Part Three: What the Monkey is Going on Here!

In 1859 the dusty taxidermied womb of Mommy SG immaculately conceived and had a baby. It was nothing short of a miracle! Baby E found his permanent home in the stillborn book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charlie Darwin. This book concluded that since micro organisms were spontaneously generated and higher life forms were not, then the synthesis must be that one comes from the other. This book was very special not for its fatally flawed formula but because within his recipe Charlie included a very special and magic ingredient. The quintessential element to his theory and the magic in his potion was enchanted phrase: “immense periods of time”. Even though originally speculated to only be thousands of years, Chuck was confident that through the study of fossils and early history that this theory would be easily and quickly proven. This meant the awkwardly named and tarnished theory of Spontaneous Generation could now take on a new life as “The Theory of Evolution”. With a little tweaking and some makeup it satisfied all the requirements of the scientific and scholarly communities: It steered clear of Creation, It did not need a Creator or Designer. And most importantly it was backed up by all the scientific research and available facts of the day….. almost.

In 1768 Lazzaro Spallanzani proved that microbes in water came from the air, and that they could be killed by boiling the water. And in 1862 (just three years after Darwin’s theory) Louis Pasteur performed a series of careful experiments which proved that organisms such as bacteria and fungi do not appear in nutrient rich matter all by themselves. To the great disappointment of Mommy SG, Pasteur demonstrated successfully that organisms do not generate spontaneously in nonliving nutrients.

Just like its parental hat rack however the Theory of Evolution (or Totgeboren as I like to call Baby E) could not be cast out simply because research didn’t support it and it began to reek from the stench of death. It was stuffed like its mother and sat in the window on the hill for everyone to admire. To bury it would leave that all encompassing void that could not be permitted least the Church take over the world again and perhaps throw Galileo’s telescope out with the bathwater. Unlike, his mother however Chuckie’s darling had the magic ingredient remember: “immense periods of time”. Initially this was used to buy time by some who were attempting to come up with a new non-theistic theory of the origin of life. And so the time frames were pushed back. Darwin had made this easy by leaving it so wide open. There was no restraint on how long ago it was. So thousands became hundreds of thousands very quickly and then millions and today its millions and millions and some have even suggested billions. And as a marketing ploy they have a new and improved name for Baby E and his momma: Abiogenesis which is just Greek for “non biological origins” but actually means non-theistic formation of life from non-living matter. Fancy huh? Are you impressed? Are you sick of my Psycho allusions?

tune in for the final wrapup in part 4 soon

Part Two: Holy Aqualung Batman!

These ancient ideas of stuff popping into existence were dug up in the beginning of the Enlightenment, propagated by many writers who hated the church and were desperate to find a way to destroy its hold on the masses. They found in this idea of Spontaneous Generation an alternative to Creation. Exploring the long forbidden old teachings of the early philosophers they held up this abstraction as though it were long lost golden Ark of the Covenant itself. The more they wrote about it the less they referred to it as an idea and the more they talked about it being fact (remind you of anything in our generation?) The sentiment was common when Alexander Ross wrote in response to some critics: “To question this (spontaneous generation) is to question reason, sense and experience. If anyone doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants.” –Woe tap the breaks there Mr. Ross, your about to leave the road of stupidity and crash with a suicidal fireball into a forest of facts!

These theories, of course, were full of assumptions and in 1646 Thomas Browne, wrote a book called Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into Very many Received Tenets, and Commonly Presumed Truths, which exposed this way of thinking to the light of reason. That obituary and the fact that scientists of the day continually reduced the conditions within which the spontaneous generation of complex organisms could be observed looked to completely obliterate SG as a workable alternative to Creation and logical resulting Creator. The amazing thing was however, it was never abandoned. Instead all the scholars moved into the Bates Motel and took turns staring up at the window to pretend that Mommy SG was watching her good children as they escorted any notion of a loving God into the shower.

In 1668 the Italian Francesco Redi, showed that no maggots appeared in meat when flies had not been permitted to lay eggs in it. Slowly it became accepted that all the higher and readily visible organisms had to come from other like organisms. (Amazing!) A theory developed (cause you had to have a theory to be taken seriously at the science bar-b-ques) called “omne vivum ex ovo” (that’s latin for “from an egg”) which stated that every living thing came from a pre-existing living thing. Isn’t it odd that we never hear about this theory these days… -hmm? The more scientists learned the more the sentiment toward the idea of “spontaneous generation” changed and began to be considered idiotic. Amazingly, however it was still not abandoned for the simple reason that it would have left a void that only Sacred Scripture seemed to be able to fill.

Then in 1683 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria! It was a sickening job but someone had to do it. Well , “spontaneous generation” arose anew, refreshed, revitalized by actual science! The mummified corpse of Mommy SG moved! ITS ALIVE ITS ALIVE! –oh sorry I got carried away with my similes. Anyway, it seemed that no matter how carefully any organic matter might be protected or isolated or filtered that decay still happened, and not far behind was bacteria and other simple organisms. The study and knowledge of microscopic forms of life increased over years and some began to mention that Thales was right: Living organisms did continually spring up from inorganic matter that contained moisture, i.e. WATER is God!

sorry to leave you hanging but tune in the same bat time and the same bat channel for more soon! Part 3 is coming

Part One: Poof I Exist

The Reformation (or The Holy Butt Kickin of 1517 as I like to call it) weakened the Papal Church by the 1600s. The Church had dominated the political and scientific and publishing world for generations. The flood of information and ideas that could be discussed openly and without fear of the fluffy pillows of the Inquisition were intoxicating to intellectuals and scholars of the day. So the 1600s were dubbed the Age of Reason -probably because the title sounded cool, but later on in the 1800s they decided it sounded old and optimistically began to call this intellectual orgy “The Enlightenment”. It was a time when all those things that the Roman Catholic Church had forbid suddenly became accessible. Ideas no longer had to be scrutinized for doctrinal integrity and anyone could explore a myriad of ways of thinking without risking being called a heretic. Or at least they could be a heretic without having to suffer the Papal consequences of heresy. Philosophy no longer had the church as its editor. Many scholars wanted to make sure the Church didn’t take over again and so they hired a new editor and chief: Science! And as one of this new governors’ first acts early in the “Enlightenment” the idea of Spontaneous Generation was reintroduced as a replacement for the biblical account of the origin of life. This served a very important purpose. If science (or “man”) could find answers to plaguing questions of the populous then God would no longer be needed to explain the mysteries of the universe and then more importantly the church would not have the authority to dictate its answers. This developed into what were lovingly termed Brand New Ideas. These “Brand New Ideas” were supposedly an example of what could be accomplished from the progress of the freed collective mind. In actuality however someone had found these ideas in a big clump of moldy leftovers in the back of a lab frig.

You see, Thales around 600 BC declared water to be the “First Principle” or the origin of life partly because he observed that ordinary drinking water left alone for a while would spring to life with plants like mold and algae and even all sorts of tiny animals like mosquito larvae and other nasty stuff. I am afraid that this says more about the state of the drinking water in Greece at the time than it does about the origins of life. Nevertheless, the idea of “Spontaneous Generation” was born.

It was not until Aristotle in the middle 300s BC that this idea was expounded upon as a origin of life. He observed that fleas came from putrid matter, maggots from uncooked meat; plant lice (aphids) sprang from the dew which falls on plants; even things as big as rats could appear in old straw. For Aristotle somewhere there was a piece of matter than if left alone would produce a man. He thought that these things popped through from another reality. But to be honest philosophers of that day were much more focused on the meaning of life rather than its origin. The working assumption was that man and earth had existed forever. Gives “old as dirt” a little more weight huh?

ok part 2 is coming when we will discuss a bit more history and why you should drink on your knees.

Chaz posted the following in his blog the other yesterday:

Matthew 6:5
“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.”

He was referring the passage to how we should dress- oh and added this great video:

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=240ad5b9b413aa7346a1

But it got me to thinking- What DOES the bible say about how we should dress for church?

Well this is in the Old Testament:

Deuteronomy 22:5

“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.”

There are those that say that we are to dress as a temple: 1 Cor. 3:16-17

“Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.”

The bible gets a little specific for women on how to dress: 1 Timothy 2:9-10 “I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” Taken literally then women should leave their jewelry at home and perhaps even their wedding rings huh? Why no braids? I personally think he is stressing beauty for works here. That the inner beauty of the fruit of the spirit should be the important thing and not trying to impress each other. He goes further into this in 1 Peter 3:2-5 :”Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.”

Interestingly in this passage there is no forbidding wearing things but only a reminder of where the true beauty comes from.

Head gear is also mentioned in the New Testament. Men should not wear hats and women should. 1 Corinthians 11:4-7 Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head–it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man.

These reasons seem to be insulting but that is not really intended. (keep in mind it is also warned that women should be under the authority of a man to protect them from the angels that my be tempted by their beauty! 1Cor11:10”Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.”) Lets look at the Corinthian passage in The Message version which digs at the cultural meaning of what was said: 1Cor11:3-9 “In a marriage relationship, there is authority from Christ to husband, and from husband to wife. The authority of Christ is the authority of God. Any man who speaks with God or about God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of Christ, dishonors Christ. In the same way, a wife who speaks with God in a way that shows a lack of respect for the authority of her husband, dishonors her husband. Worse, she dishonors herself—an ugly sight, like a woman with her head shaved. This is basically the origin of these customs we have of women wearing head coverings in worship, while men take their hats off. By these symbolic acts, men and women, who far too often butt heads with each other, submit their “heads” to the Head: God.”

Keep in mind also that in first century culture, it was considered a mark of respect for a man to remove his turban in the presence of a superior. And although Jewish women at the time did not wear veils, reputable Greek and Roman women did. A veil in that culture was a symbol of a wife’s modesty and respect for her husband. For a Corinthian woman to remove her veil in public would have been seen as contemptuous toward her husband and provocative in public.

I do think that mature Christians should dress modestly for church as a practical rule but the only true requirement for dress in the bible is not for church but for the world. We are told to dress up to go into the world not to come to church:

Ephesians 6:14-20

“Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”