His Burden is Light

I was thinking about the impossibility of human evolution by natural selection, which is based on chance interacting with various natural processes that have the effect of selecting those 'chances' that are retained and those that are lost. I won't elaborate too much because most of us who are interested in this subject have already given it a lot of thought and understand the concept. It is however important to note that the idea, simple in itself, is used to explain massively complex transformations for which no viable mechanism has ever been proposed, via the obfuscating factor of billions of years. "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."  Eccl 3:11 It is simple enough to imagine that a fish spawned with a mutant gene that resulted in a slightly modified eye shape and which gave it an increased vision range, making it more...

As Christmas approaches, I thought it would be fitting to consider an issue I've heard raised in a few places over the years. The most famous example might be when the Hasidic-clad diamond thieves are discussing the Virgin Mary at the start of the movie, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", written and directed by Guy Ritchie who was married to Madonna at the time. I believe without a doubt that this was expressive of her view of Isaiah 7:14 as interpreted by the Kabbalah, which she was/is following. In any case, the issue, briefly summarized, is this. In Isaiah 7:14, the scripture says, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." The Hebrew word here translated "virgin" is 'almah, which arguably means girl or young woman of marriageable age. So some have claimed that 'virgin' is not necessarily part of the essential meaning of the word and so it ...