Regret for legalizing euthanasia expressed by former Dutch official

Els Borst, the former Dutch Health Minister (1994-2002) who was instrumental in making the Netherlands the first nation to legalize euthanasia, now regrets the haste with which she pushed through the legislation.  Euthanasia was legalized in 2001 to make it easy for the terminally ill to end their lives, if they chose to do so.  Ms. Borst, in an interview with author Dr. Anne-Mei The for The’s book Verlossers naast God (“Redeemer Under God”), said the government (herself included) was so much in a hurry to get the law passed because of political and societal pressure that they took no thought on how to give the severely sick the best treatments possible or to supply the dying with proper support for their comfort in life.  “Obviously, this was not in the proper order,” said Borst.

According to statistics kept by Dutch doctors, 2331 euthanasia cases, 400 assisted suicide cases, and 550 deaths without request took place in 2008.  For 15 years Dr. The has studied euthanasia and agrees that the lack of care for the sick as perceived by other nations about the Netherlands is a true perception.  She also claims to personally know plenty of doctors in the Netherlands who struggle morally and emotionally with euthanasia.

The executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Alex Schadenberg, stated in response to Borst, “It’s all good to say that, but what are they doing now to protect the vulnerable?”  Schadenberg says that nothing so far has been changed to have effective care for the severely ill.

The Netherlands’ laws are used as a model for policymakers and legislators in other nations who support euthanasia, so Borst’s comments should be seen as a wake up call.  Schadenberg pointed out that Canada is one of those nations looking to the Netherlands as an example and claims they are headed down the same road of not caring for the sick that is shown in the Netherlands.

As for politicians in the Netherlands, Schadenberg says they are involved in a systematic cover-up about these problems.  “How can you say there is no slippery slope in the Netherlands—knowing that you now allow euthanasia for newborns, and you went from originally just the terminally ill, [and] now it’s also for those who are mentally ill?  You have allowed your definitions to wander so wide that you haven’t even noticed it,”  said Schadenberg concerning Netherlands politicians.

So once again the Netherlands have failed in upholding their ultra-liberal policies that others have looked to as the utopian example.  Their marijuana policies have failed them in recent years and now their euthanasia policies are coming apart at the seams.  This is what happens when a society like the Netherlands embraces unfettered sinful behavior in lieu of the righteous boundaries proclaimed in God’s word which he established for our good.

Source: LifeSiteNews.com

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–

Growth shown for internet searches on religion

In a press release today at EurekAlert.org, there has been an increase since 1997 of searches done about religion.  Popular assumptions in the United States have held that the U.S. is becoming more divided and secular regarding religion, but the Penn State research done of over 5 million searches taken from three search engines show that web surfers have increased their searches on religious subjects in recent years.

Professors Jim Jansen and Andrea Tapia of Penn State, along with their colleague, Professor Amanda Spink of Queensland University of Technology in Australia, discovered from their research that there is no evidence that religious web surfers have become secularized.  Furthermore, interest in religion, as reflected in how searchers formulated their searches, tends to be mainstream.

According to Prof. Jansen, “Our results showed that people searching for these religious topics were just as tactically skilled as the general Web population.  This actually fits well with the historical use of technology by religious groups and organizations.”  So the study shows that those of us who are “religious” are not technologically challenged as assumed by our non-religious counterparts.

One downside that the study revealed is that search engines do not do well on delivering pertinent information that religious searchers are really looking for, but Jansen thinks search engines are not to blame for the discrepancies and implies that the way religious organizations design their websites is probably the main factor for the problems.

An alternate link about the study can be found at Penn State’s website.

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–

Jesus Christ’s teaching on capital punishment

Capital punishment has been a debated issue for many years in the U.S. and will probably remain a hot-button issue for many years to come. Even Christians tend to disagree as to whether it is right or wrong and for those Christians in favor of the death penalty, there is disagreement over what crimes should be punishable by death.

The first mention of the idea of putting someone to death for a crime in the Bible appears in Genesis 9 when God spoke to Noah and his sons after they disembarked from the ark–

And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. [Genesis 9:5-6]

So the first and only crime designated for the death penalty was the crime of murder.  That’s understandable since the most important thing all people (saved or unsaved) have in common is their very life and because we are all created in God’s image, God lets us know that the lives of humans is sacred.

Centuries later when Mosaic law was established in Israel, crimes punishable by death were expanded to include such things as domestic violence against parents (Exodus 21:15), kidnapping (Exodus 21:16), child sacrifice (Leviticus 20:2), bestiality (Leviticus 20:15-16), blaspheming God’s name (Leviticus 24:16), and rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), just to name a few.  Now that we live in a different era, some of the crimes and sins in the Old Testament that required capital punishment are not considered to be so serious  that we would consider them as punishable by death.  That is partly due to Jesus Christ coming to Earth to teach us about God’s grace and mercy and his teachings affecting the laws of mankind in many parts of the world.

Although God established capital punishment during the early years of the Earth’s existence, we are shown in the Bible many times that unjust rulers use the death penalty as a guise for getting rid of righteous or innocent people that they don’t like.  The death penalty was used by Jezebel against Naboth to steal his land, by Manasseh the king of Judah to destroy those who resisted his evil policies, by Herod Antipas to slay John the Baptist so he wouldn’t look foolish in front of his friends when he promised to give his stepdaughter Salome whatever she wanted, and by Pontius Pilate to crucify our Lord under pressure from Jewish leaders.

In spite of his foreknowledge that government leaders would use capital punishment to murder innocent people including himself, the Lord Jesus Christ never condemned the death penalty as a way of punishment and seems to promote it in his teachings.  There are at least two instances in the scripture where Christ talks about the death penalty.  The first instance is when Jesus spoke of harming children–

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! [Matthew 18:6-7]

Here we see clearly that Jesus states that anyone who offends (commits a criminal offense) against a child deserves to be put to death in a way where they will suffer–death by drowning.  Yes, Jesus, our sinless Lord said a person who criminally harms a child should have a millstone tied around their neck and thrown into the sea.  A millstone is a very heavy stone used to grind grain into flour.  So apparently Christ was not really concerned with the human rights of a criminal offender receiving what we might argue today as being cruel and unusual punishment.  He was more concerned about the cruel and unusual violation of the child victims’ rights at the hands of an offender.

The next instance in scripture of Christ discussing capital punishment is when an act of Pontius Pilate was brought to his attention–

There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?

I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. [Luke 13:1-3]

Pilate had executed a group of Galileans at a time when the Galileans were involved in a religious ritual of offering sacrifices.  The people who told him about the incident must have told him in a tone of condemnation toward the Galileans.  They obviously felt that the Galileans were so evil that they deserved the death penalty and their feelings were probably justified.  But notice Christ’s response.  It was a response to get them to take a good look at themselves.  He did not condemn the death penalty or state that the Galileans were treated wrongly.  Instead he essentially asked the people around him, “Do you think that you are better than these Galileans because they were punished for their evil?  No, you’re not better than them in God’s eyes because unless you repent of your sinfulness by believing in me you will perish in the same way they did.”  He told them that their end would be the same as the most vile, unrepentant criminal, which is an implied reference to them going to hell when they died, unless they repented of their sins.  We are justified to condemn criminal acts of offenders as being worthy of the death penalty if it applies, but we go too far if in our condemnation of those criminals, we assume that we are spiritually superior to them if we don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

The idea and principle of the death penalty was never condemned in the Bible, but its abuse was condemned, especially in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Because we are shown that men in power can use capital punishment to harm innocent people, we are taught in the Bible that it should never be taken lightly or used loosely, but this in no way invalidates the very idea of having it as a law.

Groups of U.S. kids rescued from sexual slavery

During the weekend of Oct. 23, 2009, 50 American children were rescued from sexual slavery thanks to the FBI in partnership with the Innocence Lost National Initiative.  The rescues occurred in 36 U.S. cities and netted the arrest of 60 pimps and 631 other adults.

With these arrests, child sexual exploitation and human trafficking are openly shown to be a big problem in the nation that is supposed to be the world leader in human rights.  According to Ernie Allen of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, “There are now 34 task forces around the country… going after this problem.  What we’re trying to do is wake up the country to what’s happening to our children and save lives.”

In May 2009, Shared Hope International released The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children.  In this study, it was discovered that there are seven areas of concern when it comes to minors being exploited through child sex slavery, child sex trafficking, child prostitution, commercial sexual exploitation of children, and the rape of children in the U.S.  These seven concerns are as follows:

1. Misidentification: The inability of law enforcement, the courts, government social agencies, and community organizations to identify minors properly hampers the authorities from correctly determining a child’s problem as sexual exploitation as opposed to the problems they have that are obvious like drugs, prostitution, or being runaways.
2. Criminalization of the victim through misidentification: Since the minors cannot be properly identified, they are often assumed to be juvenile delinquents or adult prostitutes by the authorities since their pimps supply them with false IDs and teach them to lie if they are ever questioned or arrested.
3. Criminalization as a response to no options for placement: Minors who are trafficked fail to get the social services and education they need because there is a lack of places to keep them safe, so the authorities see no other choice than charging them with a crime and locking them up to ensure their safety.  This, in turn, hinders them from receiving services for being crime victims in some communities since they have a record.
4. Inappropriate or inaccessible services for domestic minor sex trafficking trauma: Minors who are trafficked are traumatized not only by the adults who have sexually exploited them but also by the law enforcement system that threatens them with being locked up or denied services they need if they refuse to give details of the crime to the authorities.
5. Burden on the victim to build the case against their exploiter: Instead of developing other investigative techniques to build a case against traffickers, law enforcement relies heavily on the child victim to build their case.  This often proves to be too much of an emotional and psychological burden on the victimized child who may find it extremely difficult to open up to someone they don’t know about the terrible things they have experienced.
6. Lack of protective, therapeutic shelters for the trafficked victims:  There are only a handful of shelters throughout the U.S. that house such victims, so the vast majority of sexually exploited children have nowhere to flee to for help.
7. Insufficient priority on combating demand: Not enough is being done to stamp out the demand that drives the sexual exploitation of children.  Most of those who are caught trying to have sex with children are caught in stings that use decoys.  This means a vast majority of these criminals who use other methods of acquiring sex with children are not caught.

Let’s hope and pray these concerns will be addressed sufficiently in the future and that we as a nation will uphold the importance of human rights, especially for our children.  God forgive us for dropping the ball on this important issue.

Sources:

CitizenLink

Shared Hope International

Thanking Christ for his beatitude blessings

Lord, I thank you for all of us who have been called to serve you by the power of your Holy Spirit.  Thank you for your call to us to present our bodies and our lives as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to you.

Thank you for making us poor in spirit, so that we were able to recognize how far we have fallen short of the holiness you have commanded us to walk in.   We were truly lacking in spiritual riches when you made yourself known to us.  We are grateful that you opened our eyes to that fact and that now the kingdom of heaven is ours by your grace.

Thank you for your blessings to us that have come from our mourning spiritually over the hurt we have caused you with our sinful ways and mourning over the ultimate price that was paid for our sins in you, Lord Jesus.  We are also thankful for the discerning, sensitive spirit you have given us to mourn over the sinfulness of others around us.  Yet in the midst of our mourning, you have blessed us with your supernatural comfort in troubled times by way of your Comforter, the Holy Spirit.  We thank you for the comfort of knowing that you will never leave us nor forsake us and that you supply us with the comfort we can use to comfort others who are troubled.

Thank you for blessing us with the strength to be meek–a meekness that helps us recognize and admit our shortcomings, that helps us set aside what we want for what you have commanded, and that is willing to forgive others their wrongs.  And because you have given us grace to be meek, you blessed us with inheriting the earth, so we are grateful.

Thank you for giving us a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.  Our hunger and thirst leads us to long for more spiritual intimacy with you by studying and meditating on your word while living a prayerful life of obedience to you.  As we hunger and thirst for more of you, Lord, you have blessed us by satisfying our hunger when you continue to reveal yourself and your will to us, which fills us.

Thank you for the blessing of making us a merciful people.  You have shown us your mercy countless times and we pray your mercy will continue to abound in our hearts as it flows through us to our fellow man.

Thank you, Lord, for blessing us with a pure heart.  As we continue to press toward the mark for the prize of your high calling, we know that we have been made spiritually complete through our acceptance of you, Lord Jesus.  And in surrendering our lives to you as our Lord, you have cleansed us from all unrighteousness–washing us clean by your blood that was shed for our sakes.  It is our pure heart that you’ve given us that makes us want to carry out your will.  Lord it’s such a joy to know that because you have blessed us with a pure heart that you will bless us to one day see you in all your glory!

Thank you for blessing us with the ability to make peace.  In a world that is full of wars and rumors of wars at the personal level, national level and international level, there is an urgent need for us to spread the genuine peace that only comes by knowing you, the Prince of Peace.  As we share your gospel of peace in this dark world, we pray that multitudes will accept your peace which will bring down walls of resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness.  We are grateful to you for your peace and for the blessing that goes with it of being called the children of God.

Thank you God for your manifold blessings when we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.  When we share your gospel of peace, we know Satan and his spiritual children will come against us in every way possible to hinder the spread of your righteousness in the hearts of mankind.  When their persecutions arise we thank you for the blessing of your divine protection, your wisdom, and your strength.  We may be troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.  In the midst of persecution, you have blessed us with the kingdom of heaven.

Thank you for blessing us when people verbally or physically attack us without justification and tell all sorts of lies about us for being a Christian.  Help us to rejoice and to exceed in being glad when these things happen as we realize you have blessed us with great rewards in heaven and that we are blessed to be in the same company as your prophets who were persecuted by ungodly men way before we were born.

May these blessings in your beatitudes continue to increase in the lives of every one of your believers.

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–

Wrongful death suit filed against Joyce Meyer Ministries

A wrongful death suit has been filed  against Joyce Meyer Ministries on behalf of the family of slain mother Sheri Coleman and her two young sons who were also killed, claiming that the organization did not do enough to prevent their deaths which were allegedly done at the hands of Christopher Coleman, Sheri Coleman’s husband.  Death threats were made against Christopher Coleman and his family to JMM starting in 2008 when he was employed by JMM.  The lawsuit claims that if the ministry would have done a thorough investigation and followed their own electronic communication policy, they would have discovered, as law enforcement authorities did, that the email threats originated from Christopher Coleman’s workplace computer.

According to papers filed in court, JMM has an electronic communication policy clearly stating that distributing inappropriate messages is prohibited and that the organization will exercise the right to monitor the electronic communications of all of its employees.  Attorneys for Sheri Coleman’s family claim that if JMM had all the tools at its disposal to uncover Christopher Coleman’s plot and could have alerted the authorities to prevent the death of Sheri Coleman and her sons.  The attorneys also claim that JMM knew about Christopher Coleman’s affair, which is believed to be his motive for allegedly killing his family.

Attorneys for JMM deny the allegations, stating that Coleman’s extramarital affair was unknown to them.  They further state that when they received the death threats, they reported them to local authorities in Missouri and have cooperated fully with the authorities’ investigation into the crimes.  Additionally, JMM’s attorneys say it is not reasonable to assume that an employer should be held responsible for crimes that an employee commits while away from work.

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–

Source: Charismamag.com

Television viewers love the Gospel Music Channel

ChristianNewsWire.com is reporting that a recent survey of television viewers shows that the Gospel Music Channel (GMC) is considered #1 in its value.  The Digital Cable Subscriber Study was conducted in July 2009 by BETA Research and the results were just released today.  The survey is done every year to get feedback from cable subscribers on their feelings about a wide spectrum of channels offered to them.  This year’s survey covered 43 cable networks.

GMC was tied in its rank of perceived value with the NFL Network, and ranked #1 among African Americans, women, men, and 18-49 yr-olds.  The channel greatly improved its ranking from 2008 when GMC ranked #6.  The founder and president of GMC, Charles Humbard, states that “This is a resounding third-party endorsement of the high value that we deliver to our affiliates and viewers alike.  We’ve grown so rapidly and these results show that viewers are discovering GMC — and loving it.”

The survey proves that a majority of viewers desire quality, family-oriented television.

For the criteria used in the survey and other findings, read the summary at ChristianNewsWire.com

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–

When I was a club-hoppin’ prodigal

In my younger years, I grew up in a Christian home and was rather sheltered from a lot of things that were going on in the secular world outside of school and church.  So when I graduated high school and moved to another state to attend college in a bigger city than where I grew up, I witnessed with my own eyes people taking part in sins that I had only heard about.  Some of the sins had no appeal to me, such as drugs and drunkenness.  But there was one thing that I embraced–dance parties and clubs.

Being in a metropolis, I was exposed to a lot of secular music I had never heard before and much of it was music that encouraged me to get into dancing like rap, hip-hop, and dance music.  As I saw the people in college going out to party on Fridays and Saturdays dressed in their nice party clothes and the pretty young ladies looking good and smelling nice, I felt as if I was missing out on something exciting.  The party people looked like they were having the time of their lives, so eventually I decided to join them to see what I was missing.  I went to as many frat parties, clubs, and dance parties my tight college budget could afford.  Once I got into the party scene, I felt so excited to be out on the dance floor dancing with pretty girls all night long from 10 pm to 3 am.

Although I never got into the drinking or getting drunk, my relationship with Christ became the least of my concerns.  I was more concerned about having fun and being part of what the “in” crowd was doing and being accepted by my party friends.  And in the midst of it, I let go of my regular Bible study, meditation, and prayer and stopped attending church.  But I didn’t care at that point since I was having so much fun–or so I thought.

After a couple of years of the club-hopping and dance parties on the weekends, I took a good look at myself and those around me doing the same things I was.  I noticed something about myself.  All the club-hopping and partying did not satisfy me deep down inside.  And the people who were right there with me partying had a lot of personal problems and were dissatisfied with their lives.  Their family problems and other problems in their personal lives turned out to be why they turned to their partying, drunkenness, drugs, and sex outside of marriage.  But after I realized I didn’t have the family problems or personal problems they were facing and the partying didn’t really do anything for me, I came to the realization that I was better off when I was living my life for the Lord.

I took a good look at my life before the club-hopping and after I started the club-hopping and had to be honest with myself.  God had really blessed my life when I was living for him and my life of partying didn’t provide anything close to the good things God had given to me, like peace of mind.  I had run away from the Lord chasing after what the world had to offer and what they offered me was absolutely nothing.  At first the partying felt like it was the place to be, but in the end there was nothing but emptiness.  The lust of the world had sold me a false bill of goods and I had bought into it hook, line, and sinker!  What a fool I was to have fallen for it!  The Lord was calling me back to him after all the stuff I had done to hurt him.  “My God! What have I done?” was one of the things I had to ask myself as I looked back and saw all of the worldliness I had participated in.  It brought me to tears and I ran back to my Father crying out for his forgiveness one night, realizing how far I had strayed from where God had called me to be.

After crying in private for several hours in remorse and repentance, I felt free and set my heart and mind back to the things that pleased God.  I was so grateful that God was so patient, longsuffering, merciful, and gracious toward me!  Even during my time of being backslidden and chasing after ungodly lusts, he was preserving my life and looking out for me in all my ungratefulness and unfaithfulness.

But as I was once again drawing closer and closer to the Father, it wasn’t easy and Satan attempted to throw situations my way to try to discourage me from strengthening my relationship with my Heavenly Father.  My beliefs were being attacked by liberal professors and a cultish church tried to woo me into their membership by twisting God’s word.  It was during these times that I was grateful that I was rooted in God’s word at a young age.  My knowledge wasn’t where it should have been, but I knew enough about God’s word to discern the lies.  The spiritual attacks I faced at this time helped me see how important it was to know God and his word and I started studying God’s word and praying with such fervence that I never had before.  I was clinging to his word for dear life and had determined that I couldn’t allow anyone to ever teach me things that were covertly or overtly against God or his word.

I still have a long way to go in Christ and have struggles like anyone else against my flesh, but I thank God for his lovingkindness and tender mercies that he has shown to me–his son who was once a club-hopping prodigal.

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–

Arduous “Ardi” hailed as new human evolution link

If you’ve been paying attention to science news this week, you’ve seen the latest link in the human evolution chain being promoted by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.  The fossil which was discovered in Ethiopia in the early 1990s was named Ardipithicus ramidus, or Ardi for short.  Scientists at UC Berkeley claim the hominid is older than Lucy who years ago was thought to be the oldest.  They claim Ardi is 4.4 million years old.

The fossil is made up of 125 pieces and according to Tim White, who co-leads the team of scientists, “To understand the biology, the parts you really want are the skull and teeth, the pelvis, the limbs and the hands and the feet. And we have all of them,” (see Time magazine).  And Time also reports that Ardi has good bones, even though it took 15 years to reconstruct the skeleton.  Furthermore, all that has been shown in the news reports of the skeleton are a few small bone fragments and an artists’ rendition of what the scientists think the hominid must have looked like.

But other scientific publications seem to contradict the reports that Ardi has good bones.  In fact, it has been reported that the reconstruction took so long because the bones were brittle and extremely fragile.  Casey Luskin of Evolution News & Views highlights some of the articles on Ardi.  Time magazine states the following as quoted by Luskin:

One problem is that some portions of Ardi’s skeleton were found crushed nearly to smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction. “Tim [White] showed me pictures of the pelvis in the ground, and it looked like an Irish stew,” says Walker. Indeed, looking at the evidence, different paleoanthropologists may have different interpretations of how Ardi moved or what she reveals about the last common ancestor of humans and chimps.

Michael D. Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “Excavating Ardi: A New Piece for the Puzzle of Human Evolution,” Time Magazine (October 1, 2009).

Luskin points out that the pelvis is one of the main parts that has to be in good shape to determine if a creature is bipedal.  Yet the pelvis in this instance is in poor shape if it was crushed so bad it looked like a stew.  Here’s another quote pointed out by Luskin in an article published several years ago:

The next field season, team member Yohannes Haile-Selassie found the first of more than 100 fragments that make up about half of a single skeleton of this species, including a pelvis, leg, ankle and foot bones, wrist and hand bones, a lower jaw with teeth—and a skull. But in the past 8 years no details have been published on this skeleton. Why the delay? In part because the bones are so soft and crushed that preparing them requires a Herculean effort, says White. The skull is “squished,” he says, “and the bone is so chalky that when I clean an edge it erodes, so I have to mold every one of the broken pieces to reconstruct it.” The team hopes to publish in a year or so, and White claims that the skeleton is worth the wait, calling it a “phenomenal individual” that will be the “Rosetta stone for understanding bipedalism.” [emphases mine]

Ann Gibbons, “In Search of the First Hominids,” Science, 295:1214-1219 (February 15, 2002)

But didn’t this same White tell Time that the bones were good?  How can bones be soft, crushed, squished, and chalky one minute and then, voila, the next minute they’re called good? Methinks it sounds rather hokey.  Then Luskin points out that this same Ann Gibbons in her latest article for Science magazine observes the following:

But the team’s excitement was tempered by the skeleton’s terrible condition. The bones literally crumbled when touched. White called it road kill. And parts of the skeleton had been trampled and scattered into more than 100 fragments; the skull was crushed to 4 centimeters in height.

Ann Gibbons, “A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled,” Science, Vol. 326:36-40 (Oct. 2, 2009)

If the skeleton had been trampled and crushed by wildlife to the point of being seriously fragmented and emaciated, and reconstruction of skeletons depends on precise measurements, as pointed out by Luskin, how is it even possible for these scientists to get an accurate view of  what Ardi should look like?  Ardi’s reconstruction was truly arduous based on these accounts and based on the statements published about the skeleton, the scientists cannot possibly come up with an accurate description or depiction of what this Ardi actually looked like.  I have a feeling that these scientists are desperate for their 15 minutes of fame and want to promote their October 11th documentary on the Discovery channel and want so badly for the theory of evolution to be true that they will do anything, even fudge evidence with artists’ imagined renderings, to make everyone think they’re on the right track.  I, for one, refuse to be hoodwinked by this sleight of hand they’ve conjured up for the masses.

…keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:  [1 Timothy 6:20]

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–

Is prayer changing things in Afghanistan?

Prayercentral.net has reported that since they started organizing prayers for Afghanistan in late August, there has been a sharp decline in both troop and civilian casualties.  Their prayer campaign, called the Afghan Prayer Patrol, encourages anyone who is willing to leave a prayer at their website or pray the prayers in agreement with other prayers left at their website.  The website, which is a fellow WordPress site, has charts showing that at the moment the Afghan Prayer Patrol started, casualties which were trending upward sharply from April to August 2009 began trending sharply downward.  Click here to see the charts for yourself.

The Afghan Prayer Patrol was started by Wayne Dillard, who stated to ChristianNewsWire.com, “Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe there really is a God who answers the prayers of His people — I’m putting my faith in God.”

I believe God answers the fervent prayers of his people.  I must, however, state that during the same period that there was a sharp decline in casualties, this was also the period where troops had intensified their attacks against the Taliban in the run-up to the Afghanistan elections and that could be a factor in the decline.  Nevertheless, I strongly believe prayer can only make matters better and I choose to believe that in this case, the prayers of the righteous have made a huge difference.  So I will stand with them in prayer and my hope, more than anything, is that the gospel will thrive there.

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–