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Seventh Planned Parenthood video: cutting through living baby’s face to get intact brain

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A pre-born baby delivered intact so they could take his brain
A baby delivered intact so they could cut open his face and and sell his brain

Blogging has always been a challenge for me, because it takes up my time for leisure. But recently, I’ve had a new problem where what I want to write about is so depressing that it makes it even harder to write than normal.

Well, here we go again, with the seventh video:

Anika Smith writes about it at The Stream:

O’Donnell tells the story of a woman seeking an abortion at the Alameda Planned Parenthood clinic who was very upset. “Finally she calmed down and the doctor went in to perform the abortion. It takes a little while, and I’m in the hallway. I see the jar come out, goes into the path lab, and Jessica [her coworker] I can hear is preparing it, rinsing out the jar, rinsing out the linen … then I hear her call my name… ‘Come over here, I want you to see something kinda cool, this is kinda neat.’ The moment I see it, I’m just flabbergasted. This is the most gestated fetus and closest thing to a baby I’ve seen.”

Then her coworker takes an instrument, “just taps the heart, and it starts beating.”

[…]Those who harvest these baby parts seem unashamed. One lab official, the executive director of Novogenix, is recorded saying matter-of-factly, “There are times when after the procedure is done the heart is still beating.”

O’Donnell’s coworker’s response to a still-moving child was merely clinical: “OK, this is a really good fetus and it looks like we can procure a lot from it…. We’re going to procure brain.”

O’Donnell clearly struggles as she describes a coworker ordering her to cut open the child’s head. “I remember picking it up and finishing going through the rest … and Jessica picking up the brain … and I’m just sitting there, like, what did I just do? And that was the moment I knew that I couldn’t work for the company anymore.”

[…]“It had a face. Its nose was very pronounced. It had eyelids. And its mouth was pronounced.”

Today’s video made Amelia Hamilton cry, and she explains why at The Stream:

After six videos from the Center for Medical Progress, I have heard and seen such horrifying things that I made it almost 6 minutes into this seventh video, third in the Human Capital series, without reaction.

The descriptions of a “huddle” in which the employees look at a list of abortions to be done that day to determine what to harvest didn’t surprise me. When Procurement Manager Perrin Larton described a baby that “just fell out” because it was already in the vaginal canal, I was disgusted, but I didn’t cry. I made it through Melissa Farrell and Dr. Nucatola talking about altering the process to ensure that the brain is saved. I was angry that they would turn a baby in the womb, forcing it out breech to serve their bottom line, but I wasn’t surprised. I listened with growing horror as former StemExpress employee Holly O’Donnell described the first time she saw an aborted baby with a heartbeat.

I made it through things that would have made me cry in earlier videos, but that I’ve now come to expect.

But, at 5:59 I cried.

At 5:59, I saw footage of a living baby in a pie plate, waiting to have its life ended. I saw a baby with a heartbeat, a baby who was moving. I saw its little legs stretching and kicking as it would have done in the womb. I thought about how the mother must have felt her baby moving inside the womb, and probably didn’t know it would still be moving after the abortion. She can’t have known that they would put scissors through the baby’s chin to end her life while preserving the parts that would yield the most profit. And, so, I cried.

The people who did this were once babies the same size as this little baby, but they cut through his face and took his brain so they could sell it. His future – all that he would ever be, and all that he would ever do – wasn’t as important as the money they could make by selling his brain. They were strong, and he was weak, and they didn’t think that God was watching. They didn’t think that they would have to explain what they were doing to anyone on Judgment Day. Atheism is a necessary pre-condition to perform barbaric acts like this one.

Anyway, in light of these videos, I think Planned Parenthood should be investigated, and de-funded if necessary. And if they are found to be breaking the law, then they should be prosecuted criminally. The Democrats from top to bottom disagree with me on this – they want this business to continue, with taxpayer funding, no questions asked. That’s Barack Obama’s view, that’s Hillary Clinton’s view. There’s money in selling these baby parts, and the Democrat Party gets a cut through political donations.

This post at Newsbusters has all the videos in one post, if you haven’t seen them, including this new one.

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Biomimetics again: scientists reverse engineer the design of snake scales

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Apologetics and the progress of science
Apologetics and the progress of science

Today, I have an example of biomimetics.

But first, here’s what that is:

Biomimetic refers to human-made processes, substances, devices, or systems that imitate nature. The art and science of designing and building biomimetic apparatus is called biomimetics, and is of special interest to researchers in nanotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), the medical industry, and the military.

This is from Science Daily. (H/T Fuz Rana)

It says:

A snake moves without legs by the scales on its belly gripping the ground. It generates friction at the points needed to move forwards only and prevents its scales from being worn off by too much friction. Researchers of KIT have found a way to transfer this feature to components of movable systems. In this way, durability of hip prostheses, computer hard disks or smartphones might be enhanced.

“Friction and wear are two of the biggest challenges in systems of several individual components,” Christian Greiner of the Institute for Applied Materials says. A solution is found in nature: Snakes, such as the ball python, or lizards, such as the sandfish skink, use friction to move forwards, but can reduce it to a minimum thanks to their scales. Together with Michael Schäfer, Greiner developed a process to transfer the scale structure of reptiles to components of electromechanical systems: With a fiber laser, they milled scales into a steel bolt of 8 mm in diameter.

With the help of two different structures, the materials researchers tested whether the distance of the scales influences friction behavior. In the first structure, the scales overlap and are located very closely to each other, such as the scales on the belly of a ball python. The second structure consists of scales arranged in vertical rows at a larger distance, such as the skin of a sandfish skink. “The distance between the rows in our experiment was the smallest possible distance we could produce with the laser. The structure, hence, does not entirely correspond to that of the sandfish skink,” Greiner says. In the future, however, the researchers plan to produce structures that are closer to the original in nature.

[…]To find out whether scales reduce friction, Greiner and Schäfer fixed the structured surface of the bolts to a rotating plate. The experiments were carried out without and with a lubricant (1 ml of mineral oil). For the experiments with oil as lubricant, the scientists used steel disks. Under dry sliding conditions, sapphire disks were applied. The disk diameter was 50 mm.

Experiments under lubricated conditions revealed that both narrow and wide arrangements of the scales increase friction compared to the unstructured bolt: By the wide scales, friction is increased by a factor of 1.6. The narrow scales increase friction by a factor of 3. In the non-lubricated state, the wide scale structure reduced friction by more than 40 percent, while friction was reduced by 22 percent in case of a narrow scale structure.

The finding that the narrow scale structure increases friction under both lubricated and non-lubricated conditions had not been expected by the researchers: “We assumed that the narrow structure is more effective, as it is closer to nature,” Greiner says.

See the related posts for more examples of humans learning from the engineering designs in nature.

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J. Warner Wallace: 10 important questions for Jehovah’s witnesses

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A conflict of worldviews
A conflict of worldviews

So there’s this group of people called Jehovah’s Witnesses that use Christian language to describe a religion that denies key parts of the Christian worldview. They like to go door-to-door to tell people what they believe. Since you may might them knocking on your door to tell you about their worldview, it might be worth it to read this post from J. Warner Wallace over in advance.

I’ll just post a snip of the first I use when they come to my door. It’s also the first on Wallace’s list:

If I am to accept the teaching of the Jehovah’s Witness religion, I am first going to have to trust the source of this teaching. But how can I trust someone who claims to speak for God when they have been wrong about prior predictions?

There are a number of false predictions made either by Charles Russell, subsequent leaders of the church or the Watchtower Organization itself, including this limited sampling:

1886 The Millennial Reign Has Already Begun “The outward evidences are that the marshalling of the hosts for the battle of the great day of God almighty, is in progress while the skirmishing is commencing.” (Watchtower reprints 1, page 817 January 1886)

1897 The Millennial Reign Began in 1874 “ Our Lord, the appointed King, is now present, since October 1874” (Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. 4, page 621)

1899 The Times Described in Revelation 16 Have Begun “…the ‘battle of the great day of God Almighty’ (Revelation 16:14), which will end in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulership, is already commenced.” (The Time Is at Hand, page 101 – 1908 edition)

1916 The Millennial Reign Began in 1873 “The Bible chronology herein presented shows that the six great 1000 year days beginning with Adam are ended, and that the great 7th Day, the 1000 years of Christ’s Reign, began in 1873.” (The Time Is at Hand, page ii)

1917 Armageddon Has Begun “The present great war in Europe is the beginning of the Armageddon of the scriptures.” (Pastor Russell’s Sermons, 1917, page 676)

1918 The Saints Will Be Resurrected in 1925 “Therefore we may confidently expect that 1925 will mark the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the faithful prophets of old, particularly those named by the Apostle in Hebrews 11, to the condition of human perfection.” (Millions Now Living Will Never Die, page 89)

“1925 shall mark the resurrection of the faithful worthies…We are standing at the very portals of that blessed time!” (Millions Now Living Will Never Die, page 105)

1922 Jesus Will Return in 1925 “The date 1925 is even more distinctly indicated by the Scriptures than 1914.” (The Watchtower, September 1st, 1922, page 262)

1923 Jesus Will Return in 1925 “Our thought is that 1925 is definitely settled by the Scriptures. As to Noah, the Christian now has much more upon which to base his faith than Noah had upon which to base his faith in a coming deluge.” (The Watchtower, April 1st, 1923, page 106)

1925 Jesus May Return in 1925 “The year 1925 is here. With great expectation Christians have looked forward to this year. Many have confidently expected that all members of the body of Christ will be changed to heavenly glory during this year. This may be accomplished. It may not be. In his own due time God will accomplish his purposes concerning his people. Christians should not be so deeply concerned about what may transpire this year.” (The Watchtower, January 1st, 1925, page 3)

1940 Armageddon is Eminent Within the Year “The year 1940 is certain to be the most important year yet, because Armageddon is very near.” (Informant, May 1940)

1941 Jesus Will Return in Months “Receiving the gift, the marching children clasped it to them, not a toy or plaything for idle pleasure, but the Lord’s provided instrument for most effective work in the remaining months before Armageddon.” (The Watchtower, September 15th, 1941, page 288)

1946 Armageddon is “At the Door” “…the disaster of Armageddon, greater than that which befell Sodom and Gomorrah, is at the door.” (Let God be True, 1946, page 194)

1968 Jesus Will Return in 1975 “Why are you looking forward to 1975?” (The Watchtower, August 15th, 1968, page 494)

“Just think , brothers, there is only 90 months left before 6000 years of mans existence on earth is completed… the majority of people living today will probably be alive when Armageddon breaks out.” (Kingdom Mystery, March 1968, page 4)

This is the quickest way to see why you should not convert to their organization. In the Bible, it’s a serious crime to make a prediction about the future and then have it not come true. It’s actually a capital offense, and it’s something that “false prophets” do. But it happens all the time with JWs. Just remind them of this and say “I cannot be affiliated with any organization that fails to get their truth claims right over and over again, because it shows me clearly that they don’t speak for God”.

Wallace actually has the quote from the Bible in his point 3:

Deuteronomy 18:20-22:

20 But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’

21 You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’

22 When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

The other one I use is John 1:1, which Wallace’s first point under the “Biblical Questions” heading. Really, though, the failed predictions alone should be enough for you to falsify the Jehovah’s Witness worldview.

If you want a longer treatment of this topic, check out Michael Licona’s PDF document on Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses.