Every year around this time, a
challenge is raised by the sorcerers against the saints. It doesn’t
take an astute mind to figure out which side is holding the upper ground
these days.
Halloween skeletons, witches, ghosts, spiders and crows along with
pumpkins decorate windows and lawns with almost the same regularity as
Christmas lights and crèches. Adults and children discuss and prepare
costumes for their cheery trick-or-treating and parties. Youths visit
haunted houses; television networks sponsor monster feasts featuring
every kind of horror show; real witches and warlocks give interviews
explaining the significance and importance of their special holiday.
Restaurants and cafes decorate for the feast of Halloween. A return to paganism?
Each year, at the same time, some
Catholic churches, schools, and families bravely counter with festivals
of Saints. Children dress up as their patron or favorite saints to
celebrate All Saints Day, November 1, a solemn feast and holyday of
obligation to honor all those – known and unknown – who already are in
the glory of God. The next day, November 2, is All Souls Day, when
Catholics pray for the relief of the souls suffering in Purgatory,
especially their family members.
I can remember the Sisters of Charity instructing us to visit a Church
to pray six Our Fathers, Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s for the intentions
of the Pope to receive a plenary indulgence for a soul in Purgatory. You
could exit and re-enter the Church to offer the prayers for another
soul. My mother would tell about the “holy contests” she and her friends
had in the little town of St. Mary’s, KS, to see who could get the most
souls out of Purgatory. In Mexico el dia de los muertos, the day
of the dead, was a major holiday, with families making elaborate home
altars where they offered special prayers for members who had died.
Oct 31st: Highest Day of Sacrifice on the Occult/Illuminati Calendar. People should be praying extra Rosaries instead of participating in this evil practice
These good Catholic customs and practices have been largely forgotten
and put aside with the increasing decline of Christianity and
corresponding rise of Paganism. Even the holyday of obligation has been
abrogated, and many Catholics no longer think of the religious
significance of Halloween, which means a holy eve, from the Old English all hallow E'en.
Unfortunately there is reason for that negligence. In the media and
classrooms, all the attention is paid to pumpkins, monsters, blood and
gore. In the Church, those holy customs of years past are ridiculed as
pre-Vatican II anachronisms and priests no longer preach about
Purgatory.
The truth about halloween: Human sacrifices
Pagan origins
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhein which
marked the end of harvest and the beginning of winter, a time of year
associated with death. The pagan Celts believed that on that night, the
boundary between the worlds of the living and dead blurred, and the
ghosts of the dead returned to the earth. It was a night for
preternatural communication with the dead, various forms of divination
and prophecy, and sexual rituals.
The Celts adopted many Druid ceremonies and religious customs. Above, a mid-summer solstice ceremony carried out today
By the 800s, the influence of the Catholic Church entered into Celtic
lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV had already designated
November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. Later,
the Church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the
dead. The eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls were celebrated
with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints,
angels, and devils.
This was the wise way the missionary Church acted in face of this pagan
feast that she transformed. She ordered the customs and habits that
existed among a people to the Catholic Religion.
A reverse process – the return to Paganism
How can we interpret the great emphasis today on the ghoulish and occult
aspects of Halloween? Is it simply a process of secularization? A night
to exploit the credulousness of children and their fears of spirits and
ghosts? I think there is something more.
Instead of the Church wisely instituting sound traditions to replace the
pagan customs, we are witnessing a reverse process today. A pagan
society is wiping out the very memory of our Catholic feasts. Halloween,
once used to designate the eve of the Feast of All Saints, has become a
strictly secular holiday in the minds of most people. The Feast of All
Souls is all but wiped out of the minds of society at large.
Haunted houses like the Creatures Crypt in Bloomington (IL) offer chills and thrills - the nervous excitement of paganism
The Catholic feasts aimed to show
that the just soul who believes in the Resurrection and an eternal
reward need not fear death. It commemorates the dead and doing so,
invites the faithful to make a healthful meditation on death. Exploiting
the skeletons, ghosts, vampires and demons, even in the ludicrous form
of costumes and masks, the modern Halloween does more than obliterate
the memory of death – it is a kind of invitation for our children to be
accustomed to the worst side of Paganism, which is its familiarity with
horror and the devil.
The very fact that Catholics aren’t more disturbed over this rampant
neo-paganism and the effacement of our religious feasts is a sign of how
much Catholic vigilance has been weakened. Through the years most
parents have stopped transmitting Catholic customs to children, the nuns
and priests in Catholic schools no longer pass along the Catholic
heritage and traditions. The result is generations of children without
the memory of religious holidays and traditions.
What is taking their place? It is not just secular values and
materialism. What we see is the return to the demoniac rituals of
Paganism.
For example, today Halloween stresses aggression, the macabre, blood,
death, monsters and even immoral figures. What horizons do these
sinister and grotesque figures open up for children and youth? Not the
marvelous, but the horrendous. What kind of emotions do they stimulate?
Not the temperate and serene bereavement over death of Catholic
celebrations, but the fear and nervous excitement of pagan rituals. The
grotesque and monstrous are becoming co-natural to the modern spirit, a
typical product of neo-paganism.
So what should we do about Halloween?
In principle, what is presented to a child should tend to make him more
mature if it is healthy in its influence. The Church, in her wisdom,
stimulated the festival of Saints, to form children by stimulating their
imaginations as well as opening their horizons to the great and gallant
deeds of the heroes and heroines of her History. She encouraged prayers
and celebrations for the souls of the faithful departed so her children
would be balanced and serene, instead of frenzied and fearful, in face
of the specter of death.
In face of this, here is my advice: Avoid entering into the neo-pagan
commemorations of Halloween. Reinstitute the Catholic customs and
celebrate happy and holy All Saints and All Souls feast days.
For decades, we have known that heavy metals and chemicals can cause
grave physical harm. Going back to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” we
have known and been amply warned of the serious consequences of using or
being exposed to these poisons in our daily activities. Thousands of
these are well-documented carcinogens.
Building on Carson’s ground-breaking research, we also know that
certain kinds of chemicals can and do disrupt human [and other animals’]
entire immune system. Going back 30 years, researchers were
investigating what became known as endocrine [hormone] disrupting
chemicals and how they were affecting frogs [who sometimes had five legs
or hermaphroditic characteristics], other aquatic animals, and mammals.
These animals were the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. In another
pioneering book, “Our Stolen Future,” authors Dr. Theo Colburn, Dianne
Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers clearly demonstrate that 1 + 1
hormone-disrupting chemicals did not equal 2.
Rather, in a nightmare of mathematical proportions, these poisons
acted synergistically; and 1+1 could equal up to 1,600 times the
original dose. We are also exposed to more than 100,000 chemicals
regularly. Most of them have never been tested for human safety. So,
almost nothing has been done to reduce human exposure to a myriad of
hazardous chemicals. In fact, over the past decade, the Bush
administration dismantled many environmental laws in existence for 30
years, to let corporations off the proverbial hook. [Just look at what’s
unfolding in the Gulf with the BP oil spill.]
Although this information, on the dangers of hormone disruption, is
now more widely available on Internet sites, it still is not well known
by the average person who gets news mostly from mainstream media.(1)
Most of these highly toxic chemicals are invisible; and, therefore, are
easily off our collective radar. With the high stress level created by
the deliberately orchestrated financial crisis –where millions have lost
their jobs and homes– a degraded/collapsing environment or serious
health problems are not priorities –especially, if very little is
reported in mainstream news. This disaster scenario is part of the
larger picture of what Naomi Klein writes about in her book “The Shock
Doctrine.” We have so many major crises, one after another, that it is
hard just to keep up with one’s daily routine –let alone have time to
read and consider the toxicological health ramifications of massive
amounts of thousands of heavy metals and chemicals that have poisoned
our entire food chain and, thus, our own supposed “health.” We are at
the very top of this wrecked food chain.
Now, however, there is another far more insidious layer of toxicity
that is not being addressed at all in any mainstream,
corporate-controlled news, and it is affecting our very survival. It is,
however, being addressed more and more by independent researchers who
have supporting evidence to back up their Internet reports.
CHEMTRAILS - USAF Whistleblower talks about CHEMTRAILS - ENGLISH - HD
For more than a decade, first the United States and then Canada’s
citizens have been subjected to a 24/7/365 day aerosol assault over our
heads made of a toxic brew of poisonous heavy metals, chemicals, and
other dangerous ingredients. None of this was reported by any mainstream
media. The US Department of Defense [DOD] and military have been
systematically blanketing all our skies with what are known as
Chemtrails (also known as Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering).(2)
These differ vastly from the usual plane contrails that evaporate rather
quickly in the sky. Chemtrails do not dissipate. Rather, planes
(fitted with special nozzles) release aerosols “lines” in the sky that
do not evaporate. Multiple planes are deployed, flying parallel (or
often “checkerboard” patterns) overhead; and soon the sky is blanketed
with many grayish-white lines [miles and miles long, although this is
changing]. At first, these lines are thin; but soon they expand and, in a
short time, merge together. Our once-blue sky has vanished and has been
replaced by a grayish-white toxic haze that blots out and greatly
diminishes our usual sunshine.
Military and commercial planes are involved in more than 60 secret
operations. Last year, when I flew across the country, I saw a United
Airlines jet (flying below us at about 37,000 feet) spraying a black
aerosol that went for miles and miles across the sky. This clandestine
program now includes aerosol-spraying planes in North America, Europe,
Australia, and New Zealand [all NATO countries]. Hundreds (if not
thousands) of people have called and written their public officials to
get answers. Replies from US and Canadian officials are not forthcoming;
or, if they do reply, queries are dismissed. This remains an ongoing,
deliberate cover-up. No one is held accountable, while we continued to
be poisoned daily. This is not the first time, however, that citizens
are being used as experimental laboratory test subjects. The US
government and its military have a very long and sordid history of using
us, without informed consent, in this illegal manner. As Carole Pellatt
notes:
The U.S. military has been spraying chemical and
biological weapons in open air testing over civilian populations since
the 1940’s. They are called “vulnerability tests”. This is not a
controversial statement. The military has admitted to this practice on
many occasions and there’s plenty of documentation from the government
to corroborate it. There is also documentation of intentional,
experimental releases of radiation on civilian populations.
Unfortunately, this information tends to surface long after it could
have saved lives, or eased the suffering of victims.(3)
Over the past decade, independent testing of Chemtrails around the
country has shown a dangerous, extremely poisonous brew that includes:
barium, nano aluminum-coated fiberglass [known as CHAFF], radioactive
thorium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, desiccated blood, mold spores,
yellow fungal mycotoxins, ethylene dibromide, and polymer fibers. Barium
can be compared to the toxicity of arsenic.(4) Barium is known to
adversely affect the heart. Aluminum has a history of damaging brain
function. Independent researchers and labs continue to show
off-the-scale levels of these poisons. A few “anonymous” officials have
acknowledged this on-going aerosol spraying.(5)
Numerous tests have been done to verify that these poisons are off
the scale in their toxicity. They are documented in our water, in our
soil, and in our air. For more than 10 years, researcher Clifford
Carnicom has been valiantly and systematically reporting on the various
detrimental aspects of these aerosols –and what they are doing to our
entire environment, as well as our blood.(6) Various “sky watch” groups
also have been carefully documenting and diligently reporting about
these daily assaults.(7)
With all these poisons surrounding our every breath, it is not
surprising to see a dramatic increase in illnesses. There are numerous
reports of the increase in cardiac deaths and upper respiratory
illnesses (asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, and often multiple
chronic illnesses). Chemtrails toxicity has already dramatically
affected our deteriorating “collective health.” The significant increase
in heart disease and various upper respiratory illnesses has been
linked to a vast increase in “particulate matter” in our air. This can
be seen by some revealing statistics:
1. Coronary heart disease is now the leading cause of death in the
US. According to the CDC, in 2006, 631,636 died of heart disease. This
means 1 out of every 5 Americans are affected.(8)
In Canada, every seven minutes someone dies of heart disease.(9)
2. Asthma and upper respiratory illnesses. Between 100-150 million
people suffer from asthma worldwide. In the US, 16.4 million adults have
asthma and 7 million children have it. Chronic bronchitis and
emphysema: 9.8 million Americans were diagnosed with chronic bronchitis
this past year; for emphysema the figure is 3.8 million.(10) Total: 37
million Americans afflicted.
In Canada, 2.4 million have been diagnosed with asthma.
3. Particulate matter in air pollution. Particulate matter [PM]
consists of tiny particles 10 microns or less. [1 micron is about 1/70
the thickness of a single human hair.] These particles can lodge in the
deepest part of your lungs; and over a period of time, they can damage
lung function. This kind of pollution, that we breathe daily, can and
does cause various upper respiratory illnesses, coronary heart disease,
and premature aging and death. Particulate matter can also exacerbate
any existing illness.(11) Unanswered questions: Does hazardous
particulate matter act in synergistic ways in human bodies (as do
endocrine disrupting chemicals)? How does PM affect millions who already
have multiple chronic illnesses?
Chemtrails to De-Populate
Brain Injury
Even with the increases in preventable illnesses, the issue that has
not been linked or addressed –with what Clifford Carnicom rightly calls
“aerosol crimes”– is the deterioration of cognitive function. Our immune
system is already under siege daily; and this has resulted in millions
(possibly billions) of people with not just one illness, but often
multiple ones. The skin, the largest organ in our body, is a permeable
membrane. This means that invisible toxins in our air, including
Chemtrails and other highly dangerous chemicals, go right into our skin.
Poisoned rainwater (or snow touching our skin) does the same thing.
When the air we breathe is filled with a dangerous assortment of toxins,
with each breath we take, these poisons assault our entire immune
system. These poisons also affect our brain and, thus, our cognitive
function.
Aluminum is a major component in these aerosols. Although it is our
planet’s most abundant metal, our body has no biological need for it.
Pesticide Action Network North America [PANNA] lists it as “toxic to
humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental
toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.”(12) Yet, aluminum is
commonly used [this is a very short list] in vaccines, deodorants and
anti-perspirants, over-the-counter medications, soft drink and beer cans
[aluminum leeches from the cans], baking powder, cake mixes, processed
cheeses, and other food products and additives. Over years, aluminum
accumulates in the brain, tissues, and to a lesser amount the bones. It
causes brain degeneration, dysfunction and damage –due to the blockage
and reduced blood flow and oxygen of brain arteries. The brain shrinks,
as brain cells die. This causes dementia. Symptoms include: emotional
outbursts, paranoia, forgetfulness and memory loss, speech incoherence,
irritability, diminished alertness, changes in personality, and poor/bad
judgment. All these are on the rise, as more than 4-million Americans
are afflicted. Brain deterioration and dementia take decades to cause
serious and visible harm. Eventually, however, dementia is fatal.
“Alzheimer’s” is now being used incorrectly as a catch-all term for all
kinds of dementia. Just a few days ago, the front page of the New York
Times had a headline: “More with Dementia Wander from Home.”(13) People
afflicted with, what the Times terms “Alzheimer’s” were interviewed. One
person mentioned he “has a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.” This is patently
wrong. Alzheimer’s dementia can only be accurately diagnosed after death
when a post-mortem can be done. However, heavy metals poisoning can be
diagnosed through lab testing; but this is rarely done for basic
check-ups.
What is not addressed in this increase in dementia is the more than
10 years of breathing Chemtrails with nano aluminum-coated fiberglass.
Billions of tons have been sprayed on us.
With all these sources of aluminum added to the air we breathe with
each breath, the cumulative toxicity is very high. Even in daily events,
it is obvious –to anyone who is paying attention– that many people are
behaving oddly. While it may be considered “anecdotal” reporting, there
are millions of people whose behavior is strange. There have been
numerous times in just the past year when I have asked someone a
question and received an answer that is totally unrelated. There have
been more and more uncontrolled outbursts in public areas: someone
“snaps” for no apparent reason. Violence levels are up. Look at all the
shootings on school campuses. There are more unexplained auto accidents
that never should have happened. In just one day a few weeks ago, I
witnessed three traffic accidents that need not have happened. The news
is full of these stories.
Add to this already highly toxic body burden is the US military’s use
of aluminum in its aerosols. It is used because of its electrical
conductivity, durability, and light weight. The US Air Force reported in
1997 that it released “2 million, 6-7 ounce bundles of CHAFF.” These
are laid by military aircraft form 15-50 miles in length.(14) Another
unanswered question: Why is the USAF not releasing up-to-date figures?
A 2002 report notes that: “over the last 25 years, the US Navy [has
released from planes] several hundred thousand pounds of aluminized
chaff during flight operations over a training area on the Chesapeake
Bay.”(15) If the Navy used hundreds of thousands of pounds in just this
small area of the US, what could be extrapolated for the release of
possibly billions of tons of nano aluminum by all the military divisions
throughout the US and Canada more recently than 2002? CHAFF is being
stored that has lead in it. Has that been released, without our
knowledge, and added to these aerosols? What enormous, yet invisible,
harm has that created for all of us?
Dr. Hildegarde Staninger reported last year that “exposure to aerial
emissions of nano composite materials resulted in cholinesterase
inhibition.”(16) The human body has three kinds of cholinesterase: for
the brain, for plasma (manufactured by the liver), and red blood cells.
Some pesticides and nerve gases (such as VX, an organophosphate) inhibit
cholinesterase. The chronic inhibition of this enzyme (that normally
circulates in red blood cells), caused by the spraying of these
Chemtrails aerosols [for weather modification, but also used for
mosquito and other insect eradication], causes chronic poisoning. This
exposure causes severe neurological disorders, including paralysis in
humans.
In a ground-breaking 2003 online essay, Dr. Kaye Kilburn, asks: “Why
is Chemical Brain Injury Ignored?”(17) His article lists 13 concealed
factors that affect our willingness to believe that dangerous chemicals
do affect the brain.
They include:
1. “It’s all in your head” [meaning
real symptoms are ignored by allopathic medicine].
2. Resistance to vulnerability [individuals, and society collectively, cannot believe the brain is at risk].
3. The acceptance of mind-altering prescription drugs [such as Paxil]
that can and do affect the brain [millions are on anti-depressants
–what long-term damage does that also do to cognitive thinking?].
4. Chemical brain injury is considered not to be “an imminent threat.”
5. Competition from other serious threats [causing indifference or denial];
6. Delay in acknowledging health risks.
7. Economic interests [delaying tactics by big corporations are well
known –delay continues profits and ignores taking responsibility –We are
all expendable for corporate profits].
8. The field of neurology has been slow to consider causes [how many
independent researchers are left who do not have any ties to the
pharmaceutical/chemical companies?].
In all these valuable reasons for not addressing this human crisis,
the one that Dr. Kilburn has not addressed directly is the chronic
assault of breathing/absorbing these now billions of tons of hazardous
aerosolized chemicals and heavy metals over more than a decade without
our informed consent. When one does not look for or address primary
causes, then other issues can be blamed. This, on top of a government’s
silence or refusal to respond and the corporate media’s complicity, make
for an extremely dangerous combination that puts us all at grave and
daily risk. As brain function is diminished, and other things are blamed
for it, any population is easier “to control.”
Dr. Kiburn’s research clearly shows that chemicals do affect and
seriously harm the brain [and, thereby, cognitive function]. Chemicals
–especially a daily onslaught of toxic chemicals over many years– can
damage our ability to think clearly. Even if we find this hard to
believe, the evidence is there. Dr. Kilburn has expanded this essay into
the first book to research this: “Chemical Brain Injury” (published in
1998). Dr. Kilburn notes:
The brain’s preservation represents the only possibility
of survival for mankind. To find in many parts of the country and in
many individual patients that its function is eroded seriously by
chemicals, chemicals that have been introduced into the environment
basically in the last 50 years, is bad news indeed.(18)
It seems almost unbelievable that millions/billions of people could
look up at the sky and not notice the dramatic changes that have
occurred from what it was, for instance, in the mid-1990s. Then our sky
was a gorgeous, deep blue. Clouds were a beautiful assortment of shapes.
The sun was glorious. But people under 30, may not have a real sense of
recollection about looking up every day and seeing this panoramic
magnificence. Most of them are too busy texting or chatting on their
cell phones. There are other issues to consider, as well: People are in
their own comfort zones; and denial is a very powerful human emotion. In
the hustle and bustle (now quite out of hand, for reflective time), how
many people look up at the sky? It also takes huge courage, a very
deep, internal willingness to examine politically motivated corporate
controlled media spin, and search for the real answers. Humans like
their regular routines. To re-examine what we think we know, based on
new evidence, takes a willingness to think outside the proverbial box;
to want to find out the truth –not the pervasive Orwellian doublespeak
that pervades our society. If everything in our daily routine belies
what is truly going on, it requires fortitude to explore the unknown –to
question the litany.
What Chemtrails Are Doing To Your Brain - Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock Reveals Shocking Facts.
Another courageous person is Dr. R. Michael Castle who continues to
address the Chemtrails toxicity issue. He is a noted polymer chemist who
has been interviewed frequently and has written articles about the
extreme hazards of Chemtrails. Dr. Castle has also written a
ground-breaking document, the Universal Atmospheric Preservation Act
[UAPA]. This document has been in Congress since 2008; but is tied up in
committee. The only way to have this vital piece of legislation passed
is to have real congressional representatives actually representing us
(instead of the corporate lobbyists). See: http://anticcorruptionsociety.files.wordpress.com/22010/04/the-unified-atmospheric-preservation-act.pdf
Given these issues, since our collapsing society has so many
different levels of deceit –the financial debacle, the lies and deceit
of government and the Federal Reserve blaming people for the
housing/mortgage nightmare, the emerging police state, the disasters
that envelope our fragile environment– it becomes increasingly difficult
just to maintain a daily routine and survive the economic depression
and its daily fallout. Mainstream media does its supporting role and
deceives us. Millions, like the proverbial lemmings, hasten to join the
group demise. There are countless historical instances of this
collective insanity. We Homo sapiens [sic, wise men?] have never learned
the lessons of 5,000 years of history. This is because each new
generation of corrupt political leaders (often tied historically to
previous ones) never has the real interest of their constituents as a
basic part of their political practice. Further, there is no
Precautionary Principle in place.(19) It’s not the way the political
game of deception works. Precaution is not part of an equation that is
broken from the beginning. Humans are gullible and want to believe the
Orwellian deceptions.
To add to this already heavy burden, to ask uninformed, although
supposedly “well educated” [What does that actually mean, given that
much of our higher education has omitted much of what Prof. Peter Dale
Scott calls “deep political events” that never get into our history
books?] people to reconsider what they think they know about what is
really going on –this takes enormous internal strength. It requires
profound courage. The basis of this “courage” actually means creating
new synaptical pathways in the brain. Without them, we feel scared,
nervous…because those new synapses have not yet been created. It takes
repeated effort, and, thus, an emerging sense of ease, to create these
new synapses.
If, however, millions of people are already on prescription
pharmaceuticals to “calm them down” [long term, what is this doing to
their ability to think clearly?] and, in addition, are breathing
poisoned air rife with mind-distorting chemicals, then how clearly (if
at all) is anyone able to think? How can anyone feel well and safe, if
the very air we breathe is deliberately poisoned and is affecting our
ability to think cogently? It is already evident that no one in any
official capacity is willing to tell the truth. It is like Diogenes, the
ancient Greek, searching for a truthful individual. No one seems to
have the desire, or courage, or authority to stop this massive
poisoning, because it is the secret plan of the elite insiders to
deliberate destroy everything we once knew.
Our BASIC human rights, constitutional and international laws are
mere paper. These rights and laws have all been torn asunder by those in
charge. It has been done by stealth. We must organize peacefully.
PEACEFULLY is the operative word. If these many-pronged aerosol attacks
by military and commercial planes can spray these horrific toxins on us,
year after year with impunity –against all laws– then it is absolutely
imperative that we organize peacefully. As Peter Dale Scott notes in
Jason Bermas’ new DVD “Invisible Empire”: we must use the Internet and
our peaceful intellectual powers to come together and shut this
nightmare down. It is possible to do this. http://www.globalresearch.ca/chemtrails-the-consequences-of-toxic-metals-and-chemical-aerosols-on-human-health/19047
"Always keep the holy
book in your hands, that it may nourish your soul by devout reading."-
ST. JEROME, (Letter to St. Paulinus; Letters: PL, Vol.22, Col. 579).
To a spiritual life the reading of holy books is perhaps not
less useful than mental prayer. St. Bernard says reading instructs us at once in
prayer, and in the practice of virtue. Hence he concluded that spiritual reading
and prayer are the arms by which hell is conquered and paradise won. We cannot
always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions, and
particularly in our doubts; but reading will abundantly supply his place by
giving us lights and directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our
own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will. Hence St.
Athanasius used to say that we find no one devoted to the service of the Lord
that did not practice spiritual reading. Hence all the founders of religious
Orders have strongly recommended this holy exercise to their religious. St.
Benedict, among the rest, commanded that each monk should every day make a
spiritual reading, and that two others should be appointed to go about visiting
the cells to see if all fulfilled the command; and should any monk be found
negligent in the observance of this rule, the saint ordered a penance to be
imposed upon him. But before all, the Apostle prescribed spiritual reading to
Timothy. Attend unto reading. Mark the word Attend, which
signifies that, although Timothy, as being bishop, was greatly occupied with the
care of his flock, still the Apostle wished him to apply to the reading of holy
books, not in a passing way and for a short time, but regularly and for a
considerable time.
The reading of spiritual works is as profitable as the
reading of bad books is noxious. As the former has led to the conversion of many
sinners, so the latter is every day the ruin of many young persons. The first
author of pious books is the Spirit of God; but the author of pernicious
writings is the devil, who often artfully conceals from certain persons the
poison that such works contain, and makes these persons believe that the reading
of such books is necessary in order to speak well, and to acquire a knowledge of
the world for their own direction, or at least in order to pass the time
agreeably. But I say that, especially for nuns, nothing is more pernicious than
the reading of bad books. And by bad books I mean not only those that are
condemned by the Holy See, either because they contain heresy, or treat of
subjects opposed to chastity, but also all books that treat of worldly love.
What fervor can a religious have if she reads romances, comedies, or profane
poetry? What recollection can she have in meditation or at Communion? Can she be
called the spouse of Jesus Christ? Should she not rather be called the spouse of
a sinful world? Even young women in the world that are in the habit of reading
such books are generally not virtuous seculars.
But some one may say, What harm is there in reading romances
and profane poetry when they contain nothing immodest? Do you ask what harm?
Behold the harm: the reading of such works kindles the concupiscence of the
senses, and awakens the passions; these easily gain the consent of the will, or
at least render it so weak that when the occasion of any dangerous affection
occurs the devil finds the soul already prepared to allow itself to be
conquered. A wise author has said that by the reading of such pernicious books
heresy has made, and makes every day, great progress; because such reading has
given and gives increased strength to libertinism. The poison of these books
enters gradually into the soul; it first makes itself master of the
understanding, then infects the will, and in the end kills the soul. The devil
finds no means more efficacious and secure of sending a young person to
perdition than the reading of such poisoned works.
Remember also that for you certain useless books, though not
bad, will be pernicious; because they will make you lose the time that you can
employ in occupations profitable to the soul. In a letter to his disciple
Eustochium, St. Jerome stated for her instruction that in his solitude at
Bethlehem he was attached to the works of Cicero, and frequently read them, and
that he felt a certain disgust for pious books because their style was not
polished. He was seized with a serious malady, in which he saw himself at the
tribunal of Jesus Christ. The Lord said to him: "Tell me; what are
you?" "I am," replied the saint, "a Christian."
"No," rejoined the Judge, "you are a Ciceronian, not a
Christian." He then commanded him to be instantly scourged. The saint
promised to correct his fault, and having returned from the vision he found his
shoulders livid and covered with wounds in consequence of the chastisement that
he had received. Thenceforward he gave up the works of Cicero, and devoted
himself to the reading of books of piety. It is true that in the works like
those of Cicero we sometimes find useful sentiments; but the same St. Jerome
wisely said in a letter to another disciple: "What need have you of seeking
for a little gold in the midst of so much mire," when you can read pious
books in which you may find all gold without any mire?
As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and
poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills
the soul with holy thoughts and good desires.
In the second place, the soul that is imbued with holy
thoughts in reading is always prepared to banish internal temptations. The
advice that St. Jerome gave to his disciple Salvina was: "Endeavor to have
always in your hand a pious book, that with this shield you may defend yourself
against bad thoughts."
In the third place, spiritual reading serves to make us see
the stains that infect the soul, and helps us to remove them. The same St.
Jerome recommended Demetriade to avail herself of spiritual reading as of a
mirror. He meant to say that as a mirror exhibits the stains of the countenance,
so holy books show us the defects of the soul. St. Gregory, speaking of
spiritual reading, says: "There we perceive the losses we have sustained
and the advantages we have acquired; there we observe our falling back or our
progress in the way of God."
In the fourth place, in reading holy books we receive many
lights and divine calls. St. Jerome says that when we pray we speak to God; but
when we read, God speaks to us. St. Ambrose says the same: "We address him
when we pray; we hear him when we read." In prayer, God hears our
petitions, but in reading we listen to his voice. We cannot, as I have already
said, always have at hand a spiritual Father, nor can we hear the sermons of
sacred orators, to direct and give us light to walk well in the way of God. Good
books supply the place of sermons. St. Augustine writes that good books are, as
it were, so many letters of love the Lord sends us; in them he warns us of our
dangers, teaches us the way of salvation, animates us to suffer adversity,
enlightens us, and inflames us with divine love. Whoever, then, desires to be
saved and to acquire divine love, should often read these letters of paradise.
How many saints have, by reading a spiritual book, been
induced to forsake the world and to give themselves to God! It is known to all
that St. Augustine, when miserably chained by his passions and vices, was, by
reading one of the epistles of St. Paul, enlightened with divine light, went
forth from his darkness, and began to lead a life of holiness. Thus also St.
Ignatius, while a soldier, by reading a volume of the lives of the saints which
he accidentally took up, in order to get rid of the tediousness of the bed to
which he was confined by sickness, was led to begin a life of sanctity, and
became the Father and Founder of the Society of Jesus—an Order which has done
so much for the Church. Thus also by reading a pious book accidentally and
almost against his will, St. John Colombino left the world, became a saint, and
the founder of another religious Order. St. Augustine relates that two courtiers
of the Emperor Theodosius entered one day into a monastery of solitaries; one of
them began to read the life of St. Anthony, which he found in one of the cells;
so strong was the impression made upon him, that he resolved to take leave of
the world. He then addressed his companion with so much fervor that both of them
remained in the monastery to serve God. We read in the Chronicles of the
Discalced Carmelites that a lady in Vienna was prepared to go to a festivity,
but because it was given up she fell into a violent passion. To divert her
attention she began to read a spiritual book that was at hand, and conceived
such a contempt for the world, that she abandoned it and became a Teresian nun.
The same happened to the Duchess of Montalto, in Sicily. She began also by
accident to read the works of St. Teresa, and afterwards continued to read them
with so much fervor, that she sought and obtained her husband’s consent to
become a religious, and entered among the Discalced Carmelites.
But the reading of spiritual books has not only contributed
to the conversion of saints, but has also given them during their whole life
great aid to persevere and to advance continually in perfection. The glorious
St. Dominic used to embrace his spiritual books, and to press them to his bosom,
saying, "These books give me milk." And how, except by meditation and
the use of pious books, were the anchorets enabled to spend to many years in the
desert, at a distance from all human society? That great servant of God, Thomas
a Kempis, could not enjoy greater consolation than in remaining in a corner of
his cell with a spiritual book in his hand. It has been already mentioned in
this work that the Venerable Vincent Carafa used to say that he could not desire
a greater happiness in this world than to live in a little grotto provided with
a morsel of bread and a spiritual book. St. Philip Neri devoted all the vacant
hours that he could procure to the reading of spiritual books, and particularly
the lives of the saints.
Oh! How profitable is the reading of the lives of the saints!
In books of instruction we read what we are bound to do, but in the lives of the
saints we read what so many holy men and women, who were flesh as we are, have
done. Hence, their example, if it produce no other fruit, will at least humble
us and make us sink under the earth. In reading the great things that the saints
have done, we shall certainly be ashamed of the little that we have done and
still do for God. St. Augustine said of himself: "My God, the examples of
Thy servants, when I meditated on them, consumed my tepidity and inflamed me
with Thy holy love." Of St. Francis, St. Bonaventure writes: "By the
remembrance of the saints and of their virtues, as if they were so many stones
of fire, he has inflamed with new love for God."
St. Gregory also relates that in Rome there was a beggar
called Servolus; he was afflicted with infirmities, and lived on the alms that
he collected: he gave a part to the poor, and employed the remainder in
purchasing books of devotion. Servolus could not read, but he engaged those whom
he lodged in his little house to read for him. St. Gregory says that by
listening to these spiritual readings Servolus acquired great patience and a
wonderful knowledge of the things of God. Finally, the saint states that at
death the poor man besought his friends to read for him; but before breathing
his last he interrupted the reading, and said: "Be silent, be silent, do
you not hear how all paradise resounds with canticles and harmonious
music?" After these words he sweetly expired. Immediately after his death a
most agreeable odor was diffused over the room, in testimony of the sanctity of
the beggar, who left the world poor in earthly goods, but rich in virtue and
merits.
But to draw great fruit from spiritual reading:
It is, in the first place, necessary to recommend yourself
beforehand to God, that he may enlighten the mind while you read. It has been
already said, that in spiritual reading the Lord condescends to speak to us;
and, therefore, in taking up the book, we must pray to God in the words of
Samuel: Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Speak, O my Lord, for I
wish to obey Thee in all that Thou wilt make known to me to be Thy will.
In the second place, you must read not in order to acquire
learning, nor to indulge curiosity, but for the sole purpose of advancing in
divine love. To read for the sake of knowledge is not spiritual reading, but is,
at the time of spiritual reading, a study unprofitable to the soul. It is still
worse to read through curiosity. What profit can be expected form such reading?
All the time devoted to such reading is lost time. St. Gregory says that many
read and read a great deal, but, because they have read only through curiosity,
they finish reading as hungry as if they had not been reading. Hence the saint
corrected a physician called Theodore for reading spiritual books quickly and
without profit.
To derive advantage from pious books it is necessary to read
them slowly and with attention. "Nourish your soul," says St.
Augustine, "with divine lectures." Now to receive nutriment from food,
it must not be devoured, but well masticated. Remember, then, in the third
place, that to reap abundant fruit from pious reading, you must masticate and
ponder well what you ready; applying to yourself what is there inculcated. And
when what you have read has made a lively impression on you, St. Ephrem counsels
you to read it a second time.
Besides, when you receive any special light in reading, or
any instruction that penetrates the heart, it will b e very useful to stop, and
to raise the mind to God by making a good resolution, or a good act, or a
fervent prayer. St. Bernard says, that it is useful then to interrupt the
reading, and to offer a prayer, and to continue to pray as long as the lively
impression lasts. Let us imitate the bees, that pass not from one flower to
another until they have gathered all the honey that they found in the first.
This we should do, although all the time prescribed for the reading should be
spent in such acts; for thus the time is spent with greater spiritual profit.
Sometimes it may happen that you draw more fruit from reading a single verse
than from reading an entire page.
Moreover, at the end of the reading you must select some
sentiment of devotion, excited by what you have read, and carry it with you as
you would carry a flower from a garden of pleasure.
Prayer
My Lord, I thank Thee for so many helps and lights that Thou
gives me, in order to make me a saint, and to unite me always more closely to
Thee. When will the day arrive on which I shall see myself freed from all
earthly affections, and entirely united to Thy heart, which is so enamored of
my soul! I hope for all things from Thy infinite mercy. My Jesus, I cannot bear
to see myself any longer ungrateful to Thy love, as I have hitherto been.
Create a clean heart in me, O God. Lord give me a new heart that will think
only of pleasing Thee. This desire that Thou gives me makes me hope for Thy
grace. My God, I believe in Thee, and for Thy faith I would give my life a
thousand times. I hope in Thee through the merits of Jesus Christ; without them
I should be lost. O Sovereign Good, I love Thee; and for the love of Thee, I
renounce all things, and embrace every pain and every cross that Thou wishes to
send me. I have offended Thee, but I feel more sorrow for having offended Thee,
than if I had suffered every other misfortune. I now sigh only for Thy grace and
love. My God assist me, have mercy on me.
Holy Virgin, assist me by thy prayers, which obtain from God
whatever thou asks. My Mother, recommend me to thy Son; do not forget me.
Cardinal Muller: The "Guardian" of Catholic Orthodoxy??"
“I want dialogue and teamwork in my Congregation”
“As the Church is very big, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith needs to work as a team, that is there needs to be dialogue and an
exchange of theological trends and listening to one another.” Cardinal
Gerhard Ludwig Müller stressed this in the speech he gave at the
University of Leuven for the international Omnes Gentes conference organised by the Belgian Bishops’ Conference on “A Church in dialogue: reviewing the Second Vatican Council”.
In his opening speech, the cardinal focused on “the need for dialogue
in the Church in general and in specific institutions,” referring to
the work of his dicastery as an example. Many describe the work of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith a case of “non-dialogue” and
“rejection of dialogue”. “It seems as though the Magisterium makes
authentic dialogue impossible; as though by constantly and persistently
referring to the deposit of faith, it definitively closes the door on
discussions regarding issues that are still pending; as though it
stifles dialogue. In actual fact, this is not the case,” he assured.
Indeed Müller explained, “the issues that remain pending are
continuously analysed by those in charge of the various dossiers - 40
people from across all continents – and are addressed in a weekly
meeting with the Congregation’s superiors. Furthermore, the most complex
cases are passed on to 25 advisors who hold regular meetings to discuss
things from a theological point of view. Finally, all key decisions are
taken by the Congregation’s members – thirty or so cardinals and
bishops – in the dicastery’s monthly assembly, these are then presented
to the Pope during a private audience." http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/mueller-mueller-mueller-37203/
We see him at a World Youth Day embracing two punk girls.
Ah! Yes! More of the Vatican II "dialogue language". I must remind all that Vatican II newdoctrine does not teach conversion to the Faith, a Faith, the modernists do not possess. Let us be reminded Muller is an egregious modernist heretic who denies the
the perpetual virginity of Our Lady and transubstantiation
He is also an ardent supporter of Liberation Theology, even co-authoring a book
He also reinstated pedophile priest Father Peter Kramer. In his well-researched case study
on the Fr. Peter Kramer case, Dr. Leon Podles exposes that Bishop
Müller refused to take responsibility. Although he expressed sympathy
for the victims at a news conference in September 2007, Müller always
pretended that he had made no mistake.
He blamed Kramer and the diocesan staff. “The culprit bears the
responsibility for the offense. I am not responsible for everything our
clerics and coworkers do,” he asserted, adding he could not control all
the actions of his priests. He also blamed the therapist who claimed
Kramer was cured, and the judge who did not send the report to the
Diocese, even though the case was public and it was the Diocese’s duty
to request it.
Orthodox? Muller on the Protestants: "We are the same Church"
So, the question remains when will these Conciliarists wake up? Modernists believe they teach in accordance with Tradition yet they do not and thus the infection clearly continues on these novus ordo apologetic websites (Vatican Insider) insisting Muller is "orthodox". If Muller is the "Guardian' of "Catholic Orthodoxy" than I would hate to hear what these modernists claim Francis to be. Thus,the only question for me remains what planet do these modernist writers live on?
Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859,
expressing therein a view which implied that "all the diversity of life
on the Earth arose from natural and random processes and not, as was
previously believed, from the creative activity of God" (Denton, 17).
"Before Darwin, men had believed a providential intelligence had imposed
its mysterious design upon nature, but now chance ruled supreme" (15).
The mechanism of evolution depended on the ultimate premise that all
organisms are subject to an intense struggle for existence which favors
by natural selection the preservation of beneficial variations (Denton,
42). "Thus not only was God banished from the creation of species but
from the entire realm of biology" (53).
According to Denton, Darwin was aware that the evolutionary edifice he
had constructed was "entirely theoretical" (55). Darwin had "absolutely
no direct empirical evidence" in terms of clear-cut intermediates that
large-scale evolution had ever occurred (56); he was not able "to point
to the bona fide case" where natural selection had actually generated an evolutionary change of any kind, let alone a new species (62).
For Denton "there can be no question that Darwin had nothing like
sufficient evidence to establish his theory of evolution," (69) and yet
Darwin's theory was elevated into an "unchallenged dogma" in little more
than twenty years. Denton sees this to have been the result of
"non-scientific factors of a social, psychological and philosophical
nature" (70). The big appeal for many scientists was its "general
harmony with scientific thought," and it was to be used by them to
"wrest from theology the entire domain of cosmological theory" (72,
quoting J. Tyndall). In fact, Denton observes, "today all biological
phenomena are interpreted in Darwinian terms and every professional
biologist is subject throughout his working day to continued affirmation
of the truth of Darwinian theory," (74) even though "neither of the two
fundamental axioms of Darwin's macroevolutionary theory ... have been
validated by one single empirical discovery or scientific advance since
1859" (345) These two axioms never verified by science were (a) a
functional continuum linking all species of life together, leading back
to a primeval cell and (b) all the design of living things the result of
a blind random process.
In his book Denton succeeds in laying out powerful and convincing
evidence against the Darwinian theory of evolution and in favor of the
typological explanation of organic species. It is popularly believed
today that "all the facts of biology irrefutably support an evolutionary
interpretation." But, if this were so, why is it that "so many of the
founders of modern biology ... hold nature to be fundamentally a
discontinuum of isolated and unique types unbridged by transitional
varieties" (100)? Was their typological model of nature derived from
religious and philosophical preconceptions that were prevalent at the
time? No, says Michael Denton, they, as biologists, simply found
no evidence either among living organisms or in the fossil record for
the idea of gradual transformations. "It was the absence of factual
evidence which was the primary source of their scepticism and not
religious prejudice" (104).
What the typologists of the nineteenth century saw was that each class
of organism possesses a set of unique defining characteristics "which
occur in fundamentally invariant form in all the species of that class
but which are not found even in rudimentary form in any species outside
that class" (105). According to Denton, "one could continue citing
almost ad infinitum complex defining characteristics of
particular classes of organisms which are without analogy or precedent
in any other part of the living kingdom and are not led up to in any way
through a series of transitional structures" (107).
Denton gives an impressive description of details that can only be
alluded to in this review. Every living cell has basically the same
structure; "no cell has ever been found that departs in any significant
way from the universal pattern of the (genetic) code" (109). The
lungfish has been presented by evolutionists as a good example of a
transitional type from fish to amphibian, but its individual
characteristics "are not in any realistic sense transitional between the
two types" (109). Other similar examples are not really transitional
but rather "a mosaic of characteristics drawn from two distinct groups"
(110).
Not only this, but cases where one might claim to see any kind of
sequential arrangement of species are extremely rare. To take a
well-known example, the vertebrate series from the cyclostomes through
fish, amphibia, and reptiles to man is entirely unconvincing except in
the section fish to lungfish to amphibia. But even the organ systems of
the lungfish are not truly transitional. And in the case of other
alleged sequential arrangements "it invariably turns out that on
critical examination the evidence for sequence is vague and ill defined"
(116).
The first to formulate the principles of classification was Aristotle,
and many of his principles are still used by biologists today. In fact,
his perception of the pattern of physical nature as an ordered
hierarchic system reappeared with the birth of modern biology in the
eighteenth century. All the major classes identified by the typologists
have survived the inroads of evolutionary biology (125), even though "no
two ways of looking at nature could be more different" (98, quoting E.
Mayr). "Even today zoologists find it impossible to relate the major
groups of organisms in any sort of lineal or sequential arrangement"
(125). The hierarchic pattern of species is a witness against organic
evolution. "If the hierarchy suggests any model of nature it is typology
and not evolution" (137).
Darwin saw extinction as an important factor in widening the gaps
between the existing types, extinction as a random process.
"But surely," reasons Denton, "no purely random process of extinction
would have eliminated so effectively all ancestral and transitional
forms, all evidence of the trunk and branches of the supposed tree, and
left all remaining groups: mammals, cats, flowering plants, birds,
tortoises, vertebrates, molluscs, hymenoptera, fleas and so on, so
isolated and related only in a strictly sisterly sense" (136).
A significant number of biologists in our time are insisting that no
species can be considered ancestral to any other and that in the final
analysis the order of biological nature is not sequential (139-140).
Darwin took 'homology' to mean "that relationship between parts which
results from their development from corresponding embryonic parts," but
biologists like De Beer emphasize today that this is "just what homology
is not" (149). Modern knowledge of homology [similar relationship
between parts] is incompatible with the evolutionary explanation (151).
If the hierarchic patterns themselves are suggestive of some kind of
theory of descent, they do not tell us how the descent may have occurred
or "whether the causal mechanism was Darwinian, Lamarckian, vitalistic
or even creationist." Denton draws the logical conclusion: "The same
facts of comparative anatomy which proclaim unity also proclaim
division; while resemblance suggests evolution, division, especially
where it appears profound, is counter-evidence against the whole notion
of transmutation" (155).
Transitional forms were essential to the credibility of Darwin's claims.
But the transitional forms are not there. Not only do the gaps remain,
but there are fewer transitional species between the major divisions
then between the minor, fewer transitional forms between the mouse and
the whale than between the dog and the cat (191-192). For this reason,
there has been a recent tendency to see evolution as saltational, as
occurring in jumps, such as in the theory of 'punctuated equilibrium'
developed by Eldridge and Gould. Denton feels that this may explain
small gaps between species, but "it is doubtful if it can be extended to
explain the larger systematic gaps" (193). The historic cover-up of the
absence of transitional forms in the fossil record is what Stephen
Gould has called "the trade secret of paleontology" (194).
Modernists love "evolution" they use it as a way to progress doctrines
Denton points out that "organisms are tremendously complex objects." To
reconstruct even one hypothetical organ is "a task beyond any biologist
at present," and, of known organisms, only a fraction of their total
adaptive complexity is understood. "We still do not have anything
approaching a complete description of even the simplest bacterial cell"
(201). He presents at length the complexity of the feather and of the
avian lung, neither of which could have developed by small modifications
over a long period of time (209-212). Darwin once exclaimed: If it
could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not
possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications,
my theory would absolutely break down." According to Denton: "The avian
lung and the feather bring us very close to answering Darwin's
challenge" (213).
For the evolutionist, the amniotic egg of the reptile "raises absolutely
horrendous problems" (219). In the most dramatic cases of metamorphosis
of invertebrate forms (in which one type of fully functional organism
is broken down into what amounts to a nutrient broth from which an
utterly different type of organism emerges) "not even the vaguest
attempts have been made to provide hypothetical scenarios explaining how
such an astonishing sequence of transformations could have come about
gradually as a result of a succession of small beneficial mutations"
(221).
Denton explains that "protein molecules are the ultimate stuff of life"
(234). Most protein molecules are made up of thousands of atoms folded
into different immensely complex spatial arrangements according to the
different functions that they perform (238). "Some DNA molecules may
consist of several million subunits and when fully extended stretch for
several centimetres" (240). "Because DNA can encode for all the proteins
necessary for transcription, translation and its own replication, the cell system can replicate itself" (248).
Molecular biology "has served only to emphasize the gap" between the
cell and non-living matter. Even the tiniest bacterial cell contains
thousands of intricately designed pieces of "molecular machinery" and is
made up of one hundred thousand million atoms, "far more complicated
than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the
non-living world." And yet, in spite of all of its variegated structure,
the basic design of the cell system "is essentially the same in all
living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals." Hence, as regards
their basic biochemical design, "no living system can be thought of as
being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is
there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all
the incredibly diverse cells on earth" (250). Nor can one seriously
imagine that this exquisite design emerged out of some "prebiotic soup,"
of whose supposed existence there is not one shred of positive evidence
(261). "The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great
that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been
thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable,
event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle"
(264).
After showing at length how such components of the living cell as the
protein synthetic system, enzymes, and the translational system can in
no way be thought of as having evolved without having to face insoluble
problems in terms of modern biochemical knowledge, Denton goes on to
point out that the problem of the origin of life "only represents the
most dramatic example of the universal principle that complex systems
cannot be approached gradually through functional intermediates because
of the necessity of perfect coadaptation of their components as a
precondition of function" (270).
Morphology [the science of structural organic types] demonstrates the
great diversity of living forms. Denton brings out that even at the
molecular level the same pattern of diversity exists in conformity to "a
highly ordered hierarchic system." In fact, "each class at a molecular
level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates," and no
organism is seen to be ancestral with regard to its relatives. Nature,
examined by the new techniques of molecular biology, has provided no
intermediate forms, but has rather confirmed the typological pattern
proposed by Aristotle and the great comparative anatomists of the
nineteenth century (290).
Another Darwinian concept that has been reduced to rubbish by the new
molecular biology is that of "uniform drift," that is, the idea of
uniform rates of evolution in all organisms which "is presented in the
literature as if it were an empirical discovery." In view of the
molecular data now available, "there is simply no way of explaining how a
uniform rate of evolution could have occurred in any family of
homologous proteins by either chance or selection." Why, then, do
exponents of evolution continue to cite this concept? "The hold of the
evolutionary paradigm is so powerful that an idea which is more like a
principle of medieval astrology than a serious twentieth-century
scientific theory has become a reality for evolutionary biologists"
(305-306).
Denton uses the analogy of the computer to show the impossibility of
Darwin's idea of chance alone as the cause of design in living
organisms. Saltational models of evolution do not escape this problem,
because biology has not even the beginning of an explanation for such a
process. "It is surely a little premature to claim that random processes
could have assembled mosquitoes and elephants when we still have to
determine the actual probability of the discovery by chance of one
single functional protein molecule" (324)! And the life of a typical
living cell depends upon the integrated activities of at least tens of
thousands of different kinds of protein molecules (329). Yet, in terms
of complexity, an individual cell is nothing when compared with a system
like the human brain, which consists of about ten thousand million
nerve cells, each of which "puts out somewhere in the region of
between ten thousand and one hundred thousand connecting fibres by which
it makes contact with other nerve cells in the brain" (330).
In 1779 David Hume attacked the argument for intelligent design of
organisms, namely, that one would never infer that a watch, for
instance, had arisen by chance. Hume maintained that organisms may be
only superficially like machines but natural in essence (339). But
because of advances in molecular biology since about 1965 "Hume's
criticism has been finally invalidated and the analogy between organisms
and machines has at last become convincing" (340). The inference to
design is not a fundamentally metaphysical a priori deduction; it is "a purely a posteriori
induction based on a ruthlessly consistent application of the logic of
analogy. The conclusion may have religious implications, but it does not
depend on religious presuppositions" (341).
To the critical scientific observer, the proposition that the genetic
programs of higher organisms were composed by a purely random process
"is simply an affront to reason." But to the Darwinist "the idea is
accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence"
(351). "Put simply, no one has ever observed the interconnecting
continuum of functional forms linking all known past and present species
of life, ... and contrary to what is widely assumed by evolutionary
biologists today, it has always been the anti-evolutionists, not the
evolutionists, in the scientific community who have stuck rigidly to the
facts and adhered to a more strictly empirical approach" (353-354).
Denton's conclusion, on the basis of the empirical facts as he knows
them, is flatly against Darwin's theory of organic evolution. "The
rationalizations are unconvincing to anyone not emotionally committed to
the defence of Darwinian theory. To an outsider from the community of
belief, they merely tend to emphasize the metaphysical nature of
evolutionary claims and the lack of any sort of rational or empirical
basis. The anti-evolutionary thesis argued in this book ... runs counter
to the whole thrust of modern biological thought" (353). "Ultimately
the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great
cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century. ...it satisfies the same deep
psychological need for an all embracing explanation for the origin of
the world which has motivated all the cosmogenic myth makers of the
past, from the shamans of primitive peoples to the ideologues of the
medieval church" (358).
THE FULLER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FAILURE OF DARWINISM
Darwin's "special theory" of evolution was restricted to proposing that
species arise and races are preserved by means of natural selection. His
"general theory" of evolution claims that the processes underlying the
"relatively trivial" changes that he had observed, for instance on the
Galapagos Islands, could be extrapolated to explain the entire
phenomenon of life on earth (44). Thus, for Darwin, "all evolution was
merely an extension of microevolutionary processes." But not all
biologists have accepted the inference. Many first-rate biologists "have
been inclined to the view that macroevolution [that is, across the
major divisions in nature] cannot be explained in terms of
microevolutionary processes, or any other currently known mechanisms"
(86). As Denton points out, "There is obviously an enormous difference
between the evolution of a colour change in a moth's wing and the
evolution of an organ like the human brain, and the differences among
the fruit flies of Hawaii, for example, are utterly trivial compared
with the differences between a mouse and an elephant, or an octopus and
a bee" (87).
Natural selection, according to Denton, has been observed as operating
in nature, and the origin of a new species from a pre-existing species
has also been indirectly observed. There are examples of "circular
overlaps" where the terminal links of a chain of intergrading subspecies
do not interbreed, even though they are connected by a complete chain
of interbreeding populations. The classic case of this is the contrast
between the herring gull and the lesser black backed gull. "One can
trace, step by step, the formation of the two species by following the
intergrading subspecies right round the northern hemisphere" (81-82).
If by "non-interbreeding" is meant, not simply that these two species "do not interbreed," but that they physically "cannot
interbreed" and produce offspring, the example has significance. But
one must keep in mind that the small differences by which modern
biologists separate organisms into different "species" are "utterly
trivial" with regard to the central question of evolution, as Denton
admits (89). Denton defines a species as "a reproductively isolated
population of organisms" (81). Genetic inability to mate is a
significant difference, but it is not by itself a determining difference
in the overall question. The herring gull and the lesser black backed
gull are both gulls, and one could ask whether it is not within the
ordinary adaptive power of a gull to become another kind of gull without
any evolution being involved. Evolution implies development from the
more simple to the more complex, from the lower to the higher, from the
less advanced to the more advanced. Which of these two kinds of gulls is
the simpler, the lower, the less advanced?
In Hawaii, "from only one or two original colonizations by the fruit fly Drosophila,
something like six or seven hundred unique Hawaiian species have
evolved. ... By studying the order of genes along the chromosomes in the
various Drosophila species on the different islands biologists
have found a number of perfect evolutionary sequences and have been able
to work out the entire evolutionary history of most of the Hawaiian
species" (82). While this is an interesting accomplishment and does
illustrate something, for Denton with the circular overlaps it comes
very close to providing "absolutely bona fide evidence for the reality
of microevolutionary change and speciation in nature" (83). But Denton
himself admits that these instances of "microevolution" do not indicate
the occurrence of evolution in the proper sense of the term. "However
attractive the extrapolation, it does not necessarily follow that,
because a certain degree of evolution has been known to occur, therefore
any degree of evolution is possible" (87). What I would add is that the
species remains the species. Biologists can talk about "six or seven
hundred unique Hawaiian species" of Drosophila, but the one species is the Drosophila,
and, if biologists want to divide this one species up into two thousand
or two hundred thousand subspecies, there is still only one species of Drosophila as far as the argument with anti-evolutionists is concerned. That Drosophila flies can "evolve" (develop) into other Drosophila
flies is no great surprise. It may well be within the adaptive powers
of that hypothetical feedback mechanism that Denton calls so mysterious.
He declares that before Darwin most zoologists "postulated
'non-material, inner forces,' or 'vital drives' of a basically
mysterious nature which lay deep within organisms" and which could drive
evolving organisms upward to an ever more complex and perfect state
(41). Whether organisms were ever programmed to evolve into higher
states is another question that Denton does not really answer in his
book, because these programs, if instilled by God, would not be the
random processes that he refutes. But in excluding the presence of any
"non-material inner force" that could have a directive influence in the
life of the living organism, he is deducing a priori from his
metaphysics of materialism rather than reasoning from the empirical
data. Excluding a non-material principle of life does not eliminate
mystery from the data; it adds mystery to developments that would
otherwise be explained, at least in part.
No one should be surprised by modernist Francis and his support for "evolution"
In Denton's opinion, the problem with regard to vitalistic theories of
evolution is that they must posit "some sort of mysterious intelligent
feed-back device in every living organism which could directly influence
the genetic make-up of its offspring in a particular and intelligent
way so that its adaptations could be purposefully changed and improved"
(41). But Denton's reasoning about this problem is not persuasive. He
admits that random processes cannot explain the design in living
organisms. Therefore, there must be some intelligent cause behind them.
If, on the one hand, that intelligent cause is completely extrinsic to
the organisms themselves, then every species of organisms is a product
of divine intervention. If, on the other hand, there is some
intelligently designed cause or mechanism within the organisms
themselves, then the "feed-back device" idea is not to be excluded. An
empiricist may call such a device "mysterious," but in all events it is
not nearly so mysterious as is the positing by Darwinians of evolution
without an intelligent cause.
Denton, by his methods, seems to have shown conclusively that there was
no evolution on a grand scale between major divisions of living things.
This suggests a divine intervention for major jumps. On a lesser scale
Denton does not seem to have shown that there was not some original
programming in the powers (genetic or otherwise) of the different
species of organisms that would enable them to make smaller jumps within
the limits of their own kind.
A "New World" must have a "new science" hence the evolution & "UFO/alien propaganda
Darwinism never had sufficient evidence to be a viable theory (69) and
yet it became an unchallenged dogma because of "non-scientific factors
of a social, psychological and philosophical nature" (70). It remains
today an almost unchallenged dogma in most of the scientific community
because "The hold of the evolutionary paradigm is so powerful" that
pseudoscientific ideas become realities for evolutionary biologists
(306). It remains a dogma because it satisfies a "deep psychological
need for an all embracing explanation for the origin of the world."
Denton himself feels this need, and he is, therefore, reluctant to let
go of the theory of evolution. The alternative, that God designed the
systems of living organisms, is an alternative that he is unwilling to
face. He knows that scientists "before Darwin" accepted the idea of the
creation of the world (20), but that only emphasizes, he says, "the
enormous intellectual gulf" that separates the outlook of natural
scientists of that period from "the secular ethos of today" (23). Denton
feels that "the Darwinian model is still the only model of evolution
ever proposed which evokes well-understood physical and natural
processes as the causal agencies of evolutionary change." In other
words, the Darwinian theory does not admit the act of God into the
picture, it does not admit the notion of soul or spirit, and it does not
allow for intelligent design. So it is "scientific." For Denton,
"Darwinism remains, therefore, the only truly scientific theory of
evolution. ... Reject Darwinism and there is, in effect, no scientific
theory of evolution" (355).
Francis: “He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal
laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfilment.
I find this to be a remarkable statement from an otherwise careful
thinker. Having already shown convincingly that the world of living
organisms could not simply have evolved by chance without some
intelligent design, and, therefore, without a supremely intelligent
designer, he clings to a theory that excludes all intelligent design on
the ground that to admit an intelligent designer would not be
"scientific." Having shown that sheer evolution (without a factor of
intelligence) could not have taken place, he nevertheless retains sheer
evolution as the only available "truly scientific theory of evolution."
Now, this is a contradiction in terms. If sheer, mindless evolution is
scientifically inconceivable, then there is no such thing as a
scientific theory of sheer mindless evolution.
But it is the creationist alternative that Denton seeks to escape at any
cost. For this he is willing to sacrifice even the results of empirical
observation, and he calls this sacrifice of understanding the
"scientific ethos." He tells us, "The entire scientific ethos and
philosophy of modern western man is based to a large extent upon the
central claim of Darwinian theory that humanity was not born by the
creative intentions of a deity but by a completely mindless trial and
error selection of random molecular patterns. The cultural importance of
evolution theory is therefore immeasurable, forming as it does the
centrepiece, the crowning achievement, of the naturalistic view of the
world, the final triumph of the secular thesis which since the end of
the middle ages has displaced the old naive cosmology of Genesis from
the western mind." To retain this secular, atheistic thesis, Denton has
to violate a native rule of logic and declare: "What was once a
deduction from materialism has today become its foundation" (357-358).
So, on the one hand, he logically concludes that "the proposition that
the genetic programmes of higher organisms ... were composed by a purely
random process is simply an affront to reason" (351). Yet, on the other
hand, he also (illogically) concludes that the proposition that
humanity was born "by a completely mindless trial and error selection of
random molecular patterns" is the "crowning achievement of the
naturalistic view of the world, the final triumph of the secular thesis"
(357). And Denton holds to the secular thesis, but that Darwinian
theory has turned out to be "neither fully plausible, nor comprehensive"
he finds "deeply troubling." He exclaims (justifiably): "One might have
expected that a theory of such cardinal importance, a theory that
literally changed the world, would have been something more than
metaphysics, something more than a myth" (358).
What emerges from Denton's attempts to survey the full implications of
his empirical findings is that he is really not that well prepared to
think on a broader level. In fact, he has in some sense excluded all
thought on a broader level, as is shown by his references to
"metaphysical nonsense" (117), as though all broader thought were
nonsense, and as though all recourse to considerations that go beyond
empirical observations would be "a retreat from empiricism" (ibid.). So
to read the handwriting on the wall, to raise his mind to see what it
means that these organisms did not design themselves, that they had to
have been designed by Someone, would be for him "a retreat from
empiricism."
Rather early in his book, Denton points out that the advent of the
theory of evolution was "catastrophic" for Christianity. He observes
that "Despite the attempt by liberal theology to disguise the point, the
fact is that no biblically derived religion can really be compromised
with the fundamental assertion of Darwinian theory" (66). Well and good.
But by the end of the book it is also clear from Denton's own data that
now no empirically based science can really be compromised with
the same fundamental assertion of Darwinian theory, and this is
catastrophic for the "secular thesis" and for the truncated outlook of
the naturalistic so-called "scientific ethos."
The idea of many that the theory of evolution is in "general harmony
with scientific thought" bespeaks the need to revise their definition of
scientific thought, not limiting "science" to "what has been
empirically observed," but recognizing it as "the knowledge of all
reality as such." Invisible reality together with the invisible aspects
of visible reality is thus seen to be the object of true science. It
was certainly erroneous, if not perverse, to try to reduce "the entire
domain of cosmological theory" to those aspects of reality which are
materially observable. Today, unfortunately, this is often done, but
only, as Denton admits, by the use of a theory that violates the
empirical facts.
Part of the enemies of the Church's Plan was to rewrite history & use mainstream media to get across their propaganda
As we have seen, "it has always been the anti-evolutionists ... who have
stuck rigidly to the facts." The Darwinians have constantly had to
rationalize their position; their rationalizations "are unconvincing to
anyone not emotionally committed to the defence of Darwinian theory"
(353). Still Denton feels that, not only the average biologist, but "the
entire scientific ethos and philosophy of modern western man" (357) is
emotionally committed to the defense of Darwinian theory. And Denton
himself is emotionally committed to its defense. It is only a partial,
almost a trivial defense, but he cannot let it go, in spite of his
obvious honesty in admitting that it is "an affront to reason."
Denton remarks that it is the "lack of any obvious scientific
alternative" that has remained an enduring strength of Darwinism since
1859 (355). For him, creation is not a scientific alternative, because
"creationist theories invoke frankly supernatural causes" (355). Yet
some of the founders of modern biology and some very competent living
biologists do accept the reality of supernatural causation. Denton's
idea that "modern western man" has somehow evolved into a compulsive
materialist is a figment having no basis in empirical reality. And such
imagined mutations have no place in a scientific outlook. Denton needs
to examine the concept of reality in its full proportions, on the
metaphysical as well as on the physical level. In acknowledging that
Aristotle was able to formulate many of the principles of classification
that biologists use today (125), he could well try to discover what
valid principles Aristotle and other thinkers have succeeded in
formulating on the level of metaphysics. What a joy it would be to
discover that there is a hierarchical pattern, not only of organic
species, but of the whole of reality, leading up to God the Creator.
Looked at in their full physical and metaphysical dimensions, the
hierarchical patterns (155) do tell us Who is the ultimate cause behind them. Looked at in its full proportion, the occurrence of life is a miracle, and miracles do not produce themselves. They have to have a divine origin, which is the ultimate origin of species.
The recognition of intelligent design in living things has religious
implications (341). The first such implication is the valid inference to
the existence of a Designer, but Denton, for reasons of a social,
psychological, and philosophical nature (70), is reluctant to draw this
conclusion. For him, it would be going back to the pre-Darwinian
biologists, who believed that "all of the categories represented an
ideal plan or type which had been conceived in the mind of God" (51).
Put simply, these scientists saw, from the empirical data, that God made
the various kinds of living things to be what they are. Darwinian
theory falsely blinded many later biologists to this fact. Contemporary
Darwinians, and all hidebound empiricists, could do no better now than
to open their eyes to the empirical fact of the creation of life
on earth.
Scientists need to go on studying the material processes at work in
living organisms. To do this adequately, they need to study as well the
immaterial causes behind these processes. Science, to be science, has to
adhere to the complete picture of reality. Therefore, what is waiting
to emerge at our stage of development is the step upward of what Denton
calls "modern western man" to an awareness of the natural and
supernatural causes of life on earth and to a scientific awareness of
the presence of God in the history of the planet. Such a change, such an
"evolution," is within the adaptive capabilities of the species man.
Michael Denton has helped modern devotees of materialism to be able to
make that great leap forward. Will they, will he have the inner force to
make it?
