News from a Fundamentalist Christian Perspective

FRIDAY CHURCH NEWS NOTES
September 11, 2009, Volume 10, Issue 37

The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.

DAWKINS SAYS NO REPUTABLE SCIENTIST DISPUTES EVOLUTION (Friday Church News Notes, September 11, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – Richard Dawkins, the loud-mouthed anti-creationist, says in his recent book The Greatest Show in Earth, “Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. … No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.” Thus, according to Dawkins, if you reject evolution, you are unintelligent and your sanity should be questioned, and no reputable scientist disputes it. In our report “Scientists Who Believe the Bible,” we listed about 40 Ph.D.s who believe in biblical creation. Consider A.E. Wilder-Smith (d. 1995), who had a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from Reading University, England, a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Geneva, and a Ph.D. in pharmacological sciences from ETH, a premier science and technology university in Zurich. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Dr. Wilder-Smith was an expert on chemotherapy, pharmacology, organic chemistry, and biochemistry. Consider biophysicist Raymond Damadian, M.D., recipient of the Lemelson-MIT Achievement Award as “the man who invented the MRI scanner.” In 1989, he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame, an honor he shares with Thomas Edison, Samuel Morse, and the Wright Brothers. The first MRI scanner that Dr. Damadian and his colleagues built in 1977 resides at the Smithsonian Institution. Damadian, a Bible-believing Christian who attends a Baptist church, has stated that “the highest purpose a man can find for his life is to serve the will of God.” Consider Richard Lumsden (1938-97), Ph.D., professor of parisitology and cell biology, who as dean of the graduate school at Tulane University, trained 30 Ph.D.s., published hundreds of scholarly papers, and was the winner of the highest award for parasitology. Consider Dr. Maciej Giertych, head of the Department of Genetics at the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, who has published 90 papers in scientific journals, or Dr. Brian Stone, who has won a record number of awards for excellence in engineering teaching at Australian universities, or Duane Gish, who has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and worked for many years in pharmaceutical research at Cornell University, the University of California, and the Upjohn Company, or Dr. W. R. Thompson, world-famous biologist and former Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control of Canada, or Melvin A. Cook, Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale, winner of the Nitro Nobel Gold Medal for the invention of slurry explosives, or Dr. Walter Lammerts, geneticist and famous plant breeder, or the late Dr. J.J. Duyvene De Wit, Professor of Zoology at the University of the Orange Free State, South Africa, or James Allan, who has a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Edinburgh and was a senior lecturer in genetics at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. There are hundreds of others, but Dawkins said there is NO reputable scientist who disputes evolution, so we have already more than demonstrated his gross error, his breath-taking arrogance, his astounding ignorance, and the fact that Dawkins himself is not a reputable scientist. Of course, even if NO reputable scientist disputed evolution, this does not mean it is correct. The Bible says, “let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4), and Jesus said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matthew 11:25).

MICHAEL JACKSON GLOVE SELLS FOR $48,000 (Friday Church News Notes, September 11, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – One of Michael Jackson’s  bejeweled white gloves sold for more than $48,000 at an auction in Australia (“Michael Jackson’s Glove Auctioned,” Yahoo Music, Sept. 6, 2009). The glove was tossed to a fan more than a decade ago. This reminds us of how spiritually empty and lacking in wisdom the world is. Sitting on the brink of eternity, about to fall off into eternal hell, unsaved men play with toys that have no more value than and are as fleeting as a child’s bubbles. May God’s people not follow this foolish example and give their hearts to the vanities of this world. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34).

SWEDEN OUTLAWS HOMESCHOOLING (Friday Church News Notes, September 11, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – The following is excerpted from OneNewsNow, Aug. 19, 2009: “Mike Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, says that Sweden will ban all home schooling except for children with medical exemptions and foreign workers with the appropriate work visas. ‘People who have religious convictions or are home schooling for religious reasons will not be given one of these very rare exemptions,’ he points out. ‘They’re following the German statute, following the German model.’ In Germany, parents face stiff penalties if they are caught illegally home schooling their children. The Romeike family recently left Germany and is seeking asylum in the U.S. after facing stiff fines and the potential loss of custody rights for home schooling their children.”

CANADA INTERNET HATE SPEECH LAW RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL (Friday Church News Notes, September 11, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – The following is excerpted from the National Post, Sept. 2, 2009: “The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on Wednesday ruled that Section 13, Canada’s much maligned human rights hate speech law, violates the Charter right to free expression because it carries the threat of punitive fines. The shocking decision by Tribunal member Athanasios Hadjis leaves several hate speech cases in limbo, and appears to strip the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its controversial legal mandate to pursue hate on the Internet, which it has strenuously defended against complaints of censorship. It also marks the first major failure of Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, an anti-hate law that was conceived in the 1960s to target racist telephone hotlines, then expanded in 2001 to the include the entire Internet. … All sides seem to agree, however, that the stage is set for pitched battle in federal court, where CHRT rulings can be appealed. Another less likely outcome is for Parliament itself to repeal or amend Section 13, a law that even supporters say needs updating in the age of the Internet.” CONCLUDING NOTE FROM BROTHER CLOUD: It is uncertain what effect this will have for Christians that are being harassed by homosexuals and others who are using Canada’s hate crimes laws against them.

BRITISH HEALTH CARE SYSTEM SENTENCING PATIENTS TO DIE (Friday Church News Notes, September 11, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – The following is excerpted from “Sentenced to Death on the NHS,” The Daily Telegraph, Sept. 2009: “In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death. Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away. As a result the scheme is causing a ‘national crisis’ in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others. ‘Forecasting death is an inexact science,’ they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death ‘without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong. As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients.’ The warning comes just a week after a report by the Patients Association estimated that up to one million patients had received poor or cruel care on the NHS. … Under the guidelines the decision to diagnose that a patient is close to death is made by the entire medical team treating them, including a senior doctor. They look for signs that a patient is approaching their final hours, which can include if patients have lost consciousness or whether they are having difficulty swallowing medication. However, doctors warn that these signs can point to other medical problems. … When a decision has been made to place a patient on the pathway doctors are then recommended to consider removing medication or invasive procedures, such as intravenous drips, which are no longer of benefit. … Dr. Hargreaves added that some patients were being ‘wrongly’ put on the pathway, which created a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ that they would die. … He said that he had personally taken patients off the pathway who went on to live for ‘significant’ amounts of time and warned that many doctors were not checking the progress of patients enough to notice improvement in their condition.”

THE LUCY HOAX (Friday Church News Notes, September 11, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – One of the alleged missing links in the ancestry between man and ape is Australopithecus, and the most famous set of bones from this creature is that of Lucy. The partial skeleton, which was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia, has been widely hailed as an important link in man’s evolution. Though evolutionists admit that the creature had an ape’s head and brain and ape-like arms and hands and no speech capacity, it is alleged that it walked uprightly, which was “the first step toward becoming human.” A meeting of anthropologists gathered last month at the Institute of Human Origins in New York to consider Lucy, and a report in the New York Times made the following interesting conclusion: “The debate over whether the primate Lucy actually stood up on two feet three million years ago and walked–thus becoming one of mankind’s most important ancestors–has evolved into two interpretive viewpoints, three family trees, spats over four scientific techniques and too many personality clashes to count. … The long and short of it is, according to a participant, that bipedality lies in the eye of the beholder” (“Did Lucy Actually Stand on Her Own Two Feet?” New York Times, Aug. 29, 2009). Thus, even evolutionary scientists can’t agree together that Lucy walked uprightly. As for Lucy’s feet, Dr. Randall Susman and Dr. Jack Stern of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, described them as “showing a retention of grasping tendencies with long and curved digits” (“Did Lucy Actually Stand on Her Own Two Feet?” New York Times, Aug. 29, 2009). That sounds like ape’s feet to me. Dr. Stern concluded that everything about Lucy, from her fingertips to her toes, suggests that “our ancestors, after they diverged from apes, inhabited the trees three to four million years ago.” The clear evidence that Lucy had ape-like hands and feet prove the existence of a hoax that is being perpetrated by evolutionists. Artistic renderings typically depict Lucy with human hands walking uprightly on human feet. This is true for the models at the New York Museum of Natural History, the American Museum of Natural Sciences, the Museum of Man in San Diego, the National Museum of Anthology in Mexico City, the St. Louis Zoo, the University of New Mexico, and Michigan State University. You can also find drawings of Lucy in science textbooks that depict her with human hands and feet. An example is Life: The Science of Biology by Purves, Orians, and Heller, 1992, p. 604. These models and drawings are not scientific; they are brainwashing tools. This is not education; it is propaganda.

WHERE DID CAIN GET HIS WIFE? (Friday Church News Notes, September 11, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – Where Did Cain get his wife? The answer is in Genesis 5:4. “And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters.” Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters that are not named in Genesis, and Cain obviously married one of his sisters. This was not wrong in the early days of the human race, because the gene pool was not weakened as it is today. Dr. Duane Gish states: “Since Adam and Eve were genetically perfect when created, and harmful, crippling mutations had not yet had time to form, at least to a significant extent when such intermarriage was necessary, no harmful biological results would occur from such intermarriage. Today almost 3000 crippling conditions, such as juvenile diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and phenylketonuria, are caused by harmful mutant genes. Chances of inheriting such a mutant gene from both father and mother (which is usually necessary for expression of the defect) is increased by intermarriage with cousins or closer relatives. Thus came prohibition against such intermarriage” (Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No, p. 323).

CONCLUSION: The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this obviously does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be discouraged. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:11-14). This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list. To SUBSCRIBE, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/subscribe.html.  TO UNSUBSCRIBE OR CHANGE ADDRESSES, go to the very bottom of any email received from us and click “Manage My Subscription.” Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org.