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I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness for the same reason I’m not a global warming alarmist

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In the summer, a couple of Jehovah’s Witness ladies were going door-to-door and they stopped by my house while I was out mowing. I decided to talk to them. They asked me why I was an evangelical Protestant rather than a JW. Rather than go into a lot of theology about the Trinity and the Watchtower translation, I decided to to just tell them about the false predictions their group has made.

So, let’s just quickly review that using this article from Watchman fellowship, which quotes JW publications:

Initially the organization taught the “battle of the Great Day of God Almighty” (Armageddon) would end in 1914. Every kingdom of the world would be overthrown in 1914 which was “God’s date” not for the beginning but “for the end” of the time of trouble.

“…we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be accomplished by the end of A.D. 1914” (Watchtower founder, Charles Taze Russell, The Time is at Hand, p. 99).

“…the ‘battle of the great day of God Almighty’ (Rev. 16:14), which will end in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulership, is already commenced” (Ibid., p. 101).

“CAN IT BE DELAYED UNTIL 1914?…our readers are writing to know if there may not be a mistake in the 1914 date. They say that they do not see how present conditions can last so long under the strain. We see no reason for changing the figures – nor could we change them if we would. They are, we believe, God’s dates not ours. But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble” (Watch Tower, 15 July 1894, p. 226).

Clearly, the world did not end in 1914, and it did not end at subsequent JW predictions, either, e.g. 1925, 1975.

So, as the title of the post says that I can’t be a global warming alarmist for the same reason I can’t be a Jehovah’s Witness: failed predictions.

Here’s an excellent article from Daily Signal by famous black economist Walter Williams, who explains the connection:

As reported in The New York Times (Aug. 1969) Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich warned: “The trouble with almost all environmental problems is that by the time we have enough evidence to convince people, you’re dead. We must realize that unless we’re extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years.”

In 2000, David Viner, a senior research scientist at University of East Anglia’s climate research unit, predicted that in a few years winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”

In 2004, the U.S. Pentagon warned President George W. Bush that major European cities would be beneath rising seas. Britain will be plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020. In 2008, Al Gore predicted that the polar ice cap would be gone in a mere 10 years. A U.S. Department of Energy study led by the U.S. Navy predicted the Arctic Ocean would experience an ice-free summer by 2016.

In May 2014, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared during a joint appearance with Secretary of State John Kerry that “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

Peter Gunter, professor at North Texas State University, predicted in the spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness:

Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. … By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.

Ecologist Kenneth Watt’s 1970 prediction was, “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000.” He added, “This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

Williams concludes:

Today’s wild predictions about climate doom are likely to be just as true as yesteryear’s. The major difference is today’s Americans are far more gullible and more likely to spend trillions fighting global warming. And the only result is that we’ll be much poorer and less free.

We have known for decades that the Earth’s temperatures were much warmer during the “Medieval Warming Period”, hundreds of years ago. But some people are just having irrational fears about overpopulation, resource shortages, etc. and so they will promote nonsense to try to scare people into doing what they want. World history is full of pious-sounding attention-seeking hoaxsters who try to scare the gullible masses into giving them money and/or power. It’s not new.

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Father wins custody of son from woman who wanted to raise him non-binary

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There are a bunch of these cases going on in Canada and America right now. Usually, the wife wants the child to go transgender. The father opposes it, and points to evidence. The wife divorces the father. The courts, medical experts, therapists, public school teachers, social workers, etc. all side with the wife. The wife gets full custody and transes the kid. The father pays all the costs.

So, I was shocked to hear about this case on the Daily Signal podcast, which is the best podcast… except for the Knight and Rose Show, of course.

There are two episodes to this story. One is from November 2023, where Harrison Tinsley explains the situation to Virginia Allen, the interviewer:

And then this week, we got the happy news:

This transcript is from November 2023 and was reported in Daily Signal.

It says:

Harrison Tinsley’s son, Sawyer, will turn 4 in December. He likes to play hockey and football with his dad and also enjoys singing. According to his father, Sawyer is a happy little boy, but the child’s mother is attempting to raise him not as a boy, or as a girl, but nonbinary.

Tinsley has seen photos of his son in dresses on social media, and Sawyer told his dad that when his mother took him to Disneyland, “she wouldn’t let him go on the rides unless he wore princess shoes.”

Tinsley is concerned for his son’s well-being and is seeking full legal and physical custody of Sawyer, and arguing that his son should be treated as a male.

This was a podcast episode, and there’s a transcript. Here is the background:

Allen: It’s special to have that relationship. And I know you said before we started, he turns 4 in December. I want to dive into some of the details behind this custody battle. What exactly is going on here? Sawyer’s mother is your ex-girlfriend. You have partial custody right now of your son, but you’re seeking full custody in part because you say that Sawyer’s mom is seeking to raise him as nonbinary. Can you just explain what exactly is happening here? What is the situation?

Tinsley: Well, I have half custody. So I mean, me and his mom both have 50%. And his mom makes the claim that she is now nonbinary and that Sawyer is nonbinary or that she’s at least trying to raise him that way. Although, some of the things she does seem more girly to me than nonbinary.

Not that I admit that’s a real thing. I radically disagree that it is or it’s an appropriate thing, rather, for children. But I think putting them in dresses and princess shoes seems girly to me and not so much nonbinary, not so much neutral.

However, Sawyer knows he’s a boy, loves being a little boy. He’s adamant about it. If you give him a girly toy, he’ll yell and scream at you, “I’m not a girl, I’m a boy.” So thankfully he’s a strong-willed rebel like me, and that hasn’t been working and I’m extremely thankful for that.

And then this part about why he fights was interesting:

Allen: Harrison, how have you held up through this whole court fight?

Tinsley: It’s been almost four years, but it’s hard sometimes. But I just do what I can to be the best version of myself I can be and be as strong as I can be. And I accept the responsibility. I look the evil right in the eye and say, “This is life. This is what I have to do.” I have a duty to Sawyer. I have a duty to children everywhere to stand up to this and to fight for what’s right.

And I know that I’ll be able to sleep at night because I choose to do the right thing. No matter how hard it is, no matter how much pain it causes me, I’m never backing down. I don’t care. I’ve accepted life for what it is and what I have to do. And I just look at it with that attitude that I have a responsibility to do it and I’m going to do it regardless.

Allen: Where does that conviction come for you?

Tinsley: All my life I’ve always, regardless of how terrified or scared I am of things, the one thing I’m most proud of about myself is that I’ve always been brave. Whether it’s singing in front of people or doing a back flip on my snowboard, I’ve always been able to find courage to do things in life. And I think that’s a big part of it.

Music affects me incredibly. I mean, I get chills when I listen to music. I love music so much. It makes me feel inspired. I listen to some Jordan Peterson or different stoics that just give me wisdom to guide me through this and the Bible, and there’s just all these different things that help inspire me.

And at some point in your life, you just have to make a choice: Who do you want to be? Do you want to be strong or do you want to be weak? And I just choose to be strong.

That was the first episode, and then this week we got the good news in the second episode.

I have some thoughts about this.

I rarely ever heard much admiration from women for men who have character and convictions. Usually, women today don’t like when men have firm religious and moral convictions. One of the first questions that young women like to ask men to test them is “are you pro-choice?” because pro-life men are immediately disqualified from relationships. Too judgy. Too narrow-minded. Too mean. Young women today like the idea of men protecting and providing, but they don’t like the idea of spiritual and moral leadership. Especially when doing the right thing goes against their feelings or their desires. Good men often end up having to choose between being good, and being liked.

Whether they know it or not, what men really want and need most is respect. And we have to get it for being good – good for Boss. It’s not good when men seek respect by adapting their behavior to what the selfish, evil people around them demand.

In my IT career, I’ve worked with many intelligent, wealthy, programmers who changed their convictions 180 degrees opposite to how they were raised, in order to get women to like them and to marry them. I worked with US-born, Christian-raised, church-attending men who voted for Joe Biden in order to keep peace in their homes – and to keep the bedroom door open. This is the opposite of masculinity. Men are masculine when they  fight evil, and women have to respect them for putting right and wrong above her feelings and desires.

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Good review of Megan Basham’s new book “Shepherds for Sale” and my thoughts

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I have the audio book on order, and it’s read by THE Megan Basham herself. But you can already get it in some stores. The audio book is live TODAY (July 30th, 2024). Anyway, I’m excited about this book for many reasons. One reason is that I’ve long held the conviction that evidential apologetics is needed in order for Christians to be bold. I think their compromising with the left is related to that.

Anyway, here is the early book review from Amy Simmons, published in Truth Script. (H/T Dr. Jonathan Sarfati)

First, let’s just see what the book is even about, and then I’ll share my favorite paragraph in the review.

This is what the book is about:

In this extensively researched exposé, Basham unravels how the progressive left has infiltrated the conservative church through shadowy non-governmental organization (NGO) initiatives with benign-sounding front groups that well-respected pastors, theologians, and para-church leaders promoted under the banner of “loving your neighbor.” Based on a compilation of her years of reporting on church issues for the conservative news and media outlet The Daily Wire, Shepherds uncovers the behind-the-scenes political machinations of evangelical elites that have led venerated Christian institutions and publications.

Utilizing her research acumen, personal anecdotes, and connections with evangelical insiders, Basham systematically unmasks the benefactors of current progressive left ideologies being pushed into conservative evangelical churches. The amount of players involved in what is akin to a conservative evangelical ”deep state” is overwhelming at times, but that serves to show the level of obfuscation under which the current regime operates. Basham writes with precision and thoroughness while still wearing her layperson’s hat. The reader senses her righteous indignation as she does not hide her own beliefs and convictions, and her commentary is fortified throughout with biblical refutations. The following are some takeaways one can glean from a good-faith reading of Shepherds.

So, I have some experience dealing with this compromise myself, as someone who has tried to get evidential Christianity into the church. I have seen all kinds of pushback to learning how to defend your faith from within the church, and this paragraph from the review nails what I’ve seen in many different churches:

Since our society has become more feminized, we’ve seen a propensity for leaders to cater to the whims of those who are led by their emotions. Rigney is again helpful here by describing this inclination as “untethered empathy,” which is “a concern for the hurting and vulnerable that is unmoored from truth, goodness, and reality.” Basham goes to great lengths to show how the SBC abuse reforms are based on specious arguments from “trauma-informed” counseling and the now-rescinded Obama-era Title IX Sexual Abuse guidance. In fact, it’s a deception that will keep women in bondage to a “victim status” rather than taking accountability for their own actions, which Basham demonstrates through powerful anecdotes.

You can read the review to see which specific areas Megan talks about in her book.

So I want to make one point about why church leaders are so prone to bend over backwards to please the secular left.

In my experience with apologetics, my goal has been to provide evidence to people, because I think that evidence sets boundaries on what a person can and cannot believe. And then their actions run within the boundaries of their beliefs. I think the root cause of our problems in the church is that pastors and other church leaders have not rooted their beliefs in evidence. People like Russell Moore and JD Greear don’t know whether God exists, or whether Jesus rose from the dead. They don’t know where to look in nature for signs of intelligent design. They don’t know how to answer philosophical challenges to Christian doctrines. They don’t study these topics, and they can’t convince non-Christians about any of it. On the contrary, for them Christianity is about proving to other people how good they are. And it’s this mad rush to feel good and look good to others that causes them to capitulate to the secular left, lest they appear to be “mean”.

So, on global warming, I would immediately go to the evidence, from books by authors like Judith Curry, Fred Singer, Roy Spencer, Roger Pielke, etc. On economics, I would immediately go to Thomas Sowell, Jay Richards, Jennifer Roback Morse, F. A. Hayek, etc. On race / CRT, I would immediately go to Thomas Sowell, Heather MacDonald, Voddie Baucham, etc. On abortion, I would look to people like Robert George, Maureen Condic, Scott Rae, Francis J. Beckwith, Christopher Kaczor, etc. On marriage, I would immediately go to Ryan T. Anderson, Jennifer Roback Morse, Robert George, etc. And so on. I look for people who have studied, published and debated on these topics. Not people who are trying to be noticed by secular leftist elites in the New York Times. Basically, you have to study the evidence if you want to have convictions. And our Christian leaders haven’t done that. They think studying is a waste of time.