History of the Internet

I found a great video explaining how we got to the Internet we see today. It traces it's development over the past 50 years! If you wanna know how we got the current level of information technology, this is the video to watch! Really, Really well done and matches what I have already learned.

Apologetics 315: Bart Ehrman vs. James White Debate MP3 Audio

I wanted to make it a point to comment on the debate James White did recently against Bart Ehrman. I have bought the debate and listened to the debate myself and i gained a great deal from it. I would suggest that anyone who wants to interact with the question of whether or not the Bible we hold in our hands is an accurate copy of the texts that were inspired by God. The debate question was: "Did the Bible Misquote Jesus" taken from the title of Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus. I think that Ehrman was condescending and unprepared. I agree with James White's analysis that Erhman did not adequately prepare for the Debate but I don't think he adequately met any of the White's challenges. Ehrman's main point is that there are so many variations in copies of the New Testament that there is no way to get back to what the original authors really wrote. He then concludes that God had not preserved the New Testament. People, like atheists and Muslims, further take that and conclude that the New Testament is full of errors and not inspired by God. During the debate, Ehrman, tried to distance himself from the conclusion drawn from his work saying that the was not responsible and that his conclusion that the texts are not inspired was based on his own opinion and not by his research. Thankfully, White called him on that.

In my opinion, James White did a great job explaining that Ehrman's conclusions are wrong. We do know what the original texts say although we don't have the original copies.

Apologetics 315: Bart Ehrman vs. James White Debate MP3 Audio

Apologetics 315: History of the English Bible - Daniel Wallace MP3 Audio

The blogger at Apologetics 315 has done it again! These are important for anyone who want to know how we got today's English translations of Holy Scripture.

Apologetics 315: History of the English Bible - Daniel Wallace MP3 Audio

Nancy Pelosi Very Mistaken

While I realize that the following video was posted on YouTube by a conservative (using a picture of Ronald Regan for your profile is a dead give away), I've got to admit that Pelosi really stepped in it. Watch:



There are not 500 million people living in the United States. She is obviously Mistaken.

Ten New Amphibians Discovered

There are ten new species of amphibians discovered in the mountains of Columbia - including three kinds of poisonous frogs and three transparent-skinned glass frogs. That is amazing. It's dangerous to assume we have found every single living species on the earth. We keep finding new ones. The variety of life on our world is mind boggling. I'd like to know how would transparent skin helps a frog survive out there. I'd like to know how would people who believe in evolution would explain their transparent skin. Science is unable to answer these questions because we just found the animals. I'm amazed. I believe that God created those frogs and salamanders, gave them their abilities and habits, and placed them where they live. He did the same for every living thing on earth. I'm sure that there is a good reason for transparent skin for those frogs other than feeling us with awe and wonder, but it does that too!

Embedded video from CNN Video

A new Planet!

An exciting discovery has been made: a non-gaseous planet orbiting a sun-like star about 457 light-years away. The COROT space telescope was used to observe the planet. Very little is known about the planet, they have named: COROT-Exo-7b

1. Orbits its star about once every 20 hours
2. Temperatures ranging from 1,832 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 to 1,500 degrees Celsius)
3. Could be covered in lava or water vapor.
4. Estimated to be 5.7 to 11 Earth masses (means 5.7 to 11 times the mass of earth) in other words they are debating its size and density.

I found a site with some more information on COROT-Exo-7b.

Here is the source article.

Raining Shoes?!

I just heard that Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier, was heckled February 2, while delivering a speech about the world economy at Cambridge University in England. A protester threw his shoe! Fortunately, he missed the Premier by several feet. The man was apparently upset about Chinese policy towards Tibet. The man shouted:

“How can the university prostitute itself with this dictator? How can you listen to these lies?”

Before throwing his shoe and his forcibly being removed. I think that Wen Jiabao handled the situation with much more class than George W. Bush did. He said:

“This despicable behaviour cannot stand in the way of friendship between China and the UK.”

I got to admit I'm floored by the way people are choosing to protest these days.



Source

The Black Snob's "Cute Black Girls Are Everywhere, You Idiots" campaign

On Danielle Belton's blog, The Black Snob, she has alerted everyone to the reality that advertising companies are scrambling trying to find several black girls to model in the wake of the Obama family's popularity. Like her, I'm surprised that they think that there is a "shorage". I've got lots of relatives too. I meran there are black folks all over the planet.It's like they've never been to a playground. In case she is serious about sending them potential candidate's model, here is my suggestion: my two year-old daughter, Makayla, in a candid video. I'll send the picture on the right in an e-mail. I might even send a newer one later on.

Apologetics 315: Gnosticism: Past & Present MP3 Audio

I'm sure that anyone who reads my blog has noticed that I like the Apologetics 315 blog. It is regularly updated with apologetic information...including debates and scholarly lectures. Here is a get one on Gnosticism.

Apologetics 315: Gnosticism: Past & Present MP3 Audio

Another Look at Genetic "Evidence" for Human Evolution

I found a great video in which a scientist is lecturing on the merits of the conclusion that humans and chimpanzees are 99.5% the same. He draws different conclusions based on the available data, and considering that number in percentage of simularity in human and chimp DNA is not being confirmed in other more current studies I think that it's not tenable to base the "reality" of macro evolution in general or human evolution in particular on this evidence. Listen to what Dr. Dr Richard Buggs said:




Philip Cunningham, who posted the video, wrote are really good summary point. I will paste it below:

From 1964 to 2004, it was believed that humans are almost identical to apes at the genetic level. Ten years ago, we thought that the information coded in our DNA is 98.5% the same as that coded in chimpanzee DNA. This led some scientists to claim that humans are simply another species of chimpanzee. They argued that humans did not have a special place in the world, and that chimpanzees should have the same 'rights' as humans.

Other scientists took a different view. They said that it is obvious that we are very different from chimpanzees in our appearance and way of life: if we are almost the same as chimpanzees in our DNA sequence, this simply means that DNA sequence is the wrong place to look in trying to understand what makes humans different. By this view, the 98.5% figure does not undermine the special place of humans. Instead it undermines the importance of genetics in thinking about what it means to be a human.

Fortunately (for both the status of human beings and the status of genetics) we now know that the 98.5% figure is very misleading. In 2005 scientists published a draft reading of the complete DNA sequence (genome) of a chimpanzee. When this is compared with the genome of a human, we find major differences.

To compare the two genomes, the first thing we must do is to line up the parts of each genome that are similar. When we do this alignment, we discover that only 2400 million of the human genome's 3164.7 million 'letters' align with the chimpanzee genome - that is, 76% of the human genome. Some scientists have argued that the 24% of the human genome that does not line up with the chimpanzee genome is useless 'junk DNA'. However, it now seems that this DNA could contain over 600 protein-coding genes, and also code for functional RNA molecules.

Looking closely at the chimpanzee-like 76% of the human genome, we find that to make an exact alignment, we often have to introduce artificial gaps in either the human or the chimp genome. These gaps give another 3% difference. So now we have a 73% similarity between the two genomes.

In the neatly aligned sequences we now find another form of difference, where a single 'letter' is different between the human and chimp genomes. These provide another 1.23% difference between the two genomes. Thus, the percentage difference is now at around 72%.

We also find places where two pieces of human genome align with only one piece of chimp genome, or two pieces of chimp genome align with one piece of human genome. This 'copy number variation' causes another 2.7% difference between the two species. Therefore the total similarity of the genomes could be below 70%.

This figure does not take include differences in the organization of the two genomes. At present we cannot fully assess the difference in structure of the two genomes, because the human genome was used as a template (or 'scaffold') when the chimpanzee draft genome was assembled.

Our new knowledge of the human and chimpanzee genomes contradicts the idea that humans are 98% chimpanzee, and undermines the implications that have been drawn from this figure. It suggests that there is a huge amount exciting research still to be done in human genetics.

The author is a research geneticist at the University of Florida.

======================================================

Human and chimp genomes differ by more than one percent

http://www.creationwiki.org/(Talk.Origins)_Human_and_chimp_genomes_differ_by_more_than_one_percent

excerpt:

If you measure the number of proteins for which the entire protein is identical in the two species, humans and chimpanzees are (only) 29 percent identical.

=======================================================================

Chimp genome sequence very different from man

by David A. DeWitt, Ph.D.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0905chimp.asp

excerpt:

However, assuming they did for the sake of analyzing the argument, then 40 million separate mutation events would have had to take place and become fixed in the population in only ~300,000 generations' a problem referred to as 'Haldane's dilemma.' This problem is exacerbated because the authors acknowledge that most evolutionary change is due to neutral or random genetic drift. That refers to change in which natural selection is not operating. Without a selective advantage, it is difficult to explain how this huge number of mutations could become fixed in the population. Instead, many of these may actually be intrinsic sequence differences from the beginning of creation.

========================================================

To dramatically underscore the fantasy land Darwinists live in, even evolutionists agree that the vast majority of mutations are not beneficial (They say that most mutations are neutral, which is of no use to a Natural selection scenario, whereas Sanford, Spetner, Behe and others hold that all mutations studies at least have a "slightly negative effect)!!! (Genetic Entropy; Sanford 2005). Thus how in the world can you get from ape to man if you have no scientific demonstrated mechanism in which to do so? It is incredible that crushing facts as these are simply brushed aside as if they do not matter by evolutionists. To put it mildly this is not rigorous science, but rampant psuedo-science supported by your tax dollars!

Genesis 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

I agree with Phillip. Putting this together with my post on the Dover Trial, I've got to ask how can evolution account for insertions, deletions, or in the case or Dr Miller's testimony during the Dover fiasco - chromosomes joining into one? Mutations are one thing. But stable mutations that bring on beneficial traits to an organism, that can be passed on to succeeding generations is quite another. Even if you grant that its possible, then you have to prove that is what happened and that it explains the differences between chimps and people. The other thing I found in Phillip's posts of great interest is that the 99.5% simularity of Chimps and Human DNA was first published in 1964, but none of the other teams' findings on the same subject have seen wide publication, nor what their data bodes for the theory of Evolution. Sounds like fear to me.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I agree with the title of that book: I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist.

Even An Atheist Agrees

I found a very interesting video on YouTube the other day. In it, the author asserts that Intelligent Design is just Creationism and it's a logical argument. I agree. It makes no sense to argue that aliens created us because you have to go backwards to infinity asking who created each successive species. I agree that because the Universe is finite and not eternal this means that there must be a being with the same attributes the Bible ascribes to God: omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, personal, and transcendent. Of course the author is an atheist so he concludes that there is no God because there in testable way to prove it. Here is the video:



I've got to ask, what is worse: an untestable hypothesis or a hypothesis that has been proven wrong? Supporters of evolution admit that their theory does not cover everything or answers all questions. Humanity has been keeping records for a long time...why haven't noticed any gradual change, that left unchecked, would result in one species evolving into another. I realize that the counter argument is that it take millions of years of gradual change. Grant it. But wouldn't you expect to see something on a genetic level where mutations would lead to another species? Since we don't I would infer that macro evolution does not correctly predict or explain anything and that there must be some other rational explanations for the data we observe.

As for how do we know God created everything, the Bible tells us.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:1,2

Considering that there is so much that macro evolution cannot explain and it must be inferred that species like humans and apes, whales and land animals, amphibians and fish, and birds and reptiles have common ancestors, what is the difference between faith in God and faith in macro evolution. I keep hearing that tired old drum, we have evidence, but they refuse to consider other interpretations and evidence that kills the theory of evolution. The Bible on the other hand is uncontravertible and can't be proven wrong. Which do you want to put your faith on?

Heroes: The Recruit

Well, all 5 parts for The Recruit have been released and with Volume 4 just five days away, Here is the last webisode series in a single playlist. I really enjoyed the series. I hope we see more of Private Mills in volume 4.

Calm down, Putin

Yesterday, I heard of an exchange between Vladmir Putin (pictured), the Prime Minister of Russia, and Dell CEO, Michael Dell. I think Putin overreacted to a simple question.

Michael Dell:

How can we help you?" (in regards to expanding information technology in Russia)

Vladmir Putin:

"We don't need help. We are not invalids. We don't have limited mental capacity."

Talk about getting your hand bitten when you are only trying to offer a hand up. I think Putin has an inferiority complex or something. Where did the defensiveness come from? I looked up in another source to see if I could find out what happened so that I could why Putin was so rude. Another post on a different blog, suggested that some of the hostility came from over-paid consultants from America dispensed really bad advice after communism ended. The article also stated the following:

The slapdown took many of the people in the audience by surprise. Putin then went on to outline some of the steps the Russian government has taken to wire up the country, including remote villages in Siberia. And, in a final dig at Dell, he talked about how Russian scientists were rightly respected not for their hardware, but for their software. The implication: Any old fool can build a PC outfit.

Ouch!

source

Apologetics 315: Are All Religions Created Equal? Doug Groothuis MP3 Audio

Here is a great lecture about to distinguish between religions and how to test if what they are saying is true. By Doug Groothuis (pictured)

Apologetics 315: Are All Religions Created Equal? Doug Groothuis MP3 Audio

Murder/Suicide - Indicative of Hopelessness

We live in a society in which so many people fear the future. Many people have lost the security that they hold on to that give life their meaning. I was reminded of this because I heard today that in the Los Angeles area about a man, Ervin Lupoe, who killed his whole family - 5 young kids, wife - and killed himself. He even faxed a letter into the local television station explaining his actions. He was distraught because both he and his wife lost their jobs at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles as medical technicians. The letter has been released in a redacted form, but still shows just how distraught Lupoe was. He thought that there was no hope and no one cared. In the letter, Lupoe contended that his boss told him and his wife had been better off if they had blown their brains out rather than show up for work that morning. Kaiser will not confirm this but if that had happened it could have only worsened their situation. Here is a video report:

Embedded video from CNN Video

Here is copy of that letter and here is a report. I think that we need to really ask ourselves what could have driven this man and woman to this level of despair, that you loose all hope that even your children's lives can't be improved. Because of the economic downturn, we are going to see more people loosing the things they hold on to. Ask: What do you hold on to? Your job? We all know that can be gone in an instant. What do you hold on to? What reason would you have for not giving up no matter what valley you find yourself in?

It's easy to judge. It's easy and true to say those 5 children did not deserve to die at the hands of the one who was supposed to protect them. The fact that he thought that he could not do that, could have been what sent him over the edge. With the way things are going, I have to say again, we will have more of these things go on. None of us know what we will do in a given situation. That's why I can't judge. Only by the grace of God go I. What I can say for sure is that my hope is in the one who sustains and keeps me and my family safe. Like David wrote in Psalm 37:25, I can agree:

I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.

Hope is important for anyone. What is yours? Who do you turn to when life falls apart (and it will to some degree of another)? I turn to the author and finisher of my faith. Jesus.

President Obama Reached Out To The Middle East

I have just heard an account that Barack Obama sat down for an interview with Arab TV. I think it was a good idea. Talking directly to the Arabic Muslim World is an excellent way for Obama to let them know where he is coming from. I'm not happy with all his decisions, but I think that this is a good one. I don't know if it will mean anything or change anything but it's great to see someone trying something different.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Nancy Pelosi's Answer to Help Economy

At one time children were considered a gift. A treasure. How do we get to the point, as a society, where the speaker of the House of Representatives could suggest that contraception and birth control could be methods to cut costs and bring the economy back into balance. It's suggesting that children are at best an expense and at worst, a liability. I think it's only a manner of days, when someone is going to suggest abortion as a viable method to save costs. I would say that most abortions in the United States involve terminating a human life in the name of convenience. Human life has become so cheap and will become more disposable if we look at our children that way. Here is what Nancy Pelosi actually said.

Evidence of Evolution Or Unfounded Inferrence?

You may or may not have been following my running debate with several atheists from Australia on my blog and on the following blogs:

http://www.naontiotami.com/?p=341
http://www.naontiotami.com/?p=350

I have been studying science and theology my entire life and I am amazed how quickly people who are otherwise reasonably intelligent will come to conclusions that lead them away from God and conclude the Bible is lying on scant evidence, all the while asserting that they are only "following the perponderance of evidence".

Keep in mind, before I go forward, that all this got started because I posted a review on the video called Nephilim Rising in which I stated that there were no transitional fossils showing common descent from one life form to another for human and apes. Of all the things that I stated, I was only challenged on this point with a remark to a fossil discovered in 2004 called Tiktaalik that supposedly was touted to be the "missing" link between fish and amphibians. I quickly put another post together, basically about this fossil, pointing out that not all scientists agree with this assessment. I suddenly had 4 or 5 people attacking me, commenting about my being wrong. The debate spilled out onto one of their blogs, but one good thing visits on my own blog did spike. Thanks for the exposure fellas. It stuck me hilarious that they themselves admitted that Tiktaalik cannot be confirmed to be the ancestor of modern fish or amphibians. If they could then I would have to agree that there would be strong evidence that Tiktaalik is the missing link between fish and amphibians. But it's not. So they argued that it shows that it's possible that such a fossil connecting fish and amphibians allowing them to infer that macro evolution is true. I disagree. They are walking by faith.

I don't think that one even needs to go to the Bible as a reason to reject macro evolution, but they brought it up. They immediately attacked the veracity of the Bible and seem to think that everyone who believes in Intelligent Design are actually trying to trick people because they are really creationists. I said it before so many times, but here goes: Not all people who believe in Intelligent Design believe that the God of the Bible did it. I do! But not everyone. In addition, to macro evolution, we talked about the origin of the universe, and whether or not the Bible is true. Physics, Computer Science, Theology, History and just about everything has come up. I've enjoyed it although it was like hitting brick. Fortunately, God always sends help when you need it. I wasn't alone because there was one person who was speaking out and agreeing with the Bible. I appreciated that.

One thing that came up a couple of times was the Dover trial from a few years back where again it was up to a court of law to decide whether it was right to teach creationism in public school along with evolution. Seems to happen every decade such a case become high profile. In the 1920's it started with the Scopes trial, but the roles were switched. Then the question was should evolution be taught alongside or instead of creationism? I have found a video on GodTube that documents the Dover Trial, and not from a Christian point of view. I found it interesting that the evolution position was defended using 2 main points of evidence: Transitional fossils and Genetics. The video was well done. They had reenactments of trial testimony, interspersed with dynamic animation, and interviews with intelligent leaders in the field. But they did not present any rebuttal information from experts in the field, so I put together my own rebuttal.

Let's take a look at the Transitional fossil "evidence".


The video does a great presentation of the now accepted view of evolution and this is how I have been taught about what it is. The problem is the theoretical model of common ancestory looks different than the graphic for where these "transitional" fossils are placed in the "Tree of life". They are on a different branch - twig - than the species they are supposed to bridge. To this day, no common ancestor has been found to show us that fish and amphibians share a common ancestor, let alone any other connections evolutionary scientists attempt to make.

Now what about the genetic "evidence"?


Their argument is that because apes have one less chromosome than we do, two chromosomes merged into a single. Their evidence is that you can see that there are two chromosomes stuck together, therefore evolution is vindicated because we can see traits being passed genetically. Problem is that there is no discussion of what those traits are and if theyt are truly common among humanity and apes. It's hinted at that the merged chromosomes correspond to the missing chromosomes in apes, but it's never actually stated. If it were, and I'm not sure if that could be validated, then that would mean that they might have something there. In addition, I liked the presentation of basic genetic theory, however if evolution is true then we would expect to see positive mutations - mutations that give rise to beneficial traits - fairly often. There aren't many, if any examples. The example of a butterfly's color change is an example of adaptation not macro evolution. What we do see in nature is a tendency to steer away from random mutation. The goal is that offspring have as close to a perfect copy of parental DNA code as possible. It's like installing software on a computer...would I want the installed code to be the same or off from what was originally encoded? There are issues that can be raised against evolution because of genetics, but I will put that in a different post.

One more point that a lot of people like to try to use in favor of macro evolution is that there is a consensus among the world's top scientists that evolution is true and the only people who disagree are no-talent, stupid and/or ignorant, fundamentalist hacks who don't know what they are talking about. They call us deluded individuals who blind ourselves to the truth because of religion. (Funny, that is what the Bible says about them!) I wholeheartedly disagree with them. Dismissing people's intelligence and expertise because you disagree with them is not fair. In addition, some don't like bring God up because then it's "arguing from authority". They say that "God said so" is not a valid explanation. I would agree it does not explain how but it does explain why. Besides saying that we should accept evolution because the majority of the scientific community accepts it is also "arguing from authority" and not all scientists agree with the conclusions reached by evolutionists. Don't forget that there was a time when most scientists thought that the world is flat. Or that flies spontaneously generate from rotten meat. We have learned better. One day we will outgrow evolution too and people will have to come up with other reasons to deny the authority and truth of the Bible.

Just so no one thinks that I took the Dover video out of context, I've presented it in the playlist below.



You can even read the transcripts of the Dover case here.

Too Late To Complain About Obama's World View

I have heard today in an article that some people are upset with Obama that during his Inauguration address he equated all religions the same. They are upset because by claiming equality for all religions, they say that he is denying the "Christian" heritage of the United States. I could use this time to discuss the whether or not we can call Americal a real "Christian" nation and what that means, but I'll abstain. Instead I have a question I have to ask these people who are now complaining: When did you figure out that Barack Obama did not share our worldview completely?
By "our worldview", I refer to Bible-believing, Holy-Spirit-filled Christians. I mean he has always been consistent about not putting the Bible above the worldview of the World. I mean didn't they watch Rick Warren's "Showdown at Saddleback Church" last July? I saw it. I know that in his view Islam, Hinduism, Atheism, Buddism, and whatever else is just as valid as Christianity and should be treated equally. He has said it so many time. Don't complain now. I'm not saying that I agree with Obama's worldview on this point but it is the predominant viewpoint of American culture today.

Toddler Comments on Bush

I found a video today on YouTube where a little girl lets you know right off the bat what she think of George W. Bush. I noticed by some of the comments that people thought it was in poor taste to put a child up to this. I'm sure that girl's parents taught her what to say, but I've got to admit that my 2 year-old little girl does not like George W. Bush at all. I can't figure out why. I did not teach her to prefer Barack Obama, but it is possible that she has picked up this attitude from me. Here is the video: