Mohler Monday: "Rarely is the sterility and bleakness of the evolutionary worldview displayed with such candor"

                                       Image via Wikipedia

World-class skeptic Michael Shermer is suffering from a not-so-rare condition: empty nest syndrome. His daughter is away at university, and he misses her. The authentic love of a father for a daughter, right?

Wrong.

Enter the darwinian explanation.

We parents can’t help feeling this way, and neuroscience explains why. Addictive chemicals such as dopamine and oxytocin surge through the brain and body during positive social interactions (especially touch). This causes us to feel closer to one another. Between parents and offspring, it cements a bond so solid that it is broken only under the most unusual (and usually pathological) circumstances.

Under this scenario, love is not authentic. It is just a chemical burp dished up by mindless evolution, the same process that dishes up the urge to rape.  It's an evolutionary parlour trick, and nothing more.

Albert Mohler puts it this way:

He concludes with words that can hardly be described as sentimental. “Each of us parents makes one small contribution to the evolutionary imperative of life’s continuity from one generation to the next,” he suggests.

Rarely is the sterility and bleakness of the evolutionary worldview displayed with such candor. The love of a parent for a child is reduced to an evolutionary factor that works through a physiological process of chemical interactions in the brain.

If evolution is true, it must explain everything. Michael Shermer’s article demonstrates just how unsatisfying that explanation is.

Does Shermer actually live as though love were nothing more than a programmed chemical response? Of course not. Atheism, and darwinism as part of the package, is unliveable in practice. We all live as if love is an authentic experience and an authentic part of being human. In other words, we live as though theism were true.

Philosophical darwinism is indeed a universal acid. It rots the soul and dissolves our humanity.

Rebel against the atheist machine.™

Arizona Shooter Jared Loughner is a Big Fat Coward

Christianity-hating, occult-dabbling, atheist, assassinator Jared Lee Loughner has pleaded not guilty.  So, to this smarter-than-you-morons guy's C.V. you can add another item: coward.


Related articles

• "Arizona Shooter Had Satanic Occult Altar" and related posts (cantuar.blogspot.com)
• Occult Altar Found in Tucson Shooter's Backyard (womenofgrace.com)
• Arizona Shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, Pleads Not Guilty (perezhilton.com)

Great Moments In Global Warming

                      Image via Wikipedia

2005:

"Dupre and Larsen hope to raise awareness of the growing threat of global climate change, which affects the entire planet but has particular impact on the Earth's delicate Polar regions."

2011:

Warmist Lonnie Dupre attempts Mount McKinley in winter; gets really cold; quits.

In fairness to the guy, I think what he did was brave and takes an endurance that I don't have; it's just the global warming bit...

h/t Tom Nelson, via Climate Depot

Related articles

• Climber abandons solo winter attempt on Mt McKinley (reuters.com)
• Explorer will attempt first solo January ascent of McKinley (thenewstribune.com)
• Climber hopes to make solo summit of Denali in January (gadling.com)

Quote of the Day: "If you live by debt, you die by debt"

                        Image via Wikipedia

"At a certain point America has to stop being a country mortgaged to Beijing.  The question is not whether we can afford to pay off the debt, but whether we can even pay the interest.  If you live by debt, you die by debt.  When money drains, power drains." -- Mark Steyn

As usual, Steyn says what we've all been thinking, and says it best.

Breaking News: Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport Luggage-Cart Use Plummets!!!!!

The Ball is bouncing down to Phoenix, so naturally he wishes to get up to date on breaking news.

Fewer travelers are renting luggage carts at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and other airports nationwide, but enough travelers rent them that Phoenix officials want to hire a cart contractor.

Sky Harbor cart rentals fell 28 percent, from 216,444 rentals in 2008 to 156,487 rentals in 2009. 

I suppose that, like airport shoe-shines, luggage-cart use could be used as a barometer of the economy and consumer confidence.

You really don't want to click on this to read more, but I'll include it for the one BallBouncer so intrigued he just has to read more...

Bono's Global Health Fund: More Money Wasted

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

GENEVA -- A $21.7 billion development fund backed by celebrities and hailed as an alternative to the bureaucracy of the United Nations sees as much as two-thirds of some grants eaten up by corruption, The Associated Press has learned.

Much of the money is accounted for with forged documents or improper bookkeeping, indicating it was pocketed, investigators for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria say. Donated prescription drugs wind up being sold on the black market.

Ah, yes. Doing good by throwing money at problems. Too often the West doesn't donate money to do good, it donates money to feel good. IOW, even when it's about them, it's about us.

And countries rife with fraud and corruption and lying and graft wonder why they are poor.

I've just returned from Africa. Every dollar I donated I put directly into the hands of needy and worthy recipients.

And, even though I am a Christian, I favour the death penalty for persons convicted of egregious corruption in third world countries. An example needs to be made. The evil in human hearts needs to be quelled. The lawlessness of a corrupt, lawless society needs to be snuffed out before a nation can become prosperous and afford to be generous towards its evil-doers.

Throwing money at disfunctional third-world countries, often corrupt, is like putting money into a bag with holes in it. It doesn't end poverty; it perpetuates it by creating a culture of entitlement and dependency.

My friends, the facts of life are conservative -- and that includes a realistic assessment of the human heart and sin.

Read more:

Related articles

• AP Enterprise: Fraud Plagues Global Health Fund (abcnews.go.com)
• Fraud plagues global health fund backed by celebrities (msnbc.msn.com)
• Fraud plagues global fund to fight AIDs (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Fraud Plagues Celebrity-Backed Global Health Fund (huffingtonpost.com)
• AP Enterprise: Fraud plagues global health fund (foxnews.com)
• AP Enterprise: Fraud plagues global health fund (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Right-Wing Talk Radio To Blame For Deadly Moscow Suicide Blast?

As early information about the Moscow airport terrorist attack comes in, Russian authorities were quick to suggest right-wing Moscow radio personality Rushkie Limbovski had created the toxic climate that lead to this latest deadly attack. Meanwhile, Moscow TV pundit Keeth Olbermannovich  put the blame on bear-hunting right-wing Russian politician Saranovich Palinovski.

One thing both politicians and pundits agreed on, this attack has nothing whatsoever to do with Islamist extremism.

Related articles

• At least 31 killed in Moscow airport explosion - USA Today (news.google.com)
• Apparent terrorist attack at Russian airport kills 31 (thestar.com)
• Deadly blast at Moscow's Domodedovo airport (rt.com)
• BREAKING: Explosion at Moscow Airport Leaves at Least 31 Dead (abcnews.go.com)

Mohler Monday: "Are science and Christianity friends?"

                          Image via Wikipedia

Are science and Christianity friends? The answer to that is an emphatic yes, for any true science will be perfectly compatible with the truths we know by God’s revelation. But this science is not naturalistic, while modern science usually is. Too many evangelicals try to find middle ground, only to end up arguing for positions that combine theological surrender with scientific naïveté. As Jerry Coyne makes very clear, there really is no middle ground. -- Albert Mohler, 2010, here.

New Poll: What Do You Think of the CBC?

Don't miss out on the new BallBounces poll.

What do you think of the CBC?

I'm allowing multiple responses on this one.

Bricks and bouquets may be tossed here in the comments section.

A Man Who Firebombs A House Has Nothing To Complain About If He Is Shot

A guy wakes up to find his house being firebombed by three masked intruders. He pulls his Smith & Wesson from the safe, loads a few bullets, and fires off a few warning rounds.

For this, he is arrested by the police and faces jail time.

Look, I'm just as in favour of protecting the rights of mask-wearing, property-intruding firebombers as the next right-thinking leftist-drenched Canadian, but, call me crazy, a guy who firebombs your house wearing a mask and suddenly finds he has a hole or two in his body has nothing to complain about.

Careless use of a firearm? The only possible grounds are that he missed.

And that's the way the Ball bounces.

Related articles

• Man faces jail after protecting home from masked attackers (news.nationalpost.com)
• Man faces 20 charges after house shot at, firebombed (theglobeandmail.com)
• Arrest follows firebombing of Toronto home (cbc.ca)
• Man charged in Toronto shooting, firebombing case (canada.com)

The (Economic) Gods Must Be Crazy

100 trillion dollars in new debt is needed to ensure our prosperity.

This doubling of existing credit levels could be achieved without increasing the risk of a major crisis, said the report from the WEF ahead of its high-profile annual meeting in Davos.

But researchers warned that leaders must be wary of new credit "hotspots", where too much lending takes place, as the world emerges from a financial catastrophe blamed in large part "to the failure of the financial system to detect and constrain" these areas of unsustainable debt.

This cannot possibly end well. 

CBC Uber-Integrity and Neutrality: Bwahahahahaha!

“The journalistic integrity of CBC-Radio-Canada – of the national public broadcaster – and its political neutrality require that our material not be used in partisan advertising,'' Marco Dube, a CBC spokesman, told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. (Globe and Mail)

Do you think the CBC is neutral when it comes to issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion-rights or Canada's vast and ever-expanding social-net? E.g., do you think the CBC is neutral on the issue of eternal government funding of entities such as... itself?

The CBC is as partisan as they come.

Journalistic "integrity"?  "Political neutrality"?

Bwahahahahahaha!

They dislike conservativism and Conservatives and everybody knows it.

Mohler Monday: "I have not said that one can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution"

                                   Image via Wikipedia

I have not said that one can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution. It is entirely possible to be a confused Christian or a confused evolutionist . . . or both. Nevertheless, the dominant theory of evolution — the theory as taught and defended by the world’s leading evolutionary scientists — explicitly rules out any supernatural design or interference at any point in the evolutionary continuum. That fact alone makes the theory incompatible with any legitimate affirmation of divine creation or of biblical theism. -- Albert Mohler, Two Irreconcilable Worldviews, 2008, here. 

Obama Jumps The Shark?

In his continued efforts to thumb the Presidential nose at traditional American assumptions -- the assumption of American exceptionalism, the assumption of America's role as world leader, the assumption of the basic goodness of America, and the assumption that America has a special relationship with its Anglophile cousins, i.e., the UK, Canada, and Australia, U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that America's biggest ally is, wait for this,... France.

To which I say:

1. If the U.S. has no bigger or better ally than France, then America is, in effect, on its own.

2. In doing this, Obama has jumped the shark as a credible U.S. leader.

Am I right? Is this a shark-jump moment? Is this the moment -- or do you think Obama had already jumped the shark?

For me, this is it. His contempt for traditional American values, and traditional American allies, is palpable.

The Ball Bounces is declaring it: Obama has jumped the shark.

Quote of the Day: " Imbibing the Consolations of a Faith-Driven 19th-Century Materialist Myth"

                                 Image via Wikipedia

Intelligent design at least asks the right questions. In a world of science that still falls short of a rigorous theory of human consciousness or of the big bang, intelligent design theory begins by recognizing that everywhere in nature, information is hierarchical and precedes its embodiment. The concept precedes the concrete. The contrary notion that the world of mind, including science itself, bubbled up randomly from a prebiotic brew has inspired all the reductionist futilities of the 20th century, from Marx's obtuse materialism to environmental weather panic to zero-sum Malthusian fears over population. In biology classes, our students are not learning the largely mathematical facts of 21st-century science; they're imbibing the consolations of a faith-driven 19th-century materialist myth. -- George Gilder, Wired Magazine 2004

Quote of the Day: "The problem is not that Darwinism conflicts with popular opinion but that it conflicts with the evidence."

                                         Image via Wikipedia

"... the problem is not that Darwinism conflicts with popular opinion but that it conflicts with the evidence." -- Denyse O'Leary | posted 11/30/04

Denyse is a Canadian author and blogger who has been writing on the Intelligent Design "controversy" for years.  You can check out her Post Darwinist site here.

Political Assassination: Blaming The Right

NPR and other leftist news outlets are blaming the right -- Sarah Palin in particular -- for Arizona's nut-case political assassination. Oh, they don't come right out and say it; they do it under the guise of "what others are saying".  But it's there. And it's there because it's where they're at.   It fits their world-view and their agendas. They are hoping -- oh, how they are hoping -- this guy turns out to be a tea-partier.

Fact is, when they were suggesting it, they had no idea if this guy was fueled by intemperate right-wing rhetoric. Just like NYC's Mayor Bloomberg, and his wishful hope that the Muslim attack in NY was some white guy disaffected with Obama's healthcare. Another leftist wishful hope dashed.

During the bad, evil Bush presidency I recall hearing more than one high-profile liberal suggesting that America would be better if Bush was "offed". Don't recall hearing any NPR concern or editorializing then about the dangers of intemperate leftist rhetoric.

Here's what we do know at this point in time:

* the guy has been described as far-left by a classmate. Oops.

* the guy hates God.  Hey -- didn't the last guy who shot up a bunch of people - the darwinist killer -- also hate God?

If NPR and these other outlets want to hawk an agenda, why not this one: the common theme behind the latest public killing sprees: ardent atheism.

At least this one has, you know, a bit of empirical evidence to support it.

And that's the way the Ball bounces.

PS -- No photo on this post. I'm in Africa and internet resources appear to be strictly rationed.  I'm getting 0.5 - 2.0 kbps -- and that's when it's not flat-lining on zero!

Mohler Monday: On Richard Dawkins

   Cover of The God Delusion

A man who is genuinely certain that Christianity is passing away would feel no need to write a 400-page book in order to urge its passing. -- Albert Mohler, commenting on Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, 2006, here.

Is Intelligent Design A Duplicitous Ruse?

                                          Image via Wikipedia

Is intelligent design a duplicitous ruse to get religion into science and schools as Jerry Coyne believes?

“Far from a respectable scientific alternative to evolution, it is a clever attempt to sneak religion, cloaked in the guise of science, into the public schools.” -- Jerry Coyne, here.

Not according to William Dembski:

Intelligent design is a modest position theologically and philosophically. It attributes the complexity and diversity of life to intelligence, but does not identify that intelligence with the God of any religious faith or philosophical system....

Even so, there is an immediate payoff to intelligent design: it destroys the atheistic legacy of Darwinian evolution. Intelligent design makes it impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. This gives intelligent design incredible traction as a tool for apologetics, opening up the God-question to individuals who think that science has buried God." -- William Dembski, 2005, here.

Intelligent design asserts design but stops short of speculating about the nature or identity of the intelligent designer. It does so because it is a scientific construct. It is a disciplined theory which stops where the empirical evidence ends.

Unlike darwinism, which endlessly asserts there can be no God because God "would not have designed it this way":

Would an intelligent designer create millions of species and then make them go extinct, only to replace them with other species, repeating this process over and over again?” If so, the intelligent designer must be “a cosmic prankster".  -- Jerry Coyne, here.

This philosophical/theological strain began with Darwin, and continues to the present day.

However, going beyond the science, philosophically and theologically there is little common sense doubt whose imprint marks of design in nature would point to, as Dembski acknowledges in his second paragraph.

So, is ID duplicitous?

No. It is honest and disciplined in what it asserts.

It's unclear the same can be said about darwinism.

Related articles

• An 86 second example of Intelligent Design (4simpsons.wordpress.com)
• Finding design in nature | Michael Behe (guardian.co.uk)

Apologetics: Are We Firing On All Cylinders?

Cover of Plato

"Thus Lilla takes Obama to task for a misguided psychology or what we might call a mistaken philosophical anthropology. As Lilla continues,

The wisdom of [Obama's] approach depends on whether the underlying assumption about human nature is right. But is it? Not, at least, according to virtually every Western philosopher and theologian from antiquity to the 18th-century. From Plato to St. Augustine to Thomas Hobbes, the shared assumption was that human beings are fundamentally passionate creatures and that reason alone is too weak to contain our drives.

"The proper response to this is not to lapse into the rationalist whine about people being governed by their passions and keep hoping they'll be be "rational" like us (we're not). Rather, the point is to harness, direct, and channel the passions. Indeed, if you just paint the passions as "irrational," you've already lost. Thus Lilla concludes: 

"The lesson to be drawn is that the art of politics must be the art of engaging the passions, first by exciting them, then by moderating and directing them to a worthy end, one that reason may reveal but cannot achieve."

All of the above was extracted from here.

Lately I've been thinking about holistic apologetics, which I would define as appealing to the whole person -- mind and heart. There's something overly dry and rational about a lot of the apologetics being done today, and this article reminds us of the need to appeal to the heart as well as the head. I think Pascal does this well.

Are we firing on all cylinders? Don't think so.

And that's the way the Ball bounces.