Yada Yah
Volume 1: In the Beginning
Why Are We Here?
Part two
Hayah – Existence
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Speaking of these things, let’s take a moment to ponder the massiveness of our earthly spaceship and its universal intergalactic home. There is a reason for its enormous scale in energy, space and time. It had to be precisely like it is for us to exist temporally as stardust transformed into life, and for us to have the option to choose greater dimensions, to be reborn in the Spirit of Light. Should any aspect of the universe differ by so much as one part in a million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 in 10x120), the ripple effect on every other aspect of existence would cause the universe to implode. We could not and would not exist—nor could any form of life. While this does not prove the role of a creator, it does demonstrate just how marvelously creation is tuned for life.
However, in our present form, trapped in the flow of time, humankind will never visit another planet, much less leave our solar system. Three-dimensional mass cannot be accelerated to the speed of light, because the faster something moves, the greater its mass becomes. If an object were to reach the speed of light, its mass would become infinite, filling the entire universe. Further, to move an infinite mass would take an infinite amount of energy—more energy than there is in the universe. Thus, no material thing can ever attain the speed of light, leaving the universal distances far too great to navigate. Complicating the matter, not only is the preponderance of the known universe beyond our reach, but because the most distant stars are moving away from us faster than the speed of light due to the stretching of space, even if we could travel at the speed of light—a physical impossibility—we still wouldn’t be able to get there.
Therefore, our only hope of exploring the universe is to become greater than we are and eternal like our Creator. And when that happens, we will embark on a grand voyage. There are over 100 billion galaxies, each averaging 100 billion stars. Many, if not most, are replete with solar systems, planets, and moons. So when we are born anew in Spirit, and like light can travel through time, we will be able to explore the vastness and brilliance of Yahowah’s creative genius. Since Scripture tells us that we will become like God and be light, we will enjoy the photon’s perspective, where from its point of reference while traversing enormous distances (186,282 miles per second), it appears to travel no distance and takes no time to do so.
While the vast scale of our universe is instructive, suggesting the need for a designer and creator, its minute scale is also thought-provoking. From our perspective, the substance of creation diminishes in scale equally rapidly and marvelously as it expands. The micro realm is comprised of molecules, atoms, electrons, and quarks, retreating infinitely inward beyond our vision. This suggests that our eternal investigations may one day be limitless in all directions and dimensions. This is why even agnostic scientists are anthropocentric—recognizing that man is actually at the center of the universe with regard to scale, and that the cosmos was tuned precisely for human existence. But why was it tuned for our existence and by whom is the question we are exploring.
Scripture’s second sentence provides some clues. It is equally enlightening. "And the material realm (‘erets – the physical world and the natural substance of which the universe is comprised) existed (hayah) as a formless (tohuw – in a state of lifeless confusion, as something which would dissipate into nothingness without energy added), orderless, and empty void (bohuw – a deserted and unoccupied space, desolate of life), and darkness (chosek – ignorance and obscurity, without light) was before (‘al – along with) the presence (paneh – face and appearance) of the big bang (tahowm – great commotion from the inaccessible and mysterious depths (descriptive of the Abyss); from huwm: that which is deeply anxious, agitated, perplexed, loud and distracting)." (Bare’syth / In the Beginning / Genesis 1:2LEB)
Dissecting God’s message, we learn that without light, without Yahowah who is Light, the universe, as well as our universe, is "tohuw, bohuw and chosek—lifeless, orderless, and dark." Tohuw is "formless, confusion, lifelessness and nothingness." It is "ruinous and destructive chaos, the idolatry of worthless worship that emanates from false testimony." Bohuw is "a complete lack of order, a desolate and empty void." To be chosek is to be "obscured in darkness." Yahowah relates these things to tahowm, the "abyss—the place of separation." Tahowm is the "deep, dark, inaccessible, and inexhaustible place" created for the eternal sorrow of Satan, his fellow demons, and those who league with them. This is a rather profound Spiritual insight.
But there is also a hint of science here. Tahowm is derived from huwm, meaning "great movement and noise." Its most direct definition is "great explosion" or "big bang." So, by using the term "Big Bang," mankind’s most acclaimed competitive alternative to Bare’syth / In the Beginning / Genesis One, Yahowah is demonstrating that He has a sense of humor.
While most Americans are aware of the Big Bang Theory, a proposition in which the universe is said to have started out a hundred billion times smaller than a photon of light, it should be noted that according to MIT’s 2002 Physics Annual: "the theory doesn’t explain the big bang but instead its aftermath—that period of time in which the universe expanded and cooled. The theory says nothing about the underlying physics of the primordial explosion and provides no clues about when the bang occurred, what caused it to bang, or what happened before it banged…. The explosion theory gives no explanation for the razor-sharp fine-tuning of the universe…and thus does not describe a universe that resembles the one in which we live." Now that’s the kind of honesty they don’t typically teach in schools or reveal in the media.
So that which is purported to be science, and thus is assumed to be testable, and taught as fact, isn’t either. The simple truth is: scientists still have more questions than answers and even their conclusions are constantly changing. But don’t accept my testimony on this, consider P.J.E. Peebles’ conclusion. He is the acknowledged leader in the field of universal beginnings, professor of Cosmology at Princeton University: "Cosmology—the study of the beginnings, formation, and evolution of our Universe—is currently in a badly confused state. At the moment, scientists don’t know what makes up 99% of the Universe. This, needless to say, is a rather embarrassing situation. Although much of what is visible in the Universe is becoming comprehensible, with great recent strides in understanding star formation, galactic structure, and spectacular events such as supernovae, it would appear that there is another component of the universe—possibly making up most of its mass—which we cannot see, and we do not understand."
Returning to Someone who does understand, a slightly different, but equally acceptable translation of Bare’syth Gen 1:2LEB reveals that while the scientific term "dark matter" is only a score of years old, Yahowah has always been familiar with the concept: "The natural material existed formless, as an orderless and empty void, obscured in darkness along with the presence of the inaccessible and mysterious energy." If the scientific community only knew where to look, long ago they would have come to recognize that God was explaining what happened, defining the very terms "Big Bang," "Dark Matter," and "Inaccessible and Mysterious Energy," which astronomers and physicists would come to ponder, perhaps suggesting that they would never come to understand these "mysteries."
In these verses, Yahowah is introducing the concept of relationship and separation. We must choose which side of the divide we want to be on—darkness, confusion, and lifelessness or light, instruction, and life—the family or the void. It should therefore be no surprise then that light, instruction, and life occupy Yahowah’s thoughts over the first three days of creation and that on the fourth day He presents the ultimate guide to them.
While we are on the subject of God knowing that which man does not know, of God being light, and of man stumbling in the darkness, the most recent tests conducted by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite experiment show that dark energy, a force completely unknown to man, occupies 73% of the universe, and dark matter, the effect which is equally mysterious and inaccessible to man, represents 23% of universal content. Thus our known and testable theories can only account for 4% of the energy and matter in the universe. All we know about Dark Energy is that it is both ubiquitous and repulsive and that its relationship to Dark Matter suggests fine-tuning manifest through intelligent design.
While it isn’t pertinent to our discussion, should you be interested, the reason scientists know that a substance they call "Dark Matter" exists is because spiral galaxies are spinning ten times faster than the laws of physics specify based upon the gravitational effect of their observed mass. And the reason we know that something scientists refer to as "Dark Energy" exists is because the universe’s expansion is accelerating. If it were not for an unknown source of enormous energy, the cumulative effect of gravity would slow and then contract the universe—the opposite of what we are observing. Further, "dark" isn’t a pejorative. It simply means that we are unable to see it, much less understand what it is. These things remain an "inaccessible mystery." Also, keep in mind that "matter" is a form of energy, so the distinction between them, using these terms, isn’t especially instructive.
efei
Before we advance further into Yahowah’s testimony, let’s establish a more complete foundation so that we can better appreciate what God has to say. In that regard, it’s important to recognize that how God created the universe was well beyond the vocabulary and comprehension of His initial audience. The languages of astronomy, physics and calculus, the matrix of space-time and relativity, the equivalency of energy and matter, and the language of life, DNA, would not be understood for another 3,500 years. Without them, it was absolutely impossible to explain how the universe and life were conceived. Even with these advances, mankind’s quest to comprehend our existence remains clouded and unfulfilled. Therefore, for the Creation account to be relevant for all people in all ages, for there to be something all generations could understand and apply regardless of their time or circumstance, there must be storylines other than how.
And so there are. But sadly, these themes are not commonly known. And what’s even more egregious is that which is taught is usually wrong. Fortunately, today we are in a position to appreciate the significance of each message.
For example, in the last thirty years, scientists have discovered that Yahowah was right regarding every important aspect of the beginnings of the universe and of life. The cosmos had a genesis, contrary to what most astronomers believed at the middle part of the 20th century. The universe began with an enormous, practically infinite, concentration of energy in a singular place and time, a big bang, consistent with Yahowah’s declaration and terminology. Light was in fact the first thing to exist. This energy would eventually coalesce to form matter. We even find that the universe is stretched out and consists of space-time, again harmonious with Yahowah’s accounting.
Plants preceded animals, and such simple forms of life emerged from the sea the moment liquid water existed on the earth, consistent with Yahowah’s assertions but not with Darwin’s. Plants and animals are both comprised of the elements of the earth and they literally exploded onto the scene in separate eras, in absolute accordance with the Bare’syth testimony. The fossil evidence confirms that there was no gradual mutation from simple to complex life forms nor was there an evolutionary tree between phyla—the basic categories of life. As we shall discover, Yahowah’s witness is accurate: representatives of each of the thirty-four animal phylum alive today were present among the fossils of the Cambrian Period. They all came to exist, reproduced after their kind and flourished in their complex forms within a cosmic nanosecond of less than five million years. Insects and fish, vertebrates and invertebrates, complex bone structures and most sophisticated internal organs, even male and female forms all appeared simultaneously in one enormous explosion of life—precisely as Yahowah described it, and in complete discord with macro-evolutionary theory.
In fact, it is macro-evolutionary theory which is errant. Not only do harmful mutations (which destroy information) outnumber beneficial ones by a million to one in the genome (genetic structure including chromosomes, genes, and nucleotides), natural selection, acting on the phenome (entire body) rather than genome, is unable to keep pace, meaning that every animal species is irrevocably degenerating over time—not evolving to become more complex organisms. Further, no scientist has been able to demonstrate that any animal gene mutation has actually added a meaningful amount of new information. While some random mutations have been beneficial, they are insignificant in quantity compared to destructive changes, and they are irrelevant in comparison to the vast differences between species. We will return to this subject (which forms the foundation of the scientific mindset and secular humanism) and discuss in great detail in the "Chay – Life" chapter.
Yahowah’s three-thousand-year-old creation account, barring three potential and very revealing exceptions, is completely consistent with the evidence mankind has most recently discovered. And yet while that’s true, one-year-old high school and college textbooks, still clinging to the notions modern scientists have since disproved, are errant. In fact, science would be advanced in schools if Bare’syth / Genesis were understood and taught.
Now don’t get me wrong. This will not be a religion versus science debate. I despise the first, because clerics are usually misguided. And I enjoy the latter, because the evidence scientists discover almost always points to God, confirming His witness. Such is the case regarding our existence. Yahowah’s testimony has not changed in 3,000 years. He was right all along, which is not surprising since He was an eyewitness. It is the late 20th-century scientists who have come full circle. Based upon the evidence, they now agree with God, although it remains too painful for most of them to admit it. Moreover, their predecessors, the fathers of modern science—Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, even Darwin and Einstein, were acquainted with the God of Scripture.
In this light, let’s review some scientific highlights that are pertinent to our discussion. We begin by recognizing that without the existence and active engagement of God, or an inconceivably enormous energy system completely unknown to us, the universe could not be expanding at an accelerating pace. Its expansion would slow due to the effect of gravity if there were not an active and enormous source of energy currently at work.
Next we must consider DNA, the double helix computer code of life. This blueprint is a language, and languages require a creator, a beneficiary, and a purpose. No designer, no language—especially one with billions of character combinations providing instructions to one hundred trillion human cells.
Further, the odds of elements accidentally engaging in a manner capable of forming life, and doing so with nutrients available, a means to acquire and process a food source, and a means to reproduce itself, all within the five million year timeframe this actually occurred, is astronomical beyond reason, beyond belief. Statistically, it is less than one chance in ten to the billionth, billionth power. This probability is so ludicrously extreme the number exceeds the quantity of fundamental molecular particles in the entire universe by a million-billion fold.
Furthermore, since life existed on earth immediately after liquid water was available; there was no time for random chance in either inception or mutation. Mathematically, biologically, and physically speaking, macro-evolution from inorganic matter to complex life forms through random chance and natural selection rather than intelligent design is so improbable that belief in such a theory ironically requires a blind leap of faith, one that requires ignorance of the evidence and a complete suspension of reason.
Moreover, the universe is clearly built around man in scale, substance, and tuning. It retreats inwardly just as significantly as it expands outwardly. Life requires the specific elements, parameters, and behaviors we find. According to current scientific models, if any one of a thousand physical aspects differed by as little as one part in 10x120 power, life could not exist in any form. Therefore our reality is consistent with God having created the universe for man and inconsistent with random chance.
There are three places where some see Scripture to be in conflict with the still-touted, yet completely irrational and unverifiable, universal theory of non-causal big bang and random chance macro-evolution. They are as follows:
First, the Scriptures speak of micro-evolution, of all phylum of things replicating after their kind, and not of systemic macro-evolution, that is of chemicals to amoebas to humans. In support of God’s position, there is but one transitional body form in the fossil record (not so coincidently the very one that the Scriptures anticipated us finding, which is a blend between fish and reptiles), and there would have to be millions of them for macro-evolution to be accurate. Further, the second law of thermodynamics, the notion of entropy, that disorder and randomness evolve in closed systems, or that systems mutate from ordered complexity to confused disarray, without outside influence, has always served as macro-evolution’s death certificate. This law states that information is lost, not gained in transmitted messages and that there is a universal tendency for all matter and energy to evolve toward an inert and deteriorated state. Animals evolve downward, losing genetic information with time, consistent with the laws of thermodynamics.
The second difference between creation and science is the early timing of water on the first day and its emphasis on the second day of Bare’syth. But even here, God’s testimony is accurate. He isn’t talking about liquid water on earth but instead interstellar molecular clouds. When we apply the lessons of relativity to creation, the first day covers eight billion years from our perspective and the second day, four billion years. Calibrated to the perspective of the witness, the focus on water during these stages is essential. Water is the second most abundant molecule in the universe, ranking only behind molecular hydrogen. Interstellar clouds are especially loaded with it, and they serve as the maternity wards of the universe where new stars, planets, and comets are born. Moreover, water is the central ingredient in all organic systems, which is why scientists look for it first when searching for extraterrestrial life. Therefore, in Bare’syth / Genesis, water takes its rightful and scientifically accurate position related to the beginnings of stars on the first day, of our solar system on the second day, and for the emergence of plant life on the third day.
But there is more to it: water plays a crucial role during this period of our spiritual development as well as in man’s history. So its inclusion makes perfect sense when the creation account is seen depicting the why of creation and the when of our salvation, replete with Yahowah’s plan of redemption. Water is Scripture’s primary metaphor for the purification of man’s soul. Moreover, in the second millennium of human history, the waters of the flood were used to purge the earth of corruption. We will detail how these events relate to the Bare’syth account as the days unfold.
The third perceived conflict between science and Scripture is the most glaring. If the fourth day were about the creation of the sun and the moon, it is out of place. Vegetation, which is said to have blossomed on the third day, could not have existed without the sun. But if, as God shall demonstrate, the fourth day is the fourth millennium in the story of man’s redemption after the fall, then its "signs, signals, and remembrances" are precisely where they must be—tied directly to the arrival of the Ma’aseyah. Additionally, God does not say that He created the sun, moon and stars during the fourth day, but only that they would be "signs," and thus would be visible at this time.
Scientifically speaking, the Bare’syth testimony is an accurate chronological depiction of what actually occurred. The sun had existed for billions years before the atmospheric debris from the onslaught of volcanic activity and the aftermath of countless asteroid impacts settled sufficiently for the sun to be seen. The dust settled and plants gradually filtered out the carbon dioxide that had been spewed into the air, creating and transforming the atmosphere into the oxygen rich and nearly transparent condition which exists today. The sun and moon could finally be seen in the fourth era of universal creation.
Also pertinent, we find in the fossil record that there is a billion-year gap between the "earth bringing forth simple plant life" and the emergence of complex "sea animals which exploded onto the scene," using the parlance of Bare’syth. This gap is acknowledged in God’s accounting. Further, having the creation of plant and animal life separated by a cosmological epoch enables Yahowah to devote the fourth day to a different form of life—eternal and spiritual life.
The biggest barrier for most people however, between science and Scripture, is that it’s obvious that all of this could not have occurred in six earth days. Unfortunately, most everyone deals with the conundrum by either accepting the impossible as fact or by discrediting the Bare’syth / Genesis account, and therefore all Scripture with it. Not only are both choices errant, they both lead away from God.
On the subject of a cosmological day, over the course of the first three chapters, we’ll reveal how the universe can be both six days and fifteen billion years old—depending upon the perspective of the witness. But for now, appreciate the fact that the best current estimation of cosmological age is between 10 and 20 billion years—with 14 to 16 billion years, plus or minus 10%, being the most likely range.
There are two primary astronomical methods of measure for universal age, pulsars and red shift, but they both employ a substantial array of unproven and even un-testable assumptions. For example, we know that the universe has not been constant, and consistency is required for either method to render a reasonable result. In addition, both astronomical calculations are forced to speculate regarding the nature and effect of 96% of the actual energy and/or matter in the universe, rendering their conclusions based upon the observable 4%.
This known and assumptions aside, man’s most enlightened guess, inclusive of studies of carbon dating, star evolution, and nuclear fuel consumption is that the universe was created in a "Big Bang" some 14 to 16 billion years ago when energy was first transformed into matter. The initial galactic formation stage lasted about eight billion years. Our planet, orbiting around a second-generation star, was formed just over four billion years ago. The first signs of plant life on Earth manifest themselves shortly thereafter as liquid water made its way onto the scene. These plants produced oxygen, helping to clear the atmosphere two billion years ago. This provided the catalyst needed for the emergence of more complex and energy-dependant animals one billion years later.
As you may have noticed, these events not only parallel the Bare’syth testimony, they occurred in the same order God specified. Equally important, the duration of each cosmological epoch diminished at the rate of what’s known as nature’s spiral. Each successive aspect of the spiral is approximately half the size of the one which preceded it.
While it would be too premature at this point to get into a discussion on the longevity of man’s time on earth, the evidence indicates that Homo sapiens have existed a hundred thousand years or more. In the "‘Eden – Joy" chapter, we will discuss why this too is completely harmonious with God’s testimony.
Since I’ve broached the subject of "testability," there are two popular and contemporary myths I’d like to bust. First, despite secular humanist claims to the contrary, many of the scientific theories taught in schools as "science," which by their definition comprises those things which can be empirically tested, cannot in fact be validated. Even worse, many, if not most of man’s cosmological, molecular, and biological evolutionary theories are in conflict with the empirical evidence and reason. While we know many things, most of the fundamentals currently escape our grasp.
For example, we don’t even know how many dimensions actually exist. Some scientists claim two within a holographic construct, the mundane say three, relativists claim four inclusive of time, but the more adventurous string theorists promote seven to ten.
We don’t know how many forces are operating within these unknown dimensions. Electricity and magnetism are both forces but they not only change from one form to another in moving fields, they coexist in light which is not a force. Gluons are thought to generate the strong nuclear force, holding quarks together, but explanations of how that occurs requires untestable String Theory in which the math itself is too complex to formulate or calculate. According to the theory, as many as 10x60 colors, or variations, of these invisible rascals are needed to rationalize our reality.
Gravity remains a complete mystery to man, with Quantum Theory and Relativity mired in an irresolvable conflict as to what generates its attraction. The first calls it a force but can’t qualify the mechanism and the second says it’s an effect. Staying in the macro realm, ninety percent of the universe’s energy cannot be accounted for within the matrix of space-time or within the assumed construct of three to five fundamental forces. And that means that the Big Bang theory, apart from an intelligent designer and instigator, is errant by 96%. Only arrogant fools would postulate a theory as being "true" when it is in fact 96% wrong.
Turning to molecular constructs, there is no assurance that quarks and gluons represent the minutest atomic particles, but only that something smaller in scale eludes our ability to detect it or them. More befuddling still, there is no assurance these or any particles actually exist. The material world could be, and probably is, nothing more than organized manifestations of energy with everything in motion.
On the biological front, every attempt to mathematically demonstrate that life, given enough time, could have emerged by random chance from inorganic matter has failed. The fact is, the fossil record confirms that the two billion years needed for the improbable to become probable has evaporated by at least 99%, thereby rendering man’s conclusions errant once again. Further, in the transition from plant to animal life, macro-evolutionary theory predicts the opposite of what we have observed. Rather than a single and simple animal body-type gradually coming to exist from which all others were eventually evolved, every animal phyla known today burst onto the scene at the same time.
Without a Creator there is no way to explain the development of life’s extraordinarily complex blueprint, the binary language of cell communication, DNA. And the simultaneous existence of male and female forms occurring in one species, much less every species, by random chance and evolutionary mutation is absurd. Moreover, even if these things could be miraculously resolved, science still has no concept as to what consciousness is or how it came to exist. Nothing is more fundamental to life.
Therefore, the core building blocks of cosmological, molecular, and biological science remain mysterious and un-testable. Scientific assumptions not only haven’t been proven, they can’t be tested, and those which can be demonstrated have been found to be wrong. And that would explain why secular humanists don’t want intelligent design taught in schools. They know that their theories won’t stand up to scrutiny. But it begs the question: why are the promoters of America’s national religion so arrogant as to say that they are right and that God is wrong when the opposite is actually true?
That leads us to the second myth. All of these things, and especially the existence of the male and female form, are explained in Bare’syth / Genesis, with God providing His rationale for everything He did. Moreover, the notion that is advanced in popular culture, that Scripture cannot be tested and therefore cannot be taught as science, isn’t accurate. Yahowah’s Word can be validated. God even told us how to do so: evaluate His prophetic predictions. Yahowah inspired men to document His forecast of future history centuries and millennia before the events they foretold occurred. He provided us with tangible evidence of their existence—proof—a paper trail of His prophetic proclamations. We can therefore test His witness against the ledger of history and archeology.
By checking to see if each prediction was fulfilled exactly when, where, and how the Scriptures predicted it would occur, as evidenced by archeology and recorded history, we create a testable environment consistent with scientific theory. Then using statistical analysis, we can compute the probability of these events unfolding as they were predicted by random chance versus the actual foreknowledge of the Author. In the "Playing the Odds" chapter of Tea With Terrorists, we calculated the probability that twenty of the more specific Ma’aseyah prophecies could have been fulfilled randomly. I chose these because, with the Dead Sea’s Scrolls, we possess actual written copies of God’s predictions that predate the forecast enactment as well as copious contemporary written eyewitness records of the fulfillment. The odds against Yahowsha’ being "lucky" were at least 10, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 to one—more commonly known as impossible.
Testing aside, there is another measure of proof. Consider the fact that God’s testimony regarding the creation of life and the universe is over 3,000 years old, and yet it is perfectly accurate. The scientific assumptions over that period have been rewritten a thousand times, with each new theory repudiating the prior one. The moral of this story is that it is wise to trust someone who has consistently told us the truth.
That said, the universe isn’t 6,000 years old as the Creationists advocate. When they postulate such nonsense, they embarrass themselves and prevent many from trusting the only Scriptures that can explain the existence of life but can also can provide the means to sustain it. Moreover, they turn their god into a deceiver, someone who would make that which is relatively recent appear ancient just to toy with us.
End of part two. 01/24/13