COURT OVERRIDES THE CONSCIENCE

Court: Conscientious pharmacists must sell ‘Plan B’ [Excerpts]

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against pharmacists exercising their conscience.

The lawsuit was filed to block the state of Washington from enforcing a law requiring pharmacists to dispense medication in violation of their religious beliefs. That is especially related to Plan B, otherwise known as the “morning-after” pill — which some medical professionals believe induces abortion. Brad Dacus heads the Pacific Justice Institute.
 
“This is a clear affront and a violation of the fundamental religious convictions of the owners of pharmacies,” he contends. “No pharmacist owner should ever have to choose between saving a human life and keeping their shop and business.”
 
Many consider the Ninth Circuit to be the most liberal court in the U.S.

“This radical decision by the Ninth Circuit gives the green light to liberal state legislators and regulators to be able to clamp down on medical and other professionals with sincere religious convictions against supporting abortions,” Dacus adds.

Tomado de http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=597878

From the Depths of Space

by Wayne Spencer

 

An extraordinary object, which may be the most distant yet detected in the universe, was discovered by astronomers on April 23, 2009. By April 28, many news reports had touted the discovery from a big-bang perspective.¹

This new object is known as a gamma ray burster (GRB), designated as GRB 090423. It was detected by the Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer satellite and then verified by two other Earth observatories (one of which was Hawaii’s Gemini Observatory). Gamma rays (which are waves) are part of the electromagnetic spectrum and are higher in frequency and energy than X-rays. Gamma waves are often associated with various nuclear processes.

GRBs have been observed to have higher redshifts than any other objects. For years the objects with the highest known redshifts were quasars. There has been long debate among astronomers as to what quasars really are, and now there is a new debate over what gamma ray bursters are. In this particular instance, GRB 090423 gave off a 10 second burst of gamma rays and X-rays followed for a short time by a lingering infrared glow.^2,3

A Powerful Mystery

To appreciate the mystery behind gamma ray bursters, it is necessary to be aware of redshifts and Hubble’s Law. Hubble’s Law is an important mathematical relationship between redshift and distance. Namely, the farther away a galaxy is from our location, the more its light has been shifted to the red end of the spectrum.

Astronomers understand Hubble’s Law as being a result of the expansion of the universe. As the light waves travel, the space in which they are traveling is being stretched out; so, the wavelength of the light is increased. The longer the light has been traveling, the more its wavelength is increased. This is why more distant galaxies are much more redshifted than nearby ones. But there are other things that can cause light to be shifted to longer wavelengths (“redshifted”). One of these is the Doppler Effect.

The Doppler Effect is something that happens to waves when the source of the waves is moving (such as when a star moves away from Earth). Note that Hubble’s Law is not due to the Doppler Effect but there is a Doppler Effect on the light from stars and galaxies.  For the very largest distance scales, the Doppler Effect would be much smaller than the redshift effect from the expansion of space. We can hear the Doppler effect for sound waves if a train whistle or a car horn is on while it moves away from us. The waves leaving the moving vehicle get spread out, and, thus, the pitch of the sound goes down as the vehicle moves away from the person listening.

Light is affected the same way if a star is moving away from Earth. Thus, a star moving away from Earth causes the frequency or color of the light to shift toward the red—or down in frequency. If a star is moving toward Earth, its frequency is shifted higher, toward the blue end of the spectrum. Within our own galaxy, about half of the stars are shifted toward the blue, and half are shifted toward the red. We know the light is shifted because we can compare the light spectrum from objects in space to the light emitted by known substances in a laboratory.

Almost all galaxies are shifted toward the red. Furthermore, the larger the redshift, the greater the object’s distance from us. This is exactly what we would expect if the entire universe is expanding, and the light is redshifted as a result of that expansion. Astronomers use the Hubble Law and various other distance measuring methods to estimate the distance to various objects in space. Some quasars have redshifts of 7, which is greater than the redshifts of most stars and galaxies. By Hubble’s Law this would make these quasars extremely distant, perhaps billions of light-years from Earth (a light-year is about 6 trillion miles). GRB 090423 has a redshift of about 8.2, even more than quasars. Thus it may be the most distant object measured to date.

If an object with such a large redshift is following Hubble’s Law, its distance from earth would be approximately 13 billion light-years. Astronomers estimated that the burst of GRB 090423 occurred only approximately 630 million years after the big bang.³ For it to generate enough radiation for us to detect it at such a distance, it must create the most powerful kind of explosion astronomers know of. It is a mystery what could generate so much energy and fit the observations.

Secular scientists have tentative theories regarding GRBs that involve both a collapsing star and a supernova. The current thinking of some astronomers is that an extremely massive star neared the point where it had used up all its nuclear fuel, and a portion of the star began to collapse into a black hole or a neutron star. As this happened, the outer layers of the star were blown away in a supernova explosion. Thus, the collapse and the supernova coincided, and gamma waves are emitted in two powerful beams at the north and south poles of the object.

A Problem with Time

Objects discovered at such vast distances present a timing problem for big bang theorists. In big bang theory, for a large star to become a black hole or a GRB, it would probably need to be a second (or third) generation star, and it would have limited time to form and use up all its fuel. In the period of 630 hundred million years after the big bang, the first stars would have to “die,” then second generation stars would form from the material left over from the first stars. The second generation stars operated for their entire “lifetime.” Then, one of these second generation stars would have become the GRB at the end of its “life.” It is debatable whether there would be enough time for all this to happen for the GRB to occur so that we would see it.

Astronomers have long believed that early in the history of the universe, just a few hundred million years after the big bang, there would be stars that were different from most stars in the universe today. Astronomers have searched for evidence of these so-called “first generation” or “Population III” stars for years. There is no observational evidence of their existence, but they still play an important role in big bang theory. Such stars would be of different composition, for example, in having no heavy elements and consisting of only hydrogen, helium, and minor amounts of lithium.

No one has detected stars without heavy elements above Helium. In, fact astronomers have observed evidence of elements like carbon and iron in objects that are claimed to be from the early eras of the Big Bang.^4,5,6 Indeed, there is evidence that some GRBs contain metals such as iron and magnesium.⁷ Heavier elements like carbon or iron, according to big bang ideas, could not be produced in the big bang itself but instead must have been produced in supernova explosions that took place when large stars died. Astronomers who operate by naturalistic assumptions and do not allow for supernatural creation as Genesis describes must resort to complicated scenarios like these to explain the origin of the chemical elements.

A Simple Answer

How is this all to be understood from a creation viewpoint? In a biblical viewpoint, objects created during the Creation Week could be fully formed and would abruptly appear with all the necessary elements present from the beginning. There would be no need to postulate a special early generation of stars and galaxies that we find no evidence for. Thus, in a creation view there is no difficulty of not having time for objects to form by natural processes in the beginning.

Creationist physicists and astronomers continue to research many questions about the universe, including the meaning of large redshifts. It may be that when we look at objects with large redshifts, we are looking back into the Creation Week, possibly to the fourth day. The fourth day is when Genesis 1 indicates God created the stars. The young-age creation cosmologies of physicists John Hartnett and Russ Humphreys both imply the large redshifts are due to God’s stretching out space during the Creation Week.^8,9

Creation scientists who hold to a young universe and six literal creation days do not reject everything that secular astronomers believe. However, assumptions need to be questioned thoroughly. The big bang does not agree with the creation account in Genesis. Creation scientists do not usually have issues with the experimental side of doing astronomy, though it can be very difficult to determine what some observations mean.

Creationist physicists generally accept the reality of black holes and accept the validity of redshift measurements. These things are all consistent with observational science. But, instead of the mysterious big bang process expanding the universe, creationists believe God “stretched out the heavens” (see Jeremiah 10:12) in the beginning as Scripture says. Scientists are still discovering parts of God’s creation that have never been seen before.

 

Footnotes

1. Yahoo! News, “Telescope Snaps Most Distant Object.”
2. The few galaxies that are blueshifted are all very nearby. Their velocity toward earth produces a Doppler shift toward the blue, which overcomes any redshift due to expansion of the universe, since the latter effect is small over cosmically short distances.
3. Robert Naeye, Sky and Telescope website, “The Farthest Thing Ever Seen.” (1) (2)
4. Katie Pennicott, Physicsworld.com, “Heavy Elements Lend Weight to Early Stars.”
5. G. Hasinger, N. Schartel, and S. Komossal, “Discovery of an Ionized Fe K Edge in the zp 3.91 Broad Absorption Line Quasar APM 0827905255 with XMM-Newton,” The Astrophysical Journal, 573 (2002):L77–L80.
6. Martin Harwit and Marco Spaans, “Chemical Composition of the Early Universe,” The Astrophysical Journal, 589 (2003):53-57.
7. E. Maiorano et. al., “Physics of the GRB 030328 Afterglow and Its Environment,” Astronomy & Astrophysics, 455 (2006):423–431.
8. John Hartnett, “Starlight, Time, and the New Physics,” in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism, ed. A.A. Snelling, (Pittsburg, PA: Creation Science Fellowship and Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research, 2008), pp. 193-203.
9. D. Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe (Creation-Life Publishers, Inc., 1994), pp. 31–38.

 

Tomado de www.answersingenesis.org

Self-refuting Skepticism

by Roger Patterson

 

Many people in modern society label themselves as skeptics. They publish magazines, participate in various organizations, raise funds to support their causes, and lobby the public through roadside signs, podcasts, and advertisements on buses.

Though there are several organizations to which we could refer, we will focus our attention on the Skeptics Society headed by Dr. Michael Shermer for sake of discussing the relevant points of agreement and disagreement. By explaining the positions given by this organization, you can easily apply them to others who share the same basic views. As Christians, we should have a biblically founded skepticism of the claims made by “skeptics” (Proverbs 18:17).

Skepticism is a humanistic philosophy. Humanists consider man to be the measure of all things. That is, the human mind is considered to be the ultimate standard by which all claims are judged. Humanism is a religious system, the deity of the worldview being man himself. Though the humanists would generally reject the label of religious, they certainly hold their views with zeal and conviction.

Another important element of the humanist religion is naturalism (or, materialism). This belief blindly asserts that nothing beyond nature exists; the physical universe is all that there is. Anything that is supernatural is excluded from this belief system. We will explain these two ideas as we look at the beliefs of skeptical humanists and their manifesto.

The following excerpts are taken from A Skeptical Manifesto, written by Dr. Michael Shermer, which will serve to illustrate the beliefs of those who claim to be skeptics.

To his credit, Dr. Shermer is openly honest about the failure of skepticism as a philosophy.

But what does it mean to be skeptical? Skepticism has a long historical tradition dating back to ancient Greece when Socrates observed: “All I know is that I know nothing.” But this is not a practical position to take.

Shermer rightly concludes that if a skeptic were to apply his philosophy to his own views, he would have to be skeptical of skepticism—a position of absurdity. The very foundation of this belief system is self-refuting.

To avoid the absurdity of his argument, Shermer goes on to qualify his beliefs. He adds the qualifiers of rational and scientific to his belief system. He does this in order to justify his claim that he wishes to promote progress, even though skepticism itself does not hold that goal. Exactly what he means by progress is not explained, but it seems to tie into a later discussion of the evolution of mankind to higher levels. However, he provides no scientific or rational validation for what higher means and why his views should be accepted above other views of progress.

 

Scientific Skepticism

Let us first look at the claim that skepticism must be scientific in order to be of value. Though not explicitly stated, the concept of materialism is present in the definition of science given by the Skeptics Society:

a set of mental and behavioral methods designed to describe and interpret observed or inferred phenomenon, past or present, aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation.¹

It is worth noting that this definition is simply given to persuade the reader to accept a particular view. It is not what would be found in textbooks and dictionaries. Redefining terms is simply a tactic of persuasion, not a logical argument.

Since his definition of science deals with observation, Shermer defines observation as “gathering data through the senses or sensory enhancing technologies.” Although supernatural forces would not normally be experienced by the senses, the Christian rightly takes God to be the ultimate first cause of the things we do experience. This forces us to ask the question, “Why must supernatural explanations be removed from science?”

Dr. Shermer does not provide a reason for the assertion that science can only be based on observations by the senses. If this claim is left as an arbitrary assertion, then there is no logical reason to accept it. Christians should be skeptical of this skeptic’s definition of science.

Another problem that this definition presents for the skeptics is that it is inconsistent. On the one hand, Shermer wants to include past events as falling under his definition of science. On the other hand, he wants to have observational confirmation or rejection of everything that is to be considered scientific knowledge. But, of course, past events are not subject to observational rejection or confirmation. Shermer tries to cover up this inconsistency by suggesting that inferences are as legitimate as observations, but provides no support for this view.

Shermer goes on to explain that most biologists would accept evolution as a “fact” in that it is based on “data or conclusions confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement.” Since skeptical science can never ultimately prove anything, the temporary agreement of the community is that evolution happened and will continue to happen. This “fact” must be based on the inferences of past events from observations of things in the present, not observing and testing things form the past. Shermer argues from this “fact” at several points in this article.

Since facts, by definition, are true, this philosophy allows for the provisional acceptance of untrue facts. Many things that were once considered factual are known to be false today. In the absence of an absolute standard to determine truth, skeptics build their foundation on what they must admit could be false in the future—evolution included.

This naturalistic science is intended to be objective and avoid any mysticism. Creationism is said to “have been tested (and failed the tests) often enough that we can provisionally conclude [it is] false.” If these tests were done according to the scientific method, it would interest us to know how the supernatural creation of the universe was observed through the senses (what measurements were involved) and shown to be false. The very claim is outside of the capabilities of the model of skeptical science set forward.

 

Rational Skepticism

To prop up his self-refuting philosophy of skepticism, Dr. Shermer believes that there must be a rational component added so that the skeptic might think in a reliable way. He defines the rational skeptic as:

One who questions the validity of particular claims of knowledge by employing or calling for statements of fact to prove or disprove claims, as a tool for understanding causality.

Since Dr. Shermer seems to be committed to a philosophy of naturalism, how does he account for the existence of reason? Reason involves using laws of logic—which are not part of nature. Laws of logic describe the correct chain of reasoning from premises to conclusions; they are not material and cannot exist in a materialistic universe. The naturalist cannot account for universal, invariant, abstract entities like laws of logic.

What the skeptic is doing is borrowing concepts from a biblical view of the universe while rejecting the system itself—an irrational approach. There is no explanation for the existence of reason and the laws of logic in a naturalistic worldview. If man is simply the accumulation of chemical reactions, why should we trust those reactions to understand the world around it? Chemical reactions and electrical impulses by themselves are neither right nor wrong; they simply are.

Science is only possible because God has ordered the universe and sustains it in such a way that the human mind can understand it. The Christian has an ultimate reason for believing that we can study and understand the universe. The naturalistic skeptic does not. (For a detailed explanation of this concept please see Revelation, Speculation, and Science by Dr. Greg Bahnsen.)

Dr. Shermer makes the claim that it would be unscientific to accept a dogmatic claim that is not based on scientific inquiry. But he expects us to accept his dogmatic assertion without proving it by any scientific means (which would be impossible). Again, an assertion is made with no rational reason to accept it.

Accepting ideas on the authority of another human can be dangerous; so, it is important to understand how the person making the claim came to know what is being claimed. We certainly don’t disagree with Dr. Shermer on not accepting dogmatic claims, but it is ironic that he expects us to believe his claim without scientific proof. Christians should be skeptical of such claims.

There is, however, One whom we can trust absolutely. When He tells us of the world, we can accept those things, as He was not only an eyewitness, but the Creator of the universe. Having created the universe, we can trust that what God tells us about it through His Word can be taken as truth. Since there can be no higher authority than the Creator, we must accept His claims of truth over the claims made by fallible humans. God has granted us the gift of reason, humans having been created in His image, but we must recognize the limits of that reasoning and the condition of the fallen world in which we live.

Other skeptics have suggested that we cannot trust the Bible because it was written by men: of course, this statement itself was written by men. So, if that statement is trustworthy, that we cannot trust a statement written by men, then we cannot trust the statement itself about not trusting the Bible—a contradiction.

It is also worth noting that an argument really should be evaluated on its own merit, not on the source. To do otherwise is to commit the genetic fallacy. The Bible claims to be the Word of God, is internally consistent, and provides the only rational foundation for the world around us. On these grounds, not the empty claims of a skeptical humans, we can accept the truth that God has revealed to us.

 

Conclusion

Mankind has elevated himself throughout history. From the Fall in the Garden, mankind has sought to be equal, if not superior, to God. Like any other philosophy that begins without God as the standard of truth, this humanistic philosophy is arbitrary and logically inconsistent. Applying a little biblically-based skepticism to the claims of these skeptics exposes the flaws.

As we look to God’s Word as the foundation for all thinking, we might also be moved to pray for those who suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18–19). Had God not revealed His truth to us, we would still be in that darkened condition (Ephesians 2:1–5). As we seek to share the truth with a lost world, let us remember to do so in meekness and fear and with thankfulness to God for the salvation He has granted us through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:15–16).

 

Footnotes

1. www.skeptic.com/about_us/manifesto.html

 

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The Results of Evolution

Could It Be the Bloodiest Religion Ever?

 

Christians are often confronted with the claim that a humanistic worldview will help society become better. Even the first Humanist Manifesto, of which belief in evolution is a subset, declared, “The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently co-operate for the common good.” But can such a statement be true?

For starters, what do the authors mean by “good”? They have no legitimate foundation for such a concept, since one person’s “good” can be another’s “evil.” To have some objective standard, they must borrow from the teachings of God in the Bible.

Beyond that, does evolution really teach a future of prosperity? What has been the result of evolutionary thinking in the past hundred years? Perhaps this could be a test of what is to come. Let’s first look at the casualties stemming from leaders with evolutionary worldviews, beginning in the 1900s, to see the hints of what this “next level” looks like:

***

Who/What? Pre-Hitler Germany/Hitler and the Nazis

Specific Event and Estimated Dead: WWI: 20,000,000 dead, 21,000,000 wounded¹

^{–WWII: 72,000,0002
–Holocaust: 17,000,000? (estimates range from 7 to 26 million)3}

 

Who/What? Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin

Specific Event and Estimated Dead: Bolshevik revolution and Russian Civil War: 15,000,000⁴

 

Who/What? Joseph Stalin

Specific Event and Estimated Dead:  20,000,000⁵

 

Who/What? Mao Zedong

Specific Event and Estimated Dead: 14,000,000–20,000,000⁶

 

Who/What? Pol Pot (Saloth Sar)

Specific Event and Estimated Dead: 750,000–1,700,000⁷

 

Who/What? Abortion*

Specific Event and Estimated Dead: China estimates 1971–2006: 300,000,000⁸

–Russia estimates 1954–1991: 280,000,000⁹

^{–U.S. estimates 1928–2007: 26,000,00010}

^{–France estimates 1936–2006: 5,749,73111}

^{–UK estimates 1958–2006: 6,090,738 12}

^{–Germany estimates 1968–2007: 3,699,62413}

* This table only lists estimates for abortion deaths in few countries; so, this total figure is likely very conservative.

***

Charles Darwin’s view of evolution was catapulted into societies around the world in the mid- to late 1800s. Evolutionary teachings influenced Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and many others. Let’s take a closer look at some of these people and events and examine the evolutionary influence and repercussions.

 

World War I and II, Hitler, Nazis, and the Holocaust

Most historians would point to the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand on June 18, 1914, as the event that triggered World War I (WWI). But tensions were already high considering the state of Europe at the time. Darwinian sentiment was brewing in Germany. Darwin once said:

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes . . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian [Aborigine] and the gorilla.¹⁴

Darwin viewed the “Caucasian” (white-skinned Europeans) as the dominant “race” in an evolutionary worldview. To many evolutionists at the time, mankind had evolved from ape-like creatures that had more hair, dark skin, dark eyes, etc. Therefore, more “evolved” meant less body hair, blond hair, blue eyes, etc. Later in Hitler’s era, Nazi Germany practiced Lebensborn, which was a controversial program, the details of which have not been entirely brought to light. Many claim it was a breeding program that tried to evolve the “master race” further—more on this below.

But the German sentiment prior to WWI was very much bent on conquering for the purpose of expanding their territory and their “race.” An encyclopedia entry from 1936 states:

In discussions of the background of the war much has been said of Pan-Germanism, which was the spirit of national consciousness carried to the extreme limit. The Pan-Germans, who included not only militarists, but historians, scientists, educators and statesmen, conceived the German people, no matter where they located, as permanently retaining their nationality. The most ambitious of this group believed that it was their mission of Germans to extend their kultur (culture) over the world, and to accomplish this by conquest if necessary. In this connection the theory was advanced that the German was a superior being, destined to dominate other peoples, most of whom were thought of as decadent.¹⁵

Germany had been buying into an extreme view of Darwin’s model of evolution and saw themselves as the superior “race,” destined to dominate the world. This view set the stage for Hitler and the Nazi party and paved the road to WWII.

Hitler

World War II dwarfed World War I in the total number of people who died. Racist attitudes exploded in Germany against people groups such as Jews, Poles, and many others. Adolf Hitler was heavily influenced by Darwin’s teaching on evolution.

Hitler even tried to force the Protestant church in Germany to change fundamental tenants because of his newfound faith.¹⁶ In 1936, while Hitler was in power, an encyclopedia entry on Hitler stated:

. . . a Hitler attempt to modify the Protestant faith failed.¹⁷

His actions strongly suggest that he did not hold to the basic fundamentals taught in the 66 books of the Bible. Though some of his writings suggest he did believe in some form of God early on, his religious views moved toward humanism after his acceptance of evolution. This refutes notions that Hitler was a Protestant Christian as some have claimed. Consider this quote in his unpublished second book:

The types of creatures on the earth are countless, and on an individual level their self-preservation instinct as well as the longing for procreation is always unlimited; however, the space in which this entire life process plays itself out is limited. It is the surface area of a precisely measured sphere on which billions and billions of individual beings struggle for life and succession. In the limitation of this living space lies the compulsion for the struggle for survival, and the struggle for survival, in turn contains the precondition for evolution.¹⁸

Hitler continues:

The history of the world in the ages when humans did not yet exist was initially a representation of geological occurrences. The clash of natural forces with each other, the formation of a habitable surface on this planet, the separation of water and land, the formation of the mountains, plains, and the seas. That [was] is the history of the world during this time. Later, with the emergence of organic life, human interest focuses on the appearance and disappearance of its thousandfold forms. Man himself finally becomes visible very late, and from that point on he begins to understand the term “world history” as referring to the history of his own development—in other words, the representation of his own evolution. This development is characterized by the never-ending battle of humans against animals and also against humans themselves.¹⁹

Hitler fully believed Darwin as well as Darwin’s precursors—such as Charles Lyell’s geological ages and millions of years of history. In his statements here, there is no reference to God. Instead, he unreservedly flew the banner of naturalism and evolution. His evolutionary views certainly helped lead him and the Nazi party into WWII because they viewed the “Caucasian” as more evolved, which to them justified their adoption of the idea that lesser “races” would be eliminated in the struggle for survival. Among the first to be targeted were Jews, then Poles, and then many others.

Trotsky, Lenin

Trotsky and Lenin were both notorious leaders of the USSR—and specifically the Russian revolution. Lenin, taking power in 1917, became a ruthless leader and selected Trotsky as his heir. Lenin and Trotsky held to Marxism, which was built on Darwinism and evolution. Karl Marx regarded Darwin’s book as an “epoch making book.” With regards to Darwin’s research on natural origins, Marx claimed, “The latter method is the only materialistic and, therefore, the only scientific one.”²⁰

Few realize or admit that Marxism, the primary idea underlying communism, is built on Darwinism. In 1883, Freidrich Engels, Marx’s longtime friend and collaborator, stated at Marx’s funeral service that “Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history.”²¹ Both Darwin and Marx built their ideologies on naturalism and materialism.

Trotsky once said of Darwin:

Darwin stood for me like a mighty doorkeeper at the entrance to the temple of the universe. I was intoxicated with his minute, precise, conscientious and at the same time powerful, thought. I was the more astonished when I read . . . that he had preserved his belief in God. I absolutely declined to understand how a theory of the origin of species by way of natural selection and sexual selection and a belief in God could find room in one and the same head.²²

Trotsky’s high regard for evolution and Darwin were the foundation of his belief system. Like many, Trotsky probably did not realize that most of the precious few instances of the name “God” did not appear in the first edition of Origin of Species. These references were added later, and many suspect that this was done to influence church members to adopt Darwinism. Regardless, Trotsky may not have read much of Darwin’s second book, Descent of Man, in which Darwin claims that man invented God:

The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and customs.²³

Vladimir Lenin picked up on Darwinism and Marxism and ruled very harshly as an evolutionist. His variants of Marxism have become known as Leninism (see The Development of Capitalism in Russia). Regardless, the evolutionist roots of Marx, Trotsky, and Lenin were the foundation that Communism has stood on—and continues to stand on.

Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, to name a few

Perhaps the most ruthless communist leaders were Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Each of these were social Darwinists, ruling three different countries—the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia respectively. Their reigns of terror demonstrated the end result of reducing the value of human life to that of mere animals, a Darwinistic teaching.²⁴

 

^Abortion

^{The war on children has been one of the quietest and yet bloodiest in the past hundred years. In an evolutionary mindset, the unborn have been treated as though they are going through an “animal phase” and can simply be discarded.}

Early evolutionist Ernst Haeckel first popularized the concept that babies in the womb are actually undergoing animal developmental stages, such as a fish stage and so on. This idea has come to be known as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Haeckel even faked drawings of various animals’ embryos and had them next to drawn human embryos looking virtually identical.

These drawings have been shown to be completely false.²⁵ Haeckel himself partially confessed as much.²⁶ However, this discredited idea has been used repeatedly for a hundred years! Textbooks today still use this concept, and museums around the world still teach it.

Through this deception, many women have been convinced that the babies they are carrying in their wombs are simply going through an animal phase and can be aborted. Author Ken Ham states:

In fact, some abortion clinics in America have taken women aside to explain to them that what is being aborted is just an embryo in the fish stage of evolution, and that the embryo must not be thought of as human. These women are being fed outright lies.²⁷

Evolutionary views have decreased the value of human life. Throughout the world the casualties of the war on children is staggering. Though deaths of children and the unborn did exist prior to the “evolution revolution,” they have increased exponentially as a result of Darwinian teachings.

 

Conclusion

Is evolution the cause of wars and deaths? Absolutely not—both existed long before Darwin was born. Sin is the ultimate cause.²⁸ But an evolutionary worldview has done nothing but add fuel to the fire.

In spite of the wars and atrocities caused by those who subscribed to an evolutionary worldview in recent times, there is still hope. We can end the seemingly endless atrocities against the unborn.

In Egypt, Israelite boys were slaughtered by being thrown into the Nile at the command of Pharaoh (Exodus 1:20). And yet, by the providence of God, Moses survived and led the Israelites to safety, and the Lord later judged the Egyptians.

In Israel under the Roman Empire, Herod the Great commanded the slaughter of all the boys under the age of two in and around Bethlehem. And yet, by the providence of God, Jesus, the Son of God, survived and later laid down His life to bring salvation to mankind as the Prince of Peace. Herod’s name, however, went down in history as an evil tyrant and murderer.

In this day and age, governments readily permit the killing of children, both boys and girls, and sometimes command it (abortion). By providence, however, you survived. While we can’t change the past, we can learn from it. If we are to stop this continuing bloodshed, we must get back to the Bible and realize the bankrupt religion of evolution has led only to death—by the millions.

 

Footnotes

1 World War I Casualties, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties, October 23, 2008, as with all of these statistics, they may have some variance depending on source.

2 World War II Casualties, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties, October 23, 2008.

3 The Holocaust, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust, October 23, 2008.

4 Russian Civil War, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War, October 23, 2008.

5 Joseph Stalin, http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/stalin.html, October 23, 2008.

6 Mao Tse-Tung, http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/mao.html, October 23, 2008.

7 Pol Pot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot, October 23, 2008.

8 Historical abortion statistics, PR China, compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston , last updated 4 June 2008, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-prchina.html.

9 Historical abortion statistics, U.S.S.R., compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston , last updated 4 June 2008, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-ussr.html

10 Historical abortion statistics, United States, compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston , last updated 4 June 2008, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-unitedstates.html.

11 Historical abortion statistics, France, compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston, last updated 4 June 2008, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-france.html.

12 Historical abortion statistics, United Kingdom, compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston, last updated 4 June 2008, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-unitedkingdom.html

13 Historical abortion statistics, FR Germany, compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston, last updated 4 June 2008, http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-frgermany.html

14 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (New York: A.L. Burt, 1874, 2nd ed.), p. 178.

15 The American Educator Encyclopedia, The United Educators, Inc., Chicago, 1936, p. 3914 under entry “World War.”

16 The American Educator Encyclopedia, The United Educators, Inc., Chicago, 1936, p. 1702 under entry “Hitler.”

17 The American Educator Encyclopedia, The United Educators, Inc., Chicago, 1936, p. 1494 under entry “Germany.”

18 Hitler’s Second Book, Adolf Hitler, Edited by Gerald L. Weinberg, 2003 Enigma books, Translated by Krista Smith, p. 8.

19 Hitler’s Second Book, Adolf Hitler, Edited by Gerald L. Weinberg, 2003 Enigma books, Translated by Krista Smith, p. 9.

20 Great Books of the Western World, Volume 50, Capital, Karl Marx, William Benton (Publishers), Chicago, 1952, Footnotes on p. 166 and p. 181

21 Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, London,: Chatto & Windus, 1959, p. 348.

22 Eastman, Max, Trotsky: A portrait of his youth, New York, pp. 117-118, 1925.

23 Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Chapter III (Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals), 1871, As printed in the Great Books of the Western World, Volume 49, Robert Hutchins, Ed., Chicago, 1952, p. 303.

24 Darwin’s impact—the bloodstained legacy of evolution.

25 Michael Richardson et al, Anatomy and Embryology, 196(2):91-106, 1997.

26 Haeckel said, “ . . . a small portion of my embryo-pictures (possibly 6 or 8 in a hundred) are really (in Dr Brass’s [one of his critics] sense of the word) “falsified”—all those, namely, in which the disclosed material for inspection is so incomplete or insufficient that one is compelled in a restoration of a connected development series to fill up the gaps through hypotheses, and to reconstruct the missing members through comparative syntheses. What difficulties this task encounters, and how easily the draughts- man may blunder in it, the embryologist alone can judge.” The Truth about Haeckel’s Confession, The Bible Investigator and Inquirer, M.L. Hutchinson, Melbourne, March 11, 1911, p. 22–24.

27 Ham, Ken, The Lie: Evolution, Chapter 8 (The evils of evolution), Master Books, Green Forest, AK, 1987, p. 105. http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/the-lie/chapter8.asp

28 The New Answers Book 1, Gen. Ed. Ken Ham, Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, 2006, Chapter 26: Why does God’s creation include death and suffering?, pp.325-338. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/why-does-creation-include-suffering

 

Información tomada de www.answersingenesis.org

EUGENICS AND THE NAZIS

Eugenics [Excerpts] The term “eugenics” was first used in 1883 by Francis Galton, Darwin’s half cousin. In 1871, Darwin authored the racist book The Descent of man and Selection in Relation to Sex saying that “the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.”

This followed the principle of “survival of the fittest” coined by Herbert Spencer in 1864 after reading Darwin’s 1959 book, The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection for the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life (four years after Arthur Gobineau’s An Essay on the Inequality of the Races).

For humans, this principle expressed itself in Social Darwinism. Thus, during the 1870s, Oxford lecturer John Ruskin would instill in his students, like Cecil Rhodes, the concept that they were “the best northern blood” and should rule the world.

Rhodes scholarships were not only given to students from America and Commonwealth nations, but also to those from Germany beginning in the very early 1900s.

Germans at this time were also being conditioned to see historical progression in terms of “blood and land,” a sort of Teutonic knighthood descended from the Aryans. In 1914, Madame Blavatsky’s Aryan doctrine had spread through Germany and Austria, and it was from her writings that a young Adolph Hitler learned the meaning of the Aryan swastika.

By this time, eugenics was a growing international movement with the first International Congress of Eugenics held in 1912 with Vice-Presidents Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, Skull & Bones member Gifford Pinchot, and former Harvard University president Charles Eliot.

In this same year, eugenics proponent Woodrow Wilson signed into law a brutal sterilization act, and the next year eugenics adherent Theodore Roosevelt wrote of the need to improve “racial qualities.” Calvin Coolidge wrote similarly in “Whose Country Is This?” (Good Housekeeping, February 1921), after Arthur Calhoun in Volume 3 of his widely used textbook A Social History of the American Family (1919) explained that “in the new social order, extreme emphasis is sure to be placed upon eugenic procreation.”

Men of wealth like Andrew Carnegie and the Rockefellers played an important part in funding the eugenics movement….It was during this time of the early 20th Century that Rockefeller introduced Margaret Sanger to the monied elite who would help her form the Birth Control League which would later become Planned Parenthood.

The November 1921 issue of Sanger’s Birth Control Review carried the heading “Birth Control: To Create A Race of Thoroughbreds,” and Sanger would later advocate eugenically limiting “dysgenic stocks” such as blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and Catholics, as well as “slum dwellers” such as Jewish immigrants.

Across the nation during the 1930s, state legislatures (eventually 38) enacted sterilization laws regarding the “feeble-minded.” Also during this time, Franklin Roosevelt became president, and in Christopher Thorne’s Allies of a Kind (1978) one finds: “Subjects to do with breeding and race seem, indeed, to have held a certain fascination for the president…. Roosevelt felt it in order to talk, jokingly, of dealing with Puerto Rico’s excessive birth rate by employing, in his own words, ‘the methods which Hitler used effectively’ [to make them] sterile.”

In the April 1933 edition of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review, Dr. Ernst Rudin of Hitler’s Nazi Third Reich wrote “Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need.”

 

Información tomada de

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/009/cuddy/eugenics.htm

THE RELIGIOUS UN-RELIGIOUS

Although secular society is supposed to be free from religion, it doesn’t take much examination to see evidence of much religious thought and sentiment. Consider the reactions of secular news reporters and broadcasters concerning the president.

“Barack’s appeal is actually messianic… he… communicates God-like energy… What if God decided to incarnate as men preaching ‘hope and change.’ And what if we… let them slip away, not availing ourselves… to be led by God!” (Barack’s appeal is actually messianic, Steve Davis, March 31, 2008, Journal Gazette).

“This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament! I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often. No, seriously. It’s a dramatic event” (Chris Matthews, MSNBC, February 12, 2008).

“Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?” (Daily Kos, Sat Apr 26, 2008).

“Obama, to me, must be not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul, come to lead America out of this mess” (Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun Times, March 21, 2008).

“He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians…the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century” ([Former U.S. Senator] Gary Hart, Huffington Post February 13, 2008).

“He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh…Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves” (“Obama’s Gift”, by Ezra Klein. January 3, 2008).

“Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind” (“Obama: On Toughness and Success in Politics by Gerald Campbell. First Things First, December 22, 2007).

[TBC: If so much adulation is accorded an earthly politician, imagine that generated in response to another leader who is prophesied to come. "And they worshiped the dragon which gave power to the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like to the beast? who is able to make war with him? (Rev 13:4). "...and all the world wondered after the beast" (Rev 13 :3).]

 

Información tomada de The Berean Call

Relatives of Soldier Killed in Afghanistan Decry Lack of Coverage Amid Jackson Spectacle [Excerpts]

Relatives of Soldier Killed in Afghanistan Decry Lack of Coverage Amid Jackson Spectacle [Excerpts]

A day before New York Rep. Peter King called Michael Jackson a “pervert” unworthy of nonstop media coverage, the aunt of a U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan on the same day Jackson died asked why her nephew’s death went virtually unnoticed while the King of Pop got memorial shrines across the country.

“Mr. Jackson received days of wall-to-wall coverage in the media,” Martha Gillis wrote to the Washington Post. “Where was the coverage of my nephew or the other soldiers who died that week?”

Gillis’ nephew, Lt. Brian Bradshaw, 24, died in Kheyl, Afganistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Bradshaw, of Steilacoom, Wash., was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division in Fort Richardson, Alaska. He was one of at least 13 U.S. soldiers to die in Afghanistan since Jackson’s death on June 25.

Bradshaw’s mother, Mary, said she agreed with Gillis, saying the nonstop coverage of Jackson’s death has become “totally ridiculous” and laughable.

“I can watch the news many nights and there’s no mention of what’s going on in Afghanistan or Iraq and there’s boys dying over there,” Bradshaw told FOXNews.com.

(Miller, Fox News Online, July 7, 2009).

[While the sacrifice of soldiers is ignored, much of the media is taken up with the events surrounding the death of a pop star. This pattern may be instructive to Christians. As believers we know that the world will take little notice of the good the Lord will enable us to do. Nevertheless, "For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister" (Hebrews 6:10).]

 

Información tomada de The Berean Call

Bienvenidos

Me llamo Alexis Rodríguez y por este medio sabrás un poco más de cosas que no verás por los medios “normales”.

Este blog lo creé hace un tiempo y no lo utilicé. Es hora de cambiar eso.

Veremos en qué acaba este intento.

Saludos culichis.

 

Atte.

Álex