WINTERY KNIGHT: Recent Episodes

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I’ve blogged before about Tennessee’s badass Attorney General, Jonathan Skrmetti. He defends the laws of the state of Tennessee from radical leftists. Tennessee’s SB1 stopped doctors from giving kids puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. The ACLU sued, but SCOTUS crushed them in United States v. Skrmetti. This post is a great tool to show the difference between the two parties, so please share.

First, let’s see what was going on in Tennessee:

The governor of Tennessee is calling for an investigation into Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Pediatric Transgender Clinic following viral tweets exposing alarming attitudes toward transgender surgeries and procedures for children.

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh shared Tuesday afternoon that his team has been investigating the transgender clinic, claiming that “Vanderbilt drugs, chemically castrates, and performs double mastectomies on minors.”

In one video posted by Walsh, which has since gone viral, Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health physician Dr. Shayne Taylor describes how she persuaded the hospital to “get into the gender-transition game,” as Walsh said. The doctor emphasizes that gender transition is a “big moneymaker.”

“The female-to-male bottom surgeries, these are huge moneymakers,” Taylor says in the video.

“They make money,” she adds of the transgender surgeries. “They make money for the hospital.”

So, the people in Tennessee are pretty conservative, and they are careful about who they elect. After all, Tennessee is home to big social conservative leaders like Matt Walsh and Robby Starbuck. So, voters in Tennessee elect real conservatives. In this case, House Majority Leader William Lamberth and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson authored a piece of legislation designed to stop health care providers from giving transgender drugs and surgeries to kids. That bill was called SB-1 and it took effect in September 2023.

Unfortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union, a far-left organization, sued the state of Tennessee, believing that they knew better than the voters of Tennessee. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and on Wednesday, we got the decision.

The Federalist explains:

In a 6-3 ruling, SCOTUS deemed a Tennessee law prohibiting the surgical and chemical castration of minors does not violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

All 6 Republican appointees voted in favor of Tennessee, and all 3 Democrat appointees voted against Tennessee.

My favorite Justice is Clarence Thomas. If you ask any Republican voter what they would think about 9 clones of Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, they would kiss you on both cheeks and say “from your lips to God’s ears”.

Thomas had a separate concurrence, aimed specifically at the “healthcare experts” who like to push their leftist views onto the public under the cloak of science.

The article quote Thomas’ concurring statement:

“First, so-called experts have no license to countermand the ‘wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices.’ … Second, contrary to the representations of the United States and the private plaintiffs, there is no medical consensus on how best to treat gender dysphoria in children,” Thomas wrote. “Third, notwithstanding the alleged experts’ view that young children can provide informed consent to irreversible sex-transition treatments, whether such consent is possible is a question of medical ethics that States must decide for themselves. Fourth, there are particularly good reasons to question the expert class here, as recent revelations suggest that leading voices in this area have relied on questionable evidence, and have allowed ideology to influence their medical guidance.”

“Taken together,” the senior justice wrote, “this case serves as a useful reminder that the American people and their representatives are entitled to disagree with those who hold themselves out as experts, and that courts may not ‘sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.’”

[…]“Thus, whether ‘major medical organizations’ agree with the result of Tennessee’s democratic process is irrelevant.”

Even moderate Justice John Roberts decided not to side with the leftists this time.

Daily Signal reports:

In fact, Roberts pointed out, several European countries that jumped on the “gender-affirming” care bandwagon have reversed course, “rais[ing] significant concerns regarding the potential harms associated with using puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender minors.”

So, given all this, I want to make a point about a friend of mine who is a church-attending Christian, but no interested in politics. Let’s call him “Libby”, because he is a libertarian.

Libby loves to share memes on his meme page. He likes to read fiction. He watches TV comedies. He knows all the latest movies. Whenever the topic of politics comes up, Libby is sure that it’s pointless to discuss politics because “both political parties are the same”. He also thinks “it doesn’t matter what state you live in, they’re all the same”. He also thinks that all countries are the same “Canada is just like the United States except colder”.

Whenever I send Libby articles to convince him about something related to politics or policy, he always replies with “too many words”.

Then he sends me a meme of Duke Nukem:

Then he reacts to my post with the yawn reaction, the Zzzzz reaction, and the bed reaction:

Personally, I think this is a more appropriate Duke Nukem meme for Libby:

So today, Libby is out there sharing memes about Batman and Disney, but he didn’t mention anything about the big win for conservatives at SCOTUS. So I asked him, is this SCOTUS decision a good thing? And surprisingly, Libby agreed that not transing the kids WAS a good thing. So I asked him, are you going to share this good news with anyone? And he replied, no he wasn’t. You see, Libby shares memes, and he doesn’t want to lose any of his fans by sharing anything that would rock the boat.

So, don’t be a Libby. The 2026 election cycle has already started. Now is the time to be sharing stories that show what Republicans do when they have power. The transgender issue is a winning issue with independents. It doesn’t help us win elections to ignore all the good news on these issues while it’s happening. Now is the time to convince independent voters that Republicans are VERY different than Democrats, and VERY different than Democrats for Christians in particular. Show people that you know why you vote for the Republican party. It’s not just how you were raised. And it’s not just your favorite football team. You have policy reasons.

So, share this blog post, or share the articles that I linked. Don’t be a Libby. Now is the time to explain to people why they should vote Republican.

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About the speaker Frank Turek:

Dr. Frank Turek is the author or coauthor of five books, including I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to make their Case. As the President of CrossExamined.org, Frank presents evidence for Christianity at churches, high schools, and secular college campuses. He has also debated several prominent atheists including Christopher Hitchens and Michael Shermer, Founding Publisher of Skeptic Magazine. Frank hosts an hour-long TV program each week called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist which is broadcast Wednesday nights on DirecTV Channel 378 (NRBTV). His radio program and podcast called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist with Frank Turek airs on 182 stations every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. eastern and is available continuously on the free CrossExamined App.

Frank Turek is one of my favorite speakers, and I admire him for being willing to take a public stand on controversial issues like gay marriage. He’s actually had to pay a price for that in his professional life, and I blogged about that before.

Here’s the lecture on gay marriage, featuring Christian apologist Frank Turek.

Outline:

Outline of Frank Turek’s lecture on same sex marriageIntroduction:

• how to present your case against marriage safely
• Christians are required to go beyond tolerance
• loving another person can mean opposing the person when they want to do something wrong, even if they hate you
• what did Jesus say about marriage? (see Matt 19:4-6)
• what did Jesus say about sexual morality? (Matt 15, Matt 19)

Summary:

• the same-sex marriage debate is about whether to compel people who disagree with the gay lifestyle to validate and normalize it
• P1: the government has an interest in marriage because it perpetuates and stabilizes society – this is the purpose of marriage
• P2-4: government can take 3 kinds of stances towards behaviors: promote, permit or prohibit
• government promotes behaviors when it has an interest in them
• same-sex relationships should be permitted, but not promoted
• Q1: if same-sex marriage had serious negative consequences, would you reconsider their position?
• Q2: are heterosexual relationships the same as homosexual relationships?
• Q3: what would society be like if everyone married according to the natural marriage definition: one woman, one man, for life?
• Q4: what would society be like if everyone married according to the same-sex marriage definition: man/man and woman/woman?
• Should Christians care about law and politics? or should they just preach the gospel?
• They should care because people often get their cues about what is moral and immoral based on what is legal and illegal
• Many of the social problems we see today can be traced back to problems with marriage and family
• Children do much better when they have a relationship with their mother and their father
• Same-sex marriage necessarily destroys the relationship between a child and its mother or its father
• When a country embraces same-sex marriage, it reinforces the idea that marriage is not about making and raising children
• same-sex marriage shifts the focus away from the needs of the children to the feelings of desires of the selfish adults
• does homosexuality impose any health and mental health risks?
• what has the impact of legalizing same-sex marriage been in Massachusetts to individuals, schools, businesses and charities?
• how same-sex marriage poses a threat to religious liberty
• how should you respond to the view that homosexuality is genetic?

And at the very end, he shows this short video, which is only 5 minutes and explains the logic of opposing the redefinition of marriage:

My biggest concern is religious liberty, and we are seeing how same-sex marriage has proven to be incompatible with religious liberty. But I also care about children… I want them to have mothers and fathers who put their needs first. Marriage is about a commitment – it is the subjugation of feelings and desires to responsibilities and obligations. It is a promise. A promise to commit to love your spouse and children regardless of feelings and desires. It requires more self-denial, self-control and self-sacrifice. Not less.

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How many concerning actions by the Biden-Harris regime can you remember? There was the labeling of parents and traditional Catholics as “domestic terrorists”, pre-dawn raids on pro-lifers, weak prosecution of church burnings and attacks on pro-life centers, delayed the release of the Nashville shooter’s manifesto, and ignoring the persecution of Christians abroad.

And now we are finally finding out to what extent they were weaponizing government to persecute their political (and religious!) rivals.

Here’s the latest news from Daily Signal:

A left-wing activist group known for putting its political opponents on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan advised Justice Department prosecutors at a “hate crimes1 symposium,” newly unveiled documents show.

America First Legal obtained the documents via a Freedom of Information Act request and provided them first to The Daily Signal.

“All Americans should be shocked, appalled, and terrified that the Biden Justice Department was taking advice from a hate-filled, morally bankrupt organization like the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Ian Prior, senior counselor at America First Legal, told The Daily Signal in a statement Monday. “The SPLC’s agenda is anti-American to its core, and we must ensure that the SPLC never regains the power that it was so wrongly granted by the woke bureaucrats who ran this country until this past January.”

You might remember my blog post of a few days ago about how the SPLC labeled FOCUS ON THE FAMILY as a “hate group”. That’s not the only Christian group they’ve done that with, either. The Family Research Council was also on the SPLC hate map. The Family Research Council headquarters building was attacked by a gay activist in 2012, and the shooter cited SPLC’s hate map as inspiration, per The Daily Caller. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a presitigous religious liberty law firm, even says “The Southern Poverty Law Center’s labels have led to violence”. By the way, the SPLC labels groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom and Moms for Liberty as “extremist” or “hate” groups.

And this SPLC – DOJ symposium was not a one off:

The Justice Department repeatedly engaged with the SPLC during the Biden administration. DOJ staff seemed receptive to meeting with the SPLC shortly after the group put the parental rights group Moms for Liberty on the “hate map” in 2023. Clarke appears to have met with the SPLC in March 2023.

The FBI’s Richmond office cited the SPLC in its since-rescinded memo on “radical traditional Catholics.”

The Daily Signal also talked about Kristen Clarke, who I’ve blogged about before. Fortunately for Christians, Trump appointed someone much better than her when he took office. (Clarke admitted to not disclosing an 2006 arrest for domestic violence, as reported by NY Post).

Harmeet was talked about in the Daily Signal recently:

Harmeet Dhillon, who was selected by Trump in December to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, has been nearly the opposite of her Biden administration predecessor.

Former Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who led the civil rights office before Dhillon, was one of the most aggressive in weaponizing the DOJ against political opponents, especially pro-lifers.

Dhillon achieved some notoriety before being appointed to office. Her California law office took up a few high-profile cases in the last decade, including that of James Damore, the Google employee who said he was fired because he criticized the company’s diversity policies.

“While the Civil Rights Division prosecuted pro-lifers, Dhillon has represented pro-life journalist David Daleiden, who exposed Planned Parenthood staff who sold aborted-baby body parts,” my colleague Tyler O’Neil wrote in December.

Dhillon has not only stopped the persecution of pro-life activists but has initiated DOJ investigations into states that have endangered women while violating civil rights law, like California.

She announced in May that her department was investigating whether California is violating Title IX by allowing males to compete in women’s sports.

“Title IX exists to protect women and girls in education. It is perverse to allow males to compete against girls, invade their private spaces, and take their trophies,” Dhillon said in May. “This Division will aggressively defend women’s hard-fought rights to equal educational opportunities.”

She’s doing a great job. Conservatives should keep an eye on her, she would make a nice Attorney General in the next Republican administration. That’s who I would pick. I like her far more than Pam Bondi, the current Attorney General. She has more fighting spirit.

One thing for sure, it really shows the importance of Christians voting. And not just voting, but advocating for conservative policies with independent voters during the election campaign period.

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Regular readers will remember the ERLC, which is a branch of the Southern Baptist Convention that is often accused of advancing left-wing Democrat party policies. There was an opportunity to de-fund the ERLC at the most recent SBC convention, but the attempt failed. In this post, let’s review a couple of articles that explain what the ERLC is, and why conservatives wanted to shut them down.

The first article is from Daily Signal:

The Southern Baptist Convention held its annual conference this week, and delegates narrowly voted against eliminating the public policy arm, which has been accused of advancing left-wing ideology.

[…]ERLC has been accused of pushing social justice initiatives like critical race theory and gun control. ERLC President Brent Leatherwood has lobbied for gun control under a pro-life banner and led a group to block the release of the transgender Nashville shooter’s writings.

Former ERLC president, Russell Moore, repeatedly denounced President Donald Trump, even though the majority of Southern Baptists voted for him.

About that mention of critical race theory in the quote above… A resolution opposing critical race theory was blocked at a previous Southern Baptist conference. It makes sense to me that this refusal to condemn critical race theory would come from the ERLC, based on their other leftist positions on political issues. But let’s review the refusal to condemn first.

Here’s what Dr. Voddie Baucham had to say about it, as reported by Capstone Report:

The Southern Baptist Convention messengers were cowards for not repudiating Critical Race Theory by name, said Dr. Voddie Baucham on the Todd Starnes Show.

“I don’t think it was so much buying in (to CRT) as much as white guilt and cowardice,” Dr. Baucham said. “It was obvious building up to the Convention that the issue at hand was Resolution 9 on Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality from two years ago and how that was going to be responded to. And when you respond to it with a Resolution that refuses to even name Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality, that is an act of cowardice.”

And another black conservative Carol Swain said this:

I was most interested in the Critical Race Theory issue and a resolution that the Conservative Baptist Network crafted and put forward.

And I am on the steering committee of that network. Our resolution was killed by the resolutions committee. And they put forth a substitute that was vaguely worded and did not mention intersexuality or Critical Race Theory itself.

[…]…then they shut down any debate about how the issue was handled.

Critics of the ERLC claim that the ERLC associates with and is influenced by secular left-wing groups. Critics also claim that the ERLC takes their marching orders from the secular left – not from Scripture or Baptist faith and convictions. And those critics may have a point, when you consider the previous leader of the ERLC, Russell Moore. You might remember him, because he met with Barack Obama. They got along really well! And now Moore is heading up Christianity Today. Check this out: “Between 2015 and 2022, nine Christianity Today employees made 73 political donations. All of them went to Democrats“.

Regarding the ERLC’s links to the secular left, Daily Signal notes:

Between 2018 and 2021, during Moore’s presidency, ERLC received $150,000 from eBay founder and longtime Democrat donor Pierre Omidyar, Basham reported. The Fetzer Foundation, which gets money from Bill Gates, has given ERLC $220,000. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg gave another $90,000.

And that’s not even to mention their connections with the Evangelical Immigration Table, which receives funding from none other than George Soros.

The Center for Baptist Leadership explains in this May 2025 article:

The National Immigration Forum launched the Evangelical Immigration Table with funds from George Soros. The 2013 Open Society Foundations board book notes explicitly that funding from Soros’ organization was sent to the NIF action fund for the purpose of “muster[ing] evangelical support”.

[…][T]he ERLC continues to actively participate in the Evangelical Immigration Table as one of the leadership organizations.

[…]Not only does the ERLC serve as one of the leadership organizations of the Evangelical Immigration Table, but the ties between the ERLC, the National Immigration Forum, and the other leadership organizations of the Evangelical Immigration Table seem unusually interconnected.

Consider this: the ERLC’s former Director of Public Policy was hired directly from the National Immigration Forum. This alone should raise alarms: an employee of a Soros-funded organization that explicitly targeted evangelicals for ideological reformation was hired by the ERLC to represent Southern Baptists on matters of public policy. When she left the ERLC, she moved on to another EIT leadership organization. And she’s not alone.

Megan Basham authored a recent article with Christ Over All, where she talked about the current leader of the ERLC, Brent Leatherwood.

She wrote:

Though Leatherwood told The Baptist Press the ERLC supported a law to ban transgender treatments on children “as it made its way through the Tennessee legislature,” House Majority Leader William Lamberth, who was a principal architect and co-sponsor of the bill, couldn’t remember receiving that support. He did not recall any involvement from the ERLC.

[…]One issue that did not find the ERLC so motivated was protecting women’s private spaces. Lamberth’s colleague, Tennessee Representative Monty Fritts, told me the ERLC was similarly MIA on a bill he sponsored to keep men out of women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and prisons. Again, this is an issue the ERLC regularly highlights in its appeals to Southern Baptists for support. Fritts also said that while many ministries and faith groups in Tennessee backed his proposal to officially name July a month of prayer and fasting, the ERLC was not one of them.

How should the ERLC respond to the charges of conservatives? Well, they can differentiate themselves from the Democrat party, and show the conservatives that they understand what the Bible teaches that affects policy and apologetics. Where is the evidence for their advocacy for socially conservative policies? Do any of them even know how to make a case from the Bible for conservative positions like pro-life or natural marriage? What about defending the existence of God, or the resurrection of Jesus? Does anyone at the ERLC know how to use reason and evidence to make a case to non-Christians about the reasonableness of basic Christian beliefs? Where’s the evidence that this is a priority for them?

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One thing I wish that Christian parents and pastors emphasized more with young, unmarried Christian women is the need to choose a man who keeps his commitments. It turns out that passing on Christian values and worldview works a lot better when there is a man around to teach the children himself.

Here is some statistical evidence showing the difference that Christian fathers make, from Touchstone magazine.

Excerpt:

In 1994 the Swiss carried out an extra survey that the researchers for our masters in Europe (I write from England) were happy to record. The question was asked to determine whether a person’s religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why, or if not, why not. The result is dynamite. There is one critical factor. It is overwhelming, and it is this: It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.

If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.

If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church.

Let us look at the figures the other way round. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goesupfrom 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.

[…]In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.

A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!

The results are shocking, but they should not be surprising. They are about as politically incorrect as it is possible to be; but they simply confirm what psychologists, criminologists, educationalists, and traditional Christians know. You cannot buck the biology of the created order. Father’s influence, from the determination of a child’s sex by the implantation of his seed to the funerary rites surrounding his passing, is out of all proportion to his allotted, and severely diminished role, in Western liberal society.

Basically, a child who doesn’t have a benevolent, involved father is going to have an more difficult time believing that moral boundaries set by an authority are for the benefit of the person who is being bounded. The best way to make moral boundaries stick is to see that they apply to the person making the boundaries as well – and that these moral boundaries are rational, evidentially-grounded and not arbitrary. It is therefore very important to children to be shepherded by a man who studied moral issues (including evidence from outside the Bible) in order to know how to be persuasive to others.

If a woman wants her child to be religious and moral, then she has to pick a man who is religious and moral. And it can’t just be a faith commitment that he claims with words, because he can just lie about that. Women ought to check whether men are bound to what they believe by checking what they’ve read. A man usually acts consistently with what he believes, and beliefs only get formed when a man informs himself through things like reading. It would be good to see how he puts those beliefs into practice, too.

My advice to Christian women is this. When you are picking a man, be sure and choose one who is already invested in Christian things and producing results. It’s very unlikely that he’s going to be interested in developing that capacity from scratch if he’s not already doing it. If you want your kids to be taught Christianity by their father, then make spiritual leadership a priority when you’re choosing a husband.

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Here is an interesting article from Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Intro:

The verdict seems unanimous. From presidential speeches to role-playing games, the crusades are depicted as a deplorably violent episode in which thuggish Westerners trundled off, unprovoked, to murder and pillage peace-loving, sophisticated Muslims, laying down patterns of outrageous oppression that would be repeated throughout subsequent history. In many corners of the Western world today, this view is too commonplace and apparently obvious even to be challenged.

But unanimity is not a guarantee of accuracy. What everyone “knows” about the crusades may not, in fact, be true. From the many popular notions about the crusades, let us pick four and see if they bear close examination.

The four myths:

• Myth #1: The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world.
• Myth #2: Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich.
• Myth #3: Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives.
• Myth #4: The crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.

Here’s the most obvious thing you should know. The Crusades were defensive actions:

In a.d. 632, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, North Africa, Spain, France, Italy, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were all Christian territories. Inside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, which was still fully functional in the eastern Mediterranean, orthodox Christianity was the official, and overwhelmingly majority, religion. Outside those boundaries were other large Christian communities—not necessarily orthodox and Catholic, but still Christian. Most of the Christian population of Persia, for example, was Nestorian. Certainly there were many Christian communities in Arabia.

By a.d. 732, a century later, Christians had lost Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Spain, most of Asia Minor, and southern France. Italy and her associated islands were under threat, and the islands would come under Muslim rule in the next century. The Christian communities of Arabia were entirely destroyed in or shortly after 633, when Jews and Christians alike were expelled from the peninsula.6 Those in Persia were under severe pressure. Two-thirds of the formerly Roman Christian world was now ruled by Muslims.

What had happened? Most people actually know the answer, if pressed—though for some reason they do not usually connect the answer with the crusades. The answer is the rise of Islam. Every one of the listed regions was taken, within the space of a hundred years, from Christian control by violence, in the course of military campaigns deliberately designed to expand Muslim territory at the expense of Islam’s neighbors. Nor did this conclude Islam’s program of conquest. The attacks continued, punctuated from time to time by Christian attempts to push back. Charlemagne blocked the Muslim advance in far western Europe in about a.d. 800, but Islamic forces simply shifted their focus and began to island-hop across from North Africa toward Italy and the French coast, attacking the Italian mainland by 837. A confused struggle for control of southern and central Italy continued for the rest of the ninth century and into the tenth. In the hundred years between 850 and 950, Benedictine monks were driven out of ancient monasteries, the Papal States were overrun, and Muslim pirate bases were established along the coast of northern Italy and southern France, from which attacks on the deep inland were launched. Desperate to protect victimized Christians, popes became involved in the tenth and early eleventh centuries in directing the defense of the territory around them.

If you asked me what are the two best books on the Crusades, I would answer God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades by Baylor professor Rodney Stark and The Concise History of the Crusades by Professor Thomas F. Madden. If you get this question a lot from atheists, then I recommend you pick these up. Anything by Rodney Stark is useful for Christians, in fact.

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Recently, “conservative” Tomi Lahren has appeared on shows like Piers Morgan and Laura Ingraham, arguing that men are defective, weak, and lazy. She thinks that the deficiencies of men are the reason for the decline of marriage. Women want to get married, but the men are just so inferior that women cannot find any “real men”. And that’s why marriage is declining.

But are her views accurate? Is the decline of marriage really due to a shortage of high quality men?

First of all, it’s important to point out that women’s views of what a good man is have been changing. For one thing, a “good man” is now a man who embraces leftist policies like abortion, same-sex marriage, student loan bailouts, green new deal socialism, government-run healthcare, defund the police, open borders, transing the kids, etc.

The far-left UK Independent explains:

An analysis of survey data from across the developing world had found that “a new global gender divide” is emerging. The analysis, conducted by the Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch, showed that the developed world’s young women have rapidly become more liberal. Young men, however, have either become more conservative (as in the US) or been much slower to become more progressive (as in the UK). Gen Z, Burn-Murdoch concluded, is “two generations, not one.”

Today, young, unmarried women are more likely to support abortion and same-sex marriage than young, unmarried men. And it’s not just moral issues, it’s fiscal issues as well. Young unmarried women generally vote against the policies that make a country prosperous, such as low taxes and small government.

This study from the Journal of Political Economy explains:

This paper examines the growth of government during this century as a result of giving women the right to vote. Using cross‐sectional time‐series data for 1870–1940, we examine state government expenditures and revenue as well as voting by U.S. House and Senate state delegations and the passage of a wide range of different state laws. Suffrage coincided with immediate increases in state government expenditures and revenue and more liberal voting patterns for federal representatives, and these effects continued growing over time as more women took advantage of the franchise. Contrary to many recent suggestions, the gender gap is not something that has arisen since the 1970s, and it helps explain why American government started growing when it did.

Now, if you think that Christian leaders are opposed to this slide to the left among young women, then you are wrong. Christian leaders have embraced a view called “servant leadership”. And that view is simply that men are not supposed to lead on moral and spiritual issues, like telling the truth, making decisions, making plans, and achieving results. If men say anything that upsets non-Christians, then this is BAD, and the man has to be punished.

The new view of male leadership which is shared by Christian and non-Christian feminists is that men’s primary purpose is not to serve God, but women. Men are not there to confront lies and immorality in the culture, because “don’t judge”. Men are only there to “provide” (dispense money) and “protect” (be tall, and make muscles). Men should not expect their wives to stay home with their young children. Men must not expect their wives to homeschool the children. Men must drop off the kids at day care and public school, and pick them up. This allows men’s wives to be free to pursue their feminist goals – like buying expensive clothes, putting on make-up and going on TV, just like Tomi Lahren does.

So, how do traditional men respond to this assessment of the decline of marriage?

Here is a clip from Matt Walsh, where he explains what he thinks is wrong with Tomi Lahren’s view:

And then here’s another clip from Steven Crowder, where he explains why feminists (non-Christian and Christian) have failed to be convincing to young men:

Finally, a note. Tomi Lahren is not a conservative. Like most childless, career-oriented feminists, she’s pro-abortion. In fact, if she is like most Christian leaders, she doesn’t think that women sin by choosing abortion. It is somehow always a man’s fault when women sin, because women were not affected by The Fall.

Where are all the good men?

What about Tomi’s definition of “good men”? When modern women talk about “where are all the good men?”, they don’t mean men who are good at defeating lies and opposing moral evil. They don’t mean Matt Walsh. Conservative, Christian men “give them the ick”.

By “good men”, they mean men who:

• are tall and have muscles
• display wealth, rather than save it
• dispense lots of cash to women on demand
• put their kids in daycare and public schools
• vote for Democrat policies, e.g. – abortion, green new deal socialism, defunding police, open borders, transing kids, etc.
• don’t judge, especially don’t judge the woman’s past

Those are the “good men” that modern feminists are having so much trouble finding in their 30s and 40s, once they get tired of having “fun”, and want to settle down with a stable, boring ATM who agrees with them on secular leftism, and NEVER imposes any responsibilities or obligations on them. “Servant leadership”!

So, should traditional men wife up non-traditional women like Tomi Lahren? No. Traditional men should only get married to traditional women. Non-traditional women have to get married to non-traditional men.

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I know that in the land of secular leftism, there are many myths, and those myths survive because they circulate in an echo chamber. But this is the Wintery Knight blog, and on this blog, we go back to the evidence. So what’s the myth? “The list of authoritative books of the Bible was determined hundreds of years after they were written”. Is that true? Let’s take a look at the data and see.

So, the allegation is that before 325 AD, people were using the canonical gospels equally with the forgery gospels like Judas, Peter, Mary, Thomas, etc. Then there was a church council that whittled down that list of equally valid sources to just the 4 gospels we recognize today. But did it really happen like that?

So, before we look to a scholar, I want to take a stab at this, and say what I would say if someone asked me this question. So, the first thing that came into my mind is that you don’t need a church council to tell you which books of the Bible are authoritative, you just have to look at which books the earliest church fathers are quoting. And they are quoting the gospels.

Here is a snip from a conversation between Frank Turek and J. Warner Wallace, and here’s what Wallace says:

So, I write in this new book, Person of Interest, I reached out to David now that Norm has passed, and he had some great people who he was working with on this, and I cited them in the case notes of this book. And you can see it in the book. It’s illustrated. Every church father who precedes the Council of Nicaea, and how many books, how many gospels, and how many letters are quoted by that particular church father. There’s a graphic for this, and you can see them all standing with the numbers of gospels they quote, and the numbers of letters they quote. And then I went through, I did the research, and he has compiled numbers. David and his associates have compiled numbers on how many…so this is a much more accurate. So, here’s what we know. And this is what I talked about in the book. It turns out that about 87% of the Gospel of Matthew is quoted by the early church fathers prior to the Council of Nicaea. About 935 verses. 66% of Mark, about 435 verses are quoted by these same church leaders. But 86% of the Gospel of Luke, 990 verses quoted by these church leaders. And 97% of the Gospel of John, about 859 verses that are quoted by these early church fathers.

So, if you go by that standard of who are the early church fathers quoting, it’s the 4 canonical gospels. And by the way, if you are looking for specific reasons why some “gospels” were not included, I would look at the Michael Licona chapters of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for the Real Jesus”. And there is an audio book!

But I also found this article over at Canon Fodder (Michael Kruger’s blog), that had more.

He writes:

First, we don’t measure the existence of the New Testament just by the existence of lists. When we examine the way certain books were used by the early church fathers, it is evident that there was a functioning canon long before the fourth century. Indeed, by the second century, there is already a “core” collection of New Testament books functioning as Scripture.

Second, there are reasons to think that Athanasius’ list is not the earliest complete list we possess. In the festschrift for Larry Hurtado, Mark Manuscripts and Monotheism (edited by Chris Keith and Dieter Roth; T&T Clark, 2015), I wrote an article entitled, “Origen’s List of New Testament Books in Homiliae on Josuam 7.1: A Fresh Look.”

In that article, I argue that around 250 A.D., Origen likely produced a complete list of all 27 New Testament books–more than a hundred years before Athanasius. In his typical allegorical fashion, Origen used the story of Joshua to describe the New Testament canon:

But when our Lord Jesus Christ comes, whose arrival that prior son of Nun designated, he sends priests, his apostles, bearing “trumpets hammered thin,” the magnificent and heavenly instruction of proclamation. Matthew first sounded the priestly trumpet in his Gospel; Mark also; Luke and John each played their own priestly trumpets. Even Peter cries out with trumpets in two of his epistles; also James and Jude. In addition, John also sounds the trumpet through his epistles [and Revelation], and Luke, as he describes the Acts of the Apostles. And now that last one comes, the one who said, “I think God displays us apostles last,” and in fourteen of his epistles, thundering with trumpets, he casts down the walls of Jericho and all the devices of idolatry and dogmas of philosophers, all the way to the foundations (Hom. Jos. 7.1).

As one can see from the list above, all 27 books of the New Testament are accounted for (Origen clearly counts Hebrews as part of Paul’s letters). The only ambiguity is a text-critical issue with Revelation, but we have good evidence from other sources that Origen accepted Revelation as Scripture (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25.10).

So, if you ever hear someone saying that the authoritative books of the Bible were not decided until the 4th century, then there are a couple of ideas of how to respond to that.

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I was having a conversation with my friend Katy the other day, about whether men are not interested in marrying because they find older women unattractive. I told her that men find older women very attractive, if they are slim and athletic. I left it at that, but I wanted to go on and explain to her why men are declining to marry, even good Christian men who have good jobs and savings,

My thesis is that men have recognized that the legal system is very much against them, and it is unwise for them to expose themselves to that legal system.

What’s the evidence?

So, on this blog, I have written about how women overall initiate 69% of the divorces that they are involved in. In fact, college-educated women initiate 90% of the divorces they are involved in. And I’ve written about how the sentences for men are 63% more severe than for women, for the exact same crime and criminal record. And I’ve written about how a high number of the accusations of rape or sexual assault by women (20-40 percent) are hoaxes. And I’ve written about how men are often the victims of paternity fraud. Men don’t even have to cohabitate with a woman to be billed for thousands of dollars in alimony and child support. False accusations of child abuse are routinely used in order to eject husbands from their homes, and to get custody of the children (and the child support money that comes with having custody).

I could go on and on, but I hope enough has been said to show what the evidence supports the view that the legal system in America is biased against men.

But wait! There’s another reason. Men have also noticed that women can easily press false accusations, and they suffer virtually no consequences when those accusations are proven false and / or recanted.

Here is a recent example, reported by New York Post:

A Pennsylvania woman who admitted to fabricating kidnapping and rape allegations against a stranger whom she “specifically targeted” because she thought he was “creepy” last year is paying for her lies.

Anjela Borisova Urumova, 20, was sentenced to from 45 days to 23 months in Bucks County Correctional Facility on Tuesday by Judge Stephen A. Corr, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.

The article notes that she “pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanor counts, including tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and false reports.” As a result of her lies, the accused spent 31 days in prison.

Three things. First, he is married:

Pierson, 41, was present with his wife in court Tuesday but did not wish to make a statement during the sentencing since the ordeal has been “too emotional” for him and his family, the DA’s office said.

Second, the false accuser recanted her accusation:

She then went to the police and accused Pierson as her attacker before eventually fessing up to the tale.

Third, she judged him as evil based solely on her feelings (intuitions, first impressions) about his appearance:

Urumova told investigators that she “specifically targeted” Pierson because she had seen him and his blue Ford F-150 pickup truck in the area before and thought he was “creepy.”

I asked Grok what the average sentence is for a false accusation of rape, compared to a real conviction of rape, and it said:

Data on sentences for false accusations of rape or sexual assault by women in the USA is limited. Available studies and legal cases suggest most convictions result in light punishments, often suspended sentences, fines, or no jail time. Estimating based on available information, including cases with zero jail time, the average sentence is approximately 2 months (0.17 years).

For men convicted of rape in the USA, the average prison sentence is 212 months (17.67 years), per 2019 USSC data.

So, women get “approximately 2 months” for a false accusation of rape, and men get “average prison sentence is 212 months” for a rape conviction.

False accusations deter good men from marrying

Even if a good man is very clever about choosing the right women to be his wife, he would still be vulnerable to false accusations from women in the workplace, and other places. It’s not the Christian homeschooling future wife in the house who is the problem. It’s the radical feminist single mother in the office who is the problem. The bitter, angry one with the 200+ body count, and the 200K of student loan debt for a degree in misandry.

And the worst part of this is that when you tell pro-marriage people about these false accusations, they dismiss it. I’ve been told “why would you make decisions off of evidence and calculations? One day you’ll meet a nice girl and fall in love” It’s terrifying to be dealing with people who approach major life decisions by feelings and wilful blindness. They try to goad you into bad decisions by shaming you.

Imagine if someone tried to sell you a lemon at the car dealership by attacking your masculinity. “I dare you to buy this used car without getting it checked out by a mechanic!” You would have to be really lacking in education and work experience to think that the “man up!” approach would work on a man. And yet, when I talk to pro-marriage people, this is their only argument. They scream “Get Married!” and then refuse to address any of the evidence of the threats posed by feminism, such as false accusations.

Who is going to support the good wife and good children if the man is in prison because of a false accusation? Not the pro-marriage advocates. And the younger generation of women are sliding further and further into secularism and leftism, making the risk of false accusation even higher. Why would a wise man expose himself to these risks? Especially when no one wants to fix the problem.

Here’s the bottom line: It’s an enormous deterrent to a good man’s desire to be a husband and father that they are exposed to prison and / or financial ruin because of false accusations. You have to give men a good value proposition if you expect them to go the husband and father route. Good men have other things that they can do with their money and time. Just because you really want them to do your plan with their lives, it doesn’t mean that they can’t find something else to do with their time and money – like focus on serving God. If you want men to marry, then take men’s concerns seriously.

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From happiness expert and Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland.

Excerpt:

According to ancient thought, happiness is a life well lived, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness and goodness. For the ancients, the happy life — the life we should dream about — is a life of virtue and character. Not only did Plato, Aristotle, the Church Fathers and medieval theologians embrace this definition, but Moses, Solomon and (most importantly) Jesus did, too. Sadly their understanding is widely displaced by the contemporary understanding of happiness defined as pleasure and satisfaction, a subjective emotional state associated with fleeting, egocentric feelings.

Consider the differences:

| Contemporary Understanding | Classical Understanding | | Happiness is: | Happiness is: | | 1. Pleasure and satisfaction | 1. Virtue and character | | 2. An intense feeling | 2. A settled tone | | 3. Dependent on external circumstances | 3. Depends on internal state; springs from within | | 4. Transitory and fleeting | 4. Fixed and stable | | 5. Addictive and enslaving | 5. Empowering and liberating | | 6. Irrelevant to one’s identity, doesn’t color the rest of life and creates false/empty self | 6. Integrated with one’s identity, colors rest of life and creates true/fulfilled self | | 7. Achieved by self-absorbed narcissism; success produces a celebrity | 7. Achieved by self-denying apprenticeship to Jesus; success produces a hero |

How can we be certain Jesus is inviting us to a classical understanding of happiness in Matthew 16:24-26? He isn’t talking about going to heaven rather than hell, nor is He telling his followers how to avoid premature death. Where Matthew writes, “what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul” (emphasis added), Luke clarifies Jesus’ teaching by replacing “his soul” with the word “himself” (Luke 9:25). The issue is finding one’s self vs. losing one’s self. More specifically, to find one’s self is to find out how life ought to look like and learn to live that way; it’s to become like Jesus, with character that manifests the fruit of the Spirit and the radical nature of Kingdom living; it’s to find out God’s purposes for one’s life and to fulfill those purposes in a Christ-honoring way.

I like that “success produces a hero”. Who doesn’t want to be a hero? I certainly do.

In one of his lectures, Dr. Moreland says, and I quote: “Happiness is the freedom to do what we ought to do”. That’s right. When a person is free to comply with God’s design for human flourishing, then he/she is happy. My biggest source of unhappiness is the feeling that I cannot be who I want to be as a Christian. It’s getting even worse when I think about how the government is now using force to prevent me from spending what I earn the way I want, and saying what I want about the issues of the day, regardless of who is offended. I am becoming increasingly thankful for the time I spend with other dedicated Christians. That’s when I can be myself and not worry about what anyone is going to think of me. This is no small source of happiness.

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During the Biden administration, we saw federal law enforcement used to punish opponents to the Democrat party. Concerned parents were labeled “domestic terrorists”. Peaceful pro-lifers had their homes pre-dawn raided. Assault rifles were pointed at children in their homes. So now that we have a real left-wing insurrection in Los Angeles, what should the federal government do?

The Federalist reports:

President Donald Trump on Saturday announced the deployment of 2,000 National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles County amid escalating violent protests against federal agents enforcing U.S. immigration laws. The protests have reportedly included explosives detonated against cars, federal buildings, and federal law enforcement personnel. The insurrectionists have also lobbed rocks, stones, and concrete at federal law enforcement, according to Fox News.

Foreign criminals apprehended this week by now-beseiged U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Los Angeles included gang members and others with long rap sheets, including assault, domestic violence, robbery, cruelty to children, and drug and alien trafficking, Fox News reported, citing the Department of Homeland Security.

[…]Several people were arrested on charges of assaulting a federal agent, U.S. Border Patrol head Michael W. Banks said.

The violence came on the heels of Friday’s bedlam in which more than 1,000 rioters “surrounded a federal law enforcement building and assaulted ICE law enforcement officers, slashed tires, defaced buildings, and taxpayer funded property,” according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Democrats run the state of California from top to bottom, so the slow-walking of local law enforcement is no surprise:

DHS noted that it took the Los Angeles Police Department two hours to show up at the scene of the insanity.

TWO HOURS! I thought LAPD was supposed to be a highly-skilled police department. Maybe they are, or maybe the LAPD leaders are beholden to the Democrat city leaders.

Here’s a video of leftist terrorist throwing cement blocks at government vehicles moving at high speed. That’s what we are talking about when we say “violent insurrection”.

I follow ICE accounts on Twitter, so I see the stories of some of the people they’ve been deporting. Convicted murderers, rapists, drug dealers, child molesters, child abusers, etc.

Daily Wire noted:

“BREAKING: Federal sources ID some of the criminal illegal alien targets ICE arrested in their LA operation yesterday & today, which sparked violent protests,” Melugin posted via X. “They include multiple gang members, convicted sex offenders, violent gun offenders, & drug offenders. One has already been deported.”

What do Democrat leaders think about left-wing insurrections?

Daily Wire notes:

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) hit the streets alongside anti-ICE protesters in Los Angeles, taunting and harassing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents before she attempted to enter the Los Angeles Federal building to check on a union boss who had been arrested.

That’s not an isolated opinion.

Daily Wire has another example of a Democrat leader, and this one is no surprise:

Former Vice President Kamala Harris declared on Sunday that she is supporting the anti-ICE protests in and around Los Angeles, claiming the demonstrations have been “overwhelmingly peaceful” despite violent clashes with federal authorities.

You’ll recall that Harris had previously supported rioters:

As riots shook cities across the United States in 2020, then-Sen. Kamala Harris authored a little-known blog post urging the public to help demonstrators “on the front lines” by donating to a bail fund that freed violent criminals.

The blog post, which Harris published on her Medium profile on May 31, 2020, came amid riots in Minneapolis and other major cities following the death of George Floyd. Harris… asked readers in the post to contribute to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which bailed murderers and serial domestic abusers out of jail. Harris is still fundraising on behalf of the controversial charity, according to an ActBlue software page.

So, that’s what Democrat party leaders think about the use of violence to further their left-wing agenda. And you get the bill for the damage and the law enforcement.

What’s a proportional response by the Trump administration, given what the Biden administration did to their opponents?

Federal law enforcement needs to designate the left-wing groups responsible for the violence as terrorist organizations, and prosecute them until they are disbanded. Including the organizers and financiers of the violence. We need to use the full force of federal law enforcement to punish these left-wing anti-government groups for their insurrection activities. And not just the members of the groups, but the financiers of the groups.

After all, insurrections are so bad, remember? That’s what the corporate news told us for 4 years under Biden/Harris.

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Here is the video of the debate:

Here is my summary of the Craig-Rosenberg debate, which occurred on February 1st, 2013 at Purdue University.

The debaters

• William Lane Craig
• Alex Rosenberg

Below is the summary.

Dr. Craig’s opening speech:

The topic: What are the arguments that make belief in God reasonable or unreasonable?
First speech: arguments for reasonableness of belief in God
Second speech: respond to arguments against reasonableness of belief in God

Eight arguments:

1. Contingency argument: God – a transcendent, personal being – is the explanation of why a contingent universe exists.
2. Cosmological argument: God is the cause of the beginning of the universe, which is attested by physics and cosmology.
3. Applicability of mathematics to nature: God is the best explanation for the applicability of mathematics to nature.
4. Fine-tuning argument: God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe to permit life.
5. Intentionality of conscious states: God is the best explanation of the intentionality of our mental states.
6. The moral argument: God is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values and duties.
7. The resurrection of Jesus: God is the best explanation for the core of historical facts accepted by most ancient historians across the ideological spectrum.
8. Religious experience: God is the best explanation of our immediate experience and knowledge of his existence.

Dr. Rosenberg’s opening speech

First argument: The fallacy of ad hominem

• I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry
• Dr. Craig has said all of that before in other debates
• You didn’t need to come out on this cold night
• Craig’s arguments have all been refuted
• Dr. Craig just doesn’t listen
• Dr. Craig is not interested in getting at the truth
• Dr. Craig is just interested in scoring debate points
• The adversarial system is the wrong approach to decide truth
• Dr. Craig is very confident about his take of physics

Second argument: The fallacy of arguing from authority

• 95% of members of the NAS are atheists
• Therefore Dr. Craig cannot use science

Third argument: Effects don’t require causes

• I am going to pretend that Craig said that “every effect requires a cause”
• Quantum mechanics shows that some effects occur without causes
• A particle of uranium (which is not nothing, it is something) decays without a cause
• This uncaused effect is the same as the universe coming into being out of nothing uncaused
• Therefore the principle of sufficient reason is false

Fourth argument: Silicon-based life and the multiverse

• If these constants had been different, maybe we would have other kinds of intelligent life, like silicon-based life
• Carbon-based life is not the only kind of life, maybe you can have other kinds of life, none of which have been observed
• There could be different kinds of life in other areas of the universe that we can’t see
• There are things we can’t see that disprove the current physics that we can see
• Quantum foam is evidence that a multiverse exists
• The multiverse would solve the problem of fine-tuning

Fifth argument: The Euthyphro dilemma

• The moral argument is refuted by Euthyphro dilemma
• Dr. Craig is such a moron that he has never heard of the Euthyphro dilemma ever before
• This is found in the first and simplest of Plato’s dialogs
• Why is Dr. Craig so stupid that he has not read this simple dialog ever before?
• Evolution explains why humans evolve arbitrary customs and conventions that vary by time and place
• Alternative moral theories: utilitarianism, social contract, etc. that don’t require God

Sixth argument: Mormonism undermines Dr. Craig’s three minimal facts about Jesus

• Why is Dr. Craig so stupid and ignorant to persist in pushing such an ignorant, stupid argument?
• Mormonism is a silly religion that is not historically well founded
• Therefore, Jesus was not buried
• Islam is a silly religion that is not historically grounded
• Therefore, the tomb was not found empty
• Scientology is a silly religion that is not historically grounded
• Therefore, the eyewitnesses didn’t have post-mortem appearances
• Eyewitness testimony is unreliable in some cases
• Therefore, eyewitness testimony was unreliable in this case
• Apparitions of Mary are bizarre
• Therefore, the majority of historians are wrong to think that the disciples saw post-mortem appearances

Seventh argument: Deductive problem of evil

• Evil and suffering are logically incompatible with an all good, all powerful God

Eight argument: God is not just to allow evil and suffering

• God cannot make the evils of this life right in the afterlife

Dr. Craig’s first rebuttal

Dr. Rosenberg sketched the deductive argument from evil.

Dr. Rosenberg presupposes naturalism. Naturalism is a false theory of knowledge:

1. It’s too restrictive: There are truths that cannot be proved by natural science.
2. It’s self-refuting: no scientific proof for naturalism exists.

That’s why epistemological naturalism is considered false by most philosophers of science.

But more importantly than that: Epistemological naturalism does not imply metaphysical naturalism. (E.g. – W. Quine)

Dr. Rosenberg has to present arguments in favor of (metaphysical) naturalism, not just assume that (metaphysical) naturalism is true.

Dr. Craig presented eight arguments against metaphysical naturalism taken from Rosenberg’s own book:

1. The argument from the intentionality (aboutness) of mental states implies non-physical minds (dualism), which is incompatible with naturalism
2. The existence of meaning in language is incompatible with naturalism, Rosenberg even says that all the sentences in his own book are meaningless
3. The existence of truth is incompatible with naturalism
4. The argument from moral praise and blame is incompatible with naturalism
5. Libertarian freedom (free will) is incompatible with naturalism
6. Purpose is incompatible with naturalism
7. The enduring concept of self is incompatible with naturalism
8. The experience of first-person subjectivity (“I”) is incompatible with naturalism

Metaphysical naturalism is false: it is irrational and it contradicts our experience of ourselves.

And epistemological naturalism is compatible with theism.

Rebutting Dr. Rosenberg’s responses:

1. Contingency: no response

2. Cosmological: he mis-states the first premise to say every effect… when it is whatever begins to exist…, the origin of the universe was not from a vacuum, virtual particles come from a vacuum not nothing, there are interpretations of QM that are compatible with determinism. Rosenberg has to believe that the entire universe popped into being from non-being.

3. Mathematics: no response

4. Fine-tuning: the multiverse is refuted by empirical observations of the universe. Without fine-tuning, it’s not that we still have silicon to make life out of. It’s that we lose basic minimal things like chemical diversity, matter, stars, planets, etc. No life of any kind, not just no carbon-based life.

5. Intentionality: no response.

6. Moral argument: the answer to the dilemma is that you split the dilemma: God is the standard of good, and the commands flow from his unchanging moral nature. The commands are not arbitrary, and the standard is not external to God. Dr. Rosenberg is a nihilist and he cannot ground good and evil on his nihilistic view.

7. Resurrection: The Gospels are early eyewitness testimony. Mormonism and Islam have nothing to do with the minimal set of historical facts about Jesus agreed to by the majority of ancient historians across the ideological spectrum, general statements against eyewitnesses do not refute the specific eyewitness testimony in this case.

8. Religious experience: No response.

Dr. Rosenberg’s first rebuttal

I wrote a book and you should buy it, because it got me invited to this debate. Let me repeat the title a few times for you. Please buy it.

Dr. Craig is right, there are multiple interpretations of QM, not just the one I presented, including deterministic ones.

All the disturbing implications of naturalism that Dr. Craig stated follow from metaphysical naturalism, and metaphysical naturalism is true. (Note: he equates science with metaphysical naturalism)

Science proves that metaphysical naturalism is true, but I won’t say what specific scientific tests prove my philosophical assumption of metaphysical naturalism.

I’ll pretend that the Big Bang (science) doesn’t disprove naturalism, like Dr. Craig said. Again. (covers ears) La la la, there is no Big Bang.

We didn’t come here to debate epistemological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism.

Let me explain the problem of intentionality since I’m so smart and no one knows what it means.

There are many answers to this problem of intentionality.

My answer is that most scientists are naturalists, therefore naturalism is true, regardless of the argument from intentionality of mental states.

That’s how I would respond to one of the eight problems with naturalism that Dr. Craig raised. I won’t answer the other seven problems.

It is an argument from ignorance to argue that the applicability of mathematics to the universe requires a designer, because there are non-Euclidean geometries. Craig’s argument, which he gets from people like respected physicists like Eugene Wigner, is bizarre. It is bizarre, therefore I refute Eugene Wigner and all the other scholars who make that argument. It is bizarre! Bizarre!

Deductive problem of evil: there is no response to this argument, certainly not Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense. The deductive argument from evil has not been entirely abandoned at all! It’s not like arch-atheist J.L. Mackie himself admits that the deductive problem of evil doesn’t lead to a logical inconsistency between evil and God.

Dr. Craig has to tell me why God allows evil or God doesn’t exist.

It is offensive that Dr. Craig cannot tell me why God allows every evil and suffering that occurs.

He literally said this: “I will become a Christian if Dr. Craig can tell me why God allowed EVERY EVIL THAT OCCURRED IN THE LAST 3.5 BILLION YEARS”

Dr. Craig’s second rebuttal

We are not in a position to know why God allows specific instances of evil and suffering.

God cannot force people to freely do anything – freedom is not compatible with determinism. Freedom is a good, but freedom opens up the possibility of moral evil. You cannot have the good of free will without allowing people to choose to do morally evil things.

God can permit evil and suffering in order to bring more people into a relationship with him.

The atheist has to show that God could allow less evil and achieve more knowledge of God in order to say there is too much evil.

The purpose of life is not happiness, but knowledge of God.

Dr. Craig quotes agnostic Paul Draper (Purdue) and Peter Van Inwagen (Notre Dame) to state that the deductive problem of evil is dead because of free will and morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil.

1. Contingency: no response.

2. Cosmological: QM does not apply, because the universe came from nothing, not a vacuum, and QM only works in a vacuum.

3. Mathematics: He mentions alternatives like non-Euclidean geometry, but we have to explain the structure of THIS universe.

4. Fine-tuning: ???

5. Intentional states: intentional mental states proves that minds exist, which fits with theism better than it fits with atheism.

6. Moral argument: You need God to ground morality, and Dr. Rosenberg believes in morality. He needs God to ground objective moral values and duties.

7. Historical argument: He has to respond to the minimal facts supported by the consensus of ancient historians across the ideological spectrum.

8. The problems of naturalism: He says that you can’t have science without naturalism, but you can have science with EPISTEMOLOGICAL NATURALISM, and theists accept science and methodological naturalism. We don’t accept METAPHYSCIAL NATURALISM because of the eight problems Craig presented, like intentionality, first-person, persistence of self, etc. You can believe in both science and theism, by embracing epistemological naturalism, while rejecting methaphysical naturalism.

Dr. Rosenberg’s second rebuttal

Dr. Craig hasn’t answered many of my points, I won’t say which ones though.

Debates don’t work as a way of deciding what’s true, so we should overturn the entire criminal justice system.

The principle of sufficient reason is false because it is disconfirmed by quantum mechanics. And quantum mechanics (vacuum and virtual particles that exist for a short time) is similar to the origin of the universe (nothing and entire universe and 14 billion years).

We know that alpha particles come into being without cause all the time from a quantum vacuum for a tiny sub-second duration before going out of existence, so we can say that the entire physical universe came into being for 14 billion years from absolute nothing which is not a quantum vacuum.

Peter Van Inwagen is the best metaphysician working today, and he says that my deductive argument from evil is not decisive, it’s not a successful argument. (Why is he undermining his own problem of evil argument????!)

Dr. Craig invoked Plantinga’s free will defense to the deductive POE. Freedom allows us to do evil. God could have given us free will without evil and suffering. I won’t show how, but I’ll just assert it, because debates are such a bad forum for supplying evidence for my speculative assertions.

If you answer the question 3 + 5 as being 8, then you don’t have free will – you are biologically determined if you answer 8, because everyone answers 8, and that means everyone is biologically determined with no free will.

Why can’t God give us free will and then prevent us from making a free choice?

No scholars date the gospels earlier than 60-70 AD, especially not atheists like James Crossley who dates Mark to 40 AD. Therefore Jesus’ burial isn’t historical, like the majority of scholars across the broad spectrum of scholarship agree it is.

The original New Testament documents were written in Aramaic.

All New Testament scholars are orthodox Christians, like atheist Robert Funk for example.

Dr. Craig’s concluding speech

In order to sustain the deductive argument from evil, Dr. Rosenberg must show that God could create a world of free creatures with less evil.

Principle of Sufficient Reason: not using the general principle of sufficient reason, but a more modest version of this states that contingent things should have an explanation for their existence. And we know that the universe is a contingent.

The New Testament was not written in Aramaic, they were written in Greek. Dr. Rosenberg is wrong there too.

(Dr. Craig spends the rest of his concluding speech giving his testimony and urging people to investigate the New testament).

Dr. Rosenberg’s concluding speech

Some long-dead French guy named Laplace said that he has no need of that (God) hypothesis. He did not know about any of Dr. Craig’s arguments made in this debate tonight when he said that, though.

There is no need to explain how the universe began or how the universe is finely-tuned if you just assume metaphysical naturalism on faith.

The Easter Bunny, therefore atheism.

Most scientists are atheists, therefore atheism.

You can do a lot of science without God, just don’t look at the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, or the other parts of science that Craig mentioned, as well as the origin of life, the Cambrian explosion, the habitability argument, and so on.

You can be a Christian, but good Christians should not use arguments and evidence.

Good Christians should be irrational and ignorant. Bad Christians look for arguments and evidence from science and history.

Good Christians should embrace the absurd. Bad Christians want to search for truth and use logic and evidence.

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I thought it might be a good idea to write up something about D-Day in order to help people understand some of our military history, and to put the spotlight on some real heroes. I don’t regard artists, athletes, dancers, singers, actors, or other celebrities as heroes. It really alarms me that so many people know more about these fake heroes than they do about real ones.

Weakness emboldens aggressors

For one thing, many people don’t understand how British and American libertarian isolationism made World War 2 into a much bigger mess than it needed to be. As historian Victor Davis Hanson explains in the lecture I linked below, the Allied nations were much stronger and better equipped than the Axis nations before the war started. The Axis nations developed better weapons after the war started. But Germany and Japan didn’t think that the Allied nations would do anything if they were aggressive. We know this from their writings and correspondence. They thought that British and Americans were just too scared of war to stop them.

Germany and Japan tested their hypothesis out by re-arming and annexing territory from their neighbors. Britain and America were led by libertarian isolationists, so they didn’t fight back. The aggressors correctly understood that libertarian isolationists didn’t have the will to oppose them, even if they were weaker than the Allies. But the more they re-armed and annexed territory, the stronger they became. The Allied nations waited too long to confront them. And that’s why World War 2 was much harder to win than it needed to be.

Here’s a very good lecture about the causes of World War 2 by an actual military historian, Victor Davis Hanson:

So, that’s the first point I wanted to make: libertarian isolationism causes wars. Although libertarians claim to oppose war, they actually cause war, due to their weakness in the face of evil. So who stops wars? People who favor a strong defense, and show a willingness to fight back against aggression are the ones who REALLY oppose wars. This is called “peace through strength”, and you can see it in action in the Cold War, where Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union by making their aggression costly.

Heroes of D-Day

My second concern was to promote the real heroes of D-Day, over the fictional heroes of movies, fiction, music, dancing, sports, and other entertainment nonsense.

Here are the four heroes I chose:

• Major John Howard
• Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort
• Brigadier General Norman Cota
• Major Richard Winters

Let’s take a look at each of them.

John Howard

Major John Howard led elements of the British 6th Airborne Division to take two vital bridges southeast of Sword beach. He did this in order to prevent German socialist counterattacks coming from the east. After they took the bridges, they had to repulse German tanks with nothing more than their useless PIAT (Projector Infantry Anti-Tank) grenade launchers. The PIAT was nothing more than a grenade launcher powered by a coiled spring. It was very inaccurate, and only effective to 50 yards. But that’s all the British paratroops had to stop tanks, and they made it work. You can read about him in this book by Stephen E. Ambrose, entitled: “Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944“. This New York Times article tells the story in brief. He also is played by Richard Todd in the famous movie “The Longest Day“.

Benjamin Vandervoort

Lt. Col. Ben Vandervoort served with the 82nd Airborne Division. I read about how he lead an infantry attack against German Tiger tanks (!) and infantry in Stephen E. Ambrose’s book “Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany“. Ben Vandervoort broke his ankle during the D-Day landing, but he insisted that the medic just “lace it up tight” so that he could supervise the attacking and holding of Ste. Mere Eglise, southwest of Utah beach, against a vastly superior enemy force. This article tells about how he defended against elite German SS infantry and heavy Tiger tanks at Trois-Ponts, during the Battle of the Bulge. He was outgunned and outnumbered 20 to 1, and had just a few lightly-armed soldiers, two weak 57mm anti-tank guns and some bazookas. He is portrayed by John Wayne in the famous movie “The Longest Day“.

Norman Cota

Brig. General Norman Cota is my favorite person in World War 2. At 51 years old, he nevertheless landed at D-Day, and rallied terrified Army Rangers to follow him up the bluff, by telling them that Rangers ought to lead the way. “Rangers Lead The Way” later became the motto of the Army Rangers. He always led from the front, demonstrating how to attack a German machine gun position in a farmhouse to a group of American soldiers who were pinned down. He actually grabbed a bunch of grenades and led the assault team against a heavy machine gun! You can read about him in this short article and in Stephen E. Ambrose’s “D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II“. He is portrayed by Robert Mitchum in the famous movie “The Longest Day“.

Richard Winters

Major Richard Winters served in the 101st Airborne Division. Winters led an assault against a superior force of heavy machine guns and 105mm field guns. His tactics were so brilliant that they are still studied at West Point today. You can see Richard Winters and Carwood Lipton in the HBO “Band of Brothers” series, or read this book by Stephen E. Ambrose entitled “Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest“, which is the basis for that series.

I hope this convinces you that military heroes are far more important than the “heroes” of fiction and entertainment. It’s alarming to me that people invest more and have more respect for characters in Hollywood science fiction movies, and other such make-believe nonsense. We need to be rooted in reality. In reality, men who fight and die fighting evil to protect your freedoms are the real heroes. People who take military history seriously are able to give respect and gratitude where it is due – a very important part of being a mature, moral human being.

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I remember a few years ago that many, many big corporations, including Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon were using groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center to classify which people were motivated by “hate”. The SPLC had as much respect as other human rights groups. But then, the SPLC was linked to domestic terrorism, and internal scandals emerged.

First, let’s see the latest news from Christian Post:

The far-left civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center has added the conservative Evangelical parachurch ministry Focus on the Family to its list of “anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups,” joining similar organizations that advocate for traditional beliefs on sexuality and family.

You might remember how the SPLC labeled the Alliance Defending Freedom – a law firm that regularly wins civil rights cases at the Supreme Court – as a “hate group”. But they are not the only ones who got that treatment – the Family Research Council, Moms for Liberty, and the American Family Association are on it, too. Even former Republican presidential candidate BEN CARSON was on the list. Probably for being a non-white conservative – left-wing racists hate us the most.

You might remember the link between the SPLC and the Family Research Council.

The Daily Caller reports.

Excerpt:

The man accused of opening fire and shooting a security guard at the conservative Family Research Council headquarters last August plead guilty to three charges in a D.C. federal court Wednesday.

Floyd Lee Corkins, II of Herndon, Virginia entered guilty pleas to a federal weapons charge as well as a local terrorism charge and a charge of assault with intent to kill, according to news reports.

[…]Following the guilty plea the FRC issued a statement placing a large portion of the blame for the shooting at the feet of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which had listed FRC as a hate group. FRC noted that prosecutors discovered Corkins identified his targets on the SPLC’s website.

That’s not the only link between the SPLC and domestic terrorism.

Here’s the story from Daily Wire:

An attorney with the far-left nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was arrested Sunday for allegedly committing domestic terrorism to stop a police facility from being built.

The Atlanta police department said Sunday night that Thomas Webb Jurgens was among the 23 people charged after a “group of violent agitators used the cover of a peaceful protest of the proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center to conduct a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers. They changed into black clothing and entered the construction area and began to throw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers.”

I could go on and on about the scandals, but since I want to be brief, let’s just see the kind of person who works for the SPLC.

Fox News has a good article about that:

The SPLC fired [SPLC co-founder Morris] Dees in March 2019 following accusations of unchecked internal racism and sexism. His ouster came after the SPLC faced two dozen employee complaints saying its workplace fostered an intolerable workplace environment, including mistreatment, sexual harassment and a lack of diversity based on race and gender.

The New York Times reported at the time that several employees were subject to “racially callous remarks” and that some on staff were sidelined because of their skin color – ultimately affecting their pay and advancement within the organization.

This part is funny:

“As a civil rights organization, the SPLC is committed to ensuring that the conduct of our staff reflects the mission of the organization and the values we hope to instill in the world,” SPLC’s then-president Richard Cohen said at the time. “When one of our own fails to meet those standards, no matter his or her role in the organization, we take it seriously and must take appropriate action.”

Cohen later stepped down from the organization amid the harassment and diversity allegations.

Big Tech has been judging you for years, using the opinions of the SPLC. It would be great if the Trump administration investigated them for it. Maybe we would get less domestic terrorism if they had to face a little legal scrutiny?

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I have been reading lots of books about the World War II battles in the Pacific theater lately, and I wanted to write a post about one of the heroes I found who was the most compelling to me. You may have seen him in the old 1976 Midway movie or the new 2019 Midway movie. But neither movie tells the full story. The man I am talking about is Lt. Commander John C. Waldron.

John Waldron was the leader of the torpedo bomber squadron on the Hornet. This squadron was composed of outdated and slow Devastator torpedo bombers, armed with the Mark 13 Mod 1 torpedoes, which malfunctioned about 90% of the time.

I found an article on the Federalist that tells the story of John Waldron:

Now there are countless men and woman who deserve to be singled out for their valor, but with the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway just around the corner, I thought it would be appropriate to call your attention to one of the bravest men who ever lived. A man who, knowing he was facing certain death, led the first attack against the Japanese aircraft carriers and played a direct role in what would be a decisive victory for the United States, and a defeat from which Japan would never recover. That man was Lt. Commander John C. Waldron.

Now for those who don’t know, the Battle of Midway was the turning point in the Pacific theater. The Japanese had an elaborate plan that involved attacking the U.S. base on Midway Island in order to lure the Americans into a battle which the Japanese High command felt their experience and tactics would overwhelm and annihilate the American fleet. With no significant U.S. naval presence, Hawaii and the entire West Coast would be at risk of invasion. But the Americans broke the Japanese code and set a trap of their own – hoping to destroy their enemy’s carriers and thereby establish U.S. dominance in the Pacific. And that was exactly what happened : The U.S. fleet surprised the Japanese, sank their four carriers, and took the first real step to winning the Second World War.

John Waldron was 42 years old when the USS Hornet steamed towards Midway on June 1st, 1942. Born and raised on a reservation in South Dakota, he had never seen the ocean until he attended the Naval Academy. It wasn’t long after he graduated that he moved into naval aviation. He had been assigned to be the squadron leader of the Hornet’s torpedo bombers in late 1941 and had been drilling his men tirelessly ever since. Waldron had the reputation of a tough as nails, no-nonsense commander. Not surprising, since Waldron was a direct descendant of the warriors from the Oglala Lakota tribe – part of the Great Sioux Nation. The tough skin he developed came from decades of derision from his peers over his meager beginnings, and from the racism directed at his Native American heritage. Waldron didn’t care what anyone thought of him – all he wanted to do was fight for his country. He was a natural leader and his men would follow him into the gates of Hell, which, as fate would have it, is exactly what they would do in the upcoming battle.

On the morning of June 4th, the Americans were ready to spring their trap, but in the preflight briefing aboard the Hornet there was a problem. Stanhope Ring, who was in command of the carrier’s air group, directed his pilots to head northwest of the last reported position of the Japanese fleet. Waldron disagreed with this decision, feeling that they should head in the exact direction of that last sighting. He wasn’t shy about expressing this opinion, much the displeasure of Ring. Waldron continued to lobby his superior officer several times after the briefing ended, but to no avail.

The Federalist article doesn’t talk much about Stanhope Ring, but the book I just finished called “The Battle of Midway” by Craig L. Symonds did. Ring was a very tall, good-looking, and white officer who had breezed up the chain of command thanks to his good looks and confident manner. He loved to show off for cameras, and pull rank on subordinates. He was too proud to admit that Waldron was right in front of the other pilots.

More:

The air strike force took off from the deck of the Hornet – fighters, dive bombers, and the 15 planes in Waldron’s torpedo squadron. This force would be joined in the air by similar strike forces from the other U.S. carriers – the Yorktown and the Enterprise. Shortly after the Hornet’s air group was airborne, Waldron couldn’t contain his anger anymore. He broke radio silence to tell Ring that they were headed in the wrong direction. He repeated that comment and Ring issued a terse reply that he was in charge of this group and to stay the hell off the radio. Waldron waited a couple of minutes before replying “The hell with you” and peeled his squadron off and headed due west, where he felt the Japanese fleet was.

Less than an hour later, Waldron was proved right. He had led his squadron on a direct line to the enemy. Waldron broke radio silence again to signal to Ring that he had found the fleet, but Ring and the rest of the Hornet’s planes were too far away to hear. So now, Waldron was faced with a brutal decision. If he went in to attack, he would do so without any fighter protection, and they’d be totally at the mercy of the Japanese fighters. To make matters worse, the U.S. planes (Douglas Devastators) were hopelessly outdated aircraft – their top speed was about a third of what the Japanese fighters could do. They had hoped to get the newer Grumman Avengers, but the Hornet had left Pearl Harbor before they had arrived from the mainland. All of this meant that Waldron and Torpedo 8 were looking at a suicidal attack run. […]Waldron got on the radio again and told his men “We will go in. We won’t turn back. Former strategy cannot be used. We will attack. Good luck!”

And with that, the planes of Torpedo 8 closed up their formation and bore down on the Japanese fleet, some seven miles distant.

The Japanese fighters quickly pounced on the Americans, who were going in low and slow – the only way torpedo bombers can attack. One by one the planes from Torpedo 8 were shot down. […]Every single plane in Torpedo 8 was destroyed and not one torpedo hit a Japanese ship.

Not only were the torpedo bombers of John Waldron’s VT-8 (Hornet) shot down, but two more waves led by Eugene Lindsey VT-6 (Enterprise) and Edward Massey VT-3 (Yorktown) were also repulsed without a hit.

More:

History might have viewed Waldron’s attack as more insane than brave, and utterly pointless….except for what happened next. Shortly after his failed attack, the torpedo squadron from the Enterprise attacked the fleet – and right after that the torpedo squadron from the Yorktown. Both of those squadrons had devastating casualties as well (10 of 14 planes lost and 10 of 12 respectively) without inflicting any damage on any Japanese ship. But these three attacks in succession drew the Japanese fighter cover down so low, that it left their carriers exposed to dive bomber attacks. It also burned up a lot of fuel for the fighters, who now needed to land before they could continue their defense of the fleet. The attacks also forced the Japanese carriers into defensive maneuvers, so they were unable to land any planes or launch any for a strike on the American carriers.

In addition to using up their fuel and coming down to low altitude, the Japanese CAP (combat air patrol) fighters also used up most of their dangerous 20 mm ammunition. They mostly had much weaker 7.7 mm ammunition remaining when the dive bombers from the Enterprise and Yorktown arrived.

More:

As the Japanese were trying to compose themselves after the three fierce but harmless attacks, the American dive bombers from the Enterprise and Yorktown arrived and quickly struck. Within minutes, three of the Japanese carriers were in flames – the heart of the Imperial Navy had been gutted.

[…]The other planes from the Hornet never found the Japanese ships. Ring kept his planes flying in that northwesterly direction until they were too low on fuel to keep going. They returned to the Hornet with their full payload of bombs.

[…]Now, there were a lot of heroes that day – some who lived and some who died, but the valor that John Waldron displayed in defying orders he knew were wrong and then attacking the enemy when he knew it meant certain death, place him on a special level. His actions directly helped the Americans win this crucial battle, which turned the tide of the war in the favor of the United States. He got the Navy Cross for his actions that day, but it seems astonishing to me that he wasn’t awarded the Medal of Honor – he is definitely worthy of it.

You can learn more about the Battle of Midway in this helpful video:

So, here is what I wanted to say about this.

John Waldron was not properly equipped by his organization to make a difference at Midway. His planes were too old and slow, his torpedoes almost never worked. His leader was an arrogant, incompetent coward who prevented him from leading others to find and attack the actual targets. The only way he could do something to his enemy was to disobey orders and go off on his own. If he had lived, he probably would have been court-martialed for insubordination. After Waldron was shot down, every single one of the men in his squadron continued their attack until they too were all shot down. Everyone watching must have thought “what a waste of effort”. It was only later that it became evident to all that what he did was necessary for the second wave to succeed.

This plaque at the United States Naval Academy Club honors the three commanders of the torpedo bomber squadrons:

Plaque honoring the Midway torpedo bomber squadron commandersAccording to the Family Research Council, the plaque reads:

The torpedo attacks of Waldron, Lindsey, and Massey had followed hard upon each other by luck. What was not luck, but the soul of the United States in action, was the willingness of the torpedo plane squadrons to go in against hopeless odds. This was the extra ounce of martial weight that in a few decisive minutes tipped the balance of history.

When I read this story, it immediately occurred to me that this is the problem that serious Christians are facing today. Parents and pastors are not equipping young people to actually make a difference. Instead of finding and fighting the real targets: atheism, radical feminism, communism, etc., all our forces have been sent on wild goose chases, so that now “Christians” are actually trying to promote the priorities of the secular left, e.g. – global warming, wealth redistribution, affirming sexual immorality, open borders, critical race theory, etc.

The few of us who actually know how to do our jobs are poorly equipped. We are prevented from leading by organizations that are focused on feelings rather than results. We can only hope that our decision to attack against hopeless odds somehow paves the way for a second wave to succeed. It has happened before, and that’s why we should be brave and continue to engage our opponents using tools that work (philosophy of religion, evidential apologetics, scientific research, historical evidence, chastity, sobriety, self-control, good stewardship of our educations, careers and finances, effective charitable giving, self-sacrificial love, etc.).

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Let’s look at the table of contents of my favorite introduction to Christian apologetics, which is “Is God Just a Human Invention?” written by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow.

In that book, you will find 18 topics.

1. Is Faith Irrational? (Commentary by: Gregory Koukl)
2. Are Science and Christianity at Odds? (Commentary by: John Warwick Montgomery)
3. Are Miracles Possible? (Commentary by: Gary R. Habermas)
4. Is Darwinian Evolution the Only Game in Town? (Commentary by: William A. Dembski)
5. How Did the Universe Begin? (Commentary by: R. Douglas Geivett)
6. How Did Life Begin? (Commentary by: Fazale R. Rana)
7. Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? (Commentary by: Jay W. Richards)
8. Has Science Shown There Is No Soul? (Commentary by: Dale Fincher and Jonalyn Fincher)
9. Is God Just a Human Invention? (Commentary by: Garry DeWeese)
10. Is Religion Dangerous? (Commentary by: Douglas Groothuis)
11. Does God Intend for Us to Keep Slaves? (Commentary by: Paul Copan)
12. Is Hell a Divine Torture Chamber? (Commentary by: Frank Turek)
13. Is God a Genocidal Bully? (Commentary by: Clay Jones)
14. Is Christianity the Cause of Dangerous Sexual Repression? (Commentary by: Kerby Anderson)
15. Can People Be Good Without God? (Commentary by: Mark D. Linville)
16. Is Evil Only a Problem for Christians? (Commentary by: Randy Alcorn)
17. What Good Is Christianity? (Commentary by: Glenn S. Sunshine)
18. Why Jesus Instead of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? (Commentary by: Darrell L. Bock)

Prominent atheist scholars are quoted in each chapter to introduce the challenges, and then scholarly arguments and evidence are presented to defend the Christian worldview. The language is simple enough, but the material is solid enough to use in a real debate. I would say that introductory books like this one are more than enough to equip you for everyone who will challenge you.

Why are these 18 topics important? Because these are the questions that atheists ask. These are the questions that cause Christians to leave the faith. These are the questions that your children will face in high school and college, which might cause them to leave the faith.

Let’s start with chapter one. One of the most prominent arguments by atheists is that faith is irrational. This chapter allows you to define faith using the Bible’s definition of faith, which relies on logic and evidence.

Atheists also say that Christianity is at war with science. In chapter 2, they discuss the history of science and how Christianity provided the framework that allowed scientific method to take root and flourish.

Atheists like to claim that miracles are impossible. Chapter 3 defends the view that God, if he exists, is capable of interacting with his created world.

Atheists love to put forward Darwinism as means to deny that God is the designer of life. Chapter 4 explains the concept of intelligent design, and why intelligent design is a better explanation for the history of life.

Atheists love to talk about how the universe has always existed, and there’s no need for a Creator. Chapter 5 contains a philosophical argument that is supported by mainstream science to argue that the universe had a beginning, just like the Bible says.

Atheists love to argue that life can emerge from non-life, and the process is simple. Chapter 6 is written by a biochemist, and it takes a look at the real complexity of the simplest living cell.

Atheists like to argue that the universe itself is just an accident, and there is no need for a Designer. Chapter 7 introduces the scientific evidence for fine-tuning and habitability.

Atheists like to say that there is no soul and no afterlife. Chapter 8 gives some arguments for the existence of the soul.

Atheists like to argue that Christians invent God because God makes them feel good. But chapter 9 explains that having an all-powerful God who can hold humans accountable is the last thing any human would want to invent.

Atheists like to talk about how religion, with it’s habit of teaching to believe in things that can’t be tested, causes religious people to do a lot of harm. Chapter 10 takes a look at the real record of Christianity as a force for good in the world.

Atheists like to talk about slavery in the Bible. Chapter 11 talks about what the Bible really says, and provides some rational responses to the accusation.

Atheists like to talk about eternal punishment in Hell isn’t a just punishment for just getting a few questions wrong on a theology exam. Chapter 12 provides an explanation and defense of the concept of Hell.

Atheists love to talk about how God commanded the Israelites to attack their enemies in the Bible. Chapter 13 explains who their enemies really were, and what was really happening in those wars.

Atheists feel that unrestricted sexual activity is very healthy and normal, and that the Biblical prohibitions outside of male-female marriage are repressive and unhealthy. Chapter 14 explains why God has these rules in place, and supports his rules with evidence.

Atheists love to assert that they don’t need God, because they can behave morally on their own. Chapter 15 explains how to answer this claim by talking about how well atheism grounds objective moral values, objective moral duties, free will and moral accountability: the minimum requirements for objective morality.

Atheists think that the mere existence of natural disasters and human immorality are incompatible with the God of the Bible. Chapter 16 explains why this argument doesn’t work, and why even the concept of evil requires God to exist.

I have an atheist friend in my office who can’t defeat my scientific arguments for the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning and the origin of life. But still, he says to me, even if God exists, why would that matter to my life? Chapter 17 explains what difference Christianity makes in a person’s life.

Atheists think that the life of Jesus has no relevance to their life, and that he has nothing to offer them anyway. Chapter 18 explains the uniqueness of Jesus and explains why his resurrection is relevant to our lives today.

It’s important to understand that this book is not on the level of A. W. Tozer, G.K. Chesterton, Francis Chan, John Piper, etc. Those authors write for a Christian audience and therefore they do not equip you to answer realistic challenges from non-Christians. But the apologetics book we looked at actually equips you to answer challenges from non-Christians using logical arguments and evidence from mainstream history and science. You can use the material in that book in discussions outside the confines of your home and your church.

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It’s LGBT pride month, so everyone is going to tell me that I have to affirm LGBT doctrines and lifestyles, or else! So, instead of doing that, let’s look at some evidence about these topics. Did you know how the secular left looks at the poor mental health of LGBT youth, and asserts (without evidence) that more acceptance would make those outcomes better? Turns out the exact opposite is true.

Here’s the left-wing extremist New York Times, dated June 3rd, 2023:

For L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers, high school is a much more accepting place than even a decade ago. They change their pronouns, go to school dances with people of the same gender, and are more likely than any previous generation to openly identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or otherwise queer.

[…]Yet there is a darker side. Even as they are increasingly welcomed by peers, their mental health is significantly worse than that of heterosexual young people.

[…]Their experiences highlight a “paradoxical finding,” as researchers have described it: Even as social inclusion for young L.G.B.T.Q. people has grown, large health disparities between them and their non-L.G.B.T.Q. peers have not shrunk.

The article talks about the strongest reasons why young people embrace LGBT:

1. there are pro-LGBT TV shows, movies, music.
2. famous pro athletes identify as LGBT
3. the Supreme Court overturned legislation passed by elected legislators
4. “everyone knows someone who is LGBT”
5. social media supports LGBT
6. big corporations support LGBT

Growing up in the situation I was in – poverty, different skin color, two working parents, public schools run by secular leftists – I wasn’t much interested in feeling good in the moment. I wanted an accurate view of the battlefield so I could make good decisions, and get out of the mess I was born into. I read the Bible, Shakespeare and my parents’ textbooks from their night classes at the local universities.

My approach was very different from the secular left. They don’t care about truth, or making good decisions to get good results. They care about living in the moment. They want to give in to their desires now, and point fingers later. They want to borrow money and run up expenses now, and pass the bill to someone else later. They are reckless and irresponsible. And they feel entitled to the life outcomes of those detestable Christians later. But they can’t be bothered to behave like those detestable Christians right now.

People who are LGBT are facing little to no disagreement or disapproval:

A recent survey by The New York Times and Morning Consult of 1,574 young adults found that people ages 18 to 28 — who mostly graduated from high school since 2013 — were significantly more likely to know L.G.B.T.Q. students in school than those a decade older, who were teenagers in the 2000s.

The younger group was twice as likely to report knowing at least one transgender student, and three times as likely to have known three or more. Four in 10 said they knew numerous gay, lesbian or bisexual people in high school, compared with a quarter of the older group.

And while both groups reported hearing the words “gay” and “queer” used negatively at similar rates — a data point reflected in interviews with teenagers, who say they still hear “that’s so gay” in school hallways — the younger graduates were significantly more likely to hear those words used in a positive light, too. They were also more likely to have a gay-straight alliance or similar club at their school.

This reflects other data that has found that verbal harassment of L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers declined during the 2010s, while support for same-sex marriage became the norm among young people.

And finally:

“You’re at the point among young adults where almost all these measures of acceptance are in the high 80s, low 90s,” said Jeff Jones, a senior editor who oversees research at Gallup. “It’s basically getting toward a consensus.”

Sounds wonderful for the secular left. They got the morality of the Bible removed from society. Young people today don’t even know what the Bible teaches are dating, relationships, marriage, sexuality, etc. All they know is TV shows, celebrities, entertainers, athletes, and what their public school teachers tell them.

Just one little problem. Secular leftists don’t get to determine what is objectively right and wrong. In a God-designed universe, God decides what works, and what doesn’t work. And no amount of community, peer-approval, propaganda, etc. is going to overrule God’s design for his creatures.

More:

As acceptance has grown, though, the mental health of queer youth has continued to suffer. Reported rates of mental health problems among all young people have been rising for the last decade, but non-heterosexual students face far higher rates than straight students.

About 70 percent of high school students who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual reported persistent sadness, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, twice the rate of their heterosexual peers. One in five attempted suicide in the past year, nearly four times the rate of straight young people. (The C.D.C. does not track the mental health of transgender youth, but other data shows that roughly half had considered suicide in the past year.)

The New York Times tries to blame these numbers on being in a minority group. But Bible-believing Christians who embrace chastity, marriage, parenting and homeschooling are also a “minority group”. We don’t run the show any more. In fact, we’re the only minority that is still able to be targeted for ridicule and persecution, even by the police and government. But we also don’t have mental illnesses like the poor young people who believed the lies of the secular left, either. I wonder why that is. Could it be that chastity, marriage, parenting and homeschooling are morally right, whether anyone thinks it is or not? Could it be that these activities are self-evidently moral, and therefore just doing them makes the approval and celebration of other people completely unnecessary? For some behaviors, having an audience of One is enough.

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I heard one of the authors of this new study commenting on how he was a gay man, and the purpose of his research was to show a genetic basis for homosexuality, in order to make it equal to race. His goal was to make it impossible to disagree with homosexual behavior, because homosexual behavior would be seen as natural and normal. Let’s see if his new study helps him out.

The blog of the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One reported on the new study, which was published in the prestigious journal Science.

Excerpt:

The once-prevailing concept of a “gay gene” dictating sexual orientation has been put to rest in a powerhouse study published today in Science. The work brilliantly illustrates the very nature of science: evolving with the input of new data, especially the large-scale contributions of bioinformatics and crowd-sourcing.

“We formed a large international consortium and collected data for more than 500,000 people, comparing DNA and self-reported sexual behavior. This is approximately 100 times bigger than any previous study on this topic,” said lead author Andrea Ganna, of the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Finland and an instructor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, opening a news conference earlier this week.

[…]The investigation estimates a genetic contribution to same-sex sexual behavior as under 1 percent, thanks to analysis of a trove of data from the UK Biobank and the consumer genetic testing company 23andme.

So, there you have it, there is no gay gene. But this is of course something we’ve known for decades, as all the previous studies had found the same thing.

The normal way that people do these studies is to analyze identical twins, and see how often both identical twins are gay.

Eight major studies of identical twins in Australia, the U.S., and Scandinavia during the last two decades all arrive at the same conclusion: gays were not born that way.

“At best genetics is a minor factor,” says Dr. Neil Whitehead, PhD. Whitehead worked for the New Zealand government as a scientific researcher for 24 years, then spent four years working for the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency. Most recently, he serves as a consultant to Japanese universities about the effects of radiation exposure. His PhD is in biochemistry and statistics.

Identical twins have the same genes or DNA. They are nurtured in equal prenatal conditions. If homosexuality is caused by genetics or prenatal conditions and one twin is gay, the co-twin should also be gay.

“Because they have identical DNA, it ought to be 100%,” Dr. Whitehead notes. But the studies reveal something else. “If an identical twin has same-sex attraction the chances the co-twin has it are only about 11% for men and 14% for women.”

Because identical twins are always genetically identical, homosexuality cannot be genetically dictated. “No-one is born gay,” he notes. “The predominant things that create homosexuality in one identical twin and not in the other have to be post-birth factors.”

Dr. Whitehead believes same-sex attraction (SSA) is caused by “non-shared factors,” things happening to one twin but not the other, or a personal response to an event by one of the twins and not the other.

By the way, a previous study also found that transgender behavior was not genetic, but was clearly linked to environmental factors such as peer approval and social media.

Here is the report from Science Daily:

This month, a Brown University researcher published the first study to empirically describe teens and young adults who did not have symptoms of gender dysphoria during childhood but who were observed by their parents to rapidly develop gender dysphoria symptoms over days, weeks or months during or after puberty.

[…]The study was published on Aug. 16 in PLOS ONE.

Littman surveyed more than 250 parents of children who suddenly developed gender dysphoria symptoms during or after puberty.

[…]“Of the parents who provided information about their child’s friendship group, about a third responded that more than half of the kids in the friendship group became transgender-identified,” Littman said. “A group with 50 percent of its members becoming transgender-identified represents a rate that is more 70 times the expected prevalence for young adults.”

A previous study also found that children are more likely to be gay if they are raised by gay adults. It was reported in AOL News.

Excerpt:

Walter Schumm knows what he’s about to do is unpopular: publish a study arguing that gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents. But the Kansas State University family studies professor has a detailed analysis that past almost aggressively ideological researchers never had.

[…]His study on sexual orientation, out next month, says that gay and lesbian parents are far more likely to have children who become gay. “I’m trying to prove that it’s not 100 percent genetic,” Schumm tells AOL News.

His study is a meta-analysis of existing work. First, Schumm extrapolated data from 10 books on gay parenting… [and] skewed his data so that only self-identified gay and lesbian children would be labeled as such.

[…]Schumm concluded that children of lesbian parents identified themselves as gay 31 percent of the time; children of gay men had gay children 19 percent of the time, and children of a lesbian mother and gay father had at least one gay child 25 percent of the time.

[…]Finally, Schumm looked at the existing academic studies… In all there are 26 such studies. Schumm ran the numbers from them and concluded that, surprisingly, 20 percent of the kids of gay parents were gay themselves. When children only 17 or older were included in the analysis, 28 percent were gay.

It’s very important for people to understand that there is a trend in society to make every behavior traditionally seen as sinful into something caused by genetics. The twin goals of this effort are to insulate the behaviors from criticism, and to minimize evaluation of the effects of these behaviors on society as a whole. The genetic argument was used extensively to normalize same-sex marriage and transgenderism. I have seen the genetic argument used to defend other behaviors like pedophilia and incest. But the scientific research does nothing to support any of these arguments. What’s amazing is how a majority of people in the United States have such false beliefs about the scientific research. They vastly overestimate the number of gay people, and also the influence of genetics.

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Welcome to episode 64 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Dr. Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary to discuss the scientific evidence for “The Immortal Mind“. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

NOTE: You can pre-order the book here, and get the pre-order goodies, for example, a free digital copy of “Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science”.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose interview Dr. Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary about their new book “The Immortal Mind“. They discuss how scientific evidence such as split-brain surgeries, veridical near-death experiences, and terminal lucidity challenges materialist views of the mind. Egnor and O’Leary argue that an immaterial, immortal soul is the best explanation for human consciousness, free will, and abstract thought.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 64:

Speaker biographies

Michael R. Egnor, MD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has served as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and is an award-winning brain surgeon. He was named one of New York’s best doctors by the New York Magazine in 2005. He received his medical education at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His research on hydrocephalus has been published in journals including Journal of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, and Cerebrospinal Fluid Research.

Denyse O’Leary is a freelance journalist based in Victoria, Canada. Specializing in faith and science issues, she is co-author, with neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of “The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul”, and author of “By Design or by Chance?: The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe”. Her newest book, co-authored with neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, is the forthcoming “The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul”. She received her degree in honors English language and literature.

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
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I try to never miss an episode of Matt Walsh, and Desert Rose is the same. It’s my favorite podcast, other than the Knight and Rose Show of course. In the post below, I’m going to list out a few recent segments that I think will convince you. And best of all, it’s free! I really think this postcast is especially good for men, and for women who like good men.

OK, so here is a very mean and funny segment from Thursday’s show. Here is the description “In their desperate quest to appeal to men, the Democrats have called in an expert: a self-professed plus sized, disabled, queer Latina feminist. Who could possibly understand men better than her?”

This one was my favorite this week – buckle yourself in before watching this masterpiece. The description is “We have another super viral entry in the ever-expanding genre of online videos where wives complain about their husbands.”:

I’ve seen the bad wife that he is talking about before, on the Emily King podcast, which I really like.

And then lastly, this one about the South Africa refugees situation.

I know a lot of people watch shows like Joe Rogan, but I can’t stand shows like this. I like shows where we are really going to tell the truth, and really take on moral evils. Matt does a great job. In fact, I wish that we could replace all the Christian feminists and feminized pastors with clones of Matt Walsh. I know that a LOT of pastors sound exactly like him, but I want more. I want all the pastors to sound exactly like him. Men should be so bold about truth and morality, that they make the “don’t judge” Christian feminists cringe. That’s good masculinity! That’s what we want.

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Can atheists rationally ground objective morality? A lot of Americans who were raised in Christian homes give up the faith, and they like to tell Christians “I’m a good person. I believe in human rights. I believe in objective morality. Getting rid of God doesn’t change anything about me”. But, what really happens in cities like Seattle, where the majority of people vote for secular leftism?

Here’s an article from Daily Wire, written by Matt Walsh (archived).

It says:

The pro-life group Mayday USA held an event in the park as part of their “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” campaign. This was a lawful gathering, by all accounts. They had all the required permits. And at this event, people held signs and sang songs that affirmed the sanctity of life, the reality of human biology, the importance of the nuclear family, and so on. It was basically a Christian concert. People of all ages, including young children, were present.

Matt then links to this video, showing that the Christians are having fun singing hymns and getting along with each other. I do think that waving arms during singing is a bit weird, but it’s just regular first amendment stuff, and they even have a permit from the city to assemble and wave their arms around weirdly.

But then things got violent in secular leftist Seattle:

But as the event went on, Left-wing activists decided to shut down the event. They began violently assaulting police officers and stormed the stage.

And he has a video of the attack, too.

Well, maybe the Christians provoked this fascistic response somehow.

But Matt says:

As far as contrasts go, this one is about as stark as you can get. And by the way, the Christians were minding their own business. They weren’t trying to disrupt any other event, or hassle anyone else. They reserved the park, using all of the appropriate legal channels. But the demons decided to charge in, and use violence to silence the Christians. And eventually they got what they wanted. The police arrested 22 adults and one juvenile — all of them on the side of the Left-wing activists — and shut down the event early.

The videos of the attack show black-clad violent extremists, some in tactical gear, surrounding, confronting and shouting at the rally attendees, including a woman holding a baby. I guess that’s secular left Seattle for you. Woooo! Awesome objective morality!

It’s actually surprising that the police did arrest anti-Christian violent extremists, because Seattle is well-known as a city populated by people who cannot rationally ground human rights, free will, or objective morality.

Look:

[I]n every relevant respect, the government of Seattle has taken the side of the LGBT activists who attacked the Christians.

First of all, everyone who was arrested was released without any bond whatsoever, and no charges were announced. There’s one exception — someone who was accused of attacking an officer and throwing an explosive device — who received a whopping $20,000 bail. But otherwise, none of these people have suffered any real consequences, and of course they never will. And there’s zero chance that any of them will be prosecuted in Seattle. We all know that.

Secondly, the mayor of Seattle — a wormy little man named Bruce Harrell… released a statement over the weekend that blames the Christians for being attacked. This is one of the most extraordinary statements ever released by a public official.

The major of Seattle called the Christian gathering a “far-right rally” – blaming the Christians and their blasted song-singing and baby-holding for the violence that actually was caused by the anti-Christian violent extremists.

Is this surprising? You might remember that the voters in Seattle previously voted for a mayor who resigned because of multiple allegations of child sex abuse. In red states, that would be bad, but in secular left Seattle, it’s actually good! They’re proud of it! They’ll tell you that this is GREAT objective morality. So much “reason”!

And Matt notes that none of this fascism is surprising, in Seattle:

At the same time, even if the mayor’s office is hauled before a federal court, the truth is that there’s a much deeper problem here. The mayor, after all, was elected by the people of Seattle. And unsurprisingly, in this case, most of Seattle, including the media, agrees with the mayor.

Now, you might remember that I blogged about Harmeet K. Dhillon a while back. She is the replacement for Kristen Clarke, the Biden official who persecuted pro-lifers for peaceful demonstrations. And she said this, on X:

So Harmeet, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, getting involved. But the Alliance Defending Freedom is also considering it.

And Daily Signal is reporting that there will be an FBI probe:

The FBI is investigating possible “targeted violence against religious groups” in Seattle after leftists crashed two Christian events over the past week and dozens of people were arrested, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Wednesday.

[…]“We have asked our team to fully investigate allegations of targeted violence against religious groups at the Seattle concert,” Bongino said in a Tuesday X post. “Freedom of religion isn’t a suggestion.”

Anti-Christian violent extremists can’t seem to stop themselves from attacking Christians using violence and coercion, can they? At least now we have some real law enforcement to look into to the people who actually DO use violence to advance their beliefs.

By the way, I am having a bit of fun in this post at the expense of atheists who want to be taken seriously as “moral”, but for a serious refutation of atheist morality, check out this post. I have others, but it’s my bedtime.

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What many people don’t realize about men is that men are constantly making calculations about whether or not to impact the world for good. The average man disagrees with things like abortion, same-sex marriage, and transing kids. But the average man also understands that the world is currently being run by don’t-judge people. And those don’t-judge people have made it risky and costly for good men to make bold stands.

As I’ve said before, people used to expect Christian men to be generous and protective, but also bold about declaring and defending spiritual and moral truths. Well, the world has changed. The old masculine leadership has been replaced with “servant leadership” – men have to be servants of society’s needs, while having no needs of their own. Men aren’t allowed to make any decisions. Men aren’t allowed to challenge evil with words and actions. Men are only allowed to protect and provide. Silently! Just like an ATM. And an ATM doesn’t judge how the money is spent.

So, how does society encourage men to keep dispensing money and making muscles, while simultaneously making sure that they comply with the new feelings-based rules of empathy and don’t judge?

Why, by punishing anyone who expresses a moral or spiritual truth, of course. In the case below, the feelings-dominated schools punished a boy for wearing a t-shirt that disagrees with transgenderism, and then the courts refused to fix the mess.

Here’s the story from Fox News:

The Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving a Massachusetts student who was banned from school for wearing a shirt criticizing the transgender movement on Tuesday.

The student, Liam Morrison, brought the case through his father and stepmother, Christopher and Susan Morrison. The plaintiffs argue Nichols Middle School violated his free speech rights when it banned him from wearing two T-shirts to school with the words “There are only two genders” and “There are [censored] genders” on the front.

Liam was sent home both times after he refused to change shirts. The school argued the shirts made his classmates feel unsafe, and a federal court agreed, saying the message was demeaning for transgender students.

So, if SCOTUS declines to hear the case, then the lower ruling stands. This is where American elites are right now. If a young man decides to try to reverse the decline of civilization by opposing lies and evil with his words and / or actions, then he needs to be punished.

Only two justices stood up for free speech:

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito both issued separate dissents, arguing the court should have taken up the case.

The decision comes nearly a year after the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Liam and his parents in June 2024, finding that the school was justified in asking him to remove the shirt and sending him home when he refused.

Morrison, who was in seventh grade at the time, was sent home with his father in May 2023 after he refused to take off the shirt, according to court documents. He later wore the same shirt with the words “only two” covered with a piece of tape on which “censored” was written. The school also told him to take this shirt off.

In a 2023 interview with Fox News Digital, Liam stressed that his T-shirt was not directed toward anyone, specifically people who are “lesbian or gay or transgender or anything like that.”

“I’m just voicing my opinion about a statement that I believe to be true,” he said at the time. “And I feel like some people may think that I’m imposing hate speech, even though it’s not directed towards anyone.”

So what is the general point to draw from this case?

The key point is this: if society insists on making men bow down to “empathy” and “don’t judge”, then society will find that good men decline to participate in the other male roles, too. Wearing a t-shirt that challenges the transgendering of kids is quintessential MALE behavior – it’s moral leadership. And the public schools, working together with the courts, have punished the boy for standing up for his convictions.

This sends a clear signal to the other men watching: “stop moral and spiritual leading, but keep on protecting and providing.” But society can’t have that. If the secular leftists take away a man’s moral and spiritual leading, then they won’t get the protecting and providing. Men don’t invest in and protect enterprises, unless they are allowed to speak up about their moral and spiritual convictions.

And you can see that this is already happening, with masculine behaviors like protection and provision being withheld from society. Society now cries “where are all the good men?” and “why don’t men make the first move” and “why don’t men pay for everything on dates?” and “why don’t men protect women from strangers on the subway?” But those things are declining, because of the anti-male attitudes of the schools and courts.

The root cause goes back to C.S. Lewis’ old essay “Men Without Chests” in his book “The Abolition of Man”. If you punish men for leading from their Christian convictions, then you don’t get to help yourself to the benefits provided by those same Christian convictions. This is what the “servant leadership” people don’t understand – men don’t want to be reduced to dispensing cash for your shopping and not judging your spending. Good men want to lead. They want to fight against lies and evil, and rally others to fight with them.

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The Republican party has been taking away the funding of the nation’s largest abortion provider piece by piece for some time. Pro-life voters understand that stopping abortion is an incremental process, and a big part of that process is taking the taxpayer money away from the abortion providers. And we are already seeing the effects of the legislation, before it’s even been signed.

Here’s the latest news from Daily Signal:

House Republicans delivered on their promise to defund Big Abortion on Thursday by passing the budget reconciliation bill that has consumed Washington’s attention for the past three months.

In the bill, the House GOP removed Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the country. The effort had been supported by dozens of pro-life legislators from around the country.

The move is a monumental win for pro-lifers because Planned Parenthood receives more than one-third of its overall funding from the U.S. government through grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements. That translates to about $2 million per day, which taxpayers are on the hook for. Furthermore, taxpayer funding for the organization has been on an upward trajectory for about the past dozen years, having increased by 50% since 2013.

[…]Planned Parenthood is also a major provider of hormones for so-called transgender transitions in the country, which means defunding it is also combating the organization’s efforts in that regard as well.

The Federalist had a bit more about this story – how many abortions they perform, how much they profit from that, and weather they perform any other “health care” services:

In the last two years, Planned Parenthood — an ostensibly “nonprofit organization” — earned a stunning $206 million in profit, its own numbers reveal. Much of that is thanks to hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars flowing into its coffers.

The number of abortions Planned Parenthood performs continues to increase, reaching a staggering 402,200 last year. Meanwhile, the organizations’ cancer screening and prevention services have dropped by 54 percent since 2013, including declines of 61 percent for breast exams and 54 percent for pap tests.

The Post Millennial notes that even thought the bill has not been signed into law, it’s already causing Planned Parenthood to quit:

Eight abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood’s Northern Central States region are slated to shut down across Minnesota as well as Iowa as the Trump administration is targeting funds going to Planned Parenthood.

And finally, related to the issue of the pro-abortion secular left, here was a recent news story about them from Mind Matters. The article is by Wesley J. Smith, and he talks about how often the convictions of the secular left lead to violence.

This is a good review of the actions of the secular left:

Back in 2010, a mentally disturbed anti-human terrorist was shot to death by snipers after he took hostages at the Discovery Channel, demanding that the television service stop “encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants,” and instead air “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility.”

Now, a similar disturbing scenario befell Palm Springs, Calif., where a young man named Guy Edward Bartkus killed himself, injured four people, and caused widespread property destruction when he detonated a huge car bomb in front of an in vitro fertilization clinic. The motive? According to Newsweek’s reporting, Bartkus was a “‘pro-mortalist’ (believing death is preferable to living) or an ‘anti-natalist’ (believing no more human beings should be born).”

It’s not just the crazies who believe these things:

Anti-natalism is a form of anti-humanism, which isn’t just believed by mentally disturbed people capable of violence. Indeed, various forms of anti-humanism have been promoted in professional journals, the media, and popular culture, as a consequence of which, nihilism has been slowly seeping through the culture like a stain.

So often, when you bring up the the issue of being responsible with sex, and being protective of tiny humans, the response is that it’s “violence” to tell women to choose good men, and to get married to those good men before having sex. But if you look a bit more closely, the actual violence is all coming from the pro-abortion side.

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I write military history posts every once in a while, to remind people to honor those who fought for our freedoms. If you check out my “What I am Reading” page on this blog, then you’ll see that I’ve been reading a fair number of books about the Korean War west of Chosin, and Guadalcanal. These were both Marine actions, so for Memorial Day, let’s talk about one Marine from each action.

Chronologically, the battle of Guadalcanal comes first. This engagement involves naval conflicts as well as land conflicts. I’ve read several books about it; “Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal” (naval), “The Cactus Air Force: Air War over Guadalcanal” (air), and “Midnight in the Pacific: Guadalcanal — The World War II Battle That Turned the Tide of War” (land). I also play a simulation game called “War on the Sea” where I get to control the American navy and air force. And I have already pre-ordered a new wargame about it: “Guadalcanal: The Battle for Henderson Field“.

The operation starts in August 1942, two months after the Americans scored a shocking victory against a superior Japanese force at the Battle of Midway, sinking 4 Japanese carriers in exchange for the loss of one, the USS Yorktown.

Map of Guadalcanal, August 1942, showing Henderson Field, key to Operation Watchtower(Image source credit for above Solomon Islands map)

In early August 1942, Operation Watchtower targeted the Japanese-held Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, where Japan had established a foothold and was building an airfield to threaten Allied supply lines to Australia. The Japanese, having expanded rapidly across the Pacific since Pearl Harbor, held the strategic initiative, with strong garrisons and naval dominance in the region. Their air forces, including the Mitsubishi Zero, outmatched early American aircraft like the Wildcat in maneuverability and range. Japan’s navy, with formidable carriers and battleships, held a slight edge over the U.S. Pacific Fleet, depleted after Pearl Harbor but bolstered by carriers like the Enterprise and Hornet.

One figure who really stood out to me during the land campaign was an enlisted Marine named John Basilone.

Lunga Perimeter, Guadalcanal, 1942, showing the jungle terrain where John Basilone fought for three days against overwhelming oddsI saw a new New York Post article about Basilone authored by Rich Lowry, so let’s see what he has to say:

Born in Buffalo and raised in New Jersey by his Italian-American parents, he enlisted in the Army in the 1930s as a teenager. Then, after a stint as a civilian, he signed up for the Marines in 1940.

During the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, he almost single-handedly held off a massive assault by a Japanese regiment against two machine gun sections he commanded.

[…]When the Japanese disabled one of the American gun crews, Basilone moved another machine gun into position and personally manned it, and also repaired another gun under heavy fire.

When they needed more supplies, Basilone ran through Japanese lines to get the ammunition, defending himself with his Colt .45.

He fought for days and, by the end, he and his comrades had basically annihilated the Japanese attackers.

Basilone lost his asbestos gloves in the chaos and still handled the searing machine gun barrels, sustaining burns on his hands.

[…]Nash Phillips, a private who was wounded in the fight, recalled, “Basilone had a machine gun on the go for three days and nights without sleep, rest or food.”

He was awarded the Medal of Honor for that action (citation), but he wasn’t done serving his country:

Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor and afforded, appropriately, a hero’s welcome back in the States. He participated in the campaign to sell war bonds.

His conduct at Guadalcanal would be more than enough valor in one life for the rest of us, but Basilone wanted back in the fight.

The Marines told him he was more valuable at home and denied his request. Basilone insisted, and the Marines eventually relented.

He was a machine gun section leader again in February 1945, on the first day of the invasion of Iwo Jima, a godforsaken hunk of volcanic rock in the middle of the Pacific. The dug-in Japanese chewed up the Americans on the beaches.

Basilone flanked a Japanese blockhouse, climbed atop it, and took it out on his own. He then led a Marine tank out of a minefield, before getting fatally hit.

For this action, he posthumously received the Navy Cross. The citation refers to him as “stouthearted and indomitable,” and praises “his intrepid initiative, outstanding skill, and valiant spirit of self-sacrifice.”

The war against Japan was one of our most noble wars. Prior to our entry in the war, Japan was already invading neighboring countries, and committing atrocities against unarmed civilians. We had every right to fight back once they attacked us, and to use every means necessary to stop their brutal aggression.

Since there is still space in this blog post, let’s fast forward a few years to the Korean War, and look at a famous battle in it, the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. For this theater, I recommend several books from my reading list. The best one is “On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle“. And I also liked “Colder Than Hell: A Marine Rifle Company at Chosin Reservoir” and “The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat“. There are actually two battles going on at the reservoir, one with the U.S. Marines on the west side of the reservoir, and one with the U.S. Army on the east side of the reservoir.

So, recall that the Korean War started with an invasion by North Korean communists against peaceful South Korea. America stepped in to defend South Korea from this aggression.

In late November 1950, the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir unfolded in North Korea’s frozen mountains, where the U.S. 1st Marine Division, under Major General Oliver P. Smith, faced a dire situation. Following the successful Inchon landing, General Douglas MacArthur and Major General Edward “Ned” Almond, pursued an aggressive push to the Chinese border at the Yalu River. MacArthur ignored October 1950 intelligence of 120,000+ Chinese troops crossing the Yalu, while Almond’s orders to advance disregarded the frozen, mountainous terrain.

Map of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, 27–29 November 1950, showing the Marines’ retreat from Yudam-ni to Hagaru-ri, with Toktong Pass held by Barber’s Fox CompanyMake sure you find Toktong Pass in the image! It’s important!

By late November, 30,000 UN troops, including 20,000 Marines, were strung along a narrow 78-mile-long mountainous road from Hungnam to Yudam-ni, with key positions at Hagaru-ri and Toktong Pass. The Chinese held the initiative, outnumbering UN forces 10-to-1 in places. Bitter cold weather (-30°F) limited the U.S. air advantage, with Marine Corsairs from Hagaru-ri’s airfield providing vital support. Smith’s cautious advance, defying Almond’s dismissal of the Chinese (“Don’t let a bunch of Chinese laundrymen stop you!”), ensured supply stockpiles and an airfield at Hagaru-ri, critical for evacuations and reinforcements. His foresight preserved unit cohesion and saved 15,000 Marines from annihilation.

If you noticed that phrase “preserved unit cohesion”, I’ll just give you a hint that the U.S. Army forces east of Chosin were more beholden to the recklessness of MacArthur and Almond, and made no provisions for the Chinese ambush. Unit cohesion was lost and our forces were annihilated. You can read all about that in “East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950“. It’s a tough book, but shows the value of planning and caution when dealing with unknown enemies in mountainous terrain during the winter.

I previously blogged about William Barber and his Fox Company‘s heroic stand at Toktong Pass. Captain Barber’s Fox Company held Toktong Pass for five days against 1,400 Chinese, allowing 8,000 trapped Marines in the north to move south down the road to escape defeat. Fox Company received only minimal support from light helicopters, because of the cold, snowy weather and roadblocks to the north and south.

Funchilin Pass, Chosin Reservoir, December 1950, showing the frozen terrain similar to Toktong PassSo today let’s take a look at one of the Fox Company Marines who held the Toktong Pass for 5 days, with this article from Task and Purpose:

On Thanksgiving 74 years ago, at the height of the Korean War, the sound of gunfire abruptly woke Marine Pvt. Hector Albert Cafferata Jr. He and his squad held Fox Hill during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, and a regimental-sized Chinese People’s Volunteer Army — a force of approximately 1,400 soldiers — sprung an ambush two hours past midnight.

Cafferata, then 23, was assigned to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. He and over 200 Marines were tasked with protecting the Toktong Pass, an escape route through the Nangnim Mountains near the Chosin Reservoir in modern-day North Korea.

An initial hail of gunfire, grenades, and mortars knocked out nearly everyone in Cafferata’s squad, creating a weak spot in the defense perimeter, but Cafferata continued fighting, without a jacket in the pre-dawn winter cold. The Washington Post reported that fellow wounded Marine Kenneth Benson was initially blinded by a grenade blast during the attack but continued helping Cafferata by reloading his rifle.

Cafferata also landed on a desperate but ingenious way to send enemy grenades back toward the enemy.

“For the rest of the night, I was batting hand grenades away with my entrenching tool while firing my rifle,” Cafferata said in a 2001 interview with Florida’s Charlotte Sun newspaper. “I must have whacked a dozen grenades that night with my tool. And you know what? I was the world’s worst baseball player.”

Described as “Stouthearted and indomitable” in his Medal of Honor award citation, Cafferata managed to repel the ambush single-handedly, though it was temporary. The Chinese soldiers launched a vicious second wave in the morning hours.

During the fierce fighting, a grenade landed near a group of wounded Marines, and Cafferata threw it back under heavy fire. This time, it detonated after leaving his hand and severely wounded his right arm and hand with shrapnel. That didn’t stop him, though.

“Courageously ignoring the intense pain, he staunchly fought on until he was struck by a sniper’s bullet and forced to submit to evacuation for medical treatment,” reads the award citation.

Before getting evacuated, Cafferata is credited with killing 15 enemy soldiers and wounding several others. In Peter Collier’s 2003 book “Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty,” Cafferata’s Marine officers recalled how they counted about 100 dead Chinese soldiers where he had held the line. Still, they did not report that number because “they thought that no one would believe it.”

His Medal of Honor citation is here.

So, it’s Memorial Day, and it’s a time for Americans to take time out to think about the respect and gratitude that we owe to people who risked their lives for their friends.

We owe our liberties in large part to the American heroes who fought against imperialism and communism. It’s sad that we have so many people going through our schools and our universities, and coming out with ignorance of these heroes, and a lack of patriotism.

As a non-white legal immigrant to the United States, I’ve made it a major part of my life to go back in time and learn about the sacrifices of the people in our armed forces. You should make the effort, too. I don’t watch television, I am not subscribed to any streaming services, and with RARE exceptions, I don’t watch modern movies. My head is always in the past, learning about people who lived tougher lives than mine, and performed greater deeds fighting against evil than I ever will.

Reading this post and sharing it on social media would be a good start! Many Americans leave school unaware of the sacrifices of our heroes in the armed forces. Let’s share their stories to inspire gratitude in the next generation.

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How do people decide that all of life is the product of blind forces like mutation and selection? Many people encounter the blind forces narrative in government-run schools at an age where they are not qualified to investigate anything themselves, at must rely on adults. And what kinds of “evidence” do the adults use on them? Does that “evidence” stand up over time?

When I was in high school, we had the choice to study 2 or 3 of the hard sciences: physics, biology or chemistry. I chose physics and chemistry, because I didn’t want my young Earth creation views being assaulted by adults who held the red marking pen. At the time, I was in a secular left country, and my non-Christian working parents only wanted to hear that I was getting the highest marks. Recognizing that the odds of overturning Darwinism in my public schools were against me (for now), I declined to participate in biology indoctrination, and threw myself into math and computer science instead. (I still scored near the top in physics and chemistry) Everything worked out fine for my career, and I eventually went back and got a biology education on my own, from the strong position of having a full time job that paid me more than the government school teachers.

But during high school, I heard about what my less careful friends were learning about in the biology classroom. One of my best friends, a Muslim named Shareef, told me about how he had learned that the chimp genome was only 1% different from the human genome. To him, this was proof of common ancestry, and showed that a naturalistic origin of the diversity of life was likely. He went on to get with a rowdy crowd, eventually dropping out of his engineering degree after 1 year where he performed poorly. Many people embrace evolution because it gives them moral license to drink a lot, and play the fool, which is bad for their grades. It was bad for his grades, and he got into more trouble later.

Well, at the time, I didn’t have the evidence to contradict Shareef about the chimp genome. But now I do!

Here is the latest evidence in Evolution News from Casey Luskin, who you might remember because he was a guest on the Knight and Rose Show.

[N]ew data reported in a recently published Nature paper by Yoo et al. has overturned this previous claim. The new findings reveal that human DNA is far more different from chimp DNA than previously thought.

Many times over the years, I’ve discussed how this 1 percent claim about humans and chimps is likely wrong. It is also misleading. No matter how similar humans might be to chimps at the genetic level, anyone who has been to the zoo knows already that chimps and humans are vastly different. After all, we’re the ones writing scientific papers about them—not the other way around. So common sense alone dictates that there is something misleading about that number and how it is used. But the new data show that the previous statistic isn’t just misleading. It’s flat-out false.

As I will elaborate in a subsequent article, this team of researchers has published “complete” sequences of ape genomes that were created ‘from scratch’ rather than using the human genome as a template. As a result, for the first time we can attempt a much more accurate assessment of the true degree of difference between the human and chimp genomes.

The results are groundbreaking:

• At least 12.5 percent and possibly up to 13.3 percent of the chimp and human genomes represent a “gap difference” between the two genomes. That means there’s a “gap” in one genome compared to the other, often where they are so different, they cannot even be aligned.

• There are also significant alignable sections of the two genomes that show “short nucleotide variations” which differ by only about 1.5 percent. We can add this difference to the “gap difference,” and calculate a 14 percent to 14.9 percent total difference between human and chimp genomes. This means that the actual difference between human and chimp DNA is 14 times greater than the often-quoted 1 percent statistic.

It’s true that large portions of the human genome are still only about 1.5 percent genetically different from the chimp genome. We’ll explore what that means in a subsequent post. But the new data reveal just how little this one fact tells us about the overall picture. We now know that major portions of the two genomes — 12.5 percent to 13.3 percent of the human genome, in fact — are so different that arguably the sections are unalignable and/or not directly present in one genome or the other.

And he has subsequent articles dealing with the details:

• Fact Check: New “Complete” Chimp Genome Shows 14.9 Percent Difference from Human Genome
• Genetic Differences Between Humans and Chimps Represent Functional DNA
• What’s the Best Explanation for Human-Chimp Genetic Differences?

So, if this is something you or your children have ever encountered, it might be worth familizarizing yourself with the response: that the original estimates were based on using the human genome as a “target” and ignored the new evidence of gap differences. You can always come back to Casey’s articles if you need more evidence.

I hope you also see how you have to play the game as a Christian, in terms of strategy. When I was young, I didn’t have the parents or the experts to help me deal with the government school teachers. I was alone! And in many ways, I’m still alone now. But even so, every Christian has to navigate the world as it is, guarding their beliefs until the time when they are strong enough to make their claims in public. Now, I have no problem butting heads with the atheists in my workplace – they’re terrified of me. But that’s the result of a long journey of reading books, listening to podcasts and watching debates, and keeping up with the data on all of these controversial questions.

So, I recommend to people to get a copy of Luskin’s book “The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith“. And if you haven’t checked out the Discovery Institutes classes in biology and chemistry for students, you should do it. The default path for most young people in America is just to believe a lot of lies and half-truths served up to them by failure-to-launch teachers whose salaries based on whether their students can be tricked into voting for bigger government. They have an agenda.

I should mention that Shareef did eventually become a Christian, although he is still pretty liberal politically.

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A MUST-SEE lecture based on Dr. Stephen C. Meyer’s book “Signature in the Cell“. One of my favorite 6 arguments for a Creator and Designer is the origin of the simplest replicating living system. When you look into the cell, what you’ll find is carefully sequenced components that for complex structures, like proteins. In this lecture, you’ll learn all about this “biological information”.

I highly recommend watching the lecture, and looking at the slides. The quality of the video and the content is first class. There is some Q&A (9 minutes) at the end of the lecture.

Topics:

• intelligent design is concerned with measuring the information-creating capabilities of natural forces like mutation and selection
• Darwinists think that random mutations and natural selection can explain the origin and diversification of living systems
• Darwinian mechanisms are capable of explaining small-scale adaptive changes within types of organisms
• but there is skepticism, even among naturalists, that Darwinian mechanisms can explain the origin of animal designs
• even if you concede that Darwinism can account for all of the basic animal body plans, there is still the problem of life’s origin
• can Darwinian mechanisms explain the origin of the first life? Is there a good naturalistic hypothesis to explain it?
• there are at least two places in the history of life where new information is needed: origin of life, and Cambrian explosion
• overview of the structure of DNA and protein synthesis (he has helpful pictures and he uses the snap lock blocks, too)
• the DNA molecule is composed of a sequence of bases that code for proteins, and the sequence is carefully selected to have biological function
• meaningful sequences of things like computer code, English sentences, etc. require an adequate cause
• it is very hard to arrive at a meaningful sequence of a non-trivial length by randomly picking symbols/letters
• although any random sequence of letters is improbable, the vast majority of sequences are gibberish/non-compiling code
• similarly, most random sequences of amino acids are lab-proven (Doug Axe’s work) to be non-functional gibberish
• the research showing this was conducted at Cambridge University and published in the Journal of Molecular Biology
• so, random mutation cannot explain the origin of the first living cell
• however, even natural selection coupled with random mutation cannot explain the first living cell
• there must already be replication in order for mutation and selection to work, so they can’t explain the first replicator
• but the origin of life is the origin of the first replicator – there is no replication prior to the first replicator
• the information in the first replicator cannot be explained by law, such as by chemical bonding affinities
• the amino acids are attached like magnetic letters on a refrigerator
• the magnetic force sticks the letters ON the fridge, but they don’t determine the specific sequence of the letters
• if laws did determine the sequence of letters, then the sequences would be repetitive
• the three materialist explanations – chance alone, chance and law, law alone – are not adequate to explain the effect
• the best explanation is that an intelligent cause is responsible for the biological explanation in the first replicator
• we know that intelligent causes can produce functional sequences of information, e.g. – English, Java code
• the structure and design of DNA matches up nicely with the design patterns used by software engineers (like WK!)

There are some very good tips in this lecture so that you will be able to explain intelligent design to others in simple ways, using everyday household items and children’s toys to symbolize the amino acids, proteins, sugar phosphate backbones, etc.

Proteins are constructed from a sequence of amino acids:

A sequence of amino acids forming a proteinProteins sticking onto the double helix structure of DNA:

Some proteins sticking onto the sugar phosphate backboneI highly, highly recommend this lecture. You will be delighted and you will learn something.

Here is an article that gives a general overview of how intelligent design challenges. If you want to read something more detailed about the material that he is covering in the lecture above related to the origin of life, there is a pretty good article here.

There is a good breakdown of some of the slides with helpful flow charts here on Uncommon Descent.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument
• The unexpected applicability of mathematics to nature

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Although we live in a culture that is dominated by the thoughts and opinions of secular leftists, science provides useful information for those who want defend Biblical morality. Consider the issue of sexuality and marriage. Secular leftists claim that sex outside of marriage is natural, and produces happiness. Bible believing Christians and Jews say chastity is best. Who is right?

Here is the latest study authored by Dr. Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah. His previous book on relationships was published by Oxford University Press. In his analysis of the data, Wolfinger controlled for divorce rates, religiosity, and socioeconomic status.

Here’s the most important graph:

Study: virgins have the happiest marriages, more partners means less happinessOther factors that increased marital happiness: having a 4-year college degree (5%), having a salary > 78K (5%), regular church attendance (6%). Notice that women are more dissatisfied with marriage (in general) than men are, and they tend to blame the spouse they freely chose for that unhappiness.

The Federalist also reported on previous research relevant to this study:

Psychologists Galena K. Rhoades and Scott M. Stanley found that women who have had sex with someone other than their husband report statistically significant drops in marital quality over those who don’t. A 2004 study by sociologist Jay Teachman showed that intimate premarital activities such as cohabitation and intercourse increased the rate of marital dissolution by anywhere between 28 and 109 percent, depending on the activity.

Wolfinger also noted in a previous study that only 5% of women were virgins when they married.

Wolfinger noted that a possible explanation for the link between promiscuity and unhappiness is that people look back on their past partners and compare their spouse unfavorably to them. This is especially the case with women. My concern about this is that feminism has taught women to try to increase their social standing by having hook-up sex with attractive bad boys. If those women ever marry, they do it when they are older, less fertile, and less attractive. The husband they eventually “settle” for will (in their minds) always compare unfavorably to the hot bad boys they had sex with when they were younger and prettier. This, I believe, is what leads to their unhappiness with the man they chose to marry.

More partners also means more marital instability

In a previous post, I blogged about several studies linking virginity to marital stability. Couples who don’t have sex before marriage, or even who delayed it, reported better communication, higher satisfaction, better quality sex, and a lower chance of divorce.

Men ought to be aware of this research when they are choosing a spouse. Women initiate 69% of divorces, and the most common reason given is “unhappiness”. Well, now we know what’s causing that unhappiness – a high number of sexual partners prior to marrying. Smart men should prefer a virgin, for the increased happiness and increased stability. A large number of past sexual partners teaches women that relationships are engines for them to be happy, not commitments that are permanent and exclusive. They’ll have internalized the view that relationships are not commitments to invest in self-sacrificially. The pattern will be: “if it doesn’t make me feel happy right now, then it should be ended”. It will be seen as the man’s fault that she is unhappy, even if the study I talked about above shows the real reason is her past promiscuity. Men who aren’t serious about evaluating the character of the women for the marriage enterprise are running the risk of divorce, it’s that simple.

The best way to make sure that you have a clear head when evaluating a woman is to stay sober, and keep her hands off of you. When a man refuses to let a woman cloud his judgment with sex, then she is forced to learn how to love him in marriage-oriented ways, e.g. – help him, support him, and submit to his leadership. Male chastity encourages women who have been influenced by feminism to abandon selfishness, fun-seeking, and thrill-seeking, so that they learn to care for others. Male chastity also helps a man to resist older women who chose bad boys in their teens and 20s and want to get married to a good provider in their 30s. The studies discussed above clearly show that such women are more likely to be unhappy, and their future marriages are more likely to be unstable. Avoid them. You don’t want to be in a marriage to someone who isn’t very good at it, because she never prepared herself for it.

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Many women today, including “Christian” feminists, complain about the decline of traditional male behaviors. They like the male behaviors that benefit women, like protecting and providing, but they strongly oppose other male behaviors: spiritual and moral leading. They only want “servant leadership” (non-judgmental ATM). They don’t want leadership that fights lies and evil.

Here’s an example of how society – under the influence of feminism – responds to traditional male spiritual and moral leadership, as reported in Daily Wire:

An Oregon education worker is suing his district, claiming it threatened to fire him for displaying several “transphobic” books, including Daily Wire host Matt Walsh’s children’s book “Johnny the Walrus.”

Rod Theis has worked as an education specialist at the InterMountain Education Service District outside of Portland since 2008. In his office, Theis had displayed several children’s books, including two titled “He is He” and “She is She” as well as “Johnny the Walrus,” all books with messages rejecting transgender ideology.

A school employee saw some of the books and complained that they were “transphobic,” even filing a “bias incident” complaint with the district, the lawsuit says.

In response, the district opened an investigation and ultimately “ordered him to remove them and threatened him with discipline simply because it disagreed with the books’ content,” Theis’ lawsuit against the district, which he filed Wednesday, claims.

The district said the books were a “hostile expression of animus toward another person relating to their actual or perceived gender identity” and warned him that “further conduct of this nature” may result in discipline, including termination, the suit says.

Meanwhile, the district was allegedly allowing other employees to decorate in support of transgender ideology as well as “Black Lives Matter” and support for the teachers’ union.

The plaintiff is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is who I would pick if I were in his shoes.

And the ADF says this in their press release:

The district has created and implemented a speech policy that forbids employees from expressing a biological view of sex but permits employees to express viewpoints that a person’s subjective identity determines whether a person is male or female, not a person’s sex. The district’s censorship of Theis’ message, and the speech policy on which that censorship was based, violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

According to the complaint, the plaintiff:

• • is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker employed by IMESD as an Education Specialist
  • is a professing Christian who bases his beliefs on the Bible and strives to live out his Christian faith at work and in the community
  • has sincerely held religious beliefs govern his views about all aspects of life, including human nature, sex, and gender
  • is motivated by his sincerely held religious beliefs to speak on many topics from a Christian worldview
  • believes that all people should be treated with dignity and respect, that God created every person male or female, and that people should accept their God-given sex and not seek to reject or change it

So let me comment about this.

I have a very different view of Christianity and male leadership than virtually all Christians. Basically, I disagree with “servant leadership”, and that’s the dominant view of how men should lead today.

The standard cultural view of Christianity is “a set of rules that forces men to be nice so that people will like us so that we will feel good”. This is how most Christians understand Christianity today. For them, it’s not about making truth claims, especially ones that offend non-Christians. And it’s not about taking moral stands, because that is mean and judgmental, and makes people not like us. The standard view is that God wants people to like us, and he wants us to feel good. And that’s why it’s considered normal and natural to respond to a Christian man’s leadership on moral and spiritual issues with censorship and coercion. Everyone is so sure that Christianity is a tool for making men be “nice” that they are sure that Christian men who are not “nice” are wrong, and need to be punished.

My view of Christianity is not the standard cultural view. My view is the old view – namely, that men should be allowed to put up books in their offices to indicate that they oppose transing children, even if it is seen by feelings-based people as “mean” and “judgmental”.

Men have to be free to fight lies and evil. And if it is too difficult for a good man to do while married then men have to not marry. And if it is too difficult for a good man to do outside of a male-dominated profession, then men have to work in a male-dominated profession. And if it’s too difficult for a good man to do because he’s born in a feelings-dominated country, then the man has to immigrate to a better country. The point is that men should not put himself in an environment where the feelings-based people are going to rule over him.

C.S. Lewis wrote a wonderful essay a while back called “Men Without Chests”. It appears in the book “The Abolition of Man” which is one of his best works. In the essay, he explains how people expect men to behave honorably and self-sacrificially, even after they have removed the metaphysical underpinnings of those convictions. This case shows how they did it. They feelings-based people punish Christian men every time to speak out about things that God wants men to speak out about.

So, think about the tyranny of “nice”, and the toxicity of “empathy” when you wonder why men are not performing according to your expectations. “Why don’t men give us all their money and stop judging our bad behaviors?” It’s because good men don’t get involved in situations where they will be punished for leading on moral and spiritual issues. We are not here to be your servants. We are here to lead you.

When you emasculate good men out of their natural roles of moral and spiritual leadership, you don’t get the non-judgmental “servant leadership” ATM that you wanted. You get nothing – because good men decline to be reduced to people-pleasing slaves. Good men will find some other way to serve Boss that doesn’t put us under the control of feelings-based people. Every decision I made in my education, career and finances was to escape the coercion of the “be nice, be liked, feel good” crowd. I already HAVE a Boss.

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I waited to blog on Colorado’s new bill that punishes parents who raise their their kids according to Christian values. Now that it’s passed, and we have the final version, let’s find out what’s in it. Then I’m going to ask why Christians and / or conservatives are content to live their lives – and pay their taxes – in states that trample on their religion and values. And I think I know the answer.

First, here’s the article from the Daily Caller, written by Mary Rooke, one of my favorite columnists:

Under the guise of “anti-discrimination” and adding legal protection for so-called transgender individuals, Colorado lawmakers adopted into law House Bill 25-1312, “Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals,” which may violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Previously, I blogged on a new study that listed 7 different risks to children who undergo so-called “gender-affirming care”. I asked everyone to remember the top two: infertility and damage to bones. I’m very pleased with myself that I was able to name those two risks again today, while writing this post! And without any help! That’s why I write these blog posts. In case you need a refresher, here was the list in order of risk:

1. Infertility
2. Bone Health Deterioration
3. Cardiovascular Complications
4. Sexual Dysfunction
5. Regret/Detransition
6. Mental Health Concerns
7. Cancer Risk

But the Daily Caller article explains why it’s apparently a crime for parents to tell their children about this study, and try to warn them about the need to make wise decisions.

It says:

This bill puts the government and schools in charge of the welfare of children by requiring that the courts consider whether parents committed cardinal sins of transgender ideology like deadnaming or misgendering, which is now considered “coercive control” under the law. It also prevents the court from removing a child from a parent for allowing the child to receive so-called “gender-affirming care services.”

And:

HB 25-1312 also changes the state law to include deadnaming and misgendering as discriminatory acts. This makes using biological pronouns and birth names in a public place a discriminatory practice, which could mean fines starting at $5,000 per violation. It requires teachers to use “chosen” names and pronouns, and that school districts provide clothes and other amenities for these confused children, even if the parents disapprove.

It’s important to note that it’s not just disrespecting the will of the parents – who are the taxpayers that pay the salaries of the perverts. It’s that they want to punish the parents for disagreeing with Democrats on this issue. So, parents are good enough to pay taxes to the secular leftists, but not good enough to raise their own kids. They’re just slaves, in effect. And kings and queens don’t care what their slaves think about morality. Slaves just work and pay taxes.

One more quote from Mary, then I will give my opinion:

The left wants you to believe that the government has the right to sever the parent-child relationship by ending the importance of parental authority. It also wants you to believe in a false reality that sex is not immutable by forcing even non-parents to use fake names and pronouns. Their ultimate goal is to get to children. They want them so badly, and you, as their parent, stand in the way.

We have to fix this problem. Not only should this law be struck down as unconstitutional, but any state official who voted for or otherwise signed their name to it should face serious repercussions at the ballot box. We have to end the left’s control of our state and local governments, or these laws will continue to pass.

These are good thoughts, but I don’t think we need to reform any state or city laws. We just need to have the courage to leave blue cities and blue states. And I know why Christians don’t do it, too.

Christians don’t leave blue states for two reasons. Reason 1 is because they aren’t living lives that are inconvenced by these laws. For one reason or another, it’s not going to bother their plans at all if the secular left is taking their money and making decisions to limit their freedom. Probably because their plan isn’t Christian at all. There’s a lot of people who claim the label who have no plan.

The second reason is that too many Christians marry non-Christian spouses. These are spouses who think that Christianity is supposed to make them popular and happy. They don’t like to think about news or laws or anything else that will make them feel bad. And this isn’t a situation where the real Christian is the victim of a fake Christian spouse. People CHOOSE who they marry. If your “Christian” spouse likes to live in a blue state, then it’s YOUR fault for marrying that person. There is no use complaining about the state transing your kid if you chose to marry a secular leftist. And don’t complain about family courts in a blue state, when your property is plundered for the rest of your life because of an angry secular leftist judge.

Don’t pay taxes in blue states. Move to a red state. That’s the best way to change your blue state to a red state. When you leave, your tax money leaves with you, and that’s the only thing that will stop the abuse of Christian parents by the secular left. They understand money – they understand when the money leaves their state.

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One of the worst things about secular leftism is their denial of human rights. For a secular leftist, it’s so tempting to want to collect money from taxpayers, then use that money to punish taxpayers who disagree with them. One of the ways that this happened during the Biden regime is when the government used heavily-armed police to pre-dawn raid the homes of Christians.

But the House Republicans are going to do something about it.

This Daily Wire article explains:

The House of Representatives will take steps towards repealing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act this week, a law repeatedly weaponized against pro-life activists by President Joe Biden’s administration.

Lawmakers on Wednesday will mark up H.R. 589, the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025, which Texas Congressman Chip Roy introduced in January. The bill “repeals provisions of federal criminal law that prohibit conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with persons who are seeking to (1) obtain or provide reproductive health services, or (2) exercise their right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”

Senator Mike Lee of Utah introduced the Senate version of the bill in January as well.

If you don’t know the names “Chip Roy” and “Mike Lee”, you should. Roy is one of the most conservative Congressman in the House, and an early backer of Ron DeSantis in 2024. DeSantis was the mst conservative candidate for president running in 2024. Lee is one of the most conservative Senators in the Senate. Roy and Lee were clearly not happy with the Biden administration using government to punish people who disagree with the Democrat party.

The article talks about that:

The move comes after years of work from Roy and his team, who aggressively argued in favor of repealing the FACE Act while the Biden Justice Department used the law to imprison pro-life activist after pro-life activist from 2022 to 2024, often pairing FACE with a felony conspiracy charge to lock peaceful pro-life protesters. President Donald Trump pardoned these imprisoned activists earlier this year.

I blogged earlier about how well Trump has performed for the pro-lifers who voted for him. Pardoning the pro-lifers was one of the most significant actions he took on behalf of his pro-life voters.

It might be worth reviewing the kind of person that Biden appointed to persecute Christians for their not-Democrat views.

This article from Daily Signal tells us all about Kristen Clarke:

Clarke served as president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a left-wing activist group. She also worked for five years at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a leftist group that links abortion to “racial justice.” Both groups have frequently accessed the Biden White House and received large cash infusions from the Left’s dark money network… She cited the far-left smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center in condemning Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit pro-life and religious freedom law firm, as a “hate group.”

[…]She said that those protesting Dr. Anthony Fauci, the controversial COVID-19 czar and now-retired head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, should be “publicly identified and named, barred from treatment at any public hospital if/when they fall ill and denied coverage under their insurance.”

[…]Clarke had been arrested for attacking her then-husband, Reginald Avery, with a knife, deeply slicing one of his fingers to the bone in 2006. The pair finalized their divorce in 2009. Clarke had the arrest expunged from her record, and during her Senate confirmation, she denied ever having been arrested or having been accused of committing a violent crime. Clarke admitted to her failure to disclose that arrest, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, called for her to resign.

That’s who Trump-supporters were really voting against, when they voted for Trump in 2024. Trump-supporters voters to stop the persecution of Christians by the government.

What about the people who dislike Trump, and can’t understand why Christians would vote for him? Well, they probably don’t know who Chip Roy, Mike Lee or Kristen Clarke are. They know about Trump, because their TVs told them to hate Trump. But Christians and conservatives don’t get their news from watching TV. We monitored stories like the persecution of pro-life Christians, and we voted to oppose the weaponization of Big Government against Christians. We voted for the results we wanted. We did not vote to have happy feelings or to virtue signal.

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Desert Rose got a review copy of “The Immortal Mind“, and she loves it. Her mom loves it. And two of her neightbors love it, too. It’s made a huge splash. Although the material is scientific evidence, it’s written in a way that non-scientists can understand. And these are interesting topics to talk about with skeptics, atheists, and non-Christians. Let’s take a look at what’s in the book.

The book is about what the best explanation is for our mental experiences: consciousness, abstract thought, and free will. Basically, what is the “mind”? One view is that your mind is just your physical brain. That’s called “materialism”. Then there is “dualism”, where you are your mind, and you interact with your physical body. Which way does the evidence point?

Here’s the description of the new book:

Many scientists and doctors believe that there is no such thing as the soul. That there is no part of us that persists beyond death. We are not spiritual in any respect. We are made up of cells and tissue, and completely controlled by a material organ in our heads: the brain.

In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Michael Egnor, practicing neurosurgeon, neuroscientist and Professor of Neurosurgery at Stony Brook University, makes the case—based on 40 years of practice and over 7,000 brain surgeries—that science has gotten it all wrong. The human brain is incredible, mysterious, and powerful. But it’s not what makes us who we are. The soul does that.

Drawing on the most important research studies in neuroscience, Dr. Egnor presents evidence that the brain alone does not explain the mind. He explores, using modern neuroscience and his vast surgical experience, how inside every damaged brain there is a thinking, feeling person with a spiritual soul that transcends the brain. He argues that scientists can locate the parts of the brain that control the body or sensations or emotions, but they can’t find the seat of reason or free will. He uses fascinating case studies to show how cutting-edge brain surgery on patients who are awake, how research on conjoined twins who share parts of their brains, on patients in deep coma who are still able to communicate with people around them, on near-death experiences, and on artificial intelligence all make a scientific case for the existence of the spiritual human soul.

Engaging, thought-provoking, and groundbreaking, The Immortal Mind shows here that some aspect of who we are is spiritual and immortal, transcending the physical body. Using science, he proves the existence of the human soul.

You can pre-order the book here.

I know that there are great arguments for the soul in philosophy, like persistent identity over time, or intentionality. But somehow, I just feel that it is more persuasive to talk about the scientific evidence, and that’s what this book does.

When it comes to Creator and Designer, I have 6 arguments that use scientific evidence:

1. origin of the universe
2. cosmic fine-tuning
3. origin of life
4. fossil record
5. habitability
6. molecular machines

What I’d really like is to get a seventh argument added to my list. Another argument for falsifying naturalism / materialism that is based on scientific evidence. Run up the score! 7-0. Sounds like a football game now.

There is a GREAT pre-order goody if you order the book before May 31st. You get a free digital copy of “Minding the Brain“. It has articles by people you might recognize: Taliaferro, Menuge, Farris, Egnor, Marks, Gordon, Habermas! Lots of different topics by different authors, kind of like “The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith”, which is one of my favorite books.

I already bought Minding the Brain on Kindle, but if you like making an argument for the the soul, then it’s a great collection of chapters from some of the best scholars, and the digital version is free if you pre-order “The Immortal Mind”. Let me know in the comments if you have ever done prep to make an argument for the soul.

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Once upon a time I didn’t know much about the case for abortion rights or the case for the right to life of unborn children. My reason for not reading much about it is that I thought that it was kind of a subjective issue. But, I started a project to read 1-2 books on every conceivable topic, including one on abortion. Lo and behold, it turned out that one side did have the backing of science.

This article from The Public Discourse explains: (links removed)

The following are typical examples—only three of the many, many we could cite. These are from standard texts by embryologists, developmental biologists, and microbiologists:

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).” Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition.

“Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.” Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, Cell Tissue Research.

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a ‘moment’) is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte” (emphasis added; Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Mueller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition.

The genetically distinct part is key – this unborn child is has a different DNA signature (a human signature) than either the mother or the father. Nothing will be added or taken away from this new signature as the unborn child grows. It never changes.

More:

These authorities all agree because the underlying science is clear. At fertilization—or, more precisely, when the sperm (a male sex cell) fuses with the oocyte (a female sex cell, more commonly referred to as an egg)—each of them ceases to be, and a new entity, one that is both genetically and functionally distinct from either parent, is generated. This new entity, initially a single totipotent cell, then divides into two cells, then (asynchronously) three, then four, eight, and so on, enclosed all the while by a membrane inherited from the oocyte (the zona pellucida), which then dissolves during implantation, allowing for continued growth in the direction of maturity as a member of the species. Even prior to implantation, however, these cells and membrane function as parts of a whole that regularly and predictably develops into the more mature stages of a complex human body.

How do we know that the result of sperm-oocyte fusion is a new entity, rather than a continuation of the oocyte? We know that a new entity exists because, once the sperm penetrates the oocyte, a completely new trajectory of biological development commences. The biological activity of an oocyte is directed toward successful fertilization; the biological activity of sperm is directed toward penetration of an oocyte. The biological activity of the new entity that results when sperm and oocyte fuse, however, is directed toward nothing less than the development of a mature human organism, distinct from either parent. Further, this new entity’s activities are directed not by instructions from the mother’s body, as some people wrongly suppose, but by its own unique set of instructions, especially the blueprint for development contained in its unique genetic material. The mother’s body recognizes the zygote and then the embryo as an entity distinct from itself. In fact, the embryo must send out chemical signals to prevent the mother’s immune system from attacking it. The embryo also emits chemical signals that induce changes in the lining of the mother’s uterus to enable successful implantation.

If this embryo is provided a suitable environment, nutrition, and protection from deliberate attack, serious injury, or disease, it will develop to the mature stage of a human organism. Thus, from the zygote stage onward this distinct, new organism has all of the internal resources—in its genetic and epigenetic structure—needed to develop itself (or, rather, himself or herself, since in the human sex is determined from the very beginning) to the mature stage of a human organism. At no point after fertilization—implantation, gastrulation, birth, puberty, etc.—does a fundamental change in biological trajectory occur. These subsequent stages of development are simply the unfolding of the zygote’s inherent dynamism toward human organismal maturity. This shows that the zygote already is a human organism—a member of the species Homo sapiens—albeit at an early stage of his or her development.

So, since I like to win arguments with science, I just took the side of the debate that was backed by science. I really hate to lose debates, you know. I really like to cite scientific evidence when I’m debating.

The crime of abortion, it seems to me, is that you are depriving a human being of his or her future, because of your convenience right now. Human beings don’t have the right to take away the futures of other human beings because they want to be unburdened by the results of their own actions. We shouldn’t resort to violence in order to escape responsibility for our own actions. In almost every case, (except to save the life of the mother), killing the unborn child isn’t justified. It’s actually very scary to me that anyone would think that hurting other people was a reasonable response to one’s own diminished happiness. How did we ever get to a place in society when people don’t think that taking responsibility to care for the unborn child is morally better than killing the unborn child? It’s a baby for goodness sake. We ought to be serious about setting up our lives and controlling ourselves so that we never hurt an unborn child.

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Here is the video from the third debate from Dr. William Lane Craig’s speaking tour in Australia.

Format:

• William Lane Craig (15 min)
• Lawrence Krauss (15 min, but was actually 21:40)
• Moderated discussion
• Question and answer

Dr. Graham Oppy, the moderator, is a well-known atheist philosopher. He let Dr. Krauss speak for 21 minutes and 40 seconds, which is why my summary of Krauss is so long.

The video:

Summary

After careful consideration, I decided not to be snarky at all in this summary. What you read below is what happened. There may be some small mistakes, but I will fix those if people tell me about them. I also included some quotes and timestamps for the more striking things that Dr. Krauss said.

The debate itself starts at 4:50 with Dr. Craig’s opening speech. He does use slides to show the structure of his arguments.

Dr. Craig’s opening speech. (4:50)

1. The kalam cosmological argument:
   • God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe
   • The Borde Guth Vilenkin theorem supports the absolute beginning of the universe
   • Even if our universe is part of a multiverse, the multiverse itself would have to have an absolute beginning
   • Speculative cosmologies try to challenge the Big Bang theory, but none of them – even if true – can establish that the past is eternal
   • Only two types of things could explain the origin of spece, time, matter and energy – either abstract objects or minds
   • Abstract objects do not cause effects, but minds do cause effects (we do it ourselves)
   • A mind is the best explanation for the origin of the universe
2. The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics:
   • The underlying structure of nature is mathematical – mathematics is applicable to nature
   • Mathematical objects can either be abstract objects or useful fiction
   • Either way, there is no reason to expect that nature should be linked to abstract objects or fictions
   • But a divine mind that wants humans to understand nature is a better explanation for what we see
3. The cosmic fine-tuning for the existence of intelligent life
   • There are two kinds of finely-tuned initial conditions: 1) cosmological constants and 2) quantities
   • These constants and quantities have to be set within a narrow range in order to permit intelligent life
   • There are three explanations for this observation: law, chance or design
   • Law is rejected because they are put in at the beginning or matter – they don’t emerge from matter
   • Chance must be rejected, because they odds are just too long unless you appeal to a world-ensemble
   • We do not observe what the world ensemble hypothesis predicts that we should observe
   • Design is the best explanation for finely-tuned constants and quantities
4. The existence of objective moral values and duties
   • Our experience of morality (values and duties) is that it is objectively real and incumbent on us
   • When someone goes into a classroom and shoots at innocent children, that is objectively wrong
   • On naturalism, moral values and moral duties do not exist – they are conventional and variable by time and place
   • The best explanation for the existence of objective moral values and duties is that God exists
5. The historicity of the resurrection of Jesus
   • There are three widely-accepted facts that are best explained by the resurrection hypothesis
   • 1) the empty tomb, 2) the post-mortem appearances, 3) the early church’s belief in the resurrection
   • Naturalistic attempts to explain these 3 boilerplate facts fail
   • The best explanation of the 3 minimal facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead
6. The immediate experience of God
   • Belief in God is a “properly basic” belief – rational even without arguments because of experience of God

Dr. Krauss’ opening speech. (21:12)

Slides: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)

1. Religious pluralism I
   • There have been lots of different gods created by people through history
   • We’ve gotten rid of all of them by understanding how the universe works by doing science
   • Religion is just stories, and the stories are inconsistent with how the universe works
2. Progress of naturalistic science I
   • Newtonian physics refutes the idea that angels push planets around
   • Darwinian evolution refutes design arguments, including the one that Dr. Craig presented (24:10)
   • Biochemistry hasn’t explained how life originated, but we will have the solution soon
   • Physics shows us that matter can be created and destroyed without need a God
   • Physics shows us that universes can be created and destroyed “no problem”
3. Religious pluralism II
   • Since we have been able to disprove all the gods we’ve invented, why hang on to the last one
   • It’s unlikely that the God that Dr. Craig presented exists, because we disproved all the others he didn’t present
4. Hiddenness of God
   • There is a complete lack of evidence for the other 999 gods, so how likely is it that the God Dr. Craig presented exists
5. Religious pluralism III
   • There are inconsistencies between various religions, so therefore there can be no religion that is right
6. Progress of naturalistic science II
   • Peasants had a very low level of knowledge about the world and they believed in God
   • But our level of knowledge has increased over time, so we shouldn’t believe in God now
   • Peasants thought that the Earth orbited the Sun, but this is now known to be false
   • The Scriptures said that the Earth orbited the Sun, but now we know that’s false from science
7. Christianity plagiarizes from other religions I
   • There is nothing new or special about Jesus
   • He’s just as unpleasant as all the other gods
   • Everything particular to Jesus occurs in other religions
8. Catholics are inconsistent about what they believe
   • I’ll bet most Catholics don’t really believe in transubstantiation
   • I’ll bet most Catholics don’t really believe in the virgin birth
9. The resurrection is copied from many other religions
   • Dionysus, Osiris, etc.
10. There is no evidence for the resurrection
    • The stories about Jesus were written “decades or hundreds of years after the fact”
    • The stories are inconsistent with each other
    • Dr. Craig tells me that historical Jesus scholars all accept that the resurrection happened
    • That’s like saying that all alien abductions experts agree that alien abductions happened
    • It’s unreasonable to think that the resurrection happened because no one saw it happen
    • I accept that people reported on appearances, but hallucination theory can explain that
11. The timeline for the creation and incarnation are all wrong
    • The creation, planet formation, hominids, incarnation, etc. all take place in the wrong times
    • If God knew what he was doing, he would done everything at better times to be more efficient
12. David Hume’s argument against miracles is sound
    • Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – nothing wrong with this argument
    • Miracles are really just coincidences
    • Catholic apparitions at Lourdes disprove the historical argument that Dr. Craig made for the resurrection
13. God is petty and jealous
    • God shouldn’t demand that we trust him, esteem him and consider his character when we make decisions
    • The atoning death of Jesus for the sins of the world also makes no sense
14. Belief is based on geography
    • What you believe is clearly correlated with where you are born
    • There is even an Islamic clone of Dr. Craig who “uses the exact same arguments” that he does to prove Islam
    • Belief in God is decreasing in the Internet-accessible world
15. Science can develop morals without God
    • Reason is able to guide our actions to be moral
    • Morality evolves over time, so there is no objective morality
    • Catholicism teaches things that are immoral
    • Some things are prohibited by biological revulsion, such as incest
    • But if a brother and sister have sex using condoms “is that morally wrong? I can’t say it is frankly” (37:24)
16. Dr. Craig is irrational
    • “I came here convinced based on my past interactions and his writing that Dr. Craig was a dishonest Charlatan”
    • “Any argument that validates God is reasonable to him”
    • “And any argument against it is not only unreasonable but wrong and worth distorting”
    • “Because it must be wrong – he’s decided the answer in advance”
17. Dr. Craig is immoral
    • Dr. Craig thinks it is OK for God to command that Canaanite children are killed
    • “So in fact if they were Canaanite children in that schoolroom that he talked about then it would be OK”
    • It’s not reasonable to justify genocide in that way, but Dr. Craig is willing to go to those lengths
18. The cause of the origin of the space time universe need not be God
    • Dr. Craig says that if there is an explanation for the origin or space, time, matter and energy it must be God
    • But it could just as easily be turtles or Zeus
19. Dr. Craig misrepresents the Borde Guth Vilenkin theorem
    • Alexander Vilenkin wrote me an e-mail that says that the theorem doesn’t work in all cases
    • “Dr. Craig is so convinced that these arguments must be true that he won’t listen to the fact that they’re not”
20. Darwinian evolution explains the fine-tuning
    • “Life was fine tuned – we got rid of it with Darwin”
    • Mutation and natural selection explain the cosmic fine-tuning argument that Dr. Craig presented
21. Suboptimal design disproves the fine-tuning argument
    • “We get back aches” therefore “This argument that [the universe] is fine-tuned for life is nonsense”
22. William Lane Craig can be proven to exhibit homosexual behavior using logical arguments
    • Look, you can construct arguments that are clearly wrong
    • Premise 1: “All mammals exhibit homosexual behavior”
    • Premise 2: “William Lane Craig is a mammal”
    • Seems to be saying that logical arguments can prove false things “it’s nonsense”
23. Dr. Craig distorted a podcast that some group made on pain receptors
    • Dr. Craig’s faith is so strong that it causes him to distort what this group said

Discussion: (44:35)

I will not be summarizing everything that was said, just a few main points.
The segment from 52:18 to 57:12 about the Vilenkin e-mail on the BVG theorem is a must-see. Krauss is standing up and gesticulating while Craig is calmly trying to quote a paper by Vilenkin that shows that Krauss is misrepresenting Vilenkin. Krauss constantly interrupts him. After a while, when Craig exposes him as having misrepresented Vilenkin and gets him to admit that all current eternal models of the universe are probably wrong, he quietens down and can’t even look at Craig in the face.

Cosmological argument:

• Craig: The e-mail says any universe that is expanding, on average, requires a beginning
• Craig: There are two models – Aguirre & Gratton and Carroll & Chen – where there is a period of contraction before the expansion
• Craig: The two models are the ones cited in the e-mail that Dr. Krauss showed
• Craig: In the very paper by Vilenkin that I cited, he says that both of those models don’t work
• Krauss: (agitated and interrupting) Vilenkin said that they have to make an assumption about entropy that they have no rationale for
• (as Craig starts to talk Krauss makes an exaggerated, disrespectful gesture and sits down in a huff)
• Craig: Yes, an unwarranted assumption means that they don’t have EVIDENCE for their theories being correct
• Krauss: (agitated and interrupting) “All the evidence suggests that the universe had a beginning but WE DON’T KNOW!!!!!!!” (raising his voice)
• Craig: I’m not saying that we know that the universe had a beginning with certainty
• Craig: I am saying that the beginning of the universe is more probably true than false based on the evidence we have
• Craig: And you agree with me about that – you think the universe had a beginning
• Krauss: (agitated and interrupting) (Unintelligible)
• Moderator: One at a time
• Craig: In your Vilenkin e-mail slide, at the end of the paragraph where the two models are mentioned that Vilenkin specifically shows…
• (I am guessing that Craig is going to ask why so much of what Vilenkin wrote has been cut out of the e-mail that Krauss showed)
• Krauss: (agitated and interrupting) Because it was technical…
• Moderator: Lawrence! Hang on a sec!
• Craig: He specifically shows that these models are not past eternal, and that they require a beginning just like the others…
• Krauss: (agitated and interrupting) We can do the math if you want
• Craig: Now wait. I couldn’t help notice that there on your slide there was a series of ellipsis points indicating missing text…
• Krauss: (agitated and interrupting) “Yeah, because it was technical!”
• Craig: “I wonder what you deleted from the original letter”
• Krauss: (agitated and interrupting) “I just told you!”
• Craig: “Now wait. Could it have been something like this: (reads a quote from Vilenkin) ‘You can evade the theorem by postulating that the universe was contracting prior to some time. This sounds as if there is nothing wrong with having contraction prior to expansion. But the problem is that a contracting universe is highly unstable. Small perturbations would cause it to develop all sorts of messy singularities, so it would never make it to the expanding phase.’
• Craig: “That’s Vilenkin.”
• Krauss: “In this paper, that’s absolutely right”
• Krauss: But it’s ok for theories to assume things that we know are wrong – they are still good theories – it’s unknown
• (Craig turns away and looks through his papers)
• Craig: “Isn’t it true that the only viable quantum gravity models on order today involve a beginning – have a finite past?”
• Krauss: “No”
• Craig: “Well, can you give us one then”
• Krauss: (talks about a variety of possible eternal models) “In my experience in science, all of them are probably wrong”
• Krauss: “You know most theories are wrong, which is why, you know, it’s hard”
• Craig: “Right”

I noticed that a huge number of atheist web sites are taking the Vilenkin quote that Krauss used out of context, like this one and this one. There are probably a lot more of them like that, which I think is interesting. That’s why we have these debates, I guess. To set the record straight about who accuses people of being dishonest, and who is actually dishonest.

Fine-tuning:

• Krauss tried to argue that he had explained the fine-tuning with the Higgs particle, but Dr. Craig said that only applied to the cosmological constant, not all the other examples of fine-tuning. Krauss said that it wasn’t impressive that this universe permitted life and that “It would have been much more surprising if we evolved in a universe in which we couldn’t live”. Krauss argued the fine-tuning was only for “Life like us”. But Dr. Craig explained that the fine-tuning is what allows us to have the basics of any kind of life, like slow-burning stars, chemical diversity, etc. – things that are required for basic minimal life functions in any living system. Craig said that he was working with the current physical laws of this universe (F = ma, etc.) and that he was looking at what changed if we changed those even slightly. Krauss tried to say that if he changed things like the mass of particles then the strength of forces would change. (But the forces aren’t laws!) Krauss argued that the cosmological constant would be even better for life if it was zero, and Craig said that the life permitting range did include zero, but that the range of life-permitting values was narrow.

Jesus’ existence:

• Craig reponded to the mystery religions charge, the charge that the evidence for the minimal facts is too late/too weak, the charge that grief visions explained the evidence better, and Hume’s argument against miracles. Craig brought up the early creed from 1 Cor 15:3-7 and explained to Krauss that it was 5 years after the events, and that Jewish standards of oral transmission were strong enough to ensure that the creed was reliable, and most of the eyewitnesses would still have been alive.

Audience Q and A: (1:21:09)

The first topic is the grounding of morality. Krauss agrees that there is no objective morality and no objective moral oughts. He also said that that standards of behavior are arbitrary, and that they change over time and they are adopted for promoting social order. Dr. Craig pressed the point that science itself would collapse without ethical values. It assumes them, but cannot ground them.

The next topic was free will. Krauss is a determinist. Craig asked him how he could reconcile moral responsibility with determinism.

The next topic was the effectiveness of mathematics. Krauss didn’t have an explanation for it and didn’t think it needed one. Then they got into whether the Genesis has been verified by science and whether it is meant to be taken literally.

The next topic was whether philosophy makes any progress. Craig gave the example of verificationism being rejected as too narrow, and self-refuting. Krauss: “I’m going to come to the defense of philosophy for the first time”. Craig: “That’s amazing!” Krauss said that science provides new knowledge. Craig said there were some things that could be known apart from science.

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Did you know that women tend to be further to the left than men? According to surveys, women are more leftist than men on abortion, same-sex marriage, and a host of other policies. I’ll show you a few surveys below. But even more interesting is that there is a link between support for leftist policies, and higher mental illness. Let’s take a look at it.

First, here is an article from The Hill:

Forty-four percent of young women counted themselves liberal in 2021, compared to 25 percent of young men, according to Gallup Poll data analyzed by the Survey Center on American Life. The gender gap is the largest recorded in 24 years of polling. The finding culminates years of rising liberalism among women ages 18 to 29, without any increase among their male peers.

That article is a bit old, here’s a new one from this week in The Post Millennial:

In annual surveys over the last few years, data pulled from Monitoring the Future has shown that about a quarter of high school seniors identify as conservative or very conservative. Only 13 percent of the 12th grade boys identify as liberal.

[…]The graph excludes moderate students, but of those high school seniors that do identify politically, around 65 percent of boys were conservative while only around 31 percent of girls identified that way.

According to surveys, young women are also more likely to support abortion under any circumstances (40 to 27) and more likely to support same-sex marriage than men.

I don’t support abortion because I favor the rights of unborn babies over the happiness of adults. I don’t support same-sex marriage because studies show children do better when they are raised by a mother and a father. And I think that’s why most of these men are with me, they follow that same reasoning, and side with the children against the adults.

I thought this part of the article was interesting:

As one Politico analyst put it, “Democrats have a masculinity problem.” Citing trends among black and Latino voters, the analyst pointed out that even in minority communities that have voted majority Democrat, men have been turning to the Republican party at higher rates than women.

Some conservative figures such as Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager (through PragerU) have millions of followers on YouTube, a platform where the users are majority male.

In addition, one of the more popular conservative political podcasts, The Ben Shapiro Show, has an audience that skews overwhelmingly male at 86 percent. The audience also skews younger, 18-44, in comparison to Fox’s former show with Tucker Carlson, 25-54, which skews slightly female at 53 percent.

This is good news. Boys are finding themselves role models who they see as “strong”. And those new role models are conservative. These stronger role models champion truth, and they make moral judgements. Even if it hurts other people’s feelings.

Let’s go on to the second point. These leftist policies are having a bad effect on young women’s mental health.

Feminist web site Evie Magazine reported on the some 2020 findings by Pew Research (left-wing pollster):

A 2020 Pew Research study reveals that over half of white, liberal women have been diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point.

[T]he study, which is titled Pew American Trends Panel: Wave 64, was dated March 2020 — over a year ago.

The study, which examined white liberals, moderates, and conservatives, both male and female, found that conservatives were far less likely to be diagnosed with mental health issues than those who identified as either liberal or even “very liberal.”

[…]White women, ages 18-29, who identified as liberal were given a mental health diagnosis from medical professionals at a rate of 56.3%, as compared to 28.4% in moderates and 27.3% in conservatives.

I found an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal that talked about how one leftist policy concern (global warming alarmism) is tied to higher rates of mental illness.

It says:

A study in 2021 of 16- to 25-year-olds in 10 countries including the U.S. reported that 59% were very or extremely worried about climate change, and 84% were at least moderately worried. Forty-five percent claimed they were so worried that they struggled to function on a daily basis, the definition of an anxiety disorder.

The study found that the mental illness was more common in younger people:

Climate anxiety and dissatisfaction with government responses are widespread in children and young people in countries across the world and impact their daily functioning.

So now we are looking at a direct link between the policies of the left, and the lower mental health of the left. And we know that more women than men are on the left. And we see more mental illness among women. Interesting, isn’t it?

And this has consequences. Leftist women are noticing that men are more conservative than they are, and it’s affecting their dating:

The marriage rate is also declining. Could this decline in marriage be related to the increase in leftist women, and all the related mental illnesses that leftist women have? Does it make sense for a conservative man to enter a relationship where he pays all the costs and bears all the risks, but all the decisions are being made by a leftist woman? It’s dangerous for a man to do that.

Consider that the divorce rate is very high right now, and divorce takes away a man’s money, his access to his kids, and his freedom. Women initiate 69% of divorces. College-educated women – who are especially leftist – initiate 90% of divorces. This high divorce rate cannot be blamed on men, because the divorce rate of lesbians is the highest of all. No man to blame in that situation.

Why would a man sign up to be controlled by feminist institutions, like the divorce courts? Men are not interested in projects where they have to pay for everything, but someone else is making the decisions. Especially if they get blamed when things go wrong.

Facing all of these risks, a man would have to be crazy to even talk to a leftist woman – much less date her. Unfortunately, we aren’t making enough young conservative women for these conservative young men to marry. And so, the marriage rate is declining. Young women today are not as conservative as previous generations.

I know a lot of people today are worried about young men falling under the influence of bad role models. But the surveys show that boys tend to have the right role models, and the right political views. So, we need to work on making young women more conservative.

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This post presents evidence against Mormonism/LDS in three main areas. The first is in the area of science. The second is in the area of philosophy. And the third is in the area of history.

The scientific evidence

First, let’s take a look at what the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, believes about the origin of the universe:

“The elements are eternal. That which had a beggining will surely have an end; take a ring, it is without beggining or end – cut it for a beggining place and at the same time you have an ending place.” (“Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, p. 205)

“Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos – chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existance from the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beggining, and can have no end.”
(“Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, p. 395)

A Mormon scholar named Blake Ostler summarizes the Mormon view in a Mormon theological journal:

“In contrast to the self-sufficient and solitary absolute who creates ex nihilo (out of nothing), the Mormon God did not bring into being the ultimate constituents of the cosmos — neither its fundamental matter nor the space/time matrix which defines it. Hence, unlike the Necessary Being of classical theology who alone could not not exist and on which all else is contingent for existence, the personal God of Mormonism confronts uncreated realities which exist of metaphysical necessity. Such realities include inherently self-directing selves (intelligences), primordial elements (mass/energy), the natural laws which structure reality, and moral principles grounded in the intrinsic value of selves and the requirements for growth and happiness.” (Blake Ostler, “The Mormon Concept of God,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17 (Summer 1984):65-93)

So, Mormons believe in an eternally existing universe, such that matter was never created out of nothing, and will never be destroyed. But this is at odds with modern cosmology.

The Big Bang cosmology is the most widely accepted cosmology of the day. It denies the past eternality of the universe. This peer-reviewed paper in an astrophysics journal explains. (full text here)

Excerpt:

The standard Big Bang model thus describes a universe which is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover,–and this deserves underscoring–the origin it posits is an absolute origin ex nihilo. For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As Barrow and Tipler emphasize, “At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo.”

[…]On such a model the universe originates ex nihilo in the sense that at the initial singularity it is true that There is no earlier space-time point or it is false that Something existed prior to the singularity.

Christian cosmology requires such a creation out of nothing, but this is clearly incompatible with what Mormons believe about the universe. The claims about the universe made by the two religions are in disagreement, and we can test empirically to see who is right, using science.

Philosophical problems

Always Have a Reason contrasts two concepts of God in Mormonism: Monarchotheism and Polytheism. It turns out that Mormonism is actually a polytheistic religion, like Hinduism. In Mormonism, humans can become God and then be God of their own planet. So there are many Gods in Mormonism, not just one.

Excerpt:

[T]he notion that there are innumerable contingent “primal intelligences” is central to this Mormon concept of god (P+M, 201; Beckwith and Parrish, 101). That there is more than one god is attested in the Pearl of Great Price, particularly Abraham 4-5. This Mormon concept has the gods positioned to move “primal intelligences along the path to godhood” (Beckwith and Parrish, 114). Among these gods are other gods which were once humans, including God the Father. Brigham Young wrote, “our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father, and again, He was begotten by a still more ancient Father, and so on…” (Brigham Young, The Seer, 132, quoted in Beckwith and Parrish, 106).

[…]The logic of the Mormon polytheistic concept of God entails that there is an infinite number of gods. To see this, it must be noted that each god him/herself was helped on the path to godhood by another god. There is, therefore, an infinite regress of gods, each aided on his/her path to godhood by a previous god. There is no termination in this series. Now because this entails an actually infinite collection of gods, the Mormon polytheistic concept of deity must deal with all the paradoxes which come with actually existing infinities…

The idea of counting up to an actual infinite number of things by addition (it doesn’t matter what kind of thing it is) is problematic. See here.

More:

Finally, it seems polytheistic Mormonism has a difficulty at its heart–namely the infinite regress of deity.

[…]Each god relies upon a former god, which itself relies upon a former god, forever. Certainly, this is an incoherence at the core of this concept of deity, for it provides no explanation for the existence of the gods, nor does it explain the existence of the universe.

Now let’s see the historical evidence against Mormonism.

The historical evidence

J. Warner Wallace explains how the “Book of Abraham”, a part of the Mormon Scriptures, faces historical difficulties.

The Book of Abraham papyri are not as old as claimed:

Mormon prophets and teachers have always maintained that the papyri that was purchased by Joseph Smith was the actual papyri that was created and written by Abraham. In fact, early believers were told that the papyri were the writings of Abraham.

[…]There is little doubt that the earliest of leaders and witnesses believed and maintained that these papyri were, in fact the very scrolls upon which Abraham and Joseph wrote. These papyri were considered to be the original scrolls until they were later recovered in 1966. After discovering the original papyri, scientists, linguists, archeologists and investigators (both Mormon and non-Mormon) examined them and came to agree that the papyri are far too young to have been written by Abraham. They are approximately 1500 to 2000 years too late, dating from anywhere between 500 B.C. (John A. Wilson, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1968, p. 70.) and 60 A.D. If they papyri had never been discovered, this truth would never have come to light. Today, however, we know the truth, and the truth contradicts the statements of the earliest Mormon leaders and witnesses.

The Book of Abraham papyri do not claim what Joseph Smith said:

In addition to this, the existing papyri simply don’t say anything that would place them in the era related to 2000BC in ancient Egypt. The content of the papyri would at least help verify the dating of the document, even if the content had been transcribed or copied from an earlier document. But the papyri simply tell us about an ancient burial ritual and prayers that are consistent with Egyptian culture in 500BC. Nothing in the papyri hints specifically or exclusively to a time in history in which Abraham would have lived.

So there is a clear difference hear between the Bible and Mormonism, when it comes to historical verification.

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This is a lecture I found from British historian Dr. Peter J. Williams.

Here’s the main lecture: (54 minutes)

And here’s the Q&A: (9 minutes)

About Peter Williams:

Peter J. Williams is the Warden (CEO) of Tyndale House and a member of the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. He received his MA, MPhil and PhD, in the study of ancient languages related to the Bible from Cambridge University. After his PhD, he was on staff in the Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University (1997–1998), and thereafter taught Hebrew and Old Testament there as Affiliated Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic and as Research Fellow in Old Testament at Tyndale House, Cambridge (1998–2003). From 2003 to 2007 he was on the faculty of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, where he became a Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Deputy Head of the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy. In July 2007 he became the youngest Warden in the history of Tyndale House. He also retains his position as an honorary Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

Summary of the lecture:

• What if the stories about Jesus are legendary?
• were the gospels transmitted accurately?
• were the gospels written in the same place as where the events happened?
• do the gospel authors know the customs and locations where the events happened?
• do the gospels use the right names for the time and place where the events took place?
• do the gospels disambiguate people’s names depending on how common those names were?
• how do the New Testament gospels compare to the later gnostic gospels?
• how do the gospels refer to the main character? How non-Biblical sources refer to Jesus?
• how does Jesus refer to himself in the gospels? do the later Christians refer to him that way?
• how does Jesus teach? do later Christians teach the same way?
• why didn’t Jesus say anything about early conflicts in the church (the Gentiles, church services)?
• did the writers of the gospels know the places where the events took place?
• how many places are named in the gospels? how about in the later gnostic gospels?
• are the botanical details mentioned in the gospels accurate? how about the later gnostic gospels?

And here are the questions from the audience:

• how what about the discrepancies in the resurrection narratives that Bart Ehrman is obsessed with?
• what do you think of the new 2011 NIV translation (Peter is on the ESV translation committee)?
• how did untrained, ordinary men produce complex, sophisticated documents like the gospels?
• is oral tradition a strong enough bridge between the events and the writers who interviewed the eyewitnesses?
• what does the name John mean?
• why did the gospel writers wait so long before writing their gospels?
• do you think that Matthew and Luke used a hypothetical source which historians call “Q”?
• which gospel do critical historians trust the least and why?

I really enjoyed watching this lecture. He’s getting some of this material from Richard Bauckham’s awesome book “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”, so if you aren’t familiar with it, you can get an idea of what’s in it. Peter Williams is a lot of fun to listen to – an excellent speaker.

And you can listen to the Peter Williams vs Bart Ehrman debate. That link contains a link to the audio of the debate as well as my snarky summary. It’s very snarky.

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Eric Chabot of Ratio Christi Ohio State University has a great post up about the post-mortem appearances of Jesus.

The post contains:

• a list of the post-mortem resurrection appearances
• quotations by skeptical historians about those appearances
• alternative naturalistic explanations of the appearances
• responses to those naturalistic explanations

Although there is a lot of research that went into the post, it’s not very long to read. The majority of scholars accept the appearances, because they appear in so many different sources and because some of those sources are very early, especially Paul’s statement of the early Christian creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, which is from about 1-3 years after Jesus was executed by the Romans. Eric’s post lists out some of the skeptical scholars who the appearances, and you can see how they allude to the historical criteria that they are using. (If you want to sort of double-check the details, I blogged about how historians investigate ancient sources before)

Let’s take a look at some of the names you might recognize:

E.P. Sanders:

That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know. “I do not regard deliberate fraud as a worthwhile explanation. Many of the people in these lists were to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming that they had seen the risen Lord, and several of them would die for their cause. Moreover, a calculated deception should have produced great unanimity. Instead, there seem to have been competitors: ‘I saw him first!’ ‘No! I did.’ Paul’s tradition that 500 people saw Jesus at the same time has led some people to suggest that Jesus’ followers suffered mass hysteria. But mass hysteria does not explain the other traditions.” “Finally we know that after his death his followers experienced what they described as the ‘resurrection’: the appearance of a living but transformed person who had actually died. They believed this, they lived it, and they died for it.”[1]

Bart Ehrman:

It is a historical fact that some of Jesus’ followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead soon after his execution. We know some of these believers by name; one of them, the apostle Paul, claims quite plainly to have seen Jesus alive after his death. Thus, for the historian, Christianity begins after the death of Jesus, not with the resurrection itself, but with the belief in the resurrection.[2]

Ehrman also says:

We can say with complete certainty that some of his disciples at some later time insisted that . . . he soon appeared to them, convincing them that he had been raised from the dead.[3]

Ehrman also goes onto say:

Historians, of course, have no difficulty whatsoever speaking about the belief in Jesus’ resurrection, since this is a matter of public record.[4]

Why, then, did some of the disciples claim to see Jesus alive after his crucifixion? I don’t doubt at all that some disciples claimed this. We don’t have any of their written testimony, but Paul, writing about twenty-five years later, indicates that this is what they claimed, and I don’t think he is making it up. And he knew are least a couple of them, whom he met just three years after the event (Galatians 1:18-19).[5]

Marcus Borg

The historical ground of Easter is very simple: the followers of Jesus, both then and now, continued to experience Jesus as a living reality after his death. In the early Christian community, these experiences included visions or apparitions of Jesus. [8]

The references to Paul are because of the early creed he records in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, and his conversations with the other eyewitnesses in Galatians. Eric has another post where he goes over that early creed, and it is something that every Christian should know about. It’s really kind of surprising that you never hear a sermon on that early creed in church, where they generally sort of assume that you believe everything in the Bible on faith. But skeptical historians don’t believe in the post-mortem appearances by faith – they believe it (in part) because of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.

If you want to see a Christian scholar make the case for the resurrection appearances in a debate, then here is a post I wrote with the video, audio and summary of the William Lane Craig vs James Crossley debate on the resurrection.

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On the weekend, I went for an hour walk, and listened to a 3-part series of discussions between Pat Flynn and neurosurgeon Michael Egnor. The first episode of the series was especially good, talking about the scientific evidence against materialist / physicalist views of our minds. I went hunting around on the Mind Matters web site, and was able to find a good article about two of those evidences.

Here’s the first article from Mind Matters, which talks about the ways that neuroscience is disconfirming materialist views of mind, with scientific evidence.

First evidence:

Dr. Egnor, Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at Stony Brook University in New York State, offers a number of specific examples, including the pioneering work of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (1891–1976) in treating epilepsy. Penfield, observed closely what happens in an epileptic seizure. But the most interesting element he found was what didn’t happen.

Seizure victims might collapse, feel tingles, see flashing lights, experience strange smells. They could have powerful emotions, a sense of doom, oir a sense that everything is hilarious. They can even remember things they thought were long forgotten, like an incident from school days:

But Penfield said that’s where it ends. That is that there’s no other mental content that ever appears in a seizure. He said, for example, you never have a mathematics seizure. You never have a seizure where you can’t stop doing calculus. You never have a logic seizure, you never have a philosophy seizure, you never have a music seizure, you never have a literature seizure. This whole range of abstract thought, things that kind of make us human are never a part of a seizure. And Penfield said, why not? If random electrical discharges in the brain will spark off a thought, why aren’t the thoughts ever abstract? Why aren’t they ever about math?

And Penfield did more experiments, which also raised problems for materialism:

Penfield had started out as a materialist but he ended up thinking, as Egnor puts it, that “maybe the mind isn’t entirely from the brain. Maybe there are aspects of the mind that are spiritual and not material.”

His conviction was strengthened by the more than 1100 “awake” brain operations he did. During surgery, he would stimulate an area of the brain of a patient with serious epilepsy in order to find out if that area did anything important. If not, he could simply remove it if it were damaged, lessening the chances of another serious seizure. Meanwhile, he mapped the areas of the brain he was working on.

And Penfield found exactly the same thing that he had found in his review of epilepsy. That is that when he stimulated the brain, he could stimulate people to move their limbs. He could stimulate people to have perceptions like flashes of light or feelings on the skin. He could stimulate emotions by stimulating certain parts of the brain and he could stimulate memories, but he could never stimulate abstract thought. He could never stimulate mathematics. No matter where he touched in the brain, you didn’t start saying one plus one is two.

That first podcast also contained a second evidence that falsifies materialist conceptions of mind – split-brain surgeries.

This second article from Mind Matters explains:

Split-brain surgery, which gives even Dr. Egnor, who has done it, “the chills,” is a radical effort to control epileptic seizures that jump through the corpus callosum — the huge bundle of nerve fibres that connects the two halves of the brain. By the 1940s, surgeons realized that if they just cut the bundle, severing the connection, the seizure was confined to one side. That cut down on life-destroying seizures. But was the patient then living with two brains that mirror each other but can’t communicate?

Neuroscience pioneer Roger Sperry (1913–1994) won a Nobel Prize for his clever experiments on split-brain subjects, showing what they could and couldn’t do. But, Egnor notes, the big story is the one that receives very little emphasis: “You could cut the brain in half and practically nothing happens.”

[…]McGill University neuroscience researcher Justine Sergent (1950–1994) picked up on this in the 1980s and decided to focus on it:

Egnor: … there are ways that you could present a picture, like an image to the right hemisphere and a picture, an image to the left hemisphere. And if you’re a split brain patient, these hemispheres can’t talk to one another. They don’t communicate.

So she would present, for example, an arrow pointing up to the right hemisphere, and an arrow pointing sideways to the left hemisphere. She would ask the person who had had the split brain surgery, are the arrows pointing in the same direction or different directions?

And the split brain patients almost always got it right. They almost always could tell, they could compare something that the right hemisphere sees with something that the left hemisphere sees.

The problem is that there was no part of their brains that saw both things. And so how did they know? How do you compare things when no part of your brain sees both things?

So, a couple of pieces of scientific evidence that contradict the materialist / physicalist view of mind. Do you think I should add this argument to my list of 6 scientific evidences for a Creator / Designer? It might be fun to have a discussion with Grok AI about this and see if it is good enough to add to my list of 6.

Anyway, here is the podcast. And there is also a transcript for it, if you prefer to listen. If you like that one, you can listen to all three in the series, but the first one was the best, and the second was good.

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I’m not so old that I have forgotten Joe Biden and the entire Democrat party talking about the need to give children access to “gender-affirming care”. This is the term used to describe steps to deny children’s gender by 1) social denial of gender, 2) injecting them with gender-denying drugs, and 3) performing gender-denying surgeries on children. Let’s see what the new study says.

Here is the new study about treatments for children (ages 10-18), published by Springer in Current Sex Health Reports.

A key question at the center of the controversy regarding pediatric gender-affirming care is whether it is safe and effective. Therefore, analysis of the evidence base for PB/GAH use requires understanding of the potential risks and benefits. Thus, the relevant questions are: what are the goals of PB/GAH in the context of pediatric gender-affirming care? To this end, is treatment effective? What are the risks? Are these treatments safe?

Here is the list of risks that are identified in the study:

1. Decreased bone mineralization.
2. Negative impact on neuropsychological functioning.
3. Metabolic and cardiovascular risks.
4. Infertility.
5. Impaired sexual function.
6. Surgical complications.
7. Detransition and/or regret.

The study looks at studies about the supposed benefits of “gender-affirming” care, and whether those are proven, as well as the risks of “gender-affirming” care and whether those are proven. It uses previous research to reach conclusions, such as the famous Cass Review from the UK, as well as studies from Sweden and Finald.

The report concludes that the evidence supporting mental health improvements from hormone treatment in pediatric “gender-affirming” care is of low quality. Why? Because the studies often show no significant reduction in psychological distress, suicidality, or other mental health issues. In fact, there are indications of potential worsening of symptoms in certain cases. So, even in the best case, the benefits are not proven.

What about the 7 risks? The report discusses the seven risks I listed above, using clinical studies and reviews. Each risk is supported by evidence.

Here they are, in descending order, from most risky to least risky:

Infertility

The article shows strong proof that puberty blockers and hormones can make it hard or impossible for kids to have children later, especially if treatment starts young. Many studies agree on this risk, and there’s little evidence that fertility can be fully saved, making it the best-supported concern.

Bone Health Deterioration

Research in the article clearly links puberty blockers to weaker bones, which can lead to more fractures, and stopping treatment may not fully fix this. The evidence is solid but ranks second because we don’t know enough about how bones recover over time.

Cardiovascular Complications

The article points to studies showing hormones, especially estrogen, raise the chance of blood clots and heart problems, based on adult experiences. There’s less information for kids, so it ranks third since the evidence partly relies on adults.

Sexual Dysfunction

Puberty blockers can affect sexual development, causing issues like low sex drive or trouble with orgasm, according to some studies in the article. The evidence isn’t as strong as for infertility or bones because long-term effects in kids aren’t well-studied.

Regret/Detransition

Some kids later regret treatment or want to detransition, with studies showing this happens in 1–10% of cases, but the numbers vary. This ranks lower because the evidence is mixed and depends on personal and social factors.

Mental Health Concerns

The article finds little proof that gender-affirming care improves mental health, and some studies suggest it might not help or could worsen things. The evidence is weaker because results differ across studies, making it less certain.

Cancer Risk

Hormones might increase the risk of cancers like breast or prostate cancer, but the article says there’s no solid proof yet, just guesses. This has the least evidence since there are no long-term studies on kids to back it up.

My thoughts:

So, I hope this will help you to have conversations about this topic. I would especially remember the two at the top: infertility and bone health detioration, as the most well-supported by the evidence.

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Welcome to episode 63 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Dr. Sean McDowell to discuss the fate of the Apostles (and Paul and James the brother of Jesus). If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Dr. Sean McDowell to discuss the fate of the twelve Apostles, as well as Paul and James the brother of Jesus. Many Christians incorporate the willingness of the earliest Christians to die for their beliefs in their case for the resurrection of Jesus. Sean takes a deep dive into history to find out what we know about these early Christians.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 63:

Speaker biographies

Sean McDowell is a professor of Apologetics at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. He has earned two Master’s degrees, one in philosophy and one in theology, both from the Talbot school of Theology. And he has a Ph.D. in Apologetics and Worldview Studies from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author, editor, or co-author of over 20 books, including my favorite introductory apologetics book “Is God Just a Human Invention?” which he co-authored with Jonathan Morrow. His most recent academic book is the 2nd edition of “The Fate of the Apostles”, published by Routledge. He is the co-host of the Think Biblically podcast where he talks about the intersection of faith and culture. Sean has a popular YouTube channel and blog. He’s also an experienced public speaker, including speaking on university campuses. Sean has also participated in debates, including with Matthew Vines, Michael Shermer and James Corbett.

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

Podcast RSS feed:

https://feed.podbean.com/knightandrose/feed.xml

You can use this to subscribe to the podcast from your phone or tablet. I use the open-source AntennaPod app on my Android phone.

Podcast channel pages:

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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John is my favorite gospel, because the thing reads like a well-constructed essay. The author makes a number of claims about who Jesus was, and supplies evidence for each claim. There is nothing extraneous to John’s thesis, the whole thing that he wrote is designed to make a case. Since I’ve been listening to it again on my daily walks, I thought I’d write something about it.

My friend Eric Chabot wrote a post on his blog on the use of apologetics in the gospel of John.

Here is his thesis:

In this post, I will highlight some of the different ways John utilizes apologetics in his testimony of who Jesus is.

He talks about how God has his messengers use evidence:

3.Signs and Miracles

While actions by other prophets such as Ezekiel and Jeremiah etc. show some significant parallels to Jesus, Jesus is closer to the actions of the Jewish sign prophetssuch as Moses. “Signs” have a specific apologetic function in that they are used to provide evidence for people to believe the message of God through a prophet of God. Hence, the signs Moses does proves he is truly sent from God. Moses had struggled with his prophetic call when he said “ But they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’ (Exod. 4:1). God assures Moses that the “signs” will confirm his call:

God says, “I will be with you. And this will be אוֹת “the sign” to you that it is I who have sent you” (Exod. 3:12).

“If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.” (Exod 4: 8-9).

We see the signs are used to help people believe.

Moses “performed the “signs” before the people, and they believed; … they bowed down and worshiped” (Exod. 4:30–31)

So what did Jesus do?

“Works” are directly related to the miracles of Jesus (Jn. 5:20; 36;10:25; 32-28; 14:10-12; 15:24) and is synonymous with “signs.” Interestingly enough, when Jesus speaks of miracles and he calls them “works” he doesn’t refer to Exod. 4:1-9, but to Num. 16:28, “Hereby you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord.” For example:

Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me” (John 10:25).

If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:37-38).

But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me (John 5: 36)

“Sign”(sēmeion) is used seventy-seven times (forty-eight times in the Gospels). As far as the “signs’ Jesus does, 29:18-19; 35:5-6; 42:18; 61:1). In John’s Gospel, Jesus performs three “signs,” at the beginning of his ministry; the water turned into wine at Cana at Galilee (2:1-12), the healing of the son of the royal official at Capernaum (4:46-64), and catching of the fish in the sea of Galilee (21:1-14). The link between the first two signs in Jn 2:12 while the link between the last two are seen in Jn 7:1, 3-4, 6, 9. Jesus follows the pattern of Moses in that he reveals himself as the new Moses because Moses also had to perform three “signs” so that he could be recognized by his brothers as truly being sent by God (Exod 4: 1-9). In the exchange between Nicodemus said to Jesus, Nicodemus said, We know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2)

A diligent reader wrote to me and mentioned that the references in this line “As far as the “signs’ Jesus does, 29:18-19; 35:5-6; 42:18; 61:1)” are from Isaiah.

More:

Also, regarding miracles, in some cases the miracle is a witness against those who reject this evidence. John grieved: “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him” (John 12:37). One result, though not the purpose, of miracles is condemnation of the unbeliever (cf. John 12:31, 37).

I first read John a long time ago, when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I can’t remember what I thought of it, but it probably had a very good effect on me as far as making me think that Christianity was something that I ought to look into. The gospel of John is that good. Philippians is still my favorite book of the Bible (because it’s practical, duh), but John is the best introduction. It’s the first thing a non-Christian should read to at least understand what Christianity is all about. Everybody should at least know that!

By the way, if you don’t have a dramatized audio Bible on your phone, you can download one for free here. The voices are sometimes funny. I got the English Standard Version Audio Drama with Music and Sound Effects. Start with Philippians and the Gospel of John, of course. I think people get bogged down in the Bible because they read it from front to back. But some parts are better to start with than others. That’s what I think.

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A while back, Rose and I went on the FreeThinking Podcast to discuss Trump’s Cabinet picks. I was especially negative about the nominations for Secretary of Labor and Surgeon General. Well, the leftist Secretary of Labor got through her nomination, but enough was discovered on the Surgeon General nominee for her nomination to be pulled. So who is the replacement?

First, here is the previous nominee, Janette Nesheiwat, who is very attractive, just like many of Trump’s other bad nominees:

Donald Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General is facing backlash from some of his fiercest MAGA supporters for backing some strict COVID restrictions and masking mandates.

[…]Nesheiwat, a medical director for CityMD in New York, frequently spoke about the coronavirus pandemic and offered hardline advice about how citizens should behave.

[…]’Dr. Janette Nesheiwat supported masking kids in school. Dealbreaker,’ wrote podcast host Liz Wheeler on social media when the pick was announced.

[…]Another video making the rounds on social media featured Nesheiwat praising Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for censoring and banning so-called ‘misinformation’ about vaccines on Facebook and Instagram.

[…]Nesheiwat signaled her support for other social media platforms to follow Zuckerberg’s example and also censor vaccine skeptics.

[…]Nesheiwat also promoted the idea of making sure children were getting their COVID-19 vaccines.

Below, I link to a Daily Signal article that talks about her replacement. That article adds that “Nesheiwat has also been criticized by conservatives for touting the idea that children can identity as a gender that differs from their biological sex.” Just a total trash pick by Trump, not conservative at all. But she’s hot.

Here is the story from Daily Signal:

The Trump administration pulled the nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat to be surgeon general following reports that she inflated her credentials, Bloomberg reported.

President Donald Trump instead nominated Dr. Casey Means on Wednesday… Means attended Stanford Medical School, then she pursued a surgical residency at Oregon Health & Science University. Before completing the program, she dropped out to start her own functional medicine practice and founded the company Levels, which offers consumers continuous glucose monitors and an app to track their blood sugar.

Means’ brother, Calley Means, is a prominent advisor to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I’m not impressed with this new pick, but she does have a record of promoting individual autonomy and choice in health care. She also has a record of opposing woke content in medical school curriculums.

The better pick would have been Florida’s Surgeon General, who has a record of opposing Big Government Health Care.

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo has taken several anti-establishment actions, including:* Opposing Water Fluoridation: Advocated for removing fluoride from drinking water, citing health risks. * Challenging Vaccine Mandates: Opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates, questioned vaccine efficacy, and pushed for legislation against discrimination based on vaccination status. * Contradicting Federal Health Guidance: Issued guidance against federal recommendations on COVID-19 vaccines and measles outbreak managemen.

Trump is definitely a mixed bag for conservatives. Mostly good, but a lot bad, too. I’m still seething with Trump for handing the Canadian socialist party a victory with his clowning about “51st state”. Having a socialist country to the north is only going to hurt us in the future.

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I wrote an article back in 2021 about why elite Christians should not hold Anthony Fauci in high regard. So many Christian leaders sided with Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, and tried to promote their positions to Christians. But strangely enough, there were many reasons to doubt the goodness of these two men. One of the reasons was the NIH’s experiments on captured dogs.

In my previous article, I wrote about these experiments. Let’s review that, and then see what the Trump admnistration thinks of it.

This is from the far-left The Hill.

Excerpt:

The White Coat Waste Project, the nonprofit organization that first pointed out that U.S. taxpayers were being used to fund the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology, have now turned its sights on Anthony Fauci on another animal-testing-related matter — infecting dozens of beagles with disease-causing parasites to test an experimental drug on them.

[…]White Coat Waste claims that 44 beagle puppies were used in a Tunisia, North Africa, laboratory, and some of the dogs had their vocal cords removed, allegedly so scientists could work without incessant barking.

[…]“Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive,” White Coat Waste told Changing America. “They also locked beagles alone in cages in the desert overnight for nine consecutive nights to use them as bait to attract infectious sand flies.”

That’s what I covered in my previous article, along with the NIH funding of gain of function research which likely led to the COVID lab leak. But now there is news from the Trump administration – what do they think of these experiments on dogs?

This is the latest from the Daily Caller:

The National Institutes of Health has closed the last remaining intramural beagle lab conducting painful experiments — the federal government’s largest dog lab — NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said in a television interview Sunday.

A project at the NIH Clinical Center on “stress-induced and sepsis-induced cardiomyopathy” represented the final in-house experiments that induced pain and distress in beagles, classified under U.S. Department of Agriculture pain categories D and E. The project has now been terminated.

[…]The NIH has killed 2,133 beagles in septic shock experiments since 1986, according to a nine-year investigation and advocacy campaign by White Coat Waste Project. Necroposy reports from 41 beagles and other veterinary records obtained by the group through the Freedom of Information Act show that the experiments involved infecting the beagles’ lungs with pneumonia-causing bacteria to induce sepsis and sometimes bleeding them out to induce hemorrhagic shock. The dogs are then euthanized.

I think it’s important for Christians to do their own thinking when it comes to how they vote. I don’t want Christians to vote so that they feel smart, and can claim to be in the “smart” crowd. I don’t think that Christians should get their ideas from the secular leftistswho work at NPR and PBS. One of the reasons I voted against Biden is because I remembered these experiments. I thought that a Republican administration would see someone like Jay Bhattacharya, Vinay Prasad or Scott Atlas as leader of the NIH. We got Jay, and he’s cleaning up the filth.

There are actually two dissentings scientists in the Trump administration:

• Jay Bhattacharya: He’s now the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). During the pandemic, Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against widespread lockdowns and for focused protection of vulnerable groups while letting others resume normal life. He criticized mask mandates, social distancing, and vaccine policies, often clashing with the NIH and CDC’s approaches. His views on letting the virus spread among low-risk groups to build immunity were controversial, with critics arguing it underestimated COVID’s risks. Supporters, though, saw him as a voice of reason against overreach.
• Marty Makary: Appointed as the FDA Commissioner. Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and health policy expert, was outspoken about the need to balance COVID restrictions with societal costs. He questioned the efficacy of prolonged school closures and blanket mask mandates, emphasizing the low risk to children and the economic fallout of lockdowns. He also pushed for recognizing natural immunity in policy decisions, which put him at odds with federal health officials.

So, next election, remember not to listen to “Evangelicals for Biden” and fake, Soros-funded “evangelical” groups.

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Probably the biggest misconception that I encounter when defending the faith is the mistaken notion of what faith is. Today we are going to get to the bottom of what the Bible says faith is, once and for all. This post will be useful to Christians and atheists, alike.

What is faith according to the Bible?

I am going to reference this article from apologist Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason in my explanation.

Koukl cites three Biblical examples to support the idea that faith is not blind leap-of-faith wishing, but is based on evidence.

1. Moses went out into the wilderness and he had that first encounter with the burning bush, and God gave him the directive to go back to Egypt and let his people go. Moses said, Yeah, right. What’s going to happen when they say, why should we believe you, Moses? God said, See that staff? Throw it down. Moses threw it down and it turned into a serpent. God said, See that serpent? Pick it up. And he picked it up and it turned back into a staff. God said, Now you take that and do that before the Jewish people and you do that before Pharaoh. And you do this number with the hail, and the frogs, and turning the Nile River into blood. You put the sun out. You do a bunch of other tricks to get their attention. And then comes this phrase: “So that they might know that there is a God in Israel.”
2. [I]n Mark 2 you see Jesus preaching in a house, and you know the story where they take the roof off and let the paralytic down through the roof. Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.” And people get bugged because how can anyone forgive sins but God alone? Jesus understood what they were thinking and He said this: What’s harder to say, your sins are forgiven, or to rise, take up your pallet and go home? Now, I’ll tell you what would be harder for me to say : Arise, take up your pallet and go home. I can walk into any Bible study and say your sins are forgiven and nobody is going to know if I know what I am talking about or not. But if I lay hands on somebody in a wheelchair and I say, Take up your wheelchair and go home, and they sit there, I look pretty dumb because everyone knows nothing happened. But Jesus adds this. He says, “In order that you may know that the Son of Man has the power and authority to forgive sins, I say to you, arise, take up your pallet and go home.” And he got up and he got out. Notice the phrase “In order that you may know”. Same message, right?
3. Move over to the Book of Acts. First sermon after Pentecost. Peter was up in front of this massive crowd. He was talking about the resurrection to which he was an eyewitness. He talked about fulfilled prophecy. He talked about the miraculous tongues and the miraculous manifestation of being able to speak in a language you don’t know. Do you think this is physical evidence to those people? I think so. Pretty powerful. Peter tells them, These men are not drunk as it seems, but rather this is a fulfillment of prophecy. David spoke of this. Jesus got out of the grave, and we saw him, and we proclaim this to you. Do you know how he ends his sermon? It’s really great. Acts 2:36. I’ve been a Christian 20 years and I didn’t see this until about a year ago. This is for all of those who think that if you can know it for sure, you can’t exercise faith in it. Here is what Peter said. Acts 2:36, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” There it is again. “Know for certain.”

What is faith according to Bible-based theologians?

I am going to reference this article from theologian C. Michael Patton of Parchment and Pen in my explanation.

Patton explains that according to Reformation (conservative, Bible-based) theologians, faith has 3 parts:

1. notitia – This is the basic informational foundation of our faith. It is best expressed by the word content. Faith, according to the Reformers must have content. You cannot have faith in nothing. There must be some referential propositional truth to which the faith points. The proposition “Christ rose from the grave,” for example, is a necessary information base that Christians must have.
2. assensus – This is the assent or confidence that we have that the notitia is correct… This involves evidence which leads to the conviction of the truthfulness of the proposition… This involves intellectual assent and persuasion based upon critical thought… assensus… says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”
3. fiducia – This is the “resting” in the information based upon a conviction of its truthfulness. Fiducia is best expressed by the English word “trust.”… Fiducia is the personal subjective act of the will to take the final step. It is important to note that while fiducia goes beyond or transcends the intellect, it is built upon its foundation.

So, Biblical faith is really trust. Trust(3) can only occur after intellectual assent(2), based on evidence and thought. Intellectual assent(2) can only occur after the propositional information(1) is known.

The church today accepts 1 and 3, but denies 2. I call this “fideism” or “blind faith”. Ironically, activist atheists, (the New Atheists), also believe that faith is blind. The postmodern “emergent church” denies 1 and 2. A person could accept 1 and 2 but deny 3 by not re-prioritizing their life based on what they know to be true.

How do beliefs form, according to Christian philosophers?

I am going to reference a portion of chapter 3 of J.P. Moreland’s “Love Your God With All Your Mind” (i.e. – LYGWYM).

J.P. Moreland explains how beliefs form and how you can change them.

1. Today, people are inclined to think that the sincerity and fervency of one’s beliefs are more important than the content… Nothing could be further from the truth… As far as reality is concerned, what matters is not whether I like a belief or how sincere I am in believing it but whether or not the belief is true. I am responsible for what I believe and, I might add, for what I refuse to believe because the content of what I do or do not believe makes a tremendous difference to what I become and how I act.
2. A belief’s strength is the degree to which you are convinced the belief is true. As you gain ,evidence and support for a belief, its strength grows for you… The more certain you are of a belief… the more you rely on it as a basis for action.

But the most important point of the article is that your beliefs are not under the control of your will.

…Scripture holds us responsible for our beliefs since it commands us to embrace certain beliefs and warns us of the consequences of accepting other beliefs. On the other hand, experience teaches us that we cannot choose or change our beliefs by direct effort.

For example, if someone offered you $10,000 to believe right now that a pink elephant was sitting next to you, you could not really choose to believe this… If I want to change my beliefs about something, I can embark on a course of study in which I choose to think regularly about certain things, read certain pieces of evidence and argument, and try to find problems with evidence raised against the belief in question.

…by choosing to undertake a course of study… I can put myself in a position to undergo a change in… my beliefs… And… my character and behavior… will be transformed by these belief changes.

I think definition of faith is important, because atheists seemed to want to substitute their own definition of faith as blind belief for this Biblical definition, but there is no evidence for their view that faith is belief without evidence. I think this might be another case of projection by atheists. Blind faith is how they arrive at their views, so they are trying to push it onto us. But the Bible is clearly opposed to it.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument
• The unexpected applicability of mathematics to nature
• Arguments and scientific evidence for non-physical minds
• William Lane Craig’s case for the resurrection of Jesus

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Something very exciting happened last week, so I wanted to talk about it today instead of on the weekend. Trump signed an executive order to cut funding for National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, two far-left organizations. In this post, we’ll take a look at some reasons why NPR and PBS needed to be defunded. Are they really as far left as conservatives say?

First, let’s see a news article from Daily Signal:

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday night axing taxpayer funding for “biased” news outlets NPR and PBS.

[…]Trump ordered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board of directors and all executive departments and agencies to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.

Brianna Lyman had a really good article at The Federalist with more reasons why NPR and PBS are just too far to the left to receive funding from taxpayers – especially since taxpayers just voted for Republicans in the 2024 elections.

Here is the full list:

1. NPR Refused To Cover Hunter Biden’s Laptop
2. 100% Of NPR’s ‘Editorial Positions’ Are Held By Registered Democrats
3. NPR Spread Tear Gas Hoax
4. NPR Editor Promoted Defense Of Looting
5. NPR Pushed Skin Color Emoji Conundrums
6. PBS Promoted Reparations
7. PBS Claimed Trump Lied About America’s Greatness
8. PBS Accused GOP Of Pushing ‘White Supremacy’
9. PBS Ran Anti-Republican Hit Piece
10. NPR Claimed No Evidence For Biden Family Corruption
11. NPR Buried Biden’s Declining Mental Acuity
12. NPR Accused GOP Of ‘Voter Suppression’ While Ignoring Democrat Schemes

Looking over that list, it just looks like NPR and PBS are propaganda outlets for the Democrat party. I don’t know what else to think about such obviously biased (and often flat-out false) news reporting.

Let’s look at a few. Here’s #1:

Perhaps the most egregious example of why NPR should be defunded — and should have been five years ago — is their refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the lead up to the 2020 election.

“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR Managing Editor for News Terence Samuel said in a statement back in October 2020. A newsletter published by NPR Public Editor Kelly McBride claimed “there are many, many red flags in that New York Post investigation.”

As we all know know, the laptop was genuine. Even left-wing sources agree. The FBI had laptop since December 2019. They confirmed its authenticity in November 2019 by matching its device number to Hunter Biden’s iCloud ID. The Justice Department, in 2024, used laptop data as “self-authenticating” evidence in court, dismissing manipulation claims.

But NPR didn’t think it was a true story. Or maybe they didn’t want their political allies – the Democrat party – to look bad, before an election.

But are they really just Democrat party operatives? Look at #2:

NPR editor Uri Berliner previously reported that voting records showed “87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans.”

NPR’s Katherine Maher admitted it was a “concern” during a March Congressional hearing that all 87 positions are held by registered Democrats.

The evidence shows a strong connection to the Democrat party, so why are they getting taxpayer money right after the majority of the country voted Republican?

When it comes to monitoring media bias, the best source is the Media Research Center. And #12 talks about them:

According to NewsBusters’ Clay Waters, “PBS treated the RNC to 72% negative and 28% positive commentary” while the “DNC received far friendlier reception: 12% negative, 88% positive.”

So, if you look at the evidence, there’s no reasons for taxpayer dollars to go to organizations that are clearly biased towards the Democrat party. Next, we should remove all grants for universities, which have similar numbers of Democrats. They can operate, but why do they need taxpayer funding? Let them sink or swim in the free market by pleasing customers, like the rest of us have to.

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Atheists are committed to an eternally existing, static universe. They cannot accept that the natural, material universe has a supernatural, spiritual cause. So it’s very important for Christians to have a stack of evidence ready to show that the universe – matter, space, energy and time itself – all have a beginning. So in this post, we’ll review a list of a half-dozen evidence, and look at one in detail.

First, let’s review what atheists think about the universe.

Here’s a statement from the Secular Humanist Manifesto, which explains what atheists believe about the universe:

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

For a couple of examples of how atheistic scientists respond to the evidence for a cosmic beginning, you can check out this post, where we get responses from cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, and physical chemist Peter Atkins.

So for today’s post, I’ll start with my fun conversation where I play a game with Grok, to see who has the best list of evidences for a beginning of the universe. Initially, Grok had a mix of assertions and evidence, instead of all evidence. But I kept pushing for specific observable evidences. Finally, I shared a 6th evidence, and challenged Grok to get a 6th of its own, and it did! Let’s see what we each came up with.

Here were my six evidences:

1. Redshift of distant galaxies: Shows expansion, implying a starting point.
2. Cosmic microwave background radiation: Remnant of the early universe’s hot origin.
3. Second law of thermodynamics: Increasing entropy requires a low-entropy beginning.
4. Abundance of light elements: Hydrogen/helium ratios match early nucleosynthesis.
5. Finite age of stars and galaxies: Stellar evolution points to a definite start.
6. Half-lives of radioactive elements (from Robert Jastrow’s “God and the Astronomers”): Presence of uranium-238 etc. suggests a finite-age universe.

Here are Grok’s six – the first 5 from my list, and the 1 he came up with to try to tie my list:

1. Redshift of distant galaxies: Observed expansion implies a singular start.
2. Cosmic microwave background radiation: Remnant of the early universe.
3. Second law of thermodynamics: Entropy indicates a low-entropy origin.
4. Abundance of light elements: Matches early universe nucleosynthesis.
5. Finite age of stars and galaxies: Stellar evolution shows a finite start.
6. Cosmic homogeneity and isotropy: The universe’s large-scale uniformity suggests a single origin event.

And Grok had references for his 6th one, just like I did for my 6th one.

So, you should at least know the core 5 that we agree on. And these are normal and natural for Christians to talk about. I wish we learned about them in church, from the pulpit, when studying different accounts of Creation in the Bible. Why not? I’m so wild, that I also think that the church should be teaching embryology, natural marriage, and basic economics from the pulpit. Not politics, but evidence related to how we navigate the world.

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

Anyway, here’s an article about one of the core 5 evidences from the J. Warner Wallace, writing at Cold Case Christianity.

He says:

In 1964, two American physicists and radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, made an important discovery. They were unable to eliminate the radio signal “noise” from their large antenna at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, regardless of where in the universe they tried to point their instrument. They consulted with colleagues to determine the cause of this noise. Another physicist suggested the noise might not be coming from the antenna at all. Instead they might be detecting the residual background radiation caused when the universe first came into being. Penzias and Wilson proved this to be correct, winning a Nobel Prize for their discovery in 1978.

Numerous additional experiments and observations have since established the existence of cosmic background radiation, including data from the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite launched in 1989, and the Planck space observatory launched in 2009. For many scientists, this discovery solidified their belief the universe had a beginning.

And of course, Wallace knows all the evidences, and he even has more.

When You’re Ahead, Get More Ahead

Here’s an illustration from his book “God’s Crime Scene”. Have you read it?

Illustration from God’s Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace (used with his permission)So, I hope this is helpful for all of you.

When you are talking to an atheist like a Bart Ehrman or a Bill Nye about evidence for a Creator and Designer, then it’s important that the score be 5-0. You need to win 5-0.

• origin of the universe (list the 5 core evidences)
• fine-tuning (list several examples from different areas)
• habitability (list examples for sun, solar system, earth-moon)
• fossil record (list some of the biological Big Bangs)
• origin of life (explain the building block and information)
• molecular machines (explain machines in the cell)

I guess that’s 6-0, but you get the idea. It needs to be a shut-out. Boys get along better after they have had a good fight, and you need to win that fight. You can be “gentle” and “reverent”, but you need to win that fight, so everyone understands what the truth is. Don’t make a big deal out of changing the person, just make sure that the scoreboard says what the scoreboard should say.

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I found an interesting set of articles from a young woman who graduated from Pennsylvania State University. In one, she explains how a man she “hooked up” with treated her poorly. I think I’ve been able to figure out what her approach to relationships is. In this post, I’ll explain her approach, and then discuss how social conservatives should solve problems like abortion and single motherhood.

NOTE: Please do not contact or harass this woman, just leave her alone.

So, here’s the first, most important article:

As someone who considers themselves a feminist, and I always thought that being sexual and unashamed was liberating and empowering. And for that reason, I never stopped myself from doing what I wanted to do.

In the article, she explains what it feels like to be used for sex and then ghosted by a man. She says that he never got to know her, and that makes her feel bad. What did he know about her? She says that she appeared to him as “just some blonde blacked out drunk”. In the article, she describes lying awake next to him after sex, then getting up to walk home at 5:30 in the morning. And this is not the only toxic man in her life.

She says:

This applies to more than a few people from my past… I started to realize this lifestyle wasn’t working after I hooked up with a guy who thought New England was a state. And yeah, I still hooked up with him after finding out this knowledge about him… And I don’t know if that says more about him that he didn’t know or more about me since I was willing to overlook that fact just to feel desired for a night.

Because I do turn to other people for validation. When I think about it objectively, 90% of the reason I hook-up with anyone is to feel good about myself.

She calls the search for validation an “addiction”:

I am addicted to validation I got from getting with people. I needed that rush of dopamine. I needed to know I am wanted. I got addicted to hooking up. Cause it was the only thing that made me feel good about myself for a while. When I was feeling down, I turned to boys… that didn’t care about anything except what I look like. And I have been blessed/cursed with a pretty fast metabolism and a naturally larger than average chest. So I always have known I could default to my looks for validation. It’s the easiest thing to get recognition for. And I got addicted to being told I was hot, or pretty, or whatever.

In other articles, she explains what kinds of men she’s looking for.

She’s a strong Democrat.

There are two kinds of Republicans: the ignorant and the evil. Either they are uninformed and dumb or aware of the world and other cultures other than their own and just too corrupt or bigoted to care. It’s just that being a Republican seems to now stand for religious nuts, rich, rednecks, and racists. This current election cycle has only increased my deep seeded hatred for the right-wingers even more.

And I can’t help myself, but whenever I find out someone who I have been talking to or have been friends with is a Republican, I let out an audible “ugh, really?” I can not hide my disgust.

In another article, she explains that she’s an atheist:

If singing songs, praying or going to confession makes you feel better, by all means, do what you have to do to feel better. As long as you aren’t hurting anyone, do what you want to do. As an atheist, it doesn’t offend me. I just choose not to do it.

For example, at thanksgiving dinner this year my family wanted to say grace before eating, but they know where I stand when it comes to religion.

She came out of a Christian family.

In another post, she explains why she cheated on her boyfriend:

I wish I could say I don’t know why I did it, but that would be a blatant lie. I found myself in someone else’s bed because… I didn’t have feelings for you anymore. If you were enough for me, then you would have been. But you weren’t. I stopped craving your company. I felt guilty, sure, but not enough to stop me from doing it multiple times. I didn’t care about you or how you felt. And as my feelings started to fade, yours only seemed to get stronger. I know that stings, but it’s true.

So when I would go out in that extra-lowcut dress you loved when I wore it around you and a cute guy would ask me to dance or to go hangout on the porch, I wouldn’t mention you. I guess I got tired of turning people down when I didn’t feel like there was any “good” reason to. I missed my freedom. I missed the exciting feelings that come with flirting with someone new. The whole giddy honeymoon phase, getting butterflies whenever someone texts you, stalking them on Facebook and pretending you know nothing about them, finding yourself daydreaming about the next time you hang out in class. But I think I skipped a step before getting with someone new– breaking it off with you first.

She seems to be guided primarily by her feelings. If the feelings are gone, they’re gone. She doesn’t try to pick a good guy and invest in the relationship so that she builds something. I don’t think this is going to work for her to avoid bad men.

So, what kind of man is she looking for? She writes about how interested she is in “hot” guys in many of her articles. Guys with height, looks, tattoos, piercings, displayed wealth validate her more than guys who want to protect, provide, and lead her in moral and spiritual areas. I don’t think that the men she is choosing will treat her well – they just have too many options to focus on building something good with one woman.

She’s looking for a man who agrees with her on abortion and same-sex marriage. So, men like that don’t want to protect unborn children, and take responsibility for their choices. And a man who supports same-sex marriage is siding with selfish adults. Every same-sex relationship deprives a child of their bio-mom or bio-dad. That’s not a good man to build a stable marriage with.

Regarding religion, she’s uncomfortable with men who have definite exclusive views. Religion, for her, is not about truth at all. You shouldn’t make any exclusive claims that make people feel bad. Instead, just have your private religion that makes you feel better. She’s looking for men who will not lead her in moral and spiritual areas. That’s not a good man to date, either.

How is it working out for her?

Her worldview – feminism, atheism, socialism – doesn’t have the resources necessary for her to approach relationships in a way that will work for her, in the long run. She is not a Christian, pro-marriage, or conservative. The men she chooses are not Christians, pro-marriage, or conservative. This isn’t going to lead to a relationship that is faithful, exclusive and permanent. If that’s what she wants, then she is choosing the wrong people to get there. And even if she doesn’t want commitment now, she will some day. It’s better for her to focus on finding a good man now and building him up. Men make better husbands and fathers the sooner women get in there and support them at those goals.

I always urge young women to get a STEM degree and work in the private sector until they marry and have their first child. To make them think logically, take responsibility for engineering results, and to feel validated by their achievements. I wanted to see what her college major was – because I suspected that she did not do STEM. While searching, I stumbled upon her dating profile (posted on 9Gag by her), two Instagram pages full of selfies, a Tumblr blog of sexy photos, and an Only Fans page. Her LinkedIn page showed no current or previous work experience. To me, these things are clear signs that she is head straight for evil men who will hurt her.

Saving women from toxic masculinity

I think what we have to do is focus on her disappointment with the results of her own choices, and challenge her to change her worldview and relationship choices. She needs to stop rewarding the hot bad boys with free sex. There are good men out there who want to protect, provide and lead on moral and spiritual issues. She needs to be taught to focus on those good men.

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I have an ongoing disagreement with a female friend about how to restore marriage and family. We both agree on the harm that is done to children by the redefining marriage to remove the traditional marriage norms of exclusivity, permanence, heterosexual romance, etc. But she thinks that it’s better to approach men and get them to change, whereas I think it’s better to approach women and get them to change.

So, in a previous post, I argued that we should focus on telling women to stop choosing hot bad boys, and trying to get them to commit. I said this because I don’t think you can change the hot bad boys and make them commit. They want s3x, and that’s what they are getting when the normal women throw s3x at them. They don’t have to commit if they get what they want before committing.

But is there anything constructive to say to the normal men, who are not getting s3x thrown at them from many different women? Well, yes. There is something to say to them. Although they are not smashing up families, they are doing something wrong. They are giving attention to the wrong sort of women, for the wrong reasons.

Consider this article about the web site Only Fans, from Business Insider:

OnlyFans, the subscription-based adult-entertainment site, boomed during the pandemic.

Revenue at the UK-based company grew by 553% in the year to November 2020, and users spent £1.7 billion ($2.36 billion) on the site, a seven-fold increase, the Financial Times reported.

The site allows creators to sell video clips, photos, and messages directly to subscribers on a pay-per-view basis, with OnlyFans taking a 20% cut. Customers pay between $5 and $50 per month.

User numbers grew from 20 million before the pandemic to more than 120 million over 12 months, as adult entertainers and their customers signed up during lockdowns to share X-rated content.

Only Fans is a web site where the most impulsive and reckless women make easy money by showing off their bodies and performing s3xual activities for subscribers. It’s voluntary, not coerced. They want to get rich quick without having to care about doing well in school or getting a job. They aren’t interested in marriage, because they know that good men don’t marry women who make themselves available to millions of other men. They are not conservative. They don’t want men to lead them. They don’t read anything that makes them wiser or more noble. Men shouldn’t be paying women like this any money, or even giving them attention.

I want normal guys to give better women their time and money – preferably in a relationship, but at least in a friendship. Even if the majority of women are using their young and pretty years to try to land hot bad boys, there are always a minority of women who are busy with better things, like doing computer science degrees. I think that the normal guys should be paying attention to them.

In fact, if I could just convince these normal guys to read more useful stuff, I’m sure they would realize that there is a lot more to a woman than youth and beauty. They would probably find the Only Fans girls pretty repulsive, once they realized how much different women can be if they are trained and prepared to commit to men and respect them. And by trained, I don’t mean “I’m a Christian, you can’t judge my past”. I mean bookshelves of good books, read and highlighted. I mean a public record of conservative Christian achievements.

If normal guys can’t find good young women to pay attention to, then they should try to make friends with older, wiser good women. That way, they won’t be lonely, they will learn something from the older more conservative women , and they will avoid making the wrong sort of women richer. I used to have a half-dozen older women advisors who would fill my head with wisdom chirped out in their cute girly voices whenever I wanted. Getting wisdom from conservative older Christian women is a lot better for me than throwing dollar bills at online strippers, who take your money, but have no interest in getting ready for marriage.

And if a younger woman came along who read good books, was conservative, and wanted marriage and children, you can start the marriage evaluation process. The important thing is to have the money to close the deal on a marriage if you find a real marriage candidate, which is why you don’t waste money on Only Fans women. Good women are the ones who trust you, respect your leadership, and achieve things when you lead and support them.

I don’t really care much about the Only Fans women, but I don’t think that getting attention and money for how you look is good for them in the long run. Women who get attention for stripping and doing s3x acts don’t learn anything that’s useful for them to be content in a stable marriage. They get used to seeing men at their worst, and they lose their ability to trust and bond with one guy. Giving them money to do something temporary that cannot be sustained as their looks fade isn’t good for them either. I don’t think it’s good for society long-term to have a bunch of shallow, immature women voting for bigger government and less liberty when they reach age 32 and can’t find good men to marry them.

Basically, what I would like is for men and women to get better at understanding moral character, religion and relationships, so they can choose quality relationship partners. And the best way to do that is what the Bible recommends – by renewing your mind. And how do you renew your mind? Well, you have to convince yourself that the world works a certain way. And how do you do that? By reading difficult challenging books that show you how to achieve the goals that are best for you, even if you have to sacrifice happiness in the short term. Men and women need to read better books.

I’m going to keep recommending to young people that they try to get out of the chaos of this generation by reading better books. Start with Philippians and John in the Bible. Then, I like “Is God Just a Human Invention?” by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow. Read some Thomas Sowell economics, and some military history. There is no shortcut to valuing good things, and making good decisions. You have to change your mind by keep out the culture’s junk, and putting in the good stuff.

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I think that there is a view held by people living in blue states that they are smarter than people living in red states. If that were true, then we should be able to measure and see what this smartness has achieved. For example, I would expect the smart states to have better academic performance, lower crime rates, better roads, better health care, higher marriage rates, and so on. Let’s see.

Here’s an article from The Federalist by Helen Raleigh, who is very good on these kinds of issues.

She writes on education in blue states and red states:

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has released the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for the 2024 school year. Known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” NAEP assesses the reading and math skills of America’s fourth and eighth graders. The latest report reveals something surprising: after adjusting for demographics, the reading and math scores of students in Mississippi and Louisiana, two heavily Republican states and among the poorest in the nation, have surpassed those in deeply Democratic states such as California and New York.

As soon as I read that, I went straight to Grok to get a listening of per-pupil spending in the 50 states. (no point using Google for searching, it’s biased to the far left, and is just a search engine for corporate news media at this point).

Grok said this:

• Louisiana: $12,000
• Mississippi: $10,984
• California: $17,700
• New York: $30,282

So, you would expect the states that spend more on education to have higher test scores on basics like math, reading, science, history, etc. Right?

Let’s go back to the Federalist article, and see what Missiippi did:

The secret of Mississippi and Louisiana’s educational success is not secret at all; it is about returning to the fundamentals and following the evidence. Mississippi’s Republican-led legislature has implemented effective education reforms in 2012 that prioritize phonics — teaching students to sound out words — and enforce a retention policy for third graders who do not meet essential reading benchmarks. Furthermore, the state invests $15 million each year, or approximately $32 per student, into training teachers on literacy and providing dedicated reading coaches in schools.

The reform has produced remarkable results, with Mississippi’s fourth graders’ reading scores rising from 49th in the nation in 2013 to the top of the rankings (after adjusting for demographics) in 2024. The progress among black students is particularly impressive. According to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, the reading scores of the state’s black fourth graders have improved from 45th to third place during the same period. This reflects the effectiveness of Mississippi’s literacy program, which has provided a learning gain equivalent to a full year of schooling. Moreover, the state’s graduation rate has seen a significant rise from 72 percent in 2013 to 89.9 percent in 2024.

And here’s what Louisiana did:

Inspired by Mississippi’s success, Louisiana implemented similar education reforms in 2019. The state focused on phonics instruction and providing “content-rich” literacy curriculums. Additionally, Louisiana has invested in extensive training programs for principals, teachers, and reading coaches on how students learn to read.

Chad Aldeman, who tracks education-related news, noted, “While Mississippi might win the prize for ten-year gains, Louisiana might win for the most significant recent improvements. It was the closest state to recovering from COVID-related declines in eighth-grade reading and math, and it was the only state where fourth-grade reading scores were higher in 2024 than in 2019.”

Now, you might be thinking “but isn’t that what California and New York do, except with more money?” Well, no, they don’t:

According to California Policy Center, “less than half (47.1 percent) of all public school students in California met state grade-level English Language Arts (ELA) standards during the 2021-22 school year … The reading scores of Black and Hispanic students are even worse. Only 30.3 percent of Black students and 36.4 percent of Hispanic students in California met grade-level ELA standards.”

Yet legislation requiring schools to implement more phonics-based reading curricula failed to pass in California’s legislature last year. This was primarily due to opposition from Democratic Party leadership, teachers unions, and advocacy groups.

If you’re thinking “well, I don’t think any state is stupid enough to do things that don’t work”, let me show you another article from Daily Wire about California:

Democrats on the California Senate Public Safety Committee shot down a bill on Tuesday that would have kept male sex criminals out of female prisons.

The committee, which includes far-Left Senator Scott Wiener, voted down a proposal from Republican Senator Shannon Grove to protect women from males who are registered sex offenders from being able to be housed in women’s prisons. The bill also would have given women privacy in sleeping arrangements and showers, meaning that they would be protected from males who have taken advantage of California’s lax laws that allow men to be placed in women’s prisons.

Back to education. California and New York schools are run by Democrats. They want their schools to indoctrinate students in secular left ideology. They don’t hire the best teachers, and they can’t fire the worst ones. They don’t want parents to tell them what to do, and they don’t focus on basics like reading and math. They focus on putting condoms on cucumbers, and LGBT indoctrination. They hire tons of administrative staff to come in and make sure the schools are woke enough. That’s what blue states do: spend more, get less. And when they fail to perform, they go to the government, and have the law enforcement label the concerned parents “domestic terrorists”. Get out of those blue states, and get into a red state. Don’t give them your money.

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When people ask me how the Trump presidency is working out, I say that it’s a mixed bag. There are definite positives, like border security and law enforcement. And definite negatives, like tariffs against our allies, and throwing the Canadian election for the leftist Liberal party. But many Trump supporters most important issue is the issue of life. How has Trump been doing on that issue?

Well, Life News is the source I trust for news about life issues, and they have a nice article about Trump’s first 100 days.

It says:

President Donald Trump has moved swiftly to advance a pro-life agenda in the first 100 days of his second term, enacting a series of executive actions and policy changes that have energized pro-life advocates.

Since his inauguration on January 20, Trump has signed more than 139 executive orders, with several directly targeting pro-life policies and reinforcing protections for the sanctity of human life.

These actions fulfill key campaign promises and align with the priorities of pro-life groups, who see the administration’s early moves as a historic step toward curbing abortion and promoting a culture of life.

Sounds good, but I thought if I could get a few specifics, then I would be able to bring them up in discussions. I’ve been doing a lot of running around town for various tasks, and getting into good conversations with people. Auto repair, auto inspection, mower blade sharpening, Indian food, dentist and doctor check-ups, etc. So, I always want to have the latest facts ready to go in case anyone asks me. Of course, where I live, most people agree with me, but oh well.

Here’s are two related ones that I can remember:

The president followed that up with an executive order pardoning 23 pro-life Americans who Joe Bien unjustly convicted for exercising their free speech rights to protest at abortion businesses.

[..]Furthermore, the administration announced plans to limit the enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, arguing that it has been used to target pro-life activists unfairly. This decision reflects the administration’s stance on protecting the rights of individuals engaging in peaceful protest outside abortion businesses. The end of lawfare against pro-life Americans is a significant free speech victory.

This one was important to me. I am always furious when I see the Democrat party using government power as a weapon against taxpayers who disagree with the Democrat party on policy. Sadly, we had a lot of abuse of power under the Biden-Harris regime, including unlawful detainment and pre-dawn-raiding of political opponents. Although these things do fit the definition of fascism, the corporate news media often had nothing to say about them. I’m glad that Trump had heard about them, and did something about them.

Here are another two related ones that I can remember:

Trump signed an executive order reinstating the “Mexico City Policy,” which prohibits taxpayer funding of groups like International Planned Parenthood that promote and perform abortions in other nations.

[…]President Trump issued an executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds for elective abortions domestically. This move underscores the administration’s commitment to preventing taxpayer dollars from funding abortion services within the United States.

So, it’s frustrating to me as a conservative Christian that my tax dollars go to support activists who disagree with me on all of my beliefs. You would think someone was weird if William Lane Craig was able to get taxpayer money to fun his debates on college campuses. But, that’s exactly what’s happening, when the Democrat party gets into power – except they hand out billions and billions of dollars to universities, companies and corporate news media. And that’s not even to mention their other constituencies: criminals, single mothers, student loan defaulters, illegal immigrants, etc.

Now, before I even started blogging, I remember visiting home in 2008, and following my Obama-supporting mother around the house with a pack of printed out articles, complaining to her about how Obama voted against protections for babies born alive during abortions. So, Trump did something about that:

President Trump also issued a statement endorsing a Congressional bill that would protect babies who survive abortions. And finally, President Trump signed the United States onto a document called the Geneva Declaration that confirms there is no right to kill babies in abortions.

Actually, the Democrat party supports not only killing babies born alive during abortions, but also sex-selection abortions (typically unborn girls) and race selection abortions (typically non-white unborn babies).

But there’s more. Trump also stopped federal interference with pro-life laws at the state level:

In other pro-life actions, Trump has dropped a lawsuit Joe Biden filed attempting to force Idaho to allow abortions.

I once had a debate with the President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society on Twitter. He was claiming that it was fine to vote for Biden-Harris, because Trump would be the same on abortion. I had to explain to him that Trump would not touch state-level restrictions on abortion. But not only did Trump not touch them, but he’s reversing Biden’s previous attacks on them!

I suppose that the President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society also opposed this action by Trump, since he didn’t support Trump:

He froze some Planned Parenthood funding, cutting of $27.5 million to the abortion giant and he defunded UNFPA, which promoted forced abortions in China.

Anyway, there’s more in the article, so just read it, and then maybe tell a friend.

Trump has disappointed me in some ways, especially screwing the Canadian conservatives out of their supermajority with his tariffs and “51st state” clowning. But, we have to give him points when he scored.

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Here’s a good basic introduction to the free enterprise system by Dr. Jay Richards:

Here is the description:

In this edition of the Evangel Guest Lecture Series, Jay W. Richards discusses his book on the capitalist system within the context of the Christian faith and examine how enterprise based on hard work, honesty, and trust fosters creativity and growth.

Jay W. Richards, PhD, is author of many books including the New York Times bestseller Infiltrated (2013). Richards is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and executive editor of The Stream. In recent years he has been a distinguished fellow at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, contributing editor of The American at the American Enterprise Institute, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and research fellow and director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute.

It turns out that the best system for lifting the poor out of poverty – by work or charity – is the economic system that creates wealth through human ingenuity and hard work. That system is the free enterprise system.

Something to read?

If you can’t listen to the lecture and don’t want to buy the whole book “Money, Greed and God?” Then I have a series of posts on each chapter for you.

The index post is here.

Here are the posts in the series:

• Part 1: The Eight Most Common Myths about Wealth, Poverty, and Free Enterprise
• Part 2: Can’t We Build A Just Society?
• Part 3: The Piety Myth
• Part 4: The Myth of the Zero Sum Game
• Part 5: Is Wealth Created or Transferred?
• Part 6: Is Free Enterprise Based on Greed?
• Part 7: Hasn’t Christianity Always Opposed Free Enterprise?
• Part 8: Does Free Enterprise Lead to An Ugly Consumerist Culture?
• Part 9: Will We Use Up All Our Resources?
• Part 10: Are Markets An Example of Providence?

Parts 4 and 5 are my favorites. It’s so hard to choose one to excerpt, but I must. I will choose… Part 4.

Here’s the problem:

Myth #3: The Zero Sum Game Myth – believing that trade requires a winner and a loser.

One reason people believe this myth is because they misunderstand how economic value is determined. Economic thinkers with views as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx believed economic value was determined by the labor theory of value. This theory stipulates that the cost to produce an object determines its economic value.

According to this theory, if you build a house that costs you $500,000 to build, that house is worth $500,000. But what if no one can or wants to buy the house? Then what is it worth?

Medieval church scholars put forth a very different theory, one derived from human nature: economic value is in the eye of the beholder. The economic value of an object is determined by how much someone is willing to give up to get that object. This is the subjective theory of value.

And here’s an example of how to avoid the problem:

How you determine economic value affects whether you view free enterprise as a zero-sum game, or a win-win game in which both participants benefit.

Let’s return to the example of the $500,000 house. As the developer of the house, you hire workers to build the house. You then sell it for more than $500,000. According to the labor theory of value, you have taken more than the good is actually worth. You’ve exploited the buyer and your workers by taking this surplus value. You win, they lose.

Yet this situation looks different according to the subjective theory of value. Here, everybody wins. You market and sell the house for more than it cost to produce, but not more than customers will freely pay. The buyer is not forced to pay a cost he doesn’t agree to. You are rewarded for your entrepreneurial effort. Your workers benefit, because you paid them the wages they agreed to when you hired them.

This illustration brings up a couple important points about free enterprise that are often overlooked:

1. Free exchange is a win-win game.

In win-win games, some players may end up better off than others, but everyone ends up better off than they were at the beginning. As the developer, you might make more than your workers. Yet the workers determined they would be better off by freely exchanging their labor for wages, than if they didn’t have the job at all.

A free market doesn’t guarantee that everyone wins in every competition. Rather, it allows many more win-win encounters than any other alternative.

2. The game is win-win because of rules set-up beforehand.

A free market is not a free-for-all in which everybody can do what they want. Any exchange must be free on both sides. Rule of law, contracts, and property rights are needed to ensure exchanges are conducted rightly. As the developer of the house, you’d be held accountable if you broke your contract and failed to pay workers what you promised.

An exchange that is free on both sides, in which no one is forced or tricked into participating, is a win-win game.

If you do get the book, be sure and skip the chapter on usury. It’s just not as engaging as the others, in my opinion.

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For Valentine’s Day, I found a new 2024 study that is related to male-female romantic relationships! A lot of people think that men are less committed than women, but if you look at the data, men initiate fewer divorces than women, and they take break-ups a lot harder than women. And lesbian couples have the highest rates of divorce! Let’s take a look at the data.

Here’s the report on the new study, from the New York Post:

Breaking up is hard to do — for men, anyway.

That’s because males care more about being in a relationship than females, a new study set to be published in Behavioural and Brain Sciences found, according to PsyPost.

Researchers at the Humboldt University of Berlin are pouring cold water on the popular belief that gals are more desperate for a partner — saying that guys are more likely to experience loneliness after calling it quits, and are less likely to see the silver lining to the situation.

The team analyzed more than 50 scientific studies on gender differences in heterosexual relationships to come up with their findings.

Women are more likely to initiate divorces than men:

The results could explain why men are less likely than women to initiate a break-up when in a steady relationship — 70% of divorces are initiated by women, the experts stated.

Men are also more likely to search for a partner and to be focused on entering into a serious relationship — perhaps because they have more to gain.

“We know from numerous studies that women typically receive more emotional support from their social environment than men. Therefore, heterosexual men are more dependent on their partners to fulfill their emotional needs than heterosexual women,” Iris Wahring, lead author of the study, said in a statement.

“In short, steady relationships are psychologically more important for men than for women.”

If you look at the instability rates of lesbians, they have the highest rates of relationship instability of any relationship arrangement.

During the five years of marriage, lesbian spouses have twice the risk of divorce compared to heterosexual marriages. Only after 25 years of marriage this difference seems to be gone, the study shows. Same-sex male couples only have an 8 percent higher chance of getting divorced than heterosexual couples in that same period. Senior researcher Ruhne Zahl Olsen is not surprised by the results. They have been the same in other countries, he says to Aftenposten.

[…]For the survey, 5,187 same-sex couples and marriages entered between 1993 and 2018 were examined.

This is important, because in lesbian relationships, it’s two women. So, you can’t blame the high rate of instability / divorce on any man. There isn’t any man there to blame!

Anyway, I thought this new study would be good for men. Men are always getting beaten up and blamed for everything. But not everything about men is bad. I don’t mean the top 20% most attractive men, who have so many options that they don’t have to be nice to any particular woman. I mean the vast majority of ordinary men who just work and live quiet lives. They are the ones who are good at commitment.

Something to think about for those who are wondering “where are all the good men?”. Men are good, you just have to choose the good character ones.

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Americans can learn which policies work and don’t work by looking at policies that have been tried in other times and places. That way, we can avoid the mistakes that other people have already made. That’s one of the reasons why people like Thomas Sowell so much – he is always talking about which policies work, and which ones don’t. And in Germany, it’s mostly policies that don’t.

Here’s a fun article from Victor Davis Hanson, writing for the Daily Signal. If you’re like me, you already know Dr. Hanson from his writings on military history. But he likes policy, too.

He says:

Today I’d like to talk about the crisis facing Europe, specifically its self-implosion across the spectrum—energy, population, fertility, defense. Germany, for example, has been systematically shutting down its nuclear plants and, for a while, its natural gas electrical generation plants.

If you know your energy policy, then you know that natural gas and nuclear power are the two power sources pushed by conservatives. They are safe and reliable, and they are also zero emission. Best of all for me, they don’t kill bats, birds and other animals. Birds are my favorite animals, and that’s a huge reason why I hate wind and solar power – they kill birds in large numbers.

More:

the net result of all of this deliberate turn to wind and solar, at the expense of fossil fuels and nuclear, is that it costs about four times more to use electricity in Germany than it does on average throughout the United States. That’s not the only problem.

Germany is deindustrializing. And by that I mean it’s losing about 200,000 jobs in its auto industry due to these high energy prices and regulations. Its green mandates, especially electric vehicle mandates, have revolutionized the car industry, in the sense that they’re not selling abroad as they did in the past.

When you raise the prices of gas and electricity, it raises the price of all production of goods, and transportation of goods. The funny thing is that this has been going on for some time. I remember talking about Angela Merkel’s failed policies with an international student from Germany with I was in grad school. And they never pulled out of their death spiral! It’s still going now.

Anyway, the higher cost of gas and electricity is having big effects:

In addition to that, Germany’s disarmed. They only have about 125 attack aircraft. They have very few armored vehicles. Their active military is only about 180,000 soldiers.

They have 84 million people in the country. The fertility rate is getting very close to 1.4. I know we have problems here in the United States at 1.6, but 1.4.

And they don’t have borders. They have had a million to 2 million illegal aliens just prance into Germany, especially during the last years of the Merkel chancellorship. In terms of percentage of foreign-born, Germany has more foreign-born than does the United States, which doesn’t have a border in the south, at least until Donald Trump comes in. Twenty percent of the German population is foreign-born.

We have a new administration now, and if you look at the picks for Department of the Interior, and Secretary of Energy, then we should be getting some action on developing our own supply of clean energy. Let’s hope that we don’t make the same mistakes that the Germans made.

By the way, if people ask you “why are you a conservative?” it’s nothing to be ashamed of. You don’t have to bring up Bible verses, religious beliefs, or moral issues. Start with economic policies. Just tell them that conservative policies are policies that allow you to have a job, earn money, and spend it how you like. And when they ask you for an example, you can talk about energy policy, and how things are going in free countries that produce a lot of energy (like Norway) vs un-free countries that don’t develop a lot of energy (like Germany). Norway’s GDP per capita is $90,500 (great), but Germany’s is $61,900 (trash). That’s why we want to be like Norway, and we don’t want to be like Germany.

By arguing for conservative fiscal policies, you often will get an opportunity to argue for conservative social policies. Once people see that you have done your homework in one area, they will be more welcoming of your views in other areas. At the very least, you win whenever you can show your work.

Conservative policy is just “let’s do what works” and “let’s not do what does not work”. Secular leftist policy is “do what feels good” and “do what makes people like me”, but that often produces very bad results, especially for the next generation.

Image source: Clean Energy Wire (January 2023)

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Who is Larry Sanger? Larry Sanger is the co-founder of Wikipedia, and he holds a PhD in philosophy from the Ohio State University. Although he was raised in a Christian home, he did not get good answers to his many questions from Christian leaders. In fact, they foolishly made him feel badly for asking questions. He decided to take another look at the arguments for Christian theism.

Here’s the story from Evolution News:

As I found myself returning to the old arguments for the existence of God, I did not slap myself on the forehead and say, “Oh! It turns out that this is a great argument! I guess I believe in God after all!” Even today I deny that, individually, the traditional arguments for the existence of God are particularly persuasive. But I began to examine them in new versions.

I was impressed by a lecture by philosopher of science and well-known apologist Stephen Meyer, who presented versions of the cosmological argument and the fine-tuning argument. Science says the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe. But whatever had a beginning has to have had an explanation. As this is the beginning of matter itself, it cannot have a material cause; thus it must have an immaterial cause (whatever that might be like).

Similarly, certain features of the universe that are absolutely necessary to explaining how fundamental natural laws operate are physical constants. Physicists tell us that if the values of those constants were different, then various things could not have happened; for example, atoms could not have formed, or stars could not have ignited and given off light and heat. But scientists have never offered an explanation for these constants.

He mentions Stephen C. Meyer, so let’s talk about that.

I want you, the reader, to consider that the arguments of Stephen C. Meyer, and the people like him, do work on non-Christians. If you are still batting around “arguments” from people like Aquinas and C.S. Lewis, then you are trying to build a wall with spaghetti, instead of with bricks. The new arguments are much better than what you learned in Sunday school. They are much better than what you heard from your parents and pastors. They are much better than what you read in popular Christian books. Much better than anything a seminary professor could teach you.

If you haven’t put in the time on the new scientific arguments, then you better get moving, because there has been a huge revolution in the way that people think about the Big Questions of life. We covered some of them on the Knight and Rose Show, but you’ll be better off getting yourself a book like “The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith”. That book is one stop shopping.

More:

This is a greatly condensed summary; I developed these ideas in much greater depth. But beyond such details, what I dwelled upon more than anything is the fact that the arguments taken together are far more persuasive than I had understood. Individually, the arguments might seem relatively weak. As I said, the Argument from Contingency only shows that a necessary being exists. The Argument from Causality shows only that the universe had a cause outside of itself. The Argument from Design shows only that the universe has some sort of designer or other. An Argument from Morality might add that the designer is benevolent, to some degree, in some way, but not even necessarily personal. But what happens when we combine all the arguments to make a unified case for the existence of God? I’m not sure the idea had ever dawned on me, certainly not with its present vividness. Taken together, the arguments point to a necessary being that exists apart from space, time, and matter. This is the very cause of the universe, which was designed according to orderly abstract laws. Ever more complex properties emerge, one from another, with great beauty and rationality—rationality that exhibits various mind-like features. This order can even be described as good, a cosmos indeed, because life and its preservation seem to be part of the plan, and life is the very standard of value.

And this is the exciting part – he’s going to be a regular contributor at Evolution News:

Editor’s note: We are delighted to welcome Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger as a new contributor. The following is excerpted from his essay, “How a Skeptical Philosopher Becomes a Christian” at LarrySanger.org. See also, “Wikipedia Co-Founder Blasts ‘Appallingly Biased’ Wikipedia Entry on Intelligent Design.”

I love stories like this. I’ve talked this over with Rose. Neither of us grew up in Christian homes, so we had complete freedom to puzzle these things out on our own, and only act according to what we discovered. In my case, I explained to a youth pastor early on that in my family, we liked to argue. So, he gave me apologetics books, and said that in Christianity, there was a long tradition of debating.

I puzzled through these books at my own pace, never having to be forced to go to church, never having to put on a show, and never having to get my Christianity secondhand from people who were terrible at it. I got it straight from the Bible, not from anybody’s words or behaviors. And in the end, it stuck very well. In fact, it never even bothered me that Christianity lost me reputation with other people. After all, they couldn’t defend their views in a debate. Sometimes I think it’s better to do it this way.

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If I had to pick the strongest defender of Christianity operating today, I would pick Dr. Stephen C. Meyer. His recent book “Return of the God Hypothesis” defends three arguments for a Creator / Designer of the universe. But there have been some criticisms of those arguments. In this conversation, Justin Brierley asks Dr. Meyer to respond to those criticisms.

Here is the video:

Here is the description:

Justin Brierley interviews controversial philosopher of science Dr Stephen Meyer, about his recent book “Return of the God Hypothesis”. Stephen shares the latest advances in the field of “Intelligent Design”, ranging from design inferences that can be drawn from the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the information content of the living cell, and even from attempts of atheist materialists to try to avoid the God Hypothesis!

And here are the topics, with timestamps:

00:00:00 Coming up…
00:00:40 Introduction
00:01:08 Darwinism is in trouble
00:05:42 Isn’t I.D. God of the gaps?
00:09:03 What about the Dover School trial?
00:13:21 Has the I.D. stigma changed?
00:15:57 Big Bang points to design?
00:23:44 Objections to beginning & cause of the universe
00:30:04 Is there a bias against God?
00:32:31 Fine-tuning points to design?
00:37:14 Puddle objection to design
00:42:38 “C.R.A.P.” objection to design
00:45:40 Multiverse defeats design?
00:52:42 About The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God podcast
00:54:29 Own-goals from trying to avoid design
00:56:29 Origin of life points to design?
01:03:56 Dawkins is wrong about life arising by chance
01:09:15 What about naturalistic models of life?
01:12:23 Aesthetic objections to I.D.
01:15:47 Paul Davies’ views on I.D.
01:19:53 Conclusion
01:23:46 Next!

If you watch this, leave a comment and let me know what you thought of it.

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I worked with a secular Jewish guy named Tom for several years. I disagreed with him on topics like Darwinism and global warming alarmism. One day, Tom got very angry and he told me that I was living in a bubble, because I believed that the corporate news media was biased. So I showed him some peer-reviewed studies that proved that they were biased. Needless to say, he was not happy.

But what remained to be proved is WHY is the corporate news media so biased. Is it because smart people are naturally secular leftists? Or is there another reason.

Here’s an article from The Federalist that explains the real reason that the corporate news media is biased to the left:

Federal agencies have been funneling millions to leftist media outlets including The Associated Press, Politico, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, according to public grant disclosures.

These legacy corporations have fashioned themselves the gatekeepers of information to the American public. But ever since 2015, when now-President Donald Trump announced his first campaign — and even earlier — they have spewed lie after lie in an attempt to control the political narrative.

Associated Press:

The Associated Press, an “independent news cooperative,” has received $37.5 million from the federal government over the last 15-plus years, according to public spending data.

Politico:

Politico has received $34.3 million from the federal government since 2015, according to government spending data published by Liz Wheeler.

Reuters:

Reuters has received $10.6 million from federal agencies starting in 2020, according to government grant data.

New York Times:

The New York Times has received $2.7 million total from federal agencies since 2008, according to government spending data.

Washington Post:

The Washington Post has accepted $1.7 million from federal agencies starting in 2014, according to public data.

CNN:

CNN has received nearly $220,000 from the federal government, according to government grant disclosures.

Did these “payments” cause the corporate news media to spread disinformation, misinformation and false news so that their Democrat paymasters could stay in power?

What about the Trump-Russia collusion story?

Soon after Trump began his first term, outlets like The New York Times amplified and advanced the “Russiagate” collusion narrative, which turned out to be a hoax. Its website still features a section on “Trump and the Russians,” filled with hit pieces from 2017. In fact, all six outlets that have taken federal funding — The AP, Politico, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN — amplified this narrative.

But it later turned out that the dossier of former British spy Christopher Steele — the impetus for many of these conspiracy theories, as well as the FBI’s spying on the Trump campaign — was fabricated, as The Federalist previously reported. And even more concerning, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign paid for it.

What about deliberately misquoting Trump to help the Democrat party?

Still, these outlets served as anti-Trump megaphones through his entire first term. CNN and Reuters repeated phony stories from anonymous sources, such as the smear that Trump supposedly called fallen U.S. soldiers “suckers” and “losers.” The New York Times amplified quotes taken out of context, such as when Trump referred to “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville, Virginia, protests — omitting his comment that “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

What about the Hunter Biden laptop is Russian disinformation story?

In the crucial days before the 2020 election, CNN dismissed the New York Post’s story exposing the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and Politico editors allegedly buried the story at the time, designating it “disinformation.” It turned out the Hunter Biden laptop story was true, and as revealed in the Twitter Files, Democrats and federal officials worked with Big Tech to suppress it. A poll found 80 percent of respondents thought the story would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.

And the spreading of misinformation to help the Democrat party was amplified by far-left Big Tech corporations like Google, who intentionally steered users to left-wing news sources in the corporate news media.

Here’s a report from the New York Post:

Google’s already left-leaning news aggregator platform Google News skewed even more off the charts in 2023, according to a recent analysis.

Media company AllSides’ latest bias analysis found that 63% of articles that appeared on Google News over two weeks were from left-leaning media outlets — a 2% increase from 2022, when 61% of articles on the aggregator were from liberal outlets.

By contrast, the number of right-leaning news sources picked up by Google News in 2023 was 6%, a relative improvement from the paltry 3% the previous year.

The article notes that the study authors did not consider Reuters to be a left-wing source. If you consider Reuters to be a left-wing source, as I do, then 67% of the articles on Google News were linking to left-wing sources. At what point does this become election interference? We should by all means cut off the taxpayer-funding for the corporate news media. And then cut off the taxpayer-funded for NPR and PBS. Then we can investigate how Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google used their products to favor the Democrat party, especially to interfere in our elections.

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The message of many Christian elites about evolution is that Christians should go ahead and believe it. After all, it doesn’t make any difference. Since tells you how the heavens go, they say. And religion tells you how to go to Heaven, they say. But is it true? Or does Darwinism have implications that are are hostile to believe in Christian theism? Let’s see.

First of all, it’s important to understand that Darwinian evolution is fully naturalistic evolution. There is no room in Darwinian evolution for a Designer, or a design. Nature does it’s own gradual creating, and there is no room for jumps in biological complexity.

And what is the implication of a “clockwork” universe? Let the Darwinists tell you themselves.

William Provine says atheists have no free will, no moral accountability and no moral significance:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.

Richard Dawkins says atheists have no objective moral standards:

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. (Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995))

Well, some people might point to prominent Christians like Howard Van Till and Karl Giberson as examples of people who believe in Darwinian evolution, but profess a belief in Christianity.

Here’s Dr. John G. West to discuss Howard Van Till, over at Evolution News:

In the early years of the intelligent design movement, one of the most significant critics of ID among evangelical Christian academics was Howard Van Till (1938-2024).

A physics professor at Calvin College (the campus chapel is pictured above), Van Till was the pre-eminent example of an evangelical Christian scientist in the 1990s who defended Darwinian evolution. Van Till still ends up being cited by some as an example of how an orthodox Christian can embrace Darwin.

The problem is that after retiring from Calvin, Van Till evolved well beyond Christianity. Indeed, he eventually evolved beyond theism.

By 2006, Van Till was declaring himself a freethinker. By 2016, he was identifying with what he called “a comprehensively naturalistic worldview,” which he described as a belief “that the physical universe is the only reality… and that it is not dependent on a non-corporeal, person-like Agent (the Abrahamic God, for example) to give it being or to guide its evolution.”

And here’s Karl Giberson:

One of the Christian scientists who liked to cite Van Till as a model for integrating Christianity with evolution was Karl Giberson. Also a physicist, Giberson has been a longtime associate of geneticist Francis Collins, with whom he coauthored a book. For many years, Giberson was a professor at Eastern Nazarene University, an explicitly evangelical Christian institution. He helped Francis Collins start the BioLogos Foundation to promote theistic evolution.

Giberson hasn’t yet slid as far down the slope as Van Till. But, sadly, he appears to be on the same trajectory.

In his book Saving Darwin (endorsed by Collins), Giberson denied the historic Christian teaching that humans were originally created good. In Giberson’s view, that can’t be true because it conflicts with Darwinian evolution. According to him, evolution is driven by selfishness, so humans must have been selfish and evil from the start. Giberson nevertheless maintained that he was a committed Christian.

But reading between the lines, his reasons for staying a Christian were rather shaky. He acknowledged poignantly: “my belief in God is tinged with doubts and, in my more reflective moments, I sometimes wonder if I am perhaps simply continuing along the trajectory of a childhood faith that should be abandoned.”

This part is scary. When you marry a theistic evolutionist, they might come to church with you. But they could just as easily be faking it to keep up appearances. Their commitment to Darwinian evolution is absolute, but the Christian theism is just acting:

So why did he stay a Christian? “As a purely practical matter, I have compelling reasons to believe in God. My parents are deeply committed Christians and would be devastated were I to reject my faith. My wife and children believe in God, and we attend church together regularly. Most of my friends are believers. I have a job I love at a Christian college that would be forced to dismiss me if I were to reject the faith that underpins the mission of the college. Abandoning belief in God would be disruptive, sending my life completely off the rails.” Note that Dr. Giberson’s “compelling reasons” to believe in God were sociological. They weren’t about whether Christianity is actually true.

Within a few years of writing Saving Darwin, Giberson resigned his post at the Christian university where he taught. In a book following his departure, Saving the Original Sinner (2015), Giberson made fairly clear that he now regards the Bible as a mish-mash of divergent stories from one particular tribe rather than a divinely inspired text featuring God’s authoritative message. He thinks if Christianity wants to survive it needs to evolve: “Christianity emerged in a different time and must be prepared to evolve like everything else.”

So, if you meet a Christian who believes in Darwinian evolution, make sure they understand the implications of Darwinian evolution, and what it means for the Christian worldview. The conflicts between Darwinian evolution and Christian theism are much more severe than just disagreeing with Bible stories.

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Welcome to episode 58 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose interview Dr. John West about his new book “Stockholm Syndrome Christianity”. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Vice President of the Discovery Institute Dr. John West to discuss his new book “Stockholm Syndrome Christianity”. He discusses how Christians are influenced by non-Christian ideas, key figures in the Stockholm Syndrome movement, how Christian institutions are captured by secular left, and strategies to combat the spread of Stockholm Syndrome Christianity.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show (with timestamps) provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 58:

Speaker biographies

Dr. John West is Vice President of the Discovery Institute, and Managing Director of the Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, which he co-founded with Dr. Stephen C. Meyer in 1996. Dr. West was previously an Associate Professor of Political Science at Seattle Pacific University where he chaired the Department of Political Science and Geography. He earned his PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University and BA in Communications from the University of Washington. Dr. West has written or edited twelve books, including “Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science”. His newest book is “Stockholm Syndrome Christianity: Why America’s Christian Leaders Are Failing — and What We Can Do About It”.

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

Videos:

• Socrates in the City: C. S. Lewis and Scientism with Dr. John West and Eric Metaxas
• Bad Policies, Bad Leadership, Bad Theology: John West Interview – The Becket Cook Show
• “Darwin’s Corrosive Idea” John West at Dallas Science Faith Conference 2020
• Biola University: Dr. John West – Evolution and C.S. Lewis: What Did He Really Believe?
• Heritage Foundation: John West on Scientism in the Age of Obama

Links:

• Articles by Dr. John G. West
• Articles at Evolution News by John West

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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First, let’s see check with the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.

Stanford University is one of the top 5 universities in the United States, so that’s a solid definition. To be an atheist is to be a person who makes the claim that, as a matter of FACT, there is no intelligent agent who created the universe. Atheists think that there is no God, and theists think that there is a God. Both claims are objective claims about the way the world is out there, and so both sides must furnish forth arguments and evidence as to how they are able to know what they are each claiming.

Philosopher William Lane Craig has some thoughts on atheism, atheists and lacking belief in God in this reply to a questioner.

Question:

In my discussions with atheists, they are using the term that they “lack belief in God”. They claim that this is different from not believing in God or from saying that God does not exist. I’m not sure how to respond to this. It seems to me that its a silly word-play and is logically the same as saying that you do not believe in God.
What would be a good response to this?
Thank you for your time,

Steven

And here is Dr. Craig’s full response:

Your atheist friends are right that there is an important logical difference between believing that there is no God and not believing that there is a God. Compare my saying, “I believe that there is no gold on Mars” with my saying “I do not believe that there is gold on Mars.” If I have no opinion on the matter, then I do not believe that there is gold on Mars, and I do not believe that there is no gold on Mars. There’s a difference between saying, “I do not believe (p)” and “I believe (not-p).” Logically where you place the negation makes a world of difference.

But where your atheist friends err is in claiming that atheism involves only not believing that there is a God rather than believing that there is no God.

There’s a history behind this. Certain atheists in the mid-twentieth century were promoting the so-called “presumption of atheism.” At face value, this would appear to be the claim that in the absence of evidence for the existence of God, we should presume that God does not exist. Atheism is a sort of default position, and the theist bears a special burden of proof with regard to his belief that God exists.

So understood, such an alleged presumption is clearly mistaken. For the assertion that “There is no God” is just as much a claim to knowledge as is the assertion that “There is a God.” Therefore, the former assertion requires justification just as the latter does. It is the agnostic who makes no knowledge claim at all with respect to God’s existence. He confesses that he doesn’t know whether there is a God or whether there is no God.

But when you look more closely at how protagonists of the presumption of atheism used the term “atheist,” you discover that they were defining the word in a non-standard way, synonymous with “non-theist.” So understood the term would encompass agnostics and traditional atheists, along with those who think the question meaningless (verificationists). As Antony Flew confesses,

the word ‘atheist’ has in the present context to be construed in an unusual way. Nowadays it is normally taken to mean someone who explicitly denies the existence . . . of God . . . But here it has to be understood not positively but negatively, with the originally Greek prefix ‘a-’ being read in this same way in ‘atheist’ as it customarily is in . . . words as ‘amoral’ . . . . In this interpretation an atheist becomes not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God, but someone who is simply not a theist. (A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro [Oxford: Blackwell, 1997], s.v. “The Presumption of Atheism,” by Antony Flew)

Such a re-definition of the word “atheist” trivializes the claim of the presumption of atheism, for on this definition, atheism ceases to be a view. It is merely a psychological state which is shared by people who hold various views or no view at all. On this re-definition, even babies, who hold no opinion at all on the matter, count as atheists! In fact, our cat Muff counts as an atheist on this definition, since she has (to my knowledge) no belief in God.

One would still require justification in order to know either that God exists or that He does not exist, which is the question we’re really interested in.

So why, you might wonder, would atheists be anxious to so trivialize their position? Here I agree with you that a deceptive game is being played by many atheists. If atheism is taken to be a view, namely the view that there is no God, then atheists must shoulder their share of the burden of proof to support this view. But many atheists admit freely that they cannot sustain such a burden of proof. So they try to shirk their epistemic responsibility by re-defining atheism so that it is no longer a view but just a psychological condition which as such makes no assertions. They are really closet agnostics who want to claim the mantle of atheism without shouldering its responsibilities.

This is disingenuous and still leaves us asking, “So is there a God or not?”

So there you have it. We are interested in what both sides know and what reasons and evidence they have to justify their claim to know. We are interested in talking to people who make claims about objective reality, not about themselves, and who then go on to give reasons and evidence to support their claims about objective reality. There are atheists out there that do make an objective claim that God does not exist, and then support that claim with arguments and evidence. Those are good atheists, and we should engage in rational conversations with them. But clearly there are some atheists who are not like that. How should we deal with these “subjective atheists”?

Dealing with subjective atheists

How should theists respond to people who just want to talk about their psychological state? Well, my advice is to avoid them. They are approaching religion irrationally and non-cognitively – like the person who enters a physics class and says “I lack a belief in the gravitational force!”. When you engage in serious discussions with people about God’s existence, you only care about what people know and what they can show to be true. We don’t care about a person’s psychology.

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I found a wonderful series of articles by someone I really trust on origins issues: Dr. Casey Luskin. He has a long history with the intelligent design movement, starting from when he was a college student. He has a BS and MS in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, a PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, and a JD from the University of San Diego.

He has a series of articles up at Evolution News, about Dr. William Lane Craig’s new book “In Quest of the Historical Adam”. I’m not sure if he is done with the series, but I thought that it was a good time to look over what he’s already written.

In the first article he notes that “Craig convincingly argues that mainstream science can be reconciled with a traditional view of Adam and Eve” and “argues that Adam and Eve were real people who could have been members of Homo heidelbergensis”. Craig’s conclusion is that “it’s not scientifically problematic to take a truly “traditional” view of Adam and Eve”.

But Luskin has criticisms of Craig’s views on rival interpretations of Genesis, “As an old earther myself, I was concerned that Craig did not adequately engage with old earth interpretations” and “I believe that young earth creationists will feel that Craig badly misrepresents the scientific claims of their models”.

Craig’s handling of the science:

Craig’s book provides highly informed discussions of the paleoanthropological, archaeological, neurological, and genetic evidence regarding human origins, but his arguments often incorporate evolutionary assumptions which are doubtful. For example, Craig is too credulous towards evolutionary explanations of the origin of the human mind which amount to miracle mutations, as well as common evolutionary notions that pseudogenes are “junk DNA” that support common ancestry. He misses a key deficiency in evolutionary explanations: a conspicuous gap between the genus Homo and our supposed ape-like australopithecine ancestors in the hominid fossil record. Although Craig does not recognize it, key neurogenetic evidence raised in his book actually suggests a potent mathematical challenge to the Darwinian evolution of humans. I also believe he sells Homo erectus short as a potential candidate for Adam and Eve.

[…]Craig continues to rely upon BioLogos arguments that pseudogenes are “broken” and non-functional junk DNA that we share with apes, thereby demonstrating our common ancestry. Those arguments are increasingly contradicted by evidence presented in highly authoritative scientific papers which find that pseudogenes are commonly functional, and they ought not be assumed to be genetic “junk.” In relying upon dubious evolutionary arguments that are increasingly refuted by the technical literature, Craig may be repeating the very mistake that led previous evangelicals to think Adam and Eve did not exist.

There are 6 parts to the review. Here are the links to parts 2 through 6:

• Is Genesis “Mytho-History”? As a Guide to Scripture, William Lane Craig’s Book Falls Short
• Missed Opportunity: Passing over Scientific Problems with Human Evolution
• Traditional or Not? Assessing William Lane Craig’s Model on Adam and Eve
• Lessons from the Evangelical Debate About Adam and Eve
• Lessons Not Learned from the Evangelical Debate over Adam and Eve

If you’re interested in the topics of Christianity and science, this is a great series to read. I love when someone trustworthy reads through a lot of stuff I don’t have time for (I have a day job as a software engineer!) and gives me an accurate summary of the strengths and weaknesses.

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It’s hard to to make a ranking of which actions are the best for Christians and conservatives. There have been so many. But this one really draws a line between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0. The most common complaint I heard from Trump supporters after his first term was that he didn’t do enough to drain the swamp. Well, this new Trump action is the most Swamp-Draining one yet.

This is from Daily Signal:

The Trump administration is putting a stick of dynamite under the deep state, and Democrats are apoplectic.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump put nearly all District of Columbia-based employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave. According to Politico, this amounts to about 1,400 people in addition to 600 employees who were put on leave starting Sunday.

This comes after the Trump administration put a 90-day freeze on all foreign assistance.

New Secretary of State Marco Rubio “noted that embassies around the world complain that USAID is not only uncooperative but that it undermines the governments the U.S. wants to work with. Rubio said that the agency operates as if its master is the “globe” and not the U.S., which is a departure from the intent of the original statute that created it.”

And this is just crazy:

Rubio, who is putting the operation of USAID under his authority, said the goal has been to reform the agency, but right now, there is “rank insubordination.” The attitude of the employees, Rubio said, is that they work for themselves, not the American people or their elected officials.

This is why the administration had to take dramatic steps to temporarily freeze the agency, Rubio explained.

[…]Organizations like USAID became enlisted in what can be described as no less than the creation of a global leftist empire… a conduit to siphon U.S. taxpayer dollars to various leftist projects, many of which are deeply resented by other nations.

It became, at minimum, a jobs program for hordes of American left-wing activists.

The Democrats are not going to take this one lying down, as this is their whole global secular leftist network. But, all that Trump has to do to beat them is to show the American public what USAID has been spending their money on.

Here are some examples:

For instance, The Washington Free Beacon reported that in 2023 under President Joe Biden, USAID spent $1 million “on a project to help disabled people in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan become ‘climate leaders.’”

For instance, according to The Wall Street Journal, the State Department was funding “culture grants” to promote drag queen performances in Ecuador. Meanwhile, China was investing heavily in the country’s copper mining production.

The Free Beacon also reported that USAID spent millions of dollars on various diversity, equity, and inclusion projects, including a program created to “engage with indigenous-led institutions to implement an indigenous language technology program” in Guatemala where over 95% of people speak Spanish.

[…]“In November 2022, USAID sent $78,000 to the Community Development and Continuing Education Institute (CDCEI), a Palestinian activist group based in the West Bank. Its leaders praised a terrorist who murdered a U.S. military attaché as a ‘hero fighter,’” the Free Beacon reported.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., sent a letter to USAID in October 2024 saying that some of the more than a billion dollars being used for humanitarian relief in Gaza was likely being funneled to terrorists.

[…]Under Biden, USAID even spent money funding abortions in Africa through programs billed as AIDS relief, Fox News reported.

This is what happens when you give secular leftists access to taxpayer money. They just go crazy with it, and that’s why they shouldn’t have any money at all.

And if that’s not enough for you, check out this story from Breitbart, about how the Trump administration wants to tackle corruption in the FBI and DOJ:

FBI officials acknowledged over 5,000 employees worked on investigations related to January 6, CNN reported Tuesday.

The numbers reveal for the first time the scope of the federal government’s resources devoted to the J6 investigations, which took place while violent crime in urban America soared 40 percent from 2019 to 2023 under the Biden administration, according to the federal government’s own numbers.

The Department of Justice asked the FBI Friday to provide by Tuesday at noon the details of all its employees who worked on January 6 investigations.

But of course these agents don’t want to be held accountable for their actions under the previous (fascist) administration:

FBI employees have fought to hide their roles in J6 investigations.

Just fire them all right now! Or ship them to prisons in El Salvador if they resist.

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I’m sure that I don’t have to tell anyone this, but Wikipedia is not a reliable website, if you are looking up topics like religion, science or policy. If you need to prove this to anyone, then bookmark this post. Because we’re going to take a look at a new study by the Media Research Center, that clearly shows how wikipedia is biased against Christians and conservatives.

Here’s the article from the Media Research Center:

A new study by Media Research Center Free Speech America found that Wikipedia, the encyclopedia behemoth, has effectively blacklisted all right-leaning media from being used as source material, exclusively relying on leftist, legacy media notoriously known to spread misinformation and attack opponents of the left.

Among the effectively blackballed media sources are Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Daily Mail, Newsmax, OANN and the Media Research Center. Meanwhile, leftist media like The Atlantic, Jacobin, Mother Jones, Pro-Publica, The Guardian and National Public Radio (NPR) are given the green light. This blatant misinformation means that Wikipedia is purposely feeding Americans information exclusively through the lens of one side of the political spectrum—the left.

Positioning themselves as arbiters of truth, Wikipedia and its editors have effectively institutionalized a blacklisting system utilizing a “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” page that forbids the use of some of the most popular media sources on the right when editing Wikipedia pages. Their claims? Right-leaning sources are not “reliable,” and in some cases literally “blacklisted” — Wikipedia’s actual word — from use on the platform altogether. The predictable effect? Conservatives, Republicans and Trump appointees are smeared, maligned and slandered by the most popular online source for information about people.

I still use Wikipedia for finding out about famous historical battles, or different kinds of animals, but not for anything else. It’s just not a reliable web site. Plus, they are always begging for money. Never give them a cent!

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Well, Rose and I finished reading Dr. John West’s new book “Stockholm Syndrome Christianity”, and we recorded an interview with him about the topics he discusses in the book. One of the topics he is passionate about is how Christian colleges can maintain their Christian identity. He worked at a college that slid into secular leftism. It’s hard on Christian students.

So, how can a Christian student avoid going to a college where they will face opposition from professors and administrators?

Here’s a recent article from Dr. West, that offers some questions that the student can ask before making a bad choice.

It says:

As a former professor at an evangelical Christian university, I am sometimes asked by concerned parents to recommend a good Christian college for them to consider for their children. Because the spiritual health of specific colleges and universities can change radically over time, and because there can be a wide diversity of views even among different academic departments on the same campus, it is not always possible to provide specific recommendations.

What I can provide are questions you can ask if you or your teens are seeking to find a biblically-faithful college or university. Don’t just rely on marketing materials produced by the college or university! Those materials will invariably stress how the institution integrates the Christian faith with learning in everything it does. These marketing materials may or may not reflect the actual situation on the campus. At the Christian university where I taught, the marketing materials became more and more explicitly Christian while the actual Christian faithfulness of the university was getting less and less.

If you know the right questions to ask, you can cut through the PR and gain a more accurate perception of what is actually going on. The following questions are a good place to start.

Here are the ten questions:

1. What are the statements of faith and behavioral expectations that all faculty, staff, and board members must sign and agree to abide by?
2. How many members of the theology or Bible departments belong to the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS)?
3. How many members of the philosophy department belong to the Evangelical Philosophical Society (EPS)?
4. How many members of the science faculty (especially the biology faculty) are skeptical of Darwinian evolution or supportive of the idea that nature shows clear evidence of intelligent design?
5. Does the college offer chapel services, and is attendance by students required?
6. How many speakers at chapel or official university-sponsored events during the past academic year addressed each of the following topics: (a) the trustworthiness and/or historical accuracy of the Bible; (b) biblical standards against sex outside of marriage and for sexual chastity and faithfulness; (c) biblical standards against transgenderism and homosexuality; (d) Christian teaching on the sanctity of human life, including abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia; (e) the persecution of Christians both inside and outside of the United States, and the importance of defending religious liberty; (f) positive Christian teaching on racial equality and reconciliation as well as critiques of unbiblical ideas such as “Critical Race Theory” and calls for racial/ethnic separatism and superiority (from both left and right).
7. Does the campus health center provide (a) abortion referrals, (b) referrals to Planned Parenthood, (c) referrals to LGBTQ groups, or (d) contraceptives to unmarried students?
8. What student clubs has the college approved?
9. What books are assigned in courses?
10. What are the policies regulating student speech?

And this is the one that stood out to me:

6. How many speakers at chapel or official university-sponsored events during the past academic year addressed each of the following topics: (a) the trustworthiness and/or historical accuracy of the Bible; (b) biblical standards against sex outside of marriage and for sexual chastity and faithfulness; (c) biblical standards against transgenderism and homosexuality; (d) Christian teaching on the sanctity of human life, including abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia; (e) the persecution of Christians both inside and outside of the United States, and the importance of defending religious liberty; (f) positive Christian teaching on racial equality and reconciliation as well as critiques of unbiblical ideas such as “Critical Race Theory” and calls for racial/ethnic separatism and superiority (from both left and right).

Before actually attending a college, it can be hard to know what is taught in the classrooms there. But the topics addressed by speakers at official campus events will tell you a lot about the viewpoints dominant among the faculty and administration. If campus speakers are not regularly being brought in to explain and defend key Christian beliefs under attack in our culture, that is another huge warning sign. Also pay attention to the point of view of the speakers being brought in. Just because campus speakers are addressing one of the topics above does not mean they are doing so in a way consistent with biblical teaching. When it comes to other topics, especially political topics where Christians disagree (for example, the best way to fight poverty, or American foreign policy), pay attention to whether the university hosts Christian speakers with a range of views, including those on the politically conservative side of the spectrum.

This one is also important to me:

8. What student clubs has the college approved?

The student clubs allowed on a Christian college campus will reveal a lot. For example, does the college have a club that promotes the agenda of the LGTBQ movement? More positively, does the college have a club devoted to pro-life issues or apologetics (such as a chapter of the national apologetics ministry Ratio Christi)? You might also want to look at the student newspaper

These two questions matter to me, because I work with groups like Ratio Christi in order to bring in Christian speakers to address some of the topics that he talked about in Question 6. It’s actually better to enforce orthodoxy through persuasion and evidence than it is to enforce it by writing rules on a page. If the apologetics speakers hold events, that will equip the students to think carefully about these topics, so that they don’t roll over for feelings and peer approval.

If this kind of concern affects you, then check out the article, and go over it with your child. There’s no sense sending your child into a difficult situation that will make it harder for them to get their education, without being indoctrinated.

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I always get excited when the annual report on Canadian healthcare comes out. A lot of people in my office love single payer healthcare. Except they don’t know how it works in countries that have tried it. They imagine that it works well. They love the idea that healthcare will be free for them. But when I get my hands on a good study, it means a lot of fools are about to get a beat down.

Canada Universal Coverage Government Run Single Payer Healthcare Health Care Wait TimesHere’s the latest from the Fraser Institute:

• In 2024, physicians across Canada reported a median wait time of 30.0 weeks between a referral from a GP and receipt of treatment. Up from 27.7 in 2023.

• This is 222% longer than the 9.3 week wait Canadian patients could expect in 1993.

• The national 30 week total wait is comprised of two segments. Referral by a GP to consultation with a specialist: 15.0 weeks. Consultation with a specialist to receipt of treatment: 15.0 weeks.

• After seeing a specialist, Canadian patients waited 6.3 weeks longer than what physicians consider to be clinically reasonable (8.6 weeks).

• Across 10 provinces, the study estimated that patients in Canada were waiting for 1.5 million procedures in 2024.

• Patients also suffered considerable delays for diagnostic technology: 8.1 weeks for CT scans, 16.2 weeks for MRI scans, and 5.2 weeks for Ultrasound.

Well, there’s a saying in business. You can have a product or a service fast, or you can have it good, or you can have it cheap. Pick two out of 3. So, Maybe Canadian healthcare is not fast, but maybe it’s good, and maybe it’s cheap.

Canada Universal Coverage Government Run Single Payer Healthcare Health Care Cost TaxesLet’s turn to the Fraser Institute again:

• Canadians often misunderstand the true cost of our public health care system. This occurs partly because Canadians do not incur direct expenses for their use of health care, and partly because Canadians cannot readily determine the value of their contribution to public health care insurance.

• In 2024, preliminary estimates suggest the average payment for public health care insurance ranges from $4,908 to $17,713 for six common Canadian family types, depending on the type of family.

• Between 1997 and 2024, the cost of public health care insurance for the average Canadian family increased 2.2 times as fast as the cost of food, 1.7 times as fast as the average income, and 1.6 times as fast as the cost of shelter. It also increased much more rapidly than the cost of clothing, which has been falling in recent years.

OK, so Canadians aren’t getting healthcare fast, and they’re not getting healthcare cheap. Maybe they’re getting really really good healthcare, though.

Here are the numbers from a recent study from Ipsos, a major Canadian pollster:

An Ipsos survey for the Montreal Economic Institute is showing that Canadians’ opinions about their provincial healthcare systems have not improved in 2024 compared to last year. As in 2023, we find that less than half (48%) of Canadians are satisfied with their provincial healthcare system, with only 8% saying they are very satisfied. This proportion is even lower among women (43%), as well as residents of the Atlantic (30%).

Well, they are getting garbage healthcare. And they are not actually paying for healthcare. They are paying massive amounts of taxes for access to a waiting list for healthcare. And they get in line behind refugees who cannot even speak English, and have paid nothing in taxes. That’s what happens when you have universal-coverage government-run healthcare. That’s how it actually works in real life.

And sometimes they even die while waiting for healthcare. Here is an article from the Toronto Sun from January 2025:

Close to 15,500 people died waiting for health care in Canada between April 1, 2023 until March 31, 2024, according to data compiled by SecondStreet.org via Freedom to Information Act requests across the country.

However, SecondStreet.org says the exact number of 15,474 is incomplete as Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador don’t track the problem and Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia only provided data on patients who died while waiting for surgeries – not diagnostic scans.

SecondStreet.org says if it extrapolates the unknown data, then an estimated 28,077 patients died last year on health care waiting lists covering everything from cancer treatment and heart operations to cataract surgery and MRI scans.

I know that a some Americans like to pick political leaders and policies based on their feelings. They want to feel good. They want to be liked. People who like government-run healthcare tend to be people with enormous student loan balances for worthless non-STEM degrees. They work in easy jobs in the public sector. They join labor unions because they’re scared of competition and accountability. Many of them work in daycare or they teach little children, because they don’t want to be challenged by adults. When you look at the numbers on healthcare in different countries, it’s very clear what works and what doesn’t work. Americans need to be smarter than Canadians. We have to vote based on reason and evidence.

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What is the root cause of criminal behavior? This article by feminist sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, who points out the link between fatherlessness and crime in an article on the AEI web site.

Wilcox writes:

From Adam Lanza, who killed 26 children and adults a year ago at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn., to Karl Pierson, who shot a teenage girl and killed himself this past Friday at Arapahoe High in Centennial, Colo., one common and largely unremarked thread tying together most of the school shooters that have struck the nation in the last year is that they came from homes marked by divorce or an absent father. From shootings at MIT (i.e., theTsarnaev brothers) to the University of Central Florida to the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, Ga., nearly every shooting over the last year in Wikipedia’s “list of U.S. school attacks” involved a young man whose parents divorced or never married in the first place.

[…]The social scientific evidence about the connection between violence and broken homes could not be clearer. My own research suggests that boys living in single mother homes are almost twice as likely to end up delinquent compared to boys who enjoy good relationships with their father. Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson has written that “Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations in urban violence across cities in the United States.” His views are echoed by the eminent criminologists Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, who have written that “such family measures as the percentage of the population divorced, the percentage of households headed by women, and the percentage of unattached individuals in the community are among the most powerful predictors of crime rates.”

Why is fatherlessness such a big deal for our boys (almost all of these incidents involve boys)? Putting the argument positively, sociologist David Popenoe notes that “fathers are important to their sons as role models. They are important for maintaining authority and discipline. And they are important in helping their sons to develop both self-control and feelings of empathy toward others, character traits that are found to be lacking in violent youth.” Boys, then, who did not grow up with an engaged, attentive, and firm father are more vulnerable to getting swept up in the Sturm und Drang of adolescence and young adulthood, and in the worst possible way.

So where do fatherless children come from? It turns out that government programs incentivize women to make them.

Dr. Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute explains how welfare causes fatherlessness in his testimony to Congress:

Welfare contributes to crime in several ways. First, children from single-parent families are more likely to become involved in criminal activity. According to one study, children raised in single-parent families are one-third more likely to exhibit anti-social behavior.(3) Moreover, O’Neill found that, holding other variables constant, black children from single- parent households are twice as likely to commit crimes as black children from a family where the father is present. Nearly 70 percent of juveniles in state reform institutions come from fatherless homes, as do 43 percent of prison inmates.(4) Research indicates a direct correlation between crime rates and the number of single-parent families in a neighborhood.(5)

As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead noted in her seminal article for The Atlantic Monthly:

The relationship [between single-parent families and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature. The nation’s mayors, as well as police officers, social workers, probation officers, and court officials, consistently point to family break up as the most important source of rising rates of crime.(6)

At the same time, the evidence of a link between the availability of welfare and out-of-wedlock births is overwhelming. There have been 13 major studies of the relationship between the availability of welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock birth. Of these, 11 found a statistically significant correlation. Among the best of these studies is the work done by June O’Neill for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Holding constant a wide range of variables, including income, education, and urban vs. suburban setting, the study found that a 50 percent increase in the value of AFDC and foodstamp payments led to a 43 percent increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births.(7) Likewise, research by Shelley Lundberg and Robert Plotnick of the University of Washington showed that an increase in welfare benefits of $200 per month per family increased the rate of out-of-wedlock births among teenagers by 150 percent.(8)

The same results can be seen from welfare systems in other countries. For example, a recent study of the impact of Canada’s social-welfare system on family structure concluded that “providing additional benefits to single parents encourages births of children to unwed women.”(9)

The secular left in this country believes that fathers need to be separated away from their children, and that’s why they support welfare programs that redirect money from husbands in intact families to single mothers. They believe that fathers are harmful because they set boundaries on children, and judge them and punish them when they act immorally. To the secular left, boundaries, judgments and punishments on children are bad, and must be stopped. So how can the secular left discourage men from marrying and teaching their own children morality? Well, they can tax married men, and they can give the money to single mothers.

Not only is crime caused by fatherlessness, but poverty is. as well.

Here is Dr. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation to explain:

Census data and the Fragile Families survey show that marriage can be extremely effective in reducing child poverty. But the positive effects of married fathers are not limited to income alone. Children raised by married parents have substantially better life outcomes compared to similar children raised in single-parent homes.

When compared to children in intact married homes, children raised by single parents are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke, drink, and use drugs; be aggressive; engage in violent, delinquent, and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; be expelled from school; and drop out of high school.[19] Many of these negative outcomes are associated with the higher poverty rates of single mothers. In many cases, however, the improvements in child well-being that are associated with marriage persist even after adjusting for differences in family income. This indicates that the father brings more to his home than just a paycheck.

The effect of married fathers on child outcomes can be quite pronounced. For example, examination of families with the same race and same parental education shows that, when compared to intact married families, children from single-parent homes are:

• More than twice as likely to be arrested for a juvenile crime;[20]
• Twice as likely to be treated for emotional and behavioral problems;[21]
• Roughly twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school;[22] and
• A third more likely to drop out before completing high school.[23]

The effects of being raised in a single-parent home continue into adulthood. Comparing families of the same race and similar incomes, children from broken and single-parent homes are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30 than are children raised in intact married families. [24] Compared to girls raised in similar married families, girls from single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to have a child without being married, thereby repeating the negative cycle for another generation.[25]

Finally, the decline of marriage generates poverty in future generations. Children living in single-parent homes are 50 percent more likely to experience poverty as adults when compared to children from intact married homes. This intergenerational poverty effect persists even after adjusting for the original differences in family income and poverty during childhood.[26]

People on the left claim that poverty causes crime, but they don’t look for the root cause of poverty. The root cause of poverty is the decline of marriage, which produces fatherless children.

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Abigail Shrier wrote a popular book called “Irreversible Damage” where she talked about the movement to change a child’s appearance to the opposite sex with drugs and surgeries. Her goal was to convince voters that this caused “irreversible harm” to children. Now that president Trump has signed a ban on taxpayer-funding of transitioning children, she has excellent thoughts.

Here’s the article in the Free Press.

She starts like this:

When the history of 21st-century gender mania is written, it should include this signal entry: In 2020, a website called GoFundMe, usually a place to find disaster-relief appeals and charities for starving children, contained more than 30,000 urgent appeals from young women seeking to remove their perfectly healthy breasts.

Another entry, from June 2020: The New England Journal of Medicine, America’s platinum medical publication, published a piece explaining that biological sex is actually “assigned at birth” by a doctor—and not a verifiable fact, based on our gametes, stamped into every one of our cells. In fact, biological sex ought to be deleted from our birth certificates—the authors claimed—because a person’s biological sex serves “no clinical utility.”

How did it start? She has an answer:

It began with Obamacare.

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature legislation incentivizing and coercing private insurers to offer their products on a government exchange, prohibited those companies from discriminating on the basis of sex. And in May 2016, six years after the bill’s enactment, the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services added this fateful qualification: Discrimination on the basis of “sex” was to include discrimination on the basis of “gender identity.”

“Obama effectively wrote into law, through healthcare, that gender identity is a protected class,” healthcare executive and gender-medicine researcher Zhenya Abbruzzese told me. And that opened a huge new source of funding for these treatments. “Because once these insurers feel like they have to cover it, that’s it. You have just turned on the engine,” Abbruzzese said.

If an insurer covers testosterone to treat a man who was deficient, then, according to gender ideology’s cracked logic, the insurer would also need to cover testosterone for a woman identifying as a man. If a procedure to remove a man’s unwanted breast tissue was covered, then a similar procedure for a woman identifying as a man must also be covered. Denying those claims could subject insurers to federal enforcement action.

Do you ever wonder why healthcare got so expensive after Obamacare was passed? It’s not just because Obama increased the number of mandatory coverages, and mandated coverage of more people. It’s the types of treatments that were now covered by health insurance companies. That’s why caused YOUR premiums to go up.

I like to get into fights with my doctor. He kept insisting that doctors who support pandemic mandates and transitioning children are driven by “evidence”, whereas opposition to these fads were based on “social media”.

But was he right? No, he’s wrong:

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an activist organization styled as a medical one, issued guidelines used as the “standards of care” by all major insurers and Medicaid to justify the provision of, and reimbursement for, gender transition services. WPATH represented their guidelines as evidence-based. Court-ordered discovery in a 2022 lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice to overturn Alabama’s ban on gender treatments for minors revealed that WPATH’s guidelines lacked solid evidentiary basis, but also that WPATH leadership knew it.

The organization suppressed publication of systematic reviews of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries undertaken by Johns Hopkins University. That research would almost certainly have revealed, as so many systematic reviews have now done, that while the risk of sterility, cardiac event, osteoporosis, and bone fracture were high, any alleged mental health benefits of the WPATH-approved puberty blockers-to-cross sex hormones protocol remained unproven.

But the Biden administration pressed onward, suing any state that enacted bans on medical transition for minors. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, a transgender adult, successfully pressured WPATH to drop minimum age requirements for gender medical treatments and surgeries in its September 2022 standards of care.

I blogged about this. And I guess that one of the reasons why Trump won is because people realized that the doctors were NOT operating on the basis of evidence at all. The doctors were being driven by the “big money” they were getting for drugging and mutilating these children. I blogged about that, too.

Back to Abigail. She talks about how the Obama and Biden regimes funded pro-trans research with taxpayer dollars. But they didn’t get the results they wanted:

The Obama and Biden administrations worked in tandem with activist organizations. Federal funds poured into tainted research. Gender physician Johanna Olson-Kennedy received nearly $10 million from the National Institutes of Health to study the effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on gender-confused adolescents ages 11 and up. (She later lowered the age to 8.)

[…]As for her nine-year study on puberty blockers, Olson-Kennedy didn’t like the results so, by her own admission, she shelved them. “She said the findings might fuel the kind of political attacks that have led to the bans of the youth gender treatments in more than 20 states,” according to The New York Times. She told the Times she intends to publish the data, but that getting her work to a place where it wouldn’t be “weaponized” required it to be “clear and concise. And that takes time.”

The public that had funded her research has never had the opportunity to review its results.

OK, that’s enough. You should read the whole article, it’s just first class. Evidence, evidence, evidence.

By the way, if you missed Matt Walsh’s opening monologue on Trump’s action, he shows why it’s actually better than you think.

If you are not listening to the Matt Walsh podcast, you should subscribe to it. Every opening monologue is worth a listen. We really need to return men to their rightful place as moral and spiritual leaders. We are not “servant leaders”, as Christian feminists like to argue. If we encouraged men to make moral judgments, and lead, then we would never have had transgenderism in the first place. And we need to train women to prefer men who judge and lead on moral and spiritual issues. It will be a 180-degree change from what we have now, but we need to do it.

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So, in response to yesterday’s post, I have been asked what are some of the other reasons that cause men to become disinterested in dating and marriage. I have a list as long as my arm. But here’s another one for today. Today’s reason is that the legal is system is biased against men. There many examples of the bias, but I’ll focus on sentencing.

The study I want to talk about today is called “Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases“, and it’s published in the peer-reviewed journal “American Law and Economics Review”.

The abstract says this:

This paper assesses and decomposes gender disparities in federal criminal cases. It finds large unexplained gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length distribution, conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables. Decompositions show that most of the unexplained disparity appears to emerge during charging, plea-bargaining, and sentencing fact-finding. The approach provides an important complement to prior disparity studies, which have focused on sentencing and have not incorporated disparities arising from those earlier stages. I also consider various plausible causal theories that could explain the estimated gender gap, using the rich dataset to test their implications.

The key sentence there is “It finds large unexplained gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length distribution, conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables.”

I also found this paragraph interesting:

The estimated gender disparities are strikingly large, conditional on observables. Most notably, treatment as male is associated with a 63% average increase in sentence length, with substantial unexplained gaps throughout the sentence distribution.

This anti-male discrimination becomes apparent to men when they are going through the divorce process.

About 70% of divorces are initiated by women, and most of them for frivolous reasons (reasons that were not recognized as valid in the law prior to “no-fault-divorce” being enacted). The reasons are also not recognized in the Bible. Throughout the divorce process, men encounter anti-male bias. This begins with the common use of false accusations against the man, in order to get sole custody, which provides the woman with greater child support payments from the man. These false accusations are usually not based on any evidence, such as police reports. They just emerge during the divorce proceedings and are used to eject the man from the home, and get the woman sole custody of the kids. In 90% of cases, the woman gets sole custody of the kids. And this is despite the fact that single-father homes have similar outcomes for children as married two-parents homes. The results of single-mother homes are disastrous for children in many areas, including poverty, crime, mental health, sexual activity, etc. But the court system insists on doing what is worse for children by separating the father from the child. Even the meager visitation rights that fathers get are not enforced.

Failure to pay alimony and child support can land men in prison. And the laws are enforced very unfairly there, as well. Consider this case from Canada:

A wealthy businessman will have to pay more than $50,000 a month in spousal support for 10 years to a woman with whom he had a long-term romantic relationship even though they kept separate homes and had no children together, Ontario’s top court has ruled.

Seeing this, many men today have declined to participate in dating and marriage. And I could come up with dozens more reasons like this one. Based in peer-reviewed studies. It’s not one reason deterring men from marrying, it’s dozens of reasons. In every case, society has decided that men are expendable. And sadly, the church has largely ignored the root causes of men’s retreat from dating and marriage. The church simply has nothing at all to say to men who are faced with these risks, costs and disincentives.

When I explain these problems to pro-marriage conservatives, they confess to never having heard about any of these issues. They say “I just like the idea of people falling in love and having lots of cute babies”. They haven’t really bothered to think about the calculations that men run before deciding what to do with women. Maybe it’s time for Christian leaders to do a little more homework about these issues. Maybe there is something Christian churches can do to make marriage a bit more appealing to men.

We are already seeing this happening in conservative states like Florida and Tennessee. In Florida, there are new laws requiring that child custody be 50-50 in most circumstances. This acts as a deterrent against women who want to file frivolous divorces just to get child support from wealthy men. Florida also banned permanent alimony, which is another positive step to make marriage more fair for men. (Although many women in Florida were furious about it). In Tennessee, it is now a misdemeanor to claim child support payments from a man who is not the biological father of the child.

These are the kinds of policy solutions that will bring marriage back. But I’ve never heard Christians talking about these issues. All I ever hear from pious Christian leaders is that men need to “man up”, as if manning up makes the threats from feminist laws and courts disappear. It doesn’t work, but it does signal virtue, which seems to be the goal of many pious Christian leaders. We’re going to have to do better than virtue-signaling if we want to reverse the decline of marriage. It’s not going to be solved by shaming and blaming men.

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Why do so many Democrat voters believe in conspiracy theories that don’t match reality? Well, if you look closely at the news sources they read, then you can understand why. Take this case of the New York Times, a former newspaper, fact-checking Trump about his claim that Democrats support infanticide. Trump is wrong, claims the NY Times. But what is the truth?

Consider this article from the Christian Post:

In a Friday article, The New York Times highlighted the Republican leader’s video address during the 2025 March for Life rally in Washington, D.C.

The newspaper mentioned Trump’s appearance at the annual pro-life demonstration in a piece analyzing some opposition within the movement to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for health secretary.

“At the march on Friday, Mr. Trump repeated false claims about abortion rights, vowing to ‘stop the radical Democrat push for a federal right to unlimited abortion on demand up to the moment of birth and even after birth,'” The New York Times reported. “Mr. Vance called Mr. Trump’ the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes.’ The crowd roared.”

Oh my goodness, Democrats are pro-life? They don’t vote against legislation that protects babies born alive during abortions?

The article continues:

Every Democrat in the U.S. Senate voted this month against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act introduced by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. The bill would have guaranteed equal protection under the law for “any infant born alive after an abortion.”

Under the proposed legislation, all health care practitioners present during the birth of an infant who survives an abortion attempt must “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a … health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.”

Oh, so they Democrats do support infanticide. And this position of Democrat legislators isn’t new. In fact, Barack Obama also voted in favor of infanticide when he was a state senator in Illinois.

In fact, here is the New York Times (a former newspaper) reporting on it:

Both Mr. Obama and his critics agree that, as chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee in the state legislature in 2003, he led efforts to defeat a bill called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.

“He led efforts to defeat a bill called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.” in 2003. Oh! So this support for infanticide is not even new, it goes back over 20 years.

Back to the Christian Post article, you can see that these secular leftists really love infanticide:

Other abortion-related legislation that recently made headlines includes a proposed constitutional amendment in Virginia that critics say could establish a right to abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

In a 21-19 vote this month, the Democrat-controlled Virginia Senate approved Senate Joint Resolution 247 along party lines. The passage means that the Virginia General Assembly can weigh in on the proposal to amend the Virginia Constitution for a second time following the next general election.

They want to have the recreational sex with hot strangers, and then they don’t want to be “punished with a baby”, as old Obama used to say. Like children, they don’t want any consequences for their own pleasure-seeking. And they’ve never grown out of that.

It’s not just Obama. Many, many Democrat voters supported his rise to the presidency. Why? Because infanticide is actually totally normal for Democrat voters, and the only time they deny it is when Trump describes accurately what they have been supporting for years. Then suddenly they have to pretend like they haven’t been supporting infanticide – and voting for pro-infanticide candidates – for years. And they expect you to believe them, because they hope you don’t read anything except the New York Times.

In debates between Christianity and atheism, the Christian will often introduce a moral fact, such as “torturing little babies for fun is wrong”, as an example of a moral fact that everyone agrees on. The problem is that Democrats like Barack Obama, and his allies at the New York Times, DO NOT agree on this fact. And when you point this out to them, that’s when they have to start lying about it. And they just hope that you are dumb enough to believe them.

It’s very important to understand that secular leftists use moral language in order to sound like moral people. But they have no understanding of morality, any more than a cat understands the titles of books while walking around in a library. Morality has no rational foundation in atheism. There’s no such thing as objective moral values and moral duties on atheism. And no moral choices, because there’s no free will. And no accountability when you die.

If you’re still reading trash like the New York Times, just be aware that this is not real news. Its just Democrat party propaganda.

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I found this essay on After All, but it looks like their site is not working well, so I’m just going to steal it and post it here, in case it disappears completely. This is one of my favorite short essays on utilitarianism, and it’s a wonder that the thing can’t stay up somewhere. Well, it will have a home here now. I’d be surprised to see anyone else be this awesome in a measly 1000 words as Dr. Moreland is below.

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Utilitarianism and the Moral LifeWhat Is Utilitarianism?Utilitarianism (also called consequentialism) is a moral theory developed and refined in the modern world by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). It can be defined as follows:

An action or moral rule is right if and only if it maximizes the amount of nonmoral good produced in the consequences that result from doing that act or following that rule compared with other acts or rules open to the agent.

By focusing on three features of utilitarianism, we can clarify this definition.

(1) Utilitarian theories of value.What is a nonmoral good? Utilitarians deny that there are any moral actions or rules that are intrinsically right or wrong. But they do believe in objective values that are nonmoral.

Hedonistic utilitarians say that the only intrinsic good is pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Quantitative hedonists (Bentham) say that the amount of pleasure and pain is the only thing that matters in deciding between two courses of action, I should do the one that produces the greatest amount of pleasure and the least amount of pain (measured by factors like the duration and intensity of the pleasure). Qualitative hedonists (Mill) say that pleasure is the only intrinsic good, but the type of pleasure is what is important, not the amount. They would rank pleasures that come from reading, art, and friendship as more valuable than those that come from, say, a full stomach.
Pluralistic utilitarians say there are a number of things that have intrinsic, nonmoral value: pleasure, friendship, health, knowledge, freedom, peace, security, and so forth. For pluralists, it is not just the pleasure that comes from friendship that has value but also friendship itself.

Currently, the most popular utilitarian view of value is subjective preference utilitarianism. This position says it is presumptuous and impossible to specify things that have intrinsic nonmoral worth. So, they claim, intrinsic value ought to be defined as that which each individual subjectively desires or wants, provided these do not harm others. Unfortunately, this view collapses into moral relativism.

(2) Utilitarians and maximizing utility.Utilitarians use the term utility to stand for whatever good they are seeking to produce as consequences of a moral action (e.g., “pleasure” for the hedonist, “satisfaction of subjective preference” for others). They see morality in a means-to-ends way. The sole value of a moral action or rule is the utility of its consequences. Moral action should maximize utility. This can be interpreted in different ways, but many utilitarians embrace the following: the correct moral action or rule is the one that produces the greatest amount of utility for the greatest number of people.

(3) Two forms of utilitarianism: act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.According to act utilitarianism, an act is right if and only if no other act available maximizes utility more than the act in question. Here, each new moral situation is evaluated on its own, and moral rules like “don’t steal” or “don’t break promises” are secondary The moral agent must weigh available alternatives and choose the one that produces the best consequences. Rule utilitarianism says that correct moral actions are done in keeping with correct moral rules, However, no moral rule is intrinsically right or wrong. Rather, a correct moral rule is one that would maximize utility if most people followed it as opposed to following an alternative rule. Here, alternative rules (e.g., “don’t lie” vs. “don’t lie unless doing so would enhance friendship”) are compared for their consequences, not specific actions.

What Is Wrong with Utilitarianism?Several objections show the inadequacy of utilitarianism as a normative moral theory.

First, utilitarianism can be used to justify actions that are clearly immoral. Consider the case of a severely deformed fetus. The child is certain to live a brief, albeit painless life. He or she will make no contribution to society. Society, however, will bear great expense. Doctors and other caregivers will invest time, emotion, and effort in adding mere hours to the baby’s life. The parents will know and love the child only long enough to be heartbroken at the inevitable loss. An abortion negates all those “utility” losses. There is no positive utility lost. Many of the same costs are involved in the care of the terminally ill elderly. They too may suffer no pain, but they may offer no benefit to society. In balancing positives and negatives, and excluding from the equation the objective sacredness of all human life, we arrive at morally repugnant decisions. Here deontological and virtue ethics steer us clear of what is easier to what is right.

Second, in a similar way, utilitarianism denies the existence of supererogatory acts. These are acts of moral heroism that are not morally obligatory but are still praiseworthy. Examples would be giving 75 percent of your income to the poor or throwing yourself on a bomb to save a stranger. Consider the bomb example. You have two choices — throwing yourself on the bomb or not doing so. Each choice would have consequences and, according to utilitarianism, you are morally obligated to do one or the other depending on which option maximized utility. Thus, there is no room for acts that go beyond the call of morality.

Third, utilitarianism has an inadequate view of human rights and human dignity. If enslaving a minority of people, say by a lottery, would produce the greatest good for the greatest number, or if conceiving children only to harvest their parts would do the same, then these could he justified in a utilitarian scheme. But enslavement and abortion violate individual rights and treat people as a means to an end, not as creatures with intrinsic dignity as human beings. If acts of abortion, active euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and so forth maximize utility, then they are morally obligatory for the utilitarian. But any moral system that makes abortion and suicide morally obligatory is surely flawed.

Finally, utilitarianism has an inadequate view of motives and character. We should praise good motives and seek good character because such motives and character are intrinsically valuable. But utilitarianism implies that the only reason we should praise good motives instead of bad ones, or seek good character instead of bad character, is because such acts would maximize utility. But this has the cart before the horse. We should praise good motives and blame bad ones because they are good or bad, not because such acts of praising and blaming produce good consequences.

In sum, it should be clear that utilitarianism is an inadequate moral theory. Unfortunately, ours is a pragmatic culture and utilitarianism is on the rise. But for those of us who follow Christ, a combination of virtue and deontological ethics is a more adequate view of common sense morality found in natural law and of the moral vision contained in the Bible.

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I noticed that a new online course taught by Shanda Fulbright is going to run in February. It’s for students in grades 7 to 9. The title is “Expedition to Reality: Exploring Worldviews and Major World Religions”. There is a 20% off coupon if you register before this Wednesday, so I thought I’d better mention it. Shanda has a lot of experience in this area.

Here’s what it is about:

In today’s culture, your child is constantly confronted with competing worldviews and tough questions about faith. Are they ready to respond with confidence and clarity?

Now your 7th-9th grade student can join certified apologist Shanda Fulbright and Dr. Frank Turek in this BRAND NEW 8-WEEK PREMIUM COURSE, Expedition to Reality: Exploring Worldviews and Major World Religions, where they’ll learn how to identify the core principles of Christianity, compare it to other world religions, AND HAVE FUN DOING IT!

This course will equip your child to stand strong in a world full of false ideas. They’ll explore ideas like:

• What is a worldview, and why does it matter?
• What sets Christianity apart from other belief systems?
• How can I confidently respond to challenges to my faith?
• What tools are available to think critically about competing ideas?

Through interactive lessons, real-world applications, and a focus on building a strong Christian worldview, your child will grow in their faith and develop tools to engage thoughtfully with the world around them.

Shanda has a Christian apologetics and worldview podcast called “Her Faith Inspires” and she has a lot of teaching experience in her background:

Shanda Fulbright is a former California Public School teacher. She is credentialed with a certification in multiple subjects for grades K-8. Along with her BA from California State University, Fresno, she has a certificate in Christian Apologetics from Biola University, a certificate from the CrossExamined Instructor’s Academy as well as several certificates from Online Christian Courses.

You can learn more about the course and see if you think it’s a match for you and your children here.

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As you can see from the right column of the blog, I am currently reading a review copy of Dr. John West’s new book “Stockholm Syndrom Christianity”, which is coming out early next month. The book provides a lot of interesting details on what causes Christian institutions to abandon historical Christian convictions. And I found an interesting article by Dr. West to give you a preview.

This article from Evolution News has the title “Do Scientists Have Freedom to Question Darwinism?” and it’s adapted from one of the chapters of the amazing book “The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos.”

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The list of scientists, teachers, students, and others who have faced retaliation or discrimination for their public skepticism of Darwinism is long and growing.

[…]At San Francisco State University, tenured biology professor Dean Kenyon was removed from teaching introductory biology classes. Once an influential proponent of Darwinian evolution, Kenyon had come to doubt key parts of Darwin’s theory and expressed those doubts to students in class, including his belief that some biological features exhibited evidence of intelligent design.

[…]Scientists outside of biology who express skepticism about Darwinism can also face discrimination and bullying. At Baylor University, mathematician William Dembski was fired as director of an academic center he had founded to explore the idea of intelligent design as an alternative to unguided Darwinian evolution. Eventually his faculty contract was not renewed as well, and he lost his job. Dembski, who holds doctorates from the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago, had exemplary academic credentials and publications, but his research center had been strenuously opposed by Baylor’s biology faculty.

This one is about a professor who identified as an evolutionist, but simply argued for giving every scientific theory a critical evaluation:

Sometimes scientists can find themselves blacklisted if they merely express openness or sympathy to a critical examination of Darwinism. Astronomer Martin Gaskell was a top applicant to become the head of an observatory at the University of Kentucky. In the words of one university faculty member there, “his qualifications…stand far above those of any other applicant.” But Gaskell was ultimately rejected for the job after the biology faculty waged an internal war against his hiring. Why did they want to prevent him from getting the job? First, Gaskell was perceived by other faculty to be “potentially evangelical.” Worse, although he identified himself as a supporter of evolution, in online notes for a science and faith talk, Gaskell respectfully discussed the views of intelligent design proponents and acknowledged that modern evolutionary theory had unresolved problems — just like any scientific theory.

When it comes to intelligent design, the approach of critics is similar to the Inquisition. Don’t just expel the heretic, but make sure that everyone else has been warned not to criticize the church:

Eric Hedin was an assistant professor of physics at Ball State University. Like Gaskell, he had a long list of peer-reviewed science publications. For many years, he taught an interdisciplinary honors class at Ball State called “The Boundaries of Science,”which explored the limits of science.

Now they are going to talk about Jerry Coyne. You might remember that I recently blogged about his view that atheists cannot ground morality rationally in their atheistic worldview. So of course, here he is, behaving immorally and trampling the human rights of anyone who disagrees with him:

During one small part of the course, Hedin discussed the debate over intelligent design in physics and cosmology — not biology. Hedin’s course received positive student reviews. However, atheist evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne at the University of Chicago and the Freedom from Religion Foundation filed complaints. Ball State then violated its own procedures and appointed an ad hoc committee stacked with avowed critics of intelligent design, including two who spoke at a previous Darwin Day conference organized by the Ball State Freethought Alliance, a group whose “original goal,” according to its president, was “belittling religion.” Hedin’s class was eventually cancelled by Ball State. In addition, the university president issued a campus speech code not only banning professors from covering intelligent design in science classes but also from expressing support for the concept in social science and humanities classes.

Isn’t it interesting to see that the best argument for Darwinism is “if you don’t make a faith commitment to Darwinism, I will destroy your career”.

And the second best argument is like it, “if you claim to be a Christian and deny Darwinism, then I will let you lead the NIH, or publish books with a prestigious academic press. And you can be a professor at Wheaton College, Calvin College, Westmont College or Baylor University.”

Sometimes, I think it’s better to just get your STEM degrees, and then just go directly into the private sector. Then you can be paid well, do productive work that customers are willing to pay for, without having to compromise your faith to impress the secular leftist elites, and without having to beg for grant money from the secular leftists in government.

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Consider the case of “Secular Student Alliance v. U.S. Department of Education”, in which an atheist group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit to challenge a Trump-era rule that guaranteed first amendment protections to religious student groups on college campuses. Why would atheists want to use government to coerce religious people against their will?

Are there such things as human rights in atheism? Of course not. The universe is an accident. Human beings are just accidental arrangements of atoms that evolved by chance. Their behaviors are determined by chemicals in their brains. And there is no reward or punishment waiting for us when we die. So, of course atheists look at American documents like the Constitution as a pack of nonsense. And of course they have no rational foundation for basic human rights, such as freedom of speech.

Well, lucky for these religious student groups, Alliance Defending Freedom – a Christian legal firm – decided to step in and oppose the fascist atheists. And they won! The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Trump-era regulation defending freedom of speech is valid.

Here is what the ADF said about their win:

Universities are meant to be a marketplace of ideas where students can learn to respect diverse opinions and beliefs and not have to fear punishment or harassment because of their own values. The Department of Education under President Trump rightfully updated its regulations to ensure that institutions of higher education have policies that align with the First Amendment. Christian student group Ratio Christi has at least twice gone to court over discriminatory policies targeted at their beliefs, and the Department of Education updated its regulations to prevent these types of violations. We’re pleased the court upheld First Amendment freedoms for college students everywhere.

I learned about this story from the Sound Faith Consulting blog, and the leader of Sound Faith actually did an interview about these issues with the head of Ratio Christi, Corey Miller:

I still have a passion for what goes on at university campuses, and listening to that video reminded me of how much Christianity is attacked on campuses. It’s definitely something to pray about, and something to think about for people who enroll in universities hoping to get an education.

You know what I always say: whether trades or degrees, make sure that you are learning something that lets you solve problems for customers in the private sector. Don’t go for a non-STEM degree that just leaves you with student loans and no job and no money. If you are going to go non-STEM, at least be aware of the risks. The rewards can be great (you could work for the ADF as a lawyer) but the risks are much higher. So count the cost.

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Here is a summary of recent podcast of Unbelievable between intelligent design proponent Stephen C. Meyer and UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist Charles Marshall. Dr. Marshall had previously reviewed Dr. Meyer’s new book “Darwin’s Doubt” in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal “Science”.

Details:

Stephen C Meyer is the world’s leading Intelligent Design proponent. His new book Darwin’s Doubt claims that the Cambrian fossil record, which saw an “explosion” of new life forms in a short space of time, is evidence for ID.

Evolutionary biologist Charles Marshall of the University of California, Berkeley has written a critical review of the book. He debates Meyer on whether Darwinian evolution can explain the diversity of life in the Cambrian rocks.

For Meyer & Darwin’s Doubt:
http://www.darwinsdoubt.com/

For Charles Marshall’s review:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6152/1344.1.full

Here’s the debate on YouTube:

The brief summary this time is not provided by me, it’s from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

This past weekend Britain’s Premier radio network broadcast a debate between Stephen Meyer and UC Berkeley paleontologist Charles Marshall, recorded at the beginning of November. As David Klinghoffer noted yesterday, the subject of the debate was Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt. Yes, that’s the same Charles Marshall who reviewed Darwin’s Doubt in Science back in September. See here for our multiple responses.

It was an excellent debate, with both participants offering important insights and good arguments, though in my opinion Meyer unquestionably had the better of it, especially concerning the key scientific question of the origin of the information necessary to build the Cambrian animals. Nevertheless, both parties came to the table ready to engage in serious, thoughtful, and civil discussion about the core issues raised in Darwin’s Doubt, and we commend Marshall not only for participating, but for focusing his critique of the book on the central scientific issues, something other critics have conspicuously failed to do.

The debate was consequently both constructive and civil. Both parties complimented, as well as critiqued, the work of the other. Marshall, for example, described the first third of Darwin’s Doubt — the section that discusses the Cambrian and Precambrian fossil record, Marshall’s own area of principle expertise — as “good scholarship.” He also said it “looks like good science” and that Meyer “writes well,” and that he (Marshall) “really enjoyed reading”Darwin’s Doubt. Meyer, for his, part expressed his admiration for Marshall’s many scientific papers in paleontology and noted that he had been looking forward to the conversation because he and Marshall clearly “shared a passion for the same subject,” despite their different perspectives. Of course, Marshall is not pro-ID and both men expressed spirited disagreements, but they did so in a mostly respectful way that made the debate all the more interesting and engaging to listen to.

I was very impressed with Dr. Marshall’s performance during the debate, although he did try to poison the well a bit against ID at the beginning, and he got nasty at the end. It’s amazing how Dr. Meyer was able to get him to stop it with the politics and get serious, just by sticking to the science. Even when Marshall got insulting at the end, it was still valuable to see how the other side has to abandon rational argument and scientific evidence once they see that they can’t win on the merits. It’s “Inherit the Wind” in reverse.

Evolution News also posted a more complete guide to the debate in this post, and I recommend that you read that post before listening to the debate if you are not familiar with the science.

This is a great debate, and you definitely ought to listen to it. I hope I’ve posted enough here to convince you. If you haven’t yet bought “Signature in the Cell” and “Darwin’s Doubt“, then I urge you to get them, although they are intermediate/advanced level books. The two books are the state of the art in intelligent design research, good enough to be debated with a University of California, Berkeley professor of biology.

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Desert Rose and I went on the Freethinking Ministries podcast to talk about Trump’s Cabinet picks. We talked about around a dozen of Trump’s Cabinet picks with host Josh Klein. Which ones will be confirmed? Which ones were home runs? Which ones were stinkers? Tune in to find out. And along the way, we talked about why Christians should care about policy. See below for my notes.

Here’s the YouTube episode:

And if you like audio-only podcasts, you will find the episode here on Apple, here on Spotify, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts. These guys are a regular listen for me, because they are great on apologetics, and on policy. Which is uncommon.

Here are my notes with links to the articles that I read, to prepare to go on the show:

• This Trump Pick Can Silently Strangle the Deep State (Daily Signal)
• Trump taps longtime ally Kash Patel to lead FBI (New York Post)
• 5 biggest FBI scandals during Christopher Wray’s tenure as director (Fox News)
• Trump taps COVID-censored Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH (New York Post)
• 5 revelations from the House COVID-19 report (Christian Post)
• Trump names his picks for FDA, CDC and surgeon general (New York Post)
• Trump Taps Champion of Free Speech, Biological Reality to Replace Woman at DOJ Who Jailed Pro-Lifers (Daily Signal)
• Putting RFK Jr. in charge of health breaks the first rule of medicine (New York Post)
• ‘Disgusting’: Nikki Haley Condemns Two Trump Cabinet Picks (Daily Caller)
• Dr. Oz, Running For U.S. Senate As A Republican, Has A History Of Donating To Democrats (Daily Wire)
• Trump Cabinet pick Dr. Janette Nesheiwat faces MAGA fury after COVID videos resurface (UK Daily Mail)
• President Trump needs the full story on Penny Schwinn’s education history in TN (Robby Starbuck)

We talked about several other picks not discussed in these links, as well.

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Just hours before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, Joe Biden gave sweeping pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Army General Mark Milley, and members of the Democrat-run January 6 committee. These pardons offer convincing evindence that these individuals engaged in wrongdoing, and their acceptance of these pardons are evidence that they admit that they are guilty.

This article from The Federalist is by Beth Brelje, and she has a very direct headline: “Mentally Incompetent Biden Confirms Guilt Of J6 Committee, Fauci, Milley With Last-Minute Pardons”.

It says:

To be pardoned for a crime, there must be a crime. None of the people on this list have been charged for the awful ways they harmed people in their official capacities.

[…]As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice recently reported, during the hearings, “Cheney started coordinating with ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson using the encrypted Signal app to circumvent Hutchinson’s attorney, Stefan Passantino. Hutchinson suddenly went from a benign fact-witness without much to offer Jan. 6 investigators to the committee’s breakout star, offering outlandish testimony about then-President Trump attempting to violently hijack a vehicle from his Secret Service detail so he could personally riot at the Capitol.”

So which is it? Award-winning behavior, or a crime? She tampered with a witness and tainted the facts presented to the American people.

Sounds like a crime, and with this preemptive pardon, Biden proves he thinks so too — a crime vulnerable to investigation that would lead to charges. It could be no other reason.

What about Milley? What crime did he commit?

Milley was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was the top dog during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, which saw 13 soldiers die, hundreds of Americans stranded, and millions of dollars’ worth of military equipment abandoned.

Heads did not roll. Instead, the White House characterized the withdrawal as a success.

Under Milley’s leadership, the military went woke, embracing LGBTQ issues and placed racial equity above military readiness. Federalist writer Jordan Boyd reported in 2021 how, the day before the withdrawal, Milley was in a Senate a hearing explaining that he wanted to understand “white rage.”

The book, “Peril,” claimed that after Jan. 6, Milley called his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, and allegedly told him the “American government is stable” and promised the U.S. would not attack and that the Chinese would be warned first.

With the last-minute pardon, Biden finally admits the withdrawal was a crime. But he robs the U.S. of the justice that comes from accountability. It is not surprising; Biden is good at bad exits, a BBC report said.

Another article from The Federalist, by Jordan Boyd, goes into the details on why Fauci needs a pardon:

The evidence overwhelming indicates Fauci played a large role in funding the Wuhan lab where the deadly virus originated and also worked overtime to subvert information about the viral leak that killed millions of people worldwide.

Biden’s pardon for Facui notably extends back to Jan. 1, 2014. It was around that same time that NIAID’s parent agency, the National Institutes of Health, claimed it ceased funding for the gain-of-function research (GOF) “involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses.” GOF involves extracting viruses from the wild and engineering them to infect humans to study potential therapeutics. Just three years later, GOF was eligible for taxpayer funding again.

Fauci not only supported GOF research of coronaviruses like Covid-19, but he also devoted taxpayer funding to it — specifically in the form of a $600,000 five-year annual grant through the EcoHealth Alliance for work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Then he lied about the research’s existence to Congress.

As early as February 2020, Fauci knew the signs of Covid-19’s creation and origin pointed to the Wuhan lab. He also knew from a 2020 Federalist article that masking was ineffective, flip-flopped on the importance of in-person schooling, nuked the herd immunity strategies in favor of deadly lockdowns, and pushed for a forced jab proven not to prevent infection.

Instead of informing Americans of these facts, Fauci colluded with federal government players like the CIA, the Department of State, and the Biden White House to downplay the truth about the virus. He also turned a blind eye when corporate media and Big Tech censors used their power in the public square to defame and deplatform those who dissented from the regime’s Covid response.

Fauci opted for ineffective and even harmful Covid-19 policies that made him and his agency millions. Shortly before the pandemic he became the highest-paid federal employee.

Biden’s pardon of Fauci may look like an obstacle to the justice he deserves, but it’s actually a gift in the form of an admission.

For one, Biden’s pardon does not protect Fauci from a reckoning in the form of state prosecutions. Nor does it prevent Congress from compelling Fauci to explain in detail his role in one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history.

Sen. Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, already vowed on Monday to continue Congress’s pursuit to “pierce the veil of deception.”

“If there was ever any doubt as to who bears responsibility for the COVID pandemic, Biden’s pardon of Fauci forever seals the deal,” he wrote on X.

What should we make of these pardons? These pardons make me think about the evangelicals for Biden, like David French and Russell Moore. These two clowns present themselves to others as pious and moral Christians. And they claim to care about morality. But now we know that they don’t care about morality at all. Or the rule of law. They just care about saying whatever they have to say to get the approval of secular left elites.

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I saw two interesting articles over at The Federalist, listing out 12 corrupt actions that Joe Biden committed, and 7 reasons why Biden was one of our worse presidents. I read through these, and the first thing I though of was all of the “Christians” who cheered him on in his presidency: people like David French, Russell Moore, etc. How could “Christian” leaders support such an immoral man?

Here’s the first article about the 12 corrupt actions.

Releasing Gantanamo Bay prisoners:

The Biden administration has been busy its last few weeks in office repatriating terrorists and other bad actors imprisoned at Gitmo back to foreign countries throughout the world. The decision appears to be an attempt to fulfill Biden’s pledge to close the high-security detention facility by the end of his presidency.

Unsurprisingly, relocating Gitmo detainees to foreign countries has produced horrendous consequences. According to the New York Post, “Twenty-three years after the 9/11 attacks on NYC, new US intelligence documents reveal 234 ‘rehabbed’ former Gitmo detainees have returned to terrorism and killing Americans — an alarming 32% recidivism rate. Most of them have not been recaptured and are still at large.”

Pardoning Hunter Biden to protect himself:

For Americans who have followed the Biden family’s corruption, it came as no surprise when Sleepy Joe doled out a blanket pardon for his son Hunter last month. Rather than only wiping Hunter’s slate clean of his tax and gun charges, Biden’s pardon covered all “offenses against the United States which [Hunter] has committed or may have committed or taken part in” dating back to January 2014.

The move marked a clear attempt by the outgoing president to protect his son (and himself) from criminal investigation into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.

Raising the price of oil and gas:

The Biden administration’s war on American energy is nothing new. But his latest action to stymie incoming President Donald Trump’s plans to unleash the country’s oil and gas industries takes on a whole new level of despicable.

As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice reported, Biden issued an executive order earlier this month “banning new oil and gas projects across 625 million acres of ocean across the East and West Coasts, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Bering Sea.” While Trump has vowed to undo the “ridiculous” edict, the law weaponized by the outgoing administration to shut down the planned projects will seemingly make such an action much more difficult.

Bailing out people who refuse to pay back the money they borrowed for useless university degrees – with your children’s money:

After being denied by the U.S. Supreme Court twice, Biden is spending his final days in office attempting to circumvent the nation’s high court by unilaterally bailing out student loan borrowers. The administration announced Monday it used taxpayer money to “cancel” the debts of more than 150,000 individuals who chose to take on such loans.

In the second article, we hear about 7 reasons why Biden was one of our worse presidents.

Runaway inflation, caused by blocking energy production, and runaway government spending:

According to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $100 when Biden took office is now worth just $82.88. Relatedly, Americans’ credit card debt has risen 51 percent under Biden (through last September), to $1.166 trillion, the highest tally on record.

What’s more, the federal government racked up more deficit spending during just the first half of Biden’s presidency than it did during the four years of World War II — even after adjusting for inflation (see “Chart”). With such massive quantities of borrowed money sloshing around in the economy, inflation predictably ensued, with everyday Americans paying higher prices for items ranging from groceries… to Big Macs, to airline tickets, to cars, to homes. Speaking of homes, 30-year mortgage interest rates rose from 2.8 percent to 7.0 percent on Biden’s watch.

Supporting racial divisiveness and misogyny:

On his very first day in office, Biden issued an executive order on “equity.” Asserting that America is a land of “unbearable … systemic racism” — a claim unsupported by the evidence — Biden launched “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda.” This radical agenda informed Biden’s entire presidency — from his refusal to enforce federal immigration laws (which are said to disadvantage non-citizen “people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality”), to his rejection of the colorblind ideal in favor of race-consciousness and favoritism, to his insistence that boys and men should be allowed to play girls’ and women’s sports and use ladies’ locker rooms, and that anyone who says otherwise is a “bigot” whose views should be suppressed by the federal government and/or its social media allies. This radical leftist social agenda, which defies both basic notions of equal treatment for all and basic recognition of biological truths, became a hallmark of Biden’s presidency.

Lawlessness and abuse of power:

The federal courts routinely had to rebuke Biden for issuing kingly mandates that usurped legislative power. Examples include his vaccine/mask decree at the expense of private workers; his transportation edict requiring Americans to wear masks on planes, trains, and buses; his proclamation that federal employees had to get one of the experimental Covid vaccines or else be fired; and his ploy, via executive fiat, to transfer some $400 billion in student-loan debt from borrowers to taxpayers as a whole. (After being rebuked by the Supreme Court in the latter instance, Biden declared that “that didn’t stop me,” as he went around the verdict and transferred much of that student loan debt anyway.) Each of these monarchical decrees was struck down by the federal courts on the grounds that Biden exceeded his lawful authority.

Not content merely with usurping legislative power, Biden also took it upon himself to try to rewrite the Constitution. On literally the last official federal workday of his presidency (the Friday before Inauguration Day), Biden — in opposition to a recent statement from Colleen Shogan, his own appointee as the Archivist of the United States — declared that the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed amendment whose ratification window expired more than 40 years ago, somehow is now “the law of the land” and “has become part of our Constitution” — per his decree.

Since evangelicals for Biden – people like Russell Moore, David French, the ERLC, etc. – supported these actions and policies, you really have to wonder whether “Christian” leaders are capable of understanding morality. Did they just get compromised by their desperate desire to get the approval of non-Christians?

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I like to make plans in advance and calculate everything out before I try to do anything. This is the curse of being a software engineer. We’re taught to take a test-first approach to design. So, when I think about marriage, I naturally think about what tests marriage is supposed to pass, and work backwards from there to requirements for each of the spouses.

Here’s some research from CNBC that might help young people to avoid a divorce, if they respect the research in their choices.

Excerpt:

When it comes to student loan debt, “for richer, for poorer” doesn’t quite cut it.

In general, finances are the leading cause of stress in a relationship, according to a study by SunTrust Bank, but student debt takes a particularly hard toll on a marriage.

More than a third of borrowers said college loans and other money factors contributed to their divorce, according to a recent report from Student Loan Hero, a website for managing education debt.

In fact, 13 percent of divorcees blame student loans specifically for ending their relationship, the report found. Student Loan Hero surveyed more than 800 divorced adults in June.

Here is a link to the full study from Student Loan Hero.

I think in general, you can’t just do whatever you want before marrying and jump into it unprepared. Marriage involves specific requirements in order to work, such as being faithful to your spouse, and buying things that you need for the marriage enterprise, like a home, and baby stuff. It doesn’t make any sense to say “I want to get married” and then not prepare for marriage by being careful about preparing for the behaviors marriage that requires of you. Being debt-free is one of those behaviors that marriage requires of you.

So how can we be debt-free, so that the marriage will be stable? Well, one way to be debt-free is to find a way to learn skills that will allow you to get a job without going to college, like being a self-taught software engineer. One of my friends actually did that, and now he’s with a very good software company as a remote worker. But if you’re going to go to college, you can avoid debt by studying something that will get you a high-paying job when you graduate.

This 2017 article from Harvard Business Review is interesting.

It says:

Examining 46,934 resumes shared on Glassdoor by people who graduated between 2010 and 2017, the researchers looked at each person’s college major and their post-college jobs in the five years after graduation. They then estimated the median pay for each of those jobs (also using Glassdoor data) for employees with five years of experience or less. Their key finding: “Many college majors that lead to high-paying roles in tech and engineering are male dominated, while majors that lead to lower-paying roles in social sciences and liberal arts tend to be female dominated, placing men in higher-paying career pathways, on average.”

Here’s the plot, and you can click it to expand it:

Median salaries by major, broken out by gender – don’t study things at the bottom!As you can see from the graph, it’s especially important to share the message about choosing a major, salaries and student loan debt with WOMEN, because as the graph shows, they tend to choose the wrong majors, if the goal is to pay off student loans and avoid divorce. Everyone who wants marriage to go smoothly needs to choose majors that are near the top of the graph, like nursing, chemical engineering, computer science, or mechanical engineering. It doesn’t make sense to go to college if you aren’t going to graduate in one of these high-paying fields.

As you might expect from the graph, women hold the majority of student loan debt, according to the Boston Globe, and that’s because women tend to choose majors that don’t result in good-paying jobs. And we already saw how this becomes a risk factor for divorce.

Student loans delay marriage and children

Another interesting piece of data, reported by The Consumerist, is that people with student loans tend to delay marriage, which means the couple has fewer children:

As consumers navigate life’s financial journey, they are faced with major financial milestones, like buying a home. But student loans are also delaying consumers from reaching these goals.

Survey respondents report delaying homeownership (23 percent), buying or leasing a car (23 percent), having children (10 percent) and getting married (9 percent) because of their student loan burdens.

So, it’s not just that there is an increased risk of divorce from student loans, but there’s also fewer children, which means a diminished legacy. I can’t speak for how others would see this, but for myself, I want to pass on my beliefs to as many effective, influential Christian children as I can.

When I was in high school, I was far more interested in becoming an English teacher than I was in becoming a software engineer. It was my Dad who overruled my choice of college major when I was still in high school. He had me take a first-year English course at a local university. When I saw how politicized and useless it was (they were studying all sorts of politically correct postmodern relativist stuff, instead of the classics, and they weren’t trying to learn any wisdom from any of it), I chose computer science. I did what was likely to avoid divorce, and likely to support having many children.

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On this blog, I’ve previously blogged about how the death penalty deters criminals from committing violent crimes. And in another post, I reported on the findings of famous systematic theologian Wayne Grudem about whether the Bible supports or opposes the death penalty. Well, the actions of Joe Biden, a secular leftist, have provided an occasion for us to look at the death penalty again.

Here’s a very interesting article at the The Federalist written by famous conservative theologian Dr. Robert Gagnon.

He writes:

Two days before Christmas, in the waning days of his presidency, Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 out of 40 federal prisoners to a life sentence. Only by hearing what they had done can we begin to grapple with their offense. Many of them were responsible for gruesome murders of multiple persons.

In the rest of the article, he looks at some of the murderers that Joe Biden pardoned.

Here are some:

Jorge Avila-Torrez “sexually assaulted and stabbed to death two girls — Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9 — who had been riding their bicycles in their neighborhood in a suburb north of Chicago in 2005. Four years later, he strangled naval officer Amanda Snell, 20, inside her barrack in Arlington, Virginia.” He subsequently admitted to these crimes. A year after that, he kidnapped, raped, and strangled a woman in a secluded area of northern Virginia, leaving her for dead by the side of a road. She survived and reported the crime to police, finally leading to his arrest and conviction.

[…]Marvin Gabrion murdered 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman before she could testify in a 1997 rape case against him. He handcuffed her, covered her eyes and mouth with duct tape, wrapped her in chains, weighted her down with concrete blocks, and threw her into a lake alive. He also murdered Rachel’s 11-month-old daughter.

[…]Richard Jackson in 1994 kidnapped, raped, and murdered 22-year-old Karen Styles when she was going for a jog in Asheville, North Carolina. A hunter found her partially naked body duct-taped to a tree, with a gunshot wound to the head. Jackson later confessed to the crime.

This one is interesting because it shows the difference that the death penalty makes – it deters people who have life sentences from killing anyone else:

Anthony Battle “murdered an Atlanta prison guard with a hammer in 1994 while serving a life sentence for murdering his wife, a US Marine, in 1987.” Battle confessed that he killed the guard because he was “tired of being bossed around” and wanted to kill the first guard he saw. He showed no remorse. At Battle’s trial, three prison guards from the facility testified that Battle’s actions emboldened other prisoners to threaten staff because “without the death penalty, all prisoners … believe there is nothing that can happen to them.”

Dr. Gagnon says that it’s an injustice when someone who murders escapes the approriate punishment:

Biden’s action in commuting nearly all federal death sentences to life sentences for heinous murderers should generate a sense of moral outrage. This moral outrage emanates not from a bloodthirsty desire for vengeance but from a sense of justice regarding the value and dignity of innocent life. Taking the innocent life of one made in God’s image, especially in particularly heinous murders such as the above, requires the forfeiture of the murderer’s life (see Genesis 9:6).

One question I find myself asking is why should taxpayers get the bill for letting these people live to the end of their natural lives? They should either have to pay for their own upkeep, or family members should pay. Why do taxpayers have to get the bill? If Joe Biden wants to be so generous, then why doesn’t he get the bill for it? It seems like the secular left is always being generous with other people’s money, and being non-judgmental by risking other people’s safety.

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Corporate news media is losing viewers, and no wonder – they are very biased in how they cover the news. But sometimes, they go beyond bias, and actually defame other people. Recently, CNN, a former news network, ran a story about a Navy veteran. And they got in big trouble for it. And now they have to pay millions and millions of dollars.

I have to link to the Media Research Center’s Newsbusters blog, because nobody does a better job of covering media bias than Newsbusters.

They write:

On Friday, a jury of six in Florida’s 14th Circuit Court in Bay County has found CNN liable for the defamation of Navy veteran Zachary Young and that he was entitled economic and emotional damages, a ruling that proved CNN was not worthy of their moniker “the most trusted name in news.” They also found that CNN’s reporters had demonstrated expressed malice, actual malice, and outrageous behavior, which opened the door for a massive punitive damages judgement.

The jury also found Young was entitled to $4 million in economic damages and $1 million in emotional damages. They also ruled that CNN should be subject to punitive damages, but the two sides settled Friday afternoon following nearly 90 minutes of discussions.

In another story from the New York Post, they talked about how much the punitive damages might be:

Louis G. Adolfsen, a defamation lawyer and founding member of the Melito & Adolfsen PC law firm in Manhattan, speculated that the settlement could be for as high as $25 million considering Panama City is a “rural or semi-rural” area where the jury pool is likely hostile to CNN.

Back to Newsbusters – this part is interesting. The material was false, and false to the level of defamation:

A ruling of liable meant the jury had determined CNN published the defamatory material, the material was “of and concerning” Young, the materials that was published was false, said false material rose to the level of defamation, CNN was negligent in their news reporting about Young, and that Young had sustained damages as a result of the material.

“False material rose to the level of defamation”. And these are the kinds of people who fact check what you say on social media.

Internal CNN e-mails show what they are really like:

Young’s lead counsel Vel Freedman said in his closing that the Marquardt segment ran on 11 different CNN shows both domestically and on CNN International. And, in addition to Marquardt’s defamatory report, it was accompanied by anchors making their own defamatory statements about Young.

The jury also found CNN had operated with expressed and actual malice. The evidence presented to the jury was clear; Marquardt had messaged colleagues that he was going to “nail this Zachary Young Mfucker” while calling the report was going to be “your funeral bucko.” CNN editors called him a “shit” and “a shitbag” who had a “punchable face.”

They say that journalism is one of the easiest majors to get. And when you read their internal e-mails, you really can see that they’ve never really moved beyond high school. What do people learn in journalism school? Nothing.

Anyway, it’s Saturday, so enjoy some good news.

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Trump has selected Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State. I’m not a fan of Marco Rubio – he has a trashy 69% rating from Heritage Action, while Mike Lee has 91% and Ted Cruz has 90%. DeSantis gets to pick someone to replace Rubio in the Senate, and he’s chosen Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. Moody has a LONG track record of conservative battling, so let’s get into it.

First, the news from Daily Wire:

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) announced on Thursday that he has chosen Florida Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody to replace Sen. Marco Rubio, the likely incoming Secretary of State, in the U.S. Senate.

Moody, 49, has served as Florida’s AG under DeSantis since 2019 and has been at the forefront of multiple issues recently. In November, she sued FEMA over its alleged discrimination against Trump supporters during the disaster relief efforts after Hurricane Milton. She also took on special prosecutor Jack Smith “for his politically motivated persecution of the former president,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Orlando.

Lots of achievements:

“I wanted somebody with a demonstrated record of delivering results on those important issues,” DeSantis said. “Talk is cheap. We need people that have demonstrated fidelity to these principles with their actions.”

Moody won two statewide attorney general elections by large margins. Before she became attorney general, Moody served as a federal prosecutor and was the youngest judge in Florida when she was elected to the Circuit Court in Hillsborough County in 2006.

I did a search on Christian Post, to see what adventures she’s been having that would interest Christians.

Christian Post says that she loves to defund abortion providers:

A federal court has reinstated a 2016 Florida law that allows the state to strip taxpayer funding from Planned Parenthood, citing the overturning of Roe v. Wade as justification.

[…]Last month, AG Moody announced that she was going to vacate the 2016 injunction, citing the overturning of Roe last year as a justification.

“Now that the case at the center of the court’s reasoning has been overturned, we are petitioning the court to vacate the court’s injunction and allow the will of our state’s legislative body and the people who elected them to take effect,” stated Moody in February.

Christian Post says that she doesn’t like pro-abortion domestic terrorism:

The law firm First Liberty Institute announced in a post on X Thursday that Heartbeat of Miami, a pro-life pregnancy center in Hialeah, Florida, had finally secured “justice” after it was vandalized by pro-abortion activists in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision which ruled the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion.

The post elaborated on what it meant by “justice,” specifically highlighting that “vandals who spray-painted threatening messages on Heartbeat’s property last year will pay for their crimes.” Expressing gratitude for the assistance of Florida’s Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody for “holding these violent protesters accountable,” First Liberty described the development as a “big win for Florida’s pro-life community.”

And Christian Post also says that she thinks that biological men should stay out of women’s sports:

A lawsuit filed by Florida’s attorney general and three other states warns that the Biden administration’s Title IX rule change will force female athletes to compete against men despite the U.S. Department of Education’s claims that the rule does not apply to participation on athletic teams.

[…]”Biden’s new Title IX rules shred protections for women — that so many fought for over decades,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said in a Monday statement.

“The idea that young girls can now legally be forced to undress in the same room with males in what is supposed to be a safe space like a locker room, that a young woman could be randomly assigned a roommate that is a biological male with little to no say over the matter, or that biological men would be eligible for women’s scholarships is ludicrous,” the attorney general continued. “To ensure safety and fairness, Florida will aggressively fight Biden who refuses to think through the real-world consequences before overhauling regulations.”

By the way, if you’re paying attention to the federal Attorney General nominee, Pam Bondi, she is also really conservative. I like about half of Trump’s picks, and dislike the other half, but Bondi is definitely one of the better picks. Great record, solid conservative, lots of evidence of being able to fight through adversity to victory.

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I want to make sure that America does not adopt single-payer healthcare, and one way to do that is to always be ready to debate healthcare policy with people who ask me. Another way to prevent single-payer is to collect evidence for you, so you can be ready, too. One country that has single-payer healthcare is Canada, and we can learn a lot from them about how well it works.

Here’s an article from The Federalist, about healthcare in Canada.

It says:

When a Canadian child was rushed to the hospital after nearly drowning, his parents say doctors threatened to take the child off life support and suggested harvesting his organs.

“We had 14 days to prepare his funeral and say goodbye to him,” Nicolas Tétrault, the boy’s father and a former Montreal politician, told The Federalist in English, his second language. “They were promoting to harvest the organs and give them away.”

Tétrault said his two-year-old son, Arthur, drowned in October. An ambulance took Arthur to a hospital where doctors resuscitated him, and he was later transferred to Montreal Children’s Hospital, where he was stabilized. But doctors told his parents Arthur had brain damage and an abnormal breathing pattern. According to Tétrault, after approximately five weeks doctors gave an ultimatum — they would “unplug” the boy from life support on Nov. 29.

So Tétrault and his wife fled with Arthur to New Orleans, where he is being treated at Ochsner Medical Center and is off a ventilator.

Canadian healthcare is run by socialists. It has taxpayer-funded infanticide, taxpayer-funded child mutilation, and taxpayer-funded euthanasia. When you have an entire society that is majority secular and leftist, that’s what you get in the healthcare system. It’s not run by Christians. It’s not pro-life. It doesn’t respect conscience rights. And it doesn’t respect parental rights. Canada is run by atheistic communists, and their healthcare system reflects that.

More from the article:

Doctors were “constantly talking about” harvesting Arthur’s organs, according to Tétrault.

“They were killing him with all these drugs, and they were justifying the fact that they were promoting to harvest the organs and give them away,” he said. “They were talking about it all the time.”

Tétrault said Sam Shemie (of the pediatric ICU and advanced care unit), Samara Zavalkoff (of the pediatric and advanced ICU), and Stephen Liben (of palliative care and pediatric advanced care) — along with several nurses — suggested harvesting Arthur’s organs.

“They don’t force you, but the way it’s done, it’s kind of a strong marketing from the head of the pediatric unit,” he said. “Everybody talks about it over there.”

[…]Tétrault said the difference in Arthur’s treatment stems from the difference between American and Canadian hospital systems.

“In Quebec, it’s a socialist hospital system where the patients are seen as an expense. In the U.S., a patient is seen as an income, as a client,” he said. “It makes the entire difference in the world.”

And this is important:

Canadian doctors harvest organs from euthanasia victims, and some medical professionals say they should do so while the patient is alive for best organ quality, as The Federalist previously reported.

It’s the same kind of thing that goes on in China. And Canada’s prime minister Trudeau is a great admirer of Chinese communism.

Well, that’s enough about that. But I do think that it’s important for Americans to be familiar with these horror stories. When you go in the hospital in America, you take it for granted that the doctors are there to help you. But in Canada, the doctors are there to kill you – to stop you from draining money from their government-controlled system. And they want to harvest your organs. Their system is already at the breaking point. They are charging $17, 713 per family just so that people can get on a waiting list with a median wait time of 30 weeks. You’re not paying for healthcare – you’re paying for a spot on a waiting list. So, of course they are desperate to kill any patients they can, to get people off the waiting lists. Because they know that we are laughing at their third-world healthcare system.

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Lately, my friends have been very excited that I’m a non-white conservative. They want me to answer the grievances of BLM people, and explain from my own experiences what Christianity and conservative policies have to say about making the lives of non-whites better. My friend Wes recommended “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington to help me focus my thoughts.

Here’s a summary of the book:

Dignity through LaborOver the course of Up From Slavery, Washington develops the idea and ideal of dignity through labor. For Washington, the gravest aspect of the institution of slavery is the denigration of labor for both blacks and whites. Because the enslaved had no personal investment or return on their labor, they did not complete their work with an attitude toward improvement. Likewise, whites, largely deprived of meaningful labor, were robbed of the ability to achieve self-sufficiency. In both races, this produced personalities and characters that seek to escape labor. Washington emphasizes labor as the only way to make oneself useful in an interdependent, modern society. Throughout the whole of Up From Slavery, Washington searches for and obtains work. Further, once he obtains it, Washington completes all labor to best of his ability, no matter how lowly the task. At the Tuskegee Institute, Washington makes this idea and ideal a foundational ethos. All students who study at the Tuskegee Institute must learn a trade or industry alongside their more traditional academic pursuits. In addition, many of the buildings, most of the furniture, the wagons, and the materials used at the school are produced by students. This level of practical skill and diligence also acts as the foundation of Washington’s theory and program for racial uplift.

Selflessness, Desire to Be Useful to One’s CommunityThe people that Washington most admires and models himself after are those he labels selfless. Washington defines this as the willingness to work on the behalf of others. For Washington, this is not only about duty or labor, but also about the willingness to do one’s best for the benefit of the collective good. Washington believes that racial prejudice can be overcome if black people make themselves indispensable to their communities and their nation. The brick-making episode provides an example. Though the brick-making enterprise at Tuskegee felled three kilns before successfully producing bricks, the venture eventually proved successful and the school began to sell its bricks on the open market. Washington describes how whites who were unsympathetic or apathetic to the education of blacks and the overall project of the Tuskegee Institute were willing to purchase Tuskegee bricks due to their quality and convenience. Washington suggests that if black race can find their niche in society by fulfilling a need, then they can co-exist peacefully and productively with whites.

Impracticality of Political AgitationThroughout Up From Slavery, Washington defends his ideas about racial advancement and uplift by subtly undermining the proposals of his critics. Though Washington does not explicitly state his objection to the strategies of specific thinkers like W.E.B. Dubois or even his predecessor, Frederick Douglass, he nevertheless highlights the wastefulness of political agitation for equal rights at every chance he gets. To do this, Washington shows that political agitation results in worse relations and outcomes than those that existed before. For example, when he goes home to Malden after his second year at the Hampton Institute, Washington finds that both the salt-furnace and the coal-mine are not in operation due to worker’s strikes. In Chapter IV, Washington describes how strikers usually spent all their savings during the strikes and returned to work in debt, but at the same wages. He raises the impracticality of political agitation again after his controversial Atlanta Exposition speech. After the success of his speech, he hypothetically asks if a black man would have been invited to give a speech had people agitated to put a black person on the program. He answers in the negative, saying that such opportunities can only arise through merit.

And here’s a summary of his most famous speech:

On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington was selected to give a speech that would open the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. The speech, which is often referred to as the “Atlanta Compromise,” was the first speech given by an African American to a racially-mixed audience in the South. In it, Washington suggested that African Americans should not agitate for political and social equality, but should instead work hard, earn respect and acquire vocational training in order to participate in the economic development of the South. By doing so, eventually, he stated, African Americans would gain the respect of white society and be granted the rights of full citizenship.

There’s a free full audio version of the book, and the full text is online. I recommend this book to people of all races, because as the sexual anarchy brought on by feminism becomes widespread, the majority of the children of tomorrow will face the same kinds of challenges.

I see Washington’s ideas as consistent with a Christian worldview, where we don’t expect to be treated fairly. We expect sinful people to treat us badly. What Christianity says is to be patient, and focus on your relationship with God and loving your neighbor. And one way to love your neighbor is to sell them something valuable that you made through your labor. Another way is to work and save, and give to charity.

Government solutions to problems like racism and poverty aren’t a top priority for Christians. Most of all, we need the freedom to be good, and to do good. That’s priority one. You may not make your life better by being moral and diligent, but it’s rare that doing so causes you to harm yourself. It’s very important that you not harm yourself.

So, this dovetails nicely with my own story. My married non-white parents were not smart enough or willing enough to monitor my education, but they were clear that they wanted me to do well in order to find good-paying work. So I completed my BS and MS in a STEM field, and went to work right away, and I’ve been at it continuously for 22 years now. I save most of what I earn for charity and early retirement.

I’ve never experienced any of the racism or police brutality that American blacks complain about. And that’s because I follow what Washington is teaching. I dress in a clean way that doesn’t communicate danger to others. I’m careful to spend my time reading apologetics, economics and military history. I don’t listen to popular music or watch popular TV or movies. I don’t hang out with people who blame other people for their lack of success.

I got my first job by volunteering to do it for free on Saturdays for 7 months. My first full-time job salary after college was $50,000. Then I got a raise of $6,000 and then a raise of $9,000. I used to work 70 hour weeks in my 20s. I graduated college with $9,000 dollars in the black, because I went to a small local college and lived at home, and never spent any money on alcohol. My net worth is now about $1.35 million. By the way, the secret to becoming wealthy is to not spend money on showing off. You can be very generous to your friends and still get rich. Just never buy anything that is designed to communicate “status” to anyone. And never spend money on alcohol or chasing sex outside of marriage.

At no time did I accept that the problems defined by the secular left were my real problems. And at no time did I accept their “solutions” as real solutions to anything. As black economist Thomas Sowell writes, the “solutions” of the left are not effective at helping people like me. The “solutions” of the left are designed to make leftists feel better, and look more virtuous to others. You are much better off reading the Bible, Christian apologetics, free market economics, American military history, etc., and then respecting what you learn from that in your decision-making. I think that reading the right stuff is even more important than having good parents or attending church.

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I blogged previously about Kash Patel (FBI) and Jay Bhattacharya (NIH) but when I saw an article (below) on Daily Signal about Russ Vought (OMB) by the politics editor, I thought I’d better read it. And after I read it, I though I’d better share it. First of all, Vought is an excellent conservative. Second, he has a lot of experience. And third, he is an outspoken evangelical Christian.

Daily Signal:

The Office of Management and Budget is a less well-known entity within the executive branch, but few are as critical for ensuring the implementation of the president’s agenda. President-elect Donald Trump has once again placed that awesome responsibility in Russ Vought’s hands.

[…]Trump released a statement announcing Vought’s nomination as OMB director on Friday evening. “I am very pleased to nominate Russell Thurlow Vought, from the Great State of Virginia, as the Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget. He did an excellent job serving in this role in my First Term – We cut four Regulations for every new Regulation, and it was a Great Success! Russ graduated with a B.A. from Wheaton College, and received his J.D. from the Washington University School of Law,” Trump’s statement read.

“Russ has spent many years working in Public Policy in Washington, D.C., and is an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies. Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People. We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity. I look forward to working with you again, Russ. Congratulations. Together, we will Make America Great Again!”

So, this is the guy who did the cut four regulations for ever one new regulation. And he graduated from Wheaton College, back when Wheaton was still a conservative Christian school.

More:

In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Vought explained how OMB can… kill the deep state—a death by a thousand cuts.

“OMB is the nerve center of the federal government, particularly the executive branch,” Vought told Carlson. “Office of Management and Budget has the ability to turn off the spending that’s going on at the agencies. It has all the regulations coming through it to assess whether it’s good, or bad, or too expensive, or could be done a different way, or ‘What does the president think?’”

In short, “presidents use OMB to tame the bureaucracy,” Vought said.

“It is the President’s most important tool for dealing with the bureaucracy, the administrative state,” he reiterated. “And you know, the nice thing about President Trump is he knows that, and he knows how to use it effectively.”

And he’s experienced:

Vought was previously atop the OMB, first in an acting capacity and then confirmed by the Senate, for the second half of Trump’s first term.

As Trump and Vought prepared to depart the White House in 2021, Vought told the president of his intention to start the Center for Renewing America, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that sought to keep Trump’s policy vision alive in the nation’s capital. Trump was supportive of Vought’s endeavor, and the pair remained in close contact while Trump was out of power.

Vought’s fingerprints have been all over Republican politics and the conservative movement for the past four years. He wrote the Project 2025 chapter on how to reform the Executive Office of the President of the United States. In the media, he was an outspoken proponent for “draining the swamp” by making the federal agencies once again accountable to the president and the American people. And, over the summer, Vought lead the Republican National Convention’s policy platform committee.

Now, his fingerprints will be all over bringing the bureaucracy to heel.

I was snooping around in far-left communist atheist publications, and found this hand-wringing about Vought’s Christian convictions:

In 2021 he founded the Centre for Renewing America, an organisation whose mission is to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God”.

His religious views have provoked controversy. In Mr Vought’s confirmation hearing in 2017—he squeaked through by a single vote—Senator Bernie Sanders pointed to an article by Mr Vought in which he described Muslims as “condemned” for having rejected Jesus Christ. Mr Vought replied that he respected the right of every person to express their religious beliefs. In the secretly recorded meeting last year he said that elected leaders should discuss whether to prioritise Christian immigrants over those of other faiths. And he has called for a total abolition of abortion—a position that is too extreme for even most American conservatives.

But Mr Vought’s religiosity gives a scorching fervour to his criticism of politics and society, and that appeals to the Republican base. He regularly describes the federal government as “woke and weaponised” and has warned that the Democratic Party is “increasingly evil” because it forces secularism on families. He also was an early combatant in the pushback against diversity policies, which became a potent campaign theme for Mr Trump: in 2020 he wrote an official memo saying that anti-racism training in the federal government was divisive and anti-American.

So, let’s conclude with this. The best Trump pick, the one you’ve probably never heard of, is the most conservative one, and he’s in a great position to smash the secular left Deep State.

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I’ve written many times about Facebook’s continuous efforts to alter their products and services to censor Christians and conservatives. And I’ve written about how they have spread misinformation and censored true stories in order to help their allies in the Democrat party. But now Facebook is claiming that they will change their old ways. Should we believe them?

This article from The Federalist collects together many stories of their past actions.

Meta has repeatedly displayed anti-conservative prejudice. For example, it directly censored The Federalist at least 11 times, suspended the Facebook account of the America First Policy Institute, and restricted the account of conservative Hillsdale College.

When asked why users should vote for Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump, Meta AI told users positive things about the Democrat but negative things about the Republican. Research has shown that media bias can shift elections.

Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and CEO, also directly poured $350 million through nonprofits into local election offices in 2020. The funding helped boost turnout in mostly Democrat areas, and enabled left-wing groups like the Center for Tech and Civic Life to meddle in local election processes.

That same year, the company engaged in government collusion to exert draconian control over public discussions online about a prudent Covid-19 response. It also caved to pressure from the FBI to censor the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian misinformation” — even though the story proved true.

So, should we think that Zuckerberg and his secular left lackeys have turned over a new leaf? Or, are they just trying to avoid jail time by sucking up to Trump (who is prone to sycophant behavior). Time will tell. I don’t have any faith in Big Tech. You can tell what they think from their political donations, which is disproportionately delivered to Democrat party candidate. And their political convictions definitely do affect their products and services. If it were up to me, they would be charged, tried, fined and imprisoned. For years.

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A friend sent me a draft e-mail, that he wrote to a family member, who has rejected historic Christianity for progressive Christianity. He was asked to give the basics of salvation, and his attempt to explain the gospel to her is below. My advice included taking out the Christianese terms. Do you think he did a good job? I think his emphasis on what is not the gospel (what needs to be rejected) makes this a first-class explanation of the gospel.

So, you’ve asked the 10,000 talent question (alluding to Matthew 18:23-35). You are basically asking me what I think the Gospel is. I’ll try to answer that in a minimalistic way, using my own characterization of it rather than just making doctrinal statements.

One must accept that there is a God, who is a higher authority than themselves. How much one must first believe about that God is debatable, but candidate beliefs would be that He is personal (having a mind like, but greater than, ours), powerful, and the creator of this cosmos and everything in it — He owns it all. Our natural intuition is to see beauty, order, complexity, and “design” in nature. There is a difference in belief vs unbelief in that some think it is just the appearance of design and some acknowledge their intuition that it actually is designed.

One must acknowledge their moral intuitions, and recognize that there are actually right and wrong things in this world. It’s not just whatever you want to do, or whatever society decides in a given time or culture.

Given that morality is then understood to be a transcendent thing (universal and independent of time and culture), the connection is made to God as the author of this moral law.

One must then recognize that he/she regularly fails to live up to this law, even according to just their meager understanding of it, and even by the standards of morality that they make up for other people.

One must not try to suppress this, or therapize it away. One must recognize there is a problem and real moral culpability. One must recognize that they feel guilty and have self-esteem issues because they actually do have guilt and issues.

One must make the connection between guilt and their standing before God. Being good sometimes and in some ways does not erase the bad you do, past, present, or future. One must be willing to bend the knee to God’s will regarding morality.

One must also come to see the moral failure (sin) in their lives as a bad thing that they’d like to be rid of, rather than excusing it as the fault of others, or revelling in it as part of the pleasure of life, or shrugging it off as just “who I am.”

One must appeal to God in these matters for both forgiveness and help in living as they should.

Given that God has provided a champion for the problem that humanity faces (the backstory of which not all will fully know), one whose heart is truly yielded to all these things will naturally and eagerly receive Word of this as Good News. God has solved the seemingly irreconcilable demands of both justice and forgiveness in that champion.

Those with ears to hear will receive this solution — Jesus — and believe what He has done in life and on the cross for their sake — the resurrection being both confirmation of His divine authority and also the sign of the defeat of death which awaits us all, and is the only barrier between us and facing this God whom we fail at every turn. They will believe on (or upon) Jesus as Lord and their means of salvation, surrendering dependence upon their own ideas of self-righteousness and earning the favor of God.

The outward expression that we have understood and accepted these things is that we have made Jesus Lord and committed ourselves to following Him, conform our character to His, resist our sinful inclinations, and are interested in learning all about Who God is and what has been done for us in Christ.

This commitment to the Lordship of Christ naturally leads to the acceptance of subsequent beliefs. If Jesus is indeed Lord, then He holds all authority, and what He said and taught to His followers is our guide — the New Testament. And if this is the divine story, as intended by God for men, then we have reason to believe that it is comprehensible to us, and He will insure (in spite of the fallibility of men and demonic plots) that its essential message will not be lost or corrupted until all things are completed. Given that Jesus affirmed every categorical section of the Old Testament, and claimed to be its promised Messiah, then that, too, is a source of truth and understanding.

Those doctrines that are sometimes characterized as “essential” for salvation, are merely the highlights of this redemption narrative, which are those things being clear and consistent, and which indicate that someone has yielded themselves to the authority of Christ and the scriptures, and understands these things. It is not that believing them is what saves, but they are what the saved naturally come to believe. Confessing them is the tangible, verbal act of affirming the Gospel, but is not necessarily identical to a life committed to putting it into practice, which is saving faith.

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This is a wonderful, wonderful post from Amy Hall, who writes for the Stand to Reason blog.

She writes:

I had a brief interaction with an atheist on Twitter a couple of weeks ago that unexpectedly turned to the issue of suffering when she said:

You clearly never had a time you were hurt. I don’t mean sick. I don’t mean heart broken. I mean literally a near death experience or rape or abusive relationship…. You can keep floating on a [expletive] cloud thinking Jesus will do everything for you but it’s a lie. What makes you so special?

That surprised me at first because it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the tweet she was responding to, and I was confused as to why she would assume I’d never been through anything traumatic. But then in subsequent tweets, when she revealed she had been raped, it became clear that her trauma had played a central role in her becoming an outspoken, obviously angry “antitheist.” She’s a self-described antitheist now because she thinks Christianity teaches Jesus “will do everything for you” to give you a perfect life, and now she knows that’s a lie. The rape proved her understanding of Christianity false.

So it made sense for her to reason that since I believe Christianity is true, I must still be under the delusion that Jesus is making my life special, which means I obviously never encountered any evil or suffering to shake that delusion.

All right, readers. I don’t want any of you to be thinking that if you become a Christian that these things should be expected to happen:

• you will feel happy all the time
• you will be able to sense God’s secret plan for your life through your feelings
• God’s secret plan for your life will automatically work, even though it’s crazy
• God will give you a perfect spouse and lots of money without you having to study anything hard, or do any hard work
• you get permission to do things that that make you happy, even if they are expressly forbidden by the Bible
• you don’t have to do anything that makes you feel bad (e.g. – talk to non-Christians about Christian truth claims), because God wants you to be happy

No! Where do people get this idea that if they convert to Christianity, then God will become their cosmic butler?

Amy has the answer: (emphasis mine)

Hear me, everyone: This is a failure of the church.

A friend of mine who was deeply suffering once said to me that many Christians are in for “an epic letdown” when they realize their preconceived notions about what God is expected to do for us are false. Pastors who preach a life-improvement Jesus are leading people down this precarious path to disillusionment.

If suffering disproves your Christianity, you’ve missed Christianity. The Bible is filled with the suffering of those whom God loves. The central event of the Bible is one of suffering. Love involves suffering. “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” That means suffering.

It’s the church. It’s the focus on happy things and having of happy feelings and happy songs and preaching designed to make us feel good. I would say the comforting devotional reading doesn’t help to make us any tougher or more practical, either. That happy-clappy stuff just gives you a false sense of safety about your precarious situation. God’s job is not to prevent you from suffering. In fact, even if you make really smart, practical decisions, you can expect to get creamed anyway.

Please take 15 minutes and read the book of 1 Peter in the New Testament.

Here’s a summary from GotQuestions.org:

Purpose of Writing: 1 Peter is a letter from Peter to the believers who had been dispersed throughout the ancient world and were under intense persecution. If anyone understood persecution, it was Peter. He was beaten, threatened, punished and jailed for preaching the Word of God. He knew what it took to endure without bitterness, without losing hope and in great faith living an obedient, victorious life. This knowledge of living hope in Jesus was the message and Christ’s example was the one to follow.

Brief Summary: Though this time of persecution was desperate, Peter reveals that it was actually a time to rejoice. He says to count it a privilege to suffer for the sake of Christ, as their Savior suffered for them. This letter makes reference to Peter’s personal experiences with Jesus and his sermons from the book of Acts. Peter confirms Satan as the great enemy of every Christian but the assurance of Christ’s future return gives the incentive of hope.

Practical Application: The assurance of eternal life is given to all Christians. One way to identify with Christ is to share in His suffering. To us that would be to endure insults and slurs from those who call us “goodie two shoes” or “holier than thou.” This is so minor compared to what Christ suffered for us on the Cross. Stand up for what you know and believe is right and rejoice when the world and Satan aim to hurt you.

Recently, I blogged about how suffering is compatible with an all-powerful God, so you might want to read that too if you missed it.

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I saw a very good article at the Heritage Foundation web site about the importance of fathers for children. The author Virginia Allen listed out some of the benefits that fathers provide to children:

Studies have found that children raised without a father are:

• At a higher risk of having behavioral problems.
• Four times more likely to live in poverty.
• More likely to be incarcerated in their lifetime.
• Twice as likely to never graduate high school.
• At a seven times higher risk of teen pregnancy.
• More vulnerable to abuse and neglect.
• More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.
• Twice as likely to be obese.

From education to personal health to career success, children who lack a father find themselves at a disadvantage to their peers raised in a two-parent household.

I was looking for a good analysis of why there’s been a decline of marriage and fatherhood, and I found an article by Joe Carter on far-left The Gospel Coalition, of all places. By looking at marriage rates and historical events that changed the marriage rate, he was able to identify the cause of the decline of marriage – and fatherhood.

Marriage and divorce rates per capitaI’ll spare you the statistical analysis, which is excellent, and give you the conclusion – although you can guess it from the graph above:

Now that we’ve explored the data, what year should we use as the marker for the beginning of the decline of marriage in the United States? I would argue for 1985, the last year that the marriage rate topped 10 percent.

[…]What changed in 1985 that could have led to the decline in marriage? There are likely numerous factors—which we’ll examine in future articles—but one stands out in particular: By 1985, all states (except for New York) had enacted no-fault divorce legislation.

The most helpful book I know of about no-fault divorce is “Taken Into Custody”, by Dr. Stephen Baskerville. He wrote a column for Crisis magazine that summarizes some of his ideas.

Excerpt:

Feminists were drafting no-fault divorce laws in the 1940s, which the National Association of Women Lawyers now describes as “the greatest project NAWL has ever undertaken.”

The result effectively abolished marriage as a legal contract. Today it is not possible to form a binding agreement to create a family.

The new laws did not stop at removing the requirement of citing grounds for a divorce, to allow divorce by mutual consent, as deceptively advertised at the time. Instead they created unilateral and involuntary divorce, so that one spouse may dissolve a marriage without any agreement or fault by the other.

Here’s what divorce does to the spouse who is the victim of the unilateral “no-fault” divorce:

Though marriage is a civil matter, the logic quickly extended into the criminal, including a presumption of guilt against the involuntarily divorced spouse (“defendant”). Yet formal due process protections of criminal proceedings did not apply, so forcibly divorced spouses became quasi-criminals not for recognized criminal acts but for failing or refusing to cooperate with the divorce by continuing to claim the protections and prerogatives of family life: living in the common home, possessing the common property, or—most vexing of all—parenting the common children.

Following from this are the horrendous civil liberties violations and flagrant invasions of family and individual privacy that are now routine in family courts. A personalized criminal code is legislated by the judge around the forcibly divorced spouse, controlling their association with their children, movements, and finances. Unauthorized contact with their children can be punished with arrest. Involuntarily divorced parents are arrested for running into their children in public, making unauthorized telephone calls, and sending unauthorized birthday cards.

In my conversations with men, no-fault divorce laws, and anti-male divorce courts are the main reasons given for why they do not pursue marriage and fatherhood. Men do not want to be coerced in a marriage with the threat of divorce by an unhappy wife. Men do not want to be subject to the government in so many areas of their lives if the wife does carry out the threat. They especially don’t want to be separated from their children. One my secular male friends told me that he would not marry unless the woman had evidence in her past of hating radical feminism and no-fault divorce. This was the main criteria. He actually was able to find a woman who was a men’s rights activist who hated divorce. But that was the only way he would marry.

Statistically speaking, the wife is more likely to initiate divorce than the husband. Women initiate 70% of divorces, the majority of those just because she is “unhappy”. I think this is because women get into marriage based on their feelings, and they think that it is the husband’s job to make them feel good. They see their happiness as the primary goal of the marriage, and see a marriage that does not make them happy as a marriage that needs to be ended. They’re not interested in helping a man to succeed in his mission, which, for Christian men, is to have a marriage and family that serve GOD first and foremost, not the woman’s feelings.

Are we going to repeal no-fault divorce, then?

No-fault divorce was seen as a boon to women who had married the wrong men by following their hearts. It’s an interesting question to ask whether women really would want no-fault repealed. It would mean that they would have to get serious about who they marry, instead of just getting into marriage based on feelings. They would have to evaluate men according to expectations of what a man does in a marriage, instead of on feelings. They would have to think about what men want out of a marriage, and prepare themselves to provide for his needs. They would have to say no to their feelings, when choosing a man, and in keeping a man after the wedding.

If women aren’t willing to demand the repeal of no-fault divorce laws and get serious about men and marriage, then what’s the point of complaining that men don’t want to marry and become fathers? If you’re not willing to fix the root cause of the problem, then don’t complain about the problem.

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I have many Christian friends living in California, and I often ask them why they would choose to remain in a state that is controlled, from top to bottom, by secular leftists. And their answer is usually, “I like the weather in California”. But now the weather in California is fire and brimstone! Who is responsible for these fires? Is it the greedy Republicans? Is it the intolerant Christians? Let’s see.

This is from Daily Wire:

California State Representative Bill Essayli (R) explained how the mismanagement of the state’s fire policies made it vulnerable as a wildfire rages through Los Angeles County’s Pacific Palisades.

Essayli, a Republican who represents California’s 63rd State Assembly district southeast of Los Angeles, detailed different policies that he says have exacerbated the risk and severity of wildfires. Essayli’s comments come as a wildfire in the Pacific Palisades and the Eaton Fire just south of Los Angeles have taken at least two lives and destroyed an estimated 1,000 structures.

I had a quick look, and Pacific Palisades is the #1 wealthiest suburb in Los Angeles. All those limousine liberals are having their houses burned down. Who is to blame?

Back to Daily Wire:

“In the 1950s, the average timber harvest in California was around 6.0 billion board feet per year. Today, that number has dropped to ~1.5 billion board feet per year,” he went on to say. “California’s forests, which cover a third of the state, are now choked with nearly 163 million dead trees.”

“California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other regulatory policies limit the ability of local government and fire management services to clear dead trees and vegetation. (This is a big deal and prevents much of the controlled burns we desperately need.)”

Essayli also explained that various pieces of legislation that could have helped prevent wildfires or limit their severity were rejected or failed to reach the desk of Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom or were vetoed by him.

Senate Bill 1003, for example, would have allowed local governments and fire management services to build more underground power lines, a measure that could prevent exposed power lines from lighting forest debris on fire.

Other pieces of legislation would have exempted wildlife prevention efforts from regulations imposed by the California Environmental Quality Act, he added.

“Many of the wild fires CA experienced could have been prevented or significantly mitigated with better management, policies, and funding. This is a time for accountability and, more importantly, change in how we approach fire policy,” Essayli added. “Many of the rejected proposals were brought by Republicans, and I suspect they were rejected for that reason. There is only one political party to blame for CA’s failures.”

I found another related story on Daily Wire:

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass faced backlash on Wednesday over policy decisions she made that left her city ill prepared for combatting the deadly fires that erupted this week, causing billions of dollars worth of damage.

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of The Los Angeles Times, called out Bass’ failings in a post on X.

“Fires in LA are sadly no surprise, yet the Mayor cut LA Fire Department’s budget by $23M,” he wrote. “And reports of empty fire hydrants raise serious questions. Competence matters.”

[…]The New York Post reported that the cut was the second largest cut that Bass made in her 2024-25 fiscal year budget.

According to Wise Voter, California is the 5th most Democrat state in the Union, behind Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Hawaii.

I would really recommend that Christians and conservatives consider moving out of California, to a red state. In my rankings, Tennessee is number 1 for Christians, followed by Florida.

Just look at the Daily Wire company. They moved out of California to Nashville, TN, and Ben Shapiro moved to Florida. Seth Dillon is running the Babylon Bee out of Florida. A lot of the cultural change is coming from Tennessee and Florida.

Personally, weather isn’t as important as liberty, prosperity and security.

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I don’t know what to say about this event. Yesterday, Rose and I found out about Dr. Bechly’s passing. He was the guest on our most recent episode of Knight and Rose Show. We knew that we wanted to do an episode on the fossil record and intelligent design, and we wanted to get the best person we could. Dr. Bechly was our first choice. Let’s find out about what he was really like.

So, previously, I blogged about his testimony, and on Tuesday night, I posted our episode of Knight and Rose Show with him.

What really impressed us about Dr. Bechly is how rigorous he was about forming his views of what was true. And how much integrity he had to pay the consequences of coming out in favor of intelligent design and eventually Christianity, in a very secular environment.

This article by David Klinghoffer at Evolution News told me a lot more about the man.

Excerpt:

We are shocked and grieved to report the death of our friend and colleague Günter Bechly, on January 6 in an auto accident in Austria. He was 61. “There is no easy way to say this,” said Center for Science and Culture Managing Director John West yesterday morning when we all found out. I could feel my scalp tighten from the grim tone of his voice before I even knew what was coming. Now try in vain to imagine how Bechly’s wife, Luise, and his two young sons are feeling. It seems beyond inadequate to wish them comfort.

Dr. Bechly, a paleontologist who was pushed out of his position as a curator at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany, after becoming persuaded by the evidence for intelligent design, was not just a gifted and prolific scientist. He was a hero. Changing your view about a controversial matter when it costs you nothing is one thing. When it costs you, in the professional context, everything — that is quite another.

I’ve said before on this blog how weird it is for me to see how so many Christians in America think that Christianity will make you happy, successful, and popular. Christians in places like Africa do not usually hold these views. How Christians in America can get ideas like that from a suffering Savior is a mystery to me. But what we loved about Dr. Bechly was that he just loved to puzzle about what was really true. And when he decided that something was true, he lived by it, and no one else could shake him off it.

More from the article:

As an academic field, evolutionary biology is a bully’s playground where the use of intimidation to silence doubters is just the way things are done. Bechly refused to be bullied and thus gave courage to many in the science world, including friends of ID that you will be hearing more about in years to come. It could be called (not my formulation) the Bechly Effect. One person gives courage to others, and it builds from there.

He wanted to know what was true. In Germany, in organizing an exhibit at his museum celebrating the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, he almost on a whim decided that if he was going to mock intelligent design, as he intended, he really ought to read a few books by those ID rascals. The experience changed him profoundly. That story is memorably told in the documentary Revolutionary. The switch to ID cost him his job but it won him many friends in the ID world. He will be terribly missed.

The rest of the article goes on to talk about what projects he had in the works, his most recent lecture at Cambridge University, his personal character, his spiritual journey. I recommend that you read it, because I think that Christians need to recapture what it is like for someone not raised in the church to work through the evidence, and decide that Christianity is the correct worldview.

Everywhere I look today, I see elite Christian leaders whose first priority, it seems, is to be liked by non-Christians. In every area, we ask non-Christians what their problems are, and what they would like us to do to solve their problems. We’re falling over ourselves trying to appease non-Christians because we want them to like us so badly. We have lost confidence in the Bible as an authority that tells people what their real problems are, and what their real solutions are, and what their real priorities should be, and how to be wise about making plans to achieve what really matters. On issues of race, climate change, sexuality, etc. elite Christian leaders just don’t believe that the Christianity can be recommended to a non-Christian based on the evidence. They don’t know what that evidence is. They never did the work themselves. And we – the rank and file – keep choosing them to lead. We disregard their laziness and ignorance, and choose them for their appearance and charisma.

But Dr. Bechly knew what that evidence was. He investigated. He found it. And he followed the evidence to a true worldview. If only we could convince our Christian leaders that this is the right way to go, the normal way of evangelizing others. Jesus used evidence.

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Welcome to episode 57 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose interview Dr. Günter Bechly about whether the fossil record supports Darwinian evolution or intelligent design. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Note: We are releasing this episode a few days early, because of the tragic death of Dr. Bechly in an auto accident. You can read more about it here at Evolution News. Rose and I are devastated. This episode is Rose’s favorite episode of our entire podcast. We just liked talking to him so much. You can find his full testimony, which we thought was really, really valuable. We think that this would be a wonderful thing for you to share on social media to remember him.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome paleontologist Dr. Günter Bechly to discuss the fossil record. Günter explains why the fossil evidence is more consistent with intelligent design than Darwinian evolution. He explains why mutation and selection are inadequate mechanisms for generating the biological information needed for new body plans. Finally, he explains his journey from atheism to Christianity.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show (with timestamps) provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 57:

Speaker biographies

Günter Bechly, PhD, is a German paleontologist, senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, and senior research scientist at Biologic Institute in Washington state. He has written about 160 scientific publications, described over 180 new species, and been advisor for 3 BBC nature documentaries.

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

Articles:

• Discontinuities in the Fossil Record | Evolution News
• 3 Challenges to the Causal Adequacy of Darwinism | Evolution News
• Seventy Years of Textbook Wisdom Was Wrong | Evolution News
• A Long Surrender by Günter Bechly – Salvo Magazine

Lectures:

• Fossil Explosions in the History of Life: Paleontologist Günter Bechly
• Gunter Bechly on Why Seventy Years of Textbook Wisdom Was Wrong

Debate:

• Gunter Bechly vs Joshua Swamidass – For and Against Intelligent Design

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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I have written many times about the sex-trafficking of mainly white girls by gangs of mainly Muslim men in the UK. My main concern in writing these posts is to emphasize what secular leftists do when their policies don’t work. The secular left parties in Europe opened up their borders to unskilled men from the Middle East. And when it failed, they covered it up and blamed the innocent victims.

Here’s a story from the UK Telegraph (archived), entitled “How the grooming gangs scandal was covered up” and the subtitle is “The child victims of rape were denied justice and protection from the state to preserve the image of a successful multicultural society”.

It says:

Across the country, in towns and in cities, on our streets and in the state institutions designed to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, authorities deliberately turned a blind eye to horrific abuse of largely white children by gangs of men predominantly of Pakistani heritage.

Over time, details have come to light about abuse in Rotherham, in Telford, in Rochdale and in dozens of other places. But with the stories released in dribs and drabs, and the details so horrific as to be almost unreadable, the full scale of the scandal has still to reach the public.

I would be very careful about reading the details of these crimes, they are horrific and disgusting.

But these crimes are the direct consequences of the immigration policies of the secular left Labour Party of the UK. The Labour Party wanted more diversity. But they didn’t achieve that diversity with skilled immigrants who could speak English and respect Western culture. They imported large numbers of unskilled Middle Eastern men, who often could not even speak English. And when their decisions had bad consequences, they covered it up, and blamed the victims for being racists.

In Manchester, a 2019 report concluded gangs were left to roam the streets in part because officers were told to look elsewhere. One detective constable was quoted by a report as saying “the offending target group were predominantly Asian males and we were told to try and get other ethnicities”.

Central government took a similar view. In 2020, the Home Office refused to release its research into grooming gangs, claiming that it would not be in the “public interest” to do so.

The secular left talks about “objective morality”, but here is what their “objective morality” looks like:

In Telford, Lucy Lowe died at 16 alongside her mother and sister when her abuser set fire to her home in 2000. She had given birth to Azhar Ali Mahmood’s child when she was just 14, and was pregnant when she was killed.

Her death was subsequently used to threaten other children. The Telford Inquiry found particularly brutal threats. When one victim aged 12 told her mother, and the mother called the police, “there was about six or seven Asian men who came to my house. They threatened my mum saying they’ll petrol bomb my house if we don’t drop the charges.”

Yet in a pattern that would repeat itself, Telford’s authorities looked the other way. When an independent review was finally published in 2022, it found police officers described parts of the town as a “no-go area”, while witnesses set out multiple allegations of police corruption and favouritism towards the Pakistani community. Regardless of the reason, the inquiry found that “there was a nervousness about race… bordering on a reluctance to investigate crimes committed by what was described as the ‘Asian’ community”.

Similar concerns applied at the council, where anxieties over appearing racist saw safeguarding officers waving away concerns simply because the perpetrators were Asian. It was felt that some suspects were not investigated because it would have been “politically incorrect”.

This is not to say that the council did nothing. Aware that taxi drivers were offering children rides for sex, in 2006 it suspended licensing enforcement for drivers, allowing high risk drivers to continue practicing. As the Telford Inquiry found, this was “borne entirely out of fear of accusations of racism; it was craven”.

[…]The result was stasis, despite officials acknowledging in at least one case that abuse by Asian men had gone on for “years and years”.

It had: at least 1,000 girls were abused in the town between 1980 and 2009. Yet even this conservative estimate was disputed by authority figures, with West Mercia police superintendent Tom Harding insisting in 2018 the figure was “sensationalised”. The independent review later found it entirely plausible.

Notice the response of the UK police. The UK is notorious for two-tier policing, which is the idea that people are treated differently based on their race and religion. They arrest Christian pastors. But Muslims breaking the law are ignored.

The UK Telegraph article goes on quite a bit more, discussing many more cases.

For example, the Rotherham cases:

As the 2014 Jay Inquiry into Rotherham found, children were “doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight”, “threatened with guns”, “witnessed brutally violent rapes and were threatened that they would be the next victim if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators, one after the other”.

In the same town, a senior police officer allegedly said the abuse had been “going on” for 30 years, adding “with it being Asians, we can’t afford for this to be coming out.

As Louise Casey’s 2015 report on Rotherham Council found, this attitude was widespread. The Pakistani community accounted for around 3 per cent of the town’s population, and the story emerging was clear: Pakistani men were grooming white girls. As a result, one witness said, the council was “terrified of [the impact on] community cohesion”.

So, when you hear the secular left talking about immigration in America, it’s important to understand what can result from their decision-making. Yesterday, I wrote about how the FBI views pro-lifers as a greater threat than Islamic terrorists. Why do you think that is? It’s because their worldview – secular leftism – doesn’t provide a rational foundation for morality. When the moral law goes against their self-interest, the secular leftist invariably ignores the moral law, and follows self-interest.

By the way, the current Prime Minister of the UK, a secular leftist, played a direct role in enabling the sex-trafficking of underage girls. This UK Telegraph story explains. So this isn’t some fringe minority of secular leftists who put law-abiding people at risk. It’s the secularleftist elites who are doing these things.

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America suffered a couple of terrorist attacks recently. And it caused me to wonder whether the Biden administration FBI can be trusted to protect the people who pay their salaries from real threats. The FBI has been focusing on dangerous church-attending Presbyterians and dangerous parents of school children. But are these groups the real threats to liberty and peace?

Here’s an article from Jordan Boyd up at The Federalist entitled “An FBI That Targets Political Opponents Instead Of Terrorists Doesn’t Deserve To Lead New Orleans Investigation” and it says:

The FBI claims protecting the nation from terrorist attacks is its “number one priority.” Yet the agency spent recent years redirecting its attention and resources from top issues like violent criminal acts that lead to mass casualties and child sex abuse cases to arresting meemaws for walking around the U.S. Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021 and praying at abortion facilities.

The FBI’s laundry list of corruption extends far beyond smearing Catholics, concerned parents, and Trump voters as domestic terrorists, manufacturing scandals like the Russia collusion hoax, killing the Hunter Biden laptop bombshell, raiding the home of a former and future president even if it required “deadly force,” and interfering in elections. Yet, the DEI-plagued agency, despite its discrediting track record, is routinely accepted as the lead on investigations into real terrorism.

The FBI wholly disqualified itself from being the lead on the New Orleans investigation when it deemed anyone questioning the regime guilty of wrongthink at the same time it allowed, entrapped, and even groomed true threats. How can an entity that openly hyper-fixated its best efforts on “white supremacy” accurately and adequately evaluate a threat as serious and as widespread as Islamic terrorism? It can’t.

Here’s an article from Brianna Lyman up at The Federalist entitled “Here’s Who Biden’s FBI Decided To Persecute Rather Than Hunt Down Real Terrorists”, and it says:

Early Wednesday morning, a radical Islamic terrorist drove his truck through a crowd of people celebrating the start of the New Year in New Orleans. Fifteen people were murdered and more than 35 injured. But maybe this tragedy could have been avoided if the FBI spent less time targeting parents, Catholics, and countless other dissidents and instead focused its resources on catching actual terrorists.

The list of weaponizations from Jordan’s article was pretty long, but Brianna found a new one:

Unfortunately under the leadership of then FBI Director Christopher Wray, the FBI was too busy doing things like helping to orchestrate a kidnapping plot targeting Democrat Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to catch a terrorist.

And it might be worth expanding on the “concerned parents” one – here’s what the FBI really thinks about the people who ar taxed to pay their salaries, and the children who will be taxed to pay for their benefits when they retire:

[…]The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memo in October of 2021 instructing the FBI to label activist parents at school board meetings with “threat tags.” The guidance came just days after the Biden White House approved a recommendation from the National School Board Association that called for counterterrorism measures to be used against parents who spoke up at school board meetings.

Attorney General Merrick Garland “encouraged the use of an FBI tip line for individuals to flag parents for surveillance,” as my colleague Tristan Justice reported.

Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told The Federalist of a mother who was reported to the FBI for simply being “quite upset” at a school board meeting when speaking about the adverse effects of quarantines and school closures.

Maybe expanding a little more on the FBI’s leading bogeyman – people who reject the Democrat party position on abortion:

During the Biden administration, the FBI targeted 55 pro-lifers for “praying, singing, and evangelizing at abortion facilities across the U.S.,” as Boyd reported. Under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, the Biden administration targeted pro-lifers instead of targeting terrorists or the at least 90 instances of “abortion-fueled firebombing, vandalism, and other attacks on lifesaving pregnancy centers, pro-life organizations, and churches …”

In fact, 75-year-old Paulette Harlow was charged and found guilty for violating the FACE Act after she prayed at a Washington, D.C., abortion facility. Harlow was sentenced to two years in jail.

The FBI has long smeared pro-lifers as threats, with former FBI-special-agent-turned-whistleblower Steve Friend revealing in an interview with the Tennessee Informer that the FBI showed agents a video produced by the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center that, according to Friend, “ranked people who oppose abortion, pro-life activists, as a greater threat than Islamists.”

That last paragraph is key: the FBI ranks people who oppose abortion as a GREATER threat than Islamic terrorists. That’s why we are in the situation they are in. The pro-lifers pay their salaries, not the Islamic terrorists, but the FBI is more concerned about the threat posed by their customers. This is an important point.

So, what should we do with the taxpayer-funded FBI?

Maybe we should fire them all, and let them sink or swim in the competitive private sector? Without their pensions and benefits, of course. Then they might learn something about professionalism, and finally be able to demonstrate “fidelity” to their job descriptions (and oaths). Not the leaders of the FBI of course, they need to be criminally prosecuted for what they’ve done.

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Why would anyone support the idea of ending the life of a convicted criminal? What are the reasons for governments to support the death penalty for certain crimes? What does the Bible have to say about capital punishment? Reformed Baptist theologian Wayne Grudem did a Sunday school presentation on the Bible and capital punishment. Let’s take a look.

About Wayne Grudem:

Grudem holds a BA from Harvard University, a Master of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. In 2001, Grudem became Research Professor of Bible and Theology at Phoenix Seminary. Prior to that, he had taught for 20 years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he was chairman of the department of Biblical and Systematic Theology.

Grudem served on the committee overseeing the English Standard Version translation of the Bible, and in 1999 he was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society. He is a co-founder and past president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He is the author of, among other books, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, which advocates a Calvinistic soteriology, the verbal plenary inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, the body-soul dichotomy in the nature of man, and the complementarian (rather than egalitarian) view of gender equality.

The MP3 file is here.

The PDF outline is here.

Topics:

• what kinds of crimes might require CP?
• what did God say to Noah about CP?
• what does it mean that man is made in the image of God?
• is CP just about taking revenge?
• what does CP say about the value of human life?
• does CP apply to animals, too?
• could the statements supporting CP be understood as symbolic?
• one purpose of CP is to protecting the public
• another purpose of CP is to deter further wrongdoing
• but the Biblical purpose of CP is to achieve justice by retribution
• does the Pope make a good argument against CP?
• what is the role of civil government in achieving retribution?
• do people in Heaven who are sinless desire God to judge sinners?
• should crimes involving property alone be subject to CP?
• is the Mosaic law relevant for deciding which crimes are capital today?
• should violent crimes where no one dies be subject to CP?
• is CP widespread in the world? why or why not?
• what are some objections to CP from the Bible?
• how do you respond to those objections to CP?
• should civil government also turn the other cheek for all crimes?
• what is the “whole life ethic” and is it Biblical?
• what do academic studies show about the deterrence effect of CP?
• how often have innocent people been executed in the USA?
• should there be a higher burden of proof for CP convictions?

The Bible is awesome because it gives us knowledge about God’s character. How are we supposed to act in a way that is pleasing to God if we don’t know what he thinks of the issues of the day? We won’t know how we are supposed to act unless we know who God is first. And that’s why when we read the Bible we should be looking to find out the truth about who God is.

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Lately, I’ve noticed that some of the most famous atheists are regretting their long war against Christianity. People like Richard Dawkins spent their lives warring against Christianity. And now that they’ve achieved their goal of diminishing Christian influence, they don’t like the results. They don’t like the Islam. They don’t like the wokeness. They don’t like the transgenderism. But they caused it.

Here’s a story from Breitbart News: (H/T My Dad)

Celebrated atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins stepped down from the board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) on Saturday after the atheist group made clear its allegiance to transgenderism over biological reality.

Dawkins resigned after the foundation censored an article from a fellow scientist who pointed out that sex is, in fact, immutable and biological, and rejected the pseudo-spiritual claim that one can choose their “gender,” The Telegraph reported.

Dawkins accused the organization of caving to the “hysterical squeals” of cancel culture after FFRF pulled the article and called its publishing of it a “mistake.” Dawkins resigned after two other scientists, Jerry Coyne and Steven Pinker, left the organization over the ordeal. The pair accused the foundation of pushing an ideology with the “dogma, blasphemy, and heretics” of a religion, according to the report.

The resignations can be traced back to a piece published to FFRF’s Freethought Now! website and written by Kat Grant called “What is a Woman?” The piece argues against the biological reality of womanhood and instead claims that “a woman is whoever she says she is.”

After they pilled the article by the atheist scientist arguing for biological reality, we got this from the FFRF leaders:

“Despite our best efforts to champion reason and equality, mistakes can happen, and this incident is a reminder of the importance of constant reflection and growth,” co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote.

“Publishing this post was an error of judgment, and we have decided to remove it as it does not reflect our values and principles. We regret any distress caused by this post and are committed to ensuring it doesn’t happen again,” they added.

No one would say that people like Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Steve Pinker were stupid people. What they are is foolish. These are the most foolish people on the planet. They spend their entire lives embracing the lie of atheism. They denied all of the scientific evidence for theism, such as the origin of the universe, the cosmic fine-tuning, the origin of life, explosions of biological complexity in the fossil record, irreducible complexity, habitability, etc.

And what did this advocacy against scientific evidence and reason itself get them? It gets them the Islamic dominance, wokeness, and transgenderism that they now claim to dislike. It would be like someone talking and talking about how much they believe in early retirement, but they way they prepare for retirement is by spending all their money on lottery tickets. And then they act surprised when they get the failure that their actions virtually guaranteed.

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When I was younger, I got the impression from young women that men with strong views on theology and morality made them uncomfortable. I had my share of rejections by Christian women who didn’t like my strong Biblical views. At the time, I was worried that I might not be able to get married at all. But looking at how the family courts operate, that turned out to be a good thing.

The news story is from one of Canada’s national newspapers, the National Post:

A wealthy businessman will have to pay more than $50,000 a month in spousal support for 10 years to a woman with whom he had a long-term romantic relationship even though they kept separate homes and had no children together, Ontario’s top court has ruled.

Under Ontario law, an unmarried couple are considered common-law spouses if they have cohabited — lived together in a conjugal relationship — continuously for at least three years. But that doesn’t necessarily mean living in the same home, the court found.

[…]When their 14-year relationship finally broke down in May 2015, Climans asked the courts to recognize her as Latner’s spouse and order him to pay her support. He argued she had been a travel companion and girlfriend, nothing more. As such, he said, they were never legally spouses and he owed no support. An eight-day trial ensued.

In her decision in February 2019, Superior Court Justice Sharon Shore sided with Climans. She ruled they were in fact long-time spouses, finding that despite their separate home, they lived under one roof at Latner’s cottage for part of the summer, and during winter vacations in Florida. Shore ordered him to pay her $53,077 monthly indefinitely.

Superior Court Justice Sharon Shore didn’t care that the man never married this woman, or lived with her, or had children with her. He had money, and she wanted it, so the judge gave it to her.

Elsewhere in the article, we learn that he had asked her to sign a pre-nuptial agreement many times, and each time she refused. (Those are not even enforced in divorce courts) It’s like her plan all along was to demand that a judge awarded her all of this man’s money.

Some people will say “well, these are Ontario family courts, this is normal. Haven’t you heard about what happened to Dave Foley?” I think every man knows the story of what the Ontario divorce courts did to Dave Foley.

Here is a story about it from the far-left Toronto Star, otherwise known as the Toronto Red Star.

It says:

Dave Foley of beloved Toronto sketch troupe the Kids in the Hall is starting a new career in standup comedy, but not in Toronto — he suspects he’ll be arrested if he returns to Canada.

The 48-year-old faces a back child-support bill in Ontario of more than half a million dollars: the accumulation of a debt that accrues steadily at more than $17,000 per month. On the set of Servitude, a film shot in Toronto last year, “I told the production guys, I have a court appearance on Monday and there’s a good chance I’ll be in jail on Monday afternoon,’” Foley said in an interview with the Star.

During an appearance on comic Marc Maron’s WTF podcast last month, Foley explained that his marriage to Toronto writer Tabatha Southey ended during his run on NBC’s five-year hit comedy NewsRadio, and he has failed in his efforts to adjust his child support downward to reflect his new life after sitcom stardom.

“My income has dropped in the last 10 years, as anyone can tell from the number of s—ty movies I’ve been in,” says Foley. “I’m not exactly picking and choosing my projects.” However, four years ago, Superior Justice Nancy Backhouse denied his motion to vary his support payments.

[…]Foley says that Ontario’s Family Responsibility Office now has an enforcement order and last year sought a six-month jail sentence for him, which was to extend indefinitely, until the overdue support was paid.

Ontario family courts are notoriously anti-male, and men know this. Unfortunately, the female judges who make these rulings don’t seem to understand that men know what they are doing, and then opt out of marriage. It must be so wonderful for these judges to punish the men who appear before them. But they can’t punish the men who respond to what they are doing by declining to marry women, and then declining to date women, and then declining to even speak to women.

I looked up Superior Justice Nancy Backhouse, and found another article about her decisions, entitled “Judge rejects pre-nup, awards ex-wife $5.3-million”. So, pre-nuptial agreements are also thrown out in Ontario divorce courts.

But it’s not just Ontario. I have two Christian friends here in America who married their Christian wives as virgins, and then their wives divorced them. I heard what happened to them in divorce court. They lost custody of their kids, and they are forced to pay alimony and child support even though their ex-wives poison the children against them, and deny them communication rights and visitation rights. And men know that this is happening to other men. How can women expect men to marry when the financial risks are so high?

Forbes magazine explains:

Of the 400,000 people in the United States receiving post-divorce spousal maintenance, just 3 percent were men, according to Census figures. Yet 40 percent of households are headed by female breadwinners — suggesting that hundreds of thousands of men are eligible for alimony, yet don’t receive it.

The divorced courts are biased against men, and men are getting the message. They look at these cases, and they understand that marriage is not worth the financial risks. They don’t want to have their possessions stolen by radical feminist judges.

Further reading

An excellent book to read about this issue is Dr. Stephen Baskerville’s book “Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family“. You can read what the book is about here. Dr. Baskerville is a Christian and a conservative. He has a PhD from London School of Economics and does a good job of explaining the negative view that society has about men, and male leadership. And sadly, these negative man-blaming views are often shared by Christians, too.

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There was a recent terrorist attack committed by a Muslim carrying an Isis flag. Sadly, the Biden-Harris administration law enforcement was not able to prevent it. Perhaps they were too busy prosecuting Christians and pro-lifers? Let’s take a look at the details of the attack and then see what David Wood has to say about why some Muslims are so peaceful, while other Muslims are not peaceful at all.

First the story from Daily Signal:

The FBI has identified the driver of a truck that plowed into a crowd of people celebrating New Year’s on Bourbon Street early Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and injuring 35.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen and U.S. Army veteran from Houston, rented the F-150 Lightning truck, the FBI said. Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said the agency doesn’t believe he acted alone.

The law enforcement agency said in a news release that he had improvised explosive devices that were found in both the truck and two in different locations in the French Quarter, body armor and an ISIS flag hanging from the tailgate.

[…]Jabbar drove into a group of revelers at 3:17 a.m. and got out of the truck, exchanging gunfire with New Orleans Police Department officers, injuring two of them, before Jabbar succumbed from his wounds, lawmen say.

This video featuring David Wood is very helpful for explaining why some Muslims are peaceful, while others are violent:

(archive)

Until then, I think it’s a good idea to keep Democrats away from control of law enforcement. As long as they are focused on punishing Christians and conservatives, they will never be serious about preventing terrorist attacks like this.

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In this post, I explain why I’m not Roman Catholic. And I also explain how Protestant Christians arrive at their beliefs. I’ll go first with my reason, and then I’ll let J. Warner Wallace add another reason.

The Roman Catholic church teaches that Mary was “bodily assumed” into Heaven. Let’s see if that is recorded anywhere in the Bible, or in the early Church fathers, or in early Christian history.

Here’s what I found:

1. To be a Roman Catholic, you need to believe in Papal infallibility in matters of dogma.
2. In 1950, the Pope pronounced the assumption of Mary to be infallible dogma.
3. This pronouncement was solicited by a petition featuring over 8 million signatures.
4. There is no historical record of this doctrine in the Bible.
5. No early church father mentions the assumption until 590 AD.
6. Documents dated 377 AD state that no one knows how Mary died.
7. The assumption appears for the first time in an apocryphal gospel dated about 495 AD.

Data

I only cite Roman Catholic sources for my facts.

1. “But if some think us mistaken, let them search the Scriptures. They will not find Mary’s death; they will not find whether she died or did not die; they will not find whether she was buried or was not buried … Scripture is absolutely silent [on the end of Mary] … For my own part, I do not dare to speak, but I keep my own thoughts and I practice silence … The fact is, Scripture has outstripped the human mind and left [this matter] uncertain … Did she die, we do not know … Either the holy Virgin died and was buried … Or she was killed … Or she remained alive, since nothing is impossible with God and He can do whatever He desires; for her end no-one knows.” (Epiphanius, Panarion, Haer. 78.10-11, 23. Cited by Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed.,Mariology, Vol. II (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), pp. 139-40).

2. “The idea of the bodily assumption of Mary is first expressed in certain transitus–narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. Even though these are apocryphal they bear witness to the faith of the generation in which they were written despite their legendary clothing. The first Church author to speak of the bodily ascension of Mary, in association with an apocryphal transitus B.M.V., is St. Gregory of Tours.” (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma(Rockford: Tan, 1974), pp. 209–210).

It should be noted that the apocryphal gospel in which the doctrine of the assumption of Mary first appeared was condemned as heretical by two Popes in the 5th and 6th centuries. However, I was not able to find a CATHOLIC source for this fact, so I deliberately chose not to use it in my case.

Purgatory

Second, here’s an article from Cold Case Christianity, by the Master of the Evidence J. Warner Wallace. He writes about the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, and his experience with studying and then rejecting it.

Here is his introduction:

The notion of purgatory assumes many of us die with unforgiven sins that need to be purged from our account; some of us are not good enough to go to heaven, but not bad enough to go to hell. Purgatory, therefore, is a temporary, intermediate place (or state of being) where good deeds and works can be performed in order to purge our impurity prior to our final destiny with God. Although millions of Catholics believe purgatory to be a reality, the idea needs to be tested in light of the Scripture. Is purgatory something we, as Bible believing Christians, should accept as true?

He’s got a stack of Bible verses to make two points against Purgatory: first, that Jesus’ death on the cross is sufficient to atone for all our rebellion against God, and we don’t need to endure any suffering or punishment to supplement it. And second, the teaching about the afterlife in the Bible says that believers are immediately ushered into the presence of God after they die (without resurrection bodies, yet), while unbelievers are separated away from God.

Here’s what he says about the first point:

Our Salvation Isn’t Based On Our Good Works
According to the Biblical doctrine of Salvation, forgiveness is not based on the good works of the believer. For this reason, deeds or works performed for those in purgatory are both unnecessary and ineffectual:

Romans 3:21-24, 27-28
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus… Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Romans 8:1
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

Our Salvation Is Based On Jesus’ Work on the Cross
According to the Biblical doctrine of Salvation, Jesus’ work on the cross (His blood) purifies us from allsin. For this reason, there isn’t a lingering sin problem requiring the existence of a place like purgatory:

Titus 2:13-14
…we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

1John 1:7b
…the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

1John 1:9b
…he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1John 2:2
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Hebrews 10:14
…because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

Our Salvation Has, Therefore, Already Been Guaranteed
According to the Biblical doctrine of Salvation, Jesus has already purified and purged believers of sin based on our faith in Him. For this reason, there is no need for a place like Purgatory where additional purging must be performed…

[…]The Biblical doctrine of Salvation clearly eliminates the need for purgatory.

I was never able to find anything in the Bible to support purgatory. It’s a very very late doctrine that was unknown to the early church until the late 2nd / early 3rd century, where it is spoken about by a handful of people. But lots of weird doctrines were creeping up on the fringe around that time, so we shouldn’t be surprised… the point is that they have no support from the Bible, and not in the community of believers for the first 150 years after the death of Jesus.

Conclusion

The first thing I want to say is that the Bible is not the only place you look to decide these issues. You also look in church history, and you are looking for a clear chain of custody of the doctrine as far back as it can go. Purgatory and the perpetual virginity of Mary have some track record, but the bodily assumption of Mary is just nowhere – not in the Bible, not in the Early Church fathers. So that’s the silver bullet against Roman Catholicism, since they made it “infallible”.

This post is more directed to non-Christians to sort of show you how we do our homework. I am the first Protestant in my family. We have half the family who is Muslim, and the other half mostly Hindu, with some Catholic. I had to debate all these people growing up, and I wiped the floor with them. It was not even close. I simply settled on the beliefs that allowed me to win every argument, every time. That’s how you do religion. If you have to go against your whole family in order to be right, you do it. It’s not good to be wrong about things just because that’s what your family believes. These things were not pushed hard on me by my parents, I studied them on my own in order to win arguments. After a while of winning, I found myself acting consistently with what I was arguing for. Although that might sound really weird to you, that’s probably the right way to do this. Don’t listen to parents and church, find your own way forward by winning arguments, and believing only what the evidence supports.

Although most people think that if I had kids, I’d bully them into my beliefs, I actually would not. Because that’s not what worked on me. What really works is fighting about evidence, welcoming questions, and allowing differences of opinion. Being free to pursue truth is more important in the long run than coercing your kids to act nicely.

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I supported Ron DeSantis in the GOP primary because he has a record of going up against woke corporations like Disney. I just don’t see the same seriousness about the threat posed by leftist corporations from Trump, who strikes me as a bit too moderate. In Trump’s first term, he did nothing about the leftist bias of Big Tech corporations. Will that change in his second term?

Here’s an article from the Media Research Center showing how badly Google needs to be reined in by the Trump administration:

Google stacked search results for Trump nominees with legacy and leftist media sources for the fourth straight week. In fact, the search giant went above and beyond to push outlets that encourage hatred of several of President-elect Donald Trump’s choices.

[…]For the news tab search results, Google provided 176 left-leaning articles compared to only 31 U.S.-based “lean right” or “right” articles. The general search results included a paltry 12 “lean right” or “right” articles, badly outnumbered by the 96 leftist articles in the results. Furthermore, Google failed to show a single U.S.-based “lean right” or “right” article for over 65 percent of nominees that the search giant provided articles for in general search.

And they have specific searches. One of my favorite nominees is Kash Patel, so I looked up what they did to him first:

Google truly distinguished itself by pushing outlets that stoke hatred against nominees like Kash Patel, Trump’s FBI director nominee. Google filled Patel’s general search results with attacks and elevated a fearmongering Slate article with the headline “We’ve Seen Kash Patel’s Enemies List. It’s Terrifying” at the top of the page. Other articles by leftist outlets such as NPR, CNN, The Guardian, The Daily Mail and NBC News spread fear about Patel.

In the news tab search result for “Kash Patel,” Google included the Slate article second from the top, while also elevating a Mother Jones article calling Patel a “useful idiot for Putin,” a CNN article implying Patel was paranoid and an NPR article accusing him of feeding “conspiracy theories” to children.

Another area where Trump might like to act more like DeSantis could be in how he handles the corporate news media. In Trump’s first term, the corporate news media got a pass. They were not targeted by the Trump administration at all, and in fact Trump continues to participate in interviews and debates with members of the far-left coporate news media.

Another article from the Media Research Center explains how far left the corporate news media really are:

MRC analysts examined all coverage of Trump’s cabinet appointees on ABC, CBS, and NBC’s evening newscasts from December 1 through December 14.

[…]Across all three networks, the coverage of Gabbard, Patel, and the handful of other nominees mentioned was entirely negative. Only Pete Hegseth, who received the lion’s share of the airtime, enjoyed a scant four positive evaluative statements, all of which cited his mother describing him as “redeemed” and “a changed man.”

To reiterate: the only positive commentary any Trump nominee received on the broadcast networks was from his own mother.

What could Trump do to address this situation? Well, one thing he could is just shut the corporate news media out of White House Press briefings completely. Or, at least seat them at the back of the room, and prioritize taking questions from large-audience podcasts and conservative news sources like the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner, the Washington Free Beacon, Daily Caller, Daily Signal, Daily Wire, The Federalist, Just The News, Breitbart, Epoch Times, American Spectator, The Blaze, etc.

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Christian apologist Terrell Clemmons tweeted this testimony by Sarah Salviander, a research scientist in astronomy and astrophysics at the prestigious University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Salviander writes:

I was born in the U.S., but grew up in Canada. My parents were socialists and political activists who thought British Columbia would be a better place for us to live, since it had the only socialist government in North America at the time. My parents were also atheists, though they eschewed that label in favor of “agnostic.” They were kind, loving, and moral, but religion played no part in my life. Instead, my childhood revolved around education, particularly science. I remember how important it was to my parents that my brother and I did well in school.

I just want to point out that I hope that all you Christian parents are taking seriously the obligation to make your kids do well in school, because even if they start out as atheists when they are young, they can still find their way back to God through study, as Sarah did.

She had a bad start, that’s for sure:

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, a time when science fiction was enjoying a renaissance, thanks largely to the popularity of Star Wars. I remember how fascinated I was by the original Star Wars trilogy. It had almost nothing to do with science—it’s more properly characterized as space opera—but it got me thinking about space in a big way. I also loved the original Star Trek, which was more science fiction. The stoic and logical character of Mr. Spock was particularly appealing to me. Popular science was also experiencing a renaissance at that time, which had a lot to do with Carl Sagan’s television show, Cosmos, which I adored. The combination of these influences led to such an intense wonder about outer space and the universe, that by the time I was nine years old I knew I would be a space scientist someday.

Canada was already post-Christian by the 1970s, so I grew up with no religion. In retrospect, it’s amazing that for the first 25 years of my life, I met only three people who identified as Christian. My view of Christianity was negative from an early age, and by the time I was in my twenties, I was actively hostile toward Christianity. Looking back, I realized a lot of this was the unconscious absorption of the general hostility toward Christianity that is common in places like Canada and Europe; my hostility certainly wasn’t based on actually knowing anything about Christianity. I had come to believe that Christianity made people weak and foolish; I thought it was philosophically trivial. I was ignorant not only of the Bible, but also of the deep philosophy of Christianity and the scientific discoveries that shed new light on the origins of the universe and life on Earth.

She documents a phase of following Ayn Rand and embracing “Objectivism”, but eventually she rejects it for failing to answer the big questions of life.

More:

I began to focus all of my energy on my studies, and became very dedicated to my physics and math courses. I joined campus clubs, started to make friends, and, for the first time in my life, I was meeting Christians. They weren’t like Objectivists—they were joyous and content. And, they were smart, too. I was astonished to find that my physics professors, whom I admired, were Christian. Their personal example began to have an influence on me, and I found myself growing less hostile to Christianity.

This is why I think it is so important for Christian parents to raise their children to get advanced degrees… either to become professors themselves, or to finance others (e.g. – our own children) to do advanced degrees. It is so important for university students to see Christian professors on campus. And failing that, it’s important that we bring Christian speakers in to debate non-Christian speakers on the important issues. This will not happen unless we recognize how important it is, and then make a plan to achieve it.

More:

I had joined a group in the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences (CASS) that was researching evidence for the big bang. The cosmic background radiation—the leftover radiation from the big bang—provides the strongest evidence for the theory, but cosmologists need other, independent lines of evidence to confirm it. My group was studying deuterium abundances in the early universe. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen, and its abundance in the early universe is sensitive to the amount of ordinary mass contained in the entire universe. Believe it or not, this one measurement tells us whether the big bang model is correct.

If anyone is interested in how this works, I’ll describe it, but for now I’ll spare you the gruesome details. Suffice it to say that an amazing convergence of physical properties is necessary in order to study deuterium abundances in the early universe, and yet this convergence is exactly what we get. I remember being astounded by this, blown away, completely and utterly awed. It seemed incredible to me that there was a way to find the answer to this question we had about the universe. In fact, it seems that every question we have about the universe is answerable. There’s no reason it has to be this way, and it made me think of Einstein’s observation that the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it’s comprehensible. I started to sense an underlying order to the universe. Without knowing it, I was awakening to what Psalm 19 tells us so clearly, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

That summer, I’d picked up a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and was reading it in my off hours. Previous to this, I’d only known it as an exciting story of revenge, since that’s what the countless movie and TV adaptations always focused on. But it’s more than just a revenge story, it’s a philosophically deep examination of forgiveness and God’s role in giving justice. I was surprised by this, and was starting to realize that the concept of God and religion was not as philosophically trivial as I had thought.

All of this culminated one day, as I was walking across that beautiful La Jolla campus. I stopped in my tracks when it hit me—I believed in God! I was so happy; it was like a weight had been lifted from my heart. I realized that most of the pain I’d experienced in my life was of my own making, but that God had used it to make me wiser and more compassionate. It was a great relief to discover that there was a reason for suffering, and that it was because God was loving and just. God could not be perfectly just unless I—just like everyone else—was made to suffer for the bad things I’d done.

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite, favorite books as well, and had the same impact on me as it did on her.

OK, that’s enough for this post. Go read the rest, and please share it.

I spoke to her recently and she told me that she is working on several projects that are designed to get people more familiar with science and Bible issues. This woman is an expert Christian apologist and her life will have an influence. Are you going to be like her? Will you mentor others to be like her? Will you marry someone like her? Will you raise children who are like her? I think we should all have a plan to study the areas that are important and have an influence for God with what we learn.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument
• The unexpected applicability of mathematics to nature
• Six reasons why you should believe in non-physical minds
• William Lane Craig’s case for the resurrection of Jesus

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Let’s review what you need in your worldview in order to have a rationally grounded system of morality.

You need 5 things:

1) Objective moral values

There needs to be a way to distinguish what is good from what is bad. For example, the moral standard might specify that being kind to children is good, but torturing them for fun is bad. If the standard is purely subjective, then people could believe anything and each person would be justified in doing right in their own eyes. Even a “social contract” is just based on people’s opinions. So we need a standard that applies regardless of what people’s individual and collective opinions are.

2) Objective moral duties

Moral duties (moral obligations) refer to the actions that are obligatory based on the moral values defined in 1). Suppose we spot you 1) as an atheist. Why are you obligated to do the good thing, rather than the bad thing? To whom is this obligation owed? Why is rational for you to limit your actions based upon this obligation when it is against your self-interest? Why let other people’s expectations decide what is good for you, especially if you can avoid the consequences of their disapproval?

3) Moral accountability

Suppose we spot you 1) and 2) as an atheist. What difference does it make to you if you just go ahead and disregard your moral obligations to whomever? Is there any reward or punishment for your choice to do right or do wrong? What’s in it for you?

4) Free will

In order for agents to make free moral choices, they must be able to act or abstain from acting by exercising their free will. If there is no free will, then moral choices are impossible. If there are no moral choices, then no one can be held responsible for anything they do. If there is no moral responsibility, then there can be no praise and blame. But then it becomes impossible to praise any action as good or evil.

5) Ultimate significance

Finally, beyond the concept of reward and punishment in 3), we can also ask the question “what does it matter?”. Suppose you do live a good life and you get a reward: 1000 chocolate sundaes. And when you’ve finished eating them, you die for real and that’s the end. In other words, the reward is satisfying, but not really meaningful, ultimately. It’s hard to see how moral actions can be meaningful, ultimately, unless their consequences last on into the future.

Theism rationally grounds all 5 of these. Atheism cannot ground any of them.

Let’s take a look at #4: free will and see how atheism deals with that.

Atheism and free will?

Here’s prominent atheist Jerry Coyne’s editorial in USA Today to explain why atheists can’t ground free will.

Excerpt:

And that’s what neurobiology is telling us: Our brains are simply meat computers that, like real computers, are programmed by our genes and experiences to convert an array of inputs into a predetermined output. Recent experiments involving brain scans show that when a subject “decides” to push a button on the left or right side of a computer, the choice can be predicted by brain activity at least seven seconds before the subject is consciously aware of having made it. (These studies use crude imaging techniques based on blood flow, and I suspect that future understanding of the brain will allow us to predict many of our decisions far earlier than seven seconds in advance.) “Decisions” made like that aren’t conscious ones. And if our choices are unconscious, with some determined well before the moment we think we’ve made them, then we don’t have free will in any meaningful sense.

If you don’t have free will, then you can’t make moral choices, and you can’t be held morally responsible. No free will means no morality.

Here are some more atheists to explain how atheists view morality.

William Provine says atheists have no free will, no moral accountability and no moral significance:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.

Richard Dawkins says atheists have no objective moral standards:

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. (Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995))

When village atheists talk about how they can be moral without God, it’s important to ask them to justify the minimum requirements for rational morality. Atheists may act inconsistently with their worldview, believing in free will, expecting praise and blame for complying with the arbitrary standards of their peer group, etc. But there is nothing more to morality on atheism that imitating the herd – at least when the herd is around to watch them. And when the herd loses its Judeo-Christian foundation – watch out. That’s when the real atheism comes out – the atheism that we’ve seen before in countries that turned their backs on God, and the moral law. When God disappears from a society, anything is permissible.

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Were the authors of the gospels of Mark and Luke connected to eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus? Well, it turns out that there are good reasons to think that Mark was linked to the eyewitness Peter, and Luke was linked to Paul, who had a post-mortem appearance of Jesus in 1 Cor 15:8, and who met with Peter and James in Galatians 1 and again in Galatians 2.

There is a list of evidence for Peter’s influence on Mark on the Cold Case Christianity blog.

Here’s my favorite one from the list:

Peter’s Embarrassments Have Been Omitted

There are many details in the Gospel of Mark consistent with Peter’s special input and influence,including omissions related to events involving Peter. How can Mark be a memoir of Peter if, in fact, the book contains so many omissions of events involving Peter specifically? It’s important to evaluate the entire catalogue of omissions pertaining to Peter to understand the answer here. The vast majority of these omissions involve incidents in which Peter did or said something rash or embarrassing. It’s not surprising these details were omitted by the author who wanted to protect Peter’s standing in the Christian community. Mark was quite discreet in his retelling of the narrative (other Gospel writers who were present at the time do, however, provide details of Peters ‘indiscretions’ in their own accounts. See Cold-Case Christianity for a more detailed explanation).

It makes me laugh to imagine Peter looking over Mark’s shoulder and saying “no, don’t put that in it” and “no, don’t tell them I did that”. Funny! But also very good evidence. The rest of Wallace’s list makes it even more clear.

And what about the gospel of Luke? Well, did you know that the author of Luke’s gospel knew Paul? If you read it carefully, you’ll see that Luke switches from describing history from an “I” perspective to describing things from a “we” perspective in the book of Acts (which he also wrote). Who is the “we” he is talking about?

Here’s famous Christian scholar William Lane Craig to explain:

Now who was this author we call Luke? He was clearly not an eyewitness to Jesus’s life. But we discover an important fact about him from the book of Acts. Beginning in the sixteenth chapter of Acts, when Paul reaches Troas in modern-day Turkey, the author suddenly starts using the first-person plural: “we set sail from Troas to Samothrace,” “we remained in Philippi some days,” “as we were going to the place of prayer,” etc. The most obvious explanation is that the author had joined Paul on his evangelistic tour of the Mediterranean cities. In chapter 21 he accompanies Paul back to Palestine and finally to Jerusalem. What this means is that the author of Luke-Acts was in fact in first hand contact with the eyewitnesses of Jesus’s life and ministry in Jerusalem.

[…]There is no avoiding the conclusion that Luke-Acts was written by a traveling companion of Paul who had the opportunity to interview eyewitnesses to Jesus’s life while in Jerusalem. Who were some of these eyewitnesses? Perhaps we can get some clue by subtracting from the Gospel of Luke everything found in the other gospels and seeing what is peculiar to Luke. What you discover is that many of Luke’s peculiar narratives are connected to women who followed Jesus: people like Joanna and Susanna, and significantly, Mary, Jesus’s mother.

Was the author reliable in getting the facts straight? The book of Acts enables us to answer that question decisively. The book of Acts overlaps significantly with secular history of the ancient world, and the historical accuracy of Acts is indisputable.

This has recently been demonstrated anew by Colin Hemer, a classical scholar who turned to New Testament studies, in his book The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History. [5] Hemer goes through the book of Acts with a fine-toothed comb, pulling out a wealth of historical knowledge, ranging from what would have been common knowledge down to details which only a local person would know. Again and again Luke’s accuracy is demonstrated: from the sailings of the Alexandrian corn fleet to the coastal terrain of the Mediterranean islands to the peculiar titles of local officials, Luke gets it right.

I know a lot of people (like my Dad) read the Bible devotionally, looking for feelings or trying to “get right with God” so they get blessings. But I think it’s helpful to look at things from an evidential point of view – how am I going to make a case for this? When you look at things from that perspective, the Bible gets a whole lot more interesting. And you can talk about it with non-Christians when you know about these interesting details.

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Welcome to episode 55 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose interview Krista Bontrager and Monique Duson about their new book “Walking in Unity“. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Krista Bontrager and Monique Duson to discuss their new book “Walking in Unity: Biblical Answers to Questions on Race and Racism“. They discuss how their friendship developed through difficult conversations about race and racism. They offer a Christ-centered perspective on the tough issues being discussed in our culture, such as historic racial injustices, system racism and the call for reparations.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show (with timestamps) provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 55:

Speaker biographies

Krista Bontrager is a fourth-generation Bible teacher. She is an author, podcaster, former university professor and homeschool mom. Krista has a BA in Communications from Biola University, and a MA in Theology, and MA in Bible Exposition from Talbot School of Theology. She has worked for almost three decades in various capacities in theology and apologetics, and is the VP of Educational Programs and Biblical Integrity at the Center for Biblical Unity. She is working on a Doctor of Ministry in Apologetics at Birmingham Theological Seminary.

Monique Duson is the President at the Center for Biblical Unity. She has a background in social service and children’s ministry. She has worked with a diverse array of under-served communities. She worked as a missionary to South Africa for over four years, serving children and teachers impacted by drugs, violence, and trauma. She spent two decades advocating for Critical Race Theory (CRT), but through a series of events, she began to clearly see the contradictions of CRT with the historic Christian worldview. Monique is now convinced that CRT is not the best way to achieve racial unity and actively speaks out against the use of CRT within the church. Monique has appeared on shows such as Relatable (with Allie Beth Stuckey), the Alisa Childers podcast, and Breakpoint (with John Stonestreet). Monique has a BA in Sociology from Biola University, and is pursuing an MA in Public Theology at Birmingham Theological Seminary

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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The FBI has been involved in many, many scandals that show how corrupt and politicized they’ve become. They failed to do their jobs when they investigated Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server, and they failed to do their jobs with the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. But more of their failures are just coming to light now.

Here’s the story from Just The News:

Cellular carriers have told Congress they possess intact phone usage data from the vicinity where two pipe bombs were planted during the Jan. 6 incident, directly disputing FBI testimony that agents couldn’t identify a suspect because the phone data was corrupted, a key House chairman tells Just the News.

The revelations from Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Administration oversight subcommittee, adds new intrigue to a debate that has gripped Washington for nearly four years: Why can’t the FBI with so much evidence and manpower identify the suspect who planted the explosive devices at the Democrat and Republican Party headquarters hours before the Capitol was breached.

Here’s what the FBI said:

“In June 2023, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Steve D’Antuono, who oversaw the pipe bomb investigation, said that the FBI received corrupted data from one of the cell carriers and that it most likely contained the identity of the pipe bomber. Given the significance of this information, my Subcommittee sent letters to the three major cell carriers, asking them to respond to Mr. D’Antuono’s claim of corrupted data,” he said.

And here’s what the non-partisan, private sector cell phone companies said:

“Every major cell carrier responded and confirmed that they did not provide the FBI corrupted data,” Loudermilk said.

“Additionally every major cell carrier confirmed they were never notified that the FBI had any issues accessing the data. This contradictory testimony raises some serious questions about the status of the investigation into the pipe bomber and about why the case remains unsolved nearly four years later,” he added.

Last year, D’Antuono told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI did not a receive complete phone data from telephone carriers because some of it had been corrupted.

And this wasn’t the only problem with the FBI testimony:

Additionally, D’Antuono gave testimony that the pipe bombs were deemed inoperable, despite the Quantico laboratory coming to a different conclusion.

And here’s how the FBI responded to questions:

[…]The FBI declined to comment on the investigation.

Looks like two completely different stories, right? I believe the phone companies, and that means that the FBI is lying. Again.

Why do you think that the FBI would misrepresent what the cell phone companies did? Who are they trying to protect? The pipe bomber? Why would they want to protect the pipe bomber?

The FBI doesn’t do good work for taxpayers

Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to remind everyone of what the FBI is really like.

Do you remember Peter Strozk?

An FBI agent who worked on the special counsel’s Russia probe texted another investigator in August 2016 that “We’ll stop” Donald Trump from getting elected president, according to Thursday’s watchdog report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Do you remember James Comey?

For most of the past three years, the FBI has tried to portray its top leadership as united behind ex-Director James Comey’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for transmitting classified information over her insecure, private email server.

Although in the end that may have been the case, we now are learning that Comey’s top lawyer, then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, initially believed Clinton deserved to face criminal charges, but was talked out of it “pretty late in the process.”

Do you remember Andrew McCabe?

It’s official: McCabe lied.

The new report from the Justice Department inspector general concludes that Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director, lied to then-FBI Director James Comey, to other FBI agents, and to officials of the Office of the Inspector General. Some of those lies came when McCabe was under oath.

Do you remember Christopher Wray?

FBI Director Christopher Wray has some major explaining to do.

In recent Congressional testimony, he insisted that a January 2023 memo suggesting his agency’s resources be used against American citizens for the crime of — gasp! — being devout Catholics was a “single product by a single field office,” namely the Richmond field office.

That claim’s been given the lie by a newly surfaced version of the memo showing it to be the product of multiple offices, including Portland and Los Angeles.

That was conveniently redacted from the version of the memo he presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee in July.

If it were up to me, I would dismantle the FBI and delegate their responsibilities to other agencies who understand the meaning of fidelity, bravery, integrity. People who don’t use government as a weapon against enemies of the Democrat party. People who know how to provide their employers – the American taxpayers – with good, professional service.

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Which passage of the Bible is the favorite of Christians who like to defend the Christian worldview? I don’t mean which one is most inspirational… I mean “which one is the most useful for winning arguments?” Well, when it comes to the historical Jesus, the most important passage has to be 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.

The tradition in 1 Corinthians 15 is an early creed that was received from the eyewitnesses Peter and John when Paul visited them several times in Jerusalem, as documented in Galatians 1 and 2, where Paul meets the eyewitnesses. And of course, Paul records his own eyewitness experience, documented in 1 Cor 15:8.

So, is this passage accepted as historically reliable by all ancient historians? Or only by the Bible-believing ones?

Here’s something posted by Dr. William Lane Craig about the 1 Corinthians 15 passage:

The evidence that Paul is not writing in his own hand in I Cor. 15.3-5 is so powerful that all New Testament scholars recognize that Paul is here passing on a prior tradition. In addition to the fact that Paul explicitly says as much, the passage is replete with non-Pauline characteristics, including, in order of appearance: (i) the phrase “for our sins” using the genitive case and plural noun is unusual for Paul; (ii) the phrase “according to the Scriptures” is unparalleled in Paul, who introduces Scriptural citations by “as it is written”; (iii) the perfect passive verb “has been raised” appears only in this chapter and in a pre-Pauline confessional formula in II Tim. 2.8; (iv) the phrase “on the third day” with its ordinal number following the noun in Greek is non-Pauline; (v) the word “appeared” is found only here and in the confessional formula in I Tim. 3.16; and (vi) “the Twelve” is not Paul’s nomenclature, for he always speaks of the twelve disciples as “the apostles.”

Now the visit during which Paul may have received this tradition is the visit you mention three years after his conversion on the road to Damascus (Gal. 1.18). This puts the tradition back to within the first five years after Jesus’ death in AD 30. So there’s not even an apparent inconsistency with Paul’s appropriating the language of the formula to encapsulate the Gospel he was already preaching during those first three years in Damascus.

Ancient historian Gary Habermas loves to read non-Christian scholars… and then he writes about what THEY think about Jesus in peer-reviewed articles, published in academic journals. Let’s look at this one: Dialog: A Journal of Theology, Vol. 45; No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 288-297; published by Blackwell Publishing, UK.

He writes:

(1) Contemporary critical scholars agree that the apostle Paul is the primary witness to the early resurrection experiences. A former opponent (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13-14; Phil. 3:4-7), Paul states that the risen Jesus appeared personally to him (1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8; Gal. 1:16). The scholarly consensus here is attested by atheist Michael Martin, who avers: “However, we have only one contemporary eyewitness account of a postresurrection appearance of Jesus, namely Paul’s.”[3]

(2) In addition to Paul’s own experience, few conclusions are more widely recognized than that, in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff., Paul records an ancient oral tradition(s). This pre-Pauline report summarizes the early Gospel content, that Christ died for human sin, was buried, rose from the dead, and then appeared to many witnesses, both individuals and groups.

Paul is clear that this material was not his own but that he had passed on to others what he had received earlier, as the center of his message (15:3). There are many textual indications that the material pre-dates Paul. Most directly, the apostle employs paredoka and parelabon, the equivalent Greek terms for delivering and receiving rabbinic tradition (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23). Indirect indications of a traditional text(s) include the sentence structure and verbal parallelism, diction, and the triple sequence of kai hoti Further, several non-Pauline words, the proper names of Cephas (cf. Lk. 24:34) and James, and the possibility of an Aramaic original are all significant. Fuller attests to the unanimity of scholarship here: “It is almost universally agreed today that Paul is here citing tradition.”[4] Critical scholars agree that Paul received the material well before this book was written.[5]

This is important:

The most popular view is that Paul received this material during his trip to Jerusalem just three years after his conversion, to visit Peter and James, the brother of Jesus (Gal. 1:18-19), both of whose names appear in the appearance list (1 Cor. 15:5; 7). An important hint here is Paul’s use of the verb historesai (1:18), a term that indicates the investigation of a topic.[6] The immediate context both before and after reveals this subject matter: Paul was inquiring concerning the nature of the Gospel proclamation (Gal. 1:11-2:10), of which Jesus’ resurrection was the center (1 Cor. 15:3-4, 14, 17; Gal. 1:11, 16).

He’s an eyewitness (verse 8), and he met with the other eyewitnesses, James and Peter. 1 Corinthians is early. Galatians is early. The creed is extremely early – right after the events occurred. There was no time for legends to develop.

And atheistic / critical historians agree, the creed is reliable:

Critical scholars generally agree that this pre-Pauline creed(s) may be the earliest in the New Testament. Ulrich Wilckens asserts that it “indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.”[7] Joachim Jeremias agrees that it is, “the earliest tradition of all.”[8] Perhaps a bit too optimistically, Walter Kasper even thinks that it was possibly even “in use by the end of 30 AD . . . .”[9]

Indicating the wide approval on this subject, even more skeptical scholars frequently agree. Gerd Ludemann maintains that “the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus. . . . not later than three years. . . . the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in I Cor.15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE. . . .”[10] Similarly, Michael Goulder thinks that it “goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.”[11] Thomas Sheehan agrees that this tradition “probably goes back to at least 32-34 C.E., that is, to within two to four years of the crucifixion.”[12] Others clearly consent.[13]

Overall, my recent overview of critical sources mentioned above indicates that those who provide a date generally opt for Paul’s reception of this report relatively soon after Jesus’ death, by the early to mid-30s A.D.[14] This provides an additional source that appears just a half step removed from eyewitness testimony.

(3) Paul was so careful to assure the content of his Gospel message, that he made a second trip to Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1-10) specifically to be absolutely sure that he had not been mistaken (2:2). The first time he met with Peter and James (Gal. 1:18-20). On this occasion, the same two men were there, plus the apostle John (2:9). Paul was clearly doing his research by seeking out the chief apostles. As Martin Hengel notes, “Evidently the tradition of I Cor. 15.3 had been subjected to many tests” by Paul.[15]

These four apostles were the chief authorities in the early church, and each is represented in the list of those who had seen the resurrected Jesus (1 Cor. 15:5-7). So their confirmation of Paul’s Gospel preaching (Gal. 2:9), especially given the apostolic concern to insure doctrinal truth in the early church, is certainly significant. On Paul’s word, we are again just a short distance from a firsthand report.

(4) Not only do we have Paul’s account that the other major apostles confirmed his Gospel message, but he provides the reverse testimony, too. After listing Jesus’ resurrection appearances, Paul tells us he also knew what the other apostles were preaching regarding Jesus’ appearances, and it was the same as his own teaching on this subject (1 Cor. 15:11). As one, they proclaimed that Jesus was raised from the dead (15:12, 15). So Paul narrates both the more indirect confirmation of his Gospel message by the apostolic leaders, plus his firsthand, direct approval of their resurrection message.

Now, some of the people he lists are really biased against the supernatural, and they really hate the idea that the claims of Christianity exclude other religions. And yet they don’t deny the historical reliability of 1 Corinthians 15, or that it is based on eyewitness testimony.

That’s why when you watch debates about the historical Jesus, you see skeptical historians like Bart Ehrman, Gerd Ludemann, James Crossley, Michael Goulder, etc. accepting that the disciples thought they saw Jesus after his death. They’re not just being nice to Dr. Craig when they give him that. They are forced to accept it, because it passes the historical tests. Every Christian ought to be aware of which passages of the New Testament are seen by the broad spectrum of ancient historians as “historical”, regardless of their various biases. You can believe everything in the Bible. But when you debate non-Christians, you have to use the historical core of Christianity which successfully passes historical analysis.

You can see the creed used as evidence in the debate between James Crossley and William Lane Craig.

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It’s very, very important to get a conversation about spiritual things started off on the right foot. My favorite place to start is with the origin of the universe. I always use the same 3 evidences, but I found an article that has even MORE. First, let me talk about the ones I like, then I’ll send you the link to the article with the bigger list. Once you get the beginning proved, the next question is: who caused it?

Here’s the article from J. Warner Wallace.

He writes this:

My career as a Cold Case Detective was built on being evidentially certain about the suspects I brought to trial. There are times when my certainty was established and confirmed by the cumulative and diverse nature of the evidence. Let me give you an example. It’s great when a witness sees the crime and identifies the suspect, but it’s even better if we have DNA evidence placing the suspect at the scene. If the behavior of the suspect (before and after the time of the crime) also betrays his involvement, and if his statements when interviewed are equally incriminating, the case is even better. Cases such as these become more and more reasonable as they grow both in depth and diversity. It’s not just that we now have four different evidences pointing to the same conclusion, it’s that these evidences are from four different categories. Eyewitness testimony, forensic DNA, behaviors and admissions all point to the same reasonable inference. When we have a cumulative, diverse case such as this, our inferences become more reasonable and harder to deny. Why did I take the time to describe this evidential approach to reasonable conclusions? Because a similar methodology can be used to determine whether everything in the universe (all space, time and matter) came from nothing. We have good reason to believe our universe had a beginning, and this inference is established by a cumulative, diverse evidential case.

Here is his list of evidences:

1. Philosophical Evidence
2. Theoretical Evidence
3. Observational Evidence
4. Thermal Evidence
5. Quantitative Evidence
6. Residual Evidence

Now, if you listened to our podcast with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, I mentioned the ones that I like, which are #3, #5 and #6. And I like these, because they are scientific, and because I have clever ways of explaining them using simple terms.

Here’s what he says:

3. Observational Evidence (from Astronomical Data)

Vesto Slipher, an American astronomer working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, spent nearly ten years perfecting his understanding of spectrograph readings. His observations revealed something remarkable. If a distant object was moving toward Earth, its observable spectrograph colors shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum. If a distant object was moving away from Earth, its colors shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Slipher identified several “nebulae” and observed a “redshift” in their spectrographic colors. If these “nebulae” were moving away from our galaxy (and one another) as Slipher observed, they must have once been tightly clustered together. By 1929, Astronomer Edwin Hubble published findings of his own, verifying Slipher’s observations and demonstrating the speed at which a star or galaxy moves away from us increases with its distance from the earth. This once again confirmed the expansion of the universe.

5. Quantitative Evidence (from the Abundance of Helium)

As Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle studied the way elements are created within stars, he was able to calculate the amount of helium created if the universe came into being from nothing. Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe (Hydrogen is the first), but in order to form helium by nuclear fusion, temperatures must be incredibly high and conditions must be exceedingly dense. These would have been the conditions if the universe came into being from nothing. Hoyle’s calculations related to the formation of helium happen to coincide with our measurements of helium in the universe today. This, of course, is consistent with the universe having a moment of beginning.

6. Residual Evidence (from the Cosmic Background Radiation)

In 1964, two American physicists and radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected what is now referred to as “echo radiation”, winning a Nobel Prize for their discovery in 1978. Numerous additional experiments and observations have since established the existence of cosmic background radiation, including data from the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite launched in 1989, and the Planck space observatory launched in 2009. For many scientists, this discovery alone solidified their belief the universe had a beginning. If the universe leapt into existence, expanding from a state of tremendous heat, density and expansion, we should expect find this kind of cosmic background radiation.

So, I’ve made simple analogies for these, so that I can explain them to people from every background.

For #5, for example, I use the story of leaving you in a room with beads and strings and then watching you make one necklace of beads, and timing you, and then leaving you for an hour, and coming back and estimating how many necklaces you will have made, and how many beads you have left. With respect to the beginning of the universe, at the very beginning, it’s all hydrogen (beads). But there is nuclear fusion going on, and the beads are being fused into heavier elements like helium and carbon and oxygen (necklaces). Well, astronomers made predictions about HOW MUCH helium you could fuse during the very hot period, according to the standard cosmology, and the prediction was for 75% hydrogen (beads) and 24% helium (necklaces), and that’s exactly what we see today.

And for #6, I talk about baking a cake. Suppose you heated up your oven and put a ban full of cake batter in there for an hour. You notice that the room is 68 Fahrenheit (20 Celsius) when the cake went in. Then you take the cake out to cool, but you leave the oven open. An hour later, you notice that the oven is cool, but the temperature of the room has gone up to 72 Fahrenheit (22 Celsius). When you have a source of heat in a small area, then you open it up in a bigger area, the smaller area cools down, and the bigger area warms up a bit. Astronomers made a prediction that the very hot creation event would leave a small 3 degrees Kelvin “cosmic microwave background radiation” everywhere in space, and when they were finally able to measure it, they found that the predicted 3 Kelvin temperature was found exactly as predicted.

So, if you don’t know all of these evidences for a beginning, read the article, pick your favorites, and be ready to explain them.

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I’m not sure if you’ve been following Richard Dawkins lately, but he has been getting less and less beastly. First of all, he did several debates with Christian scholars. Second, he’s realized the difference that Christian values make for morality and civilization. And thirdly – and this is the new one – he thinks that the intelligent design hypothesis is a valid scientific hypothesis. Let’s take a look.

In this clip from the preview of a debate that Richard Dawkins had with John Lennox, he explains (at around the 3-minute mark) that a “reasonably respectable case” can be made for a deistic God. That means a God who creates and designs the universe, but does not intefere:

That happened back in 2008. And in their debate he said this: “A serious case could be made for a deistic God”.

So already, he was starting to sound more like Anthony Flew, who, atheist though he was, always showed that he would be willing to go wherever the evidence led. I remember in Flew’s debate with William Lane Craig, an atheist questioner asked him why he was accepting the case for a supernatural cause of the beginning of the universe, instead of trying to proposing a different model that would get out of the need for a Creator. And Flew said that he had to go with the scientific consensus, which requires a beginning of the universe. A few years later, Flew gave up atheism and accepted theism (although not Christianity). He was honest about what science shows. I can tell a smart atheist from a dumb atheist.

Anyway, round 2 of Dawkins is when he recently lamented the fact that the decline of Christianity (which he spent his life trying to achieve) had caused changes in British culture that he didn’t like.

Here it is from Christian Post:

Atheist author Richard Dawkins described himself as a “cultural Christian” and lamented the faith’s waning cultural influence in Europe, though he still derided its key tenets as “nonsense,” during an interview on Easter Sunday.

Speaking with British journalist Rachel Johnson, Dawkins noted that the United Kingdom is “fundamentally a Christian country,” and he still personally values the Christian ethos despite not believing the religion from which it emerged.

“I call myself a cultural Christian,” said the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion. “I’m not a believer, but there’s a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. And so, I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.”

All right, here is the latest Richard Dawkins news, from Evolution News:

Recently Dr. Dawkins had a moving dialogue with former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is also a former Muslim. She has announced her conversion to Christianity for what she describes as “very subjective” reasons. It was in response to a “personal crisis”: “I lived for about a decade with intense depression and anxiety and self-loathing. I hit rock bottom. I went to a place where I actually didn’t want to live anymore, but wasn’t brave enough to take my own life.” Faith was her way out of the crisis.

Dawkins answers kindly that belief in a creator or designer is more than a mere subjective response: “You appear to be a theist,” he tells her. “You appear to believe in some kind of higher power. Now, I think that the hypothesis of theism is the most exciting scientific hypothesis you could possibly hold” (emphasis added). Hold that thought in your mind.

Obviously, Dawkins wasn’t giving up his own atheism. He goes on: “And the idea that the universe was actually created by a supernatural intelligence is a dramatic, important idea. If it were true, it would completely change everything we know. We’d be living in a totally different, different universe. That’s a big thing. It’s bigger than personal comfort and nice stories and these things. The idea that the universe has lurking beneath it an intelligence or supernatural intelligence that invented the laws of physics, that invented mathematics, is a stupendous idea, if it’s true.” Minus the reference to “lurking,” that is of course the thesis of intelligent design. He adds, “To me that simply dwarfs all talk of nobility and morality and comfort and that sort of thing.”

This is a remarkable response, granting the premise of arguments for intelligent design like those of Stephen Meyer in Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries Revealing the Mind Behind the Universe. The premise is that in discussions of ID, there really is a scientific question to consider. The design hypothesis could be wrong, or it could be right. But let’s weigh it on its own terms as the scientific hypothesis that it is. Thank you to Richard Dawkins for using his authority to point that out.

And of course, anyone who has looked into these things knows the elements of the scientific case for theism:

1. origin of the universe
2. cosmic fine-tuning
3. galactic, stellar and planetary habitability
4. origin of life
5. Cambrian explosion
6. molecular machines / irreducible complexity

A lot of atheists don’t go near enough to the evidence to be able to make a statement like what Dawkins said. I’m impressed with Dawkins, because he was even able to correct Ayann Hirsi Ali about what Christianity actually involves. Christianity is not primarily about subjective beliefs or communities or even a set of moral teachings. Christianity is a knowledge tradition. It’s a set of claims about reality that are either true or false. And he knows that Christianity makes testable claims, and some of them can be verified or falsified by science. Dawkins has a more respectful view of what Christianity is than many Christians. Impressive.

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Atheists are the most politically active group in America. They are overwhelmingly for leftist policies. As I have shown before, atheists do not have a rational foundation for moral values and duties. When doing the right thing goes against their self-interest, they have no rational justification to do the right thing. So what happens when they go into government? Can they be trusted to do their jobs?

Here’s an article from the New York Post:

A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supervisor told disaster relief workers in Florida to “avoid homes” with signs supporting President-elect Donald Trump, the agency confirmed Friday.

The FEMA official — Marn’i Washington — conveyed her edict both verbally and in a Microsoft Teams chat used by relief workers canvassing Lake Placid homes ravaged by Hurricane Milton last month, according to the Daily Wire.

“Avoid homes advertising Trump,” Washington wrote in a “best practices” memo to employees.

The order was the second bullet point in a list instructing workers to not go “anywhere alone,” practice “de-escalation,” stay hydrated and to “follow the rules.”

FEMA employees told the outlet that at least 20 homes displaying Trump signs or flags — a common sight during election season — were passed between the end of October and into November because of the order.

“Trump sign no entry per leadership,” read messages left by workers in FEMA’s tracking system when homes were skipped because of the banners.

By ignoring the homes, residents were denied the opportunity to sign up for federal FEMA disaster relief assistance in the wake of the Category 3 hurricane’s landfall.

You might remember that we learned previously that FEMA was deliberately blocking relief efforts for people in North Carolina, specifically in areas with many Republican voters.

Remember this article from Fox Business?

Elon Musk on Friday slammed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), claiming that it is blocking shipments of Starlink satellite internet deliveries in hurricane-ravaged North Carolina.

“FEMA is not merely failing to adequately help people in trouble, but is actively blocking citizens who try to help!” the billionaire claimed on X.

Musk said he had just received a note from a SpaceX engineer, Starlink’s parent company, in Asheville, North Carolina, who said the company has “powered up two large operating bases for choppers to deliver goods into hands. We’ve deployed 300+ starlinks and outpour is it has saved many lives.”

But Musk said the engineer claimed that FEMA is “actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping. We are blocked now on the shipments of new starlinks coming in until we get an escort from the fire dept. but that may not be enough.”

It’s very important for taxpayers to reflect on the actions that we see from secular leftists who are in government.

We see:

• pre-dawn raids on the homes of enemies of the Democrat party
• false dossiers used to obtain warrants to spy on political opponents
• statements claiming that laptops are “Russian disinformation” when they are actually genuine
• slow-walking prosecutions of relatives of Democrat party members
• labeling concerned parents of students as “domestic terrorists”
• persecuting Christian business owners for their religious beliefs
• forcing Christian medical professionals to perform violent acts that go against their consciences
• seizing children from parents when disagree with secular leftist sexual ideologies
• launching criminal prosecutions of their political opponents before an election

And this is not to mention all the times that actual political violence has been committed by Democrats against Republicans, such as the attempted murder of Congressman Steve Scalise by a former Bernie Sanders campaign worker. There are many such cases.

When you find these cases happening, and you ask secular leftists what is an appropriate measure to take to deter it, they say they will suspend the person(s) who were caught, and launch an investigation. Is it enough, though? When secular leftists get angry with Christians who merely disagree with them, they drag them into court, and try to shut down their businesses and take their life savings. Maybe it’s time for Republicans to start thinking about how to deter the secular left from using government as a weapon against their fellow Americans who have every right to speak up and participate in the political process without being punished.

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I’ve noticed that many Christians can tell me a lot about famous entertainers. It doesn’t matter if it’s singers, musicians, actors, athletes, etc., they seem to know details of their biographies, achievements, etc. And it doesn’t really matter if those people are Christians, or whether they have performed actions consistent with a Christian worldview in their private lives.

Anyway, speaking for myself, I mostly admire two kinds of people. The first kind is the kind I blog about here all the time: Christian scholars engage non-Christians intellectually using logic and evidence. The second kind, as you can tell from my reading list, is people who distinguish themselves in conflict with those who oppose the principles and policies that allow me to live out my Christian life. And I am especially interested when people who are fighting evil (imperialists, Nazis, socialists, communists, leftists, etc.) exhibit Christ-like character in risking their lives to save others, or in giving their lives to save others.

Lt. Walt Chewning charges unto burning F-6F Hellcat to save trapped pilotI have a war story to tell you that happened on November 10th, 1943.

Lieutenant (later Lieutenant Commander) Walter Lewis Chewning of Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, steps on the burning fuel tank of an F6F-3 Hellcat flown by Ensign (later Lieutenant) Byron Milton Johnson of Potter, Nebraska to effect a successful rescue of the pilot on November 10, 1943. Johnson had flown out to USS Enterprise from Barbers Point, Hawaii, enroute to Makin Atoll in the Gilberts to support the United States Army invasion, which occurred on November 20, 1943. The afternoon of November 10, Johnson took off in F6F Hellcat Number 30 for a routine training exercise. He immediately developed engine trouble and requested an emergency landing. He was waved off three times as he struggled to maintain control, but his tail hook caught the third arresting gear wire, and Johnson’s Hellcat was slammed into the deck, coming to rest in the port catwalk. The plane came to rest on its external belly fuel tank, which started to leak. As the engine vibrated horribly as the propeller bent itself on the deck, sparks ignited the fuel. The hard landing had jammed Johnson’s canopy closed, shearing the retaining pin; he could not exit the plane. Chewning, who had joined the ship October 2, 1943 as Enterprise new catapult officer, scrambled out of the catwalk and came through the smoke. Stepping on the burning belly tank, he forced open the canopy and pulled Johnson to safety.

He received the two highest non-combat medals available:

Chewning was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his actions.

He was a well-educated and accomplished person before joining the Navy:

Chewning played soccer and Lacrosse at Cornell while studying Mechanical Engineering, breaking his rib and left ankle in one game. He graduated in 1936 and studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the Navy in January 1941. He was the assistant to the Chief Engineer at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania before joining USS Enterprise. He served as Enterprise’s catapult officer until December 1944, when he transferred to Dutch Harbor Naval Air Station in Alaska as ordinance officer. Chewning served in the Navy until December 1949; he also was awarded the Bronze Star. After the war he assisted research and development for various aeronautical companies, the United States Air Force, and the fledgling National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Motion picture film of the crash, taken from Enterprise’s bridge, was shown as part of the television program “Victory at Sea” on January 25, 1953. Chewning and Johnson gave interviews to several newspapers about the accident after the program aired.

I found a colorized version of the picture above here:

Lt. Walt Chewning charges unto burning F-6F Hellcat to save trapped pilotThis image was colourized from the original by Paul Reynolds.

What I thought was interesting about Chewning was how he had everything going for him in terms of his education and career, but he chose to join the Navy anyway, in order to defend his country from Japanese imperialism. Those who understand how the Japanese treated prisoners and conquered peoples will know which side of that conflict was good, and which side was evil. Chewning wasn’t some sort of loser who took risks for fun and thrills. It had to be a risk where the prize was worth the risk. And he had the humility to consider others better than himself, so that their life was worth the risking of his own.

I just think that it’s important for young Christians to have the right kind of heroes. The heroes who are promoted to young Christians by the cultural elites are not usually the right role models. And there is a reason for that. The secular leftists don’t want young Christians to be emulating people who excel according to the standards of the Christian worldview. We are in a religion where self-sacrificial love is the centerpiece. Taking trouble on yourself for someone else. Doing your job, when it goes against your own self-interest.

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An old post of mine appeared in a recent Mid-Week Apologetics Booster over at Christian Worldview Blog, so I decided to re-post it below. I am still trying to adjust to the fact that I am not going to be ruled by the secular left for the next 4 years. It’s a happy surprise, but I need some time to adjust. This post was originally published in March 2016, but I added a new image.

I’m summarizing a recent episode of the Unbelievable show.

Details:

Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse joins Justin as we spend a second week looking at Andy Bannister’s new book ‘The atheist who didn’t exist’.

Its amusingly titled chapters include ‘The Peculiar Case of the Postmodern Penguin (or: Why Life without God is Meaningless). Michael and Andy debate whether it’s a problem that atheists can’t have meaning with a ‘capital M’.

Here is a summary of the discussion between Ruse and Bannister, and my comments below the summary.

The MP3 file is here.

Summary:

• Ruse: ultimate questions are serious questions, and some religions are attempting to provide serious answers to those questions
• Ruse: there is a psychological element to belief in God but it’s not a complete explanation, but it can apply to non-belief as well
• Bannister: there are psychological reasons why people would prefer unbelief (quotes Thomas Nagel and Aldous Huxley)
• Bannister: (to Ruse) what do you think would follow next if you got new information that caused you to believe in God?
• Ruse: I’d feel scared, I’d think of all the reasons that God would dislike me, rather than any reasons why God would save me
• Bannister: according to the Bible, God is not so much interested in mere belief, but in active trust in him
• Ruse: without being smug, I just completed 50 years as a college professor of philosophy, and I have a sense of worth from that
• Ruse: if God turns up, and says that 50 years of being a professor is not good enough, well, I don’t know God, I’m sorry, I did my best
• Brierley: Andy, explain to us this story of how a penguin explained to you how he invented a subjective meaning in life for himself?
• Brierley: (reads the story)
• Bannister: when it comes to reading a book, the real meaning is the meaning the author intended the book to have
• Bannister: readers can inject their own meaning into the book that has nothing to do with it, but the author gives the real meaning
• Bannister: meaning in life is like reading a book – you can make up your own meaning, but the author’s meaning is the real meaning
• Brierley: (to Ruse) on atheism, is there any objective meaning?
• Ruse: “obviously, someone like myself cannot have meaning with a capital M in that sense”
• Ruse: the real question is and atheist can find a sense of self-worth, “I find that I’m happier within myself, I can find meaning”
• Bannister: what would you say to someone who drinks away the family inheritance and gets the same sense of happiness you have?
• Bannister: what would you say to all the people who are unable to get “a sense of self-worth” from their career, because of where they are born, sickness, etc.
• Ruse: I have nothing to offer them, some people are born into such awful situations that they are bound to be bad people
• Ruse: these unfair accidents of birth, etc., fits with atheism better
• Ruse: what we should do is change society so that more people can build a sense of self-worth through achievements
• Ruse: that way, they can say to God “I used my talents” so they can create feelings of self-worth and happiness (apart from God)
• Bannister: meaning in life cannot be answered without answering questions related to identity, value, which are rooted in the overall worldview
• Bannister: on the Christian worldview, you have an infinite worth, your value isn’t determined by circumstances, earnings, friends, etc.
• Bannister: your value comes from what Jesus was willing to pay to save you, namely, giving his own life for you
• Bannister: when I travel to meet other Christians in other parts of the world, they have a happiness that should not be there if they are getting happiness from wealth, fame, achievements, etc.
• Bannister: but when you come to the West, many people who have wealth, fame, achievement, etc. are unhappy
• Ruse: well maybe who look after a flock of sheep every day may get a sense of self-worth from that, or from other jobs
• Ruse: I do take Christianity very seriously, it is a grown-up proposal to answer grown-up questions – it works if it is true
• Ruse: we don’t have to follow Nietzche’s statement that if there is no God, there is no meaning in life – we can find a middle way, we can achieve meaning in life by using our talents to achieve things
• Bannister: I disagree with Michael, I don’t think that the meaning you invent for yourself is authentic meaning
• Bannister: distracting yourself with amusing things and happiness is not an answer to the problem
• Brierley: (to Ruse) are you saying that you have searched for ultimate meaning, and you are settling for subjective meaning?
• Ruse: my subjective meaning is not second class to objective meaning, “I feel a real deep sense of achievement, of meaning, of self-worth, of having used my talents properly, and I don’t feel in any sense a sense of regret” (what matters to him is how he feels)
• Bannister: notice how Michael keeps bringing in value judgments. e.g. – “use my talents well”, that implies that there is a right way and a wrong to use your talents, which assumes an objective scale of right and wrong, which makes no sense in atheism
• Bannister: an atheist can sit in a sun room and enjoy the feelings of happiness generated by the light and heat of the Sun, without asking whether there is a Sun out there
• Bannister: ultimately, at the end of the day, my concern is not whether something makes me happy or makes me feel fulfilled
• Bannister: ultimately, at the end of the day, I think there is only one real reason to wrestle with these questions of meaning, and that is to find truth
• Ruse: sometimes we reach a point where we cannot get to true answers to some questions, sometimes we look for truth, but then give up and confess “I cannot find it” and then move on from there

Is it possible to dispense with God’s advice on your decision-making and achieve something that affects a lot of people, or makes people like you, or makes you famous, etc., and then have that please God? “Look, God, I did something I liked that affected a lot of people, and made them feel happy as they were on their way to Hell because they rejected you”. I think a lot of celebrities, athletes and musicians have feelings that they have achieved something, but having feelings of achievement because you entertain people doesn’t mean anything to God.

So what is the standard? How you imitate Jesus – self-control, self-denial and self-sacrifice to honor God – that is the standard. If I had to choose between giving up two hours of my life to summarize this discussion for my readers, and all the fame and fortune that people who make godless TV shows, movies and music have, I would choose to make this debate summary. My goal in life is not to have fun, thrills, travel and feel happy in this world. I have a Boss. Performing actions that respect the Boss is objectively meaningful. It’s may not seem like much compared to what James Bond does in million-dollar movies, but at least I am wearing the right uniform, and playing for the right team.

I’m starting to notice that a lot of younger Christians are more interested in feeling good, having fun, being liked by others than they are in being able to know what’s true or show what’s true. Christians are no exception to this problem of finding meaning in life. A lot of us are just taking in entertainment and trying hard not to think at all.

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A while back I finished reading “God’s Crime Scene”, the new book by J. Warner Wallace. I wanted to post something about some studies he mentioned in Chapter 6, on free will. This is one of the places where he found evidence in a surprising area.

Wallace says that free will makes more sense if theism is true, because we have non-material souls that interact with our bodies, but are not causally determined by them. On atheism, only matter exists, and you can’t get free will (or consciousness) from matter. So atheists like Sam Harris and Alex Rosenberg, for example, deny free will, because they are materialists and atheists.

Anyway, here’s what he writes on p. 256:

In 2008, researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of British Columbia conducted experiments highlighting the relationship between a belief in determinism and immoral behavior. They found students who were exposed to deterministic literature prior to taking a test were more likely to cheat on the test than students who were not exposed to literature advocating determinism. The researchers concluded those who deny free will are more inclined to believe their efforts to act morally are futile and are, therefore, less likely to do so.

In addition, a study conducted by researchers from Florida State University and the University of Kentucky found participants who were exposed to deterministic literature were more likely to act aggressively and less likely to be helpful toward others.” Even determinist Michael Gazzaniga conceded: “It seems that not only do we believe we control our actions, but it is good for everyone to believe it.”” The existence of free will is a common characteristic of our experience, and when we deny we have this sort of free agency, there are detrimental consequences.

I decided to look up these studies.

Here’s the abstract for first study: (2008)

Does moral behavior draw on a belief in free will? Two experiments examined whether inducing participants to believe that human behavior is predetermined would encourage cheating. In Experiment 1, participants read either text that encouraged a belief in determinism (i.e., that portrayed behavior as the consequence of environmental and genetic factors) or neutral text. Exposure to the deterministic message increased cheating on a task in which participants could passively allow a flawed computer program to reveal answers to mathematical problems that they had been instructed to solve themselves. Moreover, increased cheating behavior was mediated by decreased belief in free will. In Experiment 2, participants who read deterministic statements cheated by overpaying themselves for performance on a cognitive task; participants who read statements endorsing free will did not. These findings suggest that the debate over free will has societal, as well as scientific and theoretical, implications.

And the abstract for the second study: (2009)

Laypersons’ belief in free will may foster a sense of thoughtful reflection and willingness to exert energy, thereby promoting helpfulness and reducing aggression, and so disbelief in free will may make behavior more reliant on selfish, automatic impulses and therefore less socially desirable. Three studies tested the hypothesis that disbelief in free will would be linked with decreased helping and increased aggression. In Experiment 1, induced disbelief in free will reduced willingness to help others. Experiment 2 showed that chronic disbelief in free will was associated with reduced helping behavior. In Experiment 3, participants induced disbelief in free will caused participants to act more aggressively than others. Although the findings do not speak to the existence of free will, the current results suggest that disbelief in free will reduces helping and increases aggression.

So what to make of this?

If you’re an atheist, then you are a physical object. And like every other physical object in the universe, your behavior is determined by genetic programming (if you’re alive) and external inputs. Material objects do not have the ability to make free choices, including moral choices.

Here’s prominent atheist Jerry Coyne’s editorial in USA Today to explain why atheists can’t ground free will.

Excerpt:

And that’s what neurobiology is telling us: Our brains are simply meat computers that, like real computers, are programmed by our genes and experiences to convert an array of inputs into a predetermined output. Recent experiments involving brain scans show that when a subject “decides” to push a button on the left or right side of a computer, the choice can be predicted by brain activity at least seven seconds before the subject is consciously aware of having made it. (These studies use crude imaging techniques based on blood flow, and I suspect that future understanding of the brain will allow us to predict many of our decisions far earlier than seven seconds in advance.) “Decisions” made like that aren’t conscious ones. And if our choices are unconscious, with some determined well before the moment we think we’ve made them, then we don’t have free will in any meaningful sense.

Atheist William Provine says atheists have no free will, no moral accountability and no moral significance:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.

(Source)

If you don’t have free will, then you can’t make moral choices, and you can’t be held morally responsible. No free will means no morality. Can you imagine trying to get into any sort of enterprise with someone who has this view of moral choices? A marriage, or a business arrangement, etc? It would be crazy to expect them to behave morally, when they don’t even think that moral choices is possible. It just excuses all sorts of bad behavior, because no one is responsible for choosing to do the right thing.

Believers in materialism are going to struggle with prescriptive morality, including self-sacrificial care and concern for others. Their worldview undermines the rationality of the moral point of view. You might find atheists acting morally for their own purposes, but their worldview doesn’t rationally ground it. This is a big problem for people who can see objective morality woven into the universe – and themselves – because they have the awareness of objective right and wrong.

Choosing to do the right thingI think what atheists like to say is “I can be moral, too”. That’s not interesting. What is interesting is whether it is rational for you to be moral when doing the right thing sets you back. When I look at the adultery of Dawkins, the polyamory of Carrier, the divorces of Shermer and Atkins, etc. I am not seeing anything that really wows me about their ability to do the right thing when it was hard for them to do it. They all deny free will of course, and think that trying to resist temptation is a waste of time.

Wallace explains how the awareness of free will and moral choices caused him to turn away from atheism, in this blog post.

He writes:

As an atheist, I chose to cling to naturalism, in spite of the fact that I lived each day as though I was capable of using my mind to make moral choices based on more than my own opinion. In addition, I sought meaning and purpose beyond my own hedonistic preferences, as though meaning was to be discovered, rather than created. I called myself a naturalist while embracing three characteristics of reality that simply cannot be explained by naturalism. As a Christian, I’m now able to acknowledge the “grounding” for these features of reality. My philosophical worldview is consistent with my practical experience of the world.

I think atheists who want to be honest about their own experience of first-person consciousness, free will, moral realism, etc. will do well to just accept that theism rationally grounds all of these things, and so you should accept theism. Theism is real. If you like morality, and want to be a virtuous person, then you should accept theism.

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One of my favorite things about Trump beating Kamala is how much more money the left spent trying to help her win. Democrats FAR outspent Republicans in their campaigns. And once a dollar is spent on this election, it isn’t there to be spent on the next one. I was very skeptical about Trump’s ability to win this election. He was not my choice. But not only did he win, but he really hurt the secular left.

Here’s the story from Daily Caller:

Outside groups spent $442.7 million on independent expenditures designed either to support Vice President Kamala Harris or to oppose Trump between Oct. 5 and Nov. 5, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show. On the other side of the equation, PACs only spent about $160.7 million supporting Trump and opposing Harris over the same period. Despite the massive financial advantage, Harris lost the Electoral College and is on track to lose the popular vote as well, according to the New York Times’ projections.

I thought this part below was interesting, because of another story I read recently about how a company that collects donations for Democrat campaigns was not verifying whether the donors were legally allowed to make those donations at all.

Harris’ allies largely relied on dark money — where the original donor is unknown — to fund their home-stretch spending spree, according to FEC records. Future Forward PAC, the primary super PAC that supported Harris, was responsible for about 70% of the pro-Harris and anti-Trump spending during the final month of the election.

Trump’s allies were considerably less reliant on dark money. Make America Great Again Inc., the primary super PAC behind the president-elect, took in about $286.2 million this election cycle, campaign finance records show. Of that sum, about $260 million came from named individuals.

Harris’ official campaign also had far more money than Trump’s, raking in nearly $1 billion in funds while the president-elect took in just $388 million, Forbes reported.

So, here is the article from The Center Square, which reported the latest on Democrat donation collection.

It says:

A nearly year-long investigation into ActBlue, a Democratic Party online donation platform, alleges a large number of suspicious donations have been made, resulting in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton petitioning the Federal Election Commission to get involved.

[…]Since launching the investigation, Paxton said it’s been publicly reported that potentially fraudulent transactions have occurred on political committee online platforms.

“Certain platforms appear to facilitate straw donor transactions, where a contributor disguises his identity by attributing his contribution to another, unaware person,” the petition states.

Alleged straw donations are being made through the use of prepaid credit cards, which he says “are a favorite tool of fraudsters.”

Paxton’s office launched an investigation into ActBlue in December to determine if the platform’s operations were compliant with all applicable laws.

[…]The OAG’s investigation says it found a large number of suspicious donations that were made “through obscured identities and untraceable means,” necessitating FEC action.

Through the use of prepaid cards it “appears that straw donations are systematically being made using false identities, through untraceable payment methods,” Paxton said.

We are talking about a lot of money here:

ActBlue says it’s raised more than $15.8 billion online since 2004.

In the third quarter of fiscal 2024, it says “6.9 million unique donors gave over 31 million contributions to 18,396 campaigns and organizations, totaling over $1.5 billion.”

Could these donations be coming from donors who are not legally allowed to make these donations?

I know that China, for example, has a lot to lose if Trump imposes tariffs on their exports. So, if it were possible for them to get away with it, why wouldn’t China collude with Democrats in order to interfere with the election? I would not expect the corrupt Biden-Harris regime to do anything to stop them. They’re too busy faking Trump-Russia collusion stories, conducting surveillance on the Trump campaigns, pre-dawn raiding the homes of Christian pro-lifers, and labeling American parents as “domestic terrorists”.

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Normally, on this blog, every other post is some “new study” that I can use in discussing the controversial issues of the day. A lot of the best new studies get unpublished if they go against the worldview of the secular left, for example, the famous ROGD study. (That one was later re-published). Or they don’t get published at all. It’s fun to see what was allowed to get published pre-ban.

Here’s a study that’s on PubMed, one of my favorite web sites for studies.

Abstract:

This pilot study compared mothers of boys with gender identity disorder (GID) with mothers of normal boys to determine whether differences in psychopathology and child-rearing attitudes and practices could be identified. Results of the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines and the Beck Depression Inventory revealed that mothers of boys with GID had more symptoms of depression and more often met the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder than the controls. Fifty-three percent of the mothers of boys with GID compared with only 6% of controls met the diagnosis for Borderline Personality Disorder on the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines or had symptoms of depression on the Beck Depression Inventory. Results of the Summers and Walsh Symbiosis Scale suggested that mothers of probands had child-rearing attitudes and practices that encouraged symbiosis and discouraged the development of autonomy.

Fifty-three percent of the mothers of boys with gender identity disorder were diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder or had symptoms of depression.

Now, there are concerns I have about this study. First, it’s a small number of research subjects, which is understandable because back in 1991, there were not a lot of kids with gender identity disorder.

So what is Borderline Personality Disorder? Here is the description from the NIH:

People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense mood swings and feel uncertainty about how they see themselves. Their feelings for others can change quickly, and swing from extreme closeness to extreme dislike. These changing feelings can lead to unstable relationships and emotional pain.

People with borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their interests and values can change quickly, and they may act impulsively or recklessly.

I don’t know much about mental illness, but I’ve been told never to date (much less marry) someone with BPD, because it is the most serious mental illness.

This finding from the study is interesting to me, because it suggests a reason why we are seeing this enormous surge in LGBT identification among young people. Sure, there is peer pressure, that’s what the study on ROGD was about. But now it suggests a chain between radical feminism, the Sexual Revolution, the decline of women’s happiness, and their transgender children.

We know for certain that women are experiencing far greater unhappiness after radical feminism became widespread, because they don’t like the goodies of radical feminism – promiscuity, abortion, careers, etc. – as much as they liked being married to a good man, and being a stay-at-home mother.

Daily Wire noted this in 2017:

According to a recent study from Yale University researchers, liberated, college educated women are freezing their eggs because they can’t find a man to marry and have children with before their natural childbearing years expire. In the U.K., for instance, one in five women is childless when their natural reproductive years expires, as opposed to one in ten women a mere generation prior.

So what’s to blame for this onslaught of college-educated yet terribly empty women?

The short answer is feminism.

The short answer is feminism, because although women claim that it’s men’s fault for not marrying them, no man with a brain would ever marry a feminist. It’s actually become too dangerous for men to even date feminists. I don’t even talk to them. The character traits that go with the feminist worldview are not just anti-marriage, they’re dangerous to men. Women who blame the bad results of their own choices on men are not safe to even speak to.

And as I’ve noted before, the decline of marriage is causing a massive spike in mental illness. Not in conservative women – just in progressive women.

Feminist web site Evie Magazine reported on the some 2020 findings by Pew Research (left-wing pollster):

A 2020 Pew Research study reveals that over half of white, liberal women have been diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point.

[T]he study, which is titled Pew American Trends Panel: Wave 64, was dated March 2020 — over a year ago.

The study, which examined white liberals, moderates, and conservatives, both male and female, found that conservatives were far less likely to be diagnosed with mental health issues than those who identified as either liberal or even “very liberal.”

[…]White women, ages 18-29, who identified as liberal were given a mental health diagnosis from medical professionals at a rate of 56.3%, as compared to 28.4% in moderates and 27.3% in conservatives.

Here’s the part of the data I thought was most interesting:

It turns out that marriage accounts for a lot of women’s happiness. But by allying themselves with radical feminism, women have made themselves totally unattractive to marriage-minded men. I think that the explosion of kids with gender identity disorder is just one of the ways that feminism is working itself out.

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Although we live in a culture that is dominated by the thoughts and opinions of secular leftists, science provides useful information for those who want defend Biblical morality. Consider the issue of sexuality and marriage. Secular leftists claim that sex outside of marriage is natural, and produces happiness. Bible believing Christians and Jews say chastity is best. Who is right?

Here is the latest study authored by Dr. Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah. His previous book on relationships was published by Oxford University Press. In his analysis of the data, Wolfinger controlled for divorce rates, religiosity, and socioeconomic status.

Here’s the most important graph:

Study: virgins have the happiest marriages, more partners means less happinessOther factors that increased marital happiness: having a 4-year college degree (5%), having a salary > 78K (5%), regular church attendance (6%). Notice that women are more dissatisfied with marriage (in general) than men are, and they tend to blame the spouse they freely chose for that unhappiness.

The Federalist also reported on previous research relevant to this study:

Psychologists Galena K. Rhoades and Scott M. Stanley found that women who have had sex with someone other than their husband report statistically significant drops in marital quality over those who don’t. A 2004 study by sociologist Jay Teachman showed that intimate premarital activities such as cohabitation and intercourse increased the rate of marital dissolution by anywhere between 28 and 109 percent, depending on the activity.

Wolfinger also noted in a previous study that only 5% of women were virgins when they married.

Wolfinger noted that a possible explanation for the link between promiscuity and unhappiness is that people look back on their past partners and compare their spouse unfavorably to them. This is especially the case with women. My concern about this is that feminism has taught women to try to increase their social standing by having hook-up sex with attractive bad boys. If those women ever marry, they do it when they are older, less fertile, and less attractive. The husband they eventually “settle” for will (in their minds) always compare unfavorably to the hot bad boys they had sex with when they were younger and prettier. This, I believe, is what leads to their unhappiness with the man they chose to marry.

More partners also means more marital instability

In a previous post, I blogged about several studies linking virginity to marital stability. Couples who don’t have sex before marriage, or even who delayed it, reported better communication, higher satisfaction, better quality sex, and a lower chance of divorce.

Men ought to be aware of this research when they are choosing a spouse. Women initiate 69% of divorces, and the most common reason given is “unhappiness”. Well, now we know what’s causing that unhappiness – a high number of sexual partners prior to marrying. Smart men should prefer a virgin, for the increased happiness and increased stability. A large number of past sexual partners teaches women that relationships are engines for them to be happy, not commitments that are permanent and exclusive. They’ll have internalized the view that relationships are not commitments to invest in self-sacrificially. The pattern will be: “if it doesn’t make me feel happy right now, then it should be ended”. It will be seen as the man’s fault that she is unhappy, even if the study I talked about above shows the real reason is her past promiscuity. Men who aren’t serious about evaluating the character of the women for the marriage enterprise are running the risk of divorce, it’s that simple.

The best way to make sure that you have a clear head when evaluating a woman is to stay sober, and keep her hands off of you. When a man refuses to let a woman cloud his judgment with sex, then she is forced to learn how to love him in marriage-oriented ways, e.g. – help him, support him, and submit to his leadership. Male chastity encourages women who have been influenced by feminism to abandon selfishness, fun-seeking, and thrill-seeking, so that they learn to care for others. Male chastity also helps a man to resist older women who chose bad boys in their teens and 20s and want to get married to a good provider in their 30s. The studies discussed above clearly show that such women are more likely to be unhappy, and their future marriages are more likely to be unstable. Avoid them. You don’t want to be in a marriage to someone who isn’t very good at it, because she never prepared herself for it.

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Will we even know who won on election day? Democrat-run states and counties are threatening to drag out their vote counting for days. But let’s look at eight specific cases where there have been voting controversies that could drag out the election. Remember, there is only one way to guarantee that the election is decided quickly: IF IT’S NOT CLOSE, THEY CAN’T CHEAT.

Here’s the article from Daily Signal:

Election Day is accompanied by some major voting controversies in battleground states, with lawsuits and investigations looking into alleged voter registration fraud, overseas ballots, and complaints about how some jurisdictions follow election law.

Both Democrats and Republicans brought lawsuits.

Some matters already have been settled. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court sided last week with Virginia by allowing the state to remove the names of 1,600 noncitizens from the voter rolls. And in Pennsylvania, Republicans successfully sued to extend early voting hours.

However, courts tossed other election cases on procedural grounds or cases remain unsettled and could prompt arguments in close elections.

Here are eight issues to look out for, both on Election Day and after.

And here are the eight controversies:

1. Voter Registration in Pennsylvania
2. Undelivered, Duplicate Ballots
3. Overseas Mail Ballots
4. 218,000 Arizona Voters With No Proof of Citizenship
5. Georgia Ballot Centers
6. Nevada Postmarks
7. Iowa and Noncitizen Voting
8. Unsent Mail Ballots in Georgia

My read on the election is that whoever wins Pennsylvania will win the election. I don’t see Trump winning either Wisconsin or Michigan, and especially Michigan. But Pennsylvania could go either way.

So let’s take a look at the two Pennsylvania stories:

At least four jurisdictions in Pennsylvania are investigating potential voter registration fraud.

State prosecutors in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County are investigating two batches of about 2,500 voter registration forms that may include several hundred fraudulent forms.

As of Monday afternoon, the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office had determined that 17% of the forms were fraudulent. Another 57% were determined to be legitimate, WPMT-TV (Fox 43) reported. The rest were still being investigated.

York County officials also are investigating potential voter registration fraud. Of a batch of 3,087 forms, about 24% were declined after being found to be duplicate requests.

York County also is reviewing challenges to 350 overseas mail-in ballots.

And the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office last week identified fraudulent voter registration forms. A specific number wasn’t given and the investigation continues, the Pocono Record reported.

Berks County also referred two potential voter registration violations for investigation.

And this one:

Republicans lost three federal lawsuits regarding a law called the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which governs how Americans living overseas can vote in federal elections.

The GOP lawsuits over UOCAVA focused largely on nonmilitary overseas voters, many of whom indicated no intention to return to the United States.

Six Republican members of the U.S. House sued Pennsylvania over the state’s counting procedures. The GOP lawmakers’ complaint says that about 15,000 nonmilitary American voters living abroad but casting ballots in Pennsylvania elections should have to provide the same personal identification as Pennsylvania residents.

But U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner determined last Tuesday—one week before Election Day—that an injunction could “upend the commonwealth’s carefully laid election administration procedures to the detriment of untold thousands of voters.”

Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Sima Patel ruled against the Republican National Committee’s challenge to rules in the U.S. law. The RNC challenge was based on nonresidents’ dependents who live abroad voting in state elections. Patel ruled that the GOP lawsuit was an attempt to “disenfranchise” voters.

Similarly, North Carolina Superior Court Judge John Smith ruled that the RNC challenge “presented no substantial evidence” of fraudulent voting.

I think that the fact that Pennsylvania is run by Democrats who will be counting the votes gives Kamala Harris the edge.

Young women have been going out to vote for her in battleground states in droves:

Historian Allan Lichtman has suggested that the apparent gender gap in swing state early voting could be a “huge advantage” for Vice President Kamala Harris.

[…]Lichtman broke down data from early voting in the all-important swing states from NBC News’ early voting tracker.

It showed that in Michigan 56 percent of early voters were women and 44 percent were men. “That’s huge,” the American University professor said.

In Wisconsin the figure was 51 percent women and 43 percent men, while in Pennsylvania it was 56 to 43 percent.

“So we’re talking about anywhere between an eight- and 13-point gap between men and women,” Lichtman said.

“And, presuming the gender gap holds, that means a huge advantage in these states.”

Young women are passionate about their right to end a pregnancy using violence. And sadly, older women have not taught them that it’s wrong to do that. So, if young men don’t balance out the election with Republican votes, then I think that the Democrats will win this election. They will win the battleground states, and that will do it.

I enjoyed watching Pearl interview these Democrat voters in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and you can really hear what their main concern is – it’s abortion rights.

I’m just not seeing much passion from people on the right in general. I’m the only one in my subdivision with election signs out. It’s strange because I have enough money saved that I can retire early, and I’ll be OK. But the people who have children – they are the ones who will be in real trouble. Their children will be stuck with the bill for all this government spending. They will be slaves, working so that their masters – the selfish adults of today – can live high on the hog. I just don’t understand why people who will be the most impacted are doing less than I am to stop the socialism.

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The title of this blog post is a paraphrase from Kristen Waggoner. Kristen is the CEO, president and lead lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm that champions First Amendment rights up to the Supreme Court. Kristen argues many of these cases herself. She has defended the rights of free speech and religious liberty of Christians against the secular left many times.

Here’s her latest article in the Daily Signal:

[Vice President Kamala] Harris has consistently undermined the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. That should alarm every American.

As I told Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn: “Throughout her career as a public official, Kamala Harris has long used government power to try to coerce people of faith to violate their consciences, especially regarding abortion and gender ideology.”

[…]The Biden-Harris Treasury Department conspired with major banks to flag transactions of ordinary citizens making purchases at Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bass Pro Shops, and Cabela’s, and buying “religious texts” like Bibles, under the guise of identifying potential “domestic terrorists.”

The Justice Department under the Biden-Harris administration similarly went after parents who spoke up at school board meetings in an infamous 2021 memo, equating their advocacy on behalf of their kids with “harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence.”

[…]In a speech to the NAACP, she said that social media platforms “have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy.”

Who would Harris classify as a “threat to our democracy”? Presumably, the same people her administration labeled as potential “domestic terrorists”; namely, concerned parents, nonprofit charitable organizations, and guys who like to camp, among others.

What I like about Kristen’s column is that she recalled all of the times that the Biden-Harris administration has gone after people’s first amendment rights.

Here is another case, the “Twitter Files”, which were internal documents released by Elon Musk that showed how the Biden-Harris administration pressured social media companies to censor factual news stories that made their regime look bad, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Kristen writes:

As the explosive “Twitter Files” documented, the Biden-Harris administration indeed colluded with social media companies to suppress ideas and voices that didn’t conform to the “official” narrative around several issues of public interest that required free and open debate.

And the Biden-Harris response to getting caught was to try to destroy Elon Musk:

An Oct. 22 investigative report by independent journalists Matt Taibbi and Paul D. Thacker uncovered a plot by a group of foreign advisers to the vice president to “Kill Musk’s Twitter” and to solicit the help of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., one of the leading proponents of online speech suppression.

As I’ve reported on this blog, Harris does not want to grant conscience exemptions to Christian medical professionals that would allow them to opt out of performing abortions. She wants pro-life Christians to be forced to perform abortions, in violation of their religious liberty. And she also colluded with abortion providers and raided the homes of pro-life whistleblowers.

More:

During an interview with NBC, when asked whether she supported a “religious exemption” for medical professionals who choose not to participate in abortion, Harris responded, “I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.”

[…]As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Harris badgered at least three judicial nominees for having been members of the respected Catholic nonprofit Knights of Columbus, which has more than 2 million members. Harris may be unaware, but the Constitution expressly prohibits religious tests for holding public office.

Legislatively, then-Sen. Harris sponsored the Do No Harm Act, a bill that would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—one of the most important federal safeguards for religious freedom—primarily for the benefit of the abortion industry.

She also cosponsored the Equality Act, which would wipe out freedom of conscience and free speech by giving the federal government the power to police and punish the beliefs of disfavored Americans who have not submitted to the new sexual orthodoxy.

As attorney general of California, Harris celebrated the passage of the Reproductive FACT Act, which effectively required pro-life pregnancy resource centers to advertise for abortionists, and defended it in court on more than one occasion.

In one case, A Woman’s Friend Pregnancy Resource Clinic v. Harris, a federal court upheld the law, which would have forced pregnancy help centers to comply with a bizarre array of coerced-speech mandates.

[…]In 2015, journalist David Daleiden exposed Planned Parenthood’s grisly practice of selling the body parts of aborted babies in a series of undercover videos. Did Harris, as attorney general, investigate Planned Parenthood for trafficking fetal organs?

No. She went after Daleiden in 2016—instead of her abortion industry allies and donors—raiding his home and seizing his equipment. And eight years later, his legal troubles are far from over. Daleiden still faces eight felony charges in an unprecedented case.

Now, I know a lot of wealthy establishment “Christians” who are in favor of Kamala Harris. When I ask them about these stories, they have never heard of any of them. Not a single one of them. When I ask them to name one of the Christian business owners who have been sued by LGBT activists, they don’t know about any of those cases, either. And that’s not surprising, because many of these wealthy establishment “Christians” have no Christian life plan. So, they are not authentic enough about their faith that they feel threatened in any way by secular left fascism. But what about you? Are you a Bible-believing Christian? If you are, then I hope enough evidence has been presented here to cause you to vote, and to make sure that your friends and family vote, too. ESPECIALLY if you are in one of these battleground states, where the races are all tied, or nearly tied. Remember, if it’s not close, they can’t cheat.

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I try to keep an eye out for any podcasts that look really good, and when I saw one of our former Knight and Rose Show guests (Dr. Luskin) being interviewed by another former Knight and Rose Show guest (Dr. Frank Turek) on a very interesting topic: the shortcomings of the Darwinian theory of origins. In this post, you’ll find a YouTube video, a link to the MP3 file, and an outline of topics.

In the episode, they discuss the change of heart that some evolutionists are having as the evidence turns against their theory. We talked about the evidence from junk DNA with Dr. Luskin, but he talks about a bunch of different topics in this episode with Dr. Turek.

Here’s the outline from the Cross Examined blog:

• What are some key differences between micro and macroevolution?
• What did later research reveal about the Galápagos Island finches and how does it compare to Darwin’s findings?
• What is epigenetics and how does it relate to the case for Intelligent Design?
• Why are some biologists hesitant to openly share their doubts about Neo-Darwinism, while others are increasingly vocal?
• What’s the difference between Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism?
• What are the strongest arguments for a common ancestor?
• Are non-coding regions of the human genome really “junk DNA”?
• What about the God of the Gaps argument?
• Are proponents of Intelligent Design religiously motivated?
• What are the 4 basic L.I.F.E. problems found within macroevolutionary theory?

You can download the MP3 file here.

Here’s the YouTube video:

We’re trying to interview good scholars on the origins debate for the Knight and Rose Show, and so far we’ve had:

• Guillermo Gonzalez: Earth is Designed for Discovery
• Casey Luskin: Debunking the Myth of Junk DNA
• Chemist Fazale Rana Investigates the Origin of Life

And here is the book where you can learn about all of these interesting topics!

The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos

I have the audio book and the paperback versions.

Stay tuned, because we have a guest scheduled to discuss another topic in the design vs evolution debate. That episode will probably be out in January, though. We got the best guest that you could possibly get on this topic! And we have a couple more topics and guests in mind for later.

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I’ve been listening to a podcast from Daily Signal about media bias, and how censoring the news helped Biden to win in 2020. For example, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story by the corporate news media swayed enough votes to deny Trump the presidency. People like to base their decisions on evidence, but what happens when evidence is suppressed by the secular left?

Well, I found a very shocking example of the secular left suppressing evidence that disagrees with their worldview. This story was reported in the far-left New York Times, of all places.

The New York Post reported on it:

A prominent doctor and trans rights advocate admitted she deliberately withheld publication of a $10 million taxpayer-funded study on the effect of puberty blockers on American children — after finding no evidence that they improve patients’ mental health.

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy told the New York Times that she believes the study would be “weaponized” by critics of transgender care for kids, and that the research could one day be used in court to argue “we shouldn’t use blockers.”

Critics — including one of Olson-Kennedy’s fellow researchers on the study — said the decision flies in the face of research standards and deprives the public of “really important” science in a field where Americans remain firmly divided.

For the National Institutes of Health-funded study, researchers chose 95 kids — who had an average age of 11 — and gave them puberty-blocking drugs starting in 2015. The treatments are meant to delay the onset of bodily changes like the development of breasts or the deepening of the voice.

After following up with the youths for two years, the treatments did not improve the state of their mental health…

I thought this was interesting, about the evidence-withholder lady:

Olson-Kennedy, the outlet points out, is one of the country’s leading advocates for providing gender-affirming care to adolescents, and regularly provides expert testimony in legal challenges to state bans on such procedures, which have taken root in more than 20 states.

When asked by the Times why the results have not been made public after nine years, she said, “I do not want our work to be weaponized,” adding, “It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”

She then flat-out admitted she was afraid the lack of mental health improvements borne out by the study could one day be used in court to argue “we shouldn’t use blockers.”

Secular leftists are always telling me how driven by “evidence” they are. Maybe that’s because the only evidence they allow is evidence that confirms what they already want to believe! I bet they feel very superior to the people who disagree with them, though. They will just say “well, we are guided by evidence, and our opponents just believe whatever they see on social media”. Uh huh.

Now, I know what the pro-trans people will say to this. They will say that “all the problems that result from a child trying to transform from his/her birth sex into the opposite sex with chemicals and surgeries are all caused by social disapproval”. They really believe that IF ONLY people would celebrate the delusions of children, then everything would work out perfectly.

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I thought it might be a good idea, in preparation for any last minute “surprises” from the secular left, to remember a major example of election interference from the 2020 election. Who really interferes with elections? Is it even happening? Why can’t we post about election interference on social media without getting “de-boosted” or banned outright? Let’s take a look at it.

Here is the best example of election interference from the 2020 election, reported in the New York Post:

They are the supposed nonpartisan group of top spies looking out for the best interest of the nation.

But the 51 former “intelligence” officials who cast doubt on The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter really were just desperate to get Joe Biden elected president. And more than a year later, even after their Deep State sabotage has been shown again and again to be a lie, they refuse to own up to how they undermined an election.

The officials, including CNN pundit and professional fabricator James Clapper — a man who was nearly charged for perjury for lying to Congress — signed a letter saying that the laptop “has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

What proof did they have? By their own admission, none. “We do not know if the emails . . . are genuine or not,” the letter said. They’re just “suspicious.” Why? Because they hurt Biden’s campaign, that’s evidence enough.

Keep in mind this was written Oct. 19, 2020, five days after The Post published its first story. Neither Joe Biden nor Hunter Biden had denied the story, they simply deflected questions. Didn’t these security experts think that if this was disinformation, the Biden campaign would have yelled to the heavens that the story was false?

[…]Politico picked up the letter and ran the false headline “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” That headline is still online today, even though the letter clearly says they don’t know if it’s Russian disinformation.

That headline was tweeted out by legions of Democrats, including current White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, as proof that it was all a con. That tweet also is still up despite being proven false.

[…]Only after the election was safely over did Hunter tacitly admit the laptop was his. Last year, a Politico reporter confirmed that the laptop’s materials were real. And now, the coup de grace: The Times said it’s “authenticated” material from the laptop.

The author of that article contacted the 51 “intelligence experts” to comment on how they were wrong about the laptop, and most of them didn’t reply. Some insisted that they were right even after being proved wrong. What do you think would be a good punishment for their actions? Personally, I would try each of them for treason, and sentence them appropriately.

That first article is from 2022, but there’s more from this New York Post article from 2024:

Four years later, none of the 51 have retracted the statement or apologized.

Some have doubled down on their lie, even though they know that the FBI had possession of the laptop in December 2019, had determined that it belonged to Hunter, that it had not been tampered with in any way and was fit for use as evidence in court.

Four months ago, that silver MacBook Pro was brought by prosecutors into a Delaware court, displayed to the jury that convicted Hunter of felony gun charges, and confirmed by an FBI forensic expert to be Hunter’s laptop.

It was also cited as evidence by prosecutors in his felony tax indictment in California, to which he pleaded guilty last month.

Just to be clear, there is no doubt about the evidence. The evidence shows that the laptop was genuine, and that means that the 51 experts, their allies in the corporate news media, and their allies in Big Tech, all colluded to spread misinformation that interfered with a federal election, handing the victory to the Democrat candidate.

And just to get the names and ranks out there, so everyone knows how to think about the CIA as a federal department:

Among the Dirty 51 were five former CIA directors or acting directors, including John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Michael Hayden, as well as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Brennan and Clapper, who were also knee-deep in the Russia collusion hoax against Donald Trump, were appointed by Mayorkas to his inaugural Homeland Security intelligence group before it was disbanded after public outcry and litigation.

Finally, it’s important to remember that Big Tech companies like Facebook, also interfered in the election to help the Democrat party.

The New York Post explains:

The FBI warned major US tech companies ahead of The Post’s first reports on Hunter Biden’s laptop in October 2020 that Russian agents were preparing a strikingly similar document dump — and once the scoop materialized, Facebook executives discussed calibrating censorship decisions to please what they assumed would be an incoming Biden-Harris administration, a congressional investigation found.

The new details — contained in an interim report by the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the weaponization of government — are emerging as former President Donald Trump leads in polls ahead of the Nov. 5 election and as his allies urge a house-cleaning at the FBI and possible new regulations or antitrust actions to punish and restrain platforms like Facebook.

“FBI tipped us all off last week that this Burisma story was likely to emerge,” an unidentified Microsoft employee wrote on Oct. 14, 2020, the day The Post published the first in a series of bombshell stories on the Biden family’s foreign dealings, according to the congressional report.

Internal Facebook communications, including a chat log, show that employees quickly discounted The Post’s reporting because it was the “[e]xact content expected for hack and leak.”

“Right on schedule,” another Facebook employee concurred.

“Obviously, our calls on this could colour [sic] the way an incoming Biden administration views us more than almost anything else…,” Facebook’s then-vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg wrote on the same day to vice president of global public policy Joel Kaplan.

I wrote before about how Google uses their products and services to also interfere in elections to help the Democrat party. So, if you see a Trump administration taking power and arresting “intelligence experts” and “journalists” and “tech executives” in January 2025, don’t be alarmed. It’s just justice.

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Everyone remembers that Ron DeSantis is my candidate in 2024, but for the rest of you in “battleground” states, you have to vote against Kamala Harris! And now we are going to get 20 good reasons why you should, from the King of systematic theology, Dr. Wayne Grudem. What is his superpower? His superpower is knowing all of the Bible teachings that apply to any policy.

Here’s the article from Townhall.com, (H/T Dr. Owen Anderson)

It starts by explaining the difference between the Republican view of government, and the Democrat view of government.

Republican views of government:

Most Republicans favor limited government control of our lives, lower taxes, greater individual freedom, and greater personal responsibility for one’s actions. Republicans also believe that the best deterrent for crime is the punishment of criminals.

On foreign policy, Republicans generally believe that superior American military power is the best deterrent against war.

Republicans also believe that the best economic system is one that allows everyone to keep most of what they have honestly and legally earned, one that effectively cares for the poor, and one that does not seek to bring about more equality of income among people.

Democratic views of government:

Most Democrats favor greater government control of our lives, higher taxes (especially for higher income brackets), less individual freedom, and less personal responsibility for one’s actions. Democrats also believe that the best deterrent against crime is education.

On foreign policy, Democrats generally believe that diplomacy and foreign aid are the best deterrent against war.

Democrats also believe that an ideal economic system leads to greater equality between the rich and the poor. With respect to levels of taxation, the rich should pay their “fair share” (an amount that is never specified but always assumed to be more than what they currently pay).

Then he has a list of 20 reasons to vote for Republicans, which he has broken into categories:

Economics:

1. To stifle inflation
2. To preserve lower tax rates and promote greater national prosperity and economic freedom
3. To protect free-market capitalism and prevent creeping socialism
4. To preserve our ability to choose our own doctors and healthcare plans

Foreign policy:

1. To secure the border
2. To help Israel win its war
3. To obtain a lasting peace in the Middle East
4. To make our military once again the strongest on earth

Crime and law forcement:

1. To make our cities safe again
2. To appoint 3,000 conservative Republicans to powerful federal offices instead of 3000 liberal Democrats
3. To appoint hundreds of additional judges who interpret and apply the laws but do not create new laws
4. To stop powerful government agencies from interfering in American politics

Other reasons:

1. To give unborn children some degree of legal protection
2. To protect religious freedom
3. To protect freedom of speech
4. To keep men from competing in women’s sports.
5. To respond to climate change/global warming with realistic solutions
6. To begin to pay down our national debt
7. To see a rebirth of patriotism
8. To stop Kamala Harris from becoming president

We can’t look at all of these, but I will choose one that caught my eye. I chose #1, because I have been really feeling bad about wanting to retire early to focus on ministry, but now after four years of Democrat rule, my monthly expenses are up 50%, so now I have to work for a few more years in order to be able to replace enough of my income with interest and dividend income. I will be fine when I hit 60 because then I can use my retirement funds. But during the years of 50-60, I have to have enough money to live from my non-retirement savings. And with this inflation, it’s barely enough.

He writes:

Inflation happens when governments print or borrow too much money and inject it into the economy, as I explained in more detail in an earlier article. For example, if I have ten apples to sell and you have $10 to spend on apples, I will charge you $1 per apple. But if you have $20 to spend on apples, I will charge you $2 per apple. You spend more money, but you don’t get any more apples. That has happened to the cost of groceries, gas, and everything else.

Inflation hit our economy under Biden’s administration because our government injected far too much money into our economy while the amount of things for sale stayed about the same. It was all Democrats and no Republicans who did this.

Joe Biden became president on January 20, 2021, and Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate to pass whatever tax or spending legislation they wanted (because the budget reconciliation process is not subject to the filibuster, it only requires 51 votes in the Senate). Just six weeks after Biden took office, on March 6, 2021, the Senate passed the American Rescue Plan Act by a vote of 50-49 with all Democrats voting for it and all Republicans voting against it (one was absent). It passed the House on March 10 with a vote of 220-211, with all Republicans and one Democrat voting against it. President Biden signed it into law on the next day, March 11.

Republicans warned that this would cause harmful inflation because the bill authorized a whopping $1.9 trillion in additional government spending. (By way of comparison, the entire federal budget for the previous year was $6.55 trillion.)

But that was not the end of the Democrats’ spending. In 2022, they passed the Inflation Reduction Act by 220-207 in the House (all Democrats for it, all Republicans against it) and by 51-50 in the Senate (all Democrats for it, all Republicans against it, and Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote). President Biden signed it on August 16, 2022.

The bill would more accurately be described as the Inflation Multiplying and Green Energy Act because a large portion of the $891 billion was designated for climate change and green energy projects. Together, these two bills added an astounding $2.8 trillion in government spending. By way of comparison, $2.8 trillion is equal to 11% of the total economic output of the entire nation for 2022 (GDP for 2022 was $25.4 trillion).

Why did Democrats authorize such gigantic additional spending? Probably because they thought that when they gave free money to millions of people, many of those people would vote for Democrats.

On top of all that spending, President Biden issued two executive orders that drove up gas prices. One executive order restricted future oil and natural gas extraction, which immediately drove up energy prices, and the other shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which would have safely brought much more US and Canadian oil to our best refineries. These executive orders were inflationary because the price of energy affects the price of everything else.

The result was predictable. According to Forbes magazine, the Consumer Price Index rose by 19% during the first 3 ½ years of Biden’s presidency. But it only rose by 6% during President Trump’s entire four years. (Trump’s average increase was just under 2% per year, and 2% is the Federal Reserve’s target amount.)

For example, think of a family that brought a certain basket of groceries for $100 on the day Biden became president. To buy that same basket of groceries today would cost $119, so they would need to find the additional $19 somewhere – in savings if they have any savings, or perhaps put it on a credit card. In terms of our apples example above, they will be paying more dollars but will just get the same number of apples. We could even say that inflation has “stolen” $19 from that family because that is how much extra money they need to buy the same amount of goods. And if a husband and wife together earned $80,000 last year, they would need to earn an extra 19% (or $15,200) just to stay even with their purchasing power compared to Biden’s first day in office, because that is the amount that inflation has “stolen” from their earnings this year.

I would also note that, in words of wisdom written over 3000 years ago, the Bible has something very clear to say about stealing: “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15). This is commandment 8 of the Ten Commandments, and it serves as the moral foundation for all protection of any individual’s property.

After looking at the voting and spending patterns of the past eight years, I conclude that Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to keep inflation under control.

If you see anything in that list that is important to you, you will get a similarly clear and concise explanation about how the parties differ on that issue in the rest of the article. Read it, and share it!

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There are two ways for a government to raise the price of goods and services for consumers. First, the government can increase spending. Second, the government can tax and regulate energy developers, so that they have to raise prices on gas and electricity. Do you remember when the Biden-Harris regime stopped the construction of pipelines? That made inflation worse.

Here’s the first story from Daily Signal:

High inflation could soon make a comeback across the American economy. That’s because a combination of soaring demand for electricity and artificially constricted supply has laid the foundations for steadily increasing electricity prices.

[…]Electricity bills are rising because of the required adoption of renewable energy mandates, carbon emission-reduction goals, and cap-and-trade schemes, as can be seen in this table, primarily in states with Democratic leadership.

States that have required renewables, particularly wind and solar energy, to be used in electricity production often experience higher electricity costs due to the regulatory burdens placed on traditional energy sources, such as natural gas and coal.

For instance, several states have limited the construction of natural gas infrastructure or restricted access to abundant natural gas resources, exacerbating energy costs for their residents and their neighbors.

At the same time, incentives for clean energy in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act discourage investment in power plants fired by natural gas or coal that provide affordable and reliable baseload power.

People are all too familiar with rising residential electricity bills and their consequences for inflation rates. It’s obvious that all businesses have to pay for electricity, too. What’s not as obvious is that electricity is a crucial input into the production of virtually everything that is produced, bought, and sold.

Basically, everything that you buy – products and services – has to be produced in buildings that use electricity. This even applies to online services and commerce. Further, goods have to be transported by vehicles that use gas. So when you purchase goods and services in a “green” economy, you are going to pay a lot more for them. People think that this is a technological problem, and we will eventually solve it. That’s a faith commitment, and we have no evidence to back that up. But we can look at “green” states like California, Massachussetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut and immediately see that these policies are causing higher prices for consumers.

The article has a very good example of what we can expect under the Harris-Walz regime:

One example of the damage done by higher electricity prices is Germany, where companies are relocating due to higher energy prices caused by the closure of nuclear power plants and the cutoff from Russian natural gas.

In an annual survey of 3,300 German companies, performed annually since 2012, the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry found that 40% of companies were considering relocating or reducing production due to high electricity prices.

According to Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry Deputy Managing Director Achim Dercks, “The trust of the German economy in energy policy is severely damaged. So far, the government has failed to provide companies with a perspective for a reliable and affordable energy supply.”

A doubling of electricity prices could produce a rise in inflation well above 5% and drive jobs offshore. This would fall hardest on America’s poor but would affect everyone.

Remember, Kamala Harris supports the Green New Deal, and Tim Walz signed legislation that would eliminate carbon emissions in Minnesota by 2040. So, if you like what Germany did, then you will be very happy with Harris-Walz energy policies.

Here’s a second article from Daily Caller, talking about restrictions on energy inside your home:

The Biden-Harris administration released data on Oct. 17 suggesting its push to electrify everything will ratchet up costs for American households, contradicting one of the White House’s favorite selling points for its green agenda, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Biden-Harris administration has made a crackdown on residential fossil fuel consumption a key aspect of its environmental strategy, justifying the push in part on the grounds electrification will lower energy costs. Now, Oct. 17 residential energy price data from the Department of Energy (DOE) shows electricity was roughly four times as expensive as natural gas in 2024, with experts telling the DCNF the White House’s electrification push is an example of extremist climate policy hurting everyday Americans.

[…]The Biden-Harris DOE has issued a slew of rules restricting the use of gas appliances, including issuing revised standards on furnaces in September 2023 that could prohibit 40-60% of gas furnaces in homes, and increased efficiency requirements for water heaters that the agency claimed would save U.S. consumers $11.4 billion on their energy and water bills every year.

Naturally, the poorest Americans would be hurt the most by these green energy policies. I hope that Christians and conservatives are doing a good job of communicating ALL the facts to undecided voters. Because there is a lot more to policy than abortion. It’s our job to protect the poor and the weak in every way we can.

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Here are a couple of stories from just the last few days that really show how desperate Democrats are to hang on to political power. In one state, they want to allow self-declared non-citizens to stay on the voter rolls. In a different state, they want to prevent citizens who just went through a natural disaster from having access to vote. I’m posting these stories to remind you that you really need to vote.

First story is from the The Center Square:

A federal judge is ordering Virginia to return the names of more than 1,500 “noncitizens” to voter rolls following a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice saying the commonwealth violated the National Voter Registration Act.

Here’s the Republican Attorney General of Virginia:

“It should never be illegal to remove an illegal voter,” said [Virginia Attorney General Jason] Miyares. “Yet, today a Court – urged by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice – ordered Virginia to put the names of noncitizens back on the voter rolls, mere days before a presidential election. The Department of Justice pulled this shameful, politically motivated stunt 25 days before Election Day, challenging a Virginia process signed into law 18 years ago by a Democrat governor and approved by the Department of Justice in 2006.”

[…]”More concerning is the open practice by the Biden administration to weaponize the legal system against the enemies of so-called progress,” Miyares added.

And here’s what the Repoublican governor of Virginia had to say:

In a statement Youngkin said, “Let’s be clear about what just happened: only 11 days before a presidential election, a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate over 1,500 individuals – who self-identified themselves as noncitizens – back onto the voter rolls. Almost all these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their noncitizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities.”

They self-identified as non-citizens, so they don’t think they are eligible to vote. But the Biden-Harris administration says that they should be added back to the voter rolls.

That’s awful. But wait, there’s more. Not only does the Biden-Harris administration want non-citizens to vote, they also don’t want citizens to vote – if those citizens are in very Republican areas.

Here’s the story from The Federalist:

The havoc wrought by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina brought disaster to homes and families, but that has not stopped Democrats from blocking the approval of emergency early voting sites in the heavily Republican area. The refusal to act forced the GOP-led state legislature to intervene.

Democrat-run local elections boards in McDowell and Henderson counties have failed to approve additional early voting sites in the disaster-stricken area, despite increasing calls for more access to voting. Both counties voted for Donald Trump in 2020.

[…]Meanwhile, Democrats in nearby deep-blue Buncombe County, home to Asheville, have already given the go-ahead for new voting locations to replace the ones damaged by Helene, bringing the county’s total to 10.

[…]Stonewalling the approval of new voting locations in the disaster area seems inexplicable, as even the Democrat-run State Board of Elections and state legislature have made it easy for local boards to open them under emergency circumstances. The state board did not respond to a request for comment from The Federalist.

Democrats playing games with peoples’ access to vote this close to the election and in Republican-heavy districts devastated by a natural disaster lends even more credence to the belief that state and federal Democrats have slow-rolled relief efforts in order to suppress the vote.

I am noticing how sites like YouTube and Facebook are regularly censoring stories that are supportive of Republicans, and critical of Democrats. So, there is a lot going on to influence the election. So I really want to urge you to vote yourself, and make sure that your friends and family vote as well.

If you are trying to live out a Christian life plan, you are NOT going to like what Kamala Harris does with policy. This will affect you, and it will affect other Christians. Some of those Christians are going to be forced to choose between honoring their faith commitments, and just being able to work and live. Just like Christians have in other places and times when the secular left got into power.

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How good of a job do people on the secular left do of understanding the positions of the candidate that they vote for? If you ask them, they’ll say that they are super-intelligent, and highly informed. They don’t form their views from impressions, intuitions and sound bites at all! But what would happen if someone did an actual poll, where the secular leftists were asked about facts? Would they pass?

Here’s the story from the Media Research Center:

A significant new Media Research Center poll finds that large majorities of registered Democrats and Independents who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — exactly those who would be expected to support Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s contest — are mostly in the dark about many of the controversial and radical positions Harris has taken.

When asked about ten different aspects of Harris’s public record — on issues as varied as her sponsorship of the Green New Deal, abolishing ICE, and eliminating private health insurance — between 71% and 86% of these Democrats and Independents said they either had not heard of Harris’s position or were unsure.

My favorite question to ask people to see if they are safe to talk to is “where do you get your news?”. Because if people are relying on the corporate news media to tell them the truth, then they are likely to have tremendous confidence in their beliefs, but all those beliefs are likely to be false:

When these voters were asked about where they got most of their news about political elections and candidates, by far the top answers were broadcast television (ABC, CBS and NBC) or cable news (such as CNN and MSNBC). This suggests that the knowledge gaps found by our poll reveal a failure of these outlets to report on radical positions once (and perhaps currently) supported by the now-Democratic nominee for President.

In fact, a detailed Media Research Center examination of ABC, CBS and NBC evening news coverage in the three weeks since Harris became the leading Democratic candidate (July 21 to August 10) shows eight of these ten issues received ZERO attention from these newscasts, while two others received only minor coverage.

Here are the facts about Kamala Harris, along with the percentage of Democrat voters who were ignorant about each one (in parentheses):

• Harris supported cutting funding for the police (71%)
• Harris co-sponsored the Green New Deal (73%)
• Harris supported the elimination of private health insurance (81%)
• Harris supported reparations payments to atone for slavery (71%)
• As “Border Czar,” Harris never visited a conflict zone on the border (72%)
• Harris said it should not be considered a crime to enter the U.S. illegally. (74%)
• Harris supported abolishing ICE (77%)
• Harris promoted a fund to bail out violent protesters during 2020 riots (78%)
• Harris would consider allowing death row inmates to vote (86%)
• Harris was named the most liberal U.S. Senator in 2019 (75%)

What’s funny about these questions, is that they were asked as yes / no questions. So I’ll bet some of the people saying they knew the facts didn’t really know the specifics at all!

The article has a paragraph about each of these questions, but this one about the reparations caught my eye:

Harris supported reparations payments to atone for slavery: During her 2019 campaign, Harris joined with other far-left Democratic candidates to support massive payments as a form of “reparations” to the descendants of those enslaved prior to 1865. According to a PBS account, “Harris has proposed monthly payments to qualified citizens of any race in the form of a tax credit.”

While there are various proposals for possible reparations, a CNBC report in 2020 suggested an ultimate price tag of $10 to $12 trillion, or vastly more than the size of the current U.S. federal government budget (on track to surpass $6 trillion in 2024).

Since July 21, the Big Three evening newscasts haven’t said a word about Harris’s past support for reparations. And according to our poll, 71% of the Democrats and Independents we polled were unsure or completely unaware of her position on the issue.

Keep in mind that Democrats DO believe in slavery – they just want the slaves to be the young people who will have to pay for all this government spending and welfare. They want children, born and unborn, to pay for their living high on the hog today. I don’t know what you’d call this except “slavery”.

It might be a good idea for those of your reading to send this MRC article to your friends, so they can know the answers in case these topics come up in discussions. It’s not a good idea to choose the leader of the free world if you don’t know what the candidates believe about things.

Image source: Media Research Center

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A common objection against transgenderism by biological realists is to make a parallel argument from anorexia. Conservatives say “we wouldn’t want to help a skinny anorexic person lose weight because they thought they were too fat, would we?” Transgender activists reply that these two things are completely different. Who is right? Well, now we have a peer reviewed study to help us decide.

The new study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Sexuaologie, which is the journal of the German Society for Sexual Medicine, Sexual Therapy and Sexual Science/DGSMTW.

The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine reported on it:

A new publication* in Sexuologie (the journal of the German Society for Sexual Medicine, Sexual Therapy and Sexual Science/DGSMTW) takes on the issue of the sharp rise in transgender identification in adolescent females, which remains poorly understood. The authors, Korte and Gille, present an intriguing hypothesis for this novel phenomenon, comparing and contrasting gender dysphoria to anorexia nervosa, and finding a number of important similarities. The authors conclude that clinicians working with gender-dysphoric adolescents must familiarize themselves with the complex dynamics of female adolescent development, and that trans-affirmative medical interventions should not be considered until adolescent development is complete.

SEGM got permission to post the full English language translation of the study, but I didn’t. So you have to click through to read it.

But here’s the interesting part of SEGM’s synopsis of the paper:

Drawing on their clinical work with such patients, Korte and Gille observe that trans identification in adolescent girls may reflect the desire to circumvent the challenges of female adolescence rather than a deep identification with maleness. They note that “although there is pronounced rejection of the female body and/or the female gender role,” there is frequently no pronounced desire for the primary or even secondary physical characteristics of the opposite sex.

[…]The authors note several similarities between anorexia and gender dysphoria. Both involve body image disorders where aggression is “turned against one’s own self, inward, but also outward, against important others.” The authors note:

“…in both anorexic eating disorders and gender identity disorders (gender dysphoria), relatives, especially parents, are exposed to strong feelings of helplessness and powerlessness in addition to the massive feelings of guilt and failure that often arise. In both disorders, this sometimes exacerbates the symptoms” of the … patient within a correspondingly pathological relationship dynamic.”

Korte and Gille conclude by outlining concrete steps that pediatricians, child and adolescent psychiatrists, gynecologists, and other medical providers can take to help girls navigate puberty in a way that averts or mitigates these developmental crises. They caution clinicians that in the vast majority of cases of gender dysphoria arising around adolescence, it is likely temporary and represents a maturation crisis or insecurity of ‘sexual, rather than gender identity.”

The authors criticize the “trans-affirmative” (gender-affirming) model of care for adolescents, which is focused on the provision of physical body modifications, as inconsistent with the principles of adolescent development. They highlight the importance of addressing adolescent gender dysphoria within a developmental framework, recognizing the complexity of adolescent experiences and the need for tailored interventions that address underlying conflicts and promote adaptive coping strategies.

I think this study is very helpful for understanding what’s really going on in the mind of young people when they reject their own gender.

In the most recent episode of Knight and Rose, Rose and I were talking about how to be more bold when discussing controversial issues. Our advice was to be the smartest person in the room. I remember when homosexuality was becoming a big issue, I went out and read a whole bunch of books about it, from people like Jeffrey Satinover and Charles Socarides. It’s similar to how I am handling transgenderism now.

Christians should always be the smartest people in the room when these topics come up. Nobody should be listening to the “compassionate” virtue signalers, who just want to jump to affirmation and approval. And the way you beat those people is by asking them a few simple questions about what they know, to show that they aren’t operating from knowledge at all.

The doctors and the surgeons are often just trying to hook a young person onto constant surgeries, drugs and treatments. They want money, lots of money. All you have to do is to ask them what liability they have if their treatment results in regret and the desire to detransition. Is there a warranty? Of course not. Would they put their promises about “pauses” and “rollbacks” in writing? Of course they won’t.

What about the emotion-based friends and relatives? All you have to do is ask them about technical issues. What are the long-term effects of these drugs? How much does it cost? How painful is it? Are there permanent effects? They are supporting the transition because they want to feel good. They want to be liked. When you ask them knowledge questions, the children can see that the feelings-based adults are only serving themselves.

It’s much better to discuss these issues by pointing out the long-term consequences of decisions. Of course young people have feelings. Of course they want to act on those feelings. But young people also need to hear from people who understand what is further down the road. They don’t know that, and they need to rely on adults who know for help. Not the greedy health care workers. And not the low-self-esteem feelings-based crowd.

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Welcome to episode 54 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose interview Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, co-author of the new 20th Anniversary Edition of “The Privileged Planet”. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez to discuss the new 20th anniversary edition of “The Privileged Planet”. Guillermo explains the book’s thesis, and gives examples of the link between habitability and measurability from our planet, solar system, and galaxy. Guillermo responds to arguments against design, and talks about getting into trouble with opponents of design on campus.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show (with timestamps) provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 54:

Speaker biographies

Guillermo Gonzalez is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1993 from the University of Washington. He has done post-doctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin and at the University of Washington. He has taught astronomy and physics courses at the University of Washington, Iowa State University, Grove City College, and Ball State University. He is a world-class expert on the astrophysical requirements for habitability and on habitable zones and a co-founder of the “Galactic Habitable Zone” concept, which captured the October 2001 cover story of Scientific American. Gonzalez has also published over 90 articles in refereed astronomy and astrophysical journals. He also is the co-author of the second edition of Observational Astronomy, an advanced college astronomy textbook.

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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One of the funniest things about young, unmarried women is the way that they choose men who have no morals, and then they’re shocked when those men treat them poorly. In today’s post, we’ll look at a secular leftist woman, who deliberately chooses to have a relationship with a famous secular leftist man. And you know this famous secular leftist man, it’s Kamala Harris’ husband.

Here’s the story from the New York Post:

A former girlfriend of second gentleman Doug Emhoff said she was left “embarrassed and humiliated” when he slapped her following a gala dinner at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in the South of France — adding that the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris has maintained a “completely fabricated persona” as a public figure.

The woman, a New York attorney identified only as “Jane,” told the Daily Mail in an interview published Thursday she was trying to hand a valet the equivalent of $100 to get her and Emhoff to the head of a taxi line when her beau struck.

“As I’m talking to him, Doug got out of the line, comes up, turns me around by my right shoulder. I’m completely caught off guard, I’m not bracing, I’m in four inch heels, wearing a full-length gown and it’s between 2-3 a.m.,” she told the outlet. “He slaps me so hard I spin around, and I’m in utter shock.”

“There had been no fight, no argument,” she added. “In that moment, his mask had dropped and I saw his dark side.”

What’s funny about these secular left women is that they choose secular men who think that the best way to get out of an unwanted pregnancy is murder. Somehow, they expect that the murder-supporting man will treat them well.

Oh, and there is more slapping in the article:

Jane claimed she already had reservations about Emhoff, now 60, after he admitted he had cheated on his first wife, Kerstin Mackin, with Najen Naylor, the nanny of Emhoff’s daughter Ella — getting the woman pregnant in the process.

“All I did was ask him one question, and he told me the whole story,” she said, recalling the conversation in April 2012. “He’s telling me this very casually like it’s no big deal. He yelled at her. He never said he hit her, but he said he got really angry with her, and she subsequently claimed that whatever he did caused her to lose the pregnancy.”

He may be a misogynist, but he’s a pro-abortion misogynist, so he’s a “good man”:

The Daily Mail previously reported on accusations from the future second gentleman’s former colleagues at Venable that he was “inappropriate” and “misogynistic” toward his female colleagues.

A 2019 lawsuit obtained by The Post charged that Emhoff hired an assistant named “Katya” who was widely considered unqualified but was “young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office.”

And if you show these secular left women a different man – one who is conservative and Christian, and who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage – then they will say that that man is “bad”. The best men, the secular leftist women will tell you, are the ones who don’t have any morals at all.

This is actually a really big problem for young, unmarried women these days.

You might have heard by now that young, unmarried women are becoming more and more leftist in their policy views.

Here’s the far-left UK Independent to explain:

An analysis of survey data from across the developing world had found that “a new global gender divide” is emerging. The analysis, conducted by the Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch, showed that the developed world’s young women have rapidly become more liberal. Young men, however, have either become more conservative (as in the US) or been much slower to become more progressive (as in the UK).

And young, unmarried women are becoming less and less religious.

Here’s the far-left New York Times to explain: (archived)

For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers. They attend services more often and are more likely to identify as religious.

“We’ve never seen it before,” Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, said of the flip.

Among Generation Z Christians, this dynamic is playing out in a stark way: The men are staying in church, while the women are leaving at a remarkable clip.

What should we make of this trend of young, unmarried women becoming more secular and leftist, and then being shocked when the secular left men they deliberately choose treat them poorly? Will anyone tell them that the root cause of their problems with men is their own worldviews, and their own choices based on those worldviews? Who is brave enough to tell young women that they have to accept responsibility for the results of their own choices?

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The origin of life is easy to explain if it is the result of intelligent design, because intelligent agents know how to engineer the building blocks, and how to assemble them into the components of a living system: proteins and nucleic acids. But how can you do it when there are no intelligences allows in your worldview? There is a new article in Nature about that.

The authors write:

To understand how life might have begun, researchers must stop cherry-picking the most beautiful bits of data or the most apparently convincing isolated steps, and explore the implications of these deep differences in context. Depending on the starting point, each hypothesis has different testable predictions. For example, if life started in a warm pond on land, the succession of steps leading from prebiotic chemistry to cells with genes is surprisingly different from those that must be posited if the first cells emerged in deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Building coherent frameworks — in which all the steps in the continuum fit together — is essential to making real progress. To see why, here we highlight two of the most prominent frameworks, which propose radically distinct environments for the origin of life.

Let’s see what the authors say about the prebiotic soup:

This framework posits that nucleotides are concentrated in a small pond. To form RNA, the simplest and most versatile genetic material, nucleotides must polymerize. That is most easily achieved by drying them out (polymerization is a type of dehydration reaction). Proponents imagine a succession of wet–dry cycles, in which the pond dries out to form polymers of RNA, then fills again with water containing more nucleotides and so on, cycle after cycle, making more and more RNA3.

This is the “RNA World” hypothesis, which I’ve blogged about before. The authors don’t like it:

But this concept raises some difficult questions. It places the onus on an ‘RNA world’, in which RNA acts both as a catalyst (in a similar way to enzymes) and as a genetic template that can be copied. The problems are that there is little evidence that RNA can catalyse many of the reactions attributed to it (such as those required for metabolism); and copying ‘naked’ RNA (that is not enclosed in compartments such as cells) favours the RNA strands that replicate the fastest. Far from building complexity, these tend to get smaller and simpler over time. Worse, by regularly drying everything out, wet–dry cycles keep forming random groupings of RNA (in effect, randomized genomes). The best combinations, which happen to encode multiple useful catalysts, are immediately lost again by re-randomization in the next generation, precluding the ‘vertical inheritance’ that is needed for evolution to build novelty.

If selection on RNA in drying ponds could somehow be made to generate greater complexity, what must it achieve? To make cells that grow and reproduce, RNA must encode metabolism: the network of hundreds of reactions that keeps all cells alive. Modern-day metabolic reactions bear no resemblance to the cyanide chemistry that makes nucleotides in this model. Evolution would therefore need to replace each and every step in metabolism, and there is no evidence that such a wholesale replacement is possible.

The authors are saying that they need to build up complexity from simple to more complex, in order to get the bare minimum they need for simple life. Life basically requires four different capabilities: membrane, energy capture, metabolism, and information storage. And they all have to be there and working right from the start. It’s a frightful amount of complexity to get right – unless you appeal to intelligence.

The authors also talk about life forming from non-living materials in hydrothermal vents:

Our own favoured scenario is that the chemistry of life reflects the conditions under which life began, in deep-sea hydrothermal systems on the early Earth4. In broad brush strokes, this means that gases such as carbon dioxide (the near-universal source of carbon in cells today) and hydrogen feed a network of reactions with a topology resembling metabolism. Genes and proteins arise within this spontaneous protometabolism and promote the flux of materials through the network, leading to cell growth and reproduction. There are plenty of problems here, too, but they differ from those in the prebiotic soup framework.

The first problem is that they need enzymes in order go from simple gases to nucleotides, and they don’t have them:

The first problem is that H2 and CO2 are not particularly reactive — indeed, their chemistry was largely ignored for decades, although rising interest in green chemistry is changing that. But deep-sea vents are labyrinths of interconnected pores, which have a topology resembling cells — acidic outside and alkaline inside. The flow of protons from the outside to the inside of these pores can drive work in much the same way that the inward flow of protons can drive CO2 fixation in cells today5.

[…]But many chemists are troubled by the idea that, in the absence of enzymes to serve as catalysts, hydrothermal flow could drive scores of reactions through a network that prefigures metabolism, from CO2 right up to nucleotides. The chemist Leslie Orgel once dismissed this scenario as an “appeal to magic”. Certainly, further data are required, supporting or otherwise.

They have problems sequencing nucleotides into functioning components:

Polymerization is another stumbling block. Nucleotides have been polymerized in water on mineral surfaces9, but this raises similar questions to those noted for wet–dry cycles about how selection could act. If the problem is solved by polymerizing nucleotides inside growing protocells, mineral surfaces would not have been available. Polymerization would then have needed to happen in cell-like (aqueous gel) conditions, but without enzymes. If serious attempts to synthesize RNA under those conditions fail, the overall framework would need to be modified.

I’m not convinced that mineral surfaces can help with the nucleotide sequencing problem, but they don’t even have those available in the hydrothermal vents.

I studied computer science in university, so biochemistry is all new to me. I am trying to learn it, but I also have to write code all day for work. But thankfully, there are experts who can sort this out for us.

Here is a podcast from the fellows over at the Discovery Institute, and they talked about this article. Podcasts are a great way to try to understand these complex problems.

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I always laugh when I read a bio of a secular leftist, who claims to be an “anti-fascist”. I think to myself, “has this person ever read any history?” History is filled with the stories of big-government atheists using political power to force others violate their consciences. In contrast, conservatives support marriage, unborn children, parent’s rights, free markets, free trade, free speech and religious liberty.

Let’s hear about the latest evidence that Kamala Harris would be a terrible president for Christians.

This is from The Federalist:

On Tuesday, Kamala Harris voiced opposition to providing religious exemptions in any federal legislation legalizing abortion nationwide in the event that such legislation is brought to her desk as president.

The moment came during the vice president’s sit-down interview with NBC News’ Hallie Jackson.

[…]The NBC host specifically queried if “religious exemptions” were “something [Harris] would consider.”

“I don’t think we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body,” Harris said.

And it’s not just her words against religious liberty that are a problem. It’s her actions. Here’s a reminder of some of her actions, from First Things:

In February 2019, Harris introduced the Do No Harm Act in the U.S. Senate, the purpose of which was to dilute—if not neutralize—the federal 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and similar legislation in about twenty states. The purpose of RFRA was to give legislative protection to religious practices that might incidentally be forbidden by otherwise generally applicable laws prohibiting (or compelling) certain behaviors. RFRA was a legislative response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed a state law to prohibit the use of sacramental peyote in a minority religious ritual. RFRA laws carve out exemptions from generally applicable laws for some religious practices that are fundamental to religious belief.

For example, a RFRA law might protect a church from another law that prohibits consideration of sexual orientation for employment, promotion, or retention. Or it might protect a physician who participates in public health reimbursement programs from a law requiring such physicians to perform a broad scope of so-called healthcare services, such as abortion.

Now, I often run into people who claim to be Christians, but warn me that they don’t want to get involved in “culture wars” and that Christianity is just about “loving everyone” and they also think Jesus would attend gay weddings. And for fake Christians like this, it’s not going to be a problem that Kamala Harris stops Christians from acting like Christians. Because these people don’t act like Christians already. They just attend church and sing songs and do nice things, but they would never dream of obeying God if they had to pay some kind of price for it.

For these people – and for Kamala Harris – Christianity is just about singing songs in church on Sunday. It’s not any more important than going bowling on Tuesday nights with your friends.

More:

Harris sponsored the Do No Harm Act for the express purpose of emasculating RFRA laws. As she explained on the website introducing the act, it would prevent RFRA laws from “being used to deny” such things as “Healthcare access, . . . coverage or services to which persons are otherwise legally entitled,” or “Services that the government has contracted to be beneficiaries through a government . . . grant.” In other words, the Do No Harm Act would compel a Catholic physician to prescribe contraceptives or perform abortions if she participates in federal or state reimbursement programs. And it would require a parochial school that receives state grants, for example, to employ persons in open same-sex relationships as teachers or even ministers.

The full implications of Harris’s philosophical understanding of the scope and limit of religious freedom, however, are found in her apologetic for the Do No Harm Act. In a statement on her website explaining the purpose of the act, Harris uses a very narrow definition of religious freedom. “The freedom to worship is one of our nation’s most fundamental rights,” she writes. “That First Amendment guarantee should never be used to undermine other Americans’ civil rights.” The problem, of course, is that “the freedom to worship” is not a “First Amendment guarantee.” The First Amendment guarantees the “free exercise” of religion, which has a much more expansive scope than mere “worship.”

The free exercise clause of the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise of” religion. Harris misquotes the clause, changing “free exercise” to “freedom to worship,” betraying a definition of religious practice that would remove it from any meaningful legislative or political protection. In doing so, she turns the free exercise clause on its head, driving religious faith to the margins of public life and religious exercise out of public life altogether.

Like I said, I don’t expect this kind of warning to mean anything to the “Shepherds for Sale” Christians. Their real religion is being liked, and Christianity has value only if it helps them to be liked. For the rest of us, who take the Bible seriously, a Kamala Harris presidentcy would be a disaster to our plans. To our ability to work, to keep what we earn, and to champion what God says. She would use the force of government to force Christians to choose between working to feed their families, and their relationships with God in Christ. And for a secular left fascist, that’s pretty exciting. They love that. They get a sick and twisted joy out of using power to force Christians to abandon their convictions.

Don’t forget how she pre-dawn raided the homes of pro-lifers, and how many pro-lifers have been pre-dawn raided by the Biden-Harris federal law enforcement. Why think that American Stalinists are any different than the Stalin of the Soviet Union?

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If I could get young people to accept one thing about the secular left, it’s that all the “nice” things that they talk about are always at other people’s expense. As soon as you ask them to solve a problem for someone with their own costs, efforts and risks, they say “I was thinking that we could have a systemic solution”. They’re always spending other people’s money, risking other people’s safety.

Here’s an article from the Daily Wire:

Dozens of seniors in New York, including a 94-year-old Army veteran named Frank Tammaro, were evicted from their senior center, which was then converted into a migrant shelter.

City officials have estimated that tens of thousands of migrants have entered the city since last spring, which is costing around $5 million per day. Mayor Eric Adams, who previously boasted about NYC being a “sanctuary” for migrants, has more recently complained about the influx of migrants.

Tammaro told Fox News that he had lived in the center for five years, and intended to spend the rest of his days there until he and the other members were notified that they were being kicked out. After he was evicted, Tammaro’s family found out that the center was turned into a migrant shelter.

“I do get upset when I see them handing out all this money and all these things, and I’m paying taxes and getting kicked out,” Tammaro said. “I’ve never got anything from the city. Or the state.”

Notice that this happened in New York state, which is denominated from top to bottom by Democrats. Democrats just feel better when they help illegal immigrants and refugees. They don’t get the same “buzz” from helping American taxpayers – especially if they have to use their own money.

Here’s another article from the UK Daily Mail:

A 96-year-old woman is facing eviction from her home of 22 years where she says she’s invested her entire savings – in a Democrat state where lawmakers want to give migrants $150,000 loans to buy homes.

Jean Jacques was given a three-day eviction notice from the Pacific Grove Senior Living facility, located on the picturesque Monterey County coast in California, KSBW reported.

The notice demands Jacques pays her outstanding balance of $110,000 or leave her unit, according to the outlet.

Meanwhile in California:

On Wednesday, state lawmakers approved the California Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan program, which would provide no-interest home loans of up to $150,000 to illegal migrants to use on down payments and fees.

It now heads to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk for final approval.

The program was launched last year and has already provided thousands of first-time homebuyers with loans of up to 20 percent of a house’s purchase price.

People who vote Democrat often don’t think about the costs of being “generous” with taxpayer money to illegal immigrants. But it’s hundreds of millions of dollars for each state. Here’s one report about Mississippi:

Illegal immigration could cost Mississippi more than $100 million every year, a new report from the state’s auditor reveals.

The report, from Mississippi State Auditor Shad White, addresses the costs of illegal immigration for the broader country before delving into the ways illegal immigration places a financial burden on Mississippi’s education, healthcare, and public safety systems. The investigation comes as polling indicates that immigration is a top issue for voters heading into the presidential election.

[…]“Illegal immigration creates a financial burden for taxpayers across the country, but the cost of illegal immigration is not borne solely by the federal government,” the report explains, also noting that an estimated 22,000 illegal immigrants reside in the state. “Taxpayers from each state—including Mississippi—must face the reality of increased spending as a result of crisis-level illegal immigration.”

That’s New York and California. If I had to pick another Democrat state, I’d pick Illinois. Specifically, Chicago.

Let’s see what’s happening there:

Chicago has spent $299 million on the migrant crisis since 2022, including $215 million since Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson took office in May 2023.

Nearly 37,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago since August 2022. As of March 14, more than 11,200 migrants were living in shelters.

Right now, we are $36 trillion in debt, so we really have run out of money to be spending on illegal immigration. Who will pay for this debt? Future generations. People who aren’t even born yet. Their quality of life is being diminished by these secular left big spenders who are desperate to virtue signal to you about their great generosity. Therefore, vote wisely.

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It’s election time, so I thought it might be a good idea for everyone to get some data on one of the most pressing problems Americans are facing, and that’s inflation. People keep saying that the rate of inflation is coming down, but the prices are still way higher than they used to be. So, who did a better job of controlling inflation? Trump, during his 4 years, or Kamala, during her 4 years?

This article is from the Wall Street Journal:

Kamala Harris couldn’t explain during her interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier this week why she’d be better on the economy and inflation than Donald Trump. The Vice President instead invoked the expert wisdom of progressive economists. That wisdom is worth a closer look.

[…]A nearby chart shows the inflation trend during the Trump and Biden presidencies. Inflation averaged 2.1% annually between 2017 and 2019, compared to 5.1% under Mr. Biden. (Inflation declined to 1.2% in 2020 amid the Covid lockdowns.) Deficits totalled $2.4 trillion during Mr. Trump’s first three years compared to $5.8 trillion during Mr. Biden’s.

[…]In March 2021, Democrats stoked consumption… with their $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act…

The bill was largely composed of transfer payments, including $1,400 checks per person, $3,600 per child tax credits, an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits, a 15% increase in food stamps, rental assistance and more. Such handouts discouraged unemployed Americans from returning to work since they could earn as much not working.

President Biden further loosened the spending spigot with executive actions, sweetening food stamps and waiving monthly student loan payments. A Congressional Budget Office report this week noted that the 2021 food-stamp boost likely reduced the labor supply since people received fewer benefits the more income they earned.

This unprecedented helicopter drop of money, aided by the Federal Reserve, kicked off the highest inflation in 40 years.

And the article concludes:

Ms. Harris has adopted the Biden spending agenda and more. Mr. Trump is no fiscal conservative, but on deficits and inflation his first-term record is far superior to the four years of Biden-Harris.

Remember, Kamala was asked what she would do differently than Biden, and she said that she wouldn’t do anything different than Biden. Now, some people might say that’s because she doesn’t know enough about policy to know how to answer that question, but let’s just take her at her word, and expect 4 more years of Biden’s record on inflation.

The nice thing about a Kamala victory is that the people who will have to pay the most are the people who spend a lot of money now. Especially people who just don’t have the willpower to stop spending money on things they don’t need. We have a $36 trillion debt. Interest on the debt will start to crowd out discretionary spending like spending on welfare programs. So, it’s going to be harder for people who depend on collecting welfare to make ends meet. I’m looking forward to seeing people with high burn rates have to cut their spending, because of the consequences of their votes.

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In this post, I have two articles that may surprise you. Democrats seem to have an obsession with demanding that everyone agree that they don’t steal elections. Their words say that they want free and fair elections, where only citizens vote, and every vote is counted. That’s a wonderful goal. But do their words match their actions? Let’s take a look at some news stories, then you can decide.

Here’s the first article from the Washington Times:

The Biden administration sued Virginia on Friday over the state’s effort to remove noncitizens from its voting lists, arguing the move violated a federal law that bars changes to the rolls so close to an election.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in August ordered state officials to conduct “daily updates” to remove ineligible voters, including felons and those who are “unable to verify that they are citizens.”

The Justice Department said that amounts to a formalized cleansing of the voter rolls, which it said violates a 1993 law on voter registration.

[…]Mr. Youngkin, in a statement, blasted the case.

“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls,” he said.

He said the noncitizens Virginia cleaned from its rolls had previously declared “themselves a non-citizen” and then registered to vote.

And it’s not just Virginia, it’s Alabama, too:

The federal lawsuit against Virginia follows another one the Justice Department filed against Alabama, which flagged 3,251 names it moved to its inactive voter list on Aug. 13 — 84 days before the election.

Alabama used state records where someone indicated on an unemployment form or an application for a driver’s license or identity card that they weren’t a citizen.

Let’s see another story and make sure that I’m understanding their actions correctly.

Here’s an article from Daily Signal:

After requesting citizenship status information about registered voters in Florida, and not receiving it from federal agencies as required by law, Florida sued.

In September, Florida requested information from the Department of Homeland Security and its subagencies about citizenship status of a subset of registered voters it identified and its request was denied.

One month later, a coalition of attorneys general, including Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, called on DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to provide the requested information, after multiple states, including Texas and Florida, also asked for similar information. They made the requests as multiple states also removed thousands of noncitizens from their voter rolls.

On Oct. 16, Moody sued Mayorkas and DHS in U.S. District Court Northern District of Florida Pensacola Division “for refusing to verify immigration records for the State of Florida to ensure voter-roll integrity.”

Under the Biden-Harris administration, millions of illegal border crossers “have flooded into the country,” Moody said. “Florida has an interest in ensuring that only American citizens are registered to vote. Recently, the state identified registered voters who may not be U.S. citizens, and DHS refuses to provide information necessary to determine their immigration status.” Moody sued “to ensure noncitizens are not on the voter rolls.”

“Voting is a right granted to American citizens—not illegal immigrants or other noncitizens,” she said.

The 16-page lawsuit cites federal and state law related to maintaining accurate voter registration records, federal government agencies’ legal requirement to ensure only citizens are voting in elections, among other provisions. “Because the federal government is refusing to comply with these obligations and frustrating Florida’s ability to maintain the integrity of its elections, Florida files this suit,” the lawsuit states.

So what do we learn from this?

Well, I think it’s important for everyone who doesn’t want communism to get out there and vote in November. Why? Because the best way to prevent one party from cheating in an election is to make sure that the election is not close. If it’s not close, then they can’t cheat. So, make sure that you have a plan to vote, and make sure that you’re convincing the people around you to vote against communism, too. If it’s not close, then they can’t cheat.

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I’ve noticed that young women are quite frightened of men, because they are taught that men are dangerous. I’m concerned that these beliefs will deter women from choosing men wisely, and marrying them. One way to counter these fears about “domestic violence” is to take a look at the studies, and see who is really doing the violence. Is it always men, or is there a balance?

The study was published in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma.

Here’s the abstract:

Recent debates surrounding intimate partner violence (IPV) have focused on its gender symmetry and gender-oriented nature. These debates center on findings from various data sources, like victimization or self-reported surveys and police-based reports. Data by Statistics Canada, from 1999 to 2014, has shown that the prevalence of IPV is similar for male and female victims, except for sexual assaults. However, there has been a paucity of studies on the severity and risk factors of IPV against men by female partners. Thus, this paper examines the severity of and risk factors for physical IPV against heterosexual men in Canada using the General Social Survey (Victimization) data of 2014. This study revealed that there is a symmetry in the experiences of physical violence between male and female victims. This study also revealed that male victims experience more severe violence than female victims. Using binary logistic regression analysis, years of dwelling together, the victim’s age, childhood victimization, and marijuana use were found to predict physical IPV against heterosexual men. This paper concludes with suggestions about how these predicting factors can be used to identify male victims and the need for a more inclusive approach toward addressing IPV, which should include male victims.

The key points for us:

• scholars typically ignore violence against men committed by women: “However, there has been a paucity of studies on the severity and risk factors of IPV against men by female partners.”
• men and women commit domestic violence at roughly equal rates: “This study revealed that there is a symmetry in the experiences of physical violence between male and female victims.”
• Men are the victims of more severe violence than women: “This study also revealed that male victims experience more severe violence than female victims.”

This confirms data from a blog post I wrote a long time ago (2011) about this issue.

I found that:

Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men made up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year between 2004-05 and 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available. In 2006-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who had suffered partner abuse in the previous year, which rose to 45.5% in 2007-08 but fell to 37.7% in 2008-09.

That’s the UK.

And:

An estimated 7% of women and 6% of men in a current or previous spousal relationship encountered spousal violence during the five years up to and including 2004, according to a comprehensive new report on family violence.

That’s Canada.

It’s interesting to note that the police and the courts do not acknowledge that women commit domestic violence. Whenever there is a report of domestic violence, the man is ALWAYS assumed to be the attacker, and ALWAYS arrested and removed from his home. That is the way that domestic violence works, according to the famous “Duluth model”. The Duluth model actually discourages men from getting into relationships that lead to marriage. Men don’t want to be attacked by women, and then treated as the aggressors by police.

Another factor also deters men from relationships and marriage: courts that are biased against men. When there is domestic violence, women are treated far more leniently than men. I blogged about a study about this recently, and found:

The estimated gender disparities are strikingly large, conditional on observables. Most notably, treatment as male is associated with a 63% average increase in sentence length, with substantial unexplained gaps throughout the sentence distribution.

I see stories all the time where women are violent, and get no jail time. Here is one story from January 2024 and here is another from March 2024.

Men do look at these studies, and they decide on their life goals accordingly. Don’t blame men for aligning their goals and decisions with the way that the world really is. If women want men to engage the way that men used to, they should stop being so defensive and fix the problems that are deterring men from relationships.

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It’s become fashionable in our time to claim that facism is an emergence of the right, as if somehow, you get authoritarianism from private property, the rule of law, unbiased courts and free trades. Actually, when you look at history, it’s always the secular left that wants to force individuals to agree with their ideology. And they don’t treat religious people who dissent very well.

Let’s take a look at a couple of stories from this week from a country that is further down the road of secularism and leftism.

Here’s the first story from Christian Post:

A Christian pastor was arrested after he made comments about Islam and the binary nature of sex while street preaching outside Bristol University.

In response to a question from a Muslim member of the public, Dia Moodley said he believed there were differences between the moral standards of the God of Islam and the Christian God.

During his preaching he also expressed the belief that God made humans male and female and that this truth should not be denied.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF UK), which is supporting Moodley, said he was arrested and detained for 13 hours by Avon and Somerset Police in March.

The organization said that Moodley was pushed off his short stepladder and had a sign snatched from his hands before being arrested by attending officers.

Four of his signs were handed to staff at Bristol University, who disposed of them under the instruction of the officers.

Reacting to the incident, Moodley said, “Two-tier policing is sadly not a fiction or some conspiracy theory, it’s a reality that Christians in the U.K. have been experiencing for years.

[…]”The world is looking at the dismal state of free speech in the U.K. with shock. What happened to me reflects a wider trend of increasing state censorship in the U.K. and across the West.”

Yes, so one of the known effects of importing millions and millions of unskilled immigrants is that the laws will change so that they get special treatment, whereas anyone who points out the effects of thesse immigration policies will be branded a racist. Recently, I talked about how the UK police advised armed Muslims to hide their weapons in mosques to avoid being arrested, but they brutally beat unarmed non-Muslim protesters who objected to violent crimes being committed in their neighborhoods. And whenever Christians speak publicly against the truth of Islam, they are arrested and imprisoned. Just ask Hatun Tash, who we interviewed on the Knight and Rose Show. Christians are always the losers in cases where the secular left wants to improve “diversity” by importing a bunch of unskilled immigrants – who tend to vote for more spending on welfare and for defunding the police.

Anyway, here is the second article, also from Christian Post:

A British army veteran who served in Afghanistan was found guilty today of praying silently near an abortion clinic in England.

Adam Smith-Connor breached a Public Spaces Protection Order by this action, according to the ruling at Poole Magistrates Court in the town of Poole near Bournemouth, Dorset, England.

[…]The court found Smith-Connor guilty for an act of a “disapproval of abortion,” though he was only thinking about his son, who had been aborted many years before, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.

Smith-Connor had slightly bowed his head and clasped his hands in prayer on a public green in a buffer zone near the abortion facility in Orphir Road, Bournemouth in November 2022. During a confrontation with police officers that he recorded, they asked him, “What is the nature of your prayer?”

The buffer zone had been previously legalized under a Public Spaces Protection Order enforced on streets near the abortion clinic. The intent of the buffer zone had been to stop pro-life beliefs being expressed near the facility, including offering help or prayers to women in crisis pregnancies, according to a press statement by ADF International.

Defense attorneys argued that Smith-Connor’s prayerful thoughts, beliefs and opinions were not a crime, especially as he stood peacefully and silently on a public street. He stood behind a tree, spoke to no one and had his back to the facility.

The court also ordered the father of two children to pay prosecution costs amounting to £9,000 ($11,700 USD).

How close is the UK government that does these things to Kamala Harris? They are sending over members of the ruling secular left party to help her in her election campaign in swing states!

Now, many Christians who have not too closely into the policy differences of the candidates will say “Oh, but Kamala would never do such things, after all, she laughs a lot and seems to have a lot of joy!” But those Christians are just uninformed. It was Kamala Harris, when she was the attorney general of California, who colluded with abortion providers to raid the homes of pro-life activists.

Here is the Tennessee Star to refresh your memory:

In March 2016, top Planned Parenthood officials in California eagerly emailed one another about an upcoming meeting with the state’s then-attorney general, Kamala Harris. The meeting carried so much import that the Planned Parenthood officials met with Harris’ staff ahead of time “to discuss prep,” emails reviewed by The Daily Signal show.

About two weeks later, on April 5, 2016, California Department of Justice authorities raided the home of a pro-life journalist in his late 20s—David Daleiden, the head of the Center for Medical Progress, who had recently published videos allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials gruesomely describing how they extract aborted-baby body parts. Daleiden says the videos prove that Planned Parenthood was selling the aborted baby body parts for profit.

How had Daleiden done this? By studying up on fetal tissue and stem cells, posing as a fetal tissue procurer, infiltrating secretive abortion conferences so protected that they required background checks, schmoozing and sweet talking abortionists, nurses, and researchers over lunch, drinks, and dinner, and wearing hidden cameras to capture what no other journalists had.

This is what we can look forward to, in a Harris-Walz regime. Why think that our secular left fascists would be any different from the secular left fascists of the UK? And this isn’t an insult, I’m literally describing the sort of person who uses government to trample of the basic human rights of people who disagree with their policies.

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Kamala Harris did a 25-minute interview with Bret Baier on Fox News, and I have the clips. She dodged every single question, and accepted zero accountability for the policies of the Biden-Harris regime, during the past 3.5 years . She denied the existence of every problem facing American voters. America is in for disaster if this unqualified person is elected president.

Here is a 10-minute clip on the Biden-Harris open-borders immigration policy:

Here is the full video: (25 minutes)

And here’s an article for those are just reading about it, from Daily Caller:

Fox News host Bret Baier stopped Harris during an interview Wednesday evening as she struggled to explain how her presidency would move the country “forward” despite her already being in a position of power.

The interview marks Harris’ first appearance on the network during her campaign, following a busy week of media appearances on networks like CBS and ABC. On “Special Report with Bret Baier,” the host pressed Harris on her campaign slogan “A New Way Forward” and her claim that “it’s time to turn the page,” to which she initially responded by explaining she was moving on from the “last decade” of former President Donald Trump’s “rhetoric.”

“More than 70% of people tell the country is on the wrong track. They say the country is on the wrong track. If it’s on the wrong track, that track follows three and a half years of you being vice president and President Biden being president. That is what they’re saying, 79% of them. Why are they saying that? If you are turning the page, you’ve been in office for three and a half years,” Baier said.

“And Donald Trump has been running for office since — ” Harris began.

Baier pushed back and pointed out to the vice president how she’s been “the person holding the office,” with Harris then claiming that the host understood what she was talking about.

“C’mon, you and I both know what I’m talking about. You and I both know what I’m talking about,” Harris said.

“I actually don’t. What are you talking about?” Baier asked.

Breitbart News notes:

Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration reversed or undid many of the Trump-era border policies; they suspended the Remain in Mexico policy on the administration’s first day in office, for example.

She caused this mess, and now she won’t apologize for it, or accept responsibility for it. This is not someone that should be elected to the White House. She won’t solve problems. We have no evidence that she knows how to define and resolve problems.

On this blog, and on podcasts, I’ve tried to point out the problems with the policies that Kamala Harris supports. But this interview really showed me the problem with the person. Kamala is not going to be able to solve any problems, because she won’t admit that there are any problems. When she is told that she’s been in charge for the last 3.5 years, she shifts the blame to other people who are not in charge. When she is asked for specific solutions to the problems caused by the Biden-Harris regime, she says that she has no policy differences with Joe Biden.

I almost wonder if she said this because she doesn’t know what a policy is. When I watch this interview, I could really believe that Kamala Harris has no education or work experience of any kind. If this were a candidate for a job that I was interviewing for, I would say “this person cannot do any useful work, she just tries to paint a picture of herself with words”. This might be OK for an actor or entertainer, but not for someone who will be setting policies for the next 4 years.

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A very, very interesting article about the Biden-Harris regime came out on Monday in the Daily Caller. I think it’s really important for Christians to take a look at this article, and understand that voting in elections is not just voting for someone you like – someone who agrees with you. It’s really often about voting against policies that could really hurt you. And hurt your children.

Here’s the article from Daily Caller:

While crafting its foster care rule finalized in April, HHS officials took inspiration from social workers in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, who spent years pioneering a program that strong-arms parents into affirming whatever confused beliefs children express about their gender. Parents who decline risk losing a voice in their child’s life.

The program developed in Cuyahoga County using federal grant funds provided the HHS’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) with an ideal model for infusing gender ideology into foster care and social services, the Daily Caller News Foundation discovered in reviewing hundreds of documents and emails obtained via public record requests.

Note that this is a federal rule – it will apply in all 50 states. So living in a red state will not protect you from having your children taken from you:

The Biden-Harris administration’s new federal rule directs states to ensure foster children who identify as LGBTQ are placed in affirming homes. These “designated placements” must commit to creating an environment that supports a child’s “status or identity,” including through access to age-appropriate “resources, services, and activities.” To gender activists consulted by the Biden administration, being “affirming” means assuming the child knows best about his or her identity — even if what he or she claims to want is life-altering medical procedures like hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries to appear more like the opposite sex.

To Cuyahoga County child protective services, being affirming often means providing kids access to items like chest binders or prosthetic packers that mimic a penis, according to an information sheet for caregivers on the Cuyahoga County Division of Children & Family Services (DCFS) website.

So, parents are “good enough” to pay for transing their kids, but not good enough to parent their kids. The parenting of the kids should be done by secular leftists in government, who are also paid by the parents, through their taxes. So that’s all that parents are good for – to pay people to parent their kids, because they don’t know what’s best for their kids.

And parents are already facing the effects of these policies:

When the rule was announced in September 2023, it quickly faced resistance. A coalition of 19 Republican states slammed the proposed rule, arguing it would infringe on religious liberty and free speech protections. Religious groups warned it would restrict faith-based providers.

Those concerns were well-founded: In states like Washington and Vermont, Christian couples have lost their foster care licenses due to similar state regulations. But as the activists consulted in the development of the federal rule show, these objections only scratch the surface of problems with the rule.

Parents in a handful of states have already sounded the alarm, claiming local authorities deemed them unfit guardians for refusing to allow their children to undergo a gender transition. In light of federally funded programs, like the one operating in Cuyahoga County, stories like these sound more like harbingers of an organized effort to undermine the family than one-off incidents.

The article talks about how non-parent adults will determine whether the child is transgender – by asking them questions about their feelings. The child will determine whether they are transgender or not.

This part was interesting – your Christian faith will have to go:

The program is designed to help parents and caregivers of children already in the welfare system, or “at risk” of entering, become affirming, according to the AFFIRM.ME guide. The program also pushes families to “reconcile” their values, including their faith, to accept their child’s identity.

Not that this program is already in effect in certain states, and if Harris-Walz wins, there is no reason to think this will not become the law in all 50 states:

YAP is currently being implemented in California, New York, Pennsylvania and Missouri, along with Ohio, according to the SOGIE Center. Of the 34 Cuyahoga County families who started the program between 2018 and 2021, seven cases were successfully “closed” when parents stopped opposing their child’s gender-bending desires, according to SOGIE Center data.

Christianity and conservatism are obstacles for the government to neutralize:

“I mean, they don’t say anything to my face anymore about it and they stopped being super religious around me because they used to,” said one young person who was part of the program in Spring 2021, according to the data sheet. “I don’t know what was their problem, but they used to try to push a lot of weird religion stuff on me.”

Another adolescent reported having a “very conservative” family approve of transitioning after going through YAP. “So I could start testosterone and things of that sort soon,” the youth said. “And [mom is] helping me with the name change.”

What was interesting about this article is how all the people who are trying to push transgenderism onto children were progressive women! And they were working in the Biden-Harris administration, with the goal of turning children against their parents.

Christians sitting out the 2024 elections

I’ve been reading a lot of comments on Twitter from pietistic Christians who are talking about not voting in this election, because they don’t like either of the candidates. And it’s really causing me some concern. They think they are saying something pious and intelligent when they talk about not voting because neither candidate reflects their values. They don’t seem to grasp that one of the candidates will trample on their basic human rights, such as the right to free speech, religious liberty and parental authority.

I’ve talked to many of these pietistic people whose children left the faith. I ask them “did you study apologetics so you could answer their questions?” And I get these rationalizations about why learning apologetics would be a waste of time, like “Children are more liberal these days than we were” and “they’ll come back to the church when they have children” and so on. Maybe you are tempted to take these rationalizations at face value. But I see it more clearly now – the pious language is just being used to excuse them from having to do anything that doesn’t make them happy. And in the same way, this Pollyannish whistling-past-the-graveyard isn’t really anything they know. It’s just their desire to virtue signal, while still leaving their pursuit of comfort and ease unchallenged.

I have no doubt that when their rights are trampled by the secular left, they will find some pious way to shift blame and excuse themselves. They will be satisfied with their virtue signaling. The question though is what will God think about it? I don’t think he will like it at all.

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Kamala Harris has received over $200 million of donations, some from Democrat billionaires, and many more from first time donors. It’s not going to be easy for Republicans to beat her in November with her huge advantage in fundraising. But, one thing we can do right now is to take a look at her record on issues, and then share these stories with our friends and family members.

Here’s the first article from Daily Signal:

The “Biden Accountability Tracker” presents a list of “disturbing and harmful actions,” including “each significant policy decision made, executive action taken, or regulation promulgated by the administration that hurts the American people,” the organization’s letter to lawmakers explains.

“Our organization has kept a rolling record of the failures of the Biden-Harris administration since 2021, from reversing Trump-Pence border policies, to pushing an expensive and burdensome climate agenda, failing to protect women’s sports, and using the FDA to make the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone available by mail,” Teller told The Daily Signal. “Kamala Harris owns each and every one of these failings, along with her own record from her time as California attorney general and as a senator.”

“It is clear her policies are left of Biden and that she has it out for conservatives and the freedom-loving community,” Teller added.

Teller’s reference to Harris’ having it out for conservatives touched on the vice president’s record from her time as California attorney general. For example, Harris directed her office to search the home of pro-life investigative journalist David Daleiden, who had exposed Planned Parenthood officials’ selling aborted baby body parts for profit. She prepared a legal case against Daleiden, which her successor as California attorney general—now Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra—brought against the pro-life journalist.

Harris also demanded sensitive donor information from two conservative organizations, Americans for Prosperity and the American Freedom Law Center, after her office had leaked sensitive donor information and after some on the Left had launched a video game in which players acted out a shooting at Americans for Prosperity headquarters.

If you look through that issue tracker, you’re bound to find something to convince an independent voter not to vote for Harris. Stuff like climate regulation (which caused our energy prices to skyrocket) and open borders (which caused housing prices to increase due to a shortage of housing) should be of interest to anyone.

Here are a few more of Kamala Harris’ specific actions, reported by the Daily Signal:

A newly resurfaced memo put out by Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign outlines her plan to “fundamentally transform” the criminal justice system by reducing penalties for criminals.

In 2019, Harris promised to end cash bail, get rid of court-ordered fines, expunge the records of some felons, discontinue federal mandatory minimum sentences, and to place greater federal scrutiny on local police departments, according to a memo resurfaced Thursday by the Washington Free Beacon.

[…]“It is long past time to re-envision public safety by strengthening and supporting our communities and drastically limiting the number of people we expose to our criminal justice system,” the memo reads. “As president, Kamala will fundamentally transform how we approach public safety.”

And ending cash bail, which has already been tried in many Democrat cities:

“Excessive cash bail disproportionately harms people from low-income communities and communities of color,” Harris’ 2019 memo reads. She characterized cash bail systems as “criminalizing poverty” and vowed to end them.

Ending cash bail has led to a backlash in some major cities, with New Yorkers in February 2022 overwhelmingly supporting tightening bail laws following an increase in crime, the New York Post reported. The Texas Organizing Project, a George Soros-backed nonprofit that opposes cash bail, bonded out a man who allegedly went on to murder six people and shoot three others in December 2023.

I remember that she’s a big supporter of “defunding the police” as well, but that’s not all:

She also supported restoring voting rights to all those who have served criminal records, per the memo, and advocated for more federal oversight of local police departments, citing alleged “racial profiling” and “excessive force.”

The now-vice president proposed a “National Police Systems Review Board” that “would collect data and review police shootings and other cases of severe misconduct,” according to the memo. She also promised to provide the Department of Justice with resources to provide grants to fund greater scrutiny of officers who shoot suspects and pledged to reinstate an executive order restricting the sale of certain military equipment to police departments.

So, it’s not enough for her that unvetted illegal immigrants are coming into the country in droves. She looks at the taxpayers who pay her salary, and she thinks “I side with the killers and the rapists against those taxpayers – my job is to help the killers and the rapists, and not the taxpayers who pay my salary”. Do you think that independents would care about that? I think they would.

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Good news! I saw an article in the Daily Signal about a teacher in Virginia who was fired for not using a student’s preferred pronouns. Well, the teacher sued the school board, and it went all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court! Finally, after 5 years of litigation, the school board capitulated and agreed to settle the case for $575, 000. Let’s have some happy news for a change!

Here’s the article from Daily Signal:

In 2018, one of Vlaming’s female students at West Point High School began identifying as a transgender male. Although Vlaming consistently used the student’s preferred name, the French teacher carefully avoided using third-person pronouns so as not to violate his own religious beliefs.

That courtesy wasn’t good enough for West Point’s school board and school administrators. When Vlaming refused to use preferred pronouns, they fired the teacher for “creating a hostile learning environment.”

That’s right. Vlaming wasn’t fired for what he said. He was fired for what he didn’t—and couldn’t—say.

Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom and a local attorney, Vlaming sued in state court in 2019, asserting claims under Virginia law and the Virginia Constitution.

[…]The majority decision, written by Justice D. Arthur Kelsey, was a landmark victory for religious freedom and free speech. The state Supreme Court held that the Virginia Constitution protects religious exercise—not just religious speech—unless it threatens the public’s safety or order.

I thought this part was interesting:

In so ruling, the state’s highest court rejected U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s highly criticized majority opinion in Employment Division v. Smith. That decision gutted religious freedom when a challenged law could be considered both neutral and generally applicable to everyone.

A lot of people name Antonin Scalia when asked who the most conservative SCOTUS Justice is, but I always say Clarence Thomas. He’s the best, and I wish we had 9 of him on the Supreme Court. Scalia inconsistent, just like Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

More:

The court also ruled for Vlaming on his claim of compelled speech. Merely “objectionable” or “hurtful” speech, it emphasized, poses no threat to public safety or order.

Vlaming’s refusal to use preferred personal pronouns based on his Christian religious beliefs thus was protected even if others subjectively took offense to his silence, Kelsey wrote in the opinion.

[…]“[I]f liberty means anything at all,” Kelsey wrote, “it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. … All the more, it means the right to disagree without speaking at all.”

Seeing the writing on the wall, the West Point School Board finally relented. In a settlement finalized Monday, the board agreed to pay Vlaming $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees. It also agreed to expunge Vlaming’s firing from his employment record.

And this part I really liked – the school board changed their policy to match the law of Virginia:

And for good measure, the school board took the initiative and changed its policies to conform to new educational policies from Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, which protect free speech and parental rights.

Can you imagine how much it must cost to fight a case like this for 5 years, though? This is why I am so careful about saving money for the case where I get sued. I have to do with a lot less goodies day by day. It’s a real struggle to say yes to a board game here, or a Steam game there. Instead, I like to put money into savings, in the case where someone like this female student decides to sue me like this for not saying the things that she demands that I say.

It’s shocking that I have to live like this in America, but leftists are dangerous people. They have no mercy on those that cause them to feel bad. It doesn’t bother them at all to take someone’s job if that person refuses to play along with their woke delusions. I guess that’s better than using violence, but honestly, leftists are often using violence to get their way as well. It’s quite a scary time to be alive.

What I’ve done, to mitigate the risk, is just avoided talking to people who are likely to be offended. And that’s just people who are in the traditional Democrat voting groups, like the young unmarried female student in the story. They’re just not safe to talk to. Their first instinct when confronted with normal, moral Christian men is to drag them to court, and have the court punish good men for their moral and spiritual convictions.

I don’t like that I have to censor myself and stop doing the things that I want to do, just because leftists are offended. And since society seems to side with them over me – dragging Christians into court because we take the Bible seriously – I’ve learned just not give them the same friendliness and openness that I give to more moral and trustworthy people. I wouldn’t tell Stalin what I really think, and I wouldn’t want to be Stalin’s friend. Stalin is not a good person. Stalin is not safe to make friends with.

I just want to make one general point about this social trend of letting young secular leftists attack Christian men because society is offended by moral leadership and spiritual leadership. Society is fine with Christian men paying taxes. They love when Christian men protect and provide for women. But they DO NOT want those same men to lead anyone morally and spiritually. And I’m going to tell you right now – Christian men are tired of being used by society as ATMs. We are not interested in dating and marriage unless our leadership is respected.

The more that good Christian men see society trashing us for our desire to lead on moral and spiritual issues, the less interested we are in getting married and raising children. We are not interested in just paying the bills, and letting the feelings-oriented people, and their allies in the courts, trample all over us. We will opt out of that.

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Once upon a time I didn’t know much about the case for abortion rights or the case for the right to life of unborn children. My reason for not reading much about it is that I thought that it was kind of a subjective issue. But, I started a project to read 1-2 books on every conceivable topic, including one on abortion. Lo and behold, it turned out that one side did have the backing of science.

This article from The Public Discourse explains: (links removed)

The following are typical examples—only three of the many, many we could cite. These are from standard texts by embryologists, developmental biologists, and microbiologists:

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).” Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition.

“Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.” Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, Cell Tissue Research.

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a ‘moment’) is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte” (emphasis added; Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Mueller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition.

The genetically distinct part is key – this unborn child is has a different DNA signature (a human signature) than either the mother or the father. Nothing will be added or taken away from this new signature as the unborn child grows. It never changes.

More:

These authorities all agree because the underlying science is clear. At fertilization—or, more precisely, when the sperm (a male sex cell) fuses with the oocyte (a female sex cell, more commonly referred to as an egg)—each of them ceases to be, and a new entity, one that is both genetically and functionally distinct from either parent, is generated. This new entity, initially a single totipotent cell, then divides into two cells, then (asynchronously) three, then four, eight, and so on, enclosed all the while by a membrane inherited from the oocyte (the zona pellucida), which then dissolves during implantation, allowing for continued growth in the direction of maturity as a member of the species. Even prior to implantation, however, these cells and membrane function as parts of a whole that regularly and predictably develops into the more mature stages of a complex human body.

How do we know that the result of sperm-oocyte fusion is a new entity, rather than a continuation of the oocyte? We know that a new entity exists because, once the sperm penetrates the oocyte, a completely new trajectory of biological development commences. The biological activity of an oocyte is directed toward successful fertilization; the biological activity of sperm is directed toward penetration of an oocyte. The biological activity of the new entity that results when sperm and oocyte fuse, however, is directed toward nothing less than the development of a mature human organism, distinct from either parent. Further, this new entity’s activities are directed not by instructions from the mother’s body, as some people wrongly suppose, but by its own unique set of instructions, especially the blueprint for development contained in its unique genetic material. The mother’s body recognizes the zygote and then the embryo as an entity distinct from itself. In fact, the embryo must send out chemical signals to prevent the mother’s immune system from attacking it. The embryo also emits chemical signals that induce changes in the lining of the mother’s uterus to enable successful implantation.

If this embryo is provided a suitable environment, nutrition, and protection from deliberate attack, serious injury, or disease, it will develop to the mature stage of a human organism. Thus, from the zygote stage onward this distinct, new organism has all of the internal resources—in its genetic and epigenetic structure—needed to develop itself (or, rather, himself or herself, since in the human sex is determined from the very beginning) to the mature stage of a human organism. At no point after fertilization—implantation, gastrulation, birth, puberty, etc.—does a fundamental change in biological trajectory occur. These subsequent stages of development are simply the unfolding of the zygote’s inherent dynamism toward human organismal maturity. This shows that the zygote already is a human organism—a member of the species Homo sapiens—albeit at an early stage of his or her development.

So, since I like to win arguments with science, I just took the side of the debate that was backed by science. I really hate to lose debates, you know. I really like to cite scientific evidence when I’m debating.

The crime of abortion, it seems to me, is that you are depriving a human being of his or her future, because of your convenience right now. Human beings don’t have the right to take away the futures of other human beings because they want to be unburdened by the results of their own actions. We shouldn’t resort to violence in order to escape responsibility for our own actions. In almost every case, (except to save the life of the mother), killing the unborn child isn’t justified. It’s actually very scary to me that anyone would think that hurting other people was a reasonable response to one’s own diminished happiness. How did we ever get to a place in society when people don’t think that taking responsibility to care for the unborn child is morally better than killing the unborn child? It’s a baby for goodness sake. We ought to be serious about setting up our lives and controlling ourselves so that we never hurt an unborn child.

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Here is the video of the debate:

TOPIC: DOES GOD EXIST?

MY NOTES ON THE DEBATE: (WC = William Lane Craig, CH = Christopher Hitchens)

WC opening speech:

Introduction:

WC makes two contentions:
– there are no good arguments for atheism
– there are good arguments for theism

These topics are IRRELEVANT tonight:
– social impact of christianity
– morality of Old Testament passages
– biblical inerrancy
– the debate is whether god (a creator and designer of the universe) exists

1. cosmological argument
   – an actually infinite number of past events is impossible
   – number of past events must be finite
   – therefore universe has a beginning
   – the beginning of the universe is confirmed by science – universe began to exist from nothing
   – space, time, matter, energy began at the big bang
   – the creation of the universe requires a cause
   – the cause is uncaused, timeless, spaceless, powerful
   – the cause must be beyond space and time, because it created space and time
   – the cause is not physical, because it created all matter and energy
   – but there are only two kinds of non-physical cause: abstract objects or minds
   – abstract objects don’t cause effects
   – therefore must be mind

2. teleological argument
   – fine-tuned constants and ratios
   – constants not determined by laws of nature
   – also, there are arbitrary quantities
   – constants and quantities are in narrow range of life-permitting values
   – an example: if the weak force were different by 1 in 10 to the 100, then no life
   – there are 3 explanations: physical law or chance or design
   – not due to law: because constants and quantities are independent of the laws
   – not due to chance: the odds are too high for chance
   – therefore, due to design
   – the atheist response is the world ensemble (multiverse)
   – but world ensemble has unobservable universes, no evidence that they exist
   – and world ensemble contradicts scientific observations we have today

3. moral argument
   – objective moral values are values that exist regardless of what humans think
   – objective values are not personal preferences
   – objective values are not evolved standards that cultures have depending on time and place
   – objective moral values and duties exist
   – objective moral values and duties require a moral lawgiver

4. argument from resurrection miracle
   – resurrection implies miracle
   – miracle implies God
   – 3 minimal facts pass the historical tests (early attestation, eyewitness testimony, multiple attestation, etc.)
   – minimal fact 1: empty tomb
   – minimal fact 2: appearances
   – minimal fact 3: early belief in the resurrection
   – jewish theology prohibits a dying messiah – messiah is not supposed to die
   – jewish theology has a general resurrection of everybody, there is not supposed to be a resurrection of one person
   – jewish theology certainly does not predict a single resurrection of the messiah after he dies
   – therefore, the belief in the resurrection is unlikely to have been invented
   – disciples were willing to die for that belief in the resurrection
   – naturalistic explanations don’t work for the 3 minimal facts

5. properly basic belief in god
   – religious experience is properly basic
   – it’s just like the belief in the external world, grounded in experience
   – in the absence of defeaters, those experiences are valid

Conclusion: What CH must do:
– destroy all 5 of WC’s arguments
– erect his own case in its place

CH opening speech:

1. evolution disproves biological design argument
   – evolution disproves paley’s argument for a watchmaker

2. god wouldn’t have done it that way
   – god wouldn’t have waited that long before the incarnation
   – mass extinction and death before Jesus
   – god wouldn’t have allowed humans to have almost gone extinct a while back in africa
   – why insist that this wasteful and incompetent history of life is for us, that’s a bad design
   – the universe is so vast, why would god need so much space, that’s a bad design
   – there is too much destruction in the universe, like exploding stars – that’s a bad design
   – the heat death of the universe is a bad design
   – too many of the other planets don’t support life, that’s a bad design
   – the sun is going to become a red giant and incinerate us, that’s a bad design

3. hitchens’ burden of proof
   – there is no good reason that supports the existence of god
   – all arguments for god can be explained without god
   – atheists can’t prove there is no god
   – but they can prove there is no good argument for god

4. craig’s scientific arguments don’t go far enough, they only prove deism, not theism
   – the scientific arguments don’t prove prayer works
   – the scientific arguments don’t prove specific moral teachings of christianity

5. if the laws of physics are so great then miracles shouldn’t be allowed
   – good laws and miracles seem to be in contradiction

6. extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence
   – none of craig’s evidence was extraordinary

7. science can change, so craig can’t use the progress of science
   – it’s too early for craig to use the big bang and fine-tuning
   – the big bang and fine-tuning evidences are too new
   – they could be overturned by the progress of science

8. craig wrote in his book that the internal conviction of god’s existence should trump contradicting evidence
   – but then he isn’t forming his view based on evidence
   – he refuses to let evidence disprove his view
   – but then how can atheists be to blame if they don’t believe
   – so evidence is not really relevant to accepting theism

9. the progress of science has disproved religion
   – christianity taught that earth was center of the universe
   – but then cosmology disproved that

Response to the big bang and fine-tuning arguments:
– was there pre-existing material?
– who designed the designer?

WC first rebuttal:

Reiterates his 2 basic contentions

CH agrees that there is no good argument for atheism
– then all you’ve got is agnosticism
– because CH did not claim to know there is no God
– and he gave no arguments that there is no God

CH’s evolution argument
– irrelevant to christianity
– Genesis 1 allows for evolution to have occurred
– christianity is not committed to young earth creationism
– the origin of biological diversity is not central to christianity
– st. augustine in 300 AD said days can be long, special potencies unfold over time
– also there are scientific reasons to doubt evolution
– cites barrow and tipler, and they say:
– each of 10 steps in evolution is very improbable
– chances are so low, it would be a miracle if evolution occurred

CH’s argument that god is wasteful
– efficiency is only important to people with limited time or limited resources
– therefore god doesn’t need to be efficient

CH’s argument that god waits too long to send Jesus
– population was not that high before jesus
– jesus appears just before the exponential explosion of population
– conditions were stable – roman empire, peace, literacy, law, etc.

CH’s argument that Craig’s scientific arguments only prove deism, not theism
– deism a type of theism, so those scientific arguments work
– all that deism denies is miraculous intervention

CH’s argument that Craig has a burden of proof
– theism doesn’t need to be proven with certainty
– must only prove best explanation of the evidence

CH’s citation of Craig’s book saying that evidence should not overrule experience
– there is a difference between knowing and showing christianity is true
– knowing is by religious experience which is a properly basic belief
– showing is done through evidence, and there the evidence does matter

CH’s rebuttal to the big bang
– there was no pre-existent material
– space and time and matter came into being at the big bang
– the cause must be non-physical and eternal
– cause of universe outside of time means = cause of universe did not begin to exist
– this is the state of science today

CH’s rebuttal to the fine tuning
– CH says scientists are uncertain about the fine-tuning
– craig cites martin rees, an atheist, astronomer royal, to substantiate the fine tuning
– the fine-tuning is necessary for minimal requirements for life of any kind
– the progress of science is not going to dethrone the fine-tuning

CH’s argument about heat death of the universe
– duration of design is irrelevant to whether something was designed
– cars are designed, yet they break down
– design need not be optimal to be designed
– ch is saying why create if we all eventually go extinct
– but life doesn’t end in the grave on christianity

CH’s rebuttal to the moral argument
– CH says no obj moral values
– but CH uses them to argue against god and christians
– but CH has no foundation for a standard that applies to God and Christians

CH’s rebuttal to the resurrection argument
– empty tomb and appearances are virtually certain
– these are minimal facts, well evidenced using standard historical criteria
– best explanation of these minimal facts is the resurrection

CH’s rebuttal to religious experience
– prop basic belief is rational in the absence of defeaters
– so long as craig has no psychological deficiency, experience is admissible

CH first rebuttal:

it’s not agnosticism
– if there are no good arguments for theism
– then there is no reason for belief in god
– that is atheism
– everything can be explained without god

god wouldn’t have done it that way
– homo sapiens is 100K years old
– for 98K years, they had no communication from God
– lots of people died in childbirth
– disease and volcanos are a mystery to them
– life expectancy is very low
– they die terrible deaths
– their teeth are badly designed
– their genitalia are badly designed
– why solve the problem of sin by allowing a man to be tortured to death
– that’s a stupid, cruel, bumbling plan

lots of people haven’t even heard of jesus
– many of them die without knowing about him
– they cannot be held responsible if they do not know about jesus

the early success of christianity doesn’t prove christianity is true
– because then it applies to mormonism and islam, they’re growing fast

objective morality
– belief in a supreme dictator doesn’t improve moral behavior
– i can do moral actions that you can do
– i can repeat moral positions that you can say

religious people are immoral
– genital mutilation
– suicide bombing

moral behavior doesn’t need god
– we need to act moral for social cohesion
– it evolved for our survival
– that’s why people act morally
– it’s degrading to humans, and servile, to require god for morality

free will
– i believe in free will
– i don’t know why, because i can’t ground free will on atheism
– a bossy god seems to reduce free will because then we are accountable to god

WC cross-examination of CH:

WC why call yourself an atheist when you have no reasons?

CH because absence of belief is atheism

WC but agnosticism, atheism, verificationism all don’t hold that belief, which are you?

CH i think god does not exist

WC ok give me an argument for the claim you just made to know god does not exist

CH i have no argument, but i don’t believe in god because it depresses me to think he might be real

WC would you agree that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?

CH no i don’t agree

WC moral argument: it’s not epistemology it’s the ontology – have you got a foundation for moral values and duties?

CH i do not, it’s just evolution, an evolved standard based on social cohesion

CH cross-examination of WC:

CH you said that the historical reports of jesus doing exorcisms are generally accepted – do you believe in devils?

WC i commit to nothing, what I am saying there historical concensus on the reports that jesus did exorcisms

CH what about the devils going into the pigs, do you believe that?

WC yes i do, but the main point i’m making is that the historical reports show that jesus acted with divine authority

CH do you believe in the virgin birth?

WC yes, but that’s not historically provable using the minimal facts methods, and i did not use the virgin birth in my arguments tonight, because it doesn’t pass the historical tests to be a minimal fact

CH do you believe that all the graves opened and dead people all came out?

WC not sure if the author intended that part as apocalyptic imagery or as literal, i have no opinion on it, have not studied it

CH do exorcisms prove son of god?

WC no, i am only saying that the historical reports show that jesus exercised authority and put himself in the place of god

CH are any religions false? name one that’s false

WC islam

CH so some religions are wicked right?

WC yes

CH if a baby were born in saudi arabia would it be better if it were an atheist or a muslim?

WC i have no opinion on that

CH are any christian denominations wrong?

WC calvinism is wrong about some things, but they are still christians, i could be wrong about some things, i do the best i can studying theology so i’m not wrong

WC second rebuttal

Response to CH arguments:

no reasons for atheism
– no reasons to believe that god does not exist
– ch withholds belief in god

why wait so long before contacting humans with jesus
– population matters, not time – jesus waited until there was about to be a population explosion
– there is natural revelation (Romans 1) for those who lived before christ

what about those who never heard
– (Acts 17:22-31) god chooses the time and place of each person who is born to optimize their opportunity to know him based on how they will respond to evidence (this is called middle knowledge)
– those who haven’t heard will be judged based on general revelation

WC re-assess the state of his five arguments:

cosmological argument
– heat death of the universe won’t happen on christianity

moral argument
– if no objective moral standard, can’t judge other cultures as wrong
– no transcendent objective standard to be able to judge slavery as wrong

name an action argument
– e.g. – tithing
– the greatest command – love the lord your god your god with everything you’ve got
– atheists can’t do that, and that is the biggest commandment to follow

moral obligations
– there are no objective moral obligations for anyone on atheism
– on atheism, you feel obligated because of genetics and social pressure
– on atheism, we’re animals, and animals don’t have moral obligations

resurrection
– the belief in resurrection of 1 man, the messiah is totally unexpected on judaism
– they would not have made this up, it was unexpected

religious experience
– experience is valid in the absence of defeaters

CH second rebuttal:

faith and reason
– Tertullian says faith is better when it’s against reason

it’s easy to start a rumor with faith-based people
– mother teresa: to be canonized she needs to have done a miracle
– so there was a faked miracle report
– but everybody believes the fake miracle report!
– this proves that religious rumors are easy to start
– the resurrection could have started as a similar rumor by people wanting to believe it

name an action
– tithing is a religious action, i don’t have to do that

moral argument
– i can be as moral as you can without god
– i can say that other cultures are wrong, there i just said it
– without god, people would still be good, so god isn’t needed

religious people did bad things in history
– this church did a bad thing here
– that church did a bad thing there
– therfore god doesn’t exist

religion is the outcome of man’s struggle with natural phenomenon
– that is why there are so many religions

WC concluding speech

no arguments for atheism presented

What CH has said during the debate:
– god bad, mother teresa bad, religion bad

atheism is a worldview
– it claims to know the truth
– therefore it is exclusive of other views

what does theism explain
– theism explains a broad range of experiences
– origin of universe, CH has dropped the point
– fine-tuning, CH has dropped the point
– moral, CH says that humans are no different from animals – but an evolved standard is illusory, there are no actual moral values and standards, it’s just a genetic predisposition to act in a certain way – that’s not prescriptive morality
– resurrection, CH has dropped the point
– experience, craig tells his testimony and urges the audience to give it a shot

CH concluding speech

HITCHENS YIELDS HIS ENTIRE CONCLUDING SPEECH!

A question & answer Period followed end of the formal debate

Further study

Check out my analysis of the 11 arguments Hitchens made in his opening speech in his debate with Frank Turek.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument
• The unexpected applicability of mathematics to nature
• Six reasons why you should believe in non-physical minds
• William Lane Craig’s case for the resurrection of Jesus

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A strange thing about the secular left. You would expect them to want to be concerned about the safety of people who live in high crime areas. These people are often too poor to afford to move to safer neighborhoods. But if you look closely at the policies of secular left candidates like Harris and Walz, you see that they tend to take the side of criminals.

Here is an article from the New York Post about how crime rates have changed after nearly 4 years of Biden-Harris:

Last month, new FBI data showed that reported serious violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) fell by 3.5% in 2023.

But at the same time — and much more quietly — the FBI revised its earlier data for 2022, turning a reported decrease into a worrisome increase in violent crime.

Last year, the media trumpeted the FBI’s claim that reported violent crime had fallen in 2022 by 2.1%.

But now the FBI admits that violent crime rose in 2022 instead, by 4.5% — off by 6.6 percentage points.

Although the Biden-Harris regime likes to quote FBI crime data, that data is based on crimes that are reported to the police. Many crimes are not reported to the police. There is another survey conducted by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. It’s called the 2023 National Crime Victimization Survey. They interviewed 240,000 to see if they were impacted by crime. And the latest report says this:

Instead of the FBI’s 3.5% drop in serious violent crime, the NCVS found a 4.1% increase in violent crime victimization from 2022 to 2023.

While the FBI claims that serious violent crime has fallen by 5.8% since Biden took office, the NCVS numbers show that total violent crime has risen by an incredible 55.4%. Rapes were up by 42%, robbery by 63%, and aggravated assault by 55% during his term.

The increases shown by the NCVS during the Biden-Harris administration are by far the largest percentage increases over any other three-year period, more than doubling the previous record.

Here’s another article about crime from illegal immigration, reported in RealClear Politics:

The new data on all the criminal noncitizens coming into the U.S. is shocking.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checks the background of illegal aliens they have in custody. But, the administration’s letter to Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) shows that as of July 21, 2024, ICE let 435,719 convicted criminals and 226,847 people with pending criminal charges in their home countries into the U.S.

[…]About 7.4 million noncitizens are in the “national docket data,” so 662,776 is 9% of the total, and if one extrapolates the numbers to the homicide rate in this country, it strongly indicates that the government is letting migrants into this country who commit murder at a rate 50% higher than the rest of the U.S. population.

And these numbers clearly underestimate the crime rate of these noncitizens. The noncitizens in the “national docket data” turned themselves in to border agents for processing or were caught. Those who don’t turn themselves in are obviously far more likely to have something to hide from those doing the processing, so-called “gotaways,” who are observed illegally entering the U.S. but not caught or turned back.

These figures coincide with other data from the Arizona prison system and show illegal aliens commit crime at much higher rates than Americans or legal immigrants.

Now, you would expect elected representatives who are paid by taxpayers to allow those taxpayers to own legal firearms and to defend themselves from criminals without being persecuted. Sadly, there’s no reason to think that a Harris-Walz regime would be supportive of law-abiding citizens owning weapons, or defending themselves from criminals.

This new article from the Daily Caller talks about how the Republican party is trying to appeal to gun owners to vote in the election, so they can avoid gun confiscation and facing criminal charges for self-defense against criminals:

According to Vote4America, more than 10 million gun owners across the country are not registered to vote.

[…]For Republicans, these figures can be perplexing, but gun owners explained to the Caller that there is skepticism towards voting and politics as a whole in the community. Some believe that because they don’t want the government in their business, then they shouldn’t get involved by voting.

Personally, I know a lot of men like this. We have them in Christianity. These are the same people who try to do whatever involves the least amount of work, but they want to sound pious about it. They don’t want to read apologetics books, but they instead cherry pick from the Bible in order to make their laziness and ignorance sound pious and holy. The same thing is happening with many male gun owners. They want to drink beer and watch football, but they also want to say words that make you think that they are patriotic. Their apathy will actually result in the end of the second amendment. Infuriating! But for now, let’s just focus on getting them to vote, so we can save the Republic.

So how do Republican candidates intend to solve this apathy?

To carry its message, Hunter Nation, alongside the NRA, has partnered with celebrities such as Ted Nugent, Donald Trump Jr. (a prominent hunting enthusiast) and the Duck Dynasty organization, Mark told the Caller. Similarly, Vote4America has teamed up with pro-gun personalities like Brooke Ence, Shawn Ryan, Andy Stumpf, Andy Frisella, Dan Hollaway, Shermichael Singleton, and Jason Alden to encourage gun owners to vote, senior adviser Baker Leavitt told the Caller.

Mark expects these types of partnerships to pay off in a big way.

In Wisconsin, according to Hunter Nation’s data, 416,085 gun owners are low-propensity, at risk or newly-registered voters. Of that total, the organization expects to turn out 54,196, Mark said. Biden won the state in 2020 by 20,600 votes.

In Michigan, the number of those potential voters is 452,471. The organization is estimating that it will turn out 70,142 in the 2024 election. Biden won the state in 2020 by 154,000 votes.

The organization also expects to have a big impact in Georgia, where Biden won by about 11,000 votes in 2020. Hunter Nation hopes to turn out 122,913 of the state’s more than 825,000 low-propensity or newly-registered gun owners, Mark said.

In perhaps the election’s most critical state, Pennsylvania, which Biden previously won by about 80,000 votes, the hunting group says their campaign projects to turn out at least 58,000 low-propensity gun owners.

I like this approach, because it’s doing something to solve the problem. I hope that the Republicans can convince these second amendment non-voters to vote. If they can’t, then the second amendment people are going to find out real quick what their apathy costs them.

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A couple of weeks ago, I was doing some searches to try to find the policy positions of the candidates. I started using Google, in order to get the latest news. But I just got pages and pages of far-left corporate news propaganda. But is there any hard evidence that Google intentionally designs their products and services to benefit the Democrat party at election time?

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Post:

While Congressional Republicans were hammering Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey for censoring conservatives on their platforms, Google’s executives sat back smugly, confident that their obscene censorship schemes went undetected.

But our organization, the Media Research Center, and others have shown that Google is the most effective weapon in the left’s arsenal — the one that gets its candidates across the finish line.

In the last presidential election, Google swayed anywhere from six to eight million votes in favor of Joe Biden.

MRC’s studies over a 12-month period consistently showed that Google completely buried Republican campaign websites in favor of their Democrat opponents.

Here’s what happened during the GOP primaries for this election:

During the presidential primary contests, MRC conducted studies searching for the campaign websites for both Democrats and Republicans.

Not surprisingly, when MRC searched for “democrat presidential campaign websites,” Biden’s campaign site was always the first or second search result.

But the results were very different when searching for the Republican campaign websites.

Shockingly, Google only produced a total of two sites: one for Democrat Marianne Williamson and another for Will Hurd, a little-known Congressman who never polled above 1%.

Google would not produce the campaign websites for Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy or the other eleven candidates.

And here’s what’s going on right now:

In our latest study, we show that Google is finally revealing Trump’s website, albeit, still lower than Harris’.

But a user is now required to wade through a flood of news articles, almost all hostile to Trump, before ever reaching either candidate’s website.

[…]Congressional Republicans and several state Attorneys General understand that Google is weaponized against Republicans and uses its corporate resources to help Democrats.

It is not illegal for a corporation to use its resources to influence the outcome of an election.

But it is against the law when a corporation does not disclose its efforts with the Federal Election Commission.

And this is the conclusion, which should be shocking to you:

Google is either illegally coordinating with the Harris campaign, or if its expenditures are independent, it is unlawfully failing to file its disclosure reports.

Congress should find out which it is.

In another recent article, the Media Research Center tried using Google to search for JD Vance, after the VP candidate debate:

The morning after the debate, MRC Free Speech America conducted a search in the Google News tab for “jd vance.” MRC analysis revealed that 100 percent of the results came from outlets with a leftist political bias. Google News tab did not display a single article from an outlet that did not have a predominantly leftist political bias.

And what about the “fact checkers” that are used by big social media sites like Facebook and Instagram to censor content? Well, those fact checkers are just more journalists, like the ones who work for NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

The Media Research Center reports:

Donald Trump was fact-checked 42 times from April to September, and none were on the True side, two were Half True, and 40 were Mostly False or worse. Forty to zero. Does that look nonpartisan to anyone? Add in the first quarter, and it’s 57 to 0. Fully 15 of the 40 new False verdicts were the worst designation of “Pants On Fire,” falling just short of the 17 False rulings.

From April to September, President Biden was checked 19 times, and he was on the True side as often as the False side, seven and seven (with five Half Trues). For the year, it’s nine on the True side and 11 on the False side (10 Half Trues).

In that time frame, Kamala Harris was checked 17 times, and she was rated as True or Mostly True on six occasions, and as Mostly False or worse on eight occasions (six Mostly False, two False). She had three Half Trues. For the year, it’s eight on the True side and nine on the False side (three Half Trues).

Biden drew zero “Pants on Fire” warnings this year, and has only seven of those in the entire history of PolitiFact going back to 2007 (just one during his presidency). Kamala Harris has zero overall, and she was first elected statewide in California in 2010. Trump currently has 201. This is where you can see PolitiFact’s editorial aggression, since Newt Gingrich has only twelve. Bernie Sanders has a perfect zero like Kamala.

In the April to September time frame, Republicans were whacked as “Pants on Fire” 19 times, and the Democrats only once. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker drew one — for saying on ABC’s This Week that J.D. Vance is “getting known for his obsession with couches.”

Please be careful about where you get your news. My choices for good news web sites are Daily Signal and Christian Post. I also look at Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon and sometimes The Federalist.

By the way, I’ve start using StartPage as my search enginer, and it’s so fun to see this blog appearing in the first page of results when I search for something that I specifically wrote about. I remember when Google used to work like that. But when Trump won in 2016, that all changed. I used to get over 1000 searches a day coming to this blog. Now it’s about 1% of that per day.

And if you want to try an alternative to StartPage, try Qwant.

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If I had to think about one trend that is really causing me to doubt the morality of the secular left, it’s their continued support for transing children. I can understand why they think that unborn children are too small to care about. That’s why they support abortion. But I just can’t understand why they want to mislead children into a life of suffering just to make “a lot of money”.

Take a look at this article from the Daily Caller:

U.S. hospitals charged nearly $120 million over five years for sex-change procedures performed on around 14,000 children, according to new data compiled by medical watchdog Do No Harm.

The first-of-its-kind database, which logs sex-change procedures given to children nationwide between 2019 and 2023, catalogs a total of 5,747 minors who underwent sex-change surgeries, along with 8,579 who obtained puberty blockers or cross sex hormones.

Do No Harm believes the problem is likely even bigger than the data shows. The numbers, which are drawn from insurance claims data across all 50 states, do not include self-pay, charity payments, internal Veterans Affairs claims or patients covered by Kaiser Health Plans.

To create its dataset, the watchdog group matched gender-related diagnosis codes with codes for procedures related to gender transitions, such as body modification surgeries, cross sex hormones and puberty blockers.

Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb said during a press call that the database should dispel myths that these procedures are a “rare” event or localized to a few places.

In case you missed my previous post about what secular leftists in the medical field think they are doing, their motivation is very simple.

This article from the Daily Wire explains it:

“It’s a lot of money,” VUMC Clinic for Transgender Health’s Dr. Shayne Sebold Taylor said at one Medicine Grand Rounds lecture, video reveals. “These surgeries make a lot of money.”

Taylor noted that a “chest reconstruction” can bring in $40,000 per patient, and someone “just on routine hormone treatment, who I’m only seeing a few times a year, can bring in several thousand dollars … and actually makes money for the hospital.”

Citing the Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, Taylor said vaginoplasty surgeries can generate $20,000, gushing that it “has to be an underestimate,” since hospital stay, anesthesia, post-op visits, and other add-ons are not included in the total.

“And the female-to-male bottom surgeries, these are huge money makers,” the doctor continued, adding that such surgeries could bring in “up to $100,000” for the hospital.

Some clinics are “entirely” “supported” financially by such phalloplasty surgeries, Taylor boasted.

“These surgeries are labor intensive, there are a lot of follow-ups, they require a lot of our time, and they make money,” she emphasized. “They make money for the hospital.”

They’re saying “it’s a lot of money” but can’t we do something to help kids other than give them dangerous drugs and violent mutilation? Seriously. It’s better to just talk things out with children who, for one reason or another, clearly have mental issues that need care and therapy. I don’t know why our response to the problems of kids is always to do what’s best for the (greedy) adults who want “money for the hospital”.

How should we fix this? Well, Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti seems to be doing a pretty good job of doing things the right way – by winning case after case.

The Daily Signal explains:

Skrmetti has been at the forefront of battles with progressives over gender ideology, most notably foiling the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed Title IX changes.

The administration’s adjustments would have mandated that biological boys be allowed to play girls sports at school and to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms, among other things.

Despite facing several challenges from the Biden-Harris Justice Department, Skrmetti successfully defended Tennessee’s ban on so-called gender-affirming care for children. This is the case pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The attorney general also won a U.S. District Court case against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which sought to mandate that medical providers perform, and insurers cover, some sex-change procedures.

Skrmetti also went to the District Court as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to successfully defend Tennessee’s policy forbidding a change in the biological sex listed on birth certificates.

Regarding that case pending at the Supreme Court, the Biden administration is going after Tennessee for banning irreversible, unproven medical procedures on children.

Skrmetti tweeted this out on Tuesday:

“The people of Tennessee, through their elected representatives, took measured action with Senate Bill 1 to protect kids from irreversible, unproven medical procedures. Lawmakers recognized that there is little to no credible evidence to justify the serious risks these procedures present to youth and joined a growing number of European countries in restricting their use on minors with gender-identity issues. The federal government, in its arguments to the Supreme Court, puts its faith in a false and manufactured consensus that ignores the many doctors, States, and countries who have looked at the evidence and determined these treatments are too risky for kids. The Constitution does not prevent the States from regulating the practice of medicine where hot-button social issues are concerned. People who disagree with restrictions on irreversible pediatric procedures for gender transition are free to advocate for change through state elections.”

Keep an eye on Tennessee’s attorney general and this Supreme Court case. If anyone can save these poor kids from the greed of the secular left, it’s him. And if you’re still living and paying taxes in these blue states that support these procedures, then maybe it’s time to think about moving to a better state.

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Following up on my post from yesterday, I found two more articles showing what poor service we get for our tax dollars from secular leftists. Yesterday, we saw how FEMA was getting in the way of Elon Musk giving aid to hurricane victims, and how FEMA had wasted all their money on illegal immigrant welfare, and how the Democrats would benefit from not helping the hurricane victims at all.

Today, let’s look at a couple of articles from the New York Post. I have to give credit to Dr. Frank Turek for finding both of these articles and posting them on Twitter. If you are not following him, you really should. He tweets a nice mix of apologetics and policy.

Here is Frank’s Twitter account.

First article: (Frank’s tweet)

In FEMA’s alphabet, DEI comes first.

A startling 2023 FEMA webinar features federal health and disaster personnel trumpeting the urgent need to move away from policies that benefit the greatest number of people and instead turn focus toward “disaster equity” where aid is distributed based on innate characteristics like sexual orientation and gender identity.

[…]The initiatives raised at the panel discussion echo many of those on FEMA’s own website, which proudly proclaims instilling “equity as a foundation of emergency management” as goal 1.

“Underserved communities, as well as specific identity groups, often suffer disproportionately from disasters. As a result, disasters worsen inequities already present in society,” the declaration reads in part.

Maybe, as a taxpayer, you thought that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would occupy itself with… emergency management. But that’s not the case. Secular leftists don’t have a rational grounding for morality. When you put them in charge of anything, they don’t see it as their job to serve others. They see their job as looking after themselves – their feelings, and their approval from peers. When you give them money, they don’t solve problems with it. They just use it to virtue signal and buy the approval of their friends. This is why it’s a waste of money to elect secular leftists. They can watch the Black Lives Matter and Antifa domestic terrorists run up 1-2 BILLION dollars in damages, and then turn around and focus on pre-dawn raiding the homes of peaceful pro-lifers with armored vehicles and fully-automatic assault rifles.

Here’s the second article. (Frank’s tweet)

Hundreds of special operations personnel in North Carolina have formed their own homegrown rescue and supply operation in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene after they grew tired of waiting for the federal government to get its act together.

The Post found an all-volunteer operation being run out of a Harley-Davidson dealership with ruthless efficiency and military precision.

“Who’s FEMA?” ex-Green Beret Adam Smith derisively responded when asked about the agency’s presence on the ground since the deadly storm ravaged the rural western part of the state.

“This disaster has definitively proven without a shadow of a doubt FEMA’s incompetence and incapability,” he said, noting that the agency didn’t even show up until Thursday — almost a week after the storm that has killed at least 232, nearly half of them in the mountainous west of the Tar Heel State.

[…]They’re using their own aircraft to fly doctors, medicine, generators, fuel and food to isolated residents cut off from the world by the unprecedented floods to washed out mountain roads and wiped entire towns off the map.

[…]Now that the effort has taken on a life of its own, Smith and others leading the operation have gone from cursing FEMA for its absence to hoping they never come back.

Smith said he fears their carefully calibrated rescue mission will be bogged down with governmental red tape if the feds show up.

“Nobody out here wants the federal agencies to come in. FEMA has walked into operations centers like this and has attempted to just take over and tell them what they’re doing is illegal and they’re not allowed to keep going. I’ve seen it firsthand in this area,” Smith told The Post.

“My biggest fear is they’ll move into the area and in the process they’ll reinvent the wheel and rebuild the entire process.”

Smith said he’s even directly told agencies to stay away.

“I’ve respectfully told FEMA individuals on a couple of different occasions, ‘don’t come to our location, we don’t want your help.’”

In just a few days, the “Redneck Air Force” has evolved from surveying road damage and going door-to-door on horseback to the military-scale operation that stands today.

With the group’s rescue operations now complete, they’ve turned their attention to flying supplies to communities cut off from communication and electricity.

By the way, if you are in the Charlotte / Rock Hill area, and would like to attend a really good apologetics conference, check out the Southern Evangelical Seminary National Apologetics conference this Friday and Saturday. It features a few of the recent guests we’ve had on the Knight and Rose Show: Fuz Rana, Casey Luskin and Frank Turek.

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On the weekend, I noticed a number of disturbing reports of aid to hurricane victims being blocked by FEMA. Also, FEMA claims that they don’t have the money to help hurricane victims. Did they spend all the taxpayer’s money on illegal immigrants? We’ll see. And finally, I saw people floating theories about why the Democrats might want to block aid to rural voters in Tennessee and North Carolina.

The first article is from Fox Business:

Elon Musk on Friday slammed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), claiming that it is blocking shipments of Starlink satellite internet deliveries in hurricane-ravaged North Carolina.

“FEMA is not merely failing to adequately help people in trouble, but is actively blocking citizens who try to help!” the billionaire claimed on X.

Musk said he had just received a note from a SpaceX engineer, Starlink’s parent company, in Asheville, North Carolina, who said the company has “powered up two large operating bases for choppers to deliver goods into hands. We’ve deployed 300+ starlinks and outpour is it has saved many lives.”

But Musk said the engineer claimed that FEMA is “actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own. It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping. We are blocked now on the shipments of new starlinks coming in until we get an escort from the fire dept. but that may not be enough.”

This second article is from New York Post:

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas set off outrage Wednesday when he told reporters that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “does not have the funds” to see Americans through the rest of this Atlantic hurricane season — after the agency spent more than $1.4 billion since the fall of 2022 to address the migrant crisis.

[…]Critics pointed out that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allocated $640.9 million this year in FEMA-administered funds to aid state and local governments coping with the influx of asylum seekers — though Mayorkas’ office fired back late Thursday, insisting that those funds couldn’t be used for hurricane relief because Congress authorized them specifically for the migrant crisis.

The third article is from Daily Signal:

Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on the deepest red areas of North Carolina. Hundreds are dead and missing in the region. Destroyed roads and bridges and lack of water and electricity will make voting a challenge in a region that contributed a net of 231,000 votes for Donald Trump’s 2020 margin of 74,000 votes in the state.

[…]However, the concern is that measures designed to help voters in hurricane-affected areas might be applied across the state, particularly in densely populated regions that are less affected, creating the potential for partisan advantage. There is a high probability of a sue-and-settle lawsuit on 14th Amendment equal protection grounds brought by the likes of Marc Elias that would argue that loosened voting rules in the West must be applied evenly throughout North Carolina—even in urban areas untouched by the hurricane. This was the same tactic used successfully in 2020 with COVID-19 as the excuse to change election rules.

[…]If Vice President Kamala Harris flips North Carolina, she wins the White House.

The GOP, recognizing these concerns, is mobilizing the state Legislature to push back against some of these changes. However, with early voting fast approaching, the Republican effort faces a race against time. There is also uncertainty about what additional changes may be implemented by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper or the North Carolina State Board of Elections, potentially bypassing the Legislature entirely.

This reminds me of the words of Rahm Emanuel, former Chicago mayor and chief of staff to President Barack Obama: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

Indeed. That’s how the Democrats in government often see their responsibilities to the people who pay their salaries.

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Here are 8 of my favorite Bible verses. Leave yours in the comments below.

Psalm 27:14:

11 Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a level path
Because of my foes.

12 Do not deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries,
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.

13 I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.

14 Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.

1 Corinthians 4:2:

1 This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.

4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

5 Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.

Matthew 5:13:

10 “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;

15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

2 Timothy 2:4:

1 You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2 The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses,entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

3 Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

5 Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.

Daniel 3:18:

13 Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and anger gave orders to bring Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego; then these men were brought before the king.

14 Nebuchadnezzar responded and said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up?

15 Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery and bagpipe and all kinds of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, very well. But if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?”

16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter.

17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire;and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king.

18 But even if He does not,let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

Esther 4:14:

10 Then Esther spoke to Hathach and ordered him to reply to Mordecai:

11 “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that for any man or woman who comes to the king to the inner court who is not summoned, he has but one law, that he be put to death, unless the king holds out to him the golden scepter so that he may live. And I have not been summoned to come to the king for these thirty days.”

12 They related Esther’s words to Mordecai.

13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews.

14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”

Philippians 1:9:

3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,

4 always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all,

5 in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.

6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

7 For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me.

8 For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,

10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;

11 having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Numbers 13:30:

25 When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days,

26 they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

27 Thus they told him, and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.

28 Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.

29 Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”

30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.”

If you have a favorite Bible verse or two, post them in the comments.

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I’m re-posting this old post from 2022, to celebrate having my post about how to deal with your regrets censored by Facebook as “spam” this week. Just want to remind everyone how Zuck interferes with elections to help the Democrat party.

We have an election this year, and now seems like a good time to remind everyone about Facebook’s bias in favor of the Democrat party. Take a look at this article from The Federalist.

It says:

Nearly $9 million in Zuckerberg grant funds directed solely to five Democratic strongholds in Wisconsin violated the state’s election code’s prohibition on bribery. That conclusion represents but one of the many troubling findings detailed in the report submitted today by a state-appointed special counsel to the Wisconsin Assembly.

[…]The first unlawful action, according to the report, concerned the payment of grant funds to five Wisconsin counties that were used to facilitate voting. That arrangement, Gableman wrote, violated Wis. Stat. § 12.11, which prohibits election bribery by providing it is illegal to offer anything of value to or for any person in order to induce any elector to go to the polls or vote.

According to the report, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg providing financing that allowed the Center for Tech and Civic Life to offer nearly $9 million in “Zuck Bucks” to Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay counties. In exchange, the “Zuckerberg 5,” as the report called the counties, in effect, operated Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts. Those grant funds then paid for illegal drop boxes to be placed in Democratic voting strongholds.

A week ago, Facebook was in trouble again for meddling in elections.

The Washington Examiner reported:

Facebook blocked Texas GOP gubernatorial candidate Chad Prather from accessing his page on the site only eight days before the primary election.

Prather told the Washington Examiner the ban resulted from a months-old comment discussing the events of Jan 6. A commentator, who Prather confirmed tends to “spam” his page and “comments nonstop,” called the events of the day an “insurrection.”

Prather responded by pointing out that even the FBI didn’t classify the event as an insurrection, further accusing the commentator of using “victimhood” in her favor.

As a result, Facebook banned him for “bullying.”

Facebook notified Prather he was banned from his page for seven days starting Feb 21. The primary election is March 1.

“They silenced my campaign on Facebook,” Prather said. “This is illegal. This is interference. This is absolutely a travesty to the political process of free and fair elections.”

Facebook / Meta uses partisan “fact-checkers” (censors) like Lead Stories, Politifact, etc. to suppress ideas that support the Republican party.

Here’s the about Politifact, reported by The Blaze:

Fact-checking website PolitiFact recently engaged in some head-scratching analysis in an attempt to discredit a claim made by Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo — but ended up doing the exact opposite.

[…]Bartiromo said this: “The United States is also reliant on Russian oil — we have doubled our imports from Russia in the last year. So, [there’s] no question why President Biden is begging OPEC and others to pump more oil.”

[…]In a Monday column, PolitiFact parachuted in to assess Bartiromo’s claim that the U.S. doubled oil imports from Russia as “mostly false.”

Normally, oil imports and energy imports — which include refined products — are categorized separately. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, which PolitiFact cites multiple times, shows as much by breaking down crude oil imports in a separate chart.

A spokesperson for Bartiromo evidently explained this to PolitiFact, resulting in the fact-checker admitting, “The U.S. more than doubled its crude oil imports from Russia, to about 208,000 barrels a day in the first 11 months of 2021, from 76,000 barrels a day in 2020.”

Amazingly, that wasn’t enough for the fact-checker to change its assessment, even while it openly admitted that Bartiromo’s specific claim was accurate.

The author of that “fact check” has a degree in English. ENGLISH. That’s the kind of imbecile that Facebook / Meta uses to censor conservatives, especially before elections.

Although Donald Trump was President for four years, he didn’t do much to rein in the power of Big Tech. But there are other Republicans running for President in 2024 who are taking action.

News Max reports:

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Florida, has directed state officials to investigate Facebook for alleged election interference, it was announced Monday.

The governor’s action came after a report that Facebook possibly influenced numerous state and local races by exempting elite users from the social platform’s own rules.

“It’s no secret that Big Tech censors have long enforced their own rules inconsistently,” DeSantis said in a statement released by his office. “If this new report is true, Facebook has violated Florida law to put its thumb on the scale of numerous state and local races.”

[…]”Floridians deserve to know how much this corporate titan has influenced our elections,” he said. “That is why I am directing Secretary Lee to use all legal means to uncover violations of Florida’s election laws.

“The thought of Facebook clandestinely manipulating elections is an affront to the basic principles of our republic. We the people have the right to choose our representatives, whether or not Silicon Valley approves.”

On this blog, I’ve documented a long line of disturbing anti-American behavior by Facebook / Meta. We have an election coming up, and I don’t want to lose because of Big Tech interference. Make sure everyone knows what Facebook / Meta does.

Related posts

• Peer-reviewed medical journal blasts Facebook “fact checkers” for censorship
• Facebook has a long record of censoring speech critical of Democrats
• Facebook fact-checker caught plagiarizing 54 articles
• Facebook “non-partisan” fact-checker revealed to be a far-left Trump-hating Democrat
• Facebook “fact-checker” Politifact forced to retract “false” rating against Candace Owens
• When Facebook fact-checkers conflict with peer-reviewed studies, who is right?
• Potential violation of election law: Facebook and Twitter censor Biden scandal
• Facebook and Google removing content that harms Democrat party
• Facebook censors interview with abortion survivor to help Democrats win 2020 election
• Facebook uses pro-abortion “fact checkers” to label pro-life pages “fake news”
• Facebook bans Christian apologist David Wood for posting the death threats he received
• Facebook censors criticism of Democrat Party, especially before “important elections”
• Spotify joins Google, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter in censoring Prager University
• Facebook bans Franklin Graham for “hate speech”, Google YouTube shadow-bans pro-life videos
• Facebook, Amazon, Google and Twitter ally with leftist group linked to domestic terrorism
• Facebook enlists left-wing Politifact and Snopes to censor criticism of Democrats

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Since Mark Zuckerberg decided to BAN yesterday’s post on Facebook, I decided to remind everyone about his $400 million of donations to “get out the vote” groups that had connections to the far-left. He was recently questioned about it in the House of Representatives by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan. How did he respond?

Here’s the article from the New York Post.

It says:

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an organization led by Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, gave more than $350 million to the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) on the pretense of getting out the vote to everyone.

But the administrators of those groups had deep ties to the left, researchers told The Post, including CTCL founder Tiana Epps-Johnson, a former Obama Foundation fellow.

A study was done on how the money was spent, and here is Hayden Ludwig, director of research at Restoration News, to explain it.

The people who founded CTCL come from a defunct group called the New Organizing Institute, Ludwig notes. And back in 2014, CNN quoted a GOP operative who called the New Organizing Institute “the Left’s New Death Star.”

“These were people whose entire jobs were figuring out how to elect Democrats. Personally I think he went home and quietly congratulated himself on helping get Joe Biden elected. He found a big loophole and put $350 million into it,” Ludwig says.

The Zuck Bucks were overwhelmingly spent in Democrat-leaning counties, to get out their votes. Especially the ones that were expecting close races.

An analysis shows that Zuck Bucks were disproportionately spent getting out the vote in Democratic-leaning counties in Georgia, which Biden won by just 12,000 votes.

The same thing happened in Arizona, where Biden won by 10,000.

According to the Foundation for Government Accountability, Georgia received more than $31 million in Zuck Bucks for the general election alone, one of the highest amounts in the country.

It worked out to nearly 9 percent of all Zuckerberg funding, even though Georgia has just over 3 percent of the country’s population.

A county-by-county analysis in Georgia by the Foundation for Government Accountability revealed a spend of between $7 and $15 in Zuck Bucks per voter in six of the largest counties in the state, which were all won by Biden.

Meanwhile, there was a spend of $1 to $3 per voter in the top six counties won by Donald Trump.

In Wisconsin, which had previously voted for Trump, the CTCL spent $47 per voter in Green Bay, when normally the legislature spent $7 per voter there and $4 in rural areas of the state.

[…]“We looked at 8 or 9 battleground states and in every state we looked at we found the same pattern. CTCL cut checks that per person were significantly larger in big blue Democrat cities compared with rural Republican counties.

“Wisconsin CTCL grants averaged $3.75 per person in Biden counties versus 55 cents in Trump counties. The bottom line is that all this Zuckerberg money boosted turnout everywhere but it boosted turnout the highest in these big blue cities who got massive Zuck bucks from CTCL.”

Facebook has become a trash website, where stories that tells the truth about the Democrat party are marked as false news and disinformation. At the same time, stories that lie about the Republican party are marked as true and reliable.

When you look at Zuckerberg and his far-left wife’s donations, it becomes obvious what happened.

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Recently, I posted a dating ad from a 39-year-old never-married single mother. She explained that she was now a Christian and was looking for a man to marry her, so that she could have a second child “the right way”. Some people thought we should take her conversion at face value. Others thought she was desperate and looking for a financial bailout. How can we tell if she is really sincere?

Well, I was still thinking about the comments on that post when I saw another great post from Laura, who writes at An Affair With Reason. Her post is about the feelings of regret that people have because of their past mistakes, and how Christians should deal with those regrets.

She writes:

As I thought about what to write I became distressed, sorrowful, angry, and even despondent over some of my own decisions. As I sobbed inconsolably, I noticed that every caustic thought began with, “If only….” That’s when I realized I was still carrying the burden of regret and I didn’t know how to let go. It wasn’t that I still needed God’s forgiveness or that I had any doubts about my standing with him; I knew I was forgiven. It was the lifelong consequences that I experience to this day which embittered my soul and squelched my joy.

The “if onlys” are a heavy burden to carry. They represent shattered dreams that will never be recovered in this life. They invoke feelings of discontentment, grief, and doubt. They cause us to sob with regret for what could have been, to pray for second chances that we know will not be granted.

So what do we do with the regrets that we must live with for the rest of our lives? Lately, as I’ve reflected on conversations I’ve had with many women who have made regretful decisions over the years and on the direction of our culture, I’ve noticed two very distinct paths:

1. Attempt to assuage our own guilt and regret by convincing others to make the same foolish, and even sinful, decisions we made.

OR

1. Humble ourselves, grieve our losses, and commit to teaching the younger generations to choose a better way.

The first path is the wide and well-traveled one. Tragically and despicably, most people today seek to justify themselves and ease their consciences by getting others on board with their own ignorance, foolishness, and sinfulness.

She’s got quite a few examples of the kinds of regrets that men and women have, and different ways of dealing with those regrets. Some ways self-serving, others God-serving. Her examples are really interesting. It reminds me of “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis, where he explains why some people don’t resist God, and others do. Some people want to justify the past, and keep making decisions to benefit themselves. Others want to serve God. They want to take on the difficult work of opening up to others, and loving them by telling them the truth.

When I hear someone with a past say that they have now become a Christian, I normally ask “is this conversion just convenient for you or is it the result of some process where your mind was changed through study?” You can ask the person to show their work – how did they get to the right answer? And what has becoming a Christian cost them? How does it affect their relationships with non-Christians?

People “convert to Christianity” all the time based on need. Sometimes they’re trying to get something for themselves, e.g. – wanting to not be judged for their past, so they can attract a partner to financially support them. But other people spend years reading books and changing their minds page by page, debate by debate. Then they put their knowledge into practice.

I have mentored women who did this. One girl who contacted me through the blog wasn’t able to talk to her smart atheist brother about her faith. Then, she read a bunch of apologetics books about science and history, then called me and slipped the phone into her pocket and let me listen to her make a bold, informed stand for her Christian worldview for two hours. She won every point.

When people really become Christians, they don’t do it in order to be happy and or to be liked. They take on work, and they take on shame, because they have a Boss now. That’s how you can tell that real repentance has taken place. The letters of Paul in the New Testament are filled with advice for Christians who want to be bold, put themselves second, and advocate for their Boss. You should read them. When you read the Bible, try to put aside your feelings, your desires, and your concerns about what people will think. You’ll find that putting work for the Boss ahead of what you want is worth the price of being “second”. I would start with Philippians, then go on to 1 Peter.

By the way, this isn’t the first time I’ve linked to Laura’s posts. Here are some of the other times I’ve linked to her work on my blog: on voting, on Islam, on mentoring boys, on fighting with pastors, on learning what works when dealing with atheists. She had a 10 part series advising women how to choose a husband, which really made me feel good as a man. Today, most people see a husband as an accessory – like a handbag. He’s there to provide, or to be a handyman, or to complain at if the wife is unhappy. Men should read that series, and find out what we can do in a marriage, if we are valued for our distinctive male nature.

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This post presents evidence against Mormonism/LDS in three main areas. The first is in the area of science. The second is in the area of philosophy. And the third is in the area of history.

The scientific evidence

First, let’s take a look at what the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, believes about the origin of the universe:

“The elements are eternal. That which had a beggining will surely have an end; take a ring, it is without beggining or end – cut it for a beggining place and at the same time you have an ending place.” (“Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, p. 205)

“Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos – chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existance from the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beggining, and can have no end.”
(“Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, p. 395)

A Mormon scholar named Blake Ostler summarizes the Mormon view in a Mormon theological journal:

“In contrast to the self-sufficient and solitary absolute who creates ex nihilo (out of nothing), the Mormon God did not bring into being the ultimate constituents of the cosmos — neither its fundamental matter nor the space/time matrix which defines it. Hence, unlike the Necessary Being of classical theology who alone could not not exist and on which all else is contingent for existence, the personal God of Mormonism confronts uncreated realities which exist of metaphysical necessity. Such realities include inherently self-directing selves (intelligences), primordial elements (mass/energy), the natural laws which structure reality, and moral principles grounded in the intrinsic value of selves and the requirements for growth and happiness.” (Blake Ostler, “The Mormon Concept of God,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17 (Summer 1984):65-93)

So, Mormons believe in an eternally existing universe, such that matter was never created out of nothing, and will never be destroyed. But this is at odds with modern cosmology.

The Big Bang cosmology is the most widely accepted cosmology of the day. It denies the past eternality of the universe. This peer-reviewed paper in an astrophysics journal explains. (full text here)

Excerpt:

The standard Big Bang model thus describes a universe which is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover,–and this deserves underscoring–the origin it posits is an absolute origin ex nihilo. For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As Barrow and Tipler emphasize, “At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo.”

[…]On such a model the universe originates ex nihilo in the sense that at the initial singularity it is true that There is no earlier space-time point or it is false that Something existed prior to the singularity.

Christian cosmology requires such a creation out of nothing, but this is clearly incompatible with what Mormons believe about the universe. The claims about the universe made by the two religions are in disagreement, and we can test empirically to see who is right, using science.

Philosophical problems

Always Have a Reason contrasts two concepts of God in Mormonism: Monarchotheism and Polytheism. It turns out that Mormonism is actually a polytheistic religion, like Hinduism. In Mormonism, humans can become God and then be God of their own planet. So there are many Gods in Mormonism, not just one.

Excerpt:

[T]he notion that there are innumerable contingent “primal intelligences” is central to this Mormon concept of god (P+M, 201; Beckwith and Parrish, 101). That there is more than one god is attested in the Pearl of Great Price, particularly Abraham 4-5. This Mormon concept has the gods positioned to move “primal intelligences along the path to godhood” (Beckwith and Parrish, 114). Among these gods are other gods which were once humans, including God the Father. Brigham Young wrote, “our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father, and again, He was begotten by a still more ancient Father, and so on…” (Brigham Young, The Seer, 132, quoted in Beckwith and Parrish, 106).

[…]The logic of the Mormon polytheistic concept of God entails that there is an infinite number of gods. To see this, it must be noted that each god him/herself was helped on the path to godhood by another god. There is, therefore, an infinite regress of gods, each aided on his/her path to godhood by a previous god. There is no termination in this series. Now because this entails an actually infinite collection of gods, the Mormon polytheistic concept of deity must deal with all the paradoxes which come with actually existing infinities…

The idea of counting up to an actual infinite number of things by addition (it doesn’t matter what kind of thing it is) is problematic. See here.

More:

Finally, it seems polytheistic Mormonism has a difficulty at its heart–namely the infinite regress of deity.

[…]Each god relies upon a former god, which itself relies upon a former god, forever. Certainly, this is an incoherence at the core of this concept of deity, for it provides no explanation for the existence of the gods, nor does it explain the existence of the universe.

Now let’s see the historical evidence against Mormonism.

The historical evidence

J. Warner Wallace explains how the “Book of Abraham”, a part of the Mormon Scriptures, faces historical difficulties.

The Book of Abraham papyri are not as old as claimed:

Mormon prophets and teachers have always maintained that the papyri that was purchased by Joseph Smith was the actual papyri that was created and written by Abraham. In fact, early believers were told that the papyri were the writings of Abraham.

[…]There is little doubt that the earliest of leaders and witnesses believed and maintained that these papyri were, in fact the very scrolls upon which Abraham and Joseph wrote. These papyri were considered to be the original scrolls until they were later recovered in 1966. After discovering the original papyri, scientists, linguists, archeologists and investigators (both Mormon and non-Mormon) examined them and came to agree that the papyri are far too young to have been written by Abraham. They are approximately 1500 to 2000 years too late, dating from anywhere between 500 B.C. (John A. Wilson, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 1968, p. 70.) and 60 A.D. If they papyri had never been discovered, this truth would never have come to light. Today, however, we know the truth, and the truth contradicts the statements of the earliest Mormon leaders and witnesses.

The Book of Abraham papyri do not claim what Joseph Smith said:

In addition to this, the existing papyri simply don’t say anything that would place them in the era related to 2000BC in ancient Egypt. The content of the papyri would at least help verify the dating of the document, even if the content had been transcribed or copied from an earlier document. But the papyri simply tell us about an ancient burial ritual and prayers that are consistent with Egyptian culture in 500BC. Nothing in the papyri hints specifically or exclusively to a time in history in which Abraham would have lived.

So there is a clear difference hear between the Bible and Mormonism, when it comes to historical verification.

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As the election gets closer, Rose and I are getting into more discussions about the election, and the specific policies of the candidates. We had a GREAT discussion with two Christian apologists who follow these issues closely. Please give the video a like (you can see Rose and I) and give Freethinking Ministries a subscribe. We hope you enjoy it!

Here’s the episode:

And here are the topics:

• abortion
• LGBT and the Equality Act
• socialism vs free markets
• socialism in the Bible?
• inflation and energy policy
• crime
• illegal immigration
• gun rights and self-defense
• health care

Even with such a long discussion, we were still not able to get to everything! And lots of interesting data came out during the discussion and after the discussion.

For example, Josh Klein raised this tweet from former Democrat environmentalist Michael Schellenberger:

No matter your politics, these new numbers are shocking. Of the 7 million migrants that ICE released while their cases are being processed, 663,000 have criminal histories, 13,000 were convicted of homicide, 16,000 of sexual assault, and 1,845 face homicide charges. pic.twitter.com/R20ShfPpFq

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) September 27, 2024

And Tim Stratton pointed out this article he wrote, where he discusses whether carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is consistent with the Bible.

He writes:

From this verse we can infer that Jesus not only commanded the carrying of weapons for self-defense purposes (as Luke 22:36 reads), but he was also aware that Peter was “packing heat.” It seems quite ad hoc to suggest that Jesus was being figurative about carrying swords, but his disciples mistakenly took him literally. Modern readers do this quite often by reading ancient texts through modern lenses, but Peter and company would have been in a position to know if Jesus was speaking figuratively or not. Moreover, are we really to believe that Jesus was not aware of the swords his disciples were carrying (and intentionally hiding) until the moment Peter drew his weapon? I find that hard to take seriously!

Also, note that Jesus does not tell Peter to drop his sword and never touch it again. No, Jesus tells Peter to put his sword “back into its sheath.” If a Sheriff tells his deputy to holster his firearm, he means put it away but keep it on your person. The Sheriff is not implying that the deputy ought to get rid of his weapon forever. We can infer from this that Jesus condoned Peter’s further carrying of the sword.

Please comment on the video if you have a YouTube account, as this will help more people to see the video, and might help people to get excited about the election and make a plan to vote. We hope you enjoy the episode.

By the way, we have a couple of guests scheduled already for Knight and Rose Show episodes, and two episodes of our own. So subscribe to our podcast if you haven’t already. Rose had to speak at a conference in September, and she has another one in October, and another one in November, but we will try to get out two episodes of Knight and Rose Show in each month, anyway!

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I’m always on the lookout for the best conservative fighters. Regular readers will know that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was my choice for the GOP presidential candidate in 2024. But there are other conservatives who are amassing a long, long list of conservative achievements. And I’m interested in telling you about them, so you know who to vote for in GOP primaries.

Here’s an article from the Daily Signal about Tennessee’s conservative attorney general:

As Tennessee’s attorney general for only two years, Republican Jonathan Skrmetti is racking up wins for conservatives in policy and law against the Biden-Harris administration and private sector actors.

[…]Skrmetti, now 47, was sworn in as attorney general on Sept. 1, 2022. Married and the father of four, the Franklin resident previously was chief deputy attorney general under his predecessor, Herbert H. Slatery III, for three years.

[…]Skrmetti also was chief counsel to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a fellow Republican.

[…]Skrmetti received degrees from George Washington University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School.

[…]Aides and other admirers say that as attorney general, Skrmetti has spearheaded successful lawsuits against the federal government, especially leading the charge against gender ideology mandates and government overreach.

And the article has a list of 5 of his major accomplishments:

• Protecting Consumers
• Countering Gender Ideology
• Combating Illegal Immigration
• Fighting for Life
• Opposing Racial Discrimination and DEI Policies

Let’s look at one of these:

1. Protecting Consumers
   Skrmetti’s duties as attorney general include protecting the state’s consumers, and supporters say he has risen to that task.

Skrmetti filed a lawsuit against one of the world’s largest asset managers, BlackRock Inc., in a “first-of-its-kind” consumer protection case.

Tennessee successfully sued BlackRock over misleading statements about its use of ESG standards (for environmental, social, and governance considerations) in investments.

Ordinary shareholders argue that ESG standards elevate over “social justice” and other progressive causes over profitability and good business practices.

He’s also sued the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And put Fortune 100 corporations on notice about their DEI policies being unwelcome in Tennessee.

When I speak to some Republican voters who claim to be “very conservative”, I often hear from them lines like this:

• elections are rigged
• the parties are the same
• the government is run by federal agencies who have dirt on all the politicians
• Republicans never go after big leftists like Blackrock and Soros
• I’m the real pro-lifer because I don’t support incremental measures

When I ask these people how are the parties the same, how are the elections rigged, and what is the dirt that the federal agencies have, they have no evidence for any of these assertions. The real cause of their lack of knowledge and lack of effort seems to be “convenience”. They want to assert that they are better conservatives than people like Ron DeSantis and Jonathan Skrmetti and Chip Roy, etc. But they want to do it without reading anything, advocating for anything, convincing anyone, etc. They don’t want to put any effort into achieving conservative outcomes. And they especially don’t want to give any respect to the people who do achieve conservative outcomes. The conspiracy theories about how everyone is compromised except them are convenient, because it allows them to sound conservative without to achieve any conservative results. And you’d better believe that conspiracy theories don’t equip them to convince anyone else to vote conservative.

I’m the opposite of that. I want to read a lot of books about economics, health care, immigration, education, foreign policy, military history, etc. and then evaluate the candidates using voter guides and performance metrics. And I would like you to be a high-information, high-persuasion voter, too.

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A simple way to understand the secular left is that they want to be very generous with other people’s money, and very compassionate at the expense of other people’s safety. The Biden-Harris regime, for example, wants to let in millions of illegal immigrants. Many of those have serious criminal convictions, and many of them are facing serious criminal charges. And these criminals threaten YOU.

This story is from Fox News:

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants with sex offenses and homicide convictions could be loose on the streets, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data provided to lawmakers this week.

The agency provided data to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, about national data for illegal immigrants with criminal charges or convictions. The data, as of July 2024, is broken down by those in detention, and those who are not in detention — known as the non-detained docket. The non-detained docket includes illegal immigrants who have final orders of removal or are going through removal proceedings but are not detained in ICE custody. There are currently more than 7 million people on that docket.

Pay attention to these numbers:

The data says that, among those not in detention, there are 425,431 convicted criminals and 222,141 with pending criminal charges.

Those include 62,231 convicted of assault, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 56,533 with drug convictions and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 2,521 have kidnapping convictions and 15,811 have sexual assault convictions.

There are an additional 1,845 with pending homicide charges, 42,915 with assault charges, 3,266 with burglary charges and 4,250 with assault charges.

“As of July 21, 2024, there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s national docket—13,099 criminally convicted MURDERS!” Gonzales said in a statement. “Americans deserve to be SAFE in our own communities.”

And this – a sharp drop in deportations compared to the Trump administration’s policies:

The Biden administration came under fire for releasing many migrants who came to the U.S. border into the interior, which coincided with a sharp drop in deportations as it focused on prioritizing public safety and national security threats. There were 142,580 removals in FY 23, up considerably from 72,177 in FY 22 and 59,011 in FY 21, but still down from the highs of 267,258 under the Trump administration in FY 19.

Should we expect Harris-Walz to protect taxpayers from criminals? Or does their virtue-signaling take precedence over their responsibilities to protect taxpayers?

Let’s look at Tim Walz’s record. Do you remember how Tim Walz handled rioting and arson and violence in his state, when he was governor?

Daily Wire reports:

Minneapolis officials estimated the rioting and looting in 2020 cost the city around $55 million in damages. Rioters set fire to at least 220 buildings following George Floyd’s death in police custody. Estimates in 2021, a year after the riots, put the total cost of damage to both Minneapolis and St. Paul at $500 million, according to the Star Tribune. Many of the businesses damaged in the riots remained closed a year after the unrest.

And what about Kamala Harris? She put out a call on Twitter for people to donate money to bail criminals out – including ones who had previous convictions for violent crimes.

Kamala Harris wants donations to bail out violent criminalsEven if you put aside concerns about crime, there’s also the matter of costs. Illegal immigration costs money, and taxpayers have to foot the bill.

Daily Wire reports about the costs of illegal immigration for just one state – Mississippi:

Illegal immigration could cost Mississippi more than $100 million every year, a new report from the state’s auditor reveals.

[…]Mississippi’s healthcare system is hit particularly hard by illegal immigration, with the report estimating that the state spends a whopping $77 million on healthcare for illegal immigrants and their children every year. The report estimates the figure with data on the number of illegal immigrants in the state, their rate of health insurance, and their use of emergency medical services. It also found that Mississippi spends $4 million every year to pay for births to illegal immigrants, whose children are then designated as American citizens.

[…]The state auditor’s report indicates that illegal immigration poses a massive financial burden on the Mississippi education system as well.

“In K-12 spending alone, in total, Mississippi taxpayers likely pay $25 million to educate illegal immigrants each year,” it reads, also noting that an estimated 2,500 illegal immigrants are currently enrolled in the state’s K-12 education system. “This estimate does not include the cost to educate the US-citizen children born to illegal immigrants, which is difficult to estimate given the state’s inability to collect citizenship data for students and their families.”

So, just be careful what you vote for in November.

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This article at Free Thinking Ministries was written by my friend Dr. Tim Stratton. In it, he presents a view of God’s sovereignty over the universe, but one that doesn’t fall into the errors of determinism or double-predestination.

Excerpt: (links removed)

Many reformed folks (freely?) choose to reject Molinism because they contend that this theological view “smells of synergism.” What is this stench that reportedly makes John Calvin turn over in his grave? Simply put, synergism is the view that man plays at least a small part in his own salvation process. Monergism, on the other hand, is the view that God is the author of salvation from beginning to end.

Since Molinism affirms that man is free to choose to reject God’s saving grace or not, many Calvinists jump to the conclusion and assume that Molinism must be synergistic. This does not necessarily follow.[1] Consider one possible model:

1- God, by nature, is a volitional unmoved mover who is free to choose between options in accord with His nature. (This is supported via the Kalam and the Argument from Time).

2- By God’s grace, humans are created in the “image of God.” By nature, then, we are free to choose between options in accord with our nature. (This is supported via the Freethinking Argument).

3- Adam & Eve freely chose to disobey God and this sin completely separates humanity from God. This is what it means to have a “totally depraved sin nature.” (Every aspect of man is separated from God).

4- In this state of depraved separation from God (sin nature), humans do not even know God exists if merely left to our own devices.

5- If humans do not even know God exists, then, left to our own devices and apart from God’s grace, it would be impossible to choose to love and follow God (thus, Pelagianism is impossible on this view).

6- God, in His love for all people, provides amazing prevenient grace to all people (Romans 1:20), writing the law on the human heart (Romans 2:15), conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8-9), and draws all men (John 12:32). This is commonly referred to as “common grace.”

7- Therefore, by God’s grace, human nature has changed from a “totally separated from God nature” to a nature that has now experienced enough divine revelation (influences) allowing all mankind to start making some free and volitional choices in accord with our new nature; namely, to choose to resist God’s grace and revelation, or not.[2] Mankind is without excuse because we do not have to resist what God has made clear (Romans 1:18-20).[3]

[Note: According to Calvinist, Matt Slick (albeit inadvertently), Mark 4:10-12 implies that if an unregenerate person gets access to clear and accurate information, then they possess the ability to become Christians!]

8- If one does not reject or continually resist the grace and revelation God provides them, then God will continually provide more and more until the person reaches the point of “no return” and will become saved.

Thus, God does ALL the work in salvation from beginning to end on this Molinistic model; all the human can do is freely resist God’s grace and revelation, but he or she does not have to! The human does nothing to gain salvation apart from God’s grace on this Monergistic Model of Molinism.

I think that Stratton’s formulation above does indeed keep God as the sole initiator of salvation. And that’s good. But it also makes sure that human who resist God’s leading are responsible for their choice to resist God, and that’s good. We want salvation to be 100% by faith alone in Christ alone. But we don’t want God to be the cause of people not being saved. On Stratton’s view, God wants everyone to be saved. If anyone is saved, it’s because God did ALL THE WORK to lead them and secure their salvation with the death of Jesus on the cross. But, on Stratton’s view, humans do get a choice – the choice to trust God or not. And so, if a person is not saved, then it’s their fault – not God’s. This works.

Read his whole post, and see what you think about it.

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Probably the biggest misconception that I encounter when defending the faith is the mistaken notion of what faith is. Today we are going to get to the bottom of what the Bible says faith is, once and for all. This post will be useful to Christians and atheists, alike.

What is faith according to the Bible?

I am going to reference this article from apologist Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason in my explanation.

Koukl cites three Biblical examples to support the idea that faith is not blind leap-of-faith wishing, but is based on evidence.

1. Moses went out into the wilderness and he had that first encounter with the burning bush, and God gave him the directive to go back to Egypt and let his people go. Moses said, Yeah, right. What’s going to happen when they say, why should we believe you, Moses? God said, See that staff? Throw it down. Moses threw it down and it turned into a serpent. God said, See that serpent? Pick it up. And he picked it up and it turned back into a staff. God said, Now you take that and do that before the Jewish people and you do that before Pharaoh. And you do this number with the hail, and the frogs, and turning the Nile River into blood. You put the sun out. You do a bunch of other tricks to get their attention. And then comes this phrase: “So that they might know that there is a God in Israel.”
2. [I]n Mark 2 you see Jesus preaching in a house, and you know the story where they take the roof off and let the paralytic down through the roof. Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.” And people get bugged because how can anyone forgive sins but God alone? Jesus understood what they were thinking and He said this: What’s harder to say, your sins are forgiven, or to rise, take up your pallet and go home? Now, I’ll tell you what would be harder for me to say : Arise, take up your pallet and go home. I can walk into any Bible study and say your sins are forgiven and nobody is going to know if I know what I am talking about or not. But if I lay hands on somebody in a wheelchair and I say, Take up your wheelchair and go home, and they sit there, I look pretty dumb because everyone knows nothing happened. But Jesus adds this. He says, “In order that you may know that the Son of Man has the power and authority to forgive sins, I say to you, arise, take up your pallet and go home.” And he got up and he got out. Notice the phrase “In order that you may know”. Same message, right?
3. Move over to the Book of Acts. First sermon after Pentecost. Peter was up in front of this massive crowd. He was talking about the resurrection to which he was an eyewitness. He talked about fulfilled prophecy. He talked about the miraculous tongues and the miraculous manifestation of being able to speak in a language you don’t know. Do you think this is physical evidence to those people? I think so. Pretty powerful. Peter tells them, These men are not drunk as it seems, but rather this is a fulfillment of prophecy. David spoke of this. Jesus got out of the grave, and we saw him, and we proclaim this to you. Do you know how he ends his sermon? It’s really great. Acts 2:36. I’ve been a Christian 20 years and I didn’t see this until about a year ago. This is for all of those who think that if you can know it for sure, you can’t exercise faith in it. Here is what Peter said. Acts 2:36, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” There it is again. “Know for certain.”

What is faith according to Bible-based theologians?

I am going to reference this article from theologian C. Michael Patton of Parchment and Pen in my explanation.

Patton explains that according to Reformation (conservative, Bible-based) theologians, faith has 3 parts:

1. notitia – This is the basic informational foundation of our faith. It is best expressed by the word content. Faith, according to the Reformers must have content. You cannot have faith in nothing. There must be some referential propositional truth to which the faith points. The proposition “Christ rose from the grave,” for example, is a necessary information base that Christians must have.
2. assensus – This is the assent or confidence that we have that the notitia is correct… This involves evidence which leads to the conviction of the truthfulness of the proposition… This involves intellectual assent and persuasion based upon critical thought… assensus… says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”
3. fiducia – This is the “resting” in the information based upon a conviction of its truthfulness. Fiducia is best expressed by the English word “trust.”… Fiducia is the personal subjective act of the will to take the final step. It is important to note that while fiducia goes beyond or transcends the intellect, it is built upon its foundation.

So, Biblical faith is really trust. Trust(3) can only occur after intellectual assent(2), based on evidence and thought. Intellectual assent(2) can only occur after the propositional information(1) is known.

The church today accepts 1 and 3, but denies 2. I call this “fideism” or “blind faith”. Ironically, activist atheists, (the New Atheists), also believe that faith is blind. The postmodern “emergent church” denies 1 and 2. A person could accept 1 and 2 but deny 3 by not re-prioritizing their life based on what they know to be true.

How do beliefs form, according to Christian philosophers?

I am going to reference a portion of chapter 3 of J.P. Moreland’s “Love Your God With All Your Mind” (i.e. – LYGWYM).

J.P. Moreland explains how beliefs form and how you can change them.

1. Today, people are inclined to think that the sincerity and fervency of one’s beliefs are more important than the content… Nothing could be further from the truth… As far as reality is concerned, what matters is not whether I like a belief or how sincere I am in believing it but whether or not the belief is true. I am responsible for what I believe and, I might add, for what I refuse to believe because the content of what I do or do not believe makes a tremendous difference to what I become and how I act.
2. A belief’s strength is the degree to which you are convinced the belief is true. As you gain ,evidence and support for a belief, its strength grows for you… The more certain you are of a belief… the more you rely on it as a basis for action.

But the most important point of the article is that your beliefs are not under the control of your will.

…Scripture holds us responsible for our beliefs since it commands us to embrace certain beliefs and warns us of the consequences of accepting other beliefs. On the other hand, experience teaches us that we cannot choose or change our beliefs by direct effort.

For example, if someone offered you $10,000 to believe right now that a pink elephant was sitting next to you, you could not really choose to believe this… If I want to change my beliefs about something, I can embark on a course of study in which I choose to think regularly about certain things, read certain pieces of evidence and argument, and try to find problems with evidence raised against the belief in question.

…by choosing to undertake a course of study… I can put myself in a position to undergo a change in… my beliefs… And… my character and behavior… will be transformed by these belief changes.

I think definition of faith is important, because atheists seemed to want to substitute their own definition of faith as blind belief for this Biblical definition, but there is no evidence for their view that faith is belief without evidence. I think this might be another case of projection by atheists. Blind faith is how they arrive at their views, so they are trying to push it onto us. But the Bible is clearly opposed to it.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument
• The unexpected applicability of mathematics to nature
• Arguments and scientific evidence for non-physical minds
• William Lane Craig’s case for the resurrection of Jesus

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I thought it might be a good idea to write something about whether the Bible is generally reliable as a historical document. Lots of people like to nitpick about things that are difficult to verify, but the strange thing is that even skeptical historians accept many of the core narratives found in the Bible. Let’s start with a Christian historian, then go to a non-Christian one.

First, let’s introduce New Testament scholar Daniel B. Wallace:

Daniel B. Wallace
Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies

BA, Biola University, 1975; ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1979; PhD, 1995.

Dr. Wallace… is a member of the Society of New Testament Studies, the Institute for Biblical Research, the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Society of Papyrologists, and the Evangelical Theological Society (of which he was president in 2016). He has been a consultant for several Bible translations. He has written, edited, or contributed to more than three dozen books, and has published articles in New Testament Studies, Novum Testamentum, Biblica, Westminster Theological Journal, Bulletin of Biblical Review, the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and several other peer-reviewed journals. His Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament is the standard intermediate Greek grammar and has been translated into more than a half-dozen languages.

Here is an article by Dr. Wallace that corrects misconceptions about the transmission and translation of the Testament.

He lists five in particular:

• Myth 1: The Bible has been translated so many times we can’t possibly get back to the original.
• Myth 2: Words in red indicate the exact words spoken by Jesus of Nazareth.
• Myth 3: Heretics have severely corrupted the text.
• Myth 4: Orthodox scribes have severely corrupted the text.
• Myth 5: The deity of Christ was invented by emperor Constantine.

Let’s look at #4 in particular, where the argument is that the text of the New Testament is so riddled with errors that we can’t get back to the original text.

It says:

Myth 4: Orthodox scribes have severely corrupted the text.

This is the opposite of myth #3. It finds its most scholarly affirmation in the writings of Dr. Bart Ehrman, chiefly The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture and Misquoting Jesus. Others have followed in his train, but they have gone far beyond what even he claims. For example, a very popular book among British Muslims (The History of the Qur’anic Text from Revelation to Compilation: a Comparative Study with the Old and New Testaments by M. M. Al-Azami) makes this claim:

The Orthodox Church, being the sect which eventually established supremacy over all the others, stood in fervent opposition to various ideas ([a.k.a.] ‘heresies’) which were in circulation. These included Adoptionism (the notion that Jesus was not God, but a man); Docetism (the opposite view, that he was God and not man); and Separationism (that the divine and human elements of Jesus Christ were two separate beings). In each case this sect, the one that would rise to become the Orthodox Church, deliberately corrupted the Scriptures so as to reflect its own theological visions of Christ, while demolishing that of all rival sects.”

This is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. Even Ehrman admitted in the appendix to Misquoting Jesus, “Essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.” The extent to which, the reasons for which, and the nature of which the orthodox scribes corrupted the New Testament has been overblown. And the fact that such readings can be detected by comparison with the readings of other ancient manuscripts indicates that the fingerprints of the original text are still to be seen in the extant manuscripts.

Here is the full quote from the appendix of Misquoting Jesus:

“Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”

Finally, I think that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls shows us that religious texts don’t change as much as we think they do over time.

Look:

The Dead Sea Scrolls play a crucial role in assessing the accurate preservation of the Old Testament. With its hundreds of manuscripts from every book except Esther, detailed comparisons can be made with more recent texts.

The Old Testament that we use today is translated from what is called the Masoretic Text. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who between A.D. 500 and 950 gave the Old Testament the form that we use today. Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, the oldest Hebrew text of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Aleppo Codex which dates to A.D. 935.{5}

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now had manuscripts that predated the Masoretic Text by about one thousand years. Scholars were anxious to see how the Dead Sea documents would match up with the Masoretic Text. If a significant amount of differences were found, we could conclude that our Old Testament Text had not been well preserved. Critics, along with religious groups such as Muslims and Mormons, often make the claim that the present day Old Testament has been corrupted and is not well preserved. According to these religious groups, this would explain the contradictions between the Old Testament and their religious teachings.

After years of careful study, it has been concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls give substantial confirmation that our Old Testament has been accurately preserved. The scrolls were found to be almost identical with the Masoretic text. Hebrew Scholar Millar Burrows writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like one thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, ‘Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.'”{6}

A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.

One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of
Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”{7}

Despite the thousand year gap, scholars found the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea Scrolls to be nearly identical. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide valuable evidence that the Old Testament had been accurately and carefully preserved.

I hope that this post will help those who think that we can’t get back to the text of the original New Testament documents.

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One reason why some people reject the existence of objective morality is because moral absolutes can conflict.

Canadian philosopher Michael Horner to explains the problem.

He writes:

You may have been confronted with the story of the Nazi soldier coming to the door of the family who are hiding some Jewish people in their home and asking them point blankly, “Are there any Jews here?” The person telling the story then asks you, “What would you say?” or more precisely, “What should you say?”

[…]I think for many people the term moral absolutes connotes ideas like inflexibility and rigidity, and that there can never be exemptions. I have also found that many people believe that holding to moral absolutes means that circumstances are not relevant in a moral evaluation and that moral absolutism cannot handle moral dilemmas. But in fact it is possible to believe in moral absolutes, or as I prefer to call them objective moral values, without adhering to these connotations I have mentioned.

For many people to believe in moral absolutes is to believe in rules that no other rules can ever trump. It follows from this that moral absolutes are all equal and there can never be any exemptions. But what if moral absolutes exist in a hierarchy?

We know from experience that very often more than one moral rule applies to a situation. This often leads to moral dilemmas. So in the ‘hiding the Jews example’ the moral rule of telling the truth seems to apply to the situation, but it would seem that the moral rule to protect innocent human life from torture and murder applies also.

If absolutes are all equal there is no way out of the dilemma. You can’t choose one absolute over another because in doing so you would be violating at least one absolute which, in their view, is supposed to be inviolable.

So, in this case, it seems as if the moral absolutist is stuck in a dilemma. If you lie to save the innocent life, then that would be wrong. But if you tell the truth and hand the innocent person over to murderers, then that would be wrong. Does this really disprove objective moral absolutes?

This problem annoys me, because I know this is the kind of objection to objective morality that annoying philosophy lecturers like to push onto freshmen in order to convince them that morality is nonsense. But does the moral dilemma objection really work?

More Horner:

[…][I]f moral absolutes exist in a hierarchy and the circumstances or the situation were relevant in determining which absolute takes precedent, then there may be a solution to the moral dilemma. That is exactly what I think is the case in the example. I for one have no difficulty knowing that the morally right thing to do in that situation is to protect the life of innocent people from torture and murder rather than tell the truth to a person who has torture and murder in their plans. My moral intuitions are very clear about this.

If someone objects and says, “No, you must always tell the truth. After all it is an absolute, and absolutes by definition can never be violated,” I would point out that they are just using a different hierarchy, putting truth telling above protecting the life of innocent people from torture and murder. There is no way to avoid making a judgment like that since more than one absolute does apply to the situation. I would just ask them to think it through again, and once they see that they have to make a judgment based on some sort of hierarchy in that situation, then I think most people’s moral intuitions will affirm that protecting the lives of innocent people from torture and murder, in that situation, trumps truth telling. There is no way to avoid choosing one over the other.

But isn’t this moral relativism? After all, we are deciding what to do based on the situation! It’s relativism, isn’t it?

No, it isn’t, because there is always one right thing to do in every situation. In every situation, you always follow the weightiest moral rule. The right thing to do does not depend on your subjective state of mind. It is an objective moral duty, and it is the same for everyone, across all times and in all places. That’s what objective morality means -what is right and wrong is not determined by personal preferences or cultural conventions, which vary by time and place.

And of course, God is the ground of this hierarchy of objective moral absolutes. They existed through him before human beings even appeared, as part of his design for us, his creatures. How we ought to behave is grounded ontologically in God’s design for us.

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I noticed an article in the Financial Times about a growing divide between young women and young men. Young women are increasingly leftist, and young men are increasingly conservative. Surveys of young men and young women have found that young men are more conservative on abortion and LGBT than young women. And now young men are more religious than young women.

Now, I want to be clear in this post that I am not criticizing all women. I am criticizing the majority of YOUNG WOMEN. Older women don’t usually have these problems, especially married older women.

First, let’s take a look at the previous article, from the far-left UK Independent:

An analysis of survey data from across the developing world had found that “a new global gender divide” is emerging. The analysis, conducted by the Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch, showed that the developed world’s young women have rapidly become more liberal. Young men, however, have either become more conservative (as in the US) or been much slower to become more progressive (as in the UK). Gen Z, Burn-Murdoch concluded, is “two generations, not one.”

[…]Quoting similar figures to those in the FT, and noting that political views have become more tightly bound to personal identity, a Washington Post editorial warned that members of Gen Z will struggle to pair off romantically.

Young men, statistically speaking, are more likely to side with the weak against the strong. Since abortion harms unborn children, and divorce and same-sex marriage harm born children, men typically oppose these behaviors. But statistically speaking, young women more often side with the selfish adults against the children.

Naturally there are exceptions, but the statistics show that young men are more conservative on moral issues than young women. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the issue of abortion, which is really just about whether selfish adults can resort to murdering their own children in order to escape the consequences of no-commitment sex.

In September 2024, Gallup explained how young men and young women view abortion:

For this, Gallup reviewed 24 questions from its trends archive that measure Americans’ beliefs or positions on widely debated policy-related issues, and that Gallup has asked frequently enough to produce sufficient sample sizes of young men and women across the three periods… On five of these, the percentage of young women holding the liberal position has increased by more than 15 points. These have to do with the environment, abortion and gun laws.

• Young women have become 18 points more likely to support broad abortion rights, saying abortion should be legal under any or most circumstances (rather than in only a few or no circumstances). Their preference for this position rose from 42% to 60% between 2008-2016 and 2017-2024.

The number for young men is much lower than 60% at only 48%!

So, what happens to young men when they take these traditional MALE positions on issues, and society disapproves of them? Well, they turn to God for vindication of their good moral views. If society won’t approve of young men for protecting the unborn from abortion, and protecting children from divorce and same-sex marriage, then young men will have to find their vindication somewhere else. And that somewhere else is God.

Here’s the latest from the far-left New York Times: (archived)

For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers. They attend services more often and are more likely to identify as religious.

[…]Among Generation Z Christians, this dynamic is playing out in a stark way: The men are staying in church, while the women are leaving at a remarkable clip.

Church membership has been dropping in the United States for years. But within Gen Z, almost 40 percent of women now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, compared with 34 percent of men, according to a survey last year of more than 5,000 Americans by the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute.

To be accurate, I don’t think that young women have been more religious than men. If you look at the kinds of books that young women tend to read, it’s more about comfort and life enhancement. They are not looking to get their orders from God. They are looking to get their desires met by God. And you can see that coming out in the new trends of “manifesting” that is so popular with young women.

By contrast, young men are more likely to turn to apologetics, science, history and theology. Young women were only “spiritual”, they were not looking to sacrifice themselves in order to serve God. You can see this by looking at what books young women and men read. Young women tend to read people like Rachel Hollis, Rachel Held Evans, and Sarah Young. Young men see religion as being about their duties to others. They read people like J. Warner Wallace, Frank Turek and Sean McDowell. They want to learn how to tell people the truth, and tell people right and wrong. They want to lead in moral and spiritual areas. They want to make the world a better place for the weakest people.

How did this happen? Well, we have had generation after generation of pietistic Christian parents and pietistic Christian pastors who thought that it was the height of chivalry to only apply the Bible to young men, and never to young women. Young men need to be “challenged”, but never young women. People acted as if women had some sort of hotline to God through their emotions, and could never be judged for any of their questionable policy preferences and choices.

My question for you is this: do you think that these pietistic parents and pietistic pastors will finally stop asking the question “Where are all the good men?” and start asking a much better question “Where are all the good women?” Because I can tell you right now, conservative religious men are not going to be interested in dating or marrying these secular leftist young women.

Marriage is a huge risk for young men, in a world of no-fault divorce, biased divorce courts and feminized public schools. Good young men are not going to take those risks just to give secular leftist young women their “happily ever after” once they tire of “having fun” with hot bad boys, and want to settle down. And no amount of shaming and blaming is going to force good men to take those risks.

By the way, I’ve noticed that a lot of good young men are now seeking out friendships with more traditional older women. They are looking for sanity, and validation for their good moral and religious views. That’s not surprising. They’ll go where they are respected.

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The meme below makes fun of unionized public school teachers, who feel entitled to the same salary and benefits as doctors, software engineers, etc. in the private sector. So, the point of this meme is simple, it’s to point out that the teachers who belong to teacher unions are ignorant of basic economics, specifically, the law of supply and demand.

Basic Economics: In a free market, prices are set by supply and demandWhen there is more demand for a product or service than there is a supply for it, then prices go up. When there is more supply for a product or service than there is a demand for it, prices go down.

A good place to see this explained is in a book by famous black economist Thomas Sowell. Thomas Sowell has written many books, but he wrote one book in particular for people who have no knowledge of basic economics. It’s called “Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy“. And the first few chapters explain how prices are set by supply and demand:

1. What is Economics?
2. The Role of Prices
3. Price Controls
4. An Overview of Prices

It turns out that there are two views of how wages are set in an economy:

The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of “socially necessary labor” required to produce it.

LTV is usually associated with Marxian economics… The LTV is central to Marxist theory, which holds that the working class is exploited under capitalism, and dissociates price and value. Marx did not refer to his own theory of value as a “labour theory of value”.

Mainstream neoclassical economics tends to reject the need for a LTV, concentrating instead on a theory of price determined by supply and demand.

Marxists economists believe that the value of a good or service is determined by the “social utility” of the work produced. But classical (“free market”) economists believe that value is determined by the scarcity of the good or service relative to the demand from consumers.

So, a Marxist economist might say “teaching English to 5 year olds is valuable because it is relevant and meaningful”. But, a classical economist would say “conducting a security audit on distributed point-of-sale system is valuable, because very few people can do it, but many people want it”.

I’ve noticed that school teachers and non-STEM university students and professors are very likely to hold to the labor theory of prices and wages. Robert Nozick wrote a paper about why this happens. It turns out that “wordsmiths” (his word) are conditioned by their performance in the classroom to expect success in the free market economy. But when they find that their “brilliance” in English poetry, Medieval history, or lesbian dance theory has no value to anyone else, they complain that the economy is being manipulated by powerful people. Marxism is a coping mechanism for people who value academic acclaim more than doing something useful for their neighbors. The Marxists study easy things that no one cares about, and then they can’t get paid because millions of people can do them. The free market people focus on the customer, so they study hard things like computer science and petroleum engineering that are in demand from customers. And they get paid more.

Starting and Mid-Career salaries by profession (click for larger image)Consider this article from College Pulse about a survey of 10,590 undergraduate students:

Students with certain majors are far more likely than their peers to approve of socialism. Philosophy majors, in particular, have a positive view of socialism. Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) say they view the economic system favorably, followed by 64% of anthropology majors, and 58% of both English and international relations majors. Accounting and finance majors are least likely to view socialism positively (20% and 22% respectively).

Do you know what accounting and finance students have to study? Basic economics.

As soon as I got my first job as a software engineer, and finished my study of Christian apologetics, the very next thing I studied was economics. It was Dr. Jay Richards who got me interested in it, when I heard him speaking about economics in an apologetics lecture for Stand to Reason. I contacted him, and he recommended the works of two famous economists, F. A. Hayek and Thomas Sowell. And that’s what I want to recommend to you, too. Our continued liberty and prosperity depends on ordinary Americans taking the time to educate themselves about basic economics.

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A lot of people are arguing against pro-life laws in red states. Basically, they are saying that laws that protect unborn children must all be repealed, because here is one woman who stopped being alive while un-aliving her unborn children. In particular, people are citing an article in Pro Publica, written by Kavitha Surana. She has degrees in European History and European Studies. Is she right?

Here is what The Federalist article, which is written by an OB/GYN says:

The latest is ProPublica’s story of a Georgia woman who died after a North Carolina abortionist gave her chemical abortion pills — which, contrary to Democrat narratives, are unsafe. The article, however, pretends the death was caused by Georgia’s pro-life laws. The author of the story repeatedly attempts to conflate a procedure used to treat miscarriages, dilation and curettage (D&C), with elective abortion.

In ProPublica’s telling, 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman had ingested the chemical abortion pill regimen, which consists of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone ends the life of the developing human being; misoprostol helps achieve complete expulsion of the embryo.

It’s worth noting that the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone acknowledged its risks and enacted safety requirements, including a seven-week gestational limit, requiring women to see a physician in person, and a mandatory one-time post-abortion appointment to confirm that the uterus was empty and that bleeding had subsided.

[…]But thanks to Democrat efforts to relax safety requirements for abortion pills, important safeguards no longer apply. When Thurman experienced “complications” from the abortion, which ProPublica wrongly asserts are “rare,” she went to the hospital for a D&C.

[…]Here Kavitha Surana, the story’s author, fails to note the difference between elective abortion and non-abortive D&Cs. She writes: “But just that summer, [Thurman’s state of Georgia] had made performing [D&Cs] a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison.”

So, are D&Cs a felony, like Kavitha says? Nope.

This is a gross mischaracterization of the Georgia law. Performing a D&C is not a felony in Georgia (or anywhere else in the nation), nor has it been criminalized. It remains a standard medical procedure — and an indispensable one in cases like Thurman’s. It is always legal in every state because, unlike abortion, it is not intentional feticide.

So that article is by an OB/GYN. Here’s an article from the Daily Signal which is written by a lawyer. The author says that Amber Thurman was also supposed to get an ultrasound, but that requirement was also removed by the Democrats:

Amber Nicole Thurman died after she took the abortion pill, deregulated by the FDA (with multiple safety restrictions eliminated), which caused complications and left parts of her twin unborn babies inside her.

And note – Amber died before she could get the perfectly legal D&C procedure. It’s not illegal, and it’s not a felony because of pro-life laws:

Doctors monitored her condition and hospitalized her, but Thurman died before they could do a D&C (dilation and curettage) to remove the remaining parts of her unborn twins after the incomplete abortion.

Now, Pro Publica’s version of the events was picked up by lots of left-wing news outlets, despite the fact that the AUTHOR of that article has no earned degrees (medicine / law) in the topics that she is writing about, and no private sector work experience in the topics that she is writing about. I chose the articles from The Federalist and Daily Signal because the authors had the right degrees, and the right experience.

Map of States with Pro-Life Laws 2024I think people need to be a lot more skeptical about articles on medical topics that are written by people with degrees in “European Studies”. This is a question to be decided by doctors and lawyers.

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This is my favorite debate on the resurrection.

You can watch the debate here:

There is not much snark in this summary, because Crossley is a solid scholar, and very fair with the evidence.

SUMMARY

William Lane Craig’s opening speech

Two contentions:

• There are four minimal facts that are accepted by most historians
• The best explanation of the four minimal facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead

Contention 1 of 2:

Fact 1: The burial

• The burial is multiply attested
  • The burial is based on the early source material that Mark used for his gospel
  • Scholars date this Markan source to within 10 years of the crucifixion
  • The burial is also in the early passage in 1 Cor 15:3-8
  • So you have 5 sources, some of which are very early
• The burial is credited to a member of the Sanhedrin
  • the burial is probable because shows an enemy of the church doing right
  • this makes it unlikely to to be an invention

Fact 2: The empty tomb

• The burial story supports the empty tomb
  • the site of Jesus’ grave was known
  • the disciples could not proclaim a resurrection if the body were still in it
  • the antagonists to the early Christians could have produced the body
• The empty tomb is multiple attested
  • it’s mentioned explicitly in Mark
  • it’s in the separate sources used by Matthew and John
  • it’s in the early sermons documented in Acts
  • it’s implied by 1 Cor 15:3-8, because resurrection requires that the body is missing
• The empty tomb was discovered by women
  • the testimony of women of women was not normally allowed in courts of law
  • if this story was being made up, they would have chosen male disciples
• The empty tomb discover lacks legendary embellishment
  • there is no theological or apologetical reflection on the meaning of the tomb
• The early Jewish response implies that the tomb was empty
  • the response was that the disciples stole the body
  • that requires that the tomb was found empty

Fact 3: The appearances to individuals and groups, some of the them hostile

• The list of appearances is in 1 Cor 15:3-8
  • this material is extremely early, withing 1-3 years after the cross
  • James, the brother of Jesus, was not a believer when he got his appearance
  • Paul was hostile to the early church when he got his appearance
• Specific appearances are multiply attested
  • Peter: attested by Luke and Paul
  • The twelve: attested by Luke, John and Paul
  • The women: attested by Matthew and John

Fact 4: The early belief in the resurrection emerged in a hostile environment

• There was no background belief in a dying Messiah
• There was no background belief in a single person resurrecting before the general resurrection of all of the righteous at the end of the age
• The disciples were willing to die for their belief in the resurrection of Jesus
• The resurrection is the best explanation for the transformation of the disciples from frightened to reckless of death

Contention 2 of 2:

• The resurrection is the best explanation because it passes C.B. McCullough’s six tests for historical explanations
• None of the naturalistic explanations accounts for the minimal facts as well as the resurrection

James Crossley’s opening speech

Appeals to the majority of scholars doesn’t prove anything

• the majority of people in the west are Christians so of course there are a majority of scholars that support the resurrection
• there are Christian schools where denial of the resurrection can result in termination

The best early sources (1 Cor 15:3-8 and Mark) are not that good

1 Cor 15:3-8 doesn’t support the empty tomb

• verse 4 probably does imply a bodily resurrection
• the passage does have eyewitnesses to appearances of Jesus
• but there are no eyewitnesses to the empty tomb in this source
• appearances occur in other cultures in different times and places
• Jesus viewed himself as a martyr
• his followers may have had hallucinations

Mark 16:1-8

• Mark is dated to the late 30s and early 40s
• The women who discover the tomb tell no one about the empty tomb

The gospels show signs of having things added to them

• Jewish story telling practices allowed the teller to make things up to enhance their hero
• one example of this would be the story of the earthquake and the people coming out of their graves
• that story isn’t in Mark, nor any external sources like Josephus
• if there really was a mass resurrection, where are these people today?
• so this passage in Matthew clearly shows that at least some parts of the New Testament could involve
• what about the contradiction between the women tell NO ONE and yet other people show up at the empty tomb
• the story about Jesus commissioning the early church to evangelize Gentiles was probably added
• there are also discrepancies in the timing of events and appearances
• why are there explicit statements of high Christology in John, but not in the earlier sources?

William Lane Craig’s first rebuttal

Crossley’s response to the burial: he accepts it

Crossley’s response to the empty tomb: he thinks it was made up

• rabbinical stories are not comparable to the gospel accounts
• the rabbinical stories are just anecdotal creative story-telling
• the gospels are ancient biographies – the genre is completely different
• the rabbinic miracle stories are recorded much later than the gospels
• the rabbi’s legal and moral ideas were written down right away
• the miracle stories were written down a century or two later
• in contrast, the miracle stories about Jesus are in the earliest sources, like Mark
• the rabbinical stories are intended as entertainment, not history
• the gospels are intended as biography
• just because there are some legendary/apocalyptic elements in Matthew, it doesn’t undermine things like the crucfixion that are historically accurate

Crossley’s response to the evidence for the empty tomb:

• no response to the burial
• the empty tomb cannot be made up, it was implied by Paul early on
• the women wouldn’t have said nothing forever – they eventually talked after they arrived to where the disciples were
• no response to the lack of embellishment
• no response to the early Jewish polemic

Crossley’s response to the appearances

• he agrees that the first followers of Jesus had experiences where they thought Jesus was still alive

Crossley’s response to the early belief in the bodily resurrection:

• no response about how this belief in a resurrection could have emerged in the absence of background belief in the death of the Messiah and the resurrection of one man before the general resurrection of all the righteous at the end of the age

What about Crossley’s hallucination theory?

• Crossley says that the followers of Jesus had visions, and they interpreted these visions against the story of the Maccabean martyrs who looked forward to their own resurrections
• but the hallucination hypothesis doesn’t account for the empty tomb
• and the Maccabean martyrs were not expecting the resurrection of one man, and certainly not the Messiah – so that story doesn’t provide the right background belief for a hallucination of a single resurrected person prior to the end of the age
• if the appearances were non-physical, the disciples would not have applied the word resurrection – it would just have been a vision
• the visions could easily be reconciled with the idea that somehow God was pleased with Jesus and that he had some glorified/vindicated non-corporeal existence – but not resurrection
• not only that, the hallucination hypothesis doesn’t even explain the visions, because there were visions to groups, to skeptics and to enemies in several places

What about the argument that only Christians accept the resurrection?

• it’s an ad hominem attack that avoids the arguments

James Crossley’s first rebuttal

Regarding the burial:

• I could be persuaded of that the burial account is accurate

Regarding the non-expectation of a suffering/dying Messiah:

• Jesus thought he was going to die
• this thinking he was going to die overturned all previous Messianic expectations that the Messiah wouldn’t suffer or die
• the early Jews could easily reconcile the idea of a suffering, dead man killed by the Romans with the power of the all-powerful Messiah who supposed to reign forever
• no actually bodily resurrection would have to happen to get them to continue to identify an executed corpse with the role of Messiah

Regarding the belief in the bodily resurrection:

• it would be natural for Jews, who believed in a general resurrection of all the rigtheous dead at the end of the age, to interpret a non-physical vision of one man after he died as a bodily resurrection, even though no Jew had ever considered the resurrection of one man before the general resurrection before Jesus

Regarding the testimony of the women:

• Just because women were not able to testify in courts of law (unless there were no male witnesses), the early church might still invent a story where the women are the first witnesses
• first, the disciples had fled the scene, so only the women were left
• and it would have been a good idea for the early church to invent women as the first witnesses – the fact that they could not testify in court makes them ideal witnesses and very persuasive
• also, it’s a good idea to invent women as witnesses, because the Romans had a rule that said that they never killed women, so they wouldn’t have killed these women – Romans only ever kill men
• in any case, the first witness to the empty tomb is angel, so as long as people could talk to the angel as being the first witness, that’s the best story to invent

Regarding the consensus of Christian scholars:

• I am not saying that Craig’s facts are wrong, just that appealing to consensus is not legitimate
• he has to appeal to the evidence, not the consensus

Regarding my naturalistic bias:

• I don’t know or care if naturalism is true, let’s look at the evidence

Regarding the genre of the gospels:

• the creative story-telling is common in all genres, it’s not a genre in itself
• stuff about Roman emperors also has creative story-telling

Regarding the legendary nature of the empty tomb in Mark:

• First, Christians interpreted the visions as a bodily resurrection
• Second, they invented the story of the empty tomb to go with that interpretation
• Third, they died for their invention

William Lane Craig’s second rebuttal

The burial:

• Bill’s case doesn’t need to know the specifics of the burial, only that the location was known
• the location is important because it supports the empty tomb
• to proclaim a resurrection, the tomb would have to be empty
• a tomb with a known location is easier to check

The empty tomb:

• creative story telling was common in Judaism: retelling OT stories (midrash), romances/novels, rabbinical anecdotes
• but the gospels are none of these genres – the gospels are ancient biographies
• Craig also gave five arguments as to why the tomb was empty
• the burial story supports the empty tomb
• there is multiple independent attestation, then it cannot be a creative fiction invented in Mark alone
• the witnesses were in Jerusalem, so they were in a position to know
• regarding the women, even though Jesus respected the women, their testimony would not be convincing to others, so why invent a story where they are the witnesses
• the male disciples did not flee the scene, for example, Peter was there to deny Jesus three times
• if the story is made up, who cares what the male disciples did, just invent them on the scene anyway
• the angel is not authoritative, because the angel cannot be questioned, but the women can be questioned
• there was no response on the lack of embellishment
• there was no response to the earliest Jewish response implying that the tomb was empty

The appearances:

• we agree on the appearances

The early belief in the resurrection:

• he says that Jesus predicted his own death
• yes, but that would only cause people to think that he was a martyr, not that he was the messiah – something else is needed for them to keep their believe that he was the Messiah even after he died, because the Messiah wasn’t supposed to die
• and of course, there was no expectation of a single person rising from the dead before the general resurrection, and certainly not the Messiah

The consensus of scholars:

• Jewish scholars like Geza Vermes and Pinchas Lapide accept these minimal facts like the empty tomb, it’s not just Christian scholars

Against Crossley’s hallucination hypothesis:

• it doesn’t explain the empty the tomb
• it doesn’t explain the early belief in the resurrection
• hallucinations would only lead to the idea that God had exalted/glorified Jesus, not that he was bodily raised from the dead
• the hallucination theory cannot accommodate all of the different kinds of appearances; individual, group, skeptic, enemy, etc.

The pre-supposition of naturalism:

• if Crossley is not committed to naturalism, then he should be open to the minimal facts and to the best explanation of those facts
• the hallucination hypothesis has too many problems
• the resurrection hypothesis explains everything, and well

James Crossley’s second rebuttal

Religious pluralism:

• well, there are lots of other religious books
• those other religious books have late sources, and are filled with legends and myths, and no eyewitness testimony
• so why should we trust 1 Cor 15 and the early source for Mark and the other early eyewitness testimony in the New Testament?
• if other religious books can be rejected for historical reasons, then surely the New Testament can be rejected for historical reasons

Genre:

• the genre of ancient biography can incorporate and commonly incorporates invented legendaryt story-telling
• this is common in Roman, Greek and Jewish literature and everyone accepts that

Empty tomb: multiple attestation

• ok, so maybe the empty tomb is multiply attested, but that just gets back to a belief, not to a fact
• multiple attestation is not the only criteria, and Craig needs to use the other criteria to make his case stronger

Empty tomb: invented

• if there is a belief in the resurrection caused by the visions, then the empty tomb would have to be invented
• why aren’t there more reliable stories of people visiting the empty tomb in more sources?

Empty tomb: role of the women

• there are women who have an important role in the Bible, like Judith and Esther
• Mark’s passage may have used women who then kept silent in order to explain why no one knew where the empty tomb was
• if the fleeing of the men is plausible to explain the women, then why not use that? why appeal to the supernatural?
• we should prefer any explanation that is naturalistic even if it is not as good as the supernatural explanation at explaining everything

Empty tomb: embellishment

• well there is an angel there, that’s an embellishment
• anyway, when you say there is no embellishment, what are you comparing it to that makes you say that?

Appearances: anthropology

• I’ve read anthropology literature that has some cases where people have hallucinations as groups

Appearances: theology

• the hallucinations would not be interpreted against the background theological beliefs that ruled out the resurrection of one man before then general resurrection of all the righteous dead
• these hallucinations could have been so compelling that they made the earliest Christians, and skeptics like James, and enemies like the Pharisee Paul abandon all of their previous background beliefs, proclaim the new doctrine of a crucified and resurrected Messiah which no one had ever expected, and then gone on to die for that belief
• the hallucinations could have changed all of their theology and reversed all of their beliefs about the what the word resurrection meant

William Lane Craig’s conclusion

Supernaturalism:

• None of the four facts are supernatural, they are natural, and ascertained by historians using normal historical methods
• the supernatural part only comes in after we decide on the facts when we are deciding which explanation is the best
• a tomb being found empty is not a miraculous fact

Genre:

• the gospels are not analagous to these rabbinical stories, the purpose and dating is different

Empty tomb:

• what multiple attestation shows is that it was not made-up by Mark
• and the argument was augmented with other criteria, like the criterion of embarrassment and the criterion of dissimilarity
• Judith and Esther are very rare exceptions, normally women were not viewed as reliable witnesses
• if the story was invented, whatever purpose the inventors had would have been better served by inventing male witnesses
• Craig grants that the angel may be an embellishment for the sake of argument, but there are no other embellishments
• the real embellishments occur in forged gnostic gospels in the second and third centuries, where there are theological motifs added to the bare fact of the empty tomb (e.g. – the talking cross in the Gospel of Peter)
• he had no response to the earliest jewish response which implied an empty tomb

Belief in the resurrection:

• there was no way for Jewish people to interpret an appearance as a bodily resurrection before the end of the world, they did not expect that
• they could have imagined exaltation, but not a bodily resurrection

James Crossley’s conclusion

Supernatural explanation:

• as long as there is any other other possible naturalistic explanation, we should prefer that, no matter how unlikely

Creative stories:

• some of these creative stories appear within the lifetimes of the people connected to the events (none mentioned)

Embellishment:

• you should compare to earlier stories when looking for embellishments, not later
• and we don’t have any earlier sources, so we just don’t know the extent of the embellishment

Jewish response:

• they probably just heard about the empty tomb, and didn’t check on it, then invented the stole-the-body explanation without ever checking to see if the tomb was empty or not

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There are two problems related to the origin of the first living cell, on atheism:

1. The problem of getting the building blocks needed to create life – i.e. the amino acids
2. The problem of creating the functional sequences of amino acids and proteins that can support the minimal operations of a simple living cell

Normally, I concede the first problem and grant the atheist all the building blocks he needs. This is because step 2 is impossible. There is no way, on atheism, to form the sequences of amino acids that will fold up into proteins, and then to form the sequences of proteins that can be used to form everything else in the cell, including the DNA itself.

Today, let’s take a look at the problems with step 1.

The Miller-Urey experimentsThe problem of getting the building blocks of life

Now you may have heard that some scientists managed to spark some gasses to generate most of the 20 amino acids found in living systems. These experiments are called the “Miller-Urey” experiments.

The IDEA center has a nice summary of origin-of-life research that explains a few of the main problems with step 1.

Miler and Urey used the wrong gasses:

Miller’s experiment requires a reducing methane and ammonia atmosphere,11, 12 however geochemical evidence says the atmosphere was hydrogen, water, and carbon dioxide (non-reducing).15, 16 The only amino acid produced in a such an atmosphere is glycine (and only when the hydrogen content is unreasonably high), and could not form the necessary building blocks of life.11

Miller and Urey didn’t account for UV of molecular instability:

Not only would UV radiation destroy any molecules that were made, but their own short lifespans would also greatly limit their numbers. For example, at 100ºC (boiling point of water), the half lives of the nucleic acids Adenine and Guanine are 1 year, uracil is 12 years, and cytozine is 19 days20 (nucleic acids and other important proteins such as chlorophyll and hemoglobin have never been synthesized in origin-of-life type experiments19).

Miller and Urey didn’t account for molecular oxygen:

We all have know ozone in the upper atmosphere protects life from harmful UV radiation. However, ozone is composed of oxygen which is the very gas that Stanley Miller-type experiments avoided, for it prevents the synthesis of organic molecules like the ones obtained from the experiments! Pre-biotic synthesis is in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. The chemistry does not work if there is oxygen because the atmosphere would be non-reducing, but if there is no UV-light-blocking oxygen (i.e. ozone – O3) in the atmosphere, the amino acids would be quickly destroyed by extremely high amounts of UV light (which would have been 100 times stronger than today on the early earth).20, 21, 22 This radiation could destroy methane within a few tens of years,23 and atmospheric ammonia within 30,000 years.15

And there were three other problems too:

At best the processes would likely create a dilute “thin soup,”24 destroyed by meteorite impacts every 10 million years.20, 25 This severely limits the time available to create pre-biotic chemicals and allow for the OOL.

Chemically speaking, life uses only “left-handed” (“L”) amino acids and “right-handed” (“R)” genetic molecules. This is called “chirality,” and any account of the origin of life must somehow explain the origin of chirality. Nearly all chemical reactions produce “racemic” mixtures–mixtures with products that are 50% L and 50% R.

Two more problems are not mentioned in the article. A non-peptide bond anywhere in the chain will ruin the chain. You need around 200 amino acids to make a protein. If any of the bonds is not a peptide bond, the chain will not work in a living system. Additionally, the article does not mention the need for the experimenter to intervene in order to prevent interfering cross-reactions that would prevent the amino acids from forming.

Now keep in mind that even if you get the building blocks, you are left with the sequencing problem. Like the letters of the words in this blog post, the building blocks of life also need to be put in a meaningful sequence in order to do work in a living system – but that’s another topic for another day.

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Many Christians have been trained to think that the only relevant issue in elections is abortion. And many of those like to argue for the pro-life view by citing Bible verses only. But what would those people do if they were discussing policy with a non-Christian who didn’t accept the Bible as an authority? Could you still win them over on other grounds, so that the result is that the pro-life party wins?

So, in our recent Knight and Rose Show episode, we discussed a bunch of different areas where conservative policies perform better than leftist policies. And one of those was immigration policy.

Rose talked about this article from Daily Wire:

Illegal immigration could cost Mississippi more than $100 million every year, a new report from the state’s auditor reveals.

[…]“Just last week, an illegal immigrant was arrested in North Mississippi for allegedly raping a 10-year-old boy twice,” State Auditor Shad White told The Daily Wire. “Every state is a border state now, and our new report shows how much state taxpayers are spending thanks to the open border.”

[…]Mississippi’s healthcare system is hit particularly hard by illegal immigration, with the report estimating that the state spends a whopping $77 million on healthcare for illegal immigrants and their children every year. The report estimates the figure with data on the number of illegal immigrants in the state, their rate of health insurance, and their use of emergency medical services. It also found that Mississippi spends $4 million every year to pay for births to illegal immigrants, whose children are then designated as American citizens.

And now there’s a new article about Springfield, Ohio, from Daily Signal:

Reports of shoplifting and vehicle theft increased considerably in Springfield, Ohio, following the arrival of thousands of Haitian refugees, according to data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation through a records request.

The town, which had a population of 58,622 in 2020, has taken in between 12,000 and 20,000 Haitian refugees over the past three years, marking a population increase of between 20.4% and 34.1%. From 2021 to 2023, Springfield also saw a 51.5% jump in motor vehicle theft reports and a 112.8% spike in reports of shoplifting, data provided by the Springfield Police Division shows.

Springfield residents previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the influx of Haitians has resulted in an uptick in car accidents, increased housing prices, and strained public services.

[…]The issue of poor driving among refugees became a flashpoint in the community after a Haitian national driving a minivan without a license swerved in front of a school bus in August 2023, killing an 11-year-old boy and injuring roughly a dozen other students.

Please don’t talk about pet stealings and pet eatings, though – there is just no evidence for that:

Police recorded just two reported cases of animal cruelty in 2021 and none in 2022 or 2023, failing to provide evidence for rumors of Haitians stealing and eating residents’ pets.

In other posts on this blog, I’ve talked about how unskilled immigrants are a burden on productive taxpayers, because they pay less in taxes, but use more social programs, like education, health care, etc. And they drive up the costs of things like housing and cars, because there is more demand for the same supply.

As a brown person, and legal immigrant, I’m in favor of legal immigration by employer sponsor for highly-skilled immigrants who speak English, follow the law, and pay more in taxes than they take in benefits. We need more doctors and researchers. But what we don’t need is people with no skills, no money and no jobs.

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I thought it might be a good idea for us to take a look at the doctrine of Hell, and see how far back it goes. These days, people seem to have lost sight of the idea that there will be eternal separation from God for people who reject him. But this idea is a core part of Christianity, and it goes right back to the early church fathers. Not to mention how much Jesus has to say about it.

Here’s an article from Cold Case Christianity, by J. Warner Wallace, that talks about what early Christians thought of Hell.

Introduction:

As we seek to understand what the Bible teaches about Hell, it may be helpful to understand what the earliest believers believed and taught. The teachings of the early believers have been preserved for us in the writings of the earliest church leaders (known as the Early Church Fathers). While their writings are not canonical (they are not on par with the words of the Bible), they do help us to see what those closest to the apostles first understood as Biblical Truth.

As we assemble the teachings of these first church leaders, several patterns emerge related to the nature of Hell. The Early Church Fathers, with very few exceptions, agree with the teaching of the Bible in the way they describe Hell:

1. Hell is a place of judgment for those who have rejected God and denied Jesus as their Savior
2. Hell is a place of separation from God
3. Hell is a place of torment in which the rebellious are in anguish and pain
4. Hell is a place where the rebellious are tormented forever and are CONSCIOUS of this torment for all eternity (In fact, the eternal duration of their torment is often compared to the eternal duration of the reward of the saved)

At the same time, the earliest Church Fathers are ambiguous on those areas where the Bible is ALSO ambiguous.

1. The exact nature of the torment of the rebellious is unknown
2. The manner in which the rebellious are kept alive in spite of ‘deathly’ anguish is also un-described

The Early Church Fathers simply reflected the clearest teachings of the Bible related to the nature of Hell. They believed that Hell was a place of eternal conscious torment, reflecting the clearest teaching of the scriptures.

Excerpt:

From Ignatius of Antioch (110AD)

Ignatius was a student of the Apostle John, and succeeded the Apostle Peter as the Bishop of Antioch. He wrote a number of important letters to believers in churches in the area:

Corrupters of families will not inherit the kingdom of God. And if they who do these things according to the flesh suffer death. how much more if a man corrupt by evil reaching the faith of God. for the sake of which Jesus Christ was crucified? A man become so foul will depart into unquenchable fire: and so will anyone who listens to him. (Letter to the Ephesians 16:1-2)

From Clement of Rome (150AD)

Clement was Bishop of Rome from 88 to 98AD, and his teaching reflects the early traditions of the Church. “Second Clement” reportedly a recorded sermon, and Clement discusses the nature of Hell:

If we do the will of Christ, we shall obtain rest; but if not, if we neglect his commandments, nothing will rescue us from eternal punishment (“Second Clement” 5:5)

But when they see how those who have sinned and who have denied Jesus by their words or by their deeds are punished with terrible torture in unquenchable fire, the righteous, who have done good, and who have endured tortures and have hated the luxuries of life, will give glory to their God saying, ‘There shall be hope for him that has served God with all his heart!’ (“Second Clement” 17:7)

From Irenaeus (189AD)

Irenaeus was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul (now Lyon, France) at the end of the second century. He was a disciple of Polycarp and a notable early apologist for the faith. He wrote several volumes defending the faith against Gnosticism and other early heresies of the Church, and he often compared eternal punishment to eternal reward, drawing the conclusion that one endured as long as the other:

…Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, ‘every knee should bow, of things in heaven,, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess’ to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send ‘spiritual wickednesses,’ and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning of their Christian course, and others from the date of their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory. (“Against Heresies” 1:10:10)

The penalty increases for those who do not believe the Word of God and despise his coming. . . . [I]t is not merely temporal, but eternal. To whomsoever the Lord shall say, ‘Depart from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire,’ they will be damned forever (“Against Heresies” 4:28:2)

From Clement of Alexandria (195AD)

Titus Flavius Clemens was the first significant and recorded Christian from the church of Alexandria, Egypt. His parents were Greek and he was raised with a solid, formal Greek education. While he had a tendency to blend Greek and Christian philosophies, his view on the issue of Hell was derived from the scriptures:

All souls are immortal, even those of the wicked. Yet, it would be better for them if they were not deathless. For they are punished with the endless vengeance of quenchless fire. Since they do not die, it is impossible for them to have an end put to their misery. (from a post-Nicene manuscript fragment)

From Tertullian (197AD)

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus was a Romanized African citizen who was born in Carthage (now Tunisia). He became a Christian and was a powerful and influential apologist for the faith, writing prolifically in defense of the doctrines of orthodoxy:

These have further set before us the proofs He has given of His majesty in judgments by floods and fires, the rules appointed by Him for securing His favor, as well as the retribution in store for the ignoring, forsaking and keeping them, as being about at the end of all to adjudge His worshippers to everlasting life, and the wicked to the doom of fire at once without ending and without break, raising up again all the dead from the beginning, reforming and renewing them with the object of awarding either recompense. (“Apology” 18:3)

Then will the entire race of men be restored to receive its just deserts according to what it has merited in this period of good and evil, and thereafter to have these paid out in an immeasurable and unending eternity. Then there will be neither death again nor resurrection again, but we shall be always the same as we are now, without changing. The worshipers of God shall always be with God, clothed in the proper substance of eternity. But the godless and those who have not turned wholly to God will be punished in fire equally unending, and they shall have from the very nature of this fire, divine as it were, a supply of incorruptibility (“Apology” 44:12–13)

Therefore after this there is neither death nor repeated resurrections, but we shall be the same that we are now, and still unchanged–the servants of God, ever with God, clothed upon with the proper substance of eternity; but the profane, and all who are not true worshippers of God, in like manner shall be consigned to the punishment of everlasting fire–that fire which, from its very nature indeed, directly ministers to their incorruptibility. (“Apology” 48:12)

Just to be clear, I am one of those Christians who holds to the traditional doctrine of hell. Eternal, conscious punishment for eternity. I think most, if not all, people who object to the traditional doctrine of hell do it for one reason only – because they don’t want to appear to be mean, so that non-Christians will like them. Well, I don’t think there is any wiggle room here – conscious, eternal torment is what the Bible teaches, and what the earliest Christians believed.

Having said that, if someone has a historical case to make, then I’d like to see how they interpret the Bible and where the line of tradition is for their view. There is always room for scholars to make a case against the traditional view, but that case has to be on the merits. But I think for the vast majority of people who reject the traditional notion of hell, they are just asserting their emotions and intuitions over the Bible and the traditional interpretations of the early church. I don’t think that wanting to feel “nicer” than others, or wanting to be liked by others, is a good rationale for overruling the text and the traditional interpretations.

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A while back, a transgender person committed a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, TN. People were waiting to see if the killer’s writings would reveal that the motive was to kill Christians. Many people in secular left governments share the killer’s convictions that transgenderism is good, and Christianity is bad. Can we trust them to prevent such attacks?

First, you might not have heard, but the Tennessee Star obtained the writings of the Nashville shooter.

The article (September 4, 2024) explained about the killer’s mental health:

In various entries that referenced her mental health, Hale confirmed her desire to transition genders, revealed a purported autism diagnosis, claimed she was not “bi-polar,” and wrote that she once called a phone number associated with a Suicide Prevention Helpline five times in one day.

You might remember how the Biden-Harris regime sought to suppress her manifesto:

Since it first obtained Hale’s journal and a portion of police documents related to the Covenant case, The Star has published more than 100 articles that analyze the killer’s own words or provide new details about the police investigation, including the existence of an FBI memo which “strongly” advised MNPD against releasing “legacy tokens” from killers like Hale. The term would appear to include her writings.

Now there are new articles that reminded me of this story.

Here’s a new article from Daily Wire, dated 9/17/24.

It says:

A federal judge released an alleged cyberstalker in Tennessee who identifies as transgender and made threatening statements aimed at a Christian school.

McKenzie McClure, a woman who identifies as a man and goes by Kalvin McClure, made a concerning call to Nashville, Tennessee’s, Christ Presbyterian Academy (CPA) in March of this year just days before the anniversary of the Covenant School shooting, when a transgender-identifying woman killed six victims, including three nine-year olds.

McClure, a former student of CPA, left a voicemail for the school where she referenced a Marvel movie in which a character returns to an orphanage where he was raised and kills a headmaster who was abusive. The message caused CPA and nearby Currey Ingram Academy to close the following day and resulted in McClure being arrested by federal agents a month later for alleged cyberstalking.

Security cameras at the school also appeared to show McClure walking across campus making obscene gestures in the days before her arrest.

Maybe we’ll see this McKenzie McClure person in the news soon, and then there will be excuses from the people who encouraged her down the transgender path.

Here’s another article from Daily Wire, also dated 9/17/24, and also related to public safety and mental illness.

It says:

Iowa police arrested a trans-identifying 19-year-old on Monday and charged her with a “threat of terrorism” after she revealed in therapy that she wanted to shoot up an elementary school, The Daily Wire has learned.

The Norwalk Police Department announced Monday that it had arrested Margaret Anderson after being made aware last week of a “potential threat” to Oviatt Elementary School, located in Norwalk, Iowa. In a release, the department said that Anderson has been charged with a “Threat of Terrorism” under Iowa Code 708A.5, and had been processed into the Warren County Jail.

Anderson is a 19-year-old female who identifies as a transgender man, Warren County Attorney Doug Eichholz confirmed to The Daily Wire on Tuesday.

[…]According to Eichholz, the complaint about Anderson says: “The defendant stated that she had thoughts that she wanted to take a gun to Oviatt Elementary School in Norwalk, at 11 am through the cafeteria, and shoot children.”

And she was also released to house arrest:

She was then arrested on Monday, Eichholz said, released Tuesday morning to house arrest with restrictions including a GPS bracelet, and is currently on pretrial release.

Now, if I asked the “don’t judge” people why they want to encourage young people towards transgenderism rather than helping them, they would say that nothing bad can ever result from their actions, because they just love everyone, and they don’t judge. “My motives are pure, I feel good about myself, other people like me, and so anything bad that happens next isn’t my fault”, they say. “The world is such a complicated place. I can’t predict the consequences of my actions”, they cry. I don’t see why we should celebrate people who want to lead children down the path of Audrey Hale, McKenzie McClure, and Margaret Anderson. How does that help them? And how does that help us to have a more peaceful society?

So what to do? Well, I think that it’s wise to choose to live far away from these “don’t judge” people. We need to stop dating them. We need to stop marrying them, too. We need to stop having children with them. We need to stop giving our kids to these “don’t judge” people in daycares and public schools. We need to stop letting our kids be influenced by them through entertainment and social media. And most of all, we need to stop living in places where “don’t judge” people run the government, the schools, the hospitals, law enforcement and the courts.

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Here is the video of the debate:

Here is my summary of the Craig-Rosenberg debate, which occurred on February 1st, 2013 at Purdue University.

The debaters

• William Lane Craig
• Alex Rosenberg

Below is the summary.

Dr. Craig’s opening speech:

The topic: What are the arguments that make belief in God reasonable or unreasonable?
First speech: arguments for reasonableness of belief in God
Second speech: respond to arguments against reasonableness of belief in God

Eight arguments:

1. Contingency argument: God – a transcendent, personal being – is the explanation of why a contingent universe exists.
2. Cosmological argument: God is the cause of the beginning of the universe, which is attested by physics and cosmology.
3. Applicability of mathematics to nature: God is the best explanation for the applicability of mathematics to nature.
4. Fine-tuning argument: God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe to permit life.
5. Intentionality of conscious states: God is the best explanation of the intentionality of our mental states.
6. The moral argument: God is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values and duties.
7. The resurrection of Jesus: God is the best explanation for the core of historical facts accepted by most ancient historians across the ideological spectrum.
8. Religious experience: God is the best explanation of our immediate experience and knowledge of his existence.

Dr. Rosenberg’s opening speech

First argument: The fallacy of ad hominem

• I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry
• Dr. Craig has said all of that before in other debates
• You didn’t need to come out on this cold night
• Craig’s arguments have all been refuted
• Dr. Craig just doesn’t listen
• Dr. Craig is not interested in getting at the truth
• Dr. Craig is just interested in scoring debate points
• The adversarial system is the wrong approach to decide truth
• Dr. Craig is very confident about his take of physics

Second argument: The fallacy of arguing from authority

• 95% of members of the NAS are atheists
• Therefore Dr. Craig cannot use science

Third argument: Effects don’t require causes

• I am going to pretend that Craig said that “every effect requires a cause”
• Quantum mechanics shows that some effects occur without causes
• A particle of uranium (which is not nothing, it is something) decays without a cause
• This uncaused effect is the same as the universe coming into being out of nothing uncaused
• Therefore the principle of sufficient reason is false

Fourth argument: Silicon-based life and the multiverse

• If these constants had been different, maybe we would have other kinds of intelligent life, like silicon-based life
• Carbon-based life is not the only kind of life, maybe you can have other kinds of life, none of which have been observed
• There could be different kinds of life in other areas of the universe that we can’t see
• There are things we can’t see that disprove the current physics that we can see
• Quantum foam is evidence that a multiverse exists
• The multiverse would solve the problem of fine-tuning

Fifth argument: The Euthyphro dilemma

• The moral argument is refuted by Euthyphro dilemma
• Dr. Craig is such a moron that he has never heard of the Euthyphro dilemma ever before
• This is found in the first and simplest of Plato’s dialogs
• Why is Dr. Craig so stupid that he has not read this simple dialog ever before?
• Evolution explains why humans evolve arbitrary customs and conventions that vary by time and place
• Alternative moral theories: utilitarianism, social contract, etc. that don’t require God

Sixth argument: Mormonism undermines Dr. Craig’s three minimal facts about Jesus

• Why is Dr. Craig so stupid and ignorant to persist in pushing such an ignorant, stupid argument?
• Mormonism is a silly religion that is not historically well founded
• Therefore, Jesus was not buried
• Islam is a silly religion that is not historically grounded
• Therefore, the tomb was not found empty
• Scientology is a silly religion that is not historically grounded
• Therefore, the eyewitnesses didn’t have post-mortem appearances
• Eyewitness testimony is unreliable in some cases
• Therefore, eyewitness testimony was unreliable in this case
• Apparitions of Mary are bizarre
• Therefore, the majority of historians are wrong to think that the disciples saw post-mortem appearances

Seventh argument: Deductive problem of evil

• Evil and suffering are logically incompatible with an all good, all powerful God

Eight argument: God is not just to allow evil and suffering

• God cannot make the evils of this life right in the afterlife

Dr. Craig’s first rebuttal

Dr. Rosenberg sketched the deductive argument from evil.

Dr. Rosenberg presupposes naturalism. Naturalism is a false theory of knowledge:

1. It’s too restrictive: There are truths that cannot be proved by natural science.
2. It’s self-refuting: no scientific proof for naturalism exists.

That’s why epistemological naturalism is considered false by most philosophers of science.

But more importantly than that: Epistemological naturalism does not imply metaphysical naturalism. (E.g. – W. Quine)

Dr. Rosenberg has to present arguments in favor of (metaphysical) naturalism, not just assume that (metaphysical) naturalism is true.

Dr. Craig presented eight arguments against metaphysical naturalism taken from Rosenberg’s own book:

1. The argument from the intentionality (aboutness) of mental states implies non-physical minds (dualism), which is incompatible with naturalism
2. The existence of meaning in language is incompatible with naturalism, Rosenberg even says that all the sentences in his own book are meaningless
3. The existence of truth is incompatible with naturalism
4. The argument from moral praise and blame is incompatible with naturalism
5. Libertarian freedom (free will) is incompatible with naturalism
6. Purpose is incompatible with naturalism
7. The enduring concept of self is incompatible with naturalism
8. The experience of first-person subjectivity (“I”) is incompatible with naturalism

Metaphysical naturalism is false: it is irrational and it contradicts our experience of ourselves.

And epistemological naturalism is compatible with theism.

Rebutting Dr. Rosenberg’s responses:

1. Contingency: no response

2. Cosmological: he mis-states the first premise to say every effect… when it is whatever begins to exist…, the origin of the universe was not from a vacuum, virtual particles come from a vacuum not nothing, there are interpretations of QM that are compatible with determinism. Rosenberg has to believe that the entire universe popped into being from non-being.

3. Mathematics: no response

4. Fine-tuning: the multiverse is refuted by empirical observations of the universe. Without fine-tuning, it’s not that we still have silicon to make life out of. It’s that we lose basic minimal things like chemical diversity, matter, stars, planets, etc. No life of any kind, not just no carbon-based life.

5. Intentionality: no response.

6. Moral argument: the answer to the dilemma is that you split the dilemma: God is the standard of good, and the commands flow from his unchanging moral nature. The commands are not arbitrary, and the standard is not external to God. Dr. Rosenberg is a nihilist and he cannot ground good and evil on his nihilistic view.

7. Resurrection: The Gospels are early eyewitness testimony. Mormonism and Islam have nothing to do with the minimal set of historical facts about Jesus agreed to by the majority of ancient historians across the ideological spectrum, general statements against eyewitnesses do not refute the specific eyewitness testimony in this case.

8. Religious experience: No response.

Dr. Rosenberg’s first rebuttal

I wrote a book and you should buy it, because it got me invited to this debate. Let me repeat the title a few times for you. Please buy it.

Dr. Craig is right, there are multiple interpretations of QM, not just the one I presented, including deterministic ones.

All the disturbing implications of naturalism that Dr. Craig stated follow from metaphysical naturalism, and metaphysical naturalism is true. (Note: he equates science with metaphysical naturalism)

Science proves that metaphysical naturalism is true, but I won’t say what specific scientific tests prove my philosophical assumption of metaphysical naturalism.

I’ll pretend that the Big Bang (science) doesn’t disprove naturalism, like Dr. Craig said. Again. (covers ears) La la la, there is no Big Bang.

We didn’t come here to debate epistemological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism.

Let me explain the problem of intentionality since I’m so smart and no one knows what it means.

There are many answers to this problem of intentionality.

My answer is that most scientists are naturalists, therefore naturalism is true, regardless of the argument from intentionality of mental states.

That’s how I would respond to one of the eight problems with naturalism that Dr. Craig raised. I won’t answer the other seven problems.

It is an argument from ignorance to argue that the applicability of mathematics to the universe requires a designer, because there are non-Euclidean geometries. Craig’s argument, which he gets from people like respected physicists like Eugene Wigner, is bizarre. It is bizarre, therefore I refute Eugene Wigner and all the other scholars who make that argument. It is bizarre! Bizarre!

Deductive problem of evil: there is no response to this argument, certainly not Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense. The deductive argument from evil has not been entirely abandoned at all! It’s not like arch-atheist J.L. Mackie himself admits that the deductive problem of evil doesn’t lead to a logical inconsistency between evil and God.

Dr. Craig has to tell me why God allows evil or God doesn’t exist.

It is offensive that Dr. Craig cannot tell me why God allows every evil and suffering that occurs.

He literally said this: “I will become a Christian if Dr. Craig can tell me why God allowed EVERY EVIL THAT OCCURRED IN THE LAST 3.5 BILLION YEARS”

Dr. Craig’s second rebuttal

We are not in a position to know why God allows specific instances of evil and suffering.

God cannot force people to freely do anything – freedom is not compatible with determinism. Freedom is a good, but freedom opens up the possibility of moral evil. You cannot have the good of free will without allowing people to choose to do morally evil things.

God can permit evil and suffering in order to bring more people into a relationship with him.

The atheist has to show that God could allow less evil and achieve more knowledge of God in order to say there is too much evil.

The purpose of life is not happiness, but knowledge of God.

Dr. Craig quotes agnostic Paul Draper (Purdue) and Peter Van Inwagen (Notre Dame) to state that the deductive problem of evil is dead because of free will and morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil.

1. Contingency: no response.

2. Cosmological: QM does not apply, because the universe came from nothing, not a vacuum, and QM only works in a vacuum.

3. Mathematics: He mentions alternatives like non-Euclidean geometry, but we have to explain the structure of THIS universe.

4. Fine-tuning: ???

5. Intentional states: intentional mental states proves that minds exist, which fits with theism better than it fits with atheism.

6. Moral argument: You need God to ground morality, and Dr. Rosenberg believes in morality. He needs God to ground objective moral values and duties.

7. Historical argument: He has to respond to the minimal facts supported by the consensus of ancient historians across the ideological spectrum.

8. The problems of naturalism: He says that you can’t have science without naturalism, but you can have science with EPISTEMOLOGICAL NATURALISM, and theists accept science and methodological naturalism. We don’t accept METAPHYSCIAL NATURALISM because of the eight problems Craig presented, like intentionality, first-person, persistence of self, etc. You can believe in both science and theism, by embracing epistemological naturalism, while rejecting methaphysical naturalism.

Dr. Rosenberg’s second rebuttal

Dr. Craig hasn’t answered many of my points, I won’t say which ones though.

Debates don’t work as a way of deciding what’s true, so we should overturn the entire criminal justice system.

The principle of sufficient reason is false because it is disconfirmed by quantum mechanics. And quantum mechanics (vacuum and virtual particles that exist for a short time) is similar to the origin of the universe (nothing and entire universe and 14 billion years).

We know that alpha particles come into being without cause all the time from a quantum vacuum for a tiny sub-second duration before going out of existence, so we can say that the entire physical universe came into being for 14 billion years from absolute nothing which is not a quantum vacuum.

Peter Van Inwagen is the best metaphysician working today, and he says that my deductive argument from evil is not decisive, it’s not a successful argument. (Why is he undermining his own problem of evil argument????!)

Dr. Craig invoked Plantinga’s free will defense to the deductive POE. Freedom allows us to do evil. God could have given us free will without evil and suffering. I won’t show how, but I’ll just assert it, because debates are such a bad forum for supplying evidence for my speculative assertions.

If you answer the question 3 + 5 as being 8, then you don’t have free will – you are biologically determined if you answer 8, because everyone answers 8, and that means everyone is biologically determined with no free will.

Why can’t God give us free will and then prevent us from making a free choice?

No scholars date the gospels earlier than 60-70 AD, especially not atheists like James Crossley who dates Mark to 40 AD. Therefore Jesus’ burial isn’t historical, like the majority of scholars across the broad spectrum of scholarship agree it is.

The original New Testament documents were written in Aramaic.

All New Testament scholars are orthodox Christians, like atheist Robert Funk for example.

Dr. Craig’s concluding speech

In order to sustain the deductive argument from evil, Dr. Rosenberg must show that God could create a world of free creatures with less evil.

Principle of Sufficient Reason: not using the general principle of sufficient reason, but a more modest version of this states that contingent things should have an explanation for their existence. And we know that the universe is a contingent.

The New Testament was not written in Aramaic, they were written in Greek. Dr. Rosenberg is wrong there too.

(Dr. Craig spends the rest of his concluding speech giving his testimony and urging people to investigate the New testament).

Dr. Rosenberg’s concluding speech

Some long-dead French guy named Laplace said that he has no need of that (God) hypothesis. He did not know about any of Dr. Craig’s arguments made in this debate tonight when he said that, though.

There is no need to explain how the universe began or how the universe is finely-tuned if you just assume metaphysical naturalism on faith.

The Easter Bunny, therefore atheism.

Most scientists are atheists, therefore atheism.

You can do a lot of science without God, just don’t look at the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, or the other parts of science that Craig mentioned, as well as the origin of life, the Cambrian explosion, the habitability argument, and so on.

You can be a Christian, but good Christians should not use arguments and evidence.

Good Christians should be irrational and ignorant. Bad Christians look for arguments and evidence from science and history.

Good Christians should embrace the absurd. Bad Christians want to search for truth and use logic and evidence.

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Have you ever heard an atheist tell you that naturalistic evolution is an answer to the moral argument? I have. And I found a good reply to this challenge in the book “Contending With Christianity’s Critics“. The chapter that responds to the challenge is authored by Dr. Mark D. Linville. It is only 13 pages long. I have a link to the PDF at the bottom of this post.

First, a bit about the author:

Blog: The Tavern at the End of the World
Current positions:

• PhD Research Fellow
• Tutoring Fellow in Philosophy

Education:

• PhD in Philosophy with a minor in South Asian Studies and a specialization in Philosophy of Religion, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• MA in Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• MA in Philosophy of Religion, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
• MA in Theology, Cincinnati Christian Seminary
• BA in Biblical Studies, Florida Christian College

Here is his thesis of the essay:

Darwin’s account of the origins of human morality is at once elegant, ingenious, and, I shall argue, woefully inadequate. In particular, that account, on its standard interpretation, does not explain morality, but, rather, explains it away . We learn from Darwin not how there could be objective moral facts, but how we could have come to believe—perhaps erroneously—that there are.

Further, the naturalist, who does not believe that there is such a personal being as God, is in principle committed to Darwinism, including a Darwinian account of the basic contours of human moral psychology. I’ll use the term evolutionary naturalism to refer to this combination of naturalism and Darwinism. And so the naturalist is saddled with a view that explains morality away. Whatever reason we have for believing in moral facts is also a reason for thinking naturalism is false. I conclude the essay with a brief account of a theistic conception of morality, and argue that the theist is in a better position to affirm the objectivity of morality.

And here’s a sample to get your attention:

But even if we are assured that a “normal” person will be prompted by the social instincts and that those instincts are typically flanked and reinforced by a set of moral emotions, we still do not have a truly normative account of moral obligation. There is nothing in Darwin’s own account to indicate that the ensuing sense of guilt—a guilty feeling—is indicative of actual moral guilt resulting from the violation of an objective moral law. The revenge taken by one’s own conscience amounts to a sort of second-order propensity to feel a certain way given one’s past relation to conflicting first-order propensities (e.g., the father’s impulse to save his child versus his impulse to save himself). Unless we import normative considerations from some other source, it seems that, whether it is a first or second-order inclination,one’s being prompted by it is more readily understood as a descriptive feature of one’s own psychology than material for a normative assessment of one’s behavior or character. And, assuming that there is anything to this observation, an ascent into even higher levels of propensities (“I feel guilty for not having felt guilty for not being remorseful over not obeying my social instincts…”) introduces nothing of normative import. Suppose you encounter a man who neither feels the pull of social, paternal or familial instincts nor is in the least bit concerned over his apparent lack of conscience. What, from a strictly Darwinian perspective, can one say to him that is of any serious moral import? “You are not moved to action by the impulses that move most of us.” Right. So?

The problem afflicts contemporary construals of an evolutionary account of human morality. Consider Michael Shermer’s explanation for the evolution of a moral sense—the “science of good and evil.” He explains,

By a moral sense, I mean a moral feeling or emotion generated by actions. For example, positive emotions such as righteousness and pride are experienced as the psychological feeling of doing “good.” These moral emotions likely evolved out of behaviors that were reinforced as being good either for the individual or for the group.2

Shermer goes on to compare such moral emotions to other emotions and sensations that are universally experienced, such as hunger and the sexual urge. He then addresses the question of moral motivation.

In this evolutionary theory of morality, asking “Why should we be moral?” is like asking “Why should we be hungry?” or “Why should we be horny?” For that matter, we could ask, “Why should we be jealous?” or “Why should we fall in love?” The answer is that it is as much a part of human nature to be moral as it is to be hungry, horny, jealous, and in love.3

Thus, according to Shermer, given an evolutionary account, such a question is simply a non-starter. Moral motivation is a given as it is wired in as one of our basic drives. Of course, one might point out that Shermer’s “moral emotions” often do need encouragement in a way that, say, “horniness,” does not. More importantly, Shermer apparently fails to notice that if asking “Why should I be moral?” is like asking, “Why should I be horny?” then asserting, “You ought to be moral” is like asserting, “You ought to be horny.” As goes the interrogative, so goes the imperative. But if the latter seems out of place, then, on Shermer’s view, so is the former.

One might thus observe that if morality is anything at all, it is irreducibly normative in nature. But the Darwinian account winds up reducing morality to descriptive features of human psychology. Like the libido, either the moral sense is present and active or it is not. If it is, then we might expect one to behave accordingly. If not, why, then, as a famous blues man once put it, “the boogie woogie just ain’t in me.” And so the resulting “morality” is that in name only.

In light of such considerations, it is tempting to conclude with C. S. Lewis that, if the naturalist remembered his philosophy out of school, he would recognize that any claim to the effect that “I ought” is on a par with “I itch,” in that it is nothing more than a descriptive piece of autobiography with no essential reference to any actual obligations.

When it comes to morality, we are not interested in mere descriptions of behavior. We want to know about prescriptions of behavior, and whether why we should care about following those prescriptions. We are interested in what grounds our sense of moral obligation in reality. What underwrites our sense of moral obligation? If it is just rooted in feelings, then why should we obey our moral sense when obeying it goes against out self-interest? Feelings are subjective things, and doing the right thing in a real objective state of affairs requires more than just feelings. There has to be a real objective state of affairs that makes it rational for us to do the right thing, even when the right thing is against our own self-interest. That’s what morality is – objective moral obligations overriding subjective feelings. I wouldn’t trust someone to be moral if it were just based on their feelings.

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Welcome to episode 53 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss the upcoming 2024 American election, and how specific policies would impact Christians. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss the upcoming 2024 election. How can you measure whether an economy is socialist or free enterprise? Are Scandinavian countries an example of socialism? Does the Bible teach that Christians should support socialism? Which economic system is better for individual prosperity? We also discuss inflation, price controls, moral issues, crime, immigration, energy and health care.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show (with timestamps) provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 53:

Links

Abortion:

• Harris and Walz Would be the Most Extreme Pro-Abortion Administration in History
• Rating on abortion policy: Kamala Harris
• Rating on abortion policy: Tim Walz
• Planned Parenthood execs allegedly caught discussing sale of fetus body parts in shocking undercover video

LGBT:

• Tim Walz Signed Bill Making Minnesota a Sanctuary State for Child Sex-Changes
• The Dangers of the Equality Act

Crime:

• Walz Shifted Blame To City Leaders For ‘Abject Failure’ In Response To 2020 Minneapolis Riots
• What Harris’ Voters Don’t Know About Her Could Hurt America

Immigration:

• New Report Details The True Cost Of Illegal Immigration
• Whistleblowers Detail How 85,000 ‘Unaccompanied Minors’ Went Missing After Biden Admin Dropped Them Off With ‘Sponsors’

Energy:

• New Minnesota law mandates 100% clean energy by 2040
• Where Kamala Harris stands on Green New Deal and climate initiatives
• Exploding Energy Prices in California

Health care:

• 7 reasons to fear Kamala Harris’ radical ‘Medicare-for-all’ schemes
• The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2024
• Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2023 Report

Speaker biographies

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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Which argument for God is the most accessible? To really sustain the cosmic beginning argument and the cosmic fine-tuning argument, you have to learn some scientific evidence. Same for the resurrection of Jesus – you have to learn some history. But what about the moral argument? All you need to make that argument is for your opponent to think that something is morally wrong.

First, let’s review the moral argument, from William Lane Craig.

He writes:

We are going to turn now to a discussion of the moral argument for the existence of God. So far we have been looking at philosophical and scientific arguments. This is an ethical argument. There are a wide variety of moral reasons for believing in God, but this is a particularly simple moral argument that I have used over and over again with university students and I find very effective. It really grabs people where they live. This is not just a matter of scientific evidence or philosophical issues that may not impact your life. This is an issue that is vitally important because everyday as you live you make moral choices. So everyday by your behavior you answer the question whether or not you believe that God exists. The argument consists basically of three simple steps:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

2. Objective moral values do exist.

3. Therefore, God exist.

That is a very simple argument for the existence of God and is easy to memorize. It is just three steps. It is logically valid. If those two premises are true then the conclusion follows necessarily and logically. The only question is: are the two premises true?

But there are some objections to the moral argument. CrossExamined.org has posted a list of five objections to the moral argument from philosopher Paul Rezkalla.

Here are the 5 points:

1. “But I’m a moral person and I don’t believe in God. Are you saying that atheists can’t be moral?”
2. “But what if you needed to lie in order to save someone’s life? It seems that morality is not absolute as you say it is.”
3. ‘Where’s your evidence for objective morality? I won’t believe in anything unless I have evidence for it.’
4. ‘If morality is objective, then why do some cultures practice female genital mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide, and other atrocities which we, in the West, deem unacceptable?’
5. ‘But God carried out many atrocities in the Old Testament. He ordered the genocide of the Canaanites.’

That last one seems to be popular, so let’s double-check the details:

For starters, this isn’t really an objection to the moral argument. It does not attack either premise of the argument. It is irrelevant, but let’s entertain this objection for a second. By making a judgement on God’s actions and deeming them immoral, the objector is appealing to a standard of morality that holds true outside of him/herself and transcends barriers of culture, context, time period, and social norms. By doing this, he/she affirms the existence of objective morality! But if the skeptic wants to affirm objective morality after throwing God out the window, then there needs to be an alternate explanation for its basis. If not God, then what is it? The burden is now on the skeptic to provide a naturalistic explanation for the objective moral framework.

If you have heard any of these objections before when discussing the moral argument, click through and take a look.

And if you have a non-Christian in your life who likes to make moral statements, it’s a good conversation to have. Where does your standard come from? Is it from your own desires? Is it from cultural conventions, that vary by time and place? Is it from Darwinian evolution? Find out what the answer is, and then respond to it.

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I’m not originally from the United States, and when I go back home to visit, one of the questions that I get asked a lot is “why do Americans own so many guns?” My favorite writer on the gun ownership and self-defense issues is Amy Swearer, who writes for the Daily Signal. Below, I’ll link to two recent articles where she talks about recent examples of self-defense in America.

Here are some examples from August 2024:

• Aug. 5, Albuquerque, New Mexico: A disabled Vietnam War veteran awoke to the sounds of someone using a knife to open his bedroom window, police said. The veteran grabbed a pistol from a nightstand and, as the intruder raised the window, fired a single shot that killed him.

• Aug. 15, Brookhaven, Georgia: Police said that a woman called a neighbor for help after her home surveillance system detected four armed men had broken in. The neighbor confronted the men and, according to witnesses, exchanged 15 to 20 rounds until police arrived and the suspects fled in a car. After a chase and a second exchange of fire with officers, three of the four were taken into custody, police said.

• Aug. 21, Liberty Hills, Texas: As a homeowner surveyed his backyard with a contractor, he saw a machete-wielding man climb a fence, enter his property, and try to get into his residence, police said. Afraid for his wife and two young children, the homeowner locked up before getting his gun and confronting the man on a deck of the residence. Seeing the gun, the intruder began to walk away and was arrested by police. He was charged with criminal trespass.

• Aug. 23, Falls Mills, Virginia: Police said a would-be carjacker assaulted a female driver at a rural gas station, telling her child in the back seat: “I’m going to rape your mommy.” Bystanders, one with a handgun, heard the woman’s screams and came to her aid. The carjacker charged at the armed good Samaritan, who shot and wounded him. Police said that the assailant was wanted on outstanding criminal charges. The local sheriff publicly praised the bystanders who intervened, telling reporters, “This could have been a very different outcome.”

• Aug. 24, Medford, Oregon: An armed resident fatally shot an intruder who forced his way into an apartment and threatened another resident with a knife, police said.

And here are some examples from July 2024:

• July 2, Bullhead City, Arizona: Police said Mayor Steve D’Amico heard someone banging on his front door and “messing with” the doorknob in the middle of the night, so he armed himself for a potential confrontation. While still in his underwear, the mayor opened the door, located the would-be intruder (who’d somehow gotten past a locked gate), and detained him at gunpoint until police arrived. The suspect faced charges for trespassing and disorderly conduct.

• July 8, California Valley Village, California: Police said two intruders broke into what they believed was an unoccupied residence and came face-to-face with an armed homeowner. After a “scuffle” in which one intruder used pepper spray against him, the homeowner opened fire, hitting one intruder and sending the other fleeing with an accomplice waiting in a getaway car. The wounded suspect was identified as a repeat offender recently released on probation; his extensive criminal record included arrests for burglary, robbery, and illegal gun possession.

• July 18, Towns County, Georgia: Police said an armed homeowner helped end a dayslong search for an escaped prisoner who walked away from an off-site work detail. The homeowner ordered him to the ground and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. The homeowner’s dog had alerted him to an intruder on the property; when the homeowner investigated, he saw the man in an orange prison jumpsuit. The escapee had been at a county detention center awaiting a court appearance on charges including two counts of burglary, drug offenses, and violating his probation.

• July 22, Ogden, Utah: Police said a pair of pit bulls attacked two neighbors, who shot the dogs to avoid being bitten. The growling dogs had hemmed in one neighbor, who shot and killed one dog when they went after him; the other neighbor shot and wounded the second dog when it charged. The dogs had a history of biting, police said.

• July 28, North Vernon, Indiana: An intruder entered a house through an unlocked door, helped himself to food, went into the room of a female resident, and chased her around the property, police said. The homeowner armed himself and held the intruder at gunpoint until police arrived. The suspect faced charges of burglary and unlawful residential entry.

It’s especially important for people living in blue cities or blue states to arm themselves, because the police forces in these areas have had their budgets slashed by Democrats. “Defund the police” sounds so good, but it just gets a lot of peaceful, law-abiding people killed.

It’s very important to ask secular leftists who want to ban law-abiding people from owning firearms “what do you expect people to do when criminals want to hurt them?” The answer I get from my atheist Democrat friend is that he expects them to call the police, and wait for them to arrive. There is a real suspicion among secular leftists of law-abiding people defend themselves – especially men. A man defending his family? Why, that’s “sexist”. Better to call the police and wait for them to arrive.

The peer-reviewed research

Whenever I get into discussions about gun control, I always mention two academic books by John R. Lott and Joyce Lee Malcolm.

• The Lott book was published by the University of Chicago Press (now in its 3rd edition)
• The Malcolm book was published by Harvard University Press

The book by economist John Lott, linked above, compares the crime rates of all U.S. states that have enacted concealed carry laws, and concludes that violent crime rates dropped after law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry legally-owned firearms. That’s the mirror image of Dr. Malcolm’s Harvard study, which shows that the 1997 UK gun ban caused violent crime rates to MORE THAN DOUBLE in the four years following the ban. But both studies affirm the same conclusion – more legal firearm ownership means less crime.

One of the common mistakes I see anti-gun advocates making is to use the metric of all “gun-related deaths”. First of all, this completely ignores the effects of hand gun ownership on violent crime, as we’ve seen. Take away the guns from law-abiding people and violent crime skyrockets. But using the “gun-related deaths” number is especially wrong, because it includes suicides committed with guns. This is the majority (about two thirds) of gun related deaths, even in a country like America that has a massive inner-city gun violence problem caused by the epidemic of single motherhood by choice. If you take out the gun-related SUICIDES, then the actual number of gun homicides has decreased as gun ownership has grown.

For a couple of useful graphs related to this point, check out this post over at the American Enterprise Institute.

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What’s the definition of racism? Well, it seems to me that a person is racist if they treat people of a different skin color differently than they treat people of their own skin color. So, if a white person treats a black person differently than they do a white person, then the white person is a racist. Because they’re discriminating on the basis of skin color. So, who are the real racists? Conservatives? Or Progressives?

The Yale School of Management reports on an academic study that provides the definitive answer to the question:

According to new research by Cydney Dupree, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Yale SOM, white liberals tend to downplay their own verbal competence in exchanges with racial minorities, compared to how other white Americans act in such exchanges. The study is scheduled for publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

[…]Dupree and her co-author, Susan Fiske of Princeton University, began by analyzing the words used in campaign speeches delivered by Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to different audiences over the years. They scanned 74 speeches delivered by white candidates over a 25-year period. Approximately half were addressed to mostly-minority audiences—at a Hispanic small business roundtable discussion or a black church, for example. They then paired each speech delivered to a mostly-minority audience with a comparable speech delivered at a mostly-white audience—at a mostly-white church or university, for example. The researchers analyzed the text of these speeches for two measures: words related to competence (that is, words about ability or status, such as “assertive” or “competitive”) and words related to warmth (that is, words about friendliness, such as “supportive” and “compassionate”).

[…]The team found that Democratic candidates used fewer competence-related words in speeches delivered to mostly minority audiences than they did in speeches delivered to mostly white audiences. The difference wasn’t statistically significant in speeches by Republican candidates… There was no difference in Democrats’ or Republicans’ usage of words related to warmth.

More testing confirmed the patronizing white supremacist attitude of whites on the political left:

They designed a series of experiments in which white participants were asked to respond to a hypothetical or presumed-real interaction partner. For half of these participants, their partner was given a stereotypically white name (such as “Emily”); for the other half, their partner was given a stereotypically black name (such as “Lakisha”). Participants were asked to select from a list of words for an email to their partner.

[…]The researchers found that liberal individuals were less likely to use words that would make them appear highly competent when the person they were addressing was presumed to be black rather than white. No significant differences were seen in the word selection of conservatives based on the presumed race of their partner.

Conservatives aren’t racist at all – they’re color blind.

One of the reasons why I get along so well with white conservatives is that they don’t patronize me with low expectations, the way that white leftists patronize non-whites. The view of white progressives is similar to the view of white supremacist racists – they think that there is something defective about people like me because of our non-white skin color.

White supremacists and white progressives agree on this: that non-white people aren’t competent enough to make our own decisions. We need help from big government in order to do what whites can do without help. We need to be told what to think for our own good, and shamed if we step out of line. It’s amazing to me that white racist progressives are seen as “compassionate”, when they are the ones who actually believe in the racial inferiority of non-whites.

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I am always on the lookout for good resources on science and Christianity. And I found some. Well, Uncommon Descent found them, and I read their blog, so I found them too. The first four episodes are out, and the topics are: 1) introducing the Cambrian explosion, 2) pre-Cambrian fossils, 3) punctuated equilibrium, and 4) Darwin’s “tree of life”. Each video is 12-20 minutes long.

So, before we see the videos, I feel I should explain the outline for arguing for a creator / designer of the universe from scratch. There are six main arguments. 1) the origin of the universe from nothing, 2) fine-tuning of the creation event, 3) fine-tuning for habitability in the galaxy, solar system, and planet, 4) the origin of the first living self-replicating organism, 5) irreducible / minimal complexity in molecular machines, 6) the sudden origin of basic body plans in the Cambrian explosion (a geological period a long time ago).

These four videos introduce you to the sixth argument in that list, the Cambrian explosion.

First video: Introducing the Cambrian explosion

Description:

When Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, he was painstakingly aware of the fact that the fossil record diametrically opposed his theory. Ever since Darwin’s time, paleontologists have put their finger on the Cambrian explosion, where most of the major animal phyla appear abruptly in the fossil record suddenly and without any evidence of intermediate forms preceding them in Precambrian strata.

Second video: evaluating precursors to the Cambrian explosion

Description:

Are there transitional forms and Precambrian fossils which reveal the evolution of the diverse animal phyla that appear in the Cambrian explosion? The history of paleontology shows the answer is no! As paleontologists have learned more about the fossil and geological record, the challenge of the Cambrian explosion to Darwinian theory has only increased.

Third video: evaluating punctuated equilibrium

Description:

In the 1970s, paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge proposed a model of evolution called punctuated equilibrium, intended to resolve the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. Can “Punk Eek,” as it’s often called, resolve the abrupt appearance of new animal phyla in the Cambrian explosion? This video explains why the answer is No—among many other problems, Punk Eek requires too much evolutionary change too quickly and lacks a biological mechanism to account for the rapid origin of anatomical novelty we see in the Cambrian period.

Fourth video: evaluating homology and phylogenetics

Description:

As more scientists have realized that the fossil record poses serious challenges to Darwin’s theory of evolution, many have turned to molecular homologies and phylogenetic trees to defend Darwin’s tree of life. But do these approaches really support Darwin’s tree? Nope.

If you like these videos, you can read a much longer, more detailed book about it by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, called “Darwin’s Doubt”. Or, you can do what I’m doing and just read a chapter about it in the new book “The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith“. That book covers all 6 of the arguments I mentioned before. You can see the table of contents on the Discovery Institute web site. The chapter by Dr. Gunter Bechly entitled “Does the Fossil Record Demonstrate Darwinian Evolution?” covers the fossil record, and the Cambrian explosion in particular. I like Gunter a LOT, because he had a recent debate on the Unbelievable show on this topic, and he really cleaned the clock of his opponent, a slippery theistic evolutionist named Joshua Swamidass. It was beautiful. He cut through all the theistic evolution garbage and got straight into the science.

I’m reading the book right now. Or rather, I’m having it read to me, because I got the audio book version. If you remember reading books like “Mere Creation” (1998) and “The Creation Hypothesis” (1994) as a young man like I do, then you will love this book.

I like to know a little about every interesting topic, and then watch lots of university lectures and formal debates about them, so I can debate these topics in the places where I live and work. The new book has a lot of different authors from a lot of different perspectives writing on a lot of different topics. You could find a way to talk about these topics in pretty much any environment.

So far, I like Dr. Fazale Rana’s chapter on Adam and Eve the best, but I’m still in Section I. I’m just starting on Jay Richards chapter next.

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Many Christians admire celebrities, athletes, entertainers, and other famous people. But the Christians who impress me are the ones who use their minds to explain Christianity to non-Christians, get into trouble for it, and stand by their beliefs. Three of the ones who come to mind for me are William Dembski, Guillermo Gonzalez and Richard Sternberg. And the first two have posted new stuff.

Frank Turek posted a new podcast about this Substack from William Dembski, where he talks about his thoughts after reading Meg Basham’s new book.

Here is his main point, illustrated with many Bible verses:

My point in this post is not to name evangelical elites who have compromised themselves or the secular philanthropies who have tempted them into compromise. You can get the details in Basham’s book. But here’s an example that Basham gives that’s emblematic of the temptations faced by elite evangelicals. It’s the the case of an elite evangelical being invited to dinner at the Obama White House. I knew this individual 20 years ago early in his career. He has since had a meteoric rise in elite evangelical circles. In the introduction to a recent book that he wrote, he inserts a paragraph that seems out of place about his dinner at the Obama White House (confirming Basham’s account). No doubt, it must be personally gratifying to be invited to the White House. But ego aside, is that really something for an evangelical to be proud of given that the Obama presidency was so opposed to core evangelical beliefs and practices?

I think he’s talking about Russell Moore, who met with Obama. I have an extremely, extremely low opinion of Russell Moore. I don’t think he’s an authentic Christian at all. I think he pretended to be a Christian when he was young, to impress the Christians around him. And then when he fell in with a secular left crowd, he adapted his views so that they would praise him, too. He never put in the work to know whether Christianity is true. People who don’t know whether Christianity is true tend to just USE Christian language to decorate what is essentially a narcissistic enterprise. And of course he doesn’t work at showing non-Christians that it is true, with evidence. That would run counter to his real goal of feeling good, and getting people to like him.

More:

Let me put this point more starkly. The Scriptures teach repeatedly that we should guard against recognition, accolades, and advancement from those hostile to the faith and that in fact we are on much safer ground when those hostile to the faith persecute rather than praise us. This is not to say that we should purposely make ourselves so annoying or distasteful that we receive the reproach of unbelievers (as when Christians act as hypocrites). But it is to say that by quietly and consistently living out our faith, we will naturally attract opposition (consider the ongoing saga of the Denver baker Jack Phillips).

The New Testament makes this point so consistently, as illustrated in the following verses, that it is hard to dismiss it simply as proof texting:

Matthew 5:10–12
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Matthew 10:22
“You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

Luke 6:22–23
“Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.”

John 15:18–20
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”

Acts 5:40–41
“They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”

2 Timothy 3:12
“In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

1 Peter 2:20b–21
“If you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.”

Luke 6:26
“Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

John 5:44
“How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”

John 12:42b–43
“Because of the Pharisees, [many] would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God.”

Galatians 1:10
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

James 4:4
“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

So the prime lesson I take from Basham’s book, and one I would like readers of this post to take with them also, is that we do well not to sell our Christian birthright for a mess of liberal or progressive pottage. We should be better than that and our Christian faith demands better than that.

If you’re not familiar with what the Baptists elites did to Dembski at Baylor University, he talks about it in that column.

He’s not the only one who was persecuted. In a recent interview, Guillermo Gonzalez talked about what happened to him at Iowa State University:

And there is the story of Richard Sternberg, which is reported on here and here. I could go on, but there are 3 examples.

I believe that these men will have a much larger crowns in Heaven than famous “Christian” athletes, celebrities and entertainers. They had to pay a price for their faith. Do you know who they are? And what about you? Is there something that happened to you that hurt you, because you put Boss above your own reputation with non-Christians? You think that what happened to you is a loss, but actually, sharing in the sufferings of Jesus for obedience to the Father is a sign that you are a real follower of Jesus. This is something that many elite Christian leaders do not know.

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We just recorded a two episodes of Dr. Frank Turek’s “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” podcast, over at CrossExamined.org and we talked about some of the policies of the Democrat party. Not just the ethical issues like abortion and LGBT, but also their economic policies. Whenever I could, I tried to point out where Democrat party policies had already been tried.

And here is a very good article from the Daily Signal, about how the economies of European countries are doing under similar policies as are being proposed by the Harris-Walz ticket.

It says:

New numbers say the European Union has joined Japan in the “lost decades” brigade, with per-person gross domestic product in dollar terms nearly flat since 2008.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, while disposable household income in the U.S. is $51,000, it’s just $39,000 in Germany, $34,000 in France, $29,000 in Italy, and $21,000 in Greece. For perspective, Mexico is about $16,000.

A very good way to measure poverty in a country is to look at GDP per capita. This is the median amount produced by individuals in that country. A high GDP per capita means high individual productivity, which typically corelates with high individual earnings.

So why do people in Europe have such low productivity, and low earnings?

Simple: Government took over. Government spending is nearly half of Europe’s GDP, which hogs physical resources—steel, workers, etc.—while predatory tax rates punish production and welfare tempts workers away. Nobody produces, everybody takes.

Add in mandates from environment to social policy that hike prices and slap straitjackets on companies, and the smart ones leave, the rest grimly soldier on, staying in business till their factories wear out, then it’s lights out.

In short, it doesn’t pay to produce in Europe.

Notice the countries that he lists: France, Germany, Greece, and Italy. These are European countries that have government control of their economies. According to the Index of Economic Freedom, which measures how socialist an economy is, Germany is ranked #18 best out of 184 countries. But France is ranked 62, Italy is ranked 81, and Greece is ranked 113. A significant cause of Germany’s poverty is the massive inflation caused by their green energy policies, bu their economy is largely free, as well as their open border immigration policy.

Many Americans on the secular left say that those countries are not doing “real” socialism. They want us to look at countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. and they call what’s happening in those countries “socialism”. But those are not socialist countries. Again, according to the Index of Economic Freedom, the economies of those countries are more free than the United States. Denmark is ranked #7 for most capitalist economy. Sweden is ranked #9 and Norway is ranked #10. The difference is that those economies have very high tax rates and very high government spending.

What makes an economy “free”?

The Heritage Foundation explains in this article:

We measure economic freedom based on 12 quantitative and qualitative factors, grouped into four broad categories, or pillars, of economic freedom:

• Rule of Law (property rights, government integrity, judicial effectiveness);
• Government Size (government spending, tax burden, fiscal health);
• Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom); and
• Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom).

Each of the twelve economic freedoms within these categories is graded on a scale of 0 to 100. A country’s overall score is derived by averaging these twelve economic freedoms, with equal weight being given to each.

Sadly, the Harris-Walz plans for the United States are NOT to turn us into Denmark or Sweden or Norway. They aren’t going for a free market economy that is isolated from government, with higher taxes and more social spending. They are going for the model of France, Italy and Greece, with higher taxes, but also reducing property rights, fiscal health, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom, trade freedom, investment freedom and financial freedom. But they also want to increase activist courts, government spending, and the tax burden on businesses and individuals.

I think the articles I linked to above are worth reading, because if you are a Christian, you will find it much harder to achieve the goals you have as a Christian in an economic system that is unfree. It’s hard to think about apologetics and evangelism when you can’t afford electricy or food. That’s happening right now in secular left countries like Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea.

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You might remember Peter Millican from the debate he had with William Lane Craig. I ranked that debate as one of the 3 best I have ever seen, along with the first Craig vs Dacey debate and the second Craig vs Sinnott-Armstrong debate.

Details:

Science has revealed that the fundamental constants and forces of the cosmos appear to be exquisitely fine-tuned to allow a universe in which life can develop. Is God the best explanation of the incredibly improbable odds of the universe we live in being a life-permitting one?

Robin Collins is a Christian philosopher and a leading advocate of the argument for God from cosmic design. Peter Millican is an atheist philosopher at Oxford University. They debate the issues.

From ‘Unbelievable?’ on ‘Premier Christian Radio’, Saturday 19th March 2016.

The debate:

As usual when the atheist is an expert, there is no snark or paraphrasing in the summary.

Summary

Brierley: What is the fine-tuning argument?

Collins: the fine-tuning is structure of the universe is extremely precisely set to allow the existing of conscious, embodied agents who are capable of moral behavior. There are 3 kinds of fine-tuning: 1) the laws of nature (mathematical formulas), 2) the constants of physics (numbers that are plugged into the equations), 3) the initial conditions of the universe. The fine-tuning exists not just because there are lots of possibilities, but there is something special about the actual state of affairs that we see. Every set of laws, parameters and initial conditions is equally improbable, but the vast majority of permutations do not permit life. The possible explanations: theism or the multiverse.

Brierley: How improbable are the numbers?

Collins: Once case is the cosmological constant (dark energy density), with is 1 part in (10 raised to 120th power). If larger, the universe expands too rapidly for galaxies and stars to form after the Big Bang. If smaller, the universe collapses in on itself before life could form. Another case is the initial distribution of mass energy to give us the low entropy we have that is necessary for life. The fine-tuning there is 1 part in (10 raised to the 10th power raised to the 123rd power).

Brierley: What do you think of the argument?

Millican: The argument is worth taking very seriously. I am a fan of the argument. The other arguments for God’s existence such as the ontological and cosmological arguments are very weak. But the fine-tuning argument has the right structure to deliver the conclusion that theists want. And it is different from the traditional design argument tended to focus on biological nature, which is not a strong argument. But the fine-tuning argument is strong because it precedes any sort of biological evolution. Although the design is present at the beginning of the universe, it is not visible until much later. The argument points to at least deism, and possibly theism. The argument is not based on ignorance, it is rooted in “the latest results from the frontiers of science” (his phrase).

Brierley: Is this the best argument from natural theology?

Collins: The cosmological argument makes theism viable intuitively, but there are some things that are puzzling, like the concept of the necessary being. But the fine-tuning argument is decisive.

Brierley: What’s are some objections to the fine-tuning argument?

Millican: The argument is based on recent physics, so we should be cautious because we maybe we will discover a natural explanation.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: The cosmological constant has been around since 1980. But the direction that physics is moving in is that there are more constants and quantities being discovered that need to be fine-tuned, not less. Even if you had a grand unified theory, that would have to be have the fine-tuning pushed into it.

(BREAK)

Millican: Since we have no experience of other laws and values from other universes, we don’t know whether these values can be other than they are. Psychologically, humans are prone to seeing purpose and patterns where there is none, so maybe that’s happening here.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: It is possible to determine probabilities on a single universe case, for example using multiple ways of calculating Avogadro’s number all converging on the same number makes it more probable.

Millican: Yes, I willing to accept that these constants can take on other values, (“principle of indifference”). But maybe this principle be applied if the improbability were pushed up into the theory?

Collins: Even if you had a grand theory, selecting the grand theory from others would retain the improbability.

Brierley: What about the multiverse?

Millican: What if there are many, many different universes, and we happen to be in the one that is finely-tuned, then we should not be surprised to observe fine-tuning. Maybe a multiverse theory will be discovered in the future that would allow us to have these many universes with randomized constants and quantities. “I do think that it is a little bit of a promissary note”. I don’t think physics is pointing to this right now.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: I agree it’s a promissary note. This is the strongest objection to the fine-tuning argument. But there are objections to the multiverse: 1) the fine-tuning is kicked back up to the multiverse generator has to be set just right to produce universes with different constants, 2) the multiverse is more likely to produce a small universe with Boltzmann brains that pop into existence and then out again, rather than a universe that contains conscious, embodied intelligent agents. I am working on a third response now that would show that the same constants that allow complex, embodied life ALSO allow the universe to be discoverable. This would negate the observer-selection effect required by the multiverse objection.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Millican: I don’t see why the multiverse generator has to be fine-tuned, since we don’t know what the multiverse generator is. I’m not impressed by the Boltzmann brains, but won’t discuss. We should be cautious about inferring design because maybe this is a case where we are seeing purpose and design where there is none.

Brierley: Can you negate the discoverability of the universe by saying that it might be psychological?

Collins: These things are not psychological. The selected value for the cosmic microwave background radiation is fine-tuned for life and for discoverability. It’s not merely a discoverability selection effect, it’s optimal for discoverability. If baryon-photon value were much smaller, we would have known that it was not optimal. So that judgment cannot be explained by

Millican: That’s a very interesting new twist.

Brierley: Give us your best objection.

Millican: I have two. 1) Even if you admit to the fine-tuning, this doesn’t show a being who is omnipotent and omnisicient. What the fine-tuning shows is that the designer is doing the best it can given the constraints from nature. If I were God, I would not have made the universe so big, and I wouldn’t have made it last 14 billion years, just to make one small area that supports life. An all-powerful God would have made the universe much smaller, and much younger. 2) The fine-tuning allows life to exist in other solar systems in other galaxies. What does this alien life elsewhere mean for traditional Christian theology? The existence of other alien civilizations argues against the truth of any one religion.

Brierley: Respond to those.

Collins: First objection: with a finite Creator, you run into the problem of having to push the design of that creature up one level, so you don’t really solve the fine-tuning problem. An unlimited being (non-material, not composed of parts) does not require fine-tuning. The fine-tuning is more compatible with theism than atheism. Second objection: I actually do think that it is likely that are other universes, and life in other galaxies and stars, and the doctrine of the Incarnation is easily adaptable to that, because God can take on multiple natures to appear to different alien civilizations.

Other resources (from WK)

If you liked this discussion, be sure and check out a full length lecture by Robin Collins on the fine-tuning, and a shorter lecture on his very latest work. And also this the Common Sense Atheism podcast, featuring cosmologist Luke Barnes, who answers about a dozen objections to the fine-tuning argument.

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Here’s a debate with a well-qualified atheist and Dr. William Lane Craig, the most effective defender of Christianity operating today.

Video:

Audio:

Description from the Youtube upload:

This debate on “Does God Exist?” took place in front of a capacity audience at the Great Hall, University of Birmingham. It was recorded on Friday 21st October 2011 as part of the UK Reasonable Faith Tour with William Lane Craig.

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, California and a leading philosopher of religion. Peter Millican is Gilbert Ryle Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, University of Oxford and a noted scholar in studies of Hume.

The debate was hosted by the University of Birmingham Student Philosophy Society, and the debate was moderated by Professor Carl Chinn.

Dr. Millican proved to be an amazing debater, and that allowed Dr. Craig to show the full range of his talents in a way that he has never done before. This was a great debate – right up there with Craig’s two debates against Austin Dacey and Paul Draper. Dr. Millican is excellent at analytical philosophy, had studied cosmology and physics, and he came prepared to answer Craig’s arguments. There is NO SNARK in my debate summary below, out of respect for Dr. Millican. However, I haven’t proof-read it, so please do point out any errors. There is about 30 minutes of Q&A time at the end.

Dr. Craig’s opening speech:

There are good reasons to believe that God exists.

There are no good reasons to believe that God does not exist.

A1) The origin of the universe

1. The universe began to exist
2. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a transcendent cause.
3. The universe has a transcendent cause.

The origin of the universe is confirmed by philosophical arguments and scientific evidence.

There cannot be an actual infinite number of past events, because mathematical operations like subtraction and division cannot be applied to actual infinities.

The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) proof shows that every universe that expands must have a space-time boundary in the past. That means that no expanding universe, no matter what the model, cannot be eternal into the past.

Even speculative alternative cosmologies do not escape the need for a beginning.

The cause of the universe must be transcendent and supernatural. It must be uncaused, because there cannot be an infinite regress of causes. It must be eternal, because it created time. It must be non-physical, because it created space. There are only two possibilities for such a cause. It could be an abstract object or an agent. Abstract objects cannot cause effects. Therefore, the cause is an agent.

A2) The fine-tuning of the universe

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is either due to law, chance or design.
2. It is not due to law or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

The progress of science has revealed that the Big Bang was fine-tuned to allow for the existence of intelligent life.

Type 1: Constants like the gravitational constant are finely-tuned, and are not dependent on the laws of physics.

Type 2: Quantities like the amount of entropy in the universe, are not dependent on the laws of physics.

The range of life-permitting values is incredibly small compared to the possible values of the constants and quantities. (Like having a lottery with a million black balls and one white ball, and you pick the white ball. Even though each individual ball has the same tiny chance of being picked, but the odds are overwhelming that the whichever ball you pick will be black, and not white).

Not only are the numbers not due to laws, but they are not due to chance either. It’s not just that the settings are unlikely, it’s that they are unlikely and they conform to an independent pattern – namely, the ability to support complex life.

A3) The moral argument

1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
2. Objective morality does exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Objective moral values are values that exist independently of whether any humans believe them or not.

Michael Ruse, an atheist philosopher agrees that if God does not exist, then there is only a “herd morality” that is determined by biological evolution and social evolution. There no objective moral standard, just different customs and conventions that vary by time and place. Anyone who acts against the herd morality is merely being unfashionable and unconventional. On the atheistic view, there is nothing objective and binding about this evolved “herd morality”. However, people do experience objective moral values, and these cannot be grounded on atheism.

Furthermore, God must exist in order to argue that there is evil in the world. In order to be able to make a distinction between good and evil that is objective, there has to be a God to determine a standard of good and evil that is binding regardless of the varying customs and conventions of different people groups. Even when a person argues against God’s existence by pointing to the “evil” in the world, they must assume objective moral values, and a God who grounds those objective moral values.

A4) The resurrection of Jesus.

1. There are certain minimal facts that are admitted by the majority of historians, across the ideological spectrum: the empty tomb, the appearances and the early belief in the resurrection.
2. Naturalistic attempts to explain these minimal facts fail.
3. The best explanation of these facts is that Jesus rose from the dead.

A5) Religious experience

People can know that God exists through experience. In the absence of defeaters for these experiences, these experiences constitute evidence for God’s existence.

Dr. Millican’s opening speech:

Dr. Craig has the burden of proof because he claims that God exists.

The Christian God hypothesis:

1. An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God created the universe.
2. This God cares about humans.
3. This God has acted in history though the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

This is a factual claim, and we are discussing the evidence for whether these claims are true or false. We are not interested in religious practice, or the consolation of religious belief, nor any other religions.

A1) Religious pluralism and epistemology

Human beings are purpose-finding creatures – we are prone to prefer explanations that involve purpose.

Human beings are pattern-finding animals – we tend to find designs in states of affairs.

Human beings have an interest in maintaining religious hierarchies because of the power it gives them.

Religious beliefs are not determined by rational considerations, but are determined by geographic location.

The same non-scientific method of generating religious beliefs (purpose-finding, pattern-finding, geographic location, parental teaching, charismatic speakers, praise songs and worship, religious education, ancient holy books) is being used in several religions, and it leads to different, contradictory truth claims. So at least some of those conflicting claims are false. And if the method is generating some false claims, then it’s not a good method, and it undermines all the religions that use those methods.

A2) Absence of evidence is evidence of absence

There is no scientific evidence for God.

A3) Mental processes depend on physical systems

There is no scientific evidence for a disembodied intelligence.

Our universal human experience is that intelligence and mental operations require a physical brain.

The quality of our thinking depends on physical conditions, like being tired or on drugs.

But Christian theists believe that mental processes can exist independently of an underlying physical reality, unimpaired by the death of the physical body and the brain.

R.A1) The origin of the universe

1. There is no evidence that whatever begins to exist requires a cause. All the evidence we have of things beginning to exist are when something is created from rearrangements of other things that already existed.

The closest analog we have to something coming into being from nothing is quantum particles coming into being from nothing, and that causation is random.

There is no evidence that thoughts can bring about physical effects, and Bill is arguing for a mental cause to the origin of the universe.

Even if things that begin to exist IN the universe have causes, it doesn’t hold for the universe as a whole. Bill is committing the fallacy of composition.

Time begins with the universe, but our experience of causation is that it is a temporal process. So if there is no time “prior to” the universe’s beginning, then how can there be a cause to the universe?

It’s possible that there could be something outside our universe that is eternal.

It’s also possible that the Big Bang could be wrong, and this universe could oscillate eternally and not require a beginning.

1. There are cosmological theories that avoid the beginning of the universe by positing a prior period of contraction prior to the Big Bang.

The beginning of this universe depends on general relativity, and that theory breaks down at the level of quantum mechanics.

1. There is no evidence that minds can exist without an underlying physical system. So even if there is a cause of the universe, then it is neither an abstract object nor a mind. It would have to be something else, and not something we are familiar with – we are just not in a position to speculate of what it could be.

R.A3) The moral argument

Atheists do believe in a standard of morality that is not based on what groups of humans believe.

Utilitarians think there is a standard of moral values that is objective, because the measure of human happiness (for the greatest number) is objective, even if people are mistaken about what promotes that happiness.

Kantians have a rational process for determining which moral imperatives should be universalized.

Humeans have a system that is rooted in natural human sentiment.

Dr. Craig’s first rebuttal:

I do not have the only burden of proof. The topic is “Does God Exist?”. If Dr. Millican answers “no” then he has a burden of proof, otherwise we are left with agnosticism.

R.A1) Religious pluralism and epistemology

First, there is no single common method of adopting a religion.

Second, MY method this evening is logic and evidence and personal experience – which is the same as his method. So his comments about how people in different religions adopt their religion through parents, church, singing, etc. have no bearing on the arguments I will be making.

R.A2) Absence of evidence is evidence of absence

Absence of evidence is only evidence of absence if we can reasonably expect that there should be some evidence that is not present. He would have to show that there should be more evidence for God’s existence that the 5 arguments that I already presented – something that we should expect to see that we don’t see.

R.A3) Mental processes depend on physical systems

No response by Dr. Craig. (but see below)

A1) The origin of the universe

1. He says that there are speculative cosmologies like the multiverse that escape the need for a beginning, but that’s false, the BGV proof applies to them, and they do need a beginning.

He says that you can escape BGV by positing a contraction prior to the expansion. However Vilenkin says that any contraction phase is unstable and would introduce additional singularities that would hamper any later expansion phase.

He says that we need a theory of quantum gravity in order to describe the early universe. But Vilenkin says that the BGV proof is independent of gravity as defined by general relativity.

He did not respond to the philosophical arguments for a beginning of the universe.

1. He says that we don’t have experience of things coming into being except from material causes. However, it would be even more difficult to explain the universe coming into being on atheism since you can’t appeal to a material cause nor to an efficient cause. Even Hume recognizes that things can’t pop into being without causes.

He talks about how in quantum physics virtual particles appear out of nothing. But that’s false, because the quantum vacuum in which virtual particles appear is not nothing, it is a sea of subatomic particles and energy. Quantum physics is not an exception to the idea that things that come into being require a cause.

He mentions the fallacy of composition. But I am not saying that everything in the universe has a cause, therefore the universe as a whole has a cause. I am saying that non-being has no capacity to bring something into being. Non-Being doesn’t even have the potential to bring something into being.

1. He says that there are no unembodied minds, so the cause of the universe can’t be an unembodied mind. But the argument concludes that there is a non-material cause, and it can’t be an abstract object, so it would have to be a mind.

In addition, we ourselves are unembodied minds. This is because physical objects cannot have the properties that minds have, like the property of having feelings.

Material conceptions of mind don’t explain identity over time.

Material conceptions of mind don’t explain free will.

Material conceptions of mind don’t explain intentional states (thinking about something).

Material conceptions of mind don’t explain mental causation.

The best explanation for our own first person experience of the mental realm is a substance dualism. We are non-material minds, and we can cause effects in the physical world. And God does the same thing. He is a mind, and he causes physical effects.

A2) He gave no response.

A3) He says that there are atheistic theories of morality that don’t depend on the opinions of groups. But these theories all depend on the idea that human beings have instrinsic value – that they are the sorts of things to which moral considerations apply. Naturalism cannot ground this moral value – human beings are no more valuable any other animal.

Also, there are no objective moral obligations in naturalist systems of morality, because there is no one in authority to command them. Moral prescriptions require moral prescribers.

A4) He gave no response.

A5) He gave no response.

Dr. Millican’s first rebuttal:

R.A2) The fine-tuning argument

We have to be careful not to judge what counts as finely-tuned through our intuitions.

We have to be careful about reasoning for a sample size of this one observable universe.

We don’t really know about the full range of possibilities for these constants and quantities.

There might be other universes that we can’t observe that aren’t fine-tuned, and we just happen to be in the one that is fine-tuned.

The fine-tuning might be solved by future discoveries, like the inflationary cosmology removed some of the fine-tuning.

There might be a multiverse that we don’t have evidence for right now.

We need to be careful about using science to prove God because science might change in the future.

The universe is very big and mysterious.

This argument doesn’t prove that God is good. He could be evil = anti-God.

God created the universe inefficiently if his goal was to produce life.

God created the universe too big.

God created the universe too old.

God created too many galaxies and stars that are not hospitable to life.

If the universe were fine-tuned for life, then there should be more aliens.

If the universe were fine-tuned for life, then there are probably lots of alien civilizations. But then Jesus would have to appear to all of the aliens too.

R.A1) The origin of the universe

1. It’s not a big deal that you can get multiple solutions to equations involving subtraction of actual infinities. For example, the equation 0 x y = 0 has many solutions for y, but that doesn’t mean that multiplication doesn’t work in the real world.

A2) Absence of evidence is evidence of absence

I would expect that there would be more evidence than there is.

R.A1) The origin of the universe

1. The BVG proof might be overturned by future scientific discoveries. We have no reason to be confident in current physics.

I agree that the quantum vacuum is something and not nothing, but it’s similar to nothing.

We don’t have any reason to believe that things that come into being require causes – except for our universal experience that this is always the case.

1. As to the cause of the universe coming into being, you said that it could only be an abstract object or a mind, and it can’t be an abstract object because they don’t cause effects, so it must be a mind. But there are all sorts of things we’ve never thought of that it could be other than a mind.

I agree that mental properties are not physical properties and that epiphenomenalism is incorrect. Physical objects can have “algorithmic properties” as well as physical properties, it doesn’t mean that computers have minds.

Dr. Craig’s second rebuttal:

R.A2) Absence of evidence is evidence of absence

He expressed his personal opinion that there should be more evidence, but that’s not an argument.

God knows how people will respond to getting more evidence or less evidence and he has to be careful not to take away their free will to disbelieve by piling them up with coercive evidence. God’s goal is not just to convince people that he exists. God’s goal is to have people respond to him and pursue him.

A1) The origin of the universe

1. He said that multiple answers to equations are no problem. But the problem is that you can’t translate multiple answers into a real world context.

The problem is that you are subtracting an identical number from an identical number and getting contradictory results, and that cannot be translated into the real world, where subtraction always gives a definite single result.

He talks about how you can get multiple answers with multiplication by 0. But 0 is not a real quantity, it is just the absence of something, and that cannot translate into the real world, because it has no being.

He says that I am only using evidence from current physics. But that is the point – the evidence of current physics and cosmology supports the beginning of the universe.

1. He said that an umembodied mind can’t be the cause, but we are minds and we cause effects on our physical bodies.

In addition, the design argument supports the idea that the cause of the universe is intelligent.

A2) The fine-tuning of the universe

He says we should be cautious. Of course.

He says the probabilities can’t be assessed. But you can just take the current value and perturb it and see that the resulting universe loses its ability to support life, and you can test an entire range around the current value to see that that vast majority of values in the range don’t permit life.

He says that the current physics is not well-established, but there are so many examples of fine-tuning across so many different areas of science that it is not likely that all of them will be overturned, and the number of finely-tuned constants and quantities has been growing, not shrinking.

He says it doesn’t prove that God is good, and he’s right – that’s what the moral argument is for.

He says that God isn’t efficient enough, but efficiency is only important for those who have limited time and/or limited resources. But God has unlimited time and resources.

He says that the universe is too old, but the large age of the universe is a requirement to support intelligent life – (i.e. – you need third generation stars to provide a stable source of energy to planets, and those stars require that two generations of stars are born and die).

He said what about aliens, and theists are open to that, and God can certainly provide for the salvation of those beings, if they have fallen into sin.

Dr. Millican’s second rebuttal:

R.A1) The origin of the universe

1. Just because epiphenominalism is false, it doesn’t mean that substance dualism is true.

The majority of philosophers of mind do not accept substance dualism.

R.A3) The moral argument

The majority of philosophers are moral realists, but a minority of philosophers are theists. So that means that there must be some way of justifying morality on atheism, which I will not describe right now.

Atheists can express their opinion that humans have intrinsic moral value.

He grants that atheists can perceive moral values. But if atheists can perceive moral values, then why is God needed to enable that?

Atheists can express their opinion that humans are special. We can be rational, and that makes us special.

Atheists can express their opinion that it is good to care about other humans because they are of the same species.

R.A4) The resurrection of Jesus

We don’t have any reasons to believe i the supernatural.

The gospels are written late for the purposes of evangelism.

The gospels are not independent, e.g. Matthew and Luke depend on Q.

John is the latest gospel, and the Christology of John is the highest of all.

The four gospels agree because the early church rejected other (unnamed) gospels that didn’t agree.

Matthew 27 – the earthquake and the raised saints – is not recorded in any other contemporary non-Christian source.

Dr. Craig’s final rebuttal:

A3) The moral argument

He says that human beings are rational, and that gives them value. But atheists like Sam Harris prefer the flourishing of sentient life. He includes non-rational animals as having moral value. So without God, we see that the choice of who or what has moral value is arbitrary. And where would objective moral duties come from if there is no moral lawgiver?

The fact that most atheists accept objective moral values doesn’t mean that they can rationally ground those values on their atheistic worldview. You can’t provide a basis for moral values on atheism by counting the number of atheists who accept objective morality. It’s not surprising that atheists can perceive objective moral values IF they are living in auniverse created by God who grounds these objective moral values and duties that atheists perceive.

A4) The resurrection of Jesus

He cites Geza Vermes and Bart Ehrman as authorities on the historical Jesus, but both of them accept all three of the facts that I presented as minimal facts. Ehrman doesn’t accept the resurrection of Jesus because he presupposes naturalism. He rejects the resurrection on philosophical grounds, not historical grounds.

Dr. Millican’s final rebuttal:

R.A5) Religious experience

Religious experience is an unreliable way to test the claims of a religion, because lots of religions have them and they make contradictory truth claims. In the future, we may discover naturalistic ways of explaining religious experience.

R.A4) The resurrection of Jesus

Even if you can make a case for the resurrection based on these3 minimal facts, there are other stories in the New Testament like Matthew 27 that are quite weird and they undermine the 3 minimal facts that even Geza Vermes and Bart Ehrman accept.

R.A1) The origin of the universe

Bill hasn’t shown that there is any reason for thinking that things don’t come into being, uncaused, out of nothing.

A4) The problem of evil

Theists can’t explain what God’s specific morally sufficient reasons are for permitting the apparently gratuitous evil that we see.

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My favorite economist is Thomas Sowell, who is famous for making the findings of academic economists accessible to ordinary people. I always joke to my friends that Thomas Sowell books are like Lay’s potato chips – you can’t read just one. Well, if you’ve read Dr. Sowell’s flagship book “Basic Economics”, you know that the early chapters are about how prices work in the economy.

So, I thought I would link to a VERY good article on price controls by Thomas Sowell. If you’ve never read him, I think you’ll really enjoy how me makes sense of the world for you. Learning how the world works is fun – now you see how to make good decisions.

This is “An Ancient Fallacy: Price Controls” from Capitalism Magazine.

He writes:

Those old enough to remember the gasoline crisis of 1979 may recall sitting in long lines of cars at filling stations, waiting — sometimes for hours — to reach the pump. This was one of the most common consequences of price control throughout history — a shortage. Yet how many Americans ever made the connection between the price controls of the 1970s and the gasoline shortages of the 1970s? How many have noticed that they haven’t been waiting in gasoline lines since Ronald Reagan got rid of the price controls on oil?

Why do price controls cause shortages? There are basically two reasons: supply and demand.

People will not supply as much at a lower price as they will at a higher price. Some oil wells that will repay their costs and earn a profit when the price of oil is $25 a barrel will not cover their costs when the price is $15 a barrel. Some people who will rent out a bungalow in their backyard when rents are high will not bother when rents are low. Some farmers will give up farming when food prices are kept below the point where they can earn a living.

On the demand side, people will demand more when the price is kept artificially low by price controls. Before rent control laws were passed in Sweden, less than one-fourth of unmarried adults there had their own separate housing units, but afterwards more than half did. People buy more of anything that is cheaper. With more being demanded and less being supplied, shortages are inevitable, whether with housing, food, medical care or whatever.

It is not just the quantity supplied that declines under price controls. Quality also declines.

When there are more people trying to rent apartments than there are apartments for rent, landlords no longer have to maintain the appearance of their buildings. They do not need to pay for painting, repairs or maintenance as often as they did when there was no housing shortage and they needed to attract tenants.

Sometimes quality deterioration takes the form of waiting — not just cars waiting in line at filling stations, but also sick people remaining on waiting lists for months to get surgery or other medical treatment they need. Cheap medical care is one of the most expensive things there is.

So, if you force producers to charge less for what they are making, you might see a shortage, you might see a decline in quality, or you might see waiting lists.

Now, one of the examples that Sowell uses in his books is the example of rent control. This is when the government responds to people complaining that “the rent is too damn high” by forcing landlords to charge less. If you’re paying attention, then you can predict what will happen next. There will be a shortage of housing, because people with capital invest it in other places, rather than building and renting out places to live. Why? Because there is no money to be made by investing in renting properties when the government is pushing prices down.

So, let’s look at a reverse case, where price controls are removed. What would you expect to see when a country that has had rent control laws for a long time repeals it?

Well, Argentina just elected a new free market capitalist government, and they repealed their rent control laws.

Newsweek reports on what happened next:

Argentina’s recent repeal of rent control by libertarian President Javier Milei has led to a surge in housing supply, with the freedom to negotiate contracts, previously restricted, directly causing a drop in rental prices.

Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” known for his free-market approach, repealed the 2020 Rental Law, enacted by former leftist President Alberto Fernández, which had imposed restrictions on landlords and led to a significant decline in rental availability.

[…]For many locals, finding a new apartment had become “mission impossible.” But after the repeal, Buenos Aires saw a doubling of available rental units, and rental prices have stabilized. Under the new rules, landlords and tenants have more freedom to agree on lease terms. If the duration isn’t specified, it defaults to two years.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in rental apartments, and in some cases, we had to lower prices in pesos because of fewer viewings,” Soledad Balayan, head of the real-estate agency Maure Inmobiliaria, told Argentine newspaper La Nación.

Since Millei’s repeal of rent control laws took effect on December 29, the supply of rental housing in Buenos Aires has jumped by 195.23%, according to the Statistical Observatory of the Real Estate Market of the Real Estate College (CI).

If you guessed that repealing price controls on rental properties would reverse the shortage and cause an abundance of high quality properties, then you guessed right. This is how the world works! Naturally, as supply increases, consumers have a lot more choice, and they get the benefit of better quality at a lower price, because of increased competition among suppliers of rental properties.

The article notes that Joe Biden has proposed rent control at the federal level, which is exactly the kind of policy that you would epect his successor, Kamala Harris, to push if she is elected President. If you know someone who rents, maybe you should tell them about the consequences of rent control laws?

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Have you read Jay Richards’ book “Money, Greed and God?” Because if you haven’t, he’s written a series of articles that summarize the main points of the book.

The index post is here.

Here are the posts in the series:

• Part 1: The Eight Most Common Myths about Wealth, Poverty, and Free Enterprise
• Part 2: Can’t We Build A Just Society?
• Part 3: The Piety Myth
• Part 4: The Myth of the Zero Sum Game
• Part 5: Is Wealth Created or Transferred?
• Part 6: Is Free Enterprise Based on Greed?
• Part 7: Hasn’t Christianity Always Opposed Free Enterprise?
• Part 8: Does Free Enterprise Lead to An Ugly Consumerist Culture?
• Part 9: Will We Use Up All Our Resources?
• Part 10: Are Markets An Example of Providence?

Parts 4 and 5 are my favorites. It’s so hard to choose one to excerpt, but I must. I will choose… Part 4.

Here’s the problem:

Myth #3: The Zero Sum Game Myth – believing that trade requires a winner and a loser.

One reason people believe this myth is because they misunderstand how economic value is determined. Economic thinkers with views as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx believed economic value was determined by the labor theory of value. This theory stipulates that the cost to produce an object determines its economic value.

According to this theory, if you build a house that costs you $500,000 to build, that house is worth $500,000. But what if no one can or wants to buy the house? Then what is it worth?

Medieval church scholars put forth a very different theory, one derived from human nature: economic value is in the eye of the beholder. The economic value of an object is determined by how much someone is willing to give up to get that object. This is the subjective theory of value.

And here’s an example of how to avoid the problem:

How you determine economic value affects whether you view free enterprise as a zero-sum game, or a win-win game in which both participants benefit.

Let’s return to the example of the $500,000 house. As the developer of the house, you hire workers to build the house. You then sell it for more than $500,000. According to the labor theory of value, you have taken more than the good is actually worth. You’ve exploited the buyer and your workers by taking this surplus value. You win, they lose.

Yet this situation looks different according to the subjective theory of value. Here, everybody wins. You market and sell the house for more than it cost to produce, but not more than customers will freely pay. The buyer is not forced to pay a cost he doesn’t agree to. You are rewarded for your entrepreneurial effort. Your workers benefit, because you paid them the wages they agreed to when you hired them.

This illustration brings up a couple important points about free enterprise that are often overlooked:

1. Free exchange is a win-win game.

In win-win games, some players may end up better off than others, but everyone ends up better off than they were at the beginning. As the developer, you might make more than your workers. Yet the workers determined they would be better off by freely exchanging their labor for wages, than if they didn’t have the job at all.

A free market doesn’t guarantee that everyone wins in every competition. Rather, it allows many more win-win encounters than any other alternative.

2. The game is win-win because of rules set-up beforehand.

A free market is not a free-for-all in which everybody can do what they want. Any exchange must be free on both sides. Rule of law, contracts, and property rights are needed to ensure exchanges are conducted rightly. As the developer of the house, you’d be held accountable if you broke your contract and failed to pay workers what you promised.

An exchange that is free on both sides, in which no one is forced or tricked into participating, is a win-win game.

On this view, what you really need to fear as a consumer is government intervention that restricts your choices in the marketplace, or makes some choices more expensive than they need to be (tariffs).

If you care about poverty, it’s often tempting to think that it can only be solved one way – by transferring wealth from the rich to the poor. But that is a very mistaken view, as any economist will tell you. The right way to create prosperity is by creating laws and policies that unleash individual creativity. Letting individuals create innovative products and services, letting them keep what they earn, making sure that the law doesn’t punish entrepreneurs – that incentivizes wealth creation. Fixing poverty does not mean transferring wealth, it means giving people more freedom to create wealth on their own. Free trade between nations is an important way that we encourage people to create better products and services that what they have available in their own countries.

Economists agree on the benefits of free trade

Who could possibly disagree with free trade? Well, many people on the left do. But economists across the spectrum of ideology (university and private sector and public sector) agree on the benefits of free trade.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw explains what most professional economists agree on.

Excerpt:

Here is the list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:

1. A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
2. Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
3. Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
4. Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
5. The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
6. The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
7. Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
8. If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
9. The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
10. Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
11. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
12. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
13. The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
14. Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)

Socialist economic policies don’t work because they are making policies that are based on economic myths. We know that these myths are myths because of economics is a mathematical science, and because we have tried good and bad policies in different times and places. We have calculations and we have experience to know what works and what doesn’t work. If you want to help the poor, you have to respect what economists know about how wealth is created. The solution is not to “spread the wealth around”, it’s to encourage people to create more wealth by inventing things that people freely choose to buy.

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About the speaker Frank Turek:

Frank Turek is one of my favorite speakers, and I admire him for being willing to take a public stand on controversial issues like gay marriage. He’s actually had to pay a price for that in his professional life, and I blogged about that before.

Here’s the lecture on gay marriage, featuring Christian apologist Frank Turek.

Outline:

Outline of Frank Turek’s lecture on same sex marriageIntroduction:

• how to present your case against marriage safely
• Christians are required to go beyond tolerance
• loving another person can mean opposing the person when they want to do something wrong, even if they hate you
• what did Jesus say about marriage? (see Matt 19:4-6)
• what did Jesus say about sexual morality? (Matt 15, Matt 19)

Summary:

• the same-sex marriage debate is about whether to compel people who disagree with the gay lifestyle to validate and normalize it
• P1: the government has an interest in marriage because it perpetuates and stabilizes society – this is the purpose of marriage
• P2-4: government can take 3 kinds of stances towards behaviors: promote, permit or prohibit
• government promotes behaviors when it has an interest in them
• same-sex relationships should be permitted, but not promoted
• Q1: if same-sex marriage had serious negative consequences, would you reconsider their position?
• Q2: are heterosexual relationships the same as homosexual relationships?
• Q3: what would society be like if everyone married according to the natural marriage definition: one woman, one man, for life?
• Q4: what would society be like if everyone married according to the same-sex marriage definition: man/man and woman/woman?
• Should Christians care about law and politics? or should they just preach the gospel?
• They should care because people often get their cues about what is moral and immoral based on what is legal and illegal
• Many of the social problems we see today can be traced back to problems with marriage and family
• Children do much better when they have a relationship with their mother and their father
• Same-sex marriage necessarily destroys the relationship between a child and its mother or its father
• When a country embraces same-sex marriage, it reinforces the idea that marriage is not about making and raising children
• same-sex marriage shifts the focus away from the needs of the children to the feelings of desires of the selfish adults
• does homosexuality impose any health and mental health risks?
• what has the impact of legalizing same-sex marriage been in Massachusetts to individuals, schools, businesses and charities?
• how same-sex marriage poses a threat to religious liberty
• how should you respond to the view that homosexuality is genetic?

And at the very end, he shows this short video, which is only 5 minutes and explains the logic of opposing the redefinition of marriage:

My biggest concern is religious liberty, and we are seeing how same-sex marriage has proven to be incompatible with religious liberty. But I also care about children… I want them to have mothers and fathers who put their needs first. Marriage is about a commitment – it is the subjugation of feelings and desires to responsibilities and obligations. It is a promise. A promise to commit to love your spouse and children regardless of feelings and desires. It requires more self-denial, self-control and self-sacrifice. Not less.

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What is socialism? In a free market system, prices are set by buyers and sellers without input from the government. Private property is guaranteed by law. And thegovernment does not have a state-run monopoly in any area of the economy. Socialism is different: massive government spending on welfare, prices set by government, tariffs on imports, nationalizing industries.

Let’s take a look at a case of socialism: Venezuela. Venezuela adopted socialism, and implemented import tariffs, nationalized industry, and imposed price controls. Let’s take a look.

The American Institute for Economic Research explains:

In 1998 [Hugo Chavez] was elected to the Presidency. He immediately worked to deepen and expand the “Bolivarian Revolution,” focused on social welfare programs, nationalizing key industries, and “democratizing” the market system.

[…]The situation eroded quickly, reaching an early head in the summer of 2015. Prices were skyrocketing because of inflation, caused by the government using newly printed money to pay off debts and make payroll. But the government had accused corporations that ran large grocery chains of “price-gouging.”

So, we have inflation in the United States right now. And that inflation was caused by the Biden-Harris regime, which has been in power for nearly 4 years. They caused prices to skyrocket in two ways. First, by raising the price of electricity and gas. They did this because of their climate change alarmism, which caused them to cancel pipelines and deny drilling leases, etc. Second, by spending reckless government spending. And now they, like Hugo Chavez, are trying to blame the inflation they caused on “price-gouging”. Will they adopt the same solutions as Venezuela did? And how will that work out for us?

Here is how the Harris of the Biden-Harris regime intends to respond to the inflation caused by the Biden-Harris regime:

Vice President Harris announced on August 16 that she would place controls on grocery prices.

As attorney general in California, I went after companies that illegally increased prices, including wholesalers that inflated the price of prescription medication and companies that conspired with competitors to keep prices of electronics high. I won more than $1 billion for consumers. (Applause.)

So, believe me, as president, I will go after the bad actors. (Applause.) And I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food.

So, she’s going to go with price controls. Is this the same thing as what communists did in Venezuela? How did it work out there?

Well, here is a report from the Institute for Free Trade:

In 2003, Hugo Chávez declared war on “speculators” and imposed price controls not only on Venezuelan milk, but also on sugar, coffee, beef, chicken, pork, grain, and pasta (he also severely restricted access to foreign currency). According to very unreliable official figures, price controls caused shortages of basic goods to increase from 5% at the outset to over 22.2% in ten years.

Chávez, however, refused to learn the lesson about the price mechanism even as he was unleashing mass scarcity. In 2011, he extended price controls to soap, detergent, shampoo, toilet paper, mouthwash, fruit juice and other products. To take one example, toilet paper was already scarce in Venezuela when Chávez died in 2013, as the government imported 50 million rolls and citizens, downtrodden but not without a sense of humour, shared videos on social media with theories on how to get by without it.

In 2016, scarcity of basic goods reached 82.6% in Caracas according to Luis Vicente León, the head of polling firm Datanalisis. Caracas, León added, was Venezuela’s best-supplied city. Scarcity has only worsened since.

Initially, the Venezuelan regime made up for shortages in national food production with imports paid with oil revenue. However, price controls and expropriations (see point # 2) had already destroyed the country’s productive sector once oil prices began to fall sharply in 2014. Last year, 93% of Venezuelans could not afford food. According to a recent survey, 60% of Venezuelans shed at least 11 kilograms in weight during the last year due to malnutrition.

Right now, supermarkets in America have a profit margin of around 1-2%. If Kamala comes in and artificially lowers their prices, then their suppliers will also have to have price controls. Food producers (especially smaller ones) will stop making products that are price controlled. Grocery stores (especially smaller ones) will stop selling products that are price controlled. Shortages of grocery store products will lead to lines outside of these stores, just like when Jimmy Carter put price controls on gas, and their were gas lines in America. Why think that price controls in America will work any differently than they do in Venezuela? Where is the evidence?

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I saw it this past weekend, and I really liked it. A lot of people hate Ronald Reagan. The secular left has this crazy idea that religion, free market economics and patriotism will start World War 3. Well, Reagan had a degree in economics, used to teach Sunday school, and he definitely thought that America was better than communism. And he beat the communists, without firing a shot.

Let’s see a couple of movie reviews, the first from Focus on the Family:

But whether you’re young or old, whether you lived through the tumultuous latter days of the 20th century or not, Reagan, the movie, reminds us why courage and vision, tenacity and faith remain vitally important character qualities in our leaders.

And even though I did live through a portion of that era, Dennis Quaid’s portrayal of Ronald Reagan here shines a light on chapters of this actor-turned-politician’s life that I had little knowledge of myself.

Along the way, we see how the faith of a mother and the love of a devoted wife played huge roles in shaping the heart and soul of a failed actor into a president whose tenacity arguably bent the course of history.

When I walked out of the theater, my head was spinning from the way that Reagan’s mother Nellie and his second wife Nancy had treated him in the movie. I don’t have any personal experience with mothers looking after their children like this. Taking them to church. Giving them Christian books to read. Having a plan for them. Teaching them right from wrong. My mom didn’t do any of those things. And I am always surprised when I see a wife investing in her husband and supporting him, and getting upset when he cannot achieve everything he was mean to achieve.

Here’s a bit about his mother Nellie:

During Reagan’s youth, we see that his mother, Nelle, takes him to the First Christian Church in Dixon, Illinois. In one service there, we hear 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (KJV).

Nelle drills into her young son a sense of divine purpose and calling on his life—lessons that form the bedrock of Reagan’s sense of identity in some tough moments. “God has a purpose for your life,” Nelle instills into her impressionable boy. “Something only you can do.” Elsewhere she reminds him, “Remember to listen to that small, soft voice” when he’s alone and quiet, and to give it his “full attention.” She offers this exhortation as well: “Remember who you are and Whose you are.”

My mother never treated me like that, so I was really just lost taking in all this good mothering. I wondered what I could have been, if I had a mother, too. My mother’s god was money, and she certainly didn’t see me the way that Nellie say her son Ronald. I think a lot of women today want to have children, but if all they want to do is throw them into daycare and public schools, what’s the point of a man signing up to have other people raise his kids? Conversely, it might be worth it to have kids, if the man got to see a very good woman his children about God, and train them to achieve something in the world that respects God.

The review also talks about his second wife Nancy:

[H]is first wife, Jane Wyman, finds Reagan’s flirtation with politics disdainful. “Is there anything worse than an actor with a cause” she quips. And then she adds, scornfully, “You are an actor. That is your job. Not politics.”

Given that discrepancy of values, it’s no surprise that Reagan’s first union doesn’t last. His marriage skids toward the rocks about the same time his career does, prompting Reagan to tell his mother, “I lost a child, I lost my marriage, I lost my career.” That’s one of the points at which she encourages him with strong spiritual counsel (which we’ll unpack in the next section).

Here’s a bit more about his second wife, Nancy:

Near the end of his acting career, when he’s more involved with SAG than actually making movies, Reagan meets Nancy Davis. As their connection deepens, he says of himself, “I’m what you call damaged goods,” noting that he’s divorced, broke and has children from a previous marriage. Nancy gently counters, “We’re all damaged goods, Ronnie.” That prompts him to say, “I just want to do something good in this world, to make a difference.”

In the years that follow, of course, Reagan seeks to make good on that desire, with Nancy constantly encouraging him at his side—first in his run for the governor of California, then his first failed presidential campaign in 1976 (where he lost the Republican nomination to Gerald Ford) and finally in his sunset years as the specter of Alzheimer’s disease looms.

I’ve never had the feeling from any woman that my dreams were important, and that it was important to help me to achieve them. So again, I was just looking at all this excellent wife-ing, and thinking “wow, so that’s what it must be like to have a good wife”. Today, I see a lot of non-traditional women demanding that traditional men give them things, but they don’t want to be traditional wives. They don’t want to help men at all.

Honestly, I think this movie will make self-centered feminists very uncomfortable. It shows women treating boys and men well.

The movie also has some policy, diplomacy and history in it. But it’s at a high level. They talk a lot about religious liberty and about the need to deter aggression with strength. So, it’s a good introduction to conservative ideas. I think you’ll really like the movie. If you go see it, be sure to leave a comment telling me what you thought of it.

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Are you having any conversations about transgenderism these days? It seems like there is a big push for transing kids, mostly coming from pharmaceutical companies and their allies in the public schools. They believe that children should be able to request drugs and surgeries based on their feelings. Even if parents disagree. But what if children’s discomfort with their biological sex is temporary?

Take a look at this study, which appeared in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

There’s a nice article about this study over at the left-leaning UK Daily Mail:

The majority of gender-confused children grow out of that feeling by the time they are fully grown adults, according to a long-term study.

Researchers in the Netherlands tracked more than 2,700 children from age 11 to their mid-twenties, asking them every three years of feelings about their gender.

Results showed at the start of the research, around one-in-10 children (11 percent) expressed ‘gender non-contentedness’ to varying degrees.

But by age 25, just one-in-25 (4 percent) said they ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ were discontent with their gender.

The researchers concluded: ‘The results of the current study might help adolescents to realize that it is normal to have some doubts about one’s identity and one’s gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common.’

This paragraph was interesting:

According to the findings, females were more likely to report being unhappy with their gender and both increasing and decreasing ‘non-contentedness’ were associated with lower self-reported self worth, more behavioral problems and an increase in emotional struggles.

If you are raising daughters, you might want to have a plan to counter this. I think the best way to build up a girl’s self-esteem is to give her interesting things to do, and help her to excel at them. And I mean things like writing code, reading Thomas Sowell, learning self-defense, shooting guns, fixing machines, understanding classical literature, etc. Useful stuff. Girls need to do useful things together with their Dads, that way, when they have bad feelings, they can think of all the things that they know how to do, and all the people that ask them for help. It’s hard to feel bad when you know how to achieve results. And you know that you are good at achieving results. I’m not an expert in women, but it seems to me that they have trouble when they dwell too much on their own feelings, and too much on what other people think about them, or what other people are doing. Girls should just not care about all that. Girls should just be good at doing things that matter. Girls should know how the world works.

The conclusion of the Daily Mail article features Christian scholar Dr. Jay Richards, was also interesting:

Dr Jay Richards, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family, told DailyMail.com: ‘We’ve known for over a decade that most kids who experience distress with their sexed bodies resolve those feelings after they pass through natural puberty.

‘Indeed, we can infer from the DSM 5 [2013] and other sources that as many as 88 percent of gender-dysphoric girls and as many as 98 percent of gender-dysphoric boys in previous generations desisted if allowed to go through natural puberty.

‘These two facts make it clear why “gender-affirming care” on minors is such an outrage. It leads, in the end, to sterilization and in many cases to a complete loss of natural sexual function.

‘There is no good evidence that this helps minors long term. Moreover, it medicalizes what could very well be temporary psychological symptoms.

‘History will judge this medicalized “gender-affirming care” on minors as we now judge eugenics and lobotomies.’

I was pretty impressed with Jay. Of all the people they could have quoted, they went to Jay Richards, who has put a lot of effort into understanding these issues.

Do you know what would be wonderful? If children who take these drugs and submit to these surgeries could then sue all the people who told them to do it. They’re being told one thing, but getting something else entirely. If a child gets hit with sterilization or loss of sexual function, then they should be able to clean out the bank accounts of the people who did this to them. Public school teachers, nurses, doctors, drug manufacturers, etc. Just bankrupt them. Because children shouldn’t be lied to by adults, who know better.

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I like to follow the work of Megan Basham on Twitter and Daily Wire, because she takes the Bible seriously on moral and spiritual issues. So I was very interested to read her latest article evaluating Christianity Today. On the surface, Christianity Today presents itself as a Christian publication. But are their beliefs really consistent with what the Bible teaches? Let’s see.

Here’s the article from Daily Wire:

The media has long framed Christianity Today, founded by Billy Graham in 1956, as America’s most influential Christian news outlet. The Washington Post, for instance, regularly describes it as evangelicalism’s “flagship” magazine,” as does The New York Times. A review of federal election records, however, indicates that the views of the magazine’s leadership and staff may be far out of step with ordinary evangelicals.

Between 2015 and 2022, nine Christianity Today employees made 73 political donations. All of them went to Democrats. This tally includes President and CEO Timothy Dalrymple, who gave $300 in two separate payments to failed Georgia Senate candidate Sarah Riggs Amico.

Amico’s platform, which includes protecting abortion “without exception” and repealing the Hyde Amendment to allow federal tax dollars to fund abortions, contrasts sharply with the views of evangelicals who overwhelmingly say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. She is also at odds with traditional Christian beliefs when it comes to gender, sexuality, and religious liberty.

Along with declaring herself a “staunch LGBTQ ally,” Amico promised to support the Equality Act, a bill that The Heritage Foundation warns would threaten parental rights over children who believe they’re transgender. The conservative think tank has also said the bill would decimate conscience rights for medical workers and “cancel[s] religious freedom.” Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler put the Equality Act in even starker terms, saying it “represents the greatest threat to religious liberty in the United States in our lifetimes” and would “totally transform the United States as we know it.”

Dalrymple was not the only member of the magazine’s executive ranks to donate to Democrats. Natalie Lederhouse, Vice President of Advertising and Partnerships, contributed $50 to the 2020 Biden Victory Fund. The Federal Election Commission has no records of any Christianity Today executive giving to the GOP since 1991.

You might remember the Equality Act discussed in previous posts on this blog. Basically, the legislation would have made it impossible for Christians to advocate for Biblical positions on sexual issues. Not only individual Christians, but Christian businesses and charities. They would all have had to comply with the secular left’s views on sexual issues.

Megan also found this about a former NEWS EDITOR at Christianity Today:

Between October 2019 and November 2020, news editor Daniel Silliman made eight donations to five different pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ candidates, among them, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign. In addition to possessing a perfect voting score from Planned Parenthood and NARAL, Warren supported shutting down crisis pregnancy centers across the country, and her platform included requiring schools to admit biological men into women’s sports and single-sex spaces. She also pledged to allow a gender dysphoric nine-year-old to approve anyone she appointed as education secretary.

Silliman also donated to Renee Hoyos, Tennessee Democrats’ nominee to the U.S. House; Moe Davis, House candidate from North Carolina; Blair Walsingham, House candidate from Tennessee; and former Senator Doug Jones (D-AL).

As news editor, he would have been in charge of all of Christianity Today’s coverage of political stories.

More:

In another article in the run-up to the 2020 election, Silliman spotlighted President Biden’s Catholicism and quoted progressive theologian Richard Mouw opining that “[Biden] is viewed as having an authentic faith… when he talks about his faith, it rings true.” Silliman then tied Mouw to conservative Christian icons, Chuck Colson and J.I. Packer.

[…][Silliman] also covered the Fairness for All Act, a proposal that would have granted special privileges to people who identify as LGBTQ. It was opposed by conservative legal groups like Alliance Defending Freedom for “undermin[ing] human dignity by threatening the fundamental freedoms of speech, religion, and conscience.” Approximately three-quarters of Silliman’s report on the bill was devoted to those who favored the legislation.

You might remember that Mouw is one of these “evangelicals for Biden”. Now that we know the truth about Biden’s business dealings and connections to foreign governments, it’s easier to understand what sort of morality Mouw supports.

The new editor-in-chief of Christianity Today is Russell Moore, who seems more focused on promoting the Democrat party platform than with defending policies consistent with the Bible.

The root cause of the problem with these “evangelicals for Biden” is that they have never adopted Christianity on the basis of studying the evidence, and forming their own views. Progressive Christians form their views socially not intellectually. When they are young, they put on the cloak of Christianity as a way of seeming virtuous to their parents and those around them. They didn’t choose Christianity because it was the best description of reality. They were born into it. It’s not a worldview to them, it’s an act.

Progressive Christians don’t make a case for core Christian beliefs using evidence to non-Christians. They simply don’t know how to do it, because they didn’t do it in order to “become” a Christian in the first place. They don’t have any work to show, because they never did the work. And their policy views are the same. They don’t form their views based on reason and evidence. They don’t read scholars like Thomas Sowell, or John Lott, or Ryan Anderson, or Scott Atlas, or Robert George. They just believe whatever will make people like them – just like they did when they were children.

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Politifact is in the news again for labeling a true claim by J.D. Vance, the Republican candidate for vice president, as “false”. Let’s take a look at this claim, then we’ll see whether Politifact is a fact-checker, or just a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party.

The Media Research Center reports.

Here is Vance’s claim:

“I think it’s pretty weird to try to take children away from their parents if the parents don’t want to consent to sex changes,” Vance said Aug. 7 at a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “That’s something that Tim Walz did.”

As usually, Politifact concedes that the claim is correct – the courts can temporarily remove children from the custody of their parents. But, it’s got to be labeled “false” because this is an election year, and people who have failed at life need a bailout from the taxpayers:

Abels, the LGBTQ-issues “fact checker,” is funded by the Gill Foundation, a radical LGBTQ philanthropy. Last October, she worried out loud about “incarcerated trans people” being denied the “gender-affirming” stuff.

Last May, Tuquero defended Minnesota Democrats when they took expressly anti-pedophile language out of an “anti-discrimination” bill.

Grace Abels is a loser:

Grace Abels joined PolitiFact as a staff writer focused on LGBTQ issues in February 2023. She graduated from Duke University where she studied history and journalism.

Loreben Tuquero is a loser:

Loreben Tuquero is a reporter covering misinformation for PolitiFact. She graduated from Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in communication.

These people are losers at life, who have no marketable skills, and just vote Democrat because they want dentists, veterinarians and petroleum engineers to pay off their tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.

This isn’t the first time that Politifact, which is used by all the big social media companies to “fact check” speech, has been caught protecting their favored political party.

Let’s see some examples of past bias.

Arizona Senate Race

Politifact screwed up their fact-check for the Arizona Senate race.

The Daily Caller explains:

PolitiFact incorrectly labeled it “mostly false” that Democratic Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema “protested troops in a pink tutu” during its live fact-check of the Arizona Senate debate Monday night.

It’s an established fact that Sinema, a former Green Party activist who co-founded an anti-war group, wore a pink tutu at one of the multiple anti-war protests she attended in 2003.

“While we were in harm’s way, she was protesting our troops in a pink tutu,” Republican candidate Martha McSally, a former Air Force fighter pilot, said during Monday night’s debate.

Here’s their Politifact’s evaluation of McSally’s claim:

Who are you going to believe? Politifact, or your own eyes?And here’s the photo of Kyrsten Sinema, protesting the troops, in a pink tutu:

Anti-war Democrat Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema in a pink tutuThe Daily Caller notes:

A 2003 Arizona State University news article at the time described Sinema wearing “something resembling a pink tutu” at one of the protests.

[…]Sinema openly associated with fringe elements of the far-left during her anti-war activism.

She promoted an appearance by Lynne Stewart, a lawyer who was convicted of aiding an Islamic terrorist organization, in 2003.

Sinema also reportedly partnered with anarchists and witches in her anti-war activism and said she did “not care” if Americans wanted to join the Taliban.

And now for the big one: Politifact’s fact-checking of Obamacare.

Obama’s claims about Obamacare

Avik Roy, health care policy expert at Forbes magazine, wrote about Politifact’s assessment of Obama’s promise to Americans about keeping their health plans after Obamacare.

In 2008, before the presidential election, PolitiFact rated Obama’s claims about Obamacare “True”:

Roy writes: (links removed)

On October 9, 2008, Angie Drobnic Holan of PolitiFact published an article using the site’s “Truth-O-Meter” to evaluate this claim: “Under Barack Obama’s health care proposal, ‘if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it.’”

And she concluded:

[…]…people who want to keep their current insurance should be able to do that under Obama’s plan. His description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement True.”

Roy notes:

PolitiFact’s pronouncements about Obamacare were widely repeated by pro-Obama reporters and pundits, and had a meaningful impact on the outcome of the election. Indeed, in 2009, PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 2008 campaign.

Here’s the screen capture from 2008:

Politifact says that everyone who likes their health care plan can keep itBefore the election, it’s true! And Obama got re-elected, because people believed that. But what happened after the election?

In 2013, after the 2012 election, PolitiFact rated Obama’s claims about Obamacare “Pants On Fire”:

Roy writes: (links removed)

On December 12, [2013] the self-appointed guardians of truth and justice at PolitiFact named President Obama’s infamous promise—that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it”—its 2013 “Lie of the Year.”

[…][N]one of the key facts that made that promise “impossible” in 2008 had changed by 2013. The President’s plan had always required major disruption of the health insurance market; the Obamacare bill contained the key elements of that plan; the Obamacare law did as well. The only thing that had changed was the actual first-hand accounts of millions of Americans who were losing their plans now that Obamacare was live.

And the screen capture from 2013:

Politifact said one thing before the election, and the opposite afterwardsSo when Politifact rates a statement by a Democrat as true, what they really mean is that it’s pants-on-fire-false, but it’s election time so they don’t say that. It’s not like the critical assessments of Obamacare from health policy experts were not out there between 2007-2012. I know, because I blogged on every study and report on the predicted effects of the law that I could find. But the intellectually lazy journalism-major clowns at Politifact couldn’t be bothered to read those studies and reports.

Secular left journalists are the stupidest people on the planet. Stick with reading The Federalist and Daily Wire if you want to know what’s really going on in the world.

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It’s election time, and a lot of Big Tech companies are using their products and services to tip the scales in favor of the Democrat party. Is Google one of those companies? A new study by the Media Research Center analyzes Google search results about Kamala Harris’ past actions and stances on political issues. Are those search results balancing conservative and leftist sources? Let’s see.

Here’s the latest report on the study from MRC:

Google is actively assisting Vice President Kamala Harris in maintaining her media honeymoon by keeping users in the dark about her radical policy views, including her support for abolishing ICE and threatening to end private health insurance, a new MRC Free Speech America study found.

The study revealed a staggering bias in Google’s favoring of left-leaning media by a nearly 10:1 margin in both Google Search and the Google News tab. MRC conducted the searches on Aug. 21, covering four search prompts across both Google Search and the Google News tab. These findings raise serious concerns about Google’s influence on the outcome of the 2024 election, echoing its interference in the 2022 midterm elections.

MRC completed the searches using a clean environment, discovering that Google has promoted left-leaning media sites at a shocking 17:2 ratio in Google Search results. The bias was equally pronounced in the Google News tab for search results, where left-leaning outlets appeared at a 19:2 ratio. This is a nearly 10:1 biased ratio on each tab.

MRC used the media bias chart by AllSides to determine the ideological leaning of the outlets featured in Google’s search results. Among the 19 media outlets that received favorable placements in the Google News tab results were The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, Politico, Slate, Vox and The Guardian. In contrast, only three right-leaning media outlets — The Federalist, New York Post and The Washington Times — were scarcely featured.

MRC also did a previous poll to see whether Democrat voters new about Kamala’s previous positions and past actions.

Here’s what they found:

A significant new Media Research Center poll finds that large majorities of registered Democrats and Independents who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — exactly those who would be expected to support Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s contest — are mostly in the dark about many of the controversial and radical positions Harris has taken.

When asked about ten different aspects of Harris’s public record — on issues as varied as her sponsorship of the Green New Deal, abolishing ICE, and eliminating private health insurance — between 71% and 86% of these Democrats and Independents said they either had not heard of Harris’s position or were unsure.

Where do you get your news? I read sources like Daily Signal, The Federalist, Washington Stand, and other center right sources. But I rarely see those sources in the first page of Google results, or the second page, or the third page.

The article notes:

When these voters were asked about where they got most of their news about political elections and candidates, by far the top answers were broadcast television (ABC, CBS and NBC) or cable news (such as CNN and MSNBC). This suggests that the knowledge gaps found by our poll reveal a failure of these outlets to report on radical positions once (and perhaps currently) supported by the now-Democratic nominee for President.

In fact, a detailed Media Research Center examination of ABC, CBS and NBC evening news coverage in the three weeks since Harris became the leading Democratic candidate (July 21 to August 10) shows eight of these ten issues received ZERO attention from these newscasts, while two others received only minor coverage.

In case you’re wondering what the previous positions of Harris are, they have a list:

1. Harris supported cutting funding for the police
2. Harris co-sponsored the Green New Deal
3. Harris supported the elimination of private health insurance
4. Harris supported reparations payments to atone for slavery
5. As “Border Czar,” Harris never visited a conflict zone on the border
6. Harris said it should not be considered a crime to enter the U.S. illegally.
7. Harris supported abolishing ICE
8. Harris promoted a fund to bail out violent protesters during 2020 riots
9. Harris would consider allowing death row inmates to vote
10. Harris was named the most liberal U.S. Senator in 2019

I had blogged about a few of those in the past, but the one that shocked me was #9. I knew that Harris was ultra-leftist on law-and-order and border security, but I didn’t know she was that far to the left. No wonder Google, which has been caught many, many times supporting the secular left, is trying to hide those positions. And their allies in the corporate news media are helping.

Related posts

• Which organizations are undermining the fairness and integrity of American elections?
• Did Google / YouTube suspend Steven Crowder for reporting on the rape of a child?
• Google whistleblower: Google “rewrote algorithms to go after Trump”
• Big Tech purge of conservatives shows the danger of secular left worldview
• Facebook and Google removing content that harms Democrat party
• Google purges conservative sites from its search results to help the Democrat party
• Google fires another Republican engineer who disagreed with Democrat party policies
• Google internal document calls prominent Jews Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro “Nazis”
• Google employees revolt against having a black, female conservative on advisory board
• Does Google’s anti-conservative bias affect its products and services?

Image source: Media Research Center

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Here’s an article by Paul Copan which points out how father presence/absence and father quality affects belief and disbelief in God.

Excerpt:

Seventh, the attempt to psychologize believers applies more readily to the hardened atheist. It is interesting that while atheists and skeptics often psychoanalyze the religious believer, they regularly fail to psychoanalyze their own rejection of God. Why are believers subject to such scrutiny and not atheists? Remember another feature of Freud’s psychoanalysis — namely, an underlying resentment that desires to kill the father figure.

Why presume atheism is the rational, psychologically sound, and default position while theism is somehow psychologically deficient? New York University psychology professor Paul Vitz turns the tables on such thinking. He essentially says, “Let’s look into the lives of leading atheists and skeptics in the past. What do they have in common?” The result is interesting: virtually all of these leading figures lacked a positive fatherly role model — or had no father at all.11

Let’s look at some of them. Voltaire(1694–1778): This biting critic of religion, though not an atheist, strongly rejected his father and rejected his birth name of François-Marie Arouet. * David Hume(1711–76): The father of this Scottish skeptic died when Hume was only 2 years old. Hume’s biographers mention no relatives or family friends who could have served as father figures. * Baron d’Holbach(1723–89): This French atheist became an orphan at age 13 and lived with his uncle. * Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72): At age 13, his father left his family and took up living with another woman in a different town. * Karl Marx(1818–83): Marx’s father, a Jew, converted to being a Lutheran under pressure — not out of any religious conviction. Marx, therefore, did not respect his father. * Friedrich Nietzsche(1844–1900): He was 4 when he lost his father. * Sigmund Freud(1856–1939): His father, Jacob, was a great disappointment to him; his father was passive and weak. Freud also mentioned that his father was a sexual pervert and that his children suffered for it. * Bertrand Russell(1872–1970): His father died when he was 4. * Albert Camus(1913–60): His father died when he was 1 year old, and in his autobiographical novel The First Man, his father is the central figure preoccupation of his work. * Jean-Paul Sartre(1905–80): The famous existentialist’s father died before he was born.12 * Madeleine Murray-O’Hair (1919–95): She hated her father and even tried to kill him with a butcher knife. * We could throw in a few more prominent contemporary atheists not mentioned by Vitz with similar childhood challenges: * Daniel Dennett (1942–): His father died when he was 5 years of age and had little influence on Dennett.13 * Christopher Hitchens (1949–): His father (“the Commander”) was a good man, according to Hitchens, but he and Hitchens “didn’t hold much converse.” Once having “a respectful distance,” their relationship took on a “definite coolness” with an “occasional thaw.” Hitchens adds: “I am rather barren of paternal recollections.”14 * Richard Dawkins* (1941–): Though encouraged by his parents to study science, he mentions being molested as a child — no insignificant event, though Dawkins dismisses it as merely embarrassing.15

Moreover, Vitz’s study notes how many prominent theists in the past — such as Blaise Pascal, G.K. Chesterton, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer — have had in common a loving, caring father in their lives.16

Not only is there that anecdotal evidence, but there is also statistical evidence.

Excerpt:

In 1994 the Swiss carried out an extra survey that the researchers for our masters in Europe (I write from England) were happy to record. The question was asked to determine whether a person’s religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why, or if not, why not. The result is dynamite. There is one critical factor. It is overwhelming, and it is this: It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.

If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.

If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church.

Let us look at the figures the other way round. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goesupfrom 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.

[…]In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.

A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!

The results are shocking, but they should not be surprising. They are about as politically incorrect as it is possible to be; but they simply confirm what psychologists, criminologists, educationalists, and traditional Christians know. You cannot buck the biology of the created order. Father’s influence, from the determination of a child’s sex by the implantation of his seed to the funerary rites surrounding his passing, is out of all proportion to his allotted, and severely diminished role, in Western liberal society.

Basically, anyone who doesn’t have a benevolent, involved father is going to have an more difficult time believing that moral boundaries set by an authority are for the benefit of the person who is being bounded. The best way to make moral boundaries stick is to see that they apply to the person making the boundaries as well – and that these moral boundaries are rational, evidentially-grounded and not arbitrary. It is therefore very important to children to be shepherded by a man who studied moral issues (including evidence from outside the Bible) in order to know how to be persuasive to others. If you want your child to be religious and moral, you have to pick a man who is religious and moral. And it can’t just be a faith commitment that he makes, he can just lie about that. Women ought to check whether men are bound to what they believe by checking what they’ve read. A man usually acts consistently with what he believes, and beliefs only get formed when a man informs himself through things like reading.

My advice to Christian women is this. When you are picking a man, be sure and choose one who is already invested in Christian things and producing results. It’s very unlikely that he’s going to start from nothing after you marry him. If you value your kids, make a man’s interest in developing and acting on a Christian worldview the main thing you are looking for.

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Rose told me about this article from Daily Wire on Monday night, and I thought it was important enough for me to share here. Many Big Tech companies are allied with the Democrat party. The question is, how much does that affect their goods and services? I think if you read this story, you might feel the need to do more of your online sharing on Twitter, rather than on Facebook.

Here’s the article from Daily Wire:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter on Monday that the Biden-Harris administration repeatedly pressured his company — which includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and more — to censor content that is protected free speech.

Zuckerberg made the admission in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) this week…

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” he said in the letter.