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Saturday Selections – October 19, 2019
Beauty, Darwin, and design (8 min) "Charles Darwin once wrote that the sight of a male peacock’s tail made him physically ill." Why did its beauty make Evolution's father ill? "Because he knew that the gratuitous beauty so prevalent throughout the living world points unmistakably to intelligent design, foresight, and plan." Be sure to check this stunning video out! How to overcome our digital addiction This secular piece doesn't mention the need for repentance or prayer. But it is quite the eye-opener, and for a Christian committed to change, the strategies offered could be helpful. Free Tim Keller commentary on Judges This freebie is being passed along sight unseen and with this notable caution: Keller doesn't hold to a six-day creation, so you wouldn't want to turn to him for a commentary on Genesis. But he also tends to treat the rest of the Bible with the respect it deserves so this could be fantastic. You do have to give your email address to access the free e-book, but they won't spam you. Strategies for fighting depression well A good read for those who suffer with depression, as well as for all who want to be a help for them. How to homeschool...for those of us who will never homeschool Not all Christians are homeschoolers, but all Christian homes should be schools. Here's how to create teaching opportunities with your kids. How the government made us fat Note a problem in the world and someone's sure to ask: "What's the government going to do about it?" What this overlooks is that the government is neither all-knowing nor all-powerful, and when we expect it to solve all the world's problems, we are setting it up as a false god. And false gods always disappoint. Also, the government "solves" things on a grand scale - millions are impacted. So when they get it wrong, millions are hurt. This is another example of how the government did damage when it tried to do something we should never have looked to it to do.
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University rejects Christian group for not wanting to be LGBT group
Duke University’s student government has rejected a Christian student group’s request for official status. They turned down Young Life because, while the group allows homosexuals to their events, it doesn’t allow homosexuals to hold leadership positions. And that, the student government contends, amounts to discrimination. Other Duke student groups are organized around race, religion, and sexual beliefs, but these groups have so structured their constitutions as to say they will allow anyone in. So, for example, the Muslim Student Association’s constitution promises: “all undergraduate and graduate students at Duke University are eligible for membership” and “any member of the Duke Muslim Student Association can become an officer.” Near identical wording can be found in the constitutions of the Black Student Alliance and the Native American Student Alliance. These constitutions allow for curious possibilities. If, say, enough Christians were so inclined, they could take over the Muslim Student Association. A bunch of white, or Asian, or Latino students could do the same to the Black Student Alliance. But, interestingly, this same trick probably couldn’t be pulled on the campus LGBT group, Blue Devils United, whose constitution allows for the removal of students “found in violation of our mission” to promote “intersectionality.” Christians need not apply here. That’s why if Young Life were to sue, it seems likely they would win. In February a federal judge found in favor of a University of Iowa student group, Business Leaders in Christ, which had been stripped of its registered status. They also wouldn’t allow a homosexual student to hold a leadership position. The judge noted that other campus groups were allowed to limit their membership, basing it on race, religion, or view of homosexuality. It was clear then that the University of Iowa was unfairly penalizing Business Leaders for limiting their leadership to Christians....
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Saturday Selections – Sept. 28, 2019
South of Royal: You remain faithful While their indie-synth-pop stylings might not be to everyone's tastes, South of Royal's lyrical, biblical depth is impressive. The link above is to the website for their first album, Deliverance and Doubt, where you can find lead singer Daniel Clay explaining the thinking behind the album. And you can listen to the album on Youtube here. What would life look like if there were no smartphones? Photographer Eric Pickersgill has taken everyday settings and pulled the smartphones out of them, showing us just how little we're looking at each other. Gather the kidlings around, flip through these 100+ pictures together, and discuss. Half beluga, half narwhal? What's a belwhal? It turns out that beluga whales and narwhals (the ones with the long unicorn-type horn) can interbreed. And that's surprising to evolutionists, who believe the two species have been evolving independently of one another for more than a million years. I have forgotten how to read "For a long time, I convinced myself that a childhood spent immersed in old-fashioned books would insulate me somehow from our new media climate – that I could keep on reading and writing in the old way because my mind was formed in pre-internet days. But the mind is plastic – and I have changed. I'm not the reader I was." Study: gullible folks can't tell truth from Babylon Bee satire The Christian satire site Babylon Bee has gotten into a tiff as of late with the liberal fact-checking organization Snopes.com, which was accusing them of passing on fake news. But that some people believe these obviously fake stories wouldn't seem an indictment on the Babylon Bee, but rather on the public education system. Environmental "solutions" and the tradeoffs we don't hear about Economist Thomas Sowell once noted, "There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” He spoke of this as being a conservative understanding, but in acknowledging the imperfectibility of our world, and the limitations of man, it is also a Christian position. On the other, liberal, side are those who speak of solutions and who either entirely, or largely, neglect to mention any downsides. So even as we hear increasingly heated rhetoric about how our planet is coming to a tipping point, or there is a climate crisis only a dozen years out, what we don't hear much about are the costs, both environmental, and economic, for the "solutions" they propose. This video details some, and the article in the link above details others. The reasons Christians should care is that if a solution is had by afflicting the poor, then that is not a solution we should pursue. And the more such an oblivious-to-the-poor solution is presented as something that must be done, then the more we have reason to doubt the legitimacy of the "crisis" that necessitates such an ungodly solution. ...
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Dutch doctor acquitted in euthanasia case
The threshold for euthanasia in the Netherlands is already low. And a Dutch court just lowered it even further. On 10 September, a panel of three judges found a doctor “not guilty” of breaking the law in the way she administered a lethal injection to one of her patients. The trial represented the first time a doctor was prosecuted since the Netherlands legalized euthanasia in 2002. The case centered on the question of whether a patient who is mentally incompetent can receive a lethal injection. Under Dutch law, a person can write a legal declaration requesting euthanasia should they develop advanced dementia in the future. If a doctor determines a patient with such a legal declaration has “unbearable suffering,” they can proceed to euthanize them – even though the patient is unable to orally confirm that they still wish to die. The patient at the center of the case was a woman with Alzheimer’s. Her condition had become so advanced that she no longer recognized her own face in the mirror. When she was still mentally competent, she had written up a legal declaration. She had also had several conversations with her GP about euthanasia over a period of several years. However, she kept saying she was not yet ready to die. Once her condition became advanced, she had to be removed to a care home. The doctor who ultimately gave her the lethal injection worked in the care home. The woman’s husband raised the issue of euthanasia with the doctor when the woman was admitted. The doctor then spent seven weeks consulting with second opinions to determine if the woman met the criteria of “unbearable suffering” before ending her life on 22 April 2016. The doctor began by secretly administering a sedative to the woman via her coffee to put her to sleep. However, the woman awakened when the lethal drugs were added to her IV and began to struggle. She was restrained by her husband and daughter so the doctor could finish. The Dutch committee that oversees euthanasia found the doctor “negligent” in the way she handled the case. The Netherlands’ Board of Medical Examiners also issued her a reprimand. However, the court acquitted her of breaking Dutch euthanasia law and thus set an important precedent. Legal declarations can be used to administer euthanasia to patients who are not able to give consent and are perhaps totally unaware of what is being done to them. Euthanasia for patients with advanced dementia is still extremely rare in the Netherlands. There were only 15 reported instances of this since legalization in 2002 (out of a total of 62,000). However, the numbers are likely to increase in the years that come. One poll found that over 10% of Dutch adults have a legal declaration requesting euthanasia in the event of advanced dementia. Given the amount of media coverage the recent trial and verdict attracted, more people may decide to write them. Up to now, the status of these legal declarations had been ambiguous. Even some euthanasia supporters are opposed to them because it is not possible to determine if the patient still wishes to end their life. Last year, ethicist Berna van Baarsen resigned from her position on the Dutch committee that oversees the practice of euthanasia because she does not believe advanced dementia patients should be eligible. “That’s my boundary, based on ten years of reflection and reading dossiers,” she said. However, on 10 September, the Dutch court sent a clear message that legal declarations can be used as a substitute for oral consent to put a mentally incompetent person to death. A study showed that 92% of the Dutch population accepts euthanasia. However, many are uncomfortable with the way the threshold for eligibility continues to be lowered. Perhaps the verdict will lead more people to stop and ask, “Where does this end?”...
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Saturday Selections - Sept. 21, 2019
Real men know when to cover an offense (4 minutes) When we're sinned against, we have two options: to lovingly confront the sinner, or, to loving "cover" or overlook the offense. In this video, David Murray looks at when to overlook an offense, including how we can tell whether our "overlooking" is not about love, but laziness or being too uncaring to confront a loved one who really needs to be confronted. (For a transcript of the video, see the link above.) British government fights genital mutilation among Muslims, encourages it among others The British government is setting up support centers for victims of female genital mutilation, a practice done in some Muslim-majority countries that can involve cutting off a woman's clitoris. But even as the government is, in this limited way, discouraging one form of genital mutilation, it is encouraging it in another: funding irreversible "transgender" surgeries that involve cutting off men or women's genitals in an attempt to make them what they can never be: the other gender. They are lying to us In 2002 Jonathan Wells published Icons of Evolution in which he asked why evolutionists continued to use certain arguments and evidences even after they'd been discredited. He showed how decades afterward "proofs" like the Miller–Urey experiment would still be taught in school textbooks, though the experts themselves knew better. In this short article by philosopher J. Budziszewski, he gives an answer: they know better, but they know they can fool folks who don't know better. And they've come up with ethical justifications for fooling them. Seeing through a university prof's attack A university professor can confound a student by asking them one question after another. But that you don't know every answer to every challenge to God's truth doesn't make that truth any less true. The Cobra Effect – Big government brings with it a lot of unintended consequences (10-minute read) An Indian government intended to curtail cobra infestations, but their bounty on cobra tails incentivized citizens to start raising cobras to collect on the bounty, leaving the region with even more cobras than before. This scenario – a good-intentioned government incentivizing harm – is so oft-occurring it's been given a name: "the cobra effect." This article explores historic examples of this effect, and makes the point (as does Proverbs 27:14) that good intentions are not enough. It argues that, since unintended consequences are so hard to anticipate, governments should approach the creating of legislation with great humility and restraint – meaning well doesn't mean you will do well, so don't make a law unless it is vitally necessary. Hard as it is to believe, hummingbirds actually get cooler in slow motion Hummingbirds must be why super slow motion film was invented. At full speed they are jaw-droppingly amazing – watching these little zipsters is prayer-inducing. And then seeing them in slow motion offers a whole other appreciation of what God has packed into these littlest of the beasties. Wow! Just wow! ...
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Saturday Selections - Sept 7, 2019
Is college worth it? (5 min) If you want to be a nurse or architect, college is vital. But if you don't know why you're going – if you're not going in with a plan – then this fellow below argues that it isn't a good investment of your time or money. The dollar figures are US, but on both sides of the border, the investment of time is always considerable. If the link above and the video below are about why not to go (or why to wait) here's a link to help make it possible. There should be something to help everyone here: 68 ways to save money in college Facebook experimenting with removing "Like" counts? The social media giant shared that it has been experimenting with removing Like counts on Instagram posts and is considering it for Facebook too. Gun violence: Prov. 18:17 and the other sides to the story... Mass shootings south of the border fill the news, and each time one happens there are calls to ban guns. Most of those proposed bans are directed at military-looking rifles, but as the Daily Wire's Ryan Saavedra noted this past week, the number of homocides by rifle is comparatively low. What he shares below are the average number of deaths per day in US caused by: Abortion: 2,408 Heart disease: 1,773 Cancer: 1,641 Medical error: 685 Accidents: 401 Stroke: 401 Alzheimer's: 332 Diabetes: 228 Flu: 150 Suicide: 128 Opioids: 115 Drunk driving: 28 Underage drinking: 11 Teen texting-and-driving: 8 All Rifles: 1 This additional information is in keeping with Prov. 18:17, where we learn that to discern the Truth it helps to hear the two sides questioning each other. So, still in keeping with this verse, it's worth noting that Saavedra didn't share the overall number of gun-related deaths per day – those that involve not just rifles, but handguns and other guns as well – which gives us a considerably higher number: 30 per day. That's comparable to drunk-driving (though far less than abortion) so if gun bans could lower those numbers, shouldn't we try? Well, to go all Prov.18:17 again, another important side of this discussion is to consider how effective previous gun control legislation has been (can the gov't even do what it is attempting to do?), and how often do people use guns to defend themselves (how many lives are saved by guns)? When trying to track down those numbers Prov. 18:17 needs to be our guide once again because the different sides of this debate provide very different numbers that have to be questioned to get any sort of understanding of them. Female soccer player says she could definitely play in the NFL. No, she could not. Just because your three-year-old knows it doesn't mean adults don't need to hear the Truth stated clearly. Matt Walsh helps out here by explaining women cannot play football at the NFL level for the it-should-have-been-obvious reason that men and women are different. Faithfulness is not theologically complicated (10 minute read) Confused Christians don't know what to think about abortion, marriage, gender, homosexuality, and Jesus' exclusive claims because they aren't looking to Scripture. But, as Greg Koukl shares here, in His Word God is very clear on all these issues. Is sex assigned at birth? – what would you say? (4 min) The Colson Center is a conservative Judeo-Christian think tank (with some Reformed influences to it) that's probably best known for their daily audio Breakpoint commentaries on 1,200 radio stations across North America. Now they're expanding into video, with short "PragerU" type videos tackling controversial issues under the theme: "What would you say?". So far they have three videos, with this one tackling the topic of gender fluidity. As good as this video is, it would best be characterized as a secular presentation because God is never mentioned, which is a strange omission for a professedly Christian think tank. So watch the video, but when you share it be sure to add what they missed: that even when the activists, celebrities, politicians, and scientists are confused, we can turn to God's Word for the unchanging Truth. And when it comes to gender, the Truth is God made us male and female (Gen. 1:27). ...
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After politicians decline, "stones" start defending the unborn
Politically, the last two weeks have not been auspicious for the unborn. South of the border we saw Democratic presidential candidates compete for how callous they could be: Beto O’Rourke endorsed abortion right up to a child’s birthday, while Bernie Sanders sold killing the unborn as a way to fight global warming. Then in Canada, the two party leaders that pro-lifers are watching closest did their best to disappoint. The Conservative Party’s Andrew Scheer repeatedly promised his party wouldn’t bring forward legislation on divisive social issues, while the People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier stated that “up to 24, 25, 26 weeks…the fetus is not a child.” If this news has you despairing, then dig a bit deeper into your newspaper while considering Luke 19:40. In this verse Jesus, in response to the Pharisees trying to shut his disciples up, says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” Over the last two weeks we’ve had something very much like that happen. Even as princes have disappointed (Ps. 146:3) we’ve had the unlikeliest of defenders crying out for the unborn. The first “stone” was Planned Parenthood (PP) itself. The abortion giant’s Sept. 1 Instagram post made the profound point that: “The size of your body doesn’t define your worth!” PP wasn’t able to connect the dots, but the Twitterverse did, highlighting that this is exactly what pro-lifers say about the unborn. As that renowned philosopher Dr. Seuss once put it, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” There was also a second stone crying out. On Aug. 26, Dave Chappelle’s new Netflix comedy special was released. In it the foul-mouthed Chappelle yanked his audience back and forth, first telling them, “I’m not for abortion” before assuring them, “I’m not for it, but I’m not against it either.” To calm them down further, he trotted out the standard pro-choice rhetoric that if you don’t have a uterus, you shouldn’t have an opinion. “Seriously! This is theirs; the right to choose is unequivocal right. Not only do I believe they have the right to choose, I believe that they shouldn’t have to consult anybody, except for a physician, about how they exercise that right. Gentlemen, that is fair. “ Then, once he had his pro-choice audience reassured, he took another sharp turn: “And ladies, to be fair to us, I also believe that if you decide to have the baby, a man should not have to pay. That’s fair. If you can kill this ********, I can at least abandon him. It’s my money, my choice.” If murder is a right, why can’t abandonment be too? Chappelle’s logic is sound, but it takes us to a place even abortion defenders don’t want to go. That’s when Chappelle concludes with a parting shot: “And if I’m wrong, then perhaps we’re wrong.” From the ready laughter it's clear his audience doesn’t understand what Chappelle has just hit them with. He’s telling them that if they know abandonment isn’t right, then they should understand murder isn’t either. The audience doesn’t get it yet, but they will. As for us, if we’re too anxious to speak God’s Truth publicly, and are mumbling out a half-hearted whisper now and again only because we feel we really have to, what we need to realize is, we don’t have to – God’s got the opposition doing it, so He really doesn’t need us. We don’t have to. But we do get to. If these “stones” can cause a ruckus speaking just a part of God’s Truth, imagine how He might use us, if God’s people were willing to open our mouths and cry out....
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Saturday Selections – August 31, 2019
Real men are courageous Driving your car fast might get you an adrenaline rush, but it doesn't make you brave. Real courage involves doing the thing you fear because you know it is important, and right, and someone has got to do it so it might as well be you. David Murray lays out God's call for men to be courageous. Environmentalists have gotten it wrong again and again This article shares some of the predictions made over the last 50 years, compared to how things turned out. I will note the article title speaks of "Greenies" getting it wrong every time and it would be nice if the rhetoric was tamped down just a bit. They'd have to be truly remarkable to be wrong a perfect 100% of the time. Why human rights and chimpanzee rights can't co-exist There is a push for animal rights that will turn human rights on their head. It comes down to this: the world, both Christian and gentile alike, view the topic of rights and equality through a largely Christian perspective. We believe all men are created equal and that only makes sense if there is some sense in which we are all the same. Christians know that we are all made in God's image. And the world has no alternative explanation to offer so they make due by avoiding the topic altogether: "We are all equal and let's just not talk about why, okay!" It is from God too, that our rights come - for example, we have the right to life, because He forbids murder. But those pushing for chimpanzee rights want to grant rights on a gradient: they aren't arguing for chimpanzees to have all the same rights as humans, but, because they are an awful lot like us, they think they should get some of our rights. Some? Based on them sharing some of our abilities? If we fail to recognize the difference between Image-bearers and animals, and start handing out rights based on abilities, where will that take us? We actually don't have to look very far to see. While individuals already born are treated in a generally equitable fashion – no matter how able they are or are not – the same is not true for the unborn. Their murders are justified on the very basis of them not having abilities that you and I have. They don't have a heartbeat yet? They can be killed. They can't breathe on their own yet? Let's kill them. But what of the boy dependent 0n dialysis? If we're granting rights based on abilities, how is this disabled boy going to fare? Thus the push for animal rights is, on the one hand, incompatible with human rights, and, on the other, simply a continuation of the same lie behind abortion and euthanasia too - that the value of our lives lies in how able we are. The counter to that? Only God's own Truth: that we are precious because we are Image-bearers of the One True God. IVF and its millions of frozen embryos IVF is an issue the Church should be talking about, but isn't. The result? Christians, unaware of the implications, and at the encouragement of their doctors, may well create children they then freeze... How to stop praying the same old things "It doesn’t take long before rote prayers fragment your attention span and freeze your heart." Jordan Peterson: the deepfake artists must be stopped It is now possible to copy someone's image and voice so flawlessly that when it comes to digital video, we really can't trust our eyes and ears. The video below is of Obama making a speech he never made, and the article linked just above is Jordan Peterson detailing his experience with his own digital copies. He warns this technology has the potential to be enormously disruptive. ...
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Saturday Selections - August 24, 2019
The Joel Osteen sermon that changed Oprah's life (13 minutes) While we prefer to focus on what's good and right and true (Philippians 4:8), Joel Osteen's sermon here is of-a-kind with the "Christian" theology that's everywhere available: on blogs, podcasts, and yes, YouTube sermons too. That makes Tim Challies' takedown of Osteen's sermon instructive for us in our everyday reading, listening, and viewing. Canadian gov't is subsidizing the mainstream media to the tune of $600 million over 5 years Ted Byfield warns that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Should Christians be capitalists? (10 min. read) "In 2019, the absolute poor numbered 750 million, which is a lot but, proportionally, is less than 10 percent of the world’s population. 200 years ago, you couldn’t find close to 10 percent who weren’t living in absolute poverty." FREE E-BOOK: Titus for you This is a recommendation sight unseen but the company it comes from has published some great books. Titus for You is available for free until the end of the month. You do have to give them your email address but if you don't like getting emails from them it's easy to unsubscribe. Parents: pleasant words are healing words Christian parents know better than to insult their children, but just because we aren't saying really nasty things doesn't mean we're saying good things. "Do it because I said so" is adequate, from a justice perspective – children should listen to their parents simply because we are their parents – but is it a patient way of saying things? Quit social media (14 min) This would be a fantastic video for parents and teens to watch together and discuss. We might not make the same decision as this TED talk presenter, but he gives us lots to think about. ...
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Saturday Selections - July 20, 2019
The programmer? (6 min) Our DNA is more remarkable than any man-made computer program. So who programmed it? When your kids complain, "That's not fair!" Two children plus one toy equals trouble. Or is it an opportunity? Arguments Creationists shouldn't use While it's important we hold to the biblical truth of a six-day creation tightly, we can hold to individual creationist hypotheses loosely. Why I wish we hadn't lived together before getting married A 34-year-old reflects on what she might have told the 18-year-old version of herself. The gift of accepting help There's a word for thinking we can do it all ourselves, better than anyone else: pride. 1984 is happening in China (11 min) The BBC reports on how the Chinese government is interning a million of its citizens, mostly Muslim, for thought crimes. That's why some are calling China "freedom's greatest threat." ...
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Saturday Selections - July 13, 2019
Fined $8.2 million for pro-life work, this pastor wouldn't pay Randy Alcorn's name is well known in Christian circles for the many books he's written. Less known is how he worked at a minimum wage for 20 years so he wouldn't have to pay an $8.2 million judgement to an abortion clinic. This is an amazing story of faithfulness! Free e-book: Transgender In this short 80-page book, Vaughan Roberts lays out the biblical understanding of gender and body and shows how to talk lovingly to transgender folk. To get the free e-book you do have to give your email address, and you do have to act quickly because it will only be free for a short while. Parents: 8 tips for a snark-free summer Our kids don't always talk to us the way they should. Here are some practical tips to help them and you. Hell interrupted The eternal punishment of hell is a difficult doctrine for many to accept. But as Greg Koukl and Tim Barnett make clear in this 5-minute read, it is what Scripture teaches. Can China's demographic nightmare be undone? China's four-decade-long one-child policy taught citizens that children were a burden, rather than the blessing God says they are. The country is now facing a demographic nightmare, with siblingless couples the sole working support for their two sets of parents and four sets of grandparents. Not having children has been the real burden – if their parents and grandparents would have had more children then there would have been brothers and sisters and cousins to share the work. And while the government now allows families to have two children, they're finding they can't undo the "children are a curse" outlook they spend 40 years creating. Evolution can't explain the origin of life (7 min) If life originated without design or intent, but by chance, why can't the world's most brilliant minds – with their computers and chemicals and machines helping them and with the blueprints provided by already living cells – make life from scratch? This is a fascinating video, though the Intelligent Design perspective underlying it doesn't explicitly give God His due. ...
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Saturday Selections - July 6, 2019
Parents: don't squelch your kids' interest in Creation (1 min) Global warming hopelessness In response to climate-change cataclysmic predictions, some wonder: "Why save for the future if there is no future?" Why Board games are booming in a digital age "...more and more people using screens at work....When we finish, do we really want to stare at a screen some more?" Liligers, Ligers, and tigons, oh my! Some have misrepresented the Bible as teaching a "fixity of species" – i.e. that all species stay the same. But instead the Bible speaks of "kinds" and those kinds can involve a lot of changes, like all cats descending from just one cat kind...even as they all still stay cats. Sex and statistics Statistics can be twisted this way and that, so what's commonly being reported in the media can turn out to be the complete opposite of the truth. In this example, you may have heard recently that conservative Protestants have miserable sex lives, and are indulging in porn at a similar rate to the world. The truth is very different. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe (8 min) Our planet, solar system, and the universe are improbably fine-tuned for us to thrive. How could everything happen to be just so? The secular world offers up the multiverse theory. They say that while it is too improbable to believe our universe could be this fine-tuned if we had just the one chance at it, the odds could be improved if there were actually billions upon billions of other universes out there – then this would just happen to be the one where everything lined up right. But what evidence is there for the multiverse theory? Just as much as there is for leprechauns. Or unicorns. Or fairies. Yet, this is what secular "science" offers us. ...
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Saturday Selections - June 29, 2019
John MacArthur: Calvinism vs. Arminianism (6 min) How can God be sovereign over everything and we still be responsible for our sin? John MacArthur gives the classic Calvinist answer with his own unique style. What are some of the best evidences against the Big Bang and Old Earth theories? Dr. Jonathan Sarfati gives a short answer to this question, but with links to a dozen other articles that provide the longer version. How could heaven not have sex? "...lifelong commitment to a spouse in marriage is...one of the greatest joys to be had in this world. Why would it not endure into the next?" Vaccines, sunscreens & the “sneaky lie” moms need to stop believing We do have to care for our children's physical wellness, but there's something far more important, and we also need to get our priorities straight. Sorry, banning plastic bags won't save our planet While the author of this article isn't Christian, hearing his critique of one-use plastic bans lines up with Proverbs 18:17, where we're told that to know the truth, we really have to hear from both sides. So we hear a lot about the benefits of plastic bag bans, but what would a critic say? Here are two questions critics might ask: Will it fix what it's supposed to fix? In this case, will it have a significant impact on the plastics in the ocean? Will it cause other problems? Or, in other words, what are the tradeoffs? Do we have to rule out God to do good science? (4 min) This is an absolutely fantastic take-down of methodological naturalism - the idea that if we turn to God as an explanation for anything then we aren't doing science. But what would happen if we, before our investigation even began, ruled out the possibility that there might be a Designer? Imagine if we could only appeal to natural sources to explain the origins of the car? What sort of explanation would we come up for it, if, before our investigation even began, we ruled out the possibility that there might have been a designer? Obviously whatever explanation we came up with would be a very wrong one. So when scientists rule out the Supernatural, before they've even begun their investigation into our own origins, then they are showing themselves unwilling to go where the evidence takes them - they are ideologically blinding themselves so that they can't find certain answers. ...
