The spiritual side of health from a solid foundation of creation teaching.
Does Modern Science Hinder Skepticism? The Eugenics Example
One of the important and counterintuitive insights that C.S. Lewis offered was his observation that far from encouraging skepticism, the mention of "science" can call forth a perilous gullibility, not least from educated, intelligent people who should know better. Healthy skepticism is a cornerstone of the scientific process. Knowledge is advanced and new discoveries are made by challenging scientific results and testing alternative hypotheses. Lewis recognized, though, that science can also promote an uncritical acceptance of views that are said to be backed by science or wrapped in science-y language. In Lewis's time, most scientists supported eugenics, or the belief that the gene pool of humans should be improved, and they argued that their views were supported by science. These views led to policies such as forced sterilization of those deemed to be of less worth, such as criminals and the handicapped. These policies were not only popular in authoritarian regimes like Nazi Germany, but in democracies such as the United States and England. Anyone who opposed what the vast majority of scientists were saying must be "anti-science," it was argued. So what has changed since then? Are we supposed to believe that just a century ago, elite opinion in science and in the culture at large was so terribly fallible and vulnerable to being misled by prejudice -- yet today, it cannot err?
Dr. Offit Wants to Eliminate Religious and Philosophical Vaccine Exemptions
We have previously reported how Dr. Paul Offit, the mainstream media's go-to doctor to support vaccines, has huge conflicts of interest, and is a very dangerous man. We mentioned how Paul Offit wants mandatory vaccines for every single child in the United States, and he feels his voice in the matter should over-rule parental choice. So with the mainstream media giving him basically a free pass to preach his message, Offit has attacked anyone who dares to question his view on vaccines. Earlier this year, he publicly stated at the Health Journalism 2014 meeting that journalists should NOT be balanced in their reporting about vaccines. He wants only one side reported, his side, and he stated publicly that journalists who publish the other side should go to "journalism jail." Offit thinks that only medical exemptions should be issued for vaccines, and has campaigned for ending religious and philosophical exemptions. Allowing only medical exemptions would give complete control of America's school-age children to the medical system in regards to vaccines. So should doctors like Offit be considered authorities on religious and philosophical exemptions to vaccines? He claims science trumps philosophy or religion. So if you object to things in vaccines such as cells from aborted human embryos, monkey kidneys, aborted calf fetus blood, mouse brains, etc. - too bad. According to Offit, only doctors should make those decisions. For a response to Dr. Offit by another doctor, Dr. Suzanne Humphries, we republish with her consent a previous rebuttal she wrote to Dr. Offit below. Turns out that not all doctors agree with Offit after all...
When Biologists Think Like Engineers: How the Burgeoning Field of Systems Biology Supports Intelligent Design
Opponents of the intelligent design (ID) approach to biology have sometimes argued that the ID perspective discourages scientific investigation. To the contrary, it can be argued that the most productive new paradigm in systems biology is actually much more compatible with a belief in the intelligent design of life than with a belief in neo-Darwinian evolution. This new paradigm in system biology, which has arisen in the past ten years or so, analyzes living systems in terms of systems engineering concepts such as design, information processing, optimization, and other explicitly teleological concepts. This new paradigm offers a successful, quantitative, predictive theory for biology. Although the main practitioners of the field attribute the presence of such things to the outworking of natural selection, they cannot avoid using design language and design concepts in their research, and a straightforward look at the field indicates it is really a design approach altogether.
Researchers Ran a Massive Yearlong Experiment to Get Bacteria to Evolve. Guess What Happened?
It's a struggle out there. You have to be fit to survive. When the pressure is on, nature favors the ones who can take the heat. It's a theme that has been drummed into our heads since school. It's a cultural meme. Social Darwinists used it to justify atrocities. Today's kinder, gentler Darwinists downplay the violence in the struggle for existence, yet the fact as they see it is inescapable: environmental circumstances select random genetic mutations that confer fitness, i.e., survival, by allowing organisms to adapt. That in a nutshell explains the development of complex life forms. We're assured there are gobs of evidence for it, too. Looking into a recent paper in PNAS about evolutionary fitness tradeoffs, you have to feel sorry for a team of five evolutionists from UC Irvine who did their level best to produce clear evidence for the favored story.
What Can We Responsibly Believe About Human Evolution?
The evolution of consciousness is presently inexplicable: Can we really understand a transition from the excrement-throwing ape to the early cave paintings as a long, slow series?
Medicine: Idolatry in the Twenty First Century
A honest look at our present day medical system and its relationship to idolatrous religious practices throughout history involving such activities as child sacrifices. Is modern-day medicine the new religion?
Study: Fats More Complex Than Previously Thought – Essential to Good Health
Throughout most of the history of human nutrition, fats and oils (lipids) have been considered healthy and desirable. In the Bible, the most ancient writings known to man and the world's best-selling book, oil is always mentioned in a positive light, whether it be aromatic anointing oils or dietary oils: "He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil..." (Deuteronomy 7:13) "When the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me; When my steps were bathed in butter, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!" (Job 29:5-6) "There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise..." (Proverbs 21:20) Modern dietary history has been an anomaly in condemning certain dietary fats, especially since the 1970s when official USDA dietary guidelines condemned saturated fats, in spite of their long history of use in human nutrition. Much of modern science is based on Darwinian evolution, however, and faulty premises that often don't hold up in real science. Much of the "science" regarding dietary fats and oils has today been proven false, and the field of lipids (fatty acids) is bringing to light what the ancients inherently already knew: that fats and oils were key nutritional components essential to good health. Evolution and News brings a good commentary on the journal Nature's June cover issue regarding lipids, showing how they are the building blocks of membranes, and pointing to a master designer rather than a result of pure chance via evolution.
The True Source of Energy Healing
If you want to experience healing through “energy medicine,” which would you prefer? A practioner manipulating the created energy patterns, or the one who created it to begin with?
Arguments Evolutionists Should Not Use
We have a popular article titled, Arguments we think creationists should not use. Indeed, even many misotheistic evolutionists, including Richard Dawkins, have commended the existence of such a page. Well, as the saying goes, ‘What is good for the goose is also good for the gander.’ Here are 21 bad arguments that evolutionists should not use to help further their stance on evolution. Clearly, evolution is about keeping out God, not an open approach to the actual evidence.
The Myth of Science’s Neutrality
There is no pursuit of knowledge that does not seek to affect the world. Science is made by people with interests, intentions and ambitions; and it's funded by governments and companies with agendas. Scientific development is subject to funding rules, to expectations about outcomes, and to social forces and institutions that shape our research.
Mathematical Proof vs. Scientific Proof: Are They the Same?
Absolute proof is strictly the domain of logicians. In mathematics, for example, once a theorem is proven it is proven for all time and all circumstances. Mathematical proof is absolute. Mathematics, however, is not science. This is a point about which many are confused. Mathematics is a language used by science, but is not itself a science. Mathematical proof and scientific proof are not the same thing at all. Scientific proof is not really proof at all, in the mathematical sense, but is either verification or disproof. Since scientists deal with a universe that is not of their own creation, they cannot prove their laws absolutely as can mathematicians. Although scientists use the term “scientific proof,” what they really mean is that a particular hypothesis has been verified or disproved. They don’t mean “proof” in the mathematical sense.
I Can Do All Things Through Christ: Natural vs. Supernatural
What is better: natural or supernatural? Is the supernatural available to us today? How can one experience the supernatural life?
More Evidence of Scientism as Religion
As shown in our recent documentary C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism, C.S. Lewis compared science to magic in three ways: (1) Science as Religion, (2) Science as Credulity, and (3) Science as Power. In the film, Discovery Institute's Dr. John West explains that for many people, science (or better, scientism) serves as a quasi-religion. It gives their lives meaning. Evolution in particular provides an overarching, cosmic vision that many find satisfying: a view of something larger than their experience: the birth and ultimate fate of the universe, with mankind struggling against natural odds in its rise to dominance. To further illustrate, here are a few recent cases from science news of evolutionary thinking serving in the role of religious faith.
The Limitations of Science and the Medical Paradigm
Science has lifted us from the ignorance of the Dark Ages into the understandings we hold today. It has increased our standards of living, lengthened our life spans, and enriched our lives in every way. Music, the arts, our governments, our social customs, our religious beliefs, our educational institutions, our recreations, our modes of travel, our means of communicating, our working, our eating, our sleeping—all aspects of our culture have been transformed by the touch of technology. It is little wonder, then, that we have become conditioned to look to science for the solutions of all our problems and for the answers to life’s questions. But science, powerful as it is, is a false god. Awed by the spectacular material advancements science has brought us, we have come to expect more of science than it is capable of delivering. Many individuals, not recognizing the limitations of science, stand in expectation of results that will never come. Science does not have all the solutions. It does not have all the answers. It never has and it never will. The purpose of this article is to clearly present science for what it is—no more and no less. Many answers can be obtained by the scientific method, but there are many more that cannot. It is not my intent to destroy your faith in science. As a lifetime professional scientist myself, I am duly respectful of its potential. I am also aware of its limitations. When it comes to consideration of life in its fullness, these limitations are very great. Therefore, while I don’t want to destroy your faith in science, I do want to disturb it and to encourage you to question its validity as an approach to living. In order to clearly understand the limitations of science, one must first have a clear picture of what science is. Interestingly enough, there is a large fraction of scientists who do not have an accurate and complete picture of the boundaries of science. This might sound hard to believe, but it is true. It is entirely possible to practice science to a high level of success in obtaining useful, valid results, while at the same time never being fully aware of its limits. In an analogous way, it is entirely possible, if not common, for doctors to practice medicine without being aware of its limits. In fact, it is not at all uncommon for people to confuse medicine with science. And neither is it unusual for doctors to confuse science with technology. The practice of medicine, while it may be partially described as “applied technology,” is not a science. While medicine bases some of its practices on scientifically derived data, the practice of medicine is not, itself, a science. Medicine is a discipline of opinion where accepted standards of practice are determined by a consensus of the majority, not by the scientific method. The reason the limits of science are not widely recognized and understood lies in our educational systems, which train scientists and health care providers in how to exercise the methods of science and apply their results, but do not encourage a questioning of the fundamental assumptions behind the methods themselves. The purpose of medical training is unquestioning indoctrination, not cognitive education. It is to promote, protect, and apply the prevailing paradigm—not to question it.
Intelligent Design vs. Scientism
If you were to come across Mt. Rushmore while hiking through the hills of South Dakota, having no prior knowledge of the structure, which statement is more "scientific" and which one requires a lot of faith? 1. Some intelligent being designed this. 2. Wind and erosion over millions of years created this. If you choose #1 as the statement most "scientific" (with no guessing or conjecture as to who made the design), then you would be labeled as an idiot trying to force your religious beliefs on others by 21st scientists when applying the same scientific reasoning to other things found in nature. If you choose #2, however, starting with the presupposition that #1 cannot be true, you have now created a new belief system from which to develop your theories or origins upon. This new religion, fueled mainly by Darwinism, is Scientism. Scientism is the basis of much of western culture today. It gave us eugenics, for example, and was responsible for the medical tyranny that unfolded in Nazi Germany leading up to World War II. What few people today realize, however, is that the foundations of the religion of Scientism is bringing about medical tyranny in many of the same ways as they unfolded in Nazi Germany, today right here in the United States. If you want to understand #1, however, you need to study Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design (ID) is a branch of science which is constantly under attack today, and labeled as "religion" or something else it is not. ID is quite different from "Creationism." Creationism moves beyond the observation of scientific facts and makes statements as who the Creator is, such as what is written in the Bible (a worthy topic of study in and of itself!) ID does not deal with the "who," but leaves that up to religion. David Klinghoffer of the Discovery Institute writes about the prejudices against ID by those who have never even studied it: "We Don't Have to Listen to the Evidence Because..."
What is the Purpose of Your Sickness?
The idea of our sickness being a result of our sins is not a popular message today, because our humanistic culture is built upon the foundation of Darwinian evolution, and it has taught us to believe that all sickness is a result of natural causes that we can control in our environment. The drug companies have developed a medicine or vaccine for just about every problem now with this belief system. If they cannot find a cause for the sickness in the natural realm, they usually just cite the cause as "stress" and give a pill for that too. The spiritual realm, including sin, is usually not even acknowledged. While it is certainly true that our environment, the physical realm, can cause us to be sick, we should first examine ourselves and see if there is a spiritual cause. Sin is very real, and it has very real consequences in our physical bodies. If God is disciplining us through our sickness, then physical remedies (natural or medical) will probably not work.
Do You Deserve a Break Today?
If we actually received what we deserve, it would be very ugly. But the good news is that mercy triumphs over judgment under the law of liberty, and opens the door to wonders and riches that are freely given in spite of the fact that we do not deserve them. Enacting this principle in your own life releases tremendous power for health to you, and to those around you.
Why Organized Science Longs for Extraterrestrial Life
Organized Science longs to find extraterrestrial life. Why so? There are various answers, but the mundane one is indeed funding. NASA is eager to find extraterrestrial life somewhere because that will increase the agency's popularity with Congressional committees. The search for taxpayer support is never far from the minds of those who live at the intersection of science and public policy. Another motivation is not at all mundane. Organized Science has long banked on the faith that life started by accident. The thought that life on Earth might in fact be unique is unpopular, because that could mean that some source of intelligent design played a role. We can't have that! Soon after Darwin's Origin of Species appeared, Bishop Wilberforce debated Huxley at Oxford University. Famously, it was the first clash between Organized Religion and Organized Science. The bishop said that if Darwin can "demonstrate to us our fungular descent, we shall dismiss our pride, and avow, with the characteristic humility of philosophy, our unsuspected cousinship with the mushrooms." To this day such cousinship has still not been demonstrated; not by Huxley, not by Darwin, nor their well-funded successors. Richard Dawkins confidently asserted not long ago that turnips are our cousins. One hundred and fifty years after Huxley's debate with Wilberforce, the evidence of Man's uniqueness continues to withstand every challenge.
The Value and Power of God’s Wisdom
There is a wisdom that does not come from human knowledge. It is not obtained by observation, or by using scientific methods. It is revealed by God, who is the Creator of the universe and stands outside of his creation, and therefore has much more wisdom than can be observed from within the creation.
The Limitations of Science
Today's narrow understanding of “science” or “knowledge,” which only looks at what can be observed in the physical realm, is now equated with “truth,” and is considered by modern society to be more valuable than any other kind of knowledge. It has become the religion of modern man. But there is much knowledge in our world that cannot be observed in the physical realm, or “proven” by scientific discovery!