Corby Stephens

I just caught the last 20 or so minutes of a Nova program on PBS about the search for absolute zero. It was actually fun to watch because, at least the portion I saw, was just pure, observational, experimental science. No injection of unnecessary evolutionism, no billions of years for this, no time + chance + fairy dust from Vega = an interesting story, but no science. It was just a goal (to achieve a temperature of absolute zero) and the various experiments done by various teams to reach the goal, as well as possible applications learned on the way. That’s science the way it’s supposed to be.

The show was so cool and refreshing (now it’s sounding like a 7-Up commercial) that it made me realize how little evolutionary philosophy adds to our understanding of how the universe works. In fact, it even hinders our advancements in science. At best it doesn’t add anything except confusion. If those with the test-tubes and Bunsen burners just looked through their microscopes, telescopes, and common-sence-scopes, I bet we would be a lot further along than we are, especially in fields related to biology.

My point isn’t to argue the scientific and philosophical problems with evolution. It’s simply to express how much more fun (and useful) science is to watch and think about when all that evolution fluff is absent.

The cold weather they are forecasting for this weekend got me thinking. There is an very popular and equally misunderstood passage in Revelation 3 where Jesus tells the Laodiceans that he wishes they were either hot or cold, but because they were luke warm he was going to vomit them out. The popular understanding is that hot is good, cold is bad. That is a very modern interpretation of the meaning and is very wrong. The concepts of being hot or cold spiritually aren’t the point and, in fact, are contrary to other parts of scripture. Jesus doesn’t say hot is good, cold is bad, luke warm is really bad. The only bad is luke warm. Hot and cold are extremes. His point is that they weren’t extreme for the Lord, they were luke warm. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve always been a fan of the sci-fi genre. Star Trek (all movies and series), Star Wars (not the Ewok live-action series), Stargate (the movie and both series), The X-Files, Millennium (I was one of the few who dug the show it would seem), those are my favs. Interestingly enough, these shows fall into two camps; all of the “Star” shows would say that there is no such thing as the supernatural, that everything can be explained through science and by natural means, while the other two shows would say (minus Scully) that there is something of the supernatural or that which cannot be explained by natural means.

While pondering Bible prophecy as well as creationism (I’m teaching both topics in different venues) I was thinking about this concept of being able to explain everything through naturalistic means vs. saying that some things can only be explained via the supernatural (meaning God) and have to be taken on faith. Then it occurred to me; the idea that we live in the natural world and that God lives in the supernatural is actually very man-centered. What if God is the one who lives in the natural world and we live in the sub-natural? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything substantial on this thing. been going through some stuff that I may or may not blog about, we shall see. I’ve also been considering finally writing about some the of the challenges of stepping into a church the way I did. I think it’s been long enough now. I didn’t want to do it right away because I didn’t want to sound critical of the previous pastor. So perhaps that series will pop up soon.

But that’s not why I’m writing this right now.

I just got the latest “buy stuff from us” flyer from Christian Supply, a Portland-area chain of Christian bookstores. In it there is a blurb for a Rob Bell video called The Gods Aren’t Angry. Here is what the blurb says;

Following on the huge popularity of his Everything Is Spiritual lecture DVD, Rob Bell examines “where did religion come from?”. Where did the first caveman get the idea that somebody, somewhere, existed who needed to be worshipped, appeased and followed? Another amazing exploration led by a gifted communicator.

It’s no secret that I’m not a big Rob Bell fan. In an interview with beliefnet.com he said that all truth is God’s truth, and that when Jesus said that He was the way, truth, and life that it didn’t really have anything to do with salvation and eternity, but the way to live life the way God intended. In his Everything Is Spiritual video Bell goes out of his way to dismiss Genesis as a historical myth, a story that met a need but didn’t actually happen as written. Now Bell’s low view of God’s word further leads people astray from the truth of their own origins as well as the origin of their relationship with God. Read the rest of this entry »

The FoxNews.com headline reads, “Blue-eyed people are inbred mutants.” Obviously this article had something to do with darwinian evolution, so I thought I’d see what they are on about now. Here is the link to the full article. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327070,00.html

What caught my attention was this.

Danish researchers have concluded that all blue-eyed people share a common ancestor, presumably the first man or woman to sport what must have seemed oddly colored peepers 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Wait, how long ago? 6,000 years ago? Hm. That would be about the time Adam and Eve started popping out kids. Fascinating.

“Originally, we all had brown eyes,” Professor Hans Eiberg of the University of Copenhagen said in a press release. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ’switch,’ which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes.”

This makes sense and is totally in line with what we see in scripture. Adam and Eve were essentially clones. The same, complete genetic pool, no mutations. As they had kids, and their kids had kids, and because of the curse on creation, mutations were inevitable. Either that, or it’s part of the genetic variability God built in to out DNA. From people who were middle brown with brown eyes, you can get the blackest blacks and the whitest whites. No, this isn’t a commercial for laundry detergent.

He also stresses that the switch, as the press release puts it, is “neither a positive nor a negative mutation.”

That’s a bit disingenuous, as the mutation also produces greater instance of blond hair (sexually selected for even today) and fair skin, which confers a survival advantage by stimulating greater production of vitamin D in sun-starved northern European countries — exactly where blue eyes are still most prevalent.

God built all of this into our DNA. DNA is information. Information, and the means to interpret and use information, cannot come about by chance random processes. The evidence points to, nay, it screams that there is, a Creator. And I’m glad I know Him.