tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52700864690139105262024-03-12T19:40:49.134-07:00Alexander PrestonTales from the dark corners of Heaven and Earth. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-74590251912377709702017-05-15T19:55:00.001-07:002017-05-15T19:55:07.925-07:00Special UpdateI would like to extend special thanks to Peter Younghusband at "Reviews by Peter" for this recent review of <i>Harvest of Prey</i>. Link is below 😊<br />
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<a href="http://christianfictionreviewguru.blogspot.com/2017/05/harvest-of-prey-by-alexander-preston.html">http://christianfictionreviewguru.blogspot.com/2017/05/harvest-of-prey-by-alexander-preston.html</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-76909785467409784272017-05-01T19:39:00.000-07:002017-05-01T19:39:39.028-07:00Special AnnouncementUp to this point, my aim has been to provide new posts every Monday. As regular readers of this blog will no doubt attest, I have not been entirely successful in doing so, particularly over this last month. I'll take this opportunity to extend my apologies along with an explanation.<br />
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Recent developments have factored into my posting schedule. This last month, I have been presented with some very real opportunities for a publishing contract on <i>Harvest of Prey</i> and have since completed a full revision of the manuscript for review, which was the main reason for my sporadic posting during that time. I am awaiting a final reply as I write. As announced several weeks prior, I have also begun work on my next novel <i>Talos</i>, which at this point I am aiming to complete by Fall of 2018.<br />
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With all this being said, I must regretfully announce that my schedule will be similarly affected for May and much of June. With prayer and reflection, I have decided to take some serious steps in changing my current employment. As my bio states, I have been working in the banking industry for three years and am at long last ready for work more suited to my natural interests - specifically an opportunity to exercise and develop my writing skills while pursuing my long-term goal of becoming a full-time author.<br />
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Over the next month and a half, I will be intensively following a step-by-step job search and self-development process outlined in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Days-Work-You-Love-Preparing-ebook/dp/B00OYUSL1M/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493692473&sr=1-1&keywords=48+days+to+the+work+you+love&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=490333b5847b9e4b307a4df7bb62175d">48 Days to the Work You Love</a></i> by Dan Miller. I will try to keep this blog active in the meantime, but my posts will likely be fewer and far between during this period. I have every intention of returning to my regular schedule once this is complete - hopefully, I will then be in a position to accelerate and enhance this entire blog as part of something greater.<br />
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I wish God's Blessings to everyone who has read and enjoyed my writings here as well as special thanks to those who have taken the time to share their thoughts. Prayers are appreciated as I begin this transition. May we all then continue our journey through the Dark Corners of Heaven and Earth.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-11285941891174313242017-04-26T05:01:00.000-07:002017-04-29T07:08:34.885-07:00Does God Exist in Star Wars? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.starwars.com/news/the-star-wars-digital-movie-collection-coming-april-10">Starwars.com</a></td></tr>
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Astute believers will immediately see this question gets things backward. A sphere of reality (real or imagined) where God does not exist is logically inconceivable - God, by definition, precedes all planes of reality as their Creator. The more proper question should be "Would God have created the Star Wars galaxy?"<br />
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<b>Disclaimer: I obviously do not own Star Wars, and what is presented herein is entirely my own opinion. Nor does this represent an exhaustive picture of the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe - just a cursory reading of what I personally find to be relevant source material. Also, my apologies in advance to any non-Star Wars fans reading this who might get lost in the unfamiliar terminology. I have included a link to <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/">starwars.wikia.com</a> as a reference tool.</b> 😉<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNjUPUjitFM1jZH4KyONI_f2qi6KmzafboC8CQk4GgqkBuq2G_eF_x4qwILkeP3UKJbmL9UmjkqVlaDct3VSebLq93eezCnVWSpC_yi0Nh8DtgmEJVY-3e71C1nDJxx2dYZL-BcFPcMTg/s1600/Star-Wars-1200x675.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNjUPUjitFM1jZH4KyONI_f2qi6KmzafboC8CQk4GgqkBuq2G_eF_x4qwILkeP3UKJbmL9UmjkqVlaDct3VSebLq93eezCnVWSpC_yi0Nh8DtgmEJVY-3e71C1nDJxx2dYZL-BcFPcMTg/s320/Star-Wars-1200x675.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonkatz/2016/10/05/would-a-star-wars-tv-show-even-work/#30ce2e9064eb">Forbes.com</a></td></tr>
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Like many fellow sci-fi nerds, my fascination with the Star Wars saga began in grade school and continued and intensified through my teenage years. When I came to Christ at age 15, it abruptly halted and entered a period of dormancy for years thereafter - I was putting away many aspects of my former life at the time, and such "childish" interests (in my mind as well as those around me) seemed unworthy of a mature believer. With the rediscovery of my passion for creative writing, however, it has since resurfaced as part of a more balanced range of interests - incidentally, this gives me the ability to better appreciate and enjoy it from an artistic point of view. At the same time, I can also recognize the more problematic aspects of its underlying worldview.<br />
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Let's start with the basics. The question of origins in the Star Wars galaxy is never meaningfully addressed beyond familiar evolutionary platitudes. Nor are we ever given a complete explanation as to the exact nature and origin of the Force. Where did it come from? How and why was it divided into Light and Dark? How did death and evil first enter this universe? The creators of the Star Wars franchise apparently expect us to maintain an agnostic outlook on these questions not unlike that of Buddhism. To quote the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, in his "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow" target="_blank">Parable of the Poisoned Arrow</a>":<br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow" target="_blank"><br /></a>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored... until I know his home village, town, or city... until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow... until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated... until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him." </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/battles-7/lightside-vs-darkside-1577442/">Comic Vine</a></td></tr>
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This is, however, a deeply unsatisfying framework for those of us with a Judeo-Christian belief system. There's a fundamental hopelessness at the heart of the Star Wars saga's moral universe. Light and Dark are portrayed as co-equal and co-eternal, engaged in an unending struggle where each gains the upper hand at different times but can achieve no final victory - with all the continued pain, death, and suffering that entails. The ideal of a "balance" between the further implies (and the unending storyline bears out) the lack of any ultimate triumph of Good over Evil.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKowyoeoud7Gfnnxg2mcE4T_N-guo6u1xsP99DQDVsolQI7HcX-LvHaCdFnc5ozkTHgIcxGjt2WpvLQGM5BplEg999IE2Ctmu1_EugSrsPMdb0d4BZpxKI3zXs-AeJ5X50n5-D0OgqrA/s1600/390324_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXKowyoeoud7Gfnnxg2mcE4T_N-guo6u1xsP99DQDVsolQI7HcX-LvHaCdFnc5ozkTHgIcxGjt2WpvLQGM5BplEg999IE2Ctmu1_EugSrsPMdb0d4BZpxKI3zXs-AeJ5X50n5-D0OgqrA/s320/390324_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://www.teepublic.com/hoodie/390324-jedi-sith-yin-yang-symbol">Tee Public</a></td></tr>
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The Force, as a concept, is clearly inspired by Eastern mysticism, with parallels in religions including Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Its described nature as an "energy field" also recalls contemporary New Age spirituality. George Lucas himself was up front about its place in the Star Wars mythology (quoted from Tor.com):<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #545353; font-family: "georgia pro w01" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">"I wanted a concept of religion based on the premise that there is a God, and there is good and evil. I began to distill the essence of all religions into what I thought was a basic idea common to all religions and common to primitive thinking. I wanted to develop something that was nondenominational but still had a kind of religious reality."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">From a spiritual standpoint, this should at the very least inspire a healthy awareness among any Christians who otherwise enjoy the franchise. Popular entertainment is suffused with many such false ideas, which we must be prepared to recognize and reject. Now, does that mean that Star Wars has no redeeming value from a Christian standpoint? Not necessarily. The entire story arc resonates with classic themes of Good, Evil, Temptation, Sacrifice, Tragedy and Redemption, all of them illustrated in vivid ways, and all of which parallel key components of the Biblical message. The fact, however, that they all center around an impersonal "Force" as opposed to the Creator God robs them of much of their power while promoting a false view of spirituality. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCgGbVzecgmI53cE4Eoijc3RAoMUqHkyTs4bdci-e00AQTqWc5XugBZsSZfX_pAPwma3us5Rtl5TrdDk744UwS-AbI4K927vKxViYj56kkp69Jn2FMO14uk8DXI6LMJsNAiFk4uZIAiM/s1600/God-creating-the-galaxy-via-Shutterstock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCgGbVzecgmI53cE4Eoijc3RAoMUqHkyTs4bdci-e00AQTqWc5XugBZsSZfX_pAPwma3us5Rtl5TrdDk744UwS-AbI4K927vKxViYj56kkp69Jn2FMO14uk8DXI6LMJsNAiFk4uZIAiM/s320/God-creating-the-galaxy-via-Shutterstock.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://sociallay.com/2016/12/renowned-physicist-finds-proof-god-exists-the-universe-was-created-by-design-in-huge-matrix/">sociallay.com</a></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">With that being said, I believe it is still theoretically possible to salvage the series from a Judeo-Christian viewpoint - even with the otherwise problematic concept of the Force. I know I've raised more than a few eyebrows at this point, so I'll ask you all to bear with me. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">With the right interpretative framework, the Force can actually be rationalized as a non-mystical concept. Again, its described in-series as an "energy field" - a term drawn from physics long before the New Age movement appropriated it for spiritual phenomena. "Force-sensitives" are people born with the ability to sense and utilize this energy field - something the prequels further reveal as the result of special microorganisms in their blood. From this viewpoint, the Jedi and Sith are more like X-Men-style mutants than the magicians and sorcerers they would otherwise be. The Force is merely part and parcel of the physical laws governing the created universe in which they reside. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitsw-s9grJeC18N94VZdFt36mbovqo_tKzVCgQp0PGOOKf80Nw9O45NJp0lf_U8lsYUk9ZBa6f1nu5RZSZLXd7At4a6SsTe_6HaLoFSWdq726VnALGk9avHi_MVOvRSDOJNdQnD6C3G54/s1600/jhf3j.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitsw-s9grJeC18N94VZdFt36mbovqo_tKzVCgQp0PGOOKf80Nw9O45NJp0lf_U8lsYUk9ZBa6f1nu5RZSZLXd7At4a6SsTe_6HaLoFSWdq726VnALGk9avHi_MVOvRSDOJNdQnD6C3G54/s320/jhf3j.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/117420/why-dont-all-jedi-stick-around-as-force-ghosts">Sci-Fi Stack Exchange</a></td></tr>
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Of course, the most obvious problem with this view is the supposedly crucial link between the Force and the "afterlife" as portrayed in the Star Wars universe. Isn't this proof that the Force is synonymous with the spiritual realm? Particularly when we consider the role that "Force ghosts" play in all three of the original films and much of the Expanded Universe?<br />
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That's obviously what the series creators intended, yes. But I still believe there's an alternate explanation. I know I'm playing with semantics here, but perhaps people who re-appear as Force ghosts are not truly "dead" in the theological sense. We first see someone become a Force ghost in <i>A New Hope</i>, when Obi-Wan Kenobi is struck down by Darth Vader - and he simply vanishes.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://nerdist.com/in-the-original-star-wars-script-obi-wan-survived-his-fight-with-vader/">Nerdist.com</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM9ru1kHKJE43pTUaqg6XJahB0IFlJpk8JiHHLW1p8VpIdjOEV4A3ormYkQcTcsr0VXwAQrp8dXhb9SPqDDhyeoBd6X6b_WXGYTYq_qnbljrju38Ysyqe5TAcKRUcGsa4MVVndtCu3CgA/s1600/obi-wans-death-scene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM9ru1kHKJE43pTUaqg6XJahB0IFlJpk8JiHHLW1p8VpIdjOEV4A3ormYkQcTcsr0VXwAQrp8dXhb9SPqDDhyeoBd6X6b_WXGYTYq_qnbljrju38Ysyqe5TAcKRUcGsa4MVVndtCu3CgA/s320/obi-wans-death-scene.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://blog.naver.com/PostThumbnailView.nhn?blogId=a_lord&logNo=10125236686&categoryNo=21&parentCategoryNo=0">blog.naver.com</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqAV9hkMLQjcSOgf1l-t__6t6KkDWwqaIceZiTMZENfzLOJQYOtMCwFhAtoksKYP_xuxamFDUs0IwqU2gJcL4QCIRCXt1YBAl7ftJK0kMcz8neHgU0CLkthtiXoE5HtDnP-aaSFnLHCb8/s1600/sw4script649.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqAV9hkMLQjcSOgf1l-t__6t6KkDWwqaIceZiTMZENfzLOJQYOtMCwFhAtoksKYP_xuxamFDUs0IwqU2gJcL4QCIRCXt1YBAl7ftJK0kMcz8neHgU0CLkthtiXoE5HtDnP-aaSFnLHCb8/s320/sw4script649.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.scifimoviezone.com/StarWarsScript28.shtml">Sci Fi Movie Zone</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGU8OiHJ1vwJDz1cF_a8T1wInu4rUdC1FdkjdxYmlrZ7C26OWQfq7o0Sf30VajXdwulvVmh-RIbZ8adHIG4QrtEWeYYkD4b8yQ0-JX_-GAVUkLxj8ncH0Yce8IKzTHFTpsRh1_KnG7fE/s1600/star-wars-1016.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGU8OiHJ1vwJDz1cF_a8T1wInu4rUdC1FdkjdxYmlrZ7C26OWQfq7o0Sf30VajXdwulvVmh-RIbZ8adHIG4QrtEWeYYkD4b8yQ0-JX_-GAVUkLxj8ncH0Yce8IKzTHFTpsRh1_KnG7fE/s320/star-wars-1016.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/67k62f/my_opinions_on_the_prequels_have_changed/">Reddit</a></td></tr>
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I would argue that rather than dying, he used his mastery of the Force to convert his body into pure energy - his spirit, therefore, did not experience the bodily separation that defines "death." In the Expanded Universe - both Legends and Canon - it's revealed that he learned how to do this by studying the ancient "Journal of the Whills" with the assistance of his former mentor Qui-Gon, who had previously mastered this ability (some brief exposition here - it's a uniform belief in the Star Wars universe that this is the only a person's soul to live on after death; under the scenario I imagine, it is, of course, false).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn65CG93TrZfMfGrtp_X8dfRkK3uVzfXP3EpuZHszd4A4DkC1KSBDNff9MmbaeExMDRlbb9f9s-iRn6nJ_arFvog372ReQwxtpaS2hGEEF85sr9EJ6ciF-7r6VZSt4RxeEXmsLyoYIbpo/s1600/maxresdefault+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn65CG93TrZfMfGrtp_X8dfRkK3uVzfXP3EpuZHszd4A4DkC1KSBDNff9MmbaeExMDRlbb9f9s-iRn6nJ_arFvog372ReQwxtpaS2hGEEF85sr9EJ6ciF-7r6VZSt4RxeEXmsLyoYIbpo/s320/maxresdefault+%25284%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: YouTube</td></tr>
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I know, I know. Qui-Gon died quite unambiguously in <i>The Phantom Menace. </i>But... did he? What if, in fact, his studies from the Journal of the Whills taught him how to willingly place his body in a state of suspended animation, shutting down all extraneous functions while it diverted its energies to preventing brain death? There are real life instances of people who have appeared dead for long periods only to revive later - a link to just one example is available <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/suspended-animation" target="_blank">here</a>. His body's final transformation into an energy form might then have taken place as it burned on the funeral pyre.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYNceYl2_daWF_4_ZK4_IGgRpmboASH_gBX0T5vLVMKq9d-9yAQbpSQp5SqThesSVrQFiHLXheudZj-2b9_VxZE6WBpdqL7JhnZNyTkwfZHa56ZohLlxHQOVcs6wbxme-CZH1gb6taAdk/s1600/81ea54e638bd9935fd9afd4a4d78a8c6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYNceYl2_daWF_4_ZK4_IGgRpmboASH_gBX0T5vLVMKq9d-9yAQbpSQp5SqThesSVrQFiHLXheudZj-2b9_VxZE6WBpdqL7JhnZNyTkwfZHa56ZohLlxHQOVcs6wbxme-CZH1gb6taAdk/s320/81ea54e638bd9935fd9afd4a4d78a8c6.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://philnoto.tumblr.com/archive">Phil Noto</a></td></tr>
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But what about Anakin Skywalker? Didn't he also unambiguously die in <i>Return of the Jedi</i>? Unlike Qui-Gon, he never learned the process of becoming a Force ghost and, therefore, would not have known any 'suspended animation' techniques associated with it - and he still became one.<br />
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This is not as insolvable as it may appear. Assuming the two prior solutions hold true in the case of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, we can also produce one for Anakin. The official Canon explanation for how Anakin Skywalker became a Force ghost without prior training is that Obi-Wan appeared to him as he lost consciousness and assisted him in the process. Perhaps this involved externally inducing the suspended animation and converting his body into energy on the funeral pyre just as we imagined with Qui-Gon? The whole scenario falls into place quite smoothly if approach it with the right presuppositions.<br />
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Let's now expand all this into at least the beginnings of a Grand Theory of Origins for Star Wars. What follows is another one of my "thought experiments" you've all come to know and love. 😊<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJBSNPSuSlMZ5dKbE0HY4MFGV09-phKXUFxA2T04Jdf5AzEop8yyrcpq1dmCLp-bzEwofhpZTPnvgXLhSbbS99gh2St6bSwmCBinR6ChTuFZcAlMCxVHEX4EMd6ZCmBH03S2cpzBIXQc/s1600/creation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJBSNPSuSlMZ5dKbE0HY4MFGV09-phKXUFxA2T04Jdf5AzEop8yyrcpq1dmCLp-bzEwofhpZTPnvgXLhSbbS99gh2St6bSwmCBinR6ChTuFZcAlMCxVHEX4EMd6ZCmBH03S2cpzBIXQc/s320/creation.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.godsgrazingfield.net/index.php?p=1_131">Godsgrazingfield.net</a></td></tr>
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Let's assume that the Star Wars galaxy was created by God at a point long before its recorded history (which varies significantly depending on whether you subscribe to the original Legends material or the new Canon). It could either be connected to our universe in a scenario like the one I described in <a href="http://alexanderprestonauthor1.blogspot.com/2017/02/other-worlds-fiction-and-reality.html" target="_blank">Other Worlds: Fiction and Reality</a> or, more likely, exist in a separate "Narnia"-type universe. Shortly thereafter, a Fall occurred in some manner paralleling our own. A promise of Salvation was given (perhaps handed down to the original Jedi Order or its precursor), but the knowledge of it was gradually lost or corrupted over the generations until the Creator Himself was forgotten (in our world, this is basically the story of all post-Babel religious systems). The Force then became the subject of idolatrous veneration ("the creature more than the Creator"), similar to how the sun, moon, and stars were worshiped in biblical times. This produced the Star Wars saga's defining cycle of an endless battle between Light and Dark, with both the Jedi and Sith having elevated the Force into a false Deity. The only true escape from this cycle is by a return to the Creator.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLiS5LHY9VaiNxKfBK0XGEuUJygtcUMNeF9XXkQaaxsConsJCi1p3ZscjtRs0tHPvJH4g55ScPq8_TChlwmn1QiTkc_mSyKAEp1KIGJkz3n24HKAddF5CsJ1x706xJJuKioV20QKmRgbM/s1600/Ipl2KYE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLiS5LHY9VaiNxKfBK0XGEuUJygtcUMNeF9XXkQaaxsConsJCi1p3ZscjtRs0tHPvJH4g55ScPq8_TChlwmn1QiTkc_mSyKAEp1KIGJkz3n24HKAddF5CsJ1x706xJJuKioV20QKmRgbM/s320/Ipl2KYE.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://imgur.com/gallery/ij0v8">Imgur</a></td></tr>
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I remember toying with one particular "fanfiction" concept (my version of doodling) during a slow day at work. What if a certain Jedi Master, searching for inner peace by faithfully applying the Order's teachings, instead received a revelation from God? What if this opened his eyes to how far the Order had deviated from the original Truth by using the Force as a substitute for the Creator? Perhaps he would try to share what he learned with his fellow Masters only to be rejected as the Pharisees rejected the message of Christ. What if he was expelled from (or voluntarily left) the Order, taking a large group of followers with him to form an "Israel"-type nation on a "Promised Land" planet where they await the eventual coming of a Messianic Savior (the <i>real</i> Savior - not that bizarre "Chosen One" prophecy so needlessly tacked on to Anakin Skywalker's character in <i>The Phantom Menace</i>).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWORi7AxtUPGwL_yXn88k-1Qn2DzyRWmruy5d6B9aKohpddNaJ-e9jTApijWfXjKUye95ijTbJXlFF42OQQyOUMzQYjwFVsKwPNy6ORbBchqZECJ2hN1x65CZ_zkgjxejfRe426AQLf-E/s1600/Star_Wars_The_Last_Jedi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWORi7AxtUPGwL_yXn88k-1Qn2DzyRWmruy5d6B9aKohpddNaJ-e9jTApijWfXjKUye95ijTbJXlFF42OQQyOUMzQYjwFVsKwPNy6ORbBchqZECJ2hN1x65CZ_zkgjxejfRe426AQLf-E/s320/Star_Wars_The_Last_Jedi.jpg" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: Wikipedia</td></tr>
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As the release date for <i>The Last Jedi</i> gets closer, we've been hearing a lot of plot rumors regarding explosive revelations on the nature of the Force and of the ancient Jedi. I, for one, would love it if the series were continued in a direction that explores the shortcomings of the Force as a religious concept, ultimately revealing the existence of a Creator God. It would be one of the single most powerful plot twists I can imagine in any science fiction film ever.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE8piW34GWI-L0c5g8GV4N384RoeiXc4dC6txTjI1F97VwJT00aQxww9iFn07N59KUPwv3d21ieUNq6kt9_fDCpd72mIkotnV7M3if1sWI8MoKy-o9pQ6c5DLzy0c2_fC7DexzB3sxVLU/s1600/god-and-adam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE8piW34GWI-L0c5g8GV4N384RoeiXc4dC6txTjI1F97VwJT00aQxww9iFn07N59KUPwv3d21ieUNq6kt9_fDCpd72mIkotnV7M3if1sWI8MoKy-o9pQ6c5DLzy0c2_fC7DexzB3sxVLU/s320/god-and-adam.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://richardjoldale.com/2015/04/28/what-is-god-a-definition-of-the-creator-in-man/">Master Mind Content</a></td></tr>
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Realistically, of course, I don't expect anything like this to happen in a million years.<br />
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Join me for our next installment as we continue our journey through the Dark Corners of Heaven and Earth.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-61221008595874694132017-03-27T05:28:00.002-07:002017-04-29T07:17:29.251-07:00Human Horizons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN56_Wz2DMBfrOklH-5zm9ZFJqpzmpeiidP9eMf7KEYobxsEDlqLZLRKPIMzsb_3djv29uYEymAX19OZl8bzt6GkWswRjFbF6KicO0KVw-0eOgcXKBGEM_ZXLxCdvWVZAlG-ITmThKfmg/s1600/e5de2bb1bdc467f8e6f465ca71b94030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN56_Wz2DMBfrOklH-5zm9ZFJqpzmpeiidP9eMf7KEYobxsEDlqLZLRKPIMzsb_3djv29uYEymAX19OZl8bzt6GkWswRjFbF6KicO0KVw-0eOgcXKBGEM_ZXLxCdvWVZAlG-ITmThKfmg/s320/e5de2bb1bdc467f8e6f465ca71b94030.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://mamietitine.centerblog.net/49605-silhouettes-silhouettes">Mamietitine</a></td></tr>
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The following expands on some thoughts I initially presented in <a href="http://alexanderprestonauthor1.blogspot.com/2017/02/faith-and-final-frontier.html" target="_blank">Faith and the Final Frontier </a>and <a href="http://alexanderprestonauthor1.blogspot.com/2017/02/secrets-of-ancients.html" target="_blank">Secrets of the Ancients</a>. First, a little bit of background.<br />
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Some years ago (I believe I was about fifteen years old at the time), my family spent the night at a minister's house during a trip out of state. Following an evening meal, we spent the rest of the night until bedtime in extended conversation with our host and several other guests. Though I had made a beginning in my faith and was awaiting baptism, I was still a teenager in a room full of vastly older adults, so I listened as best I could while contributing little to the conversations around me.<br />
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As is sometimes wont to occur in such atmospheres, the topics drifted toward current events as well as recent historical ones. I still don't remember exactly how this particular subject came up, but at one point our host mentioned the first moon landing - and then went on to relate how his grandmother could never believe that God allowed men to go to the moon. He further stated that he never tried to convince her otherwise - to this day he himself will only state "they say we've been to the moon."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCqhYKMNGdZ8wuFRPAvO2LcpyjvEny-2xoB5p5nkONvj8BJRWZcP3naUObVZjWu2daI5fnVNNcjUy8UJTzZVwHM_bdZk66CZ5ReB-4KFtTCoXX-CxVC9GSN_e9rpcIqNTS0x-e8eE3Vm4/s1600/moon-hoax-soundboard-clapper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCqhYKMNGdZ8wuFRPAvO2LcpyjvEny-2xoB5p5nkONvj8BJRWZcP3naUObVZjWu2daI5fnVNNcjUy8UJTzZVwHM_bdZk66CZ5ReB-4KFtTCoXX-CxVC9GSN_e9rpcIqNTS0x-e8eE3Vm4/s320/moon-hoax-soundboard-clapper.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://all-that-is-interesting.com/moon-landing-hoax-conspiracy-theory">All-that-is-interesting.com</a></td></tr>
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Almost anyone with a remotely similar interest to my own in both fictional and real-life human space travel can imagine what I felt inside at hearing that statement. But I kept those feelings to myself (and even tried to forget them). I was, again, a teenager in a room full of adults (none of whom were invested enough in this topic to back me up had I said anything) and was still finding my way after the great Change that had occurred in my life. In many ways, I was still unsure in many ways as to what exactly I believed - or rather, <i>should </i>have believed - when it came to applying Biblical precepts to my life and thought. For all I knew at the time, this minister's opinion was more scripturally-based than my own.<br />
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Several years after that, I recall listening to a sermon by another minister during yet another trip. His topic concerned what he regarded as the "signs of the times" pointing to the immanent return of Christ. He spoke on this for some time. Then he concluded with this opinion: if Christ chooses to delay His Coming for any significant length of time "He will <i>annihilate </i>all our technology."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1W0q6JFGEUI6oCPMtU32NlNEBCsWmaiJ5EoKVjLTcC0g7R3zERyP8cYFdaTg-rLu07MhBlvBP0GTEKn4HYk5HpA9dp2C2ZLSiCHSyr2FUNnS3MC_WXqQEQjmjgyFNM4iQxNdosFvQZPk/s1600/trade-barriers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1W0q6JFGEUI6oCPMtU32NlNEBCsWmaiJ5EoKVjLTcC0g7R3zERyP8cYFdaTg-rLu07MhBlvBP0GTEKn4HYk5HpA9dp2C2ZLSiCHSyr2FUNnS3MC_WXqQEQjmjgyFNM4iQxNdosFvQZPk/s320/trade-barriers.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image:<a href="http://all-that-is-interesting.com/moon-landing-hoax-conspiracy-theory">fee.org</a></td></tr>
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These are extreme and isolated examples. The opinions of these two individuals hardly represent those of most Christians (including, I would add, those within their own denomination). But they do speak to a certain unconscious mindset among many sincere believers. That is, an instinctive view that God's plan for mankind involves constricted horizons. Technological aspirations (and sometimes, human creativity itself) are often seen as something inherently prideful and idolatrous, corrupting the mind from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3).<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Technology in Genesis</b></div>
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This trend of thinking has a long tradition, even dating back to early Christianity. The apocryphal book of Enoch, praised by Church Fathers such as Tertullian but ultimately excluded from biblical canon on grounds of authenticity, features the demon Azazel teaching pre-Flood Man the "forbidden" arts of mining and weapon-making (see <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe011.htm" target="_blank">The Book of Enoch, Chapter VIII</a>). The first-century Jewish historian Josephus (not a Christian himself, of course, but whose works have been highly influential within Christianity) censures Cain as the inventor of weights and measures ("whereas [men] lived innocently and generously while they knew nothing of such arts, he changed the world into cunning craftiness") as well as for being the first city builder. Significantly, Josephus contradicts himself in the same chapter by praising the first generations after Noah for "the good use they made of [their lives] in astronomical and geometrical discoveries" (see <a href="http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/ant-1.htm" target="_blank">Antiquities of the Jews, Chapter 3</a>). Does not geometry necessarily involve the use of "weights and measures?"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmzIt9PJLxqhn0L3f38PKXZDJbGMTWIpJN0tRrPpZa_bO1_rMxzCKtsetoGcGQS6i0cQbPBzL2Blyn2qvV3Y9fHObLrqCP4QQ5uKzGW5NhUjX4efQh-89phO4ChVRATUG751JztiqyQE/s1600/29983-cain-slaying-abel-jacopo-palma-1590.800w.tn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmzIt9PJLxqhn0L3f38PKXZDJbGMTWIpJN0tRrPpZa_bO1_rMxzCKtsetoGcGQS6i0cQbPBzL2Blyn2qvV3Y9fHObLrqCP4QQ5uKzGW5NhUjX4efQh-89phO4ChVRATUG751JztiqyQE/s320/29983-cain-slaying-abel-jacopo-palma-1590.800w.tn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Some other Christian thinkers (both contemporary and historical) have made much of the fact that the Genesis account mentions Cain's (presumably sinful) descendants as the innovators and inventors of the pre-Flood world. The (righteous) descendants of Seth, by contrast, are never mentioned to be responsible for any such achievements. The implication is that a focus on technological development implies a lack of focus on spirituality - this was the opinion of one Christian author that I had a chance to exchange personal emails with. For those interested, his book on ancient technological achievements is available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Mens-Secrets-Tantalising-Hints-ebook/dp/B001NEKDHM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490498746&sr=1-2&keywords=dead+men%27s+secrets+by+jonathan+gray&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=b41a2abe1babe2a25327f3a797375f40" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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I would point out, however, that the description of Seth's line in Genesis has an explicitly genealogical focus that is lacking for Cain's. It's purpose is to provide contemporary readers (those for whom Moses first composed it) with a clear picture of how God's revelation was handed down to Adam and preserved over the generations until their own day. Those mentioned by name in the Sethite line likely occupied a "priestly" role more significant than whatever secular activities they would have been known for. Incidentally, some clues in this regard can be derived from the very meaning of their names: "Cainan", for example, means "craftsman", and "Methusaleh" can be translated to mean "man of the flying dart" (see Rene Noorbergen's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Lost-Races-Rene-Noorbergen/dp/147960500X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1490499479&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=dab1583bf10c5480aa992b0579f63929" target="_blank">Secrets of the Lost Races</a>). And, of course, at least one especially well-known Sethite was directed by God to become a Shipbuilder (Genesis 6).<br />
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The fact is, the Genesis account, taken on its own, assigns no moral judgment one way or another to the inventions of Cain's descendants. Extra-biblical traditions and texts are the only source of moral analysis on this topic. While useful to the student of biblical history, they must always be taken with a grain of salt in comparison to the canon of Scripture. In fact, Jubal, inventor of the harp and lyre, held a place of honor in the ancient Israelite religion. The word "Jubilee" is actually derived from his name (see link <a href="http://biblehub.com/topical/j/jubal.htm" target="_blank">here</a>). I also hardly need mention the use these inventions were put to by the righteous Hebrew kings such as David.<br />
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<b>The Tower of Babel</b></div>
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Many others, however, point to the Confusion of Tongues at Babel as proof that God takes a fundamentally dim view of human advancement. The supposed "proof" of this is the reason given for why building of the Tower had to be stopped: "nothing will be restrained from them which they shall imagine to do." (Genesis 11:6)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcmjb3f75_AQTqmJzNST7cVNh2uKZ_cQl8WVpNi36nreyXsLyKWjuYWTdD5lpSvUU1QwD-zah1YYYCsIFf9-MzIykGqe-0I_ORP1OxtIx-LaSDtefF4qytxkMir_X59CZAc6i8w6ZHa30/s1600/tower-of-babel-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcmjb3f75_AQTqmJzNST7cVNh2uKZ_cQl8WVpNi36nreyXsLyKWjuYWTdD5lpSvUU1QwD-zah1YYYCsIFf9-MzIykGqe-0I_ORP1OxtIx-LaSDtefF4qytxkMir_X59CZAc6i8w6ZHa30/s320/tower-of-babel-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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But is that really a blanket statement applying to all forms of human progress? An interpretative lens I've found useful comes from Donald E. Chittick's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Puzzle-Ancient-Man-Technology-Civilizations/dp/0964097834/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490501865&sr=1-2&keywords=The+Puzzle+of+ancient+man&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=00c69f7ac659aaf630a94051e4144c4f" target="_blank">The Puzzle of Ancient Man</a>: </div>
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"By having a bent toward evil and assisted technologically, man in rebellion against his Creator can turn his habitat into a living Hell. I was born before World War II and remember how technology was used to torture and murder and mutilate human beings. The Nazis in Germany performed horrible 'scientific' experiments on people. Philosophical justification for these atrocities came from their naturalistic, atheistic view of origins." (p. 150)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5xlgefv-FS97mjBzID6TWM3Epse520E7h0z4hUjfEtUktPzXzHigAJcpypVBUKEB58aTjuQxE3bSqo_1KKydWFC38Od5wRxQ9aRTA8mYqLDijOPfnpxldp7vIbXnoYpl6IG5LkFHJ5lc/s1600/ebensee-survivors-P.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5xlgefv-FS97mjBzID6TWM3Epse520E7h0z4hUjfEtUktPzXzHigAJcpypVBUKEB58aTjuQxE3bSqo_1KKydWFC38Od5wRxQ9aRTA8mYqLDijOPfnpxldp7vIbXnoYpl6IG5LkFHJ5lc/s320/ebensee-survivors-P.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Considered from this perspective, the Confusion of Tongues was as much an act of mercy as of punishment. Most traditions (largely derived from Josephus) tell us that the building of the Tower was an effort to establish a unified world government in direct defiance of God's command to send out independent colonies to resettle the earth. Such a regime - dominated by a false religious (or "scientific") philosophy - may indeed have achieved great technological feats, but its "accomplishments" would likely have included mass surveillance, centralized social and economic planning, eugenics, organized mass murder and (perhaps) mind control. In short, it would have permanently extinguished human freedom (thereby destroying, incidentally, the basis for any continued scientific progress).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2DtPepYnX_UKFFDxY2cZp70DWxkAeMWj2jMwnSlP9HzRgCCsoXjh-dTZpFMygmHoTIC8RzLUOGqQLCyY6kL17xzqIyu3jG6uTE3KhlwUS_nEnFqgQR1j4op41phZkRw7aCxgTxRusmuY/s1600/serveimage-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2DtPepYnX_UKFFDxY2cZp70DWxkAeMWj2jMwnSlP9HzRgCCsoXjh-dTZpFMygmHoTIC8RzLUOGqQLCyY6kL17xzqIyu3jG6uTE3KhlwUS_nEnFqgQR1j4op41phZkRw7aCxgTxRusmuY/s320/serveimage-1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Image: <a href="http://www.thelibertyconservative.com/page/7/">The Liberty Conservative</a></span><br />
<b>A world where the Tower stood?</b><br />
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The fact is, competing, individual nations - with all their trade-offs - ensure an "exit option" when conditions in one nation (or group of nations) becoming unendurable. By extension, if you believe in the ideals of democratic self-governance, you almost by definition have to believe in individual nations as a matter of principle. These are, after all, the concrete structures that come into existence when people end existing political ties in order to erect others more suited to their needs. In a long-term sense, we could even say the dispersal from Babel actually <i>galvanized </i>human development by bringing these imperfect but necessary entities into being. </div>
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<b>Progress vs. Decadence</b></div>
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With all this being said, there are still many seemingly cogent arguments within church circles about the supposed link between "technology" and moral decline. There is merit in all of them. But they miss an important element of the big picture. Almost all of the social ills we associate with technology today don't come from its advancement but rather the illusion of advancement. The innovation we've seen over the past forty years has been exclusively in computing (the mostly entertainment-oriented "time-wasting" areas that receive so much censure in religious circles). Progress has been virtually stagnant in the aviation field and most engineering fields (chemical, nuclear, mechanical, electrical, etc) (see the following article <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530901/technology-stalled-in-1970/" target="_blank">here</a>). Many of today's generation are retreating into cyberspace due to modern culture's overwhelming focus on "safety" and the growth of a bloated regulatory state to enforce this unattainable ideal. They simply do not have the opportunity to experience the "real world" in the way their recent ancestors did or pursue the same entrepreneurial channels. The result is a widespread feeling of "unreality" that pervades Western societies (which meet virtually all their citizens' physical needs while neglecting higher ones). It doesn't take much imagination to grasp that a life spent entirely in the "protected zone" can quickly become unbearable - with purely escapist fantasies being the most immediate coping mechanism. The fact that online virtual worlds such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life" target="_blank">Second Life</a> are now so popular should be grounds for a massive societal wake-up call: they are the only place left where many people can experience the sense of accomplishment and adventure denied to them in the real world.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LUQ1vJWzVpItCTKCi9oC1RQGkweQS4dF7cYqwIzbYcDa3_MYQ2g9nU4t5HNuxZBX4emM3PNBth_y9FBrB5OrMh9aaPYP4LfpB3Q7npNuqxIHhN-n5PR-tQCnIJjYJP9Yw8I049hJOaw/s1600/fb-vr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2LUQ1vJWzVpItCTKCi9oC1RQGkweQS4dF7cYqwIzbYcDa3_MYQ2g9nU4t5HNuxZBX4emM3PNBth_y9FBrB5OrMh9aaPYP4LfpB3Q7npNuqxIHhN-n5PR-tQCnIJjYJP9Yw8I049hJOaw/s320/fb-vr.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.rgznworld.com/html/201609/29/a002119.html">rgznworld</a></td></tr>
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We can expect these social trends to only continue and accelerate as the world becomes ever more inter-connected and bureaucratically regimented. And the avenues for continued human freedom will steadily vanish. Considerations like these, are - perhaps more than anything else - part of the basis for my own support for human space colonization. If - God forbid - the trends around us culminated in a single world-wide government, it would be a virtual imperative. There has to be some means of establishing new nations and the "exit option" they present to anyone suffering under a tyrannical regime - or wasting away under a more insidious despotism that provides complete satisfaction of all sensual desires but no avenues for one's God-given talents. Any place on Earth, no matter how remote (the oceans, Antarctica, etc), simply would not be enough. As Robert Zubrin points out in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/145160811X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1490560166&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+mars&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=1f659131a0110413da16f03a90eac669" target="_blank">The Case for Mars:</a><br />
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"... at this point in history such terrestrial developments cannot meet an essential requirement for a frontier - to wit, they are insufficiently remote to allow for the free development of a new society. In this day and age, with modern terrestrial communication and transportation systems, no matter how remote or hostile the spot on Earth, the cops are too close. If people are to have the dignity that comes with making their own world, they must be free of the old." (p. 325)<br />
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<b>The Final Lesson of the Tower</b></div>
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Many Christians, even those who become writers in the speculative genre, automatically focus on the negative side of technological discoveries. Both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, for example, suffused their writings with an underlying critique of industrialism and the modern age. As a writer myself, I am no stranger to this - most of my planned works have the abuse of certain technologies as an essential plot element. But we will be doing a great disservice to ourselves - and the gifts God has given us as human beings - should we ever carry this to the point of a generalized retreat from knowledge and creation. We should continue to remember Babel as a symbol - not just of warning, but of the life of freedom, exploration and discovery the Creator intended for us as beings in His image. It is, in fact, the exact opposite of what the Tower's builders would have imposed upon the human race. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVREYL8ag9PU5LF6JTt6SqzElKnHeFEamUcHyIuyPyUrP2Kn83JHL8Vf-oAWM4sTI_8TtXqvXPneMiYPsdwolMdiypFa7Jse79088VdT2a1gcOCWNYXHBxc0FjITS0YzHDqfhOnLhjfNk/s1600/sunrise_over_earth.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVREYL8ag9PU5LF6JTt6SqzElKnHeFEamUcHyIuyPyUrP2Kn83JHL8Vf-oAWM4sTI_8TtXqvXPneMiYPsdwolMdiypFa7Jse79088VdT2a1gcOCWNYXHBxc0FjITS0YzHDqfhOnLhjfNk/s320/sunrise_over_earth.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://10spice.com/?cat=6">10 spice</a></td></tr>
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I invite you all to join me next week as we continue our journey through the Dark Corners of Heaven and Earth.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-72659585394712875632017-03-25T09:05:00.001-07:002017-03-25T09:13:24.667-07:00Special Announcement!This is to announce that I have officially started work on my next novel, <i>Talos</i>! The tentative release date at this time is in Fall of 2018. The preliminary info and synopsis is below:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>TALOS</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">From the heart of blood and darkness, a god is born...</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b>Four people meet at the center of a storm. </b></div>
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<b>Mourning his deceased wife and carrying the scars of life-altering injuries, former Seattle detective Ronan Church has dedicated himself to the pursuit of a killer only he believes exists...</b></div>
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<b>Rebuilding her life in the wake of unspeakable loss, former Vietnamese refugee Mail Li Tran, now established in her career as a 911 dispatcher, is tested to the limits of her skills even as she faces the demons of her past...</b></div>
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<b>Widowed years before and raising a child alone, Sioux Falls, South Dakota police sergeant Michael Emmerich finds a quiet fulfillment in his work. But a bizarre series of murders and threats, steadily escalating to unprecedented levels, shakes his orderly world and brings his city into the grip of fear...</b></div>
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<b>FBI counter-intelligence officer Petra Schiller comes to Sioux Falls on the trail of a major security breach at the U.S. military's DARPA research division. What she finds is a revelation more deadly than anything she could have imagined...</b></div>
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<b>All soon find themselves ensnared in a web of terror and violence, conceived by architects whose ambition is nothing less than the destiny of the human race...</b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Man will be surpassed.</span></b></div>
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If this has whetted your appetite, I am currently seeking early reviewers who will receive PDF copies of the manuscript in advance of its official release date. All such advance reading copies are free - I ask only for a detailed review on Amazon! Sign up below to be added to the mailing list today! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-90367232326227221442017-03-21T05:51:00.000-07:002017-03-27T19:58:56.818-07:00Limited-Time Offer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_9CJk0tDFxOXZRsUrOZxAFLdha3xfBLDSbWzhxtyne7GLJUN3ZC3W4Q2AzH3tHHk0O4RXDJHsF3eBbcUnGpLqIkLkxQxof9i2SOMnrkGbNIOgZRG9zyWOzOd06bepCd-K9nkyVNdATvM/s1600/14976656_124534651359111_7898455283008395419_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_9CJk0tDFxOXZRsUrOZxAFLdha3xfBLDSbWzhxtyne7GLJUN3ZC3W4Q2AzH3tHHk0O4RXDJHsF3eBbcUnGpLqIkLkxQxof9i2SOMnrkGbNIOgZRG9zyWOzOd06bepCd-K9nkyVNdATvM/s320/14976656_124534651359111_7898455283008395419_o.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Prey-Alexander-Preston-ebook/dp/B01M67H8YJ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490100501&sr=1-1&keywords=harvest+of+prey&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=2a8e4e0c14848e2069c7633bf7eb8d6b" target="_blank">Buy Now!</a></div>
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The ebook version of <i>Harvest of Prey</i> is now available for free for a limited time only from Monday, March 27 until Friday, March 31. Be sure to get your copy and tell family and friends so they can also read and review!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-52781918938744223512017-03-20T05:17:00.000-07:002017-04-29T07:36:01.950-07:00Chrononautics 101: Time Travel in Fiction<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5jh3j78ZZt3IwhFy1PY60jhfJ2kfrj_1ivCrt7qOdKmHgHGsCRyKLnbUHLBHWxD44Ol-1Pmz21uwStIJ_9d7ZV5csB7r5XqqEeCC3Au8WKWhzT88seB_edHLkBmCamvOxgSfPu480qCg/s400/maxresdefault+%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/html-4/step_haw_zamanda_yolculuk.htm">Zamanda Yolculuk</a></td></tr>
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<br />Given the perhaps over-serious tone of my last post, I though I'd return to a lighter topic this week. Since I've already gone down one rabbit hole (see my <a href="http://alexanderprestonauthor1.blogspot.com/2017/02/other-worlds-fiction-and-reality.html" target="_blank">Other Worlds: Fiction and Reality</a> post) why not hop into another? (I can hear everyone groaning at my bad pun this very moment).<br />
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So, time travel. Where do we start? Maybe with a brief definition of terms. Technically, we are <i>all </i>engaged in time travel just by existing - you have all traveled into the future since reading this sentence. But this is rarely what we have in mind when using the term "time travel." Rather, it refers to a concept in fiction (and some current scientific theories) whereby the sequential process of time is alternately suspended, accelerated, or reversed - usually from the perspective of a lone observer (or group of observers) carrying the unique status of "time traveler." The functional result is that a person is able to experience events in various periods of time outside of normal sequential order as well as the limits of their own finite lifespan.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4q2IdqcP4Fsgpd_PKnVrdfuKK9XCt86m02kspTGv5Z3Begox9KKL44uxtkQUhYG_8iA19le-pYKETEsBFTjjU2n-OAf58b4DD7R1PCd66HR5M6ZhzMz0C74g6UG-HDp1L7zmuuVDsrKA/s1600/Back_to_the_Future_Textless_Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4q2IdqcP4Fsgpd_PKnVrdfuKK9XCt86m02kspTGv5Z3Begox9KKL44uxtkQUhYG_8iA19le-pYKETEsBFTjjU2n-OAf58b4DD7R1PCd66HR5M6ZhzMz0C74g6UG-HDp1L7zmuuVDsrKA/s320/Back_to_the_Future_Textless_Poster.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.laboiteverte.fr/des-affiches-de-films-sans-leurs-textes/06-back-to-the-future/">La boit everte</a></td></tr>
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Thus defined, we can see that, broadly speaking, there are two main forms of time travel as it appears in fiction. We can label them "forward-directed" and "backward-directed", respectively. The first concerns travel from past to future (at a vastly accelerated rate across great temporal "distances") while the latter concerns its opposite. Both have a long history in speculative fiction. In contemporary times, we usually think of the latter, but, interestingly, early time travel stories usually involved the former (as in H.G. Wells' classic <a href="https://www.amazon.com/H-G-Wells-Time-Machine/dp/1535001003/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1489864324&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=aaa3e91fda0110a1edbafa672b165b67" target="_blank">The Time Machine</a>).<br />
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Within this basic framework, things get a little more complicated as we move into methods and effects. I'll somewhat suspend judgment on the former given the debatable nature of the science and engineering involved (I invite anyone with an even remotely feasible design for a time machine to step forward and allow me to accompany them to the Patent Office).<br />
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So what are the likely effects of time travel? I speak here of the backward-directed variety given that (one-way) forward-directed travel avoids the more problematic questions of cause and effect. Fiction writers (probably the only profession so far to explore this topic at any meaningful length) have largely settled on three main scenarios, each implying a different theory on the nature of time:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://nerdhappy.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html">Nerdhappy</a></td></tr>
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<b>Fixed Timeline. </b>This assumes that any hypothetical "time traveler" is able to make literally no changes to past events. His journey to the past is simply part of those events. Someone traveling back in time to assassinate Adolf Hitler, for example, will instead facilitate his rise to power. While seemingly the most logical (if paradoxical) scenario, it carries the drawback of largely rendering human free will an illusion.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir5D7AJBmBLorTta4eDNUfhnAXlcKgh5v_gqdndkYUtfA9-43uKzbHdwVgYlZt5AQr9mmWeoQ8a-ZEeSpd5hes4btTblFAJdSH_Ionqfh19cLHGNAgFlpxP9qra0M6e3OLlcb7d424D7w/s1600/TOS2x26i.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir5D7AJBmBLorTta4eDNUfhnAXlcKgh5v_gqdndkYUtfA9-43uKzbHdwVgYlZt5AQr9mmWeoQ8a-ZEeSpd5hes4btTblFAJdSH_Ionqfh19cLHGNAgFlpxP9qra0M6e3OLlcb7d424D7w/s320/TOS2x26i.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://cult-tv-lounge.blogspot.com/">Cult TV Lounge</a></td></tr>
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<b>Dynamic Timeline. </b>This is basically the exact opposite of the fixed timeline theory. A time traveler's intervention in past events will produce direct, observable changes in his own time period (though he himself is the only one aware anything has changed). Attempting to assassinate Adolf Hitler brings the desired result of his death (though almost always with an unforeseen outcome that is worse than the original). Incidentally, this is perhaps <i>the </i>most prevalent theory found in time travel fiction - "threats" to the timeline and how they're dealt with form the basis for the plots involved (as in the "Time Cop" franchise). The main drawback of this theory is that it begs the question of what exactly happens to the original, unaltered timeline. Most authors simply assume it's been "deleted" and provide no further explanation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifUrDcbhTu554JdUpF1t6SYtWYJ7sg4LT2iQd1SSyoSPf2SpYPmJuC8vyhbpNClcivNutJeEfdIh0BTwYvJXP8HEBmPfPjfz5sycPto2VodLi0PjzlCSy3urR-y-Uba3y6ZS_s_KAmrWQ/s1600/parallel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifUrDcbhTu554JdUpF1t6SYtWYJ7sg4LT2iQd1SSyoSPf2SpYPmJuC8vyhbpNClcivNutJeEfdIh0BTwYvJXP8HEBmPfPjfz5sycPto2VodLi0PjzlCSy3urR-y-Uba3y6ZS_s_KAmrWQ/s320/parallel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.freehdimages.in/wallpaper/desktop-hd-pics-of-the-planets/">Free HD Images</a></td></tr>
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<b>Alternate Timelines. </b>As we've seen, the prior two scenarios almost necessarily do violence to either causality or free will. This theory seems to avoid both by incorporating a version of "many worlds" multiverse theory. A time traveler's intervention in past events, rather than paradoxically facilitating the events of his own time period (fixed timeline) or changing them (dynamic timeline) results in the creation of a parallel universe where outcomes were different than in the original. The main drawback here is the association (implied, but not logically necessary) with "many worlds" theory and its fundamental overtones of meaninglessness, particularly from a Christian viewpoint (our actions in life don't matter because in some other universe some other versions of ourselves will do the opposite).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgVvwn_zJ_Xs1TSu4hCZTIgXdvanHkdO28kWE1Dc8GpZhCD29U9csFALZ_n45rZfQyoWVe3dl7HBBnAL7xLWeDPMHBF8aBGxEgEfEsLAktvnais7HVuZY3RQr4D-MESxO69awC7eU4cpk/s1600/doctor-who-001-main-1000x750.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgVvwn_zJ_Xs1TSu4hCZTIgXdvanHkdO28kWE1Dc8GpZhCD29U9csFALZ_n45rZfQyoWVe3dl7HBBnAL7xLWeDPMHBF8aBGxEgEfEsLAktvnais7HVuZY3RQr4D-MESxO69awC7eU4cpk/s320/doctor-who-001-main-1000x750.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.freehdimages.in/wallpaper/desktop-hd-pics-of-the-planets/">GoodFon</a></td></tr>
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I should perhaps mention there is also the "Dr. Who" theory of time travel, which incorporates elements of all three scenarios. Some points in time are fixed, some are dynamic, and some (if changed) branch out into alternate timelines. It's interesting in a "chaos theory" sort of way, but makes little logical sense (like much else in that particular television franchise; not a judgment, jut a statement). </div>
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As I hope I've made clear, my purpose is not to assess the actual, scientific possibility of any of these scenarios (I regard time travel in general as slightly less possible than extraterrestrial life). My concern is simply to identify which makes the most sense within a fictional storyline - and which fits the most smoothly with a biblical worldview. I'll point out that none of them are as awkward a fit as they might seem at first. One Christian novelist I've read, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Vanished-J-D-Stanton-Mystery/dp/0310220033/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1489865470&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=658034826ed4a1facac9f76e27dacfb3" target="_blank">Alton Gansky</a>, has pointed out that as the universe further decays from its original perfection, time and space are gradually losing their integrity. Paradoxes and anomalies are possible and could become increasingly prevalent. Would this make time travel (in any of these imagined forms) more of a possibility? We can only wait and see.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglNVa-ftrvINa5RMWg2f4MMbDe_eoL1II-uPNqm9-8iqREQjNeQgPv68Glla2qZMsT3Iix2GOeUhN7h4z93PIGOqxGpQeoIwIg9t5AosjQwQJpj_CSBc95vDIFHuxdKUcS1tg_4vpdmNw/s1600/maxresdefault+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglNVa-ftrvINa5RMWg2f4MMbDe_eoL1II-uPNqm9-8iqREQjNeQgPv68Glla2qZMsT3Iix2GOeUhN7h4z93PIGOqxGpQeoIwIg9t5AosjQwQJpj_CSBc95vDIFHuxdKUcS1tg_4vpdmNw/s320/maxresdefault+%25283%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.yangfenzi.com/shehui/67921.html">Yang Fenzi</a></td></tr>
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But I digress. Which time travel scenario do I specifically favor within Christian fiction? All of the backward-directed ones have their pitfalls. For that reason, I tend to lean toward the one-way, forward-directed variety, whereby information, objects, and (perhaps) individuals would be transmitted/propelled across several years or centuries instantaneously (from their own perspective) with no means of returning to their original time period (thereby avoiding the causality problem completely). Backwards-directed "travel" could take place via a "chronovisor" device allowing people in the present to witness past events rather than participate in or change them. </div>
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It would, however, be quite unfair of me to completely write off backward-directed time travel as a fictional device without any consideration. What follows is yet another elaborate "thought experiment" from what I consider a biblical viewpoint. Again, this is not what I actually believe, but rather a construct for any interested fiction writers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIDVH5XAheW0nRbJ9iaW3SlonzUEkbjHlG3fCNEPbrPY6XK1gh_2VcY78I8j_t2c7T8WWWqjxzarGco7mNaBopTvp7vteitp5VwbdOTBH8qoslNIdxww9WX8Rt_JHt0MHFAmLivVhEYjE/s1600/5-signs-we-exist-inside-of-the-mind-and-body-of-god.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIDVH5XAheW0nRbJ9iaW3SlonzUEkbjHlG3fCNEPbrPY6XK1gh_2VcY78I8j_t2c7T8WWWqjxzarGco7mNaBopTvp7vteitp5VwbdOTBH8qoslNIdxww9WX8Rt_JHt0MHFAmLivVhEYjE/s320/5-signs-we-exist-inside-of-the-mind-and-body-of-god.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://prabanjapriyan.blogspot.com/">Praban Japriyan</a></td></tr>
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Out of all three of the scenarios we've covered, the one I personally favor the most would be "alternate timelines" - with the following two qualifications:</div>
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<li>In its "natural" state, physical reality consists of a single universe (our own) rather than an infinite number of parallel universes with an infinite number of outcomes as postulated in "many worlds" theory ("Narnia"-type scenarios I regard as something else entirely - I'm sure most Christian fantasy writers will also grasp the difference). Artificial intervention by time travelers causes a "branching off" of "subsidiary" universes from the "primary" universe. Some people would have "counterparts" in the alternate timelines, will other would never be born in those timelines. Such a "double" would, in fact, be a separate person with their own soul and consciousness - the time travel intervention causes their "birth" at the point of divergence from the primary timeline. Up to that point, they have the exact same memories as the "original" person. To an extent, the process mirrors that by which a child emerges into a separate existence from its parents' bodies - a sort of "flash birth", as it were. </li>
<li>Certain points in the timeline are not subject to such alteration. From a biblical standpoint, these would consist of events playing an essential, immutable role in the Grand Plan of Salvation (the Garden of Eden, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, etc).</li>
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Observant readers will see that this places virtually all biblical history "off-limits" as it were. That's one of the main reasons I favor forward-directed time travel scenarios over backward-directed. But at the same time, these limitations still leave a potentially rich playing field for scenarios involving post-biblical historical events (it would also mesh well with Gansky's theory on the universe's continuing decay - we could assume that the Old and New Testament eras occurred when the universe's structure still retained a degree of integrity that made artificial time travel impossible).</div>
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I believe there's flexibility here even if we consider future biblical prophecy. Ted Dekker presented a rather original perspective on this (along with the nature of free will) in his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Circle-Box-Set-ebook/dp/B004FN1VQU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1489866483&sr=1-1&keywords=Circle+ted+dekker&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=82618b66086b84e5fe21725d266b3220" target="_blank">Circle series</a>: prophecies are foreordained of God and will be fulfilled someday no matter what; but the exact times, events and people who fulfill them can be changed through conscious action and, presumably, the power of prayer. </div>
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With all these being said, if time travel in this manner with these consequences was possible, it would probably not be an ethical enterprise. One consideration that's often overlooked in analyzing past events is that there are people alive today who would have never been born had those events not unfolded the way they did (even atrocities such as the Holocaust). Time travel would, therefore, almost necessarily involve the creation and destruction of human lives as a means to an end in a way similar to human cloning. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://moviepilot.com/posts/2844879">Movie Pilot</a><br />
<b>What a time traveler would ultimately become? </b></td></tr>
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This would, however, still provide a fertile ground for fictional plots - perhaps involving a villain seeking to create numerous alternate timelines for their own twisted ends and the protagonists trying to repair what damage they can. God is, after all, capable of bringing good out of man's evil - Pharaoh's evil facilitated Israel's journey into the Promised Land. Similarly, human clones and alternate timelines could be used for God's purposes even though He would not condone the actions that resulted in their creation. </div>
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So there we are. That's my ridiculously complicated, over-analyzed, <i>a priori</i> perspective on time travel (in fiction) from a biblical worldview. Just a little something for other fussy writers like myself who feel irresistibly compelled to pursue every fantastical subject to its logical conclusion in the name of an ever-illusive "plausibility". I neither expect nor enjoin every fiction writer (Christian or otherwise) to adopt this model in their storylines, but I hope it can at least provide some imaginative stimulus.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpacMtqNY9JhValmX7g0AIJmkYPb9rv3YRZY1patOL13gWMqBhNFu_FwXyQ0j_o4k9DcZwkXEw7FZbkCFJWrv-lk4OonDaXaz2CV_JpOoI299CV84XmtPVSlI3J-ftgn1y-y1eJOsNt00/s1600/1455578790176.cached.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpacMtqNY9JhValmX7g0AIJmkYPb9rv3YRZY1patOL13gWMqBhNFu_FwXyQ0j_o4k9DcZwkXEw7FZbkCFJWrv-lk4OonDaXaz2CV_JpOoI299CV84XmtPVSlI3J-ftgn1y-y1eJOsNt00/s320/1455578790176.cached.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/author/michael-howard">The Daily Beast</a></td></tr>
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I invite you all to join me again as we continue our journey through the Dark Corners of Heaven and Earth. </div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-63018962093089492062017-03-06T05:32:00.002-08:002017-04-29T07:56:54.491-07:00Faces of Evil: Totalitarianism in Fiction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This post grew out of a comment I made on SpeculativeFaith.com back in January. This, as well as the original article I responded to, are available <a href="http://www.speculativefaith.com/dun-dun-dun-dun-da-dun-dun-da-dun/" target="_blank">here</a>. The subject regarded the use of Nazism - and fascistic ideologies in general - as a sort of stock villain in popular culture. The archetype of the Hitlerian dictator (and his regimented followers) is in many ways just as prevalent in contemporary speculative fiction (perhaps even more so) as the concept of extraterrestrial life. Imagined antagonists in this mold include the Galactic Empire of the Star Wars franchise, General Zod from the most recent Superman movies, the United Citizen Federation featured in the <i>Starship Troopers</i> movie, and myriad other villains found at various times within every major literary and cinematic series with fictional plots involving a political theme. If anything, the increasing distance of time from the original historical events has only fueled the cultural obsession. Amazon's original TV series <i>The Man in the High Castle</i> is wholly based upon an alternate timeline in which the opposite side emerged victorious in World War II (which seems to be the predominating plot throughout the entire genre of alternate history).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Yo_BaTwRZBiM-0QxNj5xu-l1kMTa0YrU7ht0hr3DAebPWMynLtHzoZa0XgcV4f-RCHiuYCjoQoYbSaHV2NFWcpdSA20G37VXdlRs_RV6pzuYog5OkrAGg-E8-O7cH7gyT3ZglY5kSL4/s1600/983SWJ_Michael_Pennington_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Yo_BaTwRZBiM-0QxNj5xu-l1kMTa0YrU7ht0hr3DAebPWMynLtHzoZa0XgcV4f-RCHiuYCjoQoYbSaHV2NFWcpdSA20G37VXdlRs_RV6pzuYog5OkrAGg-E8-O7cH7gyT3ZglY5kSL4/s320/983SWJ_Michael_Pennington_001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://imgur.com/gallery/xYshS">Imgur</a><br />
<b>Officers of the Galactic Empire</b><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0AN2HcLpr-WLwW0l4W1EQGFkKwE2cPakbi_5qQOmxxT59a3WwUCO4JrIZlKDR0EsKeNH0S69COuifzWtbwvCA946uN4-0e09iHwI9D9Ixa3I3cLuzQQ9xmC3YGx5VfxKZo6QGOBVLw2s/s1600/24220227ccd2803e846cbe693936f010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0AN2HcLpr-WLwW0l4W1EQGFkKwE2cPakbi_5qQOmxxT59a3WwUCO4JrIZlKDR0EsKeNH0S69COuifzWtbwvCA946uN4-0e09iHwI9D9Ixa3I3cLuzQQ9xmC3YGx5VfxKZo6QGOBVLw2s/s320/24220227ccd2803e846cbe693936f010.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Image: <a href="https://greenarkreviews.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/man-of-steel-review/">Green Ark Reviews</a><br />
<b>General Zod and his followers on Krypton</b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjodtqV5EqMNZuOAvFoeEkIWafY-Yw9IsvrMnqUTb3lkQ-GGglCMM23rkmUQLKyudKRpe4z_RCuMcmnO_Bt1CLJMi6p2rmXUsKlnSIZzJOndwYMfgONztA2fWAgSkNswp7RysGnsURh8x8/s1600/Vlcsnap-2487321.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjodtqV5EqMNZuOAvFoeEkIWafY-Yw9IsvrMnqUTb3lkQ-GGglCMM23rkmUQLKyudKRpe4z_RCuMcmnO_Bt1CLJMi6p2rmXUsKlnSIZzJOndwYMfgONztA2fWAgSkNswp7RysGnsURh8x8/s320/Vlcsnap-2487321.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=188287973">NeoGAF</a><br />
<b>Sky Marshal Dienes of the United Citizen Federation</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqu948eI6-Wv0E3WCzfzjo0S74KsaZnnvl0MxY7j7FGs8UU0T-uBRtU6PM0xsYwjYR0EEJxCeXP9KhcNZHFVNSKqbaNScxiygL42nMeLsfLPGTAfcIC74AKWRPlZgGtXy0asFK_LZYUjk/s1600/The-Man-in-the-High-Castle-The-New-World-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqu948eI6-Wv0E3WCzfzjo0S74KsaZnnvl0MxY7j7FGs8UU0T-uBRtU6PM0xsYwjYR0EEJxCeXP9KhcNZHFVNSKqbaNScxiygL42nMeLsfLPGTAfcIC74AKWRPlZgGtXy0asFK_LZYUjk/s320/The-Man-in-the-High-Castle-The-New-World-2.png" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.rapcea.ro/2015/12/19/operaiunea-deutschland-uber-alles/the-man-in-the-high-castle/">Rapcea</a><br />
<b>Lady Liberty circa 1962 from <i>The Man in the High Castle</i></b></td></tr>
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I'll take a moment to state that I have many objections to popular entertainment on moral/spiritual grounds that will be familiar to anyone of a similar religious background. But as a fiction writer in the speculative genre, I have additional criticisms that go beyond blanket rejectionism. The entertainment world today (both written and visual) is not just profane and indecent, but profoundly lacking in both originality and genuine imagination. The plot of any major Hollywood film or television series is virtually always based upon recycled, predictable cliches derived from the same political correct sources. Stories in written form are usually better quality but suffer from a similar lack of intellectual diversity. Speculative authors, writing in what should be the most imaginative genre in existence, do a great disservice to their readers by lazily borrowing tropes from their Hollywood counterparts. While this criticism is primarily directed at secular writers, it also applies to the Christian fiction market - much of the content of which represents an attempt to produce nothing more than "cleaner", "safer" version of familiar mainstream storylines. I can sympathize with this effort and in many ways I support it. But Christian fiction as a genre is going to essentially nowhere if it's always waiting for its secular counterpart to produce original plots and then playing "catch up" by taking these very same plots and sanitizing them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpu4eFyJffkyPFfs65UO18oi1QG5go7o_aUkfV3n79X0yhufe4CvEkmVovqMowlEa1_N36_CjqWrofZLsjyjhjBxeM3XSA0IoPtipnxkASKKebONpxWfvs1namxbs70j4w4hFyewQ7YEY/s1600/Herr_Kleiser_%2528Ultimate_Avengers%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpu4eFyJffkyPFfs65UO18oi1QG5go7o_aUkfV3n79X0yhufe4CvEkmVovqMowlEa1_N36_CjqWrofZLsjyjhjBxeM3XSA0IoPtipnxkASKKebONpxWfvs1namxbs70j4w4hFyewQ7YEY/s320/Herr_Kleiser_%2528Ultimate_Avengers%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://leojpeo.blogspot.com/2012/06/ultimates-avengers-2-rise-of-panther-or.html">Leo Peo</a><br />
<b>How most Americans picture Nazism - it usually doesn't get any more sophisticated than this. </b></td></tr>
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I've gone off the track a little bit, so I'll return to my original point, which is also my main one: Nazi-inspired villains have been used so many times in so many different venues that the concept has lost all originality and become little more than a cartoonish caricature. Few writers show any interest in seriously examining what Nazi beliefs actually consisted of beyond the familiar platitudes about race, militarism and eugenics. How many people are aware of its deep connection with socialist ideology (links available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Literature-Socialism-2nd/dp/0718892275/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488681789&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lost+literature+of+socialism&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=4bafe9d8a43baf1bf38376b0c5eaa1fe" target="_blank">here </a>and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-Documents-Definitive-Collected-ebook/dp/B0048EJXCK/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488681865&sr=1-1&keywords=the+road+to+serfdom&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=a1e77489b9b8efe638cef3df8880ce5d" target="_blank">here</a>) or radical environmentalism (link available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ecofascism-Lessons-Experience-Janet-Biehl/dp/1873176732/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488681934&sr=1-1&keywords=Ecofascism+lessons+from+the+german+experience&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=4ae3b49745b8786dd3de7b92d9ba52a0" target="_blank">here</a>)? Or that Adolf Hitler's genocidal hatred of the Jews was based on a paranoid belief that they had created the capitalist system (see 'Nation and Race' chapter in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mein-Kampf/dp/0395925037/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488682062&sr=1-1&keywords=Mein+Kampf&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=76dda6d7c94c604328661a6d1af7fda2" target="_blank">Mein Kampf</a>) </i>- which is the basic story of anti-Semitism (and similar hatreds) throughout history (link available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Jews-Jerry-Z-Muller-ebook/dp/B003VYBPJW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488682184&sr=1-1&keywords=Capitalism+and+the+jews&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=f70ed50ec4b8f0f6f3546bdd64f762f3" target="_blank">here</a>)?<br />
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<b>Polar opposites? Hardly. </b></td></tr>
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Why do most writers show not the least bit of curiosity when it comes to these details? For secular authors, the answer is fairly obvious. Given that artists and writers since the 20th century have overwhelming subscribed to a so-called 'progressive' political outlook incorporating many of these very same ideas, these kind of facts would directly threaten their pre-conceived worldviews. But many Christian writers show no higher level of interest. The classic <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XJ178KW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ref=series_rw_dp_labf&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=72e926d713694737ba391d9a8da584f6" target="_blank">Zion Covenant</a> </i>historical fiction series, for example, spends nine volumes telling the story of World War II and the Holocaust without once touching on the socialist aspects of the Nazi regime or its ideas. To be fair, the historical materials they doubtless relied on carry the same blindness (most contemporary historians adhere to the same preconceived ideas as most contemporary artists and writers). You have to dig deeper into the primary sources to find this kind of information. But in many ways, just that kind of digging should be implied in the craft of writing.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Victims of the Khmer Rouge</b></td></tr>
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This brings me to an additional point. The overwhelming reliance on Nazism as a model for fictional villains obscures the fact that there have been other, just as significant, sources of evil in human history. The obvious one in recent times would be Communism, an ideology far eclipsing Nazism in the sheer number of its victims alone and causing just as nightmarish levels of human suffering. But Communism has nothing like the cinematic image of Nazism in popular culture. As it appears at all, it's usually with an instinctively sympathetic portrayal. Even those who do not subscribe to Communist ideology generally regard it in the light of 'good idea, poor execution'. Much of this is due to a sentimental tendency of modern times to consider ideas by their hoped-for results rather than their actual process or consequences. But I would add that most actual Communist leaders and ideologues did <i>not</i> have good intentions from the very beginning - I would further recommend a biography of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mao-Story-Jung-Chang-ebook/dp/B005MHHREI/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488682918&sr=1-1&keywords=mao+the+unknown+story&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=568213011d961fbaf5d197287ad4e5d9" target="_blank">Mao Zedong</a> as just one example. There's an additional wealth of source material available to any fiction writer who cares to explore the crimes - and murderous ideas - of Communism. Just a few are included here:<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipelago-Abridged-Experiment-Investigation/dp/0061253804/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488683402&sr=1-1&keywords=the+gulag+archipelago&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=87594a8765d366194e786a34320e1580" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipelago-Abridged-Experiment-Investigation/dp/0061253804/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488683402&sr=1-1&keywords=the+gulag+archipelago&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=87594a8765d366194e786a34320e1580" target="_blank">The Gulag Archipelago</a> - </i>Alexander Solzhenitsyn<br />
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repression-ebook/dp/B017QFW73Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&me=&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=5e344d63ffd69fa0d7a60abbf5a81ecf" target="_blank">The Black Book of Communism </a></i><br />
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Death-Government-R-J-Rummel-ebook/dp/B00JTYXCU8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1488683539&sr=1-1&keywords=death+by+government&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=c585e84ea2a8eb3e1e7f07661cb6862c" target="_blank">Death by Government</a> </i>- R.J. Rummel<br />
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Gentle-Land-Communist-Genocide/dp/088349129X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1488683575&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=murder+of+a+gentle+land&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=7fd93ad7336d6cd56aa1cbef58ccc351" target="_blank">Murder of a Gentle Land</a> </i>- John Barron and Anthony Paul<br />
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Revolution-Richard-Pipes/dp/0679736603/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488683620&sr=1-1&keywords=the+russian+revolution+richard+pipes&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=e2b78b7a138514dc60ebff84e7a6b7c3" target="_blank">The Russian Revolution</a> </i>- Richard Pipes<br />
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lenin-Dmitri-Volkogonov-ebook/dp/B003DYGNMY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488683654&sr=1-1&keywords=lenin:+a+new+biography&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=843b8a26924bf5aa194866ded084b321" target="_blank">Lenin: A New Biography</a> </i>- Dimitri Volkogonov<br />
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/First-Guidebook-Prisons-Concentration-Soviet/dp/0553013920/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488683685&sr=1-1&keywords=avraham+shifrin&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=0d774e84879779eac1f1687a12dbba96" target="_blank">The First Guidebook to Prisons and Concentration Camps of the Soviet Union</a> </i>- Avraham Shifrin<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Felix Dzerzhinsky </b><br />
<b>This man founded an organization as brutal as the German SS. How many of us have ever heard his name?</b></td></tr>
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The primary distinguishing factor, of course, is historical events (had these been different much else would doubtless have followed). Nazism vanished from respectable intellectual discourse following military defeat and ideological repudiation at the Nuremberg Trials. Communism never experienced anything similar (there was no parallel in post-Soviet Russia or the rest of the former Warsaw Pact to the "de-Nazification" campaign waged by the Allied Powers in occupied Germany). Postwar images of it have been shaped accordingly.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-09-14/chinese-lovebirds-nazi-garb">Public Radio International</a><br />
<b>This is bizarre and offensive. </b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihdI-YVGiaOobFl169-cYoIvXykhWzZMaq0Ktl7gOO138F_CsGIwbOG7B-DJH0BJOMxXq601Onxi-3Pn7B0XPGipptGZrFpP1h12uBkMKyTeZlDId5jap7kyMSt35Rnjm9QVu_caeTZJk/s1600/71hItNZNiLL._UY445_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihdI-YVGiaOobFl169-cYoIvXykhWzZMaq0Ktl7gOO138F_CsGIwbOG7B-DJH0BJOMxXq601Onxi-3Pn7B0XPGipptGZrFpP1h12uBkMKyTeZlDId5jap7kyMSt35Rnjm9QVu_caeTZJk/s320/71hItNZNiLL._UY445_.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>...but this is OK?</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I'm not saying that all (or even most) fantastical stories must be parallels of reality. But the speculative genre (both secular and Christian) commits a profound act of self-impoverishment by drawing inspiration from only a single aspect of history. I think it's high time we started giving <i>all </i>of it's monsters their due imaginative representation.<br />
<br />
I invite you to join me next week as we continue our journey through the Dark Corners of Heaven and Earth.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-66324045185963936712017-03-02T05:51:00.000-08:002017-03-02T05:51:18.109-08:00Other Worlds: Fiction and Reality - AddendumLo and behold, it looks there <i>is </i>a writer out there more motivated to pursue this topic than I am. He has an entire blog and book devoted to it, and he's a fellow Young Earth Creationist to boot! Check it out.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://tonybreeden.blogspot.com/2015/10/can-aliens-be-saved-or-extraterrestrial.html" target="_blank">Can Aliens be Saved?</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-72135888336051293372017-02-27T05:27:00.000-08:002017-04-29T08:05:56.595-07:00Other Worlds: Fiction and Reality<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYhgG3MkDrYmIWJYKX2N1G2E5zAaH-LrvbjiwW6bKNpmpdacK7LhFM_QgTkmmAuz1PatbnTrNR93Xq_Ok1DafuRRjYQvHxTKioEVlXn3SrKdtGC44xtgM4Bgw4tQM78TeYSswa3dtUEc/s1600/alien.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYhgG3MkDrYmIWJYKX2N1G2E5zAaH-LrvbjiwW6bKNpmpdacK7LhFM_QgTkmmAuz1PatbnTrNR93Xq_Ok1DafuRRjYQvHxTKioEVlXn3SrKdtGC44xtgM4Bgw4tQM78TeYSswa3dtUEc/s320/alien.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.metallychallenged.com/podcast/2017/4/11/episode-5-is-outer-space-a-safe-space">Metally Challenged</a></td></tr>
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<div class="m_6679078137955271376p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">This post was written mostly out of whimsy with a dash of serious interest. I've<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span>already touched briefly on this topic in my previous posts, and had no plans to further detail my views. But last week's highly publicized - I would even say hyped - discovery of no less than seven new 'earth-like' planets orbiting<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span>a single star (link is available <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/22/world/new-exoplanets-discovery-nasa/index.html" target="_blank">here</a>) got me thinking, "Why not?"<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">I certainly applaud this discovery as a future site for potential human exploration and settlement - assuming we also discover a convenient method of interstellar travel (it may not be as far off as we think; see links <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Antigravity-Propulsion-Classified-Technology/dp/159143078X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488046969&sr=1-1&keywords=secrets+of+antigravity+propulsion&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=e3ce0dece96859194d3f98990a0fa80d" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/star-trek-warp-drive-interstellar-travel-space-astronomy-science/" target="_blank">here</a>). But it also reopens the door on a perennial debate - could life currently exist elsewhere in the universe?<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"><span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihyphenhyphenZjyUDOMGyGoCox-ioiy2mgHpJWq9X6RopabIpUhsQ5mWBQOhZ7GV79HRa_mVNwxxW3eqjHkll_m9ZTvVih6Ejq0_CaBLZkeYMBOIKZ6Fe1DVhWPuJbLnvfW1yYsJpn6n3GQ6KcAVEc/s1600/1504475159207923370.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihyphenhyphenZjyUDOMGyGoCox-ioiy2mgHpJWq9X6RopabIpUhsQ5mWBQOhZ7GV79HRa_mVNwxxW3eqjHkll_m9ZTvVih6Ejq0_CaBLZkeYMBOIKZ6Fe1DVhWPuJbLnvfW1yYsJpn6n3GQ6KcAVEc/s320/1504475159207923370.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/7-things-we-want-in-the-new-star-trek-tv-show-1740580586">io9</a></td></tr>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"><span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">One doesn't have to look far to see how pervasive the concept of extraterrestrial life has become throughout Western culture. Popular franchises such as Star Trek and Star Wars will immediately come to mind, as will multitudinous works of speculative fiction. Even official scientific policy is geared towards confirming its literal existence, with NASA defining much of its current mission in these terms, millions given in government grants to organizations like SETI and "astrobiology" emerging into a full-fledged field in academia. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhROeIkVRqEVCfglbIr6ngDhgrxzkfy2RgrlH2XLrWT69bCI1H_Y42AlkZtAordjt-c8rzuSy2F7xMVyh5IBpuWTP5sbV9vmtaY1qVfue7FPuedR2S0wxJ27b-BLgZVwlR10cnZrw-0tEI/s1600/NEJ8myHNjc9BMP_1_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhROeIkVRqEVCfglbIr6ngDhgrxzkfy2RgrlH2XLrWT69bCI1H_Y42AlkZtAordjt-c8rzuSy2F7xMVyh5IBpuWTP5sbV9vmtaY1qVfue7FPuedR2S0wxJ27b-BLgZVwlR10cnZrw-0tEI/s320/NEJ8myHNjc9BMP_1_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://movieweb.com/rogue-one-star-wars-story-aliens-more-realistic/">Movie web</a></td></tr>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">Some Christians have come on board with this trend, particularly those niche speculative genres (some links are available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Spaceships-Occasional-Winters-Detective-ebook/dp/B00O65BG9E/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=41f071370fea41c207c51f4cb0ea9018" target="_blank">here </a>and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Threat-Psygen-Chronicles/dp/0692442804/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488048024&sr=1-1&keywords=a+new+threat+aaron+demott&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=1c4bcf396b0f181c0f5f125988e61037" target="_blank">here</a>).<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> Some more historically prominent writers have also explored the concept, such as C.S. Lewis in his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Trilogy-Perelandra-Hideous-Strength-Paperback/dp/B00ZAT776G/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488048058&sr=1-1&keywords=space+trilogy+cs+lewis&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=6fe0a4a4aee434e5051309e3d3997815" target="_blank">Space Trilogy</a>. </span></span></div>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">From a traditionally biblical view, however, the basic problem with intelligent beings created on other worlds is as follows. The Bible very clearly states that sin and death first came into the world as a result of Adam's transgression and fell upon the entirety of Creation (Romans <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_104111520" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">8:22</span></span>). This would mean that beings on other worlds received the same punishment as Adam and his descendants even though they had not sinned with him in the garden, which is hardly fair or just when considered theologically. The alternative seems to be a sort of "parallelistic" view whereby we assume a virtually endless number of Falls on various worlds, with Christ having to replicate his sacrifice upon each. This view, while logical, carries somewhat disturbing philosophical baggage<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span>- namely, it seems to cheapen Christ's sacrifice on Earth by making it just one sacrifice among many. One can debate whether it <i>would </i>necessarily be cheapened as a result, but few Christians, I think, are prepared to embrace this view (myself included).<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVTwhy8SrQPumSbZjgE84hLSXGPABGB2Vj6Wh4K1bVr__woJMSR1WV0XrpziaS66e6QAqJdGnr8b7_pSgbCpKjV5-q0lHHH9J8BTodbjm1p2YeC8s1yNVJxItauH9a0Ctr3gyQQ8pSA4/s1600/qBYD4Sc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVTwhy8SrQPumSbZjgE84hLSXGPABGB2Vj6Wh4K1bVr__woJMSR1WV0XrpziaS66e6QAqJdGnr8b7_pSgbCpKjV5-q0lHHH9J8BTodbjm1p2YeC8s1yNVJxItauH9a0Ctr3gyQQ8pSA4/s320/qBYD4Sc.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://wallpapercave.com/jesus-crucifixion-wallpaper">Wall Paper Cave</a></td></tr>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"><br />What I've described is simply a restatement of the conclusions many prominent biblical scholars have come to when studying this question (links are available <a href="https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/alien-life/are-ets-ufos-real/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://creation.com/did-god-create-life-on-other-planets" target="_blank">here</a>. I would amend it simply by saying that with all this considered, I do not believe the discovery of intelligent life on other worlds (something I currently have no evidential reason to believe will ever occur) would disprove the Bible. It would simply present the challenge of a new interpretive framework. It would be a singularly disturbing paradigm shift, to be sure, but not an impossible one. And this assumes the life discovered is of an intelligent nature. Plant or animalian life would entail a similar but not nearly as extreme paradigm shift - see the following <a href="https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/alien-life/do-i-believe-in-ufos-absolutely/" target="_blank">link </a>(key passage is toward the end of the article).<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="m6679078137955271376s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">That brings us to my main
intent in mentioning all this. Let us assume that human beings are the only
intelligent beings in the universe (as I personally believe along with most
traditional biblicists). Some would take an absolutist view that the literally
false concept of extraterrestrial life therefore has no redeeming value in the
human imagination and certainly not in the Christian one. But this, I think, is
unnecessarily harsh. One of our greatest God-given gifts as human beings is to
imagine things that do not exist in the real world - animals do not have this
ability. Consider this quote from Francis Schaefer:</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="m6679078137955271376s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">“Christians . . . ought not to be threatened by fantasy and
imagination. Great painting is not 'photographic': think of the Old
Testament art commanded by God. There were blue pomegranates on the robes of
the priest who went into the Holy of Holies. In nature there are no blue
pomegranates. Christian artists do not need to be threatened by fantasy and
imagination, for they have a basis for knowing the difference between them and
the real world 'out there.'" </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWKUWl0mUsMBaxK1UTq1379QXf0l40BqI6ZRTo0KcrtorNIcKy8iuv_Io37Pug6ZIFENSydvTSI8SLvX2pvSHpxpU6rWvKMo8jK-3Lq12X4VttEK140XUm_0zKPqFbLIDNmC2_8KkbSeU/s1600/starstree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWKUWl0mUsMBaxK1UTq1379QXf0l40BqI6ZRTo0KcrtorNIcKy8iuv_Io37Pug6ZIFENSydvTSI8SLvX2pvSHpxpU6rWvKMo8jK-3Lq12X4VttEK140XUm_0zKPqFbLIDNmC2_8KkbSeU/s320/starstree.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/David-MacPherson7">JustGiving</a></td></tr>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">I therefore believe that extraterrestrial beings can still have a place within imaginative literature - both secular and Christian. When handled well as a plot device, they can affect storylines in powerful ways that it's hard to replicate by other means. I myself thought I had "outgrown" literature involving aliens until I read Stephenie Meyer's <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Host-Stephenie-Meyer/dp/0316218502/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488049006&sr=1-1&keywords=the+host+stephenie+meyer&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=ea7f6cec02b399c9244473a73d4f7e6d" target="_blank">The Host</a></i>. That book turned out to be one of the most mind-expanding reading experiences I ever had and actually re-confirmed me in many of my moral-spiritual beliefs by allowing me to consider them through an alternate perspective (namely, that of an alien being learning about our world while inhabiting a human body).<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">Aliens, I believe, occupy a similar place in science fiction to that of the elves, gnomes, and goblins of fairy tale folklore. In many ways they're just updated versions of the old legends for a scientific age. Human culture, it seems, has always had a need for stories involving some form of non-human intelligence - life forms with which we can communicate on a common level yet are still "other" in some way.<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"><span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSAq8c_K_lY_3CPxdCF1LjwLuQyI6jHrCDLKxhg_Wj3KHcRG2uzheeSw2iTph2Z24eyQThabTbmX1sQelXBNXVlO-Pwm8aZpyGrB2Jbq139lPshpLaZXpAJN_1ttjFcuAztEZ0fPa5flU/s1600/ab971ba1b5b0fa22aa16bbb819bf150f.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSAq8c_K_lY_3CPxdCF1LjwLuQyI6jHrCDLKxhg_Wj3KHcRG2uzheeSw2iTph2Z24eyQThabTbmX1sQelXBNXVlO-Pwm8aZpyGrB2Jbq139lPshpLaZXpAJN_1ttjFcuAztEZ0fPa5flU/s320/ab971ba1b5b0fa22aa16bbb819bf150f.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/lord-of-the-rings/picks/results/1309812/lived-middle-earth-which-race-would-choose">Fanpop</a></td></tr>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"></span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Of course, like every facet of the human imagination, extraterrestrials are subject to misuse. Many - if not most - science fiction writers of today use them to promote singularly unbiblical themes, not the least of which is Darwinian evolution. Even those Christian writers who make use of them are likely to be of the "theistic evolutionist" persuasion, which is still biblically untenable for a variety of reasons</span><span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">(see link </span><a href="https://answersingenesis.org/theistic-evolution/" style="font-size: 12.8px;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">).</span><span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span></div>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">While I myself write from what I consider a biblical perspective of reality, I still enjoy secular science fiction (aliens and all) precisely because I can see where the concepts within them fail to match that reality - it stimulates me to think of ways I can explore similar but truer concepts in my own fiction. I've derived some of my most powerful storylines (yet to be written) in this very manner.</span></div>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">So what of those Christian writers with an orthodox view of Scripture who - for whatever reason - would like to use aliens in their fiction? Is there a way to do so in a serious way while avoiding the almost inevitable Darwinist and theological baggage?<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">I'll posit a bit of a "thought experiment" that could perhaps be of some use. Let me emphasize this is not what I actually believe (I think I've made my views quite clear already). Rather, it's an interpretive tool that can be used for the purpose of (fanciful) fiction.<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"><span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYAW2ZGYHDQaaaWpC862YTzyI1mPbQcz7kaqYseESct-8n2ErZTGot400952Lu7Pp2XocoFuMas9OToKTc7ZhFsua6E3T8zAV5WrcIvV_o_ikX_QKZnqmhyphenhyphenhLA1qxYtdAfFjIHxC3nRQ8/s1600/maxresdefault+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYAW2ZGYHDQaaaWpC862YTzyI1mPbQcz7kaqYseESct-8n2ErZTGot400952Lu7Pp2XocoFuMas9OToKTc7ZhFsua6E3T8zAV5WrcIvV_o_ikX_QKZnqmhyphenhyphenhLA1qxYtdAfFjIHxC3nRQ8/s320/maxresdefault+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://www.emaze.com/@AFZIIOOI/Presentation-Name">Emaze</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"><br />Let's assume the creation account in Genesis solely describes Earth and its solar system. The "stars" are simply the planets (ancient Hebrew uses the same word to describe both stars and planets). Room is then left for other, prior creations having taken place in different areas of the universe. The death and decay in the larger universe (Romans <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_104111521" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">8:22</span></span>) is a result not of Adam's fall but of Lucifer's, with the "War in Heaven" having brought a high level of physical destruction in its wake. None of the beings on these various world experienced a species-wide fall in the manner of Adam's descendants, and are therefore not cursed in the same way. Rather, various <i>individuals </i>within these races are either rebellious or disobedient depending on whether they heeded Satan's lies or God's commandments. Their salvation needs, as they exist, are thereby met in some different manner than ours, eliminating the need for Christ to endlessly replicate his sacrifice across various worlds. Or perhaps they are able to partake in some way in His single sacrifice on earth. I'll leave the exact details of this to the imagination of some writer more motivated to pursue it than myself.<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1">So there you have it. That's my take on how you could possibly reconcile extraterrestrial life with Scripture - with all the mental gymnastics (and, probably, significant logical holes) that involves. I invite anyone interested to make whatever use of it they will.<span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="m_6679078137955271376p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"><span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyeH_uI-YPfmyWcHxHMXpUJ1cO1YFE_yl3sM1a3jLSX-kKywN3nPVGhXqKv5TMvz8m9ZZss24elPUWmWr7EJGguiNUqq_p1xze9F54vbW9Ibq9_fjQo_ztTJkEXesgGotPHBAJ7kfGNQk/s1600/best-spock-leonard-nimoy-star-trek-episodes-750x480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyeH_uI-YPfmyWcHxHMXpUJ1cO1YFE_yl3sM1a3jLSX-kKywN3nPVGhXqKv5TMvz8m9ZZss24elPUWmWr7EJGguiNUqq_p1xze9F54vbW9Ibq9_fjQo_ztTJkEXesgGotPHBAJ7kfGNQk/s320/best-spock-leonard-nimoy-star-trek-episodes-750x480.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://www.inverse.com/topic/basic-income">Inverse</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span class="m_6679078137955271376s1"></span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Join me next week as we continue our journey through the Dark Corners of Heaven and Earth. Live long and prosper!</span><span class="m_6679078137955271376Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-82351417418538703362017-02-20T05:18:00.000-08:002017-04-29T08:10:47.325-07:00Secrets of the Ancients<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrEBhy-IBl7G660W8xyCGMg1A56DZWFOfueU3On2tm-2CfMl_goCa_aY2csJ2tu0ON4G9hcW0VxDMDRLg9dd4DjPJNt36qBDrDkyWZTW-dl6SMJiimEGWbWPZeE9sKXU844sZAbrqrxk0/s1600/Egypt-Pyramids-Art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrEBhy-IBl7G660W8xyCGMg1A56DZWFOfueU3On2tm-2CfMl_goCa_aY2csJ2tu0ON4G9hcW0VxDMDRLg9dd4DjPJNt36qBDrDkyWZTW-dl6SMJiimEGWbWPZeE9sKXU844sZAbrqrxk0/s320/Egypt-Pyramids-Art.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://www.emaze.com/@AICWRQII/Bronnenkritiek-Les-26-oktober-2015">Emaze</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p1" style="background: white;">
<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Ancient history has fascinated me ever since High School, where
I first became mature enough to appreciate it. The Biblical record, in
particular, came to the forefront of my interests as faith came to the
forefront of my life. I'll never forget the reverent awe with which I devoured
James Ussher's <a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ciframe%20style=%22width:120px;height:240px;%22%20marginwidth=%220%22%20marginheight=%220%22%20scrolling=%22no%22%20frameborder=%220%22%20src=%22//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=alexanderpres-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B008I4J95M&asins=B008I4J95M&linkId=6d85e0b32f15eb0b3f833874170c9636&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true%22%3E%3C/iframe%3E" target="_blank">The Annals of the World</a>, and I still have a sizable
collection of (computerized) primary sources, both sacred and profane, that I
intend to read through one day.</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p2" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p1" style="background: white;">
<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Through these pursuits, I
also became vividly aware of the shortcomings inherent in the secular-Darwinist
model of history. Out-of-place artifacts (OOPARTS) became emblematic of this,
and my readings in the literature surrounding them have brought some singularly
mind-expanding perspectives (some relevant links can be found <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Puzzle-Ancient-Man-Technology-Civilizations/dp/0964097834/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487448749&sr=1-2&keywords=The+puzzle+of+ancient+man&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=5d74c2a4aeb1676fc52a58f19fff8cf5" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/DEAD-MENS-SECRETS-Tantalising-Hints/dp/1418425559/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3DDJFYP07AFJ69EBBQH0&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=328ff35667ec9f6672dedc3fa9535bae" target="_blank">here</a>). </span></span></div>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p2" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p1" style="background: white;">
<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Secular attempts to explain
these anomalies are also telling. I remember one day a year or so previous,
when I was waiting my turn at a local plasma donation clinic. The waiting room
had a TV playing for the benefit of visiting donors, and the current program happened
to be "Ancient Aliens". This particular episode centered around the
technological feat represented by the Egyptian pyramids, also exploring an
alternative theory of their intended use that I was already familiar with
(link can be found <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Giza-Power-Plant-Technologies-Ancient/dp/1879181509/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487448952&sr=1-1&keywords=the+giza+power+plant+technologies+of+ancient+egypt&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=cc8fdd34cab490832af0fd54995bcc9b" target="_blank">here</a>). As you can imagine, my antenna rose straight up. I watched the program
in rapt attention right up until the point they asserted that the pyramids,
being structures beyond the technological capacity of Ancient Man, had to be
the work of extraterrestrials.</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdEXQwRjkXghbrz4zuegUCvy25BMbEwmfU5BboYtmSWPbeEId-x91nUpLULwtcfwaYZkvED5UgL1hbrfVL5VBoRnT6yboQ84nuAxOlpd9bCV2BsrL2H8Cij30mAOxv95-BcMXfkEbaRE/s1600/6dd929d3b1852418d309cbefa02e2fc7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdEXQwRjkXghbrz4zuegUCvy25BMbEwmfU5BboYtmSWPbeEId-x91nUpLULwtcfwaYZkvED5UgL1hbrfVL5VBoRnT6yboQ84nuAxOlpd9bCV2BsrL2H8Cij30mAOxv95-BcMXfkEbaRE/s320/6dd929d3b1852418d309cbefa02e2fc7.jpg" width="246" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://ufoholic.com/conspiracy/bizarre-case-grey-alien-shot-killed-usaf-base/">UFOholic</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><br />No, no, NO! A thousand
times, NO!</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p2" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p1" style="background: white;">
<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Though it was an otherwise
pleasant day, I left the clinic in a mood slightly more frustrated than usual.
While I applaud alternative theorists in all academic fields for their
open-mindedness to new ideas (as evidence supports them), most of them are
still dominated by the same set of preconceptions as their establishment peers.
Namely, that human history represents a linear ascent from primitive barbarism
to increasing levels of social and technological complexity. Anything from the
distant past is by definition less advanced - any anomalies to this trend must
therefore be the result of some form of outside intervention.</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypgXCakCkcGHrdeAZfjvZD_oXkMwC1mxb529g8wJqsvUOCCU9HQRNtHG3fkHb7DQfN3P0Z6_2A67HUZ6sZn_MCUmhfZKi90toQ8uPiiFFmUcDsnn5agk6cAMw0EmqqJJlg2ucNLcbpwo/s1600/shepherd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypgXCakCkcGHrdeAZfjvZD_oXkMwC1mxb529g8wJqsvUOCCU9HQRNtHG3fkHb7DQfN3P0Z6_2A67HUZ6sZn_MCUmhfZKi90toQ8uPiiFFmUcDsnn5agk6cAMw0EmqqJJlg2ucNLcbpwo/s320/shepherd.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://broraz.com/2012/01/23/goodness-and-mercy/">The Lighthouse Keeper</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p1" style="background: white;">
<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><br />Even most Biblical
traditionalists assume something quite similar. The common picture of Ancient
Man presented</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">from both
the pulpit and</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> <span data-term="goog_463558266" style="z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"></span></span><span class="aqj"><span style="z-index: -1;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Sunday</span></span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">School
classroom is a race of shepherds and subsistence farmers, with few other
pursuits apart from tending sheep and harvesting crops. The Patriarchs of old,
while they communicated with God in a way hard to fathom for us today, are
assumed to have been more or less simple men with few - if any - things to
impart in terms of intellect or science.</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p2" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="m3183963050752528647p1" style="background: white;">
<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">But is this really what
follows from the presented evidence of Scripture? Let's stop and think about
this for a moment. In its beginning chapters, Genesis gives us an account of
two beings, a man and a woman, who represented the pinnacle of of a "very
good" Creation. They literally spent the first moments of their existence
in a state of <i>perfection</i>, spiritual, mental and physical. Even when after the
Fall, they still would have remembered this former state - and given accounts of it
to multiple generations of their descendants.</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tuplRUeiMfLdoV_tcNycPX2ib1C8Bk4iJkjLLbFnnoYKN0VZzlgOlbRmJIqGmouue1lyB_Fe-OHH813Ul-EW1hc3TYnStgbjphVsrWszQPUm-wqZVWZwW87V7Ashe2bEPpvOUunVxVA/s1600/1362048364_bible-adam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="129" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tuplRUeiMfLdoV_tcNycPX2ib1C8Bk4iJkjLLbFnnoYKN0VZzlgOlbRmJIqGmouue1lyB_Fe-OHH813Ul-EW1hc3TYnStgbjphVsrWszQPUm-wqZVWZwW87V7Ashe2bEPpvOUunVxVA/s320/1362048364_bible-adam.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Can we even grasp the
potential capabilities of a people just a few years removed from the very hand
of God? Let's consider this passage as an example:</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">"And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died." (Genesis 5:5)</span></span></div>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">How many of us simply read
on through the rest of that familiar genealogy without stopping to consider its
mind-blowing implications? Human beings with an average life expectancy of 900
years? What would it mean if any one of <i>us </i>were endowed with such a lifespan?
To put that in some perspective, Sir Isaac Newton would still be alive today
and so would Einstein. The two of them could even be collaborating in their
research. What would that mean for the scientific and technical advancement of
the world?</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbYhXyrJnyHVqRtVKnr9vMXIIRL2Qr30qnVXA_87O4jo7eGYpNR3F1jp6JVdolruKt06Z2ienMUmxJp3lAhZHIgw3Gi7pntCeScbE7euGwqG-c2Ok_mLGX75HVvsqNDdgcweKGRvXD16w/s1600/devolved-humans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbYhXyrJnyHVqRtVKnr9vMXIIRL2Qr30qnVXA_87O4jo7eGYpNR3F1jp6JVdolruKt06Z2ienMUmxJp3lAhZHIgw3Gi7pntCeScbE7euGwqG-c2Ok_mLGX75HVvsqNDdgcweKGRvXD16w/s320/devolved-humans.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://pic2.me/wallpaper/79158.html">pic2.me</a></td></tr>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Prior to the Flood,
something like this could have been fully possible for anywhere from 1656
years (Masoretic text) to 2262 years (Codex Alexandrinus). Even conservatively
adopting the former estimate leaves us with a span of time roughly
approximating that from the so-called "Dark Ages" (5th century AD) to
the twenty-first century. Think of all the revolutionary social and
technological changes that have occurred across the world within those years.
What could a race of beings with 900-year lifespans have accomplished in the
same amount of time?</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">The picture provided by a
Biblical view of history is that of a mighty - but wicked - world civilization
wiped out in a cataclysmic event and then partially rebuilt by a remnant of
survivors who, while lacking the resources and lifespans (400 years as opposed
to 900) of their forebears, nevertheless reached a highly developed state of
society. God Himself stated that "nothing shall be restrained from them which
they shall imagine to do". We then read that this civilization was
fragmented by a supernatural act of judgment brought on by their pride and
rebellion. Many disparate groups then spread across the globe - the ancestors
of the cultures and civilizations we know today. Many of these initially
maintained high levels of both knowledge and culture, with both</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">gradually
being lost through a variety of factors, chief of which was the continuing
decline of the human lifespan (finally settling on its current level following
the death of Moses - still described as a physically vigorous man at 120).
Other events, such as war, disease and corruption also played their part in
destroying former records.</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">In short, I believe our
ancestors were capable of - and accomplished - far more amazing things than we
are willing to give them credit for, perhaps (as I personally believe quite
likely) even surpassing what we have accomplished in our own time. And
they can therefore impart far more lessons to our own time, both from their
successes and their mistakes. We need only be willing to learn (some sources that have already explored this in fiction are available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ice-Shane-Johnson/dp/1578565480/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487477740&sr=1-1&keywords=ice+shane+johnson&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=2770595f3f0c4bd5cf055f0bade3e9fa" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Days-Peleg-Jon-Saboe/dp/1598008099/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487477776&sr=1-1&keywords=the+days+of+peleg&linkCode=ll1&tag=alexanderpres-20&linkId=f94242d5cca1f63459d3a21845349eb4" target="_blank">here</a>).</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxh271ZEkE52ozn3Z-Ta3MS2SjAFEuVVJBKhd6NBU9tkQpF2w0Qd9g_numv9fCM7OnNkjG0Q9OBWFD0VQZOcdagdReSl9mIunQITFPPacEekdK-HH_MQAMnhRdAhqvLgVKBY6sNScc3po/s1600/stargate-movie-poster-1994.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxh271ZEkE52ozn3Z-Ta3MS2SjAFEuVVJBKhd6NBU9tkQpF2w0Qd9g_numv9fCM7OnNkjG0Q9OBWFD0VQZOcdagdReSl9mIunQITFPPacEekdK-HH_MQAMnhRdAhqvLgVKBY6sNScc3po/s320/stargate-movie-poster-1994.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/stargate/41599/stargate-new-details-on-movie-reboot">Den of Geek</a></td></tr>
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<span class="m3183963050752528647s1"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Join me next week as we
continue our journey through the Dark Corners of Heaven and Earth.</span></span><span class="m3183963050752528647apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-64774739289321941712017-02-13T05:41:00.001-08:002017-04-29T08:15:53.249-07:00Faith and the Final Frontier<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As I said in my original post, this will be an eclectic blog focusing on a variety of topics. Though my book has been the impetus for starting it, I thought I would take the opportunity today to mention the second pursuit I am quite passionate about.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4uFIQwByApRZApp1YLoDUPXZbNUS6_98KYAU40dO1Al2vmHEZAjllSC0XEzoIDXh-XMLRdzX16HGcYiSrbQZnf8WFN3bRXO5uQqUo0NLoIrLgw1LSa1Z5ZVwAHGM1b-JcDgwLt0woQDo/s1600/artists_conception_of_space_station_freedom_-_gpn-2003-00092.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4uFIQwByApRZApp1YLoDUPXZbNUS6_98KYAU40dO1Al2vmHEZAjllSC0XEzoIDXh-XMLRdzX16HGcYiSrbQZnf8WFN3bRXO5uQqUo0NLoIrLgw1LSa1Z5ZVwAHGM1b-JcDgwLt0woQDo/s400/artists_conception_of_space_station_freedom_-_gpn-2003-00092.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Space. The Final Frontier. Most of us will recognize those words from the opening lines of the original Star Trek series as readily as Neil Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind." My own childhood discovery of outer space was larger through the lens of science fiction. I eagerly devoured the literature and programming of classic space opera, with their grandiose tales of battle and discovery on an epic, universal scale. For a time, the genre was embodied for me in franchises such as Star Wars and Star Trek, later superseded by the more rationally-imagined Honor Harrington series. As an adult, my interests expanded to the real-world space effort, specifically space settlements such as those described in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X" target="_blank">The High Frontier</a> </i>by Gerard K. O'Neill and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/145160811X" target="_blank">The Case For Mars</a></i> by Robert Zubrin.<br />
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Initially, I perceived no potential conflict whatsoever between these interests and the precepts of my Christian faith. I believed that God had purposely designed human beings with a drive to explore, discover and expand - even to the very stars themselves - fulfilling our mandate for creation of new ideas, tools, technologies and even entirely new cultures and nations on unclaimed lands and worlds, adding new volumes to the grand book of human history. How I felt - and still feel - in this regard is best encapsulated in the words of John Milton, writing in <i>Paradise Lost</i>:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcXFQRO87bP4rSDxgP9KMDxJXuA0kMrPIgQr3pOV2UCy62Ib-qcRFiLcPQyvK7aLRM0n0iu97OHkze5US4uGsOm8ZKdKFa7GA2OEjRvW5jVjX6x9MUcNz2AOEiSfaAS8-EuaiF3aj_Bvs/s1600/goodwp.com_21162.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcXFQRO87bP4rSDxgP9KMDxJXuA0kMrPIgQr3pOV2UCy62Ib-qcRFiLcPQyvK7aLRM0n0iu97OHkze5US4uGsOm8ZKdKFa7GA2OEjRvW5jVjX6x9MUcNz2AOEiSfaAS8-EuaiF3aj_Bvs/s320/goodwp.com_21162.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://zazenlife.com/">zazenlife.com</a></td></tr>
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"Witness this new-made world, another Heaven</div>
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From Heaven-gate not far, founded in view </div>
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On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea</div>
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Of amplitude almost immense, with stars</div>
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Numerous, and every star perhaps a world</div>
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Of destined habitation..."</div>
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You can imagine how devastated I was to learn just how many of my fellow believers take a diametrically opposite view. A case in point was my discovery of this particular Facebook group of over 4,000 members during a random Google search:</div>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/SpaceISbad/" target="_blank">Christians Against Space Exploration - CASE</a></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">We oppose space mysticism - the belief in better future waiting out there. God gave us Earth and it is a perfectly adequate home. Lets stay here!</span></div>
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Closer inspection has made me 99 percent certain this group is, in fact, intended as satire (most likely by atheists). I offer this (abridged) post as an example:</div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/SpaceISbad/" target="_blank">It's </a>absolutely mind blowing when I'm just eating a hotdog a few minutes ago and all the sudden I'm starting to feel Holy Fire in my back! The power of the Holy Spirit starts Busting out & wind was coming out of my mouth which is the breath of God different kinds of gifts were manifesting. My cell phone wasn't near me so when I went back to my cell phone and I noticed I got text coming in so that's why the power of the Holy Spirit was manifesting to heal and deliver any NASA </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">whistleblowers who'd be willing to come forward to CASE...</span></span></div>
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Literally all the other posts are just like that. Really. But the very existence of a parody usually indicates some form of larger reality. A 2014 study published in <i><a href="http://theweek.com/articles/442144/why-christians-should-board-space-exploration" target="_blank">The Week</a> </i>magazine found that support for space exploration was significantly weaker among church attendees than the public at large, with Roman Catholics being slightly more supportive than evangelical Protestants. Those rejecting mainstream evolutionary theory appeared to be the least supportive. </div>
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Speaking as someone who embraces Young-Earth Creationism myself, I can attest to the reality of this mindset among many of its adherents. The late Henry Morris, author of <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Flood-50th-Anniversary/dp/159638395X" target="_blank">The Genesis Flood</a>, </i>and considered by many the founder of the modern Creationist movement, also wrote an essay called "<a href="https://www.icr.org/article/497/" target="_blank">The Bounds of the Dominion Mandate</a>," in which he asserted that man's biblical dominion is expressly limited to the planet Earth, citing the following passages of Scripture:</div>
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"The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's: but the earth hath He given to the children of men (Psalm 115:16)."</div>
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"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth,... hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation (Acts 17:24, 26)." </div>
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He further quoted a contemporary scientist at the time who stated "astronomy and cosmology are of little earthly use," and went on to criticize the entire space program for "the waste of billions of dollars - not to mention sacrificing the lives of many dedicated and brilliant men and women," before grudgingly allowing that some "spinoffs" of space research provided valuable tools for improving life on earth (but were only justified insofar as they contributed to this alone). </div>
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The Scriptural passages Morris cited in his essay can be easily answered with another:</div>
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"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all <i>things</i> under his feet (Psalm 8:4-6)..."</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://youtube.com/">Youtube.com</a></td></tr>
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<br />Furthermore, not all biblical scholars (even those embracing an otherwise identical view of the Creation account) would interpret the prior two passages in the same way Morris did. John Wesley, in his commentaries, believed the passage in Acts referred to physical features of geography - such as rivers, mountains, seas, etc - which formed the natural borders of various nations/people-groups at the time it was written, emphasizing that God's providence had been a constant factor in their histories (<a href="http://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=wes&b=44&c=17" target="_blank">Wesley's Explanatory Notes</a>). Regarding the verse from Psalm 115, I actually had the opportunity some years ago to field a question on to the Answers in Genesis organization. The researcher I spoke with was gracious enough to answer me at length, and I've included a link to his full response <a href="https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/does-the-bible-prohibit-space-travel/" target="_blank">here</a>. Basically, the psalm's intended meaning is not a restriction of man's dominion - rather, it is a description of the relation between the spiritual realm (represented by Heaven) and the physical universe (represented by Earth). Only when someone starts with certain preconceived notions does it convey the idea of humankind being barred from inhabiting space (incidentally, the same can be said of Acts 17). </div>
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Why then are so many Christians so ambivalent towards space exploration? Primarily, I think this stems from the debate of extraterrestrial life. Young-Earth Creationists overwhelmingly believe that humans are alone in the universe. While the Bible never explicitly rules out the possibility of life on other worlds, it offers many significant indicators to cast doubt on its existence, which have been well-explained by many biblical scholars. Just one example can be found <a href="https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/alien-life/do-i-believe-in-ufos-absolutely/" target="_blank">here</a>. As someone who embraces a predominantly literal approach to Scripture, I find these arguments weighty. This perspective can, however, cause a knee-jerk reaction to identify all space exploration with an effort to disprove the Bible. But this focuses quite unfairly on only one side of space research to the exclusion of other possibilities. There have historically been many people of deep faith involved in the space program, the most significant of which were - and are - <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/behemoth/2016/issue-52-july-7-2016/bless-thou-astronauts.html" target="_blank">astronauts</a>.<br />
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The other main contributing factor is the constricted view of the future implied by most mainstream Christian eschatological theories (the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Left-Behind-Novel-Earths-Last/dp/1414334907" target="_blank"><i>Left Behind</i></a> series being the most significant). In some ways, the overwhelming dominance of these views in prophetic discourse is a parallel to the uphill battle faced by speculative authors in a Christian book market dominated by Amish fiction and Romance. I won't delve very deeply into them except to say that they are by no means the only possible interpretation of biblical prophecy - only when Christ returns will we finally know which of the myriad prophecy writers out there was closest to the truth. I personally take no dogmatic position on prophecy or the "end times". It's been my lifelong belief that an excessive focus on these tends to discourage long-term thinking. </div>
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In this vein, many contemporary Christians are consumed with time-bound issues such as cultural rot, gay marriage, the school system, persecution overseas, etc (usually seeing them as signs "the end is near"). All of these issues are important ones. But seeing only immediate concerns as worthy of attention is both deadening and disheartening - it's also a prescription to ensure no genuine solution to any of them will ever be found. I think Mars advocate Robert Zubrin sums things up quite well in this regard: "There were many problems in Spain in the year 1492 - and there still are." But what did these compare with the discovery and settlement of the New World and the entirely new nations that rose in its wake? What if our own contemporary problems obscure what could in fact be the cusp of a new and revolutionary era of similar expansion?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="https://medium.com/@sastro/singularity-and-exponential-technology-in-aerospace-and-startup-culture-53ce6eb94e9">Medium.com</a></td></tr>
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To me, a faith-based worldview is not a barrier but rather an <i>impetus </i>for space exploration - a desire to discover and see firsthand the wonders of Creation, seeking out new frontiers like the Pilgrims and Pioneers before us. One thing that has stayed with me is one of the closing statements from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w" target="_blank">The Mars Underground</a> (a documentary I highly recommend): </div>
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"I think the universe has a big sign on it that says 'Go forth and spread life.' Because when I look around at the universe, I think life is the most amazing thing we see. It is just incredible. And we human beings are uniquely positioned to help spread life from this little tiny planet which it seems to have been started on - beyond. And that's our gift. Earth's gift to the universe, I think, is the gift of life."</div>
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Though they came from the lips of a wholly secular researcher, those words spoke to me on a profoundly spiritual level. Just how divinely noble would it be for us as human beings, created in God's image, to fulfill our biblical mandate of dominion by literally bringing dead worlds to life? What might this enterprise tell us about how miraculous our existence - and the existence of life on Earth, truly is? What fresh perspective could it offer us on the mind of God? What if Earth, a planet uniquely fine-tuned for discovery and observation of the larger universe (<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Privileged-Planet-Cosmos-Designed-Discovery/dp/0895260654/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486788379&sr=1-1&keywords=the+privileged+planet" target="_blank">The Privileged Planet</a></i>), is destined to be remembered by future generations on distant worlds as "the cradle of life" from which their ancestors spread. </div>
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I leave you all with this quote from Francis Schaeffer:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: <a href="http://www.spaceexploration.org.cy/#!/SpaceClub">Cyprus Space Exploration Organization</a></td></tr>
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"The Christian is the really free person - he is free to have imagination. This too is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars."</div>
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Join me next week as we continue our journey through the Dark Corners of Heaven and Earth.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-76124842025167198402017-02-08T17:16:00.002-08:002017-02-08T17:16:55.183-08:00Christian Fiction Review: Guest Post: Novelist Alexander Preston...and I'm back. My apologies to those of you who thought it was a big tease and this blog was going nowhere. As of yesterday, I have just had a guest post published at the Christian Fiction Review blog owned by Peter Younghusband. You can check out the link below!<br />
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<a href="http://christianfictionreviewguru.blogspot.com/2017/02/guest-post-novelist-alexander-preston.html#links">Christian Fiction Review: Guest Post: Novelist Alexander Preston</a><br />
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Also, to those of you who have already read <i>Harvest of Prey </i>and are awaiting further installments, I'll take this time to confirm that yes, I <i>do </i>have another book currently in the works. It is a standalone novel with its own characters but can be read as a continuation of <i>Harvest of Prey</i>. No release date at this time, but I expect it to be complete within the following year - please don't hate me if I go over this deadline. Intensive research is currently underway. The working title at this time is "Talos".<br />
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Best wishes to one and all! Hope to see you again next week as we continue the journey!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5270086469013910526.post-37361615633162921202017-01-16T18:28:00.000-08:002017-01-16T18:28:08.135-08:00Hello to the World!Hello to one and all! I'll introduce myself as Alexander Preston (not my real name, which remains classified information). I am starting this blog to officially kick off the marketing campaign for my first novel, <i>Harvest of Prey</i>, the link to which (and summary of) can be found below for interested buyers:<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Prey-Alexander-Preston/dp/1534925619/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Prey-Alexander-Preston/dp/1534925619/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A team of naturalists find themselves facing a nightmare beyond anything they have ever known - and the product of unspeakable evil. Philip Caster, a former Green Beret now working as a zoologist, leads an international team in Indonesia whose revolutionary new program may spell salvation for the endangered Sumatran tiger. They will release six artificially-conceived cubs into the wild, accompanied by their surrogate mothers. The effort will prove the feasibility of in vitro breeding as a new tool against extinction. But its success is overshadowed by the sudden emergence of a horror beyond reckoning. Something has been unleashed in the forests of Sumatra. A life-form never meant to walk the earth. One that claims humanity as its only prey. As death unfolds around them, Caster and his circle of friends must uncover the truth behind an abomination: the instrument of dark and all-too-human forces pursuing a twisted ideological vision. Their creation has killed already - and their plans will consume millions more.</span></div>
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Now that we have that shameless piece of commercialism out of the way, I'll talk about what will actually make this blog somewhat interesting. I'll start with a few personal details so we can get to know each other. I'm a happily married, 26-year-old father of one currently living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I was originally a History Major, switched to Business Administration and have spent the past three years slowly but surely clawing my way out of the banking industry (still there, but making progress!) to pursue my re-discovered childhood dream of becoming a writer.<br />
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This will be a somewhat eclectic blog (I have lots of interests but am a genuine authority in virtually none of them), touching at various times on history, science, technology, philosophy, literature, entertainment, etc - basically the elements I'll be exploring in various ways through my writing. And, lest I neglect the most important element of all, everything will be interpreted through the lens of what I consider a Biblical worldview. I'll be up front in stating that I am a firm believer in Christ as well as a literal Six Day Creation. I further believe the Bible to be the infallible, inspired Word of God and hold to a literal application of its teachings.<br />
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With that being said, I will not be using this blog as a proselytizing platform. That's something to be pursued by other means in a more appropriate forum. My posts here will be dedicated to my writing, which will naturally reflect who I am as a person - including my deepest values and beliefs. For a writer to be truly effective - even if he wishes to communicate an underlying message - his primary purpose must be a love for his craft. I will be a storyteller first - a teacher second. Wonder must always precede discovery.<br />
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I invite you all to join me on a journey through the mysteries of imagination. See you next post!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14755680332596674394noreply@blogger.com1