True Horizon

Some have registered a little surprise and uneasiness with a comment I made elsewhere regarding The Lost Tomb of Jesus. Apparently it made some cringe when I said that “if … James Cameron and company prove to be correct in the assertions they make in this documentary, I will reject Christianity tomorrow. I would be a fool not to.”

Along the same lines, Scott Klusendorf is famous, in his debates with pro-abortionists, for his promise to to concede that “elective abortion requires no more justification than having a tooth pulled” if … the unborn are not human.

In both cases the biggest word in the sentence is “if.”

In both cases the “if” puts all the emphasis on the centrality of the issue in question. If James Cameron is correct and Christ was not resurrected, the Christian faith is nothing but a giant effort in futility based on nothing but a hoax. Likewise, if the unborn are not human the pro-life position disintegrates for lack of a moral center.

So what is the pro-abortionist’s “if”? What is the foundational issue on which they would concede their position as being indefensible?

Perhaps some would admit defeat if they were offered proof of the humanity of the unborn. I’m not sure what proof they require that has not already been offered. It seems to me that intellectual honesty would demand that, where any doubt exists about the status of the humanity of the unborn, we would err on the side of protecting it. I suppose that holding to such a position displays a moral bias that a relativized society does not share or acknowledge. But lacking that, the issue on the pro-abortion side can only seem to center on an emotional appeal that is the exact opposite of the component of moral outrage Jay has been addressing. Instead it seems to be an emotional stubbornness grounded solely in the supremacy of personal autonomy.

If this is true, we need to be more intentional about calling them on it by pointing out the fact that, while we are willing to concede a point where our argument is unsustainable, they are not.

I am relatively knew to this debate so maybe my position betrays my naivety but it is staggering to me that there seems to be no “if” on the pro-abortion side. If there is one, I would like to know what it is.

Hollywood film producer James Cameron may have resurrected the Titanic, but he wants to keep Jesus forever in the grave. Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past month you cannot help knowing that Cameron, along with director Simcha Jacobovici, has produced a documentary film about the 1980 discovery of an ossuary in Jerusalem that they say contains the remains of Jesus and his family:

New scientific evidence, including DNA analysis conducted at one of the world’s foremost molecular genetics laboratories, as well as studies by leading scholars, suggests a 2,000-year-old Jerusalem tomb could have once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. The findings also suggest that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have produced a son named Judah. The DNA findings, alongside statistical conclusions made about the artifacts — originally excavated in 1980 — open a potentially significant chapter in Biblical archaeological history.

You think?!

There are plenty of places to read expert critiques of the specific scientific and archaeological issues surrounding this story. The most notable (in my humble opinion) come from resurrection expert Dr. Gary Habermas and the legendary Western Michigan University Professor of History, Paul Maier, whose 1994 novel ,”A Skeleton in God’s Closet,” was based on a parallel premise.

Because I am no expert on these subjects I will refrain from attempting to add some lame analysis of my own to the mix. Having said that though, I cannot help but smile as I point out that it is the same type of Jesus-was-not-divine thought process that offered us the DaVinci Code “proof” that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, who now gives us The Lost Tomb. I have to wonder how they reconcile the fact that The Code says Mary is buried under the Louvre in Paris, while The Lost Tomb has identified her bones in a 2000 year-old Jerusalem crypt?

Details, details …

Instead, I want to focus on what the response of clear-thinking Christians should be to The Lost Tomb claims.

Should we ignore them? No.
Should we take them seriously? Yes.
Should they make us question our faith? Absolutely!

(Read on …)

The world is flat; Marxism works; the Earth is at the physical center of the universe; man was not meant to fly, and Darwinian Evolution explains the origination and diversity of all life.

Some day all these ideas will be relegated to the same dustbin of history — but it won’t be today. No, today Kris Helphinstine, a part-time high school biology teacher was fired. Why?

Helphinstine, 27, said in a phone interview with The Bulletin newspaper of Bend that he included supplemental material to teach students about bias in [biology text book] sources, and his only agenda was to teach critical thinking.

That was enough for the Sisters, Oregon School Board, which fired the teacher Monday night for deviating from the curriculum on the theory of evolution.

You’ll notice that Helphinstine was not doing anything illegal or immoral. He wasn’t selling crack cocaine to students. He wasn’t having sex with his students. He didn’t bring guns and ammo to school. Those kind of offenses just get you put on “administrative leave” while an investigation is launched regarding your “alleged” conduct.

No, Helphinstine was fired on the spot for having the audacity to suggest that students should learn to investigate truth claims for themselves. (Read on …)

Two recent books on the NY Times Best Seller list share a common thesis — that religion in general, and Christianity specifically, is not just wrong, or off-base, or a subject worth debating — but evil, deluded, dangerous, and the rightful target of the thinking man’s scorn. Sam Harris’, “Letter To A Christian Nation,” (# 31 on the list) and Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion,” (# 14 and on the list for 24 weeks) don’t just want to appeal to their atheistic brethren, but want to question the sanity of religious belief itself and suggest that we would all be more safe if religion were forcibly banished from the public square.

This view of religion is nothing new to Dawkins who, blasting the intolerance of Creationists in his 1986 book, “The Blind Watchmaker,” claimed that …

It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).

With an incredibly ironic inability to see the intolerance of those two ideas existing in parallel, Dawkins denies any respect to those who happen to disagree with him — and instead offers them nothing but contempt. Disgusted by the proselytizing of religious folk, he engages in a little proselytizing of his own when, on the fifth page of his most recent book he claims that, “If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.” (Read on …)

Today it is being reported that a Colorado woman, who suffered a heart attack and stroke in 2000, suddenly awoke after almost 7 years in a coma. Christa Lilly conducted an interview with CBS affiliate KKTV in Colorado Springs.

Recently British scientists also reported that another woman in a “vegetative state” shows signs of awareness by her apparent ability to respond to speech commands. When told to “imagine herself playing tennis and walking through her house … motor-control regions of her brain lit up like they did in the healthy people to whom she was compared.” Though researchers were quick to point out that…

“This is just one patient. The result in one patient does not tell us whether any other patient will show similar results, nor whether this result will have any bearing on her”

“It raises the questions of ethics and experience of these patients, I think, to a new level,” said neuroscientist Joy Hirsch of New York’s Columbia University Medical Center. “It raises the tension about how we treat these patients.”

But, “making medical decisions based on this information at this point in time we say is not appropriate.”

“Not appropriate?” It seems to me it is very appropriate; especially in light of the ongoing debate in both Europe and New Jersey regarding easing restrictions on brain death criteria to allow for increased organ donations.

It seems appropriate in light of the Australian issue regarding patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). There, bioethicists are debating “the potential use of patients with non-responsive brain function for such medical experiments as animal organ transplants—to bypass ethical prohibitions against using a living human being for medical experimentation, some even suggested designating such patients as “dead,” saying their cognitive impairments justified treating them as cadavers.”

Those in a PVS will not ever wake up, they feel no pain or discomfort and have no continuing interest in their own survival…”

While making the argument that PVS patients have no right to mental autonomy since they have no apparent functioning mental capacity, Dr. Curry excused the medical “use” of their bodies by suggesting such patients should be allowed to choose to donate their bodies for the good of science, saying, “…these patients must also have a right to risk that life for the common good.”

On this view, Christa Lilly could have been designated a “cadaver” and her body used for experimentation just minutes before she granted her interview in Colorado Springs.

Doctors can shed more technical/medical light on this subject but the fact that similar stories pop up from time to time is a reminder that the value of human persons is not just in question at the beginning of life – and that it still centers on the most vulnerable in our society.

To those who would deem medical decisions surrounding these issues as being “inappropriate,” I suggest they ask Christa Lilly for her opinion on the matter.