A thought on creationism versus evolution...

Creationism cannot explain mutation, but evolution cannot explain flatulence.

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This is the long-sought "Missing Link"?

Color me "meh!" ...

So what will this do to the never-ending battle between "Evolutionists" and "Creationists"? More than likely: not much. Proponents of evolution will see a proto-human in this fossil, and those siding with divine creation will insist it's merely a monkey.

That's why this particular issue has no appeal to me one way or another: for as long as anyone can remember, it's only been about which faction has more power and influence. You see it especially in many school districts where evolutionists and creationists form up gangs to take on each other, like grown adults playing "Bloods 'n Crips". Lost in the process is rigorous scrutiny and legitimate query for knowledge.

And personally, all I see in this fossil is... a varmint :-P

Click here for the rest of the story on what is being called the scientific discovery of the century.

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The final episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA...

...should go down in history as doing something that had never, ever been done before:

It found common ground between Evolutionists and Creationists. And provided a reason to make peace between the two.

Just finished watching the episode. I'm now greatly enticed to buy up the season DVD sets, and check out what else I might have missed of this apparently very fine show.

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Johnny Robertson is paying good money for this...?

Very strange night of cult leader Johnny Robertson's usual broadcast on WGSR this evening. The first hour was a recording of this morning's "service" at Martinsville Church of Christ. And that in itself was notable because to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that I've ever seen Johnny Robertson praying. Except that his "prayer" was straight out of Luke chapter 18, in that it was practically the same as that of the Pharisee in the temple who prays "God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers..." etc. Yes folks, that apparently is the substance of "prayer" among the cult (which again, is not the real Churches of Christ at all).

Then Robertson went on a vicious rant, boasting about how his "church is the most authoritarian!" among other things, and then devoted much of the rest of the "sermon" to evolution and Charles Darwin, mostly in order to attack that same museum in Danville that he has some kind of beef with.

And then the recorded service ended and the program went to this...

That's it. For the next half-hour, it was a DVD menu that went out on live television. People who happened to tune in to WGSR between 9:30 and 10 got to see waves rolling on a beach as earthy "New Age" music played in the background of the DVD main menu, and nothing else.

So unless I'm mistaken, Johnny Robertson paid between $500 and $1000 to broadcast a DVD menu on television tonight.

Parse this as you will.

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Ron Price's "complete and factual account": ADMITS to stealing signs! Alleges conspiracy by Teamsters! Plus: Price's science crusade!

In case anyone believed that Yours Truly had some kind of obsession about "getting" Ron Price, bear in mind that it has now been well over six months since I've posted ANYTHING about him. And if I never did write about him again, I would have been happy. In fact, I've rather enjoyed not having anything new to write about the disgraced Rockingham County Board of Education member.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.

Here now is another chapter in the bizarre and twisted tale of...

The last time we peered into this sordid drama, Price had dropped his lawsuit against local publisher Richard Moore and his wife for trying to hold Price accountable for all the campaign signs that Price was caught stealing on the night before the 2006 election (which saw Price taking fifth place and getting the last of the new at-large seats on the board). Price said on live television on the night of the election that he had taken the signs, wrote about it on his blog and then that disappeared, before the following appeared on December 7th, 2006...

Well, it only took him about 19 months, but Ron Price has finally posted the "complete and factual account" of what happened on the night of November 6th, 2006, which caused what he called a "commotion". But instead of making it an entirely separate post, Price edited his original post where he promised to make available his "factual account" and published it THERE instead! The result signifies either very sloppy blogging skills... or perhaps a deliberate attempt to make sure that the account was buried and kept off the front page of his site.

In any case, someone found it. And guess what? Ron Price admits that he stole the signs! But not only that: Price makes it out to sound like everything that happened to him was the result of a conspiracy involving the Teamsters Union!

Price also claims that he was going to call the campaign that he was opposing, to let them know where they could find their signs (you know, the ones that he had hidden in the trunk of his car). And as if to add insult to injury, he closes out his "account" by stating a desire that the kind of shenanigans that he pulled during the last election don't happen during this election year, and kindly offers advice (including use of GPS systems) to stop this kind of behavior.

What the #%*$?!?!?

Here, read it yourself. I'm going to post it exactly as Price has it on his blog, in case he ever decides to send it down the ol' "memory hole". And remember: this account only appeared on his blog in the past week or so, in spite of the 2006 timestamp...

Thursday, December 07, 2006

As Paul Harvey would say- Now for ‘the rest of the story”

The last week in September 2006 the Business Agent of the Teamsters, Local 391, invited me along with other candidates for a screening. Because this was a scheduled school board meeting night I requested that the meeting be rescheduled which they did. The meeting was rescheduled until the following Monday, the first week of October. When I entered the union hall that evening the lobby was filled with hundreds of signs for the opponent of the candidate I was supporting. This remained in my mind as I answered the questions that were asked by the Business Agent and his colleagues. There were other candidates there that night that also saw the lobby full of these campaign signs.

November 6, 2006 while traveling home along RT 14 from Eden, I noticed that several signs for a candidate that I was supporting were missing and that signs for his opponent were now set up. As I proceeded along I observed that near the base of each sign lay a sign of the candidate I was supporting. As I backtracked several times to confirm the status of these signs I found there were dozens of signs taken down and they were lying at the foot of the newly erected signs of my candidate’s opponent. Based on the number of signs taken down and their proximity to the newly erected signs I felt it was an orchestrated act and blatant evidence of the attitude of the perpetrator(s).

As I restored my candidate’s signs to an upright position I placed the opponent’s signs in the trunk with the plan to take them to the DOT location in Wentworth and let the opponent’s campaign know that they were there. This would accomplish two things: it would delay whoever was taking down my candidates signs and putting up the opponents signs because they would have to get additional signs or go to Wentworth to retrieve the signs that had been moved. As I was getting into my car the Teamster’s Business Agent pulled up beside me yelling threats at me from his car. Because of the hostile manner I did not answer but drove on down the road. I was not going to get into a confrontation with this very hostile individual.

Deductive reasoning begs the question was the Business Agent there by coincidence? Since there was a plethora of my candidate's opponent’s signs at his facility was there some connection? Was the person who started following me, when the Business Agent turned off in communication about a handoff? If so why were they working together?

A number of people called me about similar problems they had with their signs. Relating the same type of orchestrated events. I finish this account now because we are now approaching a new election, which could be hotly contended if the same type of events surround this election as they have in the past before my arrival in Rockingham County? If there are signs pulled down or destroyed it will be an assault on good politics. They will undoubtedly be taken down during the late hours of the night in lightly traveled unlighted areas. Obviously signs are important but cannot be the highest priority for law enforcement as they are there to protect life first. If you see evidence of sign tampering and have access to a cell phone call 911 from the location, the call will be automatically routed to the respective law enforcement department. If you must wait and call from a landline, do so, however, in both cases give as much information as possible such as: the GPS location, location markers and if possible return or wait for law enforcement to arrive.

If we all keep a watchful eye and keep on the alert for any shenanigans it could make this year’s politics better in Rockingham County.

Words fail.

Also on his blog, posted in the past few days is a very strange, rambling screed against evolution being taught in schools to the detriment of creationism. If you read The Knight Shift on a regular basis you know where I stand on this issue: that neither the people behind evolution or the people behind creationism give a damn at all about children. I've no doubt that both camps are after political affluence and that's it and unfortunately as happens all too often, it's the children that are being used as weapons by both sides against each other. Personally, I do believe that God created the universe. I have a lot of problems... scientific problems, mind you... with evolution. And if it stopped right there, Price and I would be on the same page. But when he signs on to a political agenda, ignoring the fact that this is the kind of thing best left to families, religious institutions and personal inquiry, then I do feel a moral obligation to call him out on that too.

I honestly don't know what else to say. In fact, I don't know what else could possibly be said as additional commentary for this foolishness. A school board member admits to illegally removing (some would call that "theft") campaign signs and then hints that the Teamsters made him do it, then has the gall to tell the rest of us to "do as I say and not as I do" for this coming election.

And some people wonder why I've lost hope in America...

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Creation Museum, and why Creationism has become a corrupted belief

You might have heard about the Creation Museum that opened this week in Kentucky. It is a natural history museum that has made the Bible's account of a literal six-day creation the foundation of everything that is on exhibit.

It seems to be a huge hit, because ever since it opened the Creation Museum has enjoyed capacity crowds. It's also attracted the usual gang of professional secularists: people who get too much of their jollies from deriding those who believe God made everything as "backward-thinking yokels".

I'm making mention of this, because I think that the Creation Museum and the "controversy" about it (which seems too manufactured by the mainstream press) epitomizes everything that's wrong with the "Evolution versus Creationism" debate... and especially how too many Christians get embroiled in this for the very worst of reasons.

Yes, I do believe God created the universe. No, I won't be going to the Creation Museum. And had I been elected to the school board I would not have actively pursued the agenda of pushing "Creationism" onto the children in our system, either... or have tried to smuggle it in under the guise of "intelligent design". And I believe it would be wrong for any current school board member to attempt to do that (I'm looking right at you, ya thievin' hypocrite who's now trashing the Constitution).

It's way past time to state the obvious: that "Creationism" is a political weapon and not a statement of faith. Creationism has never been about giving honor and glory to God... but it has been everything about seizing and wielding power over other people.

And that's the furthest thing from being a sincere Christian on this Earth that you can get.

To be fair, Evolution is exactly the same thing. What started with a scientific inquiry by Charles Darwin has become not just a political agenda, but a religion unto itself. Its disciples are no less driven by lust for power - or less despicable for it - than their Creationist nemeses. But Evolution as a belief system is something of this world: something which is completely alien to the nature of Christ. I can understand how those still living for the world would succumb to the temptation of power by using the concept of natural evolution to acquire it.

What I can neither understand or even tolerate is how those who do profess to be serving Christ, how those who are not supposed to be of this world, yield to that very same temptation and use the name of God to justify it and make an excuse for it.

How can this possibly be serving Christ? How is this in any way, at all, presenting ourselves as a humble witness to others for the sake of our Lord?

We - and I'm talking about myself and my fellow Christians - are meant to be above this sort of nonsense. There are matters far more important than how this world may have come into being. Trying our best to prepare those around us for the next world is supposed to be one of them. We can't do that if we are fixated on a sense of affluence that will yield nothing when it is thrown into the refiner's fire.

And that's all that Creationism - with a big "C" - will ever be: one more thing that the Deceiver will use to make us believe that we are wiser than we really are.

But do you know why I most hate "Creationism" as its rabid adherents preach? It's because they would force me to have a faith in something. It's not enough that a person reaches that faith on his or her own: Ultra-Creationist wackos demand faith on their own terms, in a way that they can understand and manipulate for their own ends.

I know that because I've spent most of my life dealing with people with this mindset. It was years before I realized that they were far more obsessed about whether or not a person believed that they were descended from monkeys than they were with whether that person was going to Heaven.

This is the kind of thing that a person needs to wrestle with on their own, between themselves and God. It was only in the past few years that my own mind arrived at a place where I could, at last, believe completely that it was entirely possible for God to have established everything according to His will, and to accept that as fully as I could that the sun will rise in the morning. What that belief precisely is wouldn't be something that Creationists would approve of: they would probably condemn me as a teacher of heresy and try to throw this blog into a bonfire... but it's definitely not anything even remotely like Evolution, either. And it might not even be entirely accurate at all to however it was that God did it. But it's how the universe was created and structured as best as I have come to understand it. Not how "someone else" believes I should understand it.

What's more, I find that it's entirely consistent with the teachings of the Bible. Maybe someday I'll publish it.

That was only after years of struggling to comprehend how God could have really created everything. Years filled with doubt and despair and even long nights crying about it, because I couldn't understand it (I don't know if this person would ever read this but if she does someday: Nikki, you told me something one night that radically altered the course of my philosophy... in a very good way :-)...

...I wouldn't take anything for those years of inner turmoil. Of trying to "figure it all out". Because that was time that my struggle to comprehend those things ended up drastically building my faith in God. I came out of that time much stronger in my faith in Christ, and I came out of it... well, Lisa would say that she thinks I've come out a better person overall. For the most part, anyway. Maybe a few rough edges still :-)

Why would, or why should, any of us as believers in Christ seek to deny others that same potential for such wonderful spiritual growth?

You know, the Bible really is the most wonderful, amazing book ever assembled. I believe everything about it is best summed up by the word that is the title of its final chapter: "revelation". And that is precisely what the Bible should be for us as Christians: revelation unfolding, never-ending...

How could we, as a singular generation, possibly declare ourselves the final arbiters of its comprehension?

Yes, I believe that God created the universe. I believe that my fellow Christians should believe that, also. But it's the why we choose to believe it, that will determine the validity of our being a presence for the Kingdom in this earthen realm. Anything less than it being for Christ and for His own sake will corrupt our work unto ruin.

In other words, to those who obsess on Creationism: ever hear the old saying about "wrestling with a pig"? Get your booty in gear: we got better things to occupy ourselves with than the exact mechanics of physical existence. Let "them" play with the monkeys...

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