The Cravenness That Informs a Lynching Mob

What accounts for an armed mob's presence, whereby it wants to intimidate unarmed men into acquiescing to the mob's demands? Mark Twain, writing in 1901 about a growing lynching mob mentality in the United States (q.v., his essay "The United States of Lyncherdom," a 3-part essay redacted and published posthumously in 1923), offered his insight as to what motivates men to join a lynching mob. As to his insight on that question, Twain seems to me to be largely 'spot on' in what he argues is the answer, with a possible exception that may be made on the basis that he may have somewhat exaggerated the numbers he used -- not that any such exaggeration that may exist in his numbers can throw a more favorable light on a culture supposedly Christian, but which was truly given to a lynching mob mentality. Besides that, there is a place in the quoted material that strikes me as being a bit too optimistic about what might lie secretly in the hearts of men before they are too easily whipped into a murderous frenzy by one lone agitator. Judge for yourselves. Here follow below Twain's words:

"It must be the increase [in lynching] comes of the inborn human instinct to imitate - that and man’s commonest weakness, his aversion to being unpleasantly conspicuous, pointed at, shunned, as being on the unpopular side. Its other name is Moral Cowardice, and is the supreme feature of the make-up of 9,999 men in the 10,000. I am not offering this as a discovery; privately the dullest of us knows it to be true. 

"History will not allow us to forget or ignore this commanding trait of our character. It persistently and sardonically reminds us that from the beginning of the world not one revolt against a public infamy or oppression has ever been begun but by the one daring man in the 10,000, the rest timidly waiting, and slowly and reluctantly joining, under the influence of that man and his fellows from the other ten thousands.... 

.... "No mob has any sand in the presence of a man known to be splendidly brave.

"Besides, a lynching-mob would like to be scattered, for of a certainty there are never ten men in it who would not prefer to be somewhere else -- and would be, if they but had the courage to go. [I am not so convinced that Twain's observation just here is accurate. Maybe his observation is largely accurate; but be it even so that a mob's cravenness -- its shameful cowardice -- has led that mob into falling in with -- participating in -- a murderous agenda, that is not enough to excuse them their murderously immoral and spiritual failures. Why, unrepented cowardice is given in the Bible as one of the reasons why many men enter into "second death" (eternal annihilation), and precedes a number of other moral and spiritual failures, including murder that is also in the list of bad things that lead to "second death"; see Revelation 21:8.] 

... "Then perhaps the remedy for lynchings comes to this: station a brave man in each affected community to encourage, support, and bring to light the deep disapproval of lynching hidden in the secret places of its heart - for it is there, beyond question. Then those communities will find something better to imitate - of course, being human they must imitate something. Where shall these brave men be found? That is indeed a difficulty; there are not three hundred of them in the earth. If merely physically brave men would do, then it were easy; they could be furnished by the cargo.

.... "No, upon reflection, the scheme will not work. There are not enough morally brave men in stock. We are out of moral-courage material; we are in a condition of profound poverty." 

Apropos Mr. Twain's pessimism, we may say that his pessimism about the human race, despite the race's lip-service religiosity -- which he also justly pilloried on occasion --, was certainly shown to be even more depressingly justified by events throughout the world of the 20th century; and now, 2 decades on into the 21st, such pessimism is still justified. Witness the armed mob that recently stormed inside the Michigan Capitol building. 

(Some of) The Sine Qua Nons of Eukaryotic Cellular Life

This video (see below) produced by Harvard University logically -- albeit unintentionally -- helps us to unmask the incredible naiveté in evolutionists who believe that a biological chemistry arose spontaneously, and that it gradually and purposelessly/accidentally developed a stable, eukaryotic cellular structure able to reproduce itself because it is equipped with: 1) a programmed DNA molecule; 2) a process (mitosis) that results in the cell's duplication and distribution of its DNA-informed chromosomes; 4) a centrosome for microtubular organization and for cellular structure; 5) certain RNA molecules for bearing instructions for manufacture of various proteins that must only occur at just the right time for them to occur; 6) ribosomes that actually translate the RNA's DNA-based instructions into proteins, and that assist the folding of a certain protein in the only way that that particular protein may be folded for its shape as a functional (life-supporting), 3-dimensional structure -- see the video at 4:50-4:56 --, this owing to a mind-boggling selection process so that "Science magazine [(2007)] framed the problem this way: “Can we predict how proteins will fold? Out of a near infinitude of possible ways to fold a the protein, only the correct folding is selected in just tens of microseconds. The same task takes 30 years of computer time””; 7) mitochondria that puts in place a process/mechanism for the flow of energy in a cell through respiration, and for regulation of cellular metabolism; 8) a cell membrane that houses the cytoplasm for keeping it screened off from an extra-cellular environment, though this cell membrane must be a selectively permeable structure that can allow only certain molecules to enter and exit the cell; and 9) a 'fleet' of vesicles for traveling along the microtubules in the transport of the molecules to and from the cell membrane. 

The 9 things listed immediately above are just some of the dynamic processes needed -- the sine qua nons -- for the existence of an eukaryotic cell, all of which must have been in place in one fell swoop in the original progenitor cell for that eukaryotic cell to have come into existence as the first of its kind. It is unreasonable to postulate that such a cell gradually became what it must have been in order that it became the first of its kind. It is not in accordance with the scientific method when one asserts that all this organization and processes we call a biological life form -- an eukaryotic cell -- came into existence through mindless (undesigned) electro-chemical processes. Such a life form, we reasonably say, requires a creator owning the wisdom and power needed for bringing into existence a form of life able to duplicate its existence for continual presence of that kind of life form on earth. Atheism is a rejection of reason, and is itself a kind of idolatry, because atheists are among those who have turned the glory of the incorruptible God into earthly (corruptible) forms of life that they unreasonably imagine had no need of a Supreme Being (Almighty God) for their existence on earth. (Compare Romans 2:20-23.)

Yes, we owe our existence to the God of the Bible. He has a purpose for mankind's existence. If we want everlasting life, then we must come into a fine relationship with this God, whose name is Jehovah. JW.ORG will help you to find the Bible's answers to 'What does God want from me?' 'Why is there evil?' 'Will God do anything about it, and if so, when?' 'Why do we grow old and die?' 'What happens to us when we die?' 'Can the dead live again?' Also, feel free to ask any of Jehovah's Witnesses for a study of the Bible, which presently can be done through email, internet chat/messaging, and/or telephone at your convenience.

YOUTUBE.COM

The Inner Life of the Cell (2006) Harvard Biology

How Odd the Fortuitousness of the Paleoanthropologists' Finds for Fossils They Say Are Links Proving Hominid Evolution

I will quote one of the scholars in the field of paleoanthropology: Ian Tattersall (Professor and Head of the anthropological department of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City from 1971 to 2010 (now curator emeritus):

"There is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became what we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense." 

What a damning admission! And yet we are told that there must have been millions of steps needed in the history of primate evolution until the appearance of the species Homo sapiens sapiens; yet, the majority if not the only primate fossils that paleoanthropologists seem to find in this evolution are, strangely, just the relatively few links putatively representative of what they allege to be visibly significant leaps forward towards our species (Man). Why are not the paleoanthropologists tripping all over at least a significantly larger number of some of the supposed millions of evolutionary links? But No! They seem very fortuitously to keep stumbling upon just those very rare and significant fossilized specimens of links that they declare are in a branch of primate evolution leading to Man. It seems to me that most evolutionists are blind to this statistically demonstrated weakness in their theory. 

Genesis 12:3 in the Light of Galatians 3:7, 14

Galatians 3:14 says, "This was so that the blessing of Abraham would come to the nations by means of Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith [in Christ Jesus]."

Genesis 12:3 applies as a promise of blessing for those who are the real sons of Abraham (see Galatians 3:7). Those of that description, and who were living before God's judgment was executed against the Jewish nation in 70 C.E. by the Roman armies, were not restricted to only the ones who had been circumcised out of obedience to the Law of Moses. No, but included among them were uncircumcised (Gentile) believers from among the nations, because for those in the new covenant, which charters the real Israel of God, neither is circumcision of any moment with God, nor is uncircumcision of any moment with God (see Galatians 5:6; 6:15, 16). Those, however, who are in the new covenant, and who own membership in the Abrahamic covenant, cannot have received the promised anointing of holy spirit apart from faith in Christ Jesus, for faith in Christ Jesus is necessary for anyone -- Jew or Gentile -- to own fine relationship with the God of Abraham. 

Genesis 12:3 will be read by true Christians in the light of the teachings of Jesus and his apostles as recorded in the Bible. So, we see in Galatians 3:14 that the blessing of Abraham (Genesis 12:3) does not come to those who believe they must bless (work for, support) the Jewish polity in order to receive the blessing of Abraham. No, but for those who receive the blessing of Abraham, they receive it only by means of Christ Jesus.

There is no antisemitism in the Christian, Biblical doctrine of supersessionism rightly understood. True Christians out of love for Jewish people preach among and seek to teach Jewish people the Gospel (the Good News of the Kingdom of God) wherever Jews are found. Nobody alive today -- whether Jew or Gentile -- can be a friend of God like Abraham was unless he has a living faith like Abraham's, which since Jesus' earthly ministry must include Christian discipleship.

Ancient Astrological Motif on the Pope's Hat

The top frame presents an image that was produced on clay 1000s of years ago, produced when a stone cylinder having an intricately carved image was rolled over moist clay. The scene depicted is that of a devotee's audience with Ninurta, the Sumerian god of war and agriculture, whose counterpart as the god of agriculture was the god Saturn in Roman mythology. Take note of the figure of a 6-pointed star on the clay tablet; it was used as an astrological motif for identification of a depicted figure as divine, a god. The motif, as you can see, is found on the Pope's hat, too, along with jewels surrounding it for representing the stars of the Pleiades constellation -- the same motif as found on the Sumerian artifact. The star on the Pope's hat is formed by the interlacing of 2 triangles for production of the hexagram, the same as used for presentation of the Star of David, which comes into present-day Judaism as a revival from ancient astrological lore via the Kabbala, because it was also found earlier in Judaism apart from the later Kabbalistic literature, for it was found in the excavated ruins of a synagogue in Capernaum, built between the 2nd-5th centuries.

On Steeples, Ithyphallic Spires and Obelisks


Do steeples/ithyphallic spires and obelisks have an unclean origin? Consider the affirmative testimony of 3 scholarly sources that follows, as it relates to Christendom's Churches: 



No. 1. We read this in The Biblical Cyclopaedia, by McClintock and Strong: "Even the spires of churches are symbols retained from the old phallic worship" ("Phallus," vol. VIII, p. 55).


No. 2. Thomas Inman, in his book Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism, writes that ancient fertility rites and phallic worship resulted in the setting up of various architectural structures so that "we now see towers or spires before our churches, and minarets before mosques" (p. XXII).



No. 3. Edward Carpenter, in his book Pagan and Christian Creeds (Harcourt, Brace and Company: New York) 1920; p. 255, writes: “As to the lingam as representing the male organ, in some form or other—as upright stone or pillar or obelisk or slender round tower—it occurs all over the world, notably in Ireland, and forms such a memorial of the adoration paid by early folk to the great emblem and instrument of human fertility, as cannot be mistaken.“ 


Conclusion: The pagans used upright stones, (e.g., the lingam), pillars, obelisks, and slender towers as phallic symbols. Moreover, a little more reading of scholarly sources bears out that these fertility symbols, including the cross itself, came to be incorporated into Church architecture from Constantine the Great’s time. 


How does the God of the Bible view such paganish trappings? 



Exodus 23:24 states: “You must . . . smash their sacred pillars*.” 



Leviticus 26:1 states: “. . . you must not set up . . . a sacred pillar*.” 



Deuteronomy 12:3 states: “You should . . . shatter their sacred pillars*, burn their sacred poles# in the fire.” 



Deuteronomy 16:22 states: “Neither should you set up a sacred pillar* for yourself, something Jehovah your God hates.”



* “Sacred pillar” translates the Hebrew word matstsebah, a phallic image (usually made of stone) and used in Baal worship, the Canaanite god of fertility. 



# “Sacred pole” translates the Hebrew word ‘asherah, though the word is used also as the proper name of a Canaanite fertility goddess whose image was the “sacred pole,” a phallus, the (usually) wooden, stylized representation of a penis. 



So, the God of the Bible hated these fertility symbols/images, and forbade his covenant people the Israelites from erecting them in the land He had promised to Abraham’s offspring by Isaac. He forbade that anything emblematic of pagan worship (idolatry) should be mixed in with worship of Himself, although the Israelites very frequently violated that prohibition convinced they could do so with impunity, but nonetheless learned contrariwise, for they often suffered God’s punishing wrath. See how determined Jehovah was to bring punishment to the 10-tribe Kingdom of Israel for its erection of sacred poles: "Jehovah will strike Israel down like a reed that sways in the water, and he will uproot Israel off this good land that he gave to their forefathers, and he will scatter them beyond the River, because they made their sacred poles, offending Jehovah" (1 Kings 14:15). See also Jehovah's complaint that apostate Jews in the temple in Jerusalem offended Jehovah by, as Jehovah put it, their "thrusting out the branch [phallus] to my nose" (Ezekiel 8:17). Oh, they might have thought that, because they were in Jehovah's house, they were free to do according to their own ideas for sacred service to Jehovah, but Jehovah stated this: "So I will act in rage. My eyes will not feel sorry; nor will I feel compassion. Even though they cry out loudly in my ears, I will not hear them" (Ezekiel 8:18). 

We are in the last days of a wicked world of mankind alienated from God, and for sake of the preservation of pure worship of Himself by a great crowd of true Christians (see Revelation 7:9-17), our God Jehovah jealously guards against insinuation of idolatry into our midst. This means that the Churches of Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Roman Catholicism, inter alia, are exposed in these last days as their not being the owners of pure worship established by Jesus Christ, which worship will last “forever and ever” (Micah 4:5). 

There are very many examples that show us that those Churches are polluted with paganish trappings, beliefs, and practices. (N.B. Judaism is famous for its aniconism, though it, too, has adopted the Star of David that “was inherited from medieval Arabic literature by Kabbalists for use in talismanic protective amulets (segulot) where it was known as the Seal of Solomon among Muslims . . . and was also used in Christian churches as a decorative motif many centuries before its first known use in a Jewish synagogue” (see Wikipedia; see also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUPuH5_t_JM). But for sake of brevity and for focus on apostate, so-called Christianity, we are here rather narrowly focused on the sacred pillars (church steeples, ithyphallic spires) that are erected by those Churches named above, which “sacred pillars” God still hates. He hates the unclean origins so distinctive of churches' architecture.) 



May it be argued that God can accept those images because the Churches have repurposed them for, among other things, peculiar identification of Church buildings—that God can accept use of the images when they do not evoke paganish religious sentiment in the minds of professing Christians? No. After all, it is not merely that our own emotions and intentions be above reproach, but humility on our part is also required — humility here as our willingness to let God’s Word the Bible educate us as to how He feels about paganish trappings; He has told us that he finds them detestable. So, that He finds them detestable should cause us to conform humbly and meekly to His will, meaning that we should be happy that He has taught us in the Bible how we can make sure that we have quit touching whatever things He considers unclean (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:17). God has not given us license to “Christianize” paganish trappings.

IS THE HUMAN GENOME DETERMINATE AS RESPECTS THE HOMOSEXUAL LIFESTYLE?

A scientific study of a Danish population of homosexual men and women (see: https://www.newscientist.com/…/2155810-what-do-the-new-ga…/…)
shows a significant statistical linkage with a gene called TSHR associated with certain thyroidal pathologies in homosexual men and women, notably, “in a genetic condition called Grave’s disease, which causes the thyroid gland to become over-active, accelerating metabolism and leading to weight loss. Grave’s disease is more common in gay than straight men, and some research suggests that gay men tend to be thinner — which might be the result of thyroid overdrive.” 



Other notable pathologies in that homosexual population linked to a higher hospitalization rate than is so for a straight population are: Hashimoto's thyroiditis, primary biliary cirrhosis, psoriasis, rheumatic fever, myasthenia gravis, and localized scleroderma (with an exception being Dupuytren's contracture).



So, we may conclude that a tendency for choosing the homosexual lifestyle may be  itself as much a God-disapproved, sinful aberrant in the human genome as are the God-disapproved, sinful inheritances of any of the other diseases afflicting humans, as for example, alcoholism. But just as we may rightly and Scripturally hold that alcoholics should respond to education for overcoming any tendency for being a drunkard, so also may we rightly hold that persons inheriting a predisposition to homosexuality should also refrain from practicing it. In fact, we rightly and Scripturally hold that all straight men and women should educate themselves to what is God’s will in order to refrain from premarital and extra-marital sexual relations, even though the natural, normative, and God-approved inheritance of heterosexuality can result in a powerful drive to engage in sexual relations with a member of the opposite sex.

Just the same, however, is the fact that the right kind of environment (parental nurture, and our free-will choice of friends/associates) is crucial as respects conformity to God’s will no matter whatever happens to be the inherited sexual tendency in any individual. The bottom line is that genetics is not determinate as respects the likelihood that the homosexual lifestyle may be practiced, for we are reminded that not even all men who have the “gay” variants of certain genes are gay! One group of scientists (Alan Sanders at North Shore University, Illinois, and his team) investigating homosexuality reminds us that many other factors play a role, including the environment. Also, says Sanders (see article in the NewScientist journal quoted above), “There are probably multiple genes involved, each with a fairly low effect . . . There will be men who have the form of gene that increases the chance of being gay, but they won’t be gay.” 



Another report (https://www.huffpost.com/…/lgbtq-genetics-study_n_5d692f62e…)

echoes the material presented above as follows: 

“The researchers said thousands more genetic variants likely are involved and interact with factors that aren’t inherited, but that none of them cause the behavior nor can predict whether someone will be gay.


”The research “provides the clearest glimpse yet into the genetic underpinnings of same-sex sexual behavior,” said co-author Benjamin Neale, a psychiatric geneticist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.


“We also found that it’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome. Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior but it’s still a very important contributing factor,” Neale said.


”The study was released Thursday by the journal Science. Results are based on genetic testing and survey responses.”



Jehovah God has not left us in ignorance as to what is his will for us irrespective of our sinful (imperfect) genome. The Bible puts it this way: “For this is the will of God, that you should be holy and abstain from sexual immorality. Each one of you should know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not with greedy, uncontrolled sexual passion like the nations have that do not know God. No one should go beyond proper limits and take advantage of his brother in this matter, because Jehovah exacts punishment for all these things, just as we previously and strongly warned you. For God has called us, not for uncleanness, but for holiness. So, then, the man who disregards this is disregarding, not man, but God, who gives you his holy spirit” (1 Thessalonians 4:4-8).

A gay pride parade in Tel Aviv, Israel