Stem-Cell Paranoia By Chuck Colson

No one can exploit science quite as gleefully as those who hate it. Writing for townhall.com, Chuck Colson serves up a typical example. Did you know that stem cell researchers had two goals? And that neither goal involved actually finding cures for diabetes, spinal cord injuries, or other disorders? But let’s let Chuck explain what he thinks the real reasons for the research are.

The first was political. As one liberal pundit put it, “embryonic stem cells, of course, were supposed to cure America of its affection for the religious right.” For many politicians, embryonic stem-cell research was a “wedge issue.” Its goal was not to conquer disease but, instead, to put pro-life Americans on the defensive, depicting them as uncaring fanatics. There is no reason to think that our opponents are going to stop trying to use the stem-cell issue against us even after this announcement.

XFiles Friday: Hume and skepticism

(Book: I Don’t Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST, by Geisler and Turek, chapter 2)

It’s time to tackle Chapter 2, which promises to take on no less than David Hume and Immanuel Kant, in the name of defending the intellectual integrity of Christianity’s exclusivist claims. To hear Geisler and Turek tell it, though, these guys were tyros compared to the philosophical genius of Warner Brothers cartoons.

Slavery and revisionism

As quoted by Florida Baptist Witness, Chuck Colson is trying to argue that Christianity deserves credit for ending slavery.

Christopher Hitchens states, “religion makes people do wicked things they wouldn’t ordinarily do … the licenses for genocide, slavery, racism, are all right there in the holy text.”It is a rather empty accusation when put alongside a man like William Wilberforce, who as the film Amazing Grace shows, attacked and abolished the slave trade because of his Christian convictions.

Sorry Charlie, but the accusation would only be empty if the licenses for genocide, slavery, and racism weren’t in the Bible. Latter-day liberal believers like Wilberforce may have chosen to take their religion more from their conscience than from dogma, but that doesn’t change what was originally taught and practiced in the apostolic Church.

D’bunking D’Souza’s d’bunking

Writing for townhall.com, Dinesh D’Souza tries to claim that the antagonism between Christianity and science is a myth.

Many people have uncritically accepted the idea that there is a longstanding war between science and religion… Little do the peddlers of this paradigm realize that they are victims of nineteenth-century atheist propaganda.

And just in case anyone is unfamiliar with the term “propaganda,” D’Souza proceeds to give us a brilliant example of the form, twisting the facts of history to make it sound like the Galileo story has nothing to do with any conflict between science and the Church. As an added bonus, he throws in a gratuitous attempt to make the scientist look like the bad guy, right in the middle of arguing that Christians have no hard feelings towards science.

Creationist heaven, Part 2

In the first installment of Creationist Heaven, we looked at the unity of heaven as envisioned by the writer of Genesis, and how it was intimately linked with the earth as a part of God’s creation. Today, let’s look at heaven as a physical place located above the earth, where God and the angels look down upon men. We’ll start with the story of “Jacob’s Ladder”

Creationist heaven

One of the chief problems with creationism is a lack of consistency, not just in how they approach science, but in how they approach their own Scriptures as well. A good example of this is how they approach the subject of heaven. Having had various forms of air travel since the first balloon flights in the late 1700’s, we tend to forget that heaven was originally a physical place located in the skies above the earth (and above Palestine in particular). Nowadays, of course, science has revealed that this was not correct, and Christians have moved heaven into a kind of immaterial, spiritual realm where it can be safe from scientific prying. But is that a biblically valid strategy, according to a young-earth creationist approach to Scripture?

Who is stalking whom?

Now this is interesting. Apparently Anthony Horvath has taken to following me around the Internet so that he can spread rumors that I’m a stalker (just because I comment on things I find on the Internet and respond to the things other people say about me).

I guess if you can’t address my evidence, you can at least try and assassinate my reputation behind my back. Christianity in action folks.

(Horvath’s comments are attached to this post, by the way.)

Lebanon’s past, America’s future?

What the heck is going on in Lebanon? The BBC News web site has a brief but interesting summary entitled “The Lebanese crisis explained.”

Tiny Lebanon baffles outsiders. Even people in the Middle East find its politics confusing.

If Lebanon is so tiny, though, then why should America care? Well, apart from the humanitarian reasons, little Lebanon is farther along a road that many people would like to take the United States.

Roberts resigns

From AP and Yahoo News comes word that Embattled Oral Roberts president Richard Roberts resigns.

Roberts, facing accusations in the lawsuit that he misspent school funds to support a lavish lifestyle, resigned Friday….

His resignation is effective immediately, according to a statement e-mailed from George Pearsons, chairman of the school’s Board of Regents…

The school’s regents planned to meet Monday and Tuesday to determine action in the search process for a new president, Pearsons said in the statement.

Searching for a new ORU president, eh? The regents should contact Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship and see if he can supply them with a pool of Christian swindlers, extortioners and felons to choose from.

Christianity as a hospital

Writing for michnews.com, Lee Duigon complains that Religion Reporters Don’t Understand Religion:

What could be sillier than a shocked declaration by a paid professional “religion reporter” that Christian churches are full of… (gasp!)…sinners?

I have a feeling that we’re about to find out.