Friday, August 05, 2005

Some Links on Various Subjects

Yahoo! has a new search engine for audio files.

And Mike Licona has an online video presentation discussing The Da Vinci Code. Licona is a good Christian scholar and apologist and a former student of Gary Habermas. Some of you may have seen him on Lee Strobel's "Faith Under Fire" television program. The introduction of his presentation on The Da Vinci Code gives some details of his background, including the fact that he used to be a Roman Catholic, which I didn't know.

Media sources such as The Seattle Times and The Morning Sun continue to publish inaccurate claims about intelligent design. The Morning Sun editorial by Eric Baerren is one of the worst I've ever seen. National Review continues to be inconsistent and disappointing. They published an article by David Klinghoffer that makes some good points, but shortly afterward followed it up with an editorial that decides to go along with the mainstream acceptance of evolution while holding out a fig leaf to theists. The latter National Review editorial reads:

"We see no reason to dispute the vast majority of scientists who believe in the common ancestry of life on earth — which many of the IDers, we gather, accept — and also believe in natural selection as the mechanism by which it attained its present variety."

Maybe if the editors of National Review would read more of the intelligent design literature, they would be more confident about the facts and wouldn't have to use phrases like "we gather". And maybe they wouldn't take such a weak stance on the issue.

David Limbaugh has written a more accurate editorial on the subject. Why does an individual like David Limbaugh produce a more accurate summary of the issue than an organization like The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, or National Review, organizations that have far more resources to work with?

Brent Bozell has a column today on MTV's influence:

"Nielsen experts say MTV is watched by 73 percent of boys and 78 percent of girls aged 12 to 19, and if they’ve got it on during the day, the younger ones in the house are probably checking it out, too....MTV’s summer schedule includes daytime repeats every day of their night-time reality shows that usually debut in 'The 10 Spot' at 10 PM Eastern time, especially 'The Real World: Austin.' But even if parents were home, they wouldn’t be helped by MTV, or those shameless cable-industry lackeys who tell you to trust the V-chip. MTV has dropped its content indicators this summer, meaning there is no L for language, and no S for sexual material. Thus the V-chip wouldn’t block a thing when 'Austin' starts with the 'cast' in a hot tub with shot glasses with one woman toasting, 'Here’s to having a huge seven-person orgy.' It wouldn’t help with the woman-on-woman kissing session that follows. According to the MTV schedule in late July, MTV will air 'Austin' episodes at least 19 times during the week....A study in the journal Pediatrics found that heavy exposure to sexual content on TV related strongly to teenagers' initiation of intercourse or their progression to more advanced sexual activities. MTV wants to take your boys and girls from 'scoring' their shows at home to just plain 'scoring.'"

But I'm sure that these children's parents are faithful to take their children to soccer practice, send them to college, and encourage them to get married, so that they can give their parents grandchildren. That's what's important in life. If there's a God, I'm sure He's a lot like us and will grade on a curve.