According to a recent (Dec 13, 2009) WorldNetDaily article following President Obama’s signing of the expanded “hate crimes” law, Canadian law practioner Gerald Chipeur believes that this legislation will have far worse ramifications for America than the mess it has already caused in Canada.

“I would be shocked if you did not have 100 times more problems with this legislation than we are. Your system is set up to encourage lawyers to do this, and you have so many more people, there is more opportunity for people to take offense,” he said.
…
“There are certain people in society who look to the government for everything, including to help them with their hurt feelings. The government was never made for that,” he said.
Regardless, “there are those who want the government to bless their approach to life, whatever it is, because they have this view. They come to the point they want the government to say … you are right.”
…
Then those interests want the “power of the state to punish anyone who disagrees,” he said. The result is, “doing exactly what we did 500 years ago. They will be going on a witch hunt, [repeating] the Spanish Inquisition.”

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=118710

I’m not exactly sure how comparative Australian legislation is on this issue, although I am aware of the trial of two Pastors in Victoria who were charged under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 a few years ago simply for teaching their congregation the history of Islam. I’ll stand corrected on the details, but as I understand it no-one was claiming that what they taught was false, simply that they taught it was considered sufficient grounds to arrest them for vilification of another religious group. (Read the preamble on page one of the Act – and the first link below – and you’ll get the gist of it)

Now while the focus of the WorldNetDaily article was more about what certain homosexual activists may do in light of such laws, this is neither here nor there, because as Benjamin Bull alluded to in the WorldNetDaily article, there is nothing tolerant about silencing your opponents point of view, whatever that may be. In the marketplace of ideas, certain views are being censored, and that is exactly what the pseudo-tolerance mongers have in mind.

Religious vilification in Australia
The Intolerance of Tolerance
When Tolerance Is Intolerant

According to a recent CreationSafaris^[1] post:

Some Cambridge scientists engineered a four-character genetic code and made some proteins with it. They guided the process at every step, but claim that they “evolved” this code. Is that a fair use of language? This strange admixture of concepts is found in today’s issue [18 March 2010] of Nature. The confusion began right in the title: “Encoding multiple unnatural amino acids via evolution of a quadruplet-decoding ribosome.” [emphasis in original]

http://creationsafaris.com/crev201003.htm#20100318a

After summarising the work as reported in the scientific journal Nature, they rightly observe the equivocation:

…everything was intelligently designed, both the natural and unnatural codes and functions. This paper was one of the best examples in recent memory of Truman’s Law: “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.” Using evolve as a synonym for design is a clever way to blow smoke using equivocation. Words mean things. This has nothing to do with evolution in the way Darwin used it, and in the way the debate rages today. It has everything to do with intelligently designing codes to synthesize things they would not naturally do (that is, without the intervention of a human mind). These human designers did not “evolve” anything, and they did not rule out intelligent design in the “natural” systems. If they really wanted to talk about evolution, they should have left the lab and let “nature” take its course. [emphasis in original]

1. CreationSafaris is highly recommended and would be in my Top5 all time websites across all genres. Their team constantly survey the main stream media and secular scientific journals and are well-equipped to point out the many equivocations, failings, misgivings and “baloney” associated with many of their claims. It is one of the best places to get your secular [materialistic] brainwash washed.

In 1886 Charles Spurgeon gave a sermon in which he stated the sharp dichotomy between creation and evolution: “In all its bearing upon scriptural truth, the evolution theory is in direct opposition to it. If God’s Word be true, evolution is a lie. I will not mince the matter: this is not the time for soft speaking.”

Over 100 years later, this distinction still needs to be affirmed by bible believing Christians in the face of compromising (though often well-meaning) Christians who still think that there need not be a dividing line. David Anderson takes on this responsibility is his freely downloadable response to Denis Alexander’s book “Creation or Evolution – do we have to choose?”

Dr. Denis Alexander, a fellow of St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge, and director of the “Faraday Institute for Science and Religion”. Dr. Alexander is both an evangelical Christian and a professional biologist. He is also a Darwinist, not a creationist. The aim of his book is to explain why you should be too.

I was given a copy of this book in Summer 2008, and its contents deeply concern me. Dr. Alexander professes to be an evangelical. The methods of Biblical interpretation which he applies in this book, however, are not. I do not agree with the book’s overall thesis – that Darwinism can be harmonised with the Bible – but the liberal hermeneutical methods which are used to justify that thesis concern me more. Dr. Alexander does not present any argument for his assumptions in this book, but simply presents them to the naive reader as unquestionable.

If evangelicals take the contents of this book to heart, they will not only be endorsing a certain set of conclusions regarding origins; they will also be embracing a seriously erroneous approach to interpreting the word of God as a whole, and its relationship to other areas of knowledge. Such an approach, if carried out consistently, will ultimately damage the whole structure of Biblical revelation and the gospel itself – a road which I believe Dr. Alexander in this book has already travelled a long way down. I agree with Professor Andrew McIntosh, whose review in “Evangelical Times” published in September 2008 asserted as follows: “By writing this book, Alexander has placed himself on the side of liberal theologians and, in this reviewer’s opinion, has departed seriously from the evangelical faith.”

http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/writings/creation-or-evolution-dr-denis-alexander/index.php/intro

David Anderson’s complete review is available as a free PDF download (It is also available in MSWord format and viewable online in html at the link above)

Dear Richard Coords,

Somehow during an internet search on the subject of whether God’s electing activity is conditional or not (i.e., based on any human merit), your blog Examining Calvinism had placed well in the results and was one of the links I clicked through. I had a look at some of your articles, and left a comment on one of them. But what I am writing about today regards your article “Calvinists Are Sneaky” (2 May 2009; cf. your article by the same name at your site).

In another article elsewhere, you had cited a statement that Roger Olson had made in his book (Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities) which reflects a sentiment you have expressed yourself in different ways, which is that a person should make every effort to understand a position he claims to disagree with. As Olson put it, “We must make sure that we can describe another’s theological position as he or she would describe it before we criticize or condemn” (p.41), and that we could overcome the “harsh polemics” by simply “understanding each others’ real theological positions” (p.59).

The question I have for you is this: Do you honestly and genuinely feel that you have fairly represented, in your article, how the Calvinist would describe his own position? Do you truly believe, honestly, that a Calvinist could read your article and find that it reflects his real heart? Would you tell an inquiring mind that you wrote the article to help overcome the harsh polemics in the Calvinist-Arminian debates?

On what basis do you claim that Calvinists are being “sneaky”? In what sense are they engaged in “stealthful operations,” and what is the evidence for this? Are they being dishonest when they say that Jesus died for the ungodly, that he died for sins? Surely not, since that is what Scripture tells us. If a Calvinist tells a person that Jesus died for the sins of all those who repent and believe, is he being “intentionally vague”? If that’s what he truly believes, how is he being intentionally vague? Do you agree with Bob who you quoted as saying, “[They] intentionally mislead by using blanket statements and carefully constructed words”? Are they being misleading because they know that Jesus died for the sins of all mankind but pretend to believe otherwise?

You believe that man can obtain salvation (with God establishing the rules for how he can go about doing so). The Calvinist disagrees, emphatically, believing that the very reason Jesus came is because man cannot obtain salvation. Jesus Christ alone obtained salvation, satisfying the justices of God for all those who repent and believe. Calvinists agree with you that “the Father has decreed salvation for those in Christ,” and yet also with the apostles, that if anyone is in Christ it is by God’s doing. “It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Thes. 2:13-14, cf. 1 Thes. 1:4-5). So then the point arises immediately: If this is their genuine conviction, based on their study of the Scripture as God’s revealed truth, which they proclaim with sincere fidelity, then in what way are they being intentionally vague, sneaky, wilfully misleading, etc.?

Does the caricature you published reflect how the Calvinist describes himself, his heart and convictions, his real position? Can you honestly say that your article has helped to overcome the harsh polemics in the Calvinist-Arminian debates? Is this the spirit of the Society of Evangelical Arminians? Is your article consistent with your own sentiment that “in the tone of our dialogue with one another” we should remember that we are all Christian brethren? You might argue that the Calvinist is ‘wrong’ in his position, but accusing him of being dishonest and misleading, etc., is a very different thing, which does get personal and is not a Christian tone (cf. “Message to the reader”). It is my hope and prayer that you may take the high road and represent the Calvinist in a way that he or she would find recognizable, is consistent with your own biblical ethics, and may show what you find wrong about their view without assassinating their character.

In sincerity and brotherly love,

David Smart

So during a conversation on an Atheism message board I made a shocking statement which I thought would stir a hornet’s nest of activity, and yet surprisingly almost none of the participants gave it any attention. One atheist had said that science relies on the assumption of ‘materialism’, which he described as the view that only material things exist. I corrected him by pointing out that science, in as much as it is occupied with the study of natural causes and events, obviously relies on the assumption that material things exist, but not on the assumption that only material things exist. Even if it turns out that metaphysical naturalism is false, we would still have science because material things do exist. What I said next should have created a flurry of activity, and yet for some reason it didn’t: that metaphysical naturalism is already considered bollocks and for extremely good reasons, but science continues unabated (thus proving my point).

Yet of the atheists involved in that discussion, there was only one who took issue with my comment, an outcome which defied the predictions of my experiences. But at any rate, what I wish to share with you here is the conversation that occurred between me and that one atheist, the outcome of which was even more unexpected.

Read the rest of this entry

Those of you who think that the issue of gay equality is about fair-mindedness, tolerance and respect for differing views, think again: a Mississippi high school has cancelled its annual student prom shortly after they declined the requests of one of its students – a lesbian – to bring along her girlfriend as her prom date and to wear a tuxedo instead of a dress. The teen, Constance McMillen, has since been encouraged to sue the school. She was also awarded a scholarship check of $30,000 from talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres for her bravery in challenging the School District’s ruling.

But does she have a right to attend her school’s prom on her own terms? And should the school be forced by law to hold the prom in order to cater for McMillen’s requests? Should the school be coerced into making provision for the exception?

Read the rest of this entry

John Blanchard, Where was God on September 11?

At what level should God intervene? We might say that he should not have allowed the worst offenders – the Hitlers, Pol Pots and Mao Tse-tungs of this world – to do what they did. But what about the next level – say, thugs, sadists, rapists, child abusers and drug pushers – should God step in and stop them? If he did, another ‘layer’ of offenders would become the worst – say drunk drivers, shoplifters, burglars and the like. If we argued like this we would soon get to the point at which we would be demanding that God should intervene to prevent all evil. Would we settle for that, even if it meant having your own thoughts, words and actions controlled by a cosmic puppet-master, robbing you of all freedom and responsibility?

I was having a conversation with my Dad last night about the size and complexity of things at the microscopic level.

“For example”, I said, grabbing my copy of Jonathan Sarfati’s ‘By Design’ off the bookshelf and opening up to the chapter on motors, “the E.Coli bacteria is only 2µm long and the motor assembly that drives it is only 45nm in diameter. Not only that, but this is a real motor, much like the kind that you’d find in your car – with a stator, rotor, drive shaft, etc.”^[1,2]

“I don’t even know how to think of things that are so small,” he replied. “Once you start talking about things that size I just can’t even begin to imagine it?”

And perhaps with people like my Dad in mind, the University of Utah have set up a website that will help people to gain an appreciation for the size of the complex machines that get about in a largely unseen part of the world.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

Just drag the cursor below the image from left to right to zoom in from the size of a coffee bean to a carbon atom [well technically, if you pay attention you'll notice the water molecule is smaller]. Very, very cool!

1. Jonathan Sarfati, By Design, (Creation Ministries International, 2008), p.136
2. As you drag the cursor from left to right, you’ll see the E.Coli about halfway down the scale, with a bunch of filaments extending from its cell walls. The flagellum rotary motors are embedded in the cell wall of the E. Coli at the other end of those filaments, although the program is not particularly set up to identify them.

A recent article on the Sydney Anglican Heretics blog highlights the depth of compromise on Genesis in the Sydney Anglican Diocese. I mean, if theistic evolution is the position of the leader of the church then I expect this to have some kind of top-down effect.^[1,2]

John writes:

Peter [Jensen], as has long been known, is an evolutionist*. Quite naturally Peter, along with all theistic evolutionists, has to play some irrational semantic games and alter the meaning of words in order to mould Scripture to fit a pagan worldview. Somehow – the details, scientifically or theologically, never exactly laid out – God is able to allow chance to create while never surrendering his office of creator. At this point I tend to think that Peter and the others are trying to turn a circle into a square but still have it called a circle. Beats me!

Anyway, the point I want to make is that Peter’s allegiance to evolution puts him outside of Christian orthodoxy, by a theological mile. If a metaphysical principle is creating the enormous amounts of novel biological information that life requires, then it isn’t our Lord doing it. New biological information is the product of thought, of teleonomic conception, not the randomisation processes being acted upon by natural selection that evolution posits as being its source (This is superbly argued in the triple-PhD Wilder-Smith’s book, God: To be or not to be?). Peter can’t have his square and circle be the one object: Either Christ, acting through will and thought, brings forth biological information, and thus life, or it’s chance randomisation of matter, the metaphysical principle of materialism. The two are incompatible and irreconcilable.

* Lest it be said that we are misrepresenting Peter’s views, the following is a quote from Doctrine 1 while he was principal at Moore College: “There is a division of opinion about how God created the world [Actually, there isn’t, Peter. The difference lies between those that truly believe the Bible is God’s unchanging revelation to mankind and those, like yourself, that believe it can change as science, so-called, “proves” God has less and less to do with. Just ask Jack Spong.]. From the standpoint of these notes the ‘theistic evolution’ account offers the best understanding….By ‘theistic evolution’ we mean that God created the world through the process of evolution [there’s that square-circle again folks!].” Doctrine 1, Unit 7, p. 105.

http://sydneyanglicanheretics.blogspot.com/2010/02/test-for-orthodoxy.html

For another great illustration highlighting the incoherency of theistic evolution, I recommend John Woodmorrappe’s short essay on the subject.

1. Peter Jensen is the Archbishop of the Sydney Anglican Diocese
2. In the comments section of John’s article, Sam Drucker quipped that Peter Jensen “encourage[d] Clergy to avoid confrontation on this issue.” Whether that is the case or not, I can attest first hand to such experiences among the Anglican faithful and now I wonder how much of it is the influence of the leaders in the church who don’t think that discussion about this issue is important?