Fighting in vain for our freedom

As I mentioned in an earlier article, our veterans fought hard for the freedom of all Americans...religious freedom included.



Yet, here is another example of our religious freedom being squelched due to the advancing secular regime. It seems to me that unless we keep our religious faith, symbols and activities ‘private’ or better yet in the 'basements of our churches', we’re going to hear about it.

I’m not sure where in the constitution it states that we can’t display a nativity scene in a city hall. The 1st Amendment explicitly states that:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

No one is “establishing a particular religion” by allowing a Nativity scene to be placed at the City Hall in question. It’s been done around the country for centuries. People of the Jewish faith display Hanukah symbols, Christians put up their nativity scenes....big deal. If the secular society is ticked off about it, why don’t they just set up an easel, stick their Scarlet Letter on it, and top it off with a Santa Hat? I mean, come on, why all the melodrama...

500 Million-Year-Old Jellyfish

The oldest known fossil of a 500 million-year-old jellyfish was found in Utah. Wow...looks just like the modern jellyfish on the right. It's interesting that jellyfish have pretty much always looked like jellyfish, birds have pretty much always looked like birds, etc., etc.. Yet, we're also supposed to *imagine* that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Crazy stuff.

From the article:

The rich detail of the fossils allowed the team to compare the cnidarian (the phylum to which jellyfish, coral and sea anemones belong) fossils to modern jellyfish. The comparison confirmed that the fossils were, in fact, jellyfish and pushed the earliest known occurrence of definitive jellyfish back from 300 million to 505 million years ago.

The fossils also offer insights into the rapid species diversification that occurred during the Cambrian radiation, which began around 540 million years ago and when most animal groups start to show up in the fossil record, Lieberman said.
The complexity of these early jellyfish seems to suggest that either the complexity of modern jellyfish developed rapidly about 500 million years ago, or that jellyfish are even older and developed long before that time.

Over at Young Cosmos you can find recently discovered fossilized imprints of 330-million-year-old salamander-like amphibians. Kinda cool...

How Did Chemical Constituents Essential To Life Arise On Primitive Earth?

Well, that's a hell of a good question.

And, scientists are working feverishly to figure it out...

Experiments show that simple molecules can combine chemically rather than biologically to form the building blocks of DNA, the key component of all life forms. These processes might have taken place on primitive earth, but how they occur is an unsolved puzzle.

Chemists at the University of Georgia have now proposed the first detailed, feasible mechanism to explain how adenine, one of the four building blocks of DNA, might be built up from the combination of five cyanide molecules. The investigation is based on extensive quantum chemical computations over several years.

"Just where these biomolecules originated isn't known," said Paul von Ragué Schleyer, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia. "One can only speculate. They could have formed from smaller molecules present on primitive Earth, either very slowly over millions of years or rapidly before the Earth cooled down. Asteroids may have brought them from outer space, but how did biomolecules form there?"

They ought to sign up Dawkins to help them in their effort. He'll add a selfish gene here and a few memes there, and the next thing you know, the questions surrounding abiogensis will be a thing of the past!

I applaud their efforts in this area of research, and I look forward to the day when they finally realize that nature does indeed present more than the "illusion" of design.

Halloween goodies

Help! I'm surrounded by Halloween treats, and I can't resist them!!

UGH......!

It's time to start dieting again, and the Holidays are the perfect time to count calories or the gorging gets out of control.

Opiate for the Masses!

Sorry, but I can't resist passing this on.







From the article:

As Dinesh D’Souza said about the atheist’s faith in no faith in his new book What’s So Great About Christianity: “Atheism is not primarily an intellectual revolt, it’s a moral one.” God, that’s got to hurt you guys because you pride yourself on being so wise . . . so sophisticated . . . and here he/we are saying that your atheism rises out of hedonism instead of intellectualism. Ouch. Need a bandaid?

Look, I’m not buying that the atheists’ altruistic self-professed pursuit of reason is what undergirds their conclusion that God does not exist; I believe it’s because they want to believe that they’ll never be called into eternal accountability for their temporal actions by a holy God. Talk about an opiate for the masses!

...

• Biologist Stephen Jay Gould: “We may yearn for a higher answer—but none exists. This explanation, though superficially troubling if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating and exhilarating.”

Biologist Julian Huxley, the grandson of Darwin’s buddy and ally Thomas Henry Huxley, put it this way: “The sense of spiritual relief which comes from rejecting the idea of God as a supernatural being is enormous.”

• Julian’s brother Aldous Huxley, not to be outdone by his bro, stated, “I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently I assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption . . . For myself as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation . . . liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”

Bertrand Russell: “The worst feature of the Christian religion is its attitude toward sex.”

• Christopher Hitchens: “The divorce between the sexual life and fear . . . can now at last be attempted on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse.”

I've heard many atheists in on-line forums mention that they have no interest is following any guidelines set up by our Creator...as if it would put a detrimental halt to their present lifestyle or something.

An atheist friend of my once wrote the following at a militant blogsite:

And even if God were shown to exist, so flipping what? Why would I be obligated to accept his "authority"? By whose authority is God God? Nobody ever answers those questions. Everything that we know about abusive and dysfunctional relationships goes right out the window when we're talking about God. I think it's pathetic for people to get so excited about a pretend "authority" rather than get excited about their own lives and what they can accomplish.

How does one politely say (as I've been tempted to, but never have yet), "But I simply don't want to be anything like you"?

Honestly, I think this is what it boils down to for many atheists. They kick logic out the window, and let themselves become so enchanted with the godless aspect of evolution that they truly believe it relieves them from God's authority.

The really unfortunate part is that His authority is easy to live under. I've found that God's "rules" were presented for a reason. When we live as the Creator intended for us to live, life is much more fulfilling.

But then what do I know...I'm just a "veritable abecedarian simpleton who believes in God and Christ simply because I'm straight goofy." (LOL...read the article)


HT: DaveScot

Depression setting in...

I rarely watch TV, but I lounged around for a while today and decided to catch up on the news and see what was on PBS. After two hours, I felt completely drained...

1. Hilary Clinton sounds like a shoe in for the Presidency.
2. Iran in now in the Bush administration's sites...that's all we need - more fuel for the fire.
3. A documentary about scientists working with the religious community in order to help them understand global warming (evidently if you're religious, you need help understanding anything).
4. Colony Collapse Disorder among the bee population...which I find almost more threatening than global warming.

Sigh...

James Watson Retires

Well, it looks like the infamous James Watson has decided to call it quits.




From the article:

James Watson, famous for DNA research but widely condemned for recent comments about intelligence levels among blacks, retired Thursday from his post at a prestigious research institution.

.........

Watson shared a Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins in 1962 for co-discovering the structure of the DNA molecule. He is one of America's most prominent scientists.

He also seemed to consider science as a means to end religious thought...

“Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours..."

To each his own...

Teaching tips from Dr. Massimo Pigliucci

Pop over to Young Cosmos where I link to Pigliucci's latest teaching tips to eradicate "pseudoscience" from the classrooms. Gosh, I know a KSU professor who will just absolutely LOVE this article from Dr. P.

I swear, after reading his article, the first thing that comes to my mind is a quote from DaveScot (Uncommon Descent):

What’s out of line is that 60% of academic scientists self-identify as non-religious. They like to think they are irreligious because they’re smarter than everyone else. The truth is that they’re more dysfunctional than everyone else and have to live in a sheltered little world where they all think alike, act alike, and pat each other on the back constantly about how very smart they are.

Now, mind you, I certainly don’t believe that all scientists fit the description above, but I’ve been involved in endless discussions with pro-Darwin scientists on-line, and this description fits many of them to a tee.

I like the "Darwin Rules" button....that cracks me up.

ID on Testing, Predictions, and Falsifiability

When you enter an online science forum where the topics of ID and evolution are being discussed, what are usually the first claims that Darwinists make?

They assert that ID is not science because...

1. It's not testable
2. It offers no predictions
3. It's not falsifiable

Here's what you do when that occurs: First of all, tell them they're full of baloney...



...then, to save time (because believe me, you will have to address these issues over and over and over) link to the posts below and tell them to find a better way to spend their time than to try to convince you of something you know to be incorrect.

Intelligent Design is Empirically Testable and Makes Predictions

Is Intelligent Design Testable?

What is Falsifiability and can ID be Falsified?

Miller on Witness Stand: ID Isn't Falsifiable, So It Isn't Science; Plus, We've Already Falsified It

Intelligent Design is Falsifiable

See, here's the deal... Darwinists simply cannot absorb the fact that they're just blind to the facts about ID. I'm thinking that this phenomena is due to some evolutionary glitch in the Darwinist mentality that renders them incapable of accepting the facts in regard to these issues.


HT: Robert Crowther at ENV

"God is not Great" by Christopher Hitchens

Obviously writen by an atheist, most of my readers are probably quite familiar with Christopher Hitchens latest book. I highly recommend reading books written by atheists, and then follow up by reading the Christian responses to those books. I've personally found that this type of exercise strengthens my faith considerably.

I haven't had time to read Hitchen's latest just yet, but I ran across this review by Mark D Roberts that you'll want to read in accordance with the book.

I've read Roberts' latest book titled Can We Trust the Gospels, which is an excellent Christian resource. I really appreciate his mannerism in that he doesn't portray arrogance in his approach of the issues, but rather humility. It's also very apparent that he shows no dislike or hatred toward those who disagree with his faith beliefs, which I always find refreshing. Life is too short to carry such furored hatred for those whose beliefs may differ from our own.

Swapping Awe

Interestingly, the biological community regularly sings the praises of natural selection and the wonders it has wrought while admitting that it has no comprehension of how those wonders were wrought. Natural selection, we are assured, is cleverer than we are or can ever hope to be. Darwinists have merely swapped one form of awe for another. They’ve not eliminated it. - William Dembski

I've thought about this fact innumerable times in the past. Listening to Dawkins talk of natural selection is almost a spiritual experience.

Origin of Vision Discovered!

Linky:

You are reading these words right now because 600 million years ago, an aquatic animal called a Hydra developed light-receptive genes—the origin of animal vision.

Yup...for sure.

[my Hydra derived eyes are rolling...big time]

These findings, detailed in a recent issue of the online journal PLoS ONE, counter arguments by anti-evolutionists that evolution can only eliminate traits and cannot produce new features, the authors say.

“Our paper shows that such claims are simply wrong," said co-author Todd Oakley, also a UC Santa Barbara biologist. "We show very clearly that specific mutational changes in a particular duplicated gene (opsin) allowed the new genes to interact with different proteins in new ways. Today, these different interactions underlie the genetic machinery of vision, which is different in various animal groups.”

Something just really smells fishy about this claim...extrapolation of the facts seem a bit over the top, but what do I know...

Brownback's Out

Looks like Brownback is withdrawing from the GOP race.

Ode to a Troll (and you know who you are)

The Law of Garbage Trucks

Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you.

When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally...just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did.

How often do we let "Garbage Trucks" run right over us? And how often do we take their garbage and spread it to other people: at work, at home, on the streets? I've decided it's my goal to never let that happen.

I going to start envisioning garbage trucks in a simliar way in which the little boy in "The Sixth Sense," said, "I see Dead People."

When "I see Garbage Trucks", I see the load they're carrying. I see them coming to drop it off. I don't make it a personal thing; I just smile, wave, wish them well, and I move on.

[revised from an unknown author]

What's all the Fuss about Methodological Naturalism?

A few weeks ago, I attended a lecture on methodological naturalism which was presented by Keith Miller, a geology professor at Kansas State University. I finally found the time to finish up a review of that lecture, and it can be found at Young Cosmos.

More on the Koonin article

Yesterday, I reported on an article written by Eugene Koonin, titled "The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution."

Robert Crowther, at Evolution News and Views, has posted commentary in regard to Nick Matzke's reaction to the article. Matzke was, until recently, employeed by the militant Darwinist group, National Center for Science Education. It's interesting how, in the minds of guys like Matzke, Darwinism is unquestionable regardless of the glaring lack of evidence.

When I read Matzke's comments along with the article yesterday, I just shook my head in disbelief. It doesn't matter if the evidence isn't there, he'll just imagine the problems away with fabulous just-so stories.

Will Darwinism end with a Big Bang?

Some evolutionists, is seems, are beginning to realize that Darwinism, as we know it, may be pointing to a dead end. It's interesting to see that some scientists are starting to contemplate other scenarios.

Please keep your faith beliefs confined to the basements of your churches

It seems every day we hear about another incident in which some group is trying to banish God from the public eye. It seems they just won't be happy unless they can be reassured they they will never run across a public display that may symbolize or attest to someone elses faith beliefs (Christianity in particular). I've been in many on-line forums or blogs where posters are even irate over teachers wearing cross necklaces in their child's classroom!

What ever happened to the adherence of 1st amendment rights.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It seems that many of these protesting groups only consider the first 10 words of the amendment.

Evidently a ruling has been passed that puts a ban against the word "God" being used as religious expressions on flag certificates. An Ohio lawmaker urged Pelosi to review and reverse the rule.

First amendment rights come into play here, and if this rule is not reversed we run into situations like the following:

Turner said the constituent, Paul Larochelle, and his son Andrew had requested a flag flown over the Capitol on Sept. 11 which Andrew, 17, was to give to his grandfather after being inducted into the Eagle Scouts.

They asked that the certificate of authenticity accompanying the flag read: "this flag was flown in honor of Marcel Larochelle, my grandfather, for his dedication and love of God, country and family." The Architect's office, citing its own rules, returned the certificate with the word "God" excised.

"The word 'God' is carved into the walls of both chambers of Congress," Turner said in a statement. "The Architect is the custodian of the Capitol and currently maintains several religious symbols in the building. If permitted, removing 'God' from the Capitol flag ceremonies will be the precedent for removing 'God' from the Capitol, and this cannot be permitted."

ID in a nutshell

Here is a really excellent post written by BarryA over at Uncommon Descent in regard to why he supports ID.