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Sunday, 25 December 2022

"...But the Father only."

 Mark13:32 NASB"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." 

Our Trinitarian (and Modalist) friends wave away the obvious problem this verse creates for their doctrine by claiming that Jesus was speaking from the Son's then human standpoint.

 But is this view in harmony with the context of the verse itself ,lets have a look.The verse begins 

 "But of that day and hour no one knows.."  

Obviously meaning no human knows (BTW was Jesus merely saying that no human at that time knew or that no human has ever known and will ever know.), thus if Jesus was speaking purely in terms of the Son's then human existence surely this part of the verse would have covered that. 

Then to illustrate the utter futility of anyone on earth attempting to calculate the 'day or hour' he continues 

",not even the angels of heaven.."

(again did Jesus mean that no angel presently knows or that no angel has ever and will ever know?) ,now, having made it clear that heaven itself was in the dark re:the Father's determination in this matter does it make sense for Jesus to belabor Earth's ignorance? Certainly what no angel knows no human would.

  Why then not allow the verse to interpret itself 

"nor the Son,But the Father alone."  

i.e not even this eldest sibling in Jehovah's family of servants has ever known or will ever know. 

Acts1,6,7NASB " So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” 7He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;" 

Though his apostles were understandably curious about Jehovah's timing re:the Kingdom the resurrected (hence superhuman) Jesus indicated that the Father had chosen to keep the decision to himself.

  It does not seem that Jesus felt belittled by his Father's decision so it's odd that there are those who seem determined to take offense in his behalf.

  The bottom line then 

John14:28 KJV "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. " 



    PS. 0ne more thing,a good question deserving of a straight answer would be ,why does the Holy Spirit not know the day or the hour,better yet why is the Holy Spirit not even mentioned in this verse.I mean the verse (quite literally) mentions everyone else. 


Dag Hammarskjöld: a brief history.

 Dag Hammarskjöld 

(/ˈhæmərʃʊld/ HAM-ər-shuuld,[1] Swedish: [ˈdɑːɡ ˈhâmːarˌɧœld] 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. As of 2022, he remains the youngest person to have held the post, having been only 47 years old when he was appointed. 
Hammarskjöld's tenure was characterized by efforts to strengthen the newly formed UN both internally and externally. He led initiatives to improve morale and organisational efficiency while seeking to make the UN more responsive to global issues. He presided over the creation of the first UN peacekeeping forces in Egypt and the Congo and personally intervened to defuse or resolve diplomatic crises. Hammarskjöld's second term was cut short when he died in a plane crash while en route to cease-fire negotiations during the Congo Crisis.

Hammarskjöld was and remains well regarded internationally as a capable diplomat and administrator, and his efforts to resolve various global crises led to him being the only posthumous recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.[2] He is considered one of the two best UN secretaries-general, along with his successor U Thant,[3] and his appointment has been hailed as one of the most notable successes for the organization.[4] U.S. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century."[5] 
From 1930 to 1934, Hammarskjöld was Secretary of a governmental committee on unemployment. During this time he wrote his economics thesis, "Konjunkturspridningen" ("The Spread of the Business Cycle"), and received a doctorate from Stockholm University. In 1936, he became a secretary in Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank. From 1941 to 1948, he served as chairman of the Riksbank's General Council.[8]

Hammarskjöld quickly developed a successful career as a Swedish public servant. He was state secretary in the Ministry of Finance 1936–1945, Swedish delegate to the Organization for European Economic Cooperation 1947–1953, cabinet secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1949–1951 and minister without portfolio in Tage Erlander's government 1951–1953.[8]

He helped coordinate government plans to alleviate the economic problems of the post-World War II period and was a delegate to the Paris conference that established the Marshall Plan. In 1950, he became head of the Swedish delegation to UNISCAN, a forum to promote economic cooperation between the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries.[9] Although Hammarskjöld served in a cabinet dominated by the Social Democrats, he never officially joined any political party.[8]

In 1951, Hammarskjöld was vice chairman of the Swedish delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in Paris. He became the chairman of the Swedish delegation to the General Assembly in New York in 1952. On 20 December 1954, he was elected to take his father's vacated seat in the Swedish Academy.[10] 
On 10 November 1952 Trygve Lie announced his resignation as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Several months of negotiations ensued between the Western powers and the Soviet Union, without reaching an agreement on his successor. On 13 and 19 March 1953, the Security Council voted on four candidates. Lester B. Pearson of Canada was the only candidate to receive the required majority, but he was vetoed by the Soviet Union.[11][12] At a consultation of the permanent members on 30 March 1953,[13] French permanent representative Henri Hoppenot suggested four candidates, including Hammarskjöld, whom he had met at the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation.[14]

The superpowers hoped to seat a Secretary-General who would focus on administrative issues and refrain from participating in political discussion. Hammarskjöld's reputation at the time was, in the words of biographer Emery Kelèn, "that of a brilliant economist, an unobtrusive technician, and an aristo-bureaucrat". As a result, there was little to no controversy in his selection;[15] the Soviet permanent representative, Valerian Zorin, found Hammarskjöld "harmless".[16] Zorin declared that he would be voting for Hammarskjöld, surprising the Western powers.[17] The announcement set off a flurry of diplomatic activity. British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was strongly in favor of Hammarskjöld and asked the United States to "take any appropriate action to induce the [Nationalist] Chinese to abstain".[18] (Sweden recognized the People's Republic of China and faced a potential veto from the Republic of China.) At the U.S. State Department, the nomination "came as a complete surprise to everyone here and we started scrambling around to find out who Mr. Hammarskjold was and what his qualifications were".[19] The State Department authorized Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the US Ambassador, to vote in favor after he told them that Hammarskjöld "may be as good as we can get".[20][21] 
On 31 March 1953, the Security Council voted 10-0-1 to recommend Hammarskjöld to the General Assembly, with an abstention from Nationalist China.[22] Shortly after midnight on 1 April 1953, Hammarskjöld was awakened by a telephone call from a journalist with the news, which he dismissed as an April Fool's Day joke.[a] He finally believed the news after the third phone call.[14] The Swedish mission in New York confirmed the nomination at 03:00 and a communique from the Security Council was soon thereafter delivered to him.[23] After consulting with the Swedish cabinet and his father, Hammarskjöld decided to accept the nomination.[22] He sent a wire to the Security Council:[24]

With strong feeling personal insufficiency I hesitate to accept candidature but I do not feel I could refuse to assume the task imposed on me should the [UN General] Assembly follow the recommendation of the Security Council by which I feel deeply honoured.

Later in the day Hammarskjöld held a press conference at the Swedish Foreign Ministry. According to diplomat Sverker Åström, he displayed an intense interest and knowledge in the affairs of the UN, which he had never shown any indication of before.[24]

The UN General Assembly voted 57-1-1 on 7 April 1953 to appoint Dag Hammarskjöld as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Hammarskjöld was sworn in as Secretary-General on 10 April 1953.[22] He was unanimously reelected on 26 September 1957 for another term, taking effect on 10 April 1958.[25]
Immediately following the assumption of the Secretariat, Hammarskjöld attempted to establish a good rapport with his staff. He made a point of visiting every UN department to shake hands with as many workers as possible, eating in the cafeteria as often as possible, and relinquishing the Secretary-General's private elevator for general use.[26] He began his term by establishing his own secretariat of 4,000 administrators and setting up regulations that defined their responsibilities. He was also actively engaged in smaller projects relating to the UN working environment; for example, he spearheaded the building of a meditation room at the UN headquarters, where people can withdraw into themselves in silence, regardless of their faith, creed, or religion.[27]

During his term, Hammarskjöld tried to improve relations between Israel and the Arab states. Other highlights include a 1955 visit to China to negotiate the release of 11 captured US pilots who had served in the Korean War,[6] the 1956 establishment of the United Nations Emergency Force, and his intervention in the 1956 Suez Crisis. He is given credit by some historians for allowing participation of the Holy See within the UN that year.[28]

In 1960, the newly independent Congo asked for UN aid in defusing the Congo Crisis. Hammarskjöld made four trips to Congo, but his efforts toward the decolonisation of Africa were considered insufficient by the Soviet Union; in September 1960, the Soviet government denounced his decision to send a UN emergency force to keep the peace. They demanded his resignation and the replacement of the office of Secretary-General by a three-man directorate with a built-in veto, the "troika". The objective was, citing the memoirs of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, to "equally represent interests of three groups of countries: capitalist, socialist and recently independent".[29][7]

The UN sent a nearly 20,000-strong peacekeeping force to restore order in Congo-Kinshasa. Hammarskjöld's refusal to place peacekeepers in the service of Lumumba's constitutionally elected government provoked a strong reaction of disapproval from the Soviets. The situation would become more scandalous with the assassination of Lumumba by Tshombe's troops. In February 1961, the UN authorized the Peacekeeping Forces to use military force to prevent civil war. The Blue Helmets' attack on Katanga caused Tshombe to flee to Zambia. Hammarskjöld's erratic attitude in not providing support to Lumumba's government, which had been elected by popular vote, drew severe criticism among non-aligned countries and communist and socialist countries. In the end, his actions were supported only by the United States and Belgium.[30] 
On 18 September 1961, Hammarskjöld was en route to negotiate a cease-fire between United Nations Operation in the Congo forces and Katangese troops under Moise Tshombe. His Douglas DC-6 airliner SE-BDY crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Hammarskjöld perished as a result of the crash, as did all of the 15 other passengers.[31] Hammarskjöld's death set off a succession crisis at the United Nations,[32] as there was no line of succession and the Security Council had to vote on a successor.[33]

The circumstances of the crash are still unclear. A 1962 Rhodesian inquiry concluded that pilot error was to blame, while a later UN investigation could not determine the cause of the crash.[34] There is evidence suggesting the plane was shot down.[35][36][37] A CIA report claimed the KGB was responsible.[38]

The day after the crash, former U.S. President Harry Truman commented that Hammarskjöld "was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said 'when they killed him'."[38]

In 1998, documents surfaced suggesting CIA, MI6, and/or Belgian mining interest involvement via a South African paramilitary organization. The information was contained in a file from the South African National Intelligence Agency turned over to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in relation to the 1993 assassination of Chris Hani, leader of the South African Communist Party. These documents included an alleged plot to "remove" Hammarskjöld and contained a supposed statement from CIA director Allen Dulles that "Dag is becoming troublesome … and should be removed." Hammarskjöld's mission to end the war over the mineral-rich Katangese secession from the newly formed Republic of the Congo was contrary to the interests of those organizations. However these documents were copies rather than originals, precluding substantiation of authenticity through ink and paper testing.[34]

Göran Björkdahl, a Swedish aid worker whose father worked for the UN in Zambia, wrote in 2011 that he believed Hammarskjöld's death was a murder committed, in part, to benefit mining companies like Union Minière, after Hammarskjöld had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis. Björkdahl based his assertion on interviews with witnesses of the plane crash near the border of the DRC with Zambia and on archival documents.[39][40]

In 2013 accident investigator Sven Hammarberg was asked by the International Commission of Jurists to investigate Hammarskjöld's death.[41]

In 2014, newly declassified documents revealed that the American ambassador to the Congo sent a cable to Washington D.C. warning that the plane could have been shot down by Belgian mercenary pilot Jan van Risseghem [nl], commander of the small Katanga Air Force. Van Risseghem died in 2007.[36]

On 16 March 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed members to an Independent Panel of Experts to examine new information related to Hammarskjöld's death. The three-member panel was led by Mohamed Chande Othman, the Chief Justice of Tanzania, and included Kerryn Macaulay (Australia's representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization) and Henrik Larsen (a ballistics expert from the Danish National Police).[42] The panel's 99-page report, released 6 July 2015, assigned "moderate" value to nine new eyewitness accounts and transcripts of radio transmissions. Those accounts suggested that Hammarskjöld's plane was already on fire as it landed and that other jet aircraft and intelligence agents were nearby.[43]In 2016, the original documents from the 1998 South African investigation surfaced. Those familiar with the investigation cautioned that even if authentic, the documents could have been initially authored as part of a disinformation campaign.[34]

In 2017, "Airplane Disasters", Series 9, Episode 10: "Deadly Mission" analyzed that the pilot attempting the night landing simply flew into an uncharted hill near the airport.

In 2019, the documentary film Cold Case Hammarskjöld by Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger claimed that Jan van Risseghem had told a friend that he shot down Hammarskjöld's aircraft. This went against the official stance maintained by van Risseghem's family that he was not involved in the death of Hammarskjöld. According to an interview with van Risseghem's wife, he was in Rhodesia negotiating the purchase of a plane for the Katanga Air Force, with the logbooks providing "proof that he was not flying for Katanga at the time". The documentary crew interviewed multiple colleagues of van Risseghem for the film, all of whom supported their theory.[44][45][46] In an interview with Swedish historian Leif Hellström, van Risseghem claimed that he was not in southern Africa at the time the crash happened, and dismissed the idea of his being potentially involved as "fairy stories".[46]

Previously unpublished documents continue to emerge from the UN archives. One found in November 2021, is a death warrant for Hammarskjöld signed by the infamous OAS, the secret organisation nestled in the French army at the time of Algeria's war of independence. The document reads: "It is high time to put an end to his harmful intrusion (…) this sentence common to justice and fairness to be carried out, as soon as possible". The source was revealed by the French journalist Maurin Picard, according to whom the links between the white mercenaries in Katanga and OAS are overt.[47]

In Hammarskjöld's 1959 will he left his personal archive to the National Library of Sweden.[48]

Darwinism's failure as a predictive model XXII

Darwinism's Predictions 


Evolution is a process. It occurs gradually via variations within populations. The tempo may vary, but “the canon of ‘Natura non facit saltum,’” as Darwin explained, was “on this theory intelligible.” But today this is no longer true. The first problem, that species appeared abruptly in the strata, could be explained as a spotty fossil record, though incredible stretches of evolutionary progress would have to have gone missing.
 
But the fossil record is not the only evidence for leaps. Since Darwin, rapid change has been directly observed in species ranging from bacteria and yeast to plants and animals. Consider the house finches which began spreading throughout the United States in the 1940s from Mexico and the southwest. The beaks of these birds adapted to their new environments with great speed. Within a decade or so their beaks had adjusted to the new habitats. (Grant) In another example, Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island off the coast of Croatia responded rapidly, developing new head morphology and digestive tract structure. (Herrel, et. al.) Such change “would normally take millions of years to play out …” (Johnson) Likewise mussels introduced to a new environment were found to evolve “in an evolutionary nanosecond compared to the thousands of years previously assumed.” (Mussels evolve quickly to defend against invasive crabs) Such examples of adaptation are not new, and one evolutionist concluded that “evolution can occur much more rapidly than we previously thought. Rapid evolution is pervasive, and the list of examples is growing.” (Rapid Evolution Helps Hunted Outwit Their Predators) All of this means that evolution may need a new mechanism of change. In fact it appears doubtful that minor biological variations leads to large-scale change. As one evolutionist put it, macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution. (Irwin) Increasingly evolutionists have recognized the need for a new mechanism to explain evolutionary change. (Gould, 579, 582) In recent years evolutionists have considered precisely what Darwin ruled out: saltational evolution. Here are some examples:
 
As nature does jump, exclusive gradualism is dismissed. Saltatory evolution is a natural phenomenon, provided by a sudden collapse of the thresholds which resist against evolution. The fossil record and the taxonomic system call for a macromutational interpretation. (van Waesberghe)
 
We offer evidence for three independent instances of saltational evolution in a charismatic moth genus with only eight species. … Each saltational species exhibits a markedly different and discrete example of discontinuous trait evolution (Rubinoff and Le Roux)
 
Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity. The relationships between major groups within an emergent new class of biological entities are hard to decipher and do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin’s original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution. The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds; major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla. In each of these pivotal nexuses in life’s history, the principal “types” seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate “grades” or intermediate forms between different types are detectable. (Koonin)
 
Here we provide for the first time evidence of major phenotypic saltation in the evolution of segment number in a lineage of centipedes (Minelli, Chagas-Júnior and Edgecombe)
Titles of research papers, which include phrases such as “farewell to Darwinism, neo- and otherwise,” “when natura non facit saltum becomes a myth,” “Saltational evolution: hopeful monsters are here to stay,” and “a Neo-Goldschmidtian view of unicellular hopeful monsters,” highlight this falsification of evolution’s prediction that there are no leaps. 


 References 

Gould, Steven Jay. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
 
Grant, B. 2010. “Should Evolutionary Theory Evolve?.” TheScientist January 1.
 
Herrel, A., et. al. 2008. “Rapid large scale evolutionary divergence in morphology and performance associated with the exploitation of a novel dietary resource in the lizard Podarcis sicula.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105:4792-4795.
 
Irwin, D. 2000. “Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution.” Evolution & Development 2:61-62.
 
Johnson, K. 2008. “Lizards rapidly evolve after introduction to island.” National Geographic News April 21.
 
Koonin, E. 2007. “The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution.” Biology Direct 2:21.
 
Minelli, A., A. Chagas-Júnior, G. Edgecombe. 2009. “Saltational evolution of trunk segment number in centipedes.” Evolution & Development 11:318-322.
 
“Mussels evolve quickly to defend against invasive crabs.” 2006. ScienceDaily August 11. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060811091251.htm
 
“Rapid Evolution Helps Hunted Outwit Their Predators.” 2003. NewsWise July 16.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=500152&sc=wire
 
Rubinoff, D., J. Le Roux. 2008. “Evidence of repeated and independent saltational evolution in a peculiar genus of sphinx moths (Proserpinus: Sphingidae).” PLoS One 3:e4035.
van Waesberghe, H. 1982. “Towards an alternative evolution model.” Acta Biotheoretica 31:3-28.