Fr. Gilles' Website

Women religious orders that are in SERIOUS TROUBLE because they’ve adopted false spiritualities – “New Age” and other occult practices - in a letter found on the Web Sep. 17, 2007.

At this website by various means we seek to defend life, to encourage Christian faith, to promote Catholic tradition, to edify Marriage in its link to the Creator, to encourage families and individuals, and to support missionary disciples of Jesus. G.S.

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Johnnette's current website & contact info

https://www.womenofgrace.com

PO BOX 15907, Clearwater, FL 33766

Phone: 1-800-558-5452

Email: info@womenofgrace.com

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__from the desk of Johnnette Benkovic

Dear FAITHFUL CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN,

I had to write you this letter today to tell you about a serious problem happening in many Catholic parishes. This problem could spiritually devastate your loved ones.

I’m talking about women religious orders that are in SERIOUS TROUBLE because they’ve adopted false spiritualities – “New Age” and other occult practices. Yes, a lot of religious sisters have wandered off to fables (2 Tim. 4:4). I wish I were joking, but I’m not. And I’ll prove it in a moment.

How could this affect you and your loved ones? It might be something as simple as an announcement in your parish bulletin saying that Sister Jean, for example, is offering her Reiki class after Mass. What’s Reiki? It's one of the things I’ve warned against on television, radio, and in public forums.

It claims to be a harmless method of healing. But it isn’t. It can be a portal to demonic influence.

The problem is that many religious sisters have been taken in by the new age and its false spiritualities. And because many pastors aren’t aware of the dangers of New Age occultism, spiritually dangerous programs often sneak in to parishes and retreat centers under the radar.

And that’s why you and your loved ones could be placed in a position of spiritual peril.

You’re probably wondering, “Is the problem really that bad?” Well, don’t take my word for it. Judge for yourself.

One of my friends wrote to me about a shocking program for young mothers being offered in her parish. The essence of this program was that God is female! My friend got an appointment with the Archbishop to discuss this outrageous program, and the very next day it was cancelled!

But like mushrooms, these weird programs keep popping up. A year later at a parish near the one that had the “God is female” program, an ex-nun offered a “healing touch” seminar. Here’s the kicker: At the seminar she elevated her Hindu “guru,” Si Baba, next to Jesus Christ.

As if that weren’t bad enough, at the next seminar, this misguided ex-nun taught how to “channel spirits.” Two concerned Catholics contacted the Archdiocese about this disaster, and the program was cancelled that very day.

Whenever you spot a “New Age” program in a parish or at a retreat center or at a Catholic school, I recommend that you contact the bishop about it. The bishops who know the faith are serious about eliminating all the demonic “New Age” programs from their dioceses – if only someone draws it to their attention.

Modernist nuns lead chant: “We are all mothers of God”

This is a problem all over America. One California diocese has a “Spiritual Renewal Center” staffed by two women religious. The modernist sisters invite people to “come into union with Earth-Wisdom.” Their brochure offers “Spirituality for the 21^st Century,” including “cosmic awareness,” ecology, energy balancing, and emphasizes the importance of being “in touch with earth.”

Those who are looking for a “spring equinox celebration” can find it at the sisters’ retreat center – on the Feast of St. Joseph with no mention at all of this great saint! At this celebration, the group sits around a coffee table with everyone’s attention focused on an abalone shell and a bowl of earth.

Catholic teaching strictly forbids such pagan practices. Doesn’t it grieve you that these weird “New Age” earth-worshipping practices are promoted in place of authentic Christian worship? It pains me deeply.

And these pagan practices can lead people into Hell for all eternity. See Paragraphs 2115 -2117 in the Catechism.

To make matters even worse, at the autumn equinox celebration the participants pray this prayer: “My heart pulses in rhythm with Hindu flutes that delight Krishna [a false god] and the chimes of Buddhist temple bells.” How sad! These sisters and their participants have forgotten their first love – Jesus Christ. May they remember to Whom they are espoused.

An innocent-looking announcement in a parish bulletin advertised a “celebration of the unity and diversity of all creation.” It turned out to be a New Age “Meal for Earth and Water, Air and Fire.” The participants chanted: “We are all mothers of God.”

Lest we forget, there is only one Mother of God. Her name is Mary!

Shocking as it may sound, many women religious have gotten lured into witchcraft, New Age, and pro-abortion causes.

EWTN host Fr. Mitch Pacwa, an authority on New Age, points out that some Catholic parishes actually give workshops about astrology, channeling, and the enneagram (an occult method of personality analysis).

WARNING: Please don’t read these paragraphs if you have high blood pressure

WARNING: What I’m going to tell you next may really disturb you. So if you have high blood pressure, you should skip the next three paragraphs.

The New Age enthusiasts within the Catholic Church even hold conferences. At one such conference, sponsored by the left-of-liberal organization Call to Action, the attendees celebrated Mass in a whole new way:

The “Mass” was held in a big dining hall, and each table elected a representative to go up and get the bread and wine, which was supplied to everyone at each table. Everyone – women included – said the words of consecration. Everyone concelebrated the Mass by elevating the Host.

And for a mere five dollars, any woman who wanted to be vested as a priest could rent a stole!

What an outrageous perversion of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What an insult to our beloved Eucharistic priesthood and to the One who instituted it.

A well-attended Catholic conference on women and spirituality promoted a variety of false beliefs:

Promoted pagan goddess worship
Fostered a sense of victim mentality
Mocked sin
Claimed the only sin is discrimination against women
Featured pagan rituals in the workshops
Encouraged women to establish covens (A coven is a group of 13 witches, representing the dark counterpart to Christ and the 12 apostles.)
Taught women how to cast a spell during a Wiccan ritual. (Wicca is a form of witchcraft.)

How I wish I were joking

I wish I were joking. I wish I were exaggerating. But I’m not. All of these shocking facts are documented. If you’re interested, you can read all about them in Donna Steichen’s book Ungodly Rage and elsewhere.

This demonic New Age movement is also a problem at parochial schools and Catholic colleges. That’s right. It’s not uncommon for Catholic schools to offer such New Age programs as “The Goddess and the Wild Woman” and “Her Holiness: Maiden, Mother Crone.” Croning is a witchcraft initiation ritual.

And incredible as it sounds, a “WomenSpirit Rising” workshop was presented at the provincial motherhouse of a major order of nuns. Another order has promoted labyrinth walks, Reiki, and other New Age practices.

Desperate nun says “We’re in trouble,” begs for help!

I have such a deep respect for the vocation to religious life, and I am so grateful to the wonderful religious sisters that taught me through all twelve years of parochial education. What a deep and lasting impression they made on me and my life of faith. Perhaps that is why it grieves me deeply to see so many of today’s women religious wandering off to “fables.” Our culture is desperate for the authentic witness of their vocation! We need them in the world today.

Let me tell you about an urgent call for help we received at the apostolate from a religious sister whose community is in serious trouble. In desperation, she said, “We’ve lost our way.” She said her community has established such programs as “the call for love of Mother Earth” and “the goddess within.” She also told me the sisters celebrate the phases of the moon and the seasons “in our newly built kiva.”

“Kiva”? What’s that, you’re probably wondering? Well, it’s a Pueblo Indian ceremonial structure that’s usually round and partly underground. In other words, it’s a structure used for the Indians’ pantheistic pagan rites.

Pagan shrines to false gods don’t belong in a convent, period.

When this religious sister asked for our help, I couldn’t turn her down. We supplied her with the solution to the radical feminist New Age “goddess” nonsense. I rushed her the Women of Grace ® Foundational Study Material. She calls it “the perfect antidote.”

She told me, “For many years now, the leadership of our community and all those who follow or fear the leaders never mention the Name of Jesus. Women of Grace will make a big change in this regard, bring us back to our original gift of ourselves to Jesus by our vows, and will help us appreciate the true gift of being a woman.”

Many communities of nuns are in trouble. And you and I are in a position to help them. Funds permitting, I’d like to send our Women of Grace ® Foundational Study Material to convents all over America. This would do a world of good and prevent a world of harm. That’s because many religious sisters serve parishes.

Make no mistake: So many religious sisters do such good. But so many misguided ones are causing great harm and great confusion.

What I want to send to women religious all over America – funds permitting – is a big box of valuable, life-changing information. This information will encourage them, strengthen them, and help them grow in faithfulness to their vocation. It includes:

My 234-page book Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life. Convert Ronda Chervin calls it “a beautiful woman-to-woman book on the way to holiness for Catholic women.”
The 95-page facilitator’s guide booklet: Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life.
The 232-page study guide workbook: Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life. Each chapter features the inspiring story of two saintly women: heroines of the faith that true Catholic women can relate to.
An inspiring CD of the Women of Grace theme song, written and performed by Lynn Cooper. This amazing song is touching the hearts and uniting true Catholic women – Women of Grace – from coast to coast.
A video lecture series on four VHS tapes or DVDs covering all aspects of true Catholic spirituality for women – everything that’s needed for living the Abundant Life!
A beautifully designed tote bag imprinted with the Women of Grace emblem. It features enough pockets and pouches to easily contain all the Women of Grace ® Foundational Study materials. This makes it convenient for the group leader to bring all the materials to the meetings.

Moslem fanatic slashes saintly woman’s throat

If I had the time and the space, I’d tell you the inspiring stories of the saints I featured in my workbook. Well, I can’t resist telling you about one of these saints. Blessed Mary of Christ Crucified lived amidst Moslems in Egypt. Enraged by her stubborn refusal to convert to Islam, a Moslem fanatic cut her throat. She nearly bled to death, but she survived. She remained faithful to Jesus Christ in the most difficult circumstances.

Another saintly woman I featured, Dorothy Day, had had an abortion early in life. But she repented and became one of the most outstanding Catholics of the 20^th century. Yet another, St. Margaret of Corrona, lived with a man out of wedlock for several years. She repented and became a heroine of the faith. These stories set women’s hearts aflame.

How to get the life-changing tools to protect your loved ones

Because of the severity of the New Age crisis facing the Church, I’m going to ask you to consider, if possible, making an extraordinary tax-deductible gift. (Please note that the offer originally here in this part of the letter is now dated. For current offers and resources please go to the Women of Grace website and store: https://www.womenofgrace.com https://shop.womenofgrace.com

The saint who converted her adulterous, free-spending husband

(This text refers to the same dated offer no longer in effect.) (In this box you’ll get all six amazing items mentioned above. You’ll get ALL the inspiring stories of women who became great saints, including the Jewish convert St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross who was martyred at Auschwitz. You’ll read the stories of great mystics like St. Teresa of Avila and St. Gertrude the Great.

You’ll get the astonishing story of St. Catherine of Genoa, who overcame a miserable marriage and even helped convert her adulterous, free-spending husband! Another heroine, St. Gianna Beretta Molla, sacrificed her own life instead of having the abortion her doctors recommended. Her baby lived. And there are many more inspiring stories as well.

In short, you’ll get the very package I want to send to women religious around the United States, and your gift will help me to do that.

To show my appreciation, I’ll also include 3 programs from The Abundant Life. In these DVD’s our guest will tell you all about the New Age Movement, yoga and energy work, and reiki. I’ll also include an autographed copy of my book, The New Age Counterfeit. I’ve had priests tell me it is excellent and they keep it handy. This may be our best premium offer ever!)

Please make a gift commensurate with your means. New Age techniques and practices are causing such confusion and chaos in so many Catholic parishes and retreat houses. Your gift will help me spread our urgent message and change more lives. Furthermore, your gift will help me keep all of our projects going full throttle through the financially difficult summer. As I’ve mentioned to you in the past, it’s tough to raise funds in the summer. (July 2007)

I’ll gratefully accept your gift – whatever the amount. No gift is too small, and no gift is too large. Please pray about my request, pray for the success of our life-changing projects, and sacrifice whatever the Lord inspires you to give.

P.S. Your tax-deductible gift will help me reach souls and change lives. I have no one to turn to but friends like you to meet the enormous challenge ahead. Please pray for our apostolate, and be assured of my prayers for you at Mass. Please click here to makeyour sacrificial gift now.

In His service,

Johnnette Benkovic

https://www.womenofgrace.com

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC

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Bahraini Liberal Author Dhiyaa Al-Musawi: We Hang Our Thinkers on the Gallows of Ideology - I Listen to Music and Placed Pictures of Jesus and Martin Luther King in My Home - January 25, 2007

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Following are excerpts from an interview with Bahraini intellectual Dhiyaa Al-Musawi, which aired on Abu Dhabi TV on December 29, 2006.

https://www.memri.org/reports/bahraini-liberal-author-dhiyaa-al-musawi-we-hang-our-thinkers-gallows-ideology-i-listen

Dhiyaa Al-Musawi: I do not believe in gallows of ideology. Our problem in the Arab world is that we have many gallows of ideology and of accusations of social betrayal, on which we try to hang an intellectual, a thinker, or a poet every day, just like in the case of Naguib Mahfouz and others. We, I'm sad to say, are against creativity and civilization, and against any language that seeks common ground in society.

We must have the courage to get rid of the “backward” cholesterol of ideology, accumulating in the arteries of Arab awareness and the Arab mind. We suffer from backwardness. This is not masochism - the kind psychologists talk about - acts of self-flagellation. This is the truth. We have not developed even to the point of admitting defeat. We [have to] admit our cultural defeat. In the past, we had a civilization in Andalusia and in many other places, but today we are regressing – we export violence, we terrorize whole countries, we threaten national security, and many other things.

We need to reform and to reshape religious thinking, because, in all honesty, the pulpits of our mosques have begun to "booby trap" the people.

Interviewer: In what way?

Dhiyaa Al-Musawi: They booby trap them by generating hatred towards "the other." We have claimed a monopoly over Paradise, and each of us has recorded it in the land registry in his name.

Interviewer: But the pulpits are under government supervision.

Some of them are under government supervision, but in some Arab countries, although they are under government supervision, the government itself encourages the booby trapping. This problem has political reasons, but who pays the price? The country, society, civil society, and the young man, who is being told that the black-eyed virgins await him at the gates of Paradise, and that all he has to do is kill himself, to slaughter himself. He might blow up his family and children to get the virgins of Paradise. This is the language and culture of death. We were not born into this world in order to die this way. The beauty of Man lies in his living for the sake of his homeland, not in dying while booby trapping others.

In the Arab world, we have religious clerics who are beacons [of knowledge], but I think the problem is that we are constantly intimidating the public. We talk only about Hell, and not about Paradise at all. The Koran is balanced. It talks about the fire of Hell and the fruits of Paradise, but we constantly preach about the horrors of Judgment Day, saying that a bald Satan, or a bald serpent, would visit them in the grave. It is constant terror. It is always a dark picture. Why? That is the problem. Unfortunately, some young men – out of a wrong interpretation of religion... The moment he becomes religious, he ceases to smile and to greet others. He accuses some people of heresy and others of sin. He begins all that discourse. He hates music, and refuses to dress neatly. His mind is abducted into the dungeons of ideology, I'm sad to say.

Interviewer: Let me ask you a question. If a Shiite, or even a Sunni, becomes a religious cleric, yet he listens to music, can the Arab public possibly accept him?

Dhiyaa Al-Musawi: In my view, the Arab disposition suffers from many problems. We have destroyed many things, including the beauty of the general disposition. Music is a beautiful thing...

Interviewer: Do you listen to music?

Dhiyaa Al-Musawi: Yes, I listen to music. I listen to classical music, and I think Beethoven's symphonies are very beautiful. They are among the masterpieces of human art. I believe that music develops the spirit of Man and humbles him. What is wrong with that?

As for the policy of non-violence, I'd like to give you the example of Gandhi, whom I consider a hero. If only we could obtain some of Gandhi's genes, and plant them in the brains of our youth in the Arab world..

Interviewer: In your home, you have pictures of Martin Luther King and Jesus on the wall.

Dhiyaa Al-Musawi: In my home, I put up a picture of Jesus, because whenever I look at his picture, worlds of peace and love open up before me. It was Jesus who said: "Love thy enemies, bless them who curse thee." We need this beautiful language in our society. I also have a picture of Gandhi, whom I consider to be a very fine person, and whose [image] we should plant in the minds of our youth.

Some of us say: "May Allah curse the Jews and the Christians, the offspring of apes and pigs." Is this the language of progress? Is this the language of enlightenment and tolerance? If you had been born in Rome, you would have been Christian, if you had been born in Tehran, you would have been Shiite, and if you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would have been Sunni, and so on. How wonderful it would be if all these people could gather in love around the table of humanity.

Nations that read more are the nations that are most respected, like the Western nations, where people read... When you travel to Switzerland, everywhere you go - on the bus or wherever - you see people reading books. Do you see such sights in the Arab world?

The problem of the Arab youth is that they do not read. As Gustave le Bon wrote in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, the Arab youth sometimes smile while they are taken to the slaughterhouse. Why? Because they lack awareness. We suffer from illiteracy. Today, the Arab world has, according to a U.N. report, close to 70 million illiterate adults – in other words, 70 million people whom you can booby trap, against their country and society, because they do not read.

https://www.memri.org/reports/bahraini-liberal-author-dhiyaa-al-musawi-we-hang-our-thinkers-gallows-ideology-i-listen

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization providing translations of the Middle East media and original analysis and research on developments in the region. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.

MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.

The Middle East Media Research Institute
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: [202] 955-9070 Fax: [202] 955-9077 E-Mail: memri@memri.org
Search previous MEMRI publications at our website: www.memri.org

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THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE - By: Dr. Gerald Schroeder (This text found May 22, 2006 - current update at the linked source - October 2013)

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THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE

By: Dr. Gerald Schroeder

(This text found May 22, 2006 - current update October 2013)

http://geraldschroeder.com/wordpress/?page_id=53

In our discussion of God’s making and creating our magnificent universe, we’ve reached the stage at which we must elaborate on the time-line as described in Genesis chapter one. From comments submitted by readers of the pervious chapters in our Genesis Project, there seems to be the impression that we differ from the Biblical statement that six days passed between the creation of the universe and the creation of humankind. I make this definitive: I take the Bible as it stands.

Yet, one of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data? When we add up the generations of the Bible, we come to 5700-plus years. Whereas data from the Hubbell telescope or from the land based telescopes in Hawaii, indicate the age at 14 to 15 billion years.

Let me clarify right at the start. The world may be only some 6000 years old. God could have put the fossils in the ground and juggled the light arriving from distant galaxies to make the world appear to be billions of years old. There is absolutely no way to disprove this claim. God being infinite could have made the world that way. But there is another approach that also agrees with the ancient commentators’ description of God and nature. The world may be young and old simultaneously, and simultaneously with absolutely no bending of the wording of the Bible to match science. In the following I describe this latter option. Please bear with me as we go together through the text of Genesis, finding the “apples of gold” [the deeper meanings] within the “silver dish” of the Bible (see Proverbs 25:11).

In all that follows and in all of my research and writings, I refuse to use any modern Biblical commentary. All modern commentators know sufficient modern science to be influenced by the science. The trend becomes to bend the Bible to match the science. The classic example is to claim that since science has discovered that the world appears to be approximately 14 to 15 billion years old, then “let’s says that the six days of Genesis were not really days, but instead were indefinite, long periods of time.” Rest assured, you will not get that insulting, trivial and misleading message here. It is simply a modern attempt to bend the Bible to match the science. We’ll discover that there is no need to either bend the Bible or the science. As the 12^th century theologian Maimonides taught in The Guide For The Perplexed. If you find a conflict between science and the Bible, there is usually one of two possibilities. Either you don’t understand the science or you don’t understand the Bible. Let’s try to understand both.

The only data I use as far as Biblical commentary goes is ancient commentary. That means the text of the Bible itself (3300 years ago), the translation of the Torah into Aramaic by Onkelos (100 CE), the Talmud (redacted about the year 500 CE), and the three major Torah commentators. There are many, many commentators, but at the top of the mountain there are three: Rashi (11th century France), who brings the straight understanding of the text, Maimonides (12th century Egypt), who handles the philosophical concepts, and then Nahmanides (13th century Spain), the earliest of the Kabbalists.

These ancient commentaries were finalized hundreds or thousands of years ago. There is no possibility modern scientific data influenced these concepts. That's an essential and absolute component in keeping the following discussion objective.

At the out-set, it is instructive to look historically at trends in the assumed age of the universe. Absolute proofs are not forthcoming. None-the-less, we can and should see how science has changed its picture of the world, relative to the unchanging Biblical picture of the Genesis of our world.

In 1959, a survey was taken of leading American scientists. Among the many questions asked was, "What is your concept of the age of the universe?" In 1959, astronomy was popular, but a deep understanding the universe was just developing. The response to that survey was recently republished in Scientific American - the most widely read science journal in the world. Two-thirds of the scientists, that is the overwhelming majority, gave the same answer: Beginning? There was no beginning. Aristotle and Plato taught us 2400 years ago that the universe is eternal. Oh, we know the Bible says 'In the beginning.' That's a nice story, it helps kids go to bed at night. But we sophisticates know better. There was no beginning.

That was 1959, less than 50 years ago. Then came the discoveries, in 1965, by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. They revealed that the entire universe in all directions is bathed in a sea of very long wave of very ‘cold,’ radiation. They had discovered the echo of the big bang, the radiation left over from that intense vastly hot moment that marked the beginning. It was the one piece of information needed to nail down whether or not our universe had a beginning. For this they earned the Nobel Prize. Over night the world paradigm changed from a universe that was eternal to a universe that had a creation. Understand the impact. Science said that our universe had a beginning, that the first words of the Bible are correct. I can't over emphasize the importance of this scientific "discovery." Evolution, cave men, these are all trivial problems compared to the fact that science has come to agree with the Biblical statement that our universe had a creation.

Of course, the fact that there was a beginning does not prove that there was a Beginner, a God who “created the Heavens and the Earth." Physics allows for a beginning without a beginner. But having proven that there was a creation goes a long way toward opening the door for the likelihood of a Divine, Godly Creator. I'm not going to get into that today, but my book, "The Science of God," examines this in great detail.

Having established the validity of the Creation, the question we're left with is, how long ago did the "beginning" occur? Was it, as the Bible might imply, 5700-plus years, or was it the billions of years accepted by the scientific community?

The Biblical calendar is calculated by adding up the generations listed in the Bible. But the first aspect we have to understand is the zero point at which we start the calculation. This was established well over 1500 years ago and recorded in the Talmudic teachings, not as some new and surprising fact, but as common knowledge. The Biblical calendar is divided into two parts. We have a clock that begins with Adam. The six days of Genesis that lead up to Adam form a calendar unto themselves, separate from the time after Adam. The Bible has two clocks.

That might seem like a modern rationalization, if it were not for the established fact that Talmudic commentaries, 1500 years ago, bring this information. The calendar that leads to approximately 6,000 years begins with Genesis, chapter one, verse 27 in which God created the soul of the Adam. [Beware of erroneous translations.] The Six Days of Genesis are separate.

Now 1500 years ago, when this information was first recorded, it wasn't because the commentators were trying to match science. Remove yourself from the sophistication of 2006. You have to put yourself in the mind frame of 1500 years ago, when people traveled by donkeys and we didn't have electricity or even zippers. Most thought the world was flat and beasts or demons inhabited the other side. The Six Days were taken out of the calendar because time as described in the Bible is broken into two parts. Time is described in a unique manner in those Six Days of Genesis. "There was evening and morning," day by day.

Once we come to Adam, the flow of time is totally in human terms. Adam and Eve live 130 years and have a child named Seth. Seth lives 105 years and has a child named Enosh (Genesis chapter 5). From Adam forward, the flow of time is totally human in concept. Vastly differing from the previous "evening and morning" sequences.

Moses, himself, broke the calendar into two parts. In his closing speech to the people, Moses said if you want to see the fingerprint of God in the universe, "Remember the days of old, consider the years of the many generations" (Deut. 32:7). The Kabalist Nahmanides (ca. 1250) taught that ‘Remember the days of old’ relates is the Six Days of Genesis. ‘The years of the many generations' is all the time from Adam forward." ??

In trying to understand the flow of time, we have to remember that the entire Six Days is described in 31 sentences. The Six Days of Genesis, which have given people so many headaches in trying to understand science vis-à-vis the Bible are confined to 31 sentences! At MIT, in the Hayden library, we had about 50,000 books that deal with the development of the universe: cosmology, chemistry, thermodynamics, paleontology, archaeology, the high-energy physics of creation. Up the river at Harvard, at the Weidner library, they probably have 100,000 books on these same topics. The Bible gives us 31 sentences. Don't expect that by a simple reading of those sentences, you'll know every detail that is held within the text. It's obvious that we have to dig deeper to get the information out.

Now, again, put yourself into the mindset of 1500 years ago. Do you think that 1500 years ago they thought that God couldn't make the world in 6 days? We have a problem today with the claims of an old universe based on scientific data. But 1500 years ago, what's the problem with 6 days for an infinitely powerful God? No problem. If fact if we think about it, six days is not too short a time. It is too long! Why should an infinitely powerful creator need six days. Why not have it all in a snap of the Divine fingers.

So when the commentators excluded these six days from the calendar, it wasn't because they were trying to rationalize what they'd seen in some telescope or the local museum. There were no telescopes and no local museum. No one was out there digging up ancient fossils. They excluded the Six Days of Genesis from the calendar because those days do not fit.

Let's look at those evocative Six Days of Genesis as they are recoded in the Bible.

Each day of creation is numbered. Yet there is discontinuity in the way the days are numbered. At the end of the first day, we read: "There is evening and morning, day one." But the second day doesn't say "evening and morning, day two." Rather, we find "evening and morning, a second day." And the Torah continues with this pattern: "Evening and morning, a third day... a fourth day... a fifth day... the sixth day." Only on the first day does the text use a different form: not "first day," but "Day One" ("Yom Ehad"). Many English translations make the mistake of writing "a first day." That's because editors want things to be nice and consistent. But they throw out the cosmic message in the text! As Nahmanides wrote almost 800 years ago, there is a qualitative difference between "one" and "first." One is absolute; first is comparative. For the Bible to have written “a first day,” there would have had to have been a second day. First is relative to the second.

Nahmanides explained and scientific opinion centuries later confirmed that on Day One time was created. Hence at the creation, there was no second day with which to compare it. That by itself is a phenomenal insight. Time was created. You can't grab time. You don't even see it. You can move your hand through space, you can see matter, you can feel energy. I understand a creation there. But the creation of time? Eight hundred years ago, Nahmanides attained this insight from the Torah's use of the phrase, "Day One.”

We look at the universe, and wonder about its age? We look back through the history of the world’s genesis and discover the billions of years from the creation of Adam back to the creation of our universe. That's our view of time. But the Bible's view of that same flow of events is seen, not as history looking back in time, but instead from the beginning looking forward. That is the secret, the ‘golden apple,’ of the verse, “and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” A view from a moment before which there was a second day with which to compare it.

This might imply that perhaps those unique six days were not actually 24 hours each. But this is not the case. No such simple explanation is possible because every ancient commentary, with no exception, and that includes the Talmud (in the section called Holidays, ca. 500), and Rashi (ca. 1090), and Nahmanides (that is the kabala, ca. 1250) all tell us that the Six Days of Genesis were six 24-hour periods “not longer than the six days of our work week. [!]”

Nachmanides continues the statement: although the days are 24 hours each, they contain "kol yemot ha-olam" - all the ages and all the secrets of the world. Six 24 hour days contain all the ages of the universe. How?

Again, the Kabala as derived from the Bible: Before the universe, there was only God. Then suddenly the entire creation appeared as a minuscule speck, with a dimension not larger than the black pupil of an eye, perhaps akin to the size of a grain of mustard. That was the only physical creation. There was no other physical creation. All other creations were spiritual. The creations of the Nefesh (the soul of animal life, Genesis 1:21) and the Neshama (the soul of human life, Genesis 1:27) are spiritual creations. That first speck of space contained all the substance that would be used for making everything else. Nachmanides describes the substance as "dak me'od, ein bo mamash" - very thin, no graspable substance to it. As this speck expanded out, this substance - so thin that it has no material essence - turned into matter as we know it.

Nachmanides further writes: "Misheyesh, yitfos bo zman" - from the moment that matter formed from this substance-less substance, time grabs hold. Not "time begins," but “time grabs hold.” Time was created at the very beginning. But time "grabbed hold" when matter condensed, congealed, coalesced, out of this substance so thin it has no material essence. The Biblical clock of the six days starts then.

Science has shown that only one "substance-less substance" exists that can be compressed so densely that all the eventual matter of the universe, the makings for 100 billion galaxies each to contain 100 billion stars, can be pressed into a speck no larger that the black of an eye, and that can later then change into matter. And that is energy, the super-powerful light beams of the creation. Energy is ultimately compressible. Einstein's famous equation, E=MC2, tells us the numerical relationship between matter and the energy from which is it constructed. At the speed of light, time does not exist. Once light beams change form and become matter, they enter the realm of time. Time literally grabs hold when matter forms from the light beams of the big bang creation. Keep in mind that this understanding of our cosmic genesis was written centuries prior to the scientific discoveries that have confirmed it.

Nachmanides has made a phenomenal statement. I wonder if he knew the Laws of Relativity. But we know them now. We know that energy - light beams, radio waves, gamma rays, x-rays - all travel at the speed of light, 300 million meters per second. At the speed of light, time does not pass. The universe was aging, but time only grabbed hold when matter formed from the energy. This moment of time before the Biblical clock begins lasted about 1/100,000 of a second. A miniscule time. But in that time, the universe expanded from a tiny speck. The Biblical clock, the Biblical perspective of time for the six days, begins here.

The laws of relativity and the discoveries of astronomy and cosmology tell us that three aspect of our wonderful universe affect the flow and perception of time. In locations of high velocity or high gravity time flows more slowly relative to (and hence the name, the laws of relativity) locations of lower velocity or gravity. The third aspect that affects the perspective of time is the stretching of space as the universe expands. It is this third aspect of time with which I work. Gravity and velocity do not enter the calculations.

We look back in time, and say the universe is approximately 14 to 15 billion years old. But every scientist knows, that when we say the universe is 15 billion years old, there's another half of the sentence that we never say. The full statement sentence is: The universe is 14 to 15 billion years old as measured from the time-space coordinates that we exist in on earth. But what would those billions of years be as perceived from near the beginning looking forward, from a moment in time when the universe was vastly smaller? Since then, the universe has expanded out. Space stretched. And that stretching of space totally changes the perception of time. The following discussion is based totally on Nahmanides and the Kabala’s millennia old insight of viewing time from near the beginning and the effect of the stretching of space on the perspective of time.

If we were to view with some superbly powerful telescope events happening in a galaxy billions of light years away, we’d see those events only after the light had traveled to us through the space between the distant galaxy and us. But as the light traveled, the space through which it sped was stretching, and so the events as we viewed them would be stretched out in time. What may have happened in a few seconds could appear to use as happening in periods of hours or years or millennia depending upon how much space had stretched. If the universe had stretched to be 100 times larger by the time the light reached us, then what actually took one hour would appear to us as taking 100 hours, if one second then to us it would appear a 100 seconds. To know the actual timing on that distant galaxy, we’d have to divide our observation by that ratio factor of stretching. In this case it would be dividing by100.

Today, we look back in time. We see some 15 billion years of history. But the Torah, looking forward from when the universe was vastly smaller - billions of times smaller – teaches six days. In truth, they are both correct. And correct with absolutely no bending of either the Bible or the science.

What's exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the "view of time" from the beginning, relative to the "view of time" today. It's not science fiction any longer. Any one of a dozen physics or astronomy textbooks all bring the same number. The general expansion factor, the change between the scale or size of the universe from near the beginning at the moment of stable matter formation (nucleosynthesis is the term) to now is a million million, a trillion. That's a 1 with 12 zeros after it. It is a unitless ratio. The universe is now a trillion times larger than it was at nucleosynthesis. When a view from the beginning looking forward says "The following events happened in one day," we would see those very same events lasting a trillion days. That's the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe. In astronomy, the term is “red shift”.

The Torah tells us that from the perspective of Day One, six days passed between the creation of the universe and the creation of Adam. How would we see those six days? From our perspective in time, looking back into history those six 24 hour periods would stretch into six million million days.

Six million million days is a very interesting number. What would that be in years? Divide by 365 and it comes out to be 16 billion years. Not a bad ‘guess’ for 3300 years ago. When we correct for the fact that Adam received the Neshama, the soul of human life, during the sixth day and not at its very end and so less than six complete days passed, and for the recent observations that the universe is actually increasing in its rate of expansion, the calculated age of the universe decreases by approximately 10% to 14 billion years.

The way the scientific and the Biblical ‘ages’ match is extraordinary. I'm not speaking as a theologian; I'm making a scientific claim. I didn't pull these numbers out of hat. That's why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so the derivation based totally on ancient biblical commentary and modern science can be followed step-by-step.

Now we can go one step further. Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day. Every time the universe increases in scale by a given factor, the time as perceived at the beginning is divided by that same factor. When the universe was small, its rate of doubling was very rapid. But as the universe got larger, the time it took to double in scale took ever longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook published by Princeton University Press, and used literally around the world. The decreasing in the factorial rate of growth tells us that the early 24 hour days of the Genesis week contained most of the historical time as we perceive it.

The calculations come out to be as follows:

The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.

The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.

The third 24 hour day also included half of the previous day, 2 billion years.

The fourth 24 hour day - one billion years.

The fifth 24 hour day - one-half billion years.

The sixth 24 hour day - one-quarter billion years.

When we add up the Six Days, we find that the time between the big bang creation and the creation of the Adam is 15 and 3/4 billion years. Again, correcting for the fact that Adam received the Neshama part way through the sixth day and that the universe is actually increasing in its rate of expansion, the age becomes approximately 14 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?

But there's more. The Bible is so certain that it brings the truth that it tells us what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match the Biblical claims day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up the spine of even a confirmed atheist.

END

http://geraldschroeder.com/wordpress/?page_id=53

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Applying the above, with the adjustment suggested at the end, here are the numbers we come up with:

Day one - 6.9942856 billion years ago LIGHT

Second day - 3.495 billion years ago SKY (PLANET EARTH)

Third day - 1.7475 billion years ago DRY LAND & VEGETATION

Fourth day - 0.87375 billion years ago or 873,750,000 years ago SUN, MOON, STARS

Fifth day - 0.436875 billion years ago or 436,875,000 years ago BIRDS & FISH

Sixth day - 0.2184375 billion years ago or 218,437,500 years ago CATTLE, ANIMALS, INSECTS
(Human beings coming at the "end" of this period) MAN & WOMAN

Today - 13.765847 or 13,765,847,000 billion years later

FASCINATING!!!

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The One Church of Jesus Coming - By Fr. Thomas Ryan, C.S.P. in "A Survival Guide For Ecumenically Minded Christians"

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The One Church of Jesus Coming

By Fr. Thomas Ryan, C.S.P. in

A Survival Guide For Ecumenically Minded Christians

When God puts us back together again, with the aide of our 
willingness to cooperate, this great church will be marked by....

The DIGNITY and SCHOLARSHIP of the ANGLICANS

The ORDER and SACRAMENTS of the ROMAN CATHOLICS

The warm FELLOWSHIP of the METHODISTS

The PRESBYTERIAN desire for GOOD PREACHING

The LUTHERAN respect for SOUND THEOLOGY

There will be

The BAPTIST concern for INDIVIDUAL SALVATION

The CONGREGATIONAL respect for the RIGHTS OF THE LAY MEMBERS

The PENTECOSTAL reliance on the power of THE HOLY SPIRIT

The QUAKER appreciation for SILENCE

The MENNONITE sense of COMMUNITY

The SALVATION ARMY'S respect for SOCIAL ACTION

The REFORMED love of THE HOLY BIBLE

(And may I be so bold as to add...

The EVANGELICAL zeal for proclaiming the GOSPEL.... - G.S.)

All wrapped in ORTHODOX REVERENCE before the MYSTERY OF GOD!

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When Muslims divided people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they began this war.

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Feb 21, 2006 View This Video MEMRI TV

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: There Is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century

#1050 | 05:28
Source: Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar)

Following are excerpts from an interview with Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan. The interview was aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 21, 2006

Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.

[...]

Host: I understand from your words that what is happening today is a clash between the culture of the West, and the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims?

Wafa Sultan: Yes, that is what I mean.

[...]

Host: Who came up with the concept of a clash of civilizations? Was it not Samuel Huntington? It was not Bin Laden. I would like to discuss this issue, if you don't mind...

Wafa Sultan: The Muslims are the ones who began using this expression. The Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations. The Prophet of Islam said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and His Messenger." When the Muslims divided the people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to stop this war, they must reexamine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels.

My colleague has said that he never offends other people's beliefs. What civilization on the face of this earth allows him to call other people by names that they did not choose for themselves? Once, he calls them Ahl Al-Dhimma, another time he calls them the "People of the Book," and yet another time he compares them to apes and pigs, or he calls the Christians "those who incur Allah's wrath." Who told you that they are "People of the Book"? They are not the People of the Book, they are people of many books. All the useful scientific books that you have today are theirs, the fruit of their free and creative thinking. What gives you the right to call them "those who incur Allah's wrath," or "those who have gone astray," and then come here and say that your religion commands you to refrain from offending the beliefs of others?

I am not a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew. I am a secular human being. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I respect others' right to believe in it.

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: Are you a heretic?

Wafa Sultan: You can say whatever you like. I am a secular human being who does not believe in the supernatural...

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Khouli: If you are a heretic, there is no point in rebuking you, since you have blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran...

Wafa Sultan: These are personal matters that do not concern you.

[...]

Wafa Sultan: Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.

[...]

Wafa Sultan: The Jews have come from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.

https://www.memri.org/tv/arab-american-psychiatrist-wafa-sultan-there-no-clash-civilizations-clash-between-mentality

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Astrologers Fail To Predict Proof They Are Wrong By Robert Matthews of The Telegraph - London UK - August 17, 2003

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Astrologers Fail To Predict Proof They Are Wrong By Robert Matthews

telegraph.co.uk (Filed: 17/08/2003)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1439101/Astrologers-fail-to-predict-proof-they-are-wrong.html

Good news for rational, level-headed Virgoans everywhere: just as you might have predicted, scientists have found astrology to be rubbish, writes Science Correspondent Robert Matthews.

Good news for rational, level-headed Virgoans everywhere: just as you might have predicted, scientists have found astrology to be rubbish. Its central claim - that our human characteristics are moulded by the influence of the Sun, Moon and planets at the time of our birth - appears to have been debunked once and for all and beyond doubt by the most thorough scientific study ever made into it.

For several decades, researchers tracked more than 2,000 people - most of them born within minutes of each other. According to astrology, the subject should have had very similar traits. The babies were originally recruited as part of a medical study begun in London in 1958 into how the circumstances of birth can affect future health. More than 2,000 babies born in early March that year were registered and their development monitored at regular intervals. Researchers looked at more than 100 different characteristics, including occupation, anxiety levels, marital status, aggressiveness, sociability, IQ levels and ability in art, sport, mathematics and reading - all of which astrologers claim can be gauged from birth charts.

The scientists failed to find any evidence of similarities between the "time twins", however. They reported in the current issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies: "The test conditions could hardly have been more conducive to success . . . but the results are uniformly negative." Analysis of the research was carried out by Geoffrey Dean, a scientist and former astrologer based in Perth, Australia, and Ivan Kelly, a psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Dr Dean said the results undermined the claims of astrologers, who typically work with birth data far less precise than that used in the study. "They sometimes argue that times of birth just a minute apart can make all the difference by altering what they call the 'house cusps'," he said. "But in their work, they are happy to take whatever time they can get from a client." The findings caused alarm and anger in astrological circles yesterday. Roy Gillett, the president of the Astrological Association of Great Britain, said the study's findings should be treated "with extreme caution" and accused Dr Dean of seeking to "discredit astrology".

Frank McGillion, a consultant to the Southampton-based Research Group for the Critical Study of Astrology, said of the newly published work: "It is simplistic and highly selective and does not cover all of the research." He added that he would lodge a complaint with the editors of the journal. Astrologers have for centuries claimed to be able to extract deep insights into the personality and destiny of people using nothing more than the details of the time and place of birth. Astrology has been growing in popularity. Surveys suggest that a majority of people in Britain believe in it, compared with only 13 per cent 50 years ago. The Association of Professional Astrologers claims that 80 per cent of Britons read star columns, and psychological studies have found that 60 per cent regularly read their horoscopes.

Despite the scepticism of scientists, astrology has grown to be a huge worldwide business, spawning thousands of telephone lines, internet sites and horoscope columns in newspapers and magazines. It seems that no sector of society is immune to its attraction. A recent survey found that a third of science students subscribed to some aspects of astrology, while some supposedly hard-headed businessmen now support a thriving market in "financial astrology" - paying for predictions of trends such as the rise and fall of the stock market. Astrology supplements have been known to increase newspaper circulation figures and papers are prepared to pay huge sums to the most popular stargazers.

Some of the most popular figures in the field, such as Russell Grant, Mystic Meg and Shelley von Strunckel, can earn £600,000 or more a year. A single profitable astrology website can be worth as much as £50 million. When the Daily Mail discovered that its expert on the zodiac, Jonathan Cainer, was about to leave the newspaper in 1999, it reportedly offered him a £1 million salary and a £1 million bonus to stay. He still preferred the offer at the Daily Express: no salary but all the money from his telephone lines.

The time-twins study is only the start of the bad news for astrologers, however. Dr Dean and Prof Kelly also sought to determine whether stargazers could match a birth chart to the personality profile of a person among a random selection. They reviewed the evidence from more than 40 studies involving over 700 astrologers, but found the results turned out no better than guesswork. The success rate did not improve even when astrologers were given all the information they asked for and were confident they had made the right choice.

Dr Dean said the consistency of the findings weighed heavily against astrology. "It has no acceptable mechanism, its principles are invalid and it has failed hundreds of tests," he said. "But no hint of these problems will be found in astrology books which, in effect, are exercises in deception." Dr Dean is ready for a torrent of criticism. He said: "I'm probably the most hated person in astrology because I'm regarded as a turncoat."

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