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News

Health minister will protect kids from nicotine, but not castration?

Last week, the federal government announced that it will “explore legislation and regulatory options” to address the growing popularity of youth using certain “stop smoking” aids. 

Specifically, the government is focusing on restricting access to nicotine pouches, which are tobacco pouches placed between the gum and cheek, with the intent being to counteract nicotine cravings.

Zonnic is one of the popular brands approved in Canada, with Health Canada stating that the 4mg per dose “is usually recommended for adults who smoke 25 or more cigarettes a day and want to quit smoking.” These pouches release the same addictive chemicals found in cigarettes, vape products, and chewing tobacco. In July 2023, Canada approved Zonnic as a natural health product, allowing it to be sold at any store with no restrictions. 

But these products have been marketed to teens with different candy-like flavors and colorful packaging. Federal Health Minister Mark Holland was having none of that: “To the tobacco companies that continue to look for ways to use loopholes to addict people to their products: Get away. Stay the hell away from our kids.” The BC government already took action last month, ensuring this product can only be sold over the counter in pharmacies. 

Yet, this same “keep away from our kids” minister, just last month, criticized the Alberta government for new policies that focus on protecting minors from gender transition hormones and procedures, that ban males from female sports, and give more parental control over sexual education curricula. Holland stated that the policies are “deeply disturbing.” 

Holland listens to the science regarding addictive drugs harming minors. Yet, when it comes to so-called “gender-affirming care” that does irreversible harm to children including sterilization, castration, and other genital mutilations (more harm than nicotine products could do), he would rather align with an ideological stance that fails to affirm a child's God-given sex. 



Internet

Technology in Reformed schools

With great technological innovation comes great responsibility.

In an era where the digital landscape transforms the way we live, learn, and connect, Reformed Christian schools stand at the intersection, navigating the delicate balance between embracing innovation and upholding their Bible-based values. The integration of various technologies – whether computers, YouTube videos, cell phones, iPads, or the hot-button topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – is forcing a profound question upon Reformed Christian education: How can we ensure that the transformative potential of technology aligns with and honors our Christian worldview? Are these tools mere distractions, pulling our focus away from the godly values our schools want to foster, or can these technologies be harnessed to deepen the connection between students and their Christian identity?

As the debate rages on between an impulse to retreat from technology entirely and the temptation to embrace it wholeheartedly, Reformed Christians have some complex decisions to make about how we will use technology in our classrooms.

Survey says 

To try to get an understanding of what’s happening in Reformed schools across Canada, I asked 20 of them to participate in a survey exploring their approaches to screen time, technology policies, and the broader digital landscape within their educational environments. The participating schools ranged from elementary to high school and consisted of Canadian Reformed, United Reformed, and confessionally Reformed (but not associated with a specific church) schools. Of the contacted schools, 12 schools responded.

Questions ranged from yes or no questions to also allowing principals and school administrators to expand their answers in anonymous anecdotes. I also spoke with school principals who were willing to share more about their experiences.

Among our survey respondents, the majority (92%) have specific policies regarding the use of technology in the classroom or on school property. It’s encouraging to know that most schools are recognizing a need to regulate the technology being used on campus. Most schools had guidelines for “Computer Usage Policy” for devices owned by the school as well as an “Acceptable use of personal devices policy.”

One school said no phones at all

Marc Slingerland is the principal at Calvin Christian School, a K-12 school in Coalhurst, Alberta. Slingerland said that his school has tried a few approaches with different rules for personal devices in different grade levels. Across the board, they had a no-phone policy, “no phones allowed to be seen or in class.” However, they found that for older students in grades 11 and 12, some parents felt more comfortable with them bringing phones to school knowing that they would be driving to the campus. Taking this into consideration, the policy was changed to allow for grades 11 and 12 to use phones during breaks in the foyer. The hardest part was that this became a long haul of policing students – Slingerland says they have now reverted to the original plan.

“There’s a set time and a set place at which it’s allowed. It’s constantly policing the boundaries and if they’re just going to the locker to get a book, they can easily quickly just check it. So, we actually went back. This is now our second year with no student devices on school property at all.”

When to introduce?

When it came to the introduction of school computer labs or school iPads into classrooms, the prevalent sentiment was that the early stages of a student's development may be better navigated without the intrusion of technology.

Paul Wagenaar is the principal at Jordan Christian School, a K-12 school in Lincoln, Ontario. When it comes to the younger grades, Wagenaar says that it’s rare for their school to introduce digital tech to students under grade 5.

“We intentionally keep technology out of the classroom in the early years as much as possible. The extent of the technology would be that each classroom does have a projector. Once in a while, there will be a video or something that will be shown to the students. But no use of iPads, or any electronic device in our classrooms up until grade four.”

Regarding the survey, most schools (with elementary-aged students) said that it’s between grade 3 and grade 5, that they start introducing technology like computers or laptops. “The exposure to technology in younger grades is limited to the teacher's laptop and projector,” one principal said.

Benefits in older grades

When it comes to older grades (grades 8 to 12), some schools pair each student with their own iPad or laptop just for their own personal use. This type of “1-to-1” approach aims to enhance the educational experience by embedding technology into the curriculum. This allows teachers to foster personalized learning, and prepare students for the digital demands of the modern world.

Jordan Christian School has taken this approach in their high school. Their principal shared that each student has an Edsbee account, which is a web-based K-12 learning platform for teachers to upload assignments, and mark grades and attendance. The teacher will then enforce when the laptops should stay closed during lessons, and when the laptops can be used. Wagenaar says that he has found this useful in preparing students for post-secondary endeavors.

“We feel that they need to be prepared for the world in which they live as well. So I think the benefit of students having their own device is that in those four years, they really learn it well, and they're well prepared for college or university or the workforce.”

While some schools take the 1-to-1 approach, others opt for the use of computer labs or Chromebook carts.

“The portable laptop cart has made student access to and use of technology much more convenient, with more opportunity than a standalone computer lab,” said one principal.

In terms of technology tools deemed helpful, the respondents highlighted a variety of platforms and applications such as Kahoot, Google Classroom, Google Docs, and educational apps like IXL and Scratch Jr.

Conversely, some tools, like YouTube, were identified as unhelpful due to potential distractions and inappropriate content. Interestingly, 75% of schools also said they have dealt with emerging technologies like AI in the classroom, including instances of students using AI to complete homework assignments.

Filters and firewalls 

A large challenge in having digital devices in classrooms is the ability to monitor students, and keep them from getting into trouble online. All schools said that they use online security safeguards and firewalls to protect students from inappropriate websites and distractions (i.e., computer games). For many schools, it's up to the teacher to enforce policies on how to use digital devices in class. Some principals voiced that they turn the screens on an angle so that the teacher can see what's happening on the screen.

One survey respondent mentioned that they use an app called “GAT Shield” which gives teachers access to see all of their students on their own devices.

“Teachers can also lock webpages, close tabs, push websites, and send out individual or class-wide messages. Additionally, we have filters set up using some of their presets and our own to flag explicit material, inappropriate language, violent images – weapons, etc.,” this respondent noted. “When a student has tried to access this material, it sends a link/screenshot to the teacher and account administrator's emails.”

In some of the specific policy guidelines, if students use devices in a way that violates school policy it can lead to the device’s confiscation for a period of time.

Years of research 

With firewalls in place blocking video and audio streaming apps like YouTube and Spotify, it can help to combat distractions – yet distractions to videos or inappropriate online content are not the only things Christian classrooms should be aware of.

In 2020, researchers and professors David I. Smith, Kara Sevensma, Marjorie Terpstra, and Steven McMullen put together a three-year study on the use of technology in Christian schools titled Digital Life Together: The Challenge of Technology for Christian Schools. This comprehensive study relied on a variety of research methods from documentary video, interviews with students, staff, and teachers, as well as focus groups. Two of the authors, Marjorie Terpstra and David Smith, are researchers at Calvin University's education department. Something notable they found in their research was students' openness to talk about their online shopping habits during class. Smith noted:

“The most common form of distraction was going shopping. It wasn't playing games. It wasn't social media because that was mostly filtered out by the school. It's really quite a recent thing.”

He mentions that distractions have always been a thing with or without technology in the class. Whether it’s passing paper notes or a student hiding the book he’s reading under his desk, it's not a new phenomenon. But, online shopping in class is something all too new. During one of the student interviews for the book, Smith mentions a student who was proactively open with her shopping habits… in Bible class. She shared:

“It's great because in Bible class, you can take notes faster and you can get the assignments written faster, and then while the teacher's talking, you've got time to go shopping.”

Smith says that parents and educators need to be aware of this online shopping phenomenon because this consumerism mindset is often something that is tossed under the rug:

“Access to sexual material online, access to the wrong views about sex, some worry about cyberbullying and violence and violent material and so on. Very little worry about shopping, right? Because that's not something that the Western middle-class Christians worry about very much, we're as gung ho about that as everybody else.”

Smith says that as Christians, we need to be counter-cultural in not succumbing to the world's ideas of “spending time lusting after consumer goods.” Parents and teachers need to change their mindset to acknowledge these discrepancies by teaching students to be discerning with their online habits.

Christian education should be designed to equip students for the real world

Overall, in conducting this survey with Reformed schools it's evident that technology in the class is something that we cannot run from. Instead we should be teaching students to use it well. Terpstra alludes to an important truth, that Christian education is an opportunity for students to grow in community with one another, learning how to live and make choices.

“They get to enact their faith right now. It's not like you are in school so that someday when you grow up, you can enact your faith, but technology and other choices that we can make can help them to be Christians right now.”


Today's Devotional

March 28 - Cross purposes: Propitiation

“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:9 

Scripture reading: Hebrews 2:10-18

Propitiation is a big word not commonly used. It is an important biblical word that reveals what the Lord Jesus has done. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus identified with us by on taking flesh and…

Today's Manna Podcast

I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life

Serving #430 of Manna, prepared by Steven Swets, is called "I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life".













Science - Creation/Evolution

How does the world explain the origin of life?

or, highlighting the problems with a Naturalistic explanation  *****  Naturalism can be defined best by what it doesn’t believe: in the Supernatural; it denies the existence of God. That means that all naturalists are left with to explain all that exists, why we exist, and how we came to be is Nature and natural laws. And that presents them with a problem. Nature cannot provide us with an explanation for abiogenesis – life coming from non-life. You don’t have to take my word for it – this is also acknowledged as a foundational problem by many scientists, sometimes explicitly, and sometimes only by the irrational arguments they’ll offer as an alternative to acknowledging God. In what follows I’m going to share both the publicly acknowledged problems with naturalistic abiogenesis, as well as some of the theories the world has proposed to address those problems. Both are revealing. The RNA problem In paleontologist Peter Ward’s book Life As We Do Not Know It, he addresses how RNA (or ribonucleic acid) – because it is simpler than DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) – is theorized as an evolutionary step in the development of DNA. But, Ward notes: Amazingly, one of the major criticisms of RNA life…the hypothesized last common ancestor of all DNA life, is that it probably did not exist because it would have been impossible to build RNA through natural chemical processes. Paul Davies notes: .… ”without a trained organic chemist on hand to supervise, nature would be struggling to make RNA from a dilute soup under any plausible prebiotic condition.” Or, as organic chemist Clemens Richert wrote in the Dec 12, 2018 edition of Nature Communications: Experimentalists in the field of prebiotic chemistry strive to re-enact what may have happened when life arose from inanimate material. How often human intervention was needed to obtain a specific result in their studies is worth reporting. When Diego Maradona was asked about having used his hand to score a goal in the quarter-finals of the 1986 soccer World Cup, he initially claimed that there had been divine intervention, and the term “Hand of God Goal” was coined. – There had been manual intervention, and there had been an understandable interest of the player not to admit it. – Organic chemists, if not all experimentalists in the field of prebiotic chemistry, are faced with a similar dilemma. We do our best to perform experiments that we believe re-enact possible steps of prebiotic evolution, but we know that we need to intervene manually to obtain meaningful results. Further, the ideal experiment does not involve any human intervention. He also frankly said: Understandably, this has drawn the ire of those who feel that no or only minimal intervention is allowed for a process to be called prebiotically plausible. After all, it is not easy to see what replaced the flasks, pipettes and stir bars of a chemistry lab during prebiotic evolution, let alone the hands of the chemist who performed the manipulations. (And yes, most of us are not comfortable with the idea of divine intervention in this context.) Whether divine intervention or human intervention, there’s a conscious entity doing the intervening. So even if our friends were to succeed in creating life in the lab, that would only demonstrate that intelligence and deliberate intent are needed to create a living thing. I'm glad this issue is explicitly acknowledged. Every honest Origin of Life (OOL) researcher will agree fully. It’s one thing for highly trained chemists to create RNA in a lab, but another thing entirely for unaided Nature to accomplish the same. Especially considering that Nature is not trying to make RNA, and has no intention of doing so. The multiverse “solution” But, if the researcher is committed to Naturalism and atheism, then he has no choice but to maintain a strong (and unrealistic) faith that Nature did it anyway, even though he knows it’s not possible. One such researcher, Eugene Koonin, resorted to “an infinite multiverse” as a potential way out of this problem. This is the view that supposedly, anything that can happen will happen in an infinite multiverse, and this would also include the chance origin of life. In a 2011 book, The Logic of Chance: the Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution, he added this: The origin of life is one of the hardest problems in all of science, but it is also one of the most important. Origin-of-life research has evolved into a lively, interdisciplinary field, but other scientists often view it with skepticism and even derision. This attitude is understandable and, in a sense, perhaps justified, given the “dirty” rarely mentioned secret: Despite many interesting results to its credit, when judged by the straightforward criterion of reaching (or even approaching) the ultimate goal, the origin of life field is a failure – we still do not have even a plausible coherent model, let alone a validated scenario, for the emergence of life on Earth. Certainly, this is due not to a lack of experimental and theoretical effort, but to the extraordinary intrinsic difficulty and complexity of the problem. A succession of exceedingly unlikely steps is essential for the origin of life, from the synthesis and accumulation of nucleotides to the origin of translation; through the multiplication of probabilities, these make the final outcome seem almost like a miracle. “Almost like a miracle” is a frank admission of what OOL entails. Nevertheless, in the same book, Koonin continued to cling to the multiverse hypothesis as a guaranteed solution to the problems involved with OOL. Here’s the summary of Koonin’s argument, in his own words: Simply put, the probability of the realization of any scenario permitted by the conservation laws in an infinite universe (and, of course, in the multiverse) is, exactly, one.... Thus, spontaneous emergence of complex systems that would have to be considered virtually impossible in a finite universe becomes not only possible but inevitable under MWO … What he’s saying is that if you have an infinite number of universes then anything, no matter how improbable, not only can happen, but will happen… in some universe somewhere within the multiverse. Including naturalistic abiogenesis. According to Koonin (and some “Many Worlds” physicists who agree with him), in some universe somewhere right now, there’s a guy who’s a practicing neurosurgeon, a janitor, and the lead actor in a recent blockbuster movie – simultaneously. He owns 271 cars, and is married to his high school sweetheart (who happens to be a princess from a tribe of highly-advanced super-beings). Their son adopted a pet chimpanzee named Wilson, while their twin daughters are ballistic missile experts in the local galactic army. No, this isn’t a hypothetical story I just made up. Or, rather it is, but according to Koonin’s logic these things are actually going on right now as we speak, in some universe somewhere. The pet chimp is also very clever, and has learned how to fly a helicopter, among other things. Now think about this trained monkey trying to synthesize life in a chemistry lab. What are the odds of him succeeding?? Exactly. But even the monkey has a better chance than a prebiotic Nature which has no intent or purpose whatsoever. In any case, simply postulating an infinite multiverse in an attempt to overcome the problem does not help – Koonin doesn’t put forth any mechanism whereby life could be naturally synthesized, but just makes the bold assertion that it must certainly happen given a multiverse. Time is no solution Another factor that is usually seen as a possible helper for abiogenesis is Time. If Nature has billions of years to work with, she should be able to eventually get the right combination to the safe, right? No, not at all. That would be akin to claiming a blind engineer could invent a BMW, or a Model-T Ford, given billions of years to live and try. It’s clear why time isn’t the problem. The blind engineer actually has better odds in this analogy than Nature does, since he at least knows what he’s attempting to accomplish. The language/information problem The origin of life gets all the more complicated when we realize it also necessitates the origin of information, and the origin of a language to convey that information. I could employ many quotes here concerning what information is, but I like how physicist and information theorist Hubert Yockey put it in this simple statement: The meaning, if any, of words, that is, a sequence of letters, is arbitrary. It is determined by the natural language and is not a property of the letters or their arrangement ... For example, "O singe fort!" has no meaning as a sentence in English, although each is an English word, yet in German it means, "O sing on!" and in French it means "O strong monkey". Like all messages, the life message is non-material but has an information content measurable in bits and bytes. Or, as chemistry professor Michael Polanyi already noted way back in 1958, in his book Personal Knowledge: Information in the DNA could no more be reduced to the chemicals than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink and paper: something beyond physics and chemistry is encoded in DNA. The origin of encoded genetic information is also assumed to have just happened miraculously under the multiverse scenario. Information here isn’t just the physical nucleobases, or even their sophisticated ordering alone, but the ribosomes’ understanding of the language, and their ability to decode and use those instructions to build the specified proteins. And then we have multiple regulatory genes in addition, which are all information networks. There’s actually a $10 million challenge out there still ongoing, for anyone who can demonstrate a set of coded information that didn’t originate from a mind, i.e., that can be spontaneously generated by Nature. The judges include well-respected biologists George Church and Denis Noble, and the Royal Society has also gotten involved recently. No one has claimed the prize (find out more in the 2 minute video below). The complexity problem Most of us don’t actually know, much less appreciate, the number of things that need to be done in order to arrive at the “simplest” cell. Nature has no goal or aim or plan to create a cell. The fact that highly trained, highly intelligent chemists still can’t do it, speaks volumes. So how is it that some lay naturalists and even some with degrees think all that’s needed is lots of time, and then Nature will eventually produce a living cell? The sheer amount of intellectual effort that goes into OOL research is more than impressive, and we still can’t make life ourselves – we can’t pull it off. But a mindless prebiotic Nature with no intention of creating a cell somehow did? Consider the ingredients needed to make a basic candy. Here’s the list for Skittles: Sugar Corn syrup Hydrogenated palm kernel oil Citric acid Tapioca dextrin Modified corn starch Natural and artificial flavors Colors (Red 40 Lake, Titanium Dioxide, Red 40, Yellow 5 Lake, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6, Blue 2 Lake, Blue 1, Blue 1 Lake) Sodium citrate Carnauba wax Now consider just a miniscule piece of a Skittle. Would Nature alone be able to synthesize and assemble the ingredients needed to make a tiny piece of a Skittle? No. Never. Not in ten billion years! But many adults believe Nature somehow synthesized and assembled everything that’s needed to make a living, metabolizing, self-replicating cell. The extraterrestrials “solution” But what if we were to claim that life on earth resulted from panspermia – that Extraterrestrials (ETs) seeded the first life on Earth? This is indeed what some among our SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) friends propose. Well, then they’d have the problem of explaining how Nature produced those ETs. As Richard Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion: …there are very probably alien civilizations that are superhuman, to the point of being god-like in ways that exceed anything a theologian could possibly imagine. Their technical achievements would seem as supernatural to us as ours would seem to a Dark Age peasant transported to the twenty-first century…In what sense would they be superhuman but not supernatural? In a very important sense…the crucial difference between gods and god-like extraterrestrials lies not in their properties but in their provenance. Entities that are complex enough to be intelligent are products of an evolutionary process. No matter how god-like they may seem when we encounter them, they didn’t start that way…They probably owe their existence to a (perhaps unfamiliar) version of Darwinian evolution. Saying ETs put the first life on Earth still keeps us inside the box of Naturalism. And then Nature still has to create and evolve the ETs, so the abiogenesis problem – how life can ever have come from non-life – remains. Then there’s at least one scientist in peer-reviewed publication who also thinks panspermia by ETs isn’t a good enough proposal. Brig Klyce concedes there’s one of two possibilities: “supernatural intervention or intelligence” (aka God) or that cellular life has existed from eternity This concession appeared in a paper (“Cause of Cambrian Explosion – Terrestrial or Cosmic?” in the August 2018 edition of the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology) that Klyce co-authored with more than a dozen other scientists. He believed “that the complexity and sophistication of life cannot originate (from non-biological) matter under any scenario, over any expanse of space and time, however vast.” But if that’s so, then how is life here? Rejecting the possibility that God was involved, Klyce then proposes this: A strictly scientific way around this dilemma would be to amend or tweak the big bang theory to allow for life from the eternal past. After all, the big bang theory is relatively new and still occasionally amended. Therefore, it seems unready to forever overrule the unviolated principle and consistent evidence that life comes from life. Yes, that’s an actual suggestion from a peer-reviewed secular scientific paper – that life started here from a universe before the big bang. So either God did it, or self-replicating microbes have always existed. The difference between the two proposals is that: God is an eternal Supernatural This is logically consistent and plausible, and even a metaphysical necessity to avoid an infinite regress of causes. On the other hand, proposing an eternity of replicating microbes, each of which had a beginning and an end, is trying to say that abiogenesis never happened because there was no “first ever microbe.” But things that have a beginning still need to have an explanation for that beginning. Trying to hide that behind an infinite regression isn’t an answer to this problem. Conclusion For decades, highly trained experts have been striving to create life from scratch, using the raw materials found in nature. They have yet to succeed. Even if they did eventually succeed somehow, that would only demonstrate that a high level of intelligent input is needed to create biological life; which is what we’ve been saying the evidence has always shown. Proposing an infinite multiverse where “anything that can happen will happen” is an unsubstantiated assertion with no empirical evidence whatsoever, and doesn’t offer a mechanism for abiogenesis or even address the issue that Nature has no intent to create life. The suggestion that microbial life has always existed and self-replicated is a logical absurdity, since there can be no such thing as an infinite regress of causes. Thus in the question of God vs Naturalism, there is no question as to which answer is absurd. Kenechi Okoli is a Christian who loves science, and in his free time he enjoys reading, music, and cooking. While he lived for over a decade in the US, he now resides in Nigeria....






News



Featured



Today's Devotional

March 28 - Cross purposes: Propitiation

“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:9 

Scripture reading: Hebrews 2:10-18

Propitiation is a big word not commonly used. It is an important biblical word that reveals what the Lord Jesus has done. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus identified with us by on taking flesh and…

Today's Manna Podcast

I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life

Serving #430 of Manna, prepared by Steven Swets, is called "I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life".


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