I wondered recently, during an idle conversation, whatever became of that monumental media presence Rush Limbaugh. Now I know. He's been upstaged. Check out the following quote: "They're almost always biologists—the "science" with the greatest preponderance of women. The distaff MIT "scientist" who fled the room in response to Larry…
For centuries, of course, people had been praying for God to return to Earth. He came back all right, but it was so very different than most people expected. It happened on October 3, 2009. I remember it like it was yesterday . . .
It had been quite cloudy that day, but the clouds parted to reveal a huge marquee announcing that God would appear within five minutes. During this short wait, pastel patterns swirled across the skies while Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” played lushly from the heavens. Then, God’s image began to appear on thousands of monitors that appeared in the sky. Everyone on the Earth was about see this spectacle simultaneously.
As you might expect with seven billion people, it took awhile to get everyone calmed down. The preachers were especially excited; most of them were wearing big smug smiles as they strutted about. “This is it!” many of them barked.
God cleared his throat and everyone waited, for what seemed to be an eternity, for His first words.
“Hello,” He boomed.
Many of you have referred to me by the name “God” or “Allah” or “The Force.” I don’t really have any sort of body and thus I’ve never had any sort of sex organ. Nonetheless, I’m presenting myself to you in the shape of an old man. I thought this might make this presentation easier for many of you.
The preachers stopped strutting so much, and started to look perplexed.
“You’re probably wondering …
I saw a phrase today that made me think--The Darwinist Cause. Now, I'm sure I've seen it or heard it before, but it's one of those taglines opponents to certain worldviews use to instigate absurd debates (which turn out not to be debates but drubbing sessions wherein they hope to…
Dinosaurs did co-exist with Adam and Eve, you see. How do we know this? Just read the Bible!
All of this is cheerfully explained by creationist Ken Ham (who describes himeself as a former high school biology teacher) in a lecture entitled “Dinosaurs In the Bible.” Actually, you can catch a whole series of lectures by Ken at Answers in Genesis.
Here’s some more things Ken taught me. The earth was created in six 24-hour days. Why should we believe that? Because “If we don’t believe in six literal days we open the door to the collapse of Christian morality in our nation.” Furthermore, the numerous scientific methods of dating (such as carbon dating) are hopelessly inaccurate.
There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the objective evidence for an old earth that many claim, and that the world is really only thousands of years old. We don’t have all the answers, but we do have the sure testimony of the Word of God to the true history of the world.
Why must people suffer? Because we’re sinful, says Ken. God “loves us” when he inflicts us with horrible diseases like AIDS.
Ever notice those huge sharp teeth of T-rex? What did T-rex eat? No, not meat. Look to the Bible (Gen 1:29-30), not to the teeth, says Ken, and you’ll learn with certainty that T-rex was a plant eater (see “Dinosaurs in the Bible – Part I”).
Ken’s lectures contain plenty of bootstrapping. …
Here’s an interesting example on how intuition can go awry. What would you guess to be the primary factor for determining whether a scientist is receptive to new and innovative scientific theories? Education? Economic resources? Gender? None of the above!
In Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives (1996), a meticulously researched book that has now withstood a decade of criticism, Frank Sulloway concluded that those people who tend to cling to old paradigms, who are not confortable with new innovative scientific theories, have something surprising in common. They tend to be firstborns. Sulloway based his conclusions on the analysis of the written positions of 3,890 persons, writers who have commented over the past several hundred years on controversial new scientific theories.
Firstborns are significantly more likely to “identify more closely with parents and authority,” and more “conforming, conventional and defensive—attributes that are all negative features of openness to experience.” [pp. 21-22.]
Sulloway analyzed the attitudes of the writers of published commentary regarding the theory of Copernicus during the early stages of that controversy:
[I]ndividual laterborns were 5.4 times more likely than individual firstborns to support Copernicus’s claim that the earth revolves around the sun. Copernicus himself was the youngest of four children.
[p. 38] There are many books written for a lay audience on the topic of birth order, but very few of them are carefully documented with statistical analyses. Sulloway’s book is a shining exception to the rule. It is a highly detailed work …