Dis-CERN-ment and the End of the World
by Cowboy Bob Sorensen
This article almost went to my "Biblical Creation and Evangelism" Weblog, but I reckoned that it was appropriate to put here. Tough call. Also, this was a painful article to write, and I aim to share it with all y'all.
People are spreading fear about CERN and the end of the world. So what is that CERN thing with 21 European member states, and what about that Large Hadron Collider, and all?
From the CERN site:
Let me elaborate on that part about working from worldviews. We all have them, and they're comprised of our presuppositions about how the world works, how we should respond to situations, our emotions, and all sorts of things — not everyone is aware of their worldview, and few have systematically spelled it out. Secular scientists work from them, creation scientists work from theirs as well. Similarly, have you ever watched paranormal investigation "reality shows"? They have readings from various kinds of equipment, maybe an audio recording now and then — but just data. When they assert that they've found spirit activity, they are interpreting and presenting their material according to their worldviews. If you go to a gathering of "ancient astronaut" enthusiasts, expect them to assume that UFOs and alien visitations are a "given", then they work from that presupposition. Darwinists and old-earth geologists assume that evolution is true and that the world is ancient, and build from their conjectures. See? We all have worldviews and operate from them.
A few scientists have sounded an alarm, saying that the LHC could have disastrous results, even ending the world 6. (However, there is some contention that atheist Stephen Hawking's remark was misquoted 7.) Personally, I suspicion that some writers and members of the public are after the sensationalistic doomsday aspects, and not really citing the scientists correctly.
For that matter, some people think that because the LHC is underground, it's because they know something terrible may happen. The facts are disappointing, because the thing is underground for more mundane and practical reasons 8 (link removed, article missing). Another item that spooks a few people and leads to a passel of speculations is that a statue of the Hindu false god Shiva (sometimes called the destroyer, others call it the benefactor). This statue was a gift from supporters of CERN in India, where Shiva is "trampling ignorance" 9. This idol is annoying, but I don't see that it means CERN are up to no good.
None of this was painful for me. The material above was time-consuming, what with references and all. Here is where it hurts.
On a podcast of "Fighting for the Faith" 10, Chris Rosebrough showed how disgraced religious huckster Jim Bakker and his associates were using world-ending speculations, prophesies, inappropriate Scriptures, Apocryphal books and more about CERN. Saddle up, doomsday's a-comin', and we need to round up our supplies for when times get bad! Bakker's show conveniently sells survival gear and food for those dismal times 11. Indeed, if you look at the archives of "The Jim Bakker Show" starting with this one 12 (I see three in the series), and if you can endure it, survival items are being hawked (no relation to Stephen Hawking). Books, too. This seems like a religious-oriented shop-at-home network.
If the world is coming to an end, what good will it do to go broke on buying that stuff beforehand?
On "Fighting for the Faith", Pastor Rosebrough had an episode called "Cern and the Gates of Gozer" 13, which inspired this article. He played an excerpt and had a bit of fun with it that is well worth your time. Click on the number "13" just above and you can listen to or download the episode. The part I'm jawing about starts around the 16:40 mark, just after the foolishness of Chuck Pierce. Edit: Chris has another bit about CERN, this time with "prophet" William Tapley. You can listen to or download that here, at the 38:06 mark.
"Why are you talking about the end of the world when your ministry is about the beginning, Cowboy Bob?"
Glad you asked, and it's about time I got to that part.
Genesis is the foundation for all major Christian doctrines, 14 so the end of all things makes more sense if you have a solid understanding of the beginning. Also, biblical creation ministries often emphasize critical thinking 15 and discernment 16. What is in the Jim Bakker stuff above? Nothing resembling sound exegesis or biblical hermeneutics, that's for sure. No, those sidewinders are just as bad as atheopaths, using emotional manipulation to get people to react — in this case, to make money. People who are established in the Word and sound doctrine, as well as having some skill in critical thinking, should be able to get past the snake oil salesmen, and avoid getting roped into false teachings (resisting like Honey the heifer at the top of the article). Also, I think I heard one of those people on the Bakker show say that if you don't have the Apocrypha, you don't have the whole Bible. Really? It was left out for a reason. Also, I've seen many people who have odd views base a lot of their material on the Apocrypha.
While I'm at it, I want to add a few words of caution. There are social media Pages that claim to be creationist, and will even post links to valid material. But watch out, some slip in theistic evolutionist, agnostic, cult stuff, and other Bible-denying material. Sure, it may look good at its source, but you may be roped into some bad stuff. Before you tie up to someone's hitching post, find out what they really believe.
There are cults pretending to be creationists 17, and I know of one Page that is apparently run by a Modalist (where God is not a Trinity, but manifest himself in three modes). Ask them who God is, if they believe the Trinity, if Jesus is God in the flesh who died and bodily rose from the dead, if the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. As for me, look up top, I have a Statement of Faith, and I expect the moderators on our Facebook Page to agree to it. I reckon that some of these people are less concerned with equipping Christians and presenting the gospel to the lost than they are with bolstering their egos; some seem to embrace creation so they can vociferously attack atheists. Who gets the glory, God or themselves?
Earlier, I linked to material from Lutheran pastor Chris Rosebrough. Now I'm going to give you a link to Dr. James White, a Reformed Baptist. I'm in neither camp, but both of them give important information to help people from being deceived. I strongly recommend that you spend an hour (yes, really!) on how Tony Campolo used Scripture twisting and appeal to emotion in regards to homosexuality 18. The principles there apply to more than just that subject (click on the number "17" for the free audio links).
My exhortations are that you check with Scripture, pray, seek solid teachings, and just think about things. Don't react with emotions, that just gets people deceived and even trapped. Stand on the authority of Scripture first and foremost. It doesn't matter if someone is a religious celebrity, your spouse, a pastor, a friend, or something I write doesn't sit well with you. See what God's Word says, that's the final authority for Christians.
This article almost went to my "Biblical Creation and Evangelism" Weblog, but I reckoned that it was appropriate to put here. Tough call. Also, this was a painful article to write, and I aim to share it with all y'all.
 |
| Honey the Jersey heifer is unwilling to be dragged into false teachings. |
From the CERN site:
At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. They use the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments to study the basic constituents of matter – the fundamental particles. The particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives the physicists clues about how the particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature 1.The Large Hadron Collider is a huge underground particle accelerator:
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It first started up on 10 September 2008, and remains the latest addition to CERN’s accelerator complex. The LHC consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way.Many people have heard of the poorly-named "God Particle", the Higgs boson, which is supposed to give evidence for the Big Bang 3. Again according to CERN:
Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. The beams travel in opposite directions in separate beam pipes – two tubes kept at ultrahigh vacuum. They are guided around the accelerator ring by a strong magnetic field maintained by superconducting electromagnets. The electromagnets are built from coils of special electric cable that operates in a superconducting state, efficiently conducting electricity without resistance or loss of energy. This requires chilling the magnets to ‑271.3°C – a temperature colder than outer space. For this reason, much of the accelerator is connected to a distribution system of liquid helium, which cools the magnets, as well as to other supply services 2.
On 4 July 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced they had each observed a new particle in the mass region around 126 GeV. This particle is consistent with the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model. The Higgs boson, as proposed within the Standard Model, is the simplest manifestation of the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism. Other types of Higgs bosons are predicted by other theories that go beyond the Standard Model.It would be a mite helpful if they updated their site, though, since the celebration and Nobel Prize chatter were way too premature 5. So, we see that, according to their official public sources, CERN is a group of scientists doing science stuff, with apparently secular materialist worldviews. Scientists work from their worldviews, so no big deal there.
On 8 October 2013 the Nobel prize in physics (link is external) was awarded jointly to François Englert and Peter Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider." 4
Let me elaborate on that part about working from worldviews. We all have them, and they're comprised of our presuppositions about how the world works, how we should respond to situations, our emotions, and all sorts of things — not everyone is aware of their worldview, and few have systematically spelled it out. Secular scientists work from them, creation scientists work from theirs as well. Similarly, have you ever watched paranormal investigation "reality shows"? They have readings from various kinds of equipment, maybe an audio recording now and then — but just data. When they assert that they've found spirit activity, they are interpreting and presenting their material according to their worldviews. If you go to a gathering of "ancient astronaut" enthusiasts, expect them to assume that UFOs and alien visitations are a "given", then they work from that presupposition. Darwinists and old-earth geologists assume that evolution is true and that the world is ancient, and build from their conjectures. See? We all have worldviews and operate from them.
A few scientists have sounded an alarm, saying that the LHC could have disastrous results, even ending the world 6. (However, there is some contention that atheist Stephen Hawking's remark was misquoted 7.) Personally, I suspicion that some writers and members of the public are after the sensationalistic doomsday aspects, and not really citing the scientists correctly.
For that matter, some people think that because the LHC is underground, it's because they know something terrible may happen. The facts are disappointing, because the thing is underground for more mundane and practical reasons 8 (link removed, article missing). Another item that spooks a few people and leads to a passel of speculations is that a statue of the Hindu false god Shiva (sometimes called the destroyer, others call it the benefactor). This statue was a gift from supporters of CERN in India, where Shiva is "trampling ignorance" 9. This idol is annoying, but I don't see that it means CERN are up to no good.
None of this was painful for me. The material above was time-consuming, what with references and all. Here is where it hurts.
On a podcast of "Fighting for the Faith" 10, Chris Rosebrough showed how disgraced religious huckster Jim Bakker and his associates were using world-ending speculations, prophesies, inappropriate Scriptures, Apocryphal books and more about CERN. Saddle up, doomsday's a-comin', and we need to round up our supplies for when times get bad! Bakker's show conveniently sells survival gear and food for those dismal times 11. Indeed, if you look at the archives of "The Jim Bakker Show" starting with this one 12 (I see three in the series), and if you can endure it, survival items are being hawked (no relation to Stephen Hawking). Books, too. This seems like a religious-oriented shop-at-home network.
If the world is coming to an end, what good will it do to go broke on buying that stuff beforehand?
On "Fighting for the Faith", Pastor Rosebrough had an episode called "Cern and the Gates of Gozer" 13, which inspired this article. He played an excerpt and had a bit of fun with it that is well worth your time. Click on the number "13" just above and you can listen to or download the episode. The part I'm jawing about starts around the 16:40 mark, just after the foolishness of Chuck Pierce. Edit: Chris has another bit about CERN, this time with "prophet" William Tapley. You can listen to or download that here, at the 38:06 mark.
"Why are you talking about the end of the world when your ministry is about the beginning, Cowboy Bob?"
Glad you asked, and it's about time I got to that part.
Genesis is the foundation for all major Christian doctrines, 14 so the end of all things makes more sense if you have a solid understanding of the beginning. Also, biblical creation ministries often emphasize critical thinking 15 and discernment 16. What is in the Jim Bakker stuff above? Nothing resembling sound exegesis or biblical hermeneutics, that's for sure. No, those sidewinders are just as bad as atheopaths, using emotional manipulation to get people to react — in this case, to make money. People who are established in the Word and sound doctrine, as well as having some skill in critical thinking, should be able to get past the snake oil salesmen, and avoid getting roped into false teachings (resisting like Honey the heifer at the top of the article). Also, I think I heard one of those people on the Bakker show say that if you don't have the Apocrypha, you don't have the whole Bible. Really? It was left out for a reason. Also, I've seen many people who have odd views base a lot of their material on the Apocrypha.
While I'm at it, I want to add a few words of caution. There are social media Pages that claim to be creationist, and will even post links to valid material. But watch out, some slip in theistic evolutionist, agnostic, cult stuff, and other Bible-denying material. Sure, it may look good at its source, but you may be roped into some bad stuff. Before you tie up to someone's hitching post, find out what they really believe.
There are cults pretending to be creationists 17, and I know of one Page that is apparently run by a Modalist (where God is not a Trinity, but manifest himself in three modes). Ask them who God is, if they believe the Trinity, if Jesus is God in the flesh who died and bodily rose from the dead, if the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. As for me, look up top, I have a Statement of Faith, and I expect the moderators on our Facebook Page to agree to it. I reckon that some of these people are less concerned with equipping Christians and presenting the gospel to the lost than they are with bolstering their egos; some seem to embrace creation so they can vociferously attack atheists. Who gets the glory, God or themselves?
Earlier, I linked to material from Lutheran pastor Chris Rosebrough. Now I'm going to give you a link to Dr. James White, a Reformed Baptist. I'm in neither camp, but both of them give important information to help people from being deceived. I strongly recommend that you spend an hour (yes, really!) on how Tony Campolo used Scripture twisting and appeal to emotion in regards to homosexuality 18. The principles there apply to more than just that subject (click on the number "17" for the free audio links).
My exhortations are that you check with Scripture, pray, seek solid teachings, and just think about things. Don't react with emotions, that just gets people deceived and even trapped. Stand on the authority of Scripture first and foremost. It doesn't matter if someone is a religious celebrity, your spouse, a pastor, a friend, or something I write doesn't sit well with you. See what God's Word says, that's the final authority for Christians.