Posts

Science as a Manipulative Technique

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen First, a side note before I commence do be writing the actual article. It was eleven years ago today that I started this, my first weblog. Then, as now, it is a sort of general purpose thing. But back then, it had a great deal of political material and things that were dreadful (many of which have been removed). Although I still do some political things, I also post material on theology, refuting atheism, and some odds and ends. My main weblogs are Evolutionary Truth by Piltdown Superman and Biblical Creation and Evangelism . Also, I've been filling in for the owner of Radaractive . Those three are the weblogs that are updated the most often. Quite a contrast from when this one started. Credit: CSIRO / David McClenaghan ( CC BY 3.0 ) As I have written in several places, some folks (especially atheists) believe that "science" is something special, even deserving of special consideration and privileges . They make science into an infallible

Bad Marx for Communist Adoration

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen On May the Fifth, the 200th anniversary of the birth of atheist Sith Karl Marx was celebrated. Communism, its ugly kid sister Socialism, and other leftist systems are responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Many freedoms, especially speech and religion, are devastated under such rulers. China paid for a statue of Marx to be set up in Germany, the place of his birth. Everywhere these systems have been established, they have failed. Amazingly, people like failed US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders lauded Venezuela and other South American countries . China has a pretense of communism and forces atheism, but its economic system is a strange hybrid with capitalism. Most of us know that the communist Soviet Union (a "workers' paradise") collapsed, and North Korea is another communist police state that was propped up by the USSR. Even though most of communism collapsed and the ideology fell into some disrepute, it remained popular i

Zuckerberg, Hate Speech, and Congress

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Mr. Markie Goes to Congress As you probably know, Facebook is having some difficulties. Because of the data scandals, their stock is plummeting , and people are quitting it — including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak . Do some searching for "reasons to quit Facebook", and you'll see that warnings are not only sounding now, but have been for years. He offered his standard apology, but people are not expecting much. It didn't mean much before, after all. via GIPHY Mark Zuckerberg had himself a little discussion with the US House and Senate. It's not just about selling information, but about discrimination, censorship , and hate speech. Fazebook has a reputation for allowing terrorist speech ( here is one report ), then they get on the prod and slap down non-leftists ( here is an example , his campaign was "shocking and offensive"). Two black women (I know they're two black women, they keep telling us this) who go by

Dealing with Persecution

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Although some sidewinders try to deny it, persecution of Christians is increasing in Western nations . Some professing Christians think that they are promised a life of giddy happiness, but we should expect persecution (1 Peter 4:12-14, Matt. 5:10-12, Matt. 24:9, John 15:20, 2 Tim. 3:12) , and we've had to deal with it since the beginning. Credit: Pixabay / Gerd Altmann Some of the persecution is nonviolent, having to do with having our rights to freedom of religion and free speech eroded. We also have to deal with bullying, defamation, misrepresentation, criminal cyberstalking, and so on. Reports of direct, personal violence against Christians, such as this one , are more frequent. Do you know the origin of the word persecution ? We got it from the French, who in turn got it from the Latin. It means to follow with hostility. Some make a point of following us on the Web, then lying about us on forums, weblogs, harassment on our own social media ac

No Reason to Doubt the Resurrection of Jesus

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The bodily Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the lynchpin of Christianity, because without it, our faith is in vain (1 Cor. 15:14, 19). The Creator of the universe (John 1:1, Col. 1:16) took on human form (he pitched his tent among us, John 1:14) and died on a cross for our sins (Phil. 2:6-11). Jesus defeated death by rising from the grave (Hebrews 2:14, Romans 1:4). Indeed, the entire Bible lays out God's plan of redemption of mankind from sin. Credit: Pixabay / acperez1 Some folks do not want to accept the historical narrative of the Bible. This is clearly from bias, not logic. Compare the Bible with legends and the sacred books of other religions, and there is a marked contrast: details. Other accounts are vague while the Bible gives specifics, many of which have been corroborated through archaeology and history. Mockers have attempted to come up with ways of dismissing the Resurrection, but those fail under scrutiny. The New Testament documents are abundant, the o

Roku Is My New Friend

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Like many other people in these here United States, we became tired of the ever-increasing prices for cable TV, and decided to join the "cord cutters" revolution. This is the streaming video thing happening. We did not even know it was such a big deal! Cable Itself Became Expensive Sure, cable television is very useful, especially for specialized channels or for people who live in areas that do not have over-the-air broadcast variety of availability. The biggest complaint is that prices keep going up. Another complaint is that you can get hundreds of channels but nothing to watch, or the same movies on several channels. (Satellite TV is not an option for us, and that has its own set of problems.) We started with the company of many names, one of which was Time-Warner Cable. We got the package of three services that had phone, high-speed internet and television. Prices kept going up, and when Charter Communications bought Time-Warner Cable, it b

Science Does Not Correct Itself

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen There is a connotation of science  where scientists gather information, make a hypothesis, test it, revise as necessary, it becomes a theory, and eventually a law. Somewhere along the line the thing gets put out to pasture if the facts are recalcitrant. Such a view is not only naïve, but ignores human nature. Scientists are human, after all.  Scoffing at new material One expression I have encountered when discussing the origins controversy is that "science corrects itself". Aside from the reification fallacy ( science  is not a living thing, but scientists may correct themselves), this has been shown to be false — often in areas of technology. Great inventors were laughed at, such as Robert Fulton and the Wright brothers. It was said that if people move too fast (aside from dangerous acceleration, change of direct, and deceleration), they would have physical problems or even die. Scoffers were silenced by results. Some people attribute this ridi