Q: How should we pray in these solemn times?

Q: How should we pray in these solemn times?
A: The end of all things is at hand; 

therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded 

for the sake of your prayers. 

But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 

For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, 

praying that you may have strength to escape all these things 

that are going to take place, 

and to stand before the Son of Man.

1 Peter 4:7/Luke 21:34-36 ESV

Papal Notes - Francis vs. Jesus

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: 

no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. 

John 14:6

"Pope Francis’s radical progressivism continues to be on full

display, with the decrepit pontiff insisting that all religions lead to God, and are merely “different paths.”
In a now viral post on X, Francis made the following statements at an interreligious meeting at Singapore’s Catholic Junior College Sept 13, 2024.

Pope Francis to children in Singapore: "All religions are paths to reach God. They are-to make a comparison-like different languages,

different dialects, to get there. But God is God for everyone. If you

start to fight saying 'my religion is more important than yours, mine is true and yours isn't', where will this lead us? There is only one God, and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Some are Sheik, Muslim, Hindu, Christians; they are different ways to God."

Ptotestia

IN the NEWS - Jihadist Slit the Throats of 26 Christians

If they say, Come with us, 

--let us lay wait for blood, 

--let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

My son, 

walk not thou in the way with them; 

refrain thy foot from their path:

Proverbs 1:11,15

"Islamist extremists in Burkina Faso carried out a two-day killing spree, slaughtering hundreds of civilians, including 26 worshippers at a church service, according to reports, which identify the incident as one of the deadliest attacks in the West

African country since the Islamist insurgency began nine years ago.
The attacks took place in the towns of Barsalogho in the north and Sanaba in the west in late August, the human rights organization Christian Solidarity International, which is aiding survivors.
In late August, militants opened fire on hundreds of villagers outside Barsalogho and stormed a Protestant church in Sanaba the following day.
The victims of the Barsalogho attack, who were digging trenches under army orders to protect their village, were caught by surprise. Local sources and videos released by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) suggest the death toll reached up to 400.
The victims in Sanaba were members of a Christian Alliance Evangelical church attending a service. on Aug 25. Armed militants tied the hands of 26 Christian men and cut their throats ....Survivors sought refuge in a local school." 

Protestia

ARCHAEOLOGY: 2 Cases

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; 1 Corinthians 1:27

"Twice now this year, researchers have noticed man-made etchings in rock that indicate possible awareness of extinct creatures. In the belief system of evolutionists and their requisite millions of years, such awareness is impossible, and so they come up with other explanations. 

Q: Why do they rule out eyewitness experiences of these creatures living among them?

The assumption of deep time leads to rejecting any explanation that infers overlap of humans with creatures that went extinct tens or

hundreds of millions of years ago. Those who doubt deep time, by contrast, can be more open minded about that possibility.

South African rock art possibly inspired by long-extinct species (18 Sept 2024, Science Daily). Dicynodonts (“two dog tooth”) are members of a motley group of pre-dinosaurian tetrapods classified as therapsids and synapsids. Today they are only known by their fossilized bones. South Africa is particularly rich in fossils of dicynodonts, some of which protrude from the ground. No other living land animal has their characteristic downward-curved tusks. It was a big surprise, therefore, when Julien Benoit of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg found petroglyphs (rock art) resembling dicynodonts.

"The Horned Serpent panel is a section of rock wall featuring artwork of animals and other cultural elements associated with the San people of South Africa, originally painted between 1821 and 1835. Among the painted figures is a long-bodied animal with downward-turned tusks which doesn’t match any known modern species in the area."

Benoit published the evidence in PLoS One, supplying photographs of the rock art that Benoit thinks resemble dicynodonts, and artist’s depictions of the creatures. As an evolutionist, how does he explain this? He speculates that the San people found fossil dicynodonts and depicted them in their rock art. This is curious, given that dicynodonts were not even recognized until Richard Owen named them in 1845.

"There is archaeological evidence that the San people might have collected fossils and incorporated them into their artwork, but the extent of indigenous knowledge of paleontology is poorly understood across Africa.

Further research into indigenous cultures might shed more light on how humans around the world have incorporated fossils into their culture."

It’s not an unreasonable speculation; even young-earth creationists

might find it doubtful to think that dicynodonts were walking around in 1821 to 1835 without more eyewitness reports by colonizers and missionaries. The point, again, is that Benoit cannot even consider it as a possibility the artists drew a living dicynodont.

"The ethnographic, archaeological, and palaeontological evidence are consistent with the hypothesis that the Horned Serpent panel could possibly depict a dicynodont…. This would imply that the San may have i) discovered dicynodont fossils, ii) interpreted them as long-extinct species, iii) made a painting of one of them at La Belle France, and iv) integrated them into their worldview."

---His explanation requires that the San people were fairly good at paleontology, able to depict what a creature looked like from its bones. Update 21 Sept 2024: Benoit wrote an article at The Conversation reposted at Live Science that gives additional details. He says that the 1835 date is “at the latest” but that “the San have inhabited the area for thousands of years.” This could make the petroglyph much, much earlier. Benoit claims that dicynodonts lived 265 to 200 million Darwin Years ago and were the dominant species in the area. The artists portrayed the creature as covered with bumps; Benoit shows a fossil of mummified skin of a dicynodont covered with bumps—really 250 million years old? He ruled out other creatures that the petroglyphs might represent. Walruses have downward tusks but never lived in sub-Saharan Africa, he says. A San myth spoke of “enormous brutes” that lived in their area. If the petroglyph depicts a dicynodont, it was drawn in the “death pose” common to many fossils. Others have commented that the “dinosaur death pose” (arched neck, body bent like a banana) represented suffocation by drowning (16 Feb 2012). A Flood, perhaps?

A remarkable assemblage of petroglyphs and dinosaur footprints in Northeast Brazil (Troiano et al., Nature Scientific Reports, 19 March 2024). This example is more subjective, yet interesting, since everyone is fascinated by dinosaurs. A location in Brazil has numerous fossilized dinosaur tracks in rock, made by both theropods and sauropods. Leonardo P. Troiano and three colleagues have found a “remarkable assemblage of petroglyphs” that appear to be associated with the dinosaur tracks.

"The three prominent outcrops feature fossilized footprints of theropod, sauropod, and iguanodontian dinosaurs from the Early

Cretaceous Period. Adjacent to these dinosaur tracks, indigenous petroglyphs adorn the surface. The petroglyphs, mainly characterized by circular motifs, maintain a striking resemblance to other petroglyphs found in the states of Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte. This study primarily endeavors to delineate the site’s major characteristics while concentrating on the relationship between the dinosaur footprints and the petroglyphs."

*How does he know they are Cretaceous rocks? Because they have Cretaceous dinosaur tracks in them. How does he know the dinosaur tracks are Cretaceous? Because they are found in Cretaceous rocks, dummy!

Since everyone “knows” that humans and dinosaurs did not co-exist, the team needed an explanation. Once again, they reasoned that early peoples who lived in Brazil must have been good paleontologists.

"The petroglyphs represent a unique and significant record, given

their direct association with dinosaur fossil tracks. This ensemble of archaeological and paleontological evidence unequivocally indicates that human populations during the pre-colonial period interacted with and likely assimilated the fossil record, incorporating such record into their graphical expression, a cultural one, and consequently integrating it into its collective identity. Particularly noteworthy is the evident intentionality in creating petroglyphs near the footprints, revealing active engagement with the fossil material, suggesting that these traces not only caught the attention of the native community but were meaningful and became integrated into their knowledge repertoire."

Readers can look at the photos and drawings in this open-access paper and draw their own conclusions. Most of the petroglyphs do not resemble the tracks (circles, rectangles, and nets), but are drawn near them, often in the same rock exposure next to the footprints. The team believes that the juxtaposition of the art in rock containing dinosaur tracks establishes the pre-colonial people’s interest in the tracks.

Q: What did the artists think they were drawing? They never heard the word dinosaur, obviously, since the word was not even invented until Richard Owen coined it in 1841.

So there’s the two cases: evolutionary scientists unable to consider the possibility that early peoples saw extinct creatures. 

The interesting thing in these two cases is how they could not even consider the alternative explanation, that people actually witnessed creatures alive then that are extinct today. Creationists, not beholden to deep time, can consider that possibility. They may reject it and agree with the evolutionists’ explanations in these particular cases. But they are not required by their worldview to do so." 

CEH

Creation Moment 10/1/2024 - Brain Geometry of Consciousness

I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully MADE: marvellous are Thy works; Psalm 139:14

"Investigators at U-M who are studying the nature of consciousness have successfully used the drug to identify the intricate brain geometry behind the unconscious state, offering an unprecedented look at brain structures that have traditionally been difficult to study.

A study published in the journal Nature Communications and led by Huang, George Mashour, M.D., Ph.D. and Anthony G. Hudetz, Ph.D., of the U-M Center for Consciousness Science, outlines for the first time in humans how the connections among brain cells within those two important areas are modified by propofol. The paper is titled "Propofol Disrupts the Functional Core-Matrix Architecture of the Thalamus in Humans."

In healthy volunteers, they mapped changes in the brain's architecture before, during and after propofol sedation, guided by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

At baseline, explained Huang, the thalamus has a balanced level of activity of both specific nuclei (clusters of brain cells) that send sensory information to highly defined areas of the cortex—known as unimodal processing—and nonspecific nuclei that send information more diffusely throughout a higher layer of the cortex, known as transmodal processing.

The team found that, under deep sedation, the thalamus showed a drastic reduction in activity in clusters of brain cells responsible for transmodal processing, leading to a dominant unimodal pattern—suggesting that while sensory inputs are still received, there is no integration of those inputs.

Next, they discovered the specific cell types that played a role in the shift to an unconscious state and their relationship to the change in thalamic processing. The thalamus contains at least two distinct cell types, said Huang, core cells and matrix cells.


"We now have compelling evidence that the widespread connections of thalamic matrix cells with higher order cortex are critical for consciousness," says Hudetz, Professor of Anesthesiology at U-M and current director of the Center for Consciousness Science.

Imagining that the cortex is layered like an onion, core cells connect to lower layers while matrix cells connect to higher layers in a more spread-out manner.

By measuring mRNA expression signatures—like I.D. badges for the cells—they were able to see that a disruption in the activity of matrix cells played a greater role in the transition to unconsciousness than core cells. An additional surprise was that GABA, a major inhibitory transmitter in the brain usually thought to be key to propofol's actions, did not appear to play as prominent a role as expected.

"The results suggest that loss of consciousness during deep sedation is primarily associated with the functional disruption of matrix cells distributed throughout the thalamus," said Huang."
MedicalXpress

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Deuteronomy 33:27

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