NewsWatch

American’s Fuzzy on Holocaust Details

ReligionNews.com, 1/22/20, “Poll: What do Americans know about the Holocaust? Some, not much” [Excerpts]: A new poll suggests Americans know about the Holocaust, the genocidal campaign against European Jews, but they’re fuzzy on the details. 

Most Americans (69%) know the Holocaust took place roughly between 1930 and 1950. And they know the Nazis created ghettos where Jews were forced to live (63%). The new Pew Research Center poll shows that fewer than half of Americans can correctly cite the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust—6 million.…

This year’s remembrance day also marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

(http://bit.ly/372YGD1)

The Plan to Replace God

ICR.org, 12/31/19, “The Plan to Replace God” [Excerpts]: After reviewing the writings of some 18th- and 19th-century thinkers, I’m convinced that the popularity of ideas like “millions of years” and “organic evolution” prevalent today didn’t come from scientific data but from clever strategies and crafted stories.

One early strategy used straw man arguments to demote the biblical Flood. In this all-too-common break with logic, opponents of a view attack an imagined version of that view instead of the real one. Combatants claim victory over their opponents when all they really did was beat up a flimsy conception of their own making.

For example, in 1720 René Réaumur studied sedimentary layers near Tours, France. He noticed fossil leaves mixed with broken shells. He thought the leaves were “laid too neatly to be attributable to such a violent event as the Noahic cataclysm.” Réaumur assumed a flood that could not, during a whole year, present the mudflow rates needed to deposit leaves. But the real Flood may well have done it.

Similarly, from 1749 to 1788 Comte de Buffon used his high position in Paris’ Royal Academy of Sciences to promote his own ideas of vast ages for the earth in his 36-volume work Histoire Naturelle. The very phrase “natural history” supplants biblical history with a view that’s supposedly based on sedimentary layers. But layers convey no history. Eyewitness accounts do. Thus, the phrase leans on mere anti-biblical interpretations of layers. Buffon mentioned Noah’s Flood, but his straw man version of the Flood was too gentle to disturb Earth’s supposedly pre-existing rock layers—or even its trees and plants.

Since today’s local floods can rip up rock, a worldwide flood would devastate all landscapes. Claiming the Flood was either too gentle to leave any trace or too violent to deposit leaves makes it easier to ignore. Straw man versions of Noah’s Flood paved a path for imagined eons to deposit rock layers long before the Genesis events. This long-age view still strangles minds today. It keeps many would-be believers from trusting the Bible, including its good news.

(http://bit.ly/2S34DeQ)

A Tougher Stance Toward Iran’s Mullahs

GatestoneInstitute.org, 1/23/20, “The EU Needs to Take Tougher Stance Towards Iran’s Mullahs” [Excerpts]: The European Union really needs to do two things as soon as possible: stop criticizing the Trump administration for its Iran policy, and halt its appeasement policies toward the ruling mullahs of Iran who have committed some of the worst crimes against humanity, not only in Iran but abroad.

Most recently, many innocent citizens of Canada, Iran and the EU were killed when an Iranian missile downed a Ukrainian passenger plane. The Iranian leaders first attempted to mislead the international community, veil the truth, and deny any involvement in the strike. The Iranian government also rejected cooperating with international investigators. “We will not give the black box to the manufacturer [Boeing] or America,” said Ali Abedzadeh, the head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Authority.

After Tehran, however, was faced with overwhelming evidence, including credible intelligence reports from several governments as well as a video showing that the plane was hit over Tehran, the Islamic Republic was forced to admit that it had shot down the passenger plane.

The IRGC’s shooting down of the passenger plane has sparked anger and fury inside Iran and abroad. Iranians took to the street protesting the regime and demanding that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei resign.

(http://bit.ly/2uoLsDn)