power, for they are divine. 

The soft answer that "turneth away wrath," the love that "suffereth long, and is kind," the charity that "covereth a multitude of sins" (Proverbs 15:1; 1 Corinthians 13:4, R.V.; 1 Peter 4:8, R.V.)—would we learn the lesson, with what power for healing would our lives be gifted! How life would be transformed, and the earth become a very likeness and foretaste of heaven!" E.G.W.

Creation Moment 9/12/2026 - Continuous Environmental Tracking

And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. Colossians 1:17

"Guliuzza’s theory is that all life has an inbuilt mechanism that allows it to adapt to environmental changes. It is called the Continuous Environmental Tracking (CET) model. Developedprimarily through his work with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), CET rejects traditional Darwinian natural selection evolution, and, instead of viewing organisms as passive entities shaped by external natural selection forces, Guliuzza argues that life is engineered with complex, internally built-in control mechanisms designed by the Creator to actively adapt to environmental changes. Specifically, the theory concludes that

"For more than a century, biologists have appealed to Darwinian natural selection to explain how living organisms adapt to different environments. But research over the last several decades has consistently dethroned Darwin’s view of natural selection. Rather than corroborating the concept that environments mold creatures through “survival of the fittest,” the research supports the astonishing idea that to a great extent, creatures actively sense their environments and adapt accordingly… Adaptation is a result of brilliant biological engineering rather than trial-and-error death and survival, which flips the mechanism of adaptation completely on its head. This approach views biological adaptation as primarily occurring through internal mechanisms (the ability to actively sense the environment and adapt) rather than external influence (the environment molds creatures through Darwinian natural selection."

The word evolution comes from the Latin evolutio, meaning “an unrolling” or “unfolding” from ex- (“out of”) and volvere (“to roll”). In other words, the word itself conveys the idea of something unfolding out from what came before by natural selection of mutations." CEH

The Burning of the Bibles

And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. Revelation 11:3

"The first English transltion of the New Testament, 12 mo., from the original Greek was printed in Antwerp, (1,500 copies) in 1526.

 Bishop Tunstall and Wolsey, 

went abroad to destroy the nest, as they thought, 

of this viper's brood. 

At Antwerp, an English merchant offered them all they wished to buy, even to the last copy. The Bishop caught at the bait. "Gentle Mr. Packington," he replied, "do your diligence, and get them; and with all my heart I will pay for them, whatever they cost you; for the books are naught, and I intend surely to burn them at St. Paul's Cross." 

Packington's speech to Tyndale is equally quaint. "William, I know thou art a poor man, and hast a heap of books by thee; for which

thou hast endangered thy friends and beggared thyself; and I have gotten thee a merchant, which with ready money shall despatch thee of all thou hast." - "who is he?" - "The Bishop of London." - "O, that because he will burn them." - "Yes." - "I am the gladder," said Tyndale, "for these two benefits; I shall get money to bring myself out of debt, and the whole world will cry out against the burning God's Word; and the overplus of money shall make me more studious to correct the said New Testament, and newly to imprint the same; and I trust the second will much better like you than the first." 

So the books were burned in great quantities at St. Paul's Cross the same year. But a single copy of this edition is believed to be extant, and that in the Baptist Library in Bristol, England. 

In 1529-30 other copies were printed which found their way into England to such an extent that Dr. Stokesly, then Bishop of London, caused all the New Testaments and many others of Tyndale's works which he bought up should be brought to St. Paul's Churchyard and there burned, which was done in May, 1531. 

In 1531 Tyndale had prepared and printed in Antwerp a second enlarged and more perfect edition of the New Testament, 8vo. A copy of this edition is now in the British Museum. In 1538 Coverdale and the English printer Richard Grafton, had 2,500 copies the Bible, printed in France in the English language; the whole edition was seized and condemned to the flames, a few copies only being saved." BLB

Creation Moment 9/11/2026 - Not Remarkable IF one uses the Biblical Timeline

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—...—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20 NIV

"An astounding discovery was that of large, black ink sacs preserved within specimens of fossilized cephalopods (squid-like marine animals that squirt ink) recovered from a rock formation in England supposedly about 160 million years old. 

Surprisingly, careful examination of the ink sac contents revealed what appeared to be ink consisting of granules similar in size and

shape to those that are in the ink of modern cephalopods, which additional analyses demonstrated had chemical properties that included melanin, the pigment found in the ink of modern cephalopods. 

As Dr. Rana himself commented finding “a chemically intact form [of preserved melanin] for at least 160 million years is nothing short of remarkable.”....... creationists have understandably embraced these discoveries of soft tissues and biomolecules in these ancient fossils. That’s because our timescale for earth history with the Flood cataclysm only about 4,350 years ago predicts such soft tissues and biomolecules would be found in fossils. They would have survived those few thousand years based on the known observations and experiments of their rapid decay today." 

AIG

Doctrine of the Few

The LORD did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people. Deuteronomy 7:7

"Modern people—even Christians—tend to measure success in terms of bigness. God’s measure, on the other hand, is based on quality, not quantity. There were undoubtedly millions of people on the earth, for example, when the Flood came in the days of Noah, but only “few, that is, eight souls were saved” as the waters lifted up the Ark (1 Peter 3:20).

A few centuries after the Flood, populations had again increased, and great nations developed in Egypt, Sumeria, and elsewhere. But God

called one man, Abraham, to establish a new nation, and he obeyed. Many great nations (Arabs, etc.) came from Abraham, but again God chose only one, Israel, to inherit the promise. Israel did grow, but as our text shows, even this chosen nation was nearly always insignificant compared to other nations.

In Israel’s history, many instances are recorded when God used just a few to battle many. God used Gideon’s 300 men to defeat 135,000 Midianites (Judges 7:7; 8:10). Similar deliverances occurred in the days of David, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and others.

In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus told His disciples that “where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). He also said to them: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

God’s criterion is that of motivation rather than multiplication. “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:14). But those few will be faithful servants and will someday hear Him say: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant...enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:21)." 

HMM/ICR

Creation Moment 9/10/2026 - Parading all the animals before Adam

"Genesis 2:19 clearly states that God brought the animals to Adam. (And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.)....It is important to note that God’s purpose in parading all the animals before Adam was not merely so that he would give them names. It was also to reinforce the fact that he was different in kind from the rest of creation, so that none of these animals could ever serve as a physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual companion." 

CMI

Bates on the GOLDEN CANDLE STICK

"GOLDEN CANDLE STICK.—South side, represents the state of the seven churches. Revevlation 1:20; 

Oil denotes faith. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of

your oil; for our lamps are gone out. Matthew 25:8. 

Lamp denotes Word of God. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.Psalm119:105.

Light denotes “Present Truth,” Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. 1 Peter 1:12." 

Joseph Bates

Creation Moment 9/9/2026 - Fake Quotes to target Behe

The foolishness of man perverteth his way: Proverbs 19:3

"In an unexpected move, New York University Press has pulled the book Designer Science (September 9, 2025) because a quote that appears critical to its argument was fabricated: From Science & Culture Today:

"Less than a year after publishing its book Designer Science, elite

academic publisher New York University Press is retracting the original edition because the book used a fabricated quote by Michael Behe to attack Behe and intelligent design. The publisher has volunteered to destroy all remaining inventory, completely remove two passages referencing the fabricated quote, and reissue both the physical and electronic editions of the book."

“NYU Press Pulls Anti-ID Book with Fabricated Quote from Michael Behe,” August 25, 2026."

That’s bound to be considerable expense and trouble.
AI is not to blame for the chain of errors that led to the fabricated quote that was fatal to the current edition.

What happened here is something else, a sobering tale of what can go wrong when everybody in a chain misrepresents something only slightly, like the childhood game of Telephone. The statement that ended up in print was never uttered. Much worse, it went against what the researcher to whom it was attributed actually believes.

In that sense, this is a story about what’s going wrong in scholarship today.
Q: How did it happen?

Briefly, Michael Behe is a Lehigh University biochemist, best known for books like Darwin’s Black Box (1996) and The Edge of Evolution (2007). He is an advocate of intelligent design (ID), the idea that there is a mind behind the universe — a position that has earned him scathing abuse in some quarters over the years.

C. H. Howell, a professor in the religion department at Duke University, wrote Designer Science as a critical exposé of ID and its supporters. His book was praised by knowledgeable scholars such as Francis Beckwith and Edward Larson.
But there was a problem. In the book, he quotes Behe, a witness at the famous Dover Trial (2005), as follows:

"Ultimately, the most damning admission might have come from Behe’s mouth himself, when he confessed on the stand that the “plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God.” At root, Behe’s admission showed that there was something fundamentally nonempirical at the heart of ID, that it was based upon philosophical assumptions, on metaphysics, and on first principles. It therefore depended upon a prior commitment. (p. 132)."

And it’s a fake quote. Behe never said that and does not believe what it implies. 

Q: How did it end up in the book?

At Science & Culture Today, Casey Luskin explains,
To summarize what happened, this nightmarish game of bad-scholarship-telephone went like this:

● In 2001, Michael Behe writes an article claiming that ID is empirically based and doesn’t require any religious commitment.
● The ACLU then very badly misrepresents Behe’s article as claiming that “plausibility of the argument for ID depends upon the extent to which one believes in the existence of God,” and then the ACLU puts this distortion into a brief filed with Judge Jones during the Dover trial.
● Judge Jones then copies the ACLU’s brief with its misrepresentations into his ruling, but he makes things worse by adding the phrase “emphasis added” so it looks like those were Behe’s exact words.
● Then, finally, Howell brings the final piece of distortion: He claims that Behe said those words on the witness stand — a “damning admission” that “came from Behe’s mouth” no less! But the worst part is that Howell uses this fake quote in his book as a linchpin gotcha quote to basically claim that ID is more religion than science, etc.
--Luskin notes that Howell may have been using Wikipedia as a source. If so, not a good idea.

In a followup article, Luskin offers that there are other problems with the book, problems that are worth noting but probably won’t be addressed by the publisher:

"Howell’s failure is worse than one particular fake quote. It’s two decades of fake history. The blame here falls on Howell but also on all the academic reviewers who approved his book, a true system-wide scholarly breakdown. He makes his case less by error and more by omission — essentially choosing to just ignore a huge body of ID scientific research and literature that directly contradicts his thesis." 

MindMatters/DenyseO'Leary

Like Jannes and Jambres

"THE wonders and miracles performed by ancient magicians, especially those done by Jannes and Jambres, by which Pharaoh and the Egyptians were deceived, are among the former things of old to be remembered as declaring the END from ancient times, the things now being done. 

--It was an example of the wonders and miracles which the two-horned beast was to perform, viz: Revelation 13:13,14 And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth, in the sight of men,  And he deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles [or wonders], which he had power to do in the sight of the beast.

2 Timothy 3:8 As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so [will] these resist the truth. 

1 Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter

times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils. They profess to have found out the principle by which Christ and the Holy Apostles did miracles. Through these agencies, Sa tan will work… 

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 ...with all power and signs, and lying wonders,  And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; BECAUSE they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And FOR this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 

James White

Creation Moment 9/8/2026 - Fisher’s Theorem would lead to terminal stasis

........ but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness. 

Proverbs 15:2

"Remarkably, Fisher’s theorem by itself illustrates a self-limiting process – once all the bad alleles are eliminated, and once all the individuals carry only good alleles, then there is nothing left to select, and so selective progress must stop. The end result is that the population improves slightly and then becomes locked in stasis (no further change). It is astounding that Fisher’s Theorem does not explicitly address this profound problem! Newly arising mutations are not even part of Fisher’s mathematical formulation. Instead,

Fisher simply added an informal corollary (which was never proven), which involved extrapolation from his simple proof. He assumed that a continuous flow of new mutations would continuously replenish the population’s genetic variability, thereby allowing continuous and unlimited fitness increase.

The authors of the new paper realized that one of Fisher’s pivotal assumptions was clearly false, and in fact was falsified many decades ago. In his informal corollary, Fisher essentially assumed that new mutations arose with a nearly normal distribution – with an equal proportion of good and bad mutations (so mutations would have a net fitness effect of zero). We now know that the vast majority of mutations in the functional genome are harmful, and that beneficial mutations are vanishingly rare. The simple fact that Fisher’s premise was wrong, falsifies Fisher’s corollary. Without Fisher’s corollary – Fisher’s Theorem proves only that selection improves a population’s fitness until selection exhausts the initial genetic variation, at which point selective progress ceases. Apart from his corollary, Fisher’s Theorem only shows that within an initial population with variant genetic alleles, there is limited selective progress followed by terminal stasis." 

UncommonDescent

What the World Wants SIMPLIFIED

I will utter things which have been kept secret

 from the foundation of the world. 

Matthew 13:35

"Now the world wants a savior without repentance.  

A crown of life without true surrender. 

They want the comfort but reject the cost.

Want resurrection without being lost.
They want the promises, blessings and peace.

But rage when God speaks of judgment for evil deeds.

They want the Savior without repentance, 

the crown without the cross.

But narrow is the road to life.
And many still are lost. 

The wounds in Jesus hands reveal how far God's love would go." 

by InGodsWorld

IN the NEWS - WitchTok Racks Up BILLIONS of Views

There shall not be found among you any one that...useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch...
Deuteronomy 18:10

"WitchTok is a TikTok subculture where users share content about witchcraft, spells, rituals, and modern spiritual practices, creating a

digital community for magical exploration.

WitchTok is a rapidly growing online phenomenon on TikTok, where creators—often self-identified witches, Wiccans, or spiritual practitioners—share videos about spellcasting, divination, crystal healing, and other magical practices. 

The content ranges from practical tutorials and ritual demonstrations to discussions about intuition, personal empowerment, and mystical philosophy. Videos tagged with #WitchTok have amassed tens of billions of views, reflecting its widespread popularity. 

The WitchTok community is largely composed of young people, particularly women and LGBTQ+ individuals.

WitchTok content is diverse, encompassing:

Spellcasting and hexes

Tarot readings and divination

Moon rituals and intention-setting

Crystal and energy work

Even seemingly mundane topics, like book recommendations or cat videos, are often framed with a witchy or mystical perspective, blending lifestyle content with spiritual practice." 

Google

Creation Moment 9/7/2026 - Bootstrap Problem

"Q: Could life’s instructions exist without ever being made? 

This question raises what is called a “bootstrap problem.”

It describes information that is copied and passed on even though it has no first source. A recent RNA study shows why this remains a key problem for ideas about the origin of life.

Modern cells store instructions in DNA. Proteins help read, copy,

and repair those instructions. Yet cells must use DNA instructions to build many of those same proteins. Conventional scientists often suggest that RNA came before DNA and proteins. RNA can store information, and some RNA molecules can also carry out chemical tasks.

But an early RNA system would have faced a major problem. 

--Heat, water, and other chemicals can damage RNA. 

--Broken strands would lose part of their stored information. 

--A system that could not protect or repair its instructions would soon stop working.

Researchers recently developed an RNA molecule called a ribozyme that can join certain broken RNA strands. The ribozyme recognized a chemical tag on one broken end and then joined it to another RNA molecule. The reaction took place more than 100,000 times faster than it did without the ribozyme.

This result shows great precision. The ribozyme did not join every RNA strand it met. Instead, it responded to one unique chemical feature, placed the needed parts in the right position, and helped form a new bond. Like a well-built machine, the ribozyme found the target, chose the right parts, and made the repair.

Yet the test did not show such a repair system forming on its own. The researchers began with an earlier engineered ribozyme. They changed part of its sequence and made about 100 trillion versions. The scientists also prepared the RNA targets and controlled the heat, salt, acid level, and magnesium. Lab tools were used to find successful molecules, copy them, and repeat the process.

A Notre Dame report said the study may show how early RNA-based life could have repaired its genetic material. But it did so only after careful design, testing, and control.

Researchers may produce useful RNA molecules in a lab, but these results do not explain how the first working RNA strands arose without an intelligent source.

This is the heart of the bootstrap problem. A repair system can protect information, but it cannot explain where that information first came from—just as a spell checker can fix errors in a book, but it cannot write the book. In the same way, an RNA repair system may protect an existing sequence without explaining who or what produced it.

Scripture gives a clear first source rather than an endless information loop: “For by Him all things were created” (Colossians 1:16). Life’s repair systems do more than protect molecules. Their exact and ordered work reflects the wisdom of the Creator who gave living things both their form and their instructions." 

ICR

Answering that Sabbath Question

"The question is frequently asked, whether it would not be best now,

as the practice of keeping the first day has become so general, to continue to observe it, although it is not the true Sabbath, as a change of days would make it so difficult to manage our worldly affairs- go to meeting, &c., &c.?

This question may be easily answered by asking another, namely: “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto men more than unto God, judge ye.” Acts 4:19." 

Joseph Bates

Creation Moment 9/6/2026 - "Living cell"

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: Ephesians 3:9

"A living cell is capable of acquiring all the resources it needs from its surroundings and reproducing itself. The first cell had to be free-living; that is, it could not depend on other cells for its survival because other cells did not exist. Parasites cannot be a model for ‘first life’ because they need existing cells to survive. This also rules out viruses and the like as the precursors to life as they must have

living cells that they can parasitize to reproduce themselves. Prions, misshaped proteins that cause disease, have nothing to do with the origin of life because they can only ‘replicate’ by causing proteins manufactured by a cell to become misshaped.
The first things needed are the right ingredients. It’s bit like baking a cake; you can’t make a banana cake if you have no bananas or flour........all the components have to be present in the same location for a living cell to have any possibility of being assembled. But necessary components of life have carbonyl (>C=O) chemical groups that react destructively with amino acids and other amino (–NH2) compounds. Such carbonyl-containing molecules include sugars, which also form the backbone of DNA and RNA. Living cells have ways of keeping them apart and protecting them to prevent such cross-reactions, or can repair the damage when it occurs, but a chemical soup has no such facility.
Cells are incredibly complex arrangements of simpler chemicals." CMI

Lesson of the Leper

 I will; be thou clean. Mark 1:41

"Redemption like Creation has its word of might. Jesus speaks and it is done. 

Leprosy yielded to no human remedies, but it fled at once at the Lord's "I will." 

The disease exhibited no hopeful signs or tokens of recovery, nature contributed nothing to its own healing, but the unaided word effected the entire work on the spot and for ever. 

The sinner is in a plight more miserable than the leper; let him imitate his example and go to Jesus, "beseeching Him and kneeling down to Him." 

This unclean person had broken through the regulations of the ceremonial law and pressed into the house, but Jesus so far from chiding him broke through the law Himself in order to meet him. 

He made an interchange with the leper, for while He cleansed him, He contracted by that touch a Levitical defilement. Even so Jesus Christ was made sin for us, although in Himself He knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. 

O that poor sinners would go to Jesus, believing in the power of His blessed substitutionary work, and they would soon learn the power of His gracious touch. That hand which multiplied the loaves, which saved sinking Peter, which upholds afflicted saints, which crowns believers, that same hand will touch every seeking sinner, and in a moment make him clean. The love of Jesus is the source of salvation. He loves, He looks, He touches us, WE LIVE." 

Charles Spurgeon

Creation Moment 9/5/2026 - "priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature"

When I consider thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;.....

Psalm 8:3

"Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God." 

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), father of celestial mechanics

Always Look Forward

"We may be contaminated by dwelling upon evil deeds that we ourselves have committed, just as surely as by reading or listening to

tales of bloody deeds. 

I suppose that what you specially refer to is the sins that have been committed in former days. Now the Bible does not tell us to look backward, but always forward. Hebrews 12:1,2: Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith." 

E.J. Waggoner

Creation Moment 9/4/2026 - "an extraordinary suite of coincidences in the nature of things"

In the beginning God created...... 

Genesis 1:1
"Many of our ancestors worshipped the sun. Denton agrees with Carl Sagan, who said that “they were far from foolish”. They built many monuments to line up with the movement of the sun. This included Stonehenge, the Sphinx, some structures at Angkor Wat, and even whole cities such as Teotihuacan.

Today, we don’t worship or build monuments to the sun.

Nonetheless, we’re still often struck by a sunrise or sunset. 

And the eerie twilight of a solar eclipse still amazes us. 

But, compared to so many of the ancients, we don’t give the sun much thought. 

Denton avers that familiarity strips us of our awe. I also suspect a little bit of scientific knowledge does too. We know the sun is ‘just’ a big ball of plasma like any other star. So, while we know that without it we couldn’t live, the sun itself rarely gets much special attention.

However, this underestimates just how special our ‘light’ circumstances are. As Denton explains:

“Less widely known, however, is the existence of an extraordinary suite of coincidences in the nature of things which render the Earth’s surface a supremely fit habitat for advanced carbon-based life forms like ourselves—coincidences that are, on any consideration, ludicrously improbable.”

He mentions that the sun has just the right properties for photosynthesis and high-acuity vision; Denton explains the significance:

“… these are elements of natural fitness exclusively for our type of life—for beings possessing the gift of sight, breathing oxygen (aerobic), and inhabiting the terrestrial surface of a planet like the Earth.” 

CMI

Draw from the Rivers of Oil from Above

Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense. Exodus 25:6

"My soul, how much thou needest this, for thy lamp will not long continue to burn without it. Thy snuff will smoke and become an offence if light be gone, and gone it will be if oil be absent.

Thou hast no oil well springing up in thy human nature.

Even the consecrated lamps could not give light without oil; though they shone in the tabernacle they needed to be fed, though no rough winds blew upon them they required to be trimmed, and thy need is equally as great. Under the most happy circumstances thou canst not give light for another hour unless fresh oil of grace be given thee.

It was not every oil that might be used in the Lord’s service; neither the petroleum which exudes so plentifully from the earth, nor the produce of fishes, nor that extracted from nuts would be accepted; one oil only was selected, and that the best olive oil.

Pretended grace from natural goodness, fancied grace from priestly

hands, or imaginary grace from outward ceremonies will never serve the true saint of God; he knows that the Lord would not be pleased with rivers of such oil. He goes to the olive-press of Gethsemane, and draws his supplies from Him who was crushed therein.

The oil of gospel grace is pure and free from lees and dregs, and hence the light which is fed thereon is clear and bright. Our churches are the Savior’s golden candelabra, and if they are to be lights in this dark world, they must have much holy oil.

Let us pray for ourselves, our ministers and our churches, that they may never lack oil for the light. Truth, holiness, joy, knowledge, love, these are all beams of the sacred light, but we cannot give them forth unless in private we receive oil from God the Holy Ghost." Charles Spurgeon

Creation Moment 9/3/2026 - Eyes are NOT Wired Backwards

So God created man in His own image,....And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. 

Genesis 1:27,31

"Evolutionists such as Richard Dawkins have long claimed that our eyes are wired ‘backwardly’, allegedly something which no intelligent designer would do. That is, the light receptor cells are behind the nerves, which supposedly obstruct the light path.

In reality, in the last few years, researchers have shown that light doesn’t go through the nerves, but is instead funnelled through

Müller glial cells.

These act like a fiber-optic plate that increases image sharpness, so “The retina is revealed as an optimal structure designed for improving the sharpness of images.” Furthermore, they help to separate out the three primary colors, so that red and green light is funneled to the color-sensitive cones. The other type of light receptor, rods, are good for night vision, but weaker at detecting green and especially red light, so the Müller cells scatter blue light on to them.

Much of this new research comes from Technion, the Israel Institute

of Technology, in the lab of Dr Erez Ribak, an astrophysicist who turned from studying stars to studying eyes. He has now shown that the Müller cells must be just the right height and width to filter the different colours correctly: “If the retina is too thick or too thin, it’s not effective.” He proved this by shining light of different colors into human and guinea pig retinas, showing how the light was guided. Ribak says:

“The retina of the eye has been optimized so that the sizes and densities of glial cells match the colors to which the eye is sensitive (which is in itself an optimization process suited to our needs). This optimization is such that color vision during the day is enhanced, while night-time vision suffers very little.”

Mark Hankins, a professor of visual neuroscience at the University of Oxford, pointed out even another reason for the backward wiring: “clearing of worn-out cell components and having access to a fuel supply of light-sensitive molecules”. These functions are provided by a layer behind the light receptors, called the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), which means that the nerves can’t also be behind the receptors." 

CMI