How do you feel about aging? The answer to that question really depends on who it’s being asked of, right? If you’re under 40, this question probably seldom enters your mind. Like relationships, raising kids, and paying bills.

However, for those of you over 40 who know your body is starting to betray you, it might be a question that’s been entering your mind more often these days.

So, how do you feel about aging? Do you embrace the fact that you’re going to be a senior one day or do you despise it?

Your answer to the question really matters because it can profoundly affect how well you age.

A study conducted last year by the Yale School of Public Health showed that how you feel about your own aging can have a profound impact on your risk of developing dementia and even Alzheimer’s disease.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease – The Dreaded Diseases of Our Time

Currently, about 10% of Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, AD accounts for only about 60% – 70% of dementia cases. Comedian Robin Williams was suffering from dementia at the time of his death. But it was Lewy body dementia, not AD.

Nonetheless, if you make it to age 65, your chances of developing some kind of dementia are greater than 1 in 10. Those odds, however, will increase after the age of 65.

If you’ve ever had a loved one suffer from AD, you know the devastation caused by this disease. Barbara and I watched in horror as Alzheimer’s eventually left her mom without a memory or even the ability to perform simple tasks. All the while, we were powerless to do anything to reverse its course.

It appears now that many Americans are also becoming aware of how devastating this disease is. And they’re scared of it. Americans fear losing their mental capabilities twice as much as they fear losing their physical abilities.

While there are several interventions that you can take to lessen your risk of getting dementia or AD (see here and here), the Yale study highlighted how your view on growing older can actually help you in your fight against dementia.

Let’s take a look.

Positive Beliefs on Aging Protect Against Dementia

There has been considerable research performed showing that amongst seniors positive beliefs about aging predict better cognitive performance; whereas, negative age beliefs correlate with worse cognitive performance. See here, here, and here.

One meta-analysis even showed that negative views on aging have a worse effect on cognitive health than the promoting effect of positive views.

More recently, research has shown that there is even the possibility of a link between aging beliefs and the risk of developing AD.

Beliefs About Aging Might Be Predictive of Alzheimer’s Disease

In 2016, Becca Levy, Professor of Epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, and her associates published a fascinating study on age stereotypes and AD.

They recorded aging stereotypes from dementia-free patients decades before yearly magnetic resonance images and brain autopsies were performed.

The study found that,

Those holding more-negative age stereotypes earlier in life had significantly steeper hippocampal-volume loss and significantly greater accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques, adjusting for relevant covariates.

Okay, I’ll translate that. The individuals who had negative aging beliefs had greater signs of the markers for AD.

Levy’s next study, however, showed an even greater correlation between negative aging stereotypes and dementia, including AD.

Levy’s 2018 Yale Study

In 2018, Levy and her associates published another study on the relationship between negative aging beliefs and cognitive decline. This study included 4,765 Health and Retirement Study participants who were at least 60 years old and dementia-free at the beginning of the study.

The participants were also assessed as to whether or not they possessed the APOE 4 gene. This gene variant is highly associated with an increased risk of AD. Among the participants, 1,250 had at least one form of the gene (more on that later).

In order to assess age beliefs, the researchers used the five-item Attitude toward Aging (ATA) subscale of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale. This survey asked participants to rate on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree on questions such as, “Do you feel that as you get older you are less useful?” or “Do things keep getting worse as you get older?”

The individuals were followed for 4 years and were on average 72 years old at the end of the study.

The Results Concerning Aging Beliefs And Cognitive Health Were As Predicted

The first conclusion of the study came as no surprise to the researchers. They stated,

The impact of positive age beliefs as a protective factor against developing dementia was suggested by our finding that in the total sample participants holding these beliefs at baseline had a 43.6% lower risk of developing dementia over the course of 4 years, compared to those holding negative age beliefs at baseline.

Okay, this study confirmed what others had found. If you feel good about your aging process, you are a lot less likely to develop dementia.

However, where the study really shines is in its discovery about aging beliefs and AD.

Aging Beliefs And Alzheimer’s Disease

Levy and her associates found that “Among those with APOE 4, those with positive age beliefs were 49.8% less likely to develop dementia than those with negative age beliefs.”

Remember that the APOE 4 variant is highly associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

They also found that of the 1250 carriers APOE 4 that had positive views on aging, there was a 3% risk of dementia. Those carriers of the gene who had a negative view had a 6% risk of dementia. That means those who had negative attitudes on their aging had twice the risk of getting dementia over the four-year duration of the study.

So, the study seems to suggest that positive age beliefs among those with APOE 4 could be capable of helping them offset the influence of this genetic risk factor.

The study concluded that “APOE 4 carriers with positive age beliefs had a risk of developing dementia that is similar to the risk of their same-aged peers without APOE 4, regardless of age beliefs.”

This study is encouraging news. It confirmed for us that,

1. Positive views on aging decreased the risk of getting dementia
2. Positive views on aging also reduced the risk of developing AD in the largest at-risk population

While researchers believe that more work has to be done in this area, the study once again shows that some of what we believe may be inevitable age-related diseases can be mitigated, even for those who are at a genetically high risk.

In order to get a fuller picture of the study, it’s important to understand a few things about the APOE 4 gene in the context of this study.

The APOE 4 Gene and Alzheimer’s Disease.

APOE (Apolipoprotein E) is a class of proteins that are responsible for transporting lipids (fats) around your bloodstream. The APOE gene provides instructions for making this protein.

The APOE gene, however, can exist in different forms (alleles). The major alleles are termed E2, E3, and E4. About 7% of the population has the E2 gene, 79% has E3, and about 14% have the E4 allele.

Remember that since we get one copy of a gene from each parent these genes can exist in a number of different combinations, eg. APOE 4,4, 4,3 or 3,2 etc.

Now here is the significance of this for the general population.

1. APOE 4 is the strongest known genetic risk factor for AD.
2. 40–65% of AD patients have at least one copy of the E4 allele.
3. Not everyone who develops AD has the APOE 4 gene (this suggests that there are other risk factors involved).
4. Not everyone who has the APOE 4 gene develops AD (this also suggests that there are other risk factors involved).
5. People who have two copies of the APOE 3 gene have about a 9% genetic risk of getting AD (Dale Bredesen MD, The End of Alzheimer’s, p. 100).
6. Individuals with a single copy of APOE 4 (eg. APOE 4,3) have a 30% increased risk of developing AD (Bredesen).
7. Individuals with two copies (APOE 4,4) have a 50% or greater risk of developing AD (Bredesen).
8. Individuals with two copies (APOE 4,4) have an increased risk of developing AD by 12-fold, as compared to the most common version of the gene, APOE 3.

While researchers are not sure of the exact role of APOE 4 in AD, the predominant theory is that it prevents the clearance of amyloid beta plaques from the brain. Dr. Bredesen and others believe it also promotes inflammation within the brain (Bredesen, p.100).

Now, what does this have to do with the above study?

The Yale Study Revisited

In Levy’s study, the 1250 individuals with the APOE 4 gene had the following variants: 85% E4/E3, 8% E4/E2, and 7% E4/E4.  

Since there was no data reported for the different alleles, we don’t know if the results were positive for the people who had the high risk ApoE 4 allele.

What we can say is that positive attitudes toward aging significantly helped the individuals with the E 4,3 variant to decrease their risk of AD.

Why Do Negative Views on Aging Increase Our Risk Of Dementia?

Researchers are not exactly sure why a negative view on aging adversely affects dementia, but they theorize that it may have something to do with stress.

There is abundant evidence to support this view. Poor aging beliefs have been shown to cause cardiovascular stress on our bodies. See here and here. These two studies both show that stress is connected to dementia. See here and here.

The causal connection between stress and dementia may be tied to the hormone cortisol.

Chronic Stress, The HPA Axis, and Dementia

The HPA axis is a subsystem in your body that includes the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands. This system controls a major part of your physiologic response to stress.

When you face a stressor, be it physical or psychological, your HPA axis will act to produce among other things the steroid cortisol. Cortisol allows your body to deal with the stressor. When the stressor leaves or you have dealt with it successfully, the HPA axis returns to its normal homeostatic state and cortisol levels return to normal.

However, when you are chronically stressed, the release of cortisol from your adrenal glands may become excessive and eventually become detrimental to your body, especially your brain.

The Association Between Cortisol And Dementia

Excess glucocorticoids (cortisol) in the brain have been linked to dementia and AD. See here and here.

Individuals with significantly prolonged cortisol elevations showed reduced hippocampal volume. The hippocampus is the part of your brain that is responsible for forming memories.

Researchers believe that cortisol may in some ways damage neurons in the brain though they are not sure exactly how. See here.

And, finally, seniors who had negative age beliefs had cortisol levels that were elevated as compared to those who had positive beliefs.

Even though most of the studies I presented are correlation studies and don’t provide exact causation, I think the connection is clear. If you have a negative attitude toward your aging process, you will be under constant stress. And that stress will increase your risk of dementia.

It’s almost as if it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think badly about aging, you’ll increase your risk of aging badly.

The Role Of Conscientiousness In Dementia And Longevity

Interestingly, there is one personality trait that has broad scientific support of a positive influence on cognitive health and longevity.

This study released in 2013 from Wayne State University argues that after 20 years of study by numerous researchers, the psychological attribute of conscientiousness has been shown to have a significant positive effect on health and longevity.

The authors of the study define conscientiousness this way:

…the relatively stable pattern of individual differences in the tendencies to follow socially prescribed norms for impulse control, to be goal-directed, planful, to delay gratification, and to follow norms and rules.

Sounds like the personality trait we’d all love our children to have.

But you get the picture. According to the numerous studies and meta-analyses presented in this paper, conscientiousness will improve your longevity and lower your risk of getting dementia, including AD.

The reason for this seems pretty obvious. Conscientious people will probably be more diligent in taking care of themselves, particularly in the area of diet and exercise.

How Can You Have A Better View Of Aging?

Your views on aging might have been developed since your childhood or they could have developed as your years mounted. What I know from experience is that there are a number of factors that can increase your negative attitude toward aging.

If you can correct these factors, it may do a lot to help improve your attitude. Let’s briefly take a look at these.

Feeling Unhealthy

If you feel unhealthy all the time, it’s hard to feel positive about aging. After all, you’re going to get older and weaker, right? I suffered from severe CFS until I was 58 years old. I was frightened of what this would mean for me at 65.

Not only did I have poor energy levels, but also because of inactivity, my muscle mass had decreased significantly. I was facing the likelihood of becoming more and more debilitated as the years continued. That didn’t make me a happy camper when it came to my aging process.

Some of you out there are suffering from chronic lifestyle diseases like diabetes, CVD, metabolic syndrome, or obesity. (These are all risk factors for AD by the way).

My friends and family members who have these diseases tell me that they generally feel unwell and are not looking forward to living out their seniors years with them.

However, there are things you can do to improve your health. I’ll stick with the main ones for now.

Diet

Doctors are having great success with low-carb and ketogenic diets in improving weight loss and reversing the above diseases. See here and here.

These diets promote better insulin sensitivity which is important for good health.  They also generally avoid gluten (important for healing gut permeability) and industrial seed oils (important for correcting a poor Omega6/Omega3 ratio).

Hey, if you can reverse your poor health and feel better at 60 than you did at 45, then you’ll feel a lot better about your future aging. I know I did.

Exercise

We all know that exercise improves fitness and makes you feel better about yourself. However, did you know that it’s a proven fact that poor muscle strength is another risk factor for poor cognitive health decline? See here and here.

I like what strength coach Mark Rippetoe had to say, “A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong.”

Some kind of resstrength training is must for anyone wanting to improve their risk of avoiding dementia. See my post here. 

Read here about how walking can improve your health and cognitive function.

Eliminate Toxins

Eliminate or reduce as many toxins as possible. You know what the big ones are: smoking and alcohol. Mold is another common toxin and has been linked to AD.

Get Good Sleep

It’s difficult to recover from the stresses of life if you don’t sleep well or you don’t get enough sleep. Lack of sleep will also increase inflammation in your body and inflammation is closely linked to dementia and AD. See my post on sleep here.

Dealing With Stress

The above interventions will help lessen stress on your body. However, dealing with life stress is a different subject.

Guided diaphragmatic breathing is one thing I practice to help me deal with the negative effect of life stress and a dysfunctional autonomic nervous system associated with CFS. If your autonomic nervous system (ANS) is dysfunctional, your stress response will be dysfunctional, and you’ll be pumping out excess cortisol. It’s guaranteed that you’ll not feel well.

Guided breathing (this is not meditation) at least 10 minutes a day is one method that will help bring your ANS back into balance.

Loneliness

For those of us who have lost a parent, we know the toll it takes on the surviving parent. It’s hard to have joy in old age when your partner is gone. While I can’t offer a solution to this, there is a way to limit the risk of losing your partner.

The key here is to keep your spouse as healthy as you are. Studies have shown that you’ll increase your own lifespan as well.

Spiritual Awareness

Researchers have found that religious belief is a positive factor for how well individuals age. Faith brings comfort, strength, and hope when times become difficult. As we get older, we’ll lose family members and friends. Faith helps us make sense of that.

Religious belief also provides a community to mitigate against loneliness and a sense of abandonment.

Let’s be honest. As you get older, your number of years on this earth are declining. One day you will have to face the inevitable thought of where will you spend eternity. Some people shrink in terror at this thought. Especially as that day grows nearer and nearer. It’s hard to have joy in your senior years when you don’t know where you’re going.

Now I’ll preach a little and end with this verse,

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

That’s it for this post. I encourage everyone to read Dr. Bredesen’s book, The End of Alzheimer’s. AD might not be as uncurable as most people believe.

God bless and have a great week. Let’s us know if you have any comments. We would love to hear from you.

The post Your Attitude Toward Aging Might Influence Your Risk Of Alzheimer’s Disease appeared first on The Progressing Pilgrim.

Okay, I said I wouldn’t do it again, but I did. I promised myself I wouldn’t watch the Super Bowl halftime show. But, alas, I watched it, again. What made me do it? Well, maybe, just maybe, I thought I might learn something new about popular music or the current pop culture.

Sadly, I didn’t learn much. While I don’t listen to popular music, I’m usually aware of who the latest pop music icons are. My younger sons periodically give me an update on who’s who in the music scene.

However, Maroon 5 wasn’t a band I was aware of until I heard they would do the show after other performers had opted out. So, I figured, let me see what their lead vocalist, Adam Levine, is all about. After all, it couldn’t be worse than that Post Malone performance I saw on New Year’s Eve.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t impressed by Levine’s performance. It was actually quite boring and uneventful. A fact confirmed by most honest music critics. He did take his shirt off though, revealing his various “rad” (or whatever word the current generation uses for cool) ink markings. How sexist. How did he get away with that? Janet couldn’t!

But as Levine performed, a touch of sadness came over me. I was reminded once again of how far current pop music has declined since the sixties and seventies. And how much the current younger generation is being robbed of a chance to listen to culturally significant music, music that can define a generation.

Music that can shed insight into the peaks and valleys of the human condition instead of music that offers the same looped melodies with the associated lyrics of sensuality and narcissism.

I’m not talking here so much about how the music sounds. We of the older generation know good music when we hear it. From Beethoven to “Roll over Beethoven”, we know a good tune when we hear it.

What I’m talking more about is what the music says. Did you catch what Adam Levine was actually saying? To be sure my ears weren’t deceiving me, I had to go and read the lyrics.

Check these out.

This Love (Maroon 5)

“This Love” was one of the tunes Maroon 5 performed. Take a look at some of the lyrics.

Who writes this stuff? A 16-year-old? The rest of the song isn’t any better.

Here are some lyrics from another song they performed.

Harder To Breathe (Maroon 5)

Again, the rest of the lyrics don’t get any better. Go see for yourself.

The sexism, violence, sensuality, misogyny, and insecurity in these lyrics are obvious. Is this what our youth is listening to? Seriously!

“I have the tendency of getting very physical / So watch your step ’cause if I do you’ll need a miracle.”

Wow! In the atmosphere of the #METOO movement, this is what the Super Bowl organizers bring us. They feature a group who performs a song where a man threatens to do bodily harm to his girlfriend if she’s not careful. Is that okay? Am I supposed to believe this is serious music?

No wonder why the NFL ratings are tanking. The drastic decline in their product offerings and insensitivity to their fan base is a marvel to behold.

Is Maroon 5 Representative Of Our Culture?

But what if the Super Bowl organizers simply saw Maroon 5 as a popular musical group and figured featuring them would increase their ratings? After all, Adam Levine and Maroon 5 have sold an awful lot of records (Maroon 5 has sold more than 109 million singles and 27 million albums, making them one of the world’s best-selling music artists).

Now, I can’t say I’ve listened to all of Maroon 5’s songs, but I imagine the ones that were played at the Super Bowl are representative of their music.

That means, then, that the music that appeals to our culture today, especially our youth, revolves around the baser parts of human nature, such as self-indulgence, negativity, and sensuality.

I know Don McLean proclaimed the day the music died, but if Maroon 5 is representative of pop music today, then pop music is still stone cold dead.

Not only that. Today’s pop music may also exist in a form that is very dangerous to young minds filled with mush. Billboard calls these catchy-as-hell tunes. Yeah, I bet the music played at Nebuchadnezzar’s idol dedication were catchy-as-hell tunes as well.

Just be careful you’re not like the woman in “Harder to Breathe” or you might just catch hell.

Those of us over the age of 40 know that it wasn’t always this way. Yeah. I know I sound like one of those old geezers lamenting the past.

Well, sometimes the older ways were better, and maybe we should examine them to understand how far we’ve fallen.

Socially Aware Music

As I said, watching Maroon 5’s performance saddened me because I realized how much our current youth was missing out on quality music. Again, I’m talking about what the music is trying to say (note: it’s a known fact that much of today’s music melodies are simply a version of an already existing loop of music).

At one time, pop music lyricists seemed to have their finger on the pulse of society. Yes, there were tons of anti-war songs of course.

But numerous bands were also using their music to convey concepts of true romantic love, brotherly love, tolerance, social equality, and the need to unplug from an ever-growing commercial self-centered world.

Think of the Beatles (“All You Need Is Love”, “Revolution”), Dylan (“Blowin’ In the Wind”, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”), Barry McGuire (“Eve of Destruction”), CCR (“Fortunate Son”), Aretha (“Respect”), Edwin Starr (“War”), Sam Cooke (“A Change Is Gonna Come”), Sly Stone (“Everyday People”), The Byrds (“Turn, Turn, Turn”), Elvis (“In The Ghetto”), The Animals (“We Gotta Get Out Of This Place”) and a slew of bands advocating the “back to the land” motif.

Okay, that’s a very small sampling. I could go on and on but you get the picture.

However, let me use one of my favorite rock bands, The Kinks, to further illustrate my point.

The Kinks

You remember the Kinks, right? If you’re like me, growing up you knew a couple of their songs like, “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night”.  Unfortunately, not a lot of their songs got extensive airplay in the U.S. You’ll see why in a minute.

According to Wiki, The Kinks had five Top 10 singles on the US Billboard chart. Nine of their albums charted in the Top 40. In the UK, the group had seventeen Top 20 singles along with five Top 10 albums. Four of their albums have been certified gold.

In the last few years, after being reintroduced to them by my sons, I’ve come to understand the real potential of popular music and what some of the more socially aware groups were trying to do.

The Kinks, though, stand out to me as one of the truly insightful groups of the ’60s and ’70s in that they were able to truly capture the signs of a slow disintegration at the core of their culture and how it affected the common people.

Welcome To The Village Green

In 1966, the Kinks produced The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. In this concept album, Ray Davies wrote a series of songs that reflect a common theme, the need to recapture the traditions of a simpler, bygone way of life.

Here’s a stanza from “The Village Green Preservation Society” so you can get a feel for the song.

How would a song with those lyrics fare on Billboard’s Top 100 today? By the way, the melody is exceptional, as they are in all the Kink’s songs. After listening to their songs for a while your subconscious will absorb the music, and you’ll find that melody stuck in your head for hours. Here have a listen.

In post-war England, Davies knew that something in his culture was changing, and not for the good. The old ways were being abused and discarded. England’s culture was being transformed from one of charm and civility into one of commerciality and coldness.

His mention here of Tudor houses and antique tables stands in stark contrast to the new utilitarian Brutalistic structures starting to dominate the English landscape.

And Davies saw it as his duty to let his audience (young people) know that the times they were a changing.

Missing The Village Green

In the song “Village Green”, Davies wrote this,

Remember these lyrics are from one of 60’s preeminent rockers at the top of his career. However, Davies understood that it was the simpler things in life that were ultimately the most fulfilling.

Consider what rock music icon Pete Townshend of The Who said about the songwriting in the Kinks Village Green Album:

For me, The Village Green Preservation Society was Ray’s masterwork. It’s his Sgt. Pepper, it’s what makes him the definitive pop poet laureate.

Wow! A pop poet laureate. Like Adam Levine. Not!

However, the village green had another meaning for Davies. Davies said of the village green,

Everybody’s got their own village green, somewhere you go to when the world gets too much.

The village green was a place where one could escape from the pressures of the world. Consider that in contrast to losing oneself in the lust and sensuality of today’s music.

The theme of an increasingly difficult existence in the modern age for “simple people” intensifies in the Kinks and Davies subsequent work.

20th Century Man (Kinks 1971)

Read these lyrics from “20th Century Man”.

This song was written by Ray Davies in 1971. Hmm…. Doesn’t it sound like Davies could’ve written this yesterday about our 21 century?

In these lyrics, Davies again laments what has become of post-war England. He sees a country (he may also be referring to the U.S. because I don’t think England ever used napalm) turned into a warfare state, a welfare state, a bureaucratic state, and a police state. One in which there is a loss of privacy, liberty, security, and a decline in classical culture.

The current state of affairs has driven him to become a paranoid-schizoid on the edge of insanity.

However, Davies’ 20th-century man is not insane. That’s because he wants something different, and he can imagine something better.

A New Jerusalem?

Interestingly, Davies mentions the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem. This is probably a reference to a poem written by British poet William Blake in 1804. In that poem, Blake writes of a past fictional visitation by Jesus to the green pastures of England. However, Blake laments that England, which should be like the New Jerusalem, is being ruined by the “Satanic Mills” of the Industrial Revolution. This poem became so famous in England that it continues to serve as a sort of national hymn.

While Davies alludes to Blake, he also echoes the American Southern Agrarians of the 1930s. They, like Blake, valued such concepts of agrarianism, conservatism, and religion over against the increasingly negative effects of modernity, urbanism, and industrialism on American.

We don’t hear much of the call of Blake, the agrarians, or Davies anymore. But can there be anything more needed in our time than detaching ourselves from the constant bombardment of technology to spend time recharging our batteries while enjoying the peaceful solitude of the village green?

No, Davies’ 20th-century man had not gone insane yet. He knew his culture had disintegrated, and he didn’t want the status quo. He wanted to either leave it or find a solution.

The themes of the social, economic, and cultural decline continued in many other songs. Let’s take a quick look.

Shangri La (Kinks 1969)

In “Shangri La”, also written by Davies, the plight of the working man is depicted. He’s someone who is trapped in a miserable existence by mortgage payments, gas bills, water bills, and car payments. At the end of his life, he’s left with some meager material comforts. But he never complains because he’s been conditioned to believe that that’s the way things are supposed to be.

Hmmm… I don’t recall this being mentioned in any lyrics today, even though…

As of December 2018, the average credit card debt in America is $5,331 per person. The current total consumer debt in the U.S. is $3.96 trillion.

As many as 78 percent of American full-time workers are living from paycheck-to-paycheck.

Is this the way things are supposed to be? I don’t think so, and I don’t hear many pop stars singing about it.

Dead End Street (Kinks 1966)

In “Dead End Street”, Davies writes about a couple mired in debt and living in a decrepit two-room flat on Dead End Street. They want to work hard, but there are no jobs for them. The two come to realize that they will never leave Dead End Street and will probably die there.

Wow, that couldn’t possibly be a prophetic reference to today’s younger people, could it?

Anyone hear of the college student loan debt problem. Check out these recent headlines:

Thanks To Their Student Loans, Millennials Expect To Die In Debt

One in Two Millennials in New York are Working at Restaurants to Pay Off Student Debt

Have our youth reached a dead end, and they don’t realize it?

Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t heard anyone today writing songs of that problem. Perhaps the goal of today’s music is to keep us brainwashed.

Brainwashed (Kinks 1969)

In “Brainwashed”, Davies continues his commentary on the economic and social decline of the British working class.

This song echoes the theme of “Shangri La” but in a much grittier way. However, here Davies identifies who is doing the brainwashing.  

Davies lays the fault for the decline and brainwashing of the people right at the doorstep of the aristocrats and bureaucrats. The top 1% so to speak.

Again, this couldn’t possibly be happening today, could it? Consider this statistic from The Washington Post,

From 2013, the share of wealth owned by the 1 percent shot up by nearly three percentage points. Wealth owned by the bottom 90 percent, meanwhile, fell over the same period. Today, the top 1 percent of households own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. That gap, between the ultra wealthy and everyone else, has only become wider in the past several decades.

It sounds as if maybe the “yellow vests” in France have got a whiff of Davies lyrics. They certainly aren’t hearing it from today’s songwriters.

Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969)

In this concept album, Davies writes several songs dealing with war. These include “Mr. Churchill Says”, “Some Mother’s Son” and, “Yes Sir, No Sir”. In these songs, Davies doesn’t glorify war. He’s shown war to be the nasty business it really is. Young people die, deserters are shot, some mothers suffer the horrific loss of their children, and civilians die and endure hardship, sometimes long after the war is over. War is sometimes necessary, but it’s never a good thing.

We Gotta Find A Solution

In “20th Century Man”, Davies implored, “We gotta find a solution.” As far as I can tell, he didn’t really have a specific one. But I think he felt that his music could give some relief to people looking for a way out of a trapped existence.

Not all of The Kinks’ songs dealt with the vicissitudes of life. Many of their songs were fun and upbeat (“Australia”, “Have a Cuppa Tea”, “Celluloid Heroes”, “Low Budget”, “Sunny Afternoon”).

In the 1978 song “Rock And Roll Fantasy”, Davies hinted at how his songs could help people.

Here are a few stanzas.

For Dan, in the song, it’s music that lifts him out of his humdrum existence. Davies understood that. His music had a purpose. It was not only to be society’s conscious but to also provide people with relief, albeit temporary, from the stresses of life. Sort of like the village green.

Unfortunately, he had no specific solution to the disintegration of the culture around him.

However, one of the most popular pop icons did try to offer a solution.

John Lennon’s Solution

In his song “Imagine”, John Lennon of the Beatles, longed for a world of peace, brotherhood, and one devoid of war, greed, and hunger. Bravo John for reminding us of these high ideals. Maybe some of today’s songwriters can realize that these are the things that make for good lyrics and make people realize that they can be better versions of themselves.

Unfortunately, John’s solution to the world’s problems was lacking.

“Imagine there’s no heaven… No hell below us… Imagine all the people living for today… Imagine there’s no countries… And no religion, too… Imagine no possessions…Imagine all the people sharing all the world.”

(Sorry I just had to share this. While looking up the lyrics to Lennon’s song, the lyrics to Ariana Grande’s Imagine came up. Check them out, and then see if you can stop yourself from breaking out laughing.)

Nope, visualizing world peace won’t work. It might work if you were Thanos and could eliminate all the world’s bad people in an instant. Oh, wait, no, it wouldn’t. Because Thanos can’t stop good people from becoming bad people. In everyone’s heart, there dwells an island wickedness that makes them capable of bad things.

Besides, John’s solutions are utopian socialist in nature which history has shown to have consigned millions of people over the years to poverty, misery, and death.

The Solution? Writing Music With A Chest

Obviously, music has to regain a soul. It has to develop what C. S. Lewis called a chest. Lewis described the “chest”:

The Chest—Magnanimity—Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.

The chest is what differentiates men from animals. It embodies concepts like love, peace, harmony, self-sacrifice, truth, honor, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience and self-control.

Lewis warned that if we continue on a course without a chest, a dystopian future awaits us. He wrote,

We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

We tolerate the teaching of evolution in our schools, and then are shocked when our young people act like animals, and then turn their backs on God. We tolerate the teaching of alternative lifestyles in our schools, and then are shocked when we hear of confusion in who can use which restroom.

So it goes with music. Music has no chest. It has no moral compass. So we have dystopian music.

Most importantly Lewis pointed out that the above concepts do not come by individuals naturally. They have to be taught.

But there was one person in whom they didn’t have to be taught.

The Only Man Born With A Chest

While I’m not aware of Davies’ religious beliefs, I do know that he was raised in a culture heavily steeped in Christian beliefs and traditions. It was a culture that believed that love, peace, justice, and righteousness were transcendent values that must be preserved if society was to function well. It was this culture that influenced the social consciousness of the music of the 60s and 70s.

This culture, however, didn’t arise ex nihilo. It arose out of the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. He was truly the only man born with a chest.

Jesus Christ didn’t have to be taught these concepts because he was God incarnate. He was the embodiment of love, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, patience, gentleness, and self-control.

There is only one way for songwriters to produce music with a chest. That is to take His yoke and learn from Him.

Perhaps when that happens, we can again imagine a New Jerusalem on earth.

The post The Day The Music Continued To Die appeared first on The Progressing Pilgrim.

This week I watched another stellar (pun intended) episode of

Once again, I was stunned by the willingness of the writers to delve into questions that probe the very basics of humanity and morality. That’s something few movies or shows attempt to do today.

This particular episode (The Quality of Life), examined two important philosophical questions: how do we define life and is all life equally valuable? It may seem that these questions are better left to be discussed in the halls of academia. However, how you answer them can have crucial consequences in the real world.

Throughout history, the way societies have answered these questions have influenced views on slavery, civil rights, the equality of genders, and whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice.

Bravo to TNG for raising these questions for consideration. However, the way in which they answered them raises more questions than even they were prepared to deal with.

What is life and are all lives equally valuable? TNG answered both incorrectly. Let’s take a look.

The Story

On stardate 463307.2, the USS Enterprise-D arrives at Tyrus VIIa, a moon of the uninhabited planet Tyrus VII. They are there to inspect a new mining technique for possible use on other planets.

During Commander La Forge’s evaluation at the mining station, a power grid malfunctions. The malfunction gives Dr. Farallon, the project’s lead developer, an opportunity to demonstrate to La Forge the effectiveness of a new device she has been working on.

Over the course of several years, she has modified a common industrial servo mechanism and created what are known as “exocomps”. These mechanical devices have the ability to both replicate tools to effect repairs and a capacity to learn.

Subsequently, an exocomp repairs the grid in a matter of minutes instead of the months it would have taken engineers to do so. La Forge, recognizing the engineering importance of the exocomp, requests that it be brought to the Enterprise for evaluation.

Back at the Enterprise, Farallon confesses to Captain Picard that the project is behind schedule. However, she asks if he could delay his report to Star Fleet for 48 hours while she uses the exocomps to speed up work on the mining structure.

Picard agrees and sends Data, the Enterprise’s highly intelligent android, to assist Farallon in the work.

Exocomps Learn And Exhibit Self-Preservation

At the station, Farallon sends one of the exocomps into an access tunnel to perform repairs. In a short time, the exocomp returns without completing the task. When she attempts to send it back into the tunnel, it blocks her commands by burning out her control pad. Subsequently, there is an explosion in the tunnel that would have surely destroyed the exocomp.

Data, intrigued by what he has witnessed, brings the exocomp back to the Enterprise where he and La Forge try to determine why it malfunctioned. They find that the exocomp had shut itself down and in the process had increased its circuit pathways by 632%.

La Forge comments that somehow the exocomp seemed to know that the conduit would explode, and, therefore, it willingly left the access tunnel.

This remark prompts Data to perform a level one diagnostic on the exocomp. He finds that the exocomp is now working normally. However, its sensor logs reveal that it had burned out its own command circuitry, and then hours later, when it was safe, repaired itself.

From these findings, Data deduces that the exocomps have some sort of self-preservation mode. This leads him to question the very nature of life, especially as it relates to himself. If you’re familiar with Star Trek TNG, you know that many of the episodes center around Data’s quest to become human though he is essentially a robot with human appearance (android).

I know, I know. Data was considered the only sentient artificial lifeform in Federation society. Science fiction can make the impossible possible. That’s why we like it. But there can’t be artificial life. I’ll explain later.

Data Seeks An Answer To What Constitutes Life

In his search to find out what constitutes life, Data seeks out advice from Beverly Crusher, the ship’s doctor. Crusher has a difficult time answering the question but concludes, “that it was not specific actions that defined life, but the struggle to maintain life, such as self-preservation.” Data is now convinced that the exocomps are a lifeform and asks Farallon to stop using them.

Data Seeks Protection For The Exocomps

Data then calls for a meeting of the general staff to discuss what he has discovered about the exocomps, adding that the exocomps also seem to have an awareness of their environment.

Picard is sympathetic to Data’s theory and states that if the exocomps are a lifeform then they must be examined, as this is a primary mandate of Starfleet and the Enterprise.

After performing more tests on the exocomps, Data is convinced that they exhibit clear signs of intelligence.

The Crucial Climax

Subsequently, while observing the mining operation, Picard and La Forge become trapped on the station and are in danger of a deadly radiation leak. Dr. Farallon suggests that the only viable solution is to use the exocomps to neutralize the radiation long enough for Picard and La Forge to beam back to the Enterprise.

Since this would result in the exocomp’s destruction, Farallon suggests their command pathways would have to be modified because of their tendency to self-preservation.

Data strongly objects to the plan as it would mean ordering a lifeform to die for another lifeform. Second-in-command Riker overrules Data and orders the plan to commence.

However, the plan cannot proceed because Data has locked out the transporter controls.

He argues that the exocomps are a lifeform and have the right to life. During a conversation with Riker, Data offers to go himself, but Riker responds that the radiation would destroy him.

Data points out that he has the power to choose to sacrifice himself while the exocomps are not being offered that right.

Riker then proposes that Data ask the exocomps if they would agree to the plan. Data finds this suggestion acceptable and releases control of the transporter.

Long story short. The exocomps save Picard and La Forge, but one remains behind so that the other two can get away safely.

Data Rationalizes His Actions

Later Data explains to Picard why he was willing to endanger two friend’s lives for several small machines. Data relates that a few years ago, Picard himself had made a passionate appeal before Star Fleet that helped establish Data’s own status as a lifeform. Data says that he had chosen to champion the exocomps for the same reasons. A sympathetic Picard notes, “It was the most Human decision you have ever made.“

Isn’t that a great story? Combine it with all the other techy things going on, and you have one first-class science fiction tale. But, as I said, TNG often raises more questions than it’s prepared to answer.

Let’s take a look.

How Do We Define Life?

Data’s observations that the exocomps seem to have an inclination for self-preservation, an awareness of their surroundings, and the ability learn leads him to conclude that the exocomps are potentially a lifeform.

But here’s the question: are these qualities sufficient to qualify something as a lifeform? I don’t believe so.

When the air in my house drops to a certain temperature, my thermostat becomes aware of it and turns my furnace on. Is it a lifeform? No, it’s programmed to do that.

If one of the tires on my car becomes punctured, it will repair itself in order to prevent a blowout. The tire has exhibited self-preservation. Has your computer ever warned you of an impending virus attack and told you not to open up that website because it will damage the computer?

On the surface, we have to be careful to use awareness and self-preservation as definitions of life.

A Contemporary Definition Of What Constitutes Life

Without getting too complicated, let’s use Wikipedia for a current definition of life. Wiki says that if an organism has these characteristics, it is considered living as opposed to inanimate:

1. Composed of cells
2. Can maintain homeostasis
3. Undergoes metabolism
4. Grows
5. Adapts to their environment
6. Can respond to stimuli
7. Can reproduce.

Some may find this list controversial but outside of those who may define a virus as a lifeform and some far out types, this list is pretty comprehensive. Oh, and by the way, a preborn infant meets all these criteria.

Let’s see how many criteria for life the exocomps fulfill.

Do Exocomps Have Cells?

We are told that Dr. Farallon made the exocomps out of machine parts. They are not to our knowledge composed of organic matter or cells. They fail on that account.

Yes, I remember the Horta. That was a living creature from the original Star Trek series that was composed of silicon. Oh, that’s right. It’s science fiction so living things don’t have to fit our categories. They can redefine categories.

But if inorganic matter or cell-less objects can be lifeforms, then potentially anything can be a lifeform. If so, then we could ask a question like, “what do sleeping rocks dream about?”

I realize that there are some people who believe that all things are considered to be alive in some respect. In that case, be careful the next time you want to skim a stone off a body of water. You may be violating its civil rights.

In order to make sense of the world, we have to have categories. Ask Aristotle about that one. So, in our world, the exocomps are not lifeforms. In science fiction, anything goes.

Can Exocomps Maintain Homeostasis?

Quoting physician Walter Cannon, The Scientific American defines homeostasis as any process that living things use to actively maintain fairly stable conditions necessary for survival.

We are not told whether the exocomps fulfill this requirement. We don’t know if they have a self-sustaining energy source or whether they eat or consume some other kind of energy. If they rely on an outside source to supply energy, then they are not a lifeform.

Yes, I know that pre-born babies and infants need someone to provide food for them. But they do have the future potentiality to feed themselves.

The exocomps fail this category.

Can An Exocomp Experience Metabolism And Grow?

One definition of metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical transformations within the cells of organisms. Since exocomps don’t have cells then this definition doesn’t apply.

Another definition of metabolism is the sum of the physical and chemical processes in an organism by which its material substance is produced, maintained, and destroyed, and by which energy is made available.

As far as we know, exocomps can’t grow physically. We know that they can self-create more circuits, but they cannot add more wire. Humans can add more muscle mass.

Exocomps fail this category.

Can Exocomps Adapt To Their Environment And Respond To Stimuli?

We know exocomps can fulfill these two functions to some extent so I will grant them these two categories.

Can The Exocomps Reproduce?

This seems to be the category that really does the exocomp in. As far as we know, Dr. Farallon has not created the exocomp with reproductive organs. If they don’t have them, they can’t reproduce, right? If they can’t reproduce, they’re not living, right? Even the Horta was able to reproduce.

It appears Data had to do a lot more evaluation of the exocomp before he started making decisions based on his belief that they were lifeforms.

Science Fiction Fallacies

Okay, so if we use our contemporary categories, the exocomps are not a lifeform. Now, I realize that this is science fiction and our categories don’t always apply.

But if that’s the case, let me point out some absurdities and logical conclusions that even fail in a future science fiction type universe.

Logical Absurdities # 1

If the exocomps are a lifeform, where did they come from? We know that they were created by Dr. Farallon. Does that then make Dr. Farallon their God?

Shouldn’t they then worship and obey her in all things? Who is Data to tell her what she can or can’t do with her creation?

These aren’t trivial questions.

Do All Lifeforms Require A Creator?

It’s a logical conclusion that all lifeforms require a creator. If they don’t, then we are only left with a few other options.

1. Life arises from spontaneous generation

This is a philosophical absurdity because we know that something cannot arise from nothing. Life cannot arise out of non-life.

Most evolutionary scientists believe, however, that it is entirely possible for life to arise out of inorganic matter. How did that original matter get here? From outer space, of course. More science fiction.

Nonetheless, the predominant theory proposed by scientists for this possibility is called the RNA World Theory.

In the RNA World theory, scientists propose that inorganic matter in the form of RNA molecules eventually lead to the formation of DNA. However, recently, this theory has been shown to have insuperable problems and another supportive report was retracted because its data and conclusions were shown to be erroneous.

To date, no experiment has been performed to show the possibility of inorganic molecules evolving into organic molecules.

2. Life was always here

We know this was not the case with the exocomps. We also know that finite lifeforms cannot be eternal. Eternal causation is a philosophical absurdity. Look it up.

3. It’s all an illusion

Okay, the third option is favored by many in eastern religious traditions. Everything is an illusion or maya and we’re all just part of the same big picture. This is also an absurdity, and I’ll leave it to you to figure out why.

The only conclusion is that all lifeforms require a creator, and, if so, that creator should be worshipped and glorified for its power to give life where no life existed before.

Should Dr. Farallon Be Worshipped By The Exocomps?

Dr. Farallon was a created being. Also, the materials she used to create the exocomps were not created by her. So, again, worship is due to the ultimate Creator.

Data missed this fundamental fact lying behind the creation of all lifeforms.

In his rush to pronounce life, he was in some respect playing God. This led him to make another misjudgment on life which could have had serious consequences for the actual lives of others.

Is All Life Equally Valuable?

When Picard and La Forge became trapped on the mining station, Data made the decision that he could not allow the exocomps to save them. Since they were in his opinion a lifeform, he could not sacrifice them without their consent.

Data made a grave error in judgment here. Were the exocomps as a lifeform of the same value as Picard and La Forge? That raises this question: are all lifeforms to be equally valued just because they are lifeforms?

Sorry, I’m not going to chalk this one up to fuzzy science fiction agnosticism. I have some beautiful plants in my living room. Some of them even show awareness by bending to the sun for more light. They are definitely lifeforms.

But they are not on par with human lifeforms. If I had a need for heat, I wouldn’t hesitate to burn them for fuel. Why not? Because they have no soul. Humans are different from all other lifeforms.

Did the exocomps have a soul? Could they have had a soul? Sheeesh! They were created by a human. The soul is immaterial. Unless Farallon had a bunch of souls sitting around in her laboratory, and she knew how to secure it in a metal box, and … you get the picture.

Only an immaterial Creator can create a soul. Picard and La Forge had souls given them by their Creator. They were of much more value than an exocomp and should have been saved at the expense of the exocomps.

How did Data miss this?

Why Humans Are To Be Valued Ultimately Over All Other LifeForms

There is another reason why humans are not be valued equally amongst all other lifeforms. A man is not the same as a bacteria or a tree or a monkey. He is created by the same Creator, but he is distinct in that he is created in the image of God.

Man is finite and perishable. God is infinite and eternal. But God in his goodness chose to share some of his communicable attributes with us.

We can love, show mercy, be righteous, demonstrate justice, exercise wisdom, and lay our lives down for our neighbors.

We’re lead to believe that the exocomps did exhibit some sense of self-sacrifice in their rescuing of Picard and La Forge. However, the exocomps didn’t tell us that. It’s possible that’s what they were programmed to do. If so, then they couldn’t do otherwise.

Exocomp And Human Afterlife

Did the exocomps really face any eternal consequence if they were destroyed in the rescue attempt? If they perished, would they go to exocomp heaven or hell? They would go to neither because they have no soul.

However, if a man dies for his friend, he risks his body and perhaps even his soul.

No, Data’s action was not the most human decision he ever made. If you’re willing to sacrifice another human life for something you believe might have a higher value, you’re not acting humanely at all. 

Data, though, got one thing almost right. No human being can be compelled against their will to lay down their life down for another regardless of the reason. That includes noble-sounding ideas like establishing world peace or spreading democracy throughout the world.

However, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, entered history as a man and willingly laid down his life so that we, regardless if we’re male, female, gentile or Jew, could experience the fullness of what it means to be human and have a relationship with our Creator.

On a final note, the episode didn’t end with a memorial service for the destroyed exocomp. I guess the crew of the Enterprise came to their senses.

The post The Dangerous Definition Of Life In Star Trek: The Next Generation appeared first on The Progressing Pilgrim.

On my journey from the Standard American Diet to my present ketogenic diet, I went through several diet phases. In order, these consisted of a gluten-free diet, intensive juicing, paleo, low-carb healthy-fat diet (LCHF), and finally a very low-carb ketogenic diet.

While moving through each phase, I became progressively healthier. Thus, experience told me that the diets were helping to heal the chronic fatigue syndrome and inflammation that had plagued my body for nearly 30 years.

As I became more familiar with the science behind an LCHF diet, the more I realized that it was a metabolically superior diet. The hours I spent studying the research done by brilliant scientists like Phinney, Volek, D’Agostino, Rosedale, and Feinman have convinced me that the empirical data confirms that an LCHF diet is the healthiest diet not only for me but also for millions of others.

However, I’m dismayed when good scientists appeal to non-empirical evidence for the diet’s efficacy.

Many if not most LCHF experts continually rely on macroevolution as a reason for the success of an LCHF diet. “It’s the way we were evolved to eat,” they say.

I disagree. Evolution had nothing to do with the way we eat because macroevolution doesn’t exist. And it’s time good scientists stop appealing to bad science to strengthen their theories.

In this post, I’ll show how many LCHF scientists use evolution to bolster their argument for an LCHF diet and why it’s bad science to do so. Then I’ll reveal one of the dirty little secrets evolutionists don’t want you to know. This secret should destroy anyone’s faith in evolution.

The Paleolithic Diet: A Diet Based On Evolution

Since the introduction of the paleolithic diet about 20 years ago, paleo diet advocates and most LCHF experts have made evolution an important part of their evidence for their diet theories.

In 2016 at the Low Carb Down Under Conference, a prestigious gathering of some of the top LCHF advocates in the world, one of the presentations was entitled Paleopathology and the Origins of the Paleo Diet.

A key slide from the lecturer stated,

“… Our physiology should be optimized to the diet we have experienced during our evolutionary past.”

As I’ve listened to numerous lectures and podcasts and read articles from LCHF experts, this seems to be the prevailing attitude. It’s repeated continually by so many different experts that one would assume that evolution is a scientific fact.

Oh, I hear the guffaws. You’re not serious, are you? Are you saying that evolution is not a scientific fact? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Evolution is not a scientific fact. It’s not even a good scientific theory.

Wow, that’s not an opinion you hear every day in the health and wellness community, is it? But I’m prepared to back up my claim.

Evolution is an emperor who has no clothes, and it’s time for us to admit it.

Always Examine The Evidence

Tyler Cartwright from Ketogains.com recently made some insightful comments regarding how good science works.  Alluding to the research of Ancel Keys, Cartwright cautioned against blindly following nutrition gurus and warned that we should always be skeptical of the data. Remember that it was Keyes’ flaw data that was responsible for the USDA’s war on saturated fat and its subsequent recommendation of a high-carb low-fat diet.

Today, many nutrition experts believe that it’s this diet that might be one of the main reasons for our country’s current obesity epidemic.

Therefore, saying that I follow Atkins or that I follow Ornish or that I follow South Beach or any diet without examining the data behind the diet can be a recipe for disaster. We should never blindly follow scientific advice. See my post on statins here.

Cartwright went on to make this keen observation concerning the proper way to validate a nutrition theory,

We need to be completely transparent with data and the evidence. If we want to make the claim that a ketogenic diet is beneficial for X then we need to be prepared to support that both in terms of the “rah, rah” side of it… and also fund research to test and prove that hypothesis. And then to put it up to scrutiny by encouraging people with disagreeing dispositions … to then replicate the experiment…. And look to see if we’re seeing consistent results.

Cartwright here expresses the foundations for a good scientific investigation.

In order to accept a scientific hypothesis as true, it must have good empirical evidence and also be able to withstand criticism to the contrary. If the hypothesis is well supported, then it can be further developed as a good theory.

This process of scientific investigation has been called the scientific method. It must be used to justify any scientific theory, including evolution.

Applying The Scientific Method

The basis for a good scientific investigation follows what scientists call the scientific method. This is the procedure.
So, for example, let’s say that we observed that people who consumed copious amounts of refined carbohydrates over time develop high fasting blood sugar and then eventually type-2 diabetes.

From this observation, we could theorize that prolonged excess carbohydrate consumption impairs insulin sensitivity which contributes to type-2 diabetes. To validate our theory, we could then design an experiment to test it.

If we repeated our experiment keeping all variables equal, we could eventually come up with a good theory.

Notice that all our observations took place in the present. This is extremely important when examining the theory of evolution.

Let me show you why evolution can’t stand up to the scrutiny of the scientific method.

Evolution Research Involves Investigation Into Past Events

Since evolution is something that has happened in the past, its processes are not observable in the present.

We can’t go back into the past and observe non-organic matter turning into organic matter or a certain kind of ape ancestor evolving into two humans of opposite sexes.

Since evolution is not observable in the present we can’t validate it with the scientific method. It’s not testable, repeatable, or falsifiable.

Therefore, it’s not a scientific theory.

Whatever evidence evolutionists gather from past events must be interpreted according to an a priori philosophical point of view. In other words, if an evolutionist were to hypothesize that man evolved from some prior species, they could only come to that hypothesis from a prior belief that man evolves.

There’s no way to perform an experiment to show that this actually happened.

But Don’t We Have The Fossils?

Oh, but some will say we have the hominid bones that prove man evolved. No, we only have bones that suggest there was some other type of species living in the past. We have not seen a hominid turn into a man nor have we seen a living transitional species. We don’t have data from the present, only the past.

In order to postulate that a certain species was an evolutionary forerunner to man, one must assume the theory of evolution.

The scientific method urged by Tyler Cartwright to test scientific hypotheses can’t be used to prove the veracity of evolution.

So what we have are evolution believing scientists putting forth their very best Janus face. On one hand, they appeal to empirical evidence for an LCHF diet while on the other hand appealing to evidence from a theory that is non-testable and falsifiable.

Oh, but some would say that we do have good evidence for evolution. Again that evidence has to be evaluated with prior assumptions.

Slipping Evolution Into Nutritional Science

With the introduction of the paleolithic (paleo) diet about 25 years ago, many scientists began appealing to the hunter-gatherer type diets of our supposed evolutionary ancestors as the optimum diet for contemporary humans. See here.

The theory goes something like this:

1. Over millions of years, our primal ancestors evolved to eat basically a hunter-gatherer type of diet which included lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds and did not include cereals or dairy products.
2. The introduction of agriculture and animal husbandry 10,000 years ago occurred too recently on an evolutionary timescale for the human genome to adjust.
3. Therefore, the result of the mismatch between the contemporary human diet and our genetically determined physiology resulted in the emergence of many of the so-called diseases of civilization. See here.

Since the paleo diet is low in carbohydrate consumption, most LCHF diet advocates have picked up on this evolutionary theory of nutrition and have made it an important piece of evidence for the diet’s success.

It is, however, filled with assumptions that can’t be proven.

Exposing Embedded Assumptions

The evolutionary argument for a paleo diet might seem cogent to you if you agree with a number of assumptions being made. But if you disagree with them, it’s not.

There are three “time indicators” implicit in this argument. They are:

1. Over millions of years
2. 10,000 years ago
3. An evolutionary timescale

In order to accept this argument as true, two of those time indicators have to be accepted as true. People evolved over millions of year and there must be an evolutionary timescale. This implies that the earth is millions if not billions of years old and that evolution is a scientific fact.

Now, here’s the important question. Are those two beliefs proven facts or are they assumptions?

Evolution has become so embedded in our culture that most people including scientists have accepted it as a fact. But is it?

Evolution: 101

Here are some basic postulates of evolution:

1. The earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
2. Organic life formed from inorganic chemicals.
3. Over the course of millions of years, simple life-forms developed into more complex life-forms and finally into humans.
4. Different kinds of complex life-forms randomly developed through a process of natural selection and mutations.

As I’ve already pointed out, because of the nature of these postulates, evolution cannot be verified by the same scientific method we would use to test whether excess carbohydrate consumption raises circulating insulin levels.

But in order for any of the above postulates to be true, evolutionists have to assume one very fundamental fact. The earth is very, very, very old. That’s because, in the evolutionary schema, billions of years are necessary for higher life forms to evolve from inorganic matter.

Now, we are always told that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. And most of us take that as a fact, right? But how do we know this is true?

Because evolutionary scientists have told us that it’s true. And how do they know it’s true? They say they have the radiometric dating evidence to prove. 

Now, should we believe them or should we examine the evidence? Let’s look at the evidence. By the way, it’s the only evidence presented to indicate an old earth.

Radiometric Age Dating

Evolutionists insist that they know the earth is around 4.5 billion years old based on a process called radiometric dating.

Without burdening you with a lot of physics, these are the basics of radiometric dating.

1. There exists in nature certain radioactive elements such as uranium-238, potassium-40, and strontium-87. The numbers next to the element indicate that the element is an isotope of the element meaning that it has an extra neutron. These elements are called parent isotopes.
2. To achieve stability the parent isotope will usually discharge neutrons or protons. When this happens a new element is formed which is called the daughter isotope. For example, uranium-238 will decay into lead-206 and potassium-40 will decay into argon-40.
3. The time it takes for 50% of a radioactive substance to decay is called the half-life. The half-life for uranium-238 is about 4.5 billion years. While potassium-40 has a half-life of 1.25 billion years.

Therefore, if a rock contains 2 micrograms of potassium-40, after 1.25 billion years the rock will have only 1 microgram of potassium-40 and will have gained some argon-40.  So, if an evolutionist happens to find a rock with 1 microgram of potassium-40 and a small amount of argon-40, they will conclude that the rock is 1.25 billion years old.

This is how scientists theorize that the earth is billions of years old. It seems foolproof, doesn’t it? But it’s not because in order to work it must rely on some unprovable assumptions.

Assumption 1: Conditions At Time Zero

When using this method, scientists have to assume that there was no daughter isotope originally present in their rock sample. In our example above, this would be argon. They make this assumption based on the fact that since argon is a gas, it should escape when the rock, usually lava, was formed.

However, if there was argon present in the original sample, then the age of the rock could be highly exaggerated.

We now know that argon can be trapped in large quantities of volcanic rock. In 1986, a sample of lava from the Mt. St. Helens crater was analyzed and found to have so much argon-40 that it had a calculated age of 350,000. However, the lava was actually observed to form and cool in 1986.

To compensate for daughter elements present when rocks first formed, scientists have come up with a complicated mathematical formula called isochron dating.

However, this method has also been known to give incorrect answers when applied to rocks of known age.

Assumption 2: Constant Decay Rates

Over the past 100 years, physicists have measured the decay rates of parent isotopes and have found them to be essentially constant. They have not, however, been able to determine if those decay rates have been constant for the past thousands or even millions of years.

Scientists have just assumed that the rates have been constant.

Recent evidence has shown, however, that decay rates have not been constant in the past.

When geologists examined tiny crystals from a New Mexico granite source, they found that the uranium-lead age revealed that the crystals were 1.5 billion years old. However, they also found that only 6,000 years worth of helium had leaked out of the crystals.

That means that uranium must have decayed very rapidly over the same 6,000 years that the helium was leaking. The rate of uranium decay must have been at least 250,000 times faster than today’s measured rate.

There are several factors that could change the rates of decay, but I’ll leave that for another time.

Assumption 3: Contamination

Since samples of rocks have not be taken from completely sealed locations, it’s quite possible that there may have been a gain or loss of parent and daughter isotopes by contamination from flowing water and molten rock beneath volcanoes.

It is also possible that contamination could occur from volcanic molten lava that rose through channels deep inside the earth bringing with it rock from the channel walls.

This process has been verified.

Lava flows from Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand that are known to be less than 50-years old have been found to yield a rubidium-strontium “age” of 133 million years, a samarium-neodymium “age” of 197 million years, and a uranium-lead “age” of 3.908 billion years.

So, when discussing the subject of radioactive dating, the only thing that is certain is the amount of daughter element present and the present decay rate. We cannot know with certainty the past decay rate or the past amount of the parent and/or daughter isotope.

Scientific data that gives inconsistent results and cannot be repeated is simply not useful for constructing a theory.

Below is a chart that shows known dates of rock formation and the dates given by potassium-argon dating.

As you can see, radiometric dating is not a reliable method for dating the age of the earth. Also, as I noted above, different radiometric dating methods often give widely different ages for the same rocks.

Using radiometric dating to suggest that the earth is billions of years old requires many assumptions and a great deal of faith.

Carbon-14 Dating Of Coal And Diamonds

Most of us have heard about C-14 dating. It works on the same dating premise as the isotopes above and is limited by the same drawbacks.

However, C-14 has a half-life of only 5736 years which is much shorter than the elements we examined above. This means that in 100,000 years there would be very little C-14 detectable in anything examined. In a million years, there would be no C-14 left anywhere on the earth. 

Yet geologists have found C-14 in coal that was supposed to have formed millions of years ago and in diamonds that were supposed to have formed billions of years ago.

Explanations to these finding by evolutionary geologists have been less than satisfactory.

Carbon-14 Dating And Dinosaurs

In the last 13 years, numerous dinosaur fossils have been discovered that contain soft tissue remains such as collagen and blood cells.

Paleontologists were astounded at this finding because they believed it was impossible for soft tissue to survive for over 64 million years. In order to overcome the implications of these findings paleontologists now theorize that the soft tissue was either trapped in the bone or preserved by iron oxide residue. Neither of these assumptions has been scientifically proven.

What paleontologists refused to consider though is whether dinosaur fossils contain any C-14. Why would they? According to their presuppositions, there shouldn’t be any C-14 at all in a 64 million-year-old fossil.

However, in 2015, scientists from the Creation Research Society gathered 16 samples from 14 fossil specimens of fish, wood, plants, and animals from throughout the geologic column and from a variety of locations throughout the world.

After carefully preparing the fossils to prevent contamination, they were presented to five different commercial and academic laboratories for atomic mass spectrometry.

CRS scientists found C-14 in all the samples, regardless if they were identified as coming from Cenozoic, Mesozoic, or Paleozoic source rocks.

These results were consistent with carbon-14 dating that scientists had performed on other dinosaur fossils. See here.

The Evolutionary Paleontologist Response

Paleontologists dismiss these results as flawed due to contamination of the samples. Oddly, that’s something they don’t admit possible with other dating methods.

However, as I noted, CRS researchers were careful to avoid contamination.

If these experiments are correct, then dinosaurs didn’t live millions of years ago but thousands. The effect of this would be to call into question the entire evolutionary schema proposed by their geologic column theory.

Let’s remember what Tyler Cartwright had said previously. Evidence and data should be put to scrutiny by encouraging people with disagreeing dispositions … to then replicate the experiment…. And look to see if we’re seeing consistent results.

However, evolutionary geologists refuse to engage in this carbon-14 controversy.  They argue that since dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, it’s a waste of time to carbon date their fossils.

My friends, that’s not science. If there’s evidence that falsifies your position, then deal with it. If you don’t, then you’re not doing science but are engaging in religion.

Evolutionists Are Running Out Of Time

If the earth is not billions of years old, then the evolutionary theory falls apart. There is simply not enough time for inorganic matter to eventually evolve into a male and female human. Not that it could in even an infinite amount of time.

I want to note here that I have not argued for a young earth but simply that a very old earth is a highly dubious hypothesis. The evidence though seems to point to a young earth.

Let’s Give Up The Fallacy Of Evolution

The theory of evolution has become dogma in our institutions of learning for decades. From there, it has filtered out into media, popular culture, and even into our churches and has become ingrained in our culture.

As the saying goes, if you repeat a lie, often enough it becomes the truth.

But it is not the truth. And it’s time good scientists find the courage and step up and apply the scientific method to all scientific theories evidence, even if it means a demotion in their academic field.

An appeal to atheistic evolution might not seem like a big deal. But remember, we’re more than just a body. We have souls as well. Failing to give glory to the Creator for His creation is dangerous business for our souls.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

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It’s a given that the Church is supposed to be responsible for its members’ spiritual needs. In a sense, the church feeds the sheep.

To be sure, the church also is to show concern for the physical needs of its members. 

Churches have deacon funds that help its members with financial hardships. They have food pantries that supply food to the hungry. And church leaders often also anoint, pray, and care for the sick.

But what about the physical health of the church members before they get sick? Does the church have a responsibility to warn its members of unhealthy physical activities that lead to physical illness?

I’m not alluding to sexual sins that could lead to transmitted diseases. 

There’s something much more out in the open that the church is ignoring. I’m talking about obesity and gluttony.

This country is facing an epidemic of obesity that is cutting short the lives of millions and costing us hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

The church is not immune to the problem. And, worse, it might even be abetting it.

Let’s take a look.

An Obesity Epidemic Within Our Midst

There is good news concerning obesity trends in the United States. It appears that the decades-long climb in obesity rates is beginning to slow down.

A recent report found that,

The adult obesity rate decreased in Kansas between 2015 and 2016, increased in Colorado, Minnesota, Washington, and West Virginia, and remained stable in the rest of states.

Now for the bad news. Approximately 37.7% of adult Americans are still obese, as are about 17% of children. If we add in the category “overweight”, those numbers rise to over 66% and 35% respectively.

Do these statistics mean that the U.S. is a nation of gluttons? More on that later.

Defining Obesity and Overweight

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) defines the word obese in terms of body mass index (BMI). Your BMI is your weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters.

If your BMI is 30.0 or higher, it falls within the obese range. If your BMI is 25.0 to <30, it falls within the overweight range. You can calculate your BMI here.

Be aware that BMI is not always a good indicator of obesity. Individuals who have a high percentage of muscle mass can show a high BMI and still be very healthy. For the general population, though, this is not usually the case.

Obesity And Diabetes

The incidence of obesity in the U.S. is truly frightening considering its high correlation to type 2 diabetes. Approximately 12.2% of adult Americans (30.2 million people) have diabetes (90-95% type 2) and approximately 33.9% of U.S. adults (84.1 million people) have prediabetes. That means over 114 million people (or approximately 47% of American adults) have diabetes or prediabetes.

Let’s put that in context. Unless your church is filled with really healthy, extraordinarily active people, there’s a good possibility that someone sitting on either side of you in the church pew is either overweight or obese.

There’s also a good possibility that that person sitting next to you has either diabetes or prediabetes. And it’s going to get worse. The CDC projects that one in three adults could have diabetes by 2050. Remember also that obesity and diabetes are highly associated with heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Obesity, Diabetes And The Church

The highest occurrence of obesity and diabetes in the U.S is found in states that comprise what is known as the Bible Belt. Nine of the 11 states with the highest obesity rates are in the South.

It would stand to reason that a significant percentage of people with obesity are Christians.

In fact, there are some studies that suggest that the church is not immune from the obesity epidemic.

A 2006 study by Purdue University found that obesity is significantly present in the church, especially among Baptists.

At the 2005 Southern Baptist Convention, 1,472 participants presented for wellness screening. Of those participants, 75% were found to be significantly overweight.

A  2011 Northwestern University study tracking 3,433 men and women for 18 years found that individuals with “a high frequency of religious involvement were more likely than those with none to become obese between young adulthood and middle age, even after accounting for demographics.”

This study didn’t explicitly say the participants were Christians, but it was implied.

Finally, a 2001 Pulpit and Pew study of 2,500 clergy members found that 76% were either overweight (46%) or obese (30%) compared to 61% of the general population at the time of the study.

However, since none of these studies are large or highly scientific, I don’t believe they are sufficient to prove that the church has a greater obesity problem than the nation as a whole.

It may, but I don’t know. I doubt the church does anything out of the ordinary to encourage obesity.

However, that doesn’t mean they don’t do anything at all to encourage it. I’ll get into that shortly.

Is The Church Filled with Gluttons?

There’s little doubt that obesity has entered the church. Does that mean that the church is filled with gluttons? Let’s see.

Merriam-Webster defines gluttony as eating or drinking to excess. There’s little doubt that the Bible characterizes it as a sin.

Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags. (Proverbs 23: 20-21)

When the Pharisees tried to disparage Jesus, they accused him of being a glutton.

The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Luke 7:34)

Some denominations also considered gluttony as one of the seven deadly sins.

So are our churches filled with individuals who are guilty of the sin of gluttony? And if so, shouldn’t we be hearing more about it from the pulpit?

Let’s tread carefully here.

Obesity Is Not Synonymous With Gluttony

Just because someone is obese that doesn’t necessarily make him a glutton. I’m sure the Pharisees weren’t accusing Jesus of being obese.

Also, the person gorging on meat in Proverbs 23: 20-21 would probably not become obese by constantly eating meat. I know people on 100% meat diets, and they are not overweight or obese.

In the Bible, gluttony is usually associated with drunkenness. It’s a form of riotous living where a person’s god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

I don’t believe that’s what we’re seeing in the church. This may be true of some obese people, but it may also be true of underweight individuals.

The overwhelming number of overweight and obese individuals are not gluttons. Some individuals may be consuming too many calories, but again that doesn’t make them a glutton.

So what’s the problem? Why are there so many obese people in our country and also in our churches?

The answer to this question lies in why people get obese in the first place.

Why Do People Become Obese?

Obesity is a relatively new phenomenon in our country. Here’s a chart of the rise in obesity rates since the 1960s.

Did you notice when the rates in obesity started to rise? It was 1980. Did something happen in 1980 that caused obesity to start rising?

In 1980, the USDA came out with their new dietary guidelines on healthy eating for the U.S. public. The USDA, relying on the flawed research of Dr. Ancel Keyes, recommended a diet high in carbohydrates and low in fats (HCLF). See here.

Still relying on Keyes’ research, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises that Americans consume 51% of their daily calories as carbohydrate, 32% fat, and 18% as protein (I know the numbers don’t add to 100%, but I took the numbers from the USDA site). They say that saturated fats should total less than 10% of total calories.

The FDA recommends a similar breakdown of 60% calories from carbs, 30% from fat, and 10% from protein.

Why is this important? Because it wrongly assumes that all calories are the same. And this led to the recommendation of a diet that was detrimental to the health of the American public.

Your Body Doesn’t Treat All Calories The Same

For years dieticians have told us that a calorie is a calorie. In other words, the consumption of a calorie of carbohydrate will have the same effect on your body as a calorie of fat.

Researchers such as Dr. Jason Fung, Gary Taubes, Dr. David Ludwig, and Dr. Robert Lustig have rejected this theory.

They propose a new theory that suggests that your body exhibits a completely different response to carbohydrates than to fat or protein. This has led to what is called the Carbohydrate-Insulin cause of obesity.

In this model, obesity is primarily caused by an overconsumption of refined carbohydrates such as sugar, pasta, bread, rice, and fructose. And to a lesser extent carb dense vegetables like potatoes.

When you consume a refined carb, your small intestine breaks it down into glucose. This glucose finds its way into your bloodstream. Your pancreas in response secretes insulin to remove the glucose from your blood.

Insulin is basically a storage hormone. Whatever glucose you don’t use for energy will be converted into glycogen in the liver and stored for future energy.

When you sleep, insulin levels fall and your body releases some of the stored food energy to power your body. If your times of eating and fasting are balanced, everything is okay.

Unbalancing The System

However, your liver has a limited storage capacity for glycogen. If you consume more carbs (glucose) than your liver can store as glycogen, then your liver converts the excess glucose to fat. Insulin will then store this fat in fat cells (adipocytes) throughout your body.

So you get fatter (though you may not be obese). If you continue to over consume refined carbs year after year, you will get fatter and fatter.

Nobody becomes obese overnight. But if you’ve gained just 2 pounds a year for the last 30 years, you’re now 60 pounds overweight.

The Big Problem: Too Much Insulin

The big problem arises when this process continues for years. For some obese people (but not all), at a certain point, their cells become resistant to the work of insulin. In response, their body produces more insulin in order to try and get the fat into the adipocytes. But no luck. They’re all filled up.

However, the fat has to go somewhere. So insulin tries to pack it in their liver (fatty liver), pancreas, muscles, around your abdomen, wherever it can.

But these organs also become resistant to insulin. Eventually, their pancreas cannot keep up with insulin demand and glucose starts piling up in their blood. Now they have developed type 2 diabetes.

This is a simplified version of the theory, but I think you get the picture.

See Dr. Peter Attia explain why we should be focusing on excess insulin as the cause of obesity and diabetes.

Why Can’t Obese People Just Go On A Diet?

Some people might be tempted to say that obese people should just go on a diet. Really, don’t you think they’ve tried dieting?

News flash: Dieting doesn’t work.

Sure, people who go on a diet lose weight. And then what happens? Six months to a year later they put the weight right back on. And sometimes they put on a little more.

Do you remember that TV show The World’s Biggest Loser? The dirty little secret is that every participant from the first season regained almost all the weight they lost in spite of their efforts to keep it off.

Researchers were startled when they discovered that and even more startled when they found out the reason.

Apparently, it has to do with what’s called your body set weight. See here and here.

Your Body’s Set Weight

Your body’s set weight is an optimal weight that your body attempts to maintain. For example, if you’ve been 200 pounds for 10 years, your body will fight to maintain that weight.

It does this by slowing down its metabolism. Therefore, even if you maintain the same calorie restricted diet, you’ll eventually gain the weight back.

Dr. Michael Schwartz, an obesity and diabetes researcher who is a professor of medicine at the University of Washington, said,

The key point is that… you can lose enormous amounts of weight, you can go on for six years, but you can’t get away from a basic biological reality. As long as you are below your initial weight, your body is going to try to get you back.

This is why all calorie restricted diets fail.

Obesity And Hunger

Researchers are beginning to find that hunger cravings have a big role to play in obesity. There are several theories on this, but I’ll mention just two.

The first is a dysregulation in the hormone leptin. When fat cells are full, they secrete leptin. Leptin then signals your brain that you have enough stored energy. Your brain then produces a feeling of satiety and you stop eating.

However, when there is an over abundance of fat cells or they grow too large more leptin is secreted. Eventually, a resistance to the effects of leptin develops. That means that even though you’ve eaten enough, your brain is telling you that you’re still hungry. Consequently, you eat more. See here.

There is also research being done concerning the relationship between dopamine response in the brain and food cravings. It appears that dopamine is related to a reward response, and this could induce people to overconsume. There is still some controversy in this field.

As you can see, obesity is a lot more complicated than just suggesting someone is a glutton.

Healing Obesity And Diabetes

The one sure way to cure obesity and type 2 diabetes is by reducing the amount of excess insulin in the body.

This is done through two means.

The first is a new way of eating. This entails the reduced consumption of refined carbohydrates, sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup. Significantly lowering carbohydrate and sugar intake will lower your blood glucose. That will subsequently lower the secretion of insulin.

However, for the very obese, losing weight this way may take a considerable amount of time.

A low-carbohydrate healthy-fat diet coupled with time-restricted eating (fasting) seems to be the most effective way to heal obesity and diabetes in the shortest amount of time.

If you don’t consume calories, then zero insulin will be released. Also, existent fat stores will be burned for energy. For more on the weight-loss benefit of fasting see here.

What Does This Mean For The Church?

You’ve probably heard the non-biblical proverb, “You can be too heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good.” In a sense that applies here.

People are created body and soul. As the church strives to feed the soul, it should not neglect the health of the physical bodies of its members. After all, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The church should exhort its members to take care of their bodies as well as their souls and minds.

In our midst, there are people getting sicker and sicker because they’ve been fed a pack of lies.

The church should inform them to be skeptical when a godless government informs them that this is the healthy way to eat.

Feeding The Sheep Wrongly

Would we serve wine at our church gatherings? Instead of coffee and donuts, how about we serve a nice Merlot and some cheese.

There’s no sin concerning the modest intake of wine, is there?

But we don’t serve wine because it can be a stumbling block to people who’ve had a previous problem with it.

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. (Romans 14:20)

So, then, why do we serve carb dense sugar loaded food to people who have a problem with their weight! I’m thinking here: cookies, cake, bagels, and sugar for their coffee. If you don’t think sugar is a poison, read Gary Taubes’ book The Case Against Sugar. See also here.

Why place sugary treats in front of people who are slowly being harmed by too much consumption of sugar?

The church has to rethink its position on obesity and health. We neglect rightly guiding the sheep at our own peril.

If we don’t do it, Google will. See Dr. Mercola’s new article on Google Apocalypse.

That’s it for today. What are your thoughts?

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The Bible is not always explicit on social issues except when it is. In Numbers chapter 12, the scripture is very explicit on the sin of racism. God doesn’t take it lightly, especially when it’s used to thwart His sovereign grace. Miriam and Aaron learned that lesson the hard way.

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12: 1-2)

It’s possible that the Cushite woman mentioned here in Numbers 12 was Zipporah, the Midianite woman that Moses married in Exodus 12:21. Since the prophet Habakkuk (3:7) links Midian and Cush together, some scholars contend that she is the wife mentioned here.

Other scholars, however, believe that it’s unlikely the woman is Zipporah because she is described as a Cushite, not a Midianite. They theorize that the woman was from the region of Cush. This area was located to the south of Egypt, approximately where Sudan and Ethiopia are today.

The name of the land derived its name from Cush who was the eldest son of Ham, one of the sons of Noah.

In the book Antiquities of the Jews (written circa AD 93), the Jewish historian Josephus connects Cush with Ethiopia,

For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Cush; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Cushites.

Since the passage in Numbers emphasizes that the woman was a Cushite and not a Midianite, I tend to believe she was not Zipporah.

The Double Meaning Of Cush

The word cush has a double meaning in the Hebrew language. It not only refers to the land of Cush, but it also conveys the meaning of blackness. Thus, the Cushites were thought to be a dark-skinned people.

The prophet Jeremiah also alludes to the Cushites’ skin color when he rhetorically asks, “Can the Cushite change his skin?” (Jeremiah 13:23).

So in all likelihood, Moses’ Cushite wife would have had a complexion quite a few shades darker than Miriam’s or Aaron’s.

The Blackness Of Contention

The text tells us that Miriam and Aaron used Moses’ marriage to the dark-skinned Cushite woman as a reason to disqualify him as God’s pre-eminent prophet in Israel.

They didn’t bring up Moses’ violent past (remember that slave he killed in Egypt) or his short temper (Exodus 32:19) or that he wasn’t a great orator. Miriam and Aaron questioned Moses’ leadership status because of his black wife.

The obvious question is why?

It seems they weren’t offended by the Cushite because she was a gossip or that she never invited them over for quail on manna sandwiches.

The scripture clearly emphasizes the fact that Miriam and Aaron spoke against her because she was a Cushite. Regardless if it was Zipporah or not, the woman was obviously dark skinned. And her dark skin was a problem for them.

Wow! Were Miriam and Aaron blatant racists? Maybe, I don’t know their hearts, but let’s look a little deeper.

Were Miriam And Aaron Revolutionaries?

What if Miriam and Aaron weren’t racists but were using the Cushite’s skin color as an attempt to usurp Moses’ leadership position? What if they were they simply using a Saul Alinsky-like tactic to question Moses’ moral authority in order to gain power? 

If so, then they were trying to engineer a coup in Israel.

I find this doubtful since they had already seen how God dealt with those who revolted against his authority. Let’s dig deeper.

Questioning Moses’ Choice

In their private discussions on the matter, Aaron and Miriam must have come to the conclusion that a dark-skinned wife disqualified Moses from being the exclusive leader of Israel.

The argument could’ve gone something like this.

Miriam: Moses has chosen a dark-skinned wife. This is not proper for the leader of Israel.

Aaron: True, Miriam. If Moses can’t be trusted with proper decision making when choosing a wife, how could he be trusted to run a country?

Or something like this.

Miriam: Moses’ choice of a Cushite as his second wife shows the stress of leadership has gotten to him.

Aaron: Yes, perhaps he’s not mentally fit to serve in such a high office alone.

Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that Miriam and Aaron brought a serious accusation against Moses based on the skin color of his wife.

Whether Miriam had racists thoughts against Moses’ wife is debatable. We do know, however, that the Lord struck Miriam with leprosy for her slander against Moses (Numbers 12:10). The scripture tells us that her skin was turned as white as snow.

Miriam who had a problem with black skin was going to feel what it was like to be really white.

Moses Doesn’t Retaliate

Remarkably, Moses didn’t rage at Miriam and Aaron’s insult. Unlike ragers today who are quick to vent their anger at the slightest perceived insult, he kept his temper in check.

The passage in Numbers describes Moses as the meekest man in the world. That’s not to assume he was a Caspar Milquetoast. After all, we know that in the past he could use violence to settle an injustice, and recently he had engaged the most powerful ruler in the world in warfare.

But he had come to learn that true vindication came not from his own anger or retaliation but from Him whose eyes see what is right. The Lord would decide if Moses’ taking of a Cushite wife violated his office of the prophet of Israel.

I believe however that there’s a lot more going on here than an argument over skin color. Let’s go deeper.

Prohibition Against Foreign Wives

On more than one occasion, Moses had warned the Israelites to be wary of allowing their sons and daughters to marry the inhabitants of the land they were to possess.

Take care… lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land… and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. (Exodus 34:16)

Technically, Israelites were supposed to marry Israelites. They were to marry within the covenant of Israel. The Cushite woman wasn’t an Israelite. She wasn’t even a Shemite. She was from the line of Ham.

If the woman actually was Zipporah, then she would also not be an Israelite because she was not from the line of Jacob.

Therefore, Miriam and Aaron could have been accusing Moses of something much more serious than marrying a black woman. By marrying someone outside the nation of Israel, Moses had violated his own commandment. Not only had Moses married a black woman, but this woman was not an Israelite.

This certainly would make Moses unfit to lead Israel.

Foreign Believers

Perhaps Miriam and Aaron were hearing whispers amongst the people. Maybe they went something like this. Is Moses the best choice for our leader? His wife is black, and she’s not one of us. What could he be thinking?

If this was Miriam and Aaron’s complaint, then they could have been traveling down a dangerous path.

It’s highly doubtful that Moses would have married outside of the faith. It seems a bit far fetched that the meekest man in the world would arrogantly violate his own commandment, a commandment he got directly from God.

In all likelihood, the Cushite woman was a believer in the God of Israel.

If the woman was a Cushite and not Zipporah, it’s also quite possible that Moses didn’t go to Cush to get her. It’s more likely that she had been amongst the people who had come out of Egypt with Israel. It’s even possible that she had lived with the community of faith since birth.

The Converted Gentiles

Gary North in Authority And Dominion: An Economic Commentary On Exodus Volume 1 makes the point that the number of people who came out of Egypt was far greater than could be accounted for by direct descendants of Jacob (p.26). The only way to account for this phenomena is by postulating that large numbers of gentiles were converted to the faith while still in Egypt.

Since Miriam and Aaron did not accuse the woman of being an unbeliever, I believe they knew she was a believer. If so, then Miriam and Aaron would have been guilty of implying that a non-Jew, even though a believer, couldn’t be part of God’s people.

In other words, Moses had intentionally married a second class citizen.

Wow, can you hear the accusations? Yes, she may believe in our God, but she’s not one of us! And you know how those foreign women can turn you away from God. Besides she can’t be circumcised so how do we really know she’s a believer.

Again, this would seemingly call Moses’ judgment into question.

Who Is The True Jew?

The Apostle Paul dealt with this question in Romans chapter 2,

So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. (Romans 2: 26,29)

The true believer today doesn’t have to undergo circumcision in order to be considered a believer. True belief is a matter of the heart.

Who Is The True Child Of Abraham?

Yes, a gentile male in Israel during the time of Moses would have to undergo circumcision in order to have been considered part of the covenant, but not the Cushite woman. The right condition of her heart was all that was required for her to be accepted into the covenant.

Paul gets more specific in Romans chapter 4,

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. (Romans 4:3,16)

If the Cushite woman had the same faith as Abraham, then she had the right to call Abraham her father just as much as his blood descendants do.

Paul again makes this abundantly clear in Galatians 3:28,

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Allow me to add, there is neither Cushite, nor white, nor brown, nor yellow, nor red, nor whatever color. Salvation is available to every woman or man regardless of their person because all people are made in the image of God.

One Requirement For Salvation

Oh, there is a requirement to salvation. God only accepts individuals who see themselves as sinners. He doesn’t accept the righteous. Jesus was clear on that,

“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32)

Self-righteousness disqualifies you from heaven.

So if Miriam and Aaron believed that somehow Moses’ Cushite wife was a liability for him, they were sorely mistaken. No, the Cushite woman was a valuable asset to Moses in his ministry.

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. (Proverbs 31:10)

Why Did God Get So Mad?

It would be an understatement to say the Lord was upset with Miriam.

And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and he departed. When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother’s womb.” (Numbers 12:11-10)

Why was the Lord so angry with Miriam that he turned her into a hideous piece of white flesh?

Was it because she had racist tendencies in her heart? Or was it because she considered a Cushite unworthy to be welcomed into the covenant of Israel? Or was it because she didn’t understand that God’s power, grace, and love could give a woman, regardless of her gender, race, and social status, a heart completely devoted unto Himself?

If Miriam did indeed harbor these sins, they would have been enough to evoke the Lord’s anger.

However, I think the sin of Miriam and Aaron was much more severe.

The Ever Faithful Moses

Moses did not sin by marrying the Cushite woman. He hadn’t yoked himself to an unbeliever. He was faithful in all God’s house. In other words, when it came to fulfilling his vocation before God, he was blameless.

Remember that rocky situation at Meribah hadn’t happened yet (Numbers 20:11).

Listen to what God says about Moses,

Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and he departed. (Numbers 12:7-9)

If prophets can be called ordinary, Moses was no ordinary prophet. He was the Lord’s divinely chosen servant to proclaim the future coming of Jesus Christ.

Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. (Hebrews 3:5)

He was the Lord’s divinely chosen servant who would also foreshadow the future coming of Jesus Christ.

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. (Deuteronomy 18:15)

He was completely faithful to God’s command to construct the foundations that would testify to the coming of God’s Son, the Messiah Jesus Christ. God, through Moses, was preparing not only Israel but the entire world for the coming Messiah.

The Wickedness of Miriam And Aaron

Moses’ siblings attempted to use an innocent Cushite woman to thwart the work of Moses and God. Their accusations against Moses and the Cushite were indeed wicked.

Moses had not angered God with his marriage to the Cushite. He had in fact shown that God is not a respecter of persons, but his grace is available to all.

Of course, Miriam and Aaron weren’t successful. No one can thwart the plans of God. He is sovereign over all the affairs of men. Jesus came at the appointed time, and as the writer of Hebrews says, He like Moses was faithful over God’s house, but as a Son and not a servant (Hebrews 3:6).

His death on the cross paid the price for Aaron and Miriam’s sin and for all those who put their trust in Him.

*Cover photo: Photo by Topich on Unsplash

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Lately, I’ve become a fan of the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). Since I was a die-hard fan of the original series, I never could bring myself to watch a spin-off. After all, how could it do justice to such an iconic show?

Well, I was wrong. TNG continued the tradition of the original series in that it wasn’t just a show dedicated to science fiction.

It was a show that used the genre of science fiction to examine different aspects of the human condition and moral dilemmas.

Recently, I watched an episode of TNG entitled Schizoid Man. In this episode, the writers brilliantly weave a story around a man’s attempt to cheat death and live forever.

Can you think of deeper philosophical issues than death and eternal life?

Let’s see how the writers dealt with these issues.

A Man Cheats Death

Members of the Enterprise crew are transported to a planet to give medical aid to Dr. Graves, a genius in cybernetic technology. They learn that Graves is dying from an incurable terminal disease and has only three weeks to live.

As the crew collects Grave’s research, Graves forms a rapport with Data, the Enterprise’s almost-but-not-quite-human android supercomputer.

Upon hearing Graves whistling a tune, Data asks what it is. Graves reveals it to be “If I Only Had A Heart” from The Wizard of Oz.

This leads Data and Graves into a discussion about emotions, life, and death. Graves informs Data that he has devised a way to transfer his consciousness into a computer and that he will do so just prior to his death.

Okay, screeching halt. How exactly can a machine contain a mind? How can a material object contain an immaterial object? It can’t, right?

Unless the mind is not immaterial but simply neurochemical processes going on in the brain. But we don’t want to go there.

That would mean that man is just another aspect of the material world. His atoms might be arranged more complexly than a plant, but since he’s just a bundle of chemical reactions, he has no more uniqueness than a plant.

But since it’s science fiction, we’ll suspend our disbelief and assume Graves can put his non-material mind into a computer.

Yet, this raises another sticky philosophical question. When Graves transfers his consciousness, does that include his soul as well?

If there is a soul and it’s immaterial then that must mean that there’s an immaterial part of the universe.

Hmmm… is there something that lies beyond the examination of science?

You see how this series raises existential questions. I love it.

Data, The Tin Man

Interestingly, throughout the series, Data’s personal quest has always been to become more human like. He’s like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. He’s a lovable machine that seems to be human but just isn’t.

What exactly is it about humans that make them want to get personal with their machines? Sorry, Siri, I didn’t know you heard me.

But the writer introduced an interesting twist here. Graves desires to go from man to machine while Data desires to go from machine to man.

Nevertheless, we’re being introduced to think about a new type of life form. The man-machine unity.

Back to the story.

A New Kind Of Humanity

If Dr. Graves can achieve putting his humanity into a machine, then he will have invented the previously unattainable scientific achievement of inventing a machine that can contain an aspect of humanity.

Even for Star Trek that would be an astounding feat.

However, that poses a problem. A computer is not a human. It doesn’t have an organic body, and as long as its power supply is adequate, it won’t die.

But humans are composed of body and soul. So what would Graves then be? He wouldn’t be a man because he doesn’t have a body, and he wouldn’t be a machine because he’s immaterial.

The answer is simple. He’d be a new kind of species. A hybrid of man and machine. It wouldn’t be an upgrade, though, because he’d be trapped in a box.

But Graves would prefer not to die even if it meant living as a disembodied spirit in a small metal box forever.

The Enterprise’s Captain Picard loves to quote Shakespeare so I’ll quote some as well,

The dread of something after death,
the undiscovered country, from whose bourn
no traveller returns, puzzles the will,
and makes us rather bear those ills we have,
than fly to others that we know not of. (Hamlet)

Hamlet expresses the feelings of most men but not all.

Some don’t fear what’s on the other side of death. They know what’s on the other side and do not fear it but welcome and rejoice in it.

Let’s see what happens.

Can A Machine Die?

Data reveals to Graves that he has some sense of death. He has an off switch that will render him inoperable.

Of course, this is not remotely similar to death. All Data would do is cease to function.

Death for a human means so much more especially if there is a soul. For if there is an immaterial soul, then we will never die. Our bodies might decay and die, but we will live on.

There is no off switch for the soul.

Obviously, you’ve anticipated the next question. Where then will the soul spend eternity? I’ll get to that later.

Back to the story.

Does Graves Invent The Perfect Man?

As you probably anticipated, Graves inserts his consciousness into Data’s machinery. We now have the actual fulfillment of the Tin Man getting a heart.

But there’s something more going on here that shouldn’t be overlooked. This is not a learning cyborg like the Terminator who can learn human traits.

Graves, the imperfect man, has created a super man. He’s a man who physically cannot die, but who could potentially live forever.

Data’s cybernetics give Graves the ability to speak, touch, walk, hear and feel. He has a body so to speak.

He’s a man who will never get sick, age, or succumb to the defects of normal mortality. He is a superman.

Sci-Fi And Transhumanism

The creation of the superman has always been popular with sci-fi writers.

Isn’t Captain America a scientifically engineered super human? And what about the recent movie Lucy where Scarlett Johansson’s character literally becomes one with existence itself?

I did watch a few episodes of Humans, but I’m not really into the robots are kind of human thing.

If you think creating a super human is not a major thrust of science today, do some research on transhumanism.

Scientists are going full speed ahead in trying to create a super human.

Consider the thinking of author and computer scientist Raymond Kurzweil.

These are Wiki entries but they are well footnoted.

…the pace of technological innovation is accelerating and that the next 50 years may yield not only radical technological advances, but possibly a technological singularity, which may fundamentally change the nature of human beings. See here.

… human life will be irreversibly transformed” and that humans will transcend the “limitations of our biological bodies and brain”. See here.

However, political scientist Francis Fukuyama has cautioned against transhumanism saying it’s one of the “world’s most dangerous ideas“. Fukuyama may be onto something.

It actually may not be a good idea for amoral scientists to be tinkering around with human genetics.

Remember what Dr. Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Lifespans Will Increase

I do believe, however, human lifespans and health spans will increase dramatically. That is, after all, one of the goals of this blog.

My desire is to help people better their health and increase their longevity and quality of life by encouraging them to chose a healthy diet, exercise, and make good lifestyle choices.

We know that doing these things will increase the lifespan of most people. We also know that lifespans today are significantly greater than they were in the past.

Today the average lifespan worldwide is 71.4 years. That’s a hundred percent increase in just a hundred years.

But I think this is a drop in the bucket compared to what we can expect in the future.

Consider this verse from the book of Isaiah,

No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. (Isaiah 65:20)

Increased longevity for mankind is inevitable. There’s no stopping it.

However, putting a machine in a man (e.g. artificial heart) to increase his longevity is one thing but to make a man like a machine is another. It’s a desire to create a new species, something that’s greater than a human.

It’s a desire to play God.

The New Dr. Graves

Before Graves dies, he inserts his mind into Data. While initially there are two personalities inside Data, Graves’s personality soon begins to overwhelm Data’s. Soon he will completely dominate the android body.

Captain Picard eventually realizes what has happened. But his problem with Graves’ taking over Data’s body is that while saving his personality, he will basically kill Data.

This is the conversation between Picard and Graves.

“He’s not simply an android – he’s a life form, entirely unique.”

“Data is not human! He’s..!”

“He is different, yes! But that does not make him expendable or any less significant. No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another! Now set him free!”

Sheesh, Picard! Data’s a machine. He’s not a life form, he’s not human, he’s not a being, and he has no rights. He doesn’t have these things because he has no soul. He’s made in the image of a man not in the image of God.

So Picard is willing to consign Graves to the unknowable hereafter in order that his enormously valuable hi-tech, lovable android can continue to serve the ship.

Think about that. The man-made Data has more worth than a human. I guess Data is more useful to Picard than Graves is.

Chew on the implications of that for a while.

Graves Attempts To Justify His Actions

When Graves (in Data’s body) sees a former romantic interest, he confesses that he is really Graves and attempts to justify his actions by rhetorically asking, “Imagine what I could accomplish in a thousand years.”

Of course, the ends justify the means.

Following this encounter, it’s all downhill for Graves.

Does An Upgraded Body Translate Into Upgraded Ethics?

While Graves has a new body, he doesn’t have a new personality. He is the same boorish, arrogant, authority hating person he was before.

However, he no longer inhabits a frail human body. Data’s body has superhuman strength.

Graves eventually becomes violent, hurting several members even to the point of knocking out Picard.

The genius Graves with his new superhuman body is now becoming a liability to mankind instead of a savior.

How often through the centuries have we seen the rise of a supposedly superior group of people or a Nietzschean superman, promising to lead humanity into a new era of prosperity only to see the corruption of power take hold?

The inevitable result is the deaths of millions.

Does An Evolving Human Imply Evolving Ethics?

In the movie Lucy I mentioned above, Lucy, who is clearly becoming physically and mentally superior to everyone around her, shoots an innocent cabbie who doesn’t respond quickly enough to her demands.

This is an example of her evolving morality. Pragmatism reigns supreme in the area of ethics. But is pragmatism ever an upgraded ethical position?

Is it okay to sacrifice the life of one human so that many can live? Is it okay to sacrifice one human, like Graves, so that a machine, like Data, that has the potential to save millions will not be destroyed?

Be careful how you can answer. You might find yourself playing God. A man can lay his own life down for many but no one can take away his life against his will.

No, a superhuman body without consistent super human ethics is not a blessing to anyone. It’s a curse on mankind.

The story ends when Graves eventually comes to his senses and deposits himself, minus his consciousness, into the ship’s computers. Data is restored back to his former self.

For the moment, the Enterprise and its crew are back to status quo.

Everybody Will Live Forever

Schizoid Man raises more questions than it answers.

Here, however, is an eternal truth. Friends. your soul cannot die; it will live forever. But dying doesn’t imply life.

There is only one way to inherit true life.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

Jesus Christ, the God-man, laid down his life voluntarily for many and overcame death so that we may have everlasting life.

And that new life will include the body that Dr. Graves so greatly coveted.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ (1 Cor 15:53-55)

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Do you want to live longer? Okay, that’s a stupid question. Of course, you do.

Here’s an excellent way to help that happen. Make sure your spouse is as healthy and fit as you are.

Now, you might ask, “If I’m already healthy and fit, how will a fit and healthy spouse help me live longer?

If you have some years under your belt, you’ve probably witnessed this scenario.

A spouse of an older married couple you know dies, and then within a short time, the surviving spouse also passes.

This is called the “widowhood effect“.

This phenomenon is not just anecdotal. Researchers have proven it to be a fact. See here, here and here.

One large study by Harvard Medical School has found that widowed men have a 22% increased risk of death and widows have a 16% increased risk of death compared to married people.

While most of the research involved people over 50 years old, Dr. S. V. Subramanian of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston suggests that the widowhood effect is actually stronger among younger people.

Researchers are still unclear of what factors cause the widowhood effect, but studies suggest they may include emotional and psychological stress associated with the death of a spouse, a neglect of personal healthcare, and poor eating habits.

Nevertheless, the precipitating factor is the death of a spouse.

You can’t prevent people from dying, of course. But you can try to encourage them to join you on a journey to better health.

While getting your spouse to join you is not always easy, you can begin to do little things to help them get started.

Instead of pizza night, maybe make it a big low carb taco bowl night. If pasta is something your spouse loves, then get them to try some of those tasty zucchini zoodles.

They’re a lot healthier than wheat pasta.

Instead of going out for your run, perhaps ask your spouse to join you for a brisk walk. Then try to make it a regular routine.

Barbara and I have been walking together daily for almost 10 years now.

One morning, she surprised me by getting up early, getting dressed, and informing me, as I was still sleeping, that she was going for a walk. She was really determined to start a walking routine.

I was just about to tell her to have a good walk when I had second thoughts and responded, “You’re not going to start walking around the neighborhood this early in the morning without me. I’ll go with you.”

Since that day, we’ve never stopped our walking routine.

Because of her initiative, Barbara got me to start an exercise program I would never have done by myself.

Perhaps your spouse is too embarrassed to go to a gym.

In that case, try keeping some weight lifting equipment or kettle bells around your home. This might be all the incentive they need to pick them up and give them a try.

Who knows? They might even catch the weightlifting bug.

While Barbara got me into a walking routine, I got her to strength train.

Barbara’s mom suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and her father started to develop dementia toward the end of his life.

If you’ve had family members afflicted with those diseases, you know how devastating it can be for everyone involved.

There is also evidence that Alzheimer’s is an inherited disease so there is always a fear there that your odds of getting this horrible disease are increased.

When I showed Barbara the research suggesting that strong legs are correlated with a decrease in dementia, her reaction was, “So how exactly do I do squats?”

She’s now been doing a full routine of squats, deadlifts, bench press, and over head press for over a year.

Since she’s not the type to run off to a gym, having a home gym really made it a lot easier for her to get started.

Getting your spouse to accompany you on your health journey isn’t always easy.

But if you use some ingenuity coupled with love, it’s possible to get your spouse to come along with you.

The rewards would be tremendous for both of you.

Guys, I want to leave you with this.

Do your best to keep your wives healthy. Don’t assume because women usually outlive men that you don’t have to worry about the widowhood effect.

A few years back, my mom passed away. Everyone assumed my dad would die before her, but it didn’t turn out that way.

Ever since her passing, he has been devasted without her. He’s a shell of his former self.

Remember what Ephesians 5:28 says, “In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

The post A Key To Longevity: Keep Your Spouse As Healthy As You Are appeared first on The Progressing Pilgrim.

You know what really annoys me?

It’s seeing an interesting story on Drudge and then when I click on the link I’m redirected to the Daily Mail website.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think the DM has excellent reporting. And it could be a whole lot worse. I could be redirected to heavens knows where.

The problem is I hate being distracted by the vacuous, scantily dressed, badly behaved people on their side bar?

I doubt most of these people who masquerade as today’s movie stars, pop music stars, and TV stars would recognize a real star if they walked right in front of them.

Recently, on Turner Classic Movies Private Screenings, I saw an interview with a real Hollywood star.

The star’s name is Eva Marie Saint. As of today, she’s 93 years young.

If you don’t remember her, she was the blonde girl with Cary Grant climbing over Mt. Rushmore in the movie North By Northwest.

Saint’s very first movie role was with Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront. She won an academy award for that performance.

That’s not bad for a beginner.

Through the 50’s – 70’s she appeared in movies and on TV with many of the top stars of the era, including two movies with Paul Newman.

In terms of Hollywood’s standards, she was a true star.

TCM’s Robert Osborne’s interview with Saint showed her to be a star in more ways than simply the Hollywood sense.

She appeared as a vivacious and happily content 88 years young woman who was still in love with her husband of 60 years.

Several times she joked to her husband, Jeff, who was in the audience, to close your ears because Robert wants to hear about Marlon and Cary.

He responded with laughter and amusement seemingly confident that this woman whom he had been married to for over 60 years had eyes for him only.

In an industry where divorce is a given Saint’s marriage to Hayden was somewhat of an enigma.

Saint revealed in another interview why her family life was so successful.

“You’ve been married to the same man since 1951,” Rocca said. “You have two kids. How many grandkids?”

“Three.”

“Career, family, it was never an issue with you?”

“It was never an issue because I made decisions,” Saint said. “I had an agent once who wanted me to make many more movies. I said, ‘I can’t. I can only do one a year, if that. I have children, young children.’

“And he said, ‘Well, I guess you won’t be a superstar.’ And I said, ‘Well, I guess not.'”

“And what happened to that agent?”

“Fired him.”

Saint chose family before fame. That’s what made her a true superstar.

Enthusiasm For Life

But what also stood out was Saint’s enthusiasm for life. She was happy to speak about her years as a star.

There was no angst in her voice or regrets. She often encouraged those in the audience to write down her tips for a long and happy life.

One of those keys she told the audience was to walk for an hour a day.

Saint practiced what she preached. She and her husband Jeffrey Hayden walked for an hour a day well into their late 80’s.

As she talked she came across as more of a teacher (she had originally attended college with the hopes of being a 3rd-grade teacher) than a movie star.

It was clear that she wanted others to learn from her experiences and by them become better people.

Saint characterized her acting career as being that of being a tool in the director’s hands.

She was his instrument in the process of creating a great picture.

Perhaps it’s this attitude that kept Saint so grounded during her Hollywood years.

She never saw herself as bigger than the process. She was only one part of the big picture.

Three Important Takeaways From Saint’s Interview

First, we should never imagine that we’re bigger than the life process going on around us.

We are all parts of the masterpiece being created by our Lord.

First and foremost we are instruments in His hands.

In Him, we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)

Secondly, in this great masterpiece directed by God, we are to give our best performance possible.

We don’t it so that we can win some award.

We do it to make the director look good.

For from in him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! (Romans 11:36)

Thirdly, we have another important role in our Lord’s masterpiece.

We are to help others become better versions of themselves.

Saint made the director look good but she also made her fellow actors look good as well.

Our job in the theater of life is to love one another.

And that doesn’t mean loving others with pious platitudes.

We are told dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:18)

Every time we speak kindly to someone, or encourage someone, or seek to improve the lives of others we add another wonderful scene in God’s unfolding masterpiece.

These scenes have a very real result in this drama in the here and now.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

Loving others may be the inducement others need to give glory to God.

When we love one another we are true superstars.

Let’s not forget that we are stars with a purpose not of our own.

The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. (Matthew 13:43)

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