The Metaphysics of Science

Here is a very interesting quote which applies to the "conversation" at the "Natural Selection" post. Michael Ruse, professor of zoology and philosophy, University of Guelph; transcript of the speech given at the 1993 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS] February 13/93; "an evolutionist, is metaphysically based at some level just as much as ...some creationist...And to a certain extent, I must confess, in the ten years since I performed, or I appeared, in the creationism trial in Arkansas, I must say that I've been coming to this kind of position myself.....I mean I realize that when one is dealing with people, say, at the school level, or these sorts of things, certain sorts of arguments are appropriate. But those of us who are academics, or for other reasons pulling back and trying to think about these things, I think that we should recognize, both historically and perhaps philosophically, certainly that the science side has certain metaphysical assumptions built into doing science, which---it may not be a good thing to admit in a court of law---but I think that in honesty that we should recognize, and that we should be thinking about some of these sorts of things. ...And certainly, there's no doubt about it, that in the past, and I think also in the present, for many evolutionists, evolution has functioned as something with elements which are, let us say, akin to being a secular religion ... And it seems to me very clear that at some very basic level, evolution as a scientific theory makes a commitment to a kind of naturalism, namely, that at some level one is going to exclude miracles and these sorts of things come what may." Ruse, Michael "Nonliteralist Antievolution" AAAS Symposium: "The New Antievolutionism," February 13, 1993, Boston, MA "...come what may" means: regardless of the facts.  How true, how true indeed.

NYC - The End

I had started out attempting to blog each day of NYC in hopes of letting people back home hear what was happening in as close to real time as possible.  After day three, I was so exhausted that I stopped writing reports.  I needed every minute of sleep I could manage to keep up with the schedule.  I also have been meaning, since then, to comment on the event as a whole but that has sat on the back burner for months now.  As I began to get back into the emergent "conversation", I was reminded of how much I dreaded NYC after hearing who was in charge of it.  I was very harsh in my preparation for the trip and after my negative experience at this year's MAX event at MNU in Kansas City.  So I figured it was time to make a brief comment about how NYC measured up to my expectations. In most areas, NYC exceeded my expectations!  Brian Hull is to be commended for arranging solid and sound speakers.  There were speakers that were not the best but when you have to arrange for that many high quality speakers it would be nearly impossible to hit the nail on the head with every one of them.  Maybe a few had off nights, who knows.  All of them had good messages and solid, Biblical points.  That was a HUGE relief.  Only one started drifting off to the left slightly and he didn't go far so it didn't dimish from the service. They could not have picked a better worship band than Starfield.  They were amazing at every level.  The quality of music and the set up at the Arena was top notch.  Brian and his staff did an incredible job. Of course there were things that could have gone better and I offer these things up only as places for improvement not to be critical as many of the things that were done at NYC were new ideas and with new ideas come new problems.  It is to be expected. The first musical performer was tobyMac.  This was a great kickoff to the event and they tried to keep that energy throughout the entire week but truthfully, outside of Crowder, there is only one direction to go from tobyMac and that is down.  And that is what happened, especially towards the end of the week with everyone getting tired and a lineup of obscure artists with very narrow niches of musical influence.  Starting out with Crowder and ending with tobyMac might have been a better.  Refraining from having artists that have a narrow following like the African-American ensemble and the Hispanic group and even Family Force Five (though I personally enjoyed each of those groups greatly) would have been a wiser choice.  Encouraging performers to understand their purpose in the service would have helped keep artists like Kendalland Barlow from bombing like they did.   I saw Kendall only a few months earlier in L.A. and she  nearly stole the entire event with her performance but at NYC she opted for a series of slow songs that lacked energy.  Barlow spoke more than they played which is always bad for a band.  Too bad really.  I will say, however, that both Barlow Girl and Family Force Five were victims of some bizarre deal concerning the lighting in the arena.  Both of them were forced to play with nearly full arena lights on which effectively destroyed any chance they had of really performing well.  It was a great disservice to the artists and a theft of the audiences' and crews' time, effort and money.  It was sad to witness. Moving on, the food was really lacking.  I cannot imagine the task of feeding that many people in a very limited timeframe.  The set up for distributing the food and moving people through was outstanding.  I was totally impressed.  Still, the choice of food was confusing.  They could have gone with the staples of the American diet and done fine yet each day was some dish that I can imagine only a very small handful of students would ever pick on their own.  And while I appreciated the concept of the African corn meal soup, it wasn't the best idea in the world.  This idea of teaching people to be sympathetic of malnourished people by malnourishing them , this concept that we need to bring people who are up, down for them to understand how the downtrodden should be treated just doesn't make sense and it certainly didn't in this setting where teens and adults were expending high levels of energy with limited rest.   Clear thinking did not prevail, but I am sure it saved a TON of money. Lastly, the tracks, I think were a good idea though they were, in many cases, executed poorly.  Students in the music track never touched an instrument.  Students in Drama did very little drama.  And the track of which I was a part, Boy's Soccer, was terribly organized.  Our location was changed (in fact several locations were changed without the sponsors being alerted which lead to some students missing tracks and some sponsors missing students) without informing us until we arrived at the location.  We were moved into an area that was literally a dangerous place to be and subjected our players to vulgarity, verbal assaults and threats of physical violence.  That tension remained throughout the rest of the week.  We played on a field without lines or goals.  The field, itself was in terrible shape.  Basically any empty lot in the city would have been about the same.  There was actually a manhole ON the feild!  When the lines were finally put onto the field on the final day (we never did get goals), they were crooked.  Now I don't mean "not straight", I mean the entire field was crooked.  The goal posts at each end of the field were around ten yards off from each other.  The coaches and players from Trevecca were amazing and handled the problems very well.  Making the most of a bad situation.  The week was a success entirely because of them.  I will say that the lunches provided to the players each day were very good.  That was done very well. In all, I want to thank Brian Hull for a job well done and I hope it was as positive an experience for him as it was for me.

Natural Selection

Evolution is based on a process called Natural Selection-in other words, Nature chooses. Creation is based on the idea that God chooses. Which seems more foolish, believing that God, and entity that could possibly exist, designed the universe or believing that Nature, a concept that we know doesn't exist as an intelligent entity, designed the universe?  For me, I am going with the one that is at least possible. So you may call me a fool but I will find solace in the fact that I am at least a step above you.

I Guess I Never Thought of This...

A point about Evolution was brought to my attention today for the very first time.  Romans 5 states that through one man, Adam, sin entered the world and through sin, death.  If this is true, then how could one explain the deaths of billions of living things required in the evolutionary process BEFORE Adam's existance? If evolutionists and especially "christian" evolutionists are to be believed, death was around since the very beginning, long before Adam. That passage continues with Salvation entering the world through one man, Jesus.  If the first part of this passage isn't true, and if you accept evolution then it isn't, the second can't be true. What does this mean for me as a Christian?  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that if Christ didn't rise from the dead then we are all fools to be pitied. This has been a great example for me that when one dismisses any part of Scripture-the entirety of Scripture is undermined-even the parts you WANT to believe.

NYC Day Three

Toby Mac.  I am a headbanger by trait but man, TM put on a powerful show.  He opened up the evening session but more about that in a sec.  We started the day by enjoying an amazing breakfast bar down in the lobby.  Now you may think, "lobby", but you are not thinking of this lobby.  It is something that a fine restaurant would be proud of.  The food was great as well.  That got us off to a good start and we needed it for the day was full.  We walked over interstate 55 to the Arch and piled five apiece into the tiny pods that would take us to the top of the 630 foot Arch.  The view was awesome but the pods freaked out the students pretty good.  All I could hear on the way up and back were the girls screaming my name from a pod two pods away.  Quite flattering but still a little unnerving I must say.  Anyway, we then walked into downtown and ate at TGI Fridays, returned to the hotel and then headed off to the stadium for the first time.  Our first task was registering which took quite awhile.  Then we had to haul our food for the homeless through the entire stadium, and out onto the football field where we opened the bags and boxes and sorted out the food.  The teens were then unleashed into the exhibition hall and got the cool backpacks they will be using the rest of the week, while the sponsors attended another meeting, though this one was very informative.   After we finished, we went back to the hotel which is ten blocks away from the stadium and had Imo's Pizza which most of the teens found humorous if you catch the pronunciation.  We then treked back to the stadium in a freak but heavy thunderstorm.  Arriving soaked and hot we awaited entrance into the stadium.  Once inside the DJ started pumping the jams and as the place filled up the energy level rose, as you can imagine.  Finally, the lights dimmed and the large screens at the front began getting static as an news anchor woman spoke of a huge storm brewing in St. Louis and then lightning begins to flash and the thunder crashing and then sparks began raining from the ceiling and all the sponsors stood up with multiple bottles of water that were handed out during our afternoon meeting and they showered the entire crowd of 9,000+ teens with the "rain".  Then Toby Mac explodes onto the stage....and thus began NYC2007. I am not going to go into the details of the service, find a teen that attended and have them describe it to you, but I will say that the Gospel was presented powerfully and lives were changed from the start.  That was very good to see.  I was relieved.  We arrived back a the hotel at 10:18pm, had another meeting and hit the rooms.  We are ready for things to kick into full gear tomorrow.  I will get to play some football (real football, not American football) and the day should hold many interesting things for all of us.  I am excited to here the stories when I get back with our teens at day's end.  Until tomorrow night I bid you good night!!

NYC Day Two

Wow, what a drive!  Wow, what a BUS!, Wow, what an amazing group of teens!  We met at the Nazarene Church at 8am this morning and boarded our HUGE charter bus.  49 Teens and about 4 sponsors on the bus and a van and trailer behind with the rest of the sponsors.  We left South Dakota about 10:45.  We had dvd screens throughout the bus so many a movie was veiwed.  I attempted to listen to a book that my guitarist requested I listen to, despite the many distractions.  Its a great book, actually.  But the trip was even better.  We had smooth sailing, and then a faulty air conditioner began blasting heat rather than cool air.  That was as we entered KC.  Which was hot and humid.  Our Dakota teens were not used to the humidity and were quite concerned that they would be able to handle it.  I just chuckled, remembering my 17 years in KC.  It turned out that the many pillows laying on the vents by the windows caused the air conditioner to freeze up.  Hmmm.  So we remedied that and the rest of the time was grand.  We drove through some very heavy rain, Olathe getting more than 3 inches in less than an hour!  We saw Royals stadium and Arrowhead.  Then we arrived in St. Louis.  We ended up at a hotel directly across the street from the Arch...I am actually looking at it form my window as I type.  I am also in the building right next to the KMOV TV and Radio station where my Father in Law worked for many years.  So that is cool.  Tomorrow we head early to the Arch and then on to registration.  That should be interesting.  The teens have been amazing the whole trip and I know will continue to be.  Please keep them in your prayers for safety in this new enviroment that can be overwhelming if you are not used to it, and forthe Holy Spirit to cut through it all and make a serious change in their lives.  I want a different 49 teens coming home than I came with.  They will look the same ont he outside but my hope is that the inside will resemble Jesus Christ a little bit more.  Talk at you tomorrow night!

NYC Day One

Well, we left Mandan this afternoon about 1pm to start our trek to NYC in St. Louis.  By us I mean, 10 teens, Suandra Boehm and  myself.  We began by discovering a pretty significant oil leak in the Dodge van.  We poured some leak stopping solution which has failed to work at this point.  About 30 miles out from our first day's destination the front tire of the Ford van blew out at about 75 miles an hour.  I was able to keep it under control and Ben Boehm and Titus Gietzen were able to change the tire in under 11 minutes.  I was happy for that.  We continued on our way and arrived in Souix Falls, SD a little late but no worse for the wear.  Although we are cramming 6 people into each room.  We will see how it goes.  We are enjoying the air conditioning, however, since the Ford has no air in the back of the van and the Dodge had to run the heat the entire trip to keep from over heating.  Aaaah, but tomorrow we meet up with the other 50 people from North and South Dakota and board a tour bus for the remainder ofthe trip.  Air Conditioning, DVD players and bathrooms....should be nice.  Check in tomorrow night for the next exciting installment of NYC 2007....keep us in your prayers!!