Clueless Emma

Carl Jung: Psychologist or Sorcerer?

If Burney's assertion is correct, and the human race isn't sinful, then the Bible is nothing more than myths and fables -- and Jesus was a nut job for declaring He was the Son of God who came into the world to die for the sins of all mankind. Jesus clearly taught that we are sinners, with a capital S, and "fall short of the glory of God." Sin was the reason Jesus went to the cross. His death was payment for mankind's sin debt. Thus He threw open the gates of heaven, and all who believe in Him will be reconciled to God. If it's true that we are merely "Spiritual Beings having a human experience" as Burney claims, the Son of God would have had no reason to leave His throne in heaven and come to Earth. Which is Burney's whole point! If we're not sinners, we have no need of a Savior! ~Marsha West

via www.newswithviews.com

New York City: More Blacks are Aborted than Born | NewsReal Blog

Racist eugenicist and Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger would be so proud: According to the city Health Department, 2008 saw 89,469 abortions performed in New York City — seven for every 10 live births. Among black women, abortions out number live births by three to two.

via www.newsrealblog.com

Evolution News & Views: The Fact-Free “Science” of Matheson, Hunt and Moran: Ridicule Instead of Reason, Authority Instead of Evidence

One might think that professors Matheson, Hunt and Moran would address the conceptual issue calmly, rationally, and collegially. But they don’t; instead, they stoop to misrepresentation and ridicule. And one might think that they would address the empirical issue by citing published scientific evidence. But they don’t; instead, they simply proclaim themselves the only authorities on the subject.

via www.evolutionnews.org

This is true of everyone on the Left of any issue, in my experience.

Hitler and Eugenics, Dawkins and Boteach, Concepts of God | Hitler and Christianity

When we National Socialists speak of a belief in God, we do not understand by God, like naïve Christians and their spiritual opportunists, a human-type being, who sits around somewhere in space . . . The force of natural law, with which all these innumerable planets move in the universe, we call the Almighty or God.

. . . we National Socialists impose on ourselves the demand to live naturally as much as possible, i.e., biologically. The more accurately we recognize and observe the laws of nature and of life, the more we adhere to them, so much the more do we conform to the will of the Almighty.

via hitlerandchristianity.com

Why Aren't Earth's Oldest Trees Older?

The sheer girth of certain ancient, wizened trees can take one’s breath away. Wired Science recently featured a collection of images of some of earth’s oldest trees. Although the age estimates given for these antique specimens vary from a few to tens of thousands of years, the majority of them are consistent with a biblical timeframe for earth history.

via www.icr.org

Global warming a concern for regional leaders | OregonLive.com

Global warming can’t be stopped. Climate change can’t be reversed.

via blog.oregonlive.com

So this is an admission that humans will have no impact on global warming and climate change, which indicates it is not caused by humans, but we'd better act now to make dire changes in our ways of life anyway? Umm...logic here?

Why everything you've been told about evolution is wrong | Science | The Guardian

Why everything you've been told about evolution is wrongWhat if Darwin's theory of natural selection is inaccurate? What if the way you live now affects the life expectancy of your descendants? Evolutionary thinking is having a revolution . . .

via www.guardian.co.uk

Lost World of Fanged Frogs and Giant Rats Discovered in Papua New Guinea [Excerpts]

From Answers in Genesis

The scene is reminiscent of a movie: intrepid explorers pierce the wilderness and stumble upon a trove of amazing species rarely--if ever--seen before.

In this case, the explorers were a team of scientists from Britain, New Zealand, and the United States who trekked down into a 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) deep and 3 kilometer (1.86 miles) wide crater in Papua New Guinea. Over the course of five weeks, the team documented at least 21 new species or sub-species, including frogs with fangs, fish, and a giant rat that may be the largest currently living.

Each of these discoveries reminds us of just how much diversity is possible within each created kind since all the land animals departed from the Ark. Much of the information in the genome of those original animals has been expressed, repressed, or lost through speciation and mutation. But the creativity shown in each kind is truly amazing.

What the team did not uncover, however, are examples of what one would expect to find according to evolution: An area such as this crater is a living laboratory for what Darwin predicted: changes from one kind into another kind.

Everything the team discovered fits with animals we're accustomed to: birds, fish, rats, etc. Even though some of these animals have unique features, there is still no evidence of fish growing legs or salamanders sprouting mammal hair. Frogs with fangs are still frogs. In a similar fashion, creatures on the famous Galápagos Islands, though often cited as evidence of evolution, suffer this same defect (as far as evolution is concerned). Finches and tortoises, no matter the size of their beaks or the shapes of their shells, will always be finches and tortoises.

Natural selection and mutations--even in this pristine wilderness of Papua New Guinea--can do nothing more than work with existing genetic material to cause changes within each kind. In other words, don't hold your breath for the announcement of the reptiliobird.

Science falsely so called

"The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith. Truth and careful scientific weighing of evidence have been among the first casualties in their program, which is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age.

--Dr. Storrs Olson, Smithsonian Institute Scientist, Nov. 1, 1999

The Alphabet of Life

"DNA are three letters full of paradox. What they represent remains little understood by the public, yet they are on everyone's tongue. Amid the chatter of popular culture, the truth gets lost that DNA is one of the most powerful clues we have of the existence of a spiritual reality, maybe to the existence of God.

"For a fee, DNA testing can shed light on anyone's genetic ancestry, including whether you have "Jewish genes." There is supposed to be a "God gene" for religious belief in general. And a "gay gene." And so on.

"But all this is trivial compared to the largely unheralded insight gained from the Human Genome Project, completed in 2003. The insight is disturbing. It is that while DNA codes for the cell's building blocks, the information needed to build the rest of the creature is seemingly, in large measure, absent.

"CONSIDER THE HOX "master" genes that supposedly determine the spatial configuration of the front and back ends of creatures as diverse as frogs, mice and humans. As British physician James Le Fanu writes in a fascinating new book, Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves (Pantheon), Swiss biologist Walter Gehring showed that "the same 'master' genes mastermind the three-dimensional structures of all living things... The same master genes that cause a fly to have the form of a fly cause a mouse to have the form of a mouse." The physically encoded information to form that mouse, as opposed to that fly, isn't there. Instead, "It is as if the 'idea' of the fly (or any other organism) must somehow permeate the genome that gives rise to it."

"Such an understanding, of nature driven by a force outside nature, was dominant in biology before Darwin. Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), director of Paris's Musee d'Histoire Naturelle, held that there was an unknown biological "formative impulse," an organizational principle of some kind that directed the formation of diverse kinds of life."

From The Berean Call email

The Truth is: "I will praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are your works; and that my soul knows right well" (Psalm 139:14).

Why Reiki Is Not of God and Dangerous to Those Who Employ It.

From ReikiDangers:

[Here are listed] web sites that are written to clarify about the occult of reiki and to point towards the Grace of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord. To share the biblical Truth about reiki and tell about practical experiences with ex-reikians. We are listing these websites as a unified Christian voice, to warn you about reiki and guide you Home to God. Because there is Hope, there is a better alternative for reiki, found in Jesus. Just repent and turn to the Truth, the Light of Salvation which is found in Jesus Christ, get saved and set free. We are blessing you, not condemning, in fact this is between you and God and not between Church and you, nor between christians and reikians. The bible says clearly; Eph 6,12: for we are not wrestling with flesh and blood, (people) but against the powers (reiki) against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere, (reikidemons) ...this is not personal, it is spiritual. We have selected more then 30 websites from all kind of Churches and from saved ex-reikians who proof [sic] reiki spiritually occult, dangerous and not from God.

From Probe Ministries:

In a book entitled Basic Questions on Alternative Medicine, a corporate project by members of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1988), there is a short chapter on Reiki (pp. 61-63). I will draw some information from that chapter. Although Reiki claims to be an "ancient healing practice that Buddha (and Jesus) used," all records of it were lost. It was allegedly rediscovered by Mikao Usui, a Zen Buddhist monk, in the mid-1800s "during a psychic experience." Additionally, it is claimed that details about lost aspects of the practice have "been revealed through channeling." Channeling is the New Age term for mediumship and involves contact with, and usually possession by, "spirit guides." The authors of this chapter state that a second-degree Reiki practitioner "learns about spirit guides and how to contact and use them in healing sessions." They further state that third degree Reiki masters give "complete control of healing sessions to their spirit guides." Healing sessions appear to be based on the use of "life-energy" (i.e. ki, chi, or prana), which is sent from the practitioner into the patient's body.

The greatest concern would seem to be the identity of the "spirit guides." Since they are typically contacted in ways expressly forbidden in Scripture, and since they advocate unbiblical ideas and practices, it is honestly quite difficult to view them as anything other than the biblical demons. The authors of this chapter conclude by stating: "Reiki is antithetical to biblical Christianity. Channeling is a way of communicating with spirits to obtain information not otherwise accessible. It is denounced in the Bible as sorcery, mediumship, and spiritism (Lev. 19:26, 31; 20:6; Deut. 18:9-14...)."

A former Reiki master who has become a Christian wrote this testimony to Sue Bohlin:

"Reiki is something that is very mis-stated, and misunderstood, by those outside of the Reiki circle. Having been in it, I can tell you everything you need to know. I will tell you right up front that it was a hard one to shake, that it was VERY real and beneficial, but that it is decidedly non-Christian. "I highly recommend anyone looking into it to just stop. Prayer is very powerful, and is our direct link to God through Christ. If we petition directly for healing, it may come. If we have faith that it WILL come, our chances are far better. As with anything we are to test, does Reiki point either the practitioner or the client to Christ? No. Big no. It uses a Universal energy that is non-personal and can be manipulated. You can pray to God, to the Earth Mother, to Mother/Father God, etc. But it in fact leads you AWAY from Christ. "It is all about what you FEEL in your hands, what you FEEL in your spirit, what the client FEELS in their body/emotions/spirit. In that regard it is very very real. My hands get hot, I hit a place of extreme peace and quiet, I heal people who feel a tingle or hot spot or whatever. Their headache, menstrual cramps, emotional distress, bruises, whatever, goes away. But is God glorified? No way. Is self glorified? Yes.

"If it is so good and right, why do practitioners go on to other things once they hit Master level? The teacher who taught me was going on to accupuncture and other new Reiki teachings. Always something else, something new, something you NEED to be a true master. Sound familiar? It is like everything else in this world, but Christ. There is no lasting peace, no connection with the universe, there is a big void in your soul that is not going away. WE ALL NEED CHRIST! I told my wife when she questioned my stopping in my search for peace once I found Christ (she had followed my years of searching through New Age theologies, etc) that Jesus Christ filled the hole. All the puzzle pieces fell into place and everything suddenly made sense. For a long time after that I tried to make Reiki fit into Christianity but it didn't. I prayed a lot about it. God firmly and solidly showed me in Scripture how it couldn't work. The two major things against it, regardless of how well it works, are 1) it does not point anyone to Christ and in facts points people away from a single triune God, and 2) it is no different than all the pagan rituals in the Old Testament that would have people pray to the rain god or fertility god, etc. They must have worked or people wouldn't have kept praying to them, and God's people wouldn't have been attracted to them. But either way it isn't what GOD has asked us to do. Everything we need is in Him. We can pray for any healing we need."

From Christian Answers for the New Age:

Reiki and Jesus: There is no evidence that Jesus used Reiki, as many Reiki books and teachers assert. Jesus, being God the Son, did not need a technique, but healed because His nature was the same as God's (which is what being the "Son of God" signifies), and God is the Healer and Giver of life (Genesis 1 and 2; Psalm 103:1-3, 147:3; Hosea 6:1; Matthew 4:23; Luke 4:18; John 10:10; Acts 11:18).

Jesus' miracles of healing were not just to cure, however, but were a sign that He was the promised Messiah. Luke 4:18 refers to prophecy of the Messiah as a healer in Isaiah 61:1. In Luke 7:18-23, John the Baptist sends a messenger to ask Jesus if He really is the Promised One, the Messiah. Jesus replies: "Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them," (v.22). In His answer, Jesus refers to two Isaiah passages, Isaiah 35:5 and 61:1, which gave John the confirmation he asked for. Jesus was not channeling a universal energy, but was acting with the power of God.

As Acts 10:38 says, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him." The power of God was not coming through a technique or secret teaching, but from the Person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus conferred this power specifically to and only on His disciples, He "gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness," (Matthew 10:1, Mark 3:13-15, Luke 9:1). It is His authority over illness that Christ gave the disciples, not a secret teaching or technique.

This authority over disease was only one aspect of the power and authority of the Son of God. He also demonstrated authority in His teaching (Matthew 7:29), authority over demons (Matthew 8:28-24, also in Mark 5:1-17, Luke 8:22-25, as well as many other passages), authority to forgive (Matthew 9:5, also in Mark 2:10, Luke 5:24), authority over nature (Matthew 8:23-27, also in Mark 4:36-41, Luke 8:22-25), and authority over death (Matthew 9:23-26). After His resurrection, He was given all authority: All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. (Matthew 28:18). Jesus' healing magnified the glory of God.

After the blind man by the side of the road was healed in Luke 18:35-43, he followed Jesus, "glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God," (verse 43). This same praising of God happened after Jesus healed the paralytic (Matthew 9:2-8, Mark 2:10-12, Luke 5:22-26), when He healed the "lame, crippled, blind, dumb, and many others...so that the multitude marveled as they saw the dumb speaking, the crippled restored, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel" (Matthew 15:30, 31), when Jesus raised the dead man in Nain (Luke 7:11-16), when He made the woman bent doubled stand straight (Luke 13:13), and when one of the ten lepers healed by Jesus turned back "glorifying God in a loud voice" and falling on his face at Jesus' feet (Luke 17:15, 16).

Reiki: 15 Percent of US Hospitals Using Occult Practice

In a recent article in Reiki News, it was revealed that 15 percent of all US hospitals are now implementing the practice of Reiki. In Reiki, a type of therapeutic touch, it is believed that the ki (chi) energy (a supposed universal energy that flows through all things) can be used to heal people. In the Reiki News article written by Reiki proponent William Lee Rand, Rand expresses a concern about a statement released by US Catholic bishops asking Catholic hospitals not to use Reiki because of its Buddhist roots. Rand tries to show that Reiki is a scientific method that has healing results.

However, as Rand explains his views on Reiki, the discerning reader begins to realize that Reiki is not scientific at all but rather a spiritual approach. Rand admits that "Reiki healing energy directs itself." He says:

"I was unable to direct it with my mind or will and realized this wasn't necessary as Reiki had its own form of guidance that was superior to my own. This experience has been verified by other professional Reiki practitioners and forms the basis of one of the important keys to using Reiki: If you want Reiki to provide the best healing experience, it's necessary for the practitioner to set their own desire, will and ego aside, and allow the Reiki energy to guide itself."

Author Ray Yungen, who says there are now over one million Reiki channelers in the US alone (a million in Germany also), explains this "energy" behind Reiki further:  "One practitioner describes the experience in the following way:

"When doing it, I become a channel through which this force, this juice of the universe, comes pouring from my palms into the body of the person I am touching, sometimes lightly, almost imperceptibly, sometimes in famished sucking drafts. I get it even as I'm giving it. It surrounds the two of us, patient and practitioner" ("Healing Hands" (New Woman Magazine, March, 1986), p. 78).

What is this "juice of the universe?" The answer is an important one, given by a renowned Reiki master [Rand] who explains:

A Reiki attunement is an initiation into a sacred metaphysical order that has been present on earth for thousands of years ... By becoming part of this group, you will also be receiving help from the Reiki guides and other spiritual beings who are also working toward these goals" (William Rand, Reiki: The Healing Touch, Southfield, MI: Vision Publications,1991, p. 48).

While this is not widely advertised, Reiki practitioners depend on this "spirit guide" connection as an integral aspect of Reiki. In fact, it is the very foundation and energy behind Reiki. One Reiki master who has enrolled hundreds of other masters spoke of her interaction with the spirit guides:

"For me, the Reiki guides make themselves the most felt while attunements are being passed. They stand behind me and direct the whole process, and I assume they also do this for every Reiki Master. When I pass attunements, I feel their presence strongly and constantly. Sometimes I can see them" (Diane Stein, Essential Reiki (Berkley, CA: Crossing Press, 1995), p. 107).

Eugenics and Nazis...and Progressives

By Dennis L Cuddy, Ph.D The term "eugenics" was first used in 1883 by Francis Galton, Darwin's half cousin. In 1871, Darwin authored the racist book The Descent of man and Selection in Relation to Sex saying that "the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world." This followed the principle of "survival of the fittest" coined by Herbert Spencer in 1864 after reading Darwin's 1959 book, The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection for the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life (four years after Arthur Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Races). For humans, this principle expressed itself in Social Darwinism. Thus, during the 1870s, Oxford lecturer John Ruskin would instill in his students, like Cecil Rhodes, the concept that they were "the best northern blood" and should rule the world. Rhodes scholarships were not only given to students from America and Commonwealth nations, but also to those from Germany beginning in the very early 1900s. Germans at this time were also being conditioned to see historical progression in terms of "blood and land," a sort of Teutonic knighthood descended from the Aryans. In 1914, Madame Blavatsky's Aryan doctrine had spread through Germany and Austria, and it was from her writings that a young Adolph Hitler learned the meaning of the Aryan swastika. By this time, eugenics was a growing international movement with the first International Congress of Eugenics held in 1912 with Vice-Presidents Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, Skull & Bones member Gifford Pinchot, and former Harvard University president Charles Eliot. In this same year, eugenics proponent Woodrow Wilson signed into law a brutal sterilization act, and the next year eugenics adherent Theodore Roosevelt wrote of the need to improve "racial qualities." Calvin Coolidge wrote similarly in "Whose Country Is This?" (Good Housekeeping, February 1921), after Arthur Calhoun in Volume 3 of his widely used textbook A Social History of the American Family (1919) explained that "in the new social order, extreme emphasis is sure to be placed upon eugenic procreation." Men of wealth like Andrew Carnegie and the Rockefellers played an important part in funding the eugenics movement....It was during this time of the early 20th Century that Rockefeller introduced Margaret Sanger to the monied elite who would help her form the Birth Control League which would later become Planned Parenthood. The November 1921 issue of Sanger's Birth Control Review carried the heading "Birth Control: To Create A Race of Thoroughbreds," and Sanger would later advocate eugenically limiting "dysgenic stocks" such as blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and Catholics, as well as "slum dwellers" such as Jewish immigrants. In 1926, Rockefeller money funded the founding of the American Eugenics Society, and the next year on May 2, 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court by an 8 to 1 majority ruled in Buck v. Bell that certain “unfit” people could be forcibly sterilized. Regarding this ruling, British [Fabian Socialist] Professor Harold Laski wrote his friend Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Sterilize all the unfit, among whom I include all fundamentalists.” Across the nation during the 1930s, state legislatures (eventually 38) enacted sterilization laws regarding the "feeble-minded." Also during this time, Franklin Roosevelt became president, and in Christopher Thorne's Allies of a Kind (1978) one finds: "Subjects to do with breeding and race seem, indeed, to have held a certain fascination for the president.... Roosevelt felt it in order to talk, jokingly, of dealing with Puerto Rico's excessive birth rate by employing, in his own words, 'the methods which Hitler used effectively' [to make them] sterile."

SOFT TISSUE IN FOSSILS

Ten years ago, anyone--scientist or otherwise--claiming to have discovered soft (i.e., unfossilized) dinosaur tissue would have been ridiculed and dismissed by the scientific community as a quack or a young-earth creationist. Yet within the last decade have come two such crushing blows to the idea that dinosaurs died out some 65 million years ago.

The first was the discovery of unfossilized dinosaur tissue at the center of a T. Rex bone by Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University. That discovery--and, specifically, papers published by Schweitzer and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center scientist John Asara--started an intense debate about whether the bones truly contained dinosaur tissue (see News to Note, August 2, 2008, item #2)

Now Asara and Schweitzer have supported their previous find by confirming the existence of proteins in the soft tissues of a hadrosaur, a duck-billed dinosaur allegedly from 80 million years ago. Their new study, reported in Science, shows that "our T. rex discovery was not a unique occurrence," said Asara, who continued:

"This is the second dinosaur species we've examined and helps verify that our first discovery was not just a one-hit wonder. Our current study was the collaborative effort of a number of independent laboratories, whose findings collectively add up to a robust conclusion."

According to Asara, the team found nearly twice the number of amino acids that were found in the T. rex tissue. The fragments "showed marked preservation of original tissues and molecules, with microstructures resembling soft, transparent vessels, cells and fibrous matrix," despite the fact that the fossil was found buried some 23 feet (7 m) deep in sandstone. The proteins the team confirmed were collagen, laminin, and elastin, as well amino acids including hydroxylated proline.

(Answers In Genesis, News to Note, Item 1).

[The Berean Call: For tissue to remain soft after allegedly being fossilized for 80 million years is certainly a "mystery," as paleobiologist Mary H. Schweitzer notes: "The precise recipe of environmental conditions that lead to such molecular preservation is still a mystery, Schweitzer says. However, she notes, the team's research suggests that the sudden burial of a dinosaur carcass in a porous, sandy material seems be one key to such exceptional fossilization."

"Porous" means that liquids may pass through a substance. That would hardly be key to explaining how moisture would remain after 80 million years. In other words, it remains after 80 million years of dehyrdration. That isn't a "mystery," it is an "impossibility." Consequently, it is much simpler to conclude that 80 million years have not elapsed.]

Seriously? Really?

The harmful effects of global warming are being felt "here and now and in your backyard," a groundbreaking US government report on climate change has warned.

The report's release comes just six months before countries from around the world meet in the Danish capital Copenhagen for a UN conference that aims to produce an ambitious, new climate pact aimed at rolling back global warming.

The report stresses the need for immediate action against global warming, saying: "Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today."

"We have the power to determine how bad this could be and to avoid the worst impacts of global warming," said David Doniger.

"It's like Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' where the ghosts come and show Scrooge the way the future could unfold into either a happy future or a disastrous future.

"This shows us that the future is in our hands, just as it was in Scrooge's hands," said Doniger.

Wow.

Is Archaeopteryx a Valid Transitional Fossil?

Archaeopteryx is the name given to an animal about the size of a crow. It is represented by fossil remains that display teeth, three claws on each wing, a flat sternum (breastbone), belly ribs (gastralia), and a long, bony tail. In other words, it had characteristics like those of many small dinosaurs. What made Archaeopteryx an exciting find was the fact that the fossil also exhibited feathers, a lightly-built body with hollow bones, and a wishbone (furcula "Archaeopteryx" in Dinosaur and Paleontology Dictionary] AsIs Archaeopteryx a Valid Transitional Fossil? a result, many people who believe in evolution presume this fossil represents a transitional species between reptiles and birds. Along with other evidence (which we will examine later) it led to the theory that the dinosaurs did not become extinct, but rather all turned into birds. The purpose of this page is to clarify the facts about Archaeopteryx and other similar transitional fossil species.

One article [Tim Beardsley, "Fossil Bird Shakes Evolutionary Hypotheses," Nature, Vol. 322, 21 August 1986, p. 677] reveals that the fossils of normal birds have been found in older rock strata than Archaeopteryx. Therefore, either Archaeopteryx is not a transitional fossil (since birds already existed at the same time and there was nothing to "transition" into) or rock strata can not be accurately dated. If either of these is correct (and one must be) Archaeopteryx loses its value as a transitional species.

EVANGELICAL LEFT DEFENDS OBAMA ON ABORTION

In October 2004, conveniently during the presidential election, Evangelical Left ethicist Glenn Stassen of Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, gained widespread attention for arguing that abortion rates had increased under President Bush after declines under President Clinton. A John Kerry supporter, Stassen sought to justify evangelical support for a pro-abortion rights candidate, arguing that wider welfare state programs more effectively reduce abortion than legal restrictions.

As many critics then pointed out,Stassen's sweeping claims were selectively based on abortion data for only 16 states through 2003. Now armed with more comprehensive data, and energized by President Obama's Notre Dame controversy, Stassen, a strong Obama supporter, is claiming vindication.

"Abortions reduced by 300,000 a year during the Clinton years, stayed flat or increased during the Bush years, and if they resume their reductions during the Obama years, then many consistently pro-life people like me will conclude that we should judge administrations not by their words but by their fruits," Stassen triumphantly concluded in a recent piece for Sojourners, Jim Wallis's website for liberal religionists.

As to overall abortion rates, the CDC admits that data for California (with 15 percent of the nation's population) and several other dates is unavailable after 1998. Counting just those 46 states for which data is available from 1995, abortions declined from 894,000 in 1995 to 836,000 in 2000. From 2001 they declined from 833,000 to 810,000 in 2005. The rate per 1,000 births went from 280 in 1995 to 249 in 2000 to 236 in 2005. The rate per 1,000 women went from 18 in 1995 to 16 in 2000 to also 16 in 2005. In other words, abortions did decline numerically and per 1,000 births during Bush's first term.

The highest abortion rates seem to have been in 1984, with over 1.3 million abortions, 364 per 1,000 births and 24 per 1,000 women (these numbers include California and the other later missing states). Abortion rates had climbed continuously from 1970, with 193,000 abortions and 52 per 1,000 live births and 5 per 1,000 women, climbing steeply all the way through the 1970s and early 1980s. In other words, the reverse in abortion rates began midway during the Reagan years, a time of supposed hostility to social programs that Stassen claims deter abortion.

Stassen celebrated that the Obama administration is "expanding health care insurance for children and planning health insurance for all of us, is working to get the economy revived, and is supporting programs to curb unintended pregnancy," while restoring "support for the working poor." All of this additional government will create a wider pro-life ethic, Stassen claimed. But he ultimately provided no evidence for his hope. Instead, like others on the Evangelical Left, he seems to be straining for an excuse to minimize unrestricted abortion's legality as an issue while bolstering arguments for what he already obviously strongly desires: a larger welfare state.

FromThe American Spectator

Cow Fart Gas Tax??

In case you've been wondering, Congress is still mucking around in the barnyard. Fox News reports this morning that farmers could be taxed for cow flatulence which, of course, would increase the cost of beef for all Americans.

But don't worry, cuz science arrives with the rescue--even when it's quite obvious to even laymen who take the time to listen, that there is absolutely no great environmental threat emanating from bovine or any other man-controllable source.

APA revises 'gay gene' theory

The attempt to prove that homosexuality is determined biologically has been dealt a knockout punch. An American Psychological Association publication includes an admission that there's no homosexual "gene" -- meaning it's not likely that homosexuals are born that way.

For decades, the APA has not considered homosexuality a psychological disorder, while other professionals in the field consider it to be a "gender-identity" problem. But the new statement, which appears in a brochure called "Answers to Your Questions for a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality," states the following:

"There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles...."

That contrasts with the APA's statement in 1998: "There is considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person's sexuality."

THE EVOLUTION CONNECTION

The idea of extraterrestrial life stems largely from a belief in evolution. Recall that in the evolutionary view, the earth is "just another planet"-one where the conditions just happened to be right for life to form and evolve. If there are countless billions of other planets in our galaxy, then surely at least a handful of these worlds have also had the right conditions. Extraterrestrial life is almost inevitable in an evolutionary worldview.

However, the notion of alien life does not square well with Scripture. The earth is unique. God designed the earth for life (Isaiah 45:18). The other planets have an entirely different purpose than does the earth, and thus, they are designed differently. In Genesis 1 we read that God created plants on the earth on Day 3, birds to fly in the atmosphere and marine life to swim in the ocean on Day 5, and animals to inhabit the land on Day 6. Human beings were also made on Day 6 and were given dominion over the animals. But where does the Bible discuss the creation of life on the "lights in the expanse of the heavens"? There is no such description because the lights in the expanse were not designed to accommodate life. God gave care of the earth to man, but the heavens are the Lord's (Psalm 115:16). From a biblical perspective, extraterrestrial life does not seem reasonable

When we consider how the salvation plan might apply to any hypothetical extraterrestrial (but otherwise human-like) beings, we are presented with a problem. If there were Vulcans or Klingons out there, how would they be saved? They are not blood relatives of Jesus, and so Christ's shed blood cannot pay for their sin. One might at first suppose that Christ also visited their world, lived there, and died there as well, but this is antibiblical. Christ died once for all (1 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 9:27-28, Hebrews 10:10). Jesus is now and forever both God and man; but He is not an alien.

One might suppose that alien beings have never sinned, in which case they would not need to be redeemed. But then another problem emerges: they suffer the effects of sin, despite having never sinned. Adam's sin has affected all of creation- not just mankind. Romans 8:20-22 makes it clear that the entirety of creation suffers under the bondage of corruption. These kinds of issues highlight the problem of attempting to incorporate an antibiblical notion into the Christian worldview.

Extraterrestrial life is an evolutionary concept; it does not comport with the biblical teachings of the uniqueness of the earth and the distinct spiritual position of human beings. Of all the worlds in the universe, it was the earth that God Himself visited, taking on the additional nature of a human being, dying on a cross, and rising from the dead in order to redeem all who would trust in Him.

'Why Can't a Girl Have a Penis?'

and other major issues in educational research.

Evil, Wicked Woman

The new Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massacusetts, has given a sermon describing abortions as a "blessing" for the women who undergo them. The Rev Katherine Hancock Ragsdale also thinks that the people who run abortion clinics are "heroes" and even "saints".

Ms Ragsdale, speaking in Birmingham, Alabama, said that "when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion - there is not a tragedy in sight - only blessing."

Do not, please, make the mistake of assuming that she is an unrepresentative extremist: liberal Anglicans in America are among the most fervent supporters of abortion in the world, outstripping even atheists in their enthusiasm for this gruesome procedure.

[Dean Ragsdale finished her sermon with the following exhortation]: These are the two things I want you, please, to remember - abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

I want to thank all of you who protect this blessing - who do this work every day: the health care providers, doctors, nurses, technicians, receptionists, who put your lives on the line to care for others (you are heroes -- in my eyes, you are saints); the escorts and the activists; the lobbyists and the clinic defenders; all of you. You're engaged in holy work.

[The Berean Call: "Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen." (Deuteronomy 27:25).]

True Love Part II: Morals and Meaning

Dave Hunt

The atheistic understanding of love, the highest human virtue, is badly skewed. Sam Harris, in his book Letter to a Christian Nation, says that the fact that "love is more conducive to happiness than hate" is the key to "the moral order of our world."1 So morality depends upon what makes one happy? Any child whose parents have disciplined him at all knows that isn't true. The saddest thing is that not only Harris but the multitudes who have read and turned this book into a bestseller really imagine they have escaped from God with nonsense that would be laughed out of any elementary ethics class.

In another burst of absolutely dazzling profundity, Harris adds, "While feeling love for others is surely one of the greatest sources of our own happiness, it entails a very deep concern for the happiness and suffering of those we love."2 "Feeling love"? What does that mean? With deep feelings of love, a young man says to the young woman beside him in his car, "I love you with all my heart!" What he really means, although neither of them understands it, is "I love me, and I want you!"

If this is what his "selfish genes"3 (as Richard Dawkins would say) and the molecules in his brain are causing him to think, who can blame him? Clearly, the logic of atheism, evolution, and natural selection will inevitably bring us to the day when no one can be blamed for anything. Blame will have lost all meaning. The physical construction of our bodies will have to bear the responsibility. The universal excuse (and it will have to be accepted by every court of law) will no longer be "The devil made me do it" but "My selfish genes made me do it!" Who believes in the devil anyway? But surely we all believe that genes are selfish, don't we? No, we do not. We still have enough common sense to reject this amorality that now governs our ethics and morals.

What, are they going to outlaw cows now? In-freakin-sanity

Congress is considering imposing an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions along with giving industry the ability to trade emission allowances to mitigate costs. Legislation could be considered by the House before the August congressional recess.

In addition to carbon dioxide, a product of burning fossil fuels, the EPA finding covers five other emissions that scientists believe are warming the earth when they concentrate in the atmosphere: Methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).

Well, there it is, all y'all pro-Obama policy tea party naysayers who claim we are going to see tax cuts--just wait. Next year at this time, we will see taxation beyond any we've seen thus far. So we gain what, $30 bucks a paycheck? After Oregon enacts all its 50 some new (most recently--more to come) taxes and we get hit with all these unneeded environmental taxes created to pay for unproven, narcissistic environmental regulations, and all the bail-out "stimulus" bills are due, it will be too late to say oops. Get yer heads out the clouds now.

DARWIN AND RACISM

"Prior to Darwin, it was difficult to argue against the Judeo-Christian conception of the unity of man, based on the single creation of Adam and Eve. Darwin's theory suggested that humans had evolved over hundreds of thousands, even millions of years, and that the races of men had diverged while adapting to the particularities of local conditions. The impact of Darwin's theory was enormous."

--Robert N. Proctor (Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis [1988]

Confidentiality of Psychiatric Manual's Update Draws Gripes

The American Psychiatric Association is getting criticism for the secret process of putting together the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a defining volume of mental disorders.

Published by the APA, the manual, known as DSM, is important for insurance payments as well as prescribing and research, and the process of putting it together leads to heated debate. So for the first time, the association has required its contributors to sign a nondisclosure agreement, the New York Times reported earlier this month.

Hot button topics under debate for the latest edition include gender identity and addictions such as shopping and eating, NYT said. And as we've noted, sex addiction was in the manual in 1980, dropped in 1994 and brought back up for consideration for the new edition.

The Los Angeles Times this morning quotes Robert Spitzer, the editor of the manual's third edition, who has broken ranks and published a letter protesting the confidentiality. "If you don't know what goes on at someone's meetings, they're suspect of having conflicts of interest," Spitzer told LAT. And conflicts have become a significant issue for the psychiatric association, as Sen. Charles Grassley has been looking into payments to the association from drug companies.

The psychiatric association told LAT that psychiatrists working on the manual's update are limited to $10,000 a year from drug makers and that transparency is a priority for those overseeing the process. "The field of psychiatry has gone from an ideology to a scientific pursuit," Darrel Regier, who heads the association's research arm, told LAT.

(Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2008)

[The Berean Call: The psychiatric industry continues to demonstrate that it operates under principles that are far from scientific. It is worth reconsidering Dr. Sigmund Koch's comments concerning his own field of endeavor: "The hope of psychological science became indistinguishable from the fact of psychological science. The entire subsequent history of psychology can be seen as a ritualistic endeavor to emulate the forms of science in order to sustain the delusion that it already is a science" (The American Scholar, Autumn 1973, p. 66). Consequently, even secular psychologists recognize that psychology began as a theory, has never advanced beyond a theory, and will remain a theory, a "theory" that is often subject to the highest bidder.]

Climate Denial Is Now Mental Illness

How odd that, [March 2], none of our media global warming groupies should have bothered to report what was billed to be "the largest ever demonstration for civil disobedience over climate change". There was talk of hundreds of thousands of protestors converging on Washington to hear Jim Hansen, the scientist who talks of coal-fired power stations as "factories of death", call yet again for all coal plants to be closed. Perhaps the lack of coverage was due to the fact that, before Hansen arrived to address a forlorn group of several hundred hippies, Washington was blanketed in nearly a foot of snow.

US climate sceptics such as those on the Watts Up With That website, for whom the predictions of the UK Met Office have become a regular source of amusement, recalled its forecast that 2007 would be "the warmest year on record globally", just before global temperatures dived by nearly a full degree Celsius, cancelling out the entire net warming of the past 100 years. Ever wilder wax the beleaguered warmists in their rhetoric. Our science minister Lord Drayson said last week he was "shocked" to find how many of the captains of industry he meets are "climate deniers"....

Meanwhile at the University of the West of England in Bristol this weekend, a conference of "eco-psychologists", led by a professor, are solemnly exploring the notion that "climate change denial" should be classified as a form of "mental disorder".

(Booker, London Daily Telegraph Online, 6:06PM, 07 Mar 2009).

Absolute Insanity

How naive I was as a child! I actually thought grown-ups would be smart enough to make wise decisions. Today there are a lot of grown ups who still think the ones running things are smart enough to make wise decisions. In fact, some think we're getting even smarter these days! Whatta bunch of kids...CE

Global Warming Skeptics Speak Out

Dr. Richard Lindzen, a well known atmospheric physicist and professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently spoke at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York...In the video, Lindzen says that endorsing global warming has made many scientists lives easier. One example is through funding of research.

President Klaus has been one of the few politicians in Europe speaking out against global warming alarmism. In this video, Klaus questions the motives of environmentalists.

Source: AccuWeather

More Scientists Rip Global Warming Hysteria

Amid reports that President Barack Obama's climate plan could cost industry close to $2 trillion, 59 additional scientists skeptical of the threat of manmade global warming have been added to the U.S. Senate Minority Report on climate change. They bring the total to more than 700 scientists from around the world who have spoken out against the hysteria created by Al Gore and other global warming alarmists, according to a statement issued by the office of Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The latest Minority Report includes 300 scientists and climate researchers who have been added to the list since the initial report’s release in December 2007. Many of the 59 additional scientists are affiliated with prestigious institutions including NASA, the U.S. Navy and Air Force, the Defense Department, Energy Department, Princeton University, Tulane University, the U.S. Naval Academy and the EPA. “Unfortunately, climate science has become political science,” said award-winning Princeton physicist Dr. Robert Austin, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He told the minority staff on the Committee on March 2: “It is tragic that some perhaps well-meaning but politically motivated scientists who should know better have whipped up a global frenzy about a phenomenon which is statistically questionable at best.” Dr. Anastasios Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said the global temperature “has flattened and is actually going down. We are seeing a new shift toward cooler temperatures that will last for probably about three decades.” As Newsmax.com reported, Obama's climate plan could cost industry nearly three times the $646 billion over eight years that the White House initially estimated for the so-called "cap-and-trade" legislation. The plan seeks to reduce pollution by setting a limit on carbon emissions and allowing businesses and groups to buy allowances, although exact details have not been released. But Dr. Diane Douglas, a climatologist who has worked for the Department of Energy, declared: “The recent ‘panic’ to control GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions and billions of dollars being dedicated for the task has me deeply concerned that the U.S. and other countries are spending precious global funds to stop global warming, when it is primarily being driven by natural forcing mechanisms.” Among other comments from scientists included in the report: “I am appalled at the state of discord in the field of climate science . . . There is no observational evidence that the addition of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have caused any temperature perturbations in the atmosphere.” — Award-winning atmospheric scientist Dr. George T. Wolff, a former member of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board who served on a committee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “The sky is not burning, and to claim that it is amounts to journalistic malpractice . . . The press only promotes the global warming alarmists and ignores or minimizes those of us who are skeptical.” — Dr. Mark L. Campbell, a professor of chemistry at the U.S. Naval Academy. “The cause of these global changes is fundamentally due to the sun and its effect on the Earth as it moves about in its orbit, not from man-made activities.” — Retired NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. William W. Vaughan, recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. www.newsmax.com

Happy Darwin Day?

Darwin's theory is that all living things are descendants of a common ancestor, modified by unguided processes such as random variation and natural selection. Although nobody doubts that variation and selection can produce minor changes within existing species ("microevolution"), Darwin claimed that microevolution leads to the origin of new species, organs and body plans ("macroevolution").

Eighty years after "The Origin of Species," evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky acknowledged there was still no hard evidence connecting microevolution and macroevolution. Unfortunately, since only microevolution can be observed within a human lifetime, Mr. Dobzhansky wrote, "We are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution, and proceeding on this assumption, to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit."

This assumption is still an assumption. No one has ever observed the origin of a new species by variation and selection - much less the origin of new organs and body plans. Not even modern genetics has solved the problem. No matter what we do to the DNA of a fruit fly embryo, there are only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly or a dead fruit fly. Although Darwin's modern followers claim there is "overwhelming evidence" for his theory, nothing could be further from the truth.

Nor is Darwin's theory the cornerstone of modern biology. Most of the basic disciplines in biology were founded before Darwin's birth - including anatomy, physiology, botany, zoology, microbiology, systematics, embryology and paleontology. During Darwin's lifetime, Gregor Mendel founded genetics and Louis Agassiz and Richard Owen pioneered comparative biology. But none of these scientists accepted Darwinism.

Actually, Darwinism has always been more philosophy than science. Darwin called "The Origin of Species" "one long argument," and it took the following form: The features of living things are "inexplicable on the theory of creation" but fully explicable as products of unguided natural forces. Darwin lacked sufficient evidence for the latter, however, so he ruled out the former by simply declaring that only natural explanations are "scientific."

[Some] atheists want to establish Darwin Day as a secular alternative to Christmas.

Unfortunately, once in power Darwinism (like Marxism) tolerates no dissent. As the 2008 movie "Expelled" documented, scientists and teachers who criticize Darwinism risk ostracism, character assassination and termination of their employment. School boards that encourage students to learn the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory are besieged by militant atheists who do not want students to question Darwinism.

That's why some people are now proposing that instead of "Darwin Day," Feb. 12 should be designated "Academic Freedom Day."

And let's not forget Lincoln's birthday.

Jonathan Wells is the author of "Icons of Evolution" and "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design," and is currently a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash. He has a Ph.D. in theology from Yale University and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Agenda of draconian taxation and climate control measures exposed by top Japanese scientists. Does MSM report it? NO!

The conclusions within the report dovetail with those of hundreds of Western scientists, who have been derided and even compared with holocaust deniers for challenging the so called "consensus" on global warming.

The total lack of exposure that this major report has received is another example of how skewed coverage of climate change is toward one set of hypotheses.

This serves the agenda to deliberately whip up mass hysteria on behalf of governments who are all too eager to introduce draconian taxation and control measures that won’t do anything to combat any form of warming, whether you believe it to be natural or man-made.

Here it is, folks--forced limits on children in the Western World

"COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the [British] government’s green adviser has warned."

How will this new "standard" be enforced? Exile? Forced abortion (see China)? Forced sterilization (see NAZI Germany)? American funding of Planned Parenthood (see concentration of abortions in minority neighborhoods)?

I daresay the solution for any country worried about overpopulation (for financial stress, NOT the environment, which God created for our use) is to END (ILLEGAL) IMMIGRATION!

Just when you thought the fog of climate confusion was beginning to clear...

...Here are three indisputable scientific facts about climate that are sufficient on their own to throttle any claims of manmade global warming. First, we know from studies of Antarctic ice that, over the last 650,000 years or so, warmer temperatures have preceded increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by hundreds, if not thousands of years. The ice studies indicate that the carbon-dioxide-causes-global warming theory is precisely backwards.

Second, during the 20th century, there is simply no correlation between carbon dioxide emissions and global temperature. Not only did most of the century’s temperature rise occur before most of the century’s manmade greenhouse gas emissions, but during 1940-1975 global temperatures actually declined while atmospheric carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide emission levels steadily increased.

Finally, the ultimate test of a scientific theory is whether it has predictive value. We used Newton’s laws of physics, for example, to land men on the moon. Unfortunately, there are no climate models that predict trends and changes in global climate with any degree of accuracy. Think about the recent failures with hurricane season predictions or even the risk of relying on what your local weatherman predicts for tomorrow’s weather - and you’ll start to get an idea of how far away science is from predicting global climate 10, 50 and 100 years from now.

Although none of this is rocket science or a state secret, our government is nevertheless on the verge of saddling our society with draconian energy-use and rationing laws that will harm our economy and reduce our standard of living.

...The global warming mob wants to tell you where to live, what to drive, how many children you can have, what you can eat - all in the name of reducing your carbon footprint. Energy efficiency can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing when it’s forced down your throat, costs you more money than it saves and robs you of your freedoms and dignity.

Action to reduce the dreaded “global” warming, of course, needs to be coordinated on a global basis, hence the need, climate alarmists intimate, for global government. “We are one” was a theme of Barack Obama’s inauguration festivities - disturbingly similar to the Communist Chinese theme for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, “One World, One Dream.” While such rhetoric may sound inspiring, the reality is that it is little more than a euphemism for central planning and, ultimately, “the road to serfdom” as economist Friedrich Hayek might say.

America’s strength lies not in its one-ness, but in its diversity of beliefs and efforts. And it will take all our strength in the coming years to combat global warming alarmism and to keep America from falling into the totalitarian green abyss.

from Climate Confusion by Steven Milloy at frontpagemag.com

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and is the author of the forthcoming book, “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Ruin Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.”

Michelle Malkin on Carol Browner

Yet another Clintonite has been wheeled out of the political morgue to serve in the Obama administration. Carol Browner, a neon green radical who headed the Environmental Protection Agency from 1993-2000, is widely rumored to be the president-elect’s choice for “energy czar.” But an ethical cloud still hangs over Browner’s EPA legacy. It doesn’t take a team of Ivy League-degreed lawyers to figure out that this is one more headache the Hope and Change crew doesn’t need.

In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, let me dust off the cobwebs and help out all the smarty-pants vetters on the Obama team with a little background on Browner’s stained past:

On her last day in office, nearly eight years ago, Browner oversaw the destruction of agency computer files in brazen violation of a federal judge’s order requiring the agency to preserve its records. This from a public official who bragged about her tenure: “One of the things I’m the proudest of at EPA is the work we’ve done to expand the public’s right to know.”

Asked to explain her track-covering actions, the savvy career lawyer Browner played dumb. Figuratively batting her eyelashes, she claimed she had no clue about a court injunction signed by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on the same day she commanded an underling to wipe her hard drives clean. Golly gee willikers, how could that have slipped by her?

According to testimony in a freedom of information lawsuit filed against EPA by the Landmark Legal Foundation, a Virginia-based conservative legal watchdog group, Browner commanded a computer technician on Jan. 19, 2001: “‘I would like my files deleted. I want you to delete my files.”Not coincidentally, the Landmark Legal Foundation had been pressing Browner to fully and publicly disclose the names of any special interest groups that may have influenced her wave of last-minute regulatory actions. Two days before she told her technician to purge all her records, EPA had gone to court to file a motion opposing the federal court injunction protecting those government documents.

Plausible deniability? Not bloody likely.

Incredibly, Browner asserted that there was no work-related material on her work computer. She explained she was merely cleaning the hard drive of computer games she had downloaded for her son, and that she wanted to expunge the hard drive as a “courtesy” to the incoming Bush administration. How thoughtful. Later, her agency admitted that three other top EPA officials had their computers erased despite the federal court order and ongoing FOIA case (the record is silent on whether Browner’s son was playing games on their desktops, too). A further belated admission revealed that the agency had failed to search Browner’s office for public documents as required by Landmark’s public disclosure lawsuit.

Not only were all the top officials’ hard drives cleared and reformatted, but e-mail backup tapes were erased and reused in violation of records preservation practices.

After a two-year legal battle, Judge Lamberth finally held the EPA in contempt of courtfor the systemic file destruction – actions Lambert lambasted as “contumacious conduct” (obstinate resistance to authority). As is typical in Washington, Browner weaseled out of any serious repercussions. Lamberth inexplicably decided that slapping the agency as a whole with contempt – rather than any individual – would deter future cover-ups.

Is this a gamble the Obama administration wants to take? Browner has crossed the line and violated public trust before in her capacity as eco-chief. Early in her first term as EPA head, Browner got caught by a congressional subcommittee using taxpayer funds to create and send out illegal lobbying materialto over 100 grassroots environmental lobbying organizations. Browner exploited her office to orchestrate a political campaign by left-wing groups, who turned around and attacked Republican lawmakers for supporting regulatory reform. These are the very same groups – anti-business, anti-sound science, pro-eco-hysteria – that Browner would be working arm in arm with as Obama’s “energy czar.”

This is regression we can’t afford.

Michelle Malkin

Ann Coulter--MURDER SPREE BY PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO ASK FOR DIRECTIONS

...The Treason Times' banner series about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans accused of murder began in January last year but was quickly discontinued as readers noticed that the Times doggedly refused to provide any statistics comparing veteran murders with murders in any other group.

So they waited a year, hoping readers wouldn't notice they were still including no relevant comparisons.

What, for example, is the percentage of murderers among veterans compared to the percentage of murderers in the population at large -- or, more germane, in the general population of young males, inasmuch as violent crime is committed almost exclusively by young men?

Any group composed primarily of young men will contain a seemingly mammoth number of murderers.

Consider the harmless fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons -- which happens to be played almost exclusively by young males. When murders were committed in the '80s by (1) young men, who were (2) Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, some people concluded that factor (2), rather than factor (1), led to murderous tendencies.

Similarly, for its series about how America's bravest and finest young men are really a gang of psychopathic cutthroats, the Times triumphantly produced 121 homicides committed by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in order to pin the blame for the murders on the U.S. military.

Perhaps the Times' next major expose could be on how a huge percentage of murderers are people who won't ask for directions or share the TV remote.

Let's compare murders by veterans to murders by other 18- to 35-year-olds in the U.S. population at large. From 1976 to 2005, 18- to 24-year-olds -- both male and more gentle females -- committed homicide at a rate of 29.9 per 100,000. Twenty-five- to 35-year-olds committed homicides at a rate of 15.8 per 100,000.

Since 9/11, about 1.6 million troops have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. That makes the homicide rate among veterans of these wars 7.6 per 100,000 -- or about one-third the homicide rate for their age group (18 to 35) in the general population of both sexes.

But fewer than 200,000 of the 1.6 million troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been women, and the murder rate for the general population includes both males and females. Inasmuch as males commit nearly 90 percent of all murders, the rate for males in those age groups is probably nearly double the male/female combined rates, which translates to about 30 to 55 murderers per 100,000 males aged 18 to 35.

So comparing the veterans' rate of murder to only their male counterparts in the general population, we see that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are about 10 times less likely to commit a murder than non-veterans of those wars.

But as long as the Times has such a burning interest in the root causes of murder, how about considering the one factor more likely to create a murderer than any other? That is the topic we're not allowed to discuss: single motherhood.

As I describe in my new book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. (The second strongest factor is owning a Dennis Kucinich bumper sticker.)

...By 1996, 70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers. Seventy percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers. Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced.

A 1990 study by the left-wing Progressive Policy Institute showed that, after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime disappeared.

Various studies come up with slightly different numbers, but all the figures are grim. A study cited in the far left-wing Village Voice found that children brought up in single-mother homes "are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home."

With new children being born, running away, dropping out of high school and committing murder every year, it's not a static problem to analyze. But however the numbers are run, single motherhood is a societal nuclear bomb.

Think I'm being cruel? Imagine an America with 60 to 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, teenage births, teenage suicides and runaways, and you will appreciate what the sainted "single mothers" have accomplished.

Even in liberals' fevered nightmares, predatory mortgage dealers, oil speculators and Ken Lay could never do as much harm to their fellow human beings as single mothers do to their own children, to say nothing of society at large.

But the Times won't run that series because liberals adore single motherhood and the dissolution of traditional marriage in America. They detest the military, so they cite a few anecdotal examples of veterans who have committed murder and hope that no one asks for details.

Ann Coulter

Just in case the Chicken Littles haven't got ya scared enough already, get out your aluminum hats!

A blue-ribbon panel of scientists is trying to determine the best way to detect and ward off any wandering space rocks that might be on a collision course with Earth.

Global Warming Hoaxers caught in the act. Still believe in Santa, too?

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

of comparison

Why so many Americans are considered "mentally ill"

The inescapable truth is, perpetrators of many of the nation's most horrendous murder rampages in recent years were taking, or just coming off of, prescribed psychiatric drugs.

Bipolar Kids Need Nutrition, Not Junk Food and More Drugs

The NY Times Magazine's cover story, "The Bipolar Kid" (September 14, 2008), is a very bleak article. While emphasizing the miseries of living with such a child, Jennifer Egan's article offers little hope except for ever-increasing doses of lithium. Long on discussions of definitions and diagnoses, it is remarkably short on treatment alternatives. Not a word about diet. Not a word about vitamins. Indeed, in this 9,500 word feature, describing the daily life of an out-of-control, beyond-ADHD boy, the word "nutrition" is not mentioned at all. Neither are the words "sugar" or "caffeine." What astounding omissions. Pediatrician Lendon H. Smith, M.D., nationally famous as "The Children's Doctor," was very plain in stating that sugar causes profound mood disorders. He specifically advised parents to give their children a "sugarless diet without processed foods." (1) It is not easy. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has reported that children between the ages of six and eleven drink nearly a pint of soda pop a day. 20% of toddlers drink soda pop, nearly a cup daily. (2) And, of the seven best selling soft drinks, six have caffeine in them. In sensitive persons, caffeine can cause psychotic behavior. (3) Another word totally absent from the Times article is "vitamin." Psychiatrist Abram Hoffer, M.D., has had decades of experience and considerable success treating children's behavioral disorders with vitamins. High doses of vitamin B-3 (niacin, or niacinamide) were first used by Hoffer and colleague Dr. Humphrey Osmond in the early 1950s. The trials were double-blind and placebo controlled. Over half a century later, vitamin therapy has still been largely ignored by the psychiatric profession, and, evidently, by some newspapers. References: (1) Smith L. Foods for Healthy Kids. Berkley, 1991. ISBN-10: 0425127087; ISBN-13: 978-0425127087 (2) Jacobson MF. Liquid Candy: How soft drinks are harming Americans' health. http://www.cspinet.org/sodapop/liquid_candy.htm Accessed Sept 18, 2008. (3) Whalen R. Welcome to the dance: caffeine allergy, a masked cerebral allergy and progressive toxic dementia. Trafford Publishing, 2005. ISBN-10: 1412050006; ISBN-13: 978-1412050005. Reviewed in J Orthomolecular Med, 2005. Vol 20, No 3, p 215-217 and at http://www.doctoryourself.com/news/v5n11.rtf Synopsis at http://www.doctoryourself.com/caffeine_allergy.html (Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 16, 2008) from: www.thebereancall.org

Planned Parenthood investigation suggests rape cover-up

An undercover investigation of two abortion clinics in North Carolina has resulted in a call to action. Two older girls posed as 14- and 15-year-olds and visited Planned Parenthood clinics in Charlotte and Winston-Salem. Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life explains what happened when the two visited the clinics. "They told the Planned Parenthood staffers that they had just had sex with their mother's live-in boyfriend who was in his 30s, and they said the man told them to come to Planned Parenthood and get on this 'morning-after pill.'"   "We got Planned Parenthood [personnel] on tape, in both cases, saying [that] what happened...is statutory rape and it is illegal," she relates. "However, they told them anyone over the age of 18, including [the] rapist, could go to [a drug store] and purchase the morning-after pill to cover up his crimes -- and both clinics were willing to get the girls on birth control."   According to Hawkins, the evidence is enough to trigger the North Carolina reporting law, but a check reveals that neither incident was reported. She laments that this is another example in which it has been established that abortion clinics are not fulfilling the law by reporting child molestation cases to authorities, as required by law.

Educator gone rogue

--except it happens daily in every school, folks. Ask your local conservative teacher how often he/she is berated and silenced by the overwhelmingly Left majority. Read your children's textbooks! Listen to what your kids tell you about the teacher! Stand up and support your conservative teachers, most of whom are great at keeping personal attacks and opinions out of the classroom. That is the MO of the Humanist Left, which rules our schools.

Humanist Manifesto I

The Manifesto is a product of many minds. It was designed to represent a developing point of view, not a new creed. The individuals whose signatures appear would, had they been writing individual statements, have stated the propositions in differing terms. The importance of the document is that more than thirty men have come to general agreement on matters of final concern and that these men are undoubtedly representative of a large number who are forging a new philosophy out of the materials of the modern world.

— Raymond B. Bragg (1933)

The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted the old beliefs. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience. In every field of human activity, the vital movement is now in the direction of a candid and explicit humanism. In order that religious humanism may be better understood we, the undersigned, desire to make certain affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life demonstrate.

There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the Twentieth Century. Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpretation of the total environing situation (theology or world view), the sense of values resulting therefrom (goal or ideal), and the technique (cult), established for realizing the satisfactory life. A change in any of these factors results in alteration of the outward forms of religion. This fact explains the changefulness of religions through the centuries. But through all changes religion itself remains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of human life.

Today man's larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such a vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate social goals and personal satisfactions may appear to many people as a complete break with the past. While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional religions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation. We therefore affirm the following:

FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.

THIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.

FOURTH: Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civilization, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular culture is largely molded by that culture.

FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs. Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.

SIXTH: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of "new thought".

SEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation — all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.

EIGHTH: Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist's social passion.

NINTH: In the place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.

TENTH: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.

ELEVENTH: Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.

TWELFTH: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and to encourage achievements that add to the satisfactions of life.

THIRTEENTH: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world.

FOURTEENTH: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.

FIFTEENTH AND LAST: We assert that humanism will: (a) affirm life rather than deny it; (b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from them; and (c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few. By this positive morale and intention humanism will be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the techniques and efforts of humanism will flow.

So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: There were 34 signers of this document, including Anton J. Carlson, John Dewey, John H. Dietrich, R. Lester Mondale, Charles Francis Potter, Curtis W. Reese, and Edwin H. Wilson.]

Copyright © 1973 by the American Humanist Association

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Humanists teach that under no circumstances should an American take up arms in defense of his country. Humanism is "for absolute pacifism, resistance to all wars at all times for whatever purpose". It will not countenance-war under any circumstances even in protecting one's homeland from invasion or in over-throwing tyrants. Right must never fight. It must arbitrate, pacify--as if one could argue with a Hitler or a Stalin.

...From the Pope to Stalin every one is preaching "the brotherhood of man". "Peace," "justice, and "democracy" are an the lips of every dictator-assassin and political demagogue.

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...Secular Humanism is an attempt to function as a civilized society with the exclusion of God and His moral principles. During the last several decades, Humanists have been very successful in propagating their beliefs.

Their primary approach is to target the youth through the public school system. Humanist Charles F. Potter writes, "Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school's meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?" (Charles F. Potter, "Humanism: A New Religion," 1930)

John J. Dunphy, in his award winning essay, The Humanist (1983), illustrates this strategic focus, "The battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: A religion of humanity -- utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to carry humanist values into wherever they teach. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new -- the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism."

Is this what's happening? John Dewey, remembered for his efforts in establishing America's current educational systems, was one of the chief signers of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto. It seems the Humanists have been interested in America's education system for nearly a century. They have been absolutely successful in teaching children that God is imaginary and contrary to "science."

Secular Humanism is manifested in Evolutionary Theory. To satisfy the fundamental question of "Where did we come from?" children are taught the doctrine of Evolution. The first plank of the Humanist Manifesto states: "Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created." The second plank states: "Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process."

Certainly, the public school system propagates the Humanist doctrine (clearly an atheistic "religion"), and thus, condemns the concept of God. This is an amazing irony. Creation Science has been successfully kept out of the public schools by organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.) on the grounds that Creation is religious, and the government should not support religion in any fashion. "In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it, and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit with it."(H. S. Lipson, FRS, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution", Physics Bulletin, vol. 31, May 1980, pg. 138).

THE STEALING OF AMERICA

Though not all of America's Founding Fathers were Bible-believing Christians, the United States was nevertheless founded on biblical principles. These Fathers declared that our rights come from God, the Sovereign Creator. For example, the Declaration of Independence reads: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The U.S. Founding Fathers recognized that our rights come from God and thatgovernment should exist to protect our rights. However, if there is no God basis, then our rights can only come from the generosity of the state and its leaders. If the state gives us our rights, then the state can take them away. Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781, wrote: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God." In addition, if there is no God, then men are not "created," and they are not necessarily "equal": Charles Darwin declared that man evolved and was not created and that some are more evolved than others. The state in essence can become the new god. Darwin wrote:  "The civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world... The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."  Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, 1871. ... Over decades of systematic training, our children have been bombarded with the secular humanistic worldview in public school systems in many countries. They have been taught that there is no God, there are no moral absolutes, they are products of evolution, and there is no clear meaning/purpose to life. This humanistic worldview has become the dominant worldview in the public education systems. But is the state really being neutral with regards to religion by eliminating Christianity and the Bible from public schools and universities? Not at all! The state is really replacing a Christian heritage with the religion of humanism. Religion can be defined as “a set of beliefs.” The word belief is defined by Webster’s as “opinions, convictions—thoughts upon which one bases their actions.” Therefore, the state is not trying to be religion neutral, but, in fact, it is promoting a non-deity-based secular belief (religion). The U.S. Supreme Court, in Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), decided that: The state may not establish a “religion of secularism” in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus “preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.” . . . Refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism. Furthermore, the U.S. District Court, in Crockett v. Sorenson (W.D. VA. 1983), wrote: The First Amendment was never intended to insulate our public institutions from any mention of God, the Bible or religion. When such insulation occurs, another religion, such as secular humanism, is effectively established.

What Happens to Religion When It Is Biologized?

"Zoloft works better than God," a Catholic priest once told me during a conversation about depression. This is not the kind of man to give up on faith; our talks always finish with his reminders to pray. But in matters of body, and in matters of mind more and more, he and many others sense the right thing to do-religiously--is to consult a scientist. In recent years, such common sense has given rise to a new paradigm in the study of human religiosity, one founded in a laboratory understanding of biology and the human mind. Together, these researchers are attempting to "biologize" religion, recalling E.O. Wilson's notorious call for inquiry into human values "to be removed temporarily from the hands of philosophers and biologized." And, like Wilson's, their efforts have been fraught with controversy. Driven by a growing confidence in cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and genetics, the wider public has begun to embrace truly scientific (as well as pseudo-scientific) explanations of religious beliefs and practices. This idea takes root in an era that led the first President Bush to declare the 1990s "the decade of the brain," one in which mental illnesses are treated increasingly through psychiatric drugs rather than analysis or spiritual practice alone. Popular magazines, from Newsweek and Time to the New York Times Magazine, have paraded the research around with catchy labels like "the God spot," "the God gene," and "Darwin's God." People with a variety of religious perspectives, from Western Buddhists to evangelical Christians to the anti-religious, have explored and discussed biological accounts of belief, each bringing to it their sometimes contradictory assumptions and interpretations. Biologizing is a research project, but it is also a manifestation of a public desire to understand religiosity in the terms of science. So what happens to religion when it is biologized? Many would intuitively believe philosopher and "New Atheist" Daniel Dennett, whose best-selling Breaking the Spell framed biologizing religiosity and overcoming it as two sides of the same coin; one leads naturally to the other. Confident in the possibility of this research, Dennett contends that "we" should "gently, firmly educate the people of the world, so that they can make truly informed choices about their lives," choices that he believes will involve dispelling religion. Less optimistically, but along similar lines, cognitive anthropologist Scott Atran suspects that "religious belief in the supernatural will be here to stay" despite those who come to understand it scientifically. He and other biologizers prefer to maintain a more agnostic stance than Dennett, purporting to pursue a scientific study of religion apart from biases and agendas. Scientific methods, they suggest, liberate the study of religion from ideological and theological debates. http://www.searchmagazine.org/May-June%202008/full-bioreligion.html [The Berean Call: It was Sigmund Freud who declared that "religion is the universal neurosis of humanity." Furthermore, there is evidence that Freud hated Christianity, which he erroneously regarded as anti-Semitic. How then would this atheistic rejecter of organized religion advance doctrines of devils? By founding the "religion" of psychoanalysis. None of Freud's theories, whether psychic determinism or psychosexual development or belief in the unconscious, have any scientific validity; moreover, they are religious beliefs that are antithetical to the doctrines of the Bible. Research psychiatrist Thomas Szasz had Freud primarily in mind when he declared, "...modern psychotherapy...is not merely a religion that pretends to be a science, it is actually a fake religion that seeks to destroy true religion."

DARWIN'S THOUGHTS ON WOMEN

According to Charles Darwin, the central mechanism of evolution is survival of the fittest. In this concept, inferior animals are more likely to become extinct while the superior ones are more likely to thrive.1 The racism that this idea has produced has now been both well-documented and widely publicized.2 Less widely known is the fact that many evolutionists, including Darwin, taught that women were both biologically and intellectually inferior to men Reasons for Inferiority According to Darwinian theory, women were less evolved than men, and because of their smaller brains, they were "eternally primitive," childlike, less spiritual, more materialistic, and "a real danger to contemporary civilization."3 The supposed intelligence gap that many leading Darwinists believed existed between human males and females was so large that some leading Darwinists classified them as two distinct species-males as Homo frontalis and females as Homo parietalis.4 The differences were so great that Darwin was amazed "such different beings belong to the same species."5 Reasons for male superiority included the conclusion that war and hunting pruned the weaker men, allowing only the most fit to return home and reproduce. Women, in contrast, were not subject to these selection pressures but were protected by men, allowing the weak to survive.6 1 Darwin, C., The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, London: John Murry, 1859. 2 Bergman, J., "The History of the Human Female Inferiority Ideas in Evolutionary Biology," Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum 95(2):379-412, 2002. 3 Gilmore, D., Misogyny: The Male Malady, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, p. 125, 2001. 4 Love, R., Darwinism and feminism: "The 'women question' in The Life and Work of Olive Schreinr and Charlotte Perkins Gilman," in Oldroyd and Langham, Eds., The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought, D:Reidel, Holland, pp. 113-131, 1983. 5 Rosser, S., Biology and Feminism, Twayne, New York, p. 59, 1992. 6 Dyer, G., War, Crown Publishers, New York, p. 122, 1985. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n1/darwin-taught-male-superiority

God forbid we actually try to teach differing views, rather than indoctrinate

The Creation Museum, which teaches life's beginnings through a literal interpretation of the Bible, is claiming attendance figures that would make it an unexpectedly strong draw less than a year and a half after it debuted. More than a half-million people have toured the Kentucky attraction since its May 2007 opening, museum officials said.

For creationists — Christians who believe the Bible's first chapter of Genesis is the literal telling of the universe's start — the museum is a godsend. Many have returned with family and friends, some from faraway states arguing it's one of the few with a Christian worldview.

Many scientists say they fear damaging effects on science education when young people tour the museum and fail to square its lessons with what they're learning in school. [Ummm...hmm...ya mean maybe they might try to think for themselves and ask questions, rather than blindly accepting godless brainwashing?] One display shows humans coexisting with dinosaurs — despite the two species being separated by 65 million years in most science texts.

"We're depressed, I think," said Dan Phelps, head of the Kentucky Paleontology Society, who toured the museum shortly after its opening. "There's been such a push in recent years to improve science education, but stuff like this still hangs around." [Hmm, wonder why it "hangs around?" Could it be because there is TRUTH in it? Could it be that there IS a higher power creating life and that He is bigger than the enemy trying to erase His thumbprint?]

Phelps said he fears some teachers, shying away from the origins controversy, may choose to omit mentioning evolution studies in the classroom. [I see...kinda like how many now shy away from mentioning that evolution is still an unprovable THEORY with every link still missing? The difference here is that every textbook touts it as truth, still recounting false studies as gospel, and if a teacher even mentions Creationism, it's called indoctrination.]

Washington Post Mimics New York Times' Mistakes on Texas Evolution Debate

It isn't just the New York Times that ignores the facts when reporting about the debate over how to teach evolution. Not to be outdone by its competitor the Washington Post catches up [July 28, 2008] with an ill-informed opinion piece (Evolving Toward a Compromise) that yet again completely misreports what is going on in the upcoming review of Texas' state science standards.

A proposal before the Texas Board of Education calls for including the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in the state's science curriculum. This initiative is understood by supporters and opponents to be a strategic effort to get around First Amendment restrictions on teaching religion in science class.

First, there is no such proposal. The Texas state science standards currently state:

The student uses critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to: (A) analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information;

[As has already been] pointed out, no one is considering a proposal to add "strengths and weaknesses" language. It's already in there, and has been since the late 1980s. It's the Darwinists who are trying to remove the language.

Confronting the Enemies of God

Dave Hunt

In the time leading to the November elections and for months thereafter we will be subjected to a barrage of promises from politicians--promises, many of which will almost certainly not be kept. At the same time, atheists, who deny there is any purpose or meaning to life (but then what is the point of elections, an education, or any other endeavor?) are riding the crest of a new wave of open rebellion against God that seems to be gathering popular momentum.

Democrats in particular are promising change. Everything is going to get better under their leadership. This has ever been the promise of new administrations, even of dictatorships. Sometimes it seems to look good for a while until the usual human imperfections take over.

Such was the case with the French Revolution. It began with excitement and high hopes for a new beginning for a financially and morally bankrupt France. It was to have ushered in a golden age of economic, political, and social reform with liberty for all. That noble goal disintegrated into a Reign of Terror scarcely equaled in modern history.

Nearly all of the political dreamers, who in their idealism had helped to foment the Revolution and had sought to purify it as they saw it veering off course and spinning out of control, perished as its tragic victims at the hands of fellow revolutionaries. Not the least of these victims was Madame Roland, a member with her husband of the more moderate Girondist faction of the revolutionary movement. The two had presided in
their Paris home over a salon of socially prominent intellectuals.

As the Revolution gained momentum and became more radical, the Girondists fell out of favor. In the frenzy of idealistic fervor, Madame Roland was arrested (her husband succeeded in escaping). While confined in a prison for several months, she was offered many secret plans for her escape but refused them all. Her fate was sealed when the Girondist leaders, after a seven-day trial, were found guilty of counterrevolutionary activities and were executed on October 31, 1793.

Madame Roland's trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal followed on November 8.
Pronounced guilty of "conspiracy against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, and the liberty and safety of the French people," and allowed no word in her own defense, her execution was set for that very afternoon.

Carried by cart to the foot of the guillotine in the Place de la Revolution, she mounted, with head held high, the stairs to the platform. Before placing her head on the block, Madame Roland bowed to the sculptor David's famous statue of Liberty nearby. "Oh, Liberty!" she exclaimed. "What crimes are committed in thy name!" These were her last words to a France gone mad.

Hearing of her death, her fugitive husband set out for Paris on foot to make one last appeal for the Revolution's leaders to live up to its popular slogan, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." At last, too weak to continue the journey, Jean Roland took his own life in a lonely field.

The Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century had prepared the way for the French Revolution and largely shaped its policies and ideals. Maximilien Robespierre came to power shortly after the Revolution began. He led in curbing the power of the Roman Catholic Church, reducing its property holdings and wealth, imposing limitations on the clergy, and turning France into a largely atheistic country. The Revolution brought atheism out of the salons of the wealthy and into the streets of Paris. As with the Communist Revolution later, the denial of God became a major driving force. French society remains largely atheistic to this day, though the vast majority still call themselves Catholics.

The fact that many of the popes were among the most evil monsters in history has never seemed to faze more than a small minority of Roman Catholics. My files are filled with accounts of pedophilia and other evils practiced by Rome's clergy long before these crimes finally gained public attention. Nor have Roman Catholic leaders been alone in their hypocritical denial with their lives of what they professed with their lips. Protestantleaders have been guilty as well, from Jim and Tammy Bakker (who once reigned over a vast "Christian" domain from their PTL television studios) to Ted Haggard (discredited pastor of a 12,000-member church in Colorado Springs and head of the 30,000-member National Association of Evangelicals)--and many more like them.

Such reprobates have given Christ and Christianity a bad name, but unfairly so. They should not be looked upon as representing Him because, like the Crusaders, their deeds violated the teachings of Christ and mocked the perfect, sinless example He demonstrated with His life. Nor are recent examples of trusted religious leaders professing one thing and living another anything new. Christ rebuked the Jews of His own day by quoting one of their prophets:

Ye hypocrites, well did [Isaiah] prophesy of you, saying, this people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.... In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:7-9; Isaiah 29:13)

Atheists repeatedly insist that no one needs God to act morally. We do not deny that an atheist can act in a moral manner. It is asserted that moral actions are the result of natural selection--that they arose because of their survival benefit and have nothing to do with actual right and wrong or with a nonexistent "god." But moral acts, if they are the product of evolution, have no moral basis. The atheist, though he claims to be as moral in his actions as a Christian, is acting out of selfishness or for momentary expediency, not for morality's sake. This is a far cry from the selfless love the Bible ascribes to God and requires from those who claim to be His followers. Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles said:

The facts of human morality and ethics are clearly at variance with a theory that explains all behavior in terms of self-preservation and the preservation of
the species.1

Atheists are so confused about morals that they are backing human rights for apes. And why shouldn't they? Richard Dawkins, in his crusade against God, could not say it more clearly:

There is no objective basis on which to elevate one species above another. Chimp and human, lizard and fungus, we have all evolved over some three billion years by a process known as natural selection.2

Does a chimp, lizard, or fungus know anything of morals? Isn't that deficiency a sufficient basis for elevating humans above a fungus? This is an incredible statement to be made by any rational person, but Dawkins is dead serious! As a leading atheist and evolutionist, how could he be consistent and say anything else? How is it possible that the scientific world, as well as the public at large, actually believe this nonsense and honor this man as a scientist and scholar? How has this insanity become science? Give atheism full credit!

According to Dawkins, the history of mankind is nothing more than the history of a colony of chimpanzees--or garden slugs, for that matter! What of art, music, science, libraries, universities, museums? All are meaningless in evolution!

Nor can we blame Hitler or the underlings who ran the extermination camps for simply doing what was programmed into their genes by natural selection. If our sense of what is right and wrong, ethical and moral, is in our genes, how can evil be blamed on anyone? Or how can anyone be commended for doing good? If one's sense of right and wrong is the result of chemical reactions in the brain, why should we honor such standards?

Jonas Salk believed this pitiful nonsense and earnestly expressed its hopelessness: "We do not have to survive as a species. What is important is that we keep evolving."3 How can our evolution be important if it doesn't matter whether or not we survive as a species? The Declaration of Independence attributes the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" not to nature but to nature's God.

Equality is nowhere found in nature. It could never be the outcome of evolution through natural selection. Moreover, consciousness has neither physical qualities nor location anywhere in the physical world, so how could it evolve?

Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard professor of biology, wrote:

Souls represent a subject outside the magisterium of science. My world cannot prove or disprove such a notion, and the concept of souls cannot threaten or impact my domain.

He couldn't be more wrong! The soul that he admitted might exist is nonphysical, and its existence does not end with the death of the body. No part of the physical body thinks. The brain certainly does not initiate our thoughts. No one wonders what one's brain might think of next.

The soul and spirit are the real person--the one who makes the choices, is conscious, and is accountable to God for every thought, word, and deed. The soul and spirit, being nonmaterial, are not subject to the laws of physics and chemistry and will therefore continue forever, either in joyful union with the Creator or in the horror of eternal separation and remorse.

Gould went on to say:

I surely honor the metaphorical value of such a concept [soul] both for grounding moral discussion and for expressing what we most value about human potentiality: our decency, care, and all the ethical and intellectual struggles that the evolution of consciousness imposed upon us.4

But wait--consciousness is not physical, so how could it evolve?

Sadly, the only thing that evolutionists can acknowledge when it comes to morality is that it is some kind of metaphorical representation--but of what? How do "metaphorical representations" evolve? A metaphor is supposed to be a clearer way of conveying an idea, but what idea? Evolutionists cannot admit that morals have any reality or meaning in themselves. Of course this must be their thinking, because atheists are materialists. Those who accept such doubletalk have lost the very "soul" to which Gould referred. Nor could Gould have explained what he meant by "soul." It certainly has no physical substance. When the evolutionist enters the realm of morality, he has nothing meaningful to say. He acknowledges the existence of nothing but matter. Clearly, this view leaves out most of what is dear to the human heart. What is the physical description of truth, or of ideals, or of hope, or of meaning? If everything began with a Big Bang and has simply proceeded randomly from that point, from whence would it derive meaning? Evolution cannot supply meaning to anything that it supposedly produces.

Although it may seem that the enemies of the Lord are impervious to our best arguments, we can be certain that they cannot forever escape their God-given consciences. Though it may not get their attention until they die, at that moment the truth they have ridiculed for so long will come crashing in upon them in convicting power. Then will begin the eternal horror that Jesus repeatedly warned about: "There will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:42; Matthew 13:50; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 24:51, etc.).

Solomon declared, "The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly" (Proverbs 20:27). This is the conscience that no one can escape in the end, though it may be stifled for a time by the deceitfulness of one's heart. David expressed what must be the desire of every person who loves the truth, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

God's Word promises, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Proverbs 1:7). Twice David warned, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (Psalm 14:1; Psalm 53:1). Today's new atheists, while winning millions, make it very clear that they hate God. What should the reaction of God's people be?

The Psalmist declared that if Israel had only hearkened to God and walked in His ways, He would have "subdued their enemies, turned [His] hand against their adversaries," and blessed them abundantly. (Psalm 81:11-16). David wrote, "Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies" (Psalm 139:21-22). Perfect hatred?

Paul explains that evil exists in the world because God has revealed Himself to all mankind and they not only have refused to honor Him, but they have turned against the Creator that every thinking person knows exists (Romans 1:18-23)--and actually hate Him. Here is Paul's inspired description of today's world of Christ rejecters:

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind...being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. [Emphasis added] (Romans 1:28-32)

The key phrase, "haters of God," is prophetic of our day. It is particularly manifest in the new wave of aggressive atheism led by the "four horsemen" of the "New Atheists" (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris). These four are leading a new and growing movement that declares that belief in God is not only beyond credulity but wicked and must be stamped out for the good of mankind.

Our day is witnessing a new phenomenon unheard of in the past: books by atheists are selling by the millions. This includes not only those by authors openly declaring themselves to be God haters but by many who hide their atheism in intriguing fiction such as The Golden Compass, or the Harry Potter series (although J. K. Rowling professes to be a Christian), and even stories supposedly based on fact but that are full of clever lies, such as The Da Vinci Code, The Secret, etc.

What are Christians to do? Isaiah speaks of these days and what the Holy Spirit will do, in which scenario we must surely play an important part. If ever there was a day when "the enemy has come in like a flood" it is now. Isaiah foretells that when that happens, "...the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him" (Is 59:19). The word "him" can only refer to a personal being, and that must be Satan.

This is a very real battle, of which most Christians hardly seem aware. Many of the books of only 20 years ago written by creationists and other Christian apologists, although excellent at the time, are not up to refuting what the New Atheists are writing today. By God's grace, Cosmos, Creator, and Human Destiny is being written specifically to confound God's enemies of today. Your prayers to that end would be
much appreciated.       TBC

Baroness Warnock: Dementia Sufferers may Have a "Duty to Die"

Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.
 
The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.

Her comments in a magazine interview have been condemned as "immoral" and "barbaric", but also sparked fears that they may find wider support because of her influence on ethical matters.

Lady Warnock, a former headmistress who went on to become Britain's leading moral philosopher, chaired a landmark Government committee in the 1980s that established the law on fertility treatment and embryo research.

A prominent supporter of euthanasia, she has previously suggested that pensioners who do not want to become a burden on their carers should be helped to die.

Last year the Mental Capacity Act came into effect that gives legal force to "living wills", so patients can appoint an "attorney" to tell doctors when their hospital food and water should be removed.

But in her latest interview, given to the Church of Scotland's magazine Life and Work, Lady Warnock goes further by claiming that dementia sufferers should consider ending their lives through euthanasia because of the strain they put on their families and public services.

Darwinian Fairy Tales

Textbook examples of evolution often evaporate when researchers actually study them (instead of just assuming they are true).

For example, the peacock's tail did not evolve to please hen birds; hens don't notice them much. The allegedly yummy Viceroy butterfly did not evolve to look like the bad-tasting Monarch (both insects taste bad). The eyespots on butterflies' wings did not evolve to scare birds by resembling the eyes of their predators. Birds avoid brightly patterned insects, period. They don't care whether the patterns resemble eyes. Similarly, the famous "peppered moth" of textbook fame has devolved into a peppered myth, featuring book-length charges and countercharges.

And remember that row of vertebrate embryos in your textbook years ago? It was dubbed in the journal Science one of the "most famous fakes" in biology-because the embryos don't really look very similar. And Darwin's majestic Tree of Life? It's now a tangleweed, or maybe several of them. We seldom see evolution happening.

Michael Behe's Edge of Evolution (2007) notes that for decades scientists have observed many thousands of generations of bacteria in the lab. And how did they evolve? Well, they didn't. Worse, when evolution is occasionally observed (and widely trumpeted), it often heads the wrong way. For example, bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance by junking intricate machinery, not by creating it. Cave fish lose their eyes. But we don't need a theory for how intricate machinery gets wrecked. We need a theory for how it originates and how it develops quite suddenly. Evolution, as we understand it today, apparently isn't that theory. We aren't going to improve science education by teaching Darwinian fairy tales.