Favoured Races

The following article was co-authored by Carolyn Reeves and Marni Kendricks.

 

What are the two things that should not be discussed over dinner in polite company according to rules of etiquette? Politics and Religion. They can be controversial and emotional, cause anxiety, and ruin a good meal. Well, I suggest this time we DO couple them together for a serious conversation that needs to take place in our society.

 

Hardly a day goes by without a racial issue being raised in our news reports, social media, and daily conversations. We are well aware of uncomfortable symbols all around that remind us of an obvious racial divide—songs, flags, monuments paintings, graveyards—and even more so we have tough issues of racial profiling, neighborhood and church segregations, social media frenzy, and protests that often turn violent. I don’t think anyone can deny that racial tensions exist today, but have you ever wondered WHY? Where did this begin? What is this powerful force we face that still lingers decades after the start of the Civil Rights movement led by brilliant, ethical, strong leaders of our time?

 

Race struggles have existed for centuries throughout history. There have been and still are many horrible periods in world history where religion, ethnicity, and race were the catalyst for awful events. Still, there is no doubt that increasing racial discord is one of America’s big problems, and it is occurring on our watch. Continue reading Favoured Races

An Atheistic Religious Viewpoint vs a Theistic Religious Viewpoint

COPE (Citizens for Objective Public Education) was incorporated in 2012with a specific mission to promote objectivity in public school curricula regarding religious content, so the teaching is religiously neutral. Religion, defined as beliefs about ultimate causes and the meaning of life, includes both theistic and atheistic beliefs. According to U.S courts, religious content must either be omitted or presented in a religiously neutral manner. COPE is particularly concerned when public schools present ideas that clearly favor an atheistic religious viewpoint while excluding a theistic religious view.

 

In 2013 the Kanas State Board of Education adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). COPE then examined the proposed learning objectives and found they did not present Darwinian evolution in a religiously neutral manner. Continue reading An Atheistic Religious Viewpoint vs a Theistic Religious Viewpoint

Is the Word Creator Allowed in Science?

This is not the first time the mere mention of Creator in a scientific article, class, or other public forum has created an uproar.  An article entitled “Biomechanical characteristics of hand coordination in grasping activities of daily living,” was published in the on-line scientific journal PLOS ONE in January of 2016. The authors wrote about how human hands have an amazing ability to grasp things and perform a multitude of other coordinated tasks. In the article hands were said to have the “proper design by the Creator.” If the article had said that hands had been properly designed by Nature, there would have been no objections.  But because of the use of the word Creator, there was a flood of complaints as many furious readers called, emailed, and twitted their criticisms. Some called for the editor to be fired while others demanded that the article should be immediately retracted. Some even thought the PLOS ONE Journal itself should be shut down or boycotted. Continue reading Is the Word Creator Allowed in Science?

Exposing Weaknesses of Darwinism

The apostle Paul saw a vision of the end times in which he saw evil spirits that looked like frogs coming from the mouth of the dragon, the mouth of the beast, and the mouth of the false prophet. (Rev. 16:13) Frogs, known for their the repetitive croaking, may be a symbolic picture of a technique that is often used to convince people that something is true even when there is little or no evidence for it. “Millions and millions of years” is one of the repetitive phases we have all heard that emphasizes the supposed age of the universe, the earth, and ancestral living organisms.

Many books, movies, documentaries, and teachers declare with one voice that the earth is billions of years old and that dinosaurs lived on the earth millions of years ago. Young children, who are invariably fascinated by dinosaurs, are routinely told this as a fact. Continue reading Exposing Weaknesses of Darwinism

Admissible and Inadmissible Evidence Part III

Admissible and Inadmissible Evidence in the National Science Standards is continued below as Part III. The condensed version of this article is published in the April 2015 edition of the AFA Journal.  http://bit.ly/1Fb7tO1

Public school students are in a position where everyone is taught Darwin’s proposal that all living things, including humans, originated from a common single-celled ancestor. Regardless of whether or not a disclaimer is added that God may have guided the process, Darwinian evolution is taught in public schools without scientific challenges and as the only scientifically accepted possibility for our origins. Attempts to include scientific creationism or intelligent design have been struck down by courts as state-sponsored religious ideas.

The case of COPE vs. Kansas Board of Education has yet to be decided. Parents are suing the Board because the state-approved science curriculum teaches an exclusively atheistic explanation for origins. Continue reading Admissible and Inadmissible Evidence Part III

Admissible and Inadmissible Evidence in the National Science Standards- Part II

Admissible and Inadmissible Evidence in the National Science Standards is continued below as Part II. The condensed version of this article is published in the April 2015 edition of the AFA Journal.

 

Although naturalistic evolution from a common ancestry has been taught in public schools for over 50 years, NGSS is more systematic, dogmatic, and deceptive in its approach than most previous standards.  The deception is extremely effective because it begins at age 5 in kindergarten. The new standards will continue to present evidence in a manner that supports the idea that all life evolved from a common ancestry. Furthermore, most scientific challenges to unguided evolution will remain inadmissible. The big difference is that evolution will be taught progressively in this way from grades K-12.

 

Studies have shown that young children from all backgrounds have an inborn natural inclination to favor purposeful design as the best explanation for life, including man.  Most young children instinctively believe that God made all living things, because living things look designed. Due to this instinct and the subconsciously recognized improbability that complex organs happened by chance, they find naturalistic evolution to be illogical – which in fact it is.  Psychological studies have found that very young children can be effectively persuaded to accept natural evolutionary ideas with picture books and visuals when they are taught these ideas at an early age. -1

Continue reading Admissible and Inadmissible Evidence in the National Science Standards- Part II

Admissible and Inadmissible Evidence in the National Science Standards

 

American jury trials are probably the fairest way in the world to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused. Time-tested rules permit the person or group on trial to be both prosecuted and defended in a way that doesn’t favor either side. The prosecutor and the defender examine the same set of evidence, but present the jury with different possibilities regarding what actually happened. Our system of justice works because the jury is given the opportunity to consider the full set of evidences, as well as the arguments from both sides before making a decision. The right to a fair trial is such a cherished part of America that citizens would be outraged if they heard of a judge who allowed the prosecutor to freely present evidence and arguments to the jury, but declared the defender’s entire case inadmissible based on an unproved and controversial assumption.

 

A very important legal case, COPE vs. Kansas Board of Education, is now making its way through the courts.  Although the lawsuit is a civil case, it has many parallels to the example of the unjust judge. There have been several court cases where Christian parents were accused of trying to insert their religious beliefs into science classes.  However, in this case, it is Christian parents who have valid reasons to claim that they are being wronged by a situation in which their religious beliefs are being ruled inadmissible while the ideas of another opposing religious belief are being freely allowed. They find themselves in a situation where a state policy seeks to replace their theistic religious beliefs with a non-theistic religious worldview. The dilemma arose when the Kansas State School Board adopted a new set of science standards known as Next Generation Science Standards or NGSS.

Continue reading Admissible and Inadmissible Evidence in the National Science Standards

Uniformitarianism–A Game Changer!

Uniformitarianism is a philosophy. Its adherents believe that natural processes and the rates at which they have been observed to occur on earth and in space are the keys to understanding what has happened in the past. They assume that such processes as erosion, deposition, fossilization, and other natural processes occur at overall predictable rates. They are convinced that there was never a worldwide flood in which these rates would have occurred much more rapidly than what we can observe today. Continue reading Uniformitarianism–A Game Changer!

Evidence Speaks: An interview with Lou Hamby

A few years ago the Discovery Institute made arrangements to show the premier of a movie entitled The Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian Institution.  It made no references to God, the Bible, or supernatural events. It merely documented the incredible number of things that had to be just right, within very narrow parameters, in order for life to exist on earth.

Yet, angry scientists all over the U.S. sent emails, letters, and made other contacts, demanding that the film not be shown at the Smithsonian. The reason for all the outrage was because it seemed to infer that the earth was the result of careful planning and design. Continue reading Evidence Speaks: An interview with Lou Hamby

Bottom Line, It’s the Definition. No Kidding!

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Prior to the publishing of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859, European scientists were making revolutionary scientific discoveries and, in the process, making science a highly respected field.  Scientific empirical methods were being developed, and research was conducted to discover how things operate in nature.

Some of the more well-known early scientists included Galileo, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and Johannes Kepler.  They all used empirical methods in their research, and they all based their explanations on natural processes.  This meant that these scientists were both empiricists and naturalists. Continue reading Bottom Line, It’s the Definition. No Kidding!