^{Acts 22:3}I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia but reared in this city. At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated according to the strictest care in the Law of our fathers, being ardent, even a zealot, for God, as all of you are today. – scripture reading

 

This weekend in the United States people will gather in their local communities to play baseball, eat hotdogs and apple pie, and stand tall and proud as veterans of America’s wars march down Main Street. After sunset in many places, the crowds will listen to local celebrities perform patriotic songs as they prepare for the annual Fourth of July fireworks displays. This is Independence Day weekend in America, the day when “freedom” and “liberty” and “justice for all” became the watch words for a new country that believed that “all men are created equal.” The work started by men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin has never ended as some people in my country continue to fight for the political causes associated with these ideas. We like the idea behind the words, but we have problems living up to the ideals that we associate with them.

In the 1770s and into the 1780s British colonists fought with fervor to shake off the yoke of a repressive government that was thousands of miles out of reach and out of touch with the needs of it subjects. Open rebellion against King George III broke out in the 13 colonies, and when the smoke cleared, a new nation emerged. The leaders bowed their heads in thanks to the Almighty who led them through those perilous times. The religious identity of these men has scholars debating just how Christian they truly were. It is claimed that some were no more than Theists. Others claim that these were men of God who made Christian values the foundation of the country. I know that once upon a time in America students prayed, and that one day the Supreme Court put an end to it, citing it violation of the first amendment. It was believed by some that praying in schools was a “state-established religious exercise.”

For God’s purpose the United States of America was established, and people in theory could live inside her borders and be free to live according to the dictates of their conscience. They could worship as they chose to worship. They could exchange opinions in “the marketplace of ideas.” Liberty of conscience was encouraged, not restricted, as other governments at the time practiced. One may not say anything bad about a king, but in America, one could offer a negative opinion concerning the president and never be threatened with arrest. 

The Founding Fathers of my country had zeal and passion for freedom and liberty. Through their efforts, God raised up a nation that other countries in time learned to admire and to respect.

But I am reminded of other freedom fighters that were not as successful in releasing from captivity the oppressed people of their native lands.

I want us to consider the Zealots of the first century. The Jewish Zealots made up a political movement that opposed Roman rule. Their primary goal was to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression and to see Rome driven from Judea. According to Josephus, the historian of his time, the Zealots were one of four sects to be found in Jerusalem. We know the Pharisees and the Sadducees from what we read in the Bible. The Essenes lived quiet, peaceful lives that included voluntary poverty and lived without worldly pleasures. It was near a former Essene community where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. However, the Zealots were the most highly motivated religious sect at the time of Jesus Christ. The Greek word, zelotes, means “emulator,” “zealous admirer or follower.” The Zealots had a very negative image among the Jews. They favored violence against the Romans and their Jewish collaborators as well as Sadducees. They were strongly committed to liberty, and lifted God up as their only Ruler and Lord. Simon the Zealot and Saul of Tarsus come across as religious militants, acting on the behalf of God without having God’s endorsement for their activities. Not much is written about Simon the Zealot, one of the Twelve who was with Jesus before the crucifixion. He is mentioned a few times in the four gospels, as well as in Acts 1, being there when Christ ascended into heaven.

Paul, writing in Galatians 1:14, tells of his own experience as a Zealot. The Amplified Bible says: “You have heard how I outstripped many of the men of my own generation among the people of my race in my advancement in study and observance of the laws of Judaism, so extremely enthusiastic and zealous I was for the traditions of my ancestors.” It makes sense to me that his persecution of early Christians was as ruthless, as militant, as it was because of this zeal he had for the traditions. Paul didn’t realize one thing concerning those ancestral traditions: these were they that spoke of Jesus Christ. Paul was living in the past. On the road to Damascus, Jesus gave Paul a reality check.

Galatians 1“¹⁵But when He, Who had chosen and set me apart, even before I was born, and had called me by His grace, His undeserved favor and blessing, saw fit and was pleased ¹⁶To reveal His Son within me so that I might proclaim Him among the Gentiles as the glad tidings, immediately I did not consult or counsel with any frail human being or communicate with anyone. I went away and retired to Arabia. After three years I returned to Damascus, and then I went to Jerusalem. ²⁰Now, note carefully what I am telling you, for it is the truth, I write this as if I were standing before the bar of God; I do not lie. ²¹I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. ²²And so far I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Christ in Judea. Those hearing it said, He who used to persecute us is now proclaiming the very faith he once reviled and which he set out to ruin and tried with all his might to destroy. ²⁴And they glorified God as the Author and Source of what had taken place in me.”

I want us to look at ourselves through the eyes of a Zealot. We as Christians must love freedom from sin. The gift of liberty that God has given us is precious. We are free from hatred. We are no longer slaves to our weakened emotions such as self-righteous anger. When Jesus told the disciples that they must love one another, we need to see it as a passionate love among brothers and sisters in a very close family. It is a love that must be expressed, for if it is not shared, the pain is too great to bear. I imagine Simon the Zealot and Saul of Tarsus as hard-edged individuals who loved God, but not in a way that was acceptable to God. The zeal these men possessed was a gift from God, but was not focused in a direction God desired for them to take it. When Jesus called them, they followed. That speaks volumes for the power of God’s love that He has for us, and that He desires for us to share with each other. God’s love gives us a freedom and a liberty that this world and the governments of men will never understand. We must be zealous in sharing this love with all who come our way. God wills it. It is my hope that we all will be converted in our hearts and minds so that His will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

For the last three weeks I have been living in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, teaching English at the SDA English Language School. As I look at the date of the last post, I see that I haven't had much new to say regarding how things have been going in life, as unemployment is a rather uninspiring event in one's life. In March I contacted the SDA Language School in Bangkok, and completed orientation in May. I spent three weeks living in Bangkok, far enough away from the uprising to make life there seem to be somewhat tranquil. The only action I saw was in the detours as the bus I was taking to the train station struggled to avoid congested traffic brought on by the protesters when a general of the army who supported the Red Shirts was shot. That Thursday night going to the train station was long, but rather boring, as I got there on time, but the train left late.

I took a sleeper car to Ubon Ratchathani, located in Isaan, the northeastern part of Thailand, but about an equal distance from Laos and Cambodia. I am about three hours from my old stomping grounds of Suwannaphum, located in Roi Et district.

The violence in Bangkok did not end, but it spilled over after the general died. The Red Shirts in Ubon Ratchathani district burned down the provincial government office building the Wednesday after I arrived. The violence and the bloodshed caused some potential missionaries from the US to back out of coming over here to teach. I feel sorry for them. They missed out on one of the most rewarding experiences of their lives.

Isaan was named after one of the incarnations of Vishnu, the Hindu god of death. I am back in the "jaws of death" and loving it.

More later.

as a wee little lad
me fatha told me "son
ya musta learn ta stand
and when ya stand stand tall
'cause in the end
all men fall
ya'll fall with the best'a men
ya may's well fall down hard"

I learnt ta walk'n'talk
I learnt ta run'n'hide
I learnt how ta take a stand
and how ta fall down hard
'cause in the end
my fatha fell
he fell with the best'a men
I watched him fall down hard

I learnt my trade with blade
I learnt my trade with gun
I learnt when ta take a stand
and how ta fall down hard
where my fatha fell
we fell with the best'a men
I learnt to fall down hard

she taught my heart ta beat
she taught my heart ta live
then she showed me where ta stand
and in time I fell into the love
where my fatha fell
I fell with the best'a women
I learnt to fall down hard

now me wee little lad
me only blessed son
ya musta learn to stand
and when ya stand stand tall
'cause on my day
I'll fall hard
I'll fall like the best'a men
never to rise again

Chedi - composite image made up of 17 images, stitched together with Hugin panorama software

From Endtime Issues #225

Darwinism: The Science and the Faith

Dr. Timothy G. Standish, PhD

Researcher
Geoscience Research Institute

 

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution arises automatically from certain philosophical presuppositions irrespective of the evidence. This has been demonstrated over the course of history. When Darwin’s materialistic philosophy along with its concomitant naturalism is applied to the question of how life originated, there is only one reasonable answer and that is that chance combined with natural laws somehow accounts for everything.   Before the time of Christ Lucretius, the Roman popularizer of Epicurean philosophy, wrote out something very much like the idea of evolution from atoms to life as we know it:

“The atoms did not intend to intelligently place themselves in orderly arrangement, nor did they negotiate the motions they would have, but many atoms struck each other in numerous ways, carried along by their own momentum from infinitely long ago to the present.  Moving and meeting in numerous ways, all combinations were tried which could be tried, and it was from this process over huge space and vast time that these combining and recombining atoms eventually produced great things, including the earth, sea, and sky, and the generation of living creatures.”¹

Lucretius put the essential presupposition of materialism in place first; the atoms are all there is and they lack intelligence. Once this materialistic premise is established, lots of time and a great big universe naturally lead to everything including life itself. More recently, the vocal atheist and proponent of Darwinism Richard Dawkins somewhat naively claimed:

“The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. Even if the evidence did not favor it, it would still be the best theory available.”²

It is true that Darwinian evolution is the best mechanism yet devised, whether credible or not, that can be offered in the context of materialism. However, it is worth noting that minds are the only entity we know of that can in principle design aircrafts, bridges, computers and the Mona Lisa. To the degree that nature in its details resembles any number of incredible machines and on the gross scale is a transcendent work of art, it seems to be, in principle, only explicable in the context of a mind that transcends nature.

So Darwin’s theory of evolution via natural selection of naturally produced variations in organisms is as good as it gets IF one starts with the premise that there is no supernatural. A less restrictive view of reality allows a genuinely adequate cause to be invoked. Because Darwinism  functions as a worldview that acts as the prism through which all of nature is viewed, the fact that it seems to explain lots of things is unsurprising. That is what worldviews, by their nature, do. In fact, it would be shocking if evolution did not explain lots of phenomena; every theory has to explain something. But does Darwinism really explain the origin of biological species? The famous geneticist and enthusiastic evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky seemed to suggest this when he asserted, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”³

Dobzhansky’s first name, Theodosius, means “God giving.” He considered himself to be a creationist, writing: “I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God’s, or Nature’s method of creation.”⁴ Unfortunately for Dobzhansky, science is a clumsy method of understanding the creation and is not really designed to tackle different theological views like whether God is the creator or Nature is God. Nevertheless, science has one great virtue: all scientific theories are subject to empirical data. In science it is what can be seen, heard, touched, tasted and smelled that counts, not preconceptions, holy books or philosophies of how the world must be. Empirical data can either support or disprove scientific theories. Even if a theory explains much of what is known about reality – and Darwinism certainly can – if it is inconsistent with data, it should be rejected.

 When Darwin wrote the Origin of Species, he recognized that there are empirical data that are problematic for his theory of evolution. Given that one major part of evolutionary theory is that all organisms have ancestors in common, necessitating numerous intermediates between say, humans, oak trees, amoebas and snails, Darwin asked:

“Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?  Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.”⁵ 

Because the fossil data did not support his theory, Darwin cleverly explained it away by appealing to “the extreme imperfection of the geological record.”

In the 150 years since Darwin published his theory, many geologists have looked at countless rocks trying to improve upon the “extreme imperfection” of the fossil data. And while there have been a few fossils that some interpret as missing links (while others dispute their interpretation), it is clearly insufficient to improve upon Darwin’s self-avowed imperfection of his theory. The problem is that only a few possible missing links is not what Darwin’s theory demands; it demands abundant missing links. And so the best way to protect Darwinism from the data is to continue to claim that the data are imperfect.

Now, in order to be perfectly fair to Darwin, we must admit that the scarcity of possible missing-link fossils does not necessarily disprove his theory. If something is absent, that may suggest that it didn’t exist, but it is not strong proof that it never existed. Absence of missing links may not be fatal for Darwin’s theory of evolution, but the problem in the fossil record is more profound than simply missing links. For example, deep in the geologic column, more and more fossils are being found that look remarkably similar to modern organisms. A dramatic example of this is the recent discovery of octopus fossils that appear to be essentially identical to modern octopuses.⁶  One of the discoverers of these fossils expressed his surprise this way; “these things are 95 million years old, yet one of the fossils is almost indistinguishable from living species.”⁷

However old they may be, it doesn’t look as if octopuses had much time to evolve into octopuses, as these are the oldest fossil octopuses ever found. Maybe because fossil octopuses are very rare, primitive ones existed earlier and we can, like Darwin, appeal to a poor fossil record, but pushing back octopus evolution further in time means that there is less time for some other ancestral organism to evolve into the first primitive octopus.  How old does an octopus fossil have to be before we can grant that there is simply not enough time available for it to have evolved from something else?

It is a blow to Darwin’s theory of evolution that, with surprising frequency, fossils of supposedly ancient species are being discovered that are identical in structure to modern-looking organisms. Other examples include modern birds⁸ and at least one kind of fish.⁹ Sometimes even extinct creatures have modern-looking features apparently before they should be there. For example placoderm fish, now extinct, fertilized their eggs internally, apparently before the external fertilization that is supposed to be a primitive trait evolved in modern fish.¹⁰  And the amazing little hairs that allow geckos to run across panes of glass, ceilings and other seemingly impossible surfaces (a feature that should have come about late in their evolutionary timeframe) have been discovered in the oldest known gecko fossil.¹¹

It is true that the fossil record probably isn’t perfect, but there seem to be enough examples of complex organisms suddenly appearing without evidence of any significant evolution which call into question Darwin’s theory of gradual evolution. The common pattern is that groups of organisms, like birds or flowering plants, appear suddenly and in great diversity without obvious fossilic evidence of their evolution found in lower layers of rock.

The most dramatic example of fossils suddenly appearing is found in Cambrian rocks, the lowest geological layer where abundant animal fossils are found. The Cambrian contains fossils of numerous odd looking animals. Some resemble those living today, some don’t, but they don’t look particularly simple relative to modern animals and appear to have had the same genetic and biochemical systems in their cells. Some Cambrian fossils may resemble animals in lower layers of rock, but these rare fossils below the Cambrian don’t look like reasonable candidates to be the ancestors of most Cambrian fossils.

Sudden appearance of organisms in the fossil record, as opposed to the gradual evolution Darwin predicted, is echoed in a seemingly very different field of study: genomics. Genomics is the study of genetic information encoded in DNA, and includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA.. Obviously, different organisms have different information in their DNA, which helps to explain why cabbage is so different from a mouse or fruit flies are so different from the yeast they eat on fruit. Much of that difference may be explained by differences in genes.

Genes are coded information in DNA for making different proteins, although important, they only make up a small percent of the genomes of most familiar organisms. They are like the parts available at a hardware store. Most organisms have an inventory of about twenty to twenty five thousand different genes, or parts, that they can use to build themselves, but information about how to put these parts together is found elsewhere in the genome.

With this in mind, imagine all the different buildings that can be built using bricks, wood, electrical wiring, nails and all the other parts found in a hardware store. One builder might use them to make a hospital, another a shopping mall and another a single family home. In each case, mostly the same parts could be used. There’s no need for a fundamentally different linoleum in a mall, a hospital or a home. The same principle seems to apply with genes. Most organisms have an amazing number of genes in common. Some genes are unique to different kinds of organisms, but the overlap in the general kinds of genes is remarkable. For example, most of the kinds of genes found in humans are also found in organisms as diverse as fish, birds and frogs.

You might think that if you could make all kinds of different organisms out of the same genes, then evolution would be much more plausible. The problem is that Darwinism explains the reason organisms have all of these genes in common as the result of inheriting them from a common ancestor. The more different organisms are, the more ancient their common ancestor. So humans, according to Darwin’s theory, might have a common ancestor with a chimpanzee a few million years ago, while humans and chimps have an even more ancient common ancestor with sea urchins which lived hundreds of millions of years ago. If humans and sea urchins share genes, then those genes must have been present hundreds of millions of years ago.

The problem is that the older the common ancestor, the less time there was to evolve the genes, and Darwinism invokes lots of time to explain how genes evolved. Finding more genes in common between organisms puts Darwinism into a bind. Darwinism does a fair job of explaining similarities between organisms, but is far less accomplished when it comes to explaining where new and novel genes come from. The bind is that finding more similar genes between organisms removes the time Darwinists invoke to explain the presence of new genes.

Let’s look at a specific example. A peculiar-looking fish called a chimera, or ghost shark, swims over a mile deep in the dark depths of the ocean. These strange fish are very different from humans, but Darwinists believe they share an ancient common ancestor with us. Recently the chimera genome was sequenced revealing, to everyone’s surprise, that they have color vision that works on the same principles as human’s color vision.¹²  According to Darwinian thinking, this means our common ancestor with chimeras must also have had color vision and thus our color vision could not have evolved over the several hundred million years since humans and chimeras went their separate ways.

Here is a second example that is not a gene, but does involve genes and helps to illustrate how Darwinism can accommodate some data. The eyes and sometimes skin of humans with liver problems frequently turn yellow because a yellow chemical called bilirubin accumulates in them. This chemical is a breakdown product of the heme component of hemoglobin in red blood cells. Unsurprisingly, bilirubin can be found in a wide variety of animals, but it was completely unexpected to find bilirubin in several plants.¹³  Plants don’t make red blood cells and the bilirubin that was first discovered in bright orange seeds from the “white bird of paradise” tree functions as a pigment rather than a waste product. Very specific enzyme molecular machines are needed to make bilirubin. As other plants are not known to produce bilirubin and the common ancestor of plants and animals is not hypothesized by Darwinists to have made it, how can it be explained in the seeds of the “white bird of paradise” plant?

There are two ways a Darwinist might explain this situation without invoking common ancestry. The first is convergent evolution in which the same thing is thought to have evolved separately in different groups of organisms. Another explanation might be lateral gene transfer, in which genes from one organism are transferred to another. Without getting into the technicalities of both explanations, they seem far more plausible the less one knows about how genomes operate and how evolution is supposed to work. Darwinism explains organisms and structures when they are the same because of common ancestry and also when they are the same not because of common ancestry. A reading of the scientific literature will also reveal that Darwinism explains things when they are the same and when they are different. In other words, Darwinism makes itself irrefutable by explaining everything. No matter what the data are, the theory is true, or irrelevant depending on your perspective.

Some people would argue that a theory that explains everything, as Darwinism seems to, also explains nothing as it is no longer subject to empirical data. The problem is that other theories about origins, like creation, are subject to the same criticism. The past is never as clear as the present and sometimes the present isn’t very clear either. Until scientists can travel back in time to see what actually happened, our ideas about the past will never be quite as clear as our ideas about phenomena that can be experimented upon in the present.

Still, there are some trends that are clear. While modern scientific data is routinely squeezed into Darwin’s theory of evolution, the amazing molecular machinery found inside cells and intricate organisms preserved in the fossil record seem to stand in tension with it. When Darwinism is extended from simply changing one organism into another to miracles, like the origin of life, it seems to impute occult properties to matter that matter, in and of itself, simply does not have. In some ways it is less like science and more like animistic religions that attribute supernatural powers to rocks, fetishes and other objects.

Even if organisms are currently evolving, which they may be, it does not necessarily mean that is how they originated. On the other hand, even if the kinds of things seen in organisms, like the amazing molecular machinery found inside cells, are only known to be the products of engineers today, science can’t really prove this was the case in the past.

Near the beginning of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin wrote: “I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived.  A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.”¹⁴  While many Bible-believing Christians view the world very differently from the perspective Darwin adopted, most would be willing to agree with him on this point.

Throughout the 150 years since Darwin published his materialistic theory about the origin of different organisms, much data that no one at the time could have anticipated has become available. New fossils and insights into the genomes of organisms are just two areas in which we have far more data, and yet ultimately not a lot more clarity, especially when the data is viewed through the prism of Darwinism. For those who embrace a materialistic definition of science which precludes consideration of a Creator, Darwin’s theory of evolution is clearly true as it is essentially the only materialistic theory of origins that explains much at all. On the other hand, those who believe that science should be more about the actual empirical evidence and where it logically points, Darwinism becomes suspect while much of nature is well explained within the context of some sort of Intelligent Creator who transcends nature. In other words, while science doesn’t prove God does or does not exist, one’s views on what nature is telling us are strongly influenced by what we already believe about God. If we are willing to entertain the possibility that God may exist, much data points away from the Darwinian alternative and toward His existence. In addition, much data that appears problematic from a worldview constrained by materialism resolves itself into a far more beautiful and coherent picture when viewed from a Christian theistic perspective.

 

NOTES

¹ This is my own translation of the original Latin as printed in Titus Lucretius Carus, circa 55 B.C., De Rerum Natura, Book 5, lines 416-31. Lucretius: On the Nature of Things, trans. W. H. D. Rouse, rev. Martin F. Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992). The Latin text is reproduced below:

416 Sed quibus ille modis coniectus materiai

417 fundarit terram et caelum pontique profunda,

418 solis sunai cursus, ex ordine ponam.

419 nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum

420 ordine se suo quaeque sagaci mente locarunt

421 nec quos quaeque darent motus pepigere profecto,

422 sed quia multa modis multis primordial rerum

423 ex infinito iam tempore percita plagis

424 ponderibusque suis consuerunt concita ferri

425 omnimodique coire atque omnia pertemptare,

426 quacumque inter se possent congressa creare,

427 propterea fit uti magnum volgata per aevom,

428 omne genus coetus et mortus experiundo,

429 tandeum convenient ea quae convecta repente

430 magnarum rerum fiut exordia saepe,

431 terrain maris et caeli generisque animantum.

² Dawkins CR. 1987. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design. WW Norton & Company, New York. Pg 317.

³ Dobzhansky T.  1973. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. The American Biology Teacher 35:125-129.

⁴ Ibid Pg 127.

⁵ Darwin CR. 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 1^st Edition. John Murray, London. Pg 280.

⁶ Fuchs D, Bracchi G, Weis R. 2009. New Octopods (Cephalopoda: Coleoidea) from the Late  Cretaceous (Upper Cenomanian) of Hakel and Hadjoula, Lebanon.  Palaeontology 52(1): 65. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00828.x <http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00828.x>

⁷ Science Daily Mar. 18, 2009. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090317111902.htm

⁸ Zhou Z, Zhang F. 2005. 2005. Discovery of an ornithurine bird and its implication for Early Cretaceous avian radiation. PNAS 102(52):18998–19002.

⁹ Zhu M, Zhao W, Jia L, Lu J, Qiao T, Qu Q. 2009. The oldest articulated osteichthyan reveals mosaic gnathostome characters. Nature 458, 469-474. doi:10.1038/nature07855

¹⁰ Long JA, Trinajstic K, Johanson Z. 2009. Devonian arthrodire embryos and the origin of internal fertilization in vertebrates. Nature 457:1124-1127. doi:10.1038/nature07732.

¹¹ Arnold EN, Poinar G. 2008. A 100 million year old gecko with sophisticated adhesive toe pads, preserved in amber from Myanmar. Zootaxa 1847:62-68.

¹² Davies, W.L., Carvalho, L.S., Tay, B., Brenner, S., Hunt, D.M. and  Venkatesh, B. Into the blue: gene duplication and loss underlie colour  vision adaptations in a deep-sea chimaera, the elephant shark Callorhinchus  milii. Genome Research, 2009; 19: 415-426 DOI: 10.1101/gr.084509.108 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gr.084509.108>   For further discussion of this and other surprising common elements between the chimera and human genomes, see: Wang, J., Lee, A.P., Kodzius, R., Brenner, S. and Venkatesh, B.  Large number of ultraconserved elements were already present in the  jawed vertebrate ancestor. Molecular Biology and Evolution,  2009; 26: 487-490 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msn278 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msn278>; Venkatesh, B., Kirkness, E.F., Loh, Y.H., Halpern, A.L., Lee, A.P.,  Johnson, J., Dandona, N., Viswanathan, L.D., Tay, A., Venter, J.C.,  Strausberg, R.L. and Brenner, S. Survey Sequencing and Comparative  Analysis of the Elephant Shark (Callorhinchus milii) Genome. PLoS  Biology, 2007; 5 (4): e101 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050101 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050101> ; Venkatesh, B., Kirkness, E.F., Loh, Y.H., Halpern, A.L., Lee, A.P.,  Johnson, J., Dandona, N., Viswanathan, L.D., Tay, A., Venter, J.C.,  Strausberg, R.L. and Brenner, S. Ancient Noncoding Elements Conserved  in the Human Genome. Science, 2006; 314 (5807): 1892 DOI: 10.1126/science.1130708 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1130708>

¹³ Pirone C, Quirke JME, Priestap HA, Lee DW. 2009. Animal pigment bilirubin discovered in plants. Journal of the American Chemical Society 131(8):2830.

¹⁴ Darwin CR. 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. 1^st Edition. John Murray, London. Pg 2.

I have been intrigued by the power of the podcast for several years now. Marc Gunn, formerly of the Brobdingnagian Bards, hosts a number of podcasts that have featured a lot of good music on them. Irish-Celtic music podcast was one of the first podcasts I subscribed to, and still listen to it when I have time. I have a lot of other podcasts I listen to, as well.

Four ideas are in my mind now for podcasts I would like to produce. One is on my experiences as a student of martial arts. While I have taken classes in Taekwondo, I want to have a wide variety of things to discuss, whether it be a movie review of a martial arts movie, or a bit of philosophy I pick up from a book. I live in Asia, and hope that in time I would be able to have the equipment to conduct interviews with expatriates living here who came to study a martial art, or who is teaching martial arts to students from Asia.

I subscribe to Master Steve Pinder's podcast, Martial Art Masters of Texas, which is sponsored by the Texas Martial Arts Hall of Fame. I appreciate his desire to interview the martial artists of Texas who were there in the early days, when the martial arts first came to America and trained to fight in their sport or who became recognized instructors in their own right.

I also listen to the Karate Cafe podcast, Alex Haddox's Personal Defense podcast, and even Stephen K. Hayes's podcast for his system, To-Shin Do. There is a lot out there for people to choose from, and I hope that what I have in mind will be something of value.

Currently I am setting up blogs on Blogspot. I am hoping to generate enough interest in the sites to where I can attract a good number of subscribers and quality advertisers. It the current economy, we need more people working, and podcasting and blogging are two areas I am exploring as I try to get some money coming in. It stinks being unemployed, so it takes a creative, entrepreneurial spirit to attempt to succeed when others are being overtaken with depression brought on by the loss of one's job. That has happened to me a number of times. As someone once said, "if what you are doing isn't working, do something else." "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." And my personal favorite: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." (Love you, Hunter Thompson. You are missed.)

So it is time for this underemployed journalist, unemployed English teacher and underachieving student of the martial arts to get whacked and make some heads spin without going all ap'chagi on some lame-brained, overpaid middle management type who has it coming in the first place. I want you to join me on this path that leads to the gate that has no gate. (Makes perfect sense.) Time to make some dreams come true.

Or something like that.

Here are the links for the new blogs. I hope you enjoy them.

http://wordwarriortkd.blogspot.com/

http://travelblogasia.blogspot.com/

Drop by. Tell me what you think. Offer opinions, suggestions, and tell me what you really think. Until then, we are kicking it real.

 kick step kick step kick step
breathe in... breathe in... breathe in
kick step kick step kick step
breathe... breathe... breathe
kick....kick...kick...kick...

kick SLAP kick SLAP kick SLAP
breathe... breathe... breathe
kick SLAP kick SLAP kick SLAP
breathe breathe breathe
kick... kick... kick... kick...

around around around again
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
breathe breathe breathe
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
breathebreathebreathe
kick...kick...kick...kick...

in the heat of the moment
bare feet write poems in the sky
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP kick
breathebreathebreathe
a heart beats in time
but I don't hear my heart beating
my breath whistles in my ears
in the heat of the moment
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
around the heat of the moment goes

and comes again and again and again
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
tunnel vision
only my target I see
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
no time to breathe
grasp the moment gasp for breath
cling to life when the heart doesn't beat
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
the heat of the moment drips away
one sweat drop at a time
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
over and over and over and over again
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step

I saw it in the movies
I saw it on TV
this is the way
Chuck Norris came to be
now its my turn

kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step

kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step

kick step kick step kick step kick step

breathe....

Chinese medicine is a fascinating thing. For over five thousand years they have passed on this incredible knowledge of the human body. How they got the information is something I don't know, but when I try to apply what I do know about the human body and the electro-chemical process used to keep it alive, well, parts of it do make sense to me. I wish there was an easy way to explain it.

First, let me point out that I am a Christian. I am a member of the Seventh-day Adventist church. One aspect of my church's ministry concerns physical health. While we teach vegetarianism as a healthy lifestyle, there are a lot of us who do eat animals. A study conducted a number of years ago showed that vegetarians live on average seven years longer than people who eat animal foods.

I have lived in Asia for nearly four years. I've experienced Thai massage, and it is incredible.

Now to tie these three things together.

The human body runs on an electro-chemical process. The body does generate its own electrical power. I think that this is what is refered to as ki/qui energy. Using a term I first heard when I joined the SDA church, it is the "spark of life."

In college biology class, we took a knife and cut a small section of a leaf and put it under a microscope. I observed a stoma, a small waterway if you will, that was processing water to the rest of the leaf. Even though it was cut off from the rest of the plant, this small part of the leaf was still alive. It had the ki energy or spark of life in it. The proteins in the plant are still living.

When an animal is killed, the life in the animal ceases to exist. The electro-chemical process ends. When we eat the animal, we eat dead protein. When we eat vegetables, we eat living protein. Living protein is better for our bodies than dead protein. The living protein helps keep the electro-chemical process going, while dead protein slows it down. As a biblical philosopher once asked, what does the living have to do with the dead? They are not compatible.

Most martial arts do come from a Buddhist religious tradition. From what I have read, even Buddha was a vegetarian, and taught it to his followers. Most Buddhists I have met since coming to Thailand do eat meat and drink alcohol, and I find this disappointing. Makes it hard for me to find places where I can have a good meal.

The brain and the nervous system run on this electro-chemical process, and the various nerve clusters throughout the body act like junctions or terminals or routers for the electrical impulses that control the five senses. While getting a Thai foot massage, the therapist touched a sensitive part of my foot. She told me that I snore. She also touched another part of my foot and told me something else that was true about me. Granted, most men do snore. But there are also a lot of people who do not. Fifty-fify chance of getting it right. Two for two, however, piques curiosity. Should have gone for seven out of seven, since the foot has a lot of nerve endings that are wired in with other nerve endings, so there is more that our feet can tell us if we paid attention. and took better care of them. The methods of Chinese medicine and Thai massage are designed to keep the nervous system "clean" and operating smoothly. Massage helps work out some of the kinks, not just for muscles, but for the nerves and pressure points, as well.

The breathing exercises associated with ki are important. If we breathed better, we would have less problems with our respiratory system. We do not breathe deep enough. We do not use the muscles in our diaphrams, so we do not get enough air deep enough into our bodies. People who sing or are publi speakers understand the importance of this. Speaking from the diaphram increases our projection of voice, and also prevents sore throats that are brought on from shallow breathing.

So yes, ki is important.

Taoist magic uses ki energy, but that is the stuff of the video games and movies. I think the Force of Star Wars borrows much from this concept. The ki was not meant to do magic tricks, but when it is allowed to do what it is designed to do, it will give us a long life. My Christian belief says that God is the giver of life, and the ki is a gift from God. We should not abuse it, but we should take care of it as such. We have heard that the body is a temple. The best way I can explain this is to compare it to the Old Testament temple in the wilderness used by the Hebrews. At night there was a glow that came from the holy of holies, the dwelling place of God's glory among His people. I see the ki energy in my body in the same way. My body is a temple, and the electro-chemical spark of life is God in me. It does not make me God, but it does make me His child. And the power He gives me is not to be abused.

This is a point of view. I'll probably make changes to it as I continue to grow as a Christian and as a martial artist. For me, this makes sense, and if it doesn't make sense to you, that is okay. We have different life experiences to draw upon, and different ways of saying the same thing. It makes life interesting, and shows that we have much, much more to learn as we grow as human beings.