Imagine for a moment that you go into your neighbor's home one day and discover a large homemade bomb sitting in the middle of his living room. "Don't touch that." your neighbor tells you, "If you do, the bomb will explode and our entire block will be destroyed." How would…
Today I was day-dreaming about taking another field trip to a fundamentalist evangelical church. In my dream, though, I wasn’t going to church to simply observe all the folks getting terrified over getting barbecued in hell. Nor was I there to promote my new and improved version of the Ten Commandments.
No, in this dream I was a Martian anthropologist starting my field studies on Earth. Out of raw luck, I landed my saucer on the parking lot of a fundamentalist church and walked in to begin studying the animals that I found inside. Here are the field notes from my dream:
I walked in church and noticed lots of animals. In impeccable English (I studied English a bit in Martian high school) I asked, “Where do the animals sit?”
One of the “men” in charge told me that “animals are not allowed in the church, only people.” As he said “people,” he pointed to some of the animals.
I inquired, “But aren’t those people animals?”
This brought on a half-dazed squirmy look. He looked at me like I was from Mars, which I was, of course. He protested that he didn’t think of people as “animals.”
Because I was confused, I pulled out my textbook on Animal Behavior, 7th Edition, by John Alcock (2001). I glanced at the table of contents, which contained a long list of attributes pertaining to “animals.” I then quickly read further.
Chapter 8 covered “feeding behaviors,” indicating that animals ate food. I happened to …
Irreducible complexity refers to a system (e.g., a living organism) in which the various parts work together to produce a given function, such that the function will not occur if any of the parts is removed. Creationists claim irreducible complexity disproves evolution. Evolution refers to the natural adaptation of a species…
I have had the opportunity to exchange email and links with a man named Josh, who I invited to visit this blog. Josh’s initial comment was: “Thanks for the Invite! But I must say… you and I are in for many future debates!” I could also tell that Josh and I were different by looking at the homepage of his blog, where he writes: “I enjoy apologetics, studying the Bible, and reading various amounts of other important literature. My passion in life is to please Christ.”
Recently, Josh referred me to an article he wrote last year, an article entitled “The Scientific Truth” published on his blog: http://defendtruth.blogspot.com/. Below is my reaction to his article.
Josh:
Thank you for bringing my attention to your article: I’m truly glad we can have this conversation. We certainly come from different perspectives. Different perspectives, but not necessarily different backgrounds. When I was young, I was told to fear God and to read the Bible. I was told that my questions were “just a phase” and that I would learn to simply love God and stop asking impertinent questions. I was sent to Christian (Catholic) schools for 15 of my years of education.
I don’t pretend to know all the answers. I am now an agnostic regarding many things. I believe that the evidence only goes so far and we need to be brave enough to repeatedly say “I don’t know.” I struggle to find explanations that make the most sense …
As the world consumes oil, the world's oil is depleted. As the world's oil is depleted, the countries that completely run out of oil first will become totally dependent upon the countries that still have oil. Thus, the goal of any country that wishes to avoid becoming totally dependent is…