A MUST-SEE lecture based on Dr. Stephen C. Meyer’s book “Signature in the Cell“. One of my favorite 6 arguments for a Creator and Designer is the origin of the simplest replicating living system. When you look into the cell, what you’ll find is carefully sequenced components that for complex structures, like proteins. In this lecture, you’ll learn all about this “biological information”.

I highly recommend watching the lecture, and looking at the slides. The quality of the video and the content is first class. There is some Q&A (9 minutes) at the end of the lecture.

Topics:

• intelligent design is concerned with measuring the information-creating capabilities of natural forces like mutation and selection
• Darwinists think that random mutations and natural selection can explain the origin and diversification of living systems
• Darwinian mechanisms are capable of explaining small-scale adaptive changes within types of organisms
• but there is skepticism, even among naturalists, that Darwinian mechanisms can explain the origin of animal designs
• even if you concede that Darwinism can account for all of the basic animal body plans, there is still the problem of life’s origin
• can Darwinian mechanisms explain the origin of the first life? Is there a good naturalistic hypothesis to explain it?
• there are at least two places in the history of life where new information is needed: origin of life, and Cambrian explosion
• overview of the structure of DNA and protein synthesis (he has helpful pictures and he uses the snap lock blocks, too)
• the DNA molecule is composed of a sequence of bases that code for proteins, and the sequence is carefully selected to have biological function
• meaningful sequences of things like computer code, English sentences, etc. require an adequate cause
• it is very hard to arrive at a meaningful sequence of a non-trivial length by randomly picking symbols/letters
• although any random sequence of letters is improbable, the vast majority of sequences are gibberish/non-compiling code
• similarly, most random sequences of amino acids are lab-proven (Doug Axe’s work) to be non-functional gibberish
• the research showing this was conducted at Cambridge University and published in the Journal of Molecular Biology
• so, random mutation cannot explain the origin of the first living cell
• however, even natural selection coupled with random mutation cannot explain the first living cell
• there must already be replication in order for mutation and selection to work, so they can’t explain the first replicator
• but the origin of life is the origin of the first replicator – there is no replication prior to the first replicator
• the information in the first replicator cannot be explained by law, such as by chemical bonding affinities
• the amino acids are attached like magnetic letters on a refrigerator
• the magnetic force sticks the letters ON the fridge, but they don’t determine the specific sequence of the letters
• if laws did determine the sequence of letters, then the sequences would be repetitive
• the three materialist explanations – chance alone, chance and law, law alone – are not adequate to explain the effect
• the best explanation is that an intelligent cause is responsible for the biological explanation in the first replicator
• we know that intelligent causes can produce functional sequences of information, e.g. – English, Java code
• the structure and design of DNA matches up nicely with the design patterns used by software engineers (like WK!)

There are some very good tips in this lecture so that you will be able to explain intelligent design to others in simple ways, using everyday household items and children’s toys to symbolize the amino acids, proteins, sugar phosphate backbones, etc.

Proteins are constructed from a sequence of amino acids:

Proteins sticking onto the double helix structure of DNA:

I highly, highly recommend this lecture. You will be delighted and you will learn something.

Here is an article that gives a general overview of how intelligent design challenges. If you want to read something more detailed about the material that he is covering in the lecture above related to the origin of life, there is a pretty good article here.

There is a good breakdown of some of the slides with helpful flow charts here on Uncommon Descent.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

• The kalam cosmological argument and the Big Bang theory
• The fine-tuning argument from cosmological constants and quantities
• The origin of life, part 1 of 2: the building blocks of life
• The origin of life, part 2 of 2: biological information
• The sudden origin of phyla in the Cambrian explosion
• Galactic habitable zones and circumstellar habitable zones
• Irreducible complexity in molecular machines
• The creative limits of natural selection and random mutation
• Angus Menuge’s ontological argument from reason
• Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason
• William Lane Craig’s moral argument
• The unexpected applicability of mathematics to nature

Many women today, including “Christian” feminists, complain about the decline of traditional male behaviors. They like the male behaviors that benefit women, like protecting and providing, but they strongly oppose other male behaviors: spiritual and moral leading. They only want “servant leadership” (non-judgmental ATM). They don’t want leadership that fights lies and evil.

Here’s an example of how society – under the influence of feminism – responds to traditional male spiritual and moral leadership, as reported in Daily Wire:

An Oregon education worker is suing his district, claiming it threatened to fire him for displaying several “transphobic” books, including Daily Wire host Matt Walsh’s children’s book “Johnny the Walrus.”

Rod Theis has worked as an education specialist at the InterMountain Education Service District outside of Portland since 2008. In his office, Theis had displayed several children’s books, including two titled “He is He” and “She is She” as well as “Johnny the Walrus,” all books with messages rejecting transgender ideology.

A school employee saw some of the books and complained that they were “transphobic,” even filing a “bias incident” complaint with the district, the lawsuit says.

In response, the district opened an investigation and ultimately “ordered him to remove them and threatened him with discipline simply because it disagreed with the books’ content,” Theis’ lawsuit against the district, which he filed Wednesday, claims.

The district said the books were a “hostile expression of animus toward another person relating to their actual or perceived gender identity” and warned him that “further conduct of this nature” may result in discipline, including termination, the suit says.

Meanwhile, the district was allegedly allowing other employees to decorate in support of transgender ideology as well as “Black Lives Matter” and support for the teachers’ union.

The plaintiff is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is who I would pick if I were in his shoes.

And the ADF says this in their press release:

The district has created and implemented a speech policy that forbids employees from expressing a biological view of sex but permits employees to express viewpoints that a person’s subjective identity determines whether a person is male or female, not a person’s sex. The district’s censorship of Theis’ message, and the speech policy on which that censorship was based, violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

According to the complaint, the plaintiff:

• • is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker employed by IMESD as an Education Specialist
  • is a professing Christian who bases his beliefs on the Bible and strives to live out his Christian faith at work and in the community
  • has sincerely held religious beliefs govern his views about all aspects of life, including human nature, sex, and gender
  • is motivated by his sincerely held religious beliefs to speak on many topics from a Christian worldview
  • believes that all people should be treated with dignity and respect, that God created every person male or female, and that people should accept their God-given sex and not seek to reject or change it

So let me comment about this.

I have a very different view of Christianity and male leadership than virtually all Christians. Basically, I disagree with “servant leadership”, and that’s the dominant view of how men should lead today.

The standard cultural view of Christianity is “a set of rules that forces men to be nice so that people will like us so that we will feel good”. This is how most Christians understand Christianity today. For them, it’s not about making truth claims, especially ones that offend non-Christians. And it’s not about taking moral stands, because that is mean and judgmental, and makes people not like us. The standard view is that God wants people to like us, and he wants us to feel good. And that’s why it’s considered normal and natural to respond to a Christian man’s leadership on moral and spiritual issues with censorship and coercion. Everyone is so sure that Christianity is a tool for making men be “nice” that they are sure that Christian men who are not “nice” are wrong, and need to be punished.

My view of Christianity is not the standard cultural view. My view is the old view – namely, that men should be allowed to put up books in their offices to indicate that they oppose transing children, even if it is seen by feelings-based people as “mean” and “judgmental”.

Men have to be free to fight lies and evil. And if it is too difficult for a good man to do while married then men have to not marry. And if it is too difficult for a good man to do outside of a male-dominated profession, then men have to work in a male-dominated profession. And if it’s too difficult for a good man to do because he’s born in a feelings-dominated country, then the man has to immigrate to a better country. The point is that men should not put himself in an environment where the feelings-based people are going to rule over him.

C.S. Lewis wrote a wonderful essay a while back called “Men Without Chests”. It appears in the book “The Abolition of Man” which is one of his best works. In the essay, he explains how people expect men to behave honorably and self-sacrificially, even after they have removed the metaphysical underpinnings of those convictions. This case shows how they did it. They feelings-based people punish Christian men every time to speak out about things that God wants men to speak out about.

So, think about the tyranny of “nice”, and the toxicity of “empathy” when you wonder why men are not performing according to your expectations. “Why don’t men give us all their money and stop judging our bad behaviors?” It’s because good men don’t get involved in situations where they will be punished for leading on moral and spiritual issues. We are not here to be your servants. We are here to lead you.

When you emasculate good men out of their natural roles of moral and spiritual leadership, you don’t get the non-judgmental “servant leadership” ATM that you wanted. You get nothing – because good men decline to be reduced to people-pleasing slaves. Good men will find some other way to serve Boss that doesn’t put us under the control of feelings-based people. Every decision I made in my education, career and finances was to escape the coercion of the “be nice, be liked, feel good” crowd. I already HAVE a Boss.