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News

Michele Bachmann opposes Obama’s plan to fund ESCR

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Representative Michele Bachmann
Representative Michele Bachmann

UPDATE: For all the people that are searching for Michele Bachmann, this blog is FILLED with stories on Michele Bachmann!!!  Here is a good summary of some of her best material. Here’s her latest video.

More recent posts

Here are my recent posts on Michele Bachmann:

Michele Bachmann on ESCR

Michele Bachmann is my favorite member of the House, and I’ve blogged about her before, here, here and here. Today, she shows that she is aware of the recent breakthroughs in stem cell research in her speech on the floor of the House. Do not miss this great video of the most conservative and articulate legislator in the House.

More videos of Michele Bachmann are here.

(H/T: The Maritime Sentry)

UPDATE: One of my other congressional favorites Mary Fallin had these comments on the ESCR intitiative:

“Every human being, no matter how small or how early in his or her development, has a right to life. By allowing federal dollars to fund the destruction of human embryos, the Obama Administration is not only denying this essential truth, it is ordering taxpayers to foot the bill for research that many, including myself, find morally repugnant.

“I enthusiastically support adult and cord blood stem cell research, methods which show great promise and do not involve the destruction of human life. It is a tragedy the new administration has further weakened protections of the unborn and ignored the science behind morally acceptable alternatives to embryonic stem cell research.”

Notice how she echoes the SLED-test argument, and she understands the difference between ESCR and ASCR. That’s what I like to see!

UPDATE 2: Michele Bachmann has an even better speech on the dangers of tinkering in the free market here! This one is a must see!

Commentary

Answering Richard Dawkins’ question: “Who made God?”

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UPDATE: Welcome visitors from Apologetics 315! Thanks for the link Brian!

Atheists are very uncomfortable with the progress of science in the areas of cosmic origins and cosmological constants. On my friend’s Rick Heller’s blog, he responded to my article on the 6 scientific discoveries that led to the theory that the universe, including all matter, time and space, was created out of nothing.

Here is an excerpt from Rick’s response:

The traditional rebuttal to the First Cause argument is, who created God? That makes a nice point, but I don’t find it entirely convincing, because it contains a complacent acceptance of an uncaused universe.

I think we humans find ourselves unable to resolve the logical paradox–things don’t come into existence without a cause, yet there is no explanation for the first cause. Neither the atheist nor theist views quite hang together.

Richard Dawkins asks a similar question in his book “The God Delusion”. My friend Canbuhay got there first and posted the correct answer. Here is what he said:

The First Cause argument is not simply about how the universe must have a cause because everything else we know about, does. Included in the argument is that whatever must have caused the universe must be unique. Why? Because if everything began at the Big Bang, including time, then whatever caused the Big Bang would have to be outside of time. It could literally have no beginning because there was no such thing as “before” or “beginning” when there was no time.

The atheistic response that there had to be something that caused the causer of the Big Bang cannot adequately account for the time factor.

Whereas, the theistic one can: the causer of the Big Bang is a Deity who lives outside of time.

I got there next and I posted this comment:

There is no physical universe, and no time, causally prior to the Big Bang. That means that whatever causes the universe to exist is not in time, it is outside of time. It is eternal and exists necessarily. It does not “come into being” because that is a time-bound notion. It exists timelessly, and brings the entire universe into being.

Now, you may well ask, “Wintery! What immaterial thing can bring an entire physical universe into being?”. Well the only two non-physical realities that we are aquainted with are abstract objects, such as numbers, or minds. And that is what caused the universe. A big M I N D. Dawkins’ objection of “who made God?” is thus defeated. The universe is contingent, the cause of the universe is not.

Yes, I stole “big M I N D” quote from J.P. Moreland. If you haven’t read his book “Love Your God With All Your Mind”, then you should. My friend Andrew affectionately calls JP’s book LYGWYM (“lig-wim”). JP seems to be going soft lately, just like Ravi Zacharias, who hasn’t written anything useful since “Can Man Live Without God?”. Look how tough JP used to be.

If you don’t like my answer to “Who made God?”, check out Perry Marshall’s answer. He recently debated on the origin of life. I like his ideas, because he is a software engineer, and not a squishyhead. Yes, I stole “squishyhead” from Henry F. Schaefer. Have you ever read his paper on the big bang and who made God? The video is here: part1, part2.

Commentary

The doctrine of the Trinity is an asset, not a liability

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Over at Tough Questions Answered, I noticed that they posted this graphic of the Trinity:

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity

This image is pretty good at conveying who is who and what is what. But you may be asking yourself: how the heck did those Christians come up with that doctrine? Did God come down and tell them that? Well, anything I say is probably going to be wrong or heretical, so let me just pass you over to Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason and you can get an accurate answer to that question.

Here is an excerpt that explains what he is trying to do in his answer:

The particular question that came up was that my view, or the Christian view, of the Trinity is inconsistent with the Scripture. That was the objection. That’s why John 20 was raised as a verse and a number of other verses were raised as contradicting the orthodox notion of the Trinity. In fact, it was questioned as whether such a thing could be an orthodox notion because Jesus Himself didn’t teach it.

Now it’s clear that Jesus did not teach the Trinity as I would teach the Trinity because it’s synthetic in that it’s taking a number of different things and synthesizing them into a doctrine. But the synthesis is legitimate if each of those things is actually taught in the Scripture.

Remember, he is answering this question from a Christian perspective, so he is allowed to use the Bible, since Christians believe that it is at least a generally reliable record of Jesus’ public ministry. This is the best short answer I’ve seen so far, from a first-class apologetics guru.

One criticism. Before I cite Bible verses in a debate, I always explain the rules that determine whether a verse is admissable. (I explained the rules as they apply to the resurrection here). But Greg just cites the Bible as if it were inerrant. That would work on me, but it might not work on my atheist co-workers. A better way is to use only the verses that are early, multiply attested, and pass the other standard historical criteria.