Faith Is Not Wishing--part 5

We have discussed four chapters in Greg Koukl's book Faith Is Not Wishing. Probably the biggest attack on Christianity is the problem of evil – this is what Greg tackles next.

The problem of evil drove Einstein away from the God of the Bible. It was part of the inspiration for the atheism of British philosopher Bertrand Russell. For so many people it has been the number one complaint against Christianity.

Some people suggest God would like to do something about evil but is unable to do so. Rabbi Harold Kushner delivered this answer in this popular book Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? This God cannot inspire a rescue. There's not much comfort to be gained from worshiping a God like this.

Back to Bertrand Russell for a minute. He wondered how anyone could talk of God while kneeling at the bed of a dying child. This, of course, is a powerful image, which seems devastating to the Christian worldview. But there's a simple response – what is the atheist Bertrand Russell going to say to that dying child? Too bad? Tough luck? That's the way it goes?

Greg brings up an important point. If God does not exist, the one thing we can never do is call something evil or tragic. When we use terms like this, we require some transcendent reference point, some way of keeping score. If there is no standard, then there is no good or bad. As C. S. Lewis said, "My argument against God was that the universe seems so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call something crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?"

In fact, if there is no God, it's hard to even make sense of the notion of evil. Instead, all we can say is that stuff just happens. We can say we don't like this stuff, but we can't call it evil.

We still have a key question – where was God? Why didn't he intervene in evil situations? But Greg says we don't really want God to end evil, not all of it. How much evil happens every day unnoticed and unlamented because we are the perpetrators, not its victims? Think of adultery, lying, abortion, and other evils that occur on a day-to-day basis. We actually don't want God to be sniffing around the dark recesses of our own evil conduct. As somebody once said, if God heard your prayer to eliminate evil and destroyed it all at midnight tonight, where would you be at 12:01?

So why doesn't God stop the evil? The answer is the same one when we ask another question, "Why doesn't God stop me every time I do wrong?" We end up with an obvious point – human moral choice give us dignity but at the same time make serious evil possible.

Actually, suffering, tragedy, and evil function as warning signals. The pain we see tells us that our world is broken, that something is amiss. If God took away the pain, we would never deal with the disease. And the disease will kill us, sooner or later.

Greg points out that God has done something about evil, the most profound thing imaginable. He has sent his Son to die for evil men. God offers us mercy instead of the punishment we deserve.

Eventually, God will get rid of evil. Until then, he has a different strategy. It's called forgiveness. That's something we can access right now.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 4

This is my fourth blog dealing with Greg Koukl's book Faith Is Not Wishing. I'm spending time on this book because so many of his chapters reference common criticisms leveled at Christianity. For example, this chapter concerns people who have never heard the gospel, ones who are basically good and sincerely worship God in their own way. Would God send them to hell for not hearing about Jesus?

Greg admits that it is the most taxing objection he faces and also the most odious to others. To non-Christians, it's a despicable doctrine. After all, if hearing the name of Jesus is a requirement for salvation, entire cultures would be sent to hell, meaning God becomes a petty racist. Is that fair? Is that just?

Paul argues against works salvation by saying there is a single common denominator for people of all ages and cultures – faith. We think of Old Testament believers like Melchizedek or Rahab. In the New Testament we encounter Cornelius and Lydia, non-Jews who are shown grace. In Romans 2, Paul says God "will render to every man according to his deeds… For there is no partiality with God."

Greg points out that most people in the world worship something beyond themselves with complete sincerity. Is this enough? Has God said that this is adequate? No. In his sermon on Mars Hill, Paul indicates that worshiping in ignorance is not adequate (Acts 17:23). He also indicates in Romans 10:2 that the Jews were zealous for God, but their zeal was not based on knowledge.

But what of the good person? God won't reject him or her? And actually, the Bible agrees: If a man keeps God's law, he'll have no problem with God. But here's the key question: Where is such a person? When measured by God's standards, we fall so far short. Where is the good Buddhist, the good Hindu, or the good Muslim? Actually, where is the good Christian? They don't exist. God's absolute standards silence every claim to self-righteousness. This is bad news because it makes the whole world accountable to God. This is critical to Greg's presentation here – People are not ultimately condemned for their rejection of Christ; they're punished for breaking God's law.

He says we make a big mistake when we think people are basically good and would turn to God if they had the chance. Romans 1:18-19 tells us that people reject the light given them not out of ignorance, but out of willful suppression of truth. We run from God, not towards Him.

If this is the case, then God must make the first move to block man's retreat. Again, this is important because it means that no "heathen in Africa" begins a genuine search unless God has first moved in him to do so (John 6:44).

Here's Greg's message up to this point. First, God only punishes those who are guilty. Second, guilty people don't seek God; they run from him. Third, God takes the initiative to pursue us out of love.

How does God pursue us? It certainly possible that in isolated situations he communicates directly. This he did with Abraham. There are so many stories coming today out of restrictive Muslim countries of people having dreams and encountering Jesus in them. This happens all around the world. Greg tells the story of an Indian who was a member of the Brahman caste. He had experienced astral travel to other planets, had psychedelic experiences, and received yogic visions. He found that each step closer to his Hindu gods was actually a step farther from the true God that he sought in his heart. When confronted with the utter emptiness of life and the shallowness of religion, he cried out, "I want to know the true God, the Creator of the universe." God responded by bringing the gospel to him through the witness of a young woman. Usually, however, the message of the true Savior comes on the lips of a preacher who comes bearing the good news (Romans 10:14-15).

We know based on the Bible and cultural stories that anyone seeking God in truth will find him and be accepted by him. God does not condemn anyone for rejecting a Jesus he's never heard of. Rather, men are held accountable for their own moral crimes against God and for rejecting the Father, whose voice is heard everywhere.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 3

The third chapter in Greg Koukl's book Faith Is Not Wishing has a intriguing title: "Was Jesus a Fraud?" He's referring to the fact that some people believe the story of Jesus was just a recycled version of ancient pagan religions. This has been a recent criticism that many skeptics are using to challenge Christianity. Is Jesus just a copycat messiah?

Greg starts by looking at the ancient historical accounts of the life of Jesus. The authors do not appear to be writing fairy tales for future generations. For example, the opening words of the author Luke talk about compiling an account handed down by eyewitnesses. He's referring to the use of oral tradition, a huge part of the Jewish society of the time. He and the other gospel writers are aware that they are relating a remarkable story, but they are obviously convinced that the events in these accounts really happened. Their accounts include vivid details of observers who witnessed the events or, in Luke's case, a chronicler who had obtained the information from people who are actually there. C. S. Lewis once remarked that he knew myths from his literary studies, and the gospels do not read as myths.

One internet documentary has challenged the authenticity of these gospel accounts. It's called Zeitgeist: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. According to this account, the Egyptian sun god Horus was born on December 25 of a virgin. His birth was accompanied by a star in the east, and three kings followed it to locate the new-born savior. At the age of 30 he was baptized and began his ministry. Horace had twelve disciples and performed miracles. After being betrayed, he was crucified, buried for three days, and then resurrected. Sound familiar? The documentary claims other gods followed this same structure, including Krishna, Dionysus, and Mithras. Osiris, another Egyptian god, also follows this pattern of a dying and resurrected god.

What's the Christian response? First, the facts listed above in the previous paragraph are almost all false. For example, Osiris did not rise bodily from the dead, and neither Horus, Mithras, or Krishna were born of a virgin. In addition, the dating of these myths causes a big problem for skeptics because most of them actually postdate the time of Jesus.

But what about the myths of dying and rising gods which predate the Christian era? Claims made regarding Jesus of Nazareth are distinct from them in three critical ways – Jesus was a real human whose resurrection happened at a particular place and time on earth, the mythical deities were tied to the repeated seasons of the agricultural cycle (Jesus's resurrection was a one-time event), and Jesus died as a vicarious sacrifice for sins. Greg spends time on the first point above – the historicity of Jesus. Scholars both liberal and conservative overwhelmingly agree that Jesus was a man of history. For example, Will Durant, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, says this about the gospels: "No one reading the scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them… After two centuries of higher criticism, the outlines of the life, character, and teachings of Christ remain reasonably clear and constitute the most fascinating feature in the history of Western man."

So, there are plenty of reasons to reject the complaint of critics who say Jesus was a fraud.

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 2

Another chapter in Greg Koukl's book called Faith Is Not Wishing has an intriguing title – "Is God Just a Crutch?" Greg deals well with that attack on theism.

Atheists like to talk a lot about emotional and cultural factors that might induce somebody to become committed to Jesus. They claim the concept of God is a crutch. But Greg points out that no one can refute an idea by showing the psychological reasons a person happens to believe it. You can't refute someone's views by faulting his feelings. This is the key to his entire chapter.

Of course, this game can be played the other way around. Maybe it's the atheist who uses his or her beliefs as a crutch, an invention of that person's non-religious wishful thinking. In fact, it was Aldous Huxley who said he bought into atheism because it gave him the freedom to do what he wanted in the area of sexuality.

The key here is simple – objections about the believer, rather than the belief are not valid. Whatever cultural, emotional, psychological, or historical reasons people have tell you only about their cultures, emotions, history, or psychological states.

When someone focuses on the origin of a belief, not its content, this is called the genetic fallacy. Very well-known thinkers have committed this error – Sigmund Freud, Frederick Nietzsche, and Karl Marx all said God was nothing more than a psychological projection. Psychological motivations give you information about the person who believes, but they tell you nothing about the truth of his or her beliefs. Psychological motivations have nothing to do with whether a belief is true or not.

If someone says to us that Christians just want a father figure, there's a simple answer. We say, "Maybe we do and maybe we don't, but what does that have to do with whether God exists or not?" As C. S. Lewis said, "You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong."

So we have to start with reasons first, rather than misleading talk about motives or desires. The atheist needs to give the Christian a convincing argument that God does not exist before asking why the Christian would believe in such a fantasy. Of course, it's easier for the atheist to ignore the argument and fault the feelings.

What I find interesting is Greg's final comments in this chapter. If men were to invent a God, he asks, what would he be like? Would we create a God like the one in the Bible? Wouldn't we want Him to reflect our desires by dismissing our shortcomings? But the God of the Bible is so unlike us. His wisdom confuses us and his purity frightens us. He makes moral demands that we can't possibly live up to. He does not come running to us when we call on him.

If somebody insists that Jesus is a crutch, there is an element of truth to this. After all, crippled people need crutches. At least he is a crutch that we can lean on. What is the atheist putting his trust in? Can his crutch hold him?

Faith Is Not Wishing--part 1

This coming spring our apologetics group will be going through a short but extremely thoughtful book called Faith Is Not Wishing by Greg Koukl. I wanted to highlight some of his chapters here.

The first chapter deals with the concept of faith. Atheists see an inverse relationship between knowledge and faith. They believe the more knowledge of this world that is gained, the less spiritual faith people will have. They see faith as a leap in the dark, a desperate clinging to something when no information is available. It is often seen as wishful thinking. But Koukl points out that biblical faith is very different – it actually comes out of knowledge. It means active trust. He gives an example in the book of Exodus where Moses through the power of God brings forth miracles. In Exodus 14:31, we see the result: "And when Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses." There's a definite pattern we see in this story--giving the people knowledge of God, in whom they then place their active trust. The key point is that knowledge went before belief. God didn't ask the Hebrews or Moses for mindless faith, blind leaps, or wishful thinking.

The same is true in the New Testament. In Mark 2 Jesus says to a paralytic that his sins were forgiven. Scribes grumbled about such an audacious claim. So Jesus said, "But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home." Jesus gave the same lesson that we saw in Exodus. He provided something that can't be seen (the forgiveness of sins) with evidence that can be seen, in this case a dramatic supernatural healing. Again, the concrete evidence allowed the doubters to know the truth so they could then trust in the forgiveness Jesus could give.

Other places in the New Testament follow the same pattern. Peter's sermon on Pentecost ends with this statement: "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him [Jesus] both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." In 1 John the author ends his letter by saying, "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life."

Biblical faith isn't wishing; it's confidence. It's not denying reality, but discovering reality. It's a sense of certainty grounded in evidence that Christianity is true – not just "true for me," but actually, fully, and completely true. So knowledge comes first, and confidence follows. So we need to gather evidence, which will increase our knowledge and deepen our faith. Today, thanks to the Internet and other sources, it's easy to gather evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. Let me know if you'd like some ideas of places to go for further evidence.

Diversity on college campuses--part 2

My last blog dealt with increasing bureaucracy at colleges and universities. I want to continue this sad story for one more entry today.

This exploding diversity bureaucracy is not confined to public universities. Here are more depressing examples. In 2005, Harvard created a new Senior Vice Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development, responsible for $50 million in diversity funding, and six new diversity deanships. Can you imagine the cost for all these people? Don't forget to count the cost of adding whole new staffs to help these deans. Then there's Yale. This school already has 14 Title IX coordinators (14!), but it nevertheless recently put a Deputy Provost in charge of assessing the “campus climate” with respect to gender and overseeing the 14 Title IX coordinators. Ah yes, it needed more than 14. After all, we can't get enough information from a mere 14 coordinators. All these new bureaucrats in campuses across the country — nearly 72,000 non-teaching positions added from 2006 to 2009 — cost $3.6 billion, estimated Harvey Silverglate in Minding the Campus earlier this year. And we wonder why college costs are soaring. Well, here's one reason.

Of course this is only one problem that has added to rising tuition costs. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other reasons. First, there's the rest of the burgeoning student-services infrastructure. Then there are the salaries of professors who teach one course a semester, the arms race of ever more sybaritic dorms and social centers, and the absolute monarchies of the football and basketball programs. Of course, a major figure in the soaring costs is the federal government--are you surprised? Its easy loans allow colleges to jack up their tuition even further.

Of course, all this brings into focus a key question--do colleges need such a growing diversity bureaucracy? The clear answer is no. The exact opposite is the case. Hundreds of thousands of hours and dollars are wasted each year in the futile pursuit of the same inadequate pool of remotely qualified underrepresented minority and female applicants that every other campus in the country is chasing with as much desperate zeal. The hiring process has been thoroughly corrupted. Faculty applicants are brought onto campus who have no chance of being hired, either because the hiring committee incorrectly assumed from their names or résumés that they were the right sort of minority (East Asians don’t count) for a position set aside for just such a minority, or because, although they were the right sort of minority, their qualifications were so low that their only purpose in being interviewed was to fill an outreach quota. It's a sad state of affairs.

I haven't seen as much of this because I am at a community college, but it does exist. One time when I was on a hiring committee, we were told by the administration to select different people to interview because our selections were not diverse enough. Never mind the fact that English majors tend to be of incorrect diversity. Is this situation going away at any time? Nah, too much power, prestige, and money is on the line for these colleges.

Colleges and universities--another way they waste our money

Since I'm involved in higher education, I read anything I can find about the troubles (and a few successes) in this field. The other day I saw something that shocked and dismayed me. It had to do with diversity on college campuses.


UC Berkeley’s Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion declared that the rising tuition at California’s public universities is giving him “heartburn.” What's ironic and irritating is that Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri and his fellow diversity bureaucrats are a large cause of those skyrocketing college fees, not just in California but nationally.


A little background here is important. Basri commands a staff of 17 whose job it is to make sure that fanatically left-wing UC Berkeley is sufficiently attuned to the values of “diversity” and “inclusion”; his 2009 base pay of $194,000 was nearly four times that of starting assistant professors.


These kinds of silly jobs are not peculiar to Berkeley. For the last three decades, colleges have added more and more tuition-busting bureaucratic fat; since 2006, full-time administrators have outnumbered faculty nationally. UC Davis, for example, includes a Diversity Trainers Institute, staffed by Davis’s Administrator of Diversity Education; the Director of Faculty Relations and Development in Academic Personnel; the Director of the UC Davis Cross-Cultural Center; the Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center; an Education Specialist with the UC Davis Sexual Harassment Education Program; an Academic Enrichment Coordinator with the UC Davis Department of Academic Preparation Programs; and the Diversity Program Coordinator and Early Resolution Discrimination Coordinator with the Office of Campus Community Relations. The Diversity Trainers Institute recruits “a cadre of individuals who will serve as diversity trainers/educators,” a function that would seem largely superfluous, given that the Associate Executive Vice Chancellor for Campus Community Relations already offers a Diversity Education Series that grants Understanding Diversity Certificates in “Unpacking Oppression” and Cross-Cultural Competency Certificates in “Understanding Diversity and Social Justice.”


Then there's the University of California, San Francisco, which created a Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Outreach earlier this year at the height of the state’s budget crisis. But this position was redundant with UCSF’s existing Office of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity and Diversity, the Diversity Learning Center (where you can learn how to “Become A Diversity Change Agent”), the Center for LGBT Health & Equity, the Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention & Resolution, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Diversity, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Disability Issues, the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, and the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women.


Closer to home, there's UC San Diego. It recently announced the creation of a Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion , even as the campus was losing three prestigious cancer researchers to Rice University and was cutting academic programs. Needless to say, UCSD’s Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion replicated an equally fearsome mountain of diversity functions.


I'll take a deep breath and stop here. More on this obscene waste of money at your local university in the next blog.

The polar bear--the global warming people at work

Please allow me to continue with occasional reports on the unraveling of climate change/global warming hysteria. My interest started when I read Michael Crichton's State of Fear in which he used government documents to show how sneaky and downright dishonest the climate change people were getting. Here's an update on the panic surrounding polar bears.

In 2008, thanks to the global warming crowd, the polar bear was put on the endangered species list. But here's where it gets interesting. The polar bear wasn't put on the endangered species list because it was endangered, you see. Instead, it was put on the list because it "might become" endangered due to climate change. Another key reason the bear was also put on the list had to do with emotions, which seem to me to be at the heart of the entire climate change stupidity. Scientists claimed, without evidence, they had seen a group of drowned polar bears off the coast of Alaska. Of course, people around the world were horrified at this scenario.

But this story is unraveling. Now the scientist who made the claim that polar bears were drowning because of rising sea levels is under investigation for making the entire thing up. Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement.

Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct. The federal agency where he works told him he's being investigated for "integrity issues," but a watchdog group believes it has to do with the 2006 journal article about the bear. Doesn't that sound familiar especially now that we have seen tons of emails that show global warming fanatics were disregarding contrary evidence and trying to suppress scientists who opposed their hysteria. Just take a look at "Climategate" in a Google search. By the way, a new batch of emails has been released, showing the same methods at work.
But that isn't stopping U.N. from continuing to promote global warming hysteria. It's moving right on, finding new species to protect. Tough luck, polar bears. There are new creatures we have to defend. Several animal species including gorillas in Rwanda and tigers in Bangladesh could risk extinction if the impact of climate change and extreme weather on their habitats is not addressed, a U.N. report showed on Sunday.

Sigh . . .These people have no shame and no sense of reality. They want to wreck the economies of the developed world for some utopian, unrealistic future. The climate has changed before, and it will again, no matter what we do.

More on character

I would like to continue with challenging statements on character that I found in a book called When No One Sees. We can all learn something from these:

Always take your job seriously, never yourself. – Dwight Eisenhower.

The moderation in virtue of a single character probably prevented this revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish. His integrity was most clear, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. – Thomas Jefferson, speaking on George Washington's role in preserving the Republic.

Without the aid of trained emotions, the intellect is powerless against the animal organism… As the King governs by his executive, so reason the man must rule the mere appetites by means of the spirited element. The head rules the belly through the chest – the seat of emotions organized by trained habit into stable elements… And all the time we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more drive, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or creativity. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful – C. S. Lewis

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little exercise every day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points; do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that, when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. The man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast. – William James

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. – Winston Churchill

A life not put to the test is not worth living. – Epictetus

Character counts

I'm reading a book now called When No One Sees by Os Guinness. It talks about the importance of character in an age of image, a message that is important for all of us now. Scattered throughout the book are short statements dealing with character, and I want to share some of them with you here.

"Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny."

"Man is made to adore and obey; but if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities and find a chieftain in his own passions." (Benjamin Disraeli)

"Mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons." (Frederick Nietzsche)

"In the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue." (James Wilson).

"In the White House, character and personality are extremely important because there are no other limitations… Restraint must come from within the presidential soul and prudence from within the presidential mind. The adversary forces which temper the actions of others, do not come into play until it is too late to change course." (George Reedy, special assistant to Lyndon Johnson)

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one." (Marcus Aurelius)

"Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures." (Horace Greeley)

"Anger is a short madness." (Horace)

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." (Abraham Lincoln)

"Character counts in the presidency more than any other single quality. It is more important than how much the president knows of foreign policy or economics, or even about politics. When the chips are down – and the chips are nearly always down in the presidency – how do you decide? Which way do you go? What kind of courage is called upon? Talking of his hero Andrew Jackson, Truman once said, it takes one kind of courage to face a duelist, but it's nothing like the courage it takes to tell a friend, no." (David McCullough, biographer of Harry Truman)

Thanksgiving for me

Thanksgiving is a perfect time to reflect on all the good that has come into my life. What am I thankful for? So many things…

A great wife, who has shown me mercy and grace over the years despite myself.

Two wonderful sons who have started businesses and shown great abilities such as discipline, creativity, and wisdom.

Two daughters-in-law who make my sons happy each day.

A grandson who toddles up to me, lifts his hands, and says, "Up."

Jesus Christ, the most important person who ever lived.

Christian apologetics, where I can find good reasons for the faith that I follow.

A job that I look forward to every day.

DragonSpeak software that allows me to type without depending on my lousy two-finger skills.

A house with a big yard.

A golden retriever who thinks I'm pretty special.

Lots of good books that need to be read.

Library sales of used books and used audio books.

The United States of America – the best country to live in.

Two cars that are old enough to avoid sharp depreciation but still nice enough to enjoy.

The Byrds, an old rock band that still gives me a lot of pleasure to hear.

Hiking trails near enough for me to enjoy the peace and quiet.

A digital camera, which has allowed us to take wonderful videos and photos of our grandson.

Good friends to share the joys and frustrations of life.

Good health which enables me to do the things I want to do.

Aches and pains of old age, which remind me to use my time well.

Netflix, which has allowed my wife and me to enjoy documentaries.

The San Diego Chargers and Padres, who teach me patience.

Passages that seem to disprove the Trinity.

As part of the presentation last week in a church apologetics class, I discussed the answer to a key question – who is Jesus? One of the areas touched on had to do with the doctrine of the Trinity, an area many Christians struggle with. There are several verses brought up by those who oppose the Trinity, and I wanted to use this time to show that their arguments don't work.

They might start with the first chapter of John. We read in the 14th verse, "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." Those who oppose the Trinity will point out that this verse suggests God brought about Jesus because of the word "begotten." However, a far better translation shows that this word refers to the uniqueness of the Son. A better translation would be "God the only Son" or "the only Son, who is God."

Another place those who oppose the Trinity go to in John is in the 14th chapter. We see in verse 28 that Jesus says the Father is greater than He is. But the rest of the passage tells a different story. Jesus is explaining to his disciples that they should rejoice because He is going to the Father. If it simply means that the Father is a higher being, why should the disciples rejoice? This passage refers to the fact that the Father in heaven is positionally greater than the Son on earth. Jesus is telling the disciples to be happy because He is leaving a humble position and returning to glory.

Another favorite passage for those who oppose the Trinity is in Colossians. We read in the first chapter (verses 15 and 16) about Jesus: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." The use of the word "firstborn" makes it sound like Jesus was created later than the Father. However, this term has been used throughout the Bible to indicate a favored position rather than literally born first. Take a look some time at Exodus 4:22, Jeremiah 31:9, Psalm 89:27, Romans 8:29, Hebrews 1:6, Revelation 1:5. For example, Psalm 89:27 calls David the firstborn even though David was not the first one physically born in his family.

I certainly agree that the Trinity is a difficult concept. But it is taught clearly in the Bible, especially the New Testament. I can cover that sometime if anyone wishes to continue with this topic.

The Messiah and fulfilled prophecies

It's Thursday, and I'll be presenting information tonight to our church apologetics class on a key question – who is Jesus? I wanted to cover in the blog today part of my answer to that question. He is the fulfillment of many messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Let's look at just a few of many such prophecies.

I plan on starting with Psalm 22. All through the psalm are many foreshadowings about the death of Jesus on the cross. It's so obvious that it points to Jesus; as a result, it has caused a revision in the translation of Jewish Bibles today. For example, at one point (verse 16) the narrator says his enemies have "pierced my hands and my feet." Considering crucifixion was not part of the psalmist's world, it seems to predict the kind of death Jesus faced. As a result, modern Hebrew Bibles replace that word with a phrase – "like a lion." But the oldest Hebrew translations we have (the Septuagint and the Dead Sea scroll that contains Psalms) use the word "pierced." Considering that the Septuagint was written over 200 years before the time of Jesus, it seems obvious that modern Jewish translations are attempting to avoid an obvious connection to Jesus.

Then there's Isaiah 9:6. This is part of a passage referencing the birth of the child, and Isaiah says in verse six, "He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Of course, this sounds like the child will be God, again suggesting a connection to Jesus. So, once again, modern Jewish Bibles have been translated differently. This verse now says that he will be called "Wonderful in counsel is God the Mighty, the Everlasting Father." Do you see the difference here? The Jewish Bible now says that this child is given a name appropriate to God rather than to him.

Two other passages suggest the Messiah will come from the line of David. Take a look some time at Isaiah 11:10 and Jeremiah 23:5-6. But there's a huge problem with this assertion. When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D., all genealogical records were destroyed as well. So, anyone who claimed to be the Messiah after 70 A.D. would be unable to prove his lineage came through the line of David. Thus, the Messiah had to be on the scene earlier than that.

Other verses also reflect the idea that the Messiah needed to be in existence in the first century A.D. Consider Haggai 2:6-9, which talks about the glory of the second Temple. The verse says God will fill his house, which in the context is the second Temple. This phrase refers to his actual presence being there. Since the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., it again suggests Jesus as God fulfilled this prophecy. Genesis 49:10 says the scepter will not depart from Judah until the Messiah comes. Jews understood this term to mean the ability for them to have independence in their land, including judicial rights. Then the Romans in 6 A.D. took over Palestine and refused to allow the Jews to impose capital punishment. Rabbis of the time said the Messiah should have been there based on their understanding of the verse in Genesis. Well, they were right because a young man was growing up in Nazareth at that time. Finally, there is the reference in Daniel 9:24-26 that talks about when the Messiah would come and be cut off (killed). He says there will be sixty-nine sevens after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem before the Messiah appears. If you multiply 69x7, you get 483 years. Multiply that by the ancient year-long calendar of 360 days, and you get 173,880 days. Now divide that by our modern 365 days in a year. You get 476 years. Still with me? The decree to rebuild Jerusalem was in 445 B.C., so adding 476 years gets us to 31 A.D. Hmm . . . what famous person in the Bible faced death around that time? Yep, it was Jesus.

Of course, there are many more verses that I could have mentioned, but you get the idea. This whole concept of fulfilled prophecy is fascinating. If you'd like further information, take a look some time at a book called The Search for Messiah by Eastman and Smith.

The United Nations--your tax dollars at work

If you pay attention to news items, I'm sure you remember that Unesco, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, admitted the Palestinian Authority as a member, even though it's not a country and therefore ineligible. The U.S. in response ended funding for this group, so taxpayers will save $80 million a year. What's interesting is the awful history of this U.N. agency.

According to an article in The Wall Street Journal Unesco has been best known since the 1970s for its New World Information Order, a set of recommendations that would regulate journalists and legitimize the suppression of free speech by authoritarian governments.

This isn't the first time time the U.S. has withdrawn funding from Unesco. During the Cold War, Soviet officials ran Unesco's education programs, and a former head of an African military tribunal responsible for executions was in charge of culture. When France expelled 47 KGB agents in 1983, 12 were Unesco employees. When the U.S. defunded Unesco, its leadership solicited countries to make up the shortfall and got a big donation from Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. That should tell you something.

Unesco has shown blatant hostility to Israel for a long time. Back in 1974 it granted observer status to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Despite Israel's protection of antiquities claimed by Christians, Muslims and Jews, Unesco accused Israel of "persistent alteration of historic features in Jerusalem." The organization dropped its boycott of Israel in the 1970s only after the U.S. threatened to withdraw funds. In the 1990s, Unesco held a symposium on Jerusalem at its Paris headquarters that excluded any Israeli groups. Sounds less than fair.

The Journal reports that in 2009, Farouk Hosny was the lead candidate to run Unesco. He had been the culture minister of Egypt under Hosni Mubarak for 20 years; his responsibilities including censoring news media and Internet. After losing to a Bulgarian diplomat in the fifth round of voting, he blamed "Zionist pressure" and "a group of the world's Jews." He had told the Egyptian Parliament the year before that if there were any books by Israeli authors in Alexandria's library, "I will burn them myself." And this man was close to running Unesco?

But there are more examples of Unesco's unfair treatment of Israel. Last year, at the request of several Arab countries, Unesco reclassified Rachel's Tomb—the 4,000-year-old burial site of Judaism's patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah—as a mosque. And last year the organization published a history of science that replaces the rabbinic scholar Moshe Ben Maimon—Maimonides—with a Muslim named "Moussa Ben Maimoun."

The point of all this is simple. Unesco is a reliable reminder that there is little accountability for U.N. actions or inactions. This world body is a joke, and we shouldn't bow to its whims nor alter our courts to reflect its standards.

The soaring costs of college

This is a second blog dealing with higher education--its failure to do its job and its soaring costs. I got the information from Jack Kelly's article entitled "The Big College Scam." Notice his word choice--it's a scam.

Last time I focused on Kelly's attack leveled at the failure of higher education. Students don't learn. The president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni said,"Students who say that college has not prepared them for the real world are largely right. The fundamental problem here is not debt, but a broken educational system that no longer insists on excellence."

For this blog, let's take a closer look at the sharply rising costs of higher education. Kelly claims that the cost of college soared and its value diminished once the federal government started to "help." The supposed purpose of federal guarantees for student loans was to make college more affordable. In fact, according to Kelly, they did the opposite by fueling the massive tuition hikes. Colleges spent the extra money to expand their bureaucracies, increase the compensation of faculty and staff, and improve physical facilities. Some of this sounds fine, but I've seen the costs even at the community college level. When the school adds a new dean, for instance, the costs soar since that person doesn't function alone. He or she needs an entire staff, adding enormously to the costs of running the school.

Kelly has some discouraging statistics on the costs associated with higher education. We spend about $10,600 per pupil in public schools, 377 percent more, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than we spent in 1961. Yet among students who go to college, 75 percent require some remedial work. And, according to a study by the American Enterprise Institution and the Heritage Foundation, teachers are paid $120 billion over market value. That's painful to hear considering that I'm a teacher.

So students who succeed in college often come out with massive debt. Add to this the problem that their skills were not improved while in school, and you have a real problem. Kelly notes that roughly 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates since 1992 work in low-skill jobs. In 2008, 318,000 waiters and waitresses had college degrees, as did 365,000 cashiers and 18,000 parking lot attendants.

Unfortunately, very few are honest with students considering college. They often refuse to say that college isn't for everyone ... or that rigorous exit requirements at any level do not exist. It goes back to my comments in the previous blog. Higher education is often "sold" as a commodity to students with the implied message that they will get the diploma, no matter what their skill levels or their study habits.

So how is our current President doing with this problem? It looks like he will keep the current system going a little longer. He recently proposed a student loan forgiveness program, with taxpayers eating the difference. It would save students about $8 a month, but it won't slow down college costs or make the schools better places to learn.

What's that diploma worth?

I was reading an online article that had to do with higher education. Years ago, education articles were glowing as they told of the value of a college degree. But so much has changed--and not for the better.

Let's talk costs. The article reported that tuition and fees at colleges and universities rose 439 percent between 1982 and 2007. Median family income rose just 147 percent during that period. Median household income has fallen 6.7 percent since June 2009. The cost of attending the average public university rose 5.4 percent this year. See a pattern here?

But it might be worth it if the students were getting a lot for their (or their parents') money. That's not the case, however. Nearly half learn next to nothing in their first two years; a third learn almost nothing in four, according to a report authored principally by Prof. Richard Arum of New York University. The article I read had a startling statement: "Students who say that college has not prepared them for the real world are largely right," said Ann Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. "The fundamental problem here is not debt, but a broken educational system that no longer insists on excellence." Another education expert said, "A college degree nowadays doesn't necessarily signal that its holder has any useful work skills."

Who's to blame for this failure? Now, keep in mind that I'm conservative, so you know what's coming. "For decades our schools have abandoned the teaching of basic facts and foundational thinking skills, and replaced both with leftish received wisdom and stale mythologies, all the while they have anxiously monitored and puffed up students' self esteem," said classics Prof. Bruce Thornton of California State University Fresno. So, our students can't do much, but they feel good about themselves. Man, that's sad.

What I see is an attitude on the part of the students that is a real problem. They believe the school has promised them success if they come and plunk down their money. It's like buying soap--you pay a certain amount, and you're guaranteed a useful product. They seem to believe a diploma awaits as long as they have paid their college tuition. I blame the schools because they promise too much and ignore the fact that not all people are cut out for college. The result is disillusioned (and poorer) students

There's more to this article I read, but I want to slow it down. There's much to think about here.

California's new tax--another disaster

We live in a crazy state. All is collapsing around us--high unemployment, high taxes, companies leaving for other states. And what do the Democrats in Sacramento decide to pursue? A green tax. Unbelievable.

Here's what's happening. California has become the first jurisdiction in the nation to adopt a full-scale cap-and-trade tax to combat global warming. The new taxes and regulations will require a nearly 30% reduction in carbon emissions from power plants, manufacturers, cars and trucks by 2020. Yes, you read that right--not 3% but 30%. That's a recipe for a serious economic nosedive.

It all started in 2006, according to The Wall Street Journal. This green tax was signed into law in 2006 by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the fantasy that California was going to be the green role model for other states.

How is that working out with other states? Not so well. Ten states in the Northeast entered a regional cap and trade compact to limit greenhouse gases in 2008, but that market is now dying if not dormant and states (recently New Jersey) are dropping out.

Even the federal government, known for stupidity, has wised up. In 2010 the Democratic Senate killed cap and trade, and there is no chance anytime soon this tax will be implemented in Washington.

Now with states and the federal government slowing down and being far more cautious about this crazy plan, you'd think California would also re-think the plan. You'd be wrong. Our "Golden State" will go it alone on cap and trade, and the economic fallout won't be pretty. Nearly every independent analysis agrees that water, electricity, construction and gas prices inside the state will rise. The only debate is about how much.

Here come some scary statistics about the potential costs. A 2009 study by the California Small Business Roundtable estimated costs of $3,857 per household by the end of the decade. That's staggering. Gasoline prices, already near the highest in the nation, could rise by another 4% to 6%. Dust off that bicycle. An analysis by the state's own Legislative Analyst's Office found that the higher costs of doing business would mean "leakage of jobs," with the California economy "likely adversely affected in the near term by implementing climate change policies that are not adopted elsewhere." Duh . . . no kidding. Watch the jobs flee and the economy crater.

I guess what really frustrates me is the empty symbolism of the disastrous action. A single state's policies can't possibly alter the planet's temperature given the huge carbon footprint elsewhere. Do you think China and India will be shamed by California into stopping their economic progress? Har, har.

So here we go. California—with 2.1 million people already out of work and with the nation's second highest jobless rate at 11.9%—will walk the plank with this tax. When will the voters in this state wake up?

Something I'm looking forward to

This coming spring I’ll be teaching a class out at Palomar that is my favorite—English 245 (Survey of Biblical Literature). There are so many reasons I look forward to starting the class.


For one thing, I want to combat biblical illiteracy. People used to know the Bible even they didn’t believe in its theological message. Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King were able to make biblical references and expected their audiences to pick up on them. Not any more—many know nothing about its stories.


Secondly, I hope to change attitudes and stereotypes about the Bible. Some believe it is totally grim, full of dire warnings and stern moralizing. They don’t know the Bible has all emotions, including humor. There are genuinely funny parts, and I always stress those so students can appreciate the variety of emotions in the Bible.


In addition, I want to challenge people to think about the big issues of life. We look at Genesis 1, for example, and I read aloud the first four words: “In the beginning God.” I ask them to consider the importance of those words in building a worldview. If people accept or reject those four words, it will make a huge difference in how they see the world and their place in it. Either we are the product of an intelligence, or we are the result of blind chance. Either way will impact the way we choose to live.


Finally, I hope for change in people’s lives. A few years a go I had a students who was a tough guy (I thought). He later told me his life had crashed and burned. He said the Bible spoke to him in a powerful way, and since then he has become a serious Christian with a new outlook on life. A story like that is so encouraging to hear. It’s certainly not the instructor that created that change. The Bible has the power to change lives even after two thousand years.


I’m working on a website that will include much on my course—audio lectures people can listen to or download and articles relating to the Bible. Once it’s up and functioning, I’ll let you know.

The death of self-reliance

Did you hear about a recent comment by Barack Obama during a speech? It reveals so much about his mentality regarding American values and the role of government from his perspective. ABC News reported the following: "At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America." I was amazed.

Obama has issued a dire warning. He is the only thing standing between us and having to rely on ourselves! This country has stood for many things, but one ideal has certainly been self-reliance. And now we are told this is a nightmare scenario.

Obama added more later in the speech to drive the point home. "The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don't work even harder than we did in 2008, then we're going to have a government that tells the American people, 'you are on your own. If you get sick, you're on your own. If you can't afford college, you're on your own. If you don't like that some corporation is polluting your air or the air that your child breathes, then you're on your own. That's not the America I believe in. It's not the America you believe in."

What are we to make of this? Our President explicitly rejects the American ideal of self-reliance that has been so important throughout our history. He sees dependence on government not as an evil, if sometimes a necessary one, but as a goal to be pursued. The rest of the country is made up of childish, naive, lost souls in need of Obama and the Democrats to guide and protect them through the use of a huge central government.

I can still remember Bill Clinton and a question he got at a town meeting as he ran for re-election. A young man in the audience plaintively told the President that "we are your children" and asked what Clinton could do to protect him from all the abuses of life. Wow . . . a product of our school system . . . This guy saw government as the only way to help him survive the difficulties ahead. He sounded like a five-year old afraid of the dark.

This is not the America we all cherish. We need to grow up and tackle life head-on. The song of the liberals is one that sounds nice and rocks us to sleep, but there's a steep price to be paid. We give up our independence and our adulthood if we follow that siren's song.

So how much like the rest of us is the Occupy Wall Street crowd?

Douglas Schoen, a pollster for Bill Clinton when he was President, has conducted a survey of the Occupy Wall Street crowd. The results are interesting for those of us suspicious when we are told these protestors are just like the rest of us--common souls just tired of being ignored by the petty politics of today.

Schoen, who wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal, believes President Obama and the Democratic leadership are making a critical error in embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement—and it may cost them the 2012 election. We are told by Obama's crowd that these protestors are just like us. For example, last week, senior White House adviser David Plouffe said that "the protests you're seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens all across America. . . . People are frustrated by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility, where Wall Street and Main Street don't seem to play by the same set of rules." Nancy Pelosi and others have echoed the message.

But Schoen says this picture of the Wall Street crowd isn't true. According to him, the Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people—and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform.

Schoen's polling firm interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. His findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion. So what did he discover? These people are far-leftists, not common folk like we are told repeatedly. His research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Instead, it is made up of an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda. The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed.

Here's the scary part to me. What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas. Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost. Wow . . .

So they are not like the vast majority of Americans. Occupy Wall Street is a group of engaged progressives who are disillusioned with the capitalist system and have a distinct activist orientation. Among the general public, by contrast, 41% of Americans self-identify as conservative, 36% as moderate, and only 21% as liberal. That's why Schoen believes the Obama-Pelosi embrace of the movement could prove catastrophic for their party. Obama has thrown in with those who support his desire to tax oil companies and the rich, rather than appeal to independent and self-described moderate swing voters who want smaller government and lower taxes, not additional stimulus or interference in the private sector.

Schoen says the Democrats are doing the wrong thing here. Rather than embracing huge new spending programs and tax increases, plus increasingly radical and potentially violent activists, the Democrats should instead build a bridge to the much more numerous independents and moderates in the center by opposing bailouts and broad-based tax increases. They need to say they are with voters in the middle who want cooperation, conciliation and lower taxes. Will they do this? I don't think they will. That makes the 2012 election year more important than ever--the sides will be clear--small government versus a utopian remaking of America.

Green industries and the government--a sad case

I'm sure you've heard of the disaster at Solyndra, where our "wise" government leaders loaned tons of money to a green company. Despite dreams of instant benefits, the government was surprised to see Solyndra go down the drain. But that's not the only rat hole that the government's money has been poured into.

Consider Ener1 Inc., a lithium-ion battery maker also promoted by the White House. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Obama gave the company's subsidiary, EnerDel, a shout out in August 2009, in a speech in which he announced $2.4 billion in grants "to develop the next generation of fuel-efficient cars and trucks powered by the next generation of battery technologies."

EnerDel snagged a $118 million grant to produce batteries, and Vice President Joe Biden toured one of its two Indianapolis-area factories as recently as January, citing it as proof that government isn't "just creating new jobs—but sparking whole new industries." Uh-huh . . . And we know that Joe Biden always has his facts right.
Ener1 was founded in 2002, went public in 2008 and has never turned a profit. Catch that? Never turned a profit. In August, it restated its earnings for fiscal 2010 at a $165 million loss—nearly $100 million more than previously reported. On September 27 it ousted its CEO, and its share price yesterday was 27 cents—a 95% decline from its 52-week high of $5.95 in January. Gee, that sounds promising, right? I'd invest in that hot stock. Nasdaq is threatening to delist the stock, and Ener1 disclosed in a mid-August filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is "in the process of determining whether the company has sufficient liquidity to fund its operations." Hmm . . . ominous words.

Ener1 attributed its financial restatement to the bankruptcy earlier this year of Norwegian electric car maker Think, in which Ener1 had invested, and with which it had signed a contract to supply batteries. Think had a long history of financial troubles and was hardly a safe investment. So not only does the government have bad powers of predicting economic success, so does the company in which it invests.

Then again, Ener1 had to rely almost exclusively on Think after it lost its bid to supply batteries to Fisker Automotive, a battery-powered car maker which received a $529 million U.S. taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantee in 2010. Fisker chose to buy its batteries from a company called A123 Systems, itself the recipient of a $249 million U.S. Department of Energy grant (announced at the same time as Ener1's grant). Do you see a pattern here? Loads of government money is flowing into these programs.

But here's the catch. It's hard to sell electric car batteries when the market for electric cars is so small. The Wall Street Journal claims electric cars are expected to make up less than 1% of car sales by 2018, but that hasn't stopped the feds from financing a glut of battery makers. Some 48 different battery technology and electric vehicle projects received federal money as part of the Administration's August 2009 announcement, including such corporate giants as Johnson Controls and General Motors.

Current estimates are that by 2015 there will be more than double the supply of lithium-ion batteries compared to the number of electric vehicles. This government-juiced industry is headed for a shakeout, taking taxpayer dollars with it. This, of course, makes no sense, but that's the government for you.

This is a sad illustration of something important. We should leave commercial financing decisions to private investors and bankers who are likely to take more care with their own money.

Occupy Wall Street and the lie that powers it

Are you as dumbfounded as I am at the incredible lack of knowledge of Occupy Wall Street people?? Here's a reminder of what I mean.

They have bought into the same false story about the causes of the financial crisis. According to this story, the financial crisis and the following deep recession was caused by a reckless private sector driven by greed and insufficiently regulated. Now, of course, having bought into this fairy tale, the people are angry at Wall Street and bankers rather than at the government.

Their anger should be directed at those who developed and supported the federal government's housing policies that were responsible for the financial crisis. Here's the history behind it, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in their communities. Once again, the heart triumphed over the head. A noble sentiment--to help the poor get better housing. The original legislative quota was 30%. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development was given authority to adjust it, and through the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations HUD raised the quota to 50% by 2000 and 55% by 2007.

When more than half of the mortgages Fannie and Freddie were required to buy were dealing with people in shaky financial shape, these two government-sponsored enterprises had to significantly reduce their underwriting standards. You can tell where this was going to end up.

Fannie and Freddie were not the only government-backed or government-controlled organizations that were enlisted in this process by the government. The Federal Housing Administration was competing with Fannie and Freddie for the same mortgages. And thanks to rules adopted in 1995 under the Community Reinvestment Act, regulated banks as well as savings and loan associations had to make a certain number of loans to borrowers who were at or below 80% of the median income in the areas they served. The government's heavy hand was at work.

Research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae (now a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute) has shown that 27 million loans—half of all mortgages in the U.S.—were subprime or otherwise weak by 2008. That is, the loans were made to borrowers with blemished credit, or were loans with no or low down payments, no documentation, or required only interest payments. Wow, a disaster in the making.

Of these, over 70% were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie or some other government agency or government-regulated institution. Thus it is clear where the demand for these deficient mortgages came from--our own government, not private banking or Wall Street.

The private financial sector must certainly share some blame for the financial crisis when it got involved, but it cannot fairly be accused of causing that crisis when only a small minority of subprime and other risky mortgages outstanding in 2008 were the result of that private activity.

The fairy story that came out of these events—largely propagated by government officials and accepted by a credulous media (are any of you surprised by that?)—was that the private sector's greed and risk-taking caused the financial crisis and the government's policies were not responsible. This tale led to the current situation-- the occupation of Wall Street. Now Obama and his ilk cheer on these protestors in the hopes the American people can be duped once again to blame the wrong source of their problems.

John Wooden and character

John Wooden, coach of the UCLA Bruins basketball team, was probably the greatest coach who ever lived. I was thinking about him the other day when I came across an article about his father and the importance of character.

He said that ever since he was very young his father would say to him, "Be more concerned with your character than your reputation." His dad went on to explain that your character is what you really are. Your reputation is merely how you are perceived by others.

We can live for years behind the façade, with no one suspecting who we really are. We can pretend to have integrity while living a lie. But this façade will eventually crumble. And if our true character is exposed in the form of sexual immorality, ethical corruption, dishonesty, substance abuse or moral cowardice, it can cost us a lot.

Wooden's father wrote out a creed for him to follow, and he carried this with him for years. Eventually the paper began to crumble, so Wooden made copies for himself and others. This became what he called the Seven-Point Creed. Here it is:

*Be true to yourself.
*Make each day your masterpiece.
*Help others.
*Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.
*Make friendship a fine art.
*Build a shelter against a rainy day.
*Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

There's obviously nothing new or startling in that list. But think how much better our lives would be if we tried to accomplish these things. I realize it's not time for a New Year's resolution, but any day is the right time to live a richer life.

Quick answers to difficult questions

Sometimes when we talk with others about Christianity, we don't have a lot of time to develop our answers. Greg Koukl, president of Stand to Reason, has two quick answers to two difficult questions.

The one issue that usually gets brought up as an attack on Christianity is the problem of evil. If there is a good God, why is there evil? Greg suggests an initial question – "So you believe in objective evil then?" If the challenger doesn't, the problem goes away. If there's no objective evil, there is no problem of evil. That should take care of relativists who raise this issue.

Then there's his follow-up question – "What do you mean by evil?" Normally, people will give all sorts of examples of evil, like murder, torture, child abuse. Greg says we should ask them instead to tell us what it is that makes those things objectively evil in the first place. This can lead to a discussion, when there's more time, about transcendent moral law and the need for a transcendent moral law maker. In other words, God must exist before you can even raise the objection about evil. If there's no God, there are simply your preferences.

The second issue raised against Christianity involves Jesus being the only way. Greg has a pretty sharp answer for that issue: "Well, that's what Jesus thought. Do you think he had any insight into spiritual things?" The advantage now is with you because the critic must take on Jesus. Good luck.

This paragraph is my own suggestion about this second issue. When people complain about Jesus being the only way, they usually follow it up with a criticism of Christianity as being narrow-minded or intolerant. Of course, we simply need to point out that these people are just as narrow-minded since they believe they are right just as much as we believe we are right. They seem to be just as intolerant about our views as they say we are about theirs.

Now, there are obviously ways to get deeper into these issues. But these responses can keep us from being inarticulate or defensive. Try them out sometime.

The case for miracles

I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek has an important chapter dealing with the possibility of miracles. Since I will be speaking on this in a week, I wanted to write about miracles to make sure I understood their main points.

I think I'll start my presentation with a question: have you or someone you know experienced a miracle? It might be a healing or an answer to prayer. J. P. Moreland, a noted Christian philosopher, says he is always surprised when he asks this question of groups he is speaking to. A large number of people always raise their hands. We in the West are cold, rational people that really don't believe in miracles. But they seem to be happening around us.

Can we justify belief in miracles? That's what the authors of the book tackle. They start with a definition. A miracle is a special act of God that interrupts normal events. It's done to authenticate some message from God.

They use a simple illustration to explain how miracles add to our worldview. They tell of one speaker who brought in two boxes for his audience – one was closed, and one was open at one end. The speaker held up the closed box and said atheists believe the physical universe is closed, like the box. But he said he believed there was a God outside the box capable of reaching into it and performing what we call miracles.

The authors indicate there is a key element here. If we admit there is a God, then miracles are possible. It's always been funny to me that people do believe in God, but they have difficulty with miraculous events associated with Jesus, such as walking on water or changing water to wine. Once you have settled the idea that there is a God, then all possibilities are open since he created the entire universe out of nothing. He can certainly do other, more minor miracles.

Geisler and Turek tackle two well-known objections to miracles. The first one was by Spinoza, who said natural laws are immutable. But the authors point out the creation of the universe seems to throw that objection out the window. They say laws describe, not prescribe what will happen.

The second objection was by David Hume. He argued that natural law is a description of a regular occurrence, while a miracle is a rare occurrence. He then says the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare. Next, he says, a wise man always bases his belief on the greater evidence, and, therefore, a wise man should never believe in miracles. That may sound like a good argument, but they point out the problem with "the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare." Think of all the things that have happened which are rare but we have better reasons to believe in them – the origin of the universe, the origin of life, the start of new life forms, the entire history of the world. These are all rare events, yet we believe in them. The issue is not the rarity of an event; it's whether we have good evidence for it. They accuse Hume of circular reasoning – he says only believable events are regular, and since a miracle is not regular, it fails to meet this criteria.

The authors end the chapter by discussing why there are no biblical miracles happening today. They mention that most miracles in the Bible actually occurred only during three periods of history – in the time of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. They believe that since there is no new revelation coming from God today that needs confirmation, there are fewer miracles. But I suggest that there are miracles, at least on the smaller scale involving individuals. We'll see what reaction I get when I ask the class next week whether they have experienced miracles.

The existence of a universal moral law

The next section of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist is important but not necessarily easy to grasp. The authors Norm Geisler and Frank Turek deal with the argument for God from morality. It can be summed up this way: every law has a lawgiver; there is a moral law; therefore, there is a moral lawgiver.

Of course, the key portion of that argument is the existence of a moral law. The authors start out by saying our Founding Fathers thought there was such a law. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "nature's law" is "self-evident." They claim Jefferson meant you don't use reason to discover it; you just know it. All people are impressed with the fundamental sense of right and wrong. For example, everyone knows that love is superior to hate and courage is better than cowardice.

They point out that this does not mean that every moral issue has easily recognizable answers or that some people don't deny that absolute morality exists. There are difficult problems in morality. In addition, they understand that people suppress and deny the moral law every day. But they say there are basic principles of right and wrong that everyone knows, whether they will admit them or not.

The authors claim there are eight reasons why the moral law exists. First, the moral law is undeniable logically. A person may say "there are no absolute values," but this person who denies all values actually values his right to deny them. In addition, he wants everyone to value him as a person, even while he denies that there are values for all persons. So, even those who deny all values nevertheless value their right to make that denial. That's inconsistent.

Secondly, we know there is a moral law by our reactions. The authors included a great story to prove their point. A professor at a major university in Indiana gave one of his relativistic students who did not believe in absolute moral values a lesson in this point. The professor, who was teaching a class in ethics, assigned a term paper to the students. One student, an atheist, wrote eloquently on the topic of moral relativism, arguing that all morals are relative and there is no absolute standard of justice or rightness. It was actually a good paper with good documentation. The professor read the paper and wrote on the front cover, "This is a good paper, but I'm going to give it an F because you put it in a blue folder." The student, of course, was enraged and said that it wasn't fair to give him a bad grade because of the folder. The professor acted puzzled, saying the student didn't believe in moral values, so why was he talking about something being fair. The light bulb went on the student's head. He realized that he really did believe in moral absolutes. The authors say that a good way to get moral relativists to admit that there are absolute morals is to treat them unfairly. Their reactions will reveal the moral law written on their hearts and minds.

There are more arguments for the existence of moral laws, but I will save those for future blog.

Our military--who fights for us?

I found an interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal that lays to rest the old lies about who really fights for us. We hear so often of our military as a refuge for those unable to make it in society, a place for the ill-trained and minorities of our society. The belief is that our nation is cruelly sending these poor saps off to die in lands they couldn't spell or find on a map. But the truth is far different.

In 2008, using data provided by the Defense Department, the Heritage Foundation found that only 11% of enlisted military recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth, or quintile, of American neighborhoods (as of the 2000 Census), while 25% came from the wealthiest quintile. Heritage reported that "these trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40% of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods, a number that has increased substantially over the past four years."

Think about what that is saying. More than twice as many of our soldiers come from the wealthiest portion of our society as come from the poorest section. In fact, the Heritage report showed that "low-income families are underrepresented in the military and high-income families are overrepresented. Individuals from the bottom household income quintile make up 20.0 percent of Americans who are age 18-24 years old but only 10.6 percent of the 2006 recruits and 10.7 percent of the 2007 recruits. Individuals in the top two quintiles make up 40.0 percent of the population, but 49.3 percent of the recruits in both years."

What about the charge that our Army is disproportionately minority, especially African-American? This too is false, as the Journal points out in data for fiscal 2010 available on the Army's website: Whereas African-Americans comprise 17% of Americans ages 18-39 with high school degrees, they represent only a slightly larger proportion of enlisted soldiers, at 21%.

Yes, but what about whites? Are they shirking their military duty? Nope. They were significantly overrepresented among enlisted Army personnel in 2010. While 58% of Americans 18-39 years old are white, 64% of the Army's enlisted men and women are. One area that is particularly uplifting is the percentage of Army officers. While 74% of 25-54 year-olds with bachelor's degrees are white, 72% of Army officers are white. While 8% of 25-54 year-olds with B.A.s are African-American, 13% of Army officers are. So African-Americans are represented well as officers.

Why do myths persist despite all the evidence? It seems likely that it suits the interests of many members of the urban elite to believe that the military they do not join is composed of poor, uneducated victims of an unfair society. I'm so glad to know this idea is far from the truth.

Intelligent design in the hot seat

I never finished covering the chapter in I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist that deals with evolution. I wanted to spend some time now with the authors' discussion of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. They organize their discussion by looking at objections to intelligent design with responses to those objections.

The first objection is that intelligent design is not science. Of course, Darwinists make this claim based on their own biased definition of science. Science used to be a search for causes. But Darwinists say now that all answers must be materialistic, not allowing as they say a "divine foot in the door." The irony is that if intelligent design is not science, than neither is Darwinism because both are trying to discover what happened in the past. Darwinists would also have to rule out archaeology, cryptology, criminal and accident forensic investigations, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence since they are all legitimate forensic sciences that look into the past for intelligent causes.

Another charge against intelligent design is that it commits the God-of-the-gaps fallacy, which occurs when someone falsely believes God caused the event when it was actually natural phenomenon. At one time people used to believe lightning was caused by God, but now we know the real reasons. But it's not that we lack evidence of a natural explanation; it's because we have positive and empirically detectable evidence for an intelligent cause. In fact, intelligent design scientists are open to both natural and intelligent causes rather than being opposed to continued research into natural explanations for the first life. In addition, intelligent design is a falsifiable premise. It could be proven wrong if natural laws were someday discovered to create specified complexity. But Darwinists don't allow falsification of their story because they don't allow any other creation premise to be considered. Actually, it's Darwinists who claim that someday they will have answers to explain how complex, information-rich biological systems came into existence--they believe in science-of-the-gaps, it appears.

Another charge against intelligent design is that it is religiously motivated. Here's a quick answer to that – so what? Truth does not lie in the motivation of scientists, but in the quality of the evidence. After all, it's not just religious people that have a worldview. So do atheists. Intelligent design is not "creation science" either. Proponents don't make the same claims of a young Earth or a worldwide flood.

One final objection to intelligent design has to do with imperfections in creatures. The fact that scientists complain about sub-optimal design implies that they know what optimal design is. It sounds like actually an argument for a designer. When they claim something is designed correctly, they're implying they could tell if it were designed correctly. Secondly, even if something was sub-optimally designed,it doesn't mean there was no design at all. In addition, all design requires trade-offs. For example, cars want to get good gas mileage but they need power, so some sort of compromise is reached. One final thought here – the book does not discuss it, but many of the complaints about bad design have turned out to be incorrect. Many systems in our bodies which at one time were considered poorly designed have actually proved to have important, helpful features.

There's one final section in this chapter dealing with motives behind Darwinism, but I think I'll save that for a future blog.

Another scientist walks away from Al Gore

You've heard the old saying, :"Another one bites the dust." Well, it happened in the arena of global warming. Another Nobel laureate breaks from the climate change pack.

Ivar Giaever, a 1973 physics Nobel Laureate resigned last week from the American Physical Society in protest over the group's insistence that evidence of man-made global warming is "incontrovertible." That's the wording of Al Gore, who reassures us all that the issue really is settled.

In an email to the society, Mr. Giaever—who works at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute—wrote that "The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me . . . that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."

Mr. Giaever was an American Physical Society fellow, an honor bestowed on "only half of one percent" of the members, according to a spokesman. This is no slouch. He follows in the footsteps of University of California at Santa Barbara Emeritus Professor of Physics Harold Lewis, a former APS fellow who resigned in 2010, calling global warming "the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist." Now that's hard-hitting commentary.

But, as the late-night TV ads say, "Wait, there's more." Other dissenters include Stanford University physicist and Nobelist Robert B. Laughlin, deceased green revolution icon and Nobelist Norman Borlaug, Princeton physicist William Happer and World Federation of Scientists President Antonino Zichichi. Not that all of these men agree on climate change, much less mankind's contribution to it, but they at least maintain an open mind about warming or what to do about it.

One of the least savory traits of climate-change advocates is how they've tried to bully anyone who keeps an open mind. Remember Al Gore, who compared deniers of global warming to racists in the 1950s? With the cap-and-trade movement stymied, Mr. Gore and the climate clan have become even more arch in their dismissals of anyone who disagrees. You decide whom you wish to agree with--Professor Giaever, or Mr. Gore. My choice is pretty easy.

How did life get started?

The next section of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist deals with the design of life. It focuses particularly on the most difficult problem of all for Darwinists – where did the first life come from?

The authors point out that the first problem when talking about evolution is in its definition. Darwinists make no distinction between microevolution and macroevolution, and thus use the evidence for micro to prove macro. Microevolution has been observed (changes within species), but it can't be used as evidence for macroevolution, which has never been observed (the evolving of one organism into another kind of organism). Natural selection, the device Darwinists say that powers evolution, has never been observed to create new types.

There are five reasons the authors list to explain why natural selection can't create new life. For one thing, there seems to be genetic limits built into basic types of animals. For example, dog breeders create different kinds of dogs, but the dogs always remain dogs. Secondly, the change that occurs within types of animals appears to be cyclical rather than directed toward the development of new life forms. The two authors use an example of Darwin's finches, which were noted as having varying beak sizes depending on the weather. No new life forms came into existence; only the beak sizes changed in these birds. The third reason involves something called irreducible complexity. Living things are filled with molecular machines that are irreducibly complex, meaning that all the parts of each machine have to be completely formed and in the right places and in the right size in the correct operating order at the same time for the machine to function. The authors use as an example a car engine, which needs so many systems to operate together for success. These complex biological systems could not have developed in a gradual Darwinian fashion because intermediate forms would be nonfunctional. All the right parts must be in place in the right size at the same time for there to be any function at all. A fourth problem with natural selection is the non-viability of transitional forms. The authors use as an example the Darwinian assertion that birds evolved gradually from reptiles. Such a change would necessitate a transition from scales to feathers, but how could a creature survive that no longer has scales but does not quite have feathers? A creature with the structure of half a feather has no ability to fly. Finally, the authors discuss molecular isolation. If all species share a common ancestor, the authors indicate we should expect to find proteins sequences that are transitional from fish to amphibian, for example. That's not what is found. Scientists have discovered that the basic types are molecularly isolated from one another, which seems to preclude any type of ancestral relationship.

But Darwinists say the fossil record supports their position – does it? It actually lines of better with supernatural creation. There aren't missing links – there's a missing chain. Nearly all the major groups of animals known to exist appear in the fossil record abruptly and fully formed in strata from the Cambrian time period. This is been called the Cambrian explosion or biology's Big Bang. This, of course, is completely inconsistent with Darwinism. There's no evidence of gradual evolution but of instantaneous creation instead.

Again, I'm going to quit at this point even though I have not finished the chapter in the book. There's plenty here to think about.

The philosophy behind Darwinists

This blog is a continuation of a summary of a powerful book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Geisler and Turek.. The last time I discussed the book I was working my way through a chapter about the complexity of life. This time I would like to finish that particular chapter, which talks about the philosophy behind Darwinism and materialism.

The authors say Darwinists have been successful in convincing the public that Darwinism represents science while those who oppose Darwinism represent bad science. However, Geisler and Turek say just the opposite. It's the Darwinists who are practicing the bad science because their science is built on a false philosophy.

Where does Darwinism go wrong? Many Darwinists start with the idea that God is not necessary because science can explain everything. But there are all sorts of rational beliefs that cannot be proven by science: mathematics and logic (science can't prove them because science presupposes them), metaphysical truths (for example, there are minds that exist other than my own), ethical judgments (you can't prove by science that Mother Teresa was good because morality is not part of the scientific method), aesthetic judgments (no one can scientifically prove something is beautiful), and science itself (the belief that the scientific method discovers truth ironically can't be proven by the scientific method itself).

The key point the authors wish to get across is that science itself is built on philosophy. So, if you have bad philosophy, you get bad science. How is it that science is built on philosophy? First, scientists use philosophical assumptions and the search for causes. For example, scientists assume by faith that reason and the scientific method allow us to accurately understand our world. You can't prove the tools of science by some sort of experiment – the laws of logic, the law of causality, the principle of uniformity. Secondly, philosophical assumptions can dramatically impact scientific conclusions. I think right now about the debate on climate change. Many scientists are getting a conclusion that they wish to get to keep the scientific funding going.

The authors say the bad science of Darwinists essentially comes from their false philosophy of naturalism/materialism. Geisler and Turek have five reasons why materialism is not reasonable. First, there is specified complexity in life that cannot be explained materially. Think about the DNA message. Secondly, human thoughts and theories are not comprised only of materials. How much does love weigh? Third, if life was simply material, then we could take these materials and make a living being. But we cannot do that. Fourth, if materialism is true, then all people of human history who had spiritual experiences have been completely mistaken. That's hard to believe considering the list of those who have had such experiences – think of Abraham, Moses, Kepler, Newton, Pascal, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Jesus Christ. Fifth, if materialism is true then reason itself is impossible. Why? If mental processes are nothing but chemical reactions in our brains, why should we believe that anything is true? Chemicals don't reason, they react. We would be doomed to conclusions based on chemical reactions rather than reason.

Well, that's a lot of heady material to consider, and it deserves further thought. But I think it's pretty powerful.

Language to mask failure

As you know, I'm an English teacher who likes our language. I was reminded once again of the power of words the other day. This time it has to do with politics.


The news was about Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats. According to internet reports, they have dropped the word 'stimulus' from their vocabulary. This was reported shortly before President Obama's jobs speech before a joint session of Congress. He proposed another hugely expensive stimulus bill . . . oops, it's now being called a "jobs plan" much like his his $830 billion 2009 economic stimulus package. And we all know how lovely that turned out to be.


But since that previous program was so ineffective and ruinously expensive, a change in vocabulary was necessary. Democrats are now being careful to frame their job-creation agenda in language excluding references to that dreaded word "stimulus," even though their favored policies for ending the deepest recession since the Great Depression are largely the same--throw money at the problem.


The phrases used now will make people forget earlier failure, so get ready for new, uplifting language. It will now be "job creation" and "Make it in America" in lieu of "Recovery Act." Gee, I feel better about it already.


You know there's failure in the air when language has to change rather than the policies. The Democrats are wedded to the idea that money solves all problems. I hope this lesson in language wakes up the American people to the Democrats' lack of good ideas to solve our economic problems. I'm certainly not happy with the Republicans, but I think they have better plans to reduce our bloated government and return economic decisions to the people.

Al Gore as a prophet for profit

At the risk of irritating readers of this blog, I want to go back to global warming again. A previous blog mentioned the latest from CERN, the respected scientific group that has issued its findings that suggest cosmic rays may be a leading cause of climate change. Well, there goes the man-caused-only rants from the leftists around the world. Who leads them? Why, it's Al Gore, bless his soul.


The other day he implied that those who oppose his agenda were the same as the racists in the 50s who opposed equal rights for African-Americans. Now, you know when someone plays the race card, he is in trouble. By the way, we can expect that in next year's presidential election, can't we?


But I don't want to go over these issues. Instead, I'd like us to consider why Al Gore is so insistent on scaring us, ranting about the issue, smearing his opponents. Does he care that much more about the earth than the rest of us? Or is there more to his position? People always say, "Follow the money." Let's do that with Al Gore.


No one has made more money from climate change hype than Gore. According to the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper, just one of the "green" companies in which Gore has invested has received over half a billion dollars in subsidies from the Energy Department. Ah, scare people enough, and they throw money your way. Scientists learned that too--yell a lot and get more funding.


Financial disclosure documents released before the 2000 election put the Gore family's net worth at $1 million to $2 million. A mere decade later, estimates are that he is worth $100 million. He's been touted in the press as one day becoming the first "carbon billionaire." Now, there's a reason to keep the hysteria alive. It's good for the pocketbook.


According to the Science & Public Policy Institute, the U.S. government has spent over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, education campaigns, foreign aid and tax breaks. And why are we doing this, considering that the rest of the world, especially China and India, have no plans to ruin their economy along with us? The net impact will be nil.


According to the World Bank, the value of carbon trading doubled from $63 billion in 2007 to $126 billion in 2008. Big money has been and can be made by conning governments into formulating policies based on fraudulently hyped climate hysteria.
We still remember "Climategate," right?


While many like Gore have profited handsomely, these policies cost the nation dearly in terms of jobs and economic growth. Let's see real proof before we unilaterally dismantle the American economy.

The amazing complexity of life

Back to my blog on I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. The last blog on this covered the design argument in which the authors claim the basic laws of the universe are set up to allow human life to exist. This time I'll focus on a second type of design in the universe -- the complexity of life. The authors point out that advancing technology has enabled scientists to discover a tiny world of awesome design and astonishing complexity.

The biggest problem for Darwinian believers is to explain the origin of the first life, which is not as simple as once thought. In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discovered DNA, the chemical that encodes instructions for building and replicating all living things. It's a blueprint, and Bill Gates called it the most complex computer code ever seen. DNA even in a one-celled amoeba is unbelievably complex in its message. Richard Dawkins, an atheist professor of zoology at Oxford University, admits that the message found in just the cell nucleus of a tiny amoeba is more than all 30 volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica combined, and the entire amoeba has as much information in its DNA as 1000 complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Darwinists have a difficult task. They have to say life came spontaneously from nonliving chemicals without intelligent intervention. The trouble is, all experiments designed to spontaneously generate life have failed. Another difficulty they have, besides the complexity of DNA, is the origin of DNA. It relies on proteins for its production, but proteins rely on DNA for their production. So which came first, proteins or DNA? One has to be in existence for the other to be made.

So why are Darwinists so committed to their viewpoint? Because they have a philosophy which rules out intelligent causes before they even look at the evidence. Since they have ruled out any possibility of God because of their philosophical foundations, Darwinism has be true since it's the only God-free theory.

A couple of key quotations make this very clear. Phil Johnson, a Christian law professor, states, "Darwinism is based on an a priori [prior] commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence." Richard Lewontin, a Harvard University atheistic professor, says, "It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenonal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door." That's an amazing statement, considering he is saying Darwinists start with a philosophical position of atheism and build their science on that. So much for the neutrality of science.



But Darwinists say that they have billions of years to work with, so that may allow spontaneous generation of life to happen. The problem is that nature disorders; it doesn't organize things. Atheists and theists alike have calculated the probability that life could arise by chance from nonliving chemicals. The results are staggering. One biochemist said that the probability of getting one protein molecule by chance would be the same as a blindfolded man finding one marked grain of sand in the Sahara desert three times in a row. And one protein molecule is not even life. You need about 200 of these molecules to get life going.


This is fascinating material, but there is a lot of it. So I'll save some for the next blog.