On February 21, 1977, respiratory therapist Teresita Basa was brutally murdered by an unknown assailant. Her body was discovered by firemen. It was immediately apparent that Teresita was a murder victim because the butcher knife used to murder her was still embedded in her naked body. Police assumed Teresita had been sexually assaulted and then the fire set deliberately to cover up her murder, but the autopsy results showed that the murder was not an attempt to cover up a rape. The fe only clue found at the scene was a note that simply said "Get theater tickets for A. S." Four months passed, and the investigation began to go cold. However, in August detective Joseph Stachula received a phone call out of the blue that blew the case wide open. A doctor named Jose Chua who worked at the same hospital as Teresita called to report a most unusual circumstance -- his wife Remy had begun to go into trances and claimed to be temporarily possessed by the spirit of Teresita Basa, who then provided the doctor with specific information about her murderer. The Chuas claimed they did not know Teresita Basa--the only thing they had in common was the doctor worked at the same hospital and all three of them were Filipino. The Chuas had not wanted to come forward or get involved out of the fear of looking ridiculous, but Basa's ghost would not leave Remy Chua alone until Dr. Chua helped her by telling police what he "knew" about Basa's murder. According to Basa's ghost, a man named Allen Showery had come to her apartment to fix her broken television but while there decided to steal … [Read more...]
The Inspiration Network
I've made numerous derogatory comments about those television evangelists I like to call prosperity pimps because their primary goal is not to preach the Gospel of Christ but to line their own pockets with the hard-earned money of their followers. For example, I've criticized Joel Osteen quite a bit because he's probably the most famous example of these inspirational speakers disguised as pastors and preachers, but Osteen is hardly the worst example of a greedy entrepreneur posing as a man of God. Robert "Bob" Tilton might take the cake as the sleaziest prosperity pimp of them all with an insatiable greed for your money, but Diane Sawyer of ABC's PrimeTime famously kneecapped him while he was still (allegedly) making more than Madonna and Michael Jackson combined. Mike Murdock Even so, Tilton and Osteen have some stiff competition from the likes of Mike Murdock of Inspiration Ministries. Earlier this morning I watched Mike Murdock attempt some verbal gymnastics that might make Simone Biles jealous. With his first breath, Murdock compared tithing to paying protection money to the Mafia - but why would he do that? Apparently so God doesn't do anything bad to us. We should pay God (or his substitute, Murdock) ten percent so we don't get hurt. But then with his very next breath, Murdock talked about planting a financial seed as an investment so later we can reap the harvest as God magically sends wealth our way. In other words, he whacks you over the head with a stick before offering you the carrot. Defenders of Joel Osteen often like to say that he … [Read more...]
The attributes of God
When people talk about the attributes of God, know they are speaking from their opinions, not sharing epistemic evidence. In fact, if I claimed to know beyond question that what I'm about to say is absolutely true I'd be lying. There is a difference between what is true and what I believe to be true. I'd be claiming to intimately know God on a personal basis, and that would simply not be true. I may wholeheartedly believe I've had one intense personal experience with my Creator, but that doesn't mean I know God well enough to describe Him to you. What are the most commonly accepted "attributes" of God? Most people would say that God is omniscient, or all-knowing. Does God know everything there is to know? I can't speak from knowledge or experience because I've never had an extended conversation with God, but my best guess is that if it is worth knowing, God knows it. He probably even knows everything that isn't worth knowing, too. We're talking about the supernatural creator of our planned universe--the alternative of an unplanned universe is simply untenable. In a planned universe, the odds of success are improved to 100 percent guaranteed because an intelligent mind is responsible for guiding creation through every decision-making possibility that must be resolved in order for planned universe to exist. In the unplanned universe, statistical improbability dictates whether or not it is reasonable to expect success of any given anomaly, whether it be the origin of the universe (Big Bang), the initial expansion of the universe (cosmic inflation), or the … [Read more...]
The magic of Time
It's funny how sharing a silly cartoon can turn into a teachable moment. My cohort-in-crime Wilfred recently posted this cartoon poking gentle fun at the theory of macroevolution to my Facebook page titled The God Conclusion, which is aptly named after my book. The cartoon is silly because no one in their right mind would ever look at a snowman and think it could have come to exist due to random natural processes. Obviously, the snowman must be a human creation, the product of a primitive but nevertheless intelligent design. How can we know this? In part, due to entropy. Before a snowman could ever form by purely natural processes, the ambient temperature would rise and the snow would melt. No matter how much snow accumulates and how much time elapses, before the snowman could ever acquire two wooden arms, a knit cap, a carrot for a nose, and various buttons to represent eyes, mouth, and vest due to purely random processes. But first and foremost, a snowman isn't a living organism. Snowmen don't have DNA to analyze. Comparative anatomy doesn't really work, either, when one of the items being compared doesn't have an anatomy. There is no fossil record of a snowman. Nothing about a snowman would ever suggest it could exist due to random selection taking place over a very long period of time, even though a snowman is comprised of only one basic ingredient, which is snow. You can't use any of the tools an ordinary evolutionary biologist would use to determine any relationships allegedly due to common descent because a snowman isn't alive. By comparison, … [Read more...]
The Bulldog Hypothesis
I'm not superstitious. I've made an entire career out of my ability to think logically. I was a software developer for twenty years, and more recently I've written a book called The God Conclusion, which applies logic to existential scientific evidence to reach a conclusion that completely conflicts with the claims made by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion. I believe in luck, but certainly not the sort of luck required to make a fine-tuned universe from nothing, and living organisms from inanimate matter. Well, maybe I'm just a tiny bit superstitious, but not much. For example, I'm not sure I really believe what I'm about to tell you, but so far the results of the experiment have been 100 percent success, so I'm not inclined to rock the boat by testing an alternative hypothesis at the moment. In short, I think I might be the Georgia Bulldog's X-factor that has propelled them to two consecutive national championships and an unbeaten streak that is currently the longest in college football. And exactly how have I contributed to the team's success? It's simple, really. At critical moments, when things appear to be darkest for the team, I stop watching the game. Usually, I storm away from the television and plop down in front of my computer, immediately opening a new browser window to ESPN so I can continue to follow the game. We have to be losing by at least one touchdown and the other team currently has the ball or appears to have it for me to walk away as nervous stress temporarily overwhelms me. The first time this happened was the 2021 Championship … [Read more...]
