Thinking to Believe

Catching up on the news….

Last year (March 9, 20010) President Obama signed an Executive Order overturning President Bush’s stem cell policy that allowed federal funding for stem cell research on stem cell lines created prior to August 9, 2001, but not after.  President Obama wished to expand federal funding to include stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001.

Ironically, two days after issuing his EO, President Obama signed into law the annual appropriations bill which included the Dickey-Wicker amendment.  This amendment, which has appeared in every appropriations bill since 1996, specifically prohibits the use of federal funds for research that involves the destruction of human embryos.  The amendment reads:

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In May of this year Gallup polled Americans to determine what behaviors they found morally acceptable and unacceptable.  Sixteen behaviors were evaluated, and here are the results:

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Elaine Howard Ecklund has written a book titled Science vs Religion: What Scientists Really Think.  A summary of her research findings was published in USA Today (July 19, 2010): “Myths Widen the Science-Religion Divide.”

Ecklund surveyed 1,700 natural and social scientists and conducted interviews with 275 of them.  She found that: (more…)

I have devised a test to quickly determine whether someone holds to a Nestorian Christology.  Ask, “What would have happened to Jesus’ body if the Spirit would have departed from it prior to Jesus’ death on the cross?”  If they answer that Jesus would have continued to live and function, they hold to a Nestorian Christology.  Here’s why:

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Catching up on old news….  Argentina legalized same-sex marriage July 15, 2010.  They are the first country in Latin America to do so.  The legal recognition of same-sex unions as “marriage” continues to spread.

Atheists love to assert that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of God.  I have a couple of thoughts on this.  First, how do they come to this conclusion?  Generally speaking, this conclusion follows from their definition of science.  They define science as the search for naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena.  If science is defined so as to a priori exclude agent causation as a valid explanation for any natural phenomenon, then it is no surprise that “science” will never yield any evidence for the existence of God.  It can’t by definition.  To put it in the form an argument, the atheist reasons as follows:

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It is often believed that valid/sound deductive arguments can provide certainty.  This is not quite true.  The conclusion of a valid/sound deductive argument is certain in the sense that it follows necessarily from the premises.  It does not mean, however, that the conclusion is certainly true.  Why?  The premises are usually contingent truths discovered inductively, and thus the veracity of the logically certain conclusion depends on the veracity of the probabilistic premises.  The more confidence we have in the truth of the premises, however, the more confidence we can have in the veracity of the conclusion.

Catching up on old news….

Last month archaeologists announced the discovery of the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem.  It is a small fragment of a 14^th century BC clay tablet written in ancient Akkadian.  It only contains the words “you, you were, later, to do, them,” but because it appears to be a royal document, it demonstrates that Jerusalem was a major political center prior to Israel’s take-over of the land.

In November 2008, five months after the CA Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, the people of CA passed a constitutional amendment (52% to 48% ) to define marriage as a union between men and women only.  The constitutionality of the law was challenged, and the CA Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional (it’s hard to say something in the constitution is not constitutional!).  That decision was appealed, and a federal judge just ruled yesterday that the constitutional amendment violates the U.S. Constitution.  Anyone surprised?  This is the way the gay agenda is always advanced: through the courts.  Why?  Because the democratic process isn’t working in their favor.

I have not read the judge’s decision, but I’ve read the decision of other courts who have made similar rulings and the legal rationale is usually the same.  I don’t buy the legal rationale one bit.  I do find it interesting that the judge who ruled on this gay happens to be gay.  That fact itself doesn’t necessarily mean he let his own personal biases or political agenda influence his decision, but only a fool would think it played no part at all.

The decision will be appealed.  And to whom will the case go?  None other than the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the most liberal appellate court in the nation.  I wonder how they’ll vote!?!  There’s no question in my mind that they’ll upheld the decision of the federal judge and this will be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  We’ll have to wait to see what happens.

Antonia Senior wrote a short piece for The Times (London) on abortion titled “Yes, abortion is killing.  But it’s the lesser evil.”  Just as the title suggests, Senior admits that abortion kills a human being—and even that this is evil—but thinks this evil is justified to prevent the greater evil of women being unable to control their reproduction (which, on her view, is what allows women to be equal to men in society).

She ends her essay in the following manner: “The nearly 200,000 aborted babies in the UK each year are the lesser evil, no matter how you define life, or death, for that matter. If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too.”  Do you hear what she is saying?  Feminism (or at least her understanding of it) justifies homicide.  Oh how dark the heart of mankind is!