October 31, 2006 by Dr. Mc.

Many have made fun of Archbishop James Ussher for publishing in 1654 his calculation that the earth was created 4004 BC. He based the year on archeological discovery and historical record of his day, including the record of generations in Genesis. This was not some off-the-wall idea. Apparently the general date was accepted by others long before Ussher. In Canto XXVI of “Paradiso,” Dante asks Adam, the first man, how long he has been in heaven. Adam’s response is, “still was I debarr’d this council, till the sun had made complete, four thousand and three hundred rounds and twice, his annual journey,” which means 4,302 years. He further clarifies that he lived, “through every light in his broad pathway, saw I him return, thousand save seventy times, the whilst I dwelt upon the earth,” which means 930 years. Since Dante wrote Divine Comedy between 1308 and 1321, Dante must have been confident that the earth was created around 3924-3911 BC (AD 1308-4302-930=-3924; AD 1321-4302-930=-3911). This epoch poem was published over 300 before Archbishop Ussher published his computation, yet they are within a few decades of each other in results. Both must have accepted the Biblical record as history, and both must have had similar access to historical record reaching back thousands of years through other sources. With historical consistency like that, I’d say the “Dark Ages” were not as dark as some would have us believe.

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October 24, 2006 by Dr. Mc.

Some Christians would say, “It is our part to obey government, not to challenge it.” They point to Romans 13:1, which says, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Those who use this as a self-imposed excuse for sepraration of Church and State have not taken into account that we live in a nation unique in all of history. As Abraham Lincoln put it in his address at Gettysburg, we have a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” If this verse in Romans applies to our time and our country, then we ARE the government, and thus we are appointed to this authority by God. The officials are merely our minions. That means that for an American Christian not to be engaged in his government affairs is to abdicate an appointment from God.

Are you prepared to vote?

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October 22, 2006 by Dr. Mc.

The cover story Time Magazine on October 6, 2006 was entitled, “What makes us Different?.” The writers are interesting—Let’s face it, they are good—but they offer us a classic example of filtering (in communication, this means carefully selecting which ideas to allow through) and juxtaposing (placing ideas side-by-side to imply a relationship that may not otherwise exist). I do not argue here that evolution is true or false, but that some of the arguments presented in this article are easily falsified—in some cases, self-falsified.

For example, in the second paragraph, the first “evidence” is presented: “Scientists figured out decades ago that chimps are our nearest evolutionary cousins, roughly 98% to 99% identical to humans at the genetic level.” (Because this was established decades ago, there is no need to document the evidence, right?) To their credit, the authors do not then conclude that chimps and humans are 89% identical, but they apparently do not catch an anomaly in their fifth paragraph, where they say, “Just a year ago, geneticists announced that they had sequenced a rough draft of the chimpanzee genome, allowing the first side-by-side comparisons of human and chimpanzee DNA.” So, how could they have known for decades that chimp and human DNA were 98% identical, if only one year ago we gain the capability to compare their DNA?

Decades ago scientists discovered that the cytochrome c molecule produced by human mitochondria is 98% to 99% identical to the cytochrome c molecule produced by chimp mitochondria. (The molecule contains108 amino acids, with 106 being identical between chimp and human. 106/108=98.1%) This molecule is one of the 100,000 proteins produced and maintained by human DNA. This is similar to the way someone might take one verse of the Bible to “prove” some point while ignoring the vast majority of Scripture.

It is not even a comparison of DNA, but of the products of DNA. Since DNA has 64 possible ways of being structured in order to specify the 20 possible amino acid outcomes, there was at the time of the original claim a less than one-in-three chance that any given amino acid was constructed from identical DNA. So a more accurate parallel would be like saying that the Bible and the Qu’ran are 100% identical because a verse can be found in each that could be translated as “God is One.”

Now to a more important point than the disqualification of the evidence: The evidence still remains in use after several decades of new discoveries. Great fanfare accompanies the unveiling of new evidence FOR evolution, but later disqualification of the same is not only quiet but also slow. It remains in the public’s minds, yea, even in our classrooms, long after the scientific community has put them on the trash.

I will end with a comment about the authors’ very next sentence: “Already, that research has led to important discoveries about the development of the human brain over the past few million years and possibly about our ancestors’ mating behavior as well.” This sentence assumes that a) humans and chimps have a common ancestor, and b) that the ancestor is common within the past few million years. These are assumptions, because neither has been demonstrated as irrefutable by this article or any other evidence, but by presenting the “98% to 99%” claim, they easily move to what they obviously consider obvious—Darwinian evolution MUST be true.

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October 18, 2006 by Dr. Mc.

I just learned a new word: syncretism. Like eclecticism, syncretism refers to the combining of two or more different philosophies or ideas, such as an eclectic room of furniture. (By the way, the room is only eclectic if the mix actually works together. Otherwise, it’s just an unappealing mess.) But unlike eclecticism, ideas combined syncretically are innately at odds, and the combining is forced–even self-falsifying. According to Wikipedia, syncretism particularly applies to the combining of exclusive religious views, which is the case when a person claims to believe the Bible literally and also to accept Darwinian evolution. The Bible says that God is proactive in our lives (actively pursuing a relationship with us and involved in our world). Darwinism says that all events are either directed by physical laws or are the result of random chance. The latter can only be true if no god ever has, ever would, or ever could intervene in the affairs of the universe. To attempt to combine these two philosophies requires that one philosophy or the other be compromised–syncretically.

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October 14, 2006 by Dr. Mc.

On Oct 1 the Washington Post carried a very well-written argument by Paul A. Hanle entitled “Waging War on Evolution.” I don’t know how long they post articles, so I will repeat exerts as I comment here. What I find interesting is how much I agree with many things he said, yet I totally disagree with what he meant. For example, he said,

“This is not a war of religion against science. The two have thrived together for centuries. Nor is it a struggle of believers against godless materialists; many believers practice science and find inspiration for it from their faith. It is a battle between religious dogma cloaked as science and open inquiry that leads to new knowledge and understanding of the natural world.”

I agree that it “is not a war of religion against science,” but for a different reason than Dr. Hanle concludes. Science deals with facts—what can be demonstrated by repetition under controlled conditions, plus extrapolations on why those phenomena occur, for the sake of prediction and understanding. This definition is consistent with that given by most state school boards around the country. Unfortunately, “science” has been expanded by some to speak boldly, confidently, and conclusively about realms such as the first cause of things—history (onetime events) cannot be tested in a laboratory. Hanle states that “it is a battle between religious dogma cloaked as science and open inquiry that leads to new knowledge and understanding of the natural world.” Again I agree: Religion has crept into science when we ask people to believe without questioning something (dogma?) that cannot be proven. “Open inquiry that leads to new knowledge and understanding of the natural world” is blocked by such censorship of alternative ideas. I believe the best way for truth to be found is to let all ideas be pitted in open debate. So again I agree: It is not “a struggle of believers against godless materialists.” It is instead a struggle of godless materialists against science.

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October 7, 2006 by Dr. Mc.

The September ’06 issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion contains an article about the relation between religious belief (religiosity) and support of tax fraud. In a 36-country study of about 45,728 responses, the article concludes that, “the higher the individual’s level of religiosity, the lower the TFA [tax fraud acceptability]. ..Furthermore, the presence of a communist regime in a nation, often known for the oppression of religious groups who then may view the regime as illegitimate, diminished the impact of religion on TFA.” In other words, not only do religious people support the government with honesty in taxpaying, the suppression of religion seems to result in poorer support for taxpaying. It is not too much of a stretch to suggest from these data that as a government oppresses religious expression in government-controlled circles, the resulting population may well lose regard for government authority.

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October 2, 2006 by Dr. Mc.

Variety announced this past week that “Paradise Lost” will be made into a movie, and it seems from both the scale of funding and the comments of those involved that it will be honoring to the “gravity” and reality of John Milton’s original (1667) intent. Are you noticing, as I am, more movies that portray a biblical compatibility, even endorsement? Perhaps Hollywood is realizing there is an untapped audience—one that has moral values and tends to believe life has meaning. To hold a value, one must think it more valuable than something else. That means the value can be measured (perhaps the only way it can be measured) by what one is willing to give up to keep it. Since it has taken years of family and Christian-compatible movies making more than R-rated movies for Hollywood to notice, we can assume that those in Hollywood do hold values, and they have been willing to forego profits to hold them. Perhaps there is a real shift, driven by people voting with their dollars.

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