Category Archives: Daily Word
God Vs. Science isn’t the Issue
Article from Wall Street Journal by William McGurn
When the poet Matthew Arnold wrote of faith’s “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,” the thought was that scientific inquiry had forever undermined claims to certitude. In hindsight we see Arnold was only half right. In place of Genesis we now have scientism—the idea that science alone can speak truth about man and his world.
In contrast to the majority of scientists whose wondrous discoveries seem to inspire humility, today’s advocates of scientism can be every bit as dogmatic as the William Jennings Bryans of yesteryear. We saw an example a week ago, when the New York Times reported that many scientists view “outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.”
The reporter was Gardiner Harris, and the object of his snark was Francis Collins—the new director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Collins is perhaps best noted for his leadership on the Human Genome Project, an effort to map the genetic makeup of man. But he is also well known for his unapologetic talk about his Christian faith and how he came to it.
Mr. Harris’s aside about dementia, of course, is less a proposition open to debate than the kind of putdown you tell at a private cocktail party where you know everyone in the room shares your orthodoxies. In this room, there are those who hold that God cannot be reconciled with what science has discovered about the human body, the origin of the species, and the beginnings of the universe. The more honest ones do not flinch before the implications of their materialist principles on our understanding of human dignity and human rights and human freedom—as well as on religion.
In 1997, for example, an International Academy of Humanism statement in defense of human cloning—whose signatories included scientists such as E.O. Wilson, Francis Crick and Richard Dawkins—went out of its way to attack the special dignity of human beings. “Humanity’s rich repertoire of thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and hopes seems to arise from electrochemical brain processes, not from an immaterial soul that operates in ways no instrument can discover.” They concluded “it would be a tragedy if ancient theological scruples should lead to a Luddite rejection of cloning.”
Here’s the problem: Almost no one really believes this. Not, at least, when it comes to how we behave. And the dichotomy between scientific theory and human action may itself have something to tell us about truth.
That’s not to deny electrochemical brain processes and the like. It is to say that much as we may assent to the idea that we are but matter in motion, seldom do we act that way. We love. We fight. We distinguish between the good and noble and the bad and base. More than just religion, our literature and our politics and our music resonate precisely because they speak to these things.
Remember Peter Singer? Mr. Singer is the Princeton utilitarian who accepts scientism’s view that human beings are not fundamentally different from animals, just more complex. In his thinking, those who cannot reason for themselves or have lost their self-awareness have no real claim to life. Yet when Alzheimer’s struck his mother, he paid for care to prolong and sustain her life. The irony is that an act that does him credit as a son must discredit him among those whose principles about life he claims to share.
To put it another way, while we talk about the clash between God and science, in practice it often comes down to disagreements about man and morals. The boundaries are not always neat. Many Americans who are indifferent to faith will confess they find themselves challenged as they try to raise good and decent children without the religious confidence their parents had. The result may not be a return to religion but a healthy agnosticism about agnosticism itself.
I once had the opportunity to interview one of my heroes, Sidney Hook. This was a man whose commitment to his atheism and secular humanism was beyond question. One example: A doctor saved Mr. Hook’s life by going ahead with an operation against Mr. Hook’s wishes. Mr. Hook recovered—and promptly published an op-ed taking his doc to task.
It is possible, of course, to imagine a good society in the absence of a belief that man’s dignity comes from his being fashioned in God’s image. Something of the sort would have been Mr. Hook’s ideal. Yet in his writings, the Almighty in whom Mr. Hook did not believe makes an extraordinary, one might say miraculous, number of appearances. When I asked him why he was not more dismissive, Mr. Hook replied that he was never comfortable with the dogmatism of the village atheist.
Perhaps he thought it “a mild form of dementia.”
Fighting for Jesus
I am so proud of Bobby Hernandez. He is allowing the brilliant light of Jesus Christ to shine brightly through him while he competes in Mixed Martial Arts. Last Saturday, night several of us went to see him compete in his first amateur competition. The pic above shows me and Adri (his girlfriend) praying for him before the match. Notice the very cool shirt!
The crowd is a dark one. Much in need of a light. Thank God for people like Bobby, who enter in and are not ashamed of the Gospel. His shorts said, “Jesus didn’t tap out”. He knelt to pray before the match. A couple thousand people were there watching. Bobby fell short in the match, but progressed the message of hope! No doubt.
Go Bobby!
+robin
Locked Out
Here is a piece of what is coming this weekend @psmchurch – We (humanity) were locked out of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. Why? Can we get back in? If so, when?
After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, satan’s promise had, in a backhanded way, come true. Adam and Eve had, in a sense, become like God in the knowing of good and evil (verse 22). But there is a great difference as well as some similarity. Both man and God knew good and evil, but in a vastly different way.
Perhaps the difference can best be illustrated in this way. A doctor can know of cancer by virtue of his education and experience as a doctor. That is, he has read of cancer, heard lectures on cancer, and seen it in his patients. Read the rest of this entry
Where do you draw the line for movies?
“The Proposal” with Sandra Bullock is one of the Summer’s cute, romantic comedies. If you were to go to http://www.kidsinmind.com and get the rating for the movie, this is what you would see for the sexual content. It rated 7 out of 10 for sexual content.
-robin
from http://www.kidsinmind.com:
SEX/NUDITY 7 – Music with suggestive lyrics is heard as a man is shown sitting in a sexual pose, the man begins disrobing while gyrating suggestively on a stage in front of a crowd of women, two women put dollar bills into his waistband, he rips his shirt off, dramatically pulls his pants off to reveal that he is wearing only a very tight and revealing bikini-style pair of underpants, dances seductively around a woman who joins him on stage against her will (he is shown thrusting his groin in her face and pantomiming sex with her as he lies on the floor and thrusts his hips in the air), he takes the hand of the woman and places it in his mouth, sucking on her fingers, and the crowd crudely yells for the woman to smack the bottom of the man and she complies.
► In a shower the outline of a nude female form is seen through the fog; a frontal shot of the nude woman is shown after she steps out of the shower (she covers herself with a small washcloth and cups her breasts with her hands and she is shown from the side). A man is shown bare-chested, wearing a low-slung towel wrapped around his waist, revealing much of his body. A woman is shown having just exited the shower, and her bare upper back and shoulders are shown as she wraps herself in a towel. A woman is shown on her hands and knees, and her shorts barely cover her buttocks. A woman is shown in a tight shirt with a plunging neckline and tight exercise shorts. A woman wearing a form-fitting knee-length skirt and low-cut top bends over and her cleavage is evident. A woman is shown wearing very short shorts and a low-cut, form fitting tank top to sleep. A woman in a pair of very short shorts and a low-cut tank top pulls a knee-length robe over herself, tying it as she walks. A shirtless man is shown, covering himself with a sheet.
► A nude man and a nude woman are shown colliding, chests closely touching and falling to the ground in a sexual manner; the woman is on top of the man, with his legs straddling her hips (the bare sides of the man and woman are shown, as well as the bare buttock of the man and the woman), she says that the man was “So, so naked,” and later, the man acknowledges that the woman had seen his genitals and asks if she liked what she had seen.
► Several people call for a man and a woman to kiss, the man kisses the woman on the hand, the crowd insists that he “kiss her like you mean it” and shouts “kiss her on the mouth”; the man and the woman awkwardly embrace and share a kiss that becomes passionate. A man and a woman are shown in an intimate embrace, staring into each other’s eyes longingly and then share a passionate and lingering kiss; another man shouts, “Show her whose boss.
► A woman and a man are shown sharing a bed, the woman rubs the shoulders of the man warmly, and he appears excited, she then suggests that he get out of bed and he declines (implying that he has an erection). A man and a woman are shown in a warm embrace, the man rubs his hands across her back and lingers on her bottom, then playfully smacks her bottom twice. A man climbs into bed with a woman and embraces her, she acts surprised, sits up and says, “Hey now!” (implying that she had felt that he had an erection) and the two continue in a close embrace. A man and woman are shown awkwardly facing one another as to kiss, but their lips do not touch.
► A man is shown taking off his shirt, and his bare chest is shown; he acts out taking off his pants and then acts out taking off his underpants. A woman sings suggestive lyrics while dancing in an exaggerated suggestive fashion, thrusting her hips and shaking her.
► A woman wearing a skirt is shown descending a ladder, and from the angle of the man standing under her it is implied that he is able to see up her skirt (no nudity or undergarments are obvious); the man says, “Looking good, boss,” and places his hand on her buttock. A man replies that he “likes this” after instructing a woman to get on her knees in front of him (implying that she is in position for oral sex).
► A woman says that she likes to “keep her man happy” as she feeds him in bed. A man accuses another man of “sleeping his way to the middle,” and the accused man insists that he had not used sex to promote his career. A woman hands a blanket to another woman and says that it is called “the baby-maker,” inferring that the blanket was to be used during sexual intercourse; another woman says the “baby-maker needs a night off.” A woman says that she has “not slept with anyone for over a year and a half.” During an interrogation, a man asks another man about sexual positions, and insists that he tell him if he is “top or bottom;” the man then asks the same question of a woman, he then asks the man which side of the bed the woman sleeps on, and subsequently what side of the bed he sleeps on. A woman asks a man if he was “saving himself for someone special” in a disparaging manner during a discussion about marriage. During a discussion among three women references to strippers and being “knocked up” before marriage are discussed. A woman discusses the size of another woman’s chest as she gropes through loose fabric to find her breasts. A person uses the term “your wagon is hitched to mine” and a “quickie divorce.” A man is shown visibly panting, as he approaches a woman, and she asks why he was panting, wondering if it was a sexual situation. A woman asks if another woman has “fertile loins.” A woman says, “It wouldn’t be the first time one of us fell for one of our secretaries.” A woman accusingly shouts at a man that he spends more time “cheating on [his] wife than in the office.” A man discusses the seductive nature of a woman’s bedclothes and asks her if that is all she has to wear, implying that they were too suggestive for their surroundings. A man suggests that a woman is interested in a “swarthy, dark” man, implying that she is sexually interested in him and not her fiancé. A man says, “I always get my man,” then explains that the comment was not to be taken as sexual. A person finds a message written on a coffee cup, presumably from a person at the coffee bar, which says, “Call me.” A woman offhandedly mentions late night runs for Tampax. A woman says that a man is “sexy.” A man and woman sing vaguely suggestive lyrics in a comedic fashion. A man and a woman are shown a bedroom with only one bed and are directed that despite not being married, there is no illusion that they sleep in separate beds (the man is shown sleeping on the floor). A voice off-screen is heard asking to enter a room and if the man and the woman inside the room are “decent.”
► A fully dressed man pantomimes a suggestive dance in front of a woman and a small group of people. A man implies that a woman has a secret tattoo in a private area of her body.
Robin Steele 