Malaysian police arrest two Americans suspected of promoting Christianity
KUALA LUMPUR, April 27 (AFP) - Malaysian police arrested two Americans for allegedly distributing Christian religious pamphlets to Muslims, police said Wednesday.
Catcha Malaysia - Search
Friday, April 29, 2005
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Truth Will Not Set You Free
By Matt Friedeman, PhD
April 28, 2005
(AgapePress) - John Wesley once said that religion did not consist in orthodoxy, or right opinions. Indeed, "A man may be orthodox in every point; he may not only espouse right opinions, but zealously defend them against all opposers .... He may be almost as orthodox as the devil, (though, indeed, not altogether; for every man errs in something; whereas we cannot well conceive him to hold any erroneous opinion,) and may, all the while, be as great a stranger as he to the religion of the heart."
A bit of a shattering thought, that: "... a man may judge as accurately as the devil, and yet be as wicked as he."
Truth will not set a person free. Truth, applied, will. Which is what Jesus meant when he articulated that famous verse from the Gospel of John: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Holding to the truth in the gospels apparently meant following Jesus to the lost, the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned, and the naked.
Too many would rather talk the truth, and correct all others' theology, without first applying the truth to their families, to the needy in their communities, to the Christ-less masses around the world. And don't get the impression this columnist thinks preaching of truth is unimportant, or that a strong, biblical statement of faith and the worldview that proceeds from it are not critical. Indeed, here is the statement of my own seminary and, here, of my denomination. Strong statements, both. And necessary.
But merely statement of truth is dangerous. Thomas Henry Huxley once said, "The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. What men need is as much knowledge as they can organize for action; give them more and it may become injurious. Some men are heavy and stupid from undigested learning."
Interesting that the Hebrew word for "know," yada, according to scholar Marvin Wilson, embraced much more than information. Facts and orthodoxy were not enough; it also implied a response in the practical domain of life, in behavior and the morality that informed that behavior. In short, says Wilson, to "know" as to "o." It went well beyond the cognitive domain. It meant to put truth in motion, to act.
The yada of Hebrew is first used, interestingly enough, of sexual relations: Adam encountered/experienced Eve (Gen. 4:1). At its most profound level this word expressed the desire of God that His people would know Him -- not just intellectually, but in a much more intimate and experiential sense. They would experience their God -- love Him, interact with Him, develop an intimacy with Him, and act on His behalf.
On the radio program I host, we recently discussed People's "Most Beautiful People" issue. It is comprised of good-looking people from Hollywood, basically. But the question to my listening audience was this: Who are the people in our culture today that are beautiful, in a biblical sense? My own choice included Bruce Olson, of Bruchko fame -- who traveled down to South America as a very young man with the gospel and became a missionary legend. Incredible book, beautiful man. I also offered the name Charles Colson, a man who is a brilliant thinker and writer but who is more at home in the prison sharing truth with men and women in need. Doers of the Word, both.
The older I get, the more I have started defining beauty and Christ-like ministry in terms of "truth applied," instead of simply "truth talk" and heresy-hunting. It seems to be consistent with the mind of Christ: "My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it."
News from Agape Press
April 28, 2005
(AgapePress) - John Wesley once said that religion did not consist in orthodoxy, or right opinions. Indeed, "A man may be orthodox in every point; he may not only espouse right opinions, but zealously defend them against all opposers .... He may be almost as orthodox as the devil, (though, indeed, not altogether; for every man errs in something; whereas we cannot well conceive him to hold any erroneous opinion,) and may, all the while, be as great a stranger as he to the religion of the heart."
A bit of a shattering thought, that: "... a man may judge as accurately as the devil, and yet be as wicked as he."
Truth will not set a person free. Truth, applied, will. Which is what Jesus meant when he articulated that famous verse from the Gospel of John: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Holding to the truth in the gospels apparently meant following Jesus to the lost, the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned, and the naked.
Too many would rather talk the truth, and correct all others' theology, without first applying the truth to their families, to the needy in their communities, to the Christ-less masses around the world. And don't get the impression this columnist thinks preaching of truth is unimportant, or that a strong, biblical statement of faith and the worldview that proceeds from it are not critical. Indeed, here is the statement of my own seminary and, here, of my denomination. Strong statements, both. And necessary.
But merely statement of truth is dangerous. Thomas Henry Huxley once said, "The great end of life is not knowledge, but action. What men need is as much knowledge as they can organize for action; give them more and it may become injurious. Some men are heavy and stupid from undigested learning."
Interesting that the Hebrew word for "know," yada, according to scholar Marvin Wilson, embraced much more than information. Facts and orthodoxy were not enough; it also implied a response in the practical domain of life, in behavior and the morality that informed that behavior. In short, says Wilson, to "know" as to "o." It went well beyond the cognitive domain. It meant to put truth in motion, to act.
The yada of Hebrew is first used, interestingly enough, of sexual relations: Adam encountered/experienced Eve (Gen. 4:1). At its most profound level this word expressed the desire of God that His people would know Him -- not just intellectually, but in a much more intimate and experiential sense. They would experience their God -- love Him, interact with Him, develop an intimacy with Him, and act on His behalf.
On the radio program I host, we recently discussed People's "Most Beautiful People" issue. It is comprised of good-looking people from Hollywood, basically. But the question to my listening audience was this: Who are the people in our culture today that are beautiful, in a biblical sense? My own choice included Bruce Olson, of Bruchko fame -- who traveled down to South America as a very young man with the gospel and became a missionary legend. Incredible book, beautiful man. I also offered the name Charles Colson, a man who is a brilliant thinker and writer but who is more at home in the prison sharing truth with men and women in need. Doers of the Word, both.
The older I get, the more I have started defining beauty and Christ-like ministry in terms of "truth applied," instead of simply "truth talk" and heresy-hunting. It seems to be consistent with the mind of Christ: "My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it."
News from Agape Press
Christian Parent Arrested After Being Denied Say-So in Son's Education
Christian Parent Arrested After Being Denied Say-So in Son's Education
By Jody Brown
April 28, 2005"
(AgapePress) - A Massachusetts group battling judicial activism and the advancing homosexual agenda in their state is reporting that the father of a kindergarten student was arrested on Wednesday during a scheduled meeting with the principal of his son's school. Since January, the father of the six-year-old had been attempting to get his son opted-out from discussions portraying homosexuality as acceptable.
According to reports by the Article 8 Alliance, David Parker and his wife Tonia had been in e-mail contact with Joni Jay, principal of Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington regarding material brought home by their son from school. The "Diversity Book Bag" included a book titled Who's in a Family, which portrays same-sex parent families as morally equivalent to traditional families. The Parkers, over the course of several e-mails with Principal Jay, attempted to make it clear they wanted their son removed from the classroom any time discussions or displays dealt with homosexuality -- and they sought a commitment from the principal that their desires would be accommodated.
"You are not permitted to infringe upon our religious beliefs and parental rights or obviate our freedom of choice, to exclude our son from material that would expose him to beliefs contrary to the Word of God in our Christian faith," the Parkers wrote in a March 4 e-mail to Jay.
After attending an "anti-bias meeting" in early April, David Parker again requested a meeting with Jay, which occurred yesterday (Wednesday, April 27). Article 8 Alliance reports that during that meeting, Mr. Parker reiterated his demands: that the school inform him when the topic of homosexuality was to be discussed with his son, and that the school permit his son not be included in those discussions. Parker's requests were reportedly denied by the principal, the director of education, and the superintendent.
Parker refused to leave the school unless his requests were granted, says a press statement -- and then police were summoned, who informed the father he would be arrested if he did not leave the school. When he did not, school officials had Parker arrested for trespassing.
Article 8 Alliance says Parker spent the night in jail, and was scheduled for arraignment Thursday morning. Brian Camenker of the Alliance is a friend of Parkers. "This is an unbelievable outrage," Camenker states. "It's where last year's same-sex 'marriage' ruling has brought us."
Camenker's group is seeking to remove the four judges on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Council whose vote imposed homosexual marriage on the Bay State. The Alliance contends those four jurists unconstitutionally changed state law.
The group also is seeking to strengthen the state's "Parental Notification and Consent Law" so that parents would no longer have to "opt-out" their children in cases like the Parkers', but instead would have to choose to "opt-in." The Article 8 Alliance says homosexual activists are opposed to the move because they "know that this will stop the homosexual agenda in the public schools by giving parents the power."
News from Agape Press
By Jody Brown
April 28, 2005"
(AgapePress) - A Massachusetts group battling judicial activism and the advancing homosexual agenda in their state is reporting that the father of a kindergarten student was arrested on Wednesday during a scheduled meeting with the principal of his son's school. Since January, the father of the six-year-old had been attempting to get his son opted-out from discussions portraying homosexuality as acceptable.
According to reports by the Article 8 Alliance, David Parker and his wife Tonia had been in e-mail contact with Joni Jay, principal of Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington regarding material brought home by their son from school. The "Diversity Book Bag" included a book titled Who's in a Family, which portrays same-sex parent families as morally equivalent to traditional families. The Parkers, over the course of several e-mails with Principal Jay, attempted to make it clear they wanted their son removed from the classroom any time discussions or displays dealt with homosexuality -- and they sought a commitment from the principal that their desires would be accommodated.
"You are not permitted to infringe upon our religious beliefs and parental rights or obviate our freedom of choice, to exclude our son from material that would expose him to beliefs contrary to the Word of God in our Christian faith," the Parkers wrote in a March 4 e-mail to Jay.
After attending an "anti-bias meeting" in early April, David Parker again requested a meeting with Jay, which occurred yesterday (Wednesday, April 27). Article 8 Alliance reports that during that meeting, Mr. Parker reiterated his demands: that the school inform him when the topic of homosexuality was to be discussed with his son, and that the school permit his son not be included in those discussions. Parker's requests were reportedly denied by the principal, the director of education, and the superintendent.
Parker refused to leave the school unless his requests were granted, says a press statement -- and then police were summoned, who informed the father he would be arrested if he did not leave the school. When he did not, school officials had Parker arrested for trespassing.
Article 8 Alliance says Parker spent the night in jail, and was scheduled for arraignment Thursday morning. Brian Camenker of the Alliance is a friend of Parkers. "This is an unbelievable outrage," Camenker states. "It's where last year's same-sex 'marriage' ruling has brought us."
Camenker's group is seeking to remove the four judges on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Council whose vote imposed homosexual marriage on the Bay State. The Alliance contends those four jurists unconstitutionally changed state law.
The group also is seeking to strengthen the state's "Parental Notification and Consent Law" so that parents would no longer have to "opt-out" their children in cases like the Parkers', but instead would have to choose to "opt-in." The Article 8 Alliance says homosexual activists are opposed to the move because they "know that this will stop the homosexual agenda in the public schools by giving parents the power."
News from Agape Press
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Dawa in public schools
Dawa through the school newspaper
The school newspaper is another effective way of doing Dawa. Muslim students are highly encouraged to become writers and editors of their school papers. Inform the writing staff to consult you before publishing articles on Islam and Muslims. Being a writer will give you ample opportunity to provide Islamically oriented articles which will Insha Allah open the hearts and minds of readers.
As a group, the Muslim students should try to contribute an article on Islam in each issue of its paper. The school may not allow you to preach in the school paper, but Alhamdu lillah, there are ways to circumvent this problem.
When your Islamic group holds any Islamic event like lectures, religious/ cultural events etc, submit an article about this event as a "news" article. This way, you are still presenting an aspect of Islam without coming across as a preacher.
The second way to circumvent the problem is to write articles about Islamic holidays, the two Eids and again submit them as "news" articles. It also helps to have a good rapport with the editor and the writing staff of the paper. Invite them to your Iftar parties, gatherings, lectures etc.
Including Islamic holidays in the school calendar
Many school events and exams are scheduled around Jewish and Christian holidays. Muslims students should approach the school authorities as a group and get Islamic dates included in the school diaries to be considered during the scheduling of important school events.
Islamic books in school libraries
Encourage school libraries to shelf books and magazines on Islam written by Muslims, and to provide the librarian with a list of recommended books on Islam. If the library is unwilling to purchase the books themselves, Muslim students should raise funds amongst themselves and from their parents and come up with the required books.
Scanning textbooks for misinformation on Islam
Students of all grades and their parents should regularly scan textbooks to detect any biased material on Islam. If any is found, it should be brought to the attention of the teachers and the school authorities, providing them with the correct information with evidence, and have the teacher announce to the students the correct information.
In this area, the Council on Islamic Education can also help.
Starting an Islamic newsletter
A newsletter on Islam and Muslims can be started by the Muslim students, if the school allows it. This newsletter can be funded mostly by advertisements and donations. A newsletter on Islam and Muslims will again help in dispelling the misinformation circulating about Islam and encourage Muslims to be organized and proactive.
Incorporating Islam into class projects
Some aspects of Islam can be incorporated in school projects. For example, for a speech class, if there is freedom to choose a topic, an Islamic topic should be selected. Similar opportunities can be created in history, social science, writing and other classes.
Remember, it was the Will and help of Allah, Iman (faith) and Muslim creativity that won victories for the Muslims. Schools and campuses are no exceptions as places where Islam can be victorious.
Dawa in public schools
The school newspaper is another effective way of doing Dawa. Muslim students are highly encouraged to become writers and editors of their school papers. Inform the writing staff to consult you before publishing articles on Islam and Muslims. Being a writer will give you ample opportunity to provide Islamically oriented articles which will Insha Allah open the hearts and minds of readers.
As a group, the Muslim students should try to contribute an article on Islam in each issue of its paper. The school may not allow you to preach in the school paper, but Alhamdu lillah, there are ways to circumvent this problem.
When your Islamic group holds any Islamic event like lectures, religious/ cultural events etc, submit an article about this event as a "news" article. This way, you are still presenting an aspect of Islam without coming across as a preacher.
The second way to circumvent the problem is to write articles about Islamic holidays, the two Eids and again submit them as "news" articles. It also helps to have a good rapport with the editor and the writing staff of the paper. Invite them to your Iftar parties, gatherings, lectures etc.
Including Islamic holidays in the school calendar
Many school events and exams are scheduled around Jewish and Christian holidays. Muslims students should approach the school authorities as a group and get Islamic dates included in the school diaries to be considered during the scheduling of important school events.
Islamic books in school libraries
Encourage school libraries to shelf books and magazines on Islam written by Muslims, and to provide the librarian with a list of recommended books on Islam. If the library is unwilling to purchase the books themselves, Muslim students should raise funds amongst themselves and from their parents and come up with the required books.
Scanning textbooks for misinformation on Islam
Students of all grades and their parents should regularly scan textbooks to detect any biased material on Islam. If any is found, it should be brought to the attention of the teachers and the school authorities, providing them with the correct information with evidence, and have the teacher announce to the students the correct information.
In this area, the Council on Islamic Education can also help.
Starting an Islamic newsletter
A newsletter on Islam and Muslims can be started by the Muslim students, if the school allows it. This newsletter can be funded mostly by advertisements and donations. A newsletter on Islam and Muslims will again help in dispelling the misinformation circulating about Islam and encourage Muslims to be organized and proactive.
Incorporating Islam into class projects
Some aspects of Islam can be incorporated in school projects. For example, for a speech class, if there is freedom to choose a topic, an Islamic topic should be selected. Similar opportunities can be created in history, social science, writing and other classes.
Remember, it was the Will and help of Allah, Iman (faith) and Muslim creativity that won victories for the Muslims. Schools and campuses are no exceptions as places where Islam can be victorious.
Dawa in public schools
Dhimmi Watch: CAIR loves the new Crusade flick
April 27, 2005
CAIR loves the new Crusade flick
Which makes it virtually certain that it is an extended exercise in dhimmitude and historical revisionism. Here is CAIR's press release, 'Muslims Call New Fox Crusader Film 'Balanced'; CAIR Says 'Kingdom of Heaven' Avoids Negative Stereotypes,' from U.S. NewsWire, with thanks to all who sent this in:
WASHINGTON -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said today that the new 20th Century Fox epic 'Kingdom of Heaven' is a 'balanced' portrayal of the Crusades, despite earlier concerns that the film might offer stereotypical portrayals of Islam or Muslims.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) based its judgment on a private screening of the Sir Ridley Scott film at Fox studios in Los Angeles. 'Kingdom' is scheduled to open in theaters nationwide May 6.
The very fact that CAIR was given a private screening speaks volumes. The filmmakers are probably cringing dhimmis, desperately afraid of litigation -- which of course is CAIR's weapon of choice.
Dhimmi Watch: CAIR loves the new Crusade flick
CAIR loves the new Crusade flick
Which makes it virtually certain that it is an extended exercise in dhimmitude and historical revisionism. Here is CAIR's press release, 'Muslims Call New Fox Crusader Film 'Balanced'; CAIR Says 'Kingdom of Heaven' Avoids Negative Stereotypes,' from U.S. NewsWire, with thanks to all who sent this in:
WASHINGTON -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said today that the new 20th Century Fox epic 'Kingdom of Heaven' is a 'balanced' portrayal of the Crusades, despite earlier concerns that the film might offer stereotypical portrayals of Islam or Muslims.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) based its judgment on a private screening of the Sir Ridley Scott film at Fox studios in Los Angeles. 'Kingdom' is scheduled to open in theaters nationwide May 6.
The very fact that CAIR was given a private screening speaks volumes. The filmmakers are probably cringing dhimmis, desperately afraid of litigation -- which of course is CAIR's weapon of choice.
Dhimmi Watch: CAIR loves the new Crusade flick
Pledge to Crackdown on Infanticide
Pro-Lifers Hail HHS Pledge to Crackdown on Infanticide
Govt. Official Vows to Enforce Law Protecting Babies That Survive Abortion Attempts
By Bill Fancher and Jenni Parker
April 27, 2005
(AgapePress) - The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a warning to birthing facilities across the United States that the government agency fully intends to enforce the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.
Representatives of several pro-life organizations were on hand to applaud as President Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act into law in August of 2002. The legislation guarantees that every infant born alive enjoys full legal rights under federal law, regardless of his or her stage of development or whether the live birth occurred during an abortion.
At the ceremony in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before Bush signed the bill into law, he remarked, "This important legislation ensures that every infant born alive -- including an infant who survives an abortion procedure -- is considered a person under federal law." The president went on to call the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act "a step toward the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law ... the day when the promises of the Declaration of Independence will apply to everyone, not just those with the voice and power to defend their rights."
The practice of killing babies that survived abortion attempts was a common practice in many birthing facilities across America right up until Congress passed the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.
News from Agape Press
Link: http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/4/272005e.asp
Govt. Official Vows to Enforce Law Protecting Babies That Survive Abortion Attempts
By Bill Fancher and Jenni Parker
April 27, 2005
(AgapePress) - The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a warning to birthing facilities across the United States that the government agency fully intends to enforce the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.
Representatives of several pro-life organizations were on hand to applaud as President Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act into law in August of 2002. The legislation guarantees that every infant born alive enjoys full legal rights under federal law, regardless of his or her stage of development or whether the live birth occurred during an abortion.
At the ceremony in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before Bush signed the bill into law, he remarked, "This important legislation ensures that every infant born alive -- including an infant who survives an abortion procedure -- is considered a person under federal law." The president went on to call the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act "a step toward the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law ... the day when the promises of the Declaration of Independence will apply to everyone, not just those with the voice and power to defend their rights."
The practice of killing babies that survived abortion attempts was a common practice in many birthing facilities across America right up until Congress passed the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.
News from Agape Press
Link: http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/4/272005e.asp
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
The Fear Trap
April 26, 2005
By John Fischer
He who seeks good finds good will, but evil comes to him who searches for it. (Proverbs 11:27)
Here is a debilitating cycle that can easily capture and render us useless to the kingdom of God. It’s what I call the fear trap, and it goes something like this: a) Fearful people are always looking for evil. b) People who are looking for evil find it everywhere or as the Proverb says: it finds them! Thus proving their fears were well founded, so that now they are really afraid and quite capable of passing on their fears to others. c) Now a whole bunch of people are afraid and coming up with evil everywhere (“The world is just getting worse and worse, isn’t it?”). They are overwhelmed and desperate, and ripe to make two missteps: 1) give into those who are building a power base on the fears of immature believers, and 2) remove themselves further and further away from the world out of fear for their safety, thus losing contact with those who need Christ’s love and compassion through them.
How do you get out of the fear trap? First: Don’t be afraid. Easier said than done, you say, but this is precisely why we have the Lord in our hearts. God is love, and perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). No one could put it any clearer than Peter does in 1 Peter 3: 14-15, “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, “Don’t give the opposition a second thought.” You see when we are afraid; we are playing right into the devil’s schemes. The only way to avoid doing this is to let Christ rule your heart.
Which sets us up for the second way out of the fear trap: Instead of focusing on evil, which is exactly what the opposition wants, us to do, focus on the good. “The one who seeks good finds good will.” There is enough good in the world to claim our focus. I believe there is enough good in the world to keep us worshiping God all the time. Sometimes, the good isn’t obvious to everyone, but to the one who seeks it, it can be found. This is looking through the eyes of Christ, and instead of seeing the evil and fearing it, we see what God created us to be and what the world can be under His Lordship, and we can put our efforts into reclaiming that good for ourselves and everyone around us. Then we won’t be so susceptible to falling into the fear trap, and being manipulated by those who prey on the fearful.
By John Fischer
He who seeks good finds good will, but evil comes to him who searches for it. (Proverbs 11:27)
Here is a debilitating cycle that can easily capture and render us useless to the kingdom of God. It’s what I call the fear trap, and it goes something like this: a) Fearful people are always looking for evil. b) People who are looking for evil find it everywhere or as the Proverb says: it finds them! Thus proving their fears were well founded, so that now they are really afraid and quite capable of passing on their fears to others. c) Now a whole bunch of people are afraid and coming up with evil everywhere (“The world is just getting worse and worse, isn’t it?”). They are overwhelmed and desperate, and ripe to make two missteps: 1) give into those who are building a power base on the fears of immature believers, and 2) remove themselves further and further away from the world out of fear for their safety, thus losing contact with those who need Christ’s love and compassion through them.
How do you get out of the fear trap? First: Don’t be afraid. Easier said than done, you say, but this is precisely why we have the Lord in our hearts. God is love, and perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). No one could put it any clearer than Peter does in 1 Peter 3: 14-15, “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, “Don’t give the opposition a second thought.” You see when we are afraid; we are playing right into the devil’s schemes. The only way to avoid doing this is to let Christ rule your heart.
Which sets us up for the second way out of the fear trap: Instead of focusing on evil, which is exactly what the opposition wants, us to do, focus on the good. “The one who seeks good finds good will.” There is enough good in the world to claim our focus. I believe there is enough good in the world to keep us worshiping God all the time. Sometimes, the good isn’t obvious to everyone, but to the one who seeks it, it can be found. This is looking through the eyes of Christ, and instead of seeing the evil and fearing it, we see what God created us to be and what the world can be under His Lordship, and we can put our efforts into reclaiming that good for ourselves and everyone around us. Then we won’t be so susceptible to falling into the fear trap, and being manipulated by those who prey on the fearful.
Religious Discrimination Lawsuit
Plano Parents Counter with Plan to End Religious Discrimination Lawsuit
By Jim Brown and Jody Brown
April 26, 2005
(AgapePress) - Christian families in Plano, Texas, are rejecting the terms of an offer by the local school district to settle a religious discrimination case. A Christian attorney says officials with the Plano Independent School District (ISD) don't understand that the civil rights of parents are not for sale.
The Plano ISD has offered to pay the attorneys' fees and monetary damages of several families in the district who have had their religious freedom rights violated. However, as part of the settlement offer, the district would not admit liability in several cases involving censorship of students' and parents' free speech. The district has offered each family $100 in return for admitting no wrongdoing.
Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Legal Institute, says his clients are rejecting the district's offer -- and are responding with a counter-offer.
"Instead of the damages they were willing to pay to our clients, we offered to take only one dollar for the clients and to cut [in half] the amount of attorneys' fees that we would be able to recover," Sasser explains. "So we offered to take a whole lot less money. In return they just have to admit what they did was wrong, agree to a court order that they'll never do that again, and train their employees appropriately."
According to LLI, the families have said they cannot accept the district's settlement offer because it does not offer "future protection against the same type of violations, and, in fact, denies all wrongdoing and that any violations have occurred."
The case stems from what the Liberty Legal Institute has described as a "large amount of evidence that demonstrates the pervasive religious hostility" in the school district for well over a year. Among examples cited by LLI are: a third-grader was prohibited from handing out "goody bags" that included candy canes with a religious message; a young girl was prevented by school officials from distributing pencils with "Jesus" written on them; another student was told she could not invite friends to an Easter event at her church; and a letter was sent home requesting that parents not send their children to school with anything red or green during the holiday season. (See earlier story)
Sasser says the monetary offer to families demonstrates to him that the school district wants to obscure its religious intolerance.
"What they're trying to do is put up a smokescreen and to pretend like they are favorable to things that are religious in nature," the attorney says. He believes the district desires to "hide the fact that, in reality, their policies are simple: they are designed to squelch the speech of students, including religious speech. They've had a pattern and practice, over many years, of discriminating specifically against religious speech."
The LLI attorney makes it clear: "Our clients' civil rights are not for sale. The whole thing will be over if they will just agree they violated the children's rights and that it won't happen again."
But the attorney is not optimistic. The Plano Independent School District is scheduled to voter on Liberty Legal's counter-offer on May 3. Sasser says it is doubtful the district will approve the offer. In that case, he says, LLI will proceed with the case, "knowing that they obviously do not value religious freedom."
News from Agape Press
By Jim Brown and Jody Brown
April 26, 2005
(AgapePress) - Christian families in Plano, Texas, are rejecting the terms of an offer by the local school district to settle a religious discrimination case. A Christian attorney says officials with the Plano Independent School District (ISD) don't understand that the civil rights of parents are not for sale.
The Plano ISD has offered to pay the attorneys' fees and monetary damages of several families in the district who have had their religious freedom rights violated. However, as part of the settlement offer, the district would not admit liability in several cases involving censorship of students' and parents' free speech. The district has offered each family $100 in return for admitting no wrongdoing.
Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Legal Institute, says his clients are rejecting the district's offer -- and are responding with a counter-offer.
"Instead of the damages they were willing to pay to our clients, we offered to take only one dollar for the clients and to cut [in half] the amount of attorneys' fees that we would be able to recover," Sasser explains. "So we offered to take a whole lot less money. In return they just have to admit what they did was wrong, agree to a court order that they'll never do that again, and train their employees appropriately."
According to LLI, the families have said they cannot accept the district's settlement offer because it does not offer "future protection against the same type of violations, and, in fact, denies all wrongdoing and that any violations have occurred."
The case stems from what the Liberty Legal Institute has described as a "large amount of evidence that demonstrates the pervasive religious hostility" in the school district for well over a year. Among examples cited by LLI are: a third-grader was prohibited from handing out "goody bags" that included candy canes with a religious message; a young girl was prevented by school officials from distributing pencils with "Jesus" written on them; another student was told she could not invite friends to an Easter event at her church; and a letter was sent home requesting that parents not send their children to school with anything red or green during the holiday season. (See earlier story)
Sasser says the monetary offer to families demonstrates to him that the school district wants to obscure its religious intolerance.
"What they're trying to do is put up a smokescreen and to pretend like they are favorable to things that are religious in nature," the attorney says. He believes the district desires to "hide the fact that, in reality, their policies are simple: they are designed to squelch the speech of students, including religious speech. They've had a pattern and practice, over many years, of discriminating specifically against religious speech."
The LLI attorney makes it clear: "Our clients' civil rights are not for sale. The whole thing will be over if they will just agree they violated the children's rights and that it won't happen again."
But the attorney is not optimistic. The Plano Independent School District is scheduled to voter on Liberty Legal's counter-offer on May 3. Sasser says it is doubtful the district will approve the offer. In that case, he says, LLI will proceed with the case, "knowing that they obviously do not value religious freedom."
News from Agape Press
Monday, April 25, 2005
Senator Clinton Snubs Dialogue with ProLife Groups
4/25/2005 12:00:00 PM
WASHINGTON, April 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Senator Clinton snubbed dialogue with pro-life groups after making statements she was interested in finding common ground and opening a dialogue with those who oppose abortion, according to the Christian Defense Coalition.
Senator Clinton declined to meet with a coalition of pro-life organizations after the groups tried for two months to secure a face to face meeting with the Senator.
Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition and one of the leaders in attempting to secure a meeting, comments, "We are profoundly disappointed that Senator Clinton has refused to sit down and dialogue with a broad coalition of voices within the pro-life community after suggesting she wanted to reach out to us. It now seems that the statements Senator Clinton made, concerning finding common ground on abortion, were politically motivated and not sincere. These comments should now be viewed as an attempt to reinvent herself and appear less radical on the issue of abortion in light of the 2008 race for the White House. I think it is critical that the American public focus more on what Senator Clinton does concerning abortion, rather than her rhetoric, as we move closer to the presidential campaign season."
The groups will have a news conference on Tuesday, April 26, at 12 p.m., to discuss these issues. The location will be outside of the Russell Office Building at the corner of 1st St. and Constitution Ave. NE, Washington, D.C.
For more information or interviews contact: Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney at 202-547-1735 or 540-538-4741 (cell).
http://www.usnewswire.com/
U.S. Newswire : Releases : "Christian Defense Coalition: Senator Clinton Snubs Dialogue with ProLife Groups"
WASHINGTON, April 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Senator Clinton snubbed dialogue with pro-life groups after making statements she was interested in finding common ground and opening a dialogue with those who oppose abortion, according to the Christian Defense Coalition.
Senator Clinton declined to meet with a coalition of pro-life organizations after the groups tried for two months to secure a face to face meeting with the Senator.
Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition and one of the leaders in attempting to secure a meeting, comments, "We are profoundly disappointed that Senator Clinton has refused to sit down and dialogue with a broad coalition of voices within the pro-life community after suggesting she wanted to reach out to us. It now seems that the statements Senator Clinton made, concerning finding common ground on abortion, were politically motivated and not sincere. These comments should now be viewed as an attempt to reinvent herself and appear less radical on the issue of abortion in light of the 2008 race for the White House. I think it is critical that the American public focus more on what Senator Clinton does concerning abortion, rather than her rhetoric, as we move closer to the presidential campaign season."
The groups will have a news conference on Tuesday, April 26, at 12 p.m., to discuss these issues. The location will be outside of the Russell Office Building at the corner of 1st St. and Constitution Ave. NE, Washington, D.C.
For more information or interviews contact: Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney at 202-547-1735 or 540-538-4741 (cell).
http://www.usnewswire.com/
U.S. Newswire : Releases : "Christian Defense Coalition: Senator Clinton Snubs Dialogue with ProLife Groups"
Governed by Faith
By Jane Jimenez
April 25, 2005
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it? --Benjamin Franklin
(AgapePress) - From the Supreme Court, to Congress, to state legislatures, faith is under attack in America. Or ... more rightly expressed ... certain faiths are under attack. People of faith ... certain faiths ... are being asked to go home ... and stay there.
One state leader, questioned by a reporter this month about his faith, admitted the tragic truth. This leader is informed by his faith. He is what he believes.
The reporter went straight for the truth. She asked Mr. Politician if he believed in God, which God, and why. She asked him if he let his religious views affect his political life. With simple candor, Mr. Politician stated he was a Christian and that his political views reflected Judeo-Christian moral values.
You would have thought the sky was falling. The editor slapped a bigger-than-life headline on the interview: Politician Wants to Convert You! And readers responded. A deluge of angry letters denounced this good man.
Culled from their letters, the tirade of invectives is amazing: sanctimonious, supercilious piety, religious bigotry, quasi-Christian cult, extremist, radical fundamentalist mullah, theocratic fascism, chilling, the Crusades, the scariest person, religious dogma, Holocaust denier, neo-Nazi, creationist, astrologer, bigot, dictator, wacko, hell-bent on creating a Nazi-like theocracy, evil intention, theological fanaticism .. .and finally ... duped by his religious fervor, circular logic and disinformation ... the Inquisition!
Well, if Christians like Mr. Politician are truly duped by their religious fervor, circular logic and disinformation, they are not the only ones. Overcome by hatred and distrust of Christians, these letter-writers have lost sight of what religion is: a worldview about man's place in the world related to the universe, the earth, and his fellow man. Everyone has a religious belief. Everyone.
Friedrich Nietzsche had a religious belief. God is dead. Hitler had a religious belief. There is no God. Stalin had a religious belief. From his deathbed, he literally shook his fist to the heavens in defiance of "the god" he didn't believe in.
I have lived on both sides of the religious fence ... without God ... and with God. My family and friends represent a wide rainbow of faiths: Yogis, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Christians, agnostics and atheists. And I can tell you ... everyone is informed by their religious point of view. Everyone.
Either deception or cowardice leads those who have a belief in the absence of God to pretend that they can separate their own politics from their religious beliefs. Philosopher Richard Weaver has it right. Ideas do have consequences.
In How Now Shall We Live, Colson and Pearcey expound on Weaver's statement. "It is the great ideas that inform the mind, fire the imagination, move the heart, and shape a culture. History is little more than the recording of the rise and fall of the great ideas -- the worldviews -- that form our values and move us to act."
Consider a small selection from the letters attacking Christian politicians:
- They've found "the superior cultural norms"
- They want to highjack our political future and effectively end the possibility of intelligent political discourse and debate
- They want to take away my freedom to make decisions for myself ... they are telling me what I can and cannot do according to their values, not mine
One letter writer summed up the offense of being a Christian politician. Mr. Politician was on a righteous quest of cultural change using thought control. Another writer agreed. It is not the right of any particular religious group to assert its moral principles on a society.
Yet, these are the very same people who want to force American society to conform to their own particular faith ... the faith that God doesn't exist, or that if by chance He does exist, He doesn't care what on earth we do with our lives ... or the lives of others. This sincerely held belief is a faith-view, a worldview that informs every action of those who want Christians to leave public life.
And sadly, rather than engage in "intelligent political discourse and debate" about the consequences of political decisions based on their faith-view, they insist on "highjacking the political future" of all Americans by banishing people of other faiths to the stratosphere ... most of all, those intolerant, bigoted Christians.
Somehow, the tolerance of this line of thinking escapes me. Had these people held American politics in their tight little fists over the past 200 years, we would never have benefited from the likes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, Jr.
All lawmakers pass laws that reflect their deeply held beliefs ... their faith. There is no truth to the idea that a man is divided, that somehow he enters politics and votes for laws that violate his worldview.
Thus, for the benefit of those who will be impacted by the laws that reflect the faith of all lawmakers, please do everyone a big favor. Quit attacking people of other faiths. Spend your time explaining your own faith. And then ... please explain the eternal consequences of laws that will reflect your own piety.
Your faith matters, too, if you expect us to vote for you. Make no mistake about it. America is governed by faith. It always has been ... and it always will be.
News from Agape Press
April 25, 2005
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it? --Benjamin Franklin
(AgapePress) - From the Supreme Court, to Congress, to state legislatures, faith is under attack in America. Or ... more rightly expressed ... certain faiths are under attack. People of faith ... certain faiths ... are being asked to go home ... and stay there.
One state leader, questioned by a reporter this month about his faith, admitted the tragic truth. This leader is informed by his faith. He is what he believes.
The reporter went straight for the truth. She asked Mr. Politician if he believed in God, which God, and why. She asked him if he let his religious views affect his political life. With simple candor, Mr. Politician stated he was a Christian and that his political views reflected Judeo-Christian moral values.
You would have thought the sky was falling. The editor slapped a bigger-than-life headline on the interview: Politician Wants to Convert You! And readers responded. A deluge of angry letters denounced this good man.
Culled from their letters, the tirade of invectives is amazing: sanctimonious, supercilious piety, religious bigotry, quasi-Christian cult, extremist, radical fundamentalist mullah, theocratic fascism, chilling, the Crusades, the scariest person, religious dogma, Holocaust denier, neo-Nazi, creationist, astrologer, bigot, dictator, wacko, hell-bent on creating a Nazi-like theocracy, evil intention, theological fanaticism .. .and finally ... duped by his religious fervor, circular logic and disinformation ... the Inquisition!
Well, if Christians like Mr. Politician are truly duped by their religious fervor, circular logic and disinformation, they are not the only ones. Overcome by hatred and distrust of Christians, these letter-writers have lost sight of what religion is: a worldview about man's place in the world related to the universe, the earth, and his fellow man. Everyone has a religious belief. Everyone.
Friedrich Nietzsche had a religious belief. God is dead. Hitler had a religious belief. There is no God. Stalin had a religious belief. From his deathbed, he literally shook his fist to the heavens in defiance of "the god" he didn't believe in.
I have lived on both sides of the religious fence ... without God ... and with God. My family and friends represent a wide rainbow of faiths: Yogis, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Christians, agnostics and atheists. And I can tell you ... everyone is informed by their religious point of view. Everyone.
Either deception or cowardice leads those who have a belief in the absence of God to pretend that they can separate their own politics from their religious beliefs. Philosopher Richard Weaver has it right. Ideas do have consequences.
In How Now Shall We Live, Colson and Pearcey expound on Weaver's statement. "It is the great ideas that inform the mind, fire the imagination, move the heart, and shape a culture. History is little more than the recording of the rise and fall of the great ideas -- the worldviews -- that form our values and move us to act."
Consider a small selection from the letters attacking Christian politicians:
- They've found "the superior cultural norms"
- They want to highjack our political future and effectively end the possibility of intelligent political discourse and debate
- They want to take away my freedom to make decisions for myself ... they are telling me what I can and cannot do according to their values, not mine
One letter writer summed up the offense of being a Christian politician. Mr. Politician was on a righteous quest of cultural change using thought control. Another writer agreed. It is not the right of any particular religious group to assert its moral principles on a society.
Yet, these are the very same people who want to force American society to conform to their own particular faith ... the faith that God doesn't exist, or that if by chance He does exist, He doesn't care what on earth we do with our lives ... or the lives of others. This sincerely held belief is a faith-view, a worldview that informs every action of those who want Christians to leave public life.
And sadly, rather than engage in "intelligent political discourse and debate" about the consequences of political decisions based on their faith-view, they insist on "highjacking the political future" of all Americans by banishing people of other faiths to the stratosphere ... most of all, those intolerant, bigoted Christians.
Somehow, the tolerance of this line of thinking escapes me. Had these people held American politics in their tight little fists over the past 200 years, we would never have benefited from the likes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, Jr.
All lawmakers pass laws that reflect their deeply held beliefs ... their faith. There is no truth to the idea that a man is divided, that somehow he enters politics and votes for laws that violate his worldview.
Thus, for the benefit of those who will be impacted by the laws that reflect the faith of all lawmakers, please do everyone a big favor. Quit attacking people of other faiths. Spend your time explaining your own faith. And then ... please explain the eternal consequences of laws that will reflect your own piety.
Your faith matters, too, if you expect us to vote for you. Make no mistake about it. America is governed by faith. It always has been ... and it always will be.
News from Agape Press
Rally Calls for End to Democrat-Led 'Pattern of Discrimination'
By Allie Martin and Jody Brown
April 25, 2005
(AgapePress) - During a nationwide broadcast over the weekend, evangelical Christian leaders sounded the call for religious liberty, saying it's time for the U.S. Senate to stop filibusters against people of faith who have been nominated to the federal bench.
An estimated 5,000 people filled Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, KY, on Sunday evening for "Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith." Event coordinator Family Research Council reports the simulcast also went into 61 million households in 44 states -- numbers that FRC president Tony Perkins describes as "an amazing response."
Why such a response? Perkins thinks it is because "people of faith" are realizing that actions in Washington -- in this case, a Democratic-led filibuster against President Bush's conservative, pro-life judicial nominees -- have a direct impact on their lives.
"It's time to bring some transparency to the process and it is time to give these nominees an up-or-down vote," the FRC president said before the broadcast. "This is not about faith, but a debate and fairness for people of faith, any faith."
Dobson and Colson
The event kicked off with retired Judge Charles Pickering leading the Pledge of Allegiance. Then a variety of speakers encouraged voters to contact their senators and ask them to vote to end filibusters on judicial nominees. Focus on the Family Action founder Dr. James Dobson said the unconstitutional use of filibusters to prevent Christians from serving as judges must stop.
"It's not right; it's wrong," Dobson said. "And I think this is one of the most significant issues we've ever faced as a nation, because the future of democracy and ordered liberty actually depends on the outcome of this struggle."
Dobson added that Christians have the right as citizens to seek a change in courts that seem "determined to redesign the culture according to their own biases."
Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries said the Senate has been holding the judiciary "hostage" through filibusters that have stopped ten of President Bush's judicial nominees. Colson explained that America's founding fathers had good reason to establish a "balance of powers" in the nation's new government.
"[They knew] there had to be three co-equal branches of government -- otherwise, being disposed to sin as we are and believing in the fall [of man], there could be abuses," Colson remarked. "And so three branches of government were set up, all to be independent and to balance one another. [But] what the Senate minority is trying to do [now] is, by a filibuster, to seize what they lost at the ballot box and to prevent the appointment of judges."
Mohler: 'Pattern of Discrimination'
The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville told those in attendance that there is a clear pattern of discrimination in the Senate against conservative, Bible-believing judicial nominees.
"This pattern of discrimination against those who hold deep convictions about human life and the institution of marriage must come to an end," Mohler stated, accusing those who are discriminating of blocking the constitutional process.
"They're saying we're just trying to speak on behalf of evangelical Christians. No, we're speaking as evangelical Christians," the seminary president said. "But I'm going to speak on behalf of former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor who, when he faced the Senate Judiciary Committee, was confronted by some who said they opposed him because of 'deeply held personal beliefs.'"
Mohler explained that Pryor is a Roman Catholic, and that is his Catholic beliefs to which his critics were referring. "Those are his deeply held personal beliefs," Mohler said -- then added this warning: "If it's a Roman Catholic attorney general from Alabama [being discriminated against] today, it could be you or it could be yours tomorrow."
Mohler says Christians have to be concerned about who's serving on the courts. "Religious liberty is on the line here -- because the courts also hold, by their constitutional role, a responsibility to defend our religious liberty," he explained. "But in far too many cases judges have constrained and violated our religious liberty -- and so now are some members of the United States Senate."
Frist Just Wants Senators to Vote
Never in 214 years had a judicial nominee with majority support been denied a straight up-or-down vote before the full Senate, until two years ago when Democrats began filibustering the president's nominees.
In a videotaped statement to the rally, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he wants to call for a vote to stop Senate filibusters on the nominees -- and that in doing so, he is just asking senators to do their job and vote. The senator rejects charges that ending Senate judicial filibusters is radical. "I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote," he said. "I don't think it's radical to expect senator to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities."
"Americans elects their senators to vote on the peoples' business; that is a senator's job: to vote," he continued. "If these senators were not prepared to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities, then why are they here in the first place?"
Frist said he will consider calling for a revision of Senate filibuster rules unless Democrats stop blocking votes on the nominees. Democrats call that the "nuclear option," but Frist said it is just democracy. "Only in the United States Senate could it be considered a devastating option to allow a vote," he observed. "Most places call that democracy."
The evangelical Christian leaders were joined by black clergy and Catholics at the rally in Louisville. But critics of the rally said it was inappropriate to hold it in a church. Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper, who heads the Kentucky Council of Churches, joined protesters against the event, saying that "religion and religious people are being manipulated to achieve political ends." Other participants in the protest said "Justice Sunday" did not represent the views of all Christians, and denounced Senate Majority Leader Frist for addressing the rally in a videotaped message.
News from Agape Press
April 25, 2005
(AgapePress) - During a nationwide broadcast over the weekend, evangelical Christian leaders sounded the call for religious liberty, saying it's time for the U.S. Senate to stop filibusters against people of faith who have been nominated to the federal bench.
An estimated 5,000 people filled Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, KY, on Sunday evening for "Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith." Event coordinator Family Research Council reports the simulcast also went into 61 million households in 44 states -- numbers that FRC president Tony Perkins describes as "an amazing response."
Why such a response? Perkins thinks it is because "people of faith" are realizing that actions in Washington -- in this case, a Democratic-led filibuster against President Bush's conservative, pro-life judicial nominees -- have a direct impact on their lives.
"It's time to bring some transparency to the process and it is time to give these nominees an up-or-down vote," the FRC president said before the broadcast. "This is not about faith, but a debate and fairness for people of faith, any faith."
Dobson and Colson
The event kicked off with retired Judge Charles Pickering leading the Pledge of Allegiance. Then a variety of speakers encouraged voters to contact their senators and ask them to vote to end filibusters on judicial nominees. Focus on the Family Action founder Dr. James Dobson said the unconstitutional use of filibusters to prevent Christians from serving as judges must stop.
"It's not right; it's wrong," Dobson said. "And I think this is one of the most significant issues we've ever faced as a nation, because the future of democracy and ordered liberty actually depends on the outcome of this struggle."
Dobson added that Christians have the right as citizens to seek a change in courts that seem "determined to redesign the culture according to their own biases."
Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries said the Senate has been holding the judiciary "hostage" through filibusters that have stopped ten of President Bush's judicial nominees. Colson explained that America's founding fathers had good reason to establish a "balance of powers" in the nation's new government.
"[They knew] there had to be three co-equal branches of government -- otherwise, being disposed to sin as we are and believing in the fall [of man], there could be abuses," Colson remarked. "And so three branches of government were set up, all to be independent and to balance one another. [But] what the Senate minority is trying to do [now] is, by a filibuster, to seize what they lost at the ballot box and to prevent the appointment of judges."
Mohler: 'Pattern of Discrimination'
The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville told those in attendance that there is a clear pattern of discrimination in the Senate against conservative, Bible-believing judicial nominees.
"This pattern of discrimination against those who hold deep convictions about human life and the institution of marriage must come to an end," Mohler stated, accusing those who are discriminating of blocking the constitutional process.
"They're saying we're just trying to speak on behalf of evangelical Christians. No, we're speaking as evangelical Christians," the seminary president said. "But I'm going to speak on behalf of former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor who, when he faced the Senate Judiciary Committee, was confronted by some who said they opposed him because of 'deeply held personal beliefs.'"
Mohler explained that Pryor is a Roman Catholic, and that is his Catholic beliefs to which his critics were referring. "Those are his deeply held personal beliefs," Mohler said -- then added this warning: "If it's a Roman Catholic attorney general from Alabama [being discriminated against] today, it could be you or it could be yours tomorrow."
Mohler says Christians have to be concerned about who's serving on the courts. "Religious liberty is on the line here -- because the courts also hold, by their constitutional role, a responsibility to defend our religious liberty," he explained. "But in far too many cases judges have constrained and violated our religious liberty -- and so now are some members of the United States Senate."
Frist Just Wants Senators to Vote
Never in 214 years had a judicial nominee with majority support been denied a straight up-or-down vote before the full Senate, until two years ago when Democrats began filibustering the president's nominees.
In a videotaped statement to the rally, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he wants to call for a vote to stop Senate filibusters on the nominees -- and that in doing so, he is just asking senators to do their job and vote. The senator rejects charges that ending Senate judicial filibusters is radical. "I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote," he said. "I don't think it's radical to expect senator to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities."
"Americans elects their senators to vote on the peoples' business; that is a senator's job: to vote," he continued. "If these senators were not prepared to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities, then why are they here in the first place?"
Frist said he will consider calling for a revision of Senate filibuster rules unless Democrats stop blocking votes on the nominees. Democrats call that the "nuclear option," but Frist said it is just democracy. "Only in the United States Senate could it be considered a devastating option to allow a vote," he observed. "Most places call that democracy."
The evangelical Christian leaders were joined by black clergy and Catholics at the rally in Louisville. But critics of the rally said it was inappropriate to hold it in a church. Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper, who heads the Kentucky Council of Churches, joined protesters against the event, saying that "religion and religious people are being manipulated to achieve political ends." Other participants in the protest said "Justice Sunday" did not represent the views of all Christians, and denounced Senate Majority Leader Frist for addressing the rally in a videotaped message.
News from Agape Press
Thousands Flock To Latest Faith Healing Service
POSTED: 2:36 pm EDT April 25, 2005
BAY VILLAGE, Ohio -- Despite the weather, 3,000 people flocked to Bay Village Sunday for a healing service with Dr. Issam Nemeh.
People came to St. Barnabas Episcopal Church to see the Rocky River doctor that many believe can heal the sick through prayer.
NewsChannel5's Ted Henry spoke with believers who say that Nemeh truly is a man of God.
One woman said she has been legally blind from a genetic disease since she was 13 years old.
But Nemeh and his team prayed over her, and now she says she can see again.
NewsNet5.com - News - Thousands Flock To Latest Faith Healing Service
BAY VILLAGE, Ohio -- Despite the weather, 3,000 people flocked to Bay Village Sunday for a healing service with Dr. Issam Nemeh.
People came to St. Barnabas Episcopal Church to see the Rocky River doctor that many believe can heal the sick through prayer.
NewsChannel5's Ted Henry spoke with believers who say that Nemeh truly is a man of God.
One woman said she has been legally blind from a genetic disease since she was 13 years old.
But Nemeh and his team prayed over her, and now she says she can see again.
NewsNet5.com - News - Thousands Flock To Latest Faith Healing Service
The science of design
MARK HARTWIG
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Intelligent design. To hear some folks talk, youd think its a scam to sneak Genesis into science classrooms. Yet intelligent design has nothing to do with the six days of creation and everything to do with hard evidence and logic.
Intelligent design (ID) is grounded on the observation that the world looks very much as if it had an intelligent source. The late Nobel laureate Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA’s structure and an outspoken critic of religion, remarked, “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.”
For example, consider the cell. Even the simplest cells bristle with high-tech machinery. On the outside, their surfaces are studded with sensors, gates, pumps and identification markers. Some bacteria even sport rotary outboard motors that they use to navigate their environment.
Inside, cells are jam-packed with power plants, assembly lines, recycling units and more. Miniature monorails whisk materials from one part of the cell to another.
ID theorists contend that living organisms like the cell appear designed because they are designed. And they’ve developed rigorous new concepts to test their idea.
In contrast to what is called creation science, which parallels biblical theology, ID rests on two basic assumptions: namely, that intelligent agents exist and that their effects are empirically detectable.
Its chief tool is specified complexity. That’s a mouthful, and the math behind it is forbidding, but the basic idea is simple: An object displays specified complexity when it has lots of parts arranged in a recognizable pattern.
For example, the article you’re now reading has thousands of characters, which could have been arranged in zillions of ways. Yet it fits a recognizable pattern: It’s not just a jumble of letters (which is also complex), but an article written in English. Any rational person would conclude that it was designed.
The effectiveness of such thinking is confirmed by massive experience. As William Dembski, author of “The Design Inference,” points out, “In every instance where we find specified complexity, and where (its) history is known, it turns out that design actually is present.”
Thus, if we could trace the creation of a book, our investigation would lead us to the author. You could say, then, that specified complexity is a signature of design.
To see how this applies to biology, consider the little outboard motor that bacteria such as E. coli use to navigate their environment. This water-cooled contraption, called a flagellum, comes equipped with a reversible engine, drive shaft, U-joint and a long whip-like propeller. It hums along at a cool 17,000 rpm. And flagellum is integrated into a sensory/guidance system that maneuvers the bacterium toward nutrients and away from noxious chemicals — a system so complex that computer simulation is required to understand it in its entirety. That system is meshed with other systems.
Decades of research indicate that the flagellum’s complexity is enormous. It takes about 50 genes to create a working flagellum. Each of those genes is as complex as a sentence with hundreds of letters.
Moreover, the pattern — a working flagellum — is highly specified. Deviate from that pattern, knock out a single gene, and our bug is dead in the water.
Such highly specified complexity, which demands the presence of every part, indicates an intelligent origin. It also defies any explanation, such as contemporary Darwinism, that relies on the stepwise accumulation of random genetic change.
In fact, if you want to run the numbers, as Dembski does in his book “No Free Lunch,” it boils down to the following: If every elementary particle in the observed universe were cranking out mutation events at the cosmic speed limit for a billion times the estimated age of the universe, they still could not produce the genes for a working flagellum.
Of course, what’s important here is not what we conclude about the flagellum or the cell, but how we study it. Calling design theorists religious is just a cheap way to dodge the issues. The public — and our students — deserve better than that.
The science of design - York Daily Record
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Intelligent design. To hear some folks talk, youd think its a scam to sneak Genesis into science classrooms. Yet intelligent design has nothing to do with the six days of creation and everything to do with hard evidence and logic.
Intelligent design (ID) is grounded on the observation that the world looks very much as if it had an intelligent source. The late Nobel laureate Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA’s structure and an outspoken critic of religion, remarked, “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.”
For example, consider the cell. Even the simplest cells bristle with high-tech machinery. On the outside, their surfaces are studded with sensors, gates, pumps and identification markers. Some bacteria even sport rotary outboard motors that they use to navigate their environment.
Inside, cells are jam-packed with power plants, assembly lines, recycling units and more. Miniature monorails whisk materials from one part of the cell to another.
ID theorists contend that living organisms like the cell appear designed because they are designed. And they’ve developed rigorous new concepts to test their idea.
In contrast to what is called creation science, which parallels biblical theology, ID rests on two basic assumptions: namely, that intelligent agents exist and that their effects are empirically detectable.
Its chief tool is specified complexity. That’s a mouthful, and the math behind it is forbidding, but the basic idea is simple: An object displays specified complexity when it has lots of parts arranged in a recognizable pattern.
For example, the article you’re now reading has thousands of characters, which could have been arranged in zillions of ways. Yet it fits a recognizable pattern: It’s not just a jumble of letters (which is also complex), but an article written in English. Any rational person would conclude that it was designed.
The effectiveness of such thinking is confirmed by massive experience. As William Dembski, author of “The Design Inference,” points out, “In every instance where we find specified complexity, and where (its) history is known, it turns out that design actually is present.”
Thus, if we could trace the creation of a book, our investigation would lead us to the author. You could say, then, that specified complexity is a signature of design.
To see how this applies to biology, consider the little outboard motor that bacteria such as E. coli use to navigate their environment. This water-cooled contraption, called a flagellum, comes equipped with a reversible engine, drive shaft, U-joint and a long whip-like propeller. It hums along at a cool 17,000 rpm. And flagellum is integrated into a sensory/guidance system that maneuvers the bacterium toward nutrients and away from noxious chemicals — a system so complex that computer simulation is required to understand it in its entirety. That system is meshed with other systems.
Decades of research indicate that the flagellum’s complexity is enormous. It takes about 50 genes to create a working flagellum. Each of those genes is as complex as a sentence with hundreds of letters.
Moreover, the pattern — a working flagellum — is highly specified. Deviate from that pattern, knock out a single gene, and our bug is dead in the water.
Such highly specified complexity, which demands the presence of every part, indicates an intelligent origin. It also defies any explanation, such as contemporary Darwinism, that relies on the stepwise accumulation of random genetic change.
In fact, if you want to run the numbers, as Dembski does in his book “No Free Lunch,” it boils down to the following: If every elementary particle in the observed universe were cranking out mutation events at the cosmic speed limit for a billion times the estimated age of the universe, they still could not produce the genes for a working flagellum.
Of course, what’s important here is not what we conclude about the flagellum or the cell, but how we study it. Calling design theorists religious is just a cheap way to dodge the issues. The public — and our students — deserve better than that.
The science of design - York Daily Record
Saudis arrest 40 Christians for praying
April 23 2005 at 04:01PM
Riyadh - Saudi Arabia has detained 40 Pakistani Christians for holding prayers at a house in the Muslim kingdom, where practicising any religion other than Islam is illegal, newspapers said on Saturday.
IOL: World: "
Riyadh - Saudi Arabia has detained 40 Pakistani Christians for holding prayers at a house in the Muslim kingdom, where practicising any religion other than Islam is illegal, newspapers said on Saturday.
IOL: World: "
Iranian Christian Faces Death Penalty
(CSW) An Iranian church leader, who is already in prison, faces the death penalty if he is found guilty by a shari'ah court.
Hamid Pourmand, 47, is scheduled to go before a shari'ah court in Bandar-i-Bushehr next week on charges of apostasy from Islam and seeking to spread the Christian gospel among Muslims. The former charge is punishable by death.
Religious News Service and Christian News
Hamid Pourmand, 47, is scheduled to go before a shari'ah court in Bandar-i-Bushehr next week on charges of apostasy from Islam and seeking to spread the Christian gospel among Muslims. The former charge is punishable by death.
Religious News Service and Christian News
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Alternative to the corrupt modern culture
The Church as refuge from the world
The new Pope, Ratzinger the Doctrinaire, wants to present an alternative to the corrupt modern culture
Peter McKnight
Vancouver Sun
April 23, 2005
We might have to part with the notion of a popular Church. It is possible that we are on the verge of a new era ... when Christianity will continue only in the form of small and seemingly insignificant groups ... Christianity might diminish into a barely discernible presence.
That statement could have been written by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's detractors, who fear that in elevating Ratzinger to the papacy the Church has sounded its death knell.
According to his critics, and there are many, Ratzinger the Doctrinaire is the last thing the Church needs right now, as it gradually bleeds parishioners to other faiths, or to no faith at all, at least in the West.
The Church's diminishing relevance in Europe and North America, the critics charge, is a function of its failure to embrace modern values, its refusal to face today and look to tomorrow. And by handing the papacy to the Grand Inquisitor, the Church has decided once again to look to yesterday, to turn its back on the people, and consequently, to ensure its own demise.
So the critics could well have written the epigraph to this column. But they didn't. Indeed, those words, predicting but not necessarily lamenting the vanishing of (Roman Catholic) Christianity, were written by Ratzinger himself.
However, for Ratzinger, the Church isn't to blame for its impending demise; that sentiment has things the wrong way around. The Church might be facing an eclipse, Ratzinger says, but it's because the people "do not want to bear the yoke of Christ."
Ratzinger's words reflect his conviction that the Church is not an ephemeral creation of man, but is a product of God, and is, therefore, otherworldly and timeless.
For that reason, Church authorities can't simply bend to the caprices of modernity, but must remain steadfast in protecting and promoting the revealed, eternal truth. The failure to embrace modern values might lose the Church some adherents, but modern values are momentary whims, not the eternal truth, the wisdom of the ages.
This is a wholly uncontroversial position in Catholicism. But that's not to say there's no debate within Catholic theology about the Church's position in the modern world. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), which sought to renew Catholicism, laid bare the fault line dividing those who believe the Church should open itself to the world, and those who desire a return to tradition and scripture.
Ratzinger, who served as a peritus (theological expert) at Vatican II, is solidly in the latter camp. As Aidan Nichols explains in The Theology of Joseph Ratzinger, and John Allen documents in Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith, Ratzinger's thought is profoundly influenced by St. Augustine, the fourth-century theologian and cleric who preached a kind of Christian Platonism, with his emphasis on "otherworldliness," on the idea that true reality is not to be found in this world, but in the mind of God.
In addition to Augustinian otherworldliness, Ratzinger's own experiences led him to become deeply suspicious of overtures to make the Church more attractive to the world. Growing up in the nightmare of Nazi Germany, Ratzinger noticed that Catholics were sustained by their faith precisely because it was separate from the world, because it didn't adopt the values of the culture or the state.
The Nazis -- and, indeed, modern Europe, about which Ratzinger has little good to say -- also confirmed to Ratzinger that Augustine was right in his pessimism about human nature. For Augustine, fallen man was inherently weak, easily subject to temptation and error.
Ratzinger's distrust of the world is therefore complemented by his distrust of human nature, and he has gone so far as to ponder, during an interview with German journalist Peter Seewald, whether free will has led man "to become dangerous rather than lovable."
Ratzinger is consequently loath to open up the Church to a world he sees as corrupt, to consider the values of a culture that has fallen into error. As such, the separation of the church from the world isn't a problem to be solved, but is a solution in itself -- an alternative to the corrupt modern culture.
Many Catholics warm to this notion of the Church as a refuge from the modern world. But those on the other side of the fault line -- those who prefer Thomas Aquinas's sunnier view of human nature over Augustine's pessimism -- see God's grace at work in the modern world, and are therefore open to having the Church learn from the world. This, certainly, was the position held by Pope John XXIII, the man who instituted Vatican II.
None of this is to suggest that the Thomists are prepared to adopt modern values pell-mell, to wash 2,000 years of theology down the drain. Rather, it is to say they believe that the modern world is not to be feared, that modern life can contribute to a deepened understanding of their faith.
The Thomists had considerable influence over Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), the official document of Vatican II. But Ratzinger, who wishes to return the Church to an emphasis on sin and redemption, has described the treatise as too Thomist, too optimistic about the human condition.
As the epigraph to this column affirms, Ratzinger is well aware that his theology -- or as he would have it, the Church's theology -- might well result in Christianity becoming "a barely discernible presence." That is the price one pays for steadfastly adhering to the Word rather than the world, and it's a price Ratzinger is evidently willing to pay.
Certainly, the Church might be able to better sustain itself by building a bridge to the modern world; for Ratzinger, it is a bridge too far.
Vancouver Sun
The new Pope, Ratzinger the Doctrinaire, wants to present an alternative to the corrupt modern culture
Peter McKnight
Vancouver Sun
April 23, 2005
We might have to part with the notion of a popular Church. It is possible that we are on the verge of a new era ... when Christianity will continue only in the form of small and seemingly insignificant groups ... Christianity might diminish into a barely discernible presence.
That statement could have been written by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's detractors, who fear that in elevating Ratzinger to the papacy the Church has sounded its death knell.
According to his critics, and there are many, Ratzinger the Doctrinaire is the last thing the Church needs right now, as it gradually bleeds parishioners to other faiths, or to no faith at all, at least in the West.
The Church's diminishing relevance in Europe and North America, the critics charge, is a function of its failure to embrace modern values, its refusal to face today and look to tomorrow. And by handing the papacy to the Grand Inquisitor, the Church has decided once again to look to yesterday, to turn its back on the people, and consequently, to ensure its own demise.
So the critics could well have written the epigraph to this column. But they didn't. Indeed, those words, predicting but not necessarily lamenting the vanishing of (Roman Catholic) Christianity, were written by Ratzinger himself.
However, for Ratzinger, the Church isn't to blame for its impending demise; that sentiment has things the wrong way around. The Church might be facing an eclipse, Ratzinger says, but it's because the people "do not want to bear the yoke of Christ."
Ratzinger's words reflect his conviction that the Church is not an ephemeral creation of man, but is a product of God, and is, therefore, otherworldly and timeless.
For that reason, Church authorities can't simply bend to the caprices of modernity, but must remain steadfast in protecting and promoting the revealed, eternal truth. The failure to embrace modern values might lose the Church some adherents, but modern values are momentary whims, not the eternal truth, the wisdom of the ages.
This is a wholly uncontroversial position in Catholicism. But that's not to say there's no debate within Catholic theology about the Church's position in the modern world. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), which sought to renew Catholicism, laid bare the fault line dividing those who believe the Church should open itself to the world, and those who desire a return to tradition and scripture.
Ratzinger, who served as a peritus (theological expert) at Vatican II, is solidly in the latter camp. As Aidan Nichols explains in The Theology of Joseph Ratzinger, and John Allen documents in Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith, Ratzinger's thought is profoundly influenced by St. Augustine, the fourth-century theologian and cleric who preached a kind of Christian Platonism, with his emphasis on "otherworldliness," on the idea that true reality is not to be found in this world, but in the mind of God.
In addition to Augustinian otherworldliness, Ratzinger's own experiences led him to become deeply suspicious of overtures to make the Church more attractive to the world. Growing up in the nightmare of Nazi Germany, Ratzinger noticed that Catholics were sustained by their faith precisely because it was separate from the world, because it didn't adopt the values of the culture or the state.
The Nazis -- and, indeed, modern Europe, about which Ratzinger has little good to say -- also confirmed to Ratzinger that Augustine was right in his pessimism about human nature. For Augustine, fallen man was inherently weak, easily subject to temptation and error.
Ratzinger's distrust of the world is therefore complemented by his distrust of human nature, and he has gone so far as to ponder, during an interview with German journalist Peter Seewald, whether free will has led man "to become dangerous rather than lovable."
Ratzinger is consequently loath to open up the Church to a world he sees as corrupt, to consider the values of a culture that has fallen into error. As such, the separation of the church from the world isn't a problem to be solved, but is a solution in itself -- an alternative to the corrupt modern culture.
Many Catholics warm to this notion of the Church as a refuge from the modern world. But those on the other side of the fault line -- those who prefer Thomas Aquinas's sunnier view of human nature over Augustine's pessimism -- see God's grace at work in the modern world, and are therefore open to having the Church learn from the world. This, certainly, was the position held by Pope John XXIII, the man who instituted Vatican II.
None of this is to suggest that the Thomists are prepared to adopt modern values pell-mell, to wash 2,000 years of theology down the drain. Rather, it is to say they believe that the modern world is not to be feared, that modern life can contribute to a deepened understanding of their faith.
The Thomists had considerable influence over Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), the official document of Vatican II. But Ratzinger, who wishes to return the Church to an emphasis on sin and redemption, has described the treatise as too Thomist, too optimistic about the human condition.
As the epigraph to this column affirms, Ratzinger is well aware that his theology -- or as he would have it, the Church's theology -- might well result in Christianity becoming "a barely discernible presence." That is the price one pays for steadfastly adhering to the Word rather than the world, and it's a price Ratzinger is evidently willing to pay.
Certainly, the Church might be able to better sustain itself by building a bridge to the modern world; for Ratzinger, it is a bridge too far.
Vancouver Sun
Weapons Belonging to Terror Suspect Found
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
The FBI believes it found weapons belonging to a terror suspect who trained at the same Atlanta flight school as two of the Sept. 11 hijackers and who was recently detained but has since been released, FOX News has learned.
The FBI believes it found weapons belonging to a terror suspect who trained at the same Atlanta flight school as two of the Sept. 11 hijackers and who was recently detained but has since been released, FOX News has learned.
Van Gogh festival film withdrawn
Murdered director Theo van Gogh's controversial film Submission has been pulled from the Rotterdam Film Festival because of security fears.
It was one of three of his works to be shown as part of a freedom of expression event in tribute to the late film-maker's life.
The film is critical of the treatment of women under Islam. Its TV screening is thought to have led to his murder.
The 10-day Dutch festival begins on Wednesday.
Submission was made with liberal Somali-Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali and was due to be shown on 30 January.
Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in November 2004 several months after receiving death threats following Submission's first broadcast on Dutch television.
Submission, Part I [2004]
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Van Gogh festival film withdrawn
It was one of three of his works to be shown as part of a freedom of expression event in tribute to the late film-maker's life.
The film is critical of the treatment of women under Islam. Its TV screening is thought to have led to his murder.
The 10-day Dutch festival begins on Wednesday.
Submission was made with liberal Somali-Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali and was due to be shown on 30 January.
Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in November 2004 several months after receiving death threats following Submission's first broadcast on Dutch television.
Submission, Part I [2004]
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Van Gogh festival film withdrawn
Leading Iranian mullah: "Fight the Jews and Vanquish Them"
Prior to the Advent of the Hidden Imam, Arrogance and Colonialism Rule the World
April 23, 2005
The official Iranian news agency Fars, which is close to the conservative circles in Iran, recently published a statement by Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani, one of the Iranian regime's leading religious authorities, in which he advocates fighting the Jews in order to prepare the ground and to hasten the advent of the Hidden Imam, the Messiah according to Shiite belief.
It should be noted that the Fars news agency took the report off its web site several hours after its publication, and other Iranian media outlets close to the conservatives refrained from citing it...
'Fars news agency: Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani, discussing [Shi'ite] religious texts, said: 'One should fight the Jews and vanquish them so that the conditions for the advent of the Hidden Imam be met.' According to the Fars news agency's report, Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani met with members of the Mahdaviyat Studies Institute. He praised the institute's work and demanded that the religious seminaries in Qom also do more to research religious texts and hadith concerning the Hidden Imam...
"Nouri-Hamedani said that the texts concerning the end of days are rife with allusions and hidden meanings. He asked the researchers to devote their efforts to elucidating these texts. He noted: 'In the texts it is told that the Hidden Imam will remove the yoke of humiliation from mankind's neck. Therefore it is clear that prior to the advent of the Hidden Imam, Arrogance [a common epithet for Western powers, especially the U.S.A.] and colonialism rule the world.'
Jihad Watch: Leading Iranian mullah: "Fight the Jews and Vanquish Them":
April 23, 2005
The official Iranian news agency Fars, which is close to the conservative circles in Iran, recently published a statement by Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani, one of the Iranian regime's leading religious authorities, in which he advocates fighting the Jews in order to prepare the ground and to hasten the advent of the Hidden Imam, the Messiah according to Shiite belief.
It should be noted that the Fars news agency took the report off its web site several hours after its publication, and other Iranian media outlets close to the conservatives refrained from citing it...
'Fars news agency: Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani, discussing [Shi'ite] religious texts, said: 'One should fight the Jews and vanquish them so that the conditions for the advent of the Hidden Imam be met.' According to the Fars news agency's report, Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani met with members of the Mahdaviyat Studies Institute. He praised the institute's work and demanded that the religious seminaries in Qom also do more to research religious texts and hadith concerning the Hidden Imam...
"Nouri-Hamedani said that the texts concerning the end of days are rife with allusions and hidden meanings. He asked the researchers to devote their efforts to elucidating these texts. He noted: 'In the texts it is told that the Hidden Imam will remove the yoke of humiliation from mankind's neck. Therefore it is clear that prior to the advent of the Hidden Imam, Arrogance [a common epithet for Western powers, especially the U.S.A.] and colonialism rule the world.'
Jihad Watch: Leading Iranian mullah: "Fight the Jews and Vanquish Them":
Friday, April 22, 2005
The Difference between Micro and Macro Evolution
job41@yahoo.com
Some people have the mistaken impression that creation does not allow any type of change. It does. But it comes down to a matter of how much change, and in which direction the change occurs.
Creation allows for small amounts of change: a dog can produce a variety of breeds of dogs. This is variation - not evolution.
Creationism does not however allow for large scale changes like dinosaurs evolving into birds for example.
The direction of the observed changes: are things getting better or getting worse?
Evolution requires that they get better. We observe just the opposite. Many mutations are detrimental, and new species are sometimes less able to compete.
There is no question there are limited resources in which animals have to compete for. There is a struggle for existence. Natural selection does occur.* (*Natural selection is a biblical concept, and was first written about by a creationist Edward Blyth (1810—1873), a chemist and zoologist. Natural selection supports Creation, not evolution).
There are variations that occur in species. These are good observations, that must be followed by a good conclusion.
All variations we have today have occurred in the years after Noah's flood. The struggle for survival is a result of the sin cursed world, and harsh post flood changes to the environment.
There is survival of the fittest - and there is speciation. Both are things that fit well with the creation account and subsequent fall (sin, death) of man and its effect on the earth.
Survival of the fittest does not explain arrival of the fittest. Where did animals come from? God made them. Do they breed and create new species - yes. Dogs produce varieties of dogs.
Do they ever (even over millions of years of natural selection and speciation) become fish, or birds? No.
The word "Evolution" has two very different meanings. There is "Macro Evolution", and "Micro Evolution".
Microevolution is not really evolution at all. It is the simple variation within a species. It is the prominence of genes being displayed within that species. It allows a family to have one child with blonde hair and blue eyes, while the other has brown hair and brown eyes. The children have not evolved (they are still human), they simply differ in their dominant genes.
Question:
"Do you believe that dog breeding is a form of evolution? if not, then why not?"
from Sunny M. age 19, 11/7/01
Answer: No - this is breeding. They are all still dogs. Even after a million years of selective breeding they will all still be dogs. its all variation - not evolution.
Biblical Creationists believe in variation. All the breeds of dog that exist today all have a common ancestor. It was a dog. Animals can produce a new Species (wolf, domestic dog etc..) and new breeds (husky, lab, etc) but they can not become a new "kind" of animal. A dog will always produce dogs. And a million years from now they will still produce dogs.
Creationists believe that all living members of the dog family (wolves etc.) came from 2 dogs off of Noah’s ark.
But Evolutionists believe that all the dogs alive today evolved from a rock (for those of you who don't know what I am talking about, this is what evolutionists believe: "The earth cooled and formed rock, which was rained on for millions of years, turning it into "soup". The soup came alive and formed the first living creatures. These creatures evolved into all the animals living today").
Do you see the difference?
Micro Evolution (variation) is: Observable
Micro Evolution (variation) is Scientific
Micro Evolution (variation) is Biblical
Macro Evolution (Evolution of all living matter from non living matter) is:
Assumed. It has never been observed
Macro Evolution is Religious in nature. It takes faith to believe it, because there is No evidence.
Macro Evolution is not Biblical
Macro Evolution has never happened. It differs from Micro evolution (variation) because Micro evolution states that all breeds of dog came from a dog. Macroevolution says that all dogs evolved from a rock.
Macro Evolutionists try to use Micro evolution as evidence for Macro evolution. This takes a "leap of faith" and logic to believe.
Does Micro evolution cause Macro evolution?
"The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying micro-evolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macro-evolution. At the risk of doing violence to the positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear, No."
- Quote from Evolutionist Roger Lewin admitting that variation occurs, but that variation does not cause evolution. Quote from "Science" vol. 210, Nov 21, 1980 pg. 883 (source RQB).
What does the Bible say about variation?
The Bible recognizes variation, but says that each animal will only reproduce "after its kind". So dogs can have puppies with different color hair than the parents, but the puppies will never have fins, or wings etc. like evolution claims.
All species of dog we have today came from 2 dogs off of Noah's ark. There is a loss of information from the original dog kind to the new species.
(Picture courtesy of AIG)
Plant variation
Read my commentary on Genesis 1:11 for info on limits to plant variation.
Genesis 1:20
"And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." (verse 21) So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (Verse 22) God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth."
Again God creates all life in the sky and in the water, each with the ability to reproduce but only within the confines of their genetic code.
Our knowledge is limited. God knows everything. We should always look to him for answers.
Why don't teachers tell you the difference between micro and macro evolution?
Comment from a reader:
"I am a senior in high school, and have a teacher who says that evolution is a fact and never specifies between macro and micro evolution. As a Christian it is very frustrating, because he is leading so many people the wrong direction."
In Christ, Ian J. 11/16/01
My response:
I don't think most teachers know the difference between micro and macro. I think they just assume it is all the same thing, and that one proves the other.
Jeremiah 33:3 (KJV)
"Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."
"While some animals can approximate some of the sounds of human speech, they are anatomically incapable of producing the range of sounds necessary for complete, articulate speech." - source unknown - possibly Laitman or Walker
species macro evolution micro evolution The Difference between Micro and Macro Evolution
Some people have the mistaken impression that creation does not allow any type of change. It does. But it comes down to a matter of how much change, and in which direction the change occurs.
Creation allows for small amounts of change: a dog can produce a variety of breeds of dogs. This is variation - not evolution.
Creationism does not however allow for large scale changes like dinosaurs evolving into birds for example.
The direction of the observed changes: are things getting better or getting worse?
Evolution requires that they get better. We observe just the opposite. Many mutations are detrimental, and new species are sometimes less able to compete.
There is no question there are limited resources in which animals have to compete for. There is a struggle for existence. Natural selection does occur.* (*Natural selection is a biblical concept, and was first written about by a creationist Edward Blyth (1810—1873), a chemist and zoologist. Natural selection supports Creation, not evolution).
There are variations that occur in species. These are good observations, that must be followed by a good conclusion.
All variations we have today have occurred in the years after Noah's flood. The struggle for survival is a result of the sin cursed world, and harsh post flood changes to the environment.
There is survival of the fittest - and there is speciation. Both are things that fit well with the creation account and subsequent fall (sin, death) of man and its effect on the earth.
Survival of the fittest does not explain arrival of the fittest. Where did animals come from? God made them. Do they breed and create new species - yes. Dogs produce varieties of dogs.
Do they ever (even over millions of years of natural selection and speciation) become fish, or birds? No.
The word "Evolution" has two very different meanings. There is "Macro Evolution", and "Micro Evolution".
Microevolution is not really evolution at all. It is the simple variation within a species. It is the prominence of genes being displayed within that species. It allows a family to have one child with blonde hair and blue eyes, while the other has brown hair and brown eyes. The children have not evolved (they are still human), they simply differ in their dominant genes.
Question:
"Do you believe that dog breeding is a form of evolution? if not, then why not?"
from Sunny M. age 19, 11/7/01
Answer: No - this is breeding. They are all still dogs. Even after a million years of selective breeding they will all still be dogs. its all variation - not evolution.
Biblical Creationists believe in variation. All the breeds of dog that exist today all have a common ancestor. It was a dog. Animals can produce a new Species (wolf, domestic dog etc..) and new breeds (husky, lab, etc) but they can not become a new "kind" of animal. A dog will always produce dogs. And a million years from now they will still produce dogs.
Creationists believe that all living members of the dog family (wolves etc.) came from 2 dogs off of Noah’s ark.
But Evolutionists believe that all the dogs alive today evolved from a rock (for those of you who don't know what I am talking about, this is what evolutionists believe: "The earth cooled and formed rock, which was rained on for millions of years, turning it into "soup". The soup came alive and formed the first living creatures. These creatures evolved into all the animals living today").
Do you see the difference?
Micro Evolution (variation) is: Observable
Micro Evolution (variation) is Scientific
Micro Evolution (variation) is Biblical
Macro Evolution (Evolution of all living matter from non living matter) is:
Assumed. It has never been observed
Macro Evolution is Religious in nature. It takes faith to believe it, because there is No evidence.
Macro Evolution is not Biblical
Macro Evolution has never happened. It differs from Micro evolution (variation) because Micro evolution states that all breeds of dog came from a dog. Macroevolution says that all dogs evolved from a rock.
Macro Evolutionists try to use Micro evolution as evidence for Macro evolution. This takes a "leap of faith" and logic to believe.
Does Micro evolution cause Macro evolution?
"The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying micro-evolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macro-evolution. At the risk of doing violence to the positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear, No."
- Quote from Evolutionist Roger Lewin admitting that variation occurs, but that variation does not cause evolution. Quote from "Science" vol. 210, Nov 21, 1980 pg. 883 (source RQB).
What does the Bible say about variation?
The Bible recognizes variation, but says that each animal will only reproduce "after its kind". So dogs can have puppies with different color hair than the parents, but the puppies will never have fins, or wings etc. like evolution claims.
All species of dog we have today came from 2 dogs off of Noah's ark. There is a loss of information from the original dog kind to the new species.
(Picture courtesy of AIG)
Plant variation
Read my commentary on Genesis 1:11 for info on limits to plant variation.
Genesis 1:20
"And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." (verse 21) So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (Verse 22) God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth."
Again God creates all life in the sky and in the water, each with the ability to reproduce but only within the confines of their genetic code.
Our knowledge is limited. God knows everything. We should always look to him for answers.
Why don't teachers tell you the difference between micro and macro evolution?
Comment from a reader:
"I am a senior in high school, and have a teacher who says that evolution is a fact and never specifies between macro and micro evolution. As a Christian it is very frustrating, because he is leading so many people the wrong direction."
In Christ, Ian J. 11/16/01
My response:
I don't think most teachers know the difference between micro and macro. I think they just assume it is all the same thing, and that one proves the other.
Jeremiah 33:3 (KJV)
"Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."
"While some animals can approximate some of the sounds of human speech, they are anatomically incapable of producing the range of sounds necessary for complete, articulate speech." - source unknown - possibly Laitman or Walker
species macro evolution micro evolution The Difference between Micro and Macro Evolution
Keep open mind on intelligent design
Keep open mind on intelligent design
Friday, April 22, 2005
ALVIN GROVE
It appears that many people opposing the mention of intelligent design in our schools are biased and are unaware of the fact that more than 300 scientists from Yale, Princeton, MIT and Smithsonian signed a public statement declaring that they were "skeptical of claims for the ability of random and natural selection to account for the complexity of life" and encouraged careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory.
Not only does the No Child Left Behind act require that we help students understand the full range of scientific views, but our state and national legislators are currently considering legislating the requirement that intelligent design be mentioned without any religious references. We would all do well to have an open mind.
Keep open mind on intelligent design - York Daily Record
Friday, April 22, 2005
ALVIN GROVE
It appears that many people opposing the mention of intelligent design in our schools are biased and are unaware of the fact that more than 300 scientists from Yale, Princeton, MIT and Smithsonian signed a public statement declaring that they were "skeptical of claims for the ability of random and natural selection to account for the complexity of life" and encouraged careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory.
Not only does the No Child Left Behind act require that we help students understand the full range of scientific views, but our state and national legislators are currently considering legislating the requirement that intelligent design be mentioned without any religious references. We would all do well to have an open mind.
Keep open mind on intelligent design - York Daily Record
Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol
MTV Smut Peddlers:
Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol
A Report on MTV Programming
March 20, 2004-March 27, 2004
By Casey Williams
Executive Summary
It has been a year since Janet Jackson deliberately exposed her breast to a world-wide audience that included millions of unsuspecting children during the MTV-produced 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, but America is still talking about it, and the entertainment industry is still reeling from the backlash. How is it that “three-quarters of a second on a broadcast television and 13 frames of video” have become the lynchpin for our discussions about where the culture is headed?
One possible explanation is that in that moment, millions of parents finally saw, and understood, what their children are seeing every afternoon on MTV.
MTV is watched by 73% of boys and 78% of girls ages 12 to 19, and it is profoundly influential in the lives of its young fans by glamorizing drug and alcohol use, sexual promiscuity and violent behavior. MTV is also owned by Viacom, the same corporate giant that owns CBS (the network that aired the Super Bowl) and Nickelodeon, and that corporate synergy ensures that even the youngest TV viewers are getting acclimated to the MTV brand. As one TV critic put it: “Nickelodeon isn't just SpongeBob Squarepants: It's a gateway station to crotch- grabbing MTV. With millions of viewers, Nickelodeon offers the perfect cross-marketing vehicle for Viacom: Kids love it; parents trust its programming.”
To gain a better understanding of what children are seeing on MTV, the Parents Television Council undertook a content analysis of MTV programming during its enormously popular annual “Spring Break” coverage. The PTC recorded and analyzed 171 hours of programming around the clock during the week of March 20, 2004 to March 27, 2004.
The PTC found that MTV contains staggering levels of sex and foul language – far higher than one would find on primetime broadcast television. MTV’s reality programs averaged 13 sexual scenes per hour, while music videos on MTV averaged 32 instances of foul language per hour.
Major Findings:
In 171 hours of MTV programming, PTC analysts found a staggering 1,548 sexual scenes containing 3,056 depictions of sex or various forms of nudity and 2,881 verbal sexual references. That means that children watching MTV are viewing an average of 9 sexual scenes per hour with approximately 18 sexual depictions and 17 instances of sexual dialogue or innuendo. To put this in perspective, consider that in its last study of sex on primetime network television, the PTC found an average of only 5.8 instances of sexual content during the 10 o’clock hour – when mostly adults are watching.
Analysts recorded 1,518 uses of unedited foul language and an additional 3,127 bleeped profanities on MTV programming. That means young children watching MTV are subjected to roughly 8.9 un-bleeped profanities per hour, and an additional 18.3 bleeped profanities per hour. By contrast, the 10 o’clock hour on the broadcast networks averaged only 6.5 uses of foul language per hour, according to the PTC’s latest research.
Violence was least problematic but still high at 6 instances per hour of programming (1,068 violent incidents total). Even the broadcast networks averaged only 5.8 instances of violence per hour during the 10 o’clock timeslot.
Music Videos contained more foul language and violence than MTV’s series or specials. In the 109 hours of music video programming contained within the study period, analysts recorded 3,483 uses of foul language (32 instances per hour). Violence occurred in music videos at a rate of 8.6 instances per hour (935 violent scenes).
MTV’s reality shows had more sexual content than the music videos. In 66 hours of reality programming, PTC analysts recorded 833 segments containing sexual content, or 12.6 scenes per hour. Within those 833 segments, there were 905 visual depictions of sexual activity and 917 verbal references.
Making the Band 2 had the most foul-language of MTV’s regular series. In four hours, analysts recorded 208 instances of foul language, including 172 bleeped obscenities, or 52 obscenities per hour of programming.
Of MTV’s regular series, Room Raiders had the highest level of sexual content with 112 segments in 5 hours of programming (or 22 sexual scenes or scenarios per hour of programming.) Those 112 segments contained 175 verbal references and 92 depictions of sexual behavior.
On a per-program basis, the MTV Spring Break special Spring Break Fantasies had the highest sexual content, with 32 sexual segments per hour of programming.
Bleeped language was the most prevalent, constituting 67.3% of the total foul language recorded, or 18.3 utterances per hour. In the sex category, there were approximately 9 sex scenes per hour containing 35 individual instances of sex (visual and verbal) per hour. PTC analysts found 6 violent scenes or scenarios per hour.
If any good can be said to have come out of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl debacle, it is this: parents now know what their children are seeing every afternoon on MTV. But merely recognizing that there’s a problem clearly isn’t enough. Parents allow more than half the children in this country to have television sets in their bedrooms. Surveys indicate that 44% of children say they watch something different when they are alone than when they are with their parents, and 25% of those children choose MTV.
The incessant sleaze on MTV presents the most compelling case yet for consumer cable choice. As it now stands, most parents have no choice but to take – and pay for – MTV if they want basic cable in their homes. Given the choice, how many parents now being forced to take and pay for MTV as part of a basic cable package, would continue to do so?
Cable is now in nearly as many homes as broadcast TV. We can no longer afford to ignore the rising tide of vulgar and violent programming on cable aimed directly at our children. It’s time for a better option.
MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol
Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol
A Report on MTV Programming
March 20, 2004-March 27, 2004
By Casey Williams
Executive Summary
It has been a year since Janet Jackson deliberately exposed her breast to a world-wide audience that included millions of unsuspecting children during the MTV-produced 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, but America is still talking about it, and the entertainment industry is still reeling from the backlash. How is it that “three-quarters of a second on a broadcast television and 13 frames of video” have become the lynchpin for our discussions about where the culture is headed?
One possible explanation is that in that moment, millions of parents finally saw, and understood, what their children are seeing every afternoon on MTV.
MTV is watched by 73% of boys and 78% of girls ages 12 to 19, and it is profoundly influential in the lives of its young fans by glamorizing drug and alcohol use, sexual promiscuity and violent behavior. MTV is also owned by Viacom, the same corporate giant that owns CBS (the network that aired the Super Bowl) and Nickelodeon, and that corporate synergy ensures that even the youngest TV viewers are getting acclimated to the MTV brand. As one TV critic put it: “Nickelodeon isn't just SpongeBob Squarepants: It's a gateway station to crotch- grabbing MTV. With millions of viewers, Nickelodeon offers the perfect cross-marketing vehicle for Viacom: Kids love it; parents trust its programming.”
To gain a better understanding of what children are seeing on MTV, the Parents Television Council undertook a content analysis of MTV programming during its enormously popular annual “Spring Break” coverage. The PTC recorded and analyzed 171 hours of programming around the clock during the week of March 20, 2004 to March 27, 2004.
The PTC found that MTV contains staggering levels of sex and foul language – far higher than one would find on primetime broadcast television. MTV’s reality programs averaged 13 sexual scenes per hour, while music videos on MTV averaged 32 instances of foul language per hour.
Major Findings:
In 171 hours of MTV programming, PTC analysts found a staggering 1,548 sexual scenes containing 3,056 depictions of sex or various forms of nudity and 2,881 verbal sexual references. That means that children watching MTV are viewing an average of 9 sexual scenes per hour with approximately 18 sexual depictions and 17 instances of sexual dialogue or innuendo. To put this in perspective, consider that in its last study of sex on primetime network television, the PTC found an average of only 5.8 instances of sexual content during the 10 o’clock hour – when mostly adults are watching.
Analysts recorded 1,518 uses of unedited foul language and an additional 3,127 bleeped profanities on MTV programming. That means young children watching MTV are subjected to roughly 8.9 un-bleeped profanities per hour, and an additional 18.3 bleeped profanities per hour. By contrast, the 10 o’clock hour on the broadcast networks averaged only 6.5 uses of foul language per hour, according to the PTC’s latest research.
Violence was least problematic but still high at 6 instances per hour of programming (1,068 violent incidents total). Even the broadcast networks averaged only 5.8 instances of violence per hour during the 10 o’clock timeslot.
Music Videos contained more foul language and violence than MTV’s series or specials. In the 109 hours of music video programming contained within the study period, analysts recorded 3,483 uses of foul language (32 instances per hour). Violence occurred in music videos at a rate of 8.6 instances per hour (935 violent scenes).
MTV’s reality shows had more sexual content than the music videos. In 66 hours of reality programming, PTC analysts recorded 833 segments containing sexual content, or 12.6 scenes per hour. Within those 833 segments, there were 905 visual depictions of sexual activity and 917 verbal references.
Making the Band 2 had the most foul-language of MTV’s regular series. In four hours, analysts recorded 208 instances of foul language, including 172 bleeped obscenities, or 52 obscenities per hour of programming.
Of MTV’s regular series, Room Raiders had the highest level of sexual content with 112 segments in 5 hours of programming (or 22 sexual scenes or scenarios per hour of programming.) Those 112 segments contained 175 verbal references and 92 depictions of sexual behavior.
On a per-program basis, the MTV Spring Break special Spring Break Fantasies had the highest sexual content, with 32 sexual segments per hour of programming.
Bleeped language was the most prevalent, constituting 67.3% of the total foul language recorded, or 18.3 utterances per hour. In the sex category, there were approximately 9 sex scenes per hour containing 35 individual instances of sex (visual and verbal) per hour. PTC analysts found 6 violent scenes or scenarios per hour.
If any good can be said to have come out of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl debacle, it is this: parents now know what their children are seeing every afternoon on MTV. But merely recognizing that there’s a problem clearly isn’t enough. Parents allow more than half the children in this country to have television sets in their bedrooms. Surveys indicate that 44% of children say they watch something different when they are alone than when they are with their parents, and 25% of those children choose MTV.
The incessant sleaze on MTV presents the most compelling case yet for consumer cable choice. As it now stands, most parents have no choice but to take – and pay for – MTV if they want basic cable in their homes. Given the choice, how many parents now being forced to take and pay for MTV as part of a basic cable package, would continue to do so?
Cable is now in nearly as many homes as broadcast TV. We can no longer afford to ignore the rising tide of vulgar and violent programming on cable aimed directly at our children. It’s time for a better option.
MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol
MTV Peddling Smut to Kids, Study Says
By AFA Journal
April 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - A recent report issued by the Parents Television Council (PTC) quantifies what many parents probably suspected intuitively: that MTV, the popular music and entertainment cable network, carries a lot of sexualized programming.
Titled "MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol," the PTC report says MTV programming glamorizes sexual promiscuity, violent behavior, and substance abuse. After analyzing 171 hours of programming during the cable channel's "Spring Break" coverage in 2004, the PTC report found that MTV's reality programs had an average of 13 sexual scenes per hour.
"To put this in perspective," the study says, "consider that in its last study of sex on primetime network television, the PTC found an average of only 5.8 instances of sexual content during the 10 o'clock hour when mostly adults are watching."
Music videos on MTV averaged 32 instances of foul language per hour -- more than four times the amount on network TV.
While violence on MTV was not as prevalent as sex and profanity, it also exceeded -- albeit barely -- the average number of violent instances per hour on network television. Such content is problematic because MTV is bound to be influential. It is watched by 73 percent of boys and 78 percent of girls ages 12 to 19.
"MTV is blatantly selling raunchy sex to kids," said PTC president L. Brent Bozell. "Compared to broadcast television programs aimed at adults, MTV's programming contains substantially more sex, foul language and violence, and MTV's shows are aimed at children as young as 12."
MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol
News from Agape Press
April 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - A recent report issued by the Parents Television Council (PTC) quantifies what many parents probably suspected intuitively: that MTV, the popular music and entertainment cable network, carries a lot of sexualized programming.
Titled "MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol," the PTC report says MTV programming glamorizes sexual promiscuity, violent behavior, and substance abuse. After analyzing 171 hours of programming during the cable channel's "Spring Break" coverage in 2004, the PTC report found that MTV's reality programs had an average of 13 sexual scenes per hour.
"To put this in perspective," the study says, "consider that in its last study of sex on primetime network television, the PTC found an average of only 5.8 instances of sexual content during the 10 o'clock hour when mostly adults are watching."
Music videos on MTV averaged 32 instances of foul language per hour -- more than four times the amount on network TV.
While violence on MTV was not as prevalent as sex and profanity, it also exceeded -- albeit barely -- the average number of violent instances per hour on network television. Such content is problematic because MTV is bound to be influential. It is watched by 73 percent of boys and 78 percent of girls ages 12 to 19.
"MTV is blatantly selling raunchy sex to kids," said PTC president L. Brent Bozell. "Compared to broadcast television programs aimed at adults, MTV's programming contains substantially more sex, foul language and violence, and MTV's shows are aimed at children as young as 12."
MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol
News from Agape Press
Scholar Finds Many Vietnam War Myths Being Taught on U.S. Campuses
Scholar Finds Many Vietnam War Myths Being Taught on U.S. Campuses
By Jim Brown
April 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - An Air Force intelligence officer who served in Vietnam is attempting to debunk myths about the Vietnam War that he says are prevalent and still being taught in many of America's colleges and universities.
Dr. Earl Tilford, a military historian who teaches at Grove City College, is the author of three books on air power in Vietnam, and one of the authors of the 14-volume official history of the Vietnam War. He says myths abound today on American campuses concerning that conflict, which was fought on the ground in Vietnam and bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia between 1957 and 1975.
Probably the most common myth circulating about the Vietnam War, Tilford notes, would be "that it was an illegal or an immoral war." He contends it was neither. "It was maybe ill advised," he says, "but it was neither illegal nor immoral." However, that is only one of the many myths the historian finds prevalent in U.S. institutions.
"Conservatives have a myth out there that we won all the battles but lost the war because of political strength," the historian says. And while that idea is commonly taught on the Right, he adds, "Liberals have a myth that we committed genocide in Vietnam. At the extreme Left, you would get that myth."
Also, Tilford says college students today are unfortunately being taught that the anti-war movement was responsible for ending the Vietnam War. But he believes that is an erroneous assertion, considering the ways the anti-war movement came undone and was eventually discredited after the Chicago Convention of 1968.
The Grove City professor says the Vietnam-era anti-war movement "had some cohesion up to that point as it came out of the American civil rights movement, but after that, it really fell apart." This collapse occurred, he points out, to some degree, "over the role of women in the anti-war movement."
The extreme Left, namely the Marxists, did not want women involved in the anti-war effort, Tilford explains. "Marxists tend to be sexual purists when it comes to political matters -- and rather unregenerate chauvinist pigs," he says.
But it is important to note, Tilford says, the Vietnam War protest movement met with little actual success. For instance, the military history scholar notes, the anti-war effort never stopped the draft and never stopped a single trainload of American soldiers from going overseas; yet, he notes, that movement has been given more credit for "turning the political tables" than it deserves.
News from Agape Press
By Jim Brown
April 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - An Air Force intelligence officer who served in Vietnam is attempting to debunk myths about the Vietnam War that he says are prevalent and still being taught in many of America's colleges and universities.
Dr. Earl Tilford, a military historian who teaches at Grove City College, is the author of three books on air power in Vietnam, and one of the authors of the 14-volume official history of the Vietnam War. He says myths abound today on American campuses concerning that conflict, which was fought on the ground in Vietnam and bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia between 1957 and 1975.
Probably the most common myth circulating about the Vietnam War, Tilford notes, would be "that it was an illegal or an immoral war." He contends it was neither. "It was maybe ill advised," he says, "but it was neither illegal nor immoral." However, that is only one of the many myths the historian finds prevalent in U.S. institutions.
"Conservatives have a myth out there that we won all the battles but lost the war because of political strength," the historian says. And while that idea is commonly taught on the Right, he adds, "Liberals have a myth that we committed genocide in Vietnam. At the extreme Left, you would get that myth."
Also, Tilford says college students today are unfortunately being taught that the anti-war movement was responsible for ending the Vietnam War. But he believes that is an erroneous assertion, considering the ways the anti-war movement came undone and was eventually discredited after the Chicago Convention of 1968.
The Grove City professor says the Vietnam-era anti-war movement "had some cohesion up to that point as it came out of the American civil rights movement, but after that, it really fell apart." This collapse occurred, he points out, to some degree, "over the role of women in the anti-war movement."
The extreme Left, namely the Marxists, did not want women involved in the anti-war effort, Tilford explains. "Marxists tend to be sexual purists when it comes to political matters -- and rather unregenerate chauvinist pigs," he says.
But it is important to note, Tilford says, the Vietnam War protest movement met with little actual success. For instance, the military history scholar notes, the anti-war effort never stopped the draft and never stopped a single trainload of American soldiers from going overseas; yet, he notes, that movement has been given more credit for "turning the political tables" than it deserves.
News from Agape Press
Montana T-Rex Bone Supports Biblical Story, Not Darwin's
Creationist: Montana T-Rex Bone Supports Biblical Story, Not Darwin's
By Allie Martin
April 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - The president of the creationist Christian apologetics ministry called Answers in Genesis (AiG) says evolutionists are trying to spin the latest archeological discovery to line up with their erroneous theories of the Earth's history.
Recently, scientists in Montana announced they had found soft, flexible tissues inside the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Forced to break up what they believe is a thigh bone of the T. rex in order to fit it onto a helicopter for transport, the scientists were reportedly surprised to discover soft tissue and complete blood cells inside the bone. Evolutionists estimate the fossil at from 70 to more than 80 million years old.
However, AIG president Ken Ham says the latest discovery poses a major problem for proponents of the theory of evolution. "What they don't like" he asserts, "is the fact that creationists like Answers in Genesis have invaded their temples, so to speak -- gone into their 'Holy of holies,' if I can say it like that -- and we've captured dinosaurs and taken them back and given them their rightful place in history alongside of man, as the Bible would tell us."
The evolutionists "don't like that," Ham contends, adding that the supporters of Darwin's theories "hate creationists using dinosaurs because it's one of their icons." Also, he maintains that the T. rex find is further evidence of the creationist contention that most dinosaur bones were fossilized during a catastrophic event several thousand years ago -- not several million years ago, as evolutionists claim.
If the Montana fossil were as old as the scientific establishment would have people believe, the AiG spokesman points out, no soft tissue should have remained to be found. Most experts agree that a fossil dating back tens of millions of years would have completely petrified over such an expanse of time.
Also, Ham believes the recently discovered T. rex bone negates the evolutionists' archeological time line, which posits that dinosaurs roamed the Earth and died out long before the appearance of "prehistoric" man. But the creationist says there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, even apart from the Montana find.
"In our modern world today," Ham observes, "there have been lots of finds of what I call 'living fossils.' These are animals and plants living today that go back in evolutionary time to the time of the dinosaurs or even before; and yet here we have them living today, and they haven't changed, and they're living beside people."
To the AiG president these facts beg the question. "Why is it so ridiculous to believe that people and dinosaurs lived at the same time, when people and crocodiles live at the same time?" he asks. "And crocodiles, according to evolutionists, date back a long time before the dinosaurs and lived with the dinosaurs," he adds.
According to Ham, evolutionists should be disturbed by the recent discovery of soft tissues in a supposedly 80-million-year-old dinosaur bone. He says similar findings have been downplayed by evolutionists in the past; but despite their efforts to spin or ignore the proof, it is clear that such discoveries support the biblical account of creation and Earth history.
News from Agape Press
By Allie Martin
April 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - The president of the creationist Christian apologetics ministry called Answers in Genesis (AiG) says evolutionists are trying to spin the latest archeological discovery to line up with their erroneous theories of the Earth's history.
Recently, scientists in Montana announced they had found soft, flexible tissues inside the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Forced to break up what they believe is a thigh bone of the T. rex in order to fit it onto a helicopter for transport, the scientists were reportedly surprised to discover soft tissue and complete blood cells inside the bone. Evolutionists estimate the fossil at from 70 to more than 80 million years old.
However, AIG president Ken Ham says the latest discovery poses a major problem for proponents of the theory of evolution. "What they don't like" he asserts, "is the fact that creationists like Answers in Genesis have invaded their temples, so to speak -- gone into their 'Holy of holies,' if I can say it like that -- and we've captured dinosaurs and taken them back and given them their rightful place in history alongside of man, as the Bible would tell us."
The evolutionists "don't like that," Ham contends, adding that the supporters of Darwin's theories "hate creationists using dinosaurs because it's one of their icons." Also, he maintains that the T. rex find is further evidence of the creationist contention that most dinosaur bones were fossilized during a catastrophic event several thousand years ago -- not several million years ago, as evolutionists claim.
If the Montana fossil were as old as the scientific establishment would have people believe, the AiG spokesman points out, no soft tissue should have remained to be found. Most experts agree that a fossil dating back tens of millions of years would have completely petrified over such an expanse of time.
Also, Ham believes the recently discovered T. rex bone negates the evolutionists' archeological time line, which posits that dinosaurs roamed the Earth and died out long before the appearance of "prehistoric" man. But the creationist says there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, even apart from the Montana find.
"In our modern world today," Ham observes, "there have been lots of finds of what I call 'living fossils.' These are animals and plants living today that go back in evolutionary time to the time of the dinosaurs or even before; and yet here we have them living today, and they haven't changed, and they're living beside people."
To the AiG president these facts beg the question. "Why is it so ridiculous to believe that people and dinosaurs lived at the same time, when people and crocodiles live at the same time?" he asks. "And crocodiles, according to evolutionists, date back a long time before the dinosaurs and lived with the dinosaurs," he adds.
According to Ham, evolutionists should be disturbed by the recent discovery of soft tissues in a supposedly 80-million-year-old dinosaur bone. He says similar findings have been downplayed by evolutionists in the past; but despite their efforts to spin or ignore the proof, it is clear that such discoveries support the biblical account of creation and Earth history.
News from Agape Press
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Knocking Holes in the Theory of Evolution
Most people today have learned about the "theory of evolution" at some point during their grade school years, and assume this theory is fact. Though most people do not know the details behind this theory, who proposed it, and what evidence the theory has been based on. If anyone stops to take a look at this so-called evidence, they will realize that much of it is not evidence but simply a combination of assumptions and wishful thinking. Below is some information we gathered from different sources on the subject which we feel are true.
The Problem
Throughout the centuries scientists have always argued where life on earth came from. "Creationists" are people who believe we were created by God. People who do not believe there is a God find the idea of life being created by a superior being unthinkable. So these people have been forced to try and think of other possible ways how life could exist on earth in so many different forms (from a single cell all the way up to complex life forms called Homo Sapiens or human beings).
The Theory
In the 1800's scientists normally examined rocks and fossils (or the "fossil record") to determine what life forms existed during different periods in history. At that time several scientists had proposed different theories of evolution which they felt could explain our existence.
Most notable among these men was someone named Charles Darwin who, observing that in some cases plants and animals showed an ascent of increasing complexity in strata (layers of rock and dirt), proposed his own theory of evolution. Charles Darwin assumed the forms higher in the strata physically evolved from the forms lower in the strata. In other words, Darwin was saying that over many many years, small living organisms must have evolved into more complex creatures, which evolved into fish, which evolved into birds, which eventually evolved into larger animals, then into people, all by themselves. Charles Darwin then devised a theory in 1859 which stated that there is always a "struggle for existence" among living creatures and that only the fittest survive. In addition he stated that nature, over long periods of time, gradually selects and promotes features of increasing complexity and usefulness for survival. He called this built in feature "natural selection". Scientists who did not believe in the creationist point of view (that we were created by God), were quick to adopt this new "theory of evolution" (having nothing else to go on at the time), and a battle between the "Creationists" and "Evolutionists" was born. By the year 1900, this new theory was well accepted by a large number of scientists and the battle between both sides was still ongoing.
What the Fossil Records Show
Throughout the 1900's scientists continually studied the fossil records to try and determine if the theory of evolution was really the "fact of evolution". If the theory of evolution were fact, then the fossil records would clearly show the gradual transformations over long periods of time that Darwin spoke of. But despite intense research for over 150 years since the theory of evolution was proposed, no instances of a transitional form have been found in the fossil records. What the fossil records do show is each life form suddenly appearing, full blown, without any apparent relationship to what went before it. Why evolutionists look the other way and call this a lie is incredible. These few quotes on the subject speak for themselves!
As an example, if the theory of evolution were true, then the fossil records would ALWAYS show a smooth transition from one life form to another, such that it would be difficult to tell where invertebrates ended, and vertebrates began. Though this is NOT always the case. Instead, fully formed life forms have been discovered to suddenly jump into the fossil record seemingly from nowhere, with illogical gaps before them where their ancestors should be. Many evolutionists do not dispute this fact, while others look the other way.
Darwin's View On The Gaps In The Fossil Records
Darwin was aware of the gaps in the fossil records though he felt there was more to his theory which explained this. Since human beings can breed living things for special characteristics (i.e. breed sheep for heavier wool, breed horses for extra strength, and roses for color and size), Darwin reasoned that if man could bring about small improvements in living things in such a short period, then nature could surely bring about similar tiny improvements over millions of years in living cells, which could allow them to evolve all the way up to human beings given enough time. In other words, Darwin felt plants and animals could vary to an unlimited degree, and given a time span of say, a hundred million years, it could close all of the gaps in the fossil records. Next we will see that this is not the case.
Breeding Limitations
While Darwin expressed plants and animals could vary to an unlimited degree, breeders were discovering otherwise. They were discovering that even though it was possible to breed a sheep with shorter legs, it was NOT possible to breed a sheep with legs of a rat, or breed a plum the size of a watermelon, or breed a horse with tusks. Each living thing was found to have built in limitations which prevent it from moving too far from the norm. Excessive breeding for a characteristic was also found to either result in a reverse back toward a given average after many generations, or it resulted in dead end species which were unable to reproduce (like the mule which is a cross between a horse and donkey). To date no breeding experiments have ever resulted in major, new traits resulting in a completely new species. Darwin had no answer for this limitation and simply assumed there variations could continue to an unlimited degree without evidence. And that is still the case to this day.
Some evolutionists like to refer to speciation via breeding in plants as proof for evolution. Though breeding experiments in animals and humans has always run into a limitations and has NEVER been shown to produce a brand new species. So breeding cannot be used as proof for evolution.
Some quotes regarding breeding can be seen here.
If Breeding Is Not The Cause Of Evolution, Then Maybe Mutations Are?
Since breeding was found to have limitations, this put a road block in the way of the theory of evolution. Though Darwin also felt that if breeding were not the answer, then mutations might be. In other words, he felt maybe it was possible for forms of life to inherit changes, which could explain changes from one form of life to another over long periods of time.
Mutations Are Typically Harmful, Sometimes Neutral and Are Rare
Creationists and even many evolutionists immediately pointed out that all observed mutations whether laboratory induced or occurring naturally have typically been harmful, or in some cases neutral. Mutations are typically a copying error or mistake, which cause things like disease or monstrosities and put the organism at a disadvantage. In addition, mutations have been discovered to be an extremely rare event since genes have built in functions to stabilize and resist change. So in other words, mutations are rarely seen and when they do occur, they they do not bring out an advantage to any living thing. Evolutionists like to use examples of beneficial mutations in antibiotic resistance to bacteria, or in mutation of the tomato for example, though none of these types of mutations are relevant to any ideas about one kind of creature changing into another. One kind of creature changing into another via beneficial mutation has simply NEVER been shown.
For evolutionists to state that many favorable, random mutations have occurred is completely unfounded. Mutations simply cannot be the cause for evolution into new, healthy, more complex living organisms. Again, many evolutionists simply state this fact is not true, when proof is everywhere. These evolutionists are simply in denial.
Some quotes regarding the mutation theory can be seen here.
If Evolution Didn't Occur Gradually, Maybe It Occurred Rapidly?
Another evolutionist from Harvard named Stephen Gould next proposed a possibility on how evolution could be taking place which he felt may also explain the gaps in the fossil records. He proclaimed that maybe evolution does not occur gradually, but maybe rapidly. He proposed a scheme called "punctuated equilibrium" where he mentioned that maybe it was possible that large populations of species live unchanged for millions of years, then for some unknown reason some of the species become isolated, and by unknown means evolve into new species. Thus this new isolated species would appear suddenly in the fossil records, which would explain the gap before them.
Since there were no other explanations which could logically explain the gap in the fossil records, many evolutionists accepted the "punctuated equilibrium" theory initially.
Punctuated Equilibrium Directly Opposes Laws Of Genetics
Notice that Gould's proposed "punctuated equilibrium" was filled with "what-if's" and was purely speculation. Creationists immediately made it clear to all that no one had ever seen rapid evolvement of a species and there is no proof of such a thing ever occurring. In addition, "punctuated equilibrium" opposes all known rules of genetics. For example, the genetic apparatus of a lizard is devoted 100% to producing another lizard. The idea that such an indescribably complex, finely tuned, highly integrated, amazingly stable genetic apparatus involving hundreds of thousands of interdependent genes could be drastically altered and rapidly reintegrated in such a way that a new organism is actually an improvement over the preceding organism is contrary to all known laws of genetics and is pure speculation and groundless.
It's interesting to see that creationists have always stated that gaps in the fossil records are proof of special creation, and now the evolutionists, with the new "punctuated equilibrium" theory, were starting to say that gaps in the fossil records were evidence of evolution!
In a nutshell, up to this point there is no proof of gradual evolution (over long periods of time), and rapid or sudden evolution is indistinguishable from special creation!
"Natural Selection" Is a Mindless Process
As part of the theory of evolution, Darwin also proposed that each time any organism evolves, every stage must be an immediate advantage to the species because "natural selection" is a mindless process with no idea where it is going, so it cannot plan or conceive an end goal. Creationists immediately argued that how could many organs of the human body, such as the incredibly complicated human eye, develop bit by bit by chance mutation, not knowing it was going to be an eye? Of what use would a half developed eye be? How could each step have been an advantage until the entire eye was complete? How about other parts of a body such as a kidney or jaw? How about the wings of a bird? What good is a half of a jaw or half of a wing? We could give endless examples here.
Some quotes regarding the "natural selection" theory can be seen here.
Is Evolution Occurring Right Now?
Darwin had always stressed that "survival of the fittest" was an underlying component of his theory of evolution. Though evolutionists cannot identify which aspects are important for survival because survival cannot be seen or proved. No evolutionist really knows how "natural selection" really works, or if it is currently working. Neither has a "struggle for existence" been found to exist among plants and animals. Yet evolutionists continue to preach the theory of evolution without any proof of what they are claiming.
The Alleged "Missing Links" between Man and Ape
There have been several claims of fossils found that show evidence between man and ape:
Neanderthal Man - When the first "Neanderthal Man" was discovered in about 1856, it was thought to be a true link from ape to man. Though well-known biologists such as Virchow and many other scientists and medical authorities since that time have all declared the Neanderthal skull shows signs of severe rickets (a deficiency disease characterized by defective bone growth) which explains why it's appearance is slightly different.
Other authorities have also claimed that there have been skulls of modern man found over the last century which look very similar to the Neanderthal Man skull.
In addition, there have been instances where the supposed Neanderthal Man bones were put on display in museums and it was later discovered the bones were arranged incorrectly which is what gave it the "hunched" appearance. When this incorrect arrangement was brought to light, it was still left on display as is.
More recent finds of remains show Neanderthal Man to have an erect human posture.
Quotes regarding Neanderthal Man can be seen here.
Piltdown Man - The "piltdown" skull first was "discovered" in England in 1912 by Charles Dawson. For Forty-one years it was the leading evidence for evolution until in 1953 it was discovered to be a forgery. It was actually found to be a recent human skull combined with a female orangutan jaw, and was dyed and slightly modified to give it the appearance of age. It's interesting to note how all textbooks before 1953 showed piltdown man in every human's family tree, then one day it was no longer "true". The British Museum has documented other discoveries by Dawson as forgeries as well.
Java Man - When this was "discovered" in 1891 by Dr. Eugene Dubois, two other skulls were found in the same formation and of the same age which were no different from skulls of modern Australian aborigines. Dubois formed Java man from a chimp-like skullcap, human thigh bone, and teeth, all found within 50 feet of each other and he simply put them together, assuming they were from the same man. Java man was later discredited by the finder himself, Dr. Eugene Dubios, as actually being a gibbon in 1938. Yet despite Dubois recanting, Java man was left in many textbooks. As we can see, many scientists who claim "scientific evidence" may simply be making guesses. True science has no place for guessing.
Nebraska Man - In 1922 a tooth was discovered in Nebraska by Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn who examined the tooth and claimed it had characteristics of a man, chimp and Java Man. Years later it was determined the tooth was actually from an extinct pig.
Other Claims By Evolutionists
There are several other claims by evolutionists over the past 150 years that have been used as arguments in favor of the theory of evolution. Here are a few of them and evidence that they are false:
Vestigial Organs - Organs such as tonsils and appendix were originally thought to be useless vestiges of organs once used by man's ancestors. At one time there were over 100 vestigial organs listed. All have now been shown to have useful functions.
In addition, if there were such a thing as vestigial organs, we would see emerging organs in process of development on extinct and existing life forms, since if evolution is a fact, all organs must have rudimentary beginnings. The complete absence of these emerging organs as passed over quietly by evolutionists.
Another interesting point to be made here is that evolution scientists claim that apes are our closest relatives and that man has vestigial organs that were used once, but are being phased out by evolution. If this is so, then scientists should be able to look at the ape (and other lesser animals) and determine how these vestigial organs were more fully functional. But you'll notice no scientist will touch this subject!
Transitional Forms - Many claim that transitional forms have been found, but this is simply speculation and there is no proof of it. For example, at one time the Archaeopteryx, a fossilized bird-like creature, was used as an example of transition from reptile to bird. This has since been discredited by many since many other birds were since found in the same strata, many birds from that time were found to have teeth, and many known birds existed at that time that could not fly. This is just one example.
Also see these quotes from others regarding transitional forms.
Why Have We All Been Taught the Theory Of Evolution as Fact?
Despite the fact that no facts have ever been produced making the "Theory of Evolution" the "Fact of Evolution", many people still blindly cling to it since they do not believe in creation and feel it is the best and only thing they have to go on.
Throughout the 1900's there have been numerous trials regarding teaching of evolution, creationism or both in the public schools. The Creationists have always fought to have the Theory of Evolution taught as THEORY, not fact, since it truly is only a theory to this day. The evolutionists on the other hand have always fought to have creationism NOT MENTIONED AT ALL in the schools. They have always refused to have creationism taught as an alternative to evolution. Since many people group creationism into a religious category, and religion was not to be taught in the public schools, evolution came out on top as what was to be taught to children in the public schools. The crime of the matter is that it is that if it is taught in the schools without mention of creation as a possible alternative, children assume it is fact. In addition, the theory of evolution has been taught as fact in every other branch of knowledge in the world, to the point where you may be laughed at or even refused funding (in the case of scientists) if you do not believe in the theory.
It's been over 150 years since the theory of evolution was proposed and promoted throughout the world, yet to this day we know no more about the origin of species then we did then, and all of the proofs mentioned above have been thrown out by evolutionists. And despite all of the facts against each evolutionist argument, the evolutionists continue to grasp at straws and blindly accept a theory which is CLEARLY not fact. Many do this simply because they refuse to believe the alternative (creation), or because they fear to be at odds with their colleagues. Here are some quotes that show how evolutionists cling to the theory of evolution regardless of proof against it.
More quotes on evolution in general can be seen here.
*** Read quotes from Darwin himself shooting down his own theory here
*** If you feel any quotes are out of context, please let us know and we will try to post the entire source through which the quote came.
Conclusion
To determine if the theory of evolution is a fact, one has to look at scientific evidence first, regardless of belief in any religion. All true scientists (creationist or evolutionist) if they are TRUE scientists, study the scientific evidence first and make decisions from there.
Creationists dispute the underlying theories of natural selection, breeding, mutations and other facts above not because of their religious beliefs, but because no scientific research or laboratory observations over the past 150 years have shown these individual sub-theories can possibly be. Once these individual sub-theories are shown to be false, the theory of evolution falls apart. Once the theory of evolution is ruled out as being a possibility based on scientific facts observed, the only thing left that makes any sense is creation.
It is a fact that Darwin and many others who had an initial hand in theories surrounding evolution were atheists or agnostics. So the theory of evolution for them was essential to give them a mechanical explanation of the universe without any spiritual principles. Without the theory of evolution, atheists and agnostics have nothing substantial in which to base things, hence they tend to cling to the theory of evolution, even when presented with facts that show sub-theories like natural selection cannot be. Creationists on the other hand do not have that attachment since when the theory of evolution falls apart, creation is a logical alternative.
It is also a fact that many religious people over the centuries who do believe in God, have accepted the theory of evolution and never give it a second thought. Again many assume it is true from what they learned in school, and leave it at that. It is when they discover the sub-theories like natural selection and mutations do not line up, that these religious people can easily scrap the theory of evolution since they have their belief to fall back on. It is simply a matter of if the person decides to dig into the theory of evolution and start looking into the discrepancies that they realize there is something wrong.
According to Sir Julian Huxley, an English biologist and author, he declared that "Darwin's real achievement was to remove the whole idea of God as creator from the sphere of rational discussion." What this means is, man, being descended from animals, is thus freed from being answerable for his own behavior. A few results of this are sexual license, the criminal as victim of society, and the Marxian belief that the end justifies and makes "moral" any means.
As for creationism, what proof is there that we are created? Solid scientific evidence is not available, though belief in creation stems from belief that there is a God. Belief in the existence of God stems from looking at the abundant empirical evidence we see around us, as seen on our Don't Believe in God? page.
Overcomeproblems.com - Theory of Evolution Disproved
The Problem
Throughout the centuries scientists have always argued where life on earth came from. "Creationists" are people who believe we were created by God. People who do not believe there is a God find the idea of life being created by a superior being unthinkable. So these people have been forced to try and think of other possible ways how life could exist on earth in so many different forms (from a single cell all the way up to complex life forms called Homo Sapiens or human beings).
The Theory
In the 1800's scientists normally examined rocks and fossils (or the "fossil record") to determine what life forms existed during different periods in history. At that time several scientists had proposed different theories of evolution which they felt could explain our existence.
Most notable among these men was someone named Charles Darwin who, observing that in some cases plants and animals showed an ascent of increasing complexity in strata (layers of rock and dirt), proposed his own theory of evolution. Charles Darwin assumed the forms higher in the strata physically evolved from the forms lower in the strata. In other words, Darwin was saying that over many many years, small living organisms must have evolved into more complex creatures, which evolved into fish, which evolved into birds, which eventually evolved into larger animals, then into people, all by themselves. Charles Darwin then devised a theory in 1859 which stated that there is always a "struggle for existence" among living creatures and that only the fittest survive. In addition he stated that nature, over long periods of time, gradually selects and promotes features of increasing complexity and usefulness for survival. He called this built in feature "natural selection". Scientists who did not believe in the creationist point of view (that we were created by God), were quick to adopt this new "theory of evolution" (having nothing else to go on at the time), and a battle between the "Creationists" and "Evolutionists" was born. By the year 1900, this new theory was well accepted by a large number of scientists and the battle between both sides was still ongoing.
What the Fossil Records Show
Throughout the 1900's scientists continually studied the fossil records to try and determine if the theory of evolution was really the "fact of evolution". If the theory of evolution were fact, then the fossil records would clearly show the gradual transformations over long periods of time that Darwin spoke of. But despite intense research for over 150 years since the theory of evolution was proposed, no instances of a transitional form have been found in the fossil records. What the fossil records do show is each life form suddenly appearing, full blown, without any apparent relationship to what went before it. Why evolutionists look the other way and call this a lie is incredible. These few quotes on the subject speak for themselves!
As an example, if the theory of evolution were true, then the fossil records would ALWAYS show a smooth transition from one life form to another, such that it would be difficult to tell where invertebrates ended, and vertebrates began. Though this is NOT always the case. Instead, fully formed life forms have been discovered to suddenly jump into the fossil record seemingly from nowhere, with illogical gaps before them where their ancestors should be. Many evolutionists do not dispute this fact, while others look the other way.
Darwin's View On The Gaps In The Fossil Records
Darwin was aware of the gaps in the fossil records though he felt there was more to his theory which explained this. Since human beings can breed living things for special characteristics (i.e. breed sheep for heavier wool, breed horses for extra strength, and roses for color and size), Darwin reasoned that if man could bring about small improvements in living things in such a short period, then nature could surely bring about similar tiny improvements over millions of years in living cells, which could allow them to evolve all the way up to human beings given enough time. In other words, Darwin felt plants and animals could vary to an unlimited degree, and given a time span of say, a hundred million years, it could close all of the gaps in the fossil records. Next we will see that this is not the case.
Breeding Limitations
While Darwin expressed plants and animals could vary to an unlimited degree, breeders were discovering otherwise. They were discovering that even though it was possible to breed a sheep with shorter legs, it was NOT possible to breed a sheep with legs of a rat, or breed a plum the size of a watermelon, or breed a horse with tusks. Each living thing was found to have built in limitations which prevent it from moving too far from the norm. Excessive breeding for a characteristic was also found to either result in a reverse back toward a given average after many generations, or it resulted in dead end species which were unable to reproduce (like the mule which is a cross between a horse and donkey). To date no breeding experiments have ever resulted in major, new traits resulting in a completely new species. Darwin had no answer for this limitation and simply assumed there variations could continue to an unlimited degree without evidence. And that is still the case to this day.
Some evolutionists like to refer to speciation via breeding in plants as proof for evolution. Though breeding experiments in animals and humans has always run into a limitations and has NEVER been shown to produce a brand new species. So breeding cannot be used as proof for evolution.
Some quotes regarding breeding can be seen here.
If Breeding Is Not The Cause Of Evolution, Then Maybe Mutations Are?
Since breeding was found to have limitations, this put a road block in the way of the theory of evolution. Though Darwin also felt that if breeding were not the answer, then mutations might be. In other words, he felt maybe it was possible for forms of life to inherit changes, which could explain changes from one form of life to another over long periods of time.
Mutations Are Typically Harmful, Sometimes Neutral and Are Rare
Creationists and even many evolutionists immediately pointed out that all observed mutations whether laboratory induced or occurring naturally have typically been harmful, or in some cases neutral. Mutations are typically a copying error or mistake, which cause things like disease or monstrosities and put the organism at a disadvantage. In addition, mutations have been discovered to be an extremely rare event since genes have built in functions to stabilize and resist change. So in other words, mutations are rarely seen and when they do occur, they they do not bring out an advantage to any living thing. Evolutionists like to use examples of beneficial mutations in antibiotic resistance to bacteria, or in mutation of the tomato for example, though none of these types of mutations are relevant to any ideas about one kind of creature changing into another. One kind of creature changing into another via beneficial mutation has simply NEVER been shown.
For evolutionists to state that many favorable, random mutations have occurred is completely unfounded. Mutations simply cannot be the cause for evolution into new, healthy, more complex living organisms. Again, many evolutionists simply state this fact is not true, when proof is everywhere. These evolutionists are simply in denial.
Some quotes regarding the mutation theory can be seen here.
If Evolution Didn't Occur Gradually, Maybe It Occurred Rapidly?
Another evolutionist from Harvard named Stephen Gould next proposed a possibility on how evolution could be taking place which he felt may also explain the gaps in the fossil records. He proclaimed that maybe evolution does not occur gradually, but maybe rapidly. He proposed a scheme called "punctuated equilibrium" where he mentioned that maybe it was possible that large populations of species live unchanged for millions of years, then for some unknown reason some of the species become isolated, and by unknown means evolve into new species. Thus this new isolated species would appear suddenly in the fossil records, which would explain the gap before them.
Since there were no other explanations which could logically explain the gap in the fossil records, many evolutionists accepted the "punctuated equilibrium" theory initially.
Punctuated Equilibrium Directly Opposes Laws Of Genetics
Notice that Gould's proposed "punctuated equilibrium" was filled with "what-if's" and was purely speculation. Creationists immediately made it clear to all that no one had ever seen rapid evolvement of a species and there is no proof of such a thing ever occurring. In addition, "punctuated equilibrium" opposes all known rules of genetics. For example, the genetic apparatus of a lizard is devoted 100% to producing another lizard. The idea that such an indescribably complex, finely tuned, highly integrated, amazingly stable genetic apparatus involving hundreds of thousands of interdependent genes could be drastically altered and rapidly reintegrated in such a way that a new organism is actually an improvement over the preceding organism is contrary to all known laws of genetics and is pure speculation and groundless.
It's interesting to see that creationists have always stated that gaps in the fossil records are proof of special creation, and now the evolutionists, with the new "punctuated equilibrium" theory, were starting to say that gaps in the fossil records were evidence of evolution!
In a nutshell, up to this point there is no proof of gradual evolution (over long periods of time), and rapid or sudden evolution is indistinguishable from special creation!
"Natural Selection" Is a Mindless Process
As part of the theory of evolution, Darwin also proposed that each time any organism evolves, every stage must be an immediate advantage to the species because "natural selection" is a mindless process with no idea where it is going, so it cannot plan or conceive an end goal. Creationists immediately argued that how could many organs of the human body, such as the incredibly complicated human eye, develop bit by bit by chance mutation, not knowing it was going to be an eye? Of what use would a half developed eye be? How could each step have been an advantage until the entire eye was complete? How about other parts of a body such as a kidney or jaw? How about the wings of a bird? What good is a half of a jaw or half of a wing? We could give endless examples here.
Some quotes regarding the "natural selection" theory can be seen here.
Is Evolution Occurring Right Now?
Darwin had always stressed that "survival of the fittest" was an underlying component of his theory of evolution. Though evolutionists cannot identify which aspects are important for survival because survival cannot be seen or proved. No evolutionist really knows how "natural selection" really works, or if it is currently working. Neither has a "struggle for existence" been found to exist among plants and animals. Yet evolutionists continue to preach the theory of evolution without any proof of what they are claiming.
The Alleged "Missing Links" between Man and Ape
There have been several claims of fossils found that show evidence between man and ape:
Neanderthal Man - When the first "Neanderthal Man" was discovered in about 1856, it was thought to be a true link from ape to man. Though well-known biologists such as Virchow and many other scientists and medical authorities since that time have all declared the Neanderthal skull shows signs of severe rickets (a deficiency disease characterized by defective bone growth) which explains why it's appearance is slightly different.
Other authorities have also claimed that there have been skulls of modern man found over the last century which look very similar to the Neanderthal Man skull.
In addition, there have been instances where the supposed Neanderthal Man bones were put on display in museums and it was later discovered the bones were arranged incorrectly which is what gave it the "hunched" appearance. When this incorrect arrangement was brought to light, it was still left on display as is.
More recent finds of remains show Neanderthal Man to have an erect human posture.
Quotes regarding Neanderthal Man can be seen here.
Piltdown Man - The "piltdown" skull first was "discovered" in England in 1912 by Charles Dawson. For Forty-one years it was the leading evidence for evolution until in 1953 it was discovered to be a forgery. It was actually found to be a recent human skull combined with a female orangutan jaw, and was dyed and slightly modified to give it the appearance of age. It's interesting to note how all textbooks before 1953 showed piltdown man in every human's family tree, then one day it was no longer "true". The British Museum has documented other discoveries by Dawson as forgeries as well.
Java Man - When this was "discovered" in 1891 by Dr. Eugene Dubois, two other skulls were found in the same formation and of the same age which were no different from skulls of modern Australian aborigines. Dubois formed Java man from a chimp-like skullcap, human thigh bone, and teeth, all found within 50 feet of each other and he simply put them together, assuming they were from the same man. Java man was later discredited by the finder himself, Dr. Eugene Dubios, as actually being a gibbon in 1938. Yet despite Dubois recanting, Java man was left in many textbooks. As we can see, many scientists who claim "scientific evidence" may simply be making guesses. True science has no place for guessing.
Nebraska Man - In 1922 a tooth was discovered in Nebraska by Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn who examined the tooth and claimed it had characteristics of a man, chimp and Java Man. Years later it was determined the tooth was actually from an extinct pig.
Other Claims By Evolutionists
There are several other claims by evolutionists over the past 150 years that have been used as arguments in favor of the theory of evolution. Here are a few of them and evidence that they are false:
Vestigial Organs - Organs such as tonsils and appendix were originally thought to be useless vestiges of organs once used by man's ancestors. At one time there were over 100 vestigial organs listed. All have now been shown to have useful functions.
In addition, if there were such a thing as vestigial organs, we would see emerging organs in process of development on extinct and existing life forms, since if evolution is a fact, all organs must have rudimentary beginnings. The complete absence of these emerging organs as passed over quietly by evolutionists.
Another interesting point to be made here is that evolution scientists claim that apes are our closest relatives and that man has vestigial organs that were used once, but are being phased out by evolution. If this is so, then scientists should be able to look at the ape (and other lesser animals) and determine how these vestigial organs were more fully functional. But you'll notice no scientist will touch this subject!
Transitional Forms - Many claim that transitional forms have been found, but this is simply speculation and there is no proof of it. For example, at one time the Archaeopteryx, a fossilized bird-like creature, was used as an example of transition from reptile to bird. This has since been discredited by many since many other birds were since found in the same strata, many birds from that time were found to have teeth, and many known birds existed at that time that could not fly. This is just one example.
Also see these quotes from others regarding transitional forms.
Why Have We All Been Taught the Theory Of Evolution as Fact?
Despite the fact that no facts have ever been produced making the "Theory of Evolution" the "Fact of Evolution", many people still blindly cling to it since they do not believe in creation and feel it is the best and only thing they have to go on.
Throughout the 1900's there have been numerous trials regarding teaching of evolution, creationism or both in the public schools. The Creationists have always fought to have the Theory of Evolution taught as THEORY, not fact, since it truly is only a theory to this day. The evolutionists on the other hand have always fought to have creationism NOT MENTIONED AT ALL in the schools. They have always refused to have creationism taught as an alternative to evolution. Since many people group creationism into a religious category, and religion was not to be taught in the public schools, evolution came out on top as what was to be taught to children in the public schools. The crime of the matter is that it is that if it is taught in the schools without mention of creation as a possible alternative, children assume it is fact. In addition, the theory of evolution has been taught as fact in every other branch of knowledge in the world, to the point where you may be laughed at or even refused funding (in the case of scientists) if you do not believe in the theory.
It's been over 150 years since the theory of evolution was proposed and promoted throughout the world, yet to this day we know no more about the origin of species then we did then, and all of the proofs mentioned above have been thrown out by evolutionists. And despite all of the facts against each evolutionist argument, the evolutionists continue to grasp at straws and blindly accept a theory which is CLEARLY not fact. Many do this simply because they refuse to believe the alternative (creation), or because they fear to be at odds with their colleagues. Here are some quotes that show how evolutionists cling to the theory of evolution regardless of proof against it.
More quotes on evolution in general can be seen here.
*** Read quotes from Darwin himself shooting down his own theory here
*** If you feel any quotes are out of context, please let us know and we will try to post the entire source through which the quote came.
Conclusion
To determine if the theory of evolution is a fact, one has to look at scientific evidence first, regardless of belief in any religion. All true scientists (creationist or evolutionist) if they are TRUE scientists, study the scientific evidence first and make decisions from there.
Creationists dispute the underlying theories of natural selection, breeding, mutations and other facts above not because of their religious beliefs, but because no scientific research or laboratory observations over the past 150 years have shown these individual sub-theories can possibly be. Once these individual sub-theories are shown to be false, the theory of evolution falls apart. Once the theory of evolution is ruled out as being a possibility based on scientific facts observed, the only thing left that makes any sense is creation.
It is a fact that Darwin and many others who had an initial hand in theories surrounding evolution were atheists or agnostics. So the theory of evolution for them was essential to give them a mechanical explanation of the universe without any spiritual principles. Without the theory of evolution, atheists and agnostics have nothing substantial in which to base things, hence they tend to cling to the theory of evolution, even when presented with facts that show sub-theories like natural selection cannot be. Creationists on the other hand do not have that attachment since when the theory of evolution falls apart, creation is a logical alternative.
It is also a fact that many religious people over the centuries who do believe in God, have accepted the theory of evolution and never give it a second thought. Again many assume it is true from what they learned in school, and leave it at that. It is when they discover the sub-theories like natural selection and mutations do not line up, that these religious people can easily scrap the theory of evolution since they have their belief to fall back on. It is simply a matter of if the person decides to dig into the theory of evolution and start looking into the discrepancies that they realize there is something wrong.
According to Sir Julian Huxley, an English biologist and author, he declared that "Darwin's real achievement was to remove the whole idea of God as creator from the sphere of rational discussion." What this means is, man, being descended from animals, is thus freed from being answerable for his own behavior. A few results of this are sexual license, the criminal as victim of society, and the Marxian belief that the end justifies and makes "moral" any means.
As for creationism, what proof is there that we are created? Solid scientific evidence is not available, though belief in creation stems from belief that there is a God. Belief in the existence of God stems from looking at the abundant empirical evidence we see around us, as seen on our Don't Believe in God? page.
Overcomeproblems.com - Theory of Evolution Disproved
Inside the Mind of a Creationist
In the last year, Silicon Valley has been a center of a showdown over religious beliefs in public schools. Meet the other side.
By Najeeb Hasan
LYNN HOFLAND often talks faster than he thinks. For Hofland, it seems the circumstances demand it. A creationist, he happily espouses a point of view that mainstream culture considers ridiculous and unenlightened.
The earth, according to Hofland, is about 6,000 years old. God created it in six 24-hour days. And, of course, evolution is just a theory.
Most people around here will shake their heads and wonder how anyone could think that in this day and age. But for Hofland, it's a basic foundation of his belief system.
And his belief system came to the South Bay in a big way last fall when Stephen Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek Elementary School in Cupertino, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Cupertino Union School District (and against Stevens Creek Elementary's principal), claiming he had been discriminated against because he was Christian. Williams, backed by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization engaged in contesting cultural issues across the nation, said that his principal stopped him from handing out historical materials in class that referenced God. After an initial Drudge Report headline about the Declaration of Independence being "banned" at a California school, Williams' case was egged on by right-wing radio and blogs. Sean Hannity, of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, brought his show to the Flint Center in Cupertino for a special "Take Back America" broadcast.
Mark Thomas was one of the panelists for that broadcast. Thomas, the president of the Atheists of Silicon Valley (www.godlessgeeks.com), believes everything that Hofland does not. He believes men came from monkeys. He believes the animate sprung from the inanimate; the concept even has a scientific-sounding word for it: abiogenesis.
Thomas has met Hofland on more than one occasion; he even went so far as to give Hofland the floor during one of his atheist meetings held bimonthly in the community room of his townhouse complex in Mountain View. But the truth is, he thinks Hofland is a kook. Or, if Hofland's not a kook himself, that his ideas about the origins of life are definitely kooky.
"It's rather irritating to get into these conversations about the origins of life with him," says Thomas. "You keep coming back with God did this, God did that. The problem is for him there are no contradictions because he's right. In some ways you can't refute him. God could have created the world a hundred years ago with everything looking as though it were ancient. You can't disprove it. God could have created the universe a day ago with everything, including people's memories intact. You can't disprove that."
Evolution of an Anti-Evolutionist
Hofland may think the world was created in six days, but it took him a lot longer than that to arrive at that belief—30 years and then some, in fact. Born in Montana, near Missoula (he still mixes Montana wheat into homemade breads and waffles), Hofland, now 50, has always had a Midwestern sensibility. He graduated from high school (his mother was his eighth-grade biology teacher), but flunked out of college after a year and a half. Then, he did a six-year stint in the Navy, floating around the South Pacific on a nuclear submarine.
"My background," he admits, "did not lend itself to me being a creationist."
Of all things, it was a subsequent job at NASA, where he's still employed today, that led Hofland to discard the evolutionism he had grown up with. Watching NASA scientists taking lessons from the physiology of giraffes to develop gravity suits for astronauts (the thick-skinned giraffe boasts a unique blood pressure for mammals, which is especially helpful for outer-space modeling) eventually convinced Hofland to do his own research into the giraffe—an animal, as it turns out, that has been widely used in creationist arguments.
What he found, he says, converted him. The giraffe, he learned, has seven neck bones (the norm, for many mammals), even though, as far as he could tell, there's no reason why evolution wouldn't have demanded the number of the giraffe's neck bones increase with the size of its neck. Hofland was also amazed at the giraffe's capability to withstand extreme blood pressure (due to its height) in its legs, and to adjust the pressure when it bends its head down to drink water—without its reinforced artery walls, its collection of valves and a "web" of small blood vessels, intense pressure would reach the giraffe's brain every time it bends its head. Not to mention what Hofland considers the miraculous design of the giraffe's birthing process—the new calf, which drops into the world from a height of five feet, cannot fall neither head or feet first, as both positions would end up breaking its neck; instead, the giraffe maneuvers a "perfect" exit, hind feet first and supporting its flexible neck around its shoulders.
Before he learned all this, Hofland insists, he, always scientifically inclined, was very much an ardent evolutionist. But, after his study, he ended up penning an article which became the basis for a new creationist ministry he calls Stiffneck Ministries.
"I had to struggle with this, but when I did my homework, I was convinced the giraffe was created," he says. "And, if the giraffe was created, then I was created, and, if I was created, then I had some answering to do for my life."
Thomas, however, is hardly impressed by Hofland's conversion. "I'm very well aware of his Stiffneck Ministries and his giraffes," says Thomas, with an exasperated tone. "His arguments are false; they are completely false. Giraffes have evolved over a period of time, and it's not a very good system. Giraffes have a lot of problems, many babies die during birth because they have a long distance to fall, but it works well enough for them to survive."
Thomas has little patience for Hofland's logic. "What creationist and intelligent designers like to point out is, basically, 'Isn't X amazing? I don't understand how X could be. Therefore, there must be something else that designed X and that created X. I don't understand what this other thing is either, but it must exist, because I don't understand X. That's fallacious reasoning."
Tie For First: The way Lynn Hofland's neckwear pointedly quotes the opening of the Christian Bible leaves no doubt as to where he stands on the question of life's origin.
Putting God Into Schools
Hofland was in the audience for the Hannity special in Cupertino. For him, the hubbub was about nothing other than certain people—in this case, the elementary school's administrators and the concerned parents—being too "sensitive." The United States, Hofland likes to say, is largely a Christian nation, though Hofland's definition of what a "Christian" nation is seems to vary subtly with the context. Sometimes, as in the case of Cupertino's Williams, who Hofland argues was only distributing material that reflected the roots and realities of the United States, the nation's very Christian; sometimes it's not Christian enough.
Even the question of what "Christian" belief is in regard to creationism has shifted over time.
"The irony, of course, in all of this creation science stuff is that modern conservative Christians are not the equivalent of their 19th-century counterparts," says J. David Pleins, a professor of religion at Santa Clara University.
Pleins, who has written extensively about readings of Genesis, argues young earth creationism—Hofland's view of a 6,000-year-old history—wasn't always a traditional Christian perspective.
"In the 19th century, you people who we would today call fundamentalist or conservative Christians, who didn't think the earth was young. They were anti-evolution Christians; they were against Darwin, but they believed the earth was old because they believe that the science told us about all these ancient lost eras. And so you had conservative Christians who were committed to an old-earth creationism. That seems to be an option that's lost today, and it's lost not because of the Scopes trial."
Instead, Pleins contends that a book, The Genesis Flood, put young earth creationism on the map. "It argued that science, rewritten and interpreted differently, would validate a literal reading of the Bible, so with creation science, you get a commitment from all conservative Christians committed to a young earth reading of the text. That's new."
The reasons behind the shift in perspective are strikingly similar to the modern fundamentalist worries that Christianity would erode away if not somehow protected, which results in a defensive posture by the Christian right in the American culture wars. The book's authors, says Pleins, thought that "if you give away the literal reading of the Bible, you start giving up the biblical truth. Where would you stop?"
Similarly, Hofland wants to establish the Bible's authority in America's public schools.
"There's nothing wrong with the Bible being added as a reference text," he insists. "If the science classroom is asking questions about how old the earth is, then this"—Hofland pats a tiny blue Bible—"is as good of a reference as rocks in the ground."
Employing Hofland's logic, solutions for teaching evolution in public schools would, seemingly, become exercises in political correctness.
"Question number one," Hofland says, "could be according to the theory of evolution; question number two could be according to the theory of creation; question number three could be according to the Buddhism or whatever. Or something like that."
Hofland may seem to be far out of the mainstream, but his beliefs have made some inroads in popular culture, as seen in cases like that of the Atlanta school district that voted in 2002 to put stickers in biology textbooks which stated that evolution is "a theory not a fact." A federal judge ruled that the stickers had to be removed.
Others who criticize the way evolution is taught in public schools say they aren't necessarily creationists, but simply believe God has been pushed too far out of the debate over life's origins. In 1998, after receiving a letter co-signed by two widely respected religious scholars, Huston Smith and Alvin Plantinga, the National Association of Biology Teachers was forced to edit its definition of what to teach about evolution in schools. The association had described evolution as "unsupervised" and "impersonal"; Smith and Plantinga argued there was no scientific basis for those descriptors, and the association ended up agreeing, deleting the two words.
At NASA, Hofland often visits an artistic depiction of the origins of human life that has been put up in a building neighboring his workspace. The depiction, a colorful painting that, from left to right, shows the evolutionary stages of life through bold white lines. It begins with volcanoes exploding, moves on to micro-organisms in the oceans, to various kinds of mammals in the forests, to cave men, and finally to modern man driving along a highway.
"I did meet the artist, the original artist," he says of the painting. "At first, he told me they told him to paint all the volcanoes exploding. Then, they told him, Oh that was too much, that would cause a nuclear winter and shut everything down, so they only had two volcanoes that were exploding and the rest were dormant. And see, they keep changing their view of what happened."
Metroactive News & Issues | Creationism
By Najeeb Hasan
LYNN HOFLAND often talks faster than he thinks. For Hofland, it seems the circumstances demand it. A creationist, he happily espouses a point of view that mainstream culture considers ridiculous and unenlightened.
The earth, according to Hofland, is about 6,000 years old. God created it in six 24-hour days. And, of course, evolution is just a theory.
Most people around here will shake their heads and wonder how anyone could think that in this day and age. But for Hofland, it's a basic foundation of his belief system.
And his belief system came to the South Bay in a big way last fall when Stephen Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek Elementary School in Cupertino, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Cupertino Union School District (and against Stevens Creek Elementary's principal), claiming he had been discriminated against because he was Christian. Williams, backed by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization engaged in contesting cultural issues across the nation, said that his principal stopped him from handing out historical materials in class that referenced God. After an initial Drudge Report headline about the Declaration of Independence being "banned" at a California school, Williams' case was egged on by right-wing radio and blogs. Sean Hannity, of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, brought his show to the Flint Center in Cupertino for a special "Take Back America" broadcast.
Mark Thomas was one of the panelists for that broadcast. Thomas, the president of the Atheists of Silicon Valley (www.godlessgeeks.com), believes everything that Hofland does not. He believes men came from monkeys. He believes the animate sprung from the inanimate; the concept even has a scientific-sounding word for it: abiogenesis.
Thomas has met Hofland on more than one occasion; he even went so far as to give Hofland the floor during one of his atheist meetings held bimonthly in the community room of his townhouse complex in Mountain View. But the truth is, he thinks Hofland is a kook. Or, if Hofland's not a kook himself, that his ideas about the origins of life are definitely kooky.
"It's rather irritating to get into these conversations about the origins of life with him," says Thomas. "You keep coming back with God did this, God did that. The problem is for him there are no contradictions because he's right. In some ways you can't refute him. God could have created the world a hundred years ago with everything looking as though it were ancient. You can't disprove it. God could have created the universe a day ago with everything, including people's memories intact. You can't disprove that."
Evolution of an Anti-Evolutionist
Hofland may think the world was created in six days, but it took him a lot longer than that to arrive at that belief—30 years and then some, in fact. Born in Montana, near Missoula (he still mixes Montana wheat into homemade breads and waffles), Hofland, now 50, has always had a Midwestern sensibility. He graduated from high school (his mother was his eighth-grade biology teacher), but flunked out of college after a year and a half. Then, he did a six-year stint in the Navy, floating around the South Pacific on a nuclear submarine.
"My background," he admits, "did not lend itself to me being a creationist."
Of all things, it was a subsequent job at NASA, where he's still employed today, that led Hofland to discard the evolutionism he had grown up with. Watching NASA scientists taking lessons from the physiology of giraffes to develop gravity suits for astronauts (the thick-skinned giraffe boasts a unique blood pressure for mammals, which is especially helpful for outer-space modeling) eventually convinced Hofland to do his own research into the giraffe—an animal, as it turns out, that has been widely used in creationist arguments.
What he found, he says, converted him. The giraffe, he learned, has seven neck bones (the norm, for many mammals), even though, as far as he could tell, there's no reason why evolution wouldn't have demanded the number of the giraffe's neck bones increase with the size of its neck. Hofland was also amazed at the giraffe's capability to withstand extreme blood pressure (due to its height) in its legs, and to adjust the pressure when it bends its head down to drink water—without its reinforced artery walls, its collection of valves and a "web" of small blood vessels, intense pressure would reach the giraffe's brain every time it bends its head. Not to mention what Hofland considers the miraculous design of the giraffe's birthing process—the new calf, which drops into the world from a height of five feet, cannot fall neither head or feet first, as both positions would end up breaking its neck; instead, the giraffe maneuvers a "perfect" exit, hind feet first and supporting its flexible neck around its shoulders.
Before he learned all this, Hofland insists, he, always scientifically inclined, was very much an ardent evolutionist. But, after his study, he ended up penning an article which became the basis for a new creationist ministry he calls Stiffneck Ministries.
"I had to struggle with this, but when I did my homework, I was convinced the giraffe was created," he says. "And, if the giraffe was created, then I was created, and, if I was created, then I had some answering to do for my life."
Thomas, however, is hardly impressed by Hofland's conversion. "I'm very well aware of his Stiffneck Ministries and his giraffes," says Thomas, with an exasperated tone. "His arguments are false; they are completely false. Giraffes have evolved over a period of time, and it's not a very good system. Giraffes have a lot of problems, many babies die during birth because they have a long distance to fall, but it works well enough for them to survive."
Thomas has little patience for Hofland's logic. "What creationist and intelligent designers like to point out is, basically, 'Isn't X amazing? I don't understand how X could be. Therefore, there must be something else that designed X and that created X. I don't understand what this other thing is either, but it must exist, because I don't understand X. That's fallacious reasoning."
Tie For First: The way Lynn Hofland's neckwear pointedly quotes the opening of the Christian Bible leaves no doubt as to where he stands on the question of life's origin.
Putting God Into Schools
Hofland was in the audience for the Hannity special in Cupertino. For him, the hubbub was about nothing other than certain people—in this case, the elementary school's administrators and the concerned parents—being too "sensitive." The United States, Hofland likes to say, is largely a Christian nation, though Hofland's definition of what a "Christian" nation is seems to vary subtly with the context. Sometimes, as in the case of Cupertino's Williams, who Hofland argues was only distributing material that reflected the roots and realities of the United States, the nation's very Christian; sometimes it's not Christian enough.
Even the question of what "Christian" belief is in regard to creationism has shifted over time.
"The irony, of course, in all of this creation science stuff is that modern conservative Christians are not the equivalent of their 19th-century counterparts," says J. David Pleins, a professor of religion at Santa Clara University.
Pleins, who has written extensively about readings of Genesis, argues young earth creationism—Hofland's view of a 6,000-year-old history—wasn't always a traditional Christian perspective.
"In the 19th century, you people who we would today call fundamentalist or conservative Christians, who didn't think the earth was young. They were anti-evolution Christians; they were against Darwin, but they believed the earth was old because they believe that the science told us about all these ancient lost eras. And so you had conservative Christians who were committed to an old-earth creationism. That seems to be an option that's lost today, and it's lost not because of the Scopes trial."
Instead, Pleins contends that a book, The Genesis Flood, put young earth creationism on the map. "It argued that science, rewritten and interpreted differently, would validate a literal reading of the Bible, so with creation science, you get a commitment from all conservative Christians committed to a young earth reading of the text. That's new."
The reasons behind the shift in perspective are strikingly similar to the modern fundamentalist worries that Christianity would erode away if not somehow protected, which results in a defensive posture by the Christian right in the American culture wars. The book's authors, says Pleins, thought that "if you give away the literal reading of the Bible, you start giving up the biblical truth. Where would you stop?"
Similarly, Hofland wants to establish the Bible's authority in America's public schools.
"There's nothing wrong with the Bible being added as a reference text," he insists. "If the science classroom is asking questions about how old the earth is, then this"—Hofland pats a tiny blue Bible—"is as good of a reference as rocks in the ground."
Employing Hofland's logic, solutions for teaching evolution in public schools would, seemingly, become exercises in political correctness.
"Question number one," Hofland says, "could be according to the theory of evolution; question number two could be according to the theory of creation; question number three could be according to the Buddhism or whatever. Or something like that."
Hofland may seem to be far out of the mainstream, but his beliefs have made some inroads in popular culture, as seen in cases like that of the Atlanta school district that voted in 2002 to put stickers in biology textbooks which stated that evolution is "a theory not a fact." A federal judge ruled that the stickers had to be removed.
Others who criticize the way evolution is taught in public schools say they aren't necessarily creationists, but simply believe God has been pushed too far out of the debate over life's origins. In 1998, after receiving a letter co-signed by two widely respected religious scholars, Huston Smith and Alvin Plantinga, the National Association of Biology Teachers was forced to edit its definition of what to teach about evolution in schools. The association had described evolution as "unsupervised" and "impersonal"; Smith and Plantinga argued there was no scientific basis for those descriptors, and the association ended up agreeing, deleting the two words.
At NASA, Hofland often visits an artistic depiction of the origins of human life that has been put up in a building neighboring his workspace. The depiction, a colorful painting that, from left to right, shows the evolutionary stages of life through bold white lines. It begins with volcanoes exploding, moves on to micro-organisms in the oceans, to various kinds of mammals in the forests, to cave men, and finally to modern man driving along a highway.
"I did meet the artist, the original artist," he says of the painting. "At first, he told me they told him to paint all the volcanoes exploding. Then, they told him, Oh that was too much, that would cause a nuclear winter and shut everything down, so they only had two volcanoes that were exploding and the rest were dormant. And see, they keep changing their view of what happened."
Metroactive News & Issues | Creationism
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