Tag Archives: Naturalism

Podcasts

MUST-LISTEN: J.P. Moreland lecture on Christianity and science

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I found the lectures here at Apologetics 315. These are GOOD. He covers a lot and you’ll get a lot of interesting stuff to think about. This is actually a great lecture – the old J.P. Moreland back in fine form. He’s going over a ton of arguments for theism from science. I’ve counted SIX so far, so this is a really good lecture, and perfect for beginners.

    • The full MP3 audio is here.

      He doesn’t talk about habitability at the galactic, stellar, or planetary level, though.

      I am a little busy mailing out everyone’s gifts today! I apologize for the light blogging. Please go and read just a few chapters of that Dalrymple book that I posted yesterday if you need something to read, or check out these round-ups:

      More from Neil Simpson: Another reason it is hard to stay in the Methodist church

      Neil Simpson is a methodist??? How is that even possible?

      Mailing these gifts will only take a few hours, and then I’m on vacation until January 4th!!! I promise I will write a ton then. I’m also working on an application for the Droid platform, but it’s a secret.

      I’m giving away this stuff to people this year:

      • Unlocking the Mystery of Life DVD
      • Icons of Evolution DVD
      • The Privileged Planet DVD
      • Darwin’s Dilemma DVD
      • Signature in the Cell book
      • The William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens debate DVD
      • Money, Greed and God book
      • Greer-Heard Forums from 2005 and 2009
      • and other specific things they asked for

      If you guys are giving away apologetics gifts, please write your ideas in the comments. I did gift exchanges with atheists, so now I have atheist books to read! Bleh! I only want to read atheists in debates, because listening to them blab without rebuttal is very annoying.

      Podcasts

      Audio clips and post-debate interviews from latest Dawkins debate

      3 Comments

      From the latest episode of the Unbelievable radio show.

      The MP3 file is here.

      Details:

      Atheists Richard Dawkins, and AC Grayling recently squared up against Christians Richard Harries and Charles Moore for a debate on the motion “Atheism is the new fundamentalism”.

      Justin Brierley reviews the debate with audio clips from the speakers and Q&A session, as well as interviews with those who attended, including AC Grayling and the Chair of the debate Anthony Seldon.

      For the full debate visit http://www.intelligencesquared.com/

      Justin has a lot of audio clips of the speeches and Q&A from the debate. This was a public debate. He also conducts post-debate interviews with one of the speakers, and some of the people in the audience. The people representing Christianity in the debate are totally useless. Justin also interviewed some “Christian” woman after the debate who is not even an orthodox Christian!

      I think that in the UK, people are not really orthodox in their Christian beliefs. They seem poorly trained in theology and apologetics. I think that political correctness and multiculturalism has really weakened Christianity in the UK. At the end of the show Justin says that he will be focusing on the movie Expelled in the new year and so I hope they will get some good Christian scholars – not like John Lennox and Richard Swinburne!

      Justin – if you’re reading this – please don’t put any more pastors on to defend Christianity. C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton types are not effective against the New Atheists. Please get Paul Copan, Keith Yandell, Craig Evans, Jonathan Wells, Stephen Meyer, Jay Richards, Guillermo Gonzalez, William Dembski, Darrell Bock, Dan Wallace, James Sinclair, and Doug Geivett instead. Or William Lane Craig, but that goes without saying.

      My thoughts on why atheists are fundamentalists

      I want to say a little something about atheists and the word “science”. Atheists don’t really value science, they value naturalism. Science is a method of inquiry that helps people to discover the way the world really works. Naturalism is a philosophical pre-supposition that says that every effect in the universe is the result of natural law and matter. And they cling to this pre-supposition as strongly as Muslims cling to their beliefs. There is no evidence that will shake them from their blind faith in the efficacy of naturalistic mechanisms.

      Consider this quote from an atheist named Richard Lewontin:

      Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

      When an atheist says that they like science, what they really mean is that they like naturalism (= materialism). When the progress of science demonstrates the need for a Creator of the universe, a Designer for the fine-tuning, an intelligent cause of biological information, etc., then atheists jump off the science bandwagon and begin to talk about how science is a very limited, tentative enterprise. They do this in order to save their religion of naturalism from being tested against scientific discoveries.

      News

      Science Daily reports that there is no such thing as Junk RNA

      26 Comments

      Story here on Science Daily. (H/T Darwin’s God via ECM)

      Excerpt:

      Tiny strands of RNA previously dismissed as cellular junk are actually very stable molecules that may play significant roles in cellular processes, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI).

      The findings, published last week in the online version of the Journal of Virology, represent the first examination of very small RNA products termed unusually small RNAs (usRNAs). Further study of these usRNAs, which are present in the thousands but until now have been neglected, could lead to new types of biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis, and new therapeutic targets.

      In recent years, scientists have recognized the importance of small RNAs that generally contain more than 20 molecular units called nucleotides, said senior author Bino John, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Computational Biology, Pitt School of Medicine.

      “But until we did our experiments, we didn’t realize that RNAs as small as 15 nucleotides, which we thought were simply cell waste, are surprisingly stable, and are repeatedly, reproducibly, and accurately produced across different tissue types.” Dr. John said. “We have dubbed these as usRNAs, and we have identified thousands of them, present in a diversity that far exceeds all other longer RNAs found in our study.”

      Another prediction of Darwinism dashed to driftwood on the rocks of scientific progress. Put it on the pile with the eternal universe. Oh, but you might have to make room for it by moving the failed prediction of Junk DNA into a separate trash bin.

      Flashback: Science Daily reports on the biological functions of Junk DNA

      Here’s the Science Daily article. (H/T Evolution News)

      Excerpt:

      …during early development, the proteins required for cell division come from the mother. The researchers speculate that the heterochromatin of the male D. melanogaster’s X chromosome has rapidly evolved, such that after mating, the machinery involved in DNA packaging from a D. simulans mother no longer recognizes the D. melanogaster father’s “junk” DNA, Ferree said.

      Casey Luskin writes:

      Basically, so-called “junk”-DNA is involved in helping to package chromosomes in the cell. If two species have different “junk” DNA, then this prevents the proteins in the egg from properly packaging the chromosomes donated by the sperm. The organism does not develop properly.

      Darwinism fails again.