April 17, 2011
Sixty-plus years ago, a physicist by the name of Enrico Fermi postulated that, unless the evolution of life was unique to Earth, there should be many advanced species out there. If this is true, why haven’t we detected them or they made contact? This is known as ‘Fermi’s Paradox’. Adrian Kent of the Perimeter Institute […]
Tags: Adrian Kent, advanced alien civilizations, applying evolutionary theory to Fermi's Paradox, cosmic competition, E.T., evolution favors the inconspicuous, extraterrestrials, Fermi's Paradox, natural selection, SETI, space aliens
Posted in Science |
April 13, 2011
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had some interesting things to say at a recent (4/8/2011) visit to Tufts University. She commented on voting & elections and gave some advice to her Republican colleagues: “Let’s just try to do what is right for our country. I would hope, I think that President Obama is […]
Tags: analysis of Pelosi's comments, elections should not matter as much as they do, Nancy Pelosi, Pelosi comments at Tufts, Pelosi in the news, right to vote, Tufts University, value of elections
Posted in Politics |
April 10, 2011
Bible Under Attack by Skeptic Professor: Film at 11! I think most of you probably know who Bart Ehrman is, right? He’s an agnostic, American New Testament scholar who has gained some popularity/notoriety over the past few years, writing & promoting books that purport to ‘correct’ the traditional, orthodox teachings and assumptions of Christianity. I’m […]
Tags: Apostle Paul, Bart Ehrman, biblical authorship, Christian orthodoxy, Church history, doubts about the Bible, Early Church Fathers, Forged, forgeries in the New Testament, Greco-Roman history, heresy in the Church, history of Christianity, Irenaeus, Lucian, Mike Licona, New Testament authorship, origins of the Bible, Papias, Pliny the Younger, Polycarp, pseudepigrapha, questioning the Bible, skeptical professor, St. Paul, Tacitus, Tertius, textual criticism, who wrote the Gospels?
Posted in Religion |
April 3, 2011
Everybody’s got “rights”. Just ask ’em! Rights to freedom of _________. Natural rights. Human rights. Civil rights. Property rights. Privacy rights. Abortion rights. Women’s rights. Gay rights. Marriage rights. Workers’ rights. The right to a minimum wage. The right to free healthcare. The right to clean air. You name it, and somebody’s gonna claim it. […]
Tags: abortion rights, basic rights, civil rights, gay rights, human rights, inalienable rights, legal rights, legislating morality, link between God and morality and rights, man-made rights, marriage rights, natural rights, no transcendent rights under moral relativism, objective morality, privacy rights, property rights, quote from Declaration of Independence, statutory rights, transcendent morality, transcendent rights, women's rights, workers' rights
Posted in Politics, Politics & Religion, Religion |
March 30, 2011
When reading through and comparing the four canonical Gospels, Christian and non-Christian alike will sometimes wonder why the books aren’t in the same format and tell the same stuff. True, they do follow the basic style for biography in the ancient Greco-Roman world (which can be frustrating to us ‘modern’ people who want more complete […]
Tags: Bible contradictions, Biblical criticism, differences in the Gospels, different details in Gospels, different structure on Gospels, doubting the Bible, Gospel writers, Gospels, Jesus Christ, Jesus' identity, Jesus' ministry, New Testament, New Testament criticism, original evangelists, purposes for the gospels, titles of Jesus, why the Gospels don't tell the exact same story
Posted in Religion |
March 25, 2011
Hey. Not a lot of time to delve into this one, but I thought it worth taking a brief look. Y’know how the U.S. federal government has mucho debt and Congress keeps fighting internally about what kind of a budget to give itself (using borrowed or imaginary money), etc.? You’ve heard about that, right? But, […]
Tags: Big Brother, CBO report, Congressional Budget Office, double-taxing, energy policy, federal transportation improvement projects, fuel tax, gas tax, highway maintenance, highway tax, Kent Conrad, maintain infrastructure, Obama Administration, Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, tracking wherever you drive, transportation tax, vehicle miles traveled, VMT
Posted in Politics |
March 19, 2011
In Part 1, I began an excerpt from Sen. Jim DeMint’s book Saving Freedom wherein he explained the difference between having a secular society versus having a secular government with certain religious freedoms. This is clearly what America’s Founders envisioned and what we still have, for the most part, now. When I ‘interrupted’ the Senator, […]
Tags: Boy Scouts and gay rights, Boy Scouts of America, Boy Scouts of America et al. v. Dale, BSA, Christian discrimination, Christian student organization, discrimination case, expressive message, freedom of association, freedom of religion, James Dale, John Adams quote, Judeo-Christian values, membership requirements, Os Guinness quote, religious freedoms, rights of religious groups, Saving Freedom, Sen. Jim DeMint, separation of church and state
Posted in Politics, Politics & Religion, Religion |
March 16, 2011
One of the ongoing arguments in the American public square is just how “religious” is our country and how much of that religiosity is — or should be — allowed in our government & society. One side typically has talking points about the Establishment Clause in the Constitution and the Separation of Church & State […]
Tags: America's founding principles, Enlightenment values, establishment clause, Judeo-Christian values, linking of republicanism and religion, religion-neutral, religious liberty, Saving Freedom, secular government, secular society, Sen. Jim DeMint, separation of church and state
Posted in Politics, Politics & Religion, Religion |
March 12, 2011
“If executive officers were to adopt a policy of ignoring or attacking Acts of Congress whenever they believed them to be in conflict with the provisions of the Constitution, their conduct in office could jeopardize the equilibrium established within our constitutional system.” — Benjamin Civiletti, U.S. Attorney General under President Jimmy Carter Who knew defending […]
Tags: Benjamin Civiletti quote, defending the law, defense of DOMA, Defense of Marriage Act, Department of Justice, DOJ, DOMA, Eric Holder, gay rights, institution of marriage, Justice Department, McCain–Feingold Act, redefining marriage, responsibility of Executive Branch, Rule of Law, same-sex marriage, SSM, unconstitutional legislation, unilateral acts of Obama
Posted in Politics |
March 8, 2011
I love my country. And I think we have the best government and legal system, based on the Rule of Law, beginning with and rooted in the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. But, it’s still an imperfect system. Sometimes — more often than most of us imagine or care to […]
Tags: American judicial system, American legal system, constitutional rights, Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, Fatal Vision, guilty before proven innocent, Helena Stoeckley, Innocence Project, innocent until proven guilty, James Blackburn, MacDonalds Case, no reasonable doubt, wrongful imprisonment
Posted in Politics, Politics & Science, Science |