The Pursuit of Excellence - by Vox Day - Sigma Game - ("Come Fly With Me" - CL)

 

Since 2000, women and minorities, who make up less than 10% of all pilots, were factors in 66% of crashes caused by pilot error. Despite the disparity, major airlines are continuing to hire on the basis of identity rather than merit.

In January 2025, Delta CLO Peter Carter said the airline is “steadfast” in its DEI commitments and called them “critical to our business,” while United’s training academy maintains a goal that 50% of its graduates be women or minorities. Southwest likewise continues to pledge that it will “recruit, hire, and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce.”

I understand why people want so desperately to believe in equality. Every Omega wants to be a Delta. Every Gamma wants to be an Alpha, or, failing that, at least imagine that he’s a Sigma, a rogue lone wolf who doesn’t need anyone, much less the social acceptance for which Gamma would, in his weak moments, sell his soul.

But reality always intrudes and imposes itself, sooner or later… and sometimes fatally.

https://sigmagame.substack.com/p/the-pursuit-of-excellence?publication_id=2265630&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=y7h5a&utm_medium=email 

Image and Likeness (part two) - by bionic mosquito

 Well, this time just focused on “likeness.”

Genesis 1: 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

I have written about this passage before, noting that verse 27 only points to being created in the image and is silent regarding being created in the likeness. The same young person who prompted that first post then pointed out the following verse:

Genesis 5: 1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.

So, what gives? Was man made according to God’s likeness or wasn’t he? After a lot of searching, I found this: IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD, by Frank W. Nelte. It took a lot of searching, because much of what I found focused on why “image” and why “likeness” (are these synonyms, do they mean different things, etc.?), or mostly focused on “image.”

To get something out of the way: Nelte is affiliated with Herbert W. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God. I obviously have meaningful differences with what was taught during Armstrong’s time. However, I intend to evaluate what is offered here by Nelte on its merits…at least as I understand things.

I wanted to find something on the specific point: Genesis 1 does not say man was made according to God’s likeness (it is silent on the matter), Genesis 5 says he was. While Nelte does touch on “image,” and also on the difference between this and “likeness,” I am only going to stick to dealing with my question. (To get this out of the way…the Hebrew words for image and for likeness are different, yet these are sometimes, but not always, used as synonyms.)

Now, he may be wrong about this, but I have not yet found something more thorough – and, he is pretty consistent with what I have found in the early Church regarding this topic........

Full text: https://achristianhall.substack.com/p/image-and-likeness-part-two?publication_id=2189155&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=y7h5a&utm_medium=email 

.......Conclusion

The Scriptures are not contradictory. Where there is a seeming contradiction, context must be understood. The different uses of “demuwth” in the examples offered by Nelte help to clarify this for me.

I looked up some of the other uses of “likeness” in the Old Testament. Many have to do with the prohibition of making idols and the like; Ezekiel also uses the term often.

An interesting one within the context of this study:

Psalm 17: As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.

David is writing of his hope in salvation. He is not yet satisfied, because he is not yet in God’s likeness.

My conclusion corresponds both with Nelte and with the early Church Fathers: we were given image upon creation; likeness is something we are to grow into via faith and obedience to God, with God’s help and requiring our participation. Call it theosis.

The use of “likeness” in the first verse of Genesis 5 conveys a meaning different than that in Genesis 1, and the context of each passage – combined with the context in use of the same Hebrew word elsewhere – helps to clarify this point.

IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD - Frank W. Nelte

Full text: https://www.franknelte.net/article.php?article_id=497 

And God said: “Let Us make man in Our image and after Our likeness”. That’s what we are told in Genesis 1:26. What do these two expressions actually mean? Is there a difference between “image” and “likeness”? Or are these two words simply synonyms?

The Hebrew word translated as “image” is “tselem”, which is used 17 times in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word translated as “likeness” is “demuwth”, and this word is used 25 times in the Old Testament.

[Comment: Some scholarly works will transliterate these two words slightly differently, as for example “selem” and “demut”. Such differences are not of any significance.]

Another Hebrew word that also ties into this subject, though it is not used in this verse, is “mareh”, which is used 103 times in the Old Testament. This word is mostly translated as “appearance”. This word “mareh” is formed from a common Hebrew verb that means “to see”. So the noun “mareh” refers to “something we can see”. And “appearance” is a suitable translation for the Hebrew word “mareh”. It is also translated as “sight” and as “vision”. As a point of reference, this word “mareh” is used 15 times in Ezekiel chapter 1, where it is always translated as “appearance”.

Potentially we thus have three different Hebrew words, which are translated as follows:

1) “Tselem” = image.

2) “Demuwth” = likeness.

3) “Mareh” = appearance.

Do these three words all more or less refer to the same thing? Or are there differences in meanings between these words? This is a question that Hebrew scholars have argued over for centuries, voicing opinions, but without reaching any definitive conclusions.

I believe that the difficulty here does not lie in these Hebrew words themselves, as much as it does in the fact that none of the translators actually understand what information God intended to convey, when God used two of these three words in Genesis 1:26.

[Comment: We can ignore “mareh” here in our discussion, other than recognizing that there is in fact another Hebrew word that focuses explicitly on looks and on appearance, but which word God chose not to use in this verse. But for the meaning conveyed by our English word “likeness” God could readily have used this Hebrew word “mareh”. But God didn’t do that, implying that God wanted to convey something other than what we think of as “likeness” or “appearance”.]

It is primarily not a case of arguing over philological distinctions between “tselem” and “demuwth”, though I will point out a few technicalities. It is really a matter of realizing that in Genesis 1:26 God was speaking about two completely different things. That is why God used two completely unrelated words. And we need to identify those two “different things”.

But this is something the translators have not really understood. And so translators have mostly chosen the two English words “image” and “likeness”, with the implication that these words should be viewed as being largely synonymous. And unfortunately that is precisely how very many people view these two words “image” and “likeness” in this verse; they view them as if both words somehow refer to the same thing. But that is misleading!

The Hebrew word “tselem”, translated as “image”, refers to looks, to outward appearance, very much like the Hebrew word “mareh”. Regarding “tselem” the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT) says: “The word basically refers to a representation, a likeness.” So “tselem” could equally correctly be translated as “likeness”. But this would make the word “demuwth” redundant, if “tselem” in this verse also refers to “likeness”.

This in turn already implies that “demuwth” must here surely refer to something other than “likeness”. God would not have said twice “in Our likeness”.

Anyway, the first statement in Genesis 1:26 thus tells us that in our outward appearance we human beings look like God. Outwardly God’s spirit body, invisible to human eyes, has the same form as the human body. That is what the statement “in Our image” means.

This should be the easier part to understand. But it should also set us up to expect the word “demuwth” to refer to something different from “image” or “likeness”.

The key to understanding this verse correctly is to recognize that the Hebrew word “demuwth”, translated as “likeness”, has in this verse nothing to do with looks or appearance. This Hebrew word “demuwth” tells us nothing whatsoever about what God looks like to other spirit beings who are able to see God (i.e. to the angels).

Hebrew scholars don’t understand the correct meaning with which God used the word “demuwth” in Genesis 1:26. For example, TWOT says the following for “demuwth”:

“The more important word of the two is ‘image’ but to avoid the implication that man is a precise copy of God, albeit in miniature, the less specific and more abstract demût was added. ... No distinction is to be sought between these two words (i.e. between “tselem” and “demuwth”) . They are totally interchangeable ... Man is the visible, corporeal representative of the invisible, bodiless God.” (TWOT on “demuwth”)

Some important things to notice about this quote from a scholarly work. First of all, these scholars do not really see a distinction between these two Hebrew words. They view them as synonymous. That’s why they say “they are totally interchangeable”. They also believe in a “bodiless” God. That is absurd! If God does not have “a spirit body”, then anything could be “in the image of God” ... a fish, a goat, the moon, etc.

I mention these things to show that we cannot extend any credibility at all to these scholars when it comes to theological explanations about God and God’s plan for mankind. Their theology is totally flawed.

However, this does not mean that they may not have a good understanding of many aspects of Hebrew grammar. Grammar is not theology. So let’s note a grammatical statement which has been made just in passing.

TWOT tells us that “demuwth” is “less specific and more abstract” than “tselem”................

....So to summarize:

Let’s understand that the expression “in the image of God” refers to us human beings looking like God in our outward appearance. Now God created Adam as a full grown adult man, and Eve as a full grown adult woman. So Adam was from the very start of his existence “in the image of God”. But all of us were born as babies. And for us coming to be in “the image of God” was a process that took 20 or more years. The expression “the image of God” refers to adult human beings. There is nothing immature about God, and a physically immature human being (e.g. a baby) is still in the process of coming to be “in the image of God”.

So the condition “in the image of God” is something that takes another 20+ years after birth to be fully achieved.

The Hebrew text for the expression “in the likeness of God” does not refer to our outward appearance or likeness. This expression refers to specific attributes of character and personality; and it requires us to receive access to God’s holy spirit. It then requires a lifetime of using God’s spirit to change our character and personality and disposition, etc. to be in full agreement with God in all these things. Only when we are resurrected by God will we have fully attained unto “the likeness of God”.

So let’s note that both expressions, “in the image of God” and “in the likeness of God”, refer to processes that take time; one process takes 20+ years and the other process takes an entire lifetime. For all of us who were born as babies (i.e. all people except for Adam and Eve) neither of these two expressions refers to attributes that we possess spontaneously at birth.

MY PREVIOUS STATEMENTS ABOUT “THE LIKENESS OF GOD”

The following articles on my website provide additional information about the term “the likeness of God”. In the Mistranslated Scriptures Articles section of my website there are three articles that discuss “the likeness of God”. Those three articles are:

A) Genesis 1:26 is discussed in the 150 Mistranslations in the Bible, Part 1. It is Scripture #7 in that article.

B) Romans 1:23 is discussed in Part 6 of the 150 Mistranslations article. It is Scripture #108 in that article.

C) Revelation 9:7 is discussed in Part 7 of the 150 Mistranslations article. It is Scripture #149 in that article.

When you look at those articles you will see that my understanding of this expression “the likeness of God” was still somewhat incomplete. I was on the right track. I basically thought that “the likeness of God” depended on us human beings having the spirit in man. But that is only half the picture.

The spirit in man is one key to making the state of being “in the likeness of God” possible. But the spirit in man is not enough for a human being to be “in the likeness of God”. Why did I come to that conclusion?

I realized that any person who has a mind that is “enmity against God” (Romans 8:7) cannot possibly be “in the likeness of God”! These two states are simply not compatible. Someone who is “in the likeness of God” cannot at the same time be “enmity against God”. The condition “in the likeness of God” refers to a specific type of character; and the condition of “enmity against God” also refers to a specific type of character. And these two types of character are opposites.

So I realized that the state of being “in the likeness of God” must be the end result of a process. That process has to overcome the initial state for every human being, the state of “enmity against God”.

So we human beings are absolutely required to have the spirit in man, in order to make that process possible. But without the addition of God’s holy spirit that process cannot really get going. Without the addition of God’s holy spirit that “enmity against God” cannot be fully overcome. It is only when a human mind has both, the spirit in man and the added holy spirit of God, that then the process of working towards coming to be “in the likeness of God” can actually proceed. Only then can the “enmity against God” be confronted and dealt with.

This understanding has led to the explanation I have provided in this present article. So when you see any of my earlier discussions of “the likeness of God”, realize that I wrote those articles when my understanding was on the right track, but still incomplete.

This present article expands on, and to some degree corrects the explanations provided in the earlier articles.

Anyway, as I said before, so I say again: don’t expect Hebrew scholars to agree with me regarding this explanation for “the likeness of God”.

Frank W Nelte

Hal Turner Radio Show - Medical "Science" Creates New Patients By Moving Medical Goal Posts

 Medical "normal ranges" have been - and are being - manipulated:

1985: Fasting glucose over 140 mg/dL = diabetic

In 2003: Lowered to 126 mg/dL

Suddenly 2 million more diabetics

 

1985: Blood pressure over 160/100 = hypertension

2017: Lowered to 130/80

Suddenly 30 million more "patients"

 

1985: Cholesterol over 280 = concern

2004: Lowered to 200

Suddenly everyone needs statins

 

They're not discovering disease. They're manufacturing patients by moving goalposts.

Lower the threshold, expand the market, sell more drugs.

https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/component/content/article/medical-science-creates-new-patients-by-moving-medical-goal-posts?catid=17&Itemid=101 

Your Health Is NOT A Game - Denninger

 And may I remind everyone that among those who called me stupid or even wanted me thrown out of public places, locked up, or held down and needle-raped not one said person has apologized to me.  Not one so pardon me (or not) if I consider all of those alleged "humans" pieces of **** and always will -- even at this point the default is to act like it never happened.  Well it did happen, they did say that, they advocated for it all the way up to our former President and I've not destroyed my memory by addling it with various and sundry drugs nor am I riddled with dementia so if they die as a consequence **** them because to obtain forgiveness you must first be sorry (among other acts) and they're not -- even today.

But the virus came and then it (mostly) went -- exactly as I and a few others said it would and, by the way, almost-exactly on the pattern we believe was OC43 that first showed up in the late 1800s (and which still circulates today, incidentally.)  In other words all our much-vaunted "countermeasures" did exactly nothing -- except screw people and businesses to one degree or another.  Oh sure, people still get it, but one of the things that the crazy taught me was to distrust everything.  That wound up with my deciding to add a handful of supplements to my daily routine along with paying attention to overnight HRV and...... not one respiratory illness that has been sufficient for me to call myself "sick" in roughly four years.  As a benchmark I usually got a fairly-decent cold or flu once or twice a year and had since I remember back to my time as a teen so this is a rather statistically-significant change.  I'm sure eventually I'll get something that flattens me for several days but the improvement I've managed in that regard is not small and its cost minuscule thus I'll keep doing it.  Now to be fair maybe something viral sort-of got me in the last couple weeks -- no fever, but a few other annoyances that historically back to my youth have reliably marked such events and there was confirmation in my Garmin's overnight HRV readings.  Whoopie

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=254843 

Blood vs Paper - Vox Popoli

 https://voxday.net/2026/01/27/blood-vs-paper/ 

It’s long past time for the USA to conduct a national identity audit. Because the decline and incipient collapse of the political entity demonstrates the absolute importance of maintaining that strong blood-based nationalism without which no nation throughout the course of history has ever survived.

Every single idea based upon the satanic ideals of the Enlightenment has collapsed once tested by reality. It’s obvious that the structures which depend upon those ideals are going to collapse as well.

There is nothing wrong with a little judicious immigration of individuals and families who are of benefit to the nation without altering the society or adulterating it. But mass immigration of the sort we have witnessed over the last 100 years is intrinsically, insidiously, and inevitably destructive in a myriad of ways.

Nationalism is not evil. But mass immigration most certainly is.

An Inspiring Critique - Vox Popoli - (And a perfect demo of a 'man should know his limitations' before he takes on Vox Day - CL)

 In any event, McCarthy’s critique is the first substantive one we’ve seen and it’s a more competent attempt to engage with the mathematical arguments in Probability Zero than those from Redditors opining in ignorance, but his critique immediately fails for multiple reasons that demonstrate the significant difference between biological intuition and mathematical rigor. For some reason, McCarthy elects to focus on the Darwillion, my probability calculation about the likelihood of evolution by natural selection instead of MITTENS itself, but that’s fine. Either way, there was no chance he was going to even scratch the paint on the proven fact of the mathematical impossibility of natural selection.

“What Vox Day calculated—(1/20,000)^20,000,000—are the odds that a particular group or a pre-specified list of 20 million mutations (or 20 million mutations in a row) would all become fixed. In other words, his calculation would only be accurate if the human race experienced only 20 million mutations in total over the last 9 million years—and every one of them then became fixed… Using Vox Day’s numbers, in a population of 10,000 humans, we would expect, on average, 50,000 new mutations per year. And over the course of 9 million years, this means we would expect: 50,000 × 9 million = 450 billion new mutations altogether. So out of 450 billion mutations, how many mutations may we expect to achieve fixation? Well, as Vox Day noted, each mutation has a probability of 1/20,000 in becoming fixed. 450 billion × 1/20,000 = 22.5 million fixed mutations.”

This is a category error. What McCarthy has done here is abandon Darwin, abandon natural selection, and retreated to an aberrant form of neutral theory that he’s implementing without even realizing that he has done so. He’s cargo-culting the structure of Kimura’s core equation that underlies neutral theory without understanding what the terms mean or where they come from. Because my numbers weren’t arbitrary, they are straight out of Kimura’s fixation model.......

.....McCarthy is correct that humans have a higher per-genome mutation rate than E. coli—roughly 60-100 de novo mutations per human generation versus roughly one mutation per 1000-2400 bacterial divisions. But this observation is irrelevant. Once again, he’s confusing mutation with fixation.

Full text:

https://voxday.net/2026/01/27/an-inspiring-critique/ 

......This is a retreat to the innumeracy of the biologist. There is absolutely a hard limit, a very visible flesh-and-blood wall, that prevents adaptation and renders natural selection almost irrelevant as a proposed mechanism for evolution. That is the reproductive barrier, which is far stronger and far more significant than the earthly barriers to which McCarthy appeals.

I don’t know why this is so hard for evolutionary enthusiasts to grasp: we actually know what the genetic distance between two different species are. We know the amount of time that it took to create that genetic gap. And there are not enough generations, not enough births, not enough reproductions, to account for ANY of the observed genetic gaps in the available amount of time.......

......He’s absolutely correct to observe that I don’t attack or address any of those things in Probability Zero. I didn’t need to do so. It’s exactly like pointing out how I haven’t admired the arrangement of the furniture on the fifth floor or taken in the lovely view from the twentieth when I planted the explosives in the underground supports and the entire building is lying in smoking rubble. Natural selection never accounted for any of those things to which he appeals. It could not possibly have done so, and neither could genetic drift.

All those things exist, to be sure but they do not exist because of evolution by natural selection. Mr. McCarthy will need to find another mechanism to explain them. Which, of course, is something I pointed out in the book. IGM might be an answer, but perhaps there are other mechanisms, although I will caution the enthusiast that so far, every single one of the various natural possibilities suggested, including viruses, similarly fail to address the relevant reproductive constraints and therefore are not viable.

Now, all that being said, I am extremely grateful to Dennis McCarthy for his critique, because the way in which he indirectly invoked the Kimura fixation model inspired me to look directly at its core equation for the first time. Now, I knew that the model was incomplete, which is why I first created a corrective for its failure to account for overlapping generations, the Selective Turnover Coefficient. And I also knew that it was not a constant 10,000 as it is commonly utilized by biologists, because my analysis of the ancient DNA database proved that it varied between 3,300 and 10,000......

......Let’s just say neutral theory is no longer a viable retreat for the Neo-Darwinians. The math is real. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the math is the only reality, but it is definitely the one thing you cannot ever ignore if you want to avoid having all your beautiful theories and assumptions and beliefs destroyed in one fell swoop.

Probability Zero will be in print next week. You can already preorder the print edition at NDM Express. And for an even deeper dive into the evolutionary science, The Frozen Gene will be available in ebook format, although whether it will be on Amazon or not is yet to be determined.