Category: Apologetics

Apologetics, Books, Fall in Ritual

Raised Under the LGBT Umbrella

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Truth often suffers more by the heat of its decenders, than from the arguments of its opposers. ruth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers (William Penn)

Dawn Stefanowicz grew up in a home where the sexual desires of adults were put ahead of her needs and well-being. Today she fights for traditional marriage and a child’s right to a mother and father.

Jim Graves, Catholic World Report, June 27, 2012

Same-sex marriage is the cause célèbreof many politicians and celebrities, and is extensively covered in the news. As debates rage, one central issue is often overlooked, believes Canadian author and speaker Dawn Stefanowicz: how does being reared in a same-sex household affect children?

Many states already allow same-sex couples to adopt children, a practice that will be further cemented in law as more states issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. Additionally, some homosexuals have children of their own from previous opposite-sex relationships. Dawn brings a rare voice to the public discussion; her father was actively involved in the gay lifestyle, and she describes herself as “raised under the GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] umbrella.”

Dawn was born in Toronto. Her father became an active homosexual at an early age. He was a successful businessman. Desiring children, he married, and the relationship produced Dawn and two brothers, one her twin. After Dawn and her brother were conceived, their father ended sexual relations with his wife, and pursued homosexual relationships at well-known gay meeting places in Canada and the United States. Dawn was often brought along to many of these locations, even as a child. Her father had numerous gay lovers, and brought them into the home. At age 51, in 1991, he died of AIDS.

Today, Dawn lives in Ontario, Canada. She is a licensed accountant, a Christian, a public advocate of children being reared in homes with opposite-sex, married couples, and a vocal defender of traditional marriage. She has been married to a man for 28 years, and has two teenaged children. In 2007, she published Out From Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting, a book about her experiences growing up in the GLBT world. On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the release of her book, she spoke with Catholic World Report.

Why did you decide to share your story of being “raised under the GLBT umbrella” in your book and your speaking engagements?

Dawn Stefanowicz: I felt compelled. I made a public appearance before Canada’s Senate of Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee in Ottawa in 2004, asking that they not add “sexual orientation” to the existing hate-crime legislation due to restrictions on freedom of speech and religion. Later that month, I shared my testimony before a school board. Almost immediately, gay activists who had been bussed in—and I should say I dislike using the term “gay,” but it’s commonly used today, so I will—began shouting at me as I testified so that you couldn’t even hear what I was saying. A half dozen times I was interrupted. I was concerned for my safety, so I asked a security guard for an escort to my car. I went home and began writing my book. I wanted to share my experiences growing up in a same-sex household.

One thing you stress is that you didn’t observe a monogamous relationship in your home when growing up.

Stefanowicz: Yes. For children such as myself, just because our parents are “partnered,” doesn’t mean they are monogamous. Monogamy in the gay community means “serial monogamy,” you have a single partner for several months and then move on, or you’re in a relationship but have multiple partners on the side. Research shows that most male homosexual relationships become open within the first year. A recent New York Times article confirmed this—50 percent of same-sex male “marriages” become open to other sexual partners within the first year. My father could be in a “committed,” long-term relationship, but there was an agreement with his partner that there would be sexual relationships with others.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t surrounded by average heterosexual couples. In my home there would be my father’s partners and male friends, and they would often take me along to meeting places in the GLBT community. I was just a child, but I was exposed to overt sexual activity. When I was about nine, for example, my father took me to a downtown sex shop. He said he wanted to expose me to sexuality so that I wouldn’t be prudish. There was no sense of privacy around sexuality. Sex was very public; that was part of the gay culture.

He’d take me to see the work of gay artists, whose paintings and sculptures seemed to have phallic symbols worked into their art. He’d take me to nude beaches where gay men met one another. He wanted me to take my clothes off too, but I wouldn’t. It was at such places that men were involved in “cruising,” propositioning one another for sex. There were areas nearby you would go to for sex. There was a network; if the police were coming, they’d tip one another off and they’d stop their sexual activity.

This was before the Internet age, but there was still an incredible network that the gay community used to inform one another about their meeting places where they could go for a “quickie.” They could be public beaches, gyms, or even parks where children were playing nearby. My father would go cruising at locations all over Canada. He also loved coming to the States; his favorite cities included San Francisco, Miami, and Ft. Lauderdale. You could cruise, find someone in a few minutes, and go someplace to have sex.

My father also kept an apartment near his downtown office where he could meet someone for quick sex.

Once, when I was in the 10th grade, I was excited because my father came to school to watch me perform in the band. He never did before. I saw his eyes bug out when he saw all the teenage boys performing on the stage with me. Then I realized that he was not there for me, but to pick up young men.

As you got older, your father used you as “bait” to attract men he was interested in having sex with, too.

(Continue reading article HERE)

Apologetics, Books, Genesis, Job

O istorie tainică a genei

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Ask the green plants of the earth and they’ll teach you! (Job 12:8, ISV)

Creuzetul gândurilor este plin de pasiunile trupului. O diformitate fizică poate fi prilejul ochiului de a căuta ordine dincolo de marea dezordinea a naturii. Dar tot la fel de bine acea diformitate poate fi exact plasa sumbră care învăluie stări, emoții, lucruri, ființe și relații prinse într-un joc absurd al ciclicității morții.

Creștinismul a adus acea viziune moderată și totuși radicală de a îngropa pe Dumnezeu în materialitatea celulei muribunde și totuși de a oferi un exemplu și o speranță că toată dezordinea de acum va fi re-aranjată la ceasul astral al universului. Din această perpectivă viața de acum se zbate între o ordine pe care Dumnezeu o reclamă ca fiind inițiată și proiectată de El și dezordinea ce vine din strânsoarea unei incapacități de a viețui împreună, o vrăjmășie universală inițiată de Satan (vrăjmașul)! Însă dezordinea, entropia, urâtul, diformul, muribundul și suferindul de acum sunt convertite, prin exemplul christic, în platforme ale înțelegerii slăbiciunilor, bolilor, lipsurilor. Înțelegere care are acum nu doar suportul moral/ontologic al modelului religios al lui Isus Hristos, ci este completată de crearea unei hărți (geografia genotipurilor) a universului micro-biologic, fabrica dramelor umane.

Da, suntem pre-determinați genetic, avem capacități imense și totuși diferite de alcolism, violență, adicție sexuală, boli mentale, dependențe de droguri, potențate de mediu, cultură, anturaj și decizii personale. O universalitate a determinării genetice, a acelei fântâni genetice otrăvite, este menționată de Isus și, mai în detaliu, de apostolul Pavel (toți suntem lipsiți de slava lui Dumnezeu și cu gândurile îndreptate spre rău). Paralela genetică-Biblie continuă cu observația că determinarea genetică este strict legată de instrucții/set de date alterate…

Ei bine, în mediul științific începe să se vorbească de ”nurture the nature” și de ”gena rezilienței” (engl. ”resilience”), ceea ce deschide posibilitatea de a folosi această ”elasticitate” genetică în modificarea, alterarea și mutația selectivă a genelor în a oferi soluții la problemele cancerului, a distrofiilor, schizofreniei, etc.:

Soon we will be ready to write our own instructions. In other words, we will be able to manipulate our own genetic future, snipping genes from embryos or adding new ones (p. 476).

Ideea de a fi nemuritori, ca Dumnezeu, este nu o deea religioasă prăfuită, inovată de ”primitivi” de acum mii de ani, ci este însăși suflul unor oameni de știință și filosofi din zilele noastre. În această speranță escatologică stă tot suflul trans-umanismului, mulți oameni de știință avertizând însă că această soteriologie laică poate aduce apocalipsa ființei și societății umane, așa cum știm noi acum.

Jocul dintre trecutul istoriei cercetării umane a fabricii genetice și viitorul cu provocările și temerile lui este foarte bine descris, cu o erudiție surprinzător de atractivă, de către Siddharta Mukherjee în ”The Gene. An Intimate History” (Simon & Schuster, 2016).

the-gene-9781476733531_hr

O lectură obligatorie este cartea precedentă a aceluiași autor, Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies (2010). Iată aici doar trailer-ul filmului făcut pornind de la această carte.

Articles in English, Atheist Folklore or about convenient prejudices

Historical Myths About Science

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Scientists think they’re too objective to believe in something as folklore-ish as a myth. (Nicholas Spitzer)

The idea that being scientific simply means being irreligious is a particularly naive one. It has caused a lot of confusion and will get us nowhere.

(Mary Midgley, Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and its Meaning)

Until about the 1970’s, the dominant narrative in the history of science had long been that of science triumphant, and science at war with religion. But a new generation of historians both of science and of the church began to examine episodes in the history of science and religion through the values and knowledge of the actors themselves. Now Ronald Numbers has recruited the leading scholars in this new history of science to puncture the myths, from Galileo’s incarceration to Darwin’s deathbed conversion to Einstein’s belief in a personal God who “didn’t play dice with the universe.” The picture of science and religion at each other’s throats persists in mainstream media and scholarly journals, but each chapter in Galileo Goes to Jail shows how much we have to gain by seeing beyond the myths. (Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, edited by Ronald L. Numbers, Harvard University Press, 2010)

galileo goes to jail

  • Myth 1. That the Rise of Christianity Was Responsible for the Demise of Ancient Science [David C. Lindberg]
  • Myth 2. That the Medieval Christian Church Suppressed the Growth of Science [Michael H. Shank]
  • Myth 3. That Medieval Christians Taught That the Earth Was Flat [Lesley B. Cormack]
  • Myth 4. That Medieval Islamic Culture Was Inhospitable to Science [S. Nomanul Haq]
  • Myth 5. That the Medieval Church Prohibited Human Dissection [Katharine Park]
  • Myth 6. That the Copernican System Demoted Humans from the Center of the Cosmos [Dennis R. Danielson]
  • Myth 7. That Giordano Bruno Was the First Martyr of Modern Science [Jole Shackelford]
  • Myth 8. That Galileo Was Imprisoned and Tortured for Advocating Copernicanism [Maurice A. Finocchiaro]
  • Myth 9. That Christianity Gave Birth to Modern Science [Noah Efron]
  • Myth 10. That the Scientific Revolution Liberated Science from Religion [Margaret J. Osler]
  • Myth 11. That Catholics Did Not Contribute to the Scientific Revolution [Lawrence Principe]
  • Myth 12. That René Descartes Originated the Mind-Body Distinction [Peter Harrison]
  • Myth 13. That Isaac Newton’s Mechanistic Cosmology Eliminated the Need for God [Edward Davis]
  • Myth 14. That the Church Denounced Anesthesia in Childbirth on Biblical Grounds [Rennie B. Schoepflin]
  • Myth 15. That the Theory of Organic Evolution Is Based on Circular Reasoning [Nicolaas A. Rupke]
  • Myth 16. That Evolution Destroyed Charles Darwin’s Faith in Christianity—until He Reconverted on His Deathbed [James Moore]
  • Myth 17. That Huxley Defeated Wilberforce in Their Debate over Evolution and Religion [David N. Livingstone]
  • Myth 18. That Darwin Destroyed Natural Theology [Jon H. Roberts]
  • Myth 19. That Darwin and Haeckel Were Complicit in Nazi Biology [Robert J. Richards]
  • Myth 20. That the Scopes Trial Ended in Defeat for Antievolutionism [Edward J. Larson]
  • Myth 21. That Einstein Believed in a Personal God [Matthew Stanley]
  • Myth 22. That Quantum Physics Demonstrated the Doctrine of Free Will [Daniel P. Thurs]
  • Myth 23. That “Intelligent Design” Represents a Scientific Challenge to Evolution [Michael Ruse]
  • Myth 24. That Creationism Is a Uniquely American Phenomenon [Ronald L. Numbers]
  • Myth 25. That Modern Science Has Secularized Western Culture [John Hedley Brooke]

Newton's apple

A falling apple inspired Isaac Newton’s insight into the law of gravity—or so the story goes. Is it true? Perhaps not. But the more intriguing question is why such stories endure as explanations of how science happens. Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science brushes away popular misconceptions to provide a clearer picture of great scientific breakthroughs from ancient times to the present.

Among the myths refuted in this volume is the idea that no science was done in the Dark Ages, that alchemy and astrology were purely superstitious pursuits, that fear of public reaction alone led Darwin to delay publishing his theory of evolution, and that Gregor Mendel was far ahead of his time as a pioneer of genetics. Several twentieth-century myths about particle physics, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and more are discredited here as well. In addition, a number of broad generalizations about science go under the microscope of history: the notion that religion impeded science, that scientists typically adhere to a codified “scientific method,” and that a bright line can be drawn between legitimate science and pseudo-science. (Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science, edited by Ronald Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis, Harvard University Press, 2015)

  • I. Medieval and Early Modern Science
    • Myth 1. That There Was No Scientific Activity between Greek Antiquity and the Scientific Revolution [Michael H. Shank]
    • Myth 2. That before Columbus, Geographers and Other Educated People Thought the Earth Was Flat [Lesley B. Cormack]
    • Myth 3. That the Copernican Revolution Demoted the Status of the Earth [Michael N. Keas]
    • Myth 4. That Alchemy and Astrology Were Superstitious Pursuits That Did Not Contribute to Science and Scientific Understanding [Lawrence M. Principe]
    • Myth 5. That Galileo Publicly Refuted Aristotle’s Conclusions about Motion by Repeated Experiments Made from the Campanile of Pisa [John L. Heilbron]
    • Myth 6. That the Apple Fell and Newton Invented the Law of Gravity, Thus Removing God from the Cosmos [Patricia Fara]
  • II. Nineteenth Century
    • Myth 7. That Friedrich Wöhler’s Synthesis of Urea in 1828 Destroyed Vitalism and Gave Rise to Organic Chemistry [Peter J. Ramberg]
    • Myth 8. That William Paley Raised Scientific Questions about Biological Origins That Were Eventually Answered by Charles Darwin [Adam R. Shapiro]
    • Myth 9. That Nineteenth-Century Geologists Were Divided into Opposing Camps of Catastrophists and Uniformitarians [Julie Newell]
    • Myth 10. That Lamarckian Evolution Relied Largely on Use and Disuse and That Darwin Rejected Lamarckian Mechanisms [Richard W. Burkhardt Jr.]
    • Myth 11. That Darwin Worked on His Theory in Secret for Twenty Years, His Fears Causing Him to Delay Publication [Robert J. Richards]
    • Myth 12. That Wallace’s and Darwin’s Explanations of Evolution Were Virtually the Same [Michael Ruse]
    • Myth 13. That Darwinian Natural Selection Has Been “the Only Game in Town” [Nicolaas Rupke]
    • Myth 14. That after Darwin (1871), Sexual Selection Was Largely Ignored until Robert Trivers (1972) Resurrected the Theory [Erika Lorraine Milam]
    • Myth 15. That Louis Pasteur Disproved Spontaneous Generation on the Basis of Scientific Objectivity [Garland E. Allen]
    • Myth 16. That Gregor Mendel Was a Lonely Pioneer of Genetics, Being Ahead of His Time [Kostas Kampourakis]
    • Myth 17. That Social Darwinism Has Had a Profound Influence on Social Thought and Policy, Especially in the United States of America [Ronald L. Numbers]
  • III. Twentieth Century
    • Myth 18. That the Michelson-Morley Experiment Paved the Way for the Special Theory of Relativity [Theodore Arabatzis and Kostas Gavroglu]
    • Myth 19. That the Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment Was Simple and Straightforward [Mansoor Niaz]
    • Myth 20. That Neo-Darwinism Defines Evolution as Random Mutation Plus Natural Selection [David J. Depew]
    • Myth 21. That Melanism in Peppered Moths Is Not a Genuine Example of Evolution by Natural Selection [David W. Rudge]
    • Myth 22. That Linus Pauling’s Discovery of the Molecular Basis of Sickle-Cell Anemia Revolutionized Medical Practice [Bruno J. Strasser]
    • Myth 23. That the Soviet Launch of Sputnik Caused the Revamping of American Science Education [John L. Rudolph]
  • IV. Generalizations
    • Myth 24. That Religion Has Typically Impeded the Progress of Science [Peter Harrison]
    • Myth 25. That Science Has Been Largely a Solitary Enterprise [Kathryn M. Olesko]
    • Myth 26. That the Scientific Method Accurately Reflects What Scientists Actually Do [Daniel P. Thurs]
    • Myth 27. That a Clear Line of Demarcation Has Separated Science from Pseudoscience [Michael D. Gordin]

 

 

Atheist Folklore or about convenient prejudices

Un exercițiu de ”hermeneutică subversivă”

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În fața unui status quo care înregimentează spiritele ”libere” în tipare ironic de stâmte și ciudat de identice, este o adevărată boemie azi să faci genealogia genealogiei, deconstrucția deconstrucției, să desfaci fundițele de pe șantierul arheologiilor de tot felul și să exersezi un audit celor care sunt obișnuiți doar să controleze pe alții. Desigur, trăim într-o epocă când probitatea și seriozitatea academică sunt persiflate de marii guralivi ai adevărurilor minuscule. Dar o dovadă de dragoste este să îngădui libertatea oricărui nebunii dar și să o pui la punct atunci când ai argumente. Depinde însă dacă urechile sunt dornice să asculte și altceva decât propriile micronarațiuni convenabile!

HGBJ-Cover

Un astfel de exercițiu de hermeneutică subversivă (sau să o punem în termenii ”ereziei ortodoxiei” ai lui Andreas J. Köstenberger, un teolog care îmi place din ce în ce mai mult în ultimul timp) este cartea How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature. A Response to Bart Ehrman scrisă de Michael F. Bird, Craig A. Evans, Simon Gathercole, Charles E. Hill, Chris Tilling, Zondervan, 2014).

Iată doar o pre-gustare din conținutul acestei cărți.

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