Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4

Dawkins is not a quantum ejaculation.
He is far more easily understood as a son of Fallen Adam.

Much of Dawkins own ‘Rationalizations’ may be reflected back upon the man himself.
One way we can look at the Animal Richard Dawkins is as fairly ordinary/ typical specimen of Humanity… nothing particularly spectacular ….
He’s no mystery.
He’s Quite fathomable as a product of Human Nature and 20th century nurturing.
Dawkins, like the rest of us harbors the same basic ‘nature’….the desire to escape the restraints of Moral law. To be our own God’s…etc
What Dawkins hates the most about the Bible is … As The Highlander might say …”There can be only 1!”

“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2vs16,17)

Satan: “Yea hath God said…?
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: (Genesis3vs1,4)

I hope to show you that the Book of Genesis appears to have been written to expressly refute the likes of Richard Dawkins.
By the time I have finished this section I hope to have clearly shown that The Bible foresaw the rise of such personalities as Dawkins.
It explains how he was spawned.
It exposes his rationale as that of a man whom professes himself to be wise… when in fact he is a deceived fool…. Caught up in his own craftiness.
The Book of Genesis is written in such a way as to show the proper/ only rational way for man to have a loving relationship with God is to *trust in his good character* and have faith in his word.
*This is wisdom*
It is a simple matter of reason to understand that finite beings like us humans, can never know/ understand everything about The Almighty. And that though we can grow in wisdom, nonetheless it is paramount that we trust in the Goodness of our divine Father beyond our scope of understanding. The basis for this faith is that he has proven himself to be loving, and gracious towards us and therefore has earned full respect.
Life will put this faith to the test.
The deceiver will do his utmost to make you forsake God… to become like Richard Dawkins.

Satan Loves to Bamboozle!
One of the best ‘tricks of the trade’ I have learned as an amateur/ unschooled thinker is that when things get complicated (as with this thorny subject) … it is time to step to the side… and find a simple place to stand.
And it is amazing how well this works to cut through all the Din and confusion.
I want to do this right now.
I want to lay down a few basic ideas which to my mind cut though the ‘Everest of Codswallop’ Sophist rationalists have thrown up against the Good character of God as revealed in the Bible.
This Issue is ideologically speaking ‘The Mother of all Wars’. Satan and His Minions *Cannot allow Faith in the Bible/ faith in Gods word to stand*.
If (By Providence) I can at least succeed in establishing this *Essential point*, Every other Objective spiritual truth follows.
As long as Satan is able to deceive people into disputing the trustworthiness of the Bible, He has them under his Power.

I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. (1john2:14)

Now I am going to go back over the Genesis story.
*Please don’t yawn!*
Put your thinking cap on!
*Pray for God to be your Guide*

Once upon a time, Long ago… God created Adam and Eve.
It is important to realize that before God created Man, Lucifer / the Father of Lies had already rebelled against God. We know this because after a short unspecified length of time, Lucifer entered the Garden *as Satan* to deceive Eve.
Many people (including many Christians/ ‘Young Earther’s’/ Bible skeptics) mistake the First chapter of Genesis as being the Bible story of the Creation of the Universe, and the Planet Earth when in fact this was a restoration of an already pre-existing Universe which God had passed judgment upon/ destroyed due to the Rebellion of Lucifer, and the Earth was laid waste…Flooded and in Darkness.
(Gen 1vs 1,2)
The Biblical account of the actual creation of the Universe is found in the 1st chapter of the gospel of John.

Genesis 1 is the story of God’s restoration the Dry land (Earth) for his new creation Mankind.
There was no death (for man).
He Put Adam in the wonderful Garden of Eden, and because he cared about Adam, he made him his Wife Eve, for company, and for Procreation… to share and enjoy life in the garden and to enjoy the presence and companionship of God their Father.
At this blessed time there were no floods, no earthquakes, no plagues, no pestilences, etc, in the Garden.
According to God’s Determination…*Everything there was ‘good’.*
Yet because God did not want to create clockwork toys, but desired fellowship with beings with which he could truly commune, he made the Earth, and Mankind, in such a way that the potential for Evil and death existed.
Adam was called the Son of God, and it was a Loving trusting relationship which God wanted with Mankind.
God wanted Beings whom could reciprocate true love, could reason and appreciate God’s greatest characteristics, ie his Love, generosity, and Artistic glory, ie appreciate his creative power.
(We shall later see how even the Fall of Mankind allowed God to reveal even deeper parts of his character, and to create even more wonderful beings than Adam and Eve… all perceived in the mind of God before the foundation of the world)

And to established his Sovereignty, and give man opportunity to show his love, trust and respect for his Father, God gave Man one simple prohibition.
The test was to have faith in the Good character of God…
*Though it appeared that he was with holding ‘a good’ from mankind.*
The Test was for Adam to respect Gods Law, and to trust in his goodness.

“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2vs16,17)

I know that all sorts of Pre-conceived alarm bells will have been triggered by the ‘dominos’ I have push over, yet I ask you to switch off your ‘automatic’ security system you mistake for thinking, and actually truly *Contemplate what is going on here*.

Ask yourself… Does God have the right to deny Adam the right to eat that fruit?
Ie Does God have the Right to make a Law that appears to withhold something good from us? And can he do so… and yet still be considered to be absolutely Good?

This is a fundamental question in respect to God’s Sovereignty, and Good character.

Let me state that you take extreme care regarding what rationale you choose to apply to arrive at your judgment in respect to this ultimate moral question, as your choice may have more to do with your inner desires, rather than Objective reason.
You are taking the Audacious step of Standing in Judgment of God Almighty!
We ought to tremble at such a dreadful notion.
The extreme presumption of the act!
That we even dare tells us something about us… something dangerous… something awful about our predicament.

After contemplation, My answer to the above questions is rather simple.
*YES!* God is completely within his Sovereign right to make such a Prohibition.
And because of all the many blessings God had already given to Adam, Adam *Ought* to have trusted and obeyed his Father in respect to the Forbidden Fruit.

It is only via a convoluted Sophistry that my simple affirmative answer may be denied.

…Yet it was exactly via such sophistry that mankind was deceived into dis-obeying God, and bringing death and destruction upon himself. Take note ye Rationalists…

Satan enters the Garden….

Satan was able to rationalize a cunning deception which brought the character of God into question, and convinced Eve that God’s word was untrustworthy.

“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
(Gen3vs1-8)

From this we can tell that at the time of Adam and Eve, God, in his wisdom, had not ‘imprisoned’ or annihilated Satan for his rebellion, and so we may reason that God allowed Satan *the Liberty* to continue his wicked ways and to enter the Garden, and to tell lies, in direct contradiction to God’s word.
Satan used a rationale to deceive mankind into distrusting God’s good character by implying God was mean spirited because he was withholding something Good from them, and convinced them into disbelieving God’s word… that they would not die if they ate the forbidden fruit.
What is even more interesting to consider is this:
I have often thought that the forbidden Fruit may have been a ‘poisonous berry’, but not so poisonous as to bring immediate death, but toxic enough to corrupt Adams Genes so as to spoil his physical perfection and ultimately result in his death, and begin the start of Mankind’s hereditary death and genetic degeneration… (the exact opposite direction in the passage of time postulated by the theory of Evolution)… which degeneration is actually scientifically vindicated in respect to the deterioration of the human genome.
I reasoned that if the Fruit was indeed toxic, then we may understand God’s warning that Adam must not eat that fruit lest he die, as being a bona-fide warning of physical danger.
(Question: Is the creation of Poisonous fruit compatible with the notion of a Good God? Ie Doe’s god have the right to make poisonous fruit?)
Yet this Idea that the fruit was toxic is not necessarily so.
I have come to realize a far more plausible yet radical understanding…
*Satan may have indeed been telling the truth when he said ye shall not die!*
Ie The fruit may have indeed been as vs 6 says …*Good for food*… and thus Satan was able to *use the truth* to destroy mankind!

This is Radical. This is Profound!

Satan was able to sow ‘truth’ and into a cunning lie, which presented itself as a valid reason to distrust God.
His Rationale appeared to justify disobeying Gods command.

What this shows is that God was not talking about a physical ‘cause and effect’ scenario, but a purely Moral cause and effect scenario, and Satan was able to get man to focus on the mundane.
Thus Man’s sin, and Fall was purely the act of faithlessness in Gods goodness and his Rebellion via disobedience… and the Fall was a faithless… reason based delusion.
And once Adam had broken his covenant with God, he brought Death upon himself… As God had clearly warned that if he ate of the forbidden fruit, he would surely die.
The Father of Lies had succeeded to seducing Mankind into rebelling against God and brought death upon them… yet it was Adam who freely chose to follow Satan rather than God.

And thus God cursed mankind, and the ground we walk on (The Earth). We lost our physical perfection and became mortals, and threw them out of the Blessed Garden. (yet still made a promise to send Christ)
Paradise was lost.

Now primarily… Morality is morality because our actions effect not only ourselves, but other people for good or ill.
It is a fact of Nature that Children ‘inherit’ the earth their parents have bequeathed to them… for good or ill. Hardworking and thrifty parents may raise their children in a nice house, with Good clothing, and buy them Books to learn etc, while slothful and vice ridden parents may raise their children in want and squalor. The first parents showing their Good values and love by fulfilling their moral duties and responsibilities, the second Parents displaying wicked irresponciblity. The innocent Children of the first parents reap the benifits of their parants moral virtues, while the innocent children of the second parents wrongfully/ unjustly suffer because of their parents wickedness.
To be able to appreciate this and to grasp the ‘wrongness’ of the second parents shows what it means to be Moral agents inhabiting a Moral Reality. The sence of wrong also exposes a need for Divine judgement and justice to correct this wrong.

There are at least two ‘orders’ of evil which we children of fallen Adam must endue as a consequence of Adams Fall. 1. is the Evils Mankind inflicts upon himself and each other…The bible teaches these evils stem from our fallen nature eg. The first born Man was Cain,. He would go on to murder his younger brother Abel. The 2nd order are what we call the Natural evils, Disease, Floods, earthquakes, etc which the Bible says resulted by God cursing the Earth, and destroying its perfect goodness which Mankind enjoyed before the fall. And God Separated himself from Mankind as well.
Thus were the circumstances which brought about all the evils we suffer today.
The Evils which make many people to think there is no God, esp no Good and loving God.
The order of events is important.
Mankind First sinned… that destroyed the blessings and pure goodness of creation as God had created it , God’s judgment bringing all Natural evils upon us and being true to his word, God passed the sentence of Death upon us.
That’s the biblical order.
God repented making Man…before the flood. He was compelled to destroy mankind because of their wickedness!
What the Fall, and the Curse also tell us is that *things are happening on the Earth that are not Gods will*
The evils we suffer were not how God originally made things.
Mankind’s wickedness….Wars, murders, rapes, thefts, etc are a testimony to the rebellion against God.
*They are a part of the moral continuum*
God has separated himself from us so that this ‘Goddless world plays out it’s charade…yet he has not forsaken us… he sent Christ to save us from Damnation, and gave us his Written word… his revelation so that we can come to a knowledge of the truth.

What is also profound to grasp is just how ‘serious’ was the command not to eat of that fruit!
From what we may consider a very ‘minor’ sin…. All the chaos and destruction followed! Rationalists will no doubt stagger at the implication that from such small origin did all the wickedness and separation from God …of human history.
They fail to grasp the quality of God’s holiness, and that sin is a disease… “a little leaven leveneth the whole lump”.

Question: Ought God have locked up Satan in hell before he made man?
He obviously planed to allow Satan to tempt mankind.
Was this wrong?
Who O man are you to stand in judgment of God?

From the Fall of man we can understand where Atheism came from… where is God?
From the fall we can understand where mans Rebellious nature to moral law comes from… Why must I conform to any Laws?
We can understand where the Rationalist spirit of unbelief and sophistry has its root… in the eternal desire to undermine God’s word, and to deny God’s right to make prohibitions, and to judge… ie Rationalism is the Spirit that denies God’s Sovereignty.

The Bible is not like every other Book.
It is God’s Holy, and Authorotive word.
God’s Preachers and Apostles, and Teachers instruct those whom seek after God to trust the scriptures, and present proofs that the Bible is worthy of adoration.
These teachers are not ignorant men. But skilled also in the Arts, histories, and sciences of Mankind.

On the other hand we have the Children of the Devil… the unbelieving sophists…. the contemptible and spiritually lost/ Ignorant Rationalists.
The rationalists tell us we must not ‘revere’ the Bible.
(They revere nothing but the own interlectual vanity…their own grand delusions!)
They say we ought to treat the Bible the same way as we would the Epics of Homer.
Yet by doing so they have already deceived you!
They Don’t believe it is the true Revelation from God!
They then automatically begin to apply their own Naturalistic anthropology to the interpretation of Scriptures.
All miracles are *automatically* rendered fables.
Any conversations Man is said to have had with God, any Judgments God is said to have visited upon mankind are firstly decried as being monstrous delusions of Barbaric minds, and then relegated to the realms of Myth and allegory etc.
By Rationalist logic, All the Gods of Mankind are Guilty of Cruelty and capriciousness by association.
Why should not Jehovah be compared with Moloch?
That The God of the Bible has visited mankind with deadly judgements is proof enough in their minds that he is a power crazy, melicious, tyranical being.
They make no distiction between the God of Abraham who judged The antideluvians and the Cananites because of their violence and wickedness, from the Blood thirsty Gods of the Azteks whom simply lust after Blood!
This is because it suits the Rationalists purposes to Deny God has any right to pass moral judgements upon mankind.
People like Noah and even Jesus are said to be inventions of Savage minds… like Hercules, Maui, etc. Little sleep is lost over the discoveries which prove many of the ancient personalities were real people.

This short little exposé on Materialistic Rationalism merely points out some of their grand assumptions…all of which can be challenged and exposed as sloppy wishful thinking which does no justice to subject it pretends to master.

Yet the pitiful antics of the Rationalists has been sufficient to convince the scholars studying the philosophy and ‘history’ of religion that he may handle the Bible with no more dread than any other ancient book of folk lore.
It is sufficient to convince the ‘schooled intellectual’ that Bible believers are crackpots, and that creationism should have no place in the education of Children.

This whole business is based upon a single premise… that all religion is merely human invention. If indeed the atheists are correct that there is no God, then it rationally follows that all religion must be born in Human imagination.
Yet if they are wrong… and I say they are… then they are making a huge error…If one of the Great religions of the world is actually true, then this whole business is a giant smokescreen, which is burying the truth amongst a pile of lies!

As a Christian I have no doubt that many religions are pure fiction… the inventions of Human imagination. Others are deviations from an original purity. Others still are half truths derived via Natural theology, moral experience, and consciousness.
Yet it is my testimony to mankind that The Bible is different to every other Religious text in that it is truly the inspired and preserved revelation from Almighty God!
The Bible tells the History of Mankind’…warts and all!
The Bible is not a wishy washy fabrication.
I hope that this post at least hints at how Mankind…including ourselves… can be fully understood… even our passions and rationalizations… our violence, our rebellion, our vanity.
Ie The Bible holds true to reality and experience!

Please understand that I am not trying to shield the Bible from rigorous investigation!
By all means investigate!
What I am saying is take care not to be fooled by the atheist rationalizations…sloppy colectivisations… such as equating Jehovah with Zeus… and fall into the trap of putting both Gods on the same human Pantheon.
As a Bible believer, I have spent 27 years studying religion comparatively, and this is a very rewarding subject, yet I have always taken care to measure up any criticism held against believing the Bible to be infallible, to see if it ‘holds water’… and always… always I find the criticism are full of leaks… full of assumptions, etc and so I always return my eyes to the Bible with reverence and faith… For I always give the benefit of the doubt to God and his precious revelation. And after 27 years my faith in the veracity of the King James Bible is such that I am dedicated to propagating faith in it’s trustworthiness to whomsoever will hear. There are few things that are more worthy of my fleeting moments.

Part 6>>> ‘Good Atheist’s’ and the seriousness of sin. Good God/Evil world. 6 <<< More from me... Nyctophilia: Hiding in the Dark….

“Keep things in the shallow end… because I just didn’t want to know…”

Comfortably Numb : Confessions of a Nyctophilliac.