Unreasonable Science

A recent edition of National Geographic features topics where "science" may not be right.  Eg:

• Climate change may not really be happening, and if it is, it is not in the way that scientists think;
• Evolution never happened, it is a theory that has not been proven beyond all doubt;
• The moon landing was faked, it was a conspiracy;
• Vaccinations can lead to autism; and
• Genetically modified food is not really good for you.

The front cover of this magazine looks attractive, though sadly, as someone said, the people who need to know these things won't read this magazine.  They will just believe what they will want to believe or what the news media tells them.  They do not have the habitual inquiring mind to subscribe to magazines like National Geographic.

Do you think these comments are true?  People only understand science for what popular media tells them, rather than to examine the actual facts?

Is there a conspiracy behind what media informs?  A viewpoint twisted to influence the masses to think in a certain way, even when the viewpoint is an unproven theory?  And a contested one at that?

I understand that the masses came to believe that being "gay" is genetic and unavoidable, even though scientifically, it is yet to be proven that a gay gene exists.

And the evolution theory is taught at schools, even though the indesputable "missing link" between the different kinds of species has never been found.

Personally, I believe in the "scientific" method.  However, conclusions need to be checked against this method.  Inconclusive data should not be publicised as facts.  It would be deceiving the public if we were to do this.

Unfortunately, the need for grants and the attraction of the public to information and controversies lead us to believe some things, even though "science" does not actually validate those beliefs.

What do you believe?

Is Jesus real?

What do you reckon?

Michael Paulkovich reckons He isn't.  His study led him to the conclusion that

“When I consider those 126 writers, all of whom should have heard of Jesus but did not – and Paul and Marcion and Athenagoras and Matthew with a tetralogy of opposing Christs, the silence from Qumram and Nazareth and Bethlehem, conflicting Bible stories, and so many other mysteries and omissions – I must conclude that Christ is a mythical character.

However, J Warner Wallace reckons that "the Christian faith is an evidential faith".  He said that the Scriptures call us to use our minds, examine the evidences, examine what we believe, and be convinced with the truth.

Indeed, Paul wrote that

if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead.

Have you studied the evidences?  What do you believe about the Bible?  What do you believe about Jesus?  Why?

Real faith

Hement Mehta told us Rachael's story.

Rachael is the daughter of an apologist.  She was taught the Bible while she was young.  She knew the words to say to defend the Bible.  Her father was proud to show off what she knew.

Then one day, she asked herself a question she could not answer.  From that point on, she turned her back on the faith that her father had taught her.

Did she do the right thing?  What do you think?

Is she right to turn her back on what her father had taught her?  Should she stay believing in that if it had been wrong?

What if her father had taught her something else, and she left that for the God of the Bible?

What makes it right?  What makes it wrong?  Does Rachael have enough power to discern?  Does anybody?

Is truth relative to a person's perception?  Or is there only one truth, and that is God's; we only need to agree on what that truth is?

What do you believe?

Learning to live

What do you think it means to live?  What is life all about?  How are we to live our lives?

I am sure many, if not all of us, asks these questions as we live our lives.  Sometimes, we take for granted that we have life and the way we do what we do are the way we are supposed to.  But is that right?  What if our culture and what we have learnt is mistaken in what they have taught us?

Max said something that means got me thinking.  I don't remember his exact words, but what he said meant this: Deceiving hearts eventually harden.  Bad habits develop.  These things happen gradually, and we think it is okay.  But really, they are not.


Romans 1:18-2:16 says the same thing more strongly.  It says that people have substituted truth with unrighteousness; Godliness with other things that we think to be reasonable even if not exactly right.  We exchange the truth of God for a lie.  Then, as we ignore God, we live out greater and greater depravities until eventually, we heap serious judgement on ourselves.

We have become vile and inexcusable, and God will be our judge.

Ephesians 4:17-5:7 says that we need to live in the truth.  We need to live out the things we have learnt from Jesus.  We need to speak truthfully gracefully, be kind to our neighbours, live without sexual immorality, impurity or greed.

Are these the things you think of when you think about living?  Or do you think about acquiring wealth and prestige, empires and abundances for yourself when you read the opening paragraph?

How are you living your life?  How should you live it?  What do you need to do to make it right, if you don't already have it right?  What do you believe?

Sex education

How do our children and young people learn about sex if not from us?  What are we teaching them?

I am remembering a time when we used to talk about AIDS and other STDs.  It was at a time when the rate of infections were lower.  Why have we stopped?  Is it because there is now a cure in some cases?  I heard a case on ABC radio where somebody is living longer than what the doctors told her to expect.

But there are still the morality issues.  Fiona Philips said that "our children are being failed by a lack of proper, structured information about loving partnerships and how to negotiate them because a squeamish, ignorant few would rather their children found out the hard way.".  They learn from porn, etc. because their parents and school teachers forget or are too squeamish to tell them the real story.  Would you agree?

Does church have a role to play also?

Another article that caught my eye is a father's letter to Victoria Secrets.  The letter basically said that advertising, etc. has made the work of the parents a lot harder, in upholding morality when manufacturers and sales encourage our young people to "flaunt it".  What do you think of that?

Because we who should know better are not educatiing your younger ones the way we should, Rebekah Maxwell reckons that our youth are more likely to get STDs than to get a job.  Do you think she is exaggerating?

What is the truth about this matter?  How should young people behave sexually?  Who has the power and right to teach them?  What do you think?