Humanists believe...

We believe in Marx Freud and Darwin. We believe everything is OK as long as you don't hurt anyone- to best of your definition of hurt and to the best of your definition of knowledge. We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe that adultery is fun. We believe taboos are taboo. We believe that everything is getting better despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated and you can prove anything with evidence. We believe there is something in horoscopes, UFOs, and bent spoons. Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves. He was a good moral teacher although we think some of his good morals were really bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same (at least the ones that we read were.) They all believe in love and goodness they only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, god, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the nothing because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing. If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it is compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan. We believe in Masters and Johnson, what's selected as average, what's average is normal, what's normal is good. We believe in total disarmament because we believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed. Americans should beat their guns in to tractors and the Russians would be sure to follow. We believe that man is essentially good its only his behavior that lets him down. This is the fault of society, society is the fault of conditions, and conditions are the fault of society. We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him and reality will adapt accordingly- the universe will readjust history will alter. We believe that there is no absolute truth excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth. We believe in the rejection of creeds and the flowering of individual thought.

If chance be the father of all flesh disaster is his rainbow in the sky, and when you hear state of emergency, sniper kills 10, troops on rampage, youths go looting, bomb blasts school it is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.

Some New Year Bible Readings

This passing of time has finally caught up with me. Not that I feel awfully old yet, but, nevertheless, the realization of the number of years makes itself louder and louder in my consciousness. When days like today come, they point me towards the end of it all more and more stubbornly.
You live your little life, day by day, hour by hour, without as much as giving the slightest thought about why - where to - who for - how questions. Until the day some misfortune happens to you, or some physical problem gets to you. Then you suddenly understand you are not invincible and immortal, and you start to question the reasons and the results.

Ecclesiastes 1
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
See, this is new?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.

12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.
13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.

16 I said in my heart, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
18 For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

The words of David fit perfectly into the state of mind a human being is confronted with while pondering over these things. There is no hope, no purpose, no gain, ultimately. If this were the only message there is, we would indeed be pitiful and miserable creatures (well, this last word is not politically correct, because the ONLY PC nowadays is spontaneous becoming out of the primordial soup). Fortunately, as Dave Berlinski says, "atheism is an adolescent preoccupation", and hopefully people grow out of it at some point.
My second quotation from the Bible is from Jeremiah, where the words of despair and utter hopelessness are followed by the words of hope and purpose. God is Good, isn't He?

Jeremiah 10
1 Hear the word that the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel.
2 Thus says the LORD:
Learn not the way of the nations,
nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens
because the nations are dismayed at them,
3 for the customs of the peoples are vanity.
A tree from the forest is cut down
and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman.
4 They decorate it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so that it cannot move.
5 Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,
and they cannot speak;
they have to be carried,
for they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of them,
for they cannot do evil,
neither is it in them to do good.
6 There is none like you, O LORD;
you are great, and your name is great in might.
7 Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?
For this is your due;
for among all the wise ones of the nations
and in all their kingdoms
there is none like you.
8 They are both stupid and foolish;
the instruction of idols is but wood!
9 Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish,
and gold from Uphaz.
They are the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith;
their clothing is violet and purple;
they are all the work of skilled men.
10 But the LORD is the true God;
he is the living God and the everlasting King.
At his wrath the earth quakes,
and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

11 Thus shall you say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.
12 It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.
13 When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain,
and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
14 Every man is stupid and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
for his images are false,
and there is no breath in them.
15 They are worthless, a work of delusion;
at the time of their punishment they shall perish.
16 Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob,
for he is the one who formed all things,
and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;
the LORD of hosts is his name.
17 Gather up your bundle from the ground,
O you who dwell under siege!
18 For thus says the LORD:
Behold, I am slinging out the inhabitants of the land
at this time,
and I will bring distress on them,
that they may feel it.
19 Woe is me because of my hurt!
My wound is grievous.
But I said, Truly this is an affliction,
and I must bear it.
20 My tent is destroyed,
and all my cords are broken;
my children have gone from me,
and they are not;
there is no one to spread my tent again
and to set up my curtains.
21 For the shepherds are stupid
and do not inquire of the LORD;
therefore they have not prospered,
and all their flock is scattered.
22 A voice, a rumor! Behold, it comes!—
a great commotion out of the north country
to make the cities of Judah a desolation,
a lair of jackals.
23 I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself,
that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
24 Correct me, O LORD, but in justice;
not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing.
25 Pour out your wrath on the nations that know you not,
and on the peoples that call not on your name,
for they have devoured Jacob;
they have devoured him and consumed him,
and have laid waste his habitation.

The Narcissism Epidemic

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Is Narcissism on the rise? And if so, has it affected American Christianity? On this edition of the White Horse Inn, Michael Horton talks with Jean Twenge, author of Generation Me, and co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement.

Free w/ Registration

The Devastating Consequences of Modern Preaching

Do Christians despise and persecute homosexuals?

We often get this accusation thrown at us, and seldom can we defend ourselves without losing temper and staying polite. The latest episode of that nature happened today, and I simply have to clarify some things in order to be straightforward and as clear as possible.

A whole group of good students got classified as intolerant because of their Christian convictions. I am not sure whether 16-year old people are able to defend Christian faith well enough to make themselves perfectly understood. I hope they can. But I think it is necessary to point out some aspects of our beliefs that may be perceived in a certain way and that should not be perceived as hate, despise, bullying.

Let me be blunt: we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, is God-breathed, "theopneustos", and completely infallible in the matters of faith. This Bible teaches us that people are sinners, and therefore commit sins. We all do, without exception, and the only Man who was sinless was Lord Jesus, God incarnate. Every sin is a law breaker and separates us from God. Sin of theft, sin of lying, sin of covetousness, sin of adultery, sin of idolatry, sin of homosexuality. Every sin has to be paid for, and the only payment is death. By no means do we treat homosexuality as somehow special in the register of sins. For every sin there is a punishment. Every sinner will pay. Unless...

Unless a sinner trusts in Jesus and His forensic payment for our sins, unless the sinner repents from his ways and becomes the follower of Jesus, it will be the sinner who is going to pay. A thief, a liar, an adulterer, a homosexual. What we, Christians, want more than anything, is for the sinners to repent and run to the cross. We are compelled to loving all people, because of the love God showed us while we were yet lost sinners.
We love sinners, we are sinners too, but we are the forgiven ones, and desire all people to beg God for forgiveness. But love does not mean shutting our eyes to sin and calling it good. Sin is evil, and it has to be said. Therefore we do say it. We say it out of love, though, and NOT out of hate. This is the huge difference.

Swine flu perspective

Abandoned by God

Same-sex Marriage: How It Will Affect You

Today the Swedish parliament ratified the same-sex marriage as legal. As a Christian I am deeply saddened and horrified by this decision, and recommend this article in consideration of what is about to come:
http://www.str.org/site/DocServer/AS_news_0808.pdf?docID=3301

It says among other things:

"The legalization of same-sex marriage will usher in a new era where religious liberties will increasingly become restricted. There’s one word that explains why this will happen: Consistency.
In order for California to be consistent with its new legislation on same-sex marriage, it must restrict the religious liberties of Christians, Jews, and any other group that upholds a one-man-one-woman view of marriage. These groups enjoy privileges and protections given by the state, which now also endorses same-sex marriage. Since the law supports both same-sex marriage and groups who oppose the new
legislation, it’s only a matter of time before pro-gay lawyers exploit the inconsistency.
Soon, some churches may lose their tax exemption status. If they refuse to perform same-sex weddings, it can be argued that the state subsidizes discrimination."

Tragedies of hopelessness

Remember that movie?

Sylvia

Yes. I thought Gwyneth Paltrow did an outstanding job, portraying Sylvia Plath. The depth of her personality, the intensity of feelings, the overwhelming pain she experienced in her broken marriage... Yet that was a real person behind the movie, and a tragic ending. Today this:

Poet Plath's son takes own life

May it be that when his mother left him so unrevocably when he was a baby scarred him for life? May it be that children could care less for parents' careers and fame? May it be that what God prescribed for us in the matters of family life is true?

How utterly sad, how terribly unnecessary, how tragic. Thank you, philosophy of despair, thank you, atheists, thank you, God haters. What can you offer instead? This?

Lite humor i vardagen trots allt

Folk är konstiga i detta land. De har det för bra, helt enkelt. Vi skrattade så vi kiknade, men det är faktiskt allvarligt att människor har en så barnslig inställning till livet...

"Stranden för sandig"
Publicerat 2009-03-20 16:59

För mycket curry i Indien. För många spanjorer i Spanien. DN har samlat något av turistens klagan, hemmavid och internationellt. De flesta citaten kommer från brittiska ”Telegraph” som i sin tur fått materialet från resebyrån Thomas Cook och branschorganisationen ABTA.

Naturen:
"Jag kände mig otillräcklig. Min smekmånad blev förstörd."
Klagomål från en turist boende på en safarilodge i Afrika, med utsikt över en synbart upphetsad elefanthannes parningsakt.
"Ingen talade om att havet var fullt av fisk. Barnen blev vettskrämda"
"Jag blev biten av en mygga - ingen talade om att de kunde bitas"

Hotellet:
"Jag tänkte ringa polisen. Hotellpersonalen låste in mig"
Klagomål från en kvinna som inte vågat lämna sitt hotellrum. Hon hade missuppfattat "Do not disturb"-skylten på insidan av dörren som en varning för att gå ut.
”Min fästman och jag bokade ett rum med två sängar, men placerades i ett rum med dubbelsäng. Jag håller er nu ansvariga för att jag är gravid, vilket inte skulle ha hänt om vi fått det rum vi bokat"
"Jag jämförde vår enrumslägenhet med våra vänners trerumslägenhet och vår var betydligt mindre"
"Det är er plikt som resebyrå att förvarna oss om störande och högljudda gäster före resan"

Teknik:
"Vi var tvungna att köa utomhus utan luftkonditionering"

Bad & sol:
"Stranden var för sandig"
"Topless-solande på stranden borde förbjudas. Semestern blev förstörd av min mans ständiga stirrande på andra kvinnor"
"Stranden såg inte ut som den gjorde i broschyren. I er broschyr var den gul, men i verkligheten var den vit"
"Vi bokade en utflykt till en vattenpark, men ingen talade om att vi skulle ta med våra badkläder och handdukar"
"Tidvattnet gjorde att vi förlorade flera timmars badtid."

Shopping:
"Vi köpte ett par Ray Ban-solglasögon för fem euro från en gatuförsäljare, bara för att senare upptäcka att de var kopior"
"De lokala affärsinnehavarna är lata som stänger på eftermiddagarna. Jag behövde ofta köpa saker under siestan - den borde förbjudas"

Språkförbistring:
"Det är för många spanjorer. Receptionisten pratar spanska. Maten är spansk. För många utlänningar"

Föda:
"Jag tycker att det bör förklaras i broschyren att den lokala butiken inte säljer samma kex som hemma."
"På min semester i Goa upptäckte jag till min förfäran att nästan varenda restaurang serverade curry. Jag tycker inte alls om kryddstark mat"

Pro-marriage speech garners professor's profane wrath

After being called a "fascist" by his professor, a Christian California student has filed suit against his college for violations of his free-speech rights.

Less than a month after voters in California decided to amend their state constitution and protect traditional marriage, Jonathan Lopez -- in a public speaking class -- shared his beliefs on faith and marriage. David French of the Alliance Defense Fund picks up the story.

"Jonathan talked about his faith -- and one of the things he talked about in context of his faith was...marriage," says French. "He read from the dictionary definition of marriage. The professor stopped the class, called him a 'fascist b_____d' -- [he] used the expletive -- [and] told the class that anyone who wanted to could leave if they were offended...."

Read on...

Response to Bart D. Ehrman's Book, "Misquoting Jesus"

Religion: The Evolution of Self-Control

Jan 1, 2009 — A psychologist came up with a new theory of how religion evolved. It evolved to give people more self-control.
Science Daily reported the ideas of Miami psychologist Michael McCullough. Basically, “Religion May Have Evolved Because Of Its Ability To Help People Exercise Self-control,” the article states, with a picture of a rural church to boot. Self-control is a nice thing to have. Apparently, it produces fitness. “This, in turn, might help explain why religious people tend to have lower rates of substance abuse, better school achievement, less delinquency, better health behaviors, less depression, and longer lives.”
McCullough was non-sectarian with his view. The article said “explained” how “the same social force that motivates acts of charity and generosity can also motivate people to strap bomb belts around their waists and then blow themselves up in crowded city buses.” It’s a little more challenging to see why that would improve fitness, but to him, evolution teaches that “religion can motivate people to do just about anything.”
Maybe one thing evolution could do to help scientists is help them get their origin of speciesScience Daily announced, “Longstanding Theory Of Origin Of Species In Oceans Challenged.” According to our 01/15/2003 entry, this has been a religious war of sorts within the Darwinist camp. Sympatric speciation is struggling against allopatric speciation for survival of the fittest theory. In the oceans, the heretics are winning. Maybe they have a better navy.
doctrine right. Another article on Let’s get this straight. Religious people have self-control, therefore religious people are more fit. The question becomes, is it a lack of self-control that is causing Darwinists to say stupid things?
Brace yourself; we’re going to hear a lot more nonsense in the month leading up the King Charles’ 200th Birthday Re-Coronation Ceremony. You see what they do, don’t you? They gloss over the real issues by asking how religion evolved, not whether religion evolved.
This tactic is just the bully asserting his turf. What you do to stand down a bully is face off with him and turn his energy against him. Don’t accept his premise; fling it right back at him. Ask him if he is just saying this just because he is a sinner looking to rationalize his evil ways. What evil ways? he will sputter. Why, the evil of contradicting yourself. What? Right, you continue, pointing out that he said religious people tend to have longer lives. “How does a young boy blowing up a school bus have a longer life? How could that evolve?” you ask, diverging temporarily into a discussion of why a theory that explains opposite things explains nothing at all. “And come to think of it,” you continue gently but relentlessly, “if religion is a positive thing, what religion are you?” He mumbles that he is an atheist. “Then according to your own theory, you are less fit. In fact, you look kind of depressed and delinquent. Better get on a fitness program. Why not make a resolution to get some self-control and righteousness in your life instead of making up stories out of your own imagination? Come on, I’ll take you to church where we can learn about Truth that doesn’t evolve.”
The evolution-of-everything crowd can’t even get their basic core ideas on the origin of species right 150 years after Darwin supposedly figured it out, and they want us to think they can explain religion. Well if religion evolved, it evolved downward from a true knowledge of God to all kinds of deceptions and lies, including evolution. Time for an update of Darwin’s title: On the origin of specious ideas by natural man’s rejection, or the degradation of evident truths in the struggle for existentialism. But then he would just be plagiarizing Paul.


Published without permission, but with greatest respect.

Total Depravity scientifically proven

People 'still willing to torture'

Subjects were apparently given electric shocks

Decades after a notorious experiment, scientists have found test subjects are still willing to inflict pain on others - if told to by an authority figure.

US researchers repeated the famous "Milgram test", with volunteers told to deliver electrical shocks to another volunteer - played by an actor.

Even after faked screams of pain, 70% were prepared to increase the voltage, the American Psychology study found.

Both may help explain why apparently ordinary people can commit atrocities.

Continue reading...

650 to dissent at U.N. climate change conference

HEAT OF THE MOMENT
Scientists abandon global warming 'lie'

A United Nations climate change conference in Poland is about to get a surprise from 650 leading scientists who scoff at doomsday reports of man-made global warming – labeling them variously a lie, a hoax and part of a new religion.

Later today, their voices will be heard in a U.S. Senate minority report quoting the scientists, many of whom are current and former members of the U.N.'s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

About 250 of the scientists quoted in the report have joined the dissenting scientists in the last year alone.

In fact, the total number of scientists represented in the report is 12 times the number of U.N. scientists who authored the official IPCC 2007 report.

(Story continues ...)

Greg Bahnsen vs Stein - The Great Debate

Sarah vs Oprah

SARAH believes that the Scriptures (Genesis to Revelation), in the original Hebrew and Greek, are the inspired, infallible words of the Creator and that these words speak the truth to our minds, and to the eyes of our heart.

OPRAH believes that divine revelation comes through the words of her New Age guru, Eckhart Tolle, whose exclusive, esoteric, “infallible” interpretation of all spiritual traditions she avidly embraces. Oprah insists that Tolle’s words supersede the words of Christ and all of Scripture. Oprah sees herself as an “awakened” and “evolved” human being who partakes fully in the supreme “it” behind all things, “universal intelligence.” Being plugged in to this “universal intelligence” generates for Oprah “awareness,” “presence,” and “flowering consciousness,” all disguised terms for self-adoration.

***
SARAH believes that she was created in the image of God, and that she is descended from Adam and Eve through Noah and his wife.

OPRAH believes she evolved by chance out of some kind of primordial ooze over hundreds of millions of years through worms, reptiles, and ape-people.

***
SARAH relies on the word of God and the Holy Spirit to guide her into truth.

OPRAH relies on a spirit or a force Tolle calls the “Source” which he claims resides within him and Oprah. That “Source” has told him that the word of the God of the Bible is not reliable, that there is no death, and that he and Oprah both are as God, able to say of themselves “I Am That I Am.” These things that the “Source” has told Oprah and Tolle are the same things the serpent told Eve in the ancient garden.

***
SARAH sees herself as a sinner saved by the grace of God through the blood of Christ.

OPRAH believes that to sin means “to miss the point of human existence,” and since she believes she “gets it,” she does not sin. Oprah considers herself to be “indestructible, immortal,” a “divine presence” and a “radiant essence” for whom salvation is an irrelevant issue.

***
SARAH’S foundation is Jesus Christ whose coming was prophesized throughout the Old Testament, and whose résumé is quite impressive, our year 2008 referencing the number of times the earth has revolved around the sun since His birth.

OPRAH’S foundation is Eckhart Tolle whose “awareness” began at age twenty-nine during a psychotic episode that he himself describes. Tolle therein realized his “true nature as the ever-present I am,” supposing himself qualified to save the world, showing others how to get rid of “egoic delusion” by relying on the “Source.” No reporter has yet been able to trace anything firm about his life prior to his psychotic split. He took the name Eckhart from the 14th-century German mystic, Meister Eckhart. No one knows whether his last name is real or fake.

***
SARAH believes that her Lord and Savior is the Son of God who loves us and humbled Himself for our sakes, even to the extent of his shameful death on the cross, and that we are to model our own humility after His.

OPRAH believes that humility and self-esteem “are one and the same,” being pleased to exalt her guru to the ultimate heights, proclaiming him to be the greatest living spiritual teacher. Oprah believes that “there is no need to go elsewhere for truth,” and that Tolle’s teaching “is not derived from external sources, but from the one true Source within, so it contains no theory or speculation.”

***
SARAH connects to God through thanksgiving and prayer.

OPRAH believes that “anything you enjoy doing connects you to the power behind all creation,” known to her as “universal intelligence.” Oprah prays to herself: “Oh, glorious future . . . How can I be used to serve the greater calling that is my life? I surrender to that.”

***
SARAH exhibits faith in God, believing that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

OPRAH mocks Christian faith, insisting that “God is a feeling experience, not a believing experience. If God for you is still about a belief, then it’s not truly God.”

***
SARAH, in her family and personal life, exhibits the kind of active, sacrificial love described in Scripture.

OPRAH believes that “real love doesn’t make you suffer.” To Oprah, love is something akin to a mere sensation: “To feel the presence of that One Life deep within yourself and within all creatures . . . a feeling-realization of oneness.”

***
SARAH is part of the body of Christ of which Jesus is the head, and in which each member, ideally, contributes his or her own gifts to the edification of all.

OPRAH is the head of a New Age “emerging tribe,” a “global community of seekers,” who look to her and Tolle for their “spiritual understanding.” Oprah and her guru imagine that they hold “the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world.” Oprah sees her tribe as a supremely enlightened “new species” arising on the planet that will bring “awareness” to the “still unconscious majority of the population.”

***
SARAH’S thinking demonstrates that God has given her a sound mind.

OPRAH’S thinking demonstrates the opposite. Her guru is a case study in the development of the mental illness of malignant narcissism. Like the original Narcissus, Tolle is obsessed with the two-dimensional reflection of his image. In his The Power of Now, Tolle writes about what he learned from viewing his own image in a mirror: “If you accept the image, no matter what it is, if you become friendly toward it, it cannot not become friendly toward you. This is how you change the world.” Here, in a nutshell, Tolle expresses the fundamental delusion and extreme grandiosity of his own malignant narcissism. A mirror image is not a true image, but a backwards one. Tolle is not the greatest spiritual teacher in the world as he imagines, but one of the least competent. Oprah welcomes Tolle’s preposterous claims with uncritical glee because they justify the adoration of her own backwards and exalted mirror image of herself. Oprah’s mind is not sound, filled as it is with shallow self-exaltation and global megalomaniacal intentions. (Tolle, Winfrey, and Obama all manifest the characteristics of malignant narcissism. For more on the subject, please see The People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck and Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited by Sam Vaknin).

***
SARAH believes it is her purpose to do what she can to maximize American liberty and prosperity, and to keep our country safe from foreign and domestic enemies.

OPRAH believes it is her purpose to get all of humanity to “awaken” and fall in line with “the evolutionary impulse of the universe” by promoting the anti-Christian doctrine of her pathologically narcissistic guru.

***
SARAH, when in doubt or difficulty, looks to the Author and Finisher of her faith, Jesus Christ.

OPRAH, when her “self-image is threatened,” looks to herself and, following Tolle’s instructions, intensifies her “awareness” of her inner “Being,” a ritual that amounts to little more than concentrated self-adoration.

***
SARAH is a sincere and truthful person.

OPRAH has lied from the very beginning about her worldwide anti-Christian crusade. Even as she spreads the messages that the God of the Old Testament is a mere projection of the human mind, that Jesus is not the only-begotten Son of God, and that her guru is superior in intelligence and wisdom to Christ, she claims to be a Christian. In response to questions from concerned Christians in her audience, Oprah responds disingenuously that Tolle often quotes Jesus. What she does not say is that the quotes are always crudely yanked out of context, always in contradiction to the clear sense of the passage, and always reframed to back up Tolle’s perverted teaching. Where do these lies come from? According to Oprah’s own doctrine, they must come from that same “Source” which tells her that the word of God is not valid, that she will not surely die, and that she may say of herself “I Am That I Am.”

***

Admissions of Ignorance in Evolutionary Theory

August 11, 2008 — For a scientific idea some have proclaimed as a fact no longer in need of proof, and as well-established as gravity, Darwin’s theory of evolution still reveals surprising weaknesses when its defenders speak about the details. Detecting these weaknesses requires tuning out the media hype, and tuning into scientific papers and pro-evolution journals where evolutionary theory is debated. Elisabeth Pennisi wrote one such account in Science last week.¹ It revealed that the public is getting a very misleading view of evolution – both its operation and the strength of the evidence for it.
It would seem obvious that evolution needs a genetic basis. Darwin attempted to explain it in his day, unsuccessfully. The neo-Darwinian synthesis of the 1930s was supposed to explain it. Serious questions about how evolution works at the genetic level remain, however, to this day. This was evident in Pennisi’s use of war metaphors to describe two groups of evolutionists that are “locking horns” over a current issue: whether genes or regulatory elements (in particular, cis regulatory factors) are key to evolutionary change. The latter, a “fashionable idea,” has been growing in popularity among those in the evo-devo subculture: i.e., evolutionary biologists who focus more on developmental than genetic influences. When Jerry Coyne and Hopi Hoekstra wrote a pointed critique of the regulatory-element hypothesis in the journal Evolution last year, “Egos were bruised. Tempers flared. Journal clubs, coffee breaks at meetings, and blogs are still all abuzz,” she wrote.
None of the combatants doubt Darwin’s theory in the slightest, of course. Still, some statements in Pennisi’s account could give a Darwin-doubter cause for gloating. Consider this paragraph:

[Sean] Carroll [U of Wisconsin] argued that mutations in cis regions were a way to soft-pedal evolutionary change. Genes involved in establishing body plans and patterns have such a broad reach--affecting a variety of tissues at multiple stages of development--that mutations in their coding regions can be catastrophic. In contrast, changes in cis elements, several of which typically work in concert to control a particular gene’s activity, are likely to have a much more limited effect. Each element serves as a docking site for a particular transcription factor, some of which stimulate gene expression and others inhibit it. This modularity makes possible an infinite number of cis-element combinations that finely tune gene activity in time, space, and degree, and any one sequence change is unlikely to be broadly disruptive.

This sounds like damage control. Is the standard explanation too risky? Yet critics of the evo-devo alternative argue that every such “fine-tuning” change must be adaptive to persist through natural selection. Precious few examples, they say, can be found to illustrate a regulatory change related to a morphological change. One regulatory change in a mouse, for instance, can make its digits grow slightly longer (see 01/18/2008), but the mutant mouse is hardly ready to take off flying like a bat.

Continue reading...

Evangelism in a Postmodern World

Philosophy of Science - Fred Butler

I know this message is not in its entirety, but I find it very relevant and hence I publish it anyway.