From LifeNews.com:

“The Obama administration on Monday forced Americans to pay for another round of embryonic stem cell research involving the destruction of human life. National Institutes of Health chief Francis Collins approved taxpayer funding of 27 more lines of embryonic stem cells. The cells can only be obtained by destroying unborn children days after conception — at which point human embryos are unique human beings. The embryonic stem cells in question are 27 lines from Harvard University used in diabetes-related pancreatic cell experiments. Embryonic stem cell research has yet to be tried in human patients because of its failure when used on animals. The cells cause tumors and prompt the immune system to reject them. However, adult stem cell research has resulted in cures or treatments for more than 100 different diseases and conditions.”

By contrast, there are hundreds of therapeutic applications of Adult Stem Cell technology. So why the push for ESC’s when they consistently do not deliver?
They’re a bulwark for abortion. For the first time since Roe, we have the human embryo diconnected from the mother’s body. The smokescreen argument over the right to privacy no longer shields the embryo from the objective consideration of its human identity and status. It exists on its own.

Abortion’s proponents can’t afford to allow the development of sympathy for human beings in their embryonic stage of development. So a new denigration is needed. Cellular substrate for building therapeutic scaffolding. The problem is, it doesn’t work.

Pro-lifers need to seize this opportunity to discuss the human embryo’s dignity and intrinsic worth as it sits in the Petri dish. Then question why the real advances in adult cells aren’t being aggressively funded.

Darwin's Black Box: A Must Read

Let me first say that science would not exist unless it where for Christianity.  In the history of Western Civilization, one has to ask themselves, ‘the Greeks were really really smart, why didn’t they invent the scientific method?’  The answer is simple, following Platonic and Neo-Platonic thinking, they did not think this world was real or intelligible.  It was not until Christianity presented a world created, ordered, and directed by a sovereign and benevolent triune God that the scientific method sprouted.  The consensus view in the history/philosophy of science is that science required the fertile soul of Christianity in order to grow.  Christianity took this world seriously.

1.  Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe  [l, e, p, s]

In my view, this book destroys the Neo-Darwinian (scientific rationalism) story of how life exists.  This book is a must read.  See also this previous blog post.

2.  Pensees by Blaise Pascal  [y, l, e, p, s]

Although not explicitly about science and Christianity, Pascal presents an epistemology that includes science, reason, and faith.

3.  Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi  [e, p, s]

Polanyi rightly challenges the objectivity and impersonality of the scientist.  Polanyi is very important in philosophy of science and is a worthwhile read.

4.  When Science Meets Religion by Ian Barbour  [l, e, p, s]

Barbour presents four possible relationships that science and religion might have.  Balanced read.

5.  The Soul of Science:  Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy by Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton  [l, e, p, s]

Great critique of naturalism.  Pearcey is solid as usual.

6.  Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson  [y, l, e, p, s]

Is there enough hard evidence to prove Darwinism correct, were it to be put on a public trial?  Creative and damning question.

7.  The Edge of Evolution:  The Search for the Limits of Darwinism by Michael Behe  [l, e, p, s]

More Behe.  Good stuff.

8.  Evolution:  A Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton  [l, e, p, s]

Most think that this is the book that started the Intelligent Design movement.

9.  The Reason for God by Tim Keller  [c,y l, e, p, s]

Although not explicitly on the subject of science, like Pascal, Keller presents a third way between pure science/reason and pure faith.

10a.   The Language of God by Francis Collins  [l, e, p, s]

A look at DNA, from the director of the human genome project, and an evangelical Christian.

10b.  Inventing the Flat Earth:  Columbus and Modern Historian by Jeffrey Russell  [l, e, p, s]

Russell confronts the myth that people (esp. Christians) believed in a flat earth.  Pretty damning to an annoying and ignorant argument:

On page 1 of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (that is, in the first article of the first question of the first part), he casually mentions the round earth on the way to proving something doctrinal: “the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e., abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself.”  (via Between Two Worlds)

Honorable Mention:  Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells  [c, y, l, e, p, s]

I cannot stand behind anything else he has written, but Icons shreds the silly pictures commonly put in the textbooks you had growing up, demonstrating how they do not show Darwinian macroevolution.

(c=children; y=young adult; l=lay leader; e=elder; p=pastor; s=scholar)

I’m very much behind everybody, I’m sure, but allow me to express my frustration at the ‘news’ that the person Obama chose to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is Francis Collins. The PhD student from Michigan who told me about it put in terms of ‘that religious maniac’, and she’s more qualified than me to judge the issue. I’ve mentioned Collins’ The Language of God before here, and I don’t have the time or disposition to say more. Except that enthusiasm will eventually wash out, the dust will settle on that Nobel, and then we’ll see how we really stand.

This from MSNBC.com:

Humans still evolving as our brains shrink
Decrease has been happening over last 5,000 years, researcher says

By Charles Q. Choi
LiveScience

updated 1:53 p.m. PT, Fri., Nov . 13, 2009

Evolution in humans is commonly thought to have essentially stopped in recent times. But there are plenty of examples that the human race is still evolving, including our brains, and there are even signs that our evolution may be accelerating.

Comprehensive scans of the human genome reveal that hundreds of our genes show evidence of changes during the past 10,000 years of human evolution.

“We know the brain has been evolving in human populations quite recently,” said paleoanthropologist John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Surprisingly, based on skull measurements, the human brain appears to have been shrinking over the last 5,000 or so years.

To read the complete article here.

Image of the Human Brain:

The Human Brain. Image Courtesy: dreamstime/MSNBC.com

The Human Brain. Photo Credit Courtesy: dreamstime/MSNBC.com

Weighing in at an average of 2.7 pounds, the human brain packs a whopping 100 billion neurons. Every minute, about three soda cans’ worth of blood flow through the brain

Image Credit: Courtesy: dreamstime/MSNBC.com

This research opens two very thorny issues for the church:

1. Accepting evolution as an accurate description of biological change through time, at the level of speciation, not just genetic mutations as happens in viruses.
2. Once the mechanism of evolution is accepted, the issue that Homo sapiens sapiens is continuing to evolve on both a micro and macro-level requires a theological discussion that exceeds the level of uncertainty involved in the discovery of extraterrestrial life.

I would open the discussion with the assertion that we do not have the language or theological constructs needed to have a meaningful dialogue about the issue of ongoing evolution of the human species. We, however, need to begin developing both very quickly.

To assist us in initiating this conversation, I have attached a lecture “Faith and the Human Genome” by Dr. Francis Collins, MD, who was the director of the Human Genome Project, and earlier this year was appointed director the National Institutes of Health by Pres. Obama. Collins, a devout Christian, is author of the book The Language of God, in which he described his journey as an agnostic medical doctor and researcher to having a conversion experience that radically transformed his life. Dr. Collins believes the time has long past for the Church to accept evolution:

…The past century has not been a good one in terms of the polarization between the more evangelical wing of the church and the
scientific community. We seem to be engaged in contentious,
destructive, and wholly unnecessary debate about evolution and creation. From my perspective as a scientist working on the genome, the evidence in favor of evolution is overwhelming.

His lecture provides a clear snapshot of how he came to his conclusions and how Christians should respond. Dr. Collins’ work has had a profound affect on my own journey in faith and science:

Faith and the Human Genome

Yet another great video from the recent AAI Convention. It’s a presentation by  Andy Thomson on the scientific approach to morality.

I included a past lecture of Andy’s on terrorism in my post Now I’m to blame for Stalin!

In this talk he uses Francis Collins‘ claim that morality is proof of God as a jumping-off point to discuss what we know about how morality works and where it came from.

YouTube – ‘Morality’ by Andy Thomson, AAI 2009.

There are other interesting lectures by Andy Thomson available on video. I can recommend “Why we believe in religion” and “How Religion Hijacks Cognitive Mechanisms.”

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Biologos is holding an invitation-only workshop on theistic evolution in New York City:

The first workshop is scheduled for the fall of 2009, and is co-sponsored by the Rev. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Church in New York’s leading evangelical fellowship. This meeting is intended to build bridges and enable comfortable communication channels between respected evangelical scientists working on origins and key religious leaders in the evangelical Christian church. Invitations have been extended to 15 leading scientists, 15 leading theologians, and 15 leading pastors.

The invite list is a secret:

But who else will attend is being kept a secret, as is the exact location of the meeting (which will be somewhere in New York). The reason? According to BioLogos, some attendees want their participation in the closed meeting to remain confidential.

Biologos got $2,028,238 for its website and this event from the Templeton Foundation:

The invitation-only workshops will bring scientists and evangelical leaders together to seek a theology more accepting of science, specifically evolutionary biology.

Bruce Waltke, in an essay posted on the BioLogos website in anticipation of the workshop, recommended dialogue with Intelligent Design proponents:

The organizations seeking to refute evolution and/or to narrow the gap between creation and evolution must address one another with respect and openness to be optimally effective. The gap between BioLogos and ID, I suggest, can best be narrowed by open dialogue, not by entrenched confrontation.

Seven white papers will be published at the end of the workshop.  Among the authors are Mark Noll, Bruce Waltke and Tim Keller.

It will be interesting to see whether any ID proponents were invited and whether any genuine dialogue takes place.

Buying books in English can get pretty pricey around here, so I’m grateful to my expat peers for lending me whatever they’re finished with. The most recent borrowed read was The Language of God by Francis Collins.

In it he argues for the harmonious blending of faith and science. I thought his explanations and arguments were pretty compelling, and he wrote with a straight-forward humility that squashed my faith-oriented predispositions against the ’scientific worldview’. I’ve always been (and still am) hesitant to enter the discussion/debate/fight over evolutionary theory and faith’s relationship w/ science since it’s such a sensitive subject that I know virtually nothing about; silence is really the only option if I don’t wanna sound like a moron. But Collins’ book, as I see it, was a healthy, balanced way of learning more about such a difficult topic. I’d definitely recommend it!

Yale University – Education stained-glass, by Tiffany

Tellingly, President Obama’s pick to head the National Institutes of Health — Francis Collins — touts this symbiotic relationship today.

By Mark I. Pinsky

In recent years, some Americans have come to view science and religion as consistent antagonists, butting heads over everything from the origin of the cosmos to when human life begins (abortion) and when it ends (euthanasia).

Conservative denominations, like the Southern Baptists, Catholics, Assemblies of God and some non-denominational evangelicals, object to particular areas of scientific research — embryonic stem cells and cloning, for instance. By contrast, mainline Protestant and Jewish denominations, as well as Hindu and Muslim communities, have tended to support embryonic stem cell research, adding a new voice to such highly politicized debates.

Read more HERE.

I haven’t really been following this story and don’t fully understand the nature of the disagreement (nor do I really care as this seems like a trivial disagreement), but as much as I dislike Collins’ using the name of science to promote of his wacky religious views, if he’s pissed off Age of Autism, that’s probably a sign that he’s doing something right. So kudos to Francis Collins for not pleasing these nutters. . .

. . . .who are also now pissed at Jon Stewart. What’s particularly silly about this article is how its author, Adriana Gamondes, doesn’t even try to hide the fact that her whole basis for invoking the Big Pharma Shill Gambit (the anti-vaccinationists’ favorite) is purely based on the fact that Jon Stewart said something that disagreed with her beliefs. According to Gomondes, she held Stewart up as “a sort of icon of independent media in a sea of embedded shills”. . .until he disagreed with her. Now that’s proof enough in her mind that he’s part of the evil conspiracy. . .or a sheep who just believes what he’s told. It’s the classic false dichotomy that every grand conspiracy theorist must believe in order to rationalize why nobody else seems to agree with them. Of course the article is full of emotional appeals about her poor life as a parent to an autistic child. And then given that Stewart works for Viacom, it wasn’t hard to develop an elaborate conspiracy using the classic Guilt By Association Gambit that all grand conspiracy theorists must do in order to dismiss all research and researched testamony that disagrees with them:

I’ve had to think it through. On the one hand, if I myself were a clever pundit making umpty millions on cable and my parent network, which happened to have pharm-friendly ties, was hinting that I should make nice about flu shots in the midst of a marketing frenzy (and my extraordinary survival barometer was telling me that if I made the wrong noises in this instance, even if I didn’t jump on a couch or subscribe to an alternative church and was careful to never repeat my “mochachino” quip in earshot of a women’s basketball team*,  something else I did or said could easily be turned into an excuse to make things far worse for me than all the other times I’d “bucked the pressure” combined),  I might take a vague dislike of having people spray snot in my face and whip it into a full blown case of hypochondria in my own mind if it made me feel better about “assuming the position”. On the other hand, I might be Monk.

Apparently, Ms. Gamondes is a shill for Big Sentence. If anyone can make heads or tales out of that run-on, incomprehensible word salad, let me know. Cause it looks like that one sentence is proof that this woman is certifiably insane. Actually, I didn’t mean “word salad.” I just can’t think of the proper psychological term for that kind of long string of disconnected ideas. Some sites call it “loose associations” but I know there was a better term for it. Oh well.

She then goes on to say:

I like to think the best of people, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re crazy.

Ditto Adriana, you batshit insane psychopath.

Saturday’s Newslinks brought to you by At Ease Tees

Health Bill Would Make It Harder to Deduct Medical Expenses, but That Won’t Affect Middle Class, Democrat Claims
(CNSNews.com) – A Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee claims that a provision of the Senate health-reform bill will not make it more difficult for middle-class Americans to deduct medical expenses on their tax returns. But Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) says that is because “most Americans” don’t itemize their income tax deductions.

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(CNSNews.com) – A small group of determined scientists gathered in a Senate office building Friday to present evidence backing their claim that climate change is caused by nature, not man, and that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but the hope for a greener planet.

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Nobel Decision Seen As Attempt to Steer U.S. Policies
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President taps lesbian activist to EEOC
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Battling ‘climate change’ – an issue of morality?
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Republicans Formally State Their Objections to Senate Finance Committee’s Health Care Legislation
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Baucus Health Bill Could Prevent Medical Expense Deductions: Wheelchairs, Chemotherapy, Seeing-Eye Dogs
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Baltimore Schools Embrace Anti-Meat Movement with ‘Meatless Mondays’
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Obama: Homosexual Relationships ‘Just as Real and Admirable’ as Heterosexual Marriage
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EPA to Wrap Up First Phase of Controversial Hudson River Toxic Dredging Project in November
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White House Says Catholic Bishops Have Misinterpreted Law Banning Federal Funding of Abortion–And Its Application to Health-Care Bill
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U.N. Chief Now Supports Move to Reopen Debate on ‘Israeli War Crimes’ Report
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Hillary Clinton Says She Will Not Run for President Again
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Calif. Conservatives ‘Disappointed’ with New Harvey Milk Day

Has Obama Ushered in a New Era for LGBT Rights?

Caritas Report Calls for New Global Ethic on Climate Change

‘Brick Testament’ Illustrates Over 400 Bible Stories with Legos

Forget the people – ram healthcare bill through
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Perspective: Show me the bill!
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Montana judges smack down parental rights
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Disney elevates homosexual to studio chief
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Climate Change Will Be Its Highest Priority, Says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
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FCC Commissioner Says Diversity Chief’s Ideas for Regulating Free Speech Are ‘Troubling’
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Finance Committee Health Bill Includes $507 Billion in New Taxes and Fees
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Despite Obama Administration’s Hopes, Russia Giving No Ground on Iran Sanctions
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Pro-Life Activists Speak Out Against Pro-Abortion Leaders in U.S., Spain
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Bible verse ban spawns ‘wave of support for Christ’
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State custody step for Rifqa ‘just a guise’
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Parents voice opposition to Obama ‘praise’ song
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Suspended 1st-grader can return to school
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Homosexuality ‘not a civil right’
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Former CBO Chief Calls Obama Administration Fiscal Policies ‘Laughable’
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Despite Violating U.N. Resolutions, Lebanon to Get Security Council Seat
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Lieberman pushing pro-homosexual measures
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Student sues for right to wear pro-life shirt
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Iran – not Palestinians – primary culprit in Middle East
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Pastor Offers a Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional

ELCA Bishops Urge Obama Stay Committed to Mideast Peace Efforts

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NIH Head Francis Collins Appointed to Vatican’s Scientific Academy 

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Sex Ed Should Not Promote Only Marriage or Heterosexual Relationships, Advocates Say
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Despite Widespread Contraceptive Use, One Third of Pregnancies in France ‘Unplanned,’ New Study Confirms
(CNSNews.com) – While the number of unplanned pregnancies in France has declined since the 1960s as the number of planned pregnancies has increased, according to the study, the large number of “poorly planned or unwanted births” is high “and confirms the fact that no contraceptive method is totally reliable.”

Does Obama Support or Oppose Amendment to Prohibit Abortion Funding in Health Bill? White House Isn’t Saying
(CNSNews.com) – Does President Obama support or oppose an amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) that would explicitly prohibit federal funding of abortion in the health-care bill now being considered in Congress? As of now, the White House isn’t saying. On Wednesday, the White House did not respond to CNSNews.com’s direct written question on the matter. At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to specifically address Stupak’s amendment.

Israelis Took Unprecedented Steps to Safeguard Civilians, Says British Officer
(CNSNews.com) – In its offensive against Hamas in Gaza last winter, the Israeli army “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare,” the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday. Col. Richard Kemp was speaking on the second day of an emergency “special session” called by pro-Palestinian governments aimed at endorsing a report accusing Israel of war crimes during the operation.

Will Rangel ever step down?
The powerful chairman of the tax-writing committee of the U.S. House is being urged to step down from his post for, among other things, failing to pay taxes. POLL: What if Charlie Rangel was a Republican? VOTE

Ministry leader: Obama ‘loathes’ Israel
A Messianic Jewish leader and Israel supporter is outraged that an Obama website recently published an article comparing Israelis to Nazis.

Perspective: MTV’s ‘dark side’ on display
During last month’s MTV music video awards ceremony, actor Jack Black urged the audience join hands and pray to “dear dark lord Satan.”

Dems’ healthcare ideas ‘all increase the deficit’
Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker says the healthcare bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee is bad for the economy, bad for the deficit, and doesn’t provide better healthcare.

Mom wants baby after trying to have it killed
Utah’s legislature will be asked to deal with a loophole in homicide law that allowed a teenager to be set free after hiring someone to beat her to cause a miscarriage.

From the Huffington Post:

And in the modern world, with the strange and inexplicable discoveries of quantum physics, scientific treatises on the nature of reality sound remarkably like ancient mystical writings. The more we learn about the shocking contradictions and improbable mechanics of the subatomic world, the more it appears that the universe is less like Isaac Newton’s giant clock and more like one giant dream, imagined from within an implicate order that transcends human reason. Such a vision would be familiar to the Sufis of Islam, along with their counterparts among Buddhist masters, Kabbalists and Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart.

So, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and “Christian” mystics all agree on this stuff. Fascinating. In addition, the “dreamtime” religious myths of Australian aborigines can be compared to this also. (Incidentally, Kabbalist means Jewish, as Kabbalism is part and parcel to the accepted Jewish religion. Kabbalism is in no way pseudo-Jewish cultism. Instead, esoteric knowledge and magic are all over Judaism, and is the acknowledged but seldom spoken of underpinnings of the Talmud and other rabbinic Jewish books. Kabbalah, which at best is a syncretism between some elements of the Hebrew religion and the Babylonian pagan mystery religions and is more likely the Babylonian mystery religion in Jewish guise, can be considered “higher Judaism.” Jews are encouraged to master the Talmud and the other books first, and the brightest and most devoted then go on to study Kabbalah. From a Jewish website: Kabbalah is also part of the Oral law. It is the traditional mystical understanding of the Torah. Kabbalah stresses the reasons and understanding of the commandments, and the cause of events described in the Torah. Kabbalah includes the understanding of the spiritual spheres in creation, and the rules and ways by which G-d administers the existence of the universe. More information that “Christian Zionist” preachers and leaders never tell the laymen, though they certainly know about it. So, we should not be surprised that Kabbalists and Muslims agree on this topic, because it is “knowledge” that not only spiritually but also quite literally has the same origin.)

This also seems to correlate to the religious worldview pushed by people such as Dan Brown and George Lucas (theosophy and New Age sorts), where knowledge (or more accurately consciousness), matter and energy themselves are worshiped as god. Reminds me of a couple of articles I read (see below). One world religion anybody? The interesting thing is that this religio-scientific worldview very much accommodates evolution, the big bang theory and similar. As a matter of fact, the article points out that believers in this worldview include Francis Collins, the current director of the National Institutes of Health (Barack Hussein Obama appointee). Despite his belief in and advocacy for evolution, Collins is considered to be an evangelical Christian (and is indeed embraced as one by evangelicals desperate to see one of their own ranks represented in mainstream culture, especially in the elite academic, scientific and government arenas, and Collins represents all three), and is working to get evangelical Christians to abandon their opposition to evolution. I should point out that in this Francis is far from alone, as not a few Anglican evangelical theologians, including Alister McGrath, have been trying to get evangelicals to submit to evolution for decades. And incidentally, you should know that the Roman Catholic Church, with its long history of mysticism, is slowly accommodating evolution as well. Again, one world religion maybe, perhaps?

crossroad.to/articles2/05/star-wars.htm

rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/newage.htm

Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a supporter of embryonic stem-cell research to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, took a leading role in the Human Genome Project.

An evangelical Christian, he wrote the bestselling The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

According to Discover Magazine he supports human embryonic stem-cell research and “therapeutic” human cloning.

He is not the first member of the Pontifical Academy to support destructive embryo experimentation. In 2006 Stephen Hawking, a lifetime member, criticised “reactionary” forces in Europe and America seeking to ban the research.

If you happen to be a Christian you have certainly been told at some point that to believe in God, the Bible, Creation, Heaven, etc., one must “check their brains at the door.” Since this is one example of the numerous emotionally provocative, superficial, and unsubstantiated claims that are made about Christians it is not only ineffective but also a waste of time to attempt to do battle against it.  What you will also find is that the amount of “brainpower” is irrelevant if it belongs to someone who claims to be a person of faith.

“Outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.” This statement allegedly describes how many in the scientific community might characterize a scientist that might evidence a belief in God. In an op-ed that appeared in today’s Wall Street Journal, “God vs. Science Isn’t the Issue,” William McGurn referred to New York Times reporter Gardiner Harris writing about Dr. Frances Collins. If that name does not ring a bell Francis Collins is the newly appointed director of the National Institutes of Health. “Dr. Collins is perhaps best noted for his leadership on the Human Genome Project, an effort to map the genetic makeup of man. But he is also well known for his unapologetic talk about his Christian faith and how he came to it.”

In describing the disdain that is often communicated from the scientific world McGurn continues with the following statement–”In 1997, for example, an International Academy of Humanism statement in defense of human cloning—whose signatories included scientists such as E.O. Wilson, Francis Crick and Richard Dawkins—went out of its way to attack the special dignity of human beings. ‘Humanity’s rich repertoire of thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and hopes seems to arise from electrochemical brain processes, not from an immaterial soul that operates in ways no instrument can discover.’ They concluded ‘it would be a tragedy if ancient theological scruples should lead to a Luddite rejection of cloning.’ Here’s the problem: Almost no one really believes this. Not, at least, when it comes to how we behave. And the dichotomy between scientific theory and human action may itself have something to tell us about truth.”

I would like to address two issues here. The first has to do with “apparent” intelligence. You can be a scientist that heads up the team that maps out the human DNA and because you have the audacity to believe in God you might possibly have a form of “mild dementia.” On the other hand, you can be part of the Princeton faculty and be a highly published “ethicist” (such as Peter Singer), who makes provocative statements like, “The life of a fetus is of no greater value than the life of a nonhuman animal at a similar level of rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, etc.” And because you don’t believe in God you are obviously a genius.  Of course, this is a completely objective judgment.

The second one has to do with a persistent issue that the “thinkers” have to deal with regularly–reality. If experience teaches us nothing else, it shows us that difficult times will come into our lives and the lives of the ones we love. Very often, when one is confronted with the hard issues of life–sickness, suffering, need–philosophical pronouncements give way to actions that illustrate we really do see there is something “special” about the human being after all.  Even if we do fight like crazy against the notion that we are created in the “image of God” we find it very difficult to deny it in the midst of the realities of life. Or, as William McGurn writes, “the result may not be a return to religion but a healthy agnosticism about agnosticism itself.”

Pastor Jeff

to read the entire column go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704429304574467320574576460.html

Francis Collins, N.I.H. Chief, Faces Issues of Identity and Culture – NYTimes.com.

Pretty remarkable how Francis Collins manages to straddle both the mainstream and the eccentric in science, as the new head of NIH. I think that his living testament to lack of conflict between science and faith is tremendous for helping mend the unnecessary and artificial rift between the two. At least he’s a scientist’s scientist, unlike Zerhouni, who was a clinician and apparently aloof. I hope he manages a way to extract more funds from Obama to help grow America’s best investment idea (by ROI), by far – R&D. If he fails, science in this country will continue to stagnate, even as fewer graduates seek Ph.Ds and overspecialization plus a shift further and further toward the clinical from basic science threaten to derail cross-disciplinary thinking in solving the greatest problems of the proteome and cell, to say nothing of curing chronic diseases of age and lifestyle.

Science IS fun … props to Francis Collins for going out on a limb for the younger crowd on the Colbert Report.

1. Film about Darwin’s life FINALLY gets a U.S. distributor! -  The film Creation, starring real life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as Darwin and his wife has struggled to find a U.S. distributor, but finally the Indie company Newmarket has acquired it. Suck it, creationists!

2. Now Francis Collins does accept Evolution. Of course he also believes in a mystical garden with a talking snake and a magic tree with magic fruit, etc. making him a rather odd bird. But even though I’m not Mr. Collins’ biggest fan, I hate him now more than ever because he got to rock out with Aerosmith’s Joe Perry at the Capitol building today in an “unplugged” performance of Bob Dylan’s, “The Times They Are A Changin’.” You can listen to it here. Damn, I’m jealous!

3. NYC’s own Prof. Massimo Pigliucci rips into Penn & Teller’s global climate change denial and libertarianism – Some of my more libertarian-leaning skeptical friends drew my attention to this one even though I’m a fairly regular reader of  Massimo’s blog. And though I’m a big fan of P&T’s work, particularly on their show Bullshit! and their other involvement in the skeptical community, I have to say I pretty much agree with Massimo here. He balances his review, applauding the better aspects of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!, while still giving a fair amount of criticism to where P&T go wrong. I certainly think Massimo does a better job here than when I hear him criticize Richard Dawkins, whose position I feel Massimo describes inaccuately.

O Catecismo Maior de Westminster responde à pergunta sobre o propósito da vida humana dizendo: “O fim supremo e principal do homem é glorificar a Deus e gozá-lo para sempre”. Tal afirmação está em perfeita consonância com o que Paulo declarou ser o propósito de sua vida: “segundo a minha ardente expectativa e esperança de que em nada serei envergonhado; antes, com toda a ousadia, como sempre, também agora, será Cristo engrandecido no meu corpo, quer pela vida, quer pela morte“ (Fp. 1:20).

Fazer Cristo engrandecido em nossas vidas. Essa é a verdadeira forma de aproveitar a vida. Cristo é engrandecido todas as vezes em que lidamos com tudo o que temos, experimentamos e nos relacionamos, de tal forma que fique claro, expresso, evidente ao mundo que o nosso tesouro está em Cristo. Um exemplo disso é o nosso trato com o dinheiro. Cristo é engrandecido quando o mundo vê que nosso tesouro não está no dinheiro, mas nos Céus. Portanto, há pelo menos duas formas de engrandecer a Cristo no nosso trato com o dinheiro. Uma delas é a prática da generosidade (II Coríntios 9:12,13). A outra é a prática do contentamento, pela qual evidenciamos que nossa confiança e segurança estão em Deus e em seu cuidado por nós (Hebreus 13:5,6).

Ao experimentarmos um tempo de enfermidades, também encontramos oportunidades de engrandecermos a Cristo. No dia 14 deste mês, postei um texto sobre os 200 anos de Robert Kalley. Nesse texto citei sua conversão. Kalley passou do seu ateísmo para a fé em Jesus após ser impactado pela vida de uma de suas pacientes, uma senhora idosa e enferma, que expressava paciência e serenidade, mesmo em meio ao sofrimento, e atribuía essa serenidade ao fato de crer em Jesus. Ou seja, Jesus era o tesouro dessa mulher, e não a sua saúde. Mesmo com a saúde debilitada seus olhos permaneceram em Cristo.

O Dr. Francis S. Collins, um dos diretores do Projeto Genoma, em seu livro “A Linguagem de Deus”, também relata sua conversão dizendo que o que chamou sua atenção para a fé cristã foi a forma como seus pacientes religiosos passavam pela enfermidade e morte de modo diferente. Isso o atraiu a pesquisar sobre as religiões, até que na leitura do livro “Cristianismo Puro e Simples”, de C. S. Lewis, ele encontrou a fé cristã.

Recomendo a leitura do “Não desperdice seu câncer”, escrito por John Piper. Talvez você não aceite bem a expressão “seu câncer“, utilizada pelo autor, uma vez que Jesus levou sobre si as nossas enfermidades. Você pode não enxergar o câncer como uma bênção, como Piper enxerga. Mas o texto é riquíssimo e edificante. Vale a pena ler e pensar sobre isso. Para ler o texto clique aqui.

Em Cristo,

Anderson Paz

Of all the awkward bedfellows in the world, art and Christianity would have to be near the top of the list. Perhaps it’s because art is explorative and Christianity needfully conservative. Perhaps it’s because Christianity is about mission and eternity, and beauty is ‘vain’.

Beauty of Ugliness
Christendom (not Christianity) has a deep aversion to finding beauty in ugliness, even though this is one of the most remarkable human gifts. We are able through the arts to look at the human condition and to explore even our darkness in such a way that the end product is both beautiful and challenging. Art can explore issues emotionally in a way that social analyses cannot, and can even provide hope or healing by that process.

One way or another, Christian art almost always falls prey either to impossibly cheerful sentimentalism (hopeful landscapes, children smiling at a kind carpenter), or to paper-thin visual sermons. When Christians do attempt exploration or beauty for its own sake, other Christians tend to be deeply suspicious.

I recall commiserating with a young Christian friend who had been saved out of drug addiction, and in attempting to paint his life story, decided to represent the darkness of addiction with a skull. The well-meaning man at the Christian rehabilitation center who led him to Christ rebuked him harshly for dabbling with the ‘demonic’. And there are any number of stories like this. Christians are expected to listen to music that is optimistic and preferably hymnal. It seems not to matter that the world around us is stained with corruption, abuse, arrogance oppression and so on, to which a voice raised in outrage or even anger is not at all inappropriate*. Exploration of any themes but for denial seem to be off limits. In this kind of thing, Christendom has become an enemy of the arts.

[*May I commend to you the fine work of Radiohead, who deliver excellent social critique with uncommon beauty. There are not many who can write powerful songs about election promises, voodoo economics, amnesia, ecology and car crashes.]

Ugliness of Beauty
However, in another important respect, Christianity and beauty ought to have an uneasy relationship. Beauty is good. Beauty causes us to love, it causes us to marry, it causes us to choose. Beauty has an emotional power that taps into our desires and even into our brain chemistry. The love of beauty is one of the attributes that is most basically human.

Francis Collins, a well-known scientist who was, I think, in charge of the Human Genome Project, attributes the final piece of his Christian conversion to happening across a frozen waterfall while on a hike and being overcome by its beauty.

But, hand in hand with everything inside me that finds good in beauty is the ugliness of idolatry. I find it impossible to escape that the love of beauty leads to worship. This is the intended function of our love for beauty, no doubt. Beauty should lead us to worship the One who made the beautiful and the capacity for us to enjoy it. But, mixed creature that I am, beauty cannot produce awe in me without producing the desire to possess.

Advertising knows this better than most. Our most powerful appreciation of beauty tends to be in the opposite sex (at least for men; shoes may vie for top spot among women), but as much as it is right to appreciate the beauty of women, the ugliness of lust and coveting is never far away. And so advertisements will pour lust into the sale of toilet cleaners or tinned soup in the hope that we’ll make a Pavlovian link between the girl and the goods.

As I see it, idolatry of human beauty is not only pervasive in every part of our culture, but it also expresses itself differently in men and women. Many argue (surely correctly) that men are more susceptible to visual arousal than women, which would account for it, but even if it’s just because men have been trained to objectify women by the male bias throughout history, the point is much the same. Men respond to sexual beauty by becoming collectors of women (usually only images of women), whereas women respond to the idolisation of beauty by unfavourable comparison of themselves to some perceived ideal. Men desire to own and women desire to be. [Of course, this is a general tendency; there is likely to be an element of both these responses in men and women].

Both of these are undesirable, ugly responses to the good of beauty. In men, the idolatry of beauty paves the road to infidelity, and Jesus cites lust as being of the same order as adultery. So it is easy to condemn those men who suffer from weakness in this area (which I imagine is most of us). However, the corresponding female response, expressed in low self-image, is also damaging, though harder to condemn (because if someone is already feeling bad about herself, it’s a bit insensitive to heap guilt onto misery). Idolising someone else’s appearance leads to discontentment, ingratitude, depression and various other kinds of selfishness that are not fitting, and that can be detrimental to the relationships that are actually important.

One doesn’t have to look far to find people who have shipwrecked their faith and their hope because they’ve been blinded by hollow trinkets, whether shiny objects or their human equivalent.

While we continue to live with the ambiguity of finding mixtures of dark and light, of beauty and ugliness within us, let us carefully maintain the tension of a deep love for beauty, a deeper love for the Creator of beauty, and a vigilant aversion to the ugliness of turning beauty into idolatry.

If, as our Pastor preached last week, my life’s map is drawn by God, then that map has been coloured in by my children.

One’s personal salvation is unique – an amalgam of emotion, spirit, enlightenment, sensation and faith, brought together in one time and one place – just for that individual.

For some, salvation is found in the charged atmosphere of an altar call, for others it comes amid the conquering of an addiction.  For me, it was the quiet culmination of years of avoidance, searching and questions and was found through books and music, the prayers of my wife and the unquenchable grace I found in my children.

I can only guess at the influence of my wife’s prayers and whether they were answered or not, for they were silent or at least never in my hearing.  However, I doubt that it is is merely coincidence that you’ll find a slim book on one of our bookshelves called ‘The Power of A Praying Wife’.

Along with the rest of the family, I read a great deal – which is not always a good thing – but I enjoy seeing through other’s eyes; the opportunities for learning and the challenging of my assumptions that reading offers.  This being the case, it might seem strange that I didn’t turn to the Bible for the answers I sought – well, not to begin with anyway.

Of the all the authors I read in my quest to find answers, there were two who helped guide me across the line between ‘stubborn and curious atheist’ and ‘stubborn and curious Christian’ – Francis Collins and C.S. Lewis.

As a renowned geneticist and director of The Human Genome Project, Francis Collins might not be the obvious choice for those seeking God.  However, in his book ‘The Language of God’, Collins sets out a strong and balanced case that science and faith do not have to be mutually exclusive.

In the book, Collins describes how, early in his career as a physician, he encountered a woman suffering from severe angina who appeared to take great comfort in her faith.  During a conversation one day, she put the young Collins on the spot by asking him what he believed. The question shook him. A staunch atheist up to that point, he wrote, “suddenly all my arguments seemed very thin, and I had the sensation that the ice under my feet was cracking.”   While Collins’ theistic-evolutionist stance will trouble some of you I’m sure, his argument for faith was the best I had heard up to that point.

Like thousands of others, the writing of C.S. Lewis provided me with great insight and great comfort as I read of his coming-to-faith.  Lewis compared his conversion to waking up from a sleep, “a long sleep” he called it.  He became aware that his blindness to God had been what he described as a “willful blindness” – a phrase that perfectly reflected my own state through the years.

Around the same time I was reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity, I was introduced to Brooke Fraser’s music through my girls.  Listening to her CD in the car, I was struck by the lyrics of one song in particular:

If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy,
I can only conclude that I was not made for here […]
Am I lost or just less found?
On the straight or on the roundabout of the wrong way?
Is this a soul that stirs in me, is it breaking free,
wanting to come alive?
‘Cause my comfort would prefer for me to be numb
And avoid the impending birth of who I was born to become.

These words really spoke to me for they described the type of growing uncertainty and anxiousness I was feeling.  So you can imagine the God moment I felt when I finished my journey, looked down at the CD cover and discovered the song was called ‘The C.S. Lewis Song’.

As someone once wrote, Lewis had resisted God because he wanted to be his own lord.  But he also realized that Jesus was the deepest Joy for which he had been longing since he was a boy.  After his surrender to Christ he experienced a peace and delight he had never known before.  I found that same peace and delight one evening when my wife left a note on my pillow, pointing me to Jeremiah 29:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.  In those days when you pray, I will listen.  If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.  I will be found by you,” says the Lord.”

In that one passage were the exact words describing where I was in my journey at that moment.  For the first time since I left the Quaker Meeting for Worship I had last attended 30 years before, I found myself in a place where I was able to conceive of and accept the existence of God.

As Easter approached, I continued to struggle with the fact that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that my salvation was secured through a Father’s sacrifice of His only Son.  As a father of four beautiful girls, I found this simply too hard to comprehend and I floundered, failing to understand that my self-reliance and intellectual reasoning were the proverbial planks in my eyes preventing me from seeing the bigger picture.

The girls were involved in the Easter production at church and, dropping them at rehearsals one day, I peeked round the door to see what was going on.  No-one seemed to notice so I watched for a while.  Before I knew it, I had been co-opted into the stage crew by the director and was helping rig lights and shift scenery – all stuff I was familiar with and enjoyed doing.

In the weeks that followed, to no greater surprise than my own, I spent more time in a church than I had since our wedding and the girls’ christenings.  At one rehearsal, I looked up and saw that two of my girls were on stage with Amy, dancing to Michael Smith’s worship song, ‘Above All’.  During that dance, squatting in the hushed dark of the sanctuary, I gave my life to Christ.

Like a typical bloke, I didn’t tell anyone.  I felt shocked and relieved, confused and elated all at once.  My stubborn pride sewed my lips shut and I carried my salvation like a secret through each performance hoping that, in the dark, no-one would see the tears in my eyes or the stupid grin on my face.

God knew I needed another push to get me across the line and he chose the after-show party to make sure I heard Him loud and clear.  In thanking everyone for their help on the show, the director said that she wanted to single out a woman who had, without fuss and with a servant heart, helped out wherever it was needed during the production.

To this day, I don’t recall the director’s exact words or the examples she gave but I do remember thinking that, whoever the woman was, she must be a mighty woman of God.  When the director spoke my daughter’s name, the axis of my world shifted irrevocably for the second time in as many weeks.  I baled out the church hall fire doors wondering how it was that others saw things in my own children that I had missed.  That night, when I went to tuck them into bed and kiss them goodnight, I swallowed my pride, got on my knees and asked my two youngest to teach me how to pray.

Since then, I have continued to grow in faith and I have learned much that I can share with my own girls and the fantastic kids at our Friday intermediate youth club.  You’ll be pleased to hear that, from those early days of reading anything but the Bible, my Bible collection has grown considerably.  Just this week, I was happy to pass on my first study Bible to my to the daughter in whom others saw so much.

As an older ‘young’ Christian, there are two pieces of Scripture I would like to speak into your hearts and leave you with on this Father’s Day.  For the parents, grown ups and older siblings, my sharing is from Psalm 127:

“Children are a gift from the Lord;
 they are a reward from him.”

And for all the children and young people here, I can find no better words than those of Paul in 1 Timothy 4:12:

“Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.”

Try and keep these in your hearts – because you never know when the next lost will be peeking round the church door.

—

Peeking round the church door: a father’s testimony

Father’s Day Service, Sunday 6th September 2009