2009-09-02

Claims are increasingly made these days that soft tissue, DNA, and even entire bacteria have been found in fossils supposedly millions of years old (dino marrow, magnolia leaf DNA, bacteria in ice, amber bacteria, salty microbes). However, the most recent estimates place an upper limit of 125,000 years on the survival of DNA and 2.7 million years on collagen at 0°C. (At only 10°C, the upper limits are much less—17,500 for DNA, 180,000 for collagen). The second law of thermodynamics means they will eventually break down, even in ideal conditions. Evolutionists, however, don’t allow these findings to question their dating of the items in question. These things are to them ‘obviously’ that old, as ‘everyone knows’, contra the experimental data. Since they are committed to evolution, the idea that these could not survive for millions of years gets thrown out as contamination, etc. (despite the fact that this is simply not the case). These things even surviving for thousands of years is incredible. http://creation.com/real-jurassic-park

Mohler writes that in "The Case for Early Marriage," sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas in Austin argues that far too many American evangelicals have attempted to deal with sex without understanding marriage. Evangelicals have talked a lot about sex and abstinence, but little about marriage, here they are slow and lax. Many young evangelicals are having sex prior to marriage. The median age of the first marriage is now 26 for women and 28 for men --  an increase of five years since 1970. Regnerus writes that asking people to refrain from sex until their mid-twenties is unreasonable, battling the Creator’s reproductive designs, and he argues for early marriage. Mohler notes that the moral standard of Christians is de facto unreasonable to secular people, arguing that the delay of marriage results in missing out on all God gives us in marriage. Young evangelical women outnumber young evangelical men three to two. Men delay marriage thinking they can marry whenever they are ‘ready’ (as a result of their lifestyles); women are often ready, as they watch their prospects for both marriage and fertility fall. Christians have given up far too much intellectual ground in the area of marriage. Sex is important; marriage is more important. “Marriage is the central crucible for accepting and fulfilling the adult responsibilities of work, parenthood, and the full acceptance of mature responsibilities.” http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=4161

Pike comments on Reppert’s defence of his idea that there is a reasonable doubt that a fetus before a certain stage of development has the same right to life as an infant. i) Reppert’s conclusions are no different than a pro-abort’s. ii) His argument about ‘reasonable doubt’ is ad hoc, and if the stage of development cannot be defined the argument is worthless. iii) If it’s linked to brain development, why the brain? If it’s cognitive ability, then it must follow that human rights are linked to intellect, and the smarter have more right to life than the dumber. iv) If it is argued that past a point of intellect there is equal right, what defines that point? It’s arbitrary. There is nothing logically consistent there. v) What defines ‘late-term’ and ‘early-term’. Each of the “standards” that the pro-choice advocate uses to try to distinguish between the born and unborn is completely invented by the pro-choice advocate himself. vi) That a legal ban on abortion may not stop all abortions is no argument against the law; current rape laws don’t stop all rape – should we repeal them? vii) The pro-life position is consistent because human rights are determined by human ontology. If it’s human, it has human rights. This seems to be the only way to consistently and non-arbitrarily apply ethics to humans across the broad range of various stages of development. Abortion and Reppert

This post argues that the LBCF and WCF, etc. do not in any way authorize or permit private revelation in their use of the phrase ‘private spirits’, noting their position to ‘doctrines of men’, which surely wouldn’t be considered legitimate. They may acknowledge that there were some claims to private revelation, but in no way authorizes or legitimizes them. Rather it is seeking to state comprehensively that there is nothing men may claim that is above or beyond Scripture. This question arises out of debates over personal revelation (influenced by Grudem).  Frequently Asked Symbolics Questions- Private Spirits

Hays observes that while Christian harmonizations of the Scriptures, in light of a presumption of inerrancy, appear as special pleading to unbelievers, unbelievers resist harmonization given their presumption of errancy, and are likewise engaging in special pleading. Moreover, there are examples of harmonization elsewhere. He notes an episode of River Monsters, where a bull shark likely attacked a horse. The problem is that a dam upstream would prevent any sharks from being in that area, and thus one could conclude that it wasn’t a shark. However,  a local knew that the water had flooded and crested the dam a few years ago – this was part of the oral tradition of the area. Harmonizing Scripture

Here’s an interview with Darrell Bock on the NT, etc. The points he makes. i) Ehrman exaggerates the issue. No key doctrine is jeopardized by variation. ii) The ‘other’ gospels have a completely different orientation toward God. Christianity came out of Judaism, and these alternative gospels cannot go back to the earliest generations of Christianity because of their radical difference from Judaism. The NT documents pedigree goes back to within a generation of Jesus; no one disputes this. iii) It’s really not that far to be 30-50 years. Bock can remember stories from a grandfather, stories which goes back to the 19th century. iv) The Gospel was originally through oral testimony by eyewitnesses. The Jews were quite competent at preserving an oral tradition. Inscripturation came when the apostles were passing off the scene. The next video is on historical problems in the NT. i) We have a small subset of history preserved to us. We can often explain differences in ways that make sense culturally and historically. Bock holds that the census issue in Luke can be resolved when one understands that a census would have taken quite a bit of time. ii) As to whether the early Christians just inflated the story of Christ, the Talmud, Josephus, etc. corroborate the crucifixion and the existence of Jesus. iii) More importantly, if you were inventing the resurrection, and trying to sell an idea, and you start out with women as witnesses, you’re undercutting your own objective. It makes no sense to try to sell an idea using witnesses who weren’t considered legitimate witnesses – this is culturally embarrassing. Also, the apostles were incredulous to the testimony of the women at first. iv) The Isaiah passage wasn’t seen as a virgin birth passage by the Jews, so there was no need to invent a fulfillment, debunking the critique that the virgin birth was just invented to fulfill Isaiah.  Interview with Darrell Bock