Archive for the ‘Fin De Siecle’ Category

Lose Christianity or Face Expulsion

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, Religious, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Jul 25 2010

Photo:Jen Keeton

By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

A lawsuit against Augusta State University in Georgia alleges school officials essentially gave a graduate student in counseling the choice of giving up her Christian beliefs or being expelled from the graduate program.

School officials Mary Jane Anderson-Wiley, Paulette Schenck and Richard Deaner demanded student Jen Keeton, 24, go through a “remediation” program after she asserted homosexuality is a behavioral choice, not a “state of being” as a professor said, according to the complaint.

Also named as defendants in the case that developed in May and June are other administrators and the university system’s board of regents.

The remediation program was to include “sensitivity training” on homosexual issues, additional outside study on literature promoting homosexuality and the plan that she attend a “gay pride parade” and report on it.

The lawsuit, filed by attorneys working with the Alliance Defense Fund, asserted the school cannot violate the Constitution by demanding that a person’s beliefs be changed.

University “faculty have promised to expel Miss Keeton from the graduate Counselor Education program, not because of poor academic showing or demonstrated deficiencies in clinical performance, but simply because she has communicated both inside and outside the classroom that she holds to Christian ethical convictions on matters of human sexuality and gender identity,” the law firm explained.

School spokeswoman Kathy Schose today declined to address the allegations in the case but agreed to discuss the counselor teaching program in general.

She cited the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics and said students would be required to adopt its provisions.

“There is a code of ethics that govern counselors,” she said. “They have to abide by the code of the profession.”

Ethics codes generally govern behavior, and Schose denied the school was attempting to alter any student’s beliefs or moral values.

But the lawsuit specifically charges the faculty members targeted Keeton’s biblically based belief system and values, not her behavior regarding the treatment of any clients, which had not yet happened.

“Schenck told Miss Keeton that it was unethical for her to believe that her convictions should also be shared by other persons. … Schenck explained that while Miss Keeton was free to have points of view about how she personally should conduct and define herself, she may not believe that others should adopt the standards she personally is convinced are true,” the lawsuit said.

“Anderson-Wiley confirmed that Miss Keeton will not be able to successfully complete the remediation plan and thus complete the (Augusta State University) counseling program unless she commits to affirming the propriety of gay and lesbian relationships if such an opportunity arises in her future professional efforts,” it continued.

ADF Senior Counsel David French contended a public university student “shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here.”

“Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform,” he said. “Abandoning one’s own religious beliefs should not be a precondition at a public university for obtaining a degree. This type of leftist zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop. Jennifer’s only crime was to have the beliefs that she does.”

Keeton’s own e-mail response to the faculty members who allegedly were pressuring her to adopt a pro-homosexual belief system defines the dispute.

“At times you said that I must alter my beliefs because they are unethical. … Other times you said that I can keep my beliefs so long as they are only personal and I don’t believe that anyone else should believe like me. But that is just another way of saying that I must alter my beliefs, because my beliefs are about absolute truth. … In order to finish the counseling program you are requiring me to alter my objective beliefs and also to commit now that if I ever may have a client who wants me to affirm their decision to have an abortion or engage in gay, lesbian or transgender behavior, I will do that. I can’t alter my biblical beliefs, and I will not affirm the morality of those behaviors in a counseling situation,” she wrote.

Faculty members had demanded she “attend at least three workshops … which emphasize … diversity training sensitive toward working with GLBTQ populations.” They also wanted her to “develop” her knowledge of homosexuality by reading 10 articles and increasing her exposure to homosexuals and lesbians by attending “the Gay Pride Parade.”

According to the complaint documentation, which also seeks a preliminary injunction in the case, Keeton asked Anderson-Wiley how her Christian convictions are any less acceptable than those of a Buddhist or Muslim student. Anderson-Wiley responded, “Christians see this population as sinners.”

The complaint alleges Anderson-Wiley specifically told Keeton she was being asked to alter some of her beliefs. The “remediation” program included a statement that Keeton would be dismissed from the program if she chose not to comply, the lawsuit said.

“Unless and until defendant’s unconstitutional speech-regulating policies and threatened … actions against Miss Keeton are enjoined, Miss Keeton will suffer and continue to suffer irreparable injury to her constitutional rights,” the lawsuit said.

Among the alleged violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments are viewpoint discrimination, compelled speech, equal protection and freedom of speech, it said.

“By conditioning Miss Keeton’s continued enrollment in the (Augusta State University) school counselor master’s degree program on her waiver of rights to speech and free exercise of religion … by requiring that she alter her beliefs and speech, and that she … commit to affirm in a hypothetical future context the ethical propriety of transgender and homosexual identification and behavior by others, as well as other values and behaviors she now disapproves, and which violate her religion convictions, defendants have imposed an unconstitutional condition on Miss Keeton,” the complaint alleges.

“The First Amendment never permits the government to penalize beliefs in this manner,” the complaint said.

The ADF said it also is litigating a case involving a Georgia counselor fired by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because she would not agree to affirm homosexual behavior. While an earlier similar case at Missouri State has been resolved, there is another in which Eastern Michigan University is defendant on similar allegations.

In the Missouri State case, a social-work professor, Frank Kauffman, eventually was placed on leave as part of a settlement of the lawsuit brought on behalf of student Emily Brooker. The student had refused his assignment to lobby on behalf of homosexual adoptions because it violated her religious beliefs. She then was brought up on ethics charges in the school.

The settlement also included monetary damages and the removal of the charges against her from her record. The school’s own commissioned conclusion in the case found “many students and faculty stated a fear of voicing differing opinions. … In fact, ‘bullying’ was used by both students and faculty to characterize specific faculty.”

In the still-pending case involving Eastern Michigan, lawmakers there considered calling top school officials on the carpet after they expelled from a counseling program a Christian student who refused to argue in support of the homosexual lifestyle.

As WND reported, trouble began for master’s program student Julea Ward when she refused to accept a client whose issue concerned a homosexual relationship.

The school expelled her from the counseling program March 12, 2009, for refusing to abrogate her own personal religious beliefs and support the homosexual lifestyle.

Since then, Ward has brought a lawsuit through the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom.

Members of the Michigan Senate shortly later approved legislation that includes a provision calling on university counseling programs to evaluate and affirm how they can accommodate the religious beliefs of students.

State Rep. Tom McMillin told WND at the time the case was “extremely alarming,” and there was growing support for an effort to penalize universities that don’t accommodate religious beliefs.

“This is a state-taxpayer-supported university,” he said. “She’s got a court case. Hopefully that will be resolved.”

In the case, the judge refused to dismiss the complaint, determining there were “genuine issues of material fact” about the school’s “true motivations” for dismissing Ward from the program. Further, the judge concluded, the student’s actions to avoid in advance a counseling session for which she had reservations probably followed professional ethical guidelines.

Source

The Media Says Darwin and Evolution but Americans Say God and Special Creation:This Just In; Darwin is Still Dead!

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, Religious, The Flood of Noah, Uncategorized, s8int.com | Posted by Chris Parker
Jan 27 2010

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

Popular American culture has an exceptional ability to transmit its attitudes, its mores, and it’s standards both in America and internationally.

It enculturates us with the dominant ideologies and we knowingly or unknowingly tend to adopt its traditions and practices. This is why for example little girls of color can prefer dolls that don’t look like themselves, their parents or their brothers and sisters. This same effect can impact brunettes, who our culture appears to value less than blondes. Thin is in. Sexuality; omnipresent. Youth is good -age and maturity; bad.

Those messages have been received.

How about the messages our media and culture transmit about God and evolution? How is the culture doing in transmitting the dominant ideology there? The culture says that “creationists†are at best gullible and at worst idiots. The popular media reports evolution as fact. Evolution “advances†often lead the news and are imparted as truth.

The culture reports on God and God centered beliefs- like man and dinosaur interraction or Noah’s ark, if “forced” to with a wink and a smirk. Governor Palin was not considered a good vice-presidential candidate by many “cultural elites” in the last National election for among other things, stating that she believed that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. (Of course some concerns about the Governor were valid.)

If the media and the culture are unafraid of offending the segment of the population who believe in God, Noah’s ark etc., then that group must be a small group of weirdoes and mouth breathers whose offense wouldn’t cause a ripple, right?

So how is the culture doing in transmitting the “evolution is true, God and the great flood of Noah are mythological” ideology to the American public?

“An ABC News poll released in Feb 2004 found that 61 percent of Americans believe the account of creation in the Bible’s book of Genesis is “literally true” rather than a story meant as a “lesson.” Sixty percent believe in the story of Noah’s ark and a global flood, while 64 percent agree that Moses parted the Red Sea to save fleeing Jews from their Egyptian captors. The poll, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points, was conducted Feb. 6 to 10 among 1,011 adults.â€â€¦Washington Times

There may be newer polls out there, this one was compiled 6 years ago. I doubt however, if much has changed in the six years since. (That was the latest I could find on belief in Noah’s ark and special creation)

Inside the numbers, 75% of “Protestants†believed in the story of creation, 79 percent in the Red Sea account and 73 percent in Noah and the ark. For “evangelicals†the numbers were 87%, 91% and 87%, respectively. For Catholics, the polling showed 51 percent, 50 percent and 44 percent respectively. Draw your own conclusions from that data.

A 2007 Harris Poll of almost 2,500 adults indicated that more Americans believed in Satan and a literal hell than believed in Darwinism. That survey also found that 82% of Americans believed in God – a figure that was unchanged from polling taken the two previous years.

“It further found that 79 percent believed in miracles, 75 percent in heaven, while 72 percent believed that Jesus is God or the Son of God. Belief in hell and the devil was expressed by 62 percent.â€â€¦.Reuters UK

(Shockingly, Charles Darwin himself now believes that hell is a literal place. Only 42% of Americans expressed a belief in Darwin’s theory of evolution.)

“Born-again Christians are more likely to believe in the traditional elements of Christianity than are Catholics or Protestants. For example, 95 percent believe in miracles, compared to 87 percent and 89 percent among Catholics and Protestants,” according to the poll.

“On the other hand only 16 percent of born-again Christians, compared to 43 percent of Catholics and 30 percent of Protestants, believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution.” ..Reuters UK

Atheists like Richard Dawkins have for some time been mystified by the failure of the majority of Americans to enculturate themselves with this atheistic, evolution ideology. Even insulting and ridiculing those who hold these beliefs has not moved the needle much—except in Europe.

What accounts for the fact that Americans readily adapt, accept and reflect all those other cultural ideologies and beliefs but continue to believe in God and creationism even though those beliefs are portrayed as ignorant, ‘uncool†and backwards?

And why doesn’t the media accurately reflect the truth that the majority of Americans think that the evolutionists and the Atheists are the ones out of the mainstream? (Seriously, if most Americans believe why does the media portray it otherwise? What do they get out of it?) Are you going to believe us (the media) or your own lying eyes, they ask?

How does belief in the God of the Bible survive this toxic environment?

It’s because God exists and His Word is true.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? New International Version (©1984)

IDA DOA: The Explosive Pace of Evolution-ary Debunking

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, Science | Posted by Chris Parker
Oct 22 2009

Thanks to: Geoff G. & Chris W.

Photo:P.T. Barnum, is there indeed one born every minute?

Ernst Haeckel’s Biogenic Law; often stated as “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” (an embryo goes through all the stages of its “evolutionary ancestors”) had been formulated with the help of faked drawings and outright lies had been debunked by his own scientific peers. Jonathan Wells notes in his book “Icons of Evolution” that even though the theory had been discredited over 100 years ago, Haeckel’s drawings were still being used in the latest edition of Molecular Biology of the Cell, written by National Academy of Sciences president and distinguished cell biologist Bruce Alberts and his colleagues.

It tends to support evolution dogma you see.

The “Link”

Fossil “Ida” was introduced with as much fanfare, braggadocio, Darwinian smarm and chutzpa as can be imagined. Ida it was claimed was the “eighth wonder of the world” and could cure cancer or bad breath just by being gazed upon. There were tie-ins to movies, television programs, videos, books and Ida plush toys. Darwinists apparently thought that the little rodent proved that there was no God!

Early on, much of the criticism of the Ida publicity machine came from other evolutionists–some who admittedly were promoting their own favorite little furry animals–but many were concerned about the overheated claims. Now, a new analysis of the fossil will make most of the Ida claims go extinct. (This changes everything!) The value of Ida memorabilia is already plummeting…..s8int.com

‘Eighth wonder’ Ida is not related to humans, claim scientists
US palaeontologists dismiss initial claims about the 47million-year-old fossil found in Germany’s Messel Pit

Ian Sample, science correspondent guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009

Her arrival was announced with unrestrained razzmatazz. She was the “eighth wonder of the world”, “our Mona Lisa” and an evolutionary “Rosetta Stone”, according to the researchers who unveiled her.

The female in question was Ida, a 47million-year-old primate, whose exquisitely preserved fossil was touted as the remains of our earliest human ancestor. She was, they said, the “link” between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.

Or maybe not. Writing in the journal, Nature, a team of palaeontologists from New York claim that Ida is not related to humans at all. Instead, they conclude, the $1m fossil looks more like a small lemur or maybe a loris.

The challenge is being seen as the opening salvo in what is shaping up to be a hearty academic slugging match. At stake is not only the significance of one of the most extraordinary fossils unearthed, but the reputations of some of the world’s leading researchers. So far, relations between the two sides are strained but courteous.

“Our analysis and results have convinced us that Ida was not an ancestor of monkeys, apes, or humans, and if anything has more relevance for our understanding of lemur and loris origins,” said Erik Seiffert, a fossil hunter at Stony Brook University in New York who led the Nature study.

Read The Remainder of the Article Here

A.P. Primate fossil called only a distant relative

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer – Wed Oct 21, 5:09 pm ET
NEW YORK – Remember Ida, the fossil discovery announced last May with its own book and TV documentary? A publicity blitz called it “the link” that would reveal the earliest evolutionary roots of monkeys, apes and humans. Experts protested that Ida wasn’t even a close relative. And now a new analysis supports their reaction.

In fact, Ida is as far removed from the monkey-ape-human ancestry as a primate could be, says Erik Seiffert of Stony Brook University in New York.

He and his colleagues compared 360 specific anatomical features of 117 living and extinct primate species to draw up a family tree. They report the results in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

Ida is a skeleton of a 47 million-year-old cat-sized creature found in Germany. It starred in a book, “The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor.”

Ida represents a previously unknown primate species called Darwinius. The scientists who formally announced the finding said they weren’t claiming Darwinius was a direct ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans. But they did argue that it belongs in the same major evolutionary grouping, and that it showed what an actual ancestor of that era might have looked like.

The new analysis says Darwinius does not belong in the same primate category as monkeys, apes and humans. Instead, the analysis concluded, it falls into the other major grouping, which includes lemurs.

Experts agreed.

The Remainder of this Article can Be Found Here

E-mails indicate EPA Suppressed Report Skeptical of Global Warming

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, Science, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Jun 30 2009


Photo: is global warming illusory; like this parka?

by Declan McCullagh
CNET NEWS

The Environmental Protection Agency may have suppressed an internal report that was skeptical of claims about global warming, including whether carbon dioxide must be strictly regulated by the federal government, according to a series of newly disclosed e-mail messages.

Less than two weeks before the agency formally submitted its pro-regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty “decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.”

The EPA official, Al McGartland, said in an e-mail message (PDF) to a staff researcher on March 17: “The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward…and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.”

The e-mail correspondence raises questions about political interference in what was supposed to be an independent review process inside a federal agency–and echoes criticisms of the EPA under the Bush administration, which was accused of suppressing a pro-climate change document.

Alan Carlin, the primary author of the 98-page EPA report, said in a telephone interview on Friday that his boss, McGartland, was being pressured himself. “It was his view that he either lost his job or he got me working on something else,” Carlin said. “That was obviously coming from higher levels.”

E-mail messages released this week show that Carlin was ordered not to “have any direct communication” with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed that his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic.

“I was told for probably the first time in I don’t know how many years exactly what I was to work on,” said Carlin, a 38-year veteran of the EPA. “And it was not to work on climate change.” One e-mail orders him to update a grants database instead.

For its part, the EPA sent an e-mailed statement saying: “Claims that this individual’s opinions were not considered or studied are entirely false. This Administration and this EPA Administrator are fully committed to openness, transparency, and science-based decision making. These principles were reflected throughout the development of the proposed endangerment finding, a process in which a broad array of voices were heard and an inter-agency review was conducted.” (The endangerment finding is the EPA’s decision that carbon dioxide endangers the public health and welfare.)

Carlin has an undergraduate degree in physics from CalTech and a PhD in economics from MIT. His Web site lists papers about the environment and public policy dating back to 1964, spanning topics from pollution control to environmentally-responsible energy pricing.

After reviewing the scientific literature that the EPA is relying on, Carlin said, he concluded that it was at least three years out of date and did not reflect the latest research. “My personal view is that there is not currently any reason to regulate (carbon dioxide),” he said. “There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They’re not going up, and if anything they’re going down.”

Carlin’s report listed a number of recent developments he said the EPA did not consider, including that global temperatures have declined for 11 years; that new research predicts Atlantic hurricanes will be unaffected; that there’s “little evidence” that Greenland is shedding ice at expected levels; and that solar radiation has the largest single effect on the earth’s temperature.

If there is a need for the government to lower planetary temperatures, Carlin believes, other mechanisms would be cheaper and more effective than regulation of carbon dioxide. One paper he wrote says managing sea level rise or reducing solar radiation reaching the earth would be more cost-effective alternatives.

The EPA’s possible suppression of Carlin’s report, which lists the EPA’s John Davidson as a co-author, could endanger any carbon dioxide regulations if they are eventually challenged in court.

“The big question is: there is this general rule that when an agency puts something out for public evidence and comment, it’s supposed to have the evidence supporting it and the evidence the other way,” said Sam Kazman, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., that has been skeptical of new laws or regulations relating to global warming.

Kazman’s group obtained the documents–both CEI and Carlin say he was not the source–and released the e-mails on Tuesday and the report on Friday. As a result of the disclosure, CEI has asked the EPA to reopen the comment period on the greenhouse gas regulatory proceeding, which ended on Tuesday.

The EPA also said in its statement: “The individual in question is not a scientist and was not part of the working group dealing with this issue. Nevertheless, the document he submitted was reviewed by his peers and agency scientists, and information from that report was submitted by his manager to those responsible for developing the proposed endangerment finding. In fact, some ideas from that document are included and addressed in the endangerment finding.”

That appears to conflict with an e-mail from McGartland in March, who said to Carlin: “I decided not to forward your comments… I can see only one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”

He also wrote to Carlin: “Please do not have any direct communication with anyone outside of (our group) on endangerment. There should be no meetings, e-mails, written statements, phone calls, etc.”

One reason why the process might have been highly charged politically is the unusual speed of the regulatory process. Lisa Jackson, the new EPA administrator, had said that she wanted her agency to reach a decision about regulating carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act by April 2–the second anniversary of a related U.S. Supreme Court decision.

“All this goes back to a decision at a higher level that this was very urgent to get out, if possible, yesterday,” Carlin said. “In the case of an ordinary regulation, these things normally take a year or two. In this case, it was a few weeks to get it out for public comment.” (Carlin said that he and other EPA staff members who were asked to respond to a draft only had four and a half days to do so.)

In the last few days, Republicans have begun to raise questions about the report and e-mail messages, but it was insufficient to derail the so-called cap and trade bill from being approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rep. Joe Barton, the senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce committee, invoked Carlin’s report in a floor speech during the debate on Friday.

“The science is not there to back it up,” Barton said. “An EPA report that has been suppressed…raises grave doubts about the endangerment finding. If you don’t have an endangerment finding, you don’t need this bill. We don’t need this bill. And for some reason, the EPA saw fit not to include that in its decision.”

“I’m sure it was very inconvenient for the EPA to consider a study that contradicted the findings it wanted to reach,” Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the senior Republican on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said in a statement.

“But the EPA is supposed to reach its findings based on evidence, not on political goals. The repression of this important study casts doubts on the EPA’s finding, and frankly, on other analysis the EPA has conducted on climate issues.”

The revelations could prove embarrassing to Jackson, the EPA administrator, who said in January: “I will ensure the EPA’s efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and programs, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency.”

Similarly, President Barack Obama claimed that “the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over… To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy. It is contrary to our way of life.”

“All this talk from the president and (EPA administrator) Lisa Jackson about integrity, transparency, and increased EPA protection for whistleblowers–you’ve got a bouquet of ironies here,” said Kazman, the CEI attorney.

A Brief Review of a Selection of Incredible, Lost, Forgotten or Ignored News from Our Recent Past; Part IV……Mostly Giants

Church of Darwin, Crypto, Fin De Siecle, Giants in Those Days, Science, Sophistication of Ancestors, The Flood of Noah, Unexplained Artifact, s8int.com | Posted by Chris Parker
Jan 24 2009

by Chris Parker, Copyright January 2009

Photo:Discoverer examines the head of a South American mummy discovered in a cave along with several others of similar height. This mummy is only 7 1/2 feet long (eight feet tall in life?)so he was one of the smaller giants.

Numbers 13:33
We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

If there are not hundreds of news stories in the newspapers of the last 300 years about the discovery of sensational ancient remains; giants, petrified humans, petrified human giants and other finds unaccounted for by science—then there are thousands of such stories. Rocks supposedly millions and in some case billions of years old have contained the fossilized or petrified remains of giant humans, mega versions of familiar animals all as reported in the hundreds of newspapers in print throughout the world.

The response of science has been consistent over those 300 years; human beings don’t petrify it declares despite report after report documenting there discovery. Despite the testimony of other scientists and despite photographs.

These things can’t exist under the current scientific paradigm, so—they don’t exist. In fact, we’ve seen that exact argument used by scientists; yes such and such an object looks exactly like a human skull or a giant fossilized human foot—but that is impossible.

That’s a little known scientific method.

As to giants, science does recognize Meganthropus and Gigantopithecus as giant versions of ancient man—but we want to know how science deals with dogs larger than current horses and “modern†men the height of a two story home?

This article is a survey of a number of anomalous finds which taken as a whole contradict the “scientific’ story of earth’s history and which taken as a whole overturn the evolutionary/geological time scale. Back in the middle 1850’s a “hoax” was perpetrated on science and the general population known as the Cardiff Giant. Hoax is in quotes because one of the owners of the giant, 10 foot petrified man believed until his death that the giant was real. A Mr. Hull supposedly perpetrated the hoax, but here’s the point; science has tried to use the Cardiff Giant as a means to cast doubt on the hundreds of other similar “discoveries” before and since.

The Cardiff Giant Hoax did not occur in a vacuum. There had been many reports of giant human remains and petrifed human remains in the newspapers of that era; pre Cardiff and post Cardiff. Science has always mananged to throw a little dirt on such discoveries in order to protect the paradigm–witness the Calaveras Skull, often referred to as a hoax because it was “impossible” though in fact it was not.

If the jury is still out on Darwinism, they have taken the following position to shore up their case; if the evidence doesn’t fit, it must be counter-feit!

Mystery of the Giant Mummy

Memphis Doctors Say it is Over Nine Feet Long and Weighs 400 Pounds
August 23,1894

After a mummy was found not far from Memphis, three medical doctors had a chance to examine it at Jackson Mound Park. “Dr. H.L. Williford, formerly president of the Shelby county board of health; Dr. B.F. Turner, professor in the Memphis Medical college and an ethnologist of some note, and Dr. Pate have visited Jackson Mound and examined the mummy. They found the body to weigh about 400 pounds and to be 9 feet ½ inches long.”

The body was said to have been in a ‘splendid†state of preservation. No doubt, a 9 foot mummy may have been 10 feet in height in life. The teeth were reported to have been intact, the hair was long and stiff and black in color.

The skin was still pliable according to the doctors and the thumb nails could still be seen. The mummy was bare except for animals skins covering its head and its feet.

The physicians could detect no sign in this case of petrification or ossification and speculated that the body might be that of a North American Indian.

A Race of Giants

The Tioga Eagle
Wednesday Feb 4, 1846

According to the article the Mobile Herald had first reported that the fossil remains of a “huge biped†had been dug up a few days previously in Williamson County, Tenn. It was initially doubted by some that the find was the skeleton of a man but that now that it had received a “full report†of the discovery it was now certain that the skeleton was in fact human.

As the article describes the events, a Mr. Shumale was digging a deep hole on his property in search of water, on a hill located in the mountainous section of the county when the bones were discovered some 60 feet below the surface.

The bones were embedded, it was reported in a strata of hard clay and filled a large crevice in the rock. The position of the bones, said to weigh 1500 lbs was reclining. The bones were reported to be only partially petrified.

According to the Tioga report, there was no doubt in the minds of any of the witnesses that the bones “belonged to the genus Homo’. As it is told, all the larger characteristic bones were fully intact; the skull, arms and the bones of the thigh, shoulders, the knee pan and collar bones were clearly and unmistakably human.

It is reported that the whole skeleton was approximately 18 feet high and it was surmised that the gentleman or woman stood 19 feet high. The bones of the thighs it was reported, stood at 6 feet 6 inches.

The skull was sized in the mind of the reader by saying that it was 2/3 the size of a flour barrel and by noting that a coffee cup cut fit comfortably within its eye sockets. The jaw and teeth were reported to be very much intact with various teeth, still attached estimated to weigh from 3.5 to 5 pounds. Wear was evident on the teeth.

It was reported that an “eminent physician†was engaged in assembling the full skeleton with small deficiencies to be supplied by art. It was reported that $50,000 had been offered for the skeleton.

Click Here to Read Article Remainder

Enter The Unicorn?

Crypto, Dinosaurs in Literature, Fin De Siecle, Religious, Science, Sophistication of Ancestors, Unexplained Artifact, s8int.com | Posted by Chris Parker
Jul 24 2008

Psalm 92:10 “But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.â€Â

Late translations of the Bible do not use the word unicorn no doubt because translators lost faith in the word. They wanted to protect the Word of God from non-believers who might criticize the Bible as being unreliable because it referred to “mythical” creatures.

By the way, unicorn is derived from a Greek word simply meaning “single horn”. Is it hard to believe that there existed in the past a creature with a prominent single horn? The fanciful, horsey-like drawings of the unicorn we see today were created long after anyone knew for sure what the unicorn is/was.

For the same reasons, (fear of generating biblical ridicule among them) translators de-emphasized the use of the word “dragon” in their translations. But as we’ve demonstrated on this site and of course as others have advanced–dragons and dinosaurs were the same creatures. To put it another way, stories about dragons, which emanated from virtually every culture of antiquity, were inspired directly or indirectly by real creatures that we now call dinosaurs–a word coined in the mid-1800’s.

The Gap theory and other theories that featured Pre-Adamic men were concocted by “Christians” out of weak faith as well. Looking for a way to explain Neanderthal and Cro_Magnon in the context of Christianity and a Creator, they concocted extra-biblical theories –in order to protect the Bible!? How silly the proponents of these theories must feel to know now that even science now has to admit that Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal were fully human–that they had the same DNA is we do.

If they had just believed what the Bible said, they would have already known that.

Elasmotherium (“Thin-Plate Beast”) was a genus of giant rhinoceros which stood, on average, 2 metres (6.6 ft) high and 6 metres (20 ft) long, with a single two-meter-long horn in the forehead. The animal may have weighed up to 5 tonnes (5.5 short tons). Its legs were longer than those of other rhinos and were designed for galloping, giving it a horse-like gait. It was probably a fast runner, in spite of its size. Its teeth were similar to those of horses, and it probably grazed low herbs.

The largest and latest species, E. sibiricum, lived in Southern Russia, Ukraine and Moldova during the Pleistocene. It appeared during the Late Pliocene in Central Asia. Its origin appears to be connected to the genus Sinotherium. E. inexpectatum and E. peii inhabited Eastern China during the Upper Pliocene – Early Pleistocene. They disappeared approximately 1.6 Ma.”…wikipedia

Hopefully, Christians do not accept the evolutionary timeline. If not, and we know that this animal once existed, isn’t it reasonable to assume that if not this creature, another one with a similar, single, prominent, horn was the Greek; Single Horn? or Unicorn?

As it happens, there has been a latter day sighting of such a creature reported in the literature:

“It is believed that Elasmotherium died out in prehistoric times. However, according to the Nordisk familjebok and to science writer Willy Ley, the animal may have survived long enough to be remembered in the legends of the Evenk people of Russia as a huge black bull with a single horn in the forehead.

There is also a testimony by the medieval traveller Ibn Fadlan which has been interpreted by some to indicate that Elasmotherium may have survived into historical times.

Ibn Fadlan’s account states:

There is nearby a wide steppe, and there dwells, it is told, an animal smaller than a camel, but taller than a bull. Its head is the head of a ram, and its tail is a bull’s tail. Its body is that of a mule and its hooves are like those of a bull.

In the middle of its head it has a horn, thick and round, and as the horn goes higher, it narrows (to an end), until it is like a spearhead. Some of these horns grow to three or five ells, (1 ell is 31 to 45 inches–shoulder to wrist) depending on the size of the animal. It thrives on the leaves of trees, which are excellent greenery. Whenever it sees a rider, it approaches and if the rider has a fast horse, the horse tries to escape by running fast, and if the beast overtakes them, it picks the rider out of the saddle with its horn, and tosses him in the air, and meets him with the point of the horn, and continues doing so until the rider dies. But it will not harm or hurt the horse in any way or manner.

The locals seek it in the steppe and in the forest until they can kill it. It is done so: they climb the tall trees between which the animal passes. It requires several bowmen with poisoned arrows; and when the beast is in between them, they shoot and wound it unto its death. And indeed I have seen three big bowls shaped like Yemen seashells, that the king has, and he told me that they are made out of that animal’s horn.”…Wikipedia

The moral of this story is; don’t give up belief in the Word of God. Soon enough, even scientists will be smart enough to believe it :0). See Also Faith Destroyed by Mythical Creatures in the Bible?

Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written:
“So that you may be proved right when you speak
and prevail when you judge….Rom 3

Bible Publishers Sued for “Anti-Gay” (anti-Homosexual) References

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, Religious, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Jul 24 2008

Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:51 AM

By: Rick Pedraza

A Michigan man is seeking $70 million from two Christian publishers for emotional distress and mental instability he received during the past 20 years from versions of the Bible that refer to homosexuality as a sin.

Bradley LaShawn Fowler, a gay man, claims his constitutional rights were infringed upon by Zondervan Publishing Co. and Thomas Nelson Publishing, both of which, he claims, deliberately caused homosexuals to suffer by misinterpretation of the Bible.

Fowler, 39, is seeking $60 million from Zondervan and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson.

According to a USA Today report, Fowler’s two separate suits against the publishers claim the intent of the Bible revisions that refer to homosexuals as sinners reflect an individual opinion or a group’s conclusion.

Fowler says the deliberate changes made to first Corinthians, chapter six, verse nine caused him “or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder.”

Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, claims the publishers are misinterpreting the Bible by specifically using the word homosexuals, which made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.

“These are opinions based on the publishers and they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life,” he tells a local NBC TV station affiliate in Grand Rapids.

Fowler admits that every Bible printed is a translation that can be interpreted in many ways, but he says specifically using the word “homosexual†is not a translation but a change.

Fowler says Zondervan Bibles published in the ‘80s used the word homosexuals among a list of those who are “wicked’ or unrighteous and won’t inherit the kingdom of heaven.â€Â

Zondervan, for its part, issued a statement to the Grand Rapids press stating it does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations it publishes

“We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish,†the statement reads.

“We only publish credible translations produced by credible Biblical scholars.â€Â

U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr., who will hear Fowler’s case against Thomas Nelson, says the court “has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of [Fowler’s] claims.”

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved

Cro Magnon DNA Fully Modern-Scientists Claim Unchanged for 28,000 Years

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, Science, Sophistication of Ancestors, Unexplained Artifact | Posted by Chris Parker
Jul 17 2008

Photo: Cro-Magnon rousts the Evolutionists

If Neanderthal is supposed to have lived in Europe beginning 300,000 years ago and Cro-Magnon for the last 30,000 years or so and it turns out that that their; “Modern” DNA is unchanged since that time; when did we do all that evolving?

We’ve written about this before, but a new article summarized in PLoS One has caused us to return to this subject again. A Cro-Magnon DNA sequence supposedly 28,000 years old was obtained from fossil bones discoverd in the Paglicci cave, in Italy.

The results show that the DNA is identical to the DNA sequences of certain modern Europeans. They claim therefore that the DNA sequence has remained static and unchanged over 28,000 years.

Click Here to Read Article

Seriously Funny- Ben Stein Takes on the Debate-Phobic Darwinian Establishment in “Expelled”

Amusing?, Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, Religious, Science, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Apr 15 2008

by Marvin Olasky, World Magazine, April 5, 2008

“The shot heard round the world” that started the American Revolution came on April 19, 1775. On April 18 this year, a seriously funny documentary is scheduled to hit 1,000 theaters across America and fire a shot that will go unheard if debate-phobic Darwinists get their way.The 100-minute documentary, Expelled, is perfect for adults and children of middle-school age or above: It should be rated R not for sex or violence but for being reasonable, radical, risible, and right. (It is rated PG for thematic material, some disturbing images, and brief smoking.) The expelling of Intelligent Design (ID) proponents from universities is not a laughing matter, but star Ben Stein is amusing as he walks, in dark suit and bright running shoes, from interview to interview with scientists and philosophers on both sides of the evolution debate.

, is perfect for adults and children of middle-school age or above: It should be rated R not for sex or violence but for being reasonable, radical, risible, and right. (It is rated PG for thematic material, some disturbing images, and brief smoking.) The expelling of Intelligent Design (ID) proponents from universities is not a laughing matter, but star Ben Stein is amusing as he walks, in dark suit and bright running shoes, from interview to interview with scientists and philosophers on both sides of the evolution debate.Expelled rightly equates Darwinian stifling of free speech with the Communist attempt to enslave millions behind the Berlin Wall. One Expelled scene shows Stein, mathematician David Berlinski (a sophisticated Paris resident), and nuclear physicist Gerald Schroeder (wearing a yarmulke), all now ID advocates, discussing the importance of freedom as they visit a remnant of the Wall. All three are Jewish, and they don’t look or talk like the hicks portrayed in Inherit the Wind.

Stein, giving the Darwinists he interviews plenty of time to make their case, is particularly effective in his conversation with Richard Dawkins, atheistic author of the best-selling The God Delusion. Dawkins astoundingly admits that life on earth could be the result of ID, as long as the designer was a being from outer space who was himself the product of atheistic evolution. No God allowed!

Expelled’s showing of the connection between evolutionary doctrine and Nazi eugenics has already infuriated some in academia and the media: University of Minnesota professor P.Z. Myers blasted Expelled as “ludicrous in its dishonesty,” and Orlando Sentinel reviewer Roger Moore raged about “loaded images, loaded rhetoric.” But since a movie is not a dissertation, films show linkages by juxtaposing clips rather than pages of footnoted type. The real question is: Did Darwinism bulwark Hitlerian hatred by providing a scientific rationale for killing those considered less fit in the struggle for survival?

The answer to that question is an unambiguous yes. When I stalked the stacks of the Library of Congress in the early 1990s, I saw and scanned shelf upon shelf of racist and anti-Semitic journals from the first several decades of the last century, with articles frequently citing and applying Darwin. If you read an anti-Expelled review that dodges the issue of substance by concentrating merely on style, you’ll be seeing another sign of closed minds.

April 18 will bring an interesting test of whether Expelled, or any other documentary so conceived and so dedicated, can endure in movie theaters past the first weekend. Michael Moore’s fatuous documentaries have done good box office with the help of sympathetic reviewers and network news producers. Ben Stein’s excellent one might rely on evangelicals and others who are tired of being ridiculed by the closed minds of the Evolution Establishment.

How Stupid is the Consensus?
The Consensus;How Brilliant!
Has Global Warming Stopped?

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, Science, Uncategorized, Unexplained Artifact, s8int.com | Posted by Chris Parker
Dec 29 2007

They tell us that the scientific consensus supports global warming and that global warming is a fact, not a theory. But, what percent of scientists who make up this consensus are actually qualified to opine on the subject? Surely a biologist or a geologist is no more qualified to give an opinion on global weather trends than is say; Paris Hilton (fighting words, we know)? 

Note the following headline and quotation from the New York Times:

Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead; Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate Is Changing; a Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable
By WALTER SULLIVAN
The New York Times
May 21, 1975, Wednesday
Section: The Week In Review

“The world’s climate is changing. Of that scientists are firmly convinced. But in what direction and why are subjects of deepening debate.

There are specialists who say that a new ice age is on the wayâ€â€the inevitable consequence of a natural cyclic process, or as a result of man-made pollution of the atmosphere. And there are those who say that such pollution may actually head of an ice age.

Sooner or Later a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable. Hints that it may already have begun are evident.â€Â

 

 

This headline and quotation is an example of what scientific consensus was saying about the global climate about 35 years ago. How much smarter has the scientific consensus gotten in that 35 years? They’ve turned around the consensus 180 degrees within that time period!

And what of those scientists who bucked the trend in those days and spoke out against global cooling? Their apparent accuracy has not in retrospect caused them to be held out as scientific hero’s today, they were probably never heard from again.

The following current article suggests that Global Warming has stopped for a period of 6 to 7 years, a fact that current global warming theories cannot account for…..

 

Has Global Wrming Stopped?

David Whitehouse
Published 19 December 2007

 

‘The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 and every year since 2001’

Global warming stopped? Surely not.

What heresy is this? Haven’t we been told that the science of global warming is settled beyond doubt and that all that’s left to the so-called sceptics is the odd errant glacier that refuses to melt?

Aren’t we told that if we don’t act now rising temperatures will render most of the surface of the Earth uninhabitable within our lifetimes? But as we digest these apocalyptic comments, read the recent IPCC’s Synthesis report that says climate change could become irreversible. Witness the drama at Bali as news emerges that something is not quite right in the global warming camp.

With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months. But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

In principle the greenhouse effect is simple. Gases like carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth’s surface causing some heat to be retained.

Consequently an increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases from human activities such as burning fossil fuels leads to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Thus the world warms, the climate changes and we are in trouble.

The evidence for this hypothesis is the well established physics of the greenhouse effect itself and the correlation of increasing global carbon dioxide concentration with rising global temperature. Carbon dioxide is clearly increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a straight line upward. It is currently about 390 parts per million. Pre-industrial levels were about 285 ppm. Since 1960 when accurate annual measurements became more reliable it has increased steadily from about 315 ppm. If the greenhouse effect is working as we think then the Earth’s temperature will rise as the carbon dioxide levels increase.

But here it starts getting messy and, perhaps, a little inconvenient for some. Looking at the global temperatures as used by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office and the IPCC (and indeed Al Gore) it’s apparent that there has been a sharp rise since about 1980. The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued.

For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.

The explanation for the standstill has been attributed to aerosols in the atmosphere produced as a by-product of greenhouse gas emission and volcanic activity. They would have the effect of reflecting some of the incidental sunlight into space thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. Such an explanation was proposed to account for the global cooling observed between 1940 and 1978.

But things cannot be that simple. The fact that the global temperature has remained unchanged for a decade requires that the quantity of reflecting aerosols dumped put in our atmosphere must be increasing year on year at precisely the exact rate needed to offset the accumulating carbon dioxide that wants to drive the temperature higher. This precise balance seems highly unlikely. Other explanations have been proposed such as the ocean cooling effect of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

But they are also difficult to adjust so that they exactly compensate for the increasing upward temperature drag of rising CO2. So we are led to the conclusion that either the hypothesis of carbon dioxide induced global warming holds but its effects are being modified in what seems to be an improbable though not impossible way, or, and this really is heresy according to some, the working hypothesis does not stand the test of data.

It was a pity that the delegates at Bali didn’t discuss this or that the recent IPCC Synthesis report did not look in more detail at this recent warming standstill. Had it not occurred, or if the flatlining of temperature had occurred just five years earlier we would have no talk of global warming and perhaps, as happened in the 1970’s, we would fear a new Ice Age! Scientists and politicians talk of future projected temperature increases. But if the world has stopped warming what use these projections then?

Some media commentators say that the science of global warming is now beyond doubt and those who advocate alternative approaches or indeed modifications to the carbon dioxide greenhouse warming effect had lost the scientific argument. Not so.

Certainly the working hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is a good one that stands on good physical principles but let us not pretend our understanding extends too far or that the working hypothesis is a sufficient explanation for what is going on.

I have heard it said, by scientists, journalists and politicians, that the time for argument is over and that further scientific debate only causes delay in action. But the wish to know exactly what is going on is independent of politics and scientists must never bend their desire for knowledge to any political cause, however noble.

The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are fools if we think we have a sufficient understanding of such a complicated system as the Earth’s atmosphere’s interaction with sunlight to decide. We know far less than many think we do or would like you to think we do. We must explain why global warming has stopped.

David Whitehosue was BBC Science Correspondent 1988–1998, Science Editor BBC News Online 1998–2006 and the 2004 European Internet Journalist of the Year. He has a doctorate in astrophysics and is the author of The Sun: A Biography (John Wiley, 2005).] His website is www.davidwhitehouse.com