Not long ago I was having a conversation with an atheist acquaintance on social media about the origin of the universe and my friend suggested "nobody" believes there was ever a time when literally nothing existed. Naturally, my response was something along the lines of "Oh, really?" and I posted the Amazon link to physicist Lawrence Krauss' book A Universe From Nothing, the title of which would seem to refute his claim. photo by REUTERS/Leah Millis Curiously, he asked if I'd read the book (as if I'm in the habit of recommending books I didn't write nor haven't read). I didn't bother explaining that I'd first read the book approximately six years ago and had written a review published as the Atlanta Creationism Examiner for the now-defunct Examiner.com website. I briefly entertained the idea of simply republishing the original article here at my website, but that review seemed dated, so I decided not to re-post it. Then, out of the blue, another atheist acquaintance in yet another "discussion" forum posted the link to another six-year-old review of Krauss' book by David Albert, returning it to the forefront of my mind. Which brings us here. Technically speaking, my atheist friend's argument had been correct in the sense that physicists and cosmologists have explained prior to the creation of our universe, time did not exist because it had no means to measure it, given that our measurements for time are exclusively defined by the universe. Thomas Aquinas famously suggested that our universe began with time, not in time. God created the universe literally ex … [Read more...]
The end of the world as we know it
My favorite bumper sticker during the 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was this one reflective of my reluctance embrace of either candidate: Prior to his election, I wasn't the biggest fan of Donald Trump. On the other hand, I couldn't think of a worse choice to oppose him in the general election than Hillary--even socialist, never-had-a-real-job-in-his-life Bernie Sanders stood a better chance. Thank God the fix was in, and Clinton became the nominee. To my pleasant surprise, Trump has turned out to be a much better president than I could have imagined. He began conversations with North Korea, lowered taxes, and created an economic boom after eight years of malaise under Obama. As a result of his success, I've grown to appreciate the accomplishments of President Trump. Just imagine what he could get done if virtually everybody in Washington wasn't actively opposing his efforts. Under normal circumstances, I would have expected a period of happiness and economic prosperity to follow. Unfortunately, we do not live under normal circumstances anymore. We live in a world where special prosecutor Robert Mueller has been given carte blanche to ruin the lives, finances, and reputations of American citizens like General Michael Flynn and Roger Stone for the crime of supporting President Trump. The infamous "Steele dossier" used to create this sham investigation/witch hunt was a political hit job that any competent FBI director would have recognized for what it was--a bogus, political hit piece. The federal government under the … [Read more...]
Calling the wrong guy stupid
Dr. Laurence Moran Laurence A. "Larry" Moran (and no, it's not really Moron) is apparently a pretty smart guy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Princeton University and served as a college professor for decades at the University of Toronto. He's probably best known for being one of the lead authors of a textbook called Principles of Biochemistry, although in fairness, his personal blog called Sandwalk also attracts a fair amount of internet traffic, which is how I learned about Dr. Moran--ironically enough, while searching the internet for information on Dr. James Tour. What has inspired me to write about my limited knowledge of Dr. Moran was the conclusion to his article harshly critical of Dr. Tour: I suppose I'm going to be labeled as one of those evil "Darwinists" who won't tolerate anyone who disagrees with me about evolution. I'm actually not. I just don't like stupid people who think they are experts in evolution when they have never bothered to learn about it. Here's my advice to graduate students in organic chemistry: if you want to know about evolution then take a course or read a textbook. And remember, there's nothing wrong with admitting that you don't understand a subject. Just don't assume your own ignorance means that all the experts in the subject are wrong too. [emphasis added]Laurence A. Moran, "A chemist who doesn't understand evolution" Wow. If I'm not mistaken, Dr. Moran just described Dr. Tour as being a stupid person. So I'm wondering, is it possible that a chemistry professor wouldn't know who Dr. Tour is? How could he not know? … [Read more...]
Incompetent holiday thieves
It's that time of year when the world is in love (with Christmas shopping. We're apparently skipping Thanksgiving this year.) Naturally, the thieves are trying to get an early start on grabbing those stocking stuffers, and seem to be looking to stuff their stockings with gifts purchased by defrauding our BB&T credit card. Fortunately, our bank has excellent fraud protection. Customer service notified my wife and I less than 24 hours after the abnormal transactions began to appear on our account. By mutual agreement BB&T canceled that compromised credit card number so no further charges would get approved, but not before our identity thieves managed to order Walmart gift cards and cell phones through an online account. The customer service representative assured us that we wouldn't be held responsible for the fraudulent charges, but nevertheless I was perturbed by the idea someone successfully used my name to steal from a business that heavily discounts merchandise to benefit the customers. Not to mention, credit card holders are forced to pay higher interest rates because the credit card companies can't afford to eat the losses, either. These thieves were using my identity to steal from you. We all pay higher prices at Walmart to compensate for the losses to shoplifting. We all pay higher interest rates on our credit cards--not only to mitigate losses due to bankruptcies and failure to pay by the cardholder, but also because of fraud. As a result, I'm not a big fan of liars or thieves. But in our case, the story has a happy ending. Walmart emailed to … [Read more...]
OBE questions for Dr. Susan Blackmore
Dear Dr. Blackmore, With great interest, I read the personal OBE account from November 1970 on your website. I must admit I was a bit surprised, given what I previously knew about your work and your book, The Meme Machine. I had no idea that you received your PhD in parapsychology. Given the nature of the questions I'm about to ask, I have some concern about the sentence in your biography stating that you no longer research paranormal phenomena. However I must ask these questions of someone, and your particular area of expertise would seem to make you the ideal person to submit my query. Your 2016 lecture at the SANDS conference in Italy would have been the perfect forum to ask my questions but unfortunately, I wasn't invited. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBDPji5p6zE I'm not going to try to convince you that your alleged OBE wasn't a drug-induced hallucination, because I've never had one myself and that seems to be the best explanation for the "experience" you described. Because I know you're very busy and have an assistant screening your emails, I'll get right to the point. My first question is this: given that you presented reasonable evidence that your OBE wasn't real, why did you call it an OBE? Why didn't you just call it a drug-induced hallucination, as it seems to have been? Have you assumed that because your "OBE" probably wasn't real, that every other alleged OBE must also be a hallucination? More importantly, what do you do with evidence that if true, would invalidate your assumption? My remaining questions are all related the specific … [Read more...]
