Okay, one more round on the ‘overlapping generations’ of which 607 BCE is a prime component, it being the starting point. That topic is what triggered the nasty review of the brilliant ‘TrueTom vs the Apostates,’ even though it is nowhere mentioned in the book. One more round and be done with it. This series has grown beyond what I first envisioned. Bring yourself up to speed with Part 1,  Part 2, and Part 3.

“I realize that Jesus almost always spoke in illustrations that many people did not get,” Vic Vomodog said, “but I do think that when he said “…This generation will not pass away until all these things occur …” he was speaking literally about ONE generation, as it was commonly understood by his audience back then.”

Sure. It’s sort of like when I realized that my camp coach almost always spoke figuratively but somehow discerned he was being literal when he said ‘Go take a long walk off a short pier.’ I nearly drowned that day.

Photo: An Indonesian Coach: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

You can’t prove ‘overlapping generations,’ but then you can’t prove even the purely biblical aspects of the faith—it is enough to ‘prove it to yourself’. You don’t boast of your ‘critical thinking’ skills. The term has been defined so that you cannot win. Suffice for it to be ‘reasonable,” a term which the Bible (and common sense) endorses.

Take this roboticist, for instance, who designs facial recognition software that works if there is not too much makeup, if the subject’s expression does not change too much, and so forth. Then he reflects on how a baby straight from the womb can do so much better. “I don't know any complex mechanism or device which has been conceived by humans, by engineers, that was not made by a designer,” he says, from which he concludes there must be One.

‘Neither do I, but that doesn’t mean I’m buying into this ‘God’ malarkey,’ is the thrust of Michael Shermer’s argument (he the ‘skeptic’ authority). His rules of critical thinking include: ‘Just because I can’t explain my position doesn’t mean yours is right.’ That might be all well and good if he didn’t insist on his position as the default one. The winds of human shenanigans blow a new game into town and afterwards the rules are changed so that it will not quickly blow out.

I always try to look for how an explanation does fit, not for how it doesn’t. Jail the entire leadership of a faith, (the new subject under discussion is the ‘killing’ of the two witnesses) it certain would be akin to “killing them.” So many other things fit nicely as well. It’s ‘above my pay grade’ to challenge such things. If the stuff should prove wrong, it will be changed. It’s just a heads-up anyway, nothing we are required to hold our breath and turn blue for.  It is something to satisfy what appears to be a universal human need.

It is a need of angels too. Those angels are intensely “peering” to discern how the prophesies will play out. (1 Peter 1:12) I like to picture them peering as though through a peephole in a wooden fence. Anyone here up for telling them to straighten up and get back to work?

And even if the overlapping generations should fail to overlap some day, bros can always drop down to yet another understanding of ‘generation,’ It can become ‘Era’ or ‘Age.’ Not a problem. Most of those from outside who attack the generations understanding end up normalizing today’s societal doings. Good luck on that. They’re welcome to it.

The stuff is all interesting to me, but it plays a decided second fiddle to the moral qualities of serving God as a Witness, not to mention taking part in the project of declaring the good news in all the earth.

“You will rescue me from the faultfinding of my people,” David says (2 Samuel 22:44) and there is plenty of it. But, says he, “I have kept the ways of Jehovah, And I have not wickedly abandoned my God.” (22:26) We’re an awfully critical bunch. It may not be in all respects as Moses leading the Israelites, but that still does not mean we are not a critical bunch. It’s a challenge to operate with everyone nipping at your heels. 

Don’t want no ‘1984’ references either. George Orwell wrote 1984 at a time when totalitarianism was sweeping the globe, Nazism, Stalinism, crushing even the sturdy and powerful good guys like Winston Smith. (Churchill—how many ‘Winstons’ do you know?) The government he wrote of would not just lean on people with a certain amount of peer pressure. It would literally take command of every part of your life, literally assign you a role that you’d better not reject, literally punish you for neglecting propaganda channels, literally torture you for deviation, and then literally kill you after rehabilitation as a lesson to others. If George Orwell could see how his work has been trivialized today to settle religious scores he would say, ‘Thank God I’m dead.’

And if I can’t otherwise torpedo the 607-naysayers, I’ll just rewrite history. What do you think of that, Mr.Strawman Critic? Surprisingly, it’s not so ludicrous as it sounds. Allan Guelzo of the ‘How Great Historians Interpret History’ lecture series says it’s done all the time, and not done ‘lyingly.’ Some new wind will blow upon the stage—that of religion, that of the Enlightenment, that of the rise and fall of any great power, and it’s ‘Game On’ for the revisionists. There are simply that many facts to choose from, he says. It all depend on which you put where, which you highlight, and which you ignore.

It’s happening right now with ‘critical race theory’—an idea with powerful backers that has persons not viewing it that way in conniptions. Yet nothing is made up. It’s just facts reprioritized. Mr. Strawman Critic is himself intent on rewriting history, citing his book that World War I was just one of many world wars—they’re a dime a dozen—and not at all the worst one. Trust me on this—he would have no interest in this book, it may even be why the book has been written, but for undermining his former faith.

So maybe I’ll undertake a rewriting of history myself. But since I’ve already conceded that it doesn’t really matter, I won’t.

to be continued once more? We’ll see.

******  The bookstore