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» 2005

December 31, 2005

Evolution vs Intelligent Design: A response to the recent Dover, PA District Court Decision

Filed under:Intelligent Design—Stephen M. @ 11:54 pm

On December 20th, the Middle District Court of Pennsylvania, in a very detailed opinion, ruled against introducing Intelligent Design in public education on the grounds that, in the court’s opinion, it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

The PA district court then went on to attack Intelligent Design (ID) in a very detailed way but essentially because it calls for a designer that, since “It” will be outside of the design, must have many attributes of a supernatural Creator. Primarily on this basis, the court concluded that ID must be religion and not science.

Modern science uses a process known as methodological naturalism which attempts to explain the universe only through forces that can be seen in action today. The court ignores the fact that science can only use the current to demonstrably look backwards so far.

For example, the Darwinian process of survival of the fittest cannot operate before the existence of the rules of life – DNA, because without genetics no mechanism exists with which to pass on inherited traits to offspring. How did the complex rules of life, DNA, come into existence in the first place? By definition, without a mechanism for passing on a life-form’s characteristics, the formation of the rules of life couldn’t have been through Darwinism.

The major complaint that many have with evolution isn’t with the special (micro evolutionary) theory dealing with the survival of the best adapted species, but with the more speculative general (macro evolutionary) theory; a metaphysical theory which has the far more ambitious goal of explaining the origins of all life from non-life. From available evidences, the validity of the “general” theory can only be established by Darwinists through blind faith!

Also very importantly, Darwinism can have no explanation for the existence of the natural laws of the universe which must have already been present for pre-life. One must account for the incredible fine-tuning for life of these starting conditions! Given that science has provided strong evidence for a beginning to the universe, the natural laws themselves also had to have a beginning.
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November 30, 2005

The Devolution of Intelligent Design

Filed under:Intelligent Design—Stephen M. @ 9:52 pm

At the risk of being redundant, I thought I’d reflect on the imbalanced reporting of the Intelligent Design (ID) versus Evolution debate. One case in point is an article in the Dec 2, 2005 issue of “THE WEEK” (p 20).

Basically, the article entitled “Intelligent design: Should God be insulted?”, GROSSLY MISCHARACTERIZES Intelligent Design by quoting a laughable description by Charles Krauthammer from “The Washington Post”. Mr Krauthammer says (about ID):

    It’s based on the premise that evolution chugs along for eons, creating change within species – but “every once in a while, God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says ‘I think I’ll make me a lemur today.’”

Where did this nonsense come from? Were this what ID proposed, then perhaps God should be insulted! Certainly, I would not be counted among its defenders! However, this is FAR FROM AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION of Intelligent Design.

In fact, this description bears almost no resemblance to what Intelligent Design theorists propose. And allowing this sort of gross caricature does nothing to enhance the credibility of the Darwinian naturalists — nor of “THE WEEK”. (We won’t mention the “Washington Post”).

To set the record straight, a number of facts must be understood about Intelligent Design theory:

  1. Nowhere as evidence for Intelligent Design is the Bible or God ever used. And there is certainly nothing said about a “God of the gaps” that Mr. Krauthammer attributes to ID’ers.
  2. Not all advocates for Intelligent Design are Christians nor for that matter even believers in God (although I personally find this interesting).
  3. In many cases, Intelligent Design examines elements of the universe that, by definition, could not be subject to Darwinian evolution. Examples include, among many other things, the origin of: the natural laws, the information and rules of genetics, and irreducibly complex biological structures.

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November 24, 2005

For What Do You Give Thanks?

Filed under:Church and State—Stephen M. @ 10:33 pm

The first verse of our national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner, is known by most Americans.

But do you know these words from the last verse?

    O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
    Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation;
    Blest with vict’ry and peace,

    may the heav’n-rescued land
    Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!

    Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

    And this be our motto: In God is our trust!

    And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
    O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

As was true in 1814 when our national anthem was written, I’m so thankful that we live in a country where we can still openly give thanks to the author of our freedoms.

But do those who want to excise all public recognition of God from our nation know that what they seek would destroy the very foundation upon which it was built?

November 19, 2005

The Lost Soul of America

Filed under:Church and State—Stephen M. @ 11:30 am

Our culture war has escalated to the point that, in the US Congress, one party believes that its primary duty is simply to stop the other.

We have a crisis of values — traditional values against a growing culture of self-indulgence. We have hypocritical politicians who decry the deaths of soldiers in war while enabling the killing of the most innocent imaginable — unborn children by the millions. We have politicians who can now seldom find common ground and are only interested in obstructionism and the acquisition of more and greater power.

Our great technological inventions have allowed our country — which much of the world perceives as a Christian nation, to export, via Hollywood and the Internet, some of the most depraved filth imaginable. Islamic terrorists falsely associate this trash with Christianity to both destroy our witness and bolster their war against us among Muslims.

During the prelude to the US Civil War, President Lincoln quoted Jesus Christ to illustrate the dangers of division; “A house divided against itself cannot stand”. There are few examples in our history when we have been more divided than now.

Freedom has never been free. I challenge the reader to objectively research the beliefs and struggles of our nation’s founders. Our nation was founded by a great people who pledged an allegiance, and their very lives, to ultimate Truth.

If our people cannot find a way to reach back to our roots, back to a people who loved freedom but not anarchy nor licentiousness, then the soul of our once great nation may be already lost.

November 17, 2005

“Anti-Abortion Concerns” Another Sign of the Times

Filed under:Politics: US and the World—Stephen M. @ 6:58 pm

In regards to President Bush’s nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court — Senate Democrats announced concerns about Alito’s published very-strong personal opposition to abortion. Given that liberal Democrats favor access to abortion for any reason and at any stage of a pregnancy, then perhaps this should not be surprising.

But please note that there have been almost 46 million abortions since the infamous 1973 “Roe v. Wade” decision. How do we put such a huge slaughter of human life into perspective? This is many-times more US deaths than from all wars combined in our history. It took more than 263 years after the settlement of Jamestown for the population of America to exceed this; in just 32 years abortions have taken more lives than the total population of the United States in 1870!

It will be absolutely incredible if our country is not judged very harshly for allowing such an unprecedented holocaust!

November 11, 2005

The Evolution of ATheocracy?

Filed under:Church and State, Intelligent Design—Stephen M. @ 4:00 pm

In Dover PA there has been a furious battle over simply mentioning Intelligent Design as an alternative theory to Darwinian Evolution. Why such an uproar?

In the federal education act (”No Child Left Behind”) it is stated: “where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of views that exist [and] why such topics may generate controversy.”

What was the Dover school board proposing other than “teaching the controversy”? Certainly, they were not teaching creationism. And yet, after coming under national scrutiny for proposing the mere mention of the existence of the theory of Intelligent Design, all eight Dover PA school board members who were up for re-election came under furious opposition and were defeated.

Given that science is supposed to be a quest for the truth, the great lengths that proponents of Darwinian naturalism will go to silence skeptics is very instructive. It shows that evolution is more a faith-based belief than true science.

Intelligent Design theory makes no attempt to identify the designer but, unlike Darwinian naturalism, it at least allows the possibility that a designer exists. Why such closed minds and combativeness in academia about the topic of origins? Because of the naturalistic preconceptions of Darwinism.

Why are all non-evolutionary theories portrayed as “creationism” while naturalistic Darwinism is seen as science? Because modern “science” has become intertwined with naturalism — a philosophy that has as its central tenet a presumption that there is nothing beyond “nature” and that the universe exists only as the result of blind chance.

But by so restricing the definition of what can be considered, science is made blind to anything but unplanned randomness; because any theory that suggests otherwise is artificially disqualified — no matter how strong the evidence! Is this really a search for truth?
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November 8, 2005

French Muslim Riots — Random or Orchestrated?

Filed under:Politics: US and the World—Stephen M. @ 10:41 am

France has been burning from the rioting of French Muslims. It will be informative to determine how much organization is behind these riots. If this has been orchestrated, then it will not die quietly.

Either way, I’m betting that Al Qaeda is very interested in the outcome — and in the French response.

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