Monday, February 27, 2006

Dr. Henry Morris Home With the Lord

The Institute for Creation Research said, "After a series of minor strokes in recent weeks, Dr. Henry Morris, founder and president of the Institute for Creation Research, was peacefully ushered into the presence of his Creator, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on Saturday, February 25, around 6:30 p.m. He was 87 years old. Henry Morris was considered the "father of the Modern Creation Movement", authoring well over sixty books on Biblical Creationism, Scientific Creationism and commentaries on the Bible. His most recent work was the New Defenders Study Bible (released last month) which contained several thousand additional annotations. Dr. Morris was a brilliant scholar and theologian who was used by God in many marvelous ways to launch and encourage the Modern Creation Movement on a global scale. But for those of us who had the privilege of working with Henry Morris, he was a gentle, humble and faithful servant of God who modeled what it means to finish well as he consistently looked unto Jesus and ran with patience the race that was set before him (Hebrews 12:1-2). Plans for a memorial service are being arranged for this Thursday (3/2/06) at Shadow Mountain Community Church. Please pray for the Morris family and the entire staff at ICR during this transition."

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

The Victory of Reason

Charles Colson's writes today, "At the heart of the furor over Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad are the different values and ideals of two civilizations: one shaped by Christianity, the other by Islam. Of course, it's seldom put that way, especially in the elite media. Instead, the values being defended are called "Western," as if a compass point produced the freedoms we today enjoy in the Western world. Fortunately, there's a new book that sets the record straight. The book is called The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success by Rodney Stark, who is not a Christian believer. In fact, Stark set out to refute German sociologist Max Weber's famous thesis that attributed the rise of capitalism to the Reformation. Instead of refuting it, however, he wound up doing just the opposite, writing about how Christianity's emphasis on reason led to the rise of Europe. Click here to read the rest.

Monday, February 20, 2006

500 Doctoral Scientists Skeptical of Darwin

Worldnetdaily.com reports today that more than 500 scientists with doctoral degrees have signed a statement expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution. Many of these scientists are professors or researchers from prestigious institutions such as the Smithsonian Institute, Cambridge University, UCLA, Princeton, Berkeley, etc..

The statement, which includes endorsement by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, was first published by the Seattle-based
Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series.

The PBS promotion claimed "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."

"Darwinists continue to claim that no serious scientists doubt the theory and yet here are 500 scientists who are willing to make public their skepticism about the theory," said John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. Click here to read the rest of the story at worldnetdaily.com

Friday, February 10, 2006

Goliath's Name Discovered in Ancient City of Gath

There was recently an interesting discovery made in Israel. Reuters reports, "An Israeli researcher said he has made a Goliath of a find -- the first archaeological evidence suggesting the biblical story of David slaying the Philistine giant actually took place. A shard of pottery unearthed in a decade-old dig in southern Israel carried an inscription in early Semitic style spelling "Alwat and "Wlt", likely Philistine renderings of the name Goliath, said Aren Maeir, who directed the excavation. "This is a groundbreaking find," he said of the rust-coloured ceramic. "Here we have very nice evidence the name Goliath appearing in the Bible in the context of the story of David and Goliath ... is not some later literary creation." Maeir, head of the archaeology department at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, told Reuters that his excavators found the shard, possibly part of a bowl, about two metres (6.5 ft) underground at Tell es-Shafi. The mound where the dig took place is widely believed to be the site of the ancient city of Gath, which the Bible calls Goliath's hometown. Click here to read the rest of the story.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Is Reincarnation Compatible With the Bible?

There are many Biblical problems with believing in reincarnation.

First, Second Corinthians 5:8 says, "We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." At death, the Christian goes into the presence of the Lord, not into another body.

Secondly, Luke 16:19-31 tells us that unbelievers, upon death, go to a place of suffering, not into another body.

Thirdly, Hebrews 9:27 assures us "it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that to face judgment." Each human being lives once as a mortal on earth, dies once, and then faces judgment. He does not have a second chance by reincarnating into another body.

Reincarnation is a heretical, unbiblical doctrine.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The Privileged Planet: Our Special Place in the Universe

I came across this short write up today by Charles Colson called, "The Privileged Planet: Our Special Place in the Universe" (Nov., 2004).

Do you ever find yourself saying, “I wish so-and-so were still around?” Well, I wish the astronomer Carl Sagan were still around. He died in 1996, but had he lived, he would have found an extraordinary book, The Privileged Planet, by astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher Jay Richards, deeply challenging—maybe even disturbing.

Here’s why: In his frequent appearances on the Tonight Show, and in his public television series Cosmos, Sagan was presented as the visionary sage of science. He spoke cheerfully of being inspired by the vastness of the universe and our growing scientific knowledge of our place in it.

Ironically, however, Sagan’s cheerful demeanor didn’t fit his message of cosmic loneliness. Earth has no “special significance,” he said—it’s merely one tiny planet going around an unremarkable star, in an equally unremarkable galaxy, adrift in a universe filled with billions of such galaxies. “Our planet,” he wrote, “is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity . . . there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

Sagan’s picture of an insignificant, almost accidental Earth reflects a widely held and rather bleak assumption in modern science. Called the Copernican Principle, or the Principle of Mediocrity, this assumption says that the Earth isn’t special at all.

Now, the Bible places a high value on the virtue of humility, so Christians might be tempted to agree with this picture: Maybe we’re not so significant after all. But there’s all the difference in the world between seeking real humility (indeed a virtue)—and arguing, as Sagan did, for human insignificance by assuming the universe exists for no purpose. Furthermore, the first question anybody should ask (Christian or not) about assumptions like the Principle of Mediocrity is this: Is it true? Or is a materialistic philosophy being promoted in the name of science?

That’s exactly the question that Gonzalez and Richards pursue in The Privileged Planet. And now their book has inspired a stunning new science documentary. What makes the production so wonderfully refreshing is the spirit of scientific freedom and open intellectual inquiry motivating it.

Using state-of-the-art computer animations, awe-inspiring astronomical footage, and interviews with leading scientists, including Robert Jastrow and Paul Davies, the documentary draws a strikingly different picture from the Sagan image of mediocrity. We learn how many things you need to get a planet, like Earth. It takes just the right atmosphere, plate tectonics, a large moon, well-placed planetary neighbors, in the exact right location in a spiral galaxy, and much, much more.

That alone is interesting. But there’s another surprise. Earth also provides the best conditions for scientific discovery. Did you catch that? The very place with intelligent beings is also the best place for scientific discovery. According to the evidence marshaled by Gonzalez and Richards, the universe is, literally, designed for discovery.

Young Carl Sagans need to consider The Privileged Planet. And believers will be encouraged that science is finally discovering what we knew all along—we are a specially blessed people.--Charles Colson, Breakpoint radio broadcast, November 24, 2004.