Darwin’s religious beliefs

The conventional wisdom is that Charles Darwin was a Christian whose scientific discoveries led him away from God.  But does the evidence support that view? From Theist, Agnostic, Atheist: Will the Real Charles Darwin Please Stand Up?:
Some , like Alberto Kornblihtt, rather naively claim, “Darwin believed in God and his body is buried in Westminster Abbey.”  The [...]

What are the odds of that?

This is by no means a definitive argument against evolution, but I offer it to put the “time, chance and random mutation” theory in perspective. 
Everyone knows that micro-evolution occurs, such as dog breeding and bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics.  But macro-evolutionists believe that with enough time an amazingly complex single cell of unknown origin could make [...]

Materialistic philosophy: A heaping mound of FAIL

. . . nobody will ever die from thinking God created the universe or having some doubts about the proposition that hydrogen is a substance which, if you leave it alone for 13.5 billion years, will turn into Angelina Jolie.
Mark Shea (Hat tip: regular commenter LCB)
By materialistic philosophy I don’t mean the “acquire all the things you [...]

The religion vs. science false dichotomy and other myths

Melinda at Stand to Reason has a good analysis of Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God, which “offers a negotiated settlement between science and religion.”  It fails.
The atheists and religious believers are not wrong for the same reasons.  The atheists who are philosophic materialists have a presuppositional bias that excludes any conclusion from the evidence [...]

The multiverse theory: An atheist’s concession speech

Teleological arguments for the universe are getting so compelling that many atheists are resorting to the “multiverse” theory. 
They realize that the spectacular fine-tuning of the universe implies a designer, so they posit that there must be an infinite number of universes, with ours just happening to be one which supports life. 
They have zero evidence for this, of [...]

“It’s nice to be nice to the nice”

Major Burns was kissing up to another character in the TV show MASH once (probably Margaret) and said the inanity in the title.  That reminds me of the Darwinian (“macro-”) evolution tautology about the survival of the fittest:
The survivors survived because they are survivors. 
How do we know they are survivors?  Because they survived.
Check.

Carl Sagan’s catch phrase: (Bad) philosophy, not science — UPDATED

Carl Sagan famously said, “The cosmos is all there is, all there was, and all there ever will be.”
The irony is that each of those statements is philosophical, not scientific.  He merely tipped his hand for all to see.
The cosmos is all there is
No scientific evidence for that. 
all there was
No scientific evidence for that. 
and all [...]

“But Hitler would never lie about his faith!”

A recent commenter repeated the ridiculous “Hitler was a Christian” meme:
Hitler was a creationist, not an evolutionist. In fact, the Nazis banned Darwin’s books regarding evolution. If you read Hitler’s Mein Kampf, you will find several examples of Hitler citing (albeit in German) the “Creator” as his motivation for his “doing the work of the [...]

“Lights, Camera, Blasphemy”

These videos highlight the dramatic influence movies have had on public perceptions of Christianity. 
If you only have time for one, please watch the second (along with the last minute of the first).  It addresses the major errors in the movie Inherit the Wind, a pro-Darwinian evolution / anti-Christian propoganda piece about the “Scopes Monkey Trial” [...]

Evolution and morality

Evolution is a tautology, where no matter what you see you claim that it evolved that way.  It had to have done that, because nothingness to molecules to living cells to human evolution is true, right?
It reminds me of when evolutionists try to rationalize why homosexual behavior and abortion are natural and moral in an [...]

Scientists or philosophers? Make up your mind, please.

Some people hold the view that abortion is justifiable because the unborn aren’t persons.  The personhood argument fails on many levels, but what is amusing and illuminating is when the materialist crowd debates its elusive definition.
What happened to, “We only trust what science tells us?” and that we can only trust empirical evidence? 
Secular embryology textbooks are [...]

DNA of humans, chimps have 45,000,000 differences

Update: Turns out we aren’t 99% similar after all.  It is more like 70%.
That wasn’t the subtitle of the August 17, 2006 Houston Chronicle article on the similarity of human and chimpanzee DNA, but it could have been. There are 3 billion letters in the human DNA genome, and they are 98.5% similar with chimps. DNA [...]

EXPELLED II – The Tables are Turned

The title of this post is the hypothetical theme for those complaining that I moderate their comments. 
I pride myself on being pretty generous with new folks.  But if I’m having to repeat myself and they are silly or off-topic then they go in the moderation queue, where they may or may not surface from.  The [...]

Imagine no possessions . . . except hyper-strictly enforced copyrights

First she ruins the Beatles, and now this. 
I am starting to wonder if the EXPELLED producers are some kind of evil-super geniuses a la President Bush.  How else could they provoke people to give them all this free publicity?  Seriously, the fair use doctrine is not that complicated.
EXPELLED Producers to Yoko Ono: Let it Be
(Dallas, [...]

Weekly roundup

Be sure to go see Expelled.  Lots of good clips here.  It looks to be informative and a little funny.  If nothing else, just go so you’ll know what all the materialists are hyperventilating about.  I can’t remember when I’ve seen such unhinged-ness and whining.  They commit the genetic fallacy over and over and over, [...]

Stars, sand and how to read the Bible

A recent commenter viewed Genesis 15:5 as evidence that the Bible has errors.  The context is God promising Abraham that despite his advanced age he would have many offspring.
Genesis 15:5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, [...]