Fear and Dread

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GOD SAID, Genesis 9:1-2:

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

MAN SAID: We have no need of a Bible or a God to explain life. It all just came about as a fluke—a matter of pure chance.  There is no God; therefore, there is no Bible authored by Him.

Now THE RECORD. The Word of God is not printer's ink and paper. It is not the writings of men that other dwellers of carnality can successfully contradict. The Word of God is spiritual truth. The living Word of God is God. John 1:1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Men demand proof of God when His ever-present existence is obvious. His Holy Word proclaims His existence by declaring the truth—matter after matter—thousands of years before modern knowledge began to discover the reason why. Just one such declaration of truth is found in Genesis 9:2:

And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

Another companion passage is Genesis 1:26-28:

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

As a process of creation, God has created man to have dominion over all living things through the excellent wisdom and problem-solving creativity placed within man and through the fear and dread of man that God has placed upon His creatures.

Biblical antagonists point to dinosaurs. One of their claims has been that man could not have survived alongside these ravenous giants. Man did survive alongside dinosaurs, of course.

The basic fear of man that creatures exhibit is not a matter of the size of man or the creature, but a matter of the creature's design.

The old farmer's position was that the reason horses fear men is because, through the horse's eye, he sees us much bigger and more powerful than we really are. I'm not aware of any supporting documentation for the farmer's position, but the concept of fear and dread of man being built into the creature's psyche is certainly accurate.

The concept of animal fear is addressed in an article titled "Thinking the Way Animals Do," by Temple Grandin, Ph.D., of the Department of Animal Science, Colorado State University. The article was found in the November, 1997, issue of Western Horseman. Concerning genetic design, Dr. Grandin had this to say:

In all animals, both genetic factors and experience determine how an individual will behave in a fear-provoking situation. Fearfulness is a stable characteristic of personality and temperament in animals. [End of quote]

Note that fear is a stabilizing genetic factor of the animals’ created design. In other words, fear and dread were built in at God's command.

An interesting thing about an animal's fear is that when fear is experienced or placed in an animal, it can never be erased. Again, Dr. Grandin writes:

The fear circuits in an animal's brain have been mapped by neuroscientists. When an animal forms a fear memory, it is located in the amygdala, which is in the lower, primitive part of the brain. J.E. LeDoux and M. Davis have discovered that fear memories cannot be erased from the brain. [End of quote]

The concept that fear cannot be erased was demonstrated with rats. According to the report cited in the article, when a rat was electrically shocked for the first time during entrance into a new passageway in a maze, it would never enter that passageway again.

The animal's fear is a product of creation and experience and, of course, God knew it all the time. Now man has begun to understand the reason why.

GOD SAID, Genesis 9:1-2:

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

MAN SAID: We have no need of a Bible or a God to explain life. It all just came about as a fluke—a matter of pure chance.  There is no God; therefore, there is no Bible authored by Him.

Now you have THE RECORD.



References:

King James Bible

Grandin, T., Ph.D., "Thinking the Way Animals Do," Western Horseman, November 1997, pp 140- 145

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