I'm an equal opportunity opponent of despots!

I heard a few days ago that Lt. Governor, Casey Cagle, threatened to use his position as president of the state Senate to kill a proposed sales tax exemption on jet fuel. The move was aimed at Delta Air Lines after their recent announcement they would no longer offer discounts to NRA members. Then, this morning, I hear that lawmakers officially struck down the exemption yesterday. From Reuters.com, we read the following:

Delta said it was ending a discount program for NRA members and had asked the gun rights group to remove its information from the group’s website after the Feb. 14 slaying of 17 students.... Georgia Republicans had criticized the airline’s move to cut its ties to the NRA. They were led by Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle, president of the state senate, who vowed to kill any tax legislation that benefited Delta. The bill that passed the Georgia House of Representatives and Senate on Thursday had previously included tax exemption language that had been projected to save Delta some $40 million a year in jet fuel tax.

Really, people?  OK, I know this isn't rocket science but come on!  The first amendment is supposed to protect us against government retribution when we speak out on certain issues. If the NRA speaks out against gun control, people have the right to protest them. If a company like Delta Air Lines decides not to offer discounts to members of the NRA, that's their right. I don't have to like it. I don't have to fly on Delta. I can go on social media and tell everyone who will listen that they should boycott Delta because of their actions toward the NRA. That is what freedom looks like. When government officials use the power of their office to punish a company exercising its God given rights of speech and association, that is what tyranny looks like.

A straightforward reading of the First Amendment shows that it specifically forbids the government from infringing on our right to free speech or association. In other words, the First Amendment doesn't restrict what Delta can do or what the NRA or what I can do; it restricts what the government can do. I will also remind you that we're talking about gun control – a heated political issue. So GA Republicans are specifically punishing Delta Airlines because of its political speech! How much more blatant of a violation does this have to be before more conservatives speak out against it?!

It was just a few years ago when I spoke out against my own state of KY for trying to take away a sales tax exemption from the Ark Encounter. How is this any different? It was Democrats then but I'm an equal opportunity opponent of despots. As they say, "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."  I do not overlook tyranny just because the tyrants have a little “R” after their names.

People have the right to be stupid and Delta has the right to offend millions of NRA members. They will have to live with their decision when the offended members stop flying on Delta or start calling for boycotts. But when they suffer political reprisal because of their position, they will have an ally in me. I do not want the government choosing sides in political debates, even if they happen to be on my side this time.

Further reading:

More Liberal Bigotry

No Christian Owned Businesses Allowed In Boston!

Liberals don't understand rights

Too Quick to Forgive

Is creationism driving young people out of the church?

In my last post, I made some comments about an articled titled, 5 Ways Creationism Is Bad For Christianity. Just recently, someone I am friends with on FaceBook linked an article from the Huffington Post titled, Creationists Drive Young People Out Of The Church. The headline might sound similar to my last post but I'm going to make different points. Bear with me.

My first thought when I read that article was that it is fake news. It's not fake in the sense that I don't believe it's correct (although it is very misleading). I'm saying it's fake in the sense that it's not news. Does anyone really believe a left-leaning site like The Huffington Post is at all concerned with young people leaving the church? The point of the story isn't, “What are we going to do about these young people leaving the church?” It's more like, “Ha, ha. Look at how stupid these young people think creationists are.” The author seems to want to shame people away from believing in creation. It's a common tactic which I've written about years ago. Consider this quote from the first paragraph:

Particularly disturbing is the finding that only 27 percent of evangelical pastors “strongly disagree” with the statement that the earth is 6,000 years old.

Do you see what I mean? The author finds a belief in a young earth, “particularly disturbing.” In spite of its headline, the article is less about young adults leaving the church and more about getting Christians to stop believing in creation. But the liberal bias and shoddy reporting of The Huffington Post is not the point of my post today. I was more interested in what my FaceBook friend said. When he posted the link to the article, he commented:

Young Earth Creationists need to think about this.

Now, I can't claim to know exactly what this person was thinking when he said this. He seems to be making the same point that unbelieving evolutionists make when they write similar comments; he seems to be saying to creationists, “Just stop it because you look silly.” Maybe this person was trying to make a legitimate point that completely escapes me. I've thought and thought about his comment and the only thing I can conclude is that it is a blatant appeal to consequences.

Let me ask this: if a six-day, literal, miraculous creation is the correct understanding of the Genesis account, then what else is there think about? If I tell people the truth, and they leave the church, am I wrong for having spoken the truth? Should I not tell the truth for fear of offending someone? What else about the truth should I water down? What if people leave the church because I tell them Jesus was rose from the dead? Another reason cited for people leaving the church is that they are uncomfortable with the exclusivity of Christianity. So then are we to teach universalism instead? Jesus is one way but any way is fine.

If people leave the Church because we believe the Bible about creation, that does nothing to prove a belief in a miraculous creation is wrong. And if creation is correct, then why should we compromise on the truth of it in order to make the Bible seem compatible with the incorrect theory of evolution?

Articles like this one and comments like that made by my FaceBook friend are pointless. It's a worthless argument. But I have something to say to Christians who make these arguments: I think you're doing far more harm than good with your compromise!

The Bible commands us to love God with our minds (Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, et al). Evolution is a worthless theory. It is rife with difficulties, it makes no useful predictions, and it has made no contribution to any scientific advancement made in the last century. If a young person is wavering in his faith because he sees a conflict between “science” and the Bible, you need to know how to defend the Bible rather than giving credence to some useless, fairytale dreamed up by men how proudly boast that miracles never happen. Do you think it's helpful to say to an inquisitive youth, “Well, the Bible doesn't always mean what it says”? I think young people are leaving the church because they don't see the church as having any authority. When Christians pick and choose which parts of the Bible they will believe, it sets a bad example that these young people can see.

Jesus faced this same problem during His ministry. He preached the truth and people turned away because of it. John 6:53-68:

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.” These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum. Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.

Jesus spoke the truth. People left following Him because they didn't want to hear the truth. I will be like Peter and accept the truth no matter how difficult it seems. I will not be like those Christians who compromise on the truth of the Bible for the sake of making it seem more appealing.

Is creationism bad for Christianity?

Allen Marshall O'Brien wrote an article on Irenicon titled, 5 Ways Creationism Is Bad For Christianity. Most of it is the same weak arguments I've heard before but, since theistic evolutionists keep trotting out these tired points, I have to keep answering them. Before I get into the points, though, let me just say I'm really getting tired of having to confront other Christians about what should be a non-issue. Evolution is a waste of time in science and, frankly, while many people may believe in evolution, the majority of those don't really give a whit about it. They're not “evolutionists.” I only discuss the issue because there are militant critics out there that use evolution to attack the credibility of the Bible. It's sad that some Christians feel it's important to “reconcile the Bible” with such a useless and godless theory. Evolution is an obstacle to the Faith and the time I spend addressing stupid points like the following is time I could have spent reaching lost people with the truth.

//Sigh// Anyway, here we go.

1. It suppresses critical thinking. Demanding conclusions which rise from evidence is part and parcel of human reasoning. If Christians say, along with Ken Ham, that no evidence could ever change their mind about Genesis 1-3 (or anything else for that matter), then they turn off the only function by which we arrive at logical thought and rational conversation.

There's an old Abbott and Costello skit where Lou “proves” to Bud that 7 x 13 = 28. Obviously, he's wrong but he reaches the same answer by adding, multiplying, and dividing and completely stymies Bud. I see evolution in much that same light. It's a clever explanation of the “facts” and some people have fallen for it completely. It's still absolutely wrong.

If something is true, then it's true regardless of how persuasively anyone might argue to contrary. God created the world miraculously. That's the truth. I will never let someone use clever stories like evolution to make me to believe in a lie.

I would like to ask Mr. O'Brien if he believes the Bible or not? I mean, what sort of evidence might convince him that Jesus isn't Lord? Might he ever change his mind about the resurrection? I admit that I believe the Bible. I believe that Jesus is the Risen Savior. I believe these things for the same reason people believe anything – I'm convinced it's the truth. Now that I've accepted Jesus as my Savior, no criticism will ever make me stop believing. For some reason, O'Brien thinks that's a bad thing.

2. It consciously promotes a lying God. The creation of a “mature” Earth is one way creationists attempt to explain a whole host of scientific evidence. But isn’t it troubling to think that God should make a universe which only looks old and life that looks evolved, then bequeath humanity a contradictory account of the real “truth” on the situation?

On the day that God made Adam, I wonder how old Adam “looked”? Obviously, God created Adam as a mature man who was able to walk and talk and speak. He commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply meaning they were post-pubescent. Was God being deceitful making a man fully-grown even though he was only 1 day old? God made trees with fruit on them ready to eat. Just imagine Adam questioning God saying, “Lord, trees this big with fruit take years to grow so, when you say you made them in a day, I know you mean many years because You're not a deceiver.”

This argument is absolutely ridiculous. If God created a working universe in six days and told us that He did it in 6 days, that's not being deceitful. The irony is that if God did create the universe over billions of years but said He did it in six days, then He really would be a deceiver. Theistic evolutionists believe in a lying god!

3. It disrespects the legitimacy of human culture and the meaning-making power of literature. Ken Ham has said time and again that the Bible rises and falls with the scientific viability of Genesis. In fact, I’d venture to guess that most avid creationists feel this way; they deny that God could/would speak to humankind through ancient, scientifically inaccurate, mythology.

Jesus often taught using parables. When He did this, it was clear that He was not speaking something that was literally true. The Psalms are a collection of poetry that teach spiritual, though not necessarily, literal truths. The Bible uses many literary devices like metaphor, simile, and personification. However, the Bible also talks about historical facts like the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In Luke's chronology from Adam to Jesus, at what point do the people stop becoming myth and start becoming real? At Adam? Noah? Abraham? David? Jesus? How do I know Jesus wasn't a literary device? If we begin assigning the genre of “figurative” to passages that are intended to be literal, then the entire Bible becomes suspect. When we read the Bible, we understand it like we would any other written work – the way the author intended it. Some parts are figurative, some parts are literal, and it's not really that hard to tell the difference.

And by the way, I'm not that concerned with respecting the legitimacy of human culture. I am much more concerned with correctly understanding the revealed word of the Creator.

4. It hinders our vision of Jesus. Tethering creationism to Christianity places an unnecessary obstacle between us and Christ. The slippery-slope rhetoric of creationist pastors and theologians has regrettably set up a false dichotomy between evolution and “true” Christianity.

Jesus believed in the creation and the Flood. When asked about marriage, He cited the creation of Adam and Eve. He mentioned Abel by name in Luke 11:51. He compared His second coming to Flood of Noah. He talks about the events of Genesis as though they were historical events. Conversely, He never suggested even once that the books of Moses were meant to be figurative. At times, He confronted the Pharisees on their abuse of the Law. When He cited Old Testament passages to them, He always relied on a clear understanding of the text and never once appealed to some figurative meaning.

If Jesus treated Genesis as history, what does it say about Him when theistic evolutionists say none of it happened? Why would anyone need the last Adam if there never really was a first Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45)? If His return shall happen suddenly, like the Flood of Noah, what does it mean if there wasn't a Flood?

Theistic evolution destroys the gospel.

5. And yeah, it makes us look really, really silly. The silliest (read: saddest) part of fighting, speaking, preaching, and spending millions of dollars touting creationism is that our fights, speeches, sermons, and millions of dollars are needed elsewhere.

The risk of looking silly is hardly a reason to compromise on God's word. Indeed, Matthew 5:11-12 says that we should rejoice when people mock, insult, and persecute us because we will have a great reward in heaven. I guess that means Christians always have the last laugh.

What else in the Bible might make us look silly for believing it? Are we silly to believe Jesus turned water into wine? Could a person believe it didn't happen and still be a Christian? Maybe. What about feeding the crowd or healing the sick or walking on water? What if I believed in a Jesus that did NO miracles? A Jesus that did no miracles is not the Son of God revealed in Scripture but is just an insane, lying rabbi who was executed along with a couple of thieves and is still buried somewhere. Likewise, the god of evolution is an impotent god who is bound by the physical laws he supposedly created and is indistinguishable from dumb luck. I will not let scoffers shame me into believing in some farce of a god.

Regardless, O'Brien is missing a major point. Richard Dawkins once said that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. The rate of atheism among scientists is greater than the general population. Secular theories of origins are obstacles that hinder people from coming to the faith. Theistic evolution and theories that compromise the Bible to make it “compatible with science,” do harm to those people who don't think God is necessary to explain the origin of the universe, of life, or of man. Telling them that God guides evolution sounds as compelling as saying gravity is accomplished by angels dragging the planets in their course. Theistic evolutionists should stop wasting their time trying to explain how “six days” (as in Exodus 20:11) really means billions of years.  It makes them look silly.

What do liberal news media have in common with clowns?

I'm going to take a short break from my series to interject my thoughts about the alternative media – aka “fake news outlets,” aka CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, The NY Times, The Washington Post, et al.

Do I need to say that these supposed news organizations have a liberal bias? I mean, really? Everybody knows it. And yes, I mean EVERYBODY knows. I know it. You know it. Anyone who watches these shows knows it. Their fans know it. Their critics know it. Elected officials know it. Democrats know it. Republicans know it. Even the so-called journalists who report on these shows know it. Do you understand what I'm saying? EVERYBODY knows these organizations are liberal. But what is absolutely hilarious is that they keep trying to pretend they're unbiased.

Pretend for a moment that President Trump holds a press conference and a reporter shows up wearing a clown nose.

President Trump asks, “Why are you wearing a clown nose?”

The reporter stares back straight-faced and says, “I'm not wearing a clown nose.”

Trump presses him, “Look. You're sitting right there wearing a clown nose. Everyone can see it. Why are you trying to deny it?”

The reporter begins talking over the President, “Why are you trying to pivot off the subject by talking about me? No one is wearing a clown nose. You're just trying to avoiding answering the hard questions.”

Trump throws up his hands in exasperation. Shaking his head, he humors the reporter, “OK, what's your question?”

Doesn't that sound ridiculous? I'm telling you that it's not that far-fetched. When these so-called “news networks” try to say they report the news objectively, they sound to me as ridiculous as a reporter denying he's wearing a clown nose. It's so obvious that their denial just makes them seem all the more foolish.  After a certain point, you just can't take anything they say seriously.

I don't get it. You are all liberal. You KNOW you are. If you want to be cheerleaders for leftists, then be the cheerleaders. I'd understand that and some people like to hear the cheerleaders for their cause. But please, please, please, stop the charade. Why do you all continue the farce? You're not fooling anyone and it's becoming embarrassing. I know you're not embarrassed, of course, but I'm embarrassed for you.

Just stop. OK?

Rant over. Carry on!

Let me tell you what I find offensive...

So, I'm having breakfast with my wife at McDonald's on Saturday and I read this headline on FaceBook: Community Shocked Over Christian Church Sign: 'Muhammad not Greater than Jesus.' And they aren't kidding when they say shocked. One resident, Eric Cohn, is reported as saying, “I literally had to stop and back up and make sure I saw what I saw, and I was profoundly offended and upset by it.” Cohn also felt moved to write a letter to the editor of the local paper where he said, “Disparaging another group’s God is completely out of line.... Please, take it down — now.”

Another offended resident said in the same editorial, “I want to complain openly about the marquis in front of the Missionary Baptist Church on Belmont Drive. The message on the west bound side of the sign promotes ignorance, bigotry and hatred, none of which are regarded as true Christian values.”

In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father but by me.” The message of Christ is one of exclusivity. There is only one name by which men may be saved: it's Jesus – not Allah, not Muhammad, not Buddha, not Confucius. If Jesus is right, then all these other religions are wrong. Liberals say I'm intolerant but the truth pretty much is exclusive. I find it offensive – and more than a little hypocritical – that liberals say I'm bigoted and intolerant for believing the words of Christ. They say I'm wrong for believing someone else's religion is wrong yet liberals can't see how they are calling my religion wrong.

Even the mayor of Hood River, OR, had an opinion on the sign. Mayor Blackburn said, “I was really annoyed and sad. I am annoyed that in this political season there's a solid case of ugly going on. I think it norms up this kind of behavior like 'oh it's okay to be a bigot now.'”

The other thing that offends me is when elected, public officials abuse their office. Is this mayor aware that the Constitution protects our freedom of speech and the right to freely exercise our religion? If private citizens want to write letters to the editor or protest a church, they have a right to do so. But when the mayor, a representative of the state, uses the sway of his office to mock and ridicule the religious speech of a church, it erodes our liberty. Mayor Blackburn is a despot, a tyrant, and an offender of freedom!

OK, now fast forward to Sunday. My wife and I are having lunch after church and see the news of the shooting in FL. A radical Muslim called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS before shooting more than 100 people, killing 50 of them (later it was amended to 49). How sad.

I find it strange that the “peaceful” religion of Islam continuously spawns worshipers who would shoot people in a night club, burn Christians alive, behead people on TV, fly planes into buildings, and strap bombs to themselves to blow people up in a mall, while brain-damaged liberals continuously call for tolerance. Yet let a Christian church puts out a sign that says Jesus is greater than Muhammad and militant bleeding-hearts seem ready to riot. Really?

Oh, and I'm getting a little offended that the shooting is being characterized as an attack on gays. It's sort of like the President calling the Ft. Hood shooting a case of workplace violence. This was a jihadist. He would have found any reason to shoot innocent people. If it weren't a gay nightclub, it could have been a bus full of first-grade kids. It didn't matter to the shooter. At the end of the day, he wanted to create terror. If we don't identify the problem for what it is, it only distracts from the issue. We need to deal with radical Muslims who want to kill all of us; this is not the time to talk about gay rights or gun control.

It is God's will that we should all come to believe in the Son and have life (John 6:40). It is the plan of terrorists to kill non-believers. Christians want the lost to hear the truth. We want to reach them with the gospel – the good news. There is life in Jesus and none other. We plead with people, we reason with them, we pray for them – we don't shoot them. Are liberals really so thinned skinned that they're offended by a sign that says the Muslims are wrong?

I'm offended by stupidity.

It's OK to say someone is wrong!

It's the law statewide in WA but will soon be coming to a restroom near you – the end to gender discrimination! What discrimination? They mean the barbaric practice of having separate facilities (restrooms, locker rooms, spas, etc) for men and women. How archaic it is that modest people do not want to disrobe in front of people whose gender is different than their own!

It's the usual tactic of liberals to force the majority to kowtow to the minority. Last time it was gay marriage. It wasn't enough that a gay couple had the right to have a ceremony and call themselves married, liberals wanted to make everyone else to treat them as married. Now they're doing the same thing with gender-confused persons. They can't just pretend to be another gender, we're being forced to accept their stated gender.

The problems I have with this are the same problems being discussed by everyone else. Why do I have to share a locker room with a woman because she's confused about her gender? And what's to stop a grown man from using these laws to spy on little girls in restrooms? If a man wants to wear a dress and say he's a woman, he can. There wasn't a law against it. But now there are laws that say women have to welcome him into their locker rooms and restrooms. What about my rights? What about my right to privacy? What about my right of association? What about my right of religion? It's the majority that is made to feel uncomfortable for the sake of sparing the feelings of the minority. It's insane.

But none of this is really the point of my post. Instead, it's about this twisted attitude of tolerance that says we must accept people for who they are. Here's a short video that really drives this point home.

At the end of the video, the interviewer sums it up well. How can we discuss complicated issues if one side believes no one should ever say another person is wrong? A 5'9”, grown, white man could say he's a 6'5”, 7-year-old, Chinese woman and enter the first grade. You can see the college students hemming and hawing in the video, struggling to be tolerant of what they knew were ridiculous claims, but they just couldn't bring themselves to say the interviewer was wrong. It's funny, because I'm sure these same students would have no problems telling me I'm wrong to believe in creation or that Christians are wrong to call someone a sinner.  It's my opinion that this brand of tolerance is dangerous. 

I've heard about a strange disorder called xenomelia (literally, “foreign limb” in Greek). People with this disorder do not identify with one or more of their extremities. They might feel like their foot, for example, doesn't really belong to them. Victims of xenomelia will often ask doctors to amputate the intruding limb. Fortunately, most doctors will refuse.

My point in raising xenomelia is to demonstrate that the correct treatment for victims of dysphoria is not necessarily to indulge their disorder. Since we don't amputate the healthy limbs of people with xenomelia, why should we perform gender-reassignment surgery on people with gender-identity disorders? From a Federalist article we read:

[A] study commissioned by The Guardian of the UK in 2004 reviewed 100 studies and reported that a whopping 20 percent (one fifth) of transgenders regret changing genders.... The review of 100 studies also revealed that many transgenders remained severely distressed and even suicidal after the gender change operation. Suicide and regret remain the dark side of transgender life.

I'm not a medical doctor – but neither are most of the liberals (or these college students) who are pleading for tolerance and acceptance of the transgendered. It seems to me the jury is still out on the best treatment of gender-confused people and this rush to normalize them isn't helpful to anyone, especially the victims. I believe we've let political forces influence our medical decisions. It will not surprise me if laws are passed that ban counseling for gender-identity disorders if the goal is to rid the victims of the desire to change genders.

But this phenomenon to “not judge” people for how they identify themselves isn't limited to gender-identity. We see similar “tolerance” of other types of body modification like tattooing, piercings, gauging, and even more extreme examples. There are also examples of people obsessed with improving appearance through plastic surgery and boob jobs. At what point do we tell people they're harming themselves? Or are we just supposed to indulge any behavior because that's how they identify themselves?

Yet more than all that, I feel this attitude is especially dangerous in the Church. How many times have you heard Christians say something like, “we have to hate the sin but love the sinner”? I agree, but part of loving the sinner is to tell them they are sinners in need of forgiveness. We cannot water down the gospel by telling people, “Jesus loves you just as you are.” If we allow people to think it's OK if they are gay or a philanderer or a drug user or whatever other vices they may have, we're telling them they don't need a Savior!

1 John 1:8-9 says, If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The key to the gospel is repentance. Unless a person is convicted of his sin, he will not feel the need to repent. If we are telling people they have no sin, the Bible says we're lying! If we love people, we need to tell them the truth. It's for their own good! It's OK to tell people they're wrong!

Evolutionists treat science like a religion

I was watching another debate on YouTube the other day. It's no wonder that more evolutionists won't debate creationists; they routinely get trounced. I've heard their excuses – that creationists are professional debaters, they don't want to give creationism a forum, or that such debates seem to legitimize creationism by giving it equal time with evolution. I think it's just because they're routinely embarrassed by their poor performance. But I digress.

During this particular debate, the evolutionist made the comment that creationists' treatment of the evidence “violates the rules of science.” That phrased piqued my interest. I googled the phrase and found a site by Neil deGrasse Tyson where he gives 5 Simple Rules of Science:

(1) Question authority.

(2) Think for yourself.

(3) Test ideas by the evidence gained from observation and experiment.

(4) Follow the evidence wherever it leads.

(5) Remember: you could be wrong.

Such a list begs the question: who made these the “rules”? Of course, these are simply his rules; other scientists might make a different list of rules. So they're not really “rules,” are they? They're more like opinions of what the rules should be. There is no immutable, objective, absolute standard that says what science is or how it should be approached.

Look at that list again and think about what Tyson is saying in rule #3, for example. Now ask yourself, where is his scientific evidence for idea that we should test ideas with scientific evidence? It's not an easy question to answer, is it? His “rule” has more of a philosophic premise rather than an objective scientific basis. Tyson has a secular paradigm, a starting point that he uses in his approach to science but obviously his paradigm isn't grounded in science. He, and others like him, have shaped a brand of science that conforms with a religion of naturalism.  These elitists think they have a monopoly on what science is and they think they have the right to qualify what counts as evidence.

I've seen this many times before. From Scientific American, we find this gem:

"Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism--it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms.

The irony in this statement is that seeking only natural mechanisms is more of a philosophical principle rather than a scientific one. Note their use of the word, tenet: it's a belief – a dogma! There is no scientific evidence for it, no place in the universe where the tenet can be observed or tested.

Evolutionists treat science like a religion. They are zealots with a unshakable faith in materialism. No observation, no piece of evidence, and no argument will ever be considered if it contradicts the doctrine that the cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be.

In a NY Times book review, Richard Lewontin made this most amazing admission:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Evolutionists do the very thing they accuse creationists of doing; they start with a conclusion, then seek evidence to support it. They may not know how the universe began but they know God didn't do it because that's not “scientific.” They claim they will go wherever the evidence leads but they have decided in advance that it can never lead to a supernatural explanation. In spite of all their scientific rhetoric, every evolutionist approaches science from a starting point that can't bear scientific scrutiny. There is no scientific evidence to support their core belief of naturalism!

The best argument atheists have is that they have no argument!

1 Peter 3:15 commands us to always be ready to give an answer to every man who asks a reason for the hope that is in us. It doesn't say to only answer the easy questions. Indeed, the more difficult the question, the more urgent should our answers be. This is the reason I blog. It's true I devote most of my blog to the creation/evolution debate but that's because I believe evolution is the greatest challenge to the Faith in our time. Even so, I'm always on the look out for other criticisms of the Bible.

In my quest to answer the best arguments against Christianity, I came across a forum with a thread titled, A Library of the Best 40 Atheist Arguments Against God. Woohoo!! The mother-load. If I'm looking to answer the most challenging arguments against Christianity, here are the 40 best ones. At least, that's what the list's author said but as I began reading them, I didn't think the list lived up to its name. Or maybe I'm being too critical and there really aren't any good arguments for atheism. Hmm.

Anyway, in a list of the “best” arguments atheists use against God, what is the first argument – presumably, the “best of the best”? According to the list's author:

The fundamental argument for atheism is that there is no evidence or proof for God. There is no solid or tangible evidence for God nor a logical argument for God. The existence of God is taken on faith and not by evidence.

You can see why I was disappointed in the list. Is the best argument for atheism really that Christians don't have a good argument for God? Let's look at some of the many facets of this flawed reasoning.

First, there's a little hypocrisy going on. When I write about creation or evolution, I sometimes criticize the evidence for evolution. At those times, evolutionists often cry foul saying that criticizing the evidence for evolution is not evidence for creation. That's a valid point. Of course, I often write about evidence for creation but if all I ever had were criticisms of evolution, that's a very weak argument for creation. Now the shoe is on the other foot. When making an argument for atheism, the unbeliever's first resort is to criticize the evidence for God. Yes, it's a very weak argument! And it's their best argument?

There are a few other facets to this weak argument. Implicit in this quote is that unbelief is the default position of any thinking person. I've written about this before. Atheists proudly portray themselves as skeptics who cautiously (but still open-mindedly) examine the evidence and go wherever it leads. This author is making exactly that same point: until convincing evidence or some logical argument is made for God, our starting belief should be atheism.

In my last post on this subject, I gave the analogy of finding a log cabin in the woods. Even if you don't know who built the cabin, you would start with the assumption that the cabin had a builder. You wouldn't start with the assumption that the cabin is just the accidental arrangement of trees that fell into the shape of a cabin. Atheists are welcome to look for some “scientific” evidence to explain the origin of matter, time, and space but I could save them time and tell them that no scientific explanation exists. Their “skeptical” starting point is about as reasonable as insisting a log cabin has no builder.

Notice, too, that the author employs the usual evolutionist tactic of redefining “faith” to mean “blind faith.” How predictable. In my opinion, it is the atheist who exercises blind faith by believing in a purposeless, natural, uncaused origin of the universe (which I call “poofism”) when such a belief flies in the face of everything we know scientifically.

I've talked about evidence for God many times before. Besides the existence of matter, space, and time, I could talk about the existence of absolute morality or the apparent design in nature or the historicity of Jesus or any number of other things... but what does it matter?  It's the position of this atheist – probably most atheists – that they will sit cross-armed and unbelieving without offering any good reason why. They have no evidence for atheism. Their best argument is that they have no argument.

Brain Damaged Liberals are at it Again: Public School Principal Bans Christmas

Santa Claus is banned. The Pledge of Allegiance is no longer recited. “Harvest festival” has replaced Thanksgiving, and “winter celebrations” substitute for Christmas parties. New principal Eujin Jaela Kim has given PS 169 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a politically correct scrub-down, to the dismay of teachers and parents.... A memo last month from assistant principal Jose Chaparro suggested a “harvest festival instead of Thanksgiving or a winter celebration instead of a Christmas party.” He urged staff to “be sensitive of the diversity of our families. Not all children celebrate the same holidays.” (NY Post, December 13, 2015)

I'm sure I've mentioned before how liberals are brain damaged. We see yet another example in Public School 169 in NY where a new principal has “banned” the Pledge of Allegiance, Thanksgiving, and now Christmas. There's no secret about their motive; they've done in for the sake of sensitivity and diversity. Blah, blah, blah. It's typical liberalism: trampling the rights of everybody in order to be fair. I guess they don't see how their move might be insensitive to the families who do celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, do they?

The NY Post article says that “Ninety-five percent of the 1,600 kids at PS 169 are Asian or Hispanic.” Hmmm. Why do you think they would cite that statistic? Is it because they assume most of the kids – or as least a large number of them – don't observe these holidays anyway? “Asian” is a very broad term because there are a lot of different kinds of Asians including both Orientals and Indians. There are also a lot of places where the natives could be called Hispanic – Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and many Central/South American countries. These various places all have people with different beliefs but wouldn't it be stereotyping, for example, to assume someone of Asian descent – living in the US – doesn't observe Christmas? Wouldn't a more relevant statistic be how many of the 1,600 kids in the school observe these holidays? But liberals are racists and so they assume people of color don't (or shouldn't) celebrate “white people's” holidays.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that only a tiny fraction of the student's at PS 169 observe Thanksgiving or Christmas. In that case, I might agree it's not necessary to organize special activities geared toward holidays these students don't even recognize anyway. But that's not what is happening. It's not that they're not celebrating these days – there's an outright ban on anything related to these days. The PTA president said in the article, “We can’t even have a star because it can represent a religious system, like the Star of David.” The Business Manager for PS 169 said in a memo even Santa is banned banned because he “is considered an ‘other religious figure.” So even if it were a tiny minority of students were Christians who thanked God on Thanksgiving and celebrated the birth of Christ, the staff can say or do nothing that might acknowledge those beliefs.

Remind me again, aren't liberals the ones who want to educate kids in cultural diversity? They talk about diversity and respecting people of other cultures but that surely cannot mean all cultures because they don't want to talk about American or Christian traditions. I copied this from an educator's blog:

How can we celebrate diversity and help students build on positives while paying special attention to disenfranchised students? The first way is to open a dialogue on the topic. One of the first discussions I have with teacher candidates is to explain what it means to be culturally responsive in teaching. As an educator, you have to understand how language and culture affects a student’s self-worth.

Am I right?  Aren't they saying we should "celebrate" diversity but we have to be especially sensitive to the disenfranchised (aka, “minority”) students?  And in order to protect their fragile “self-worth,” we have to have discussions about their language, their cultures, and their beliefs – except Christians of course. Christian traditions and beliefs like Thanksgiving and Christmas are offensive.

Racists. Hypocrites. Liberals. Yes, they're brain damaged.

Merry Christmas.

Shut up and write the check!

So, I've told you before that liberals are brain damaged. Here's another example.

Liberals claim to be tolerant, right? I think their favorite Bible verse is, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” It's probably the only verse some of them know. If a person wants to have sex without being married, with multiple partners, or even with same sex partners, it's none of my business. What happens between consenting adults is a private matter and my opinion of the behavior is not welcome. I even hear similar things from Christians: how, if a young, single woman gets pregnant, we need to support her as a church and not judge her. Does any of this sound familiar?

Here's where the brain damaged part comes in. Liberals are champions of the “right to privacy” but what happens when these people contract a sexually transmitted disease or a young girl gets pregnant? Often they seek out public assistance!

How many millions are we spending on AIDS research? How about welfare, food stamps, and rent subsidies to single mothers? And don't forget the tax payer money going to Planned Parenthood to pay for abortions! When these people were engaging in their reckless behavior, it was a private matter; now that they have to face the consequences of their bad decisions, it's suddenly not so private anymore. Now they expect to be supported by the public.

It's not just the people who engage in this type of behavior that bother me; it's also the enablers, those who defend them. The same people who are telling me not to judge those who do these things are also telling me I have to pay more in taxes to help them.

It's rather pathetic. Liberal elitists view themselves as tolerant (by not judging others) and compassionate (by wanting to support them). What they don't understand is that this kind of tolerance and compassion only exacerbates the problem. People need to be told that bad decisions have consequences. They need to hear that having a child before being married virtually guarantees a lifetime of poverty. They need to be told that abstinence is 100% effective at preventing pregnancy and STDs. They need to understand that “safe and legal” abortions can have severe and lasting physical and psychological side effects. We also need to stop subsidizing poor choices with government programs that only perpetuate poverty.

If the public is paying the bills, then shouldn't the public have a say in the matter? What is wrong with telling young men and women it's a bad idea to have sex or to live together without being married? Yet if I say this, then I'm the one accused of being “intolerant” or that I'm trying to force my religion on everyone else.

Liberals are 100% backward in their thinking. The compassionate thing to do is to tell people it's wrong to engage in certain behaviors. If we truly care for these people, we need to set them on the right track. The liberal solution is that I should shut up and write a check!

More Liberal Bigotry

Liberals are bigots. It's a symptom of their ideology - an inevitable consequence of their political agenda. Bigotry is as fundamental to liberalism as swimming is to fish. You cannot be a liberal without being a bigot. Liberals, for example, see every black face as a victim. They don't believe blacks are able to take care of themselves so they must be subsidized with tax payer dollars. Liberals stereotypically believe every black person is the same – they think the same, they struggle the same, and they are all equally victims of whites. Never mind Dr. King's dream that men should be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, if a black man wants a job, or to go to college, or to start a business, liberals automatically think he needs special consideration because he's black. The color of his skin is the first criterion liberals consider. It's called, “affirmative action.” To liberals, blacks are “disadvantaged” as though being black is like being handicapped.

Because they are bigots in their very core, liberals are blind to they own bigotry. It's kind of like that stinky person who can't smell his own body odor. If a conservative should disagree with a black person about anything, then liberals assume the conservative is only disagreeing with the person because he's black. They just can't understand the concept of judging a person (even a black person) by his actions or words. Likewise, if conservatives talk about “welfare reform,” liberals accuse them of racism because the liberals think most people on welfare are black. And heaven forbid if a black person dares to believe he's not a victim and works hard to improve himself because then that person is accused of trying to “act white” and labeled an “Uncle Tom.”

I moved to Kentucky in the summer of 1970, when I was only 4 years old. Even though I was a more than a decade removed from Segregation, I remember some of the racial tensions that still lingered in the South. Being white myself, I can't say I can entirely empathize with the struggles blacks faced in the 50's but I can at least say I'm sympathetic to it. I can imagine, at least a little, the smoldering defiance Rosa Parks must have felt when she refused to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of the bus.

Certainly there was racism then. For the record, I'm against racism but I'm still for liberty. If a person wants to be racist, I think it's his right to be a racist. However, the real problem wasn't necessarily the racist attitudes that were prevalent at the time but rather it was the segregation laws that put teeth in racism. For example, it would be sad if a black man wouldn't marry a white woman for fear they might be shunned by a racist society. It's a far worse thing, though, to make laws against interracial marriage. It was the laws allowing segregation that truly made blacks the victims of racists.

Democrats back then were all for institutional racism. For example, it was Democrat governor, George Wallace, who stood blocking the steps to a segregated school in Alabama and said, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Since then, Democrats may have officially denounced segregation, but they are still not able to divorce themselves from the racism inherent in the liberal wing of the Democrat party.

So where am I going with all this? I mention this now because here in my own beloved state of Kentucky, liberal Democrats have abused the power of their office to impose their racism on another class of people – Bible believing Christians. Just recently, our Democrat Secretary of State, Bob Stewart, advised Ark Encounter, LLC, the group building the Noah's ark themed attraction in KY, that the state has changed its mind on the group's application for a tax incentive KY makes available to tourist attractions. The Ark Encounter will not be receiving the incentive after all.

When I first wrote about the Ark Encounter project 4 years ago, it had already been approved to receive a special tax incentive the state of KY makes available to lure tourist attractions here. It's not really a subsidy, per se. Instead, new tourist attractions can receive a partial rebate of the amount of sales tax they generate for the state. In other words, for every sales tax dollar the state receives from Ark Encounter visitors, they would give a few cents back to the park. So it doesn't cost the state any money – the state is making money from the park. What's more, it's only paying the incentive out of funds received by people visiting the park! No money is being taken from property taxes, income taxes, etc.

Some other attractions in KY that have received this same incentive are the Newport Aquarium and the Kentucky Speedway.

When the park originally applied for the incentive, it was clear this was a for-profit endeavor but was still overtly religious in nature. From the get go, folks like Barry Lynn objected to a religious organization receiving “tax payer funding” but the incentives were approved notwithstanding. With that approval in hand, the group raised the necessary funds, purchased the land, got the permits, and began building. Now, the state has changed its mind and told the group they will not receive the incentive after all. They claim to object on the grounds that AiG intends to use the park to proselytize (AiG has always been very clear about this) and that workers are required to sign a faith statement – which is a federal right for religious organizations. So the objections sound rather shallow since very little has changed about the park's stated goals since the state approved the original application.

I'm not sure how much the group relied on this incentive to make its decision on where to build but I know it was at least a factor. Its location is only a few miles away from OH and IN so the group had other options on where it could build and still be reasonably close to the Creation Museum. It's a rather dirty trick to lure the business in with the incentive and then take it away after it's too late to change its mind.

But besides that, what annoys me the most about all this is how the state is hurting Christians with its racist policies. We saw the same thing when the Boston Mayor wanted to ban Chick-fil-A because its president supported traditional marriage or the confiscatory fines levied against Hobby Lobby because they did not want to pay for employees' abortion inducing drug prescriptions. Time after time, the government treats religious people and businesses as second class citizens. Sec. Stewart said in his letter that the Ark Encounter, “will generate jobs and visitor spending that will be welcomed in the local economy.” I'm sure it will and he is happy to accept it; he just won't offer the same incentive KY has given to non-religious attractions. It's sort of like the bus driver who didn't mind receiving a fare from Rosa Parks but still didn't want her to sit in the white people's section.

If this were a black owned business, Democrats would be falling all over themselves to give away subsidies because they believe blacks can't run a business without help from white liberals. But this is a Christian owned business and they treat Christians differently. They can't see how refusing to give a religious business the same incentive available to anyone else is discrimination.

I'll say it again. Liberals are bigots.

Fear Tactics

In my last post, I cited Bill Nye who said,

[T]here are more people in the world — another billion people all trying to use the world’s resources. And the threat and consequences of climate change are more serious than ever, so we need as many people engaged in how we’re going to deal with that as possible. And we have an increasingly technologically sophisticated society. We are able to feed these 7.2 billion people because of our extraordinary agricultural technology. If we have a society that’s increasingly dependent on these technologies, with a smaller and smaller fraction of that society who actually understands how any of it works, that is a formula for disaster.... My biggest concern about creationist kids is that they’re compelled to suppress their common sense, to suppress their critical thinking skills at a time in human history when we need them more than ever.... There are just things about evolution that we should all be aware of, the way we’re aware of where electricity comes from, or that you have cells with mitochondria.

Nye certainly paints a bleak picture. We live a world, supposedly becoming over crowded, where billions of people have to compete for limited resources. We need new technologies. We need alternative sources of fuel – cleaner burning fuel. We need new medicines. We need science! But if kids are being taught creation, they won't be able to contribute anything to science. We're loosing our best resource – the potential of the next generation – at a time “when we need them more than ever!”

Huh?

First, let me point something out. There is a logically fallacious argument known as an appeal to consequences (argumentum ad consequentiam) which basically argues that a hypothesis is either true or false based on whether the premise leads to a desirable or undesirable consequence. Even if Nye were entirely accurate in his assessment, it doesn't make evolution true or creation false.

But regardless of that, implicit in Nye's comments is the idea that one cannot understand science unless he believes evolution. His concern, as stated overtly here, is that kids who believe creation, will not be able to contribute to any advances in technology or help solve any of the world's problems. It's a flawed premise which likely stems from his seeming inability to distinguish between the terms “evolution” and “science.” I know he's a somewhat intelligent person so he must be intentionally conflating the terms.

As I said in my last post, there is no relationship between a belief in evolution and the ability to engage in science. Nye's point is entirely non sequitor. I asked before for a single example of any life improving technology made in last 20 years whose invention hinged upon a belief in evolution. I don't care – make it any example from any time for the last century. I will say again, I don't think such a thing exists. However, even if someone should surprise me with an example, I won't be phased. Think about all the other incredible new inventions we've seen in just the last few decades: computers, phones, satellites, etc. Even if some small token of technology was inspired by evolution, it is dwarfed by all the other advances that we have made which have nothing to do with it.

To this point, one visitor to my blog said,

I think [Nye's] point is not so much "you can't believe the Earth is only 6000 years old and design perfectly good aircraft engines or solar panels." Rather, his point is that if you reject evidence,... you can dismiss any scientific conclusion you find objectionable.

Curiously absent from this response is an example like I had asked for. Instead, it's merely more of the same appeal to consequence. In this case, it's a slippery slope argument that since a creationist rejects “evidence” (I assume he means “rejects the evidence for evolution”), he's prone to arbitrarily reject any evidence so ultimately wouldn't make a good scientist. Besides mere bald assertions, I'd like to see any scientific study or survey that suggests people who believe creation understand science any less than the average evolutionist? Again, I don't believe such a thing exists. Most scientific disciplines were founded not only by Christians but by creationists. Their beliefs did not hinder their scientific inquiry in any way.

Let me make one final point. There is virtually nothing within the theory of evolution that is agreed on by all evolutionists. Not every biologist, for example, believes dinosaurs evolved into birds. Some believe in gradual evolution like Darwin described; others believe in long periods of stasis interrupted by rapid bursts of evolution. Most evolutionary scientists believe life began in the sea then evolved onto land but a few believe the opposite occurred. There is constant reassignment of where certain animals belong on the tree of life. Sometimes, scientists are “certain” about when some particular species lived only to find fossils dated much older than they originally believed. The entire theory of evolution is plastic and is reshaped every day as new discoveries overturn previously held notions. In other words, you can be wrong about

how something evolved or

where something evolved or

when something evolved

… but in order to be a “real” scientist, you still must believe that it evolved.

Nye said we need to understand evolution just like we need to understand electricity! What a joke. At best, evolution would only be ancillary to science but I don't think it's even that. Let me be clear – molecules-to-man evolution isn't even real. How then could it be fundamental to science? To suggest that accepting creation threatens progress is a cheap scare tactic.