The two greatest mysteries in regard to our existence are the origin of the universe and the origin of life. The origin of the universe posed the problem of how something as large and complex as our universe could have been created out of nothing, and the origin of life the problem of how inanimate matter became a living cell. Scientists understand how living cells create new cells (technically known as biogenesis), but the question of how all the building blocks necessary for the creation of a new cell came to exist when they were needed has been (and remains) a virtually unsolvable problem. The scientific term for any hypotheses about the chemical origin of life is abiogenesis. In his book The Way of the Cell Molecular biologist Franklin Harold wrote: "Prehistorians, with little more than scraps, shards,.and analogy, to go by, do not reconstruct the past so much as imagine a plausible version of it." Harold, Franklin. The Way of the Cell. Page 244 Also known as synthetic chemists, one problem is these "prehistorians" must guess about the environment on an prebiotic Earth. And even if they guessed correctly, assembled all the necessary ingredients, and created an environment that allowed for the creation of a living cell de novo, it wouldn't be exactly the same as if nature did it without any intervention, would it? How would that be any different that the scientist playing the role of a creator god, just not "the" creator God? We cannot create an artificial universe in a lab as a proof of concept. We cannot create life in a lab. The closest science has … [Read more...]
Fair-Weather Dawg Fans
One of my favorite exchanges in the movie Young Frankenstein begins with Gene Wilder complaining about how awful it is to be in a cemetery in the dead of night, stealing a corpse from a fresh grave. His accomplice Marty Feldman replies, "I don't know...it could be worse." "How?" "Could be raining..." mere seconds before a torrential downpour floods the grave. Given a choice between serving as an administrator with two other people on a social media forum with a little over twenty-thousand (alleged) fans of Georgia Bulldog football and trying to herd twenty-thousand cats, I'll take the cats every time. Why? Both have equally bad attitudes most of the time, but cats can only howl and hiss. If cats could write and verbalize idiotic thoughts like humans, the decision would be much tougher. Earlier this morning I began reviewing the most recent posts in this "fan" forum and couldn't help but notice the negative attitudes that pop up like mushrooms in a cow pasture after a hard rain, and like mushrooms, some were poisonous and others seemed to be hallucinating. People who demonstrate no real knowledge of the game feel compelled to express their opinions anyway. It never fails--if Georgia loses a football game, some people are going to start losing their minds, and that's okay as long as you keep it to yourself. But when you start talking crazy in front of an audience of twenty-thousand people, you're setting a really bad example and somebody will need to intervene. Barney Fife only had the only bullet for his pistol and kept it in his pocket, but I can nip it in the … [Read more...]
Jesus and Socialism
Some of the strangest experiences I've had on social media was finding myself arguing with other alleged Christians on the subject of whether or not Jesus was a socialist. Because Jesus once said we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar's (meaning pay our taxes) and frequently preached about giving generously to the poor, my more liberal-minded Christian friends have interpreted those examples to mean Jesus was a socialist. For the record, both points are undeniably true. Jesus said a lot of things that would lead one to believe the accumulation of material wealth wasn't a healthy preoccupation. Jesus once told a rich man that he would only have to sacrifice all of his wealth if he wanted to follow Him, and the man couldn't do it. However, would taking all of his wealth by using the force of government have made the rich man righteous? I don't see how. Portrait of Jesus created by Akiane Kramarik More importantly, do any those examples prove that Jesus was a socialist? No, of course not. Jesus was a strong advocate for charity, not the Roman Empire, which of course was not governed by any form of socialism. Ever. Jesus preached about the human relationship between individuals and an individual's relationship with their creator, not the role of government in society. He was about as apolitical as a person can get, and that was probably due to the fact Jesus was not just any ordinary human being. He was the Messiah promised to the people of Israel, and God incarnate. But if socialism didn't even exist as a political philosophy when Jesus was alive, how … [Read more...]
Is Self-Defense Still Legal for White People?
According to eyewitness accounts, Trayvon Martin had knocked George Zimmerman to the ground and was beating him “MMA style” when Zimmerman pulled his legally owned gun and fatally shot Martin. The “Black Lives Matter” movement then used Martin’s death as their excuse to launch a well-planned and orchestrated campaign to promote socialism. If innocent black lives truly mattered to the BLM movement, when protestors chant “Say her name!” the crowd would be pleased and satisfied to hear Secoriea Turner’s name mentioned along with Breonna Taylor’s, but sadly that just isn’t true. It was George Zimmerman who became the first human in recorded history to be identified by the media as a white Hispanic man. Zimmerman was tried for murder in spite of the evidence that he’d acted in self-defense, and as filmmaker (and American Thinker contributor) Joel Gilbert revealed in his documentary The Trayvon Hoax, the prosecution even put a fraudulent witness on the stand to testify against him, but Zimmerman was acquitted by a jury of his peers following the applicable Florida law. BLM was not interested in “justice” for Trayvon Martin; they wanted vengeance. When rumor spread in Atlanta that George Zimmerman had been arrested for DUI and was currently in the Fulton County Jail, BLM protestors tried to find out Zimmerman’s location so another prisoner might kill him. Can you say, “lynch mob?” Yes, I thought you could.The unfortunate death of Trayvon Martin was only the beginning. Next we had Ferguson, with the narrative that Officer Darren Wilson murdered innocent Michael Brown, … [Read more...]
In Defense of Lunacy
Over the weekend, I had a bit of an angry meltdown after reading an NPR interview with the author of a book titled In Defense of Looting. I was briefly tempted to smash my computer into tiny bits when I realized that a major publisher had given enormous credibility to the ravings of a lunatic. Fortunately, I remembered that I can’t afford a replacement before I did any permanent damage. The first words that came to mind were, are you freaking kidding me? But then I asked myself, why are you surprised? Vicky Osterweilpromotional photoHachette Book Group Writing can be a very frustrating business. The easiest (and hardest) part is putting ink on paper, or in this modern era, type into a computer. Self-publishing services have made getting a book into print fairly easy. The biggest obstacle to success for a writer is learning how to find their ideal target audience and market their book in order to reap the fruits of their labor. To get a book deal from a major publishing house like the Hachette Book Group, the writer's only real hope is finding an agent willing to represent them. The Hachette Book Group publishes a whole slew of famous and best-selling authors such as James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Jeffrey Deaver, Malala Yousafzai, Admiral William McRaven, Newt Gingrich, and JK Rowling--some of the bigger names in the industry. Having been down this same road several times myself and once on behalf of another writer, I would imagine the agent had to like the book and Ms. Osterweil had a social media following of at … [Read more...]
