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Tag: Science

RNA Ties and Unties Itself

There are two types of nucleic acids (genetic molecules): DNA and RNA. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a large linear molecule designed to store genetic information in all cells. RNA (ribonucleic acid) serves as a blueprint for proteins and occurs in three forms: transfer-RNA, ribosomal RNA, and messenger-RNA.

It has been said that nucleic acids are like an onion. As biologists peel away a layer of complexity, underneath lies another layer waiting to be described. For example, in 2010 University of Toronto researchers “discovered a fundamentally new view of how living cells use a limited number of genes to generate enormously complex organs such as the brain.”1

Recently, an altogether amazing property of the RNA molecule has been discovered in the bacterium Escherichia coli. The RNA in E. coli “requires specific local structural fluctuations within a key hairpin to engender efficient cotranscriptional conformational rearrangement into the functional structure.”2 Put another way,

Striking new videos show how RNA—the genetic molecule that tells cells how to build proteins—tangles up in insane knots as it forms, only to disentangle itself at the last second, and in a way that took scientists by surprise.3
Surprising, indeed. This “bouncing conga line of nucleotides” actually forms knots that—if left uncorrected—would result in improper RNA function and possibly diseases. By using high-resolution videos, a unique type of RNA called signal recognition particle (SNP) RNA, and a computer algorithm, scientists were able to actually see the growing RNA molecule achieve its final shape.

But what happens when the RNA is forming and is trapped in the tangled knots? Researchers found,

. . . as more nucleotides get added to the sequence, the new nucleotides swoop in to unravel the knot by displacing the nucleotides tangled up inside. “That last little nucleotide is like a trigger” that allows the whole RNA to pop into the correct conformation, [study author Julius] Lucks said. Think of the last fold in an origami project, which suddenly transforms a crinkly piece of paper into a lovely butterfly.3
The only time evolution was mentioned in the article was to state the SNP RNA was “an evolutionarily ancient molecule found across all kingdoms of life.” Creation scientists would say the Creator used this uniquely-designed molecule in all kingdoms of life, just as He used specific enzymes designed to break down food—whether the organisms are bacteria, birds, or blue whales.

Non-evolutionists look forward to more amazing discoveries in biology that clearly point beyond the creation to the Creator.

References
1. Pidutti, Mario. U of T researchers crack “splicing code,” solve a mystery underlying biological complexity. Posted on media.utoronto.ca on May 5, 2010, accessed January 21, 2021. See also: ICR News. Posted on icr.org November 15, 2010.
2. Yu, A. et al. Computationally reconstructing cotranscriptional RNA folding from experimental data reveals rearrangement of non-native folding intermediates. Molecular Cell. Posted on cell.com January 15, 2021, accessed January 21, 2021.
3. Lanese, N. RNA ties itself in knots, then unties itself in mesmerizing video. Posted on msn.com January 19, 2021, accessed January 21, 2021.

*Mr. Frank Sherwin is Research Associate at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his master’s degree in invertebrate zoology from the University of Northern Colorado.

https://www.icr.org/article/rna-ties-and-unties-itself/

Christianity, Science & C.S. Lewis

April 28, 2021

Casual readers of C.S. Lewis are not always familiar with his supremely balanced view of science and faith.

In a world where skeptics allege science and religious faith are incompatible, Lewis upheld the orthodox Christian understanding that Christianity and true science are 100% compatible. The problem arises when people attempt to use science to explore matters science cannot address.

In “C.S. Lewis and How Christians Should Think about Science,” we read that “C.S. Lewis has written extensively on science or specifically on how believers should think about science. Lewis himself was not antiscience. But he had grave concerns about the use of science to either manipulate nature or validate worldviews based on reductionism or naturalism.”

I would like to emphasize this warning, by adding three simple letters. C.S. Lewis “had grave concerns about the misuse of science.” And so should we all.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis describes science’s proper role.

Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave. Every scientific statement in the long run, however complicated it looks, really means something like, “I pointed the telescope to such and such a part of the sky at 2:20 a.m. on January 15th and saw so-and-so,” or, “I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such-and-such a temperature and it did so-and-so.” Do not think I am saying anything against science: I am only saying what its job is.

And the more scientific a man is, the more (I believe) he would agree with me that this is the job of science—and a very useful and necessary job it is too. But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes—something of a different kind—this is not a scientific question. If there is “Something Behind,” then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way.

The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, “Why is there a universe?” “Why does it go on as it does?” “Has it any meaning?” would remain just as they were?

There are, of course, many, many thousands of scientists who are Christians.

I recently read an interesting article on the Society of Roman Catholic Scientists. I commend it to everyone, whatever your religious affiliation (or lack thereof). It is entitled “Christianity in Scientific Mythology,” and begins with the author saying,

It shocks many people to find out that I am both an astrophysicist and a religious believer.  It shocks some of my fellow astrophysicists and even some of my fellow Catholics. . . . But why should this be?  Why should it be a surprise that someone whose chosen profession is the scientific study of the universe is also a person of faith? Why the perception of conflict?  Is it intrinsic to the business of science that it be “at odds” with religion?

Despite the fact that Professor Clemens fails to mention C.S. Lewis in his essay, he makes many valid points. The first lays a solid foundation for his message, and dispels a patently obvious, but seldom acknowledged, fact.

One of the defects of contemporary culture is the undue and unhealthy reverence we show toward scientists.  The public imagines scientists to be too smart to disagree with, too objective to be swayed by emotion or bias, and experts on every subject they choose to talk about.  None of these things is true, of course, and the unquestioning acceptance of these notions does great harm.

C.S. Lewis’ Concept of Scientism

Like all sane people, C.S. Lewis appreciated the great value of science. What he warned against was a sort of deification [my word] of science. It is like the elevation of scientific mythology to the status of ultimate religious truth, able to answer even metaphysical questions with certitude.

If you would like to read more on this subject, consider the following articles:

“Science and Scientism: The Prophetic Vision of C.S. Lewis”

“C.S. Lewis: Science and Scientism”

“C.S. Lewis and the Religion of Science”

“C.S. Lewis on Science, Evolution, and Evolutionism”

Another worthwhile article, published in the journal of Science and Christian Belief, is available at “Science and Religion in the Writings of C.S. Lewis.”

As a person of faith, albeit not a scientist, I concur wholeheartedly with C.S. Lewis. In the following passage from The Weight of Glory, Lewis makes a profound point, although it may require more than a single reading to comprehend. You may wish to read the entire essay to see how he builds up to this observation, but I offer it here on its own merits.

The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world: the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religious. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself.

The illustration above was drawn by E.J. Pace and appeared a century ago in The Sunday School Times. You can download a personal copy of a book featuring a hundred of Pace’s cartoons here.

https://mereinkling.net/2021/04/28/christianity-science-c-s-lewis/

Top 10 Sickening Details About How Federal Employees Trafficked Baby Body Parts

New emails uncovered by Judicial Watch’s FOIA request detail how FDA employees were working with buyers to get ‘fresh’ aborted baby organs for experiments.

Top 10 Sickening Details About How Federal Employees Trafficked Baby Body Parts

By Edie Heipel APRIL 26, 2021

This article contains disturbing information about human dismemberment.

In what should have been a national headline, the exposure of the U.S. government’s involvement in trafficking aborted baby bodies is now even more newsworthy following Friday’s announcement from the White House. At Joe Biden’s direction, the Department of Health and Human Services reversed the Trump administration’s policy protecting preborn Americans from the callous dehumanization of organ harvesting and further desecration of their bodies in research disguised as “science.”

This sickening decision now gives license to our “best and brightest” government researchers and agencies, those in charge of steering the country towards medical breakthroughs and scientific progress, to use the skin, brains, and eyeballs of children in research that affects all of us and is funded by our money. For this very reason, we must know the full extent of how federal agencies traffic aborted baby body parts.

These top 10 shocking examples come from the latest emails uncovered by Judicial Watch’s FOIA request and recent investigations.

1. The FDA Paid $2,000 Per Baby

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration paid an estimated $2,000 per individual baby, at times adding up to $12,000 per box of harvested organs.

Email records confirm the FDA agreed to pre-pay Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), likely the country’s largest fetal tissue trafficking firm, an estimated $2,000 for each aborted child, adding up to $12,000 per average box of tissue with shipping and packaging fees.

2. FDA Bought Organs of Dismembered Babies

The FDA bought organs like livers, brains, and eyeballs of dismembered babies for hundreds of dollars apiece, courtesy of ABR’s collusion with local Planned Parenthoods.

ABR fee schedules and pricing charts obtained during a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Investigation allow us to piece together how much a baby costs by body part, as if each child was a slaughtered animal sold in sections.

3. ABR Sold the Skin of a 21-Week-Old Down Syndrome Baby

FDA’s purchases were calculated according to ABR’s current “Fees for Services Schedule,” which maintained the same prices for all buyers. One procurement log records the sale of a 21-week old baby with Down Syndrome. This child’s limbs, organs, and skin were sold at hundreds of dollars apiece. ABR made $2,600 in total from the sale of this baby.

Whether or not the FDA itself purchased any of this tissue, the fact it entered a contract with a company that makes money off of selling the body parts of children with Down Syndrome is beyond inhumane.

It’s worth looking closely at this chart to see the level of dehumanization inflicted on this child. Each baby (“specimen”) is given a number (“No. xxx602”) and its individual body parts are sold to different customers. A 21-week old child who could have survived outside of the womb becomes just another statistic.

4. The FDA Wanted ‘Fresh’ Babies

The FDA demanded that tissue be in pristine condition. Their initial quote specifies that tissue must be “fresh, never frozen” and harvested from babies 16-24 weeks old “free of known chromosomal abnormalities.”

5. The FDA Asked for Organs from Late-Term Babies

The conscience of many pro-choice Americans has historically been alleviated by the assurance that most abortions occur when a baby is not “viable” to live outside the womb and that barbaric dismemberment procedures don’t happen. But emails prove the FDA bought numerous body parts from babies up to 24 weeks old, a date at which many preemies survive and go on to live healthy lives.

6. The FDA Bought Skulls of Second-Trimester Babies

Receipts confirm the FDA bought “intact calvariums” of babies from 8-24 weeks gestation for use in experiments. It is unclear exactly how these intact heads were used.

7. Busy Abortion Clinics Produced ‘Awful Specimens’

The FDA expressed a demand for more “fresh” tissue, but ABR responded that the busiest clinics in California produced “awful” specimens that were too mangled to use. The sheer volume of abortions at these clinics would have made it difficult for workers to keep up with preserving more intact specimens.

8. FDA Requested Boy Organs to Create Humanized Mice

The FDA went so far as to request organs from baby boys to use in “very important and … challenging” surgeries to create humanized mice. ABR responded that they would do their best but could make no promises due to the “nature of termination procedures,” which mutilate a baby’s body beyond physical recognition.

9. FDA, ABR Employees Called Aborted Babies ‘Amazing’

Email after email reveals the inhumanity FDA researchers and ABR employees have become accustomed to, casually referring to the organs of dead children as “amazing” and “beautiful” as if they were admiring jewels.

10. Taxpayers Paid for FDA Trips to ‘Humanized Mice Workshops’ in Europe

As if the research wasn’t enough, email traffic uncovered that FDA employees would be joining ABR associates at a “Humanized Mice Workshop” in Zurich later that year.

If you’ve managed to read to the bottom of this list, you’re no longer wondering why the federal government covered up these documents for so long. But you may be wondering why this story isn’t a national headline and why journalists, many of whom claim to be uncovering humanitarian abuses, still choose to ignore it.

There may be mainstream media silence and gaslighting by medical experts who tell us there’s nothing to see here, but the American people know better. We are no longer immune to the utter depravity of our federal government’s partnership with the corporate abortion cartel and their cowering beneath the guise of science. The truth is on the fighting side.

Edie Heipel works at the Center for Renewing America. She previously worked at the White House Office of Management and Budget under President Trump.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/26/top-10-sickening-details-about-how-federal-employees-trafficked-baby-body-parts/

CNN Blasted as ‘Propaganda’ for Asserting ‘It’s Not Possible’ to Know Sex at Birth

Michael Foust | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor | Thursday, April 1, 2021

A tiny baby, CNN Blasted as Propaganda for Claiming ‘It’s Not Possible’ to Know Sex at Birth

A CNN news story claiming “it’s not possible” to know a person’s gender or sex at birth was widely panned across social media this week, mainly because it was stated as a non-debatable fact.

The story focused on two executive orders by South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem prohibiting males from competing in female sports. The article was highly critical of her position.

“It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth,” the CNN story said.

It didn’t take long for Christians and conservatives to notice the sentence.

“If you act like a propaganda outlet, people are going to treat you like a propaganda outlet. This is blatant @CNN,” tweeted Denny Burk, director of the Center for Gospel and Culture at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky.

“This is CNN. Unbelievable,” tweeted conservative radio host Erick Erickson.

“We live in a literal clown world where the elites pretend not to know what it means to be a man or a woman. The only way to maintain your sanity is to reject this absolute nonsense everywhere you see it,” tweeted author Allie Beth Stuckey.

“Actually, there is a scientific consensus for ‘assigning sex at birth.’ It’s called observation, coupled with a basic understanding of mammalian and human biology,” tweeted Hot Air senior editor Ed Morrissey.

“Hey @CNN, you wrote, ‘It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth.’ Call me, and I’ll explain the criteria to you in 15 seconds,” tweeted David Prince, pastor of Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky.

One person tweeted, sarcastically, “Wonder if CNN would help me out and announce it’s ‘Not Possible To Know A Person’s Income On Tax Day.’”

The website eventually tweaked the sentence, although the change did little to appease Christians and other conservatives’ concerns. The new sentence read: “It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and for some people, the sex listed on their original birth certificate is a misleading way of describing the body they have.”

Related:

Father Jailed after Calling Transgender Child His ‘Daughter’ and Using Wrong Pronouns

Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Kieferpix

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/michael-foust/cnn-blasted-as-propaganda-for-asserting-its-not-possible-to-know-sex-at-birth.html

Rev. Franklin Graham: ‘Pray God’ Spares the Nation ‘from the Evil Before Us’

Franklin Graham

Dr. Susan Perry

On Christmas Eve evangelical leader Rev. Franklin Graham asked Christians to pray that America will be spared “from the evil that is before us.”

A supporter of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, Graham asked his Twitter followers to pray for the president, that God will grant him “wisdom in the coming days.”

On Saturday he posted to Facebook that Trump “has been maligned, falsely accused, and attacked on every front since before the election in 2016.”

“When President Trump says that this election has been rigged or stolen, I tend to believe him,” he wrote. “He has a track record of being right.”

The president of international aid charity Samaritan’s Purse, Graham also acknowledged the effects of the coronavirus lockdowns in an op-ed at Fox News.

“This is a Christmas unlike any other,” he wrote, one that finds many Americans filled with “fear and anxiety.”

“Large family gatherings and office parties have been replaced with grim lockdowns, quarantines and isolation,” he observed. “What used to be the warmest and most welcoming time of the year can now feel sterile and cold.”

The Christian leader also noted that while there is hope in new vaccines to combat the infection caused by the coronavirus, still “there isn’t a vaccine on Earth that can protect us from worry, depression, or fear.”

The only way to heal a “sick spirit,” Graham said, is “to find healing for deep, spiritual needs, and that’s in Jesus Christ – the hope of Christmas.”

Jesus, he continued, is “the only cure for a disease of the heart that has infected all mankind – sin.”

God’s “rescue mission to save us from our sins,” Graham said, happened on that first Christmas morning.

“When Christ was born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem on that first Christmas morning, true hope was born for you and me,” he explained, adding:

While everything else may lock down, isn’t it reassuring to know there is a God who never shuts down? He will never isolate or leave those who trust in him alone.

“This is the good news of Christmas,” Graham wrote. “Jesus Christ changed the world on that first Christmas day and he has the power to change your life today and for all eternity.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/12/25/rev-franklin-graham-pray-god-spares-the-nation-from-the-evil-before-u

Miracles and Science

For a many people in the West, science seems to be at odds with belief in God because of its ‎claims to the miraculous. How can modern scientific people possibly believe in ancient stories ‎about signs, wonders, and resurrections from the dead; written by uneducated men in pre-‎scientific times?‎

The underlying assumption that the authors of the Bible were gullible and we’ve‎ only now ‎become critical thinkers, is what C.S. Lewis describes as “chronological snobbery”. People have ‎always known that dead people don’t come back to life, and the Bible records very human ‎reactions to miracles (e.g. fear and disbelief). Miracles are never expected.‎

Moreover, modern attempts to relativise theistic beliefs in terms of socio-cultural assumptions ‎of the time, are necessarily rooted in socio-cultural assumptions of our time. The sociology of ‎knowledge (the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within ‎which it arises) should not only be applied to other cultures, but to our culture as well. As ‎Peter Berger, one of the founders of the sociology of knowledge, points out:‎

“The past, out of which the tradition comes, is relativised in terms of this or that socio-‎historical analysis. The present, however, remains strangely immune from relativisation. ‎In other words, the New Testament writers are seen as afflicted with a false consciousness ‎rooted in their time, but the contemporary analyst takes the consciousness of his time as ‎an unmixed intellectual blessing. The electricity- and radio-users are placed intellectually above ‎the Apostle Paul.‎

This is rather funny. More importantly, in the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, it is an ‎extraordinarily one-sided way of looking at things. What was good for the first century is good ‎for the twentieth. The worldview of the New Testament writers was constructed and maintained ‎by the same kind of social processes that construct and maintain the world view of ‎contemporary “radical” theologians. Each has its appropriate plausibility structure, its ‎plausibility-maintaining mechanisms. If this is understood, then the appeal to any alleged ‎modern consciousness loses most of its persuasiveness – unless, of course, one can bring ‎oneself to believe that modern consciousness is indeed the embodiment of superior cognitive ‎powers.” (Peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the ‎Supernatural, 41)‎

One of the differences between ancient cultures and modern Western culture, is that modern ‎Western culture often conflates methodological naturalism (the view that miracles are ‎miraculous) with philosophical naturalism (the view that miracles are impossible). Miracles are ‎miraculous by definition, but what makes miracles impossible (apart from unprovable ‎assumptions about the world)?‎

No one doubts the monumental advances of science, but science depends upon the regularity of ‎nature (also known as methodological naturalism), not the non-existence of the supernatural ‎‎(also known as philosophical naturalism). There is simply no one scientific worldview. ‎Christians can do science, Buddhists can do science, Muslims can do science, Hindus can do science. You don’t have to ‎be an atheist, all you need to assume the regularity of nature.‎

Nevertheless, the assumption of the regularity of nature (which is required for science) wasn’t ‎obvious for most of human history, and it took the Christian view that God is a God of order ‎for it to be well established enough to give rise to the scientific method. In 16th century Europe, ‎the Christian Reformation led to the questioning of tradition and the push to go ‘to the sources’. ‎In 17th century Europe, this was applied to creation, which led to the rise of modern science.‎

No historian of science chalks up the rise of modern science coming on the heels the ‎Reformation, in the same place as the Reformation, to coincidence. Indeed, most historians of science hold to some ‎form of Merton’s ‎thesis, that “Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they ‎expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator.” (C.S. Lewis, Miracles: A ‎Preliminary Study, 169)‎

Philosophical naturalism simply does not follow from the regularity of nature. Indeed, without ‎the regularity of nature, we would have no way of recognising a miracle as a miracle. Belief in ‎God doesn’t deny the regularity of nature (which is required for science), but rather, the ‎evidence for God depends on it. As C.S. Lewis wrote:‎

‎“If I put six pennies into a drawer on Monday and six more on Tuesday, the laws decree that – ‎‎other things being equal – I shall find twelve pennies there on Wednesday. But if the ‎drawer has been robbed I may in fact find only two. Something will have been broken (the lock ‎of the drawer or the laws of England) but the laws of arithmetic will not have been broken. The ‎new situation created by the thief will illustrate the laws of arithmetic just as well as the original ‎situation. But if God comes to work miracles, He comes ‘like a thief in the night’… The better ‎you know that two and two make four, the better you know that two and three don’t.” (C.S. ‎Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, 92-93)‎

Far from disproving the existence of miracles, the regularity of nature is precisely what’s ‎required to recognise miracle as a miracle. Miracles are incredibly rare (because of the regularity ‎of nature), and so most theists are somewhat sceptical about claims of the miraculous. But ‎unlike committed atheists, who, as Lewontin admits, “cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door”, the ‎theist’s worldview allows them to follow the evidence wherever it leads.‎

http://www.faithbasedonevidence.com/miracles.html

VIDEO Abortion Debate Takeaway: Mike Adams vs Willie Parker – Eagle Egg Value

2/22/2019

Last night, Mike S. Adams, PhD debated Willie Parker M.D. on whether abortion was morally wrong.  While it would be easy to say that Mike won the debate (hands down), I would rather focus on Dr. Parker’s responses to Mike Adam’s arguments for the pro life position.

1. Argument from Ad Hominem

Surprisingly, Dr. Parker’s first salvo in this debate was a claim that Mike Adams attacked his character.  In reality, Mike used arguments from the science of embryology and read excerpts from Dr. Parker’s book.  This was confined to Dr. Parker’s justifications for abortion, not against his character.  It seemed that Dr. Parker attempted to argue from emotion from the outset by claiming a personal attack and this set the tone for his responses the rest of the night.   Arguing from emotion is what you most often confront when making a prolife argument.  After all, these are in fact real issues that concern real people everyday and they are not easy to deal with.  However, truth doesn’t rely on how someone feels about that truth and it shouldn’t be the deciding factor in determining truth.

2.  What about the science?
Mike Adams based his arguments on the science of embryology to show that a fetus is wholly, biologically human the same as those who have already been born and from the philosophical argument that the unborn are persons.  He argued that because of this, they had equal human rights as the mother or anyone else.  Dr. Parker did not dispute the scientific arguments at all.  This is what surprised me most of all about this debate. He would sometimes refer to “medical facts” and seem to infer that Mike was not repeating true medical facts but would never say what those facts were or how Mike was incorrect.

3. What is personhood?
The main thrust of Dr. Parker’s position was that the unborn were fully human, but not persons.  He claimed that Mike Adams never used the word “persons” in his arguments (which was not the case) so that meant he knew being human was not the same as being a person.  This is always a strange position because you must show what the difference is.  I’ve never heard the definition of a non-person human from someone on the pro choice side and it’s something they should be able to define if they believe it’s the case.  Dr. Parker also seemed to be stating that personhood was a legal term, but in fact, it’s a philosophical/metaphysical term.  He also stated he felt sentience determined personhood.  This is a bad line of reasoning.  For example,  a person in a coma due to a brain injury could be said to not be sentient. Since they are not able to experience their environment, are this still a person?

4. Is abortion murder?
Dr. Parker also stated that no police officer would arrest him because abortion was not murder.  He seemed to be confused as to what Mike Adams meant when he said something could be legal but not moral.  Slavery was legal, but immoral.  Eventually, the laws reflected this. However, the fact that abortion is legal doesn’t mean it’s not murder.  This is a moral truth claim about a set of actions and the law is based on this underlying, objective moral value, not the other way around.  This was a very strange argument to say the least.

5. What about Religion?
Dr. Parker in his opening statements began to refute arguments from Christianity stating that because we live in a pluralistic society, we cannot make laws based on a particular religion.  While there are philosophical problems with that statement, it was confusing as Mike Adams never made a single argument from Christianity or the Bible.  While Mike comes from a Christian worldview, he contained his arguments to the science of embryology and the philosophical argument that the unborn were persons.  This appeared to be a pre-emptive strike against any religious argument for the pro-life position, but it was an awkward line of reasoning.

In the end, while I expected to hear some new scientific arguments for abortion to contend with, I only heard the same arguments that are always made and was shocked at the line of reasoning Dr. Parker used.  This was a good debate as it brought out the pro-life position and showed the weakness of the pro-choice view.

https://www.sheepdogfaith.org/blog/mike-adams-vs-willie-parker-the-takeaway

Is an Eagle Egg More Valuable Than a Baby

Science and God

March 31, 2019  By  Dr. Jerry Newcombe

An award-winning scientist recently told the world that science and religion are not incompatible.

The Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports (3/19/19):

“The annual Templeton Prize, which recognizes outstanding contributions to ‘affirming life’s spiritual dimension,’ was awarded Tuesday to Brazilian Marcelo Gleiser—a theoretical physicist dedicated to demonstrating science and religion are not enemies.”

Gleiser, a professor at Dartmouth College since 1991, said:

“Science does not kill God.”

Although he is described as an agnostic, the AFP reports that Gleiser:

“refuses to write off the possibility of God’s existence completely.”

He said:

“Atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method…Atheism is a belief in non-belief. So you categorically deny something you have no evidence against…I’ll keep an open mind because I understand that human knowledge is limited.”

I agree with this man’s sentiments. How is it that science and God are somehow viewed as enemies?

The great British jurist, Sir William Blackstone, whose four-volume set of Commentaries on the Laws of England were of great value to our founding fathers, put it this way:

“Thus, when the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, He impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be. When He put that matter into motion, He established certain laws of motion, to which all moveable bodies must conform.”

I think it is fascinating that virtually all the early scientists historically were professing Christians. They were, in the words of Johannes Kepler, “thinking God’s thoughts after Him” in their scientific explorations. Modern science arose near the end of the medieval period. The early scientists believed that a rational God had made a rational universe, and it was their job—using the words of Kepler, “as priests of the highest God”—to try and catalogue what laws of the universe He had created.

Consider some of the thoughts of scientists who were Christians through the ages.

Blaise Pascal was a brilliant mathematician in 17th century France. He is credited with  discovering principles that would ultimately lead to the creation of the computer.

Pascal said:

“Faith tells us what senses cannot, but it is not contrary to their findings. It simply transcends, without contradicting them.”

Pascal also said:

“Jesus Christ is the only proof of the living God. We only know God through Jesus Christ.”

Isaac Newton, the discoverer of gravity and one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, wrote more about the Bible and about Christian theology than he did science. Said the great Newton:

“I have a foundational belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.”

The father of modern chemistry was Oxford professor Robert Boyle, born in 1627. Boyle was not only a diligent student of chemistry, but a diligent student of the Bible. In his will he left a large sum of money to found the “Boyle lectures” for proving the Christian religion.

19th century American Matthew Fontaine Maury is credited as the father of oceanography. He got his idea that the sea has “lanes” and currents from a verse in the Bible. Psalm 8:8 speaks of:

“the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas.”

One time Maury gave a speech at the inauguration for a college in which he said:

“I have been blamed by men of science, both in this country and in England, for quoting the Bible in confirmation of the doctrines of physical geography. The Bible, they say, was not written for scientific purposes, and is therefore of no authority in matters of science. I beg your pardon: the Bible is authority for everything it touches.”

That includes, he said:

“physical geography, the earth, the sea and the air.”

Maury added:

“[W]hen, after patient research, I am led to the discovery of any one of [the physical laws the Creator has built into His creation], I feel with the astronomer of old [i.e., Kepler], as though I had ‘thought one of God’s thoughts,’— and tremble. Thus as we progress with our science we are permitted now and then to point out here and there in the physical machinery of the earth a design of the Great Architect when He planned it all.”

Indeed, as science professor Marcelo Gleiser points out, “science does not kill God.” Far from it.

The late Dr. Robert Jastrow was an astronomer and a planetary physicist with NASA, and he wrote a book called, God and the Astronomers.

Jastrow noted:

“The scientist has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; and as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

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Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is an on-air host/senior producer for D. James Kennedy Ministries. He has written/co-written 31 books, e.g., The Unstoppable Jesus Christ, American Amnesia: Is American Paying the Price for Forgetting God?, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (w/ D. James Kennedy) & the bestseller, George Washington’s Sacred Fire (w/ Peter Lillback)   djkm.org  @newcombejerry      http://www.jerrynewcombe.com

https://barbwire.com/science-and-god/

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