On the night the Phillies recognized the gay and lesbian community of Philadelphia, there was a voice of dissent.
Again.
Last night was the third annual Gay Community Night at the Phillies. After the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus sang the national anthem, and Outsports.com co-founder Cyd Ziegler threw out the first pitch, members of the Christian group Repent America held up a banner in the high rightfield stands that read:
"Homosexuality Is Sin. Christ Can Set You Free."
A few patrons blocked the sign for a few minutes, but the sign holders simply moved higher, and were surrounded by civil-affairs police and Phillies security assigned to oversee just such an eventuality.
It was the third straight year Repent America came to Gay Community Night, Phillies operations vice president Mike Stiles said.
The first year, Stiles said, the Phillies took the sign down, which began a discourse between their legal counsel and that of Repent America, which had claimed free-speech impingement. Last year, the banner stayed up but fights broke out, resulting in ejections.
This year, the Phillies protected members of the organization. The sign stayed up, unblocked, through the top of the seventh inning.
"No matter how personally objectionable the sign might be, Repent America, on Gay Community Night, have a constitutional right to display that banner," Stiles said. "I'm personally sorry if some people are understandably distressed by that message, but that doesn't trump our obligation under the First Amendment."
Eleven members of Repent America, including a juvenile, were arrested after protesting at a gay-pride event in Center City last October. The case against six adults was dismissed in December, and charges against the other four adults were thrown out in February. The juvenile's case was to be handled separately.
Philadelphia Daily News | 08/19/2005 | Christian group protests gay night at ballpark
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Monday, August 22, 2005
Scientist punished for Intelligent Design article, federal probe confirms
Aug. 19 (CWNews.com) - A federal government investigator has confirmed that a scientist suffered harassment at the Smithsonian Institution because he agreed to publish an essay on Intelligent Design in a scientific journal that he edited.
Dr. Richard Sternberg, the editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, reported that he was subjected to verbal abuse by other senior scientists at the prestigious federal research institution immediately after the appearance of the journal article.
Although the essay had been approved for publication after peer review by other qualified scientists, the Smithsonian staff violently objected to the appearance of an article that questioned the theories of Darwinian evolution, Steinberg said. He reports that colleagues questioned his competence and honesty, and circulated false rumors about his own scholarly work.
"They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper cell operative for the creationists," Steinberg told the Washington Post. The Post today reported that the US Office of Special Counsel has confirmed Steinberg's complaints. The campaign against Steinberg was clearly a response to the Intelligent Design article, wrote James McVay for the Office of Special Counsel. He said that the "retaliation came in many forms," including "misinformation that was disseminated through the Smithsonian Institution and to outside sources."
Catholic World News : Scientist punished for Intelligent Design article, federal probe confirms
Dr. Richard Sternberg, the editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, reported that he was subjected to verbal abuse by other senior scientists at the prestigious federal research institution immediately after the appearance of the journal article.
Although the essay had been approved for publication after peer review by other qualified scientists, the Smithsonian staff violently objected to the appearance of an article that questioned the theories of Darwinian evolution, Steinberg said. He reports that colleagues questioned his competence and honesty, and circulated false rumors about his own scholarly work.
"They were saying I accepted money under the table, that I was a crypto-priest, that I was a sleeper cell operative for the creationists," Steinberg told the Washington Post. The Post today reported that the US Office of Special Counsel has confirmed Steinberg's complaints. The campaign against Steinberg was clearly a response to the Intelligent Design article, wrote James McVay for the Office of Special Counsel. He said that the "retaliation came in many forms," including "misinformation that was disseminated through the Smithsonian Institution and to outside sources."
Catholic World News : Scientist punished for Intelligent Design article, federal probe confirms
Court Sides with Student on Right to Wear Scripture-Bearing Shirt
By Jim Brown
August 19, 2005
(AgapePress) - A federal judge has told an Ohio school district it can no longer bar a middle school student from wearing a t-shirt with a Christian message.
Judge George Smith has ruled that Sheridan Middle School in Thornville violated the constitutional rights of student James Nixon by prohibiting him from wearing a t-shirt bearing a quote from the Bible verse John 14:6. The front of the shirt reads: "Jesus said, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.'" The back of the shirt contains the statements: "Homosexuality is sin. Islam is a lie. Abortion is murder."
Although no complaints were filed over Nixon's t-shirt, a few school officials -- described by the student's attorney as "overzealous" -- deemed its message may be "offensive" to some individuals and "potentially disruptive," and thus could not be displayed.
Nixon's attorney, James Nelson of the Orlando-based American Liberties Institute, says the decision handed down by Judge Smith has a "broad, sweeping significance," especially for students in the southern district of Ohio, many of whom he says were watching for the outcome.
"Other students and parents had been waiting for this decision to know whether or not their own children and students may now wear their shirts," Nelson shares.
Nelson asserts the judge's ruling sets a persuasive precedent. "We believe that Judge Smith really worked through the issues well, in a way that some courts don't," the attorney says. "He truly picked apart the precedent and the cases from the Supreme Court and other jurisdictions and tried to make a very comprehensive and coherent opinion which could be utilized by other courts across the country."
The attorney feels that due to the jurisdiction of Smith's court over other schools and school districts, the ruling will allow students to freely express their viewpoint on the same issues and to wear the same t-shirt to school.
News from Agape Press
August 19, 2005
(AgapePress) - A federal judge has told an Ohio school district it can no longer bar a middle school student from wearing a t-shirt with a Christian message.
Judge George Smith has ruled that Sheridan Middle School in Thornville violated the constitutional rights of student James Nixon by prohibiting him from wearing a t-shirt bearing a quote from the Bible verse John 14:6. The front of the shirt reads: "Jesus said, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.'" The back of the shirt contains the statements: "Homosexuality is sin. Islam is a lie. Abortion is murder."
Although no complaints were filed over Nixon's t-shirt, a few school officials -- described by the student's attorney as "overzealous" -- deemed its message may be "offensive" to some individuals and "potentially disruptive," and thus could not be displayed.
Nixon's attorney, James Nelson of the Orlando-based American Liberties Institute, says the decision handed down by Judge Smith has a "broad, sweeping significance," especially for students in the southern district of Ohio, many of whom he says were watching for the outcome.
"Other students and parents had been waiting for this decision to know whether or not their own children and students may now wear their shirts," Nelson shares.
Nelson asserts the judge's ruling sets a persuasive precedent. "We believe that Judge Smith really worked through the issues well, in a way that some courts don't," the attorney says. "He truly picked apart the precedent and the cases from the Supreme Court and other jurisdictions and tried to make a very comprehensive and coherent opinion which could be utilized by other courts across the country."
The attorney feels that due to the jurisdiction of Smith's court over other schools and school districts, the ruling will allow students to freely express their viewpoint on the same issues and to wear the same t-shirt to school.
News from Agape Press
The Christian paradox
Sunday, August 21, 2005
By BILL McKIBBEN
ONLY 40 PERCENT of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels.
Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.
This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation's educational decline, but it probably doesn't matter all that much in spiritual or political terms.
Here is a statistic that does matter: Three-quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves." That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture.
The thing is, not only is Franklin's wisdom not biblical; it's counterbiblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans - most American Christians - are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.
Asking Christians what Christ taught isn't a trick. When we say we are a Christian nation - and, overwhelmingly, we do - it means something. People who go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based on those lessons; increasingly, these lessons inform their politics. (One poll found that 11 percent of U.S. churchgoers were urged by their clergy to vote in a particular way in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in 2000.) When George Bush says that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, he may or may not be sincere, but he is reflecting the sincere beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.
And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox - more important, perhaps, than the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and cheese - illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture.
Ours is among the most spiritually homogenous rich nations on earth. Depending on which poll you look at and how the question is asked, somewhere around 85 percent of us call ourselves Christian. Israel, by way of comparison, is 77 percent Jewish.
It is true that a smaller number of Americans - about 75 percent - claim they actually pray to God on a daily basis, and only 33 percent say they manage to get to church every week. Still, even if that 85 percent overstates actual practice, it clearly represents aspiration.
In fact, there is nothing else that unites more than four-fifths of America. Every other statistic one can cite about American behavior is essentially also a measure of the behavior of professed Christians. That's what America is: a place saturated in Christian identity.
But is it Christian? This is not a matter of angels dancing on the heads of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion - say, giving aid to the poorest people - as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message for his disciples, he said the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they'd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger and visited the prisoner. What would we find then?
In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after Italy, among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per capita we each provide 15 cents a day in official development assistance to poor countries. And it's not because we were giving to private charities for relief work instead. Such funding increases our average daily donation by just six pennies, to 21 cents.
It's also not because Americans were too busy taking care of their own; nearly 18 percent of American children lived in poverty (compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose - childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool - we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide margin.
The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the American nation trails badly in all these categories; it's that the overwhelmingly Christian American nation trails badly in all these categories, categories to which Jesus paid particular attention.
And it's not as if the numbers are getting better: the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last year that the number of households that were "food insecure with hunger" had climbed more than 26 percent between 1999 and 2003.
This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other rich nations (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners).
Having been told to turn the other cheek, we're the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest.
Despite Jesus' strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate-just over half-that compares poorly with the European Union's average of about four in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marry less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is difficult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent.
Teenage pregnancy? We're at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline-like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running government deficits? Do you need to ask?...
The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that its adherents boldly claim religious authority, and by their very boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they're talking about. They're like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track.
But their theology is appealing for another reason, too: It coincides with what we want to believe. How nice it would be if Jesus had declared that our income was ours to keep, instead of insisting that we had to share. How satisfying it would be if we were supposed to hate our enemies. Religious conservatives will always have a comparatively easy sell.
But straight is the path and narrow is the way. The gospel is too radical for any culture larger than the Amish to ever come close to realizing; in demanding a departure from selfishness it conflicts with all our current desires. Even the first time around, judging by the reaction, the Gospels were pretty unwelcome news to an awful lot of people.
There is not going to be a modern-day return to the church of the early believers, holding all things in common - that's not what I'm talking about. Taking seriously the actual message of Jesus, though, should serve at least to moderate the greed and violence that mark this culture. It's hard to imagine a con much more audacious than making Christ the front man for a program of tax cuts for the rich or war in Iraq. If some modest part of the 85 percent of us who are Christians woke up to that fact, then the world might change.
It is possible, I think. Yes, the mainline Protestant churches that supported civil rights and opposed the war in Vietnam are mostly locked in a dreary decline as their congregations dwindle and their elders argue endlessly about gay clergy and same-sex unions. And the Catholic Church, for most of its American history a sturdy exponent of a "love your neighbor" theology, has been weakened, too, its hierarchy increasingly motivated by a single-issue focus on abortion.
Plenty of vital congregations are doing great good works - they're the ones that have nurtured me. But they aren't where the challenge will arise; they've grown shy about talking about Jesus, more comfortable with the language of sociology and politics. More and more it's Bible-quoting Christians, like [Jim] Wallis' Sojourners movement and that Baptist seminary graduate Bill Moyers, who are carrying the fight.
The best-selling of all Christian books in recent years, Rick Warren's "The Purpose-Driven Life," illustrates the possibilities. It has all the hallmarks of self-absorption (in one five-page chapter, I counted 65 uses of the word you). But it also makes a powerful case that we're made for mission. What that mission is never becomes clear, but the thirst for it is real. And there's no great need for Warren to state that purpose anyhow. For Christians, the plainspoken message of the Gospels is clear enough. If you have any doubts, read the Sermon on the Mount.
Admittedly, this is hope against hope. More likely the money changers and power brokers will remain ascendant in our "spiritual" life. Since the days of Constantine, emperors and rich men have sought to co-opt the teachings of Jesus.
As in so many areas of our increasingly market-tested lives, the co-opters - the TV men, the politicians, the Christian "interest groups" - have found a way to make each of us complicit in that travesty, too. They have invited us to subvert the church of Jesus even as we celebrate it. With their help we have made golden calves of ourselves - become a nation of terrified, self-obsessed idols. It works, and it may well keep working for a long time to come.
When Americans hunger for selfless love and are fed only love of self, they will remain hungry, and too often hungry people just come back for more of the same
North Jersey Media Group providing local news, sports & classifieds for Northern New Jersey!
By BILL McKIBBEN
ONLY 40 PERCENT of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels.
Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.
This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation's educational decline, but it probably doesn't matter all that much in spiritual or political terms.
Here is a statistic that does matter: Three-quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves." That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture.
The thing is, not only is Franklin's wisdom not biblical; it's counterbiblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans - most American Christians - are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.
Asking Christians what Christ taught isn't a trick. When we say we are a Christian nation - and, overwhelmingly, we do - it means something. People who go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based on those lessons; increasingly, these lessons inform their politics. (One poll found that 11 percent of U.S. churchgoers were urged by their clergy to vote in a particular way in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in 2000.) When George Bush says that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, he may or may not be sincere, but he is reflecting the sincere beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.
And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox - more important, perhaps, than the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and cheese - illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture.
Ours is among the most spiritually homogenous rich nations on earth. Depending on which poll you look at and how the question is asked, somewhere around 85 percent of us call ourselves Christian. Israel, by way of comparison, is 77 percent Jewish.
It is true that a smaller number of Americans - about 75 percent - claim they actually pray to God on a daily basis, and only 33 percent say they manage to get to church every week. Still, even if that 85 percent overstates actual practice, it clearly represents aspiration.
In fact, there is nothing else that unites more than four-fifths of America. Every other statistic one can cite about American behavior is essentially also a measure of the behavior of professed Christians. That's what America is: a place saturated in Christian identity.
But is it Christian? This is not a matter of angels dancing on the heads of pins. Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion - say, giving aid to the poorest people - as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message for his disciples, he said the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they'd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger and visited the prisoner. What would we find then?
In 2004, as a share of our economy, we ranked second to last, after Italy, among developed countries in government foreign aid. Per capita we each provide 15 cents a day in official development assistance to poor countries. And it's not because we were giving to private charities for relief work instead. Such funding increases our average daily donation by just six pennies, to 21 cents.
It's also not because Americans were too busy taking care of their own; nearly 18 percent of American children lived in poverty (compared with, say, 8 percent in Sweden). In fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose - childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool - we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide margin.
The point is not just that (as everyone already knows) the American nation trails badly in all these categories; it's that the overwhelmingly Christian American nation trails badly in all these categories, categories to which Jesus paid particular attention.
And it's not as if the numbers are getting better: the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last year that the number of households that were "food insecure with hunger" had climbed more than 26 percent between 1999 and 2003.
This Christian nation also tends to make personal, as opposed to political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon. Despite the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or seven than other rich nations (which at least should give us plenty of opportunity for visiting the prisoners).
Having been told to turn the other cheek, we're the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest.
Despite Jesus' strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate-just over half-that compares poorly with the European Union's average of about four in ten. That average may be held down by the fact that Europeans marry less frequently, and by countries, like Italy, where divorce is difficult; still, compare our success with, say, that of the godless Dutch, whose divorce rate is just over 37 percent.
Teenage pregnancy? We're at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline-like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running government deficits? Do you need to ask?...
The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that its adherents boldly claim religious authority, and by their very boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they're talking about. They're like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track.
But their theology is appealing for another reason, too: It coincides with what we want to believe. How nice it would be if Jesus had declared that our income was ours to keep, instead of insisting that we had to share. How satisfying it would be if we were supposed to hate our enemies. Religious conservatives will always have a comparatively easy sell.
But straight is the path and narrow is the way. The gospel is too radical for any culture larger than the Amish to ever come close to realizing; in demanding a departure from selfishness it conflicts with all our current desires. Even the first time around, judging by the reaction, the Gospels were pretty unwelcome news to an awful lot of people.
There is not going to be a modern-day return to the church of the early believers, holding all things in common - that's not what I'm talking about. Taking seriously the actual message of Jesus, though, should serve at least to moderate the greed and violence that mark this culture. It's hard to imagine a con much more audacious than making Christ the front man for a program of tax cuts for the rich or war in Iraq. If some modest part of the 85 percent of us who are Christians woke up to that fact, then the world might change.
It is possible, I think. Yes, the mainline Protestant churches that supported civil rights and opposed the war in Vietnam are mostly locked in a dreary decline as their congregations dwindle and their elders argue endlessly about gay clergy and same-sex unions. And the Catholic Church, for most of its American history a sturdy exponent of a "love your neighbor" theology, has been weakened, too, its hierarchy increasingly motivated by a single-issue focus on abortion.
Plenty of vital congregations are doing great good works - they're the ones that have nurtured me. But they aren't where the challenge will arise; they've grown shy about talking about Jesus, more comfortable with the language of sociology and politics. More and more it's Bible-quoting Christians, like [Jim] Wallis' Sojourners movement and that Baptist seminary graduate Bill Moyers, who are carrying the fight.
The best-selling of all Christian books in recent years, Rick Warren's "The Purpose-Driven Life," illustrates the possibilities. It has all the hallmarks of self-absorption (in one five-page chapter, I counted 65 uses of the word you). But it also makes a powerful case that we're made for mission. What that mission is never becomes clear, but the thirst for it is real. And there's no great need for Warren to state that purpose anyhow. For Christians, the plainspoken message of the Gospels is clear enough. If you have any doubts, read the Sermon on the Mount.
Admittedly, this is hope against hope. More likely the money changers and power brokers will remain ascendant in our "spiritual" life. Since the days of Constantine, emperors and rich men have sought to co-opt the teachings of Jesus.
As in so many areas of our increasingly market-tested lives, the co-opters - the TV men, the politicians, the Christian "interest groups" - have found a way to make each of us complicit in that travesty, too. They have invited us to subvert the church of Jesus even as we celebrate it. With their help we have made golden calves of ourselves - become a nation of terrified, self-obsessed idols. It works, and it may well keep working for a long time to come.
When Americans hunger for selfless love and are fed only love of self, they will remain hungry, and too often hungry people just come back for more of the same
North Jersey Media Group providing local news, sports & classifieds for Northern New Jersey!
Court Says Atheism is a Religion
Chicago, IL - A federal court of appeals has ruled in favor of an inmate who claimed that Wisconsin prison officials violated his rights under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because they refused to allow him to create a study group for atheists.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prison officials erred because they “did not treat atheism as a ‘religion.’” “Atheism,” said the court, “is [the inmate’s] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being.”
Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, described the court’s ruling as “a sort of Alice in Wonderland jurisprudence.” “Up is down, and atheism, the antithesis of religion, is religion,” stated Fahling.
The Supreme Court has said that a religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, the Court described “secular humanism” as a religion.
Fahling pointed to today’s ruling as “further evidence of the incoherence Establishment Clause jurisprudence.” “It is difficult not to be somewhat jaundiced about our courts,” continued Fahling, “when they take clauses especially designed to protect religion from the state and turn them on their head by giving protective cover to a belief system, that, by every known definition other than the courts’ is not a religion, while simultaneously declaring public expressions of true religious faith to be prohibited.”
AFA.Net - Divisions - Center for Law and Policy - Press Release - 8/19/2005
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prison officials erred because they “did not treat atheism as a ‘religion.’” “Atheism,” said the court, “is [the inmate’s] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being.”
Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, described the court’s ruling as “a sort of Alice in Wonderland jurisprudence.” “Up is down, and atheism, the antithesis of religion, is religion,” stated Fahling.
The Supreme Court has said that a religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, the Court described “secular humanism” as a religion.
Fahling pointed to today’s ruling as “further evidence of the incoherence Establishment Clause jurisprudence.” “It is difficult not to be somewhat jaundiced about our courts,” continued Fahling, “when they take clauses especially designed to protect religion from the state and turn them on their head by giving protective cover to a belief system, that, by every known definition other than the courts’ is not a religion, while simultaneously declaring public expressions of true religious faith to be prohibited.”
AFA.Net - Divisions - Center for Law and Policy - Press Release - 8/19/2005
Parents Warned Against Tawdry Teen-Targeted Fiction
Researcher Says Many Popular Publications Are Youth-Packaged Porn
By Mary Rettig
August 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - The director of research for the American Family Association (AFA) says parents have a new battle to wage in their efforts to protect their children. This time the problem is racy teen fiction books like the "Gossip Girl" series -- big sellers that are filled with their characters' sexual exploits and drug use.
According to some sources, this style of "young adult" fiction is publishing's fastest growing segment. But AFA's Ed Vitagliano says the pro-family organization and many American parents are just now becoming aware of this lust-filled teen literature, and he feels action must be taken immediately, for the kids' sake.
Vitagliano notes, "Part of the problem with teens having their lives immersed in sexual themes and sexual thoughts is that they, especially at that age, are just usually incapable of understanding the consequences that can come from acting out what they're reading, or what they're seeing on television, or what they're listening to in their music."
The pro-family organization's research director says many parents would be shocked to learn that books being marketed to their teenagers are becoming increasingly rife with immoral content. The "Gossip Girl" series, for instance, deals with a group of teenage heiresses who live on New York's Fifth Avenue and, largely out of boredom, indulge in alcohol, drugs, and sex.
One typical example of the smut being marketed to teens in this guise, Vitagliano points out, is a book about a teen oral sex party, while another such book describes a sexual relationship between a teacher and a student. He sees these racy, teen-targeted novels as equivalent to pornography and insists that they are by no means harmless.
"Teenagers and young people can be corrupted morally, just like anybody else," the AFA research director asserts. "That's why we have laws in this country prohibiting the exploitation of minors or selling tobacco or selling pornography [to them]. We have laws to protect our kids, and when you pass off pornography as just a good, fun read, then you really have hit bottom as a culture."
Concerned parents need to tell their local bookstores and school librarians as well as book publishers that this type of literature is not acceptable for teens, Vitagliano says. And, he adds, pro-family adults interested in protecting youth need to insist, wherever such smut is already on the shelves, that such material be removed immediately from places where young people can access it.
News from Agape Press
By Mary Rettig
August 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - The director of research for the American Family Association (AFA) says parents have a new battle to wage in their efforts to protect their children. This time the problem is racy teen fiction books like the "Gossip Girl" series -- big sellers that are filled with their characters' sexual exploits and drug use.
According to some sources, this style of "young adult" fiction is publishing's fastest growing segment. But AFA's Ed Vitagliano says the pro-family organization and many American parents are just now becoming aware of this lust-filled teen literature, and he feels action must be taken immediately, for the kids' sake.
Vitagliano notes, "Part of the problem with teens having their lives immersed in sexual themes and sexual thoughts is that they, especially at that age, are just usually incapable of understanding the consequences that can come from acting out what they're reading, or what they're seeing on television, or what they're listening to in their music."
The pro-family organization's research director says many parents would be shocked to learn that books being marketed to their teenagers are becoming increasingly rife with immoral content. The "Gossip Girl" series, for instance, deals with a group of teenage heiresses who live on New York's Fifth Avenue and, largely out of boredom, indulge in alcohol, drugs, and sex.
One typical example of the smut being marketed to teens in this guise, Vitagliano points out, is a book about a teen oral sex party, while another such book describes a sexual relationship between a teacher and a student. He sees these racy, teen-targeted novels as equivalent to pornography and insists that they are by no means harmless.
"Teenagers and young people can be corrupted morally, just like anybody else," the AFA research director asserts. "That's why we have laws in this country prohibiting the exploitation of minors or selling tobacco or selling pornography [to them]. We have laws to protect our kids, and when you pass off pornography as just a good, fun read, then you really have hit bottom as a culture."
Concerned parents need to tell their local bookstores and school librarians as well as book publishers that this type of literature is not acceptable for teens, Vitagliano says. And, he adds, pro-family adults interested in protecting youth need to insist, wherever such smut is already on the shelves, that such material be removed immediately from places where young people can access it.
News from Agape Press
California Supreme Court Redefines Family
Tupelo, MS - In three separate cases raising fundamental issues as to what makes a family and who qualifies as a parent, the California Supreme Court today ruled in each case that a child may legally have two mothers.
In Elisa B. v. Superior Court, the court held that a lesbian who had agreed to raise the children born to her partner, but then split up with her partner, was required to pay child support for the children as a parent. In K.M. v. E.G., the court held that the existence of a written waiver of rights was no bar to a lesbian woman who had donated ova to her partner to assist in an in vitro fertilization asserting rights as a parent. And in Kristine H. v. Lisa R., the court found that a stipulation signed by the natural mother conferred a legal right to her lesbian partner to exercise the role of a parent over the child.
“The California Supreme Court is determined not to be outdone in the aggressive fashioning of new social policy under the guise of deciding legal cases,” commented Stephen Crampton, Chief Counsel for the AFA Center for Law & Policy, which has endorsed a proposed state constitutional amendment defining marriage in California. “These cases, read together, demonstrate beyond question the social and political agenda of the court. They have little or nothing to do with law,” Crampton said.
“The arrogance of the California court in attempting to redefine the family by the mere stroke of a pen is nothing short of extraordinary,” Crampton observed. “If the people do not stand up and let their voices be heard, the courts will continue to take over every aspect of our lives. It is time to speak out and rein in this runaway judiciary,” Crampton counseled.
The Center for Law & Policy is the legal arm of the American Family Association, Inc. It specializes in constitutional litigation in state and federal courts throughout the country, including numerous same sex marriage cases.
AFA.Net - Divisions - Center for Law and Policy - Press Release - 8/22/2005
In Elisa B. v. Superior Court, the court held that a lesbian who had agreed to raise the children born to her partner, but then split up with her partner, was required to pay child support for the children as a parent. In K.M. v. E.G., the court held that the existence of a written waiver of rights was no bar to a lesbian woman who had donated ova to her partner to assist in an in vitro fertilization asserting rights as a parent. And in Kristine H. v. Lisa R., the court found that a stipulation signed by the natural mother conferred a legal right to her lesbian partner to exercise the role of a parent over the child.
“The California Supreme Court is determined not to be outdone in the aggressive fashioning of new social policy under the guise of deciding legal cases,” commented Stephen Crampton, Chief Counsel for the AFA Center for Law & Policy, which has endorsed a proposed state constitutional amendment defining marriage in California. “These cases, read together, demonstrate beyond question the social and political agenda of the court. They have little or nothing to do with law,” Crampton said.
“The arrogance of the California court in attempting to redefine the family by the mere stroke of a pen is nothing short of extraordinary,” Crampton observed. “If the people do not stand up and let their voices be heard, the courts will continue to take over every aspect of our lives. It is time to speak out and rein in this runaway judiciary,” Crampton counseled.
The Center for Law & Policy is the legal arm of the American Family Association, Inc. It specializes in constitutional litigation in state and federal courts throughout the country, including numerous same sex marriage cases.
AFA.Net - Divisions - Center for Law and Policy - Press Release - 8/22/2005
Video Game Violence Needs Curbing
Calif. Lawmaker Agrees With APA
By Ed Thomas
August 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - The American Psychological Association has recently acknowledged that violence in video games is bad for children's health, and that exposure to violent game content increases anger and aggressive thoughts and behavior. Those facts are nothing new to one California legislator, who has been a leader in the fight to reform the electronic game industry's most violent products.
Leland Yee, the Speaker of the California Assembly, is a lawmaker whose academic training is in psychology and education. For some time now, he has been adamant that ultra-violent video games are damaging America's youth.
Electronic "first-person shooter" games and other computer and video games with high levels of violent combat "will cause a lot of youngsters grave harm," Yee contends. "And what I mean by that," he explains, "is that they will learn how to maim and how to kill and how to hurt other individuals."
The state lawmaker concurs with experts who say their research indicates that youngsters are learning lessons in violence while spending hundreds and even thousands of hours playing these games. It is such research that has led the APA to call for changes in game design, with games starting to link violent acts to negative social consequences and having the industry cut back on the overall amount of violence.
The APA is also in agreement with Yee that video game ratings need to reflect accurately the kinds of violence in the games. However, the California assemblyman has been blocked twice in legislative attempts to enact tighter controls on the electronic game industry. Meanwhile, industry officials cite other research that reportedly disputes any links between video game violence and aggressive behavior.
But that the link exists is beyond doubt as far as Yee is concerned. "You may not find that in every single case," he says, "but [video game violence] does in fact influence a lot of children, and that is what is so unfortunate."
Even now, a controversial video game is at the center of a civil lawsuit involving the murders of three men in the small town of Fayette, Alabama, who were gunned down by 18-year-old Devin Moore, a youth who had allegedly played the game "Grand Theft Auto" day and night for months. Jack Thompson, an attorney who has long advocated against video-game violence, is bringing the suit and contends that the teenager was given "a murder simulator" and was, in effect, trained by the game to do what he did.
News from Agape Press
By Ed Thomas
August 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - The American Psychological Association has recently acknowledged that violence in video games is bad for children's health, and that exposure to violent game content increases anger and aggressive thoughts and behavior. Those facts are nothing new to one California legislator, who has been a leader in the fight to reform the electronic game industry's most violent products.
Leland Yee, the Speaker of the California Assembly, is a lawmaker whose academic training is in psychology and education. For some time now, he has been adamant that ultra-violent video games are damaging America's youth.
Electronic "first-person shooter" games and other computer and video games with high levels of violent combat "will cause a lot of youngsters grave harm," Yee contends. "And what I mean by that," he explains, "is that they will learn how to maim and how to kill and how to hurt other individuals."
The state lawmaker concurs with experts who say their research indicates that youngsters are learning lessons in violence while spending hundreds and even thousands of hours playing these games. It is such research that has led the APA to call for changes in game design, with games starting to link violent acts to negative social consequences and having the industry cut back on the overall amount of violence.
The APA is also in agreement with Yee that video game ratings need to reflect accurately the kinds of violence in the games. However, the California assemblyman has been blocked twice in legislative attempts to enact tighter controls on the electronic game industry. Meanwhile, industry officials cite other research that reportedly disputes any links between video game violence and aggressive behavior.
But that the link exists is beyond doubt as far as Yee is concerned. "You may not find that in every single case," he says, "but [video game violence] does in fact influence a lot of children, and that is what is so unfortunate."
Even now, a controversial video game is at the center of a civil lawsuit involving the murders of three men in the small town of Fayette, Alabama, who were gunned down by 18-year-old Devin Moore, a youth who had allegedly played the game "Grand Theft Auto" day and night for months. Jack Thompson, an attorney who has long advocated against video-game violence, is bringing the suit and contends that the teenager was given "a murder simulator" and was, in effect, trained by the game to do what he did.
News from Agape Press
Hamas: Christian Zionism is our enemy
By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
August 22nd, 2005
The Hamas terrorist organization has singled out Christian supporters of Israel, putting them on notice that it views their actions as “criminal,” making them enemies of the Palestinian Arabs.
In an interview published in the Arabic language newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat last Thursday, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Gaza-based Hamas leader said, surprisingly, that his organization did not regard the West as the enemy.
“We do not consider the West as an enemy but we believe Christian Zionism is criminal,” he said.
While no Arab nationalist or Islamic group has thus far targeted Christians specifically for standing with Israel, the news that Hamas hates them as it hates the Jewish state will not surprise many who regard themselves as “Christian Zionists.”
Christian Zionists – who are to be found mostly, but not exclusively, in the ranks of Evangelical Christianity – not only believe that the God of Israel gave the Land of Israel to the People of Israel. They also believe that they are to stand with Israel against those who are out to rob the Jews of their land.
Millions of Christian Zionists around the world support the Jewish claims to the Land of Israel and reject Arab assertions that they have national rights to this land.
While Arabs may and should be allowed to live in peace in the State of Israel, these Christians believe, any Arab efforts to assert sovereign control over any land in the biblical country of Israel are rejected.
Hamas: Christian Zionism is our enemy - Jerusalem Newswire
August 22nd, 2005
The Hamas terrorist organization has singled out Christian supporters of Israel, putting them on notice that it views their actions as “criminal,” making them enemies of the Palestinian Arabs.
In an interview published in the Arabic language newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat last Thursday, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Gaza-based Hamas leader said, surprisingly, that his organization did not regard the West as the enemy.
“We do not consider the West as an enemy but we believe Christian Zionism is criminal,” he said.
While no Arab nationalist or Islamic group has thus far targeted Christians specifically for standing with Israel, the news that Hamas hates them as it hates the Jewish state will not surprise many who regard themselves as “Christian Zionists.”
Christian Zionists – who are to be found mostly, but not exclusively, in the ranks of Evangelical Christianity – not only believe that the God of Israel gave the Land of Israel to the People of Israel. They also believe that they are to stand with Israel against those who are out to rob the Jews of their land.
Millions of Christian Zionists around the world support the Jewish claims to the Land of Israel and reject Arab assertions that they have national rights to this land.
While Arabs may and should be allowed to live in peace in the State of Israel, these Christians believe, any Arab efforts to assert sovereign control over any land in the biblical country of Israel are rejected.
Hamas: Christian Zionism is our enemy - Jerusalem Newswire
Did you know…
1 That ten United States presidents were educated at home? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
2 That Albert Einstein, Amadeus Mozart, and John Stuart Mill were home schooled?
3 That during the 2002-2003 school year, an estimated 1.7 million to 2.1 million K-12 level students, or 3-4% of the school-age population, were home schooled? (NHERI)
4 That in nearly every state, the number of children being educated at home is rising about 10% a year? (USA Today, Sept. 3, 2003)
5 That over 1,000 selective colleges have admitted homeschool? (NHEN)
6 That on average, homeschooled children outscore their public school counterparts by 15 to 30 percentile points on standardized achievement tests? (Brian Ray, Research Shows Good Things)
7 That the stereotype of homeschoolers as religious separatists or the offspring of New Age seekers has not been true for years? (USA Today, Sept. 3, 2003)
8 That research has found that only 35% of teaching mothers have a college degree or higher, yet their children score no higher on standardized achievement tests than those being taught by mothers without a college degree? (Charleston Gazette, Feb. 21, 2003)
9 That companies are learning home schooling is a rapidly growing market that means business? The Census Bureau estimates some 30 million children could eventually stay home to learn. (J. Colby, CBS Evening News, Nov 9, 2002).
2 That Albert Einstein, Amadeus Mozart, and John Stuart Mill were home schooled?
3 That during the 2002-2003 school year, an estimated 1.7 million to 2.1 million K-12 level students, or 3-4% of the school-age population, were home schooled? (NHERI)
4 That in nearly every state, the number of children being educated at home is rising about 10% a year? (USA Today, Sept. 3, 2003)
5 That over 1,000 selective colleges have admitted homeschool? (NHEN)
6 That on average, homeschooled children outscore their public school counterparts by 15 to 30 percentile points on standardized achievement tests? (Brian Ray, Research Shows Good Things)
7 That the stereotype of homeschoolers as religious separatists or the offspring of New Age seekers has not been true for years? (USA Today, Sept. 3, 2003)
8 That research has found that only 35% of teaching mothers have a college degree or higher, yet their children score no higher on standardized achievement tests than those being taught by mothers without a college degree? (Charleston Gazette, Feb. 21, 2003)
9 That companies are learning home schooling is a rapidly growing market that means business? The Census Bureau estimates some 30 million children could eventually stay home to learn. (J. Colby, CBS Evening News, Nov 9, 2002).
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Evolution vs. intelligent design: which model has more integrity?
August 18, 2005
Fred Hutchison
RenewAmerica analyst
President Bush said that public schools should expose students to both evolution and intelligent design science and discuss the scientific controversies as the two models clash. The press unleashed a flurry of editorials that claimed that this would involve a comparison of science with religion and a comparison of facts with faith.
But is this true? Is the evolution camp misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the intelligent design scientists are saying by calling it faith and not science? Even Charles Krauthammer, one of my favorite columnists and television pundits, asserts that intelligent design is faith, not science. Has Krauthammer, a medical doctor, read what the intelligent design scientists are saying, or is he following what he was taught by evolutionists in medical school? Are important thinkers with a scientific background, like Dr. Krauthammer, changing their mind on this point? Yes. I heard one speak in late July (2005) at Oxford, University.
Intelligent design: science or faith?
The C.S. Lewis Conference (named Oxbridge, because it meets at Oxford and Cambridge) featured a discussion between eminent philosophers Anthony Flew and Gary Habermas. Anthony Flew was one of the world's most famous atheists because he has debated theist philosophers about the existence of God for decades and some of these debates were televised. For much of his life, Flew based his atheism upon science. His recent and celebrated conversion to theism was also based upon science.
Flew was invited to Oxbridge to join Habermas, his old debating partner and friend, for a discussion about Flew's recollections of C.S. Lewis at Oxford and Flew's conversion from atheism to theism. His conversion to theism came from reading the works of intelligent design scientists. He concluded that the weight of the scientific evidence points to the idea that the universe was designed, and therefore must have an intelligent designer. Habermas asked him about faith and Flew denied that faith had anything to do with his change of mind. He said he was logically following where the evidence led him. Flew obviously regards the research of the intelligent design scientists as science and not faith. What say you to this, Dr. Krauthammer?
Natural law, science, and government
Interestingly, Flew insists he is not a Christian or a religious monotheist and that he has no faith in a personal God. Habermas asked him if he is a Deist and Flew said "yes." A Deist believes in the existence of an impersonal and detached God who is the designer and creator of the universe. The Deist God gave man the gift of reason so he could discover the laws of nature and the design of the universe. Then he stepped away from his creation and left the governance of the world to man. Eighteenth century Deism contributed to the development of Natural law philosophy, which influenced science, philosophy, ethics, and political philosophy.
Deism and Natural law philosophy influenced American founding fathers Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and James Madison, Jefferson's protégé and author of the Constitution. Jefferson opened the Declaration with these words from natural law philosophy: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people...to assume those separate but equal stations which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them.... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...." Natural rights are derived from natural laws. There are two kinds of natural laws: laws of nature that scientists study, and laws governing human conduct. Concerning the second, natural law decrees that the rights of the individual must not be transgressed by persons or governments.
We have a natural law constitution and a revival of natural law science, namely intelligent design science. Yet some of our judges have assumed that the teaching of natural law science in the public schools violates our natural law constitution. For example, in McLean vs. Arkansas (1984), Judge William Overton ruled that the teaching of scientific creationism in public schools violates the "separation of church and state." Let us assume that Judge Overton would have included intelligent design science as a branch of scientific creationism. There are no natural law churches in America. The last Deist churches in England closed in the eighteenth century. Therefore, how does teaching natural law science bring a church's doctrine into the classroom? Since the Deist God does not answer prayer or involve himself in human life, is not Deism more of a philosophy than a religion? If teaching natural law science like intelligent design is contrary to the "separation of church and state," then our natural law constitution is contrary to "the separation of church and state."
Judge Overton's opinion is based upon two false assumptions: first, that the Constitution is hostile to religion, and second, that natural law philosophy and intelligent design science represent a religion. Madison, who wrote the Constitution, was inspired by natural law philosophy that was based upon the assumptions of philosophical Deism. One assumption of Deism is that men will form rational social contracts like the U.S. Constitution, as guided by self-evident truths from "nature and nature's god." Another assumption is that men will use reason, observation, and experience to discover the laws of nature. Never was there a science more in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution than intelligent design science. Both the Constitution and intelligent design science are triumphs of natural law philosophy.
Einstein's physics: a violation of church/state separation?
Anthony Flew's Deism is a little different from Jefferson's and Madison's Deism. Anthony Flew said he believes in Einstein's God. Einstein said in 1929 and was quoted by the New York Times, "I believe in Spinoza's god who reveals Himself in orderly harmony that exists, not a God who concerns himself with the fate of human beings" (source: Albert Einstein – Scientist, edited by Paul Schilipp 1970). Spinoza was a rationalist philosopher and a pantheist. He believed that everything is interconnected within one gigantic system and that this system and everything it contains is "God." Monotheistic religions and traditional Deism sharply differentiate between Creator and creation. Spinoza, Einstein, and Flew make no distinction between God and the cosmos. Intelligent design science brought Flew to Einstein's impersonal pantheistic God. It did not bring him to a personal faith in a personal God or to anything remotely resembling a religion.
Einstein started with Spinoza's general principle that everything that exists is essentially one, and everything is harmoniously interconnected into a beautiful whole. From this presupposition, he developed his theories of physics through blackboard mathematics. During the later part of his career, Einstein's futile pursuit of a unified field theory was driven by his belief that everything is harmoniously connected and interrelated. Einstein acquired this life-long conviction in his youth while reading Spinoza's pantheistic philosophy.
If deistic natural law science like intelligent design violates the doctrine of separation of church and state, does Einstein's physics, which is based in pantheism, likewise violate that doctrine? Of course not, and neither does intelligent design science violate the separation of church and state. Einstein was a philosophical pantheist, but had no interest in the mystical spirituality of pantheist religion. Intelligent design science is no more a religion than Einstein's physics. The intelligent design writers make no mention of who the intelligent designer might be and say nothing about faith or spirituality. Anthony Flew, who was an Oxford professor of philosophy, thinks that belief in Einstein's god is a particular kind of philosophical Deism. He views intelligent design science as a true science that is compatible with Einstein's philosophy. He firmly rejects personal faith and religion.
The logic is inescapable. Although natural law philosophy has roots in theism, it is a philosophy in the category of rationalism, like the philosophies of Spinoza, Descartes, and Leibnitz. Immanuel Kant fused philosophical rationalism with philosophical empiricism in his work, Critique of Pure Reason. He facilitated the blend of reason and evidence in modern science. A scientific model should be logically sound and mathematically articulated, if possible. However, a model must be vindicated by hard empirical evidence. Einstein's blackboard theories about how gravity bends light were rejected out of hand until the solar eclipse of 1919 when scientists measured the bending of light as it passes by the earth. Flew is a rational philosopher, but it was the hard, scientific evidence that won him over to intelligent design and Deism.
Is evolution a mixture of science and philosophy?
If we can ban a scientific model, such as intelligent design, from the classroom simply because it has roots in a philosophy that has theistic implications, can we also throw out evolution if it is revealed to be a blend of science and a philosophy with cosmological implications? Of course not. It would be absurd to throw out either intelligent design or evolution on these grounds. Although the ultimate winner in the contest between these two scientific models will be determined by the evidence, it is helpful to understand that the two models represent two conflicting cosmologies and world views. It is extremely painful for a man to change a long-held world view. I stand in awe of the profound integrity of Anthony Flew to change his cosmology when the evidence required it, even though he had been a public advocate of a different cosmology for fifty years. The evolutionists' long commitment to a particular cosmology might help us to understand their emotional reactions when they are contradicted with hard evidence.
Since evolutionists often claim, "We are of science, and intelligent design is of faith," we are entitled to know if this is true. So far in our deliberations, it has become clear that intelligent design is a science with roots in a philosophy. Is the same thing true of evolution? Yes, indeed.
Prior to French Enlightenment science, there was no concept of a necessary link between science and the philosophy of materialism--which holds that nothing exists outside the realm of matter. (This was due in part to the fact that most of the founders and eminent names of early science were Christians.) During the 1750's and 60's, Denis Diderot (1731–1784), the leading editor of the Encyclopedia and other leading French "philosophies," borrowed empirical ideas from Bacon, Locke, and Hume, and mechanistic ideas from Descartes, to create a hard-boiled new kind of materialism. The "philosophies" were either atheists or anti-clericalists and their new materialism excludes the possibility of the existence of God or the possibility that God intrudes into nature or intervenes in the affairs of men. The philosophies argued in the encyclopedia that materialism and science were of necessity linked and that traditional theism is necessarily excluded from science. They argued that matter is a closed system that excludes the supernatural, the paranormal and the spiritual. This philosophy of the cosmos came to be known as "scientific naturalism." The philosophies were the first to maintain that science and materialism are bound together in an indivisible embrace.
Influential German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) emphasized the "laws of classical mechanics" and that all science can be reduced to a closed system of matter, force, chemistry, and energy. His emphasis of the mechanics of nature intensified the passion for materialism and the conviction that science is necessarily materialistic. These ideas were passed down to Ernst Von Brucke who was a college professor of Sigmund Freud (1855–1939). Freud, who was a superlative writer and commanded a wide audience, popularized the idea of science as the study of the world as a closed mechanistic system.
Scientific naturalists from Diderot to Freud promoted the idea that science was linked of necessity to materialism and that any conclusions of research that allow for a realm outside of a closed system of material cause and effect must not be science. Evolutionists still make this claim today. But is it true? Not at all. Materialists have used the mechanisms of nature in an attempt to prove materialism, but that does not prove that the assumption of materialism is essential to science. Microbiologist Michael Behe, one of the most famous of the intelligent design scientists, uses the mechanical processes of microscopic creatures as an illustration of the irreducible complexity of nature. He says that irreducible complexity hints at an intelligent design and presents a difficulty for the evolution model.
Although many evolutionists are saying that intelligent design is not of science because it does not support materialistic assumptions, saying so does not make it so. Such an assertion is unnatural to science. It is prima facie evidence that the loyalty of the evolution establishment to a philosophy trumps their curiosity about where the facts lead and calls into question their integrity concerning the pursuit of truth. Not only is a materialist philosophy not essential to science, but the insistence that it is essential to science forces science to serve a philosophy. This fallacy is a potentially corrupting influence upon scientists.
Does the evolution establishment have integrity?
It is not enough to point out a fallacy that is a potentially corrupting principle. It is also necessary to point to specific corrupt actions that flows from the fallacy. Each example must be a recurring syndrome and not just the act of one corrupt person.
Recurring statement of evolutionists: "We do not have to respond to criticism from intelligent design people because they are not of science." Truth: It is a fallacy to say they are not of science because they do not subscribe to a philosophy of materialism. It is contrary to an essential principle of science that inconvenient criticism can be disregarded. One of the time-tested principles of science is that the science community must attempt to "falsify" the results of research. Only conclusions that cannot be falsified should be accepted as sound research. The refusal of evolutionists to answer serious criticisms might be an evidence that they have no answer and prefer to silence the conversation.
Recurring statement of evolutionists: "Intelligent designers do not publish their papers in academic journals so as to expose themselves to the criticism of their peers. Therefore, they are not of science." Truth: This claim is based on the concealment of a false premise. The false assumption is that the journals would publish papers written by intelligent design scientists if the papers were of good quality. However, the biological science journals are controlled by the evolution establishment. Papers submitted by intelligent design scientists are automatically rejected. The prejudicial blackballing of a category of dissenting papers displays a lack of integrity by the evolution establishment and perhaps a fear of the truth. The claim that there is something wrong with intelligent designers because they do not publish is a cleverly deceptive statement. Actually, there is something wrong with the evolution establishment for refusing to allow intelligent design scientists to publish their papers. It is a question of integrity.
Recurring statement of evolutionists: "There is no evidence to support intelligent design and no evidence that challenges evolution." Truth: Such a statement can only be made by a liar, or one who has never read what the intelligent design scientists are saying. Evolutionists get away with the big lie tactic by suppressing the works of intelligent design scientists.
Recurring statement of evolutionists: "Intelligent design is biblical creationism in fancy dress." Truth: Biblical creationism starts with a biblical model and works outward from the model to the evidence. Intelligent design starts with observed facts and cautiously works upwards towards conclusions that it hopes will eventually be the foundation of a mature model. Evolutionists laugh at Intelligent designers because they lack a mature model. Intelligent design scientists are suspicious of evolutionists because of their agenda to find facts or reinterpret facts to fit their model and to sweep facts under the rug that do not fit the model.
Wings on the feet vs. weights on the feet
Intelligent design scientists follow Francis Bacon's cautious guidelines in research and analysis. The scientists should start with empirical facts and work slowly and cautiously upward to provisional conclusions. Francis Bacon (1521–1626), one of the founders of empirical science, advised the scientist to put weights on his feet rather than wings on his feet. With wings on their feet, scientists fly up from scanty evidence to sweeping generalities. With weights on their feet, scientists slowly trudge up a stairway. They use careful inductive reasoning to take a step to a provisional conclusion and carefully tests the conclusion at that stage before taking the next step to a conclusion that is slightly more generalized.
In accord with Bacon's advice, the intelligent designers have avoided flying upwards to sweeping conclusions. They have resisted formulating a general theory because of empirical caution. In contrast, the intelligent designers accuse the evolutionists of hastily seizing fragments of evidence and impetuously flying up to sweeping generalities and writing imaginative "just-so" stories. Rudyard Kipling's "just-so" stories for children include a fanciful yarn about how the leopard got his spots. When scientists ignore Bacon and put wings on their feet, they wind up with "just-so" stories, like the evolutionist who conjured up a missing link from the discovery of one fossilized toe.
Do evolutionists suppress facts?
Yes, evolutionists often suppress the facts when they are inconvenient to the evolution model and the philosophy of materialism.
Example 1: All nine phyla of complex animals appeared suddenly in the Cambrian rock in China. No complex animals appear in Pre-Cambrian rock. No transitional forms of simple creatures evolving into more complex creatures appear in Pre-Cambrian rocks. Some Chinese scientists have rejected Darwinism because of these findings. The American evolution establishment has suppressed the information, so that many American scientists and students of science have never heard of the "Cambrian explosion." Scientists in Communist China have significant freedom of thought and publication. Biological science in democratic America is under the dictatorship of the evolution establishment. However, if President Bush has his way, high school children will be allowed to hear about the "Cambrian explosion."
Example 2: After the discovery of DNA in 1953, evolutionists realized that natural selection is inadequate to explain "macro-evolution," which is evolution from one species to another. Natural selection cannot add new information to the DNA during the evolution of a new species. Dogs cannot evolve into cats through natural selection, because there is a lot of information in cat DNA that is missing in dog DNA. Natural selection cannot make this data appear the DNA. However, evolutionists also recognized that "micro-evolution," which is variation within a species, can occur by natural selection or selective breeding because no new information needs to be added to the DNA. A society of breeders can start with poodles and after thousands of generations of selective breeding wind up with a Saint Bernard. All the information in poodle DNA is also in Saint Bernard DNA.
Evolutionists decided to fix their evolutionary mechanism by claiming that gene mutations can supply new information to DNA. Hopefully, mutations plus natural selection can produce macro-evolution. Students are not told that no example has ever been found of one species evolving into a new species through mutations. Only minor variations within a species have been discovered that involve mutations, and most of these variations are harmful. Students are routinely given examples of micro-evolution as proof of the evolution of species. The fact that micro-evolution is not an evidence of macro-evolution is concealed. When intelligent designers protest this misinformation of students, evolutionists will sometimes say that there is no difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution, and that creation scientists invented the concept of micro and macro-evolution. This is false, of course. The evolutionists, themselves, discovered the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. That is why they added gene mutation to their model for macro-evolution. However, it is easy to fool students by palming off examples of micro-evolution as evidence for the evolution of new species. It is very easy to conceal the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution from students. The evolutionists do not play fair. If President Bush has his way, students will be allowed to hear about the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution.
Example 3. The late paleontologist Steven Jay Gould said that the fossil record demonstrates that "species stasis" is the norm. Species change is rare and sudden. It is not a continuous process as evolutionists had long thought. Gould called his theory "punctuated equilibrium," because the long "equilibrium" period when species stay the same are "punctuated" by great change. Gould assumes the sudden change in species is the reason why evolutionists have never found the multitudes of intermediate forms that they have always been looking for--and which Darwin said they must find if evolution is true.
Gould was too famous and too widely published for his theory of punctuated equilibrium to be suppressed. However, the evolution establishment has enough clout to prevent school children from hearing about punctuated equilibrium.
Interestingly, Gould was an articulate defender of evolution all his life and thought that punctuated equilibrium is consistent with evolution. But consider the difficulties. Gould insisted that all evolution is random and without purpose and design. Yet, he also said evolution comes in great spurts in which hundreds of thousands of gene mutations occur in a relatively short period of time and perfectly synchronize with each other. At the same time, each individual mutation must give the creature an immediate advantage in survival--or it will die. After the evolution spurt, the combination of new mutations much give the altered creature an adaptive advantage. The new species must have an internal harmony of parts--as though it had been designed. Scientist William Dembski claims that the mathematical odds of this happening are remote. It is far more plausible that the rare but sudden species changes in the fossil record represent the intervention of an intelligent designer.
Conclusion
The theory of evolution is a blend of science and the philosophy of materialism. The evolution establishment has gradually corrupted the science so that it will serve their theoretical model of random evolution in order to support their philosophy of materialism. This corruption includes the concealment of inconvenient evidence, sheltering themselves from criticism, making sweeping generalities from fragments of evidence, and making false charges against intelligent design scientists.
Like the theory of evolution, intelligent design science has links to a philosophy, namely the philosophy of Deism and natural law. However, intelligent design science is protected from corruption by its careful adherence to the empirical disciplines of Francis Bacon.
In conclusion, whether one believes in evolution or intelligent design science, one is obliged to consider that at present, the intelligent designers are operating at a higher level of integrity than the evolution establishment.
Evolution vs. intelligent design: which model has more integrity?
Fred Hutchison
RenewAmerica analyst
President Bush said that public schools should expose students to both evolution and intelligent design science and discuss the scientific controversies as the two models clash. The press unleashed a flurry of editorials that claimed that this would involve a comparison of science with religion and a comparison of facts with faith.
But is this true? Is the evolution camp misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the intelligent design scientists are saying by calling it faith and not science? Even Charles Krauthammer, one of my favorite columnists and television pundits, asserts that intelligent design is faith, not science. Has Krauthammer, a medical doctor, read what the intelligent design scientists are saying, or is he following what he was taught by evolutionists in medical school? Are important thinkers with a scientific background, like Dr. Krauthammer, changing their mind on this point? Yes. I heard one speak in late July (2005) at Oxford, University.
Intelligent design: science or faith?
The C.S. Lewis Conference (named Oxbridge, because it meets at Oxford and Cambridge) featured a discussion between eminent philosophers Anthony Flew and Gary Habermas. Anthony Flew was one of the world's most famous atheists because he has debated theist philosophers about the existence of God for decades and some of these debates were televised. For much of his life, Flew based his atheism upon science. His recent and celebrated conversion to theism was also based upon science.
Flew was invited to Oxbridge to join Habermas, his old debating partner and friend, for a discussion about Flew's recollections of C.S. Lewis at Oxford and Flew's conversion from atheism to theism. His conversion to theism came from reading the works of intelligent design scientists. He concluded that the weight of the scientific evidence points to the idea that the universe was designed, and therefore must have an intelligent designer. Habermas asked him about faith and Flew denied that faith had anything to do with his change of mind. He said he was logically following where the evidence led him. Flew obviously regards the research of the intelligent design scientists as science and not faith. What say you to this, Dr. Krauthammer?
Natural law, science, and government
Interestingly, Flew insists he is not a Christian or a religious monotheist and that he has no faith in a personal God. Habermas asked him if he is a Deist and Flew said "yes." A Deist believes in the existence of an impersonal and detached God who is the designer and creator of the universe. The Deist God gave man the gift of reason so he could discover the laws of nature and the design of the universe. Then he stepped away from his creation and left the governance of the world to man. Eighteenth century Deism contributed to the development of Natural law philosophy, which influenced science, philosophy, ethics, and political philosophy.
Deism and Natural law philosophy influenced American founding fathers Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and James Madison, Jefferson's protégé and author of the Constitution. Jefferson opened the Declaration with these words from natural law philosophy: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people...to assume those separate but equal stations which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them.... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...." Natural rights are derived from natural laws. There are two kinds of natural laws: laws of nature that scientists study, and laws governing human conduct. Concerning the second, natural law decrees that the rights of the individual must not be transgressed by persons or governments.
We have a natural law constitution and a revival of natural law science, namely intelligent design science. Yet some of our judges have assumed that the teaching of natural law science in the public schools violates our natural law constitution. For example, in McLean vs. Arkansas (1984), Judge William Overton ruled that the teaching of scientific creationism in public schools violates the "separation of church and state." Let us assume that Judge Overton would have included intelligent design science as a branch of scientific creationism. There are no natural law churches in America. The last Deist churches in England closed in the eighteenth century. Therefore, how does teaching natural law science bring a church's doctrine into the classroom? Since the Deist God does not answer prayer or involve himself in human life, is not Deism more of a philosophy than a religion? If teaching natural law science like intelligent design is contrary to the "separation of church and state," then our natural law constitution is contrary to "the separation of church and state."
Judge Overton's opinion is based upon two false assumptions: first, that the Constitution is hostile to religion, and second, that natural law philosophy and intelligent design science represent a religion. Madison, who wrote the Constitution, was inspired by natural law philosophy that was based upon the assumptions of philosophical Deism. One assumption of Deism is that men will form rational social contracts like the U.S. Constitution, as guided by self-evident truths from "nature and nature's god." Another assumption is that men will use reason, observation, and experience to discover the laws of nature. Never was there a science more in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution than intelligent design science. Both the Constitution and intelligent design science are triumphs of natural law philosophy.
Einstein's physics: a violation of church/state separation?
Anthony Flew's Deism is a little different from Jefferson's and Madison's Deism. Anthony Flew said he believes in Einstein's God. Einstein said in 1929 and was quoted by the New York Times, "I believe in Spinoza's god who reveals Himself in orderly harmony that exists, not a God who concerns himself with the fate of human beings" (source: Albert Einstein – Scientist, edited by Paul Schilipp 1970). Spinoza was a rationalist philosopher and a pantheist. He believed that everything is interconnected within one gigantic system and that this system and everything it contains is "God." Monotheistic religions and traditional Deism sharply differentiate between Creator and creation. Spinoza, Einstein, and Flew make no distinction between God and the cosmos. Intelligent design science brought Flew to Einstein's impersonal pantheistic God. It did not bring him to a personal faith in a personal God or to anything remotely resembling a religion.
Einstein started with Spinoza's general principle that everything that exists is essentially one, and everything is harmoniously interconnected into a beautiful whole. From this presupposition, he developed his theories of physics through blackboard mathematics. During the later part of his career, Einstein's futile pursuit of a unified field theory was driven by his belief that everything is harmoniously connected and interrelated. Einstein acquired this life-long conviction in his youth while reading Spinoza's pantheistic philosophy.
If deistic natural law science like intelligent design violates the doctrine of separation of church and state, does Einstein's physics, which is based in pantheism, likewise violate that doctrine? Of course not, and neither does intelligent design science violate the separation of church and state. Einstein was a philosophical pantheist, but had no interest in the mystical spirituality of pantheist religion. Intelligent design science is no more a religion than Einstein's physics. The intelligent design writers make no mention of who the intelligent designer might be and say nothing about faith or spirituality. Anthony Flew, who was an Oxford professor of philosophy, thinks that belief in Einstein's god is a particular kind of philosophical Deism. He views intelligent design science as a true science that is compatible with Einstein's philosophy. He firmly rejects personal faith and religion.
The logic is inescapable. Although natural law philosophy has roots in theism, it is a philosophy in the category of rationalism, like the philosophies of Spinoza, Descartes, and Leibnitz. Immanuel Kant fused philosophical rationalism with philosophical empiricism in his work, Critique of Pure Reason. He facilitated the blend of reason and evidence in modern science. A scientific model should be logically sound and mathematically articulated, if possible. However, a model must be vindicated by hard empirical evidence. Einstein's blackboard theories about how gravity bends light were rejected out of hand until the solar eclipse of 1919 when scientists measured the bending of light as it passes by the earth. Flew is a rational philosopher, but it was the hard, scientific evidence that won him over to intelligent design and Deism.
Is evolution a mixture of science and philosophy?
If we can ban a scientific model, such as intelligent design, from the classroom simply because it has roots in a philosophy that has theistic implications, can we also throw out evolution if it is revealed to be a blend of science and a philosophy with cosmological implications? Of course not. It would be absurd to throw out either intelligent design or evolution on these grounds. Although the ultimate winner in the contest between these two scientific models will be determined by the evidence, it is helpful to understand that the two models represent two conflicting cosmologies and world views. It is extremely painful for a man to change a long-held world view. I stand in awe of the profound integrity of Anthony Flew to change his cosmology when the evidence required it, even though he had been a public advocate of a different cosmology for fifty years. The evolutionists' long commitment to a particular cosmology might help us to understand their emotional reactions when they are contradicted with hard evidence.
Since evolutionists often claim, "We are of science, and intelligent design is of faith," we are entitled to know if this is true. So far in our deliberations, it has become clear that intelligent design is a science with roots in a philosophy. Is the same thing true of evolution? Yes, indeed.
Prior to French Enlightenment science, there was no concept of a necessary link between science and the philosophy of materialism--which holds that nothing exists outside the realm of matter. (This was due in part to the fact that most of the founders and eminent names of early science were Christians.) During the 1750's and 60's, Denis Diderot (1731–1784), the leading editor of the Encyclopedia and other leading French "philosophies," borrowed empirical ideas from Bacon, Locke, and Hume, and mechanistic ideas from Descartes, to create a hard-boiled new kind of materialism. The "philosophies" were either atheists or anti-clericalists and their new materialism excludes the possibility of the existence of God or the possibility that God intrudes into nature or intervenes in the affairs of men. The philosophies argued in the encyclopedia that materialism and science were of necessity linked and that traditional theism is necessarily excluded from science. They argued that matter is a closed system that excludes the supernatural, the paranormal and the spiritual. This philosophy of the cosmos came to be known as "scientific naturalism." The philosophies were the first to maintain that science and materialism are bound together in an indivisible embrace.
Influential German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) emphasized the "laws of classical mechanics" and that all science can be reduced to a closed system of matter, force, chemistry, and energy. His emphasis of the mechanics of nature intensified the passion for materialism and the conviction that science is necessarily materialistic. These ideas were passed down to Ernst Von Brucke who was a college professor of Sigmund Freud (1855–1939). Freud, who was a superlative writer and commanded a wide audience, popularized the idea of science as the study of the world as a closed mechanistic system.
Scientific naturalists from Diderot to Freud promoted the idea that science was linked of necessity to materialism and that any conclusions of research that allow for a realm outside of a closed system of material cause and effect must not be science. Evolutionists still make this claim today. But is it true? Not at all. Materialists have used the mechanisms of nature in an attempt to prove materialism, but that does not prove that the assumption of materialism is essential to science. Microbiologist Michael Behe, one of the most famous of the intelligent design scientists, uses the mechanical processes of microscopic creatures as an illustration of the irreducible complexity of nature. He says that irreducible complexity hints at an intelligent design and presents a difficulty for the evolution model.
Although many evolutionists are saying that intelligent design is not of science because it does not support materialistic assumptions, saying so does not make it so. Such an assertion is unnatural to science. It is prima facie evidence that the loyalty of the evolution establishment to a philosophy trumps their curiosity about where the facts lead and calls into question their integrity concerning the pursuit of truth. Not only is a materialist philosophy not essential to science, but the insistence that it is essential to science forces science to serve a philosophy. This fallacy is a potentially corrupting influence upon scientists.
Does the evolution establishment have integrity?
It is not enough to point out a fallacy that is a potentially corrupting principle. It is also necessary to point to specific corrupt actions that flows from the fallacy. Each example must be a recurring syndrome and not just the act of one corrupt person.
Recurring statement of evolutionists: "We do not have to respond to criticism from intelligent design people because they are not of science." Truth: It is a fallacy to say they are not of science because they do not subscribe to a philosophy of materialism. It is contrary to an essential principle of science that inconvenient criticism can be disregarded. One of the time-tested principles of science is that the science community must attempt to "falsify" the results of research. Only conclusions that cannot be falsified should be accepted as sound research. The refusal of evolutionists to answer serious criticisms might be an evidence that they have no answer and prefer to silence the conversation.
Recurring statement of evolutionists: "Intelligent designers do not publish their papers in academic journals so as to expose themselves to the criticism of their peers. Therefore, they are not of science." Truth: This claim is based on the concealment of a false premise. The false assumption is that the journals would publish papers written by intelligent design scientists if the papers were of good quality. However, the biological science journals are controlled by the evolution establishment. Papers submitted by intelligent design scientists are automatically rejected. The prejudicial blackballing of a category of dissenting papers displays a lack of integrity by the evolution establishment and perhaps a fear of the truth. The claim that there is something wrong with intelligent designers because they do not publish is a cleverly deceptive statement. Actually, there is something wrong with the evolution establishment for refusing to allow intelligent design scientists to publish their papers. It is a question of integrity.
Recurring statement of evolutionists: "There is no evidence to support intelligent design and no evidence that challenges evolution." Truth: Such a statement can only be made by a liar, or one who has never read what the intelligent design scientists are saying. Evolutionists get away with the big lie tactic by suppressing the works of intelligent design scientists.
Recurring statement of evolutionists: "Intelligent design is biblical creationism in fancy dress." Truth: Biblical creationism starts with a biblical model and works outward from the model to the evidence. Intelligent design starts with observed facts and cautiously works upwards towards conclusions that it hopes will eventually be the foundation of a mature model. Evolutionists laugh at Intelligent designers because they lack a mature model. Intelligent design scientists are suspicious of evolutionists because of their agenda to find facts or reinterpret facts to fit their model and to sweep facts under the rug that do not fit the model.
Wings on the feet vs. weights on the feet
Intelligent design scientists follow Francis Bacon's cautious guidelines in research and analysis. The scientists should start with empirical facts and work slowly and cautiously upward to provisional conclusions. Francis Bacon (1521–1626), one of the founders of empirical science, advised the scientist to put weights on his feet rather than wings on his feet. With wings on their feet, scientists fly up from scanty evidence to sweeping generalities. With weights on their feet, scientists slowly trudge up a stairway. They use careful inductive reasoning to take a step to a provisional conclusion and carefully tests the conclusion at that stage before taking the next step to a conclusion that is slightly more generalized.
In accord with Bacon's advice, the intelligent designers have avoided flying upwards to sweeping conclusions. They have resisted formulating a general theory because of empirical caution. In contrast, the intelligent designers accuse the evolutionists of hastily seizing fragments of evidence and impetuously flying up to sweeping generalities and writing imaginative "just-so" stories. Rudyard Kipling's "just-so" stories for children include a fanciful yarn about how the leopard got his spots. When scientists ignore Bacon and put wings on their feet, they wind up with "just-so" stories, like the evolutionist who conjured up a missing link from the discovery of one fossilized toe.
Do evolutionists suppress facts?
Yes, evolutionists often suppress the facts when they are inconvenient to the evolution model and the philosophy of materialism.
Example 1: All nine phyla of complex animals appeared suddenly in the Cambrian rock in China. No complex animals appear in Pre-Cambrian rock. No transitional forms of simple creatures evolving into more complex creatures appear in Pre-Cambrian rocks. Some Chinese scientists have rejected Darwinism because of these findings. The American evolution establishment has suppressed the information, so that many American scientists and students of science have never heard of the "Cambrian explosion." Scientists in Communist China have significant freedom of thought and publication. Biological science in democratic America is under the dictatorship of the evolution establishment. However, if President Bush has his way, high school children will be allowed to hear about the "Cambrian explosion."
Example 2: After the discovery of DNA in 1953, evolutionists realized that natural selection is inadequate to explain "macro-evolution," which is evolution from one species to another. Natural selection cannot add new information to the DNA during the evolution of a new species. Dogs cannot evolve into cats through natural selection, because there is a lot of information in cat DNA that is missing in dog DNA. Natural selection cannot make this data appear the DNA. However, evolutionists also recognized that "micro-evolution," which is variation within a species, can occur by natural selection or selective breeding because no new information needs to be added to the DNA. A society of breeders can start with poodles and after thousands of generations of selective breeding wind up with a Saint Bernard. All the information in poodle DNA is also in Saint Bernard DNA.
Evolutionists decided to fix their evolutionary mechanism by claiming that gene mutations can supply new information to DNA. Hopefully, mutations plus natural selection can produce macro-evolution. Students are not told that no example has ever been found of one species evolving into a new species through mutations. Only minor variations within a species have been discovered that involve mutations, and most of these variations are harmful. Students are routinely given examples of micro-evolution as proof of the evolution of species. The fact that micro-evolution is not an evidence of macro-evolution is concealed. When intelligent designers protest this misinformation of students, evolutionists will sometimes say that there is no difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution, and that creation scientists invented the concept of micro and macro-evolution. This is false, of course. The evolutionists, themselves, discovered the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. That is why they added gene mutation to their model for macro-evolution. However, it is easy to fool students by palming off examples of micro-evolution as evidence for the evolution of new species. It is very easy to conceal the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution from students. The evolutionists do not play fair. If President Bush has his way, students will be allowed to hear about the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution.
Example 3. The late paleontologist Steven Jay Gould said that the fossil record demonstrates that "species stasis" is the norm. Species change is rare and sudden. It is not a continuous process as evolutionists had long thought. Gould called his theory "punctuated equilibrium," because the long "equilibrium" period when species stay the same are "punctuated" by great change. Gould assumes the sudden change in species is the reason why evolutionists have never found the multitudes of intermediate forms that they have always been looking for--and which Darwin said they must find if evolution is true.
Gould was too famous and too widely published for his theory of punctuated equilibrium to be suppressed. However, the evolution establishment has enough clout to prevent school children from hearing about punctuated equilibrium.
Interestingly, Gould was an articulate defender of evolution all his life and thought that punctuated equilibrium is consistent with evolution. But consider the difficulties. Gould insisted that all evolution is random and without purpose and design. Yet, he also said evolution comes in great spurts in which hundreds of thousands of gene mutations occur in a relatively short period of time and perfectly synchronize with each other. At the same time, each individual mutation must give the creature an immediate advantage in survival--or it will die. After the evolution spurt, the combination of new mutations much give the altered creature an adaptive advantage. The new species must have an internal harmony of parts--as though it had been designed. Scientist William Dembski claims that the mathematical odds of this happening are remote. It is far more plausible that the rare but sudden species changes in the fossil record represent the intervention of an intelligent designer.
Conclusion
The theory of evolution is a blend of science and the philosophy of materialism. The evolution establishment has gradually corrupted the science so that it will serve their theoretical model of random evolution in order to support their philosophy of materialism. This corruption includes the concealment of inconvenient evidence, sheltering themselves from criticism, making sweeping generalities from fragments of evidence, and making false charges against intelligent design scientists.
Like the theory of evolution, intelligent design science has links to a philosophy, namely the philosophy of Deism and natural law. However, intelligent design science is protected from corruption by its careful adherence to the empirical disciplines of Francis Bacon.
In conclusion, whether one believes in evolution or intelligent design science, one is obliged to consider that at present, the intelligent designers are operating at a higher level of integrity than the evolution establishment.
Evolution vs. intelligent design: which model has more integrity?
Shelter Director Bristles Against Recent Religious Censorship
By Allie Martin
August 18, 2005
(AgapePress) - The director of a homeless shelter in New Mexico is accusing a major daily newspaper of discrimination after an ad for employment was edited by a worker in the classified section.
Jeremy Reynalds is director of Joy Junction, a Christian homeless shelter that serves the Albuquerque area. Recently, he placed an advertisement for front office help in the Albuquerque Journal newspaper. The copy he originally submitted for the classified ad included a note that ministry experience would be helpful for applicants.
However, soon after the notice was placed with the paper, Joy Junction received a call from a Journal employee. "The individual said, 'Your ad is discriminatory," Reynalds explains. He says the newspaper refused to print the ad as originally written. It eventually ran, but only after being revised to omit the reference to ministry experience.
The Joy Junction spokesman says what happened "sort of reflects the basic lack of understanding about the needs and roles of not only us as a faith-based ministry but any faith-based ministry." Because of this prevalent lack of understanding, he contends it is "very, very important" for people to understand that church groups and faith-based organizations like Joy Junction around the U.S. "are not a social service agency that only deals with physical hunger and need. We're a church organization, a faith-based ministry."
As such, Joy Junction and agencies like it need to be free to function in accordance with the faith and the values that form the foundation of their missions, Reynalds asserts. "Not only do we have a need, but we have a right, he insists, "to hire employees whose beliefs reflect those values. And evidently, that Journal employee failed to recognize, understand, or perhaps even care about that."
Reynalds still wants to know why the Albuquerque Journal censored his help wanted ad. He says he has yet to be shown the guidelines for the newspaper's classified section.
News from Agape Press
August 18, 2005
(AgapePress) - The director of a homeless shelter in New Mexico is accusing a major daily newspaper of discrimination after an ad for employment was edited by a worker in the classified section.
Jeremy Reynalds is director of Joy Junction, a Christian homeless shelter that serves the Albuquerque area. Recently, he placed an advertisement for front office help in the Albuquerque Journal newspaper. The copy he originally submitted for the classified ad included a note that ministry experience would be helpful for applicants.
However, soon after the notice was placed with the paper, Joy Junction received a call from a Journal employee. "The individual said, 'Your ad is discriminatory," Reynalds explains. He says the newspaper refused to print the ad as originally written. It eventually ran, but only after being revised to omit the reference to ministry experience.
The Joy Junction spokesman says what happened "sort of reflects the basic lack of understanding about the needs and roles of not only us as a faith-based ministry but any faith-based ministry." Because of this prevalent lack of understanding, he contends it is "very, very important" for people to understand that church groups and faith-based organizations like Joy Junction around the U.S. "are not a social service agency that only deals with physical hunger and need. We're a church organization, a faith-based ministry."
As such, Joy Junction and agencies like it need to be free to function in accordance with the faith and the values that form the foundation of their missions, Reynalds asserts. "Not only do we have a need, but we have a right, he insists, "to hire employees whose beliefs reflect those values. And evidently, that Journal employee failed to recognize, understand, or perhaps even care about that."
Reynalds still wants to know why the Albuquerque Journal censored his help wanted ad. He says he has yet to be shown the guidelines for the newspaper's classified section.
News from Agape Press
Christian Philly Group Going to Bat for Jesus Again This Year
Ministry Members Plan to Display Banner at Phillies' Homosexual Promotion
By Jim Brown
August 18, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Philadelphia-based Christian ministry plans to protest the third annual "Gay Community Night" hosted by the Phillies Major League Baseball team.
Members of the group Repent America (RA) will be displaying signs and distributing literature tonight (Thursday) at Citizens Bank Park, notifying fans that the Phillies continue to promote the homosexual agenda by hosting Gay Community Night. RA members have been ejected from the ballpark two consecutive years for holding up a banner declaring: "Homosexuality is sin. Christ can set you free."
Repent America president Michael Marcavage says he plans to take the banner into the ballpark again this year and to peaceably display it, with no intentions of provoking any disorder. But Marcavage says a major difference this year is that RA's attorney has contacted the attorney for the baseball team.
According the RA spokesman, the Phillies' attorney has conveyed in a letter his belief that the wording of the banner would not violate the content requirements of signs brought into the stadium because it does not constitute "fighting words, per se." However, the team acknowledges the wording may "provoke breaches of the peace."
Marcavage says he believes the Phillies this year are siding on the side of caution to deter any legal action.
"We're thankful that they're extending information to us that clearly states that our sign would not be in violation of the content requirements," he says. "However, we have yet to find out what is going to happen once someone does become upset by the sign. So we'll have to see how the stadium deals with it at that point."
Marcavage contends that because Citizens Bank Park belongs to the city of Philadelphia and was created by millions of taxpayer dollars, the stadium is a limited public forum in which Repent America can exercise its free-speech rights.
Sponsors of tonight's event include the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia (GALLOP) and the Philadelphia Chapter of National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLJGA). According to PhillyGayDays.com, approximately 1,500 "LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered] individuals and their friends" attended the pro-homosexual observance at Citizens Bank Park last year -- constituting the largest crowd of all the "gay day/night" observances at Major League Baseball parks in 2004.
News from Agape Press
By Jim Brown
August 18, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Philadelphia-based Christian ministry plans to protest the third annual "Gay Community Night" hosted by the Phillies Major League Baseball team.
Members of the group Repent America (RA) will be displaying signs and distributing literature tonight (Thursday) at Citizens Bank Park, notifying fans that the Phillies continue to promote the homosexual agenda by hosting Gay Community Night. RA members have been ejected from the ballpark two consecutive years for holding up a banner declaring: "Homosexuality is sin. Christ can set you free."
Repent America president Michael Marcavage says he plans to take the banner into the ballpark again this year and to peaceably display it, with no intentions of provoking any disorder. But Marcavage says a major difference this year is that RA's attorney has contacted the attorney for the baseball team.
According the RA spokesman, the Phillies' attorney has conveyed in a letter his belief that the wording of the banner would not violate the content requirements of signs brought into the stadium because it does not constitute "fighting words, per se." However, the team acknowledges the wording may "provoke breaches of the peace."
Marcavage says he believes the Phillies this year are siding on the side of caution to deter any legal action.
"We're thankful that they're extending information to us that clearly states that our sign would not be in violation of the content requirements," he says. "However, we have yet to find out what is going to happen once someone does become upset by the sign. So we'll have to see how the stadium deals with it at that point."
Marcavage contends that because Citizens Bank Park belongs to the city of Philadelphia and was created by millions of taxpayer dollars, the stadium is a limited public forum in which Repent America can exercise its free-speech rights.
Sponsors of tonight's event include the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia (GALLOP) and the Philadelphia Chapter of National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLJGA). According to PhillyGayDays.com, approximately 1,500 "LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered] individuals and their friends" attended the pro-homosexual observance at Citizens Bank Park last year -- constituting the largest crowd of all the "gay day/night" observances at Major League Baseball parks in 2004.
News from Agape Press
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Bible Bashing 101: How the Media Controls the Message
By Stephen M Crampton, Esq.
August 17, 2005
(AgapePress) - A group of humanists calling themselves the "Texas Freedom Network" (TFN) recently released a "report" attacking the curriculum of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS). TFN opposes anything remotely connected to the "religious right," including local control of schools, vouchers, and even the National Day of Prayer. It zealously supports such issues as the legalization of same-sex marriage and the teaching of evolution to the exclusion of intelligent design or anything else that would possibly raise doubts about the scientific basis for evolution. That is to say, in the words of TFN itself, it "advances a mainstream agenda." (I have always wondered why one must be left of Josef Stalin before being considered "mainstream" by groups like TFN.)
As is routine for such "mainstream" organizations, when they talk, the "mainstream" media listens. So, TFN's report bashing the Bible curriculum received international attention. The New York Times and USA Today couldn't wait to give it prominent coverage; CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and even the International Herald Tribune and a news outlet in Istanbul, Turkey, ran the story.
But when the NCBCPS issued its own press release a few days later, none of those major media outlets even bothered to call. What happened? Had the story lost all appeal? Was the public suddenly bored of the topic? Certainly the issue had not been resolved; the two organizations were as adverse as ever. But the mainstream media was no longer concerned. And when the media refuses to report it as news, well, it must not be newsworthy.
In many ways, it is the same old story: anything negative about an issue that middle America deeply cares about is trumpeted coast to coast, while positive responses are buried or ignored altogether. This is the means by which the media have shaped American culture for decades. And it is effective.
Those who claim merely to report the news in fact shape and thus make the news. And they do it within an entertainment format.
Can anyone seriously argue that we are not molded to a significant extent by what we watch and read? The legion of scientific studies aside, in the words of Hugh Hefner, today "we live in a Playboy world." As one commentator wrote, "When Fonzie brandished a library card on Happy Days, library registration shot up nationwide .... When Ally McBeal wore a certain style of pajamas, thousands of viewers asked retailers for them. It's the same thing with movies. ET and Reese's. Tom Cruise and Ray-Bans. Dirty Harry and .44 Magnums." [1]
Television, perhaps the single most revolutionary instrument in the remaking of culture in the image of the left, has become not just a novel after-dinner diversion; it has become central to our lives. The late Neil Postman may have said it best in his classic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death:
There is no more disturbing consequence of the electronic and graphic revolution than this: that the world as given to us through television seems natural, not bizarre. For the loss of the sense of the strange is a sign of adjustment, and the extent to which we have adjusted is a measure of the extent to which we have changed. Our culture's adjustment to the epistemology of television is by now almost complete; we have so thoroughly accepted its definitions of truth, knowledge and reality that irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane.
Postman went on to note that "television speaks in only one persistent voice -- the voice of entertainment."
Our television world, driven by the need to entertain, makes a mockery of the serious side of life. News of war is delivered in 15-second sound bites, by well-groomed anchormen and smiling women ever-eager to keep us happy. Mangled marriages are amusingly portrayed as "desperate housewives" engage in weekly adulterous escapades, all in good fun.
Even our modern textbooks have been redesigned to entertain and amuse. Hard facts are interspersed with cartoons, colorful photos, and inane asides, simply to keep the students interested. After all, the flickering images of the television screen, carefully calculated to change every few seconds in order to heighten our viewing pleasure, compete with the adrenaline high of the latest video games for the attention of our children (and many adults).
"Attention deficit disorder" is not an affliction of an isolated few; it is our cultural cancer.
In such a debased society, the Bible is hardly welcome. The media has labored to fashion an alternative reality, where amusement and indulgence reign supreme and morality, when acknowledged at all, is at best malleable. The uncompromising absolutes of the Bible shatter this make-believe world of our cultural elites. It is antithetical to everything they have worked so hard to create. It is no wonder, then, that Bible Bashing 101 is a required course for every journalism student.
The truth hurts. Illusion must eventually confront reality. And when it does, there is pain. Students in public schools are far wiser than we think. They know, deep down, that there is more to life than playing Xbox. A quality Bible curriculum that allows students to read for themselves the great stories of Scripture and make up their own minds about what is true poses a direct threat to the illusory world of the media elites.
It is time we the people recognized the detrimental influence of the media on our children, our schools, and our lives. Discernment will not come while staring blankly at a television screen. Nor will the day come during our lifetimes when the media will lead the effort to implement a Bible curriculum in the public schools. If it is going to happen, we must do it. Let's get to work. Contact the NCBCPS and ask your local schools to order their curriculum.
News from Agape Press
August 17, 2005
(AgapePress) - A group of humanists calling themselves the "Texas Freedom Network" (TFN) recently released a "report" attacking the curriculum of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS). TFN opposes anything remotely connected to the "religious right," including local control of schools, vouchers, and even the National Day of Prayer. It zealously supports such issues as the legalization of same-sex marriage and the teaching of evolution to the exclusion of intelligent design or anything else that would possibly raise doubts about the scientific basis for evolution. That is to say, in the words of TFN itself, it "advances a mainstream agenda." (I have always wondered why one must be left of Josef Stalin before being considered "mainstream" by groups like TFN.)
As is routine for such "mainstream" organizations, when they talk, the "mainstream" media listens. So, TFN's report bashing the Bible curriculum received international attention. The New York Times and USA Today couldn't wait to give it prominent coverage; CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and even the International Herald Tribune and a news outlet in Istanbul, Turkey, ran the story.
But when the NCBCPS issued its own press release a few days later, none of those major media outlets even bothered to call. What happened? Had the story lost all appeal? Was the public suddenly bored of the topic? Certainly the issue had not been resolved; the two organizations were as adverse as ever. But the mainstream media was no longer concerned. And when the media refuses to report it as news, well, it must not be newsworthy.
In many ways, it is the same old story: anything negative about an issue that middle America deeply cares about is trumpeted coast to coast, while positive responses are buried or ignored altogether. This is the means by which the media have shaped American culture for decades. And it is effective.
Those who claim merely to report the news in fact shape and thus make the news. And they do it within an entertainment format.
Can anyone seriously argue that we are not molded to a significant extent by what we watch and read? The legion of scientific studies aside, in the words of Hugh Hefner, today "we live in a Playboy world." As one commentator wrote, "When Fonzie brandished a library card on Happy Days, library registration shot up nationwide .... When Ally McBeal wore a certain style of pajamas, thousands of viewers asked retailers for them. It's the same thing with movies. ET and Reese's. Tom Cruise and Ray-Bans. Dirty Harry and .44 Magnums." [1]
Television, perhaps the single most revolutionary instrument in the remaking of culture in the image of the left, has become not just a novel after-dinner diversion; it has become central to our lives. The late Neil Postman may have said it best in his classic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death:
There is no more disturbing consequence of the electronic and graphic revolution than this: that the world as given to us through television seems natural, not bizarre. For the loss of the sense of the strange is a sign of adjustment, and the extent to which we have adjusted is a measure of the extent to which we have changed. Our culture's adjustment to the epistemology of television is by now almost complete; we have so thoroughly accepted its definitions of truth, knowledge and reality that irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane.
Postman went on to note that "television speaks in only one persistent voice -- the voice of entertainment."
Our television world, driven by the need to entertain, makes a mockery of the serious side of life. News of war is delivered in 15-second sound bites, by well-groomed anchormen and smiling women ever-eager to keep us happy. Mangled marriages are amusingly portrayed as "desperate housewives" engage in weekly adulterous escapades, all in good fun.
Even our modern textbooks have been redesigned to entertain and amuse. Hard facts are interspersed with cartoons, colorful photos, and inane asides, simply to keep the students interested. After all, the flickering images of the television screen, carefully calculated to change every few seconds in order to heighten our viewing pleasure, compete with the adrenaline high of the latest video games for the attention of our children (and many adults).
"Attention deficit disorder" is not an affliction of an isolated few; it is our cultural cancer.
In such a debased society, the Bible is hardly welcome. The media has labored to fashion an alternative reality, where amusement and indulgence reign supreme and morality, when acknowledged at all, is at best malleable. The uncompromising absolutes of the Bible shatter this make-believe world of our cultural elites. It is antithetical to everything they have worked so hard to create. It is no wonder, then, that Bible Bashing 101 is a required course for every journalism student.
The truth hurts. Illusion must eventually confront reality. And when it does, there is pain. Students in public schools are far wiser than we think. They know, deep down, that there is more to life than playing Xbox. A quality Bible curriculum that allows students to read for themselves the great stories of Scripture and make up their own minds about what is true poses a direct threat to the illusory world of the media elites.
It is time we the people recognized the detrimental influence of the media on our children, our schools, and our lives. Discernment will not come while staring blankly at a television screen. Nor will the day come during our lifetimes when the media will lead the effort to implement a Bible curriculum in the public schools. If it is going to happen, we must do it. Let's get to work. Contact the NCBCPS and ask your local schools to order their curriculum.
News from Agape Press
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
New Museum Upholds Biblical Creation Account
By Darla Sitton
CBN News Producer
CBN.com – (CBN News) - The Kansas State Board of Education recently gave tentative approval to new science standards that would allow more criticism of the theory of evolution.
A recent poll found that more than half of America's population believes that God created life. Still, many say evolution should be the only theory taught in public school.
One Minnesota family traveled all the way to Arkansas to visit the Museum of Earth History in Eureka. They came to find out if biblical accounts of creation line up with science.
Dawn Sandborg commented, "As a child, it was hard for me to figure out -- to try to make it line up."
The aim of the museum is to showcase scientific finds from a biblical perspective -from creation, and Noah and the flood, to the global ice age.
Museum founder Dr. Thomas Sharp, who has been a science educator since 1964, believes that science supports the biblical idea of a divine creator, and he is planning to launch other museums nationwide.
, "I think it happened by intelligent guidance,” Sharp said. “I think it's impossible to have slime [evolve] to the human brain, no matter how long you say it took. I think that's biologically impossible."
Sharp's belief that life and the universe are too complex to have evolved by chance -- a view known as "intelligent design" -- is one that is gaining credibility in the public arena, where evolution used to be the only view.
President Bush recently said he thinks intelligent design should be taught in schools, right along with evolution, "so people can understand what the debate is about."
But some say there is no debate.
"I have no problem with people talking about religion as religion, or belief as belief. [But] it is extremely dangerous when we talk about religious belief as if it were science," said Alan Leshner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Yet, the theory of evolution is increasingly being challenged.
In Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia, some IMAX theatres refused to show films such as "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" because they endorse evolution.
And while no one knows exactly where all of this will go from here, one thing is clear. The view that an intelligent designer created the universe seems to be gaining ground.
CBN NewsWatch-New Museum Upholds Biblical Creation Account
CBN News Producer
CBN.com – (CBN News) - The Kansas State Board of Education recently gave tentative approval to new science standards that would allow more criticism of the theory of evolution.
A recent poll found that more than half of America's population believes that God created life. Still, many say evolution should be the only theory taught in public school.
One Minnesota family traveled all the way to Arkansas to visit the Museum of Earth History in Eureka. They came to find out if biblical accounts of creation line up with science.
Dawn Sandborg commented, "As a child, it was hard for me to figure out -- to try to make it line up."
The aim of the museum is to showcase scientific finds from a biblical perspective -from creation, and Noah and the flood, to the global ice age.
Museum founder Dr. Thomas Sharp, who has been a science educator since 1964, believes that science supports the biblical idea of a divine creator, and he is planning to launch other museums nationwide.
, "I think it happened by intelligent guidance,” Sharp said. “I think it's impossible to have slime [evolve] to the human brain, no matter how long you say it took. I think that's biologically impossible."
Sharp's belief that life and the universe are too complex to have evolved by chance -- a view known as "intelligent design" -- is one that is gaining credibility in the public arena, where evolution used to be the only view.
President Bush recently said he thinks intelligent design should be taught in schools, right along with evolution, "so people can understand what the debate is about."
But some say there is no debate.
"I have no problem with people talking about religion as religion, or belief as belief. [But] it is extremely dangerous when we talk about religious belief as if it were science," said Alan Leshner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Yet, the theory of evolution is increasingly being challenged.
In Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia, some IMAX theatres refused to show films such as "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" because they endorse evolution.
And while no one knows exactly where all of this will go from here, one thing is clear. The view that an intelligent designer created the universe seems to be gaining ground.
CBN NewsWatch-New Museum Upholds Biblical Creation Account
Christians Fight Supreme Battle with Prayer
By Wendy Griffith
CWNews
August 12 , 2005
CWNews.com – Some Christian leaders say America may be in its most critical moment of need for prayer in its entire history. Some Christians have been traveling to the steps of the Supreme Court’s building to pray that God will give America the Judges it needs at this crucial time.
Young people from a group called "Bound For Life" have stood vigil in front of the Supreme Court building, crying out to God to bring righteous judges to sit on the nation's highest court. The word LIFE, taped over their mouths, symbolizes the silent cries of the unborn Americans.
Jesse Engle is with Bound For Life. He explained their constant prayer vigil, "Although very few of us are even married, we are all doing this for the generation yet unborn, and for our children. I don't want to be silent in this time. And, in 30 years be standing at the place where we are now, and [have to] say, ‘I did nothing.’
Tiffany Edwards, is a 21 year old pro-lifer from Arizona. She said, “I'm here because I know that God is calling all generations, young and old, to come and make their stand and cry out for justice in America and for the end of abortion."
Christian leaders have issued an urgent call to the Church to pray! Pray like never before!
They say what's at stake is nothing less than the future of America. They believe the Presidential elections of 2000 & 2004 will have been in vain, if the wrong people get placed on the Supreme Court.
Lou Engle is the head of The Cause and the Justice House of Prayer. He told us, "I believe, Wendy, that we're in the most critical moment of prayer maybe in the history of America. What I believe, Wendy, is that the issue of abortion could be ended in these next couple of years! But I believe its up to the praying church."
Lou Engle says it's the church's job to keep praying for the courts even if Roberts is confirmed.
And, it’s up to the church to pray that Roberts won’t end up like another Supreme Court Justice appointed by a Republican President, Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Christians Fight Supreme Battle with Prayer
CWNews
August 12 , 2005
CWNews.com – Some Christian leaders say America may be in its most critical moment of need for prayer in its entire history. Some Christians have been traveling to the steps of the Supreme Court’s building to pray that God will give America the Judges it needs at this crucial time.
Young people from a group called "Bound For Life" have stood vigil in front of the Supreme Court building, crying out to God to bring righteous judges to sit on the nation's highest court. The word LIFE, taped over their mouths, symbolizes the silent cries of the unborn Americans.
Jesse Engle is with Bound For Life. He explained their constant prayer vigil, "Although very few of us are even married, we are all doing this for the generation yet unborn, and for our children. I don't want to be silent in this time. And, in 30 years be standing at the place where we are now, and [have to] say, ‘I did nothing.’
Tiffany Edwards, is a 21 year old pro-lifer from Arizona. She said, “I'm here because I know that God is calling all generations, young and old, to come and make their stand and cry out for justice in America and for the end of abortion."
Christian leaders have issued an urgent call to the Church to pray! Pray like never before!
They say what's at stake is nothing less than the future of America. They believe the Presidential elections of 2000 & 2004 will have been in vain, if the wrong people get placed on the Supreme Court.
Lou Engle is the head of The Cause and the Justice House of Prayer. He told us, "I believe, Wendy, that we're in the most critical moment of prayer maybe in the history of America. What I believe, Wendy, is that the issue of abortion could be ended in these next couple of years! But I believe its up to the praying church."
Lou Engle says it's the church's job to keep praying for the courts even if Roberts is confirmed.
And, it’s up to the church to pray that Roberts won’t end up like another Supreme Court Justice appointed by a Republican President, Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Christians Fight Supreme Battle with Prayer
Monday, August 15, 2005
So help me God
I will support and defend...so help me God
"Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." --George Washington
There are no ACLU lawyers on the actual warfront with Jihadistan demanding military compliance with the erroneously-named "separation clause." There are, however, plenty of American Patriots on the front who daily offer intercessory prayer to God. Yes, they are in uniform and on official assignment with the U.S. government, and yes, they do petition GOD, not "the man upstairs," "the higher power" or some other PC-neutral deity. They even receive encouragement and guidance from official military chaplains.
How do they get away with it?
Well, the closest any ACLU gofers come to a "warfront" is arguing with their high-brow breed about what wine will best complement their entr?e at fashionable urban bistros. What they don't argue about is their commitment to a vigorous and relentless crusade to remove any reference to God from all public life -- using their cadre of judicial activists to twist Thomas Jefferson's allusion to a "Wall of Separation" into grossly errant interpretations of our Constitution's First Amendment. They want to take "God" out of our national pledge, motto, official oaths, monuments, seals, schools, currency, political dialogue, etc. (Taking God out of places of worship will be next -- after all, they are tax-exempt organizations, synonymous in liberal parlance to "state supported.")
On the real warfront, where uniformed Patriots are defending our Constitution in actual combat operations, there are few atheists in the trenches, but stateside, atheists boldly target the enemy from their lofty ACLU perches. Their most recent military target was the Air Force Academy (USAFA), where a few hand-wringing bed-wetters complained of religious intolerance.
Without the first legal shot being fired, Acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael Dominguez appointed Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for personnel, Lieutenant General Roger Brady, to investigate this crisis and determine if there was adequate diversity indoctrination for both USAFA faculty and cadets to promote the "free exercise of religion" and comport with the "establishment clause."
General Brady and his brigade were deployed to the USAFA, where they found deplorable examples of intolerance. For example, cadets, 85 percent of whom identify themselves as Christian, were encouraged to attend chapel. If that were not bad enough, an Academy staffer put some New Testament verses in an official e-mail, and worse, some cadets used the USAFA's e-mail system to encourage others to see the movie "The Passion of the Christ."
"There is a lack of awareness on the part of some faculty and staff, and perhaps some senior cadets, as to what constitutes appropriate expressions of faith," said Gen. Brady upon concluding his investigation. "There is a lack of operational guidance that tells commanders and senior supervisors exactly what is appropriate in regard to free exercise of religion." Echoing Brady's assessment, the USAFA's superintendent, Lt. Gen. John Rosa said, "We've got a long way to go."
To that end, the Academy has created a new diversity curriculum called "Respecting Spiritual Values of All People." "This program tells cadets that people believe different things and come from different places," said Gen. Brady. Nonetheless, that did not silence critics like New York Rep. Steve Israel, who said of Brady's report, "It is not a whitewash, but it does resemble a milquetoast." (Seriously, that's what he said.)
Milquetoast notwithstanding, Rep. Israel and the ACLU claimed their first victim in this skirmish. In reviewing promotions for 21 Air Force generals last week, the Senate passed on awarding another star to the USAFA's commandant of cadets, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a 1978 academy graduate and, unfortunately for his future billet prospects, a Christian. (For a full explication on how the ACLU aborted the career of another distinguished American, a USMA graduate and decorated Vietnam veteran, link to -- http://FederalistPatriot.US/Alexander/edition.asp?id=207 )
His offense: Gen. Weida apparently told cadets in his June, 2003, "guidance" statement that they were "accountable first to your God." Of this overt reference to God, disgruntled USAFA cadet parent Mikey Weinstein whined, "Weida lost his constitutional compass, which resulted in him violating the oath he took to preserve, support and defend the U.S. Constitution."
Ah yes, "the oath he took." That would be the one that concludes, as all official U.S. oaths do, with these words: "So help me God."
On 30 April 1789, America's first Commander in Chief, President George Washington, took his presidential oath of office with his hand on a Bible opened to the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 28. He ended his oath with "So help me God," which was added to military oaths for officers by Act of Congress 29 September 1789.
In his "Inaugural Speech to Both Houses of Congress," President Washington said: "It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect." Such was the conduct of his administration.
In his Farewell Speech of 19 September 1796, George Washington concluded with these words: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of man and citizens. ... Let it be simply asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
However, "subverting the firmest props" which "sustain security for property, for reputation, for life" is the axis of the ACLU's agenda. Anyone taking official oaths can simply "affirm," as our Constitution's Article 6, Section 3 ensures, "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." The point, of course, is not that the ACLU objects to the wording "So help me God" in oaths. The ACLU objects to God in any context.
Despite misguided efforts by the DoD to accommodate that agenda, the fact remains, on the frontlines of our war against Jihadistan, that four words ultimately transform American citizens into Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen -- "So help me God."
God bless you Patriots!
The Federalist Patriot - Current Edition
"Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." --George Washington
There are no ACLU lawyers on the actual warfront with Jihadistan demanding military compliance with the erroneously-named "separation clause." There are, however, plenty of American Patriots on the front who daily offer intercessory prayer to God. Yes, they are in uniform and on official assignment with the U.S. government, and yes, they do petition GOD, not "the man upstairs," "the higher power" or some other PC-neutral deity. They even receive encouragement and guidance from official military chaplains.
How do they get away with it?
Well, the closest any ACLU gofers come to a "warfront" is arguing with their high-brow breed about what wine will best complement their entr?e at fashionable urban bistros. What they don't argue about is their commitment to a vigorous and relentless crusade to remove any reference to God from all public life -- using their cadre of judicial activists to twist Thomas Jefferson's allusion to a "Wall of Separation" into grossly errant interpretations of our Constitution's First Amendment. They want to take "God" out of our national pledge, motto, official oaths, monuments, seals, schools, currency, political dialogue, etc. (Taking God out of places of worship will be next -- after all, they are tax-exempt organizations, synonymous in liberal parlance to "state supported.")
On the real warfront, where uniformed Patriots are defending our Constitution in actual combat operations, there are few atheists in the trenches, but stateside, atheists boldly target the enemy from their lofty ACLU perches. Their most recent military target was the Air Force Academy (USAFA), where a few hand-wringing bed-wetters complained of religious intolerance.
Without the first legal shot being fired, Acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael Dominguez appointed Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for personnel, Lieutenant General Roger Brady, to investigate this crisis and determine if there was adequate diversity indoctrination for both USAFA faculty and cadets to promote the "free exercise of religion" and comport with the "establishment clause."
General Brady and his brigade were deployed to the USAFA, where they found deplorable examples of intolerance. For example, cadets, 85 percent of whom identify themselves as Christian, were encouraged to attend chapel. If that were not bad enough, an Academy staffer put some New Testament verses in an official e-mail, and worse, some cadets used the USAFA's e-mail system to encourage others to see the movie "The Passion of the Christ."
"There is a lack of awareness on the part of some faculty and staff, and perhaps some senior cadets, as to what constitutes appropriate expressions of faith," said Gen. Brady upon concluding his investigation. "There is a lack of operational guidance that tells commanders and senior supervisors exactly what is appropriate in regard to free exercise of religion." Echoing Brady's assessment, the USAFA's superintendent, Lt. Gen. John Rosa said, "We've got a long way to go."
To that end, the Academy has created a new diversity curriculum called "Respecting Spiritual Values of All People." "This program tells cadets that people believe different things and come from different places," said Gen. Brady. Nonetheless, that did not silence critics like New York Rep. Steve Israel, who said of Brady's report, "It is not a whitewash, but it does resemble a milquetoast." (Seriously, that's what he said.)
Milquetoast notwithstanding, Rep. Israel and the ACLU claimed their first victim in this skirmish. In reviewing promotions for 21 Air Force generals last week, the Senate passed on awarding another star to the USAFA's commandant of cadets, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a 1978 academy graduate and, unfortunately for his future billet prospects, a Christian. (For a full explication on how the ACLU aborted the career of another distinguished American, a USMA graduate and decorated Vietnam veteran, link to -- http://FederalistPatriot.US/Alexander/edition.asp?id=207 )
His offense: Gen. Weida apparently told cadets in his June, 2003, "guidance" statement that they were "accountable first to your God." Of this overt reference to God, disgruntled USAFA cadet parent Mikey Weinstein whined, "Weida lost his constitutional compass, which resulted in him violating the oath he took to preserve, support and defend the U.S. Constitution."
Ah yes, "the oath he took." That would be the one that concludes, as all official U.S. oaths do, with these words: "So help me God."
On 30 April 1789, America's first Commander in Chief, President George Washington, took his presidential oath of office with his hand on a Bible opened to the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 28. He ended his oath with "So help me God," which was added to military oaths for officers by Act of Congress 29 September 1789.
In his "Inaugural Speech to Both Houses of Congress," President Washington said: "It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect." Such was the conduct of his administration.
In his Farewell Speech of 19 September 1796, George Washington concluded with these words: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of man and citizens. ... Let it be simply asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
However, "subverting the firmest props" which "sustain security for property, for reputation, for life" is the axis of the ACLU's agenda. Anyone taking official oaths can simply "affirm," as our Constitution's Article 6, Section 3 ensures, "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." The point, of course, is not that the ACLU objects to the wording "So help me God" in oaths. The ACLU objects to God in any context.
Despite misguided efforts by the DoD to accommodate that agenda, the fact remains, on the frontlines of our war against Jihadistan, that four words ultimately transform American citizens into Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen -- "So help me God."
God bless you Patriots!
The Federalist Patriot - Current Edition
The case for intelligent design
Ethics and Religion by Michael J. McManus
TIME magazine's cover story, "Evolution Wars," asserts that "The push to teach `intelligent design' raises a question: Does God have a place in science class?" The magazine may be asking the wrong question.
Many advocates of intelligent design I've interviewed do not want to put God in the classroom. These scientists are making a more "modest claim," according to Jonathan Wells, author of "Icons of Evolution".
"We infer from the evidence that some features of the natural world are better explained as the result of an intelligent design rather than an unguided natural process," which is advocated by Darwinists. "Intelligent design works from the evidence not from Scripture."
"Not everything is the result of intelligent design. For example, the breeding of domestic animals has been around for thousands of years, in which existing species changed over the years."
For example, cows which produce more milk are chosen for reproduction, not those with little output. In this case, it is the intelligence of man which is doing the designing.
Darwinists claim that entire new species evolved from earlier species by natural selection. The anti-Darwinsts argue that the scientific evidence points in a different direction.
For example, Wells cites bacterial flagellum, "which could not have been produced by Darwin's thesis of gradual change."
He is speaking of a protrusion of bacteria that performs like a rotary propeller, says Michael Behe, a biochemist. The flagellum is long and whiplike, that "can spin at ten thousand revolutions per minute".
It is an example of "irreducible complexity," a highly complex biological machine, that simply could not have evolved, as Darwinists allege. The world's most efficient motor is tiny, about 0,000 of an inch, most of which is the flagellum.
It has sensory systems that tell the flagellum when to turn on or off, so that it guides the cell to food, light or whatever it is seeking.
Darwin himself wrote in his "Origin of the Species": "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
Let's consider two other examples which appear to refute Darwinism:
1. The Big Bang is how the universe began, according to most cosmologists, scientists who study this issue. However, the assumption of scientists for centuries was that the universe is an unchanging eternal entity.
The discovery that this was an error first came from Albert Einstein who was shocked to find that his theory of relativity did not allow for a static universe.
In 1929 Edward Hubble concluded that the galaxies are moving away from us at enormous velocities.
Even atheistic scientists concede the universe had a beginning, such as Kai Nielson who adds: "It's a stunning confirmation of the millennia-old Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing."
The first words of Genesis are: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." But advocates of intelligent design put it this way.
"A cause of space and time must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal being endowed with the freedom of will and enormous power. And that is a core concept of God," says William Lane Craig.
2. DNA: Every cell has the now-famous double helix of deoxyribonecleic acid, where the "language of life" is stored.
For 50 years, scientists have studied "the six feet of DNA that is tightly coiled inside of every one of our body's one hundred trillion cells," writes Lee Strobel in his best-seller, "The Case for a Creator". However, some scientists who do believe in evolution, also see God's hand in it.
Francis Collins who announced he had mapped the three billion letters of our own DNA instruction book, is quoted by TIME as saying: "I see no conflict in what the Bible tells me about God and what science tells me about nature.
"Like St. Augustine in A.D. 400, I do not find the wording of Genesis One and Two to suggest a scientific textbook, but a powerful and poetic description of God's intention in creating the universe. The mechanism of creation is left unspecified. If God, who is all powerful, chose to use the mechanism of evolution to create you and me, who are we to say that wasn't an absolutely elegant plan?"
Science's tolls will never prove or disprove God's existence.
For me the fundamental answers about the meaning of life come not from science but from a consideration of the origins of our uniquely human sense of right and wrong, and from the historical record of Christ's life on earth," Collins concludes.
Royal Gazette
TIME magazine's cover story, "Evolution Wars," asserts that "The push to teach `intelligent design' raises a question: Does God have a place in science class?" The magazine may be asking the wrong question.
Many advocates of intelligent design I've interviewed do not want to put God in the classroom. These scientists are making a more "modest claim," according to Jonathan Wells, author of "Icons of Evolution".
"We infer from the evidence that some features of the natural world are better explained as the result of an intelligent design rather than an unguided natural process," which is advocated by Darwinists. "Intelligent design works from the evidence not from Scripture."
"Not everything is the result of intelligent design. For example, the breeding of domestic animals has been around for thousands of years, in which existing species changed over the years."
For example, cows which produce more milk are chosen for reproduction, not those with little output. In this case, it is the intelligence of man which is doing the designing.
Darwinists claim that entire new species evolved from earlier species by natural selection. The anti-Darwinsts argue that the scientific evidence points in a different direction.
For example, Wells cites bacterial flagellum, "which could not have been produced by Darwin's thesis of gradual change."
He is speaking of a protrusion of bacteria that performs like a rotary propeller, says Michael Behe, a biochemist. The flagellum is long and whiplike, that "can spin at ten thousand revolutions per minute".
It is an example of "irreducible complexity," a highly complex biological machine, that simply could not have evolved, as Darwinists allege. The world's most efficient motor is tiny, about 0,000 of an inch, most of which is the flagellum.
It has sensory systems that tell the flagellum when to turn on or off, so that it guides the cell to food, light or whatever it is seeking.
Darwin himself wrote in his "Origin of the Species": "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
Let's consider two other examples which appear to refute Darwinism:
1. The Big Bang is how the universe began, according to most cosmologists, scientists who study this issue. However, the assumption of scientists for centuries was that the universe is an unchanging eternal entity.
The discovery that this was an error first came from Albert Einstein who was shocked to find that his theory of relativity did not allow for a static universe.
In 1929 Edward Hubble concluded that the galaxies are moving away from us at enormous velocities.
Even atheistic scientists concede the universe had a beginning, such as Kai Nielson who adds: "It's a stunning confirmation of the millennia-old Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing."
The first words of Genesis are: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." But advocates of intelligent design put it this way.
"A cause of space and time must be an uncaused, beginningless, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal being endowed with the freedom of will and enormous power. And that is a core concept of God," says William Lane Craig.
2. DNA: Every cell has the now-famous double helix of deoxyribonecleic acid, where the "language of life" is stored.
For 50 years, scientists have studied "the six feet of DNA that is tightly coiled inside of every one of our body's one hundred trillion cells," writes Lee Strobel in his best-seller, "The Case for a Creator". However, some scientists who do believe in evolution, also see God's hand in it.
Francis Collins who announced he had mapped the three billion letters of our own DNA instruction book, is quoted by TIME as saying: "I see no conflict in what the Bible tells me about God and what science tells me about nature.
"Like St. Augustine in A.D. 400, I do not find the wording of Genesis One and Two to suggest a scientific textbook, but a powerful and poetic description of God's intention in creating the universe. The mechanism of creation is left unspecified. If God, who is all powerful, chose to use the mechanism of evolution to create you and me, who are we to say that wasn't an absolutely elegant plan?"
Science's tolls will never prove or disprove God's existence.
For me the fundamental answers about the meaning of life come not from science but from a consideration of the origins of our uniquely human sense of right and wrong, and from the historical record of Christ's life on earth," Collins concludes.
Royal Gazette
Wiccan Priestess Sues Over Christian Prayers
(Great Falls) The small town of Great Falls may have to pay a hefty legal bill after losing a battle over whether the town should stop using Jesus Christ's name in prayers before council meetings.
The US Supreme Court refused in June to hear the town's appeal of a lower court ruling over the prayers. Now Wiccan priestess Darla Wynne wants the town to pay her $65,000 legal bills.
A judge is expected to rule on the matter by next month.
WLTX News 19
The US Supreme Court refused in June to hear the town's appeal of a lower court ruling over the prayers. Now Wiccan priestess Darla Wynne wants the town to pay her $65,000 legal bills.
A judge is expected to rule on the matter by next month.
WLTX News 19
Christian Video Games Search For Audience
Tricia Cruz (Rochester, NY) 08/15/05 --- Several video game developers are trying to break into the industry with a new form of entertainment--Christian video games. Developers say they want to offer an alternative to the violence found in many mainstream games.
When it comes to video games, Ricky Thomas knows what he wants.
"In order for a video game to sell, it needs to be fun, entertaining, with good story line and just want to play it," he said.
Ricky said convincing him and others to buy Christian video games over mainstream video games could be a challenge.
Those who make Christian video games say competing against other video games won't be easy, but it's not impossible either. At one time, the producers of Christian rock music were in a very similar situation,
Christian rock music is now a powerhouse in the industry selling 43 million records in the United States last year.
Right now, Christian video games make up less than one percent of the market. But if the large turnout at this weekend's youth convention on Christianity is any indication that could eventually change.
Ricky Thomas said the titles of Christian video games could also play a role in attracting players.
Christian video games are available mainly in Christian bookstores as well as some mainstream video stores. Many stores say they don't carry the games because they are not in high demand.
13WHAM-TV || Rochester - Christian Video Games Search For Audience
When it comes to video games, Ricky Thomas knows what he wants.
"In order for a video game to sell, it needs to be fun, entertaining, with good story line and just want to play it," he said.
Ricky said convincing him and others to buy Christian video games over mainstream video games could be a challenge.
Those who make Christian video games say competing against other video games won't be easy, but it's not impossible either. At one time, the producers of Christian rock music were in a very similar situation,
Christian rock music is now a powerhouse in the industry selling 43 million records in the United States last year.
Right now, Christian video games make up less than one percent of the market. But if the large turnout at this weekend's youth convention on Christianity is any indication that could eventually change.
Ricky Thomas said the titles of Christian video games could also play a role in attracting players.
Christian video games are available mainly in Christian bookstores as well as some mainstream video stores. Many stores say they don't carry the games because they are not in high demand.
13WHAM-TV || Rochester - Christian Video Games Search For Audience
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