A PAUSE FOR LATE BREAKING NEWS

My last blog mentioned how the (NEA) National Educational Assoc.) takes a very humanistic stance on classroom education, advocating only the teaching of evolution in classrooms around the country. 

Before continuing our discussion, I want to pause and print excerpts (see ARTICLE EXCERPTS below) of a news story I read today.  It has to do with a study done by some men named Berkman and Plutzer (obviously evolutionists) which was published Jan. 27 in the journal Science.

Note that those authorities who hold an evolutionary position are very concerned that 13% of the teachers surveyed advocate teaching creationism in their classes and that only 28% follow national guidelines on teaching only the position of evolution .  Wow!  Why are they so concerned?  What happened to freedom in the classroom?  Listen – they even suggest that all high school teachers be re-educated (shall we call it “indoctrinated”?) and university level teaching be "beefed up"  to enforce their pre-conceived conclusions that evolution is true science and creationism is false.  How about THAT for humanistic control of what your children learn in the classroom?  I have underlined a couple of sentences that I feel are very revealing. 

Yes, there is a battle going on in our classrooms across the country and I’m encouraged that teachers who take a Creationist position are starting to stand up and teach the TRUTH.  You can read the whole article by clicking on the following web page: 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/28/hs-biology-teachers-advocate-creationism-class/#ixzz1CZsEiQN2

ARTICLE EXCERPTS below:

The majority of high-school biology teachers don't take a solid stance on evolution with their students, mostly to avoid conflicts, and fewer than 30 percent of teachers take an adamant pro-evolutionary stance on the topic, a new study finds. 

And 13 percent of these teachers advocate creationism in their classrooms.

"The implications for us are very concerning, that there are teachers who are not teaching science, who are not teaching some of the core tenants of science," Francis Eberle, who was not involved in the study and serves as the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, told LiveScience.

The data was collected from 926 nationally representative participants in the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers, which polled them on what they taught in the classroom and how much time they spent on each subject. They also noted the teachers' personal feelings on creationism and evolution.

Only 28 percent of high-school biology teachers followed the National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences recommendations on teaching evolution, which include citing evidence that evolution occurred and teaching evolution thematically, as a link between various biology topics.

In comparison, 13 percent of the teachers said they "explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design by spending at least one hour of class time presenting it in a positive light." These are mostly the same group of teachers (about 14 percent) who personally reject the idea of evolution and the scientific method, and believe that God created humans on Earth in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. (That 14 percent included teachers' personal beliefs, regardless of whether they taught these in the classroom).

The study's authors suggest that states should require all education majors to take a stand-alone evolution course at the university level before they can become science teachers, while school systems should offer follow-up refresher courses for those already teaching. Extra evolution courses would encourage teachers to embrace evolutionary biology, and make it easier to teach confidently, Berkman said.

Others don't agree that's the answer. "If someone wants to learn about evolution, it's not hard to. It's hardly a science education problem," Moore said. "Scientists think if teachers just take a class they will accept it, but many simply reject it."

Humanism Is All Around You

What are the effects of humanism in your everyday life?  How does it affect our society and you personally? 

Remember when I said Humanism is a religion?  Consider the following from the Humanist Manifesto I:

Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change.

The first Manifesto talked of a new "religion", and referred to Humanism as a religious movement to transcend and replace previous religions based on allegations of supernatural revelation.

Among the oft-quoted lines from the 1973 Manifesto are, "No deity will save us; we must save ourselves," and "We are responsible for what we are and for what we will be, both of which may present difficulties for members of certain Christian, Jewish, and Muslim sects, or other believers in doctrines of submission to the will of an all-powerful God.”

So, pervading our society are people who want to impose their godless religion on you.  Who are they and how do they go about their goal?  I'll cite some books about this later, but for now here are a few examples.

John Dewey, (1859-1952), a designer and signer of the Humanist Manifesto, was considered the father of modern education and had a profound effect on our school system.  He is quoted as saying, “Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.”  Wow!   His influence on the NEA (National Educational Assoc.) is one reason that homeschooling is highly discouraged, if not declared illegal in some places.  The idea is that parents, in their many differing home conditions, do not have the ability or the knowledge to educate their own children.  They hold that the government has the expertise and system to properly educate your children.  The problem that must be asked is:  Just who controls the government’s teaching methods and are those methods in conjunction with Christian principles and the purposes of our founding fathers?  Be assured that within the curriculum of most public schools there exists a humanist approach to teach pupils (your and my children) humanistic principles along with humanist oriented books to learn from.  While they educate your kids, they want to fill their pliable minds with anti-God principles and make little humanists out of them.  Please go to the website: http://www.christianparents.com/jdewey.htm to get an excellent presentation on this subject.

 

In the library are children’s books on dinosaurs.  The pictures and total presentation is excellent and children love to look at them.  By far the books present evolutionary humanism.  They present as absolute fact that dinosaurs lived some 250 million years ago and probably became extinct from the effects of a huge meteorite that exploded on the earth (or some such catastrophe).  Now, if they presented these highly imaginative ideas as story book fairy tales it would be more acceptable – but they don’t.  Let me impress you with the fact that virtually all of the books you buy in bookstores on this or similar historical subjects present this same, unscientific, story book, humanistic indoctrination.  By the way, in those same books you will find classic pictures of how today’s humans supposedly evolved from monkeys, who in turn evolved over untold millions of years from a cell in the slime of some ocean – ideas that have absolutely no basis in scientific fact.  We will explore this subject more completely in later blogs. 

In my doctor’s office the other day, I chanced upon a magazine that presented a number of wondrous places in the world.  One of them was the Grand Canyon in the state of Arizona.  The accompanying explanation noted matter of factly how marvelous it was that the canyon was carved so grandly over millions of years by the Colorado River.  Really now!!  Just where did they get that fantastic information?   I’ll tell you – from humanist evolutionists that decided, without any scientific evidence, that it is simply “the only logical explanation.”.   Why all these vast millions of years for dinosaurs, humans, and vast gorges to develop?  Simply because the religion of evolutionary humanism wants you to believe that you materialistically evolved and were not created by the God of the universe.  They don’t believe in God and they don’t want you to either.  It’s that simple.

The humanistic strategy even reaches into your children’s TV programs.  My 4 year old grandson loves “Dinosaur Train”, an excellently presented series of stories where cartoon animated dinosaurs frolic around with their different tales (no pun intended).  In between tales suddenly up pops a young man, the program’s “paleontologist”, to present the various “facts” about the dinosaurs.  Not only are the “facts” highly questionable but – here we go again – the dinosaurs lived untold millions of years ago in some geologic period (I "mute" the TV at that point)  Again I ask, “where did they get that information”? 

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Reich Minister Of Propaganda said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” This indeed was a shrewd and mentally twisted man, but there is enough validity in his statement to make anyone who uses it very dangerous.

 

I urge you to develop the ability to analyze, scrutinize, and even question what you hear and read.  Check things out to see if they are true or not.  My next blog will talk about this subject.

Humanism - What Is It?

Proceeding on our journey would be presumptuous without pausing to define an important term which we’ll surely see again and again in my blogs.  That term is humanism.

The definition of humanism is kind of slippery.  It’s hard to grab hold of it in its entirety.  But there’s no doubt that the various brands of humanism present the same basic ideas.  They range from mildly active (secularists) to socially dangerous (religious humanists – having anti-Christian doctrines) to very dangerous (philosophical humanists).  The latter develop materialistic philosophies and encourage social revolution to bring their godless ideas to fruition.  Karl Marx would be a good example of this class of humanist.  Admittedly, these definitions are very general but do serve the purpose of painting a broad picture of humanism.

History per se is not our purpose in this blog, however, the importance of clarifying humanism makes it obligatory if we are to understand what I’m talking about when I use the term.

So, here we go.  Hang with me.  I’ll only hit the highlights.   First of all, don’t think that humanism is any kind of a philosophy of life that just popped up within the recent past.  It goes way back, but let’s stop with the Middle Ages.  Belief in God and the Bible was predominant then but, sadly enough, its tenants were maintained in the hands of a largely repressive and dictatorial church.  From the darkness of that period men desired intellectual freedom and began to abandon the restraints of the church.  It progressed into a period called the Renaissance (Born Again) that spanned roughly from the 1300’s to the 1600’s.  There was a virtual revolution in knowledge, science and the arts.  Along with their devotion to God men’s faith in their own capabilities greatly increased.  Thus began a humanistic movement in which man’s faith in himself and his abilities out-compassed his faith in God.  The result was the birth of Renaissance Humanism.  Starting with a combination of human knowledge along with divine revelation there grew a philosophical union of Christianity and humanistic principles. 

With the passing of years humanism left belief in God behind entirely and replaced it with man’s belief in himself.  This belief was greatly advanced in modern times with Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) works among which On The Origin Of Species had the most impact.  He set forth in convincing terms (at the time) that all life (which includes man) materialistically evolved by chance (he called it "natural selection") over millions of years from primordial cell structures.  This idea fit perfectly into the humanist’s philosophy and spread across the world continuing even to this day.

The Humanist Manifesto III states:  “Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.” (underlining mine).

So, here he is.  A self proclaimed evolved animal without God.  He thinks he can control his own destiny.  And here’s what’s scary:  his agenda can reach to take God out of your life and pull you down to his level.  Now do you know why I think convincing you that evolution is pure fantasy is important?

“. . . since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done”. (Rom. 2:28).  Read the verses in the Bible that follow,  to see what a godless person is capable of.

No, That Isn't All That Matters

 Ever heard the popular saying, “Ignorance is bliss”?   Whoever dug that one up?  I understand how the statement can be used in frivolous light conversation, however consider this:  In reality there are multitudes of people who actually live in ignorance, and worse – they don’t have much of a desire to change.  Ignorance is not only not “bliss”, it is a formula for a life of disaster.  

How about the attitude:  “So, they say we came from monkeys.  Some say that God (whoever he is) created us – so what?  Who cares?  I’m here, aren’t  I?  That’s all that matters”.  That is indeed a sad commentary on the mind set of a mass of people.  But can you blame them?  For years the humanists have to a large degree controlled our educational system, book and magazine content, and different means of communication to a degree that the “monkey to man” idea is accepted as established fact.  I hardly read any books, school or otherwise, that don’t simply assume that man evolved from monkeys and hence from earlier life forms.  Even the excellent and much respected magazine National Geographic falls into that category.

Contrary to the conclusion which says “that’s all that matters” let me shout it from the hilltops, if necessary – THAT ISN’T ALL THAT MATTERS!  If you did indeed evolve from monkeys and then from earlier life forms you are forced to carry your logic to its extremes.  Those life forms take you back to the ultimate – some kind of primordial slime in some ocean where one cell by chance became alive and reproduced.  In the months ahead I will talk about this supposed process of evolution in a lot more detail.  But for now let’s continue with how all this affects YOU.

If you evolved from this impersonal, materialistic, chance process through millions of years, then you are nothing more than another animal at the end of the long chain.  Let’s call you an intelligent monkey.  In that state no God exists and there is no such thing as eternal life.  All moral values go out the window and there is no fear of judgment.  In such a condition there is absolutely no limit to the depravation a human being can enter into.  I submit to you that this is exactly the condition of a mass of humanity today.  I am appalled at the utter degree to which persons with no conscience can sink.  The examples are mind boggling, but let me just name a few from this last century:  Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong (Tse Tung), Pol Pot and Idi Amin.  Take some time and read about these men.  However, you don’t have to go to the “long ago and far away” to find closer examples of the acts of depraved minds.  Just watch the news on TV.

However, from the beginning it was not intended to be so.  God created you and chose you to know and follow Him through accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

A Challenge To Continue

It is my hope that you are a sincere seeker who wants to know the meaning for your life and your ultimate destiny.  It will be my privilege to walk with you on a journey that can result in the most important adventure of your life.  But I am not naïve.  The great majority of people are those whose social relationships, job, and many activities occupy virtually all of their time.  The word “secularist” accurately defines them.  They are inundated with the “here and now”.  Very little credence is given to spiritual things or eternal values.

 That is why I posted my first blog as only a provocative question:  Were You Created, Or Did You Evolve?  If you just sort of accidentally “happened” upon my blog, I hope this question hits you right in the face and shakes you up.  I want to challenge you to stay with me.  Question me or even disagree with me, but stay with me.  It just may be that I have some ideas or subjects that seem to conflict with your preconceived conclusions about life - ones that you simply assimilated over a period of time and accepted as truth without seriously giving them any real thought. 

Let me assure you that during your daily walk through life, there is a massive overflow of people whose desire is to influence or convince you to their point of view.  They may be family members, friends, advertisers, politicians, teachers, TV personalities, humanists and the list goes on and on.  The continual bombardment of this influx of directed information is bound to influence your life and do much to form your “worldview”.  That is, how you generally believe and perceive life.  There is indeed a battle for your mind.  How you filter what comes in and respond to it affects the way you live and act.  Make a decision today to search for the truth and live by it.

Were You Created Or Did You Evolve?

Have you ever thought about it?  That's OK.  Most people haven't