OUR 2012
CANYONLANDS TOUR
JULY 23-27, 2012
DEADLINE FOR RESERVATIONS FOR
OUR 2012 CANYONLANDS TOUR IS MAY 1, 2012
WE
MUST GET MOTEL RESERVATIONS MADE — PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU
WANT TO GO.
PURPOSE: To help Christians understand
the Canyonlands area, the history of the earth as seen in the
rock record, and how that history correlates with a literal
understanding of the Bible.
WHERE:
Leave from Flagstaff, AZ, visiting Sunset Crater, Grand Canyon,
Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Meteor Crater, Painted Desert,
Petrified Forest, and points in between.
CONDUCT:
Air-conditioned motor coach with lectures presented by John
Clayton and Alan Doty en route. At each point participants will
have the option of hiking or staying in one place and enjoying
the view. Hiking is not required.
P
ARTICIPANTS:
Anyone age eight or older who is willing to participate in
lectures, devotionals, studies, and wholesome activity.
INCLUDED:
Bus transportation, motels, field guides, entry fees, breakfasts
Tuesday through Friday. Not included: Other meals,
gratuities, souvenirs, transportation to and from Flagstaff.
COSTS:
No money is paid to Does God Exist?, to your guides, or to John
Clayton. The only cost is for the items described above. Cost
is: singles: $949; doubles: $889; three or four in a room: $549.
Trip insurance is available.
FOR A
COMPLETE ITINERARY, RESERVATION, OR INFORMATION, call Queenslander
Tours at 877-865-6711 (toll free) or by e-mail at
mark@qltours.com. Information can be viewed at www.queenslandertours.com/qtt/grandcanyon/.
Other questions can be directed to John Clayton at 269-687-9426
or e-mail at jncdge@aol.com.
(These three pictures:
Roland Earnst.)
RESPONSE
TO ACLU NOTE. In the September/October
2011 issue we told of an ACLU suit in South Carolina to
allow inmates to have pornography while in jail. Dr. Paul Smith
who has had experience in this area sent the following to us in
response to that note:
“I read the ‘News & Notes’ item concerning the ACLU, jail,
and the inmate use of pornography. I was once a guest of the
State of Texas and I know for a fact that pornography in prison
increases perverted sexuality and objectifies the female
officers rather than recognize and/or respect their authority.
That is why I wrote the following piece while in prison. Paul”
THE MULTIFACETED SIN OF
PORNOGRAPHY
“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has
already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). In Genesis 2:25 it is written
concerning Adam and Eve: “The man and his wife were both naked,
and they felt no shame.” In Leviticus
18 we find that to look upon the nakedness of one who is
not your spouse is an abomination before God and a practice of
the ungodly.
Pornography is pictures, writing, and other explicit media that
is intended to cause sexual arousal. The word pornography is
derived from the Greek word porne,
which is the root word of the Greek porneuo, which is to indulge in immoral
behavior (lust) and illicit sexual activity by both genders.
This includes adultery, fornication, incest, and homosexuality.
Pornography is a multifaceted sin that contributes to other
sexually deviant behavior such as rape and child molestation. It
is also a form of idolatry because it turns the human body into
an idol of fornication and perverse pleasure that is totally out
of the realm of God’s purpose for His creation. Pornography
objectifies women and degrades the beauty and purpose of God’s
special gift to man (Genesis
2:18).
Pornography is a powerful stimulant that is very addictive and
desensitizes the user and it leads to more and more perverse
behavior in order to satisfy the addict. The majority of rapists
and child molesters are heavy users of pornographic materials.
One of the many terrible tragedies is that many of the adult
women and all of children who become active participants in
pornography were sexually abused and many — especially
children — are forced and/or sold into pornography. Therefore,
those who use pornographic materials, and derive pleasure from
them are actually deriving pleasure from a human being who has
had his individuality and self-esteem ripped from him by both
physical and psychological force. Therefore, the users of
pornography are just as guilty as those who horribly hurt and
pathetically abuse these women and children. Unless they confess
and repent of this awful sin, they will stand before God under
severe
judgment.
As a final note, in God’s eyes, pornography also includes those
so-called men’s magazines that contain pictures of scantly
dressed women in seductive poses. No “real man,” and especially
not Christian men, would be viewing such things (Proverbs 6:25)!
Dr.
Paul Douglas Smith, M NC/Th.D.
ATHEISTS
DEMAND THEIR OWN CHAPLAINS IN MILITARY. Jason Torpy is
the president of The Military Association of Atheists and
Freethinkers. He is demanding that atheists should have their
own chaplains since the military provides chaplains to
Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Protestants. His group has been a
501(c)(3) organization for five years and Torpy is a former Army
Captain. Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis points out that the
chaplains have provided encouragement by using belief in the
hereafter. He is quoted by CNSNews.com (11/17/11) as saying “If
you get someone who says ‘Sorry, if you get killed, you’re just
going to become a potted plant. There’s no hereafter.’ that
would not be terribly motivating, especially to a military that
goes to war.”
CHRISTOPHER
HITCHENS DIES. One of the major players in the “new
atheism” of the twenty-first century and the author of God is Not Great,
Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62 of esophageal
cancer. Hitchens was vicious in his sarcasm and hatred of God
and Christianity and people like Mother Teresa, but he was
wildly inconsistent. He believed in marriage and that wives
should be able to stay out of the workplace and live at home
with children “because they were the gentler sex,” but was well
known for his use of alcohol and unclean living including
cigarettes. He opposed Bill and Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore,
Sarah Palin, Saddam Hussein, and Galileo but supported George
Bush and the war in Iraq, Salman Rushdie, Ayatollah Khomeini,
and homeopathic medicine. He went to his death maintaining his
beliefs and causes and rejecting God. The idea that atheists
turn to God as they die was not borne out in Hitchens’ case.
Source: Hillel Italie, AP, online.wsj.com, 12/16/11.
STEVE
JOBS DIES. In a similar vein, Steve Jobs passed away on
October 5, 2011. In The Week
(November 11, 2011, page 5) his sister who was with him as he
died quotes him as saying, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh Wow.” There have
been all kinds of speculations as to what he was seeing or what
the meaning of his words were. There have been many famous
people who have said some tantalizing things as they died. Emily
Dickinson is quoted as saying “I must go in, the fog is rising.”
Thomas Edison said “It is very beautiful over there.” Like “out
of the body experiences” there are likely to be physical and/or
chemical explanations for what these folks saw, so we would not
attach great significance to them.
A new biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson indicates that,
like many others, Jobs was turned away from faith in God by the
question of why God would allow suffering. When he was 13 years
old Life magazine
published a shocking cover picture of two starving children in
Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday School and asked his pastor if
God knew about those children. The pastor told him that God
knows everything. Young Steve said that he did not want to
worship a God who knew about this suffering and did not do
anything about it. He never went back to church again, but he
did spend years studying Zen Buddhism. We have often dealt with
the question of why would a loving God allow pain and suffering
in this world. We have a website devoted to that question (whypain.org). The
simplified bottom line is that man’s bad choices lead to
suffering and God’s people are his instruments to bring peace
and healing. We need to be doing that. Jobs apparently
recognized that because much later in life he said, “The juice
goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith
rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus
saw it.” We would suggest it is because of our faith in Jesus
that we should be living like him and seeing the world as he saw
it.
When Jobs was facing death he wanted to believe in God. He said,
“For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our
existence than meets the eye. … I like to think that something
survives when you die.” Steve Jobs changed the world in
computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and
digital publishing. However, in this life he never found the
answer to that most important question, “Does God Exist?”
THE
LARGE HADRON COLLIDER AND GOD. One of the interesting
research programs going on right now is the huge particle
accelerator with a 16.5-mile-long tunnel beneath the border of
Switzerland and France. The hope is that this research will
enable the detection of the Higgs particle which would tell how
elementary particles acquire mass. Dr. Lisa Randall who is
involved in this research has written a book titled Knocking on Heaven’s Door
which suggests that extra dimensions exist close to our own
four-dimensional world. The biblical description of God and his
action in our world closely resembles this suggestion. Those who
believe in God never have to be concerned about any research
negatively affecting their faith, because the lesson of history
is that the more we know about the creation the more we see the
accuracy of the Bible and the reasonableness of faith in God as
the creator. Source: Smithsonian,
December 2011, page 25.
ATHEISTS
WHO GO TO CHURCH. In the December 2011 issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion there is a report of a study of 275
scientists at “elite” research facilities in the United States.
Sixty-one percent of the participants describe themselves as
atheists or agnostics, and 17% of those reported they had
attended church more than once in the past year. The
sociologists conducting the study suggest that the cause of this
is that the children of these skeptics are being allowed to make
up their own minds about their personal faith. That is an
interesting speculation, but it may also be that these
researchers are researching questions about choices in life, and
have not ruled out God as a possible answer.
SUPERNOVA
GOES OFF IN PINWHEEL GALAXY. On August 24, 2011,
astronomers were able to watch a star explode in a galaxy known
as M101 or the Pinwheel Galaxy. Seeing a star explode is a
fairly rare occurrence, but we usually observe them long after
the event took place. In this case the star was being observed
through the whole process. Because we know how bright a star
like this is both normally and also when it explodes, it is
possible to determine the distance the star is from us, since
observed brightness is the inverse square of the distance away.
When this calculation is done it shows the star and its galaxy
are 21 million light years away. This figure agrees with other
astronomical methods of measuring distance. We can also watch
the chemical processes that take place within the star producing
elements like iron and calcium. This discovery reminds me of
Henry F. Schaefer’s comment when he made one of the many
discoveries for which he is famous. He is reported to have said,
“Oh, that’s how God did it.” Source: Science News, September 24, 2011, Page 5.
EUTHANASIA
COMPLICATION. Some new studies of “brain dead” patients
with sophisticated new machines has brought some new evidence
into the question of who is brain dead and who is actually
conscious but effectively buried alive inside an unresponsive
body. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario using an
EEG machine on vegetative patients have found that they can
understand and react mentally to various commands. The
implications for euthanasia advocates is obvious, but even
questions about when to “pull the plug” may be impacted by new
tools and understandings. Source: The Week, December 2, 2011, page 21.
DUTCH
BATTLE ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE. The Netherlands has been
the scene of a number of liberal actions over the years raising
moral and religious issues on abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex
marriage. Wim Pijl, a 67-year-old civil servant, was fired
because he refused on biblical grounds to perform same-sex
marriages. Dutch gay-rights groups maintain that there are 104
civil servants who refuse to perform same-sex marriage
ceremonies. Pijl maintains that he is discriminated against
because of his religious views and is planning legal action. No
matter how this case turns out, it is obvious that the same
battle will take place in the U.S. soon. We have tried to point
out in this journal that once same-sex marriage is accepted, it
would be difficult not to also allow group marriage, polygamy,
polyandry, or even animal marriage which some have already
advocated. Source: ReligionNewsBlog.com, November 16, 2011.
ANTIHELIUM
CREATED. Researchers on Long Island have succeeded in
creating antihelium-4 as they smashed gold nuclei into each
other. When nuclei are shattered in such experiments, equal
amounts of matter and antimatter are produced. The problem is
that when antimatter collides with matter the two annihilate
each other producing energy. Normally antimatter is contained by
using magnetic fields to hold the antimatter so it makes no
contact with the matter of our world. In the creation process,
there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter
produced, and the question of why we see very little antimatter
in our region of space is still an area of speculation for
cosmologists. Source: Discover,
January 2, 2012, page 39.
MORALITY
AND FAITH. One of the areas that suggest there is a God
and the Bible is his word is the fact that religious people have
higher moral standards in general than non-religious people. In
the past atheists have denied that statement, and have referred
to cases where big name preachers and teachers in religion have
been caught in some compromise of their religious views.
Recently there have been some studies that support the view that
faith in God promotes a higher moral calling — and a number of
editorials to explain the data away. In 2000 Michael McCullough
and his colleagues at the University of Miami released three
dozen studies showing strong correlation between religiosity and
lower mortality rates. In 2009 McCullough and Brian Willoughby
released studies showing that religious people are more likely
to engage in healthy behaviors and are less likely to engage in
risky sex, smoking, doing recreational drugs, and drinking.
Atheists seem to have decided that these figures cannot be
argued with, and now atheist writers are maintaining that there
are psychological explanations that have to do with monitoring
behavior and following healthy life-styles. Obviously atheists
will not admit that God has anything to do with how we live and
what we do, but for most of us choices in life are supported
positively or negatively by our faith in something beyond what
this world offers. Source: Scientific
American, December 2011, page 102.
