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Yes, this is science in the view of many scientists today—and in stark contrast to most of the founders of modern scientific theory. Pigliucci, a staunch atheist and critic of creationism, declares uncompromisingly as well as unscientifically (if science is indeed an open-minded search for the truth wherever it lies):

“No serious scientific discussion of any topic should include supernatural explanations, since the basic (and very reasonable) assumption of science is that the world can be explained entirely in physical terms, without recourse to divine entities.”

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no divided life. In the presence of His Father He lived on earth without strain from babyhood to His death on the cross. God accepted the offering of His total life and made no distinction between act and act. “I do always those things that please him,” was His brief summary of His own life as it related to the Father (John 8: 29). As He moved among men He was poised and restful. What pressure and suffering He endured grew out of His position as the world’s sin bearer; they were never the result of moral uncertainty or spiritual maladjustment.

—A. W. Tozer (April 21, 1897 – May 12, 1963, Missionary Alliance pastor, author, and magazine editor)

Most Muslims in the world today are non-Arabs. It’s an ironic fact, given that Islam and Arab chauvinism are inseparable.

Even though it’s not well-known, Islamic history paints a clear picture: Islam elevates Arabs over others.

To see this, we have to go back to the 600s and the Arab conquests. Then, Islam was unambiguously the faith of ruling Arab conquerors. “At first,” writes historian Bernard Lewis, “Arab and Muslim were virtually the same thing.” The Arabs constituted a ruling caste, with the conquered territories’ native populations as their subjects. Non-Arab converts to Islam (mawlas), when they did emerge, were treated as second-class citizens.

One justification for such attitudes, recounted by medieval Arab author Ibn Abd Rabbih, was that Muhammad had been an Arab. At meals, according to Ibn Abd Rabbih, mawlas had to stand while Arabs were seated, and mawla women had to be married off not by their male relatives, but by their Arab patrons.

Overall, Lewis concludes that “the struggle for equal rights of the non-Arab converts was one of the main themes of the first two centuries of Islam.” Even “half-breeds” were treated as inferior to pure-bred Arabs, though superior to non-Arabs.

Mawlas in territories conquered by Arabs faced heavy discrimination. They also depended on their patrons for financial security and legal protection. And it wasn’t just the convert himself who was placed in this category but also his descendants.

As historian Marshall Hodgson [says], “[Islam] was above all a badge of a united Arabism, the code and discipline of a conquering élite.”

Only as the balance of power gradually shifted in the non-Arabs’ favor did converts—at least, those who had not been slaves—cease to be called mawlas.

Despite this change, in Why I Am Not a Muslim, writer Ibn Warraq notes the erasure of non-Arab culture in Muslim societies. Partly to blame for this, he says, is “the official Muslim dogma that pre-Islamic times were times of barbarism and ignorance” and ought to be ignored. Many non-Arab Muslims, he stresses, are better acquainted with Arab history than with their own nations’ pre-Islamic past, while pre-Islamic monuments are allowed to fall into ruin. Tellingly, it was Western scholars who first practiced Egyptology, Assyriology, and Iranology.

Lewis further refers to the Islamic legal principle of Kafa’a. This doctrine, he explains, means that a woman’s male guardian can prevent her from marrying a man of lower status, or even revoke such a marriage after the fact. Status, in this context, is partly a question of ethnicity: “The jurists insist very clearly on the distinction between Arab and non-Arab. A non-Arab man is not the equal of an Arab woman in any circumstances.”

Not all schools of Islamic jurisprudence understand Kafa’a in the same way, and Lewis notes that Shi’ites make no use of the concept at all. Still, the viewpoint described by Lewis is at least a common one. The 14th-century legal tract Reliance of the Traveller has this to say:

The following are not suitable matches for one another: (1) a non-Arab man for an Arab woman (O: because of the hadith that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Allah has chosen the Arabs above others”) […]

The book in question is a “Shafi’i manual of Islamic law that in 1991 was certified by the highest authority in Sunni Islam, Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, as conforming ‘to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community.’” The Shafi’i school is one of the four major schools of Islamic law. Unsurprisingly, one Islamic website calls Reliance of the Traveller “the primary Sunni manual of Islam in English.”

In this vein, we can note that one downstream effect of Islamic teachings is supporting Arab chauvinism. Thus, Ibn Warraq contends that Islam’s dualistic division between believers and infidels has influenced even some non-Muslim Arabs, leading them to blame Western nations for all the Middle East’s problems.

https://intellectualtakeout.org/2024/10/islam-is-biased-toward-arabs/

Of course, none of the “laws of physics and chemistry” provide any basis for life to spring from lifeless molecules, no matter how much atheists prefer to imagine that this is the case. In fact, these laws deal only with dead matter, from which life cannot possibly arise. Nevertheless, every atheist and evolutionist, to maintain his faith in the god Chance, must defy the facts. Jacques Monod is one more typical example. A French biochemist, he shared the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine. In his book, Le Hasard et la Nécessité (Chance and Necessity, Paris, France, 1970), Monod gives at least twenty reasons why both a chance origin of life and evolution are impossible. He shows conclusively that the complex composition of living cells could exist only through intelligent design and direction, yet he ends the book with a defiant atheistic and totally irrational declaration similar to Wald’s, basically saying that “our number came up in the Monte Carlo game.” This is science?

This passion to destroy all thought of God and all religion is widespread and growing. The theory of evolution has been adopted by scientists and nonscientists as one of the best means toward this end. Leading geneticist Francis Collins, a professing Christian who accepts evolution, says of the angry crusading atheist: “Dawkins is a master of setting up a straw man, and then dismantling it with great relish. In fact, it is hard to escape the conclusion that such repeated mischaracterizations of faith betray a vitriolic personal agenda, rather than a reliance on the rational arguments that Dawkins so cherishes in the scientific realm.” Mathematician J.W.N. Sullivan remains loyal to his atheism, even though he admits that his antagonism against God causes him, like Richard Lewontin, to espouse “patent absurdity”:

“[By] careful experiments, notably those of Pasteur . . . it became an accepted doctrine [the law of biogenesis] that life never arises except from life. So far as actual evidence goes, this is still the only possible conclusion. But since it is a conclusion that seems to lead back to some supernatural creative act, it is a conclusion that scientific men find very difficult of acceptance. It carries with it what are felt to be, in the present mental climate, undesirable philosophic implications. . . . For that reason most scientific men prefer to believe that life arose, in some way not yet understood, from inorganic matter in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry.”

Sometimes, non-Christian people can surprise us with their perceptive statements about Christianity and Western society. For instance, I have written about atheist Frank Haviland’s bemusement at the way in which many church leaders deny core teachings of the faith they profess (The Church’s hole in the heart).1 Here are some more examples of insight from unbelievers.

Matthew Parris is a British journalist and writer, formerly a politician. Although an atheist, he credits the Gospel’s beneficial impact. He cannot understand why Christians are not more public about their faith:

“The New Testament offers a picture of a God who does not sound at all vague to me. He has sent his son to Earth. He has distinct plans both for his son and for mankind. He knows each of us personally and can communicate directly with us. We are capable of forming a direct relationship, individually with him, and are commanded to try. We are told this can be done only through his son. And we are offered the prospect of eternal life—an afterlife of happy, blissful or glorious circumstances …

Friends, if I believe that, or even a tenth of that … I would drop my job, sell my house, throw away my possessions, leave my acquaintances and set out into the world burning with the desire to know more and, when I had found out more, to act upon it and tell others. … Far from being puzzled that Mormons or Adventists should knock on my door, I am unable to understand how anyone who believed what is written in the Bible could choose to spend his waking hours in any other endeavour.”2

A major problem, regularly highlighted by [Creation Ministry International] writers and speakers, is that many people profess to be true Christians but deny the Genesis foundation;1 then, they protest that their ‘progressive’ views on morality and ethics are endorsed by Scripture.

Ben Sixsmith is an author and contributing editor of The Critic. The following observations about what he calls ‘a twist of Christianity’ are insightful indeed:

“There is mainstream culture, celebrities, fashion, music, modish political activism and a message of self-love, but with a twist of Christianity. Most people stick with mainstream culture because they can have all those things and pre-marital sex. We can see the ‘with a twist of Christianity’ trend elsewhere. … So, if Christianity is such an inessential add-on, why become a Christian?

I am not religious, so it is not my place to dictate to Christians what they should and should not believe. Still, if someone has a faith worth following, I feel that their beliefs should make me feel uncomfortable for not doing so. If they share 90 percent of my lifestyle and values, then there is nothing especially inspiring about them. Instead of making me want to become more like them, it looks very much as if they want to become more like me.”4

The challenge: if you’re reading this as a Christian, do you believe the Scriptures, from the very first verse? Are you taking your stand for God’s truth—courageously, faithfully, lovingly, tactfully, prayerfully? Or are you still toying with the unbelief of the culture around you, unsure of your faith foundation, and hiding your allegiance to Christ chameleon-like? May God help all those who seek to stand firm for Him and His unbreakable truth (John 10:35; 1 Cor. 15:58).

Published: 10 September 2024

References and notes

1. Bell, P., The Church’s hole in the heart, creation.com/church-hole-in-the-heart, 6 February 2024.
2. Parris, M., Why do people debate the future of the church when they have not made up their minds about the existence of God? The Times, markmeynell.files.wordpress.com, May 2007.
3. Harari, Y.N., Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow, Vintage, London, p. 322, 2017.
4. Sixsmith, B., The sad irony of celebrity pastors, thespectator.com, 6 Dec 2020 (emphases added).

https://creation.com/unbelievers-on-christianity

This is science? No, this is a destructive prejudice that science should not allow to get its foot inside the door! In spite of the fact that the majority of early scientists were theists and many of them Christians, the National Academy of Science today is heavily biased against belief in God—a far higher percentage than among scientists in general and the American population as a whole. That bias spreads its influence throughout society via the media and is enforced in the public school system, in spite of the fact that (as evolutionist Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, D. M. S. Watson, confessed), “Evolution . . . is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or . . . can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.”

From what these and other atheistic scientists say, there can be no question that atheism, not the facts of science, is what guides these men. There is no way that it could not also prejudice their science.

On a recent episode of the “Michael Steele Podcast,” former CNN host Don Lemon suggested that Jesus’s earthly father Joseph used his marriage to the virgin Mary as a perfect cover for being gay. Steele, who chaired the Republican National Committee from 2009 to 2011, chortled right along with Lemon, as the alleged sexual deviancy of Joseph was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

The obvious purpose of this fictious libel is to score some cheap laughs at the expense of Christians. But Christians needn’t take the bait.

For starters, Lemon’s theory cherry-picks some details out of the scriptural accounts of Jesus’s birth while ignoring others. Specifically, Lemon overlooks Mary’s virginity (Luke:1:34Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
See All...), Joseph’s righteous character (Matthew:1:19Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.
See All...), the angel’s appearance to Mary (Luke:1:26-33 [26] And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, [27] To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. [28] And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. [29] And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. [30] And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. [31] And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. [32] He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: [33] And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
See All...), the angel’s appearance to Joseph (Matthew:1:20But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
See All...), and the reason given for their travel to Bethlehem (Luke:2:1-5 [1] And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. [2] (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) [3] And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. [4] And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) [5] To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
See All...).

If put to a contest of reliability, the gospels will trump Lemon every time. The testimony of Scripture, which is “breathed out by God” (2 Timothy:3:16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
See All...), is obviously more credible than Lemon’s speculations. God’s words are true even if everyone else is a liar (Romans:3:4God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
See All...).

Furthermore, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are the only original sources describing the events leading up to Jesus’s birth. If Lemon rejects these accounts as untrustworthy, then there are no other sources — no other facts — upon which to base his irreverent revision.

In terms of plausibility, Lemon’s story creates more problems than it solves. First, by alleging that Joseph was gay, Lemon implies that he and Mary never consummated their marriage, contrary to Matthew’s narrative, in which Joseph “he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son” (Matthew:1:24-25 [24] Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: [25] And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.
See All...). Yet Jesus had four named brothers and multiple unnamed sisters, according to hostile testimony from residents of his hometown (Matthew:13:55-56 [55] Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? [56] And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
See All...). Two of his brothers, James and Jude, went on to write letters included in the New Testament, and even non-Christian sources record James as a brother of Jesus. If Joseph was gay and never consummated his marriage to Mary, where did all of Jesus’s siblings come from?

Second, Lemon suggests that Joseph and Mary fled from judgmental religious zealots by fleeing from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The problem with this is that Bethlehem lay close by Jerusalem, the center of Jewish religious zeal, whereas Galilee was considered a backwater province (John:7:52They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.
See All...). Nazareth, in particular, was despised by religious Jews who lived elsewhere (John:1:46And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.
See All...). In neither place could Jews legally execute someone (John:18:31Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death:
See All...), and in neither place could Joseph and Mary have melded into the crowd. But travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem certainly wasn’t the way to avoid the scrutiny of religious zealots. Lemon’s fantasy — and Steele’s interjections — also fail to account for the fact that Joseph and Mary later returned to Nazareth and settled there for decades (Matthew:2:23And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
See All..., Luke:2:39And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.
See All...).

Lemon does not suggest that Joseph was gay because it best fits the evidence, or even that it plausibly fits the evidence. He simply spun this yarn because he finds it funny to mock and offend Christians — the kind of Christians who take the Bible seriously and object when people abuse it. Not only did Lemon, an avowed left-wing commentator, find this funny, but so too did Steele, a former leader in the Republican Party. At root, Lemon and Steele are mocking and offending Jesus Christ, who identifies with his followers when they are persecuted (Acts:9:4And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
See All...).

Those who scoff at God and his Word usually do so because they don’t believe in Judgment Day (Isaiah:28:14-15 [14] Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. [15] Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
See All...), but eventually they will have to do business with God, and their only hope is to repent and turn to him before that day arrives. Thus, mockery like Lemon’s should not provoke us to angry indignation. It should provoke us to plead with him — and with all who live in rebellion against God — to turn from their sins and ask the only true and gracious God for forgiveness.

https://afn.net/opinion/joshua-arnold/2024/10/14/open-season-for-mockery-against-christians/

When we landed in [The Mission Field] two years ago, I set a personal goal to finish with our first language in two years. Our [local] language is one of the most difficult for a native English speaker to learn, and normally takes 3-5 years to attain fluency. So, when I would tell people that our team expected to learn the language in 2-3 years, we were met with statements like the one above. And to be honest, they were right. But if our goal is to learn not just one, but two languages, we needed to set ambitious goals for our first term.

possible for a non-native speaker in my final language evaluation. I have friends who have reached similar marks even quicker than I did, and many more that will soon achieve fluency in 2-3 years less time than the average language student in our country. What do we all have in common? We were all trained in how to learn a language, had done it before (in Spanish or Haitian Creole), and therefore knew exactly what we were doing when we stepped off the plane in our new home.

So far, I’ve only spoken in human, earthly terms. Of course, coupled with our training, we must also lean on the Lord for sustenance and grace to complete our tasks and grant success. “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.” (Prov:21:31The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD.
See All...) It will be the Lord who ultimately builds his church. (Matt:16:18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
See All...) However, his servants need to be adequately prepared for the task. It is the lumberjack who chops down the tree, but his ax needs to be sharp. The level of preparation and training a person devotes to a given task is directly related to how difficult or important they believe that task to be. An athlete who spends little time training at his sport either doesn’t think the sport is very difficult, doesn’t place much importance on his performance, or underestimates the requirements of the sport altogether.

While presenting our plans for ministry to potential supporters, it was easy to feel daunted by the immensity of the task. Do we really expect to learn two languages, start and maintain a business, translate the Scriptures, develop an orthography (if needed), teach literacy, share the biblical narrative, and raise up church leaders? This doesn’t seem humanly possible, which is the point. It is the Lord who will build his church. He must provide the grace to sustain us, open the doors that need opening, and raise dead men to life. He, indeed, will build his church just as he promised. But he will build it by means of competent communicators of the gospel. And competent communication is only achieved by long hours of tedious work.

In preparation for a presentation, I found this quote from the legendary CT Studd, a former cricketer turned missionary, quite insightful: “The ‘romance’ of a missionary is often made up of monotony and drudgery; there often is no glamor in it; it doesn’t stir a man’s spirit or blood. So don’t come out to be a missionary as an experiment; it is useless and dangerous. Only come if you feel you would rather die than not come. Don’t come if you want to make a great name or want to live long. Come if you feel there is no greater honor, after living for Christ, than to die for Him.”

—Missonary (Asia-Pacific, name withheld due to working in a “sensitive area.”)

When we landed in [The Mission Field] two years ago, I set a personal goal to finish with our first language in two years. Our [local] language is one of the most difficult for a native English speaker to learn, and normally takes 3-5 years to attain fluency. So, when I would tell people that our team expected to learn the language in 2-3 years, we were met with statements like the one above. And to be honest, they were right. But if our goal is to learn not just one, but two languages, we needed to set ambitious goals for our first term.

possible for a non-native speaker in my final language evaluation. I have friends who have reached similar marks even quicker than I did, and many more that will soon achieve fluency in 2-3 years less time than the average language student in our country. What do we all have in common? We were all trained in how to learn a language, had done it before (in Spanish or Haitian Creole), and therefore knew exactly what we were doing when we stepped off the plane in our new home.

So far, I’ve only spoken in human, earthly terms. Of course, coupled with our training, we must also lean on the Lord for sustenance and grace to complete our tasks and grant success. “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.” (Prov:21:31The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD.
See All...) It will be the Lord who ultimately builds his church. (Matt:16:18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
See All...) However, his servants need to be adequately prepared for the task. It is the lumberjack who chops down the tree, but his ax needs to be sharp. The level of preparation and training a person devotes to a given task is directly related to how difficult or important they believe that task to be. An athlete who spends little time training at his sport either doesn’t think the sport is very difficult, doesn’t place much importance on his performance, or underestimates the requirements of the sport altogether. 

While presenting our plans for ministry to potential supporters, it was easy to feel daunted by the immensity of the task. Do we really expect to learn two languages, start and maintain a business, translate the Scriptures, develop an orthography (if needed), teach literacy, share the biblical narrative, and raise up church leaders? This doesn’t seem humanly possible, which is the point. It is the Lord who will build his church. He must provide the grace to sustain us, open the doors that need opening, and raise dead men to life. He, indeed, will build his church just as he promised. But he will build it by means of competent communicators of the gospel. And competent communication is only achieved by long hours of tedious work.

In preparation for a presentation, I found this quote from the legendary CT Studd, a former cricketer turned missionary, quite insightful: “The ‘romance’ of a missionary is often made up of monotony and drudgery; there often is no glamor in it; it doesn’t stir a man’s spirit or blood. So don’t come out to be a missionary as an experiment; it is useless and dangerous. Only come if you feel you would rather die than not come. Don’t come if you want to make a great name or want to live long. Come if you feel there is no greater honor, after living for Christ, than to die for Him.”

—Missonary (Asia-Pacific, name withheld due to working in a “sensitive area.”)

Primal mind? What mind is this? Minds think! What does this mind think about? By this mystical view, there is no mystery concerning how life came out of dead elements. Matter itself is alive and active in planning its own destiny! If that is true, then who needs God for anything? No one, of course, say atheists! In order to avoid the God to whom all the evidence points, many scientists cling to the same arbitrary rejection of the facts in order not to be accountable to their Creator. Evolutionary biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin’s views are typical:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment . . . to materialism. . . .”

A team of scientists has recently uncovered new evidence of how geckos can deftly scuttle around vertical surfaces without falling off.1 The animals studied to reveal this ‘new trick to their stick’ were tokay geckos (Gekko gecko). These are the largest known species of gecko, so make excellent test subjects.

Tokays are called this because their loud, unusual call sounds like “tokayyyy!”2 They are attractively coloured, having blueish skin with orange patches (fig. 1). 

I first came across tokay geckos while visiting Coron, an island of my wife’s native country, the Philippines. She and I encountered one in our hotel room, an uninvited, noisy guest some 30 cm (12 in) in length. I gently persuaded our reptilian roommate, lurking behind a wall-mounted TV, to vacate. We were both stunned to see it scurry up the walls and across window glass, despite its size.

Tokays are known for their powerful bite, so with towel in hand, I was relieved to be able to capture it safely and pop it outside unharmed. After such an ‘up-close-and-personal’ with this lively leaping lizard, I was intrigued to read of the latest scientific discoveries.

The research article states that gecko feet, “possess the most hierarchically integrated natural structures that span seven orders of magnitude in size…”1 The images opposite demonstrate what that means. The ‘hierarchical’ structure of a gecko’s foot (fig. 2) is shown photographed by an electron microscope (fig. 3). Many rows of extremely fine hairs (setae) can be seen, about 1/10 of a millimetre long and densely packed, with 5,000 per square mm (three million per square inch). The end of each seta has up to 1,000 branches, ending in spoon-like structures (spatulae), approximately 0.2–0.5 µm (micrometres—less than 1/50,000 inch) long.4 All of this is constructed at the molecular level from proteins by molecular machinery, encoded on the DNA—an astounding biological fact!

When these microscopic structures come into contact with a surface, van der Waals (vdW) forces come into play. These are weak electrostatic forces that operate at very small distances—see ‘What are van der Waals forces?’ below.

The fact that geckos’ spatulae are so numerous means that a huge surface area is available, producing an overall large attracting force.5 Tokays demonstrate this in that their entire weight can be suspended from a single, upwardly pointing toe, in contact with a smooth, vertical surface.1

Previously, it was discovered that tokay feet and skin have superhero-like abilities to repel liquids, leading to new gecko-inspired materials.5 Gecko toe structures have inspired new materials (‘nano-tape’) that take advantage of vdW forces.6Under normal conditions, the tape is completely non-sticky, but under shear force, the material’s engineered coating induces vdW forces, enabling the tape to stick strongly to any surface. This allows objects to be lifted or pulled, or surfaces to be climbed by robots (or people) using the tape. As soon as the shear force is reduced, the tape simply falls away from the surface7 in similar fashion to how geckos ‘unstick’ their feet.3 The new data discussed in this article will enable robots to better climb vertical, variable textured surfaces.

The implications of all this are obvious; clever robotics and materials cannot arise by chance, but require intelligent creator(s). How much more the geckos’ biological design, which is incomparably superior to human-made objects. Nonetheless, the scientists’ paper offers a platitude to evolution for gecko toe design, saying it supposedly demonstrates “… a creative evolutionary solution to a functional problem.”1 If the word “evolutionary” were redacted, this statement would be entirely correct—the most creative solutions came from the Creator! The scientists’ clever research points to divine design, which should lead us to praise the Designer.

[TBC: For full article and footnotes:]

https://creation.com/toes-of-the-tokay

Like so many other leading scientists, among them some Nobelists, George Wald thought he had rescued atheism when he opted for a mystical view of the universe, turning it into a sort of substitute “god.” He wrote, “A physicist is the atom’s way of knowing about atoms.” This vision of a universe that is not only alive but that thinks and plans has dispensed with the law of biogenesis and common sense altogether. Wald said, “What we recognize as the material universe . . . of space and time and elementary particles and energies is . . . the materialization of primal mind . . . there is no waiting for consciousness to arise. It is [and was and will be] there always.”

When backed into a corner, confronted by facts that all lean in the favor of what atheists call “The God Hypothesis,” Dawkins almost always hides behind what surely is his mantra, “We are working on that.” He is working diligently to wipe out the memory of “the time when the world used to imagine there was a god.

The pro-abortion lobby is anti-women (and pro-death and anti-life). Now, why do I say that? After all, they style themselves as compassionate supporters of choice for women, protecting the “rights” of women to do whatever they want with their own bodies. Of course, that’s all just rhetoric—carefully chosen euphemisms to cover up that abortion is really the intentional killing (murder) of a human life (made in God’s image). Once you understand what abortion really is, it’s easy to see how it’s anti-life and anti-baby . . . but why do I say it’s also anti-women?

Well, there are many reasons, but a recent news article highlighted one: they don’t actually care about the safety of the drugs that induce chemical abortions or the impacts these drugs have on women. They only care about ensuring it’s as easy and cheap as possible for women to kill their unborn children.

A group of 10 scientists are suing an academic journal over three scientific studies, including two highlighting the dangers of abortions pills, that were retracted by the publisher, seemingly for no reason other than that the pro-abortion lobby didn’t like the results. Importantly, these studies were retracted just a few weeks before the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding abortion pills.

So why were the studies pulled? According to reports: “The retraction notice from Sage stated that an independent review of the studies was conducted due to a single reader’s complaint that the studies included misleading data and that the authors were affiliated with a pro-life organization, the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

“[Dr. James] Studnicki, one of the authors on the papers, was also kicked off the editorial board of Sage’s Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology journal, months before the retractions actually took place.”

The suit alleges that the studies were pulled, not because of bad science or “any legitimate objection to any of the findings,” but because the journal “put politics over publication ethics and blatantly disregarded the principles of open inquiry and commitment to science.”

This is anti-women and anti-science. To suppress studies like the one that found “the rate of emergency room visits following chemical abortions had spiked 500% from 2002–2015” shows that these activists don’t really care about women. They don’t want to know—and they certainly don’t want the public to know—the truth about the risks of abortion to women. Abortion is not just deadly for babies; it’s dangerous and harmful—and, yes, sometimes deadly—to women too.

This kind of academic persecution isn’t surprising—creationists frequently deal with this prejudice. And it’s because science isn’t neutral. Everyone has a worldview, including the editors and reviewers at various journals. And, for many, that worldview causes them to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Yes, abortion is a spiritual issue that ultimately won’t be solved by facts and science (a tactic many pro-life organizations try). Just like so many other societal evils of the past, it will be solved by the truth of God’s Word, the biblical worldview, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

https://answersingenesis.org/sanctity-of-life/abortion/why-were-studies-abortion-pills-retracted/

Back in May, Evangelical Dark Web, Protestia, and Jon Harris of Conversations The Matter exposed the gay-affirming curriculum of Cru [formerly Campust Crusade,] the most prominent campus evangelism organization. Cru was heavily influenced by Preston Sprinkle of the Center For Faith Sexuality and Gender, as well as other people in the Side B Theology movement. The curriculum is characterized by its effeminate language push, villainizing the church, affirming transgenderism, and promoting a gay seeker-friendly model. Side B Theology asserts that homosexual and transvestite identities and desires are not sin.

The exposure of this nonsense was not without retaliation. Preston Sprinkle unsuccessfully went after Protestia who published a leaked montage in its entirety. Cru fired whistleblowers Uriah and Marissa Mundell over their public objection to this theology.

But after nearly five months of the word being out about their gay-affirming curriculum, it seems that Cru has ended their “Compassionate and Faithful” training series. World Magazine writes: “One of the nation’s leading evangelical ministries is discontinuing its controversial staff training on sexuality and gender less than two years after launching it. Cru employees will no longer have access to the Compassionate and Faithful curriculum by the end of this year, according to a leaked recording of a Sept. 26 meeting for U.S.-based staff.

“Our plan going forward is to integrate our LGBT+ equipping into existing developmental venues,” Keith Johnson, Cru’s director of theological education and development, told staff during the meeting leaked on a podcast last week. “Going forward, we think it’s increasingly important for us to speak in our own theological voice.” That means Cru will rely less on “external communicators,” Johnson said.

It seems there is no real plan on establishing or maintaining biblical sexual ethics for Cru leaders. World then details the backlash that the curriculum received from prominent ex-gay Christians.

On Oct. 2, author and commentator Jon Harris released portions of the late September virtual meeting on his podcast, Conversations That Matter. A former Cru staffer who attended the meeting sent the recording to Harris. I spoke with the former staffer, who asked to remain anonymous due to ongoing interaction with current Cru staff.

During the meeting and in a follow-up email to WORLD, Johnson referred to the Compassionate and Faithful materials as a “learning experience,” not a curriculum. Since most staff had completed the training, Johnson told me it made sense to incorporate future training on sexuality and gender issues into Cru’s Institute of Biblical Studies for incoming staff and interns. The Compassionate and Faithful materials were designed to “provide clarity” and “align all our staff to a historic Biblical understanding of sexuality,” Johnson said.

Cru makes it clear that they are not repentant of pushing gay-affirming heresy.

During the Sept. 26 meeting, Johnson and Mark Gauthier, Cru’s vice president and U.S. national director, referenced recent public criticism. “We hold dearly … the calling to communicate the gospel to everybody,” Gauthier said. “That puts us in a situation over the years where we open up to criticism and critique … what we’ve gone through, it’s been significant over the last few years.”

But Gauthier and Johnson stopped short of admitting error or stating that public criticism influenced Cru’s decision to scrap its Compassionate and Faithful curriculum and pivot away from using outside presenters to instruct staff.

“What divides us from many of our critics at the end of the day, isn’t our view of sexuality and gender,” Johnson said. “It’s our vision for cultural engagement.” He added that when Cru is at its best, it has a “Jesus first” approach to cultural engagement.

Cru’s lack of repentance and restoration of the fired whistleblowers is a reason to distrust their motives in ending the curriculum. While Cru refused to specific that the revelations of being gay-affirming harmed donations, it’s clear that this was an effort to cover their tracks to their donor class.

https://evangelicaldarkweb.org/2024/10/10/cru-ends-gay-affirming-curriculum-amid-backlash/

Dawkins, of course, will not admit that the inability of science to explain what really matters indicates any failure to ultimately explain everything. The truth is that every door that science opens reveals ten unopened doors on the other side. Those who say that the universe began with a “Big Bang” cannot explain how this energy originated or why it suddenly exploded at that particular moment in the distant past.

Nor can they explain how the astonishing order we see everywhere in the universe, contrary to all logic and scientific laws, was produced by the hopeless chaos that such an explosion would unquestionably have caused.

1 Corinthians:15:33Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
See All... “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”

Bad company always corrupts good character. Who you hang with is who you become. [A friend] and I talked a lot about that. Sometimes in life, one of the best things you will ever do is get rid of toxic friends. And, of course, one of the keys is to make sure you are not a toxic influence in other people’s lives, so they won’t want to dump you. We sure got through a lot of Scripture during those three hours. Always have your Bible handy.

—Mark Cahill (born March 16, 1962, American author, speaker, and evangelist).

Three collegiate women’s volleyball teams have forfeited games against San Jose State University, which has a trans-identifying male, Blaire Fleming, on its roster.

The University of Wyoming announced in a statement Tuesday that the women’s team will forfeit its upcoming Saturday game.

“After a lengthy discussion, the University of Wyoming will not play its scheduled conference match against San José State University in the UniWyo Sports Complex on Saturday, Oct. 5. Per Mountain West Conference policy, the Conference will record the match as a forfeit and a loss for Wyoming,” the school stated.

Southern Utah University canceled its game at the Santa Clara Tournament the weekend of Sept. 14, and Boise State University forfeited its Sept. 28 game. Mountain West Conference policy states forfeitures must be recorded as a loss.

Now, SJSU’s women’s volleyball team has a 10-0 record for the season. But many don’t consider it a victory, pointing to concerns about the team’s male athlete. 

“These girls have devoted their entire lives to the sport they love and have reached one of the highest levels of achievement,” Payton McNabb, ambassador for Independent Women’s Forum, wrote in an email to The College Fix.

“Now, all of that is being taken away due to one man’s made-up view of reality. Why must we pretend it’s something it’s not? It’s cheating and it needs to stop,” she wrote.

Brooke Slusser, co-captain of the SJSU team, recently joined a lawsuit with 12 other female athletes against the NCAA, alleging violations of Title IX regarding fairness in women’s sports, Outkick reported.

Slusser is worried about safety and competitive balance, as the 6-foot-1 Fleming’s physical capabilities exceed her female teammates and opponents, according to the complaint.

“She really views the NCAA transgender eligibility policies as an impediment to women’s achievement in sport and as an insurmountable obstacle that closes the door of athletic opportunity to many women,” Slusser’s attorney Bill Bock said.

“The reason for that is that there are just inherent physical differences between men and women,” he said.

Slusser claims she was “forced both to compete and to share a residence with Fleming without any prior notice that the athlete was male,” Outkick reported.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/san-jose-state-womens-volleyball-with-male-player-goes-10-0-after-teams-forfeit/

[TBC: The Lord in Matthew:19:4And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
See All... settled this question long ago: “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female…”]

Max Planck, one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century, considered to be the father of modern Quantum Theory, frankly admitted: “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.” We can’t define time, or space, or matter, or energy—much less the soul and spirit. We have names by which we refer to an atom, molecule, cell, but no real understanding of their composition, and certainly not of their origin. Nor can science tell us why the universe exists.