Free Republic

They've Got Eric Metaxas Under Their Skin: Now, the Religious Critics David Klinghoffer January 14, 2015 12:41 PM | Permalink If you publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal advocating for intelligent design as Eric Metaxas did, with that dreaded phrase right in the subheadline, you're asking for trouble. Writing at ENV, Casey Luskin (here) and Daniel Bakken (here and here) have already done a more than adequate job of addressing critics of Eric Metaxas on the science, including atheist Lawrence Krauss. However, I can never quite get over how ID draws hostile responses not just from atheists but...

Still Taking Aim at Eric Metaxas, the Media Underestimate the Degree to which Physicists See Evidence for Intelligent Design Casey Luskin January 13, 2015 3:00 PM | Permalink Though it appeared on Christmas Day, Eric Metaxas's article in the Wall Street Journal continues to attract denunciations. What's the big deal? Metaxas proposed that "Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God." While people hold many different views on this topic, that's not an idea that ought to be highly controversial since there are highly credible scientists and scholars on both sides of the debate. However, the mainstream media typically erects a...

The Fundamental Equation of Chemistry Is Itself Fine-Tuned Granville Sewell January 13, 2015 11:47 AM | Permalink It is well known that all of the fundamental constants of physics are finely tuned to make life possible in our universe; for example, see this nice video featured recently at ENV. It is also well known that many scientists, in order to avoid drawing the obvious conclusion from this fine-tuning, postulate the existence of a huge number of other unobservable universes, in which these constants have random values, so that one was bound to get lucky and produce numbers favorable to life.What...

This school encourages food fights. An Alabama middle school asked students to bring canned goods to school so they can throw them at potential gunman. W.F. Burns Middle School in Valley, Ala., said the tactic is part of the ALICE method, which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate, and teaches students what to do during a shooting. Principal Priscella Holley sent a note home to parents Friday asking them to send their students back to class with an eight-ounce can of beans, corn, soup or any other food. Arming kids with cans that can be used as weapons gives...

Suppose someone wanted to dumb down a country. How would they accomplish this? In fact, no research is required. We don't need to speculate about what the most brilliant Pavlonians might do. American public schools have been dumbing down students for most of a century. The best techniques have been discovered, refined, and locked in place for many years. All that’s required is frank admiration for professionals who know their job. Simply apply their methods full-strength, and wait. You will have dumber schools, dumber kids, and a dumber society. First and most important, using any possible pretext, eliminate academic content....

The school board in Superior, Wisconsin voted last week to reject a complaint filed by an unidentified parent seeking the removal of a book that promotes homosexuality. The complaint was lodged against the book, “Emma and Meesha My Boy: A Two Mom Story”, which is being used in elementary school classrooms as early as 1st grade. The book, which is several years old and popular in the homosexual community, is designed to expand children’s understanding and definition of what constitutes a family. Well-known actress and homosexual activist Rosie O’Donell stated years ago, “I read it—I loved it—[my partner’s daughter] Chelsea...

Against our better judgement, we decided this year to allow our older son to switch from Private Catholic school to public school. So far it hasn't been all that bad. However, I got a permission request form to allow him to attend something called PEERS, or Peers Educating Peers. The topics "appear" to be social skills, avoiding sex, drugs, etc. I have found little information on this online, but the little I DID find traces back to the program being developed at UCLA. This is a huge freekin red flag for me, but I can't find details on the actual...

Full title: "Inside the Nazi death camp for WOMEN: Injected with petrol, infected with syphilis and raped by their liberators, the shocking fate of prisoners at Ravensbruck" Katharina Waitz stared at the 15ft wall topped by barbed wire, took a deep breath and, undaunted, began to climb the last leg to freedom. She was one of the handful of inmates of Ravensbruck, the Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women, ever to break out, and it took the ultimate in daring high-wire acts for her to get away. A trapeze artist by profession, the crime that consigned her to this grimmest...

Back in 2013, Adobe began posting a series of short video tutorials on YouTube called the “Photoshop Playbook.” The series has since grown to contain fifty how-to videos showing how some of the most popular and fundamental edits are done in the photo editing program.

A College Fix article that went viral last fall drew attention to an emerging inclination among young people: pro-life activists who engage college students on campuses across the country are seeing support for so-called “post-birth abortion,” or the killing of infants and young children. It was a report so shocking, many did not want to believe it. In response to the article – shared on social media nearly 50,000 times and sparking a national dialogue – Snopes.com attempted to debunk the claim by complaining the piece spun anecdotal evidence into a “study.” Students for Life also published a piece saying...

It annoys me to no end when someone says that Christianity was just as bad as Islam in the past by some "supposedly" well meaning but totally ignorant Atheist Liberal. What these fools all ignore was the Major differences in HOW the religions spread and WHEN they became misbehaving. So let's look at this and stare and compare as they say: Christianity: Started very peaceful, spread mainly by word of mouth and voluntary conversions, took several hundred years to spread across the world and then never did it by the sword. Many early Christians were heavily persecuted. Most all powerful...

How did American culture fall prey to the lowest common denominator in our country? When did we start admiring primitive cultures and considering them superior to our western civilization, giving in to their needy and outrageous demands no matter what happens to our own citizens? How did the Western world fall prey to Marxist-Leninists, to Islam, and to the rap music of the ghetto and prison culture? How was Europe colonized by Islam in just a few decades of open-borders immigration? Why did its leaders eagerly embrace Islam instead of their own citizens, committing cultural and demographic suicide?

A Christmas Gift that Keeps Giving: Lawrence Krauss on Eric Metaxas on Science, on God David Klinghoffer January 8, 2015 4:27 AM | Permalink Truly a gift that keeps giving, that Christmas Day article by Eric Metaxas in the Wall Street Journal continues to stir discussion and denunciation ("Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God"). The appetite for debate isn't surprising, given that it's reportedly the most popular article ever published by the online WSJ, with 361,467 Facebook "likes" when I looked. See my own take on it here, noting that Eric might have extended his design argument further, all...

Can't seem to post a pic on FR even using the 2015 HTML guidelines found in the 2015 SANDBOX section.Anyone know why??The symbol of the broken image below is that of the FR logo from that section.Or is the the browser I cam using???

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either...

Have you ever encountered a math problem that confused you, or came across an equation or algebraic topic that you didn’t quite understand? Sure, everyone has. Everyone except John Urschel ’12, ’13g, the former Academic All-American offensive lineman and current math genius who, during his career as a Nittany Lion, was honored with the James E. Sullivan Award and the William V. Campbell Award, two prestigious honors. The Sullivan Award goes to the nation’s top amateur athlete—not just in football, but in all sports—while the Campbell Award recognizes a college football player who combines academic and athletic success with outstanding...

FULL TITLE: FDA Approves Merck's HPV Vaccine, GARDASIL®9, to Prevent Cancers and Other Diseases Caused by Nine HPV types – Including Types that Cause About 90% of Cervical Cancer Cases KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Merck (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved GARDASIL®9 (Human Papillomavirus 9-valent Vaccine, Recombinant), Merck’s 9-valent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, for use in girls and young women 9 to 26 years of age for the prevention of cervical, vulvar, vaginal, and anal cancers caused by HPV types 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52 and...

(CNSNews.com) -- Take Back The Campus, an activist group for college students, is trying to combat the perceived string of sexual assaults on college campuses by demanding that children be educated on the particulars of sexual consent as early as kindergarten, which is for 5-year olds. Responding to recent claims of rising sexual violence on campuses, students from the University of California Berkley, UC Santa Barbara, and San Diego State University posted a list of demands on the group’s official Facebook page in December, which included a request for “consent education in K-12.” “College is too late for people to...

Are you fidgety, wringing your hands, can’t sleep at night? That’s completely to be expected. If you have heart palpitations, rapid breathing, pain in your chest, do not be surprised. Anyone who pays attention to the nightmare we inhabit could not react in any other way. We have students going off to college who can’t tell you what 7×8 is. They can’t find Alaska on a map of the world. They don’t attach any meaning to the phrase “Nice play, Shakespeare.” That’s not even conceivable. If you’re alive at all, you necessarily have ulcers, indigestion, heartburn, and acid reflux. Those...

When it comes to student debt, it's not fair to blame students for being in over their heads. In the first of its reports (April 2014), the BCEP concluded that not only is the price tag for governmental student loan relief programs much higher than originally thought, but their existence presents an irresistible temptation for students to “engage in more risky behavior because they don’t have to bear the full cost of their actions.” As such, the center urges policymakers to eliminate the forgiveness portions of the various relief programs to “reduce the potential for over-borrowing by requiring borrowers to...