Listening to episode 1 from “Wonders of the Solar System” I hear Brian Cox use phrases like:

“Spectacular.” “Wonderful.” “Powerful.” “Intimacy and delicacy.” “The alignment is absolutely perfect.” “That’s the solar system coming down and grabbing you by the throat.” “That’s the hidden wonder of the Sun.” “This is the beginning of an epic journey.” “One of the most beautiful sights of nature… the mystical aurora.”  “It is quite incredibly beautiful… it is all the more wonderful.” “An impressive display.” “It is beautiful.” “Astonishingly…” “Full of possibilities.” “The greatest story.”

Accompanying this is music seen fitting for this aesthetic gush-fest over nature. The beautiful, orchestral, suitable-for-awe, epic music.

Then there is the way the word “billions” is said. It serves doubly as a superlative, for emphasis, with a stress, an accent, an umph. It’s more than just a number.

When I hear nature/science popularizers/mainstreamers gush like this over how exquisite, elegant, beautiful, amazing, fascinating, stunning, marvelous, and wonderful everything around us is, I smile (or sometimes scream) and say:

You are NOT merely doing dispassionate inductive reasoning. You are marveling over aesthetics and glory and value and greatness!

Here is what Brian Cox insists in the video is “a quirk of fate”, a “sheer coincidence” and an “accidental arrangement”:

“Consider that the sun is about 400 times the diameter of the moon, which would make it awfully hard for the lunar disk to fit so perfectly over the solar one—except that the sun is also about 400 times more distant, meaning that the two bodies appear to be the same size in the earthly sky. Consider the way the moon’s ragged mountains, which are impossible to see from as far away as Earth, form a sawtooth pattern at the lunar edges through which the last of the sun’s light streams in the moments before a total eclipse is complete, creating the brilliant burst of light astronomers call the diamond ring effect.” (http://time.com/4829265/total-solar-eclipse-beauty-science/)

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Proverbs 25:2)

“Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.” (Psalm 111:2)

Spoke at Temple Square with John (pronounced Jshhhon), an atheist from Ukraine.

“Is there right and wrong?”

“No.”

“Is there good and evil?”

“No.”

“Was it wrong for Russia to invade the Ukraine?”

“YES.”

“The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.” (Proverbs 8:13)

1. All secular condemnations of racism are weak. White supremacy is a form of Satanic evil. Those who are unrepentant over racial hatred and white supremacy will suffer eternal conscious torment under the personal wrath of a holy God forever and over. All secular condemnations of racism are therefore understatements not much better than Trump’s own first public statement.

2. If you don’t repent and trust Jesus as true king, you will spend eternity in hell *with* racists and white supremacists. They will be your cellmates and fellow sufferers forever. You will go where they go. You will be what they are. And you will belong to the same group.

3. Expressing strong condemnation of racism or white supremacy doesn’t make you a righteous person. No, that’s too easy. Jesus said that if you want to enter the kingdom you need a righteousness that surpasses even that of the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). This righteousness exceeds that of liberal social justice warriors and conservative talkshow hosts. This righteousness that can only come from being born again by the living God. 

4. Without a Creator your rhetoric of “equality” is empty. Many of you have absolutely nothing in your worldview that justifies the notion that people are equal in dignity, value, or moral obligation. Your worldview has all the ingredients for nasty, cold, brutal social Darwinism, but you aren’t willing to eat it. Eat it! Smell it up close. Taste it. This is your fruitcake, not ours. We have a Creator who made equal image-bearing creatures to reflect his royalty and goodness and virtue and relationship and love. What do you have? What is this magically-from-nothing or useful-to-pretend notion of equality you dream of? Tell me, how did fizzing stardust and pond scum accidentally produce this equality you speak so highly of? Can you not see, my friend, that you desperately want what only a Creator can give?

5. Many of you agnostics and atheists are hypocrites. Years ago you were insisting that there is no objective good or evil, no God, no ultimate purpose, no real justice in the world, no intrinsic value, and nothing morally significant about being human. Yet now you are outraged that anyone would believe that black people don’t have intrinsic value. You are now upset that racial evil isn’t being categorized as objective evil. Maybe your atheism will be convenient again when Trump isn’t president?

6. Your worst problem is you, not the federal government or the culture around you. Jesus said, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23) Jesus is talking about YOU. 

7. You have a sin-tattoo deep in your heart that only God can remove. You have idol-statues in your heart much worse than Confederate generals that need to be struck down and burned in a fire. But you’re not willing to have them destroyed. You love them too much. You love gorging yourself on late-night filth, your envy and gossip, your self-pleasure more than the alt-right loves their white skin and racial identity.

8. You have more hatred in your heart that you know or are willing to admit. Jesus told the Pharisees, “None of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” (John 7:19) They answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” But given the right circumstances, given the right mob mentality, given their love for maintaining power, given their convenient appeal to postmodernism (“What is truth?”, said Pontius Pilate), they DID kill him.

9. You have a monster inside of you worse than the monster of Stranger Things. You were born with a nature that grows into this. And you need to be born again. You need to kill the monster inside. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans 8:13)

10. All secular celebrations of diversity and racial reconciliation are ultimately unsatisfying, many of them even sometimes fraudulent. The world’s “peace” isn’t very peaceful. It is full of strife and dissension and hatred. Only Jesus can provide a universal, sustained, permanent peace between diverse races.

“For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us… Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.” (Ephesians 2:14, 16)

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'” (Revelation 7:9-10)

Camille Paglia:

“We have a whole generation of young people who are clinging to politics and to politicized visions of sexuality for their belief system. They see nothing but politics, but politics is tiny. Politics applies only to society. There is a huge metaphysical realm out there that involves the eternal principles of life and death… Young people have nothing to enlighten them, which is why they’re clinging so much to politicized concepts, which give them a sense of meaning and direction.”

“That God is love helps foster a folk ethos, and that God is God helps foster fine ethos. One ethos revels in the intimacy of God and sings softly… And the other ethos revels in the transcendent majesty of God and sings with profound exultation.” (John Piper, Why God Inspired Hard Texts)

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst.”
— Paul, 1 Timothy 1:15

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”
— 1 Peter 3:18

“We love because he first loved us.”
— 1 John 4:19

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More from Paul:

His “importance”: “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:16)

While stressing his apostolic legitimacy and direct authority from Jesus: “Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8)

Expressing desire to come to the Romans: “I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.” (Romans 1:11-12)

Counting himself among the apostles: “I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (1 Corinthians 15:8-9)

After showing his Jewish creds: “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ.” (Philippians 3:8-9)

After boasting of his sufferings: “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” (2 Corinthians 11:30)

While speaking of his ministry of proclamation: “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Colossians 1:29)

I talked to a young man last night who had just returned from his LDS mission to Idaho. “Tell me about your mission.” He said that he shared the teachings of Jesus, and that families could be forever. I asked him, “What did Jesus teach?” “You mean like in the Four Gospels?” “Yeah.” He paused. “Well I spent most of my time reading the Book of Mormon. I really don’t know the Four Gospels that well.”

So I shared with them the Great Commission in Matthew. Jesus said to make disciples, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28) Everything he commanded.

Then I shared Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13 of the four soils. The seeds that took root in healthy soil bear a ton of fruit: “Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Jesus tells us how to be like this soil: “He who has ears, let him hear.” Be careful how you listen.

Then I shared Jesus’ words in John 15: Jesus said that if you abide in him, and he abides in you, you will bear much fruit. Not only that: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

So I pleaded with this 21-year-old: Your LDS mission did not equip you to truly know the words of Jesus. Here is your challenge, your new mission. Don’t arrive at 30-years-old without knowing the words of Jesus. Become obsessively acquainted with them. Like a man who loves a movie and can complete its quotes.

Jesus said in Matthew 24, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” His words will last longer, and always be more important than anything your church, your heroes, your leaders, or your family tells you.

Know these words, not to be smart, not to be better than others, not to be puffed up with knowledge, but to build on a solid foundation. I told this young man: The older you grow, the more you will find your Solomon-like endeavors failing, the more you will ache to build something that lasts. A legacy, a productivity, an ambition that matters, a fruit that is satisfying, a house that stands. Jesus said, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7)

Modern culture:

It rejects the notion of involuntary, categorical, identifiable gender, yet has gender-reveal parties.

It rejects the essence of marriage as gender-diverse, permanent, and monogamous, yet enjoys the beauty of a white-dress wedding as a closed, non-expiring, gendered covenant.

It rejects the sanctity of humanity and the idea of categorical human nature and norms, yet insists on human rights for those that belong to the species, and on humanely treating animals as humans should.

It rejects the idea of the natural beauty and excellencies of gender, but can’t stop enjoying stories of knights and princesses and nurturing mothers and strong fathers and benevolent kings and elegant queens and girly chick flicks and courageous war flims.

It can’t stop watching the beauty of mixed couples figure skating.

It can’t stop marketing the natural gendered beauty of a beautiful actress for a movie.

It can’t stop selling gendered clothing.

It can’t stop naturally befriending with those of the same sex.

Modern culture:

Like a man who hates capitalism but buys the latest iPhone.

Like a man who despises the idea of public property but keeps taking camping trips at the public park.

Like a man who hates the idea of competition but enjoys a good soccer game.

Like a man who mocks tribes yet enjoys the deafening roar at the local football stadium for his team.

Like a man who hates the idea of authority and submission but enjoys following a good leader at work and leading well his own subordinates.

Like a man who says there is no such thing as justice or ethical punishment, yet takes satisfaction in the penal imprisonment of a criminal.

Like a man who says public shaming is unethical, yet enjoys the public humiliation of a proud fool.

Like a man who says good and evil are just social constructs, yet grinds his teeth over the corruption of politicians.

Like a man who writes about how language has no ability to communicate real, objective, discoverable meaning, yet insists that his words be properly interpreted.

Like a man who says beauty is invented, not discovered, but keeps on going on hikes to find it, and buying better cameras to capture it.

“Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to believe in a certain way, and can’t really get rid of it.” (C.S. Lewis)

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Oh, Americans! You decline the wedding invitation for the kingdom of God but want to attend it anyway and drink at the reception. You will be kicked out by the Bridegroom. The wine is reserved for those who have RSVP’d, who have been given suits and dresses by the Master of the feast.

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A friend remarks:

My takeaway is that most people are really still traditionalists deep down. There are very few consistent radical reformers who follow through on the implications of their philosophies. From a traditionalist perspective I guess that’s good news. The realities of human nature are stubbornly persistent.

“Imagine that your prayer is a poorly dressed beggar reeking of alcohol and body odor, stumbling toward the palace of the great king. You have become your prayer. As you shuffle toward the barred gate, the guards stiffen. Your smell has preceded you. You stammer out a message for the great king: ‘I want to see the king.’

“Your words are barely intelligible, but you whisper one final word, ‘Jesus, I come in the name of Jesus.’ At the name of Jesus, as if by magic, the palace comes alive. The guards snap to attention, bowing low in front of you. Lights come on, and the door flies open. You are ushered into the palace and down a long hallway into the throne room of the great king, who comes running to you and wraps you in his arms.

“The name of Jesus gives my prayers royal access. They get through. Jesus isn’t just the Savior of my soul. He’s also the Savior of my prayers. My prayers come before the throne of God as the prayers of Jesus. ‘Asking in Jesus’ name’ isn’t another thing I have to get right so my prayers are perfect. Is it one more gift of God because my prayers are so imperfect.”

—Paul Miller, A Praying Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress 2009), 135