Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to meet every two weeks to continue U.S. backed direct negotiations for the creation of a Palestinian state within a year despite serious differences that remain between the two sides.

A prayer center complex, known as "Prayer Mountain", was destroyed in China after several elderly Christians were forcibly removed, and then watched helplessly as their building was demolished according to ChinaAid, Worthy News has learned.

A respected church leader in Cuba was unexpectedly arrested on Monday on trumped up charges of "offensive behavior" and "threats" according to a Christian human rights organization.

U.S. forecasters have downgraded Earl to a category two hurricane, but expect it to remain a powerful storm as it closes in on the U.S. east coast.

The category four storm is on course to lash the coast of North Carolina late Thursday, before shifting to the north. Hurricane and tropical storm warnings and watches are in effect along the Mid-Atlantic coast and as far north as Massachusetts.

Amid death threats, over a dozen members of the Mengen tribe in the jungles of Papua New Guinea were baptized after "testifying their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," missionaries told Worthy News Monday, August 30.

A Pentecostal pastor remained in police custody Tuesday, August 31, in Turkmenistan where he faces five years imprisonment and confiscation of properties for "large-scale swindling", charges his wife and church members strongly deny, rights activists said.

A 16-year old Christian girl was rescued on August 9, 2010, after being held captive for two years, Worthy News has learned.

The "Restoring Honor" rally drew a crowd estimated between 300,000 and 500,000 to Washington D.C. which had a tone of evangelical revival rather than that of a political protest.

Eight arrested Christians remained in Vietnamese police custody Sunday, August 29, after a violent government crackdown on Christian villagers in which one person was killed and several others injured, including a pregnant woman who lost her child, rights activists said.

Reached today for comment about Stephen Hawking's new book, the Universe said that Professor Hawking should receive no credit for the ideas. "You humans naively assume that 'physicists' exist, who discover theories," said the Universe. "But I did it all. Me. The transitory entity known to you as 'Stephen Hawking' is merely an epiphenomenon of the laws of nature, otherwise known as Me, the Universe itself. Mindless physical stuff, the only thing that ever really existed, or ever will exist." "Hawking, and that other guy -- what's his face, Dawkins -- have been stealing my royalties for years. I've got...

In the previous post, I discussed a recent paper in Trends in Genetics, "Causes and evolutionary significance of genetic convergence," which notes that that genetic convergence is not uncommon, even though only a "restricted number of substitutions" at the genetic level can create novel phenotypic traits. This data not only shows that functional genotypes are rare, but it also poses a much deeper problem for evolutionary thinking--one that challenges the very basis for constructing phylogenetic trees....

A line that's being widely offered on James Lee, who took hostages at the Discovery Channel on Wednesday before being shot and killed, fastens on his debt to Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. The connection to Darwin, pushed heavily in Lee's list of demands, goes on being ignored. (No surprise.) But there's even more to the Darwin angle than I previously realized. Lee's manifesto has otherwise been dismissed as mostly "a big bag of crazy." Not so fast. Lee was obviously disturbed, but the document he left behind makes sense in its weird way -- providing that you've dipped a bit...

On August 21 Karl Giberson, physics professor at Eastern Nazarene College and one of several engaged in the ever-interesting juggling act of defending "faith and science" by means of a Darwinian apologetic, now has added to his litany of misconceptions a boorish attack on Al Mohler in The Huffington Post, "How Darwin Sustains My Baptist Search for Truth." Since David Klinghoffer has provided an excellent summary of the issues involved in an earlier post to this site, Karl Giberson v Al Mohler on Darwin: The Grudge Match, they need not be restated here. The point here is to address Giberson's...

Normal 0 0 1 272 1554 12 3 1908 11.1287 0 0 0 If someone opposed to abortion were to take hostages at an abortion clinic, you can be sure the newsmedia would tenaciously track down and publicize every anti-abortion association and comment of the criminal in question. But when a gunman inspired by Darwinism takes hostages at the offices of the Discovery Channel, reporters seem curiously uninterested in fully disclosing the criminal's own self-described motivations. Most of yesterday's media reports about hostage-taker James Lee dutifully reported Lee's eco-extremism and his pathological hatred for humanity. But they also suppressed...

by Jeff Zweerink Twinkle, twinkle little star, My, oh my, how large you are. How’d you get to be so big? When gas pressure and magnetic fields should have prevented you from forming?Okay, so my poem doesn’t rhyme, but it does communicate two important issues regarding stars. First, astronomers [...]

Kenneth Richard SamplesHow can a Christian think about eschatology (the study of “last things”) in a careful and intellectually responsible manner?Let me offer three suggestions for believers to carefully consider when approaching the controversial theological topic of the “end times.”1. Understanding the Bible’s Apocalyptic LiteratureEvangelical theologian and eschatology specialist George Eldon Ladd notes the following: [...]

Rafting the waves of controversy, skink and orca evolution, the truth falls out and more in this weeks News to Note.

A concerned reader wonders how to respond to an issue that has created doubt in her husband's faith. Tim Chaffey, AiG-U.S., addresses his concerns.

Sept 03, 2010 Political conservatives have often been stunned by lone judges overturning the will of the people. This time, liberals in support of embryonic stem cell research are reeling from the decision of a federal judge that halts funding of such research that was recently energized by the President. Federal Judge Royce Lamberths August 23 ruling was based on the Dickey-Wicker Amendment of 1996 that prohibits funding for research that destroys human embryos. Suddenly, researchers happily using NIH funds (National Institutes of Health) generously made available by the Obama administration (12/17/2008, 01/31/2009, 04/07/2009) are facing the cancellation of their work in mid-stream. Natures editors were up in arms. Not expecting appellate courts to overturn Lamberths injunction, they called for subscribers to pressure Congress to act swiftly: Congress is unlikely to have a huge appetite for a bruising, highly polarizing debate in the weeks immediately preceding Novembers midterm elections. Yet time is of the essence, and a great deal is at stake. The House may revert to Republican control in November, in which case action to affirm the funding would be highly unlikely.... Congress should take up the issue speedily when it reconvenes mid-month. And if ever there was a time for scientists to let members of Congress and the public know what they think, it is now. The urgency seems strange, since most of the momentum is with ethically-untainted adult stem cell research (08/06/2010; see also list below). Furthermore, embryonic stem cell (ESC) researchers are free to seek private or corporate funding. Notwithstanding, reporters are acting as if a calamity has occurred. Nature News told a tear-jerker about Candace Kerr, whose ESC research has been thrown into limbo by the judges ruling. Similarly, PhysOrg printed a Stanford press release describing the woes of Joanna Wysocka, whose research has also been thrown into an uncertain limbo because of it. (Presumably, some limbos are certain, and others are not.) Science Magazines editors said that U.S. research on ES cells has been thrown into a tailspin by the controversial ruling that has left scientists across the country confused, upset, and angry. Even NIH director Francis Collins, an avowed Christian and theistic evolutionist, was upset. He said, This decision has just poured sand into that engine of discovery. PhysOrg reported that the Obama administration reacted quickly to appeal the decision, arguing that the scientific community and the taxpayers who have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on such research through public funding of projects which will now be forced to shut down and, in many cases, scrapped altogether. A White House spokesman said breathlessly, Were going to do everything possible to prevent the potentially catastrophic consequences of this injunction. In a similar refrain, New Scientist explored the options available to Congress to overturn this shock court ruling that has frozen US government support for work on human embryonic stem cells.Meanwhile, adult stem cell research is humming along as if nothing happened. Here are ten examples of recent findings reported in the last week or two:[10 recent reports provided]Examples of adult stem cell progress toward real benefits to people could be multiplied, but claims of positive results with embryonic stem cells often appear muted, tentative, and rare in the press. PhysOrg reported that researchers at Columbia University have coaxed ES cells into some neuron cell subtypes, but any benefit to humans was put into a nebulous future: the insight may prove useful for devising and testing future therapies for motor neuron diseases. PhysOrg also reported that Natural lung material is promising scaffold for engineering lung tissue using embryonic stem cells, but no clinical trials appear in the offing.

Are the biblical genealogies in Genesis complete as Archbishop Ussher assumed? Examining all the biblical genealogies shows that ancient genealogies are generally telescoped rather than complete.