“The Christian life was not designed to be one lived alone within our own limited human resources, but one lived in cooperation with God the Holy Spirit, in the larger context of the community of believers.”–Klaus Issler
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The paradox of America’s unborn
“This is the paradox of America’s unborn. No life is so desperately sought after, so hungrily desired, so carefully nurtured. And yet no life is so legally unprotected, and so frequently destroyed.”
Ross Douthat of the New York Times has written a perceptive article about the tension that exists in our culture surrounding the unborn. If numbers mean anything, then protecting the unborn is still the number one human rights issue we face as a nation. May we have the courage and compassion to do stand in the gap as we have opportunity.
For as Scott Klusendorf reminds us, “the abortion controversy is not a debate between those who are pro-choice and those who are anti-choice. It’s not about privacy or trusting women. To the contrary, the debate turns on one key question. What is the Unborn?”
“Pro-life advocates contend that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being. This simplifies the abortion controversy by focusing on just one question: Is the unborn a member of the human family? If so, killing him or her to benefit others is a serious moral wrong. It treats the distinct human being, with his or her own intrinsic worth, as nothing more than a disposable instrument. Conversely, if the unborn are not human, elective abortion requires no more justification than having a tooth pulled. As Gregory Koukl points out, “If the unborn are not human, no justification for elective abortion in necessary. But if the unborn are human, no justification for elective abortion is adequate….” (more)
How Facebook Changes Teen Dating
Flirting, dating, breaking up, getting back together, and how quickly people find out about all of the above happens much faster than it used to thanks to social media and facebook. Here are some interesting observations from a recent study:
Seventeen Magazine recently conducted a study amongst their readers. The results, I think are very interesting to our parent readers. The study polled 10,000 guys and girls ages 16 to 21.
Here is how the romance process on Facebook goes:
1. Adding a new crush as a friend = 1 week after meeting (79% of teens)
2. Stalking their new crush’s profile = Once per day after adding them as a friend (60% of people, but 40% check in on their crush several times a day).
3. Deciding to date = 43% of girls would decide not to date someone based on their Facebook profile, compared to 33% of guys.
4. Deciding to announce their new gf/bf = 17% of guys don’t share their status, compared to 12% of girls. (50% of girls get a kick out of the status change — one-third of guys agree; 24% of guys find it unnecessary, compared to 17% of girls.)
Want to know a great verse on dating?
“He who walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm.”–Proverbs 13:20
If this is true in the friends we choose, how much more so in those that people choose to date? Choose wisely.
Abortion Doctor Charged in Newborns’ Killings
The New York Times has posted an article that I hope will begin to awaken America’s conscience on this issue. The brutality that is abortion must be seen for what it is and sometimes only shocking details like these will have any impact. Moral facts–when we can clearly get them before us–are obvious to us because we are all made in the image of God. I hope and pray that the exposure of this story saves at least some precious unborn human persons.
“A 69-year-old Philadelphia doctor who performed abortions was charged by prosecutors on Wednesday with the murder of seven newborns who were killed with scissors and of a female patient who died of an overdose of anesthetics.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a family practitioner who had not been certified in obstetrics or gynecology, oversaw a medical practice that regularly performed late-term abortions.
On at least seven occasions, babies born alive during the sixth, seventh and eighth month of pregnancies were killed by having their spinal cords severed with a pair of scissors, District Attorney Seth Williams said in a statement.
A grand jury investigation found that although complaints about Dr. Gosnell and his Women Medical Society clinic in west Philadelphia had been made to a variety of government health and medical licensing officials for more than 20 years — including about the deaths of women during routine abortions — the doctor was never officially sanctioned.
Most of Dr. Gosnell’s patients were low-income immigrant and minority women” (more)
Naturalistic evolution leaves no room for souls, free-will, and consciousness
“The important point about the standard evolutionary story is that the human species and all of its features are the wholly physical outcome of a purely physical process …. If this is the correct account of our origins, then there seems neither need, nor room, to fit any nonphysical substances or properties into our theoretical account of ourselves. We are creatures of matter. And we should learn to live with that fact.” – Paul Churchland
“For the naturalist, there is in principle no scientific explanation as to how evolution, a strictly physical process operating on physical materials, could give rise to something utterly non-physical. How can unconscious, purposeless, mindless particles give rise to unified immaterial selves with internal mental states by simply rearranging according to strict physical laws? The naturalist simply has no answer to this question. By contrast, the Christian theist has an excellent answer as to how mind could arise in the course of events that constitute the history of the universe. For the Christian, personhood and, in fact, a Specific Person, is more fundamental to reality than matter. So it is no problem to conceive of a personal God creating finite personal selves by an act of His will. But no amount of study of matter will make it at all conceivable that physical stuff, all by itself, could give rise to mind.” – J.P. Moreland
Naturalism, Christianity, and the Human Person by JP Moreland