GERALD KORNBAU
Sunday, January 30, 2005
York Daily Record
I have been reading with interest the articles regarding the Dover school district and intelligent design. I find it sad that people object so strongly against the four paragraphs that the school board included in the biology curriculum. You would think with all the clamor that something horrible was being forced upon the students, yet it was a mere statement acknowledging another possibility for how life came to be. Can' those who favor evolution admit that there might be other possibilities for the origin of the universe? Are people so closed-minded that they won't recognize any theory other than evolution?
Life is so complex that any rational, thinking person would have to at some point acknowledge there is at least the possibility that some intelligent design was necessary to bring about all the complex life forms that we find upon earth. The likelihood of all the life forms and laws of the universe coming about of their own accord is about as likely as a house being built by itself. If the materials that a house is made of were laid out on a building lot, how long would it take for evolution to bring that house together without any help from a person? No amount of time will do it. Yet a house is relatively simple in comparison to the complexity of life forms.
I think intelligent design is a far better explanation for the complexities of the universe than evolution.
Intelligent design makes sense - York Daily Record
Sunday, January 30, 2005
German Home Educators Face Persecution
German Home Educators Face Persecution for Rejecting State Schools
HSLDA Urging Action on Behalf of Christian Parents in Germany
Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
January 28, 2005
AgapePress
Several home schooling families in Germany are being ordered to return their children to public school. Ten families in that country are currently fighting in court for the right to keep their children out of government schools; and seven families in the German county of Paderborn are actually facing criminal prosecution for home schooling and could potentially lose custody of their children.
News from Agape Press
HSLDA Urging Action on Behalf of Christian Parents in Germany
Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
January 28, 2005
AgapePress
Several home schooling families in Germany are being ordered to return their children to public school. Ten families in that country are currently fighting in court for the right to keep their children out of government schools; and seven families in the German county of Paderborn are actually facing criminal prosecution for home schooling and could potentially lose custody of their children.
News from Agape Press
Anti-Bush Criticism and the Fixation on 'Delusional' Christian Fundamentalism
The New York Times
PETER STEINFELS
January 29, 2005
Perhaps you didn't know that Christian fundamentalists were running the United States, but then perhaps you weren't attending any upscale Manhattan parties over the holiday season. Or perhaps you didn't have the advantage of being introduced as someone who writes about religion for a newspaper.
That party climate was crisp with shock and awe at the dubious findings about the role of moral values in the presidential election. There was a palpable sense that the Bible Belt was tightening like a noose around Gotham City and all it represented for civilization. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the partygoers found this ominous or merely more fuel for the seasonal excitement.
Most of them, needless to say, had about as much personal contact with Christian fundamentalists as with Martians. In fact, "fundamentalist" was a handy label for a vague group of religious conservatives "out there" who persist in raising moral objections to abortion, same-sex marriage and embryonic-stem-cell research.
The election had certainly revealed that these religious conservatives were a force to be reckoned with.
But don't suppose that the fixation on Christian fundamentalists is limited to giddy holiday revelers in Manhattan. Here is Bill Moyers, liberal sage par excellence, accepting an award last month from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School:
"One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington."
And what is this amalgam of ideology and theology that is now possessing a monopoly of Washington power? It is nothing less than the "bizarre" and "fantastical" vision of the end times as drawn out of the Book of Revelation and portrayed in the best-selling "Left Behind" series of novels by the Rev. Timothy LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
These beliefs are no longer a fringe phenomenon, Mr. Moyers explained, because nearly half the Congress and many of its leaders were "backed" by the religious right in the recent election - that is, they earned over 80 percent approval ratings from conservative Christian lobbies.
"I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank," Mr. Moyers said.
No doubt he has, but his acceptance speech drew more from two online articles that he cited and recommended to his audience than from the up-close and personal interviewing for which he is known. There seemed to be something more ideological - and maybe even apocalyptical - going on in his argument. In this he was probably representative of a much wider swath of liberal opinion.
The New York Times > National > Beliefs: Anti-Bush Criticism and the Fixation on 'Delusional' Christian Fundamentalism
PETER STEINFELS
January 29, 2005
Perhaps you didn't know that Christian fundamentalists were running the United States, but then perhaps you weren't attending any upscale Manhattan parties over the holiday season. Or perhaps you didn't have the advantage of being introduced as someone who writes about religion for a newspaper.
That party climate was crisp with shock and awe at the dubious findings about the role of moral values in the presidential election. There was a palpable sense that the Bible Belt was tightening like a noose around Gotham City and all it represented for civilization. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether the partygoers found this ominous or merely more fuel for the seasonal excitement.
Most of them, needless to say, had about as much personal contact with Christian fundamentalists as with Martians. In fact, "fundamentalist" was a handy label for a vague group of religious conservatives "out there" who persist in raising moral objections to abortion, same-sex marriage and embryonic-stem-cell research.
The election had certainly revealed that these religious conservatives were a force to be reckoned with.
But don't suppose that the fixation on Christian fundamentalists is limited to giddy holiday revelers in Manhattan. Here is Bill Moyers, liberal sage par excellence, accepting an award last month from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School:
"One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington."
And what is this amalgam of ideology and theology that is now possessing a monopoly of Washington power? It is nothing less than the "bizarre" and "fantastical" vision of the end times as drawn out of the Book of Revelation and portrayed in the best-selling "Left Behind" series of novels by the Rev. Timothy LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
These beliefs are no longer a fringe phenomenon, Mr. Moyers explained, because nearly half the Congress and many of its leaders were "backed" by the religious right in the recent election - that is, they earned over 80 percent approval ratings from conservative Christian lobbies.
"I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank," Mr. Moyers said.
No doubt he has, but his acceptance speech drew more from two online articles that he cited and recommended to his audience than from the up-close and personal interviewing for which he is known. There seemed to be something more ideological - and maybe even apocalyptical - going on in his argument. In this he was probably representative of a much wider swath of liberal opinion.
The New York Times > National > Beliefs: Anti-Bush Criticism and the Fixation on 'Delusional' Christian Fundamentalism
Some American Mosques Carry Extremist Tracts
Wall Street Journal
January 28, 2005
Some American Mosques Carry Extremist Tracts, Study Says
The print edition of the Wall Street Journal today carries on pg. B5 an advance report of a Freedom House study on Saudi mosques in the U.S.
WASHINGTON -- Mosques across the U.S. continue to carry books and pamphlets describing non-Muslims as 'infidels' and promoting intolerance against Western society, according to a forthcoming study by Freedom House, a U.S. human-rights group.
Despite vows from American Islamic leaders after Sept. 11, 2001, to proselytize peacefully, New York based Freedom House researchers found 57 documents with incendiary material in more than a dozen mosques and Islamic centers in six states and Washington, D.C., visited over the past year.
The materials 'demonstrate the ongoing indoctrination of Muslims in the United States in the hostility and belligerence of Saudi Arabia's hardline Wahhabi sect of Islam,' says the report, an advance copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Jihad Watch: Some American Mosques Carry Extremist Tracts, Study Says
January 28, 2005
Some American Mosques Carry Extremist Tracts, Study Says
The print edition of the Wall Street Journal today carries on pg. B5 an advance report of a Freedom House study on Saudi mosques in the U.S.
WASHINGTON -- Mosques across the U.S. continue to carry books and pamphlets describing non-Muslims as 'infidels' and promoting intolerance against Western society, according to a forthcoming study by Freedom House, a U.S. human-rights group.
Despite vows from American Islamic leaders after Sept. 11, 2001, to proselytize peacefully, New York based Freedom House researchers found 57 documents with incendiary material in more than a dozen mosques and Islamic centers in six states and Washington, D.C., visited over the past year.
The materials 'demonstrate the ongoing indoctrination of Muslims in the United States in the hostility and belligerence of Saudi Arabia's hardline Wahhabi sect of Islam,' says the report, an advance copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Jihad Watch: Some American Mosques Carry Extremist Tracts, Study Says
Hate ideology fills American mosques
January 29, 2005
Full report: Hate ideology fills American mosques
The full 95-page Freedom House report, 'Saudi publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques,' is now available here in pdf form.
Read it all. The venom directed toward Christians, Jews, Muslims deemed not Islamic enough, and America is breathtaking. There is also a healthy helping of jihad ideology and material advising the oppression of women. And remember, this material is being spread in mosques all over the United States: in 1999, the Naqshbandi Sufi Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani testified before a State Department open forum that eighty percent of American mosques had extremist leadership. His assertion has never been convincingly refuted.
Jihad Watch: Full report: Hate ideology fills American mosques
Full report: Hate ideology fills American mosques
The full 95-page Freedom House report, 'Saudi publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques,' is now available here in pdf form.
Read it all. The venom directed toward Christians, Jews, Muslims deemed not Islamic enough, and America is breathtaking. There is also a healthy helping of jihad ideology and material advising the oppression of women. And remember, this material is being spread in mosques all over the United States: in 1999, the Naqshbandi Sufi Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani testified before a State Department open forum that eighty percent of American mosques had extremist leadership. His assertion has never been convincingly refuted.
Jihad Watch: Full report: Hate ideology fills American mosques
Friday, January 28, 2005
Science and bias
2005/1/27
Jonathan D. Sarfati, physical chemistry
The Conservative Voice
Science and bias
Many people have the false belief that “science” has proven the earth to be billions of years old, and that every living thing descended from a single cell which itself is the result of chance combination of chemicals. However, science deals with repeatable observations in the present, while evolution/long age ideas are based on assumptions from outside science about the unobservable past. Facts do not speak for themselves—they must be interpreted according to a framework. It is not a case of religion/creation/subjectivity vs. science/evolution/objectivity. Rather, it is the biases of the religions of Christianity and of humanism interpreting the same facts in diametrically opposite ways.
The framework behind the evolutionists’ interpretation is naturalism—things made themselves; no divine intervention has happened; and God, if He even exists, has not revealed to us knowledge about the past. This is precisely what the chief apostle Peter prophesied about the “scoffers” in “the last days”—they claim “everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). Peter reveals the huge flaw of the uniformitarian scoffers: they are “willingly ignorant” of special creation by God, and of a cataclysmic globe-covering (and fossil-forming) flood.
The thinking inherent in the evolutionary mindset is illustrated by the following statement by Richard Lewontin, a geneticist and leading evolution promoter (and self-proclaimed Marxist). It illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation—regardless of whether or not the facts support it.
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.1
Lewontin is typical of many evolutionary propagandists. Another good example is the National Academy of Science (NAS) in the USA, which recently produced a guidebook for U.S. public school teachers, Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science.2 A recent survey published in the leading science journal Nature conclusively showed that the National Academy of Science is anti-God to the core.3 A survey of all 517 NAS members in biological and physical sciences resulted in just over half responding. 72.2% were overtly atheistic, 20.8% agnostic, and only 7.0% believed in a personal God. Belief in God and immortality was lowest among biologists. It is likely that those who didn’t respond were unbelievers as well, so the study probably underestimates the level of anti-God belief in the NAS. The unbelief is far higher than the percentage among scientists in general, or in the whole U.S. population.
Commenting on the self-professed religious neutrality of Teaching about Evolution … and the NAS, the surveyors comment:
NAS President Bruce Alberts said: “There are very many outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists.” Our research suggests otherwise.
This atheistic bias is ironic, because the whole basis for modern science depends on the assumption that the universe was made by a rational Creator. Dr. Stanley Jaki has documented how the scientific method was stillborn in all cultures apart from the Judeo-Christian culture of Europe.4 An orderly universe makes perfect sense if it was made by an orderly Creator. But if there is no Creator, or if Zeus and his gang were in charge, why should there be any order at all? No wonder that most branches of modern science were founded by believers in creation. The list of creationist scientists is impressive.5
C.S. Lewis also pointed out that even our ability to reason would be called into question if atheistic evolution were true:
If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our thought processes are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the materialists’ and astronomers’ as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give a correct account of all the other accidents.6
Does the Bible really teach six days?
The Bible claims to be the written Word of God, completely authoritative on everything it teaches (2 Tim. 3:15–17). There is excellent supporting evidence from archaeology, science, fulfilled prophecy and the claims of Jesus Christ.7 So it is vitally important to believe what the Bible teaches.
Even a small child can see that Genesis 1 is teaching creation in six days. Far from being a “naïve literalistic view”, James Barr, then Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University, wrote:
… probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:
*
creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
*
the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
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Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.8
Barr, a liberal, does not believe it, but he understood what the Hebrew so clearly taught.
This can be shown by analysing the Hebrew word for day: yom. When it is modified by a numeral or ordinal in historical narrative (359 times in the OT outside Gen. 1), it always means a literal day of about 24 hours. When modified by “evening and/or morning”, (38 times outside Gen. 1), it always means a literal day. There were plenty of words that God could have used if He had wanted to teach long periods of time, yet He did not use them.9,10
If we follow the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture, we could come only to one conclusion: six literal days. This is supported by the Fourth Commandment of Ex. 20:8–11—“Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work … For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.” Here, the literal days of the ordinary week are the same as those of Creation Week, or it makes no sense.
It was only the assumed need to harmonise Genesis with the alleged age of the earth which led people to deny six-day creation—it was nothing to do with the text itself.
Some dire consequences of doubting six-day creation
1. The perspicuity of Scripture is doubted.
The Protestant Reformation recovered the doctrine that Scripture was perspicuous, that is, understandable by ordinary people without needing an elite group to interpret it. However, if six days should really be interpreted to mean 15 billion years, then any attempt to understand Scripture is hopeless. Evil could be interpreted as good. It’s no accident that many denominations permeated by theistic evolution have condoned fornication, homosexual practice and abortion, even among leaders.
2. Denial of sin-death causality.
The biggest problem of nonliteral interpretations of Genesis is that there then would have been billions of years of death, struggle and suffering before man’s Fall. But Scripture teaches that death is the result of Adam’s Fall (Rom. 5:12), and 1 Cor. 15:21–22 states
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (NIV)
Death is also called the “last enemy” (v. 26). It is insufficient to claim that this refers only to human death, because Gen. 3:17–19 states that the whole earth was cursed. It is also wrong to claim that Adam’s punishment was spiritual death only—Gen. 3:19 indicates that physical death was part of the punishment, and the context of 1 Cor. 15:21 involves a bodily resurrection of Jesus who was physically dead.
All (mis-)interpretations of Genesis which deny its plain meaning, and so involve death before sin, must assert that “the last enemy”, death, was a part of the “very good” creation (Gen. 1:31). This includes ideas like “God used evolution”, “the days were long ages”, “there is a long time gap between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2”. Also, if all the creation that “was subjected to frustration” is eventually to be restored (Rom. 8:20–22), we must ask: “Restored to what? Billions of years of death and suffering?” Verses like the following hardly teach that the restored paradise will have bloodshed in the animal kingdom—Isaiah 65:25 (NIV):
“The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.
This is supported by the fact that Gen. 1:29–30 teaches that animals were vegetarian, and that meat-eating, at least for people, was permitted only after the Flood in Gen. 9:3.
3. Christ Himself is doubted.
Jesus said in John 5:46–47: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” Of course, if Jesus can make mistakes in testable areas, why should He be trusted in untestable areas (cf. John 3:12)? No wonder that doubt of Genesis often leads to doubt of Christ’s other words.
Indeed, Christ endorsed the Genesis records of creation (Matt. 19:3–6), and of Noah’s Flood and Ark (Luke 17:26–27). He also said “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). As man was made six days after creation, a true time line of the world would indeed have man right at the beginning, which the Bible indicates was about 6,000 years ago. But evolution/long age ideas have man’s existence in a microscopic segment at the end of a 5-billion-year timeline, almost an afterthought.
Jesus also cited Abraham with approval in Luke 16:31: “If they do not listen to Moses [the writer/compiler of Genesis] and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Indeed, denominations that doubt Moses by teaching theistic evolution often have leaders who doubt the Resurrection too.
Many Christians fortunately don’t carry doubt of Genesis to the logical conclusion of doubting Christ, who endorsed Genesis. But a professing evangelical leader of a prominent theistic evolutionary group here in Australia has told several people that Jesus was limited by His 1st century Jewish culture, and we now know better because we “have the light of science”.
The charge is absurd. Jesus frequently challenged the errors of His culture! But He never challenged the authority of Scripture; rather, He invoked biblical passages as authoritative refutations of his opponents’ errors (Matt. 4:1–11, 19:3–6, 22:23–33, John 10:31–38).
Also, where do we stop? Should we dismiss “love your neighbour as yourself” (Matt. 19:19) as another example of Christ’s limitation by His culture—this was a quote from Lev. 19:18. Was Christ’s promise that He would “give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28) also wrong, since this was based on the “suffering servant” prophecy in Isaiah 53? Gen. 3:15 foretold that Christ, the seed of the woman [virgin-born], would crush the serpent’s head—so is this also in doubt? This is complete apostasy—this theistic evolutionary leader is challenging the very deity of Christ!
Scientific evidence for design
Rom. 1:20 says: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
Upon seeing the wonderful works of design in this world, the intellectually honest person must conclude that they were made by a great Designer. This is so, even though we live in a sin-cursed world (Gen. 3:16–19, Rom. 8:20–23), where many designs are no longer benevolent and others have deteriorated because of mutations. But even a fallen design is still a design.
And there are plenty of structures that apparently still retain much if not all of their physical perfection. A few of them:
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The dolphin’s sonar system is so precise that it’s the envy of the U.S. Navy. It can detect a fish the size of a golf ball 70 m (230 feet) away. It took an expert in chaos theory to show that the dolphin’s “click” pattern is mathematically designed to give the best information.11
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This sonar system includes the “melon”, a sound lens—a sophisticated structure designed to focus the emitted sound waves into a beam which the dolphin can direct where it likes. This sound lens depends on the fact that different lipids (fatty compounds) bend the ultrasonic sound waves travelling through them in different ways. The different lipids have to be arranged in the right shape and sequence in order to focus the returning sound echoes. Each separate lipid is unique and different from normal blubber lipids, and is made by a complicated chemical process, requiring a number of different enzymes.12
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Insect flight requires complicated movements to generate the patterns of vortices needed for lift. It took a sophisticated robot to simulate the motion.13
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Even the simplest self-reproducing organism contains encyclopedic quantities of complex, specific information. Mycoplasma genitalium has the smallest known genome of any free-living organism, containing 482 genes comprising 580,000 base pairs.14 As for humans, the atheistic evolutionist Richard Dawkins admits: “there is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopædia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.”15
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Even more amazingly, living things have by far the most compact information storage/retrieval system known. To illustrate further, the amount of information that could be stored in a pinhead’s volume of DNA is staggering. It is the equivalent information content of a pile of paperback books 500 times as tall as the distance from earth to the moon, each with a different, yet specific content.16
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The genetic information cannot be translated except with many different enzymes, which are themselves encoded. So the code cannot be translated except via products of translation, a vicious circle that ties evolutionary origin-of-life theories in knots. These include double-sieve enzymes to make sure the right amino acid is linked to the right tRNA molecule. One sieve rejects amino acids too large, while the other rejects those too small.17
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The genetic code that is almost universal to life on earth is about the best possible, for protecting against errors.18
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The genetic code also has vital editing machinery that is itself encoded in the DNA. This shows that the system was fully functional from the beginning—another vicious circle for evolutionists.
*
Yet another vicious circle, and there are many more, is that the enzymes that make the amino acid histidine themselves contain histidine.
*
There are complex rotary motors in living organisms. One type drives the flagellum of a bacterium. The vital enzyme that makes ATP, the “energy currency” of life, is a motor that can change gears, yet is so tiny that 1017 could fit inside a pinhead’s volume.19
*
The complex compound eyes of some types of trilobites, extinct and supposedly “primitive” invertebrates, were amazingly designed. They comprised tubes that each pointed in a different direction, and had special lenses that focused light from any distance. The required lens design comprised a layer of calcite on top of a layer of chitin—materials with precisely the right refractive indices—and a wavy boundary between them of a precise mathematical shape.20 The Designer of these eyes is a Master Physicist, who applied what we now know as the physical laws of Fermat’s principle of least time, Snell’s law of refraction, Abbé’s sine law and birefringent optics.
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Lobster eyes are unique in being modelled on a perfect square with precise geometrical relationships of the units. NASA X-ray telescopes copied this design.21
*
From my own specialist field of vibrational spectroscopy: there is good evidence that our chemical-detecting sense (smell) works on the same quantum mechanical principles.22
Chemical evolutionary theories vs. the facts of chemistry
Evolutionists believe that all life came from a chemical soup. However, while studying for my chemistry degree, I came across many well-known chemical laws that refute such “chemical evolution” theories.23 This is a good example of how a proper understanding of the correct biblical framework results in correct conclusions from the evidence. For example:
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Life requires many polymers, large molecules built from many simple monomers. Polymerisation requires bifunctional monomers (i.e., they combine with two others), and is stopped by a small fraction of unifunctional monomers (that can combine with only one other, thus blocking one end of the growing chain). All “prebiotic simulation” experiments produce five times more unifunctional molecules than bifunctional molecules.
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Many of life’s chemicals come in two forms, “left-handed” and “right-handed”. Life requires polymers with all building blocks having the same “handedness” (homochirality)—proteins have only “left-handed” amino acids, while DNA and RNA have only “right-handed” sugars. Living things have special molecular machinery to produce homochirality. But ordinary undirected chemistry, as in the hypothetical primordial soup, would produce equal mixtures of left and right-handed molecules, called racemates. Racemic polypeptides could not form the specific shapes required for enzymes; rather, they would have the side chains sticking out all over the place. Also, a wrong-handed amino acid disrupts the stabilizing Éø-helix in proteins. DNA could not be stabilised in a helix if even a small proportion of the wrong-handed form was present, so it could not form long chains. This means it could not store much information, so it could not support life.24 A small fraction of wrong-handed molecules terminates RNA replication.25 A recent world conference on “The Origin of Homochirality and Life” made it clear that the origin of this handedness is a complete mystery to evolutionists.26
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The chemistry goes in the wrong direction! Polymerization reactions release water, so by the well-known law of mass action, excess water breaks up polymers. The long ages postulated by evolutionists simply make the problem worse, because there is more time for water’s destructive effects to occur. While living cells have many ingenious repair mechanisms, DNA cannot last very long in water outside a cell.27 Condensing agents (water absorbing chemicals) require acidic conditions and they could not accumulate in water. Heating to evaporate water tends to destroy some vital amino acids, racemize all the chiral amino acids, and requires geologically unrealistic conditions. Besides, heating amino acids with other gunk inevitably present in the hypothetical primordial soup would destroy them. A recent article in New Scientist also described the instability of polymers in water as a “headache” for researchers working on evolutionary ideas on the origin of life.28 It also showed its materialistic bias by saying this was not “good news”. But the real bad news is the faith in evolution (everything made itself), which overrides objective science.
*
Many of the important biochemicals would destroy each other. Living organisms are well structured to avoid this, but the “primordial soup” would not be. Sometimes these wrong reactions occur after a cell is damaged, for example, the browning of foodstuffs. This is often caused by a reaction between sugars and amino acids. Yet evolution requires these chemicals to form proteins and nucleic acids respectively, rather than destroy each other as per real chemistry.
*
Fatty acids are necessary for cell membranes, and phosphate is necessary for DNA, RNA, ATP and many other important vital molecules of life. But abundant calcium ions in the ocean would precipitate fatty acids and phosphate, making them unavailable for chemical evolution. Remember this next time you have problems washing with soap in “hard water”.
Conclusion
We should believe in a recent creation in six consecutive normal days because the only Eyewitness tells us this is what He did, and He has shown that He should be trusted. While this requires faith, it is a faith amply supported by science, as I can confirm from my own specialist field.
References and notes
1. Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, January 9, 1997.
2. See Against Indoctrination.
3. E.J. Larson and L. Witham, Leading scientists still reject God, Nature 394(6691):313, July 23, 1998. The sole criterion for being classified as a “leading” or “greater” scientist was membership of the NAS.
4. S. Jaki, Science and Creation, Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh and London, 1974.
5. A. Lamont, 21 Great Scientists who Believed the Bible, Creation Science Foundation, Australia, pp. 120–131, 1995; H.M. Morris, Men of Science, Men of God, Master Books, San Diego, CA, USA, 1982.
6. C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, pp. 52–53, 1970.
7.
Some useful information can be found in the following works, among others:
* H.M. Morris with H.M. Morris III, Many Infallible Proofs, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, USA, 1996.
* G.L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, USA ,1982.
* G.H. Clark, God’s Hammer: The Bible and its Critics, The Trinity Foundation, Jefferson, MD, USA, 2nd ed., 1987.
* P. Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology, Moody Press, Chicago, 1989, Ch. 18.
* N.L. Geisler and R.M. Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, Victor Books, Wheaton, IL, USA, 1990.
* N.L. Geisler and T. R. Howe, When Critics Ask, Victor Books, Wheaton, IL, USA, 1992.
* N.L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Moody, Chicago, 1986.
* H. Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 1976.
* J. McDowell, Evidence that Demand a Verdict, Here’s Life Publishers, San Bernardino, CA, USA, 1979.
* John W. Wenham, Christ and the Bible, Eagle, Guildford, Surrey, UK, 3rd ed., 1993.
8. J. Barr, letter to David C.C. Watson, 1984.
9. R. Grigg, How long were the days in Genesis 1? What did God intend us to understand from the words He used? Creation 19(1):23–25, December 1996–February 1997.
10. J. Stambaugh, The days of creation: a semantic approach, TJ 5(1):70–76, 1991.
11. R. Howlett, Flipper’s secret, New Scientist 154(2088):34–39, June 28, 1997.
12. U. Varanasi, H.R. Feldman and D.C. Malins, Molecular basis for formation of lipid sound lens in echolocating cetaceans, Nature 255(5506):340–343, May 22, 1975.
13. M. Brookes, On a wing and a vortex, New Scientist 156(2103):24–27, October 11, 1997.
14. C.M. Fraser et al., The minimal gene complement of Mycoplasma genitalium, Science 270(5235):397–403, October 20, 1995; perspective by A. Goffeau, Life With 482 Genes, same issue, pp. 445–6.
15. R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design, WW Norton & Company, New York, 1986.
16. W. Gitt, See Dazzling design in miniature, Creation 20(1):6, December 1997–February 1998.
17. Osamu Nureki et al., Enzyme structure with two catalytic sites for double-sieve selection of substrate, Science 280(5363):578–82, April 24, 1998; perspective by A.R. Fersht, Sieves in sequence, same issue, p. 541.
18. J. Knight, Top translator, New Scientist 158(2130):15, April 18, 1998.
19. H. Noji et al., Direct observation of the rotation of F1-ATPase, Nature 386(6622):28–33, March 20, 1997; perspective in the same issue by S. Block, Real engines of creation, pp. 217–9. J.D. Sarfati, Design in Living Organisms: Motors, TJ 12(1):3–5, 1998.
20. K. Towe, Trilobite eyes: calcified lenses, Science 179:1007–11, March 9, 1973.
21. M. Chown, X-ray lens brings finer chips into focus, New Scientist 151(2037):18, July 6, 1996.
22. L. Turin, A spectroscopic mechanism for primary olfactory reception, Chemical Senses 21:773, 1996; cited in S. Hill, Sniff’n’shake, New Scientist 157(2115):34–37, January 3, 1998. See also J.D. Sarfati, Olfactory design: smell and spectroscopy, TJ 12(2):137–8, 1998.
23. See also C.B. Thaxton, W.L. Bradley and R.L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Philosophical Library Inc., New York, 1984
24. W. Thiemann, ed., International Symposium on Generation & Amplification of Asymmetry in Chemical Systems, Jülich, Germany, pp. 32–33, 1973; cited in: A.E. Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, Master Books, CA, 1981.
25. G.F. Joyce, G.M. Visser, C.A.A. van Boeckel, J.H. van Boom, L.E. Orgel, and J. van Westrenen, Chiral selection in poly(C)-directed synthesis of oligo(G), Nature 310:602–4, 1984.
26. J. Cohen, Getting all turned around over the origins of life on earth, Science 267:1265–1266, 1995.
27. T. Lindahl, Instability and decay of the primary structure of DNA, Nature 362(6422):709–715, 1993.
28. R. Matthews, Wacky Water, New Scientist 154(2087):40–43, June 21, 1997.
Dr. Sarfati is a research scientist for Answers in Genesis in Australia. He holds a B.S. (Hons) in chemistry and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Dr. Sarfati is a former New Zealand Chess Champion and represented New Zealand at the World Junior Championships and in three chess olympiads.
The Conservative Voice - News
Jonathan D. Sarfati, physical chemistry
The Conservative Voice
Science and bias
Many people have the false belief that “science” has proven the earth to be billions of years old, and that every living thing descended from a single cell which itself is the result of chance combination of chemicals. However, science deals with repeatable observations in the present, while evolution/long age ideas are based on assumptions from outside science about the unobservable past. Facts do not speak for themselves—they must be interpreted according to a framework. It is not a case of religion/creation/subjectivity vs. science/evolution/objectivity. Rather, it is the biases of the religions of Christianity and of humanism interpreting the same facts in diametrically opposite ways.
The framework behind the evolutionists’ interpretation is naturalism—things made themselves; no divine intervention has happened; and God, if He even exists, has not revealed to us knowledge about the past. This is precisely what the chief apostle Peter prophesied about the “scoffers” in “the last days”—they claim “everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). Peter reveals the huge flaw of the uniformitarian scoffers: they are “willingly ignorant” of special creation by God, and of a cataclysmic globe-covering (and fossil-forming) flood.
The thinking inherent in the evolutionary mindset is illustrated by the following statement by Richard Lewontin, a geneticist and leading evolution promoter (and self-proclaimed Marxist). It illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation—regardless of whether or not the facts support it.
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.1
Lewontin is typical of many evolutionary propagandists. Another good example is the National Academy of Science (NAS) in the USA, which recently produced a guidebook for U.S. public school teachers, Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science.2 A recent survey published in the leading science journal Nature conclusively showed that the National Academy of Science is anti-God to the core.3 A survey of all 517 NAS members in biological and physical sciences resulted in just over half responding. 72.2% were overtly atheistic, 20.8% agnostic, and only 7.0% believed in a personal God. Belief in God and immortality was lowest among biologists. It is likely that those who didn’t respond were unbelievers as well, so the study probably underestimates the level of anti-God belief in the NAS. The unbelief is far higher than the percentage among scientists in general, or in the whole U.S. population.
Commenting on the self-professed religious neutrality of Teaching about Evolution … and the NAS, the surveyors comment:
NAS President Bruce Alberts said: “There are very many outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists.” Our research suggests otherwise.
This atheistic bias is ironic, because the whole basis for modern science depends on the assumption that the universe was made by a rational Creator. Dr. Stanley Jaki has documented how the scientific method was stillborn in all cultures apart from the Judeo-Christian culture of Europe.4 An orderly universe makes perfect sense if it was made by an orderly Creator. But if there is no Creator, or if Zeus and his gang were in charge, why should there be any order at all? No wonder that most branches of modern science were founded by believers in creation. The list of creationist scientists is impressive.5
C.S. Lewis also pointed out that even our ability to reason would be called into question if atheistic evolution were true:
If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our thought processes are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the materialists’ and astronomers’ as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give a correct account of all the other accidents.6
Does the Bible really teach six days?
The Bible claims to be the written Word of God, completely authoritative on everything it teaches (2 Tim. 3:15–17). There is excellent supporting evidence from archaeology, science, fulfilled prophecy and the claims of Jesus Christ.7 So it is vitally important to believe what the Bible teaches.
Even a small child can see that Genesis 1 is teaching creation in six days. Far from being a “naïve literalistic view”, James Barr, then Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University, wrote:
… probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:
*
creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
*
the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
*
Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.8
Barr, a liberal, does not believe it, but he understood what the Hebrew so clearly taught.
This can be shown by analysing the Hebrew word for day: yom. When it is modified by a numeral or ordinal in historical narrative (359 times in the OT outside Gen. 1), it always means a literal day of about 24 hours. When modified by “evening and/or morning”, (38 times outside Gen. 1), it always means a literal day. There were plenty of words that God could have used if He had wanted to teach long periods of time, yet He did not use them.9,10
If we follow the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture, we could come only to one conclusion: six literal days. This is supported by the Fourth Commandment of Ex. 20:8–11—“Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work … For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.” Here, the literal days of the ordinary week are the same as those of Creation Week, or it makes no sense.
It was only the assumed need to harmonise Genesis with the alleged age of the earth which led people to deny six-day creation—it was nothing to do with the text itself.
Some dire consequences of doubting six-day creation
1. The perspicuity of Scripture is doubted.
The Protestant Reformation recovered the doctrine that Scripture was perspicuous, that is, understandable by ordinary people without needing an elite group to interpret it. However, if six days should really be interpreted to mean 15 billion years, then any attempt to understand Scripture is hopeless. Evil could be interpreted as good. It’s no accident that many denominations permeated by theistic evolution have condoned fornication, homosexual practice and abortion, even among leaders.
2. Denial of sin-death causality.
The biggest problem of nonliteral interpretations of Genesis is that there then would have been billions of years of death, struggle and suffering before man’s Fall. But Scripture teaches that death is the result of Adam’s Fall (Rom. 5:12), and 1 Cor. 15:21–22 states
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (NIV)
Death is also called the “last enemy” (v. 26). It is insufficient to claim that this refers only to human death, because Gen. 3:17–19 states that the whole earth was cursed. It is also wrong to claim that Adam’s punishment was spiritual death only—Gen. 3:19 indicates that physical death was part of the punishment, and the context of 1 Cor. 15:21 involves a bodily resurrection of Jesus who was physically dead.
All (mis-)interpretations of Genesis which deny its plain meaning, and so involve death before sin, must assert that “the last enemy”, death, was a part of the “very good” creation (Gen. 1:31). This includes ideas like “God used evolution”, “the days were long ages”, “there is a long time gap between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2”. Also, if all the creation that “was subjected to frustration” is eventually to be restored (Rom. 8:20–22), we must ask: “Restored to what? Billions of years of death and suffering?” Verses like the following hardly teach that the restored paradise will have bloodshed in the animal kingdom—Isaiah 65:25 (NIV):
“The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.
This is supported by the fact that Gen. 1:29–30 teaches that animals were vegetarian, and that meat-eating, at least for people, was permitted only after the Flood in Gen. 9:3.
3. Christ Himself is doubted.
Jesus said in John 5:46–47: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” Of course, if Jesus can make mistakes in testable areas, why should He be trusted in untestable areas (cf. John 3:12)? No wonder that doubt of Genesis often leads to doubt of Christ’s other words.
Indeed, Christ endorsed the Genesis records of creation (Matt. 19:3–6), and of Noah’s Flood and Ark (Luke 17:26–27). He also said “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). As man was made six days after creation, a true time line of the world would indeed have man right at the beginning, which the Bible indicates was about 6,000 years ago. But evolution/long age ideas have man’s existence in a microscopic segment at the end of a 5-billion-year timeline, almost an afterthought.
Jesus also cited Abraham with approval in Luke 16:31: “If they do not listen to Moses [the writer/compiler of Genesis] and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Indeed, denominations that doubt Moses by teaching theistic evolution often have leaders who doubt the Resurrection too.
Many Christians fortunately don’t carry doubt of Genesis to the logical conclusion of doubting Christ, who endorsed Genesis. But a professing evangelical leader of a prominent theistic evolutionary group here in Australia has told several people that Jesus was limited by His 1st century Jewish culture, and we now know better because we “have the light of science”.
The charge is absurd. Jesus frequently challenged the errors of His culture! But He never challenged the authority of Scripture; rather, He invoked biblical passages as authoritative refutations of his opponents’ errors (Matt. 4:1–11, 19:3–6, 22:23–33, John 10:31–38).
Also, where do we stop? Should we dismiss “love your neighbour as yourself” (Matt. 19:19) as another example of Christ’s limitation by His culture—this was a quote from Lev. 19:18. Was Christ’s promise that He would “give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28) also wrong, since this was based on the “suffering servant” prophecy in Isaiah 53? Gen. 3:15 foretold that Christ, the seed of the woman [virgin-born], would crush the serpent’s head—so is this also in doubt? This is complete apostasy—this theistic evolutionary leader is challenging the very deity of Christ!
Scientific evidence for design
Rom. 1:20 says: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
Upon seeing the wonderful works of design in this world, the intellectually honest person must conclude that they were made by a great Designer. This is so, even though we live in a sin-cursed world (Gen. 3:16–19, Rom. 8:20–23), where many designs are no longer benevolent and others have deteriorated because of mutations. But even a fallen design is still a design.
And there are plenty of structures that apparently still retain much if not all of their physical perfection. A few of them:
*
The dolphin’s sonar system is so precise that it’s the envy of the U.S. Navy. It can detect a fish the size of a golf ball 70 m (230 feet) away. It took an expert in chaos theory to show that the dolphin’s “click” pattern is mathematically designed to give the best information.11
*
This sonar system includes the “melon”, a sound lens—a sophisticated structure designed to focus the emitted sound waves into a beam which the dolphin can direct where it likes. This sound lens depends on the fact that different lipids (fatty compounds) bend the ultrasonic sound waves travelling through them in different ways. The different lipids have to be arranged in the right shape and sequence in order to focus the returning sound echoes. Each separate lipid is unique and different from normal blubber lipids, and is made by a complicated chemical process, requiring a number of different enzymes.12
*
Insect flight requires complicated movements to generate the patterns of vortices needed for lift. It took a sophisticated robot to simulate the motion.13
*
Even the simplest self-reproducing organism contains encyclopedic quantities of complex, specific information. Mycoplasma genitalium has the smallest known genome of any free-living organism, containing 482 genes comprising 580,000 base pairs.14 As for humans, the atheistic evolutionist Richard Dawkins admits: “there is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopædia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.”15
*
Even more amazingly, living things have by far the most compact information storage/retrieval system known. To illustrate further, the amount of information that could be stored in a pinhead’s volume of DNA is staggering. It is the equivalent information content of a pile of paperback books 500 times as tall as the distance from earth to the moon, each with a different, yet specific content.16
*
The genetic information cannot be translated except with many different enzymes, which are themselves encoded. So the code cannot be translated except via products of translation, a vicious circle that ties evolutionary origin-of-life theories in knots. These include double-sieve enzymes to make sure the right amino acid is linked to the right tRNA molecule. One sieve rejects amino acids too large, while the other rejects those too small.17
*
The genetic code that is almost universal to life on earth is about the best possible, for protecting against errors.18
*
The genetic code also has vital editing machinery that is itself encoded in the DNA. This shows that the system was fully functional from the beginning—another vicious circle for evolutionists.
*
Yet another vicious circle, and there are many more, is that the enzymes that make the amino acid histidine themselves contain histidine.
*
There are complex rotary motors in living organisms. One type drives the flagellum of a bacterium. The vital enzyme that makes ATP, the “energy currency” of life, is a motor that can change gears, yet is so tiny that 1017 could fit inside a pinhead’s volume.19
*
The complex compound eyes of some types of trilobites, extinct and supposedly “primitive” invertebrates, were amazingly designed. They comprised tubes that each pointed in a different direction, and had special lenses that focused light from any distance. The required lens design comprised a layer of calcite on top of a layer of chitin—materials with precisely the right refractive indices—and a wavy boundary between them of a precise mathematical shape.20 The Designer of these eyes is a Master Physicist, who applied what we now know as the physical laws of Fermat’s principle of least time, Snell’s law of refraction, Abbé’s sine law and birefringent optics.
*
Lobster eyes are unique in being modelled on a perfect square with precise geometrical relationships of the units. NASA X-ray telescopes copied this design.21
*
From my own specialist field of vibrational spectroscopy: there is good evidence that our chemical-detecting sense (smell) works on the same quantum mechanical principles.22
Chemical evolutionary theories vs. the facts of chemistry
Evolutionists believe that all life came from a chemical soup. However, while studying for my chemistry degree, I came across many well-known chemical laws that refute such “chemical evolution” theories.23 This is a good example of how a proper understanding of the correct biblical framework results in correct conclusions from the evidence. For example:
*
Life requires many polymers, large molecules built from many simple monomers. Polymerisation requires bifunctional monomers (i.e., they combine with two others), and is stopped by a small fraction of unifunctional monomers (that can combine with only one other, thus blocking one end of the growing chain). All “prebiotic simulation” experiments produce five times more unifunctional molecules than bifunctional molecules.
*
Many of life’s chemicals come in two forms, “left-handed” and “right-handed”. Life requires polymers with all building blocks having the same “handedness” (homochirality)—proteins have only “left-handed” amino acids, while DNA and RNA have only “right-handed” sugars. Living things have special molecular machinery to produce homochirality. But ordinary undirected chemistry, as in the hypothetical primordial soup, would produce equal mixtures of left and right-handed molecules, called racemates. Racemic polypeptides could not form the specific shapes required for enzymes; rather, they would have the side chains sticking out all over the place. Also, a wrong-handed amino acid disrupts the stabilizing Éø-helix in proteins. DNA could not be stabilised in a helix if even a small proportion of the wrong-handed form was present, so it could not form long chains. This means it could not store much information, so it could not support life.24 A small fraction of wrong-handed molecules terminates RNA replication.25 A recent world conference on “The Origin of Homochirality and Life” made it clear that the origin of this handedness is a complete mystery to evolutionists.26
*
The chemistry goes in the wrong direction! Polymerization reactions release water, so by the well-known law of mass action, excess water breaks up polymers. The long ages postulated by evolutionists simply make the problem worse, because there is more time for water’s destructive effects to occur. While living cells have many ingenious repair mechanisms, DNA cannot last very long in water outside a cell.27 Condensing agents (water absorbing chemicals) require acidic conditions and they could not accumulate in water. Heating to evaporate water tends to destroy some vital amino acids, racemize all the chiral amino acids, and requires geologically unrealistic conditions. Besides, heating amino acids with other gunk inevitably present in the hypothetical primordial soup would destroy them. A recent article in New Scientist also described the instability of polymers in water as a “headache” for researchers working on evolutionary ideas on the origin of life.28 It also showed its materialistic bias by saying this was not “good news”. But the real bad news is the faith in evolution (everything made itself), which overrides objective science.
*
Many of the important biochemicals would destroy each other. Living organisms are well structured to avoid this, but the “primordial soup” would not be. Sometimes these wrong reactions occur after a cell is damaged, for example, the browning of foodstuffs. This is often caused by a reaction between sugars and amino acids. Yet evolution requires these chemicals to form proteins and nucleic acids respectively, rather than destroy each other as per real chemistry.
*
Fatty acids are necessary for cell membranes, and phosphate is necessary for DNA, RNA, ATP and many other important vital molecules of life. But abundant calcium ions in the ocean would precipitate fatty acids and phosphate, making them unavailable for chemical evolution. Remember this next time you have problems washing with soap in “hard water”.
Conclusion
We should believe in a recent creation in six consecutive normal days because the only Eyewitness tells us this is what He did, and He has shown that He should be trusted. While this requires faith, it is a faith amply supported by science, as I can confirm from my own specialist field.
References and notes
1. Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, January 9, 1997.
2. See Against Indoctrination.
3. E.J. Larson and L. Witham, Leading scientists still reject God, Nature 394(6691):313, July 23, 1998. The sole criterion for being classified as a “leading” or “greater” scientist was membership of the NAS.
4. S. Jaki, Science and Creation, Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh and London, 1974.
5. A. Lamont, 21 Great Scientists who Believed the Bible, Creation Science Foundation, Australia, pp. 120–131, 1995; H.M. Morris, Men of Science, Men of God, Master Books, San Diego, CA, USA, 1982.
6. C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, pp. 52–53, 1970.
7.
Some useful information can be found in the following works, among others:
* H.M. Morris with H.M. Morris III, Many Infallible Proofs, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, USA, 1996.
* G.L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, USA ,1982.
* G.H. Clark, God’s Hammer: The Bible and its Critics, The Trinity Foundation, Jefferson, MD, USA, 2nd ed., 1987.
* P. Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology, Moody Press, Chicago, 1989, Ch. 18.
* N.L. Geisler and R.M. Brooks, When Skeptics Ask, Victor Books, Wheaton, IL, USA, 1990.
* N.L. Geisler and T. R. Howe, When Critics Ask, Victor Books, Wheaton, IL, USA, 1992.
* N.L. Geisler and William E. Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, Moody, Chicago, 1986.
* H. Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 1976.
* J. McDowell, Evidence that Demand a Verdict, Here’s Life Publishers, San Bernardino, CA, USA, 1979.
* John W. Wenham, Christ and the Bible, Eagle, Guildford, Surrey, UK, 3rd ed., 1993.
8. J. Barr, letter to David C.C. Watson, 1984.
9. R. Grigg, How long were the days in Genesis 1? What did God intend us to understand from the words He used? Creation 19(1):23–25, December 1996–February 1997.
10. J. Stambaugh, The days of creation: a semantic approach, TJ 5(1):70–76, 1991.
11. R. Howlett, Flipper’s secret, New Scientist 154(2088):34–39, June 28, 1997.
12. U. Varanasi, H.R. Feldman and D.C. Malins, Molecular basis for formation of lipid sound lens in echolocating cetaceans, Nature 255(5506):340–343, May 22, 1975.
13. M. Brookes, On a wing and a vortex, New Scientist 156(2103):24–27, October 11, 1997.
14. C.M. Fraser et al., The minimal gene complement of Mycoplasma genitalium, Science 270(5235):397–403, October 20, 1995; perspective by A. Goffeau, Life With 482 Genes, same issue, pp. 445–6.
15. R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design, WW Norton & Company, New York, 1986.
16. W. Gitt, See Dazzling design in miniature, Creation 20(1):6, December 1997–February 1998.
17. Osamu Nureki et al., Enzyme structure with two catalytic sites for double-sieve selection of substrate, Science 280(5363):578–82, April 24, 1998; perspective by A.R. Fersht, Sieves in sequence, same issue, p. 541.
18. J. Knight, Top translator, New Scientist 158(2130):15, April 18, 1998.
19. H. Noji et al., Direct observation of the rotation of F1-ATPase, Nature 386(6622):28–33, March 20, 1997; perspective in the same issue by S. Block, Real engines of creation, pp. 217–9. J.D. Sarfati, Design in Living Organisms: Motors, TJ 12(1):3–5, 1998.
20. K. Towe, Trilobite eyes: calcified lenses, Science 179:1007–11, March 9, 1973.
21. M. Chown, X-ray lens brings finer chips into focus, New Scientist 151(2037):18, July 6, 1996.
22. L. Turin, A spectroscopic mechanism for primary olfactory reception, Chemical Senses 21:773, 1996; cited in S. Hill, Sniff’n’shake, New Scientist 157(2115):34–37, January 3, 1998. See also J.D. Sarfati, Olfactory design: smell and spectroscopy, TJ 12(2):137–8, 1998.
23. See also C.B. Thaxton, W.L. Bradley and R.L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Philosophical Library Inc., New York, 1984
24. W. Thiemann, ed., International Symposium on Generation & Amplification of Asymmetry in Chemical Systems, Jülich, Germany, pp. 32–33, 1973; cited in: A.E. Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, Master Books, CA, 1981.
25. G.F. Joyce, G.M. Visser, C.A.A. van Boeckel, J.H. van Boom, L.E. Orgel, and J. van Westrenen, Chiral selection in poly(C)-directed synthesis of oligo(G), Nature 310:602–4, 1984.
26. J. Cohen, Getting all turned around over the origins of life on earth, Science 267:1265–1266, 1995.
27. T. Lindahl, Instability and decay of the primary structure of DNA, Nature 362(6422):709–715, 1993.
28. R. Matthews, Wacky Water, New Scientist 154(2087):40–43, June 21, 1997.
Dr. Sarfati is a research scientist for Answers in Genesis in Australia. He holds a B.S. (Hons) in chemistry and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Dr. Sarfati is a former New Zealand Chess Champion and represented New Zealand at the World Junior Championships and in three chess olympiads.
The Conservative Voice - News
The NEA and Islam
Why we Must take back our schools from the left - The NEA and islam:
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/926/CWA/education/
http://yconservatives.com/Zeiger-64.html
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/8/20/130642.shtml
http://www.dondodd.com/april/091602.html
http://www.cblpolicyinstitute.org/sept11ann.htm
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/000310.php
http://www.blessedcause.org/Righteous%20Out/NEA%20betrayal.htm
http://www.freedom21santacruz.net/issues/Family-autonomy/9-11/news-commentary.html
http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/18589
Teachers fighting back against NEA over islam:
http://www.newbusinessnews.com/story/08190201.html
Dhimmi Watch: College dean stirs Islam controversy
http://www.cwfa.org/articles/926/CWA/education/
http://yconservatives.com/Zeiger-64.html
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/8/20/130642.shtml
http://www.dondodd.com/april/091602.html
http://www.cblpolicyinstitute.org/sept11ann.htm
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/000310.php
http://www.blessedcause.org/Righteous%20Out/NEA%20betrayal.htm
http://www.freedom21santacruz.net/issues/Family-autonomy/9-11/news-commentary.html
http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/18589
Teachers fighting back against NEA over islam:
http://www.newbusinessnews.com/story/08190201.html
Dhimmi Watch: College dean stirs Islam controversy
Mom Wants Pro-Homosexual Poster Out of Elementary School
By Jim Brown
January 28, 2005
AgapePress
A Christian mom is expressing shock and outrage over the promotion of homosexuality taking place at her children's elementary school in northeastern Arizona.
At issue is a wall poster at Washington Elementary School in Winslow that includes information about the school's female art teacher and features a rainbow flag symbolizing homosexual pride.
News from Agape Press
January 28, 2005
AgapePress
A Christian mom is expressing shock and outrage over the promotion of homosexuality taking place at her children's elementary school in northeastern Arizona.
At issue is a wall poster at Washington Elementary School in Winslow that includes information about the school's female art teacher and features a rainbow flag symbolizing homosexual pride.
News from Agape Press
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Can Science and religion get along?
Jan 27th, 2005
By Sean Pitman
Having studied both science and religion for much of my life, I agree that it is possible for science and religion to agree since they both can be the same thing. Yes, one's religion can be scientific and one's science can be one's religion.
Certainly there are those whose religion is not at all scientific, but the reverse is not true.
Science, or more specifically, the scientific method, is a rather simple and straightforward way of separating truth from error in one's thinking. It is a way of testing and refining one's beliefs. However, contrary to what many might think, science never reveals absolute truth about anything. Science only increases the predictive value of a hypothesis, but no hypothesis is ever fully proven by the scientific method. Therefore, whenever one holds a particular hypothesis to be true, there remains a degree of faith to that belief. In this sense then, science is a type of religion.
This statement is itself scientifically supported when one looks back through history and notes that some of the most cherished scientific ideas of the age have been completely disproved with subsequent discoveries. Even professionally trained scientists are human and subject to error in understanding and interpretation.
The same can be true of religion. Those who claim that religion is separate from science basically remove their notions of certain types of truth from the realm of general usefulness. Certainly there are types of truth that exist beyond the realm of scientific investigation that can still be known to be "true" in a very objective way. For example, one's internal thoughts and feelings can be known absolutely without any need for testing or scientific method. If someone likes vanilla ice cream, this is an absolute objective fact that need not be tested. But, how is this internally derived truth helpful to anyone else?
For one's internal notions of the truth of anything to be helpful to someone else, those notions must exist outside of one's own mind and be testable in a falsifiable manner. In those areas where religion makes statements about the external world that exists in common around each one of us, religion steps into the realm of science and must therefore become scientific if it is to be helpful.
The Christian religion, for example, does just this very thing.
Based on various biblical interpretations, Christians believe many things about the workings of the external world that are actually testable in a falsifiable manner. For example, many Christians, to include myself, actually believe in a worldwide flood that was responsible for building much of the geologic column that exists today in a very short period of time.
Many of us also believe that certain other concepts held dear by popular scientists, such as Darwinian-style evolution, are completely opposed to the statements of physical reality detailed in the Bible.
These beliefs are actually subject to falsification and as such many believe that there is overwhelming evidence that certain Biblical interpretations have indeed been falsified by modern science.
So, new interpretations and amazing mental gymnastics have been employed by some in an attempt to maintain Biblical credibility, such as Winder's suggestion that the first chapters of Genesis actually describe Darwinian-style evolution. This is a very interesting conclusion coming from someone who has admittedly never read the Bible before.
For those who actually take the time to read the entire Bible, it is abundantly clear that Darwinian evolution, with its requirement for survival of the fittest over millions and even billions of years, is completely at odds with the picture of God found in the Bible. The Bible presents God as very much in tune and deeply interested in the welfare of his creation. At the end of creation week God is quoted as declaring it all "very good". On the other hand, Darwinian evolution requires long periods of very wasteful trial and error involving enormous suffering to highly intelligent sentient beings. The evil twisted nature of such a creative force is completely at odds with the creative power of a very personal an interested God described in the pages of the Bible.
Certainly evil is obviously present in this world. The biblical authors describe the whole of creation as "groaning and travailing together in pain until now." This is seen as a big problem since a need for a "new heaven and a new earth" and the passing away of the "old order of things" is clearly described. In short, the origin of evil, to include death, suffering, disease, and the survival of the fittest, is presented as a very recent and unusual phenomenon caused by rebellion against God's original plan and way of doing things that was "very good." Oh no, the Bible does not describe the processes required by Darwinian evolution as "very good", but rather as, "very bad".
The question now is, who is right?
If Darwin and the popular notions of most modern scientists are correct, then the religions based on the Bible are truly out to lunch. However, if the very clear and falsifiable statements of the Bible are correct, then it is the mainstream scientists who are out to lunch.
And, it would not be the first time.
The writer is Chief Resident in the Department of Pathology at Loma Linda University Medical Center (Loma Linda, California)
For more information, please review my Web site at
www.naturalselection.0catch.com
UWO Opinions
By Sean Pitman
Having studied both science and religion for much of my life, I agree that it is possible for science and religion to agree since they both can be the same thing. Yes, one's religion can be scientific and one's science can be one's religion.
Certainly there are those whose religion is not at all scientific, but the reverse is not true.
Science, or more specifically, the scientific method, is a rather simple and straightforward way of separating truth from error in one's thinking. It is a way of testing and refining one's beliefs. However, contrary to what many might think, science never reveals absolute truth about anything. Science only increases the predictive value of a hypothesis, but no hypothesis is ever fully proven by the scientific method. Therefore, whenever one holds a particular hypothesis to be true, there remains a degree of faith to that belief. In this sense then, science is a type of religion.
This statement is itself scientifically supported when one looks back through history and notes that some of the most cherished scientific ideas of the age have been completely disproved with subsequent discoveries. Even professionally trained scientists are human and subject to error in understanding and interpretation.
The same can be true of religion. Those who claim that religion is separate from science basically remove their notions of certain types of truth from the realm of general usefulness. Certainly there are types of truth that exist beyond the realm of scientific investigation that can still be known to be "true" in a very objective way. For example, one's internal thoughts and feelings can be known absolutely without any need for testing or scientific method. If someone likes vanilla ice cream, this is an absolute objective fact that need not be tested. But, how is this internally derived truth helpful to anyone else?
For one's internal notions of the truth of anything to be helpful to someone else, those notions must exist outside of one's own mind and be testable in a falsifiable manner. In those areas where religion makes statements about the external world that exists in common around each one of us, religion steps into the realm of science and must therefore become scientific if it is to be helpful.
The Christian religion, for example, does just this very thing.
Based on various biblical interpretations, Christians believe many things about the workings of the external world that are actually testable in a falsifiable manner. For example, many Christians, to include myself, actually believe in a worldwide flood that was responsible for building much of the geologic column that exists today in a very short period of time.
Many of us also believe that certain other concepts held dear by popular scientists, such as Darwinian-style evolution, are completely opposed to the statements of physical reality detailed in the Bible.
These beliefs are actually subject to falsification and as such many believe that there is overwhelming evidence that certain Biblical interpretations have indeed been falsified by modern science.
So, new interpretations and amazing mental gymnastics have been employed by some in an attempt to maintain Biblical credibility, such as Winder's suggestion that the first chapters of Genesis actually describe Darwinian-style evolution. This is a very interesting conclusion coming from someone who has admittedly never read the Bible before.
For those who actually take the time to read the entire Bible, it is abundantly clear that Darwinian evolution, with its requirement for survival of the fittest over millions and even billions of years, is completely at odds with the picture of God found in the Bible. The Bible presents God as very much in tune and deeply interested in the welfare of his creation. At the end of creation week God is quoted as declaring it all "very good". On the other hand, Darwinian evolution requires long periods of very wasteful trial and error involving enormous suffering to highly intelligent sentient beings. The evil twisted nature of such a creative force is completely at odds with the creative power of a very personal an interested God described in the pages of the Bible.
Certainly evil is obviously present in this world. The biblical authors describe the whole of creation as "groaning and travailing together in pain until now." This is seen as a big problem since a need for a "new heaven and a new earth" and the passing away of the "old order of things" is clearly described. In short, the origin of evil, to include death, suffering, disease, and the survival of the fittest, is presented as a very recent and unusual phenomenon caused by rebellion against God's original plan and way of doing things that was "very good." Oh no, the Bible does not describe the processes required by Darwinian evolution as "very good", but rather as, "very bad".
The question now is, who is right?
If Darwin and the popular notions of most modern scientists are correct, then the religions based on the Bible are truly out to lunch. However, if the very clear and falsifiable statements of the Bible are correct, then it is the mainstream scientists who are out to lunch.
And, it would not be the first time.
The writer is Chief Resident in the Department of Pathology at Loma Linda University Medical Center (Loma Linda, California)
For more information, please review my Web site at
www.naturalselection.0catch.com
UWO Opinions
Judges should be guided only by what the Constitution actually says
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says judges should be guided only by what the Constitution actually says when it comes to deciding religious cases. In early March, the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of government displays of the Ten Commandments. Lower courts have splintered over whether such exhibits in town squares and courthouses violate 'separation of church and state' -- words that never appear in the Constitution. In a speech sponsored by the Ave Maria School of Law, Scalia said, 'The Constitution says what it says and does not say what it does not say.' Justice Scalia said it is wrong for judges to think of the Constitution as a 'living' document to be interpreted differently in changing times. [AP]
News from Agape Press
News from Agape Press
'JOHN316' License Plate Deep-Sixed by State Agency
By Allie Martin
January 27, 2005
AgapePress
A Vermont man has sued that state's Department of Motor Vehicles after his application to have a personalized license plate with a Christian message was rejected.
Last April, Shawn Byrne submitted an application for a personalized plate inscribed with 'JOHN316.' In May, he received a letter from the DMV informing him that the inscription was 'deemed to be a combination that refers to deity and has been denied based on that reason.' On appeal, an administrative law judge upheld the DMV's position because the statute governing the license plate program prohibits combinations that refer to 'deity,' among other things.
News from Agape Press
January 27, 2005
AgapePress
A Vermont man has sued that state's Department of Motor Vehicles after his application to have a personalized license plate with a Christian message was rejected.
Last April, Shawn Byrne submitted an application for a personalized plate inscribed with 'JOHN316.' In May, he received a letter from the DMV informing him that the inscription was 'deemed to be a combination that refers to deity and has been denied based on that reason.' On appeal, an administrative law judge upheld the DMV's position because the statute governing the license plate program prohibits combinations that refer to 'deity,' among other things.
News from Agape Press
Scalia Encourages the Foolish Church
Scalia Encourages the Foolish Church
And If You Stay Active, You Will Need the Comfort He Brings
By Matt Friedeman, PhD
January 27, 2005
AgapePress
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave a humdinger of an indispensable speech for people of faith who are wondering when they are ever going to catch a break from their culture.
Summary: bad treatment to be expected. Get used to it.
Addressing the Knights of Columbus Council 969 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Scalia said that belief in biblical Christianity is, well, foolish. "For the son of God to be born of a virgin? I mean, really. To believe that He rose from the dead and bodily ascended into heaven? How utterly ridiculous. To believe in miracles? Or that those who obey God will rise from the dead and those who do not will burn in hell?
"God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools ... and he has not been disappointed ...."
Scalia makes an important point, of course. Basic Christian orthodoxy is outrageously beyond the understanding of a this-world rationality. Born of a virgin, resurrection, supernaturality, a next-world judgment.
Preposterous ... idiocy ... comforting only to the shallow-minded. These are the thoughts of so many of the intellectual elite. One wonders: if this impossible faith were merely a conglomeration of implausible doctrinal assertions, might not people consider believers foolish but only in a quaint, innocuous manner?
But there seems to be today a vehemence, an ugly mean-spiritedness of the mockers when they speak of Christians and their biblical affirmations -- how to explain that?
It is not the unpalatable doctrine that has the non-believers shouting invectives through their proverbial foaming mouths. No, it is unpalatable doctrine applied. Christians, you see, believe that the teachings of scripture belong not merely in the church and around dinner tables, but in the marketplace and the state capitols and in the media and even in the Oval Office.
That is what unnerves so many of the academicians, the irreligious power brokers, the old media and the Democratic Party post-election. These people, these Bible-thumpers, actually think that their ethical beliefs ought to be adopted by ... everyone.
Gasp.
Scalia told the faithful in Baton Rouge to "have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world."
Yes, but know this -- the most passionate contempt will be reserved for those who, when the darkness seems to be winning, shine the light of God's glory and illuminate the gloomiest situations. Be prepared, at that very point of redemption, for the onslaught of the scorn of which Scalia speaks.
And bask in it.
News from Agape Press
And If You Stay Active, You Will Need the Comfort He Brings
By Matt Friedeman, PhD
January 27, 2005
AgapePress
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave a humdinger of an indispensable speech for people of faith who are wondering when they are ever going to catch a break from their culture.
Summary: bad treatment to be expected. Get used to it.
Addressing the Knights of Columbus Council 969 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Scalia said that belief in biblical Christianity is, well, foolish. "For the son of God to be born of a virgin? I mean, really. To believe that He rose from the dead and bodily ascended into heaven? How utterly ridiculous. To believe in miracles? Or that those who obey God will rise from the dead and those who do not will burn in hell?
"God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools ... and he has not been disappointed ...."
Scalia makes an important point, of course. Basic Christian orthodoxy is outrageously beyond the understanding of a this-world rationality. Born of a virgin, resurrection, supernaturality, a next-world judgment.
Preposterous ... idiocy ... comforting only to the shallow-minded. These are the thoughts of so many of the intellectual elite. One wonders: if this impossible faith were merely a conglomeration of implausible doctrinal assertions, might not people consider believers foolish but only in a quaint, innocuous manner?
But there seems to be today a vehemence, an ugly mean-spiritedness of the mockers when they speak of Christians and their biblical affirmations -- how to explain that?
It is not the unpalatable doctrine that has the non-believers shouting invectives through their proverbial foaming mouths. No, it is unpalatable doctrine applied. Christians, you see, believe that the teachings of scripture belong not merely in the church and around dinner tables, but in the marketplace and the state capitols and in the media and even in the Oval Office.
That is what unnerves so many of the academicians, the irreligious power brokers, the old media and the Democratic Party post-election. These people, these Bible-thumpers, actually think that their ethical beliefs ought to be adopted by ... everyone.
Gasp.
Scalia told the faithful in Baton Rouge to "have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world."
Yes, but know this -- the most passionate contempt will be reserved for those who, when the darkness seems to be winning, shine the light of God's glory and illuminate the gloomiest situations. Be prepared, at that very point of redemption, for the onslaught of the scorn of which Scalia speaks.
And bask in it.
News from Agape Press
New Studies Say Teens May Be Hardwired for Religion
Christianity Has the Truth About Community -- But Are We Living Up to the Biblical Model in the Lives of Our Children?
Feature by Ed Vitagliano
January 27, 2005
(AgapePress)
What if we could find something that would make teenagers less likely to become involved in crime, drug and alcohol abuse, and premarital sex? And at the same time, what if this little miracle 'something' would turn adolescents into safer drivers, make them more likely to participate in extracurricular activities like sports or student government, and give them a higher sense of self-esteem?
Sound too good to be true? It's not. Religion is the key -- more specifically, the religious communities that are able to transmit the beliefs, values and morals that help give young people a sense of the transcendent, an ordered universe and their own place in it.
News from Agape Press
Feature by Ed Vitagliano
January 27, 2005
(AgapePress)
What if we could find something that would make teenagers less likely to become involved in crime, drug and alcohol abuse, and premarital sex? And at the same time, what if this little miracle 'something' would turn adolescents into safer drivers, make them more likely to participate in extracurricular activities like sports or student government, and give them a higher sense of self-esteem?
Sound too good to be true? It's not. Religion is the key -- more specifically, the religious communities that are able to transmit the beliefs, values and morals that help give young people a sense of the transcendent, an ordered universe and their own place in it.
News from Agape Press
Dawa in Public Schools
Public schools are an ideal arena for Dawa.
With an open-minded mindset that is prevalent among students and most teachers, as well as the fact that the next generation's attitudes towards various ideas and concepts are developed in school, Dawa in public schools is a necessity.
We should use every opportunity possible to sensitize non-Muslim peers and school staff to Islam.
DawaNet: Dawa in Public Schools
With an open-minded mindset that is prevalent among students and most teachers, as well as the fact that the next generation's attitudes towards various ideas and concepts are developed in school, Dawa in public schools is a necessity.
We should use every opportunity possible to sensitize non-Muslim peers and school staff to Islam.
DawaNet: Dawa in Public Schools
History ReWrite
January 27, 2005
Egyptian Newspaper: UN Marks the 'So-Called Holocaust'
Rewrite a nation's history and you can control its future.
(IsraelNN.com)
An Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram Al-Messa'i, commented today on what it called Israel's 'investment' in 'the so-called holocaust' and the United Nations session commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The newspaper complained that, in hosting the memorial session, 'the UN adopted the Israeli standpoint, paying no heed to the sufferings of the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation.'
Dhimmi Watch: Egyptian Newspaper: UN Marks the "So-Called Holocaust"
Egyptian Newspaper: UN Marks the 'So-Called Holocaust'
Rewrite a nation's history and you can control its future.
(IsraelNN.com)
An Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram Al-Messa'i, commented today on what it called Israel's 'investment' in 'the so-called holocaust' and the United Nations session commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The newspaper complained that, in hosting the memorial session, 'the UN adopted the Israeli standpoint, paying no heed to the sufferings of the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation.'
Dhimmi Watch: Egyptian Newspaper: UN Marks the "So-Called Holocaust"
Hajj pilgrim returns from Mecca, slits daughter's throat
January 27, 2005
Hajj pilgrim returns from Mecca, slits daughter's throat
One would think, if all the 'This is Not Islam' talk is to be believed, that somewhere along this man's pilgrimage to Mecca or in his work at the Islamic Affairs Ministry he might have picked up the idea that he shouldn't do this sort of thing. But Islam's fundamental ideal is purity: anything that sullies that purity must be destroyed.
A Kuwaiti man has reportedly confessed to killing his 14-year-old daughter because he believed she was having sex.
Adnan Enezi - an employee in the Islamic Affairs ministry - had just returned from the pilgrimage to Mecca.
He allegedly bound and blindfolded his daughter, Haifa, knelt her down in front of her two brothers and sister and then cut her throat.
Forensic tests showed Haifa was still a virgin, police sources said. Mr Enezi is being questioned about the case.
Thousands of women are killed by relatives each year in the Middle East and Asia in so-called honour crimes - usually over suspected adultery, pre-marital sex or after having being raped, or marrying without family consent....
The daily said that after cutting Haifa's throat the first time, he swapped the knife for one with a sharper blade as she bled and screamed in front of her siblings.
Dhimmi Watch: Hajj pilgrim returns from Mecca, slits daughter's throat
Hajj pilgrim returns from Mecca, slits daughter's throat
One would think, if all the 'This is Not Islam' talk is to be believed, that somewhere along this man's pilgrimage to Mecca or in his work at the Islamic Affairs Ministry he might have picked up the idea that he shouldn't do this sort of thing. But Islam's fundamental ideal is purity: anything that sullies that purity must be destroyed.
A Kuwaiti man has reportedly confessed to killing his 14-year-old daughter because he believed she was having sex.
Adnan Enezi - an employee in the Islamic Affairs ministry - had just returned from the pilgrimage to Mecca.
He allegedly bound and blindfolded his daughter, Haifa, knelt her down in front of her two brothers and sister and then cut her throat.
Forensic tests showed Haifa was still a virgin, police sources said. Mr Enezi is being questioned about the case.
Thousands of women are killed by relatives each year in the Middle East and Asia in so-called honour crimes - usually over suspected adultery, pre-marital sex or after having being raped, or marrying without family consent....
The daily said that after cutting Haifa's throat the first time, he swapped the knife for one with a sharper blade as she bled and screamed in front of her siblings.
Dhimmi Watch: Hajj pilgrim returns from Mecca, slits daughter's throat
"Jihadists" living in Oregon, FBI says
January 26, 2005
Sneer quotes in the original AP headline. (Thanks to Kemaste for the link.) Anyway, so much for the idea that there are no more secret cells in the U.S. (Of course, it may be that the spokesman in that story was using 'Al-Qaeda' in a restricted sense, contrary to the common tendency to use it in a very broad way.)
PORTLAND
The FBI knows of 'jihadists' who have trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan and are now living in Oregon, the agency's Oregon chief said in an interview with The Associated Press yesterday.
'We don't have an imminent threat that we're aware of. But I will say this: We have people here in Oregon that have trained in jihadist camps in bad areas. In the bad neighborhoods of the world,' said FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Jordan.
Asked what he meant by 'bad neighborhoods,' he said Afghanistan, as well as several other countries he would not specify....
Jordan refused to say how many 'jihadists' live in Oregon.
He said the FBI knows 'they've trained overseas, taken oaths to kill Americans and engage in jihad,' but the challenge is 'to prove those things.
Jihad Watch: "Jihadists" living in Oregon, FBI says
Sneer quotes in the original AP headline. (Thanks to Kemaste for the link.) Anyway, so much for the idea that there are no more secret cells in the U.S. (Of course, it may be that the spokesman in that story was using 'Al-Qaeda' in a restricted sense, contrary to the common tendency to use it in a very broad way.)
PORTLAND
The FBI knows of 'jihadists' who have trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan and are now living in Oregon, the agency's Oregon chief said in an interview with The Associated Press yesterday.
'We don't have an imminent threat that we're aware of. But I will say this: We have people here in Oregon that have trained in jihadist camps in bad areas. In the bad neighborhoods of the world,' said FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Jordan.
Asked what he meant by 'bad neighborhoods,' he said Afghanistan, as well as several other countries he would not specify....
Jordan refused to say how many 'jihadists' live in Oregon.
He said the FBI knows 'they've trained overseas, taken oaths to kill Americans and engage in jihad,' but the challenge is 'to prove those things.
Jihad Watch: "Jihadists" living in Oregon, FBI says
Despite testimony of official abuse, UNCHR fails to censure China
Chinese Christians Testify of Persecution before UN Commission
Despite testimony of official abuse, UNCHR fails to censure China
by Xu Mei
NANJING, China
Compass
For the first time in history, Chinese Christians gave evidence of persecution in April at a special meeting called by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva. Several speakers testified to beatings, imprisonment, torture and damage to church buildings in recent years.
The United States then asked the Commission to consider censuring China for its human rights record. However, 27 of the 53 member-states, including repressive regimes such as Cuba, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia, voted with China to defeat the move.
This is the 11th year in a row that politics within the UNCHR have defeated similar resolutions against China.
Chinese Christians Testify of Persecution before UN Commission
Despite testimony of official abuse, UNCHR fails to censure China
by Xu Mei
NANJING, China
Compass
For the first time in history, Chinese Christians gave evidence of persecution in April at a special meeting called by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva. Several speakers testified to beatings, imprisonment, torture and damage to church buildings in recent years.
The United States then asked the Commission to consider censuring China for its human rights record. However, 27 of the 53 member-states, including repressive regimes such as Cuba, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia, voted with China to defeat the move.
This is the 11th year in a row that politics within the UNCHR have defeated similar resolutions against China.
Chinese Christians Testify of Persecution before UN Commission
Paris Church Will Go to Court for Right to Worship
Michael Ireland
ASSIST News Service
PARIS, FRANCE (ANS)
Representatives of the Paris Elim Church will be going to court in order to continue worshipping in their current location. Paris Elim church representatives are going to be in court on Wednesday, January 19 and Friday, January 28, 2005.
"The local government is trying to chase the church from its current place of worship. This is happening to many other Protestant churches in Paris and in many other places across France," says Pastor Jack McKee of New Life Ministries based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in an e-mail received by ASSIST New Service (ANS).
"The local authorities have had a policy for some time that is anti-Christian and they desire to see churches closed down -- they are being successful and many are being shut. In addition to pressure from local authorities is the increasing rise in Islam, which is becoming more aggressive and very anti-church and anti-Christian," McKee said."
Paris Church Will Go to Court for Right to Worship
ASSIST News Service
PARIS, FRANCE (ANS)
Representatives of the Paris Elim Church will be going to court in order to continue worshipping in their current location. Paris Elim church representatives are going to be in court on Wednesday, January 19 and Friday, January 28, 2005.
"The local government is trying to chase the church from its current place of worship. This is happening to many other Protestant churches in Paris and in many other places across France," says Pastor Jack McKee of New Life Ministries based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in an e-mail received by ASSIST New Service (ANS).
"The local authorities have had a policy for some time that is anti-Christian and they desire to see churches closed down -- they are being successful and many are being shut. In addition to pressure from local authorities is the increasing rise in Islam, which is becoming more aggressive and very anti-church and anti-Christian," McKee said."
Paris Church Will Go to Court for Right to Worship
Future of the African-American church vote
A black Christian leader says there is evidence from the recent election that more and more blacks are starting to realize that the Democratic Party does not represent their core values on a number of important issues. This past weekend, a panel of black religious conservatives held a forum to discuss the future of the African-American church vote. One of those attending was Dr. Johnny Hunter, the national director of the Life Education and Resource Network (L.E.A.R.N.), who noted that in New Jersey alone President Bush received 17 percent of the black vote in 2004. That compares to just eight percent four years earlier. Hunter says black pastors are waking up. "It's only been recently that many of the African-American leaders, especially in the pulpit, have begun to recognize [and say] 'Wait a minute! We've been voting for some people here on the opposite side [who] don't agree with us on some of the top moral issues of this nation,'" he states. Hunter says many blacks are beginning to recognize the horrible toll abortion has had on the black community. "They realize how many blacks are being killed each day by the abortion industry alone -- 1,452 a day," he points out. "They are waking up to that [and it] has rubbed them the wrong way." According to the L.E.A.R.N. leader, most blacks are also concerned about the Democrats' support of same-sex marriage and their opposition to Social Security reform. [Chad Groening]
Discovery Institute explains intelligent design
Published January 27, 2005
SEATTLE (BP)--The theory of intelligent design is in the news right now, but some of the purportedly factual descriptions of the theory being offered by reporters are highly inaccurate. Part of the reason for this is that some reporters are citing as fact partisan descriptions of design theory offered by anti-design groups such as the ACLU.
When reporting on the debate between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design theory, it is important for reporters to allow the scientific proponents of design to describe their own theory, not to put words in their mouths. Just as good reporters would not rely on the Republican Party to provide an objective description of the platform of the Democratic Party, reporters describing the content of design theory should not rely on design’s critics to provide a factual definition of a theory they oppose.
Here, as a backgrounder on intelligent design, are several questions and answers:
1. What is the theory of intelligent design?
The scientific theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Note: Intelligent design theory does NOT claim that science can determine the identity of the intelligent cause. Nor does it claim that the intelligent cause must be a “divine being” or a “higher power” or an “all-powerful force.” All it proposes is that science can identify whether certain features of the natural world are the products of intelligence.
2. Is intelligent design theory the same as creationism?
No. Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the “apparent design” in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations.
Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text.
3. Is intelligent design theory incompatible with evolution?
It depends on what one means by the word “evolution.” If one simply means “change over time,” or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory.
However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, a purposeless process that “has no specific direction or goal, including survival of a species.” In biology, it is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design theory directly challenges.
4. Is intelligent design based on the Bible?
No. The intellectual roots of intelligent design theory are varied. Plato and Aristotle both articulated early versions of design theory, as did virtually all of the founders of modern science. Indeed, most scientists until the latter part of the 19th century accepted some form of design.
The scientific community largely rejected design in the early 20th century after neo-Darwinism claimed to be able to explain the emergence of biological complexity through the unintelligent process of natural selection acting on random mutations.
However, new research and discoveries in such fields as physics, cosmology, biochemistry, genetics and paleontology have caused a growing number of scientists and science theorists to question neo-Darwinism and propose design as the best explanation for the existence of specified complexity in the natural world.
5. Are there established scholars in the scientific community who support intelligent design theory?
Yes. Intelligent design theory is supported by doctoral scientists, researchers and theorists at a number of universities, colleges and research institutes around the world. These scholars include biochemist Michael Behe at Lehigh University, microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, biologist Paul Chien at the University of San Francisco, emeritus biologist Dean Kenyon at San Francisco State University, mathematician William Dembski at Baylor University (who will join the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary next year) and quantum chemist Henry Schaefer at the University of Georgia, among others.
6. Do scientists support of design publish peer-reviewed articles and research?
Yes. Although open hostility from those who hold to neo-Darwinism sometimes makes it difficult for design scholars to gain a fair hearing for their ideas, research and articles by intelligent design scholars are being published in peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Stephen Meyer has published an article supportive of design in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (a peer-reviewed biology journal published at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution). Biochemist Michael Behe has defended the idea of “irreducible complexity” in the peer-reviewed journal Philosophy of Science, as well as publishing research critical of the mechanism of neo-Darwinism in the peer-reviewed journal Protein Science. Examples of peer-reviewed books supporting design include The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press) by William Dembski and Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (Michigan State University Press).
7. Should public schools require the teaching of intelligent design?
No. Instead of mandating intelligent design, the Discovery Institute recommends that states and school districts focus on teaching students more about evolutionary theory, including telling them about some of the theory's problems that have been discussed in peer-reviewed science journals. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned.
8. Is teaching about intelligent design unconstitutional?
Although the Discovery Institute does not advocate requiring the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, it does believe there is nothing unconstitutional about discussing the scientific theory of design in the classroom. In addition, the Discovery Institute opposes efforts to persecute individual teachers who may wish to discuss the scientific debate over design in a pedagogically appropriate manner.
9. What is the Discovery Institute and the Center for Science and Culture?
The non-profit, non-partisan Discovery Institute is a policy and research organization, or secular think tank, with programs on a variety of issues, including regional transportation development, economics and technology policy, legal reform, bioethics, science and culture. The institute’s founder and president is Bruce Chapman, who has a long history in public policy at both the national and regional levels. Chapman is a former director of the United States Census Bureau and a past American ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna, Austria.
The Center for Science and Culture, on the Web at www.discovery.org/csc, has more than 40 fellows, including biologists, biochemists, chemists, physicists, philosophers and historians of science, and public policy and legal experts, many of whom have affiliations with colleges and universities. Challenges to various aspects of neo-Darwinian theory and advocacy of the scientific theory known as intelligent design are being advanced by institute-supported scholars. The center also encourages schools to improve science education by teaching students more about the theory of evolution.
Discovery Institute board members and fellows represent a variety of religious traditions, including mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish and agnostic. Until recently, the chairman of Discovery's board of directors was former Congressman John Miller, who is Jewish. Although it is not a religious organization, the institute has a long record of supporting religious liberty and the legitimate role of faith-based institutions in a pluralistic society. In fact, it sponsored a program for several years for college students to teach them the importance of religious liberty and the separation of church
For more detailed information about the science of intelligent design theory and/or the legality of teaching intelligent design, visit the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture website at www.discovery.org/csc.
ANALYSIS: Discovery Institute explains intelligent design
SEATTLE (BP)--The theory of intelligent design is in the news right now, but some of the purportedly factual descriptions of the theory being offered by reporters are highly inaccurate. Part of the reason for this is that some reporters are citing as fact partisan descriptions of design theory offered by anti-design groups such as the ACLU.
When reporting on the debate between Darwinian evolution and intelligent design theory, it is important for reporters to allow the scientific proponents of design to describe their own theory, not to put words in their mouths. Just as good reporters would not rely on the Republican Party to provide an objective description of the platform of the Democratic Party, reporters describing the content of design theory should not rely on design’s critics to provide a factual definition of a theory they oppose.
Here, as a backgrounder on intelligent design, are several questions and answers:
1. What is the theory of intelligent design?
The scientific theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Note: Intelligent design theory does NOT claim that science can determine the identity of the intelligent cause. Nor does it claim that the intelligent cause must be a “divine being” or a “higher power” or an “all-powerful force.” All it proposes is that science can identify whether certain features of the natural world are the products of intelligence.
2. Is intelligent design theory the same as creationism?
No. Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the “apparent design” in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations.
Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text.
3. Is intelligent design theory incompatible with evolution?
It depends on what one means by the word “evolution.” If one simply means “change over time,” or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory.
However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, a purposeless process that “has no specific direction or goal, including survival of a species.” In biology, it is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design theory directly challenges.
4. Is intelligent design based on the Bible?
No. The intellectual roots of intelligent design theory are varied. Plato and Aristotle both articulated early versions of design theory, as did virtually all of the founders of modern science. Indeed, most scientists until the latter part of the 19th century accepted some form of design.
The scientific community largely rejected design in the early 20th century after neo-Darwinism claimed to be able to explain the emergence of biological complexity through the unintelligent process of natural selection acting on random mutations.
However, new research and discoveries in such fields as physics, cosmology, biochemistry, genetics and paleontology have caused a growing number of scientists and science theorists to question neo-Darwinism and propose design as the best explanation for the existence of specified complexity in the natural world.
5. Are there established scholars in the scientific community who support intelligent design theory?
Yes. Intelligent design theory is supported by doctoral scientists, researchers and theorists at a number of universities, colleges and research institutes around the world. These scholars include biochemist Michael Behe at Lehigh University, microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, biologist Paul Chien at the University of San Francisco, emeritus biologist Dean Kenyon at San Francisco State University, mathematician William Dembski at Baylor University (who will join the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary next year) and quantum chemist Henry Schaefer at the University of Georgia, among others.
6. Do scientists support of design publish peer-reviewed articles and research?
Yes. Although open hostility from those who hold to neo-Darwinism sometimes makes it difficult for design scholars to gain a fair hearing for their ideas, research and articles by intelligent design scholars are being published in peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Stephen Meyer has published an article supportive of design in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (a peer-reviewed biology journal published at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution). Biochemist Michael Behe has defended the idea of “irreducible complexity” in the peer-reviewed journal Philosophy of Science, as well as publishing research critical of the mechanism of neo-Darwinism in the peer-reviewed journal Protein Science. Examples of peer-reviewed books supporting design include The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press) by William Dembski and Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (Michigan State University Press).
7. Should public schools require the teaching of intelligent design?
No. Instead of mandating intelligent design, the Discovery Institute recommends that states and school districts focus on teaching students more about evolutionary theory, including telling them about some of the theory's problems that have been discussed in peer-reviewed science journals. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned.
8. Is teaching about intelligent design unconstitutional?
Although the Discovery Institute does not advocate requiring the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, it does believe there is nothing unconstitutional about discussing the scientific theory of design in the classroom. In addition, the Discovery Institute opposes efforts to persecute individual teachers who may wish to discuss the scientific debate over design in a pedagogically appropriate manner.
9. What is the Discovery Institute and the Center for Science and Culture?
The non-profit, non-partisan Discovery Institute is a policy and research organization, or secular think tank, with programs on a variety of issues, including regional transportation development, economics and technology policy, legal reform, bioethics, science and culture. The institute’s founder and president is Bruce Chapman, who has a long history in public policy at both the national and regional levels. Chapman is a former director of the United States Census Bureau and a past American ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna, Austria.
The Center for Science and Culture, on the Web at www.discovery.org/csc, has more than 40 fellows, including biologists, biochemists, chemists, physicists, philosophers and historians of science, and public policy and legal experts, many of whom have affiliations with colleges and universities. Challenges to various aspects of neo-Darwinian theory and advocacy of the scientific theory known as intelligent design are being advanced by institute-supported scholars. The center also encourages schools to improve science education by teaching students more about the theory of evolution.
Discovery Institute board members and fellows represent a variety of religious traditions, including mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish and agnostic. Until recently, the chairman of Discovery's board of directors was former Congressman John Miller, who is Jewish. Although it is not a religious organization, the institute has a long record of supporting religious liberty and the legitimate role of faith-based institutions in a pluralistic society. In fact, it sponsored a program for several years for college students to teach them the importance of religious liberty and the separation of church
For more detailed information about the science of intelligent design theory and/or the legality of teaching intelligent design, visit the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture website at www.discovery.org/csc.
ANALYSIS: Discovery Institute explains intelligent design
Sticker Wars
Sticker Wars: Intelligent design foes fight evolution sticker
CHARLES COLSON
BreakPoint
Published January 27, 2005
Last week a federal judge, egged on by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ordered a Georgia school district to remove stickers from biology textbooks. Why? Because, according to the judge, a simple statement written on the stickers 'that evolution is a theory, not a fact' was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. He held evolution as fact!
This is just the latest example of a plague of intellectual blindness among our secular elites.
In Georgia's Cobb County, school officials added the stickers two years ago onto the textbooks which presented evolution as an established fact, ignoring competing ideas about life's origins. Now, this is not just another burst of Christian-bashing. What this ruling really represents is a blindness to reality—a mindset rampant within our culture.
According to this mindset, any challenge to Darwinism is by definition religious. Now, imagine applying this logic to any other area. Suppose your state passed a law against murder, and the ACLU went to court, claiming it was an endorsement of religion. After all, the Ten Commandments prohibit murder! Or imagine someone suing a town over its zoning laws. The Bible tells us to put a fence on our roof so that no one will fall off. Are building codes, therefore, religious? If the courts approached conflicts over other laws the way they do over biology, we'd soon have no laws left at all—except maybe pooper-scooper laws, because I don't think the Bible says anything about that.
The constitutional argument is phony. Honest observers quickly realize that the debate here over life's origins is not one of science versus religion, but of science versus science. Take the work of biochemist Michael Behe, a professor at Lehigh University. Initially, Behe accepted Darwinist teachings. But then he began reading articles questioning evolutionary theories. He found the arguments compelling. So he began to do research of his own.
In his book published 10 years ago, Darwin's Black Box, he introduced a concept he calls "irreducible complexity." He argues that complex structures like proteins cannot be assembled piecemeal, with gradual improvement of function. Instead, like a mousetrap, all the parts—catch, spring, hammer, and so forth—must be assembled simultaneously, or the protein doesn't work.
Soon after the book was published, its thesis was challenged by the leading expert in America on cell structure, Dr. Russell Doolittle at the University of California. He cited a scientific study supposedly disproving irreducible complexity. Behe immediately researched it and found it proved just the opposite: It confirmed him. So Behe went back to Dolittle. In a phone conversation, Doolittle admitted he was wrong, but he has never made a public retraction.
This is the strategy of Darwinists: to simply deny what they know to be true. Look, nobody was around at the time of the creation with a video camera. Naturalism requires at least as much faith as intelligent design. And then science has to be objectively examined, but Darwinists won't do this. So, when judges rule scientific ideas out of bounds, well, it's time to expose all of this for what it is: know-nothingness of the worst kind, willful blindness.
Don't you be taken in. Keep demanding the truth, and in time, we're going to win an honest debate.
Point of View
CHARLES COLSON
BreakPoint
Published January 27, 2005
Last week a federal judge, egged on by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ordered a Georgia school district to remove stickers from biology textbooks. Why? Because, according to the judge, a simple statement written on the stickers 'that evolution is a theory, not a fact' was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. He held evolution as fact!
This is just the latest example of a plague of intellectual blindness among our secular elites.
In Georgia's Cobb County, school officials added the stickers two years ago onto the textbooks which presented evolution as an established fact, ignoring competing ideas about life's origins. Now, this is not just another burst of Christian-bashing. What this ruling really represents is a blindness to reality—a mindset rampant within our culture.
According to this mindset, any challenge to Darwinism is by definition religious. Now, imagine applying this logic to any other area. Suppose your state passed a law against murder, and the ACLU went to court, claiming it was an endorsement of religion. After all, the Ten Commandments prohibit murder! Or imagine someone suing a town over its zoning laws. The Bible tells us to put a fence on our roof so that no one will fall off. Are building codes, therefore, religious? If the courts approached conflicts over other laws the way they do over biology, we'd soon have no laws left at all—except maybe pooper-scooper laws, because I don't think the Bible says anything about that.
The constitutional argument is phony. Honest observers quickly realize that the debate here over life's origins is not one of science versus religion, but of science versus science. Take the work of biochemist Michael Behe, a professor at Lehigh University. Initially, Behe accepted Darwinist teachings. But then he began reading articles questioning evolutionary theories. He found the arguments compelling. So he began to do research of his own.
In his book published 10 years ago, Darwin's Black Box, he introduced a concept he calls "irreducible complexity." He argues that complex structures like proteins cannot be assembled piecemeal, with gradual improvement of function. Instead, like a mousetrap, all the parts—catch, spring, hammer, and so forth—must be assembled simultaneously, or the protein doesn't work.
Soon after the book was published, its thesis was challenged by the leading expert in America on cell structure, Dr. Russell Doolittle at the University of California. He cited a scientific study supposedly disproving irreducible complexity. Behe immediately researched it and found it proved just the opposite: It confirmed him. So Behe went back to Dolittle. In a phone conversation, Doolittle admitted he was wrong, but he has never made a public retraction.
This is the strategy of Darwinists: to simply deny what they know to be true. Look, nobody was around at the time of the creation with a video camera. Naturalism requires at least as much faith as intelligent design. And then science has to be objectively examined, but Darwinists won't do this. So, when judges rule scientific ideas out of bounds, well, it's time to expose all of this for what it is: know-nothingness of the worst kind, willful blindness.
Don't you be taken in. Keep demanding the truth, and in time, we're going to win an honest debate.
Point of View
RU-486 is a killer
The medical industry calls them "Adverse Events Reports" -- but Concerned Women for America calls them confirmation that RU-486 is a killer. The pro-family group requested, under the Freedom of Information Act, that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) produce the reports filed by doctors, Danco (manufacturer of RU-486), and women themselves. CWA says the reports prove that "healthy women to take [the abortion drug] can end up with life-threatening, even fatal, complications," and that there is "case upon case of women being rushed to hospital emergency rooms after taking RU-486." Wendy Wright, senior policy director CWA, says RU-486 has but one purpose: to kill a human being. "Abortion proponents claim that RU-486 is safe. These documents prove otherwise," she says. "[They] show that many times there are two victims." The group has posted the Adverse Events Reports on their website. "If this information had been available earlier, perhaps some women could have been spared the devastating effects," Wright says. The FDA approved the drug under political pressure in the waning days of the Clinton administration. The drug has since been confirmed in the deaths of three women, one of them 18-year-old Californian Holly Patterson who died after taking the drug in September 2003. Her parents have filed a lawsuit against Danco and the Planned Parenthood facility that provided Holly with the drug. [Jody Brown]
Hillary 2008
January 26, 2005
Compiled by Jody Brown
A pro-family leader believes there's now little doubt that Hillary Clinton is planning a run for the White House in 2008. Campaign for Working Families head Gary Bauer is calling it "Hillary's Extreme Makeover" -- a reference to a popular television show. But in this case it is all about the growing evidence, based on comments from the former first lady, that she is trying to change her reputation of being an extreme liberal. In recent days, Mrs. Clinton has voiced support for faith-based programs, declared that she has "always been a praying person," and -- according to the Boston Globe -- stated that there must be room for religious people to "live out their faith in the public square." Then on Monday (January 24) of this week, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, she described abortion as a "sad, even tragic, choice to many, many women" -- and went on to praise "religious and moral values" for getting teens to delay becoming sexually active. As Bauer puts it: "Whatever you think of Bill and Hillary Clinton, they are politically smart." He warns that by 2008, Mrs. Clinton "will look like a 'centrist' unless the Republican Party confronts her early and often." [Fred Jackson]
News from Agape Press
Compiled by Jody Brown
A pro-family leader believes there's now little doubt that Hillary Clinton is planning a run for the White House in 2008. Campaign for Working Families head Gary Bauer is calling it "Hillary's Extreme Makeover" -- a reference to a popular television show. But in this case it is all about the growing evidence, based on comments from the former first lady, that she is trying to change her reputation of being an extreme liberal. In recent days, Mrs. Clinton has voiced support for faith-based programs, declared that she has "always been a praying person," and -- according to the Boston Globe -- stated that there must be room for religious people to "live out their faith in the public square." Then on Monday (January 24) of this week, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, she described abortion as a "sad, even tragic, choice to many, many women" -- and went on to praise "religious and moral values" for getting teens to delay becoming sexually active. As Bauer puts it: "Whatever you think of Bill and Hillary Clinton, they are politically smart." He warns that by 2008, Mrs. Clinton "will look like a 'centrist' unless the Republican Party confronts her early and often." [Fred Jackson]
News from Agape Press
The Searing of the Conscience
Feature by Steve Gallagher
Pure Life Ministries
January 26, 2005
AgapePress
Most people think of hardened criminals and the most duplicitous of men when speaking of someone with a seared conscience. Yet, I believe many in the Church today are also in very real danger of this spiritual phenomenon.
The apostle Paul had a clear understanding of the damaging effects of sin on the human heart. He spoke insightfully of those who were 'seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron' (2 Timothy 4:2), and those who 'because of the hardness of their heart [have] become callous' (Ephesians 4:18-19). Both metaphors -- the seared conscience and the hardened, calloused heart -- describe the same condition.
What is the human conscience? According to Vine's Dictionary, the Greek word for conscience ('suneidesis') literally means to possess 'co-knowledge' of something resulting in one's 'sense of guiltiness before God.' Thus, we were created with a unique and intrinsic faculty that gives us a kind of third-person perspective on the rightness and wrongness of our actions.
According to A.W. Tozer, the foundation of the human conscience is "the secret presence of Christ in the world." To support his conclusions, he points to John 1:9: "There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man." This inward moral awareness is simply the "secret inner voice" of the Lord "accusing or else excusing him." Tozer very well may be right.
In the physical realm, the conscience is comparable to the human nervous system. When a person is wounded, he feels pain-- the body's inherent means of alerting him that something is wrong. Likewise, when a person sins, the human soul has a warning system that sounds an alarm because the person's actions have wounded him spiritually. This soul-alarm trumpets, "Mayday! Mayday! Something is wrong!" He senses that his actions are not only wrong but will also result in destructive consequences.
A person with a tender conscience is keenly aware of every infraction against the Lord. He recognizes sin for the ugly thing that it is. Immoral deeds, though seemingly insignificant to others, are viewed by him as monstrous crimes against a holy God. Their importance, while not exaggerated, is internally magnified so that their true, insidious nature may be clearly seen.
The person with a soft heart also remains consistently open to the Holy Spirit's conviction. He is not looking to push the limits of sin -- to see how much he can get away with -- but to avoid it altogether. Sin, to him, is a poison which must be eradicated at any cost. The prayer of David expresses the unseen attitude of such a person: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way" (Psalm 139:24).
Most people who have experienced a true conversion begin their new life with this kind of spiritual sensitivity. The "eyes of their hearts" have been opened to the wonders of Jesus Christ and His kingdom. Concern over the prospect of doing something against their Savior can actually drive them to run to their pastor over things that seem ridiculous to more seasoned saints.
Unfortunately, it is often only a matter of time before the "first love" for Jesus dwindles into religious form. As new converts begin to "learn the ropes" of Christianity, a slight hardening of the heart takes place. The deep sense of helplessness that once created such a humble dependence upon the Lord is gradually replaced with spiritual pride. Bright and innocent faith is slowly supplanted by cynicism. Eventually, the world's attractions regain their carnal luster, old idols are re-erected within the heart, and once-forsaken sins start to resurface.
The Bible describes this process as the "wandering away from" a "good conscience" (1 Timothy 1:5-6) and the corrupting of the conscience (Titus 1:15). Both describe the same process of inner moral decay that occurs when a person allows sin to re-establish itself within their heart. If the person continues along this course, he will soon lose the sense of the evil nature of sin. A perfect illustration of this truth is the way a nonsmoker can become accustomed to the smokiest room -- once he has taken up the cigarette habit himself. Clean lungs detect every whiff of pollution; dirty lungs have lost that capability.
The person who habitually gives himself over to sin loses the ability to feel the spiritual "pain" of sin. What happens to people who lose this sense? Consider lepers who experience a similar thing physically. Having lost sensation in their extremities, they are often terribly hurt and can even die because they are unaware of a bodily injury. In the spiritual realm, this is a picture of the hardening that takes place inside a person who remains in unrepentant sin. As his heart becomes increasingly calloused, the spiritual system God constructed within him slowly loses its ability to detect the damage being done to it. It's little wonder that Christian men in habitual sexual sin can sit in church week after week, singing songs of worship to a God they continually defy. "Hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13), their entire beings are riddled with a leprosy of evil which they can no longer even detect!
In such cases, as their conscience undergoes a constant searing, these men are gradually desensitized to the guilt of sin. If left unabated, this process will eventually lead to the death of conscience. As one writer stated it, "Such men must have won that most disastrous of victories -- the victory over conscience."
What does it mean to have one's conscience seared? To answer that question, I consulted the godly writers of yesteryear. Adam Clarke described it thus: "One cauterized by repeated applications of sin, and resistings of the Holy Ghost ..." The Fausett Bible Dictionary explained it as " ... a hardened determination to resist every spiritual impression ...." The Pulpit Commentary said it is "the gradual deterioration of sensibility produced by [habitual sin]." John Wesley likened it to "drunkenness of soul, a fatal numbness of spirit ...."
In summation, if a person remains in sin long enough, he can reach a point where he is no longer influenced by the Holy Spirit. He has become so hardened that he will not listen -- does not want to hear. I believe this phenomenon is that which the Bible terms apostasy.
How can a man know if he has gone too far? The very concern over such a possibility reveals the fact that there remains hope for him. Apostates, having lost all sense of morality, have no concern over such matters.
However, when a man in habitual sin repents -- by acknowledging his guilt and taking steps to put it behind him -- his hardened heart begins to soften, and he gradually begins to feel the conviction of sin once again. Finally, he is back in the place where God can reach him and help him overcome. As the writer of Hebrews exclaimed, "how much more will the blood of Christ ... cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14)
Nobody enjoys the feeling of guilt over wrongdoing. However, the alternative is to have no feeling: no Holy Ghost conviction, no discernment of right from wrong, and no sense of shame over the evil nature of sin. The human conscience truly is a gift from God. Personally, I plan on treasuring this gift by maintaining a soft heart and a ready ear for the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit.
News from Agape Press
Pure Life Ministries
January 26, 2005
AgapePress
Most people think of hardened criminals and the most duplicitous of men when speaking of someone with a seared conscience. Yet, I believe many in the Church today are also in very real danger of this spiritual phenomenon.
The apostle Paul had a clear understanding of the damaging effects of sin on the human heart. He spoke insightfully of those who were 'seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron' (2 Timothy 4:2), and those who 'because of the hardness of their heart [have] become callous' (Ephesians 4:18-19). Both metaphors -- the seared conscience and the hardened, calloused heart -- describe the same condition.
What is the human conscience? According to Vine's Dictionary, the Greek word for conscience ('suneidesis') literally means to possess 'co-knowledge' of something resulting in one's 'sense of guiltiness before God.' Thus, we were created with a unique and intrinsic faculty that gives us a kind of third-person perspective on the rightness and wrongness of our actions.
According to A.W. Tozer, the foundation of the human conscience is "the secret presence of Christ in the world." To support his conclusions, he points to John 1:9: "There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man." This inward moral awareness is simply the "secret inner voice" of the Lord "accusing or else excusing him." Tozer very well may be right.
In the physical realm, the conscience is comparable to the human nervous system. When a person is wounded, he feels pain-- the body's inherent means of alerting him that something is wrong. Likewise, when a person sins, the human soul has a warning system that sounds an alarm because the person's actions have wounded him spiritually. This soul-alarm trumpets, "Mayday! Mayday! Something is wrong!" He senses that his actions are not only wrong but will also result in destructive consequences.
A person with a tender conscience is keenly aware of every infraction against the Lord. He recognizes sin for the ugly thing that it is. Immoral deeds, though seemingly insignificant to others, are viewed by him as monstrous crimes against a holy God. Their importance, while not exaggerated, is internally magnified so that their true, insidious nature may be clearly seen.
The person with a soft heart also remains consistently open to the Holy Spirit's conviction. He is not looking to push the limits of sin -- to see how much he can get away with -- but to avoid it altogether. Sin, to him, is a poison which must be eradicated at any cost. The prayer of David expresses the unseen attitude of such a person: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way" (Psalm 139:24).
Most people who have experienced a true conversion begin their new life with this kind of spiritual sensitivity. The "eyes of their hearts" have been opened to the wonders of Jesus Christ and His kingdom. Concern over the prospect of doing something against their Savior can actually drive them to run to their pastor over things that seem ridiculous to more seasoned saints.
Unfortunately, it is often only a matter of time before the "first love" for Jesus dwindles into religious form. As new converts begin to "learn the ropes" of Christianity, a slight hardening of the heart takes place. The deep sense of helplessness that once created such a humble dependence upon the Lord is gradually replaced with spiritual pride. Bright and innocent faith is slowly supplanted by cynicism. Eventually, the world's attractions regain their carnal luster, old idols are re-erected within the heart, and once-forsaken sins start to resurface.
The Bible describes this process as the "wandering away from" a "good conscience" (1 Timothy 1:5-6) and the corrupting of the conscience (Titus 1:15). Both describe the same process of inner moral decay that occurs when a person allows sin to re-establish itself within their heart. If the person continues along this course, he will soon lose the sense of the evil nature of sin. A perfect illustration of this truth is the way a nonsmoker can become accustomed to the smokiest room -- once he has taken up the cigarette habit himself. Clean lungs detect every whiff of pollution; dirty lungs have lost that capability.
The person who habitually gives himself over to sin loses the ability to feel the spiritual "pain" of sin. What happens to people who lose this sense? Consider lepers who experience a similar thing physically. Having lost sensation in their extremities, they are often terribly hurt and can even die because they are unaware of a bodily injury. In the spiritual realm, this is a picture of the hardening that takes place inside a person who remains in unrepentant sin. As his heart becomes increasingly calloused, the spiritual system God constructed within him slowly loses its ability to detect the damage being done to it. It's little wonder that Christian men in habitual sexual sin can sit in church week after week, singing songs of worship to a God they continually defy. "Hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13), their entire beings are riddled with a leprosy of evil which they can no longer even detect!
In such cases, as their conscience undergoes a constant searing, these men are gradually desensitized to the guilt of sin. If left unabated, this process will eventually lead to the death of conscience. As one writer stated it, "Such men must have won that most disastrous of victories -- the victory over conscience."
What does it mean to have one's conscience seared? To answer that question, I consulted the godly writers of yesteryear. Adam Clarke described it thus: "One cauterized by repeated applications of sin, and resistings of the Holy Ghost ..." The Fausett Bible Dictionary explained it as " ... a hardened determination to resist every spiritual impression ...." The Pulpit Commentary said it is "the gradual deterioration of sensibility produced by [habitual sin]." John Wesley likened it to "drunkenness of soul, a fatal numbness of spirit ...."
In summation, if a person remains in sin long enough, he can reach a point where he is no longer influenced by the Holy Spirit. He has become so hardened that he will not listen -- does not want to hear. I believe this phenomenon is that which the Bible terms apostasy.
How can a man know if he has gone too far? The very concern over such a possibility reveals the fact that there remains hope for him. Apostates, having lost all sense of morality, have no concern over such matters.
However, when a man in habitual sin repents -- by acknowledging his guilt and taking steps to put it behind him -- his hardened heart begins to soften, and he gradually begins to feel the conviction of sin once again. Finally, he is back in the place where God can reach him and help him overcome. As the writer of Hebrews exclaimed, "how much more will the blood of Christ ... cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14)
Nobody enjoys the feeling of guilt over wrongdoing. However, the alternative is to have no feeling: no Holy Ghost conviction, no discernment of right from wrong, and no sense of shame over the evil nature of sin. The human conscience truly is a gift from God. Personally, I plan on treasuring this gift by maintaining a soft heart and a ready ear for the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit.
News from Agape Press
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Bias Killed Darwin-Critical Curriculum Proposal
By Jim Brown
January 25, 2005
AgapePress
A parent in California has sued his local district over its exclusion of science materials that present weaknesses and criticisms of evolution. Larry Caldwell's lawsuit alleges the Roseville School District rejected his proposed curriculum because he is a Christian and school officials do not want to inform students of the controversy surrounding Darwin's theories.
Caldwell says if the district truly wanted to promote tolerance and diversity of thought, it would not be employing such a glaring double standard. He says the materials included in the proposed curriculum included textual materials written by a highly qualified scientist as well as video curriculum materials.
'Everything in those materials was based on peer-reviewed scientific articles,' the Roseville parent says, 'so these were criticisms that come from mainstream science. It's just that they won't allow them to be talked about in biology classes.'
Caldwell says when he presented the curriculum to the Roseville District school board, officials did everything they could to prevent his proposals from being debated in public or acted upon by the board. He in turn sued the school district, alleging that his free speech, equal protection, and religious freedom rights had been violated.
"The irony is, under California law in particular, we're told by the courts that the goal of public education is to expose students to a clash of ideas in the free marketplace rather than indoctrinating them in one point of view," Caldwell points out. Nevertheless, he says, by rejecting a scientifically legitimate curriculum that teaches students about the truth about the scientific weaknesses and criticisms of Darwin's theories, "what they're doing here is indoctrinating students in one point of view."
Caldwell's complaint against the Roseville Joint Union High School District cites expert testimony that the biology text the school board did adopt, which has Darwinian evolution as a unifying theme, was not scientifically "accurate," "objective," or "current" as required by state law. The complaint also notes that the science expert, who holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois, felt such a text, if used, should be supplemented with scientific criticism of the theory of evolution.
News from Agape Press
January 25, 2005
AgapePress
A parent in California has sued his local district over its exclusion of science materials that present weaknesses and criticisms of evolution. Larry Caldwell's lawsuit alleges the Roseville School District rejected his proposed curriculum because he is a Christian and school officials do not want to inform students of the controversy surrounding Darwin's theories.
Caldwell says if the district truly wanted to promote tolerance and diversity of thought, it would not be employing such a glaring double standard. He says the materials included in the proposed curriculum included textual materials written by a highly qualified scientist as well as video curriculum materials.
'Everything in those materials was based on peer-reviewed scientific articles,' the Roseville parent says, 'so these were criticisms that come from mainstream science. It's just that they won't allow them to be talked about in biology classes.'
Caldwell says when he presented the curriculum to the Roseville District school board, officials did everything they could to prevent his proposals from being debated in public or acted upon by the board. He in turn sued the school district, alleging that his free speech, equal protection, and religious freedom rights had been violated.
"The irony is, under California law in particular, we're told by the courts that the goal of public education is to expose students to a clash of ideas in the free marketplace rather than indoctrinating them in one point of view," Caldwell points out. Nevertheless, he says, by rejecting a scientifically legitimate curriculum that teaches students about the truth about the scientific weaknesses and criticisms of Darwin's theories, "what they're doing here is indoctrinating students in one point of view."
Caldwell's complaint against the Roseville Joint Union High School District cites expert testimony that the biology text the school board did adopt, which has Darwinian evolution as a unifying theme, was not scientifically "accurate," "objective," or "current" as required by state law. The complaint also notes that the science expert, who holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois, felt such a text, if used, should be supplemented with scientific criticism of the theory of evolution.
News from Agape Press
Let students examine both evolution and intelligent design
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Steve Slater
roanoke.com
Roy Miles (Dec. 29 commentary, "Intelligent design is a theory built on unknown data") asserted that there is a "vast amount of evidence for evolution." I would like to respond point by point to the assertions in his article.
If by "evolution" he meant variation in species, adaption, genetic mutation and other observed processes, then certainly there is much evidence. That evidence is undisputed by creationists and others, who would like to see critical thinking taught in our science curricula instead of an exclusive, unquestioning indoctrination in a theory, often purported to be on a level with scientific fact.
This theory purports more than the variation of species within genetic limits; it asserts that, given enough time, fish became mammals; that life itself arose from inanimate matter; that amoeba developed into human beings; and that the intricate complexity and apparent design in the universe arose by chance processes.
As Miles pointed out, the assumptions that follow from this theory have impacted every branch of science. However, it is not evidence that has arisen from these branches of science, but the interpretation of data within an evolutionary framework on the basis of unchallenged assumptions that are hardly conscious.
History has shown that, when a prevailing theory is challenged, scientists like the rest of us can be entrenched dogmatists. In the case for evolution, evidence has become ever more conspicuously lacking - including the very evidence which Darwin himself expected to unfold, and without which he felt his theory would crumble.
It is impossible to reply to Miles' assertion that the evidence continues "to grow and be detailed" since he cites no examples. He simply asserted this to be the case, which implies that intelligent people should believe him.
Let's give students a chance to look at those examples that have been cited as evidence for evolution, and allow them an opportunity to examine them critically. That is teaching good science. What is there to fear?
Perhaps examples of peppered moths, the horse series or prehistoric men from the fossil record would be too much of an embarrassment in the light of current knowledge, and sadly, they are still sometimes pointed to today as "evidence."
Miles then argued that the absence of viable, naturalistic explanations for complexity does not constitute evidence for design. The example chosen is the clotting of blood, where 14 complex factors must be in place simultaneously. He answered the dilemma by saying the evidence could not be preserved in the fossils, because it is soft tissue!
There is no attempt to deal with the real problem, or even to guess. What evidence could possibly be postulated? Nothing can be dreamed up, but if only it had been preserved, our discovery in the fossil record would show that it happened naturalistically.
That is dogma, incredible faith. Why not let students know both sides and weigh the issues for themselves?
Should science consist of giving conclusions, without revealing the assumptions, and leave the thinking and evaluating to an elite? Miles concludes his argument that "science rests on the observable, the facts."
I would add that there would be no controversy if we stuck to observable facts in the science classroom. The fact is that we don't stick to fact.
As Miles stated next, "many specifics of the theory of evolution have not yet been explained... all believe in the basic concept... they are only arguing details."
The operable word here is "believe in." A good theory explains how something happened and allows you to make predictions based on that theory. Evolution after 150 years does neither. Evolutionists today are faced with the quandary of a theory that can't explain how something happened, but they still believe in it as a theory that explains how things happened. Dogma.
The analogy used in the article is misleading. A more appropriate analogy is finding in the forest a rocket complete with a sophisticated satellite payload (a single cell is even far more complex) and asserting it resulted from natural, random processes over a long period of time.
This theory of its origin should be taught as science because science can't consider other alternatives, and because the inability of my theory to explain how it could result from natural processes does not prove design (which after all is a cloak for religion, and not science).
In his conclusion, Miles asserted that no experiments have been done on the postulate of intelligent design - no drugs or other products have been developed from the application of the concept. The implication is that evolutionary theory has resulted in advances and reliable predictions. That absolutely has not been the case; can he name even one advance?
Predictions based on the evolution model have failed abysmally and put the theory in crisis. In fact, any theory of origins is outside the realm of observable science, unless you hold the assumption that present observable processes are the same processes that brought everything about.
What does scientific observation actually tell us about such an assumption? We know not one exception to the well-established scientific observation that the universe is a closed system, that no new energy is being created or destroyed (the first law of thermodynamics).
Nor do we know one exception to every scientific observation, whether on a cosmic or a nuclear level, that complex systems in the universe degrade to a random, homogenous uniformity (the second law of thermodynamics). Are we then led to conclude from observable science that creation occurred by present natural processes?
Obviously, it is not scientific observation that leads us to a belief in a naturalistic explanation of origins, but a philosophical bias at work.
The science classroom doesn't need to advocate a particular theory of origins as more scientifically based than another. It needs to present the observable facts, identify assumptions and teach critical thinking by leaving conclusions to the students themselves.
roanoke.com - Commentary Stories -Let students examine both evolution and intelligent design
Steve Slater
roanoke.com
Roy Miles (Dec. 29 commentary, "Intelligent design is a theory built on unknown data") asserted that there is a "vast amount of evidence for evolution." I would like to respond point by point to the assertions in his article.
If by "evolution" he meant variation in species, adaption, genetic mutation and other observed processes, then certainly there is much evidence. That evidence is undisputed by creationists and others, who would like to see critical thinking taught in our science curricula instead of an exclusive, unquestioning indoctrination in a theory, often purported to be on a level with scientific fact.
This theory purports more than the variation of species within genetic limits; it asserts that, given enough time, fish became mammals; that life itself arose from inanimate matter; that amoeba developed into human beings; and that the intricate complexity and apparent design in the universe arose by chance processes.
As Miles pointed out, the assumptions that follow from this theory have impacted every branch of science. However, it is not evidence that has arisen from these branches of science, but the interpretation of data within an evolutionary framework on the basis of unchallenged assumptions that are hardly conscious.
History has shown that, when a prevailing theory is challenged, scientists like the rest of us can be entrenched dogmatists. In the case for evolution, evidence has become ever more conspicuously lacking - including the very evidence which Darwin himself expected to unfold, and without which he felt his theory would crumble.
It is impossible to reply to Miles' assertion that the evidence continues "to grow and be detailed" since he cites no examples. He simply asserted this to be the case, which implies that intelligent people should believe him.
Let's give students a chance to look at those examples that have been cited as evidence for evolution, and allow them an opportunity to examine them critically. That is teaching good science. What is there to fear?
Perhaps examples of peppered moths, the horse series or prehistoric men from the fossil record would be too much of an embarrassment in the light of current knowledge, and sadly, they are still sometimes pointed to today as "evidence."
Miles then argued that the absence of viable, naturalistic explanations for complexity does not constitute evidence for design. The example chosen is the clotting of blood, where 14 complex factors must be in place simultaneously. He answered the dilemma by saying the evidence could not be preserved in the fossils, because it is soft tissue!
There is no attempt to deal with the real problem, or even to guess. What evidence could possibly be postulated? Nothing can be dreamed up, but if only it had been preserved, our discovery in the fossil record would show that it happened naturalistically.
That is dogma, incredible faith. Why not let students know both sides and weigh the issues for themselves?
Should science consist of giving conclusions, without revealing the assumptions, and leave the thinking and evaluating to an elite? Miles concludes his argument that "science rests on the observable, the facts."
I would add that there would be no controversy if we stuck to observable facts in the science classroom. The fact is that we don't stick to fact.
As Miles stated next, "many specifics of the theory of evolution have not yet been explained... all believe in the basic concept... they are only arguing details."
The operable word here is "believe in." A good theory explains how something happened and allows you to make predictions based on that theory. Evolution after 150 years does neither. Evolutionists today are faced with the quandary of a theory that can't explain how something happened, but they still believe in it as a theory that explains how things happened. Dogma.
The analogy used in the article is misleading. A more appropriate analogy is finding in the forest a rocket complete with a sophisticated satellite payload (a single cell is even far more complex) and asserting it resulted from natural, random processes over a long period of time.
This theory of its origin should be taught as science because science can't consider other alternatives, and because the inability of my theory to explain how it could result from natural processes does not prove design (which after all is a cloak for religion, and not science).
In his conclusion, Miles asserted that no experiments have been done on the postulate of intelligent design - no drugs or other products have been developed from the application of the concept. The implication is that evolutionary theory has resulted in advances and reliable predictions. That absolutely has not been the case; can he name even one advance?
Predictions based on the evolution model have failed abysmally and put the theory in crisis. In fact, any theory of origins is outside the realm of observable science, unless you hold the assumption that present observable processes are the same processes that brought everything about.
What does scientific observation actually tell us about such an assumption? We know not one exception to the well-established scientific observation that the universe is a closed system, that no new energy is being created or destroyed (the first law of thermodynamics).
Nor do we know one exception to every scientific observation, whether on a cosmic or a nuclear level, that complex systems in the universe degrade to a random, homogenous uniformity (the second law of thermodynamics). Are we then led to conclude from observable science that creation occurred by present natural processes?
Obviously, it is not scientific observation that leads us to a belief in a naturalistic explanation of origins, but a philosophical bias at work.
The science classroom doesn't need to advocate a particular theory of origins as more scientifically based than another. It needs to present the observable facts, identify assumptions and teach critical thinking by leaving conclusions to the students themselves.
roanoke.com - Commentary Stories -Let students examine both evolution and intelligent design
ACLU Changes Its Website After Being Caught Editing and Distorting the 1st Amendment
ACLU Changes Its Website After Being Caught Editing and Distorting the 1st Amendment
Chris Field
Jan 24, 2005
On January 17, I posted a First Look column titled "The ACLU's Very Own Constitution." In it I commented upon an item that I had first been made aware of in a "Best of the Web" column by James Taranto of the Opinion Journal. The subject of my column was how the ACLU had distorted, edited, "censored" the 1st Amendment on its website in order to support its claim that the Framers considered the freedom of speech so important that they put it at the very tip-top of the Bill of Rights.
But now the ACLU has changed its website and completely erased the traces of the old, misleading site. However, we here at HUMAN EVENTS saved a copy of the original page (link is to a pdf copy of the original page).
The language at the top of the ACLU's "Free Speech" page at the time of my column read as follows:
"It is probably no accident that freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment: 'Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' The Constitution’s framers believed that freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression were the hallmarks of a democratic society."
As anyone who has read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is aware, the "first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment" is that of religion. In the ACLU's 1st Amendment quotation, the freedom of religion is erased, replaced with ellipses. The only reason that the ACLU finds that the "freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment" is because they cut out the 1st Amendment's two clauses regarding religion. Here's the 1st Amendment in its entirety:
"Congress shall make no law RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Since the original posting of "The ACLU's Very Own Constitution," the ACLU has changed their website. In place of the distortion of the 1st Amendment on the "Free Speech" page is the following, slightly, but significantly updated and altered text:
"It is no accident that freedom of speech is protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights: 'Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' The Constitution’s framers believed that freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression were the hallmarks of a democratic society."
The ACLU still doesn't mention the freedom of religion in its quotation of the first part of the Bill of Rights, but at least the site isn't utterly wrong.
Call this one a win for the good guys -- the ACLU may still be the Leftist organization it has come to be known as, but at least it has been forced to stop this specific distortion of the Bill of Rights.
HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: ACLU Changes Its Website After Being Caught Editing and Distorting the 1st Amendment by Chris Field
Chris Field
Jan 24, 2005
On January 17, I posted a First Look column titled "The ACLU's Very Own Constitution." In it I commented upon an item that I had first been made aware of in a "Best of the Web" column by James Taranto of the Opinion Journal. The subject of my column was how the ACLU had distorted, edited, "censored" the 1st Amendment on its website in order to support its claim that the Framers considered the freedom of speech so important that they put it at the very tip-top of the Bill of Rights.
But now the ACLU has changed its website and completely erased the traces of the old, misleading site. However, we here at HUMAN EVENTS saved a copy of the original page (link is to a pdf copy of the original page).
The language at the top of the ACLU's "Free Speech" page at the time of my column read as follows:
"It is probably no accident that freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment: 'Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' The Constitution’s framers believed that freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression were the hallmarks of a democratic society."
As anyone who has read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is aware, the "first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment" is that of religion. In the ACLU's 1st Amendment quotation, the freedom of religion is erased, replaced with ellipses. The only reason that the ACLU finds that the "freedom of speech is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment" is because they cut out the 1st Amendment's two clauses regarding religion. Here's the 1st Amendment in its entirety:
"Congress shall make no law RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Since the original posting of "The ACLU's Very Own Constitution," the ACLU has changed their website. In place of the distortion of the 1st Amendment on the "Free Speech" page is the following, slightly, but significantly updated and altered text:
"It is no accident that freedom of speech is protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights: 'Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' The Constitution’s framers believed that freedom of inquiry and liberty of expression were the hallmarks of a democratic society."
The ACLU still doesn't mention the freedom of religion in its quotation of the first part of the Bill of Rights, but at least the site isn't utterly wrong.
Call this one a win for the good guys -- the ACLU may still be the Leftist organization it has come to be known as, but at least it has been forced to stop this specific distortion of the Bill of Rights.
HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: ACLU Changes Its Website After Being Caught Editing and Distorting the 1st Amendment by Chris Field
Monday, January 24, 2005
Link between the evolutionary worldview and moral decay
Creationist Mindset Fertile Soil for Moral Beliefs
By Allie Martin
January 24, 2005
AgapePress
A chemist for a Fortune 500 company says there is a strong link between the evolutionary worldview and moral decay.
For years, Bruce Malone says he believed what he had been taught about evolution in public universities. But his viewpoint changed after he examined the scientific evidence for creation -- evidence he says is basically ignored by most media and educators.
Malone has just released a new book, Search for the Truth, which is composed of short articles that examine the evidence for creation and reveal the misrepresentations presented as truth by evolutionists. He says when it comes to the evolution debate, it is vital for Bible-believing Christians to have reasonable answers to honest questions.
He says the early chapters of the Book of Genesis explain things accurately. '[J]ust read what it says,' he urges. 'It talks about all the mountains under all of the heavens were covered with water -- all of mankind, all of the animals were wiped out except for those saved on the ark, which is symbolic of ... salvation [through] Jesus Christ.
'Those who want to deny and discredit Christianity [say] the Bible talks about a local, small, little flood. It clearly doesn't.'
The author is also concerned that children in Christian homes are not being equipped to defend the biblical view of creationism. 'They're going through school, they're going through museums, they're going through all the big, popular movies -- [all of which absolutely deny] that there's ever been a literal creation, that there's ever been a worldwide flood, that there's ever been a fall of man,' he explains.
News from Agape Press
By Allie Martin
January 24, 2005
AgapePress
A chemist for a Fortune 500 company says there is a strong link between the evolutionary worldview and moral decay.
For years, Bruce Malone says he believed what he had been taught about evolution in public universities. But his viewpoint changed after he examined the scientific evidence for creation -- evidence he says is basically ignored by most media and educators.
Malone has just released a new book, Search for the Truth, which is composed of short articles that examine the evidence for creation and reveal the misrepresentations presented as truth by evolutionists. He says when it comes to the evolution debate, it is vital for Bible-believing Christians to have reasonable answers to honest questions.
He says the early chapters of the Book of Genesis explain things accurately. '[J]ust read what it says,' he urges. 'It talks about all the mountains under all of the heavens were covered with water -- all of mankind, all of the animals were wiped out except for those saved on the ark, which is symbolic of ... salvation [through] Jesus Christ.
'Those who want to deny and discredit Christianity [say] the Bible talks about a local, small, little flood. It clearly doesn't.'
The author is also concerned that children in Christian homes are not being equipped to defend the biblical view of creationism. 'They're going through school, they're going through museums, they're going through all the big, popular movies -- [all of which absolutely deny] that there's ever been a literal creation, that there's ever been a worldwide flood, that there's ever been a fall of man,' he explains.
News from Agape Press
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Survey finds church-goers growing bolder
Jan. 22, 2005
Reuters
CHICAGO
Many polled are leery of political compromises on core beliefs
Church-going Americans have grown increasingly intolerant in the past four years of politicians making compromises on such hot issues as abortion and gay rights, according to a survey released Saturday.
At the same time, those polled said they were growing bolder about pushing their beliefs on others — even at the risk of offending someone.
The trends could indicate that religion has become "more prominent in American discourse ... more salient," according to Ruth Wooden, president of Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research organization which released the survey.
It could also indicate "more polarized political thinking. There do not seem to be very many voices arguing for compromise today," she said in an interview. "It could be that more religious voices feel under siege, pinned against the wall by cultural developments. They may feel more emboldened as a result."
The November election saw voters in a number of states back gay marriage bans, and President Bush won re-election with heavy support from fellow religious conservatives.
The findings came from a telephone survey of 1,507 adults made in 2000 and a second similar survey of 1,004 adults done during the summer of 2004 that tracked the same issues. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Those surveyed were nearly all Christians, not by design but because the sample reflected the makeup of the population, the group said. A 2002 Pew Research Council survey found that 82 percent of the U.S. populace considered itself to be Christian, while 10 percent identified with no religious group.
Less appetite for compromise
On the question of whether elected officials should set their convictions aside to get results in government, 84 percent agreed in 2000. However, four years later that had dropped to 74 percent. There was a sharper decline on the same question among weekly church-goers from 82 percent in the first survey to 63 percent in the second.
About 40 percent of Americans claim to be weekly church-goers, according to Corwin Smidt, director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Michigan. Some surveys have placed the figure at 25 percent.
In the survey, 32 percent of those who attended church once a week said they were willing to compromise on abortion issues — a 19-point drop in four years. Among the same group the question of compromising beliefs on gay rights was acceptable to only 39 percent, down 18 points from 2000.
The poll also found that 37 percent overall felt that deeply religious people should be careful not to offend anyone when they "spread the word of God," a decline from 46 percent four years earlier.
The number of those who felt that committed faithful should spread the word "whenever they can" rose to 41 percent, up 6 points.
On another issue, the survey found little change in opinion on whether the U.S. political system can handle greater interaction between religion and politics. Asked if there was a threat if religious leaders and groups got a lot more involved in politics, 63 percent in 2000 and 61 percent in 2004 said the system could "easily handle" it. But the remainder continue to believe the system would be threatened.
MSNBC - Survey finds church-goers growing bolder
Reuters
CHICAGO
Many polled are leery of political compromises on core beliefs
Church-going Americans have grown increasingly intolerant in the past four years of politicians making compromises on such hot issues as abortion and gay rights, according to a survey released Saturday.
At the same time, those polled said they were growing bolder about pushing their beliefs on others — even at the risk of offending someone.
The trends could indicate that religion has become "more prominent in American discourse ... more salient," according to Ruth Wooden, president of Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research organization which released the survey.
It could also indicate "more polarized political thinking. There do not seem to be very many voices arguing for compromise today," she said in an interview. "It could be that more religious voices feel under siege, pinned against the wall by cultural developments. They may feel more emboldened as a result."
The November election saw voters in a number of states back gay marriage bans, and President Bush won re-election with heavy support from fellow religious conservatives.
The findings came from a telephone survey of 1,507 adults made in 2000 and a second similar survey of 1,004 adults done during the summer of 2004 that tracked the same issues. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Those surveyed were nearly all Christians, not by design but because the sample reflected the makeup of the population, the group said. A 2002 Pew Research Council survey found that 82 percent of the U.S. populace considered itself to be Christian, while 10 percent identified with no religious group.
Less appetite for compromise
On the question of whether elected officials should set their convictions aside to get results in government, 84 percent agreed in 2000. However, four years later that had dropped to 74 percent. There was a sharper decline on the same question among weekly church-goers from 82 percent in the first survey to 63 percent in the second.
About 40 percent of Americans claim to be weekly church-goers, according to Corwin Smidt, director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Michigan. Some surveys have placed the figure at 25 percent.
In the survey, 32 percent of those who attended church once a week said they were willing to compromise on abortion issues — a 19-point drop in four years. Among the same group the question of compromising beliefs on gay rights was acceptable to only 39 percent, down 18 points from 2000.
The poll also found that 37 percent overall felt that deeply religious people should be careful not to offend anyone when they "spread the word of God," a decline from 46 percent four years earlier.
The number of those who felt that committed faithful should spread the word "whenever they can" rose to 41 percent, up 6 points.
On another issue, the survey found little change in opinion on whether the U.S. political system can handle greater interaction between religion and politics. Asked if there was a threat if religious leaders and groups got a lot more involved in politics, 63 percent in 2000 and 61 percent in 2004 said the system could "easily handle" it. But the remainder continue to believe the system would be threatened.
MSNBC - Survey finds church-goers growing bolder
Murder of a New Jersey Christian Family
Sher Zieve
Date: January 22, 2005
Perhaps it's time to take a second look at providing freedom and liberty to those who have come here to destroy us.
Since the initial reports of the ritualistic butchering of the Coptic Christian Armanious family, the mainstream media have been remarkably silent. Barely a whisper, if that, has been murmured over their airwaves, online or in the print media. If there is any real ongoing investigation (in the spirit of fairness I assume there is), next to nothing is being reported.
Shortly after the murders, conflicting reports were disseminated to the public. One account advised that the father Hossam Armanious had his 'pockets turned inside out' and money from his wallet had been removed but, jewelry was left in the home. Commenting on this, prosecutor Edward De Fazio said: 'Whether that was the primary motivation, we don't know. To think that someone would commit this type of crime for a small amount of money does not make sense.' Another report stated that both money and jewelry were stolen. However, the stolen jewelry angle was discounted early on by a deacon, Fred Ayed, of the family's church. Ayed advised, upon the initial discovery of the family's bodies that the jewelry was still in the Armanious house. Are the other stories of robbery meant to misinform the public and dispel any fears it may feel? If so, this apparent dismissal of reality will only be for a very short period of time.
The truth that Islam has begun its test case for extermination of Christians in the United States will be fully revealed soon enough.
Another truth is that Muslims have persecuted and murdered Egyptian Coptic Christians for centuries; with intensification over the last 10-15 years. Islam is, also, telling the Coptics that no matter where they go, they will be “tracked down” and eliminated; even in the USA. Suffice it to say, this appear to be exactly what happened to the Armanious family. Of particular note are comments made by the Director of the Islamic Center of New Jersey, Ahmed Shedeed: “We Muslims in America are getting sick of this crap. Why should we have to apologize for or make a defense of something we had nothing to do with?” The problem, of course, continues to be that ‘moderate’ Muslims don’t seem to comment much (if at all) about the ongoing beheadings or any of the other grisly murders and genocides (most recently and notably in Sudan) committed by their brethren. Instead, they use the US’ First Amendment’s Free Speech clause to their own advantage, while denying it to others.
Jihad Watch has an additional piece of exclusive information, which may prove to be useful in understanding these recent slayings on our shores. A close friend of Hossam Armanious advised that Hossam was deeply involved with converting Muslims to Christianity. The friend further advised Jihad Watch that it was some of these “converts” who were allowed into the Armanious home, the night of their murder. He, also, said that these individuals were practicing “taqiyya” or religious deception. Their pretense was their conversion, as their purpose was murder. Shortly thereafter, the friend advised, these counterfeit “converts” engaged and indulged themselves in the assassination of the Armanious family.
Instead of the more civilized gauntlet, Islamo-fascists have thrown down the knife and sword to the United States. They have initiated and are implementing another tactic of their overall strategy of worldwide Islamic domination. Be advised that all Muslim countries are theocracies, which allow no freedoms-religious or otherwise. The Muslims in the United States enjoy more liberties than they could ever possess in their homeland countries. Yet, with their consistent lack of any strong condemnation of the Islamo-fascist sects, they appear to be giving their tacit approval.
In the United States of America, we have historically provided safe haven for both the downtrodden of the world and those who have escaped other countries and come to us to express their religious freedoms. Perhaps it’s time to take a second look at providing said freedoms and liberties to those who have come here to destroy us.
WEBCommentary(tm) - Murder of a New Jersey Christian Family [Part 2]
Date: January 22, 2005
Perhaps it's time to take a second look at providing freedom and liberty to those who have come here to destroy us.
Since the initial reports of the ritualistic butchering of the Coptic Christian Armanious family, the mainstream media have been remarkably silent. Barely a whisper, if that, has been murmured over their airwaves, online or in the print media. If there is any real ongoing investigation (in the spirit of fairness I assume there is), next to nothing is being reported.
Shortly after the murders, conflicting reports were disseminated to the public. One account advised that the father Hossam Armanious had his 'pockets turned inside out' and money from his wallet had been removed but, jewelry was left in the home. Commenting on this, prosecutor Edward De Fazio said: 'Whether that was the primary motivation, we don't know. To think that someone would commit this type of crime for a small amount of money does not make sense.' Another report stated that both money and jewelry were stolen. However, the stolen jewelry angle was discounted early on by a deacon, Fred Ayed, of the family's church. Ayed advised, upon the initial discovery of the family's bodies that the jewelry was still in the Armanious house. Are the other stories of robbery meant to misinform the public and dispel any fears it may feel? If so, this apparent dismissal of reality will only be for a very short period of time.
The truth that Islam has begun its test case for extermination of Christians in the United States will be fully revealed soon enough.
Another truth is that Muslims have persecuted and murdered Egyptian Coptic Christians for centuries; with intensification over the last 10-15 years. Islam is, also, telling the Coptics that no matter where they go, they will be “tracked down” and eliminated; even in the USA. Suffice it to say, this appear to be exactly what happened to the Armanious family. Of particular note are comments made by the Director of the Islamic Center of New Jersey, Ahmed Shedeed: “We Muslims in America are getting sick of this crap. Why should we have to apologize for or make a defense of something we had nothing to do with?” The problem, of course, continues to be that ‘moderate’ Muslims don’t seem to comment much (if at all) about the ongoing beheadings or any of the other grisly murders and genocides (most recently and notably in Sudan) committed by their brethren. Instead, they use the US’ First Amendment’s Free Speech clause to their own advantage, while denying it to others.
Jihad Watch has an additional piece of exclusive information, which may prove to be useful in understanding these recent slayings on our shores. A close friend of Hossam Armanious advised that Hossam was deeply involved with converting Muslims to Christianity. The friend further advised Jihad Watch that it was some of these “converts” who were allowed into the Armanious home, the night of their murder. He, also, said that these individuals were practicing “taqiyya” or religious deception. Their pretense was their conversion, as their purpose was murder. Shortly thereafter, the friend advised, these counterfeit “converts” engaged and indulged themselves in the assassination of the Armanious family.
Instead of the more civilized gauntlet, Islamo-fascists have thrown down the knife and sword to the United States. They have initiated and are implementing another tactic of their overall strategy of worldwide Islamic domination. Be advised that all Muslim countries are theocracies, which allow no freedoms-religious or otherwise. The Muslims in the United States enjoy more liberties than they could ever possess in their homeland countries. Yet, with their consistent lack of any strong condemnation of the Islamo-fascist sects, they appear to be giving their tacit approval.
In the United States of America, we have historically provided safe haven for both the downtrodden of the world and those who have escaped other countries and come to us to express their religious freedoms. Perhaps it’s time to take a second look at providing said freedoms and liberties to those who have come here to destroy us.
WEBCommentary(tm) - Murder of a New Jersey Christian Family [Part 2]
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