28 January 2008

To torture little children just for the fun of it: The Hitchens-Richards ID debate

I wish I could have seen yesterday's Intelligent Design debate between Christopher Hitchens and Jay Richards at Stanford University. (If anyone can find a transcript or a webcast, please let me know.) But from the report in the Stanford Daily, it was another bad day for ID.

The first bit of evidence that Richards presented in favor of ID was the fact that we all feel "simple moral truths." As an example, he pointed to the fact that "we all know that it’s wrong to torture little children just for the fun of it."

And I agree, we pretty much all know that. Which is why we also know that life wasn't designed by a kind and loving God. Because the designer, if there is one, purposefully designed creatures that "torture little children" and he did so "just for the fun of it." Or so says Revelation 4:11, anyway.

Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Here's what Sir David Attenborough said when asked about ID.

When people talk about God and creation, they always think of beautiful things, like roses and hummingbirds. But I also think of a little African boy sitting on a river bank in West Africa with a worm eating its way through his eyeball, which will make him blind in the next few years. Now if you are telling me that God created the rose and the hummingbird, presumably he also created this thing in his eye. And it didn't evolve the way that I believe that it did, but it was created by God. Some way or another, God said, "I will make a worm that can only live by boring through peoples' eyes." Now I don't find that compatible with the Christian idea of a God who cares for the well being of each of us.

Here is the interview with David Attenborough.

And here is a Wikipedia article on River Blindness.

22 January 2008

Chuck Norris' favorite Bible verse

Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, "Every man of you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor." Exodus 32:27
Okay, it may not be his favorite. But it is one of his favorites. He really likes the idea that God would tell people to kill their family, friends, and neighbors (all for a good cause, of course). He quotes this verse along with those shown below in his WorldNetDaily article, Would Jesus support war?.
… let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one. Luke 22:36

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34
(This is also one of one of Ann Coulter's favorite verses. Great minds think alike.)

Chuck's point is that Jesus (like his good buddy Mike Huckabee) approves of gun ownership, the Iraq war (or pretty much any kind of war, but especially holy wars), and all of the laws and carnage in the Old Testament. "The baby born in a manger 2,000 years ago was not only a Savior, but a God of war."

(Someone should ask the Huckster if he likes Exodus 32:27 as much as Chuck does.)

Still, I think Chuck Norris was holding out on us. I bet his favorite Bible verse is actually Numbers 31:17-18. He's the type.

20 January 2008

Professor Brothers - Bible History #1

Genesis 19: The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah

"Lot and his kids couldn't even turn around to look at her or else they too might be turned into pillars of who knows what spice."