Tag Archives: Politics

Commentary

Can evolutionary biologists be objective about evolution?

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From Evolution News, and article by Casey Luskin.

Excerpt:

What I am suggesting is that the public packaging of Darwinian theory has become intensely political, and that would-be critics face certain pressures.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what evolutionists themselves are saying.

Consider the words of philosopher Jerry Fodor and cognitive scientist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini in their book What Darwin Got Wrong:

We’ve been told by more than one of our colleagues that, even if Darwin was substantially wrong to claim that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution, nonetheless we shouldn’t say so. Not, anyhow, in public. To do that is, however inadvertently, to align oneself with the Forces of Darkness, whose goal is to bring Science into disrepute.

(Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, What Darwin God Wrong, p. xx (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010)

Likewise, theoretical biologist Günter Thieβen wrote in Theory in Biosciences:

It is dangerous to raise attention to the fact that there is no satisfying explanation for macroevolution. One easily becomes a target of orthodox evolutionary biology and a false friend of proponents of non-scientific concepts.

(Günter Theißen, “The Proper Place of Hopeful Monsters in Evolutionary Biology,” Theory in Biosciences, Vol. 124: 349-369 (2006).)

Again, philosopher and biologist John Dupré writes in American Scientist:

The enduring debates with creationists have also undoubtedly tended to discourage admission that major conceptual issues about evolution remain unresolved.

(John Dupré, “The Conditions for Existence,” American Scientist)

Such words are not harbingers of some kind of a mass conspiracy to hide problems with evolution from the public. No such conspiracy exists. But they do show evidence of the hyper-political nature of this debate, where scientists feel political pressure to avoid lending credence to those they call “creationists.”

It’s important to point that what materialists mean by “science” is presuming materialism and then carrying on a charade of investigating the world and discovering that materialism did it. They can’t be open to agent causation, because their religion doesn’t allow it.

Give me that old-time religion
Give me that old-time religion

Imagine a materialist CIO who thought that code was written by large numbers of monkeys pounding at keyboards instead of by engineers. He would be firing all the software engineers and replacing them with monkeys in order to generate better code. And he would call this method of generating new code “science”. It’s the scientific way of generating new information, he would say, and using software engineers to generate new code isn’t “science”. It’s what he learned at UC Berkeley and UW Madison! His professors of biology swear that it is true!

It seems to me that there are incentives in place that make it impossible for Darwinists to discuss their materialistic religion honestly. They feel pressured to distort the evidence in the public square, and there are political pressures on them to distort the evidence in order to avoid being censured by their employers and colleagues. When questions about the evidence for Darwinism come up, they have to rally around their religion and chant the creeds that comfort them. There can be no questioning of their faith in the presupposition of materialism.

Podcasts

MUST-HEAR: Michele Bachmann gives the best speech ever

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Rep. Michele Bachmann

My favorite Congresswoman stole the spotlight in Iowa when she lectured for the Family Leader Presidential Lecture Series. She’s back to the passionate arm-waving that I always liked so much.

The MP3 file is here. (17 Mb)

Shane Vander Hart from Caffeinated Thoughts has a great summary of the speech.

Excerpt:

Bachmann started her speech sharing her testimony saying she understood the Gospel for the first time at age 16 after growing up in a Lutheran Church and then she gave her life to Christ.  She said that it “changed her life forever.”  She said she had a hunger for the Word after then, and explained that the Holy Spirit “lifted the veil” from her eyes so she was then able to understand it.  She participated in YoungLife and another Bible study when in high school.  That first year in Christ was, Bachmann said, “was the defining year of my life.”

In college she participated the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at her school, and cited Francis Schaffer’s film, How Now Shall We Live, made an impact on how she lives out her faith.  During law school at Oral Roberts University Law School she did advocacy for better homeschooling laws.  She and her husband, Marcus, homeschooled their five children in their early years.  She got involved in public schools as they did foster care for 23 kids since they were not allowed by Minnesota law to put those kids in private school or to home school them.

She noted a change in public schools where “knowledge, facts, and information” were taking a back seat to indoctrination.  She noted the 2000 Goals to Work standard implemented in the public schools that was a federal program implemented in all 50 states.  She advocated for its repeal in Minnesota – the first state to do so.  She said later this is where she got her start in politics.

She highlighted her prolife advocacy in the Minnesota Legislature – a requirement to fund prolife groups if they were going to fund Planned Parenthood and a woman’s right to know act.

[…]On marriage, she commended Iowans for booting the three Iowa Supreme Court justices up for retention last fall.  She said that Minnesota could possibly vote in favor of a Marriage Amendment now that Republicans  She noted that Congress can limit the subject matter jurisdiction for Article Three courts federally denying them an opportunity to rule on marriage. “This is the first time in recorded history that we have seen marriage in society defined as anything other than between one man and one woman.”

[…]On life she said that she and her husband has done more than just talk about life, but have tried to live it out through being sidewalk counselors and taking unwed mothers into their home.  Quoting Francis Schaeffer she, “life is the watershed issue of our time.”  Bachman proclaimed her commitment to life, “I will not give up until we give life the position it deserves in the United States and is protected from conception until natural death.”

She explained how taxes has impacted the family where in the 1950s would pay approximately 5% of their income to taxes.  She said now some families can pay up to 50% which explains why we have fewer one income families.  She noted the spending which has fueled anti-family tax policy.  She said the first thing on the House’s pro-family agenda was to rein in spending.  Regarding education reform, she noted how the Supreme Court has recently ruled that tax credits for private religious schools is constitutional.  She also said that she’d abolish the Federal Department of Education. She also called for the abolishment of the United States Tax Code.

[Note: commenter Francine notes that Michele says that this is the first time that marriage has been redefined to not be between men and women – the summary is in error about what she said]

She ends the speech with her concern for the fact that over 40% of children are beig born without a mother and father in the home, and she blames bad fiscal policies for this injustice. She makes the connection between left-wing fiscal policies and social breakdown. It’s so important that social conservatives understand that big government, high taxes, excessive regulation and massive spending are major causes of virtually all of our social problems. The breakdown of the family is what makes soul-destroying secularism possible.

There was also a press conference after the speech.

The MP3 file is here. (3 Mb)

Shane also covered the press conference.

Excerpt:

During the press conference that was held after Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann’s speech in Pella, IA for The FAMiLY Leader’s Presidential Lecture Series, she was asked to elaborate on the bill in Minnesota she helped to get passed that allowed funding for prolife organizations basically putting them on the same footing as Planned Parenthood.  During her answer she mentioned that she said that she introduced a similar bill in Congress.

She was also asked about what programs would she be open to abolishing other than the Federal Department of Education.  She listed the Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce as ones that have been discussed in Congress.  She said “anywhere we can abolish we might as well cut back and abolish.”  Saying in particular that our private sector has the capability to handle our energy needs.  She was asked about her disappointment with the House budget deal and where she would like the House leadership to put up a fight.  Bachmann said, “defunding Obamacare, this will change our country forever.”  She noted later that some may not be willing to take on budget battles in the future, she said that we have to… she said, “we have to change course.”

I have been pushing Michele Bachmann on this blog since the beginning two years ago, because she represents what I consider to be an ideal Christian woman. She is everything that I have ever hoped a Christian woman could be in my wildest, wildest dreams. I could not give any politician a more ringing endorsement. I hope with all my heart that she will some day be President of the United States.

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She explained how taxes has impacted the family where in the 1950s would pay approximately 5% of their income to taxes.  She said now some families can pay up to 50% which explains why we have fewer one income families.  She noted the spending which has fueled anti-family tax policy.  She said the first thing on the House’s pro-family agenda was to rein in spending.  Regarding education reform, she noted how the Supreme Court has recently ruled that tax credits for private religious schools is constitutional.  She also said that she’d abolish the Federal Department of Education. She also called for the abolishment of the United States Tax Code.
Commentary

Should Christian men marry Democrats who claim to be Christians?

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I don’t think that Christian men should marry women who are politically liberal who claim to be Christians, because I don’t think that political liberalism is compatible with Christianity. But I’ll write some things that liberal Christian women tell me and you can see if you think it’s compatible with a Christian worldview, and a Christian view of marriage and parenting.

Some of this is based on a recent comment I received from a liberal Christian woman who accused me of being a racist (I’m darker than Barack Obama) and opposed to women succeeding (I have a longstanding record of supporting Michele Bachmann for President in 2012), etc. She also basically called me homophobic, because I oppose the gay agenda of sexualizing preschoolers with gay propaganda and because I think that children do best with a mother AND a father.

Her comment shows that the best liberals can do when debating policy is name-calling. Imperialist! Racist! Corporatist! Homophobe! Sexist! Bigot! Greedy! That’s what this woman did, and I encounter these Christian feminists a lot in churches.They learn their secular leftist worldview in the schools, and then they “read” the Bible by having feelings about what the secular leftists tell them to believe. If you ask them what the Bible says, they’ll say “it says that all religions are equal, that people should feel good, and that people shouldn’t judge other people”. This is what the secular leftists told them that the Bible said, and they believe it. And then they vote. And then they expect that Christian men will marry them for voting for policies that utterly destroy the minimal social requirements for Christian marriage and Christian parenting, (e.g. – she votes for things like no-fault divorce, etc.).

So I thought I would list out some of the things I’ve heard from women in churches over the years and you can tell me if you think that marriage to them would be a good idea (by marriage I mean real practical marriage meant to provide God with an ROI higher than he would get if the two people stayed single). Should a Christian man marry a woman whose entire worldview consists of slogans without any evidential support? Should Christian men accept the bare statement “I’m Christian” as though it proves that a woman has a worldview that is compatible with the Bible? Should the Christian man ask her to connect a Christian marriage plan to specific policies and laws,  such as one might read about in Jay Richards’ “Money Greed and God”, Nancey Pearcey’s “Saving Leonardo”, Jennifer Roback Morse’s “Love and Economics”, or most importantly Wayne Grudem’s “Politics and the Bible”? Do “Christian” women have any idea what moral values, skills, policies and experiences are conducive to a successful marriage and the production of effective, influential Christian children?

According to liberal Christian women:

  • conservatives are close-minded
  • conservatives are oppressive
  • morality is not objective, it’s relative to each person, or to different cultures
  • God does not expect people to avoid sinning
  • it’s wrong to judge others
  • all religions are equally true
  • there is no such thing as the Devil or Hell
  • sinning is OK because God will still let unrepentant sinners into Heaven
  • there is nothing wrong with abortion
  • there is nothing wrong with the gay agenda
  • opposition to Islamic terrorism is racism
  • world war II was an imperialist, unjust war
  • the best way to prevent a war is to disarm your own forces, withdraw to your own borders, and appease evil dictators by granting them concessions and abandoning your democratic allies to their aggression
  • Christianity is about agreeing with people who do everything the Bible forbids, and making non-Christians feel good about their rebellion against God, so that they will like you
  • conservatives are racists (FYI, I have dark brown skin and am the son of first generation immigrants)
  • the best way to avoid being a racist is to obsess over the color of people’s skin and demand that people with different skin color be treated differently
  • the desire of Christian husbands to keep the money they earn is greedy
  • Christian husbands have a duty to have the money they earn confiscated by the government so it can be redistributed as the secular government sees fit to redistribute it
  • Christian men are stupid and evil and cannot be trusted, which is why women should be able to count on big government social welfare programs
  • fathers are not needed to raise children, and can be replaced with sperm donors and welfare checks
  • it is bad for poor people to have to depend on their neighbors if they make poor decisions, because asking their neighbors for money and being accountable to their neighbors will make them feel bad – it is better if the government takes money from Christian husbands (in part) and then just gives the poor people the money directly, no matter what poor decisions they made – so that they don’t feel bad about making the poor decisions and they don’t have to change their poor decision-making
  • the government should use the public schools teach children as young as 5 to have sex, use fallible contraceptives, and have abortions, and this teaching should be done using the taxpayer money collected in part from Christian husbands
  • if an individual or a group has a lot of money, then the secular government should be able to take that money away to redistribute it – regardless of how hard they worked for that money
  • taxing and regulating businesses will have no effect on a Christian husband’s ability to hold onto his job, or find a new one if he is laid off or fired
  • the best way to create more jobs is by taxing and regulating businesses and raising tariffs and the costs of energy
  • the best way to have an intelligent discussion with someone you disagree with is to attack their character and call them names that your teachers taught you to call them – reading good books by the people you disagree with and watching academic debates is a complete waste of time
  • watching Michael Moore movies is adequate preparation for debating policy with conservatives
  • watching the Comedy Network and listening to NPR are excellent ways to stay aware of the state of the world
  • the secular leftist government can be relied on to use money from Christian taxpayers to protect religious liberty and practices like homeschooling
  • economic policy can be determined through feelings and intuitions – as long as politicians say happy words and expressing good intentions, then the people they claim to care about are sure to come out ahead
  • capitalism doesn’t create wealth, socialism does – just look at how much richer North Korea is than the United States
  • churches have too much money and they don’t spend it on the poor, so they should be taxed and regulated by secular government
  • private and parochial schools are only available to “the rich” so they should be abolished and all children should be forced to attend public schools, which are run by the secular government
  • homeschooling should be outlawed because parents can teach their children moral values that are offensive and close-minded and make liberal special interest groups feel offended
  • a baby isn’t a person until a woman decides it’s a person, and abortion should be taxpayer-funded
  • children don’t need a mother and a father, and we should have policies that make people feel good about raising fatherless children – like welfare programs
  • corporations “control people” by making useful products, and providing useful services, that people are free to buy, or not, depending on whether they think that those products and services are worth the money being asked for
  • government doesn’t control people when it forces preople to buy health insurance that covers abortions, sex changes, drug rehab, IVF, or any number of things that Christians will never need and may even object to on moral grounds
  • it is ok for Christians to vote for a secular government that reduces the costs of pre-marital sex by allowing taxpayer-funded abortions and taxpayer-funded welfare payments, because the God of the Bible wants people to have premarital sex more easily and at a lower cost
  • conservatives support the death penalty for people who disagree with them on religion and morality (not on a criminal matter, this woman called herself a Christian and literally thought that conservatives wanted the death penalty for people of other religions and sexual orientations – no criminal charges or anything)
  • the death penalty is mean and has never been shown to have a deterrent effect on violent crime rates in peer-reviewed research
  • Christian women can best impress Christian men by showing no understanding of the needs of young children, and by having no plan to produce effective/influential Christian children in a challenging secular environment
  • the best way for a Christian women to understand the needs of men and children is by focusing on her own education and career and avoiding any peer-reviewed research that addresses the needs of men and children
  • marriage consists of the woman working full-time and treating her husband as a roommate and treating her children as pets who are dropped off at the day care – preferably government-run day care – and eventually moving the children on to government-run schools
  • conservative men, especially the Tea Party supporters, are sexist and don’t want women to be successful – especially the ones who want Michele Bachmann to be President
  • if a man asks a woman to read anything on economics, science, philosophy, etc., then he is oppressing her because she should be free to construct her entire worldview based on her feelings, intuitions and peer expectations
  • whenever a woman is asked how she has prepared to deal with a husband and children, she should turn the question around and ask what men and children will do to serve her and make her happy
  • government subsidies for unmarried women who raise fatherless children doesn’t cause more women to have babies out of wedlock, and out of wedlock babies do not increase poverty or criminal behavior
  • corporations who sell products and services to people who are willing to buy them of their own free will causes poverty and criminal behavior
  • the best way to prevent a mortgage lending crisis is for government to lower interest rates for extended periods of time and then impose restrictions on housing construction, driving home prices higher, and then to force banks to make loans to unqualified applicants who don’t have to report their citizenship, report their income, or even make a downpayment
  • the best way to respond to the policy question about whether high tax rates are bad for Christian families is to ask the questioner how much money they personally give to charity
  • God is more impressed by people who give their money to voluntarily homeless alcoholics than by people who give money to sponsor an on-campus academic debate where university students will hear arguments for and against God’s existence, God’s character, and what God has done in history through the person of Jesus
  • the best way to learn about marriage and parenting is by listening to feminist teachers, not by reading Jennifer Roback Morse and Laura Schlessinger
  • the best way to learn about economics is by listening to socialist teachers, not by reading Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams
  • the best way to learn about what the Bible says about politics is by listening to secular teachers, not by reading Wayne Grudem and Jay Richards
  • the best way to learn about foreign policy is by listening to draft-dodging bleeding-heart hippy teachers, not by reading Frank Gaffney and John Bolton
  • developing a Christian worldview is best achieved by believing whatever ignorant, inexperienced teachers in government-run secular schools tell you to believe so that you can get an A – this is called “critical thinking” and conservatives don’t do that
  • it’s more important to be liked by your liberal teachers and inexperienced, foolish peers than to conform your behavior and worldview to what the Bible actually says
  • if a Christian woman engages in global warming alarmism, recycling, veganism and yoga then Christian men will think that she is moral and suitable for marriage and parenting
  • Church is a place where you sing songs and meet people, have happy feelings, and get comfort for the uncertainties of life and death
  • men are just as likely to marry and have children with a 50% tax rate, a 15% unemployment rate and a 20 trillion dollar debt as they are with a 15% tax rate, a 5% unemployment rate and a 5 trillion dollar debt – what really matters is whether they are in love or not
  • men are just as likely to marry and have children with a no-fault divorce law and 90% sole-custody awards for the woman as they are with at-fault divorce laws and mandatory shared-parenting
  • if you pay poor people $35,000 a year in cash and benefits for not working, then they will try as hard as they can to get out of poverty
  • affirmative action is a great idea and it is no problem at all that 60% of all undergraduates are women, because men are just as willing to be husbands and fathers when they don’t have college degrees or jobs
  • God doesn’t want us to do anything effective to advance his causes and his concerns or to defend his moral values and moral duties – God just wants us to have happy feelings and to be liked by others, no matter what they believe and what choices they make
  • the purpose of having children is to let them do what they want so they are happy, and not to make them effective and influential for God
  • it’s wrong to call your children “garbage” even if they later look back on you with love for spending so much time parenting them effectively and are accepted to Harvard and Yale and are set to have an enormous influence for Christ – that’s bullying and God doesn’t like parents bullying people into Harvard and Yale (he prefers poets and ballet dancers)
  • the best way for mothers to deal with children is by handing them to strangers and then assuaging the guilt from child neglect with excessive permissiveness coupled with excessive spending on material rewards and suppression of the father’s desire to discipline and lead the children toward greater effectiveness and influence for Christ
  • defending the faith is something that only a few people do if they have that “spiritual gift”, but other people have the spiritual gift of reading Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling novels – both choices are equally pleasing to God, though
  • if  a Christian man cares about keeping the money he earns for his current or future family, then he is selfish and only cares about himself
  • patriotism, national honor, advanced weapon systems and a large military are all ways to encourage aggressors to attack other nations
  • peace talks, appeasement, betraying your allies, weakness, moral equivalence, coddling terrorists captured on the battlefield, and a weak military causes aggressors to not attack you or other nations
  • legal firearm ownership causes violent crime rates to increase
  • multiple victim public shootings never occur in areas where weapons are banned (for the law-abiding), like shopping malls and schools
  • slavery was invented by Americans and has never been practiced anywhere else or in any other time
  • slavery is only practiced by whites against blacks
  • slavery was abolished first by non-whites, and then only at the very end by whites
  • the American military is largely a force for evil in the world
  • man-made catastrophic global warming is real and needs to be countered by imposing a communist government to control industry, because the Earth has never been warmer than it is now, certainly not during the Medieval Warming Period
  • America is imperialist because Americans spend their blood and treasure liberating other countries from tyranny like South Korea, France, Kuwait, East Germany, etc. and then instead of occupying those countries they leave, and then airdrop supplies (The Marshall Plan) or foreign aid or massive private donations

And then they wonder why men do not think that women are suitable for marriage or children. I think it’s an act of treason against God for authentic Christian men to marry Democrats, or even to give them the time of day.

The point of this post is that today I am seeing a lot of women complaining about men not wanting to marry them, and going on to have children out of wedblock as an alternative (and then they collect welfare and throw the children in day care and public schools – i.e. – child abuse). The thought never occurs to them that men HAVE thought women and marriage and children through, and they have decide that many women are simply not qualified morally or spiritually for the tasks of marriage and parenting. Men decide this based on their knowledge of the needs of men and children, and women’s lack of preparation to meet those needs, and women’s unwillingness to sacrifice their own interests to meet the needs of others. What many women, Christian and atheist, seem to believe is that men should fall in love with them with a complete disregard for their worldview and preparation for marriage and parenting. And what they mean by marriage and parenting is not self-sacrifice and service to men and children, with the larger goal of serving God. They actually mean a combination of postmodernism, moral relativism and narcissistic hedonism. They think that this is what marriage provides – a perpetual state of bliss where they do whatever makes them feel good moment by moment and men and children just celebrate that. Rah rah day-care! Rah rah sex-withholding! Rah-rah wealth redistribution! That’s apparently what men and children should expect from a woman in a marriage situation. And of course, God, if he exists, exists only to guarantee happy feelings and cannot judge or interfere or impose moral obligations on the woman.They think marriage is fairy-tale narcissism. Even the wedding is a day of expensive attention-getting narcissism.

A woman’s relationship with God, and the amount of thought and effort she puts into it, is a valuable window into how she views her relationships with men and children. If she reads a lot and takes on a lot of obligations to understand God and to serve him in effective ways (apologetics, politics, economics, foreign policy) then men should think that she will treat relationships with men and children the same way. But that takes time to assess. Men need to keep their hands off of women when dating/courting in order to assess her real views. You can’t assess a woman for marriage and parenting based on her physical appearance, weight and sexual skills. You would be surprised how little Biblical worldview capability there is for young attractive women, how little practical thinking about money and education, etc. has been done, how little planning has been done beyond the desire for wedding pictures and baby pictures, and how little is understood about how men and children impose obligations on women. God is better than men and children are. She won’t treat men and children well if she doesn’t treat God well. If she projects her feelings onto the Bible, and resents its plain meaning, and rejects the obligations it places on her, then she isn’t going to treat husbands and children any better. If she responds to God’s character by rejecting his differences, his judgments, and his expectations, then she isn’t going to respond well to the those same concerns in men or children.

A nice physical appearance and the willingness to hook-up on the first date are not qualifications for marriage and parenting. And they are not qualifications for serving God either. And women who soft-pedal immorality like abortion and gay rights in order to be liked by leftists are not Christians. Christianity means something. It doesn’t mean having happy feelings and being liked and projecting your goals and beliefs onto God. Men – don’t complain if you are shallow enough to think that you can test a woman by having fun with her. Going on trips and having fun experiences is not courting. Make her read hard books, make her do hard things, make her write essays on men, marriage, parenting, apologetics, science, politics and economics. Demand that she give you 10 scientific arguments from the peer-reviewed literature for God’s existence. Demand that she explain how laws and policies challenge the goals of a Christian marriage. Judge her on moral grounds at every opportunity. Load her up with moral obligations and tasks. Because that’s what she’ll be expected to do in a marriage.

I think that the liberal “Christian” commenter probably places herself more of the good end of the moral scale than the bad end, but I just want to be clear – I consider don’t consider her a Christian or even a good person. It’s not that she is deliberately evil, she is just incredibly ignorant on every subject, having imbibed her views from secular leftist teachers like a trained seal who is rewarded with fish by her trainer. She hasn’t read anything outside of schoolwork, she just parroted her way to good grades. The harm comes when she tries to pass herself off as a Christian to gullible Christian men who will be swayed by her looks and youth and physical contact instead of her knowledge, wisdom and experiences at practical things – like running a business, or evangelizing atheists in her workplace. Men need to have their goals for love, marriage and parenting clear, and to understand what questions to ask women to detect their real suitability for marriage and parenting. This woman simply has no capability to do the job. She hasn’t looked into these issues at all, she just accepted what the people around her believed. When you scratch the surface, she isn’t a Christian at all – she just uses frilly God talk to put window dressing on her own narcissism, vacuity and conformity.

By the way, the quickest way for her to join the reality-based community would be to buy and read Thomas Sowell’s “Intellectuals and Society”, which I just finished last night. Thomas Sowell is the official economist of the Tea Party movement, and, of course, he is black. As is the other great Tea Party economist Walter Williams. I would also recommend Wayne Grudem’s “Politics and the Bible”. He writes theology, which is something that these liberal Christian woman have never looked into. And of course they will never have looked into apologetics either, so they won’t have read William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland’s “Philosophical Foundations for Christian Worldview”. After all, they have feelings and intuitions and social expectations to guide them. Who needs truth?

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