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Renowned Yale computer scientist David Gelernter claims that he is abandoning Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Gelernter, who formerly served as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, published a column earlier this year detailing his move away from evolutionary theory. The column, which was titled “Giving Up Darwin,” provides Gelernter’s arguments against Darwinism. Darwin’s theory predicts that new life forms evolve gradually from old ones in a constantly branching, spreading tree of life. Those brave new Cambrian creatures must therefore have had Precambrian predecessors, similar but not quite as fancy and sophisticated. They could not have all blown out...

Call for Development of ‘Christian Spirituality of Ecology’ The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have renewed their commitment to care for creation. In a written statement, they called on August 16, 2019, for the development of a “Christian spirituality of ecology” which begins in “personal” and “family life”. Outlining the depths of the ecological crisis we are facing and the Catholic response, they also invite the Catholic community in England and Wales to take up the challenge to adopt a new lifestyle. “We the Bishops of England and Wales commit ourselves and invite our people to engage in this...

The devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality,' Fr Arturo Sosa claimed The superior general of the Society of Jesus has said that the devil is a symbol, but not a person. The devil, “exists as the personification of evil in different structures, but not in persons, because is not a person, is a way of acting evil. He is not a person like a human person. It is a way of evil to be present in human life,” Fr Arturo Sosa, SJ, said Wednesday in an interview with Italian magazine Tempi. “Good and evil are...

Researchers discovered what they believe is evidence of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem that is detailed in the Bible. Layers of ash, arrowheads, Iron Age potsherds, lamps, and jewelry from the period were uncovered on Mount Zion by a team led by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “For archaeologists, an ashen layer can mean a number of different things,” UNC Charlotte professor of history Shimon Gibson explained in a statement. “It could be ashy deposits removed from ovens; or it could be localized burning of garbage. However, in this case, the combination of an ashy layer full of...

Pope Francis mourns melted Iceland glacier… the nation which aborts almost 100% of babies with Down syndrome ICELAND, August 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Iceland, which aborts nearly 100 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome, has held a funeral for a glacier. The glacier, known as Okjökull or “Ok,” covered 6.2 square miles in 1890. However, by 2012, it had shrunk to less than 0.3 miles, and in 2014 Icelandic scientists decided it was no longer moving. An Icelandic geologist, Oddur Sigurðsson, told Agence France-Presse that “...We made the decision that this was no longer a living glacier, it was...

The company that has already made an impact in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. is planning to expand.Catholic Energies is a non-profit group that has made it their mission to provide cheap, renewable sources of power to Catholic communities. Although they’ve only been around for a couple of years, they’ve already made a big impact on the East Coast and now they’re planning to expand their project, with the goal of taking it nationwide. Launched in 2017 by parent organization Catholic Climate Covenant (CCC), Catholic Energies has already completed several projects, the grandest of which is a 5,000-panel solar installation in...

Pope Francis’s Greatest Fear for the Planet: ‘Loss of Biodiversity’ ROME — Pope Francis displayed his solid ecological credentials this week, declaring that climate change is a “global emergency” and insisting that what he fears most is a loss of biodiversity. In a wide-ranging interview published by the Italian daily La Stampa Friday, Pope Francis said that the upcoming Vatican synod of bishops on the Amazon region will focus heavily on environmental issues.Asked why he convoked the synod, Francis said it is a “child” of his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si on care for creation. “Those who have not read it...

The Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) and the Conferences of European Churches are uniting once again this year to reaffirm responsibility for creation and issue an invitation to prayer. In a joint statement, sent to Fides News Agency, highlights that the “Season of Creation”, from September 1 to October 4, “is a special period in the liturgical calendars of an increasing number of Churches in Europe”. “So, we are taking advantage of this occasion and unite ourselves in prayer so that humanity may respect the planet. With our whole heart, we pray for those people in the world who...

Between 1997 and 2016, researchers at an excavation near Ashkelon in Israel examined the remains of more than one hundred humans, remains that dated from the 12th to 6th centuries before Christ. The researchers hoped to find human DNA in order to answer an old question: Who were the Philistines? Where did they come from? As it turns out, the Philistines were exactly who the Bible says they were, and they came from where the Bible says they did. Amos 9 speaks of God bringing up the Philistines from Caphtor, just as he brought Israel out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 2...

Famed Yale computer science professor quits believing Darwin’s theories JENNIFER KABBANY - FIX EDITOR •JULY 30, 2019 ‘The origin of species is exactly what Darwin cannot explain’ David Gelernter, a famed Yale University professor, has publicly renounced his belief in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, calling it a “beautiful idea” that has been effectively disproven. Gelernter, who is known for predicting the World Wide Web and has developed many complex computing tools over the years, is today a professor of computer science at Yale, chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies, member of the National Council of the Arts, and a...

‘Our preferential option for the poor pushes us to prioritize the most affected ‘poorest of the poor’ who cry to God for justice.’Catholic bishops are ringing alarm bells about the future of the country’s environment in a major pastoral letter condemning “the continuing destruction of our common home”. The statement was released July 16, 2019, by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, calling for “ecological conversion” amid “climate emergency”. The 9-page document is divided into eight sections, with the first half offering a reflection on the state of the environment, followed by concrete ecological actions. Following Laudato Si’, the...

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod affirms creation in six days by Lita Cosner Published: 1 August 2019 (GMT+10) Often, news coming out of various denominations can be grim. It seems every month there is a new announcement about a traditionally conservative group accepting gay marriage or other liberal ideologies. However, recently there was very good news coming from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). The Christian Post reports, “At the 67th Regular Convention of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod on Tuesday [23 July 2019], the theologically conservative denomination adopted Resolution 5-09A, titled ‘To Confess the Biblical Six-Day Creation.’”1 The official LCMS newspaper...

Two of the evil creeds of nihilism – political correctness and identity politics – are, like nihilism, a denial of reality. In particular, identity politics denies the idea of the one human race created by the Triune God together with the fall, individual accountability, and individual freedom, and establishes in their place group privileges based on the spurious idea of a genetically evolved racial/gender hierarchy consisting of many distinct races and genders: "These hierarchies are based on the malicious premise that whites, heterosexuals and males are oppressors and – in the words of the Democratic platform – America is a...

The foundational rupture in the tectonic plates of Western civilization is the breakage along the fault line of truth. The very concept of truth as we have known and inherited it is a Judeo-Christian concept. Germany became a post-Christian nation after its seminaries and universities rejected the Scriptures as God’s perfect, revealed truth. The United States has become a post-Christian nation after its best seminaries and universities—founded as teaching centers for the Word of God—rejected Scripture as God’s perfect, revealed truth. As American culture drifts further and further from anything Christian, the pressure to abandon the authority of the Bible...

Refining the Origin of Life ArgumentBy Philip Cottraux One of the most popular arguments for the existence of God involves the complexities of life itself, implying something so intricate could never be the product of natural causes. A supernatural intelligence would be required to form together even the basic living cell, with its membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, and billions of lines of coding. Requiring over ten thousand chemical reactions each second just to stay alive, the cell is truly a remarkable feat of engineering. And to be fair, to date scientists really don’t know how it originated, though there are plenty...

Climate should be 'a central priority' for US church, says Bishop McElroy Omaha, Neb. — During an advocacy-focused breakout session at last month's "Laudato Si' and the U.S. Catholic Church" conference, a room of 30 Catholics were asked to list organizations and people within the church they perceived as engaged on the issue of climate change. Visit National Catholic Reporter's Online Classifieds to learn about job opportunities, events, retreats and more. Almost every corner of the church — colleges, hospitals, women religious, Pope Francis, aid organizations, even bishops' conferences of other countries — was represented in the 20 or so...

VATICAN CITY - After current supplies run out, Vatican City State will no longer be selling any single-use plastic items on its tiny territory. While the European Union pledged in May to ban single-use plastic starting in 2021, the Vatican had already begun limiting its use and soon “it will no longer be sold,” said Rafael Ignacio Tornini, head of the department handling Vatican City State’s gardens and waste collection. “We have been making an effort to sort as much (plastic) as possible, and the state has limited all sales of single-use plastic,” he told the Italian news agency ANSA...

This Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people in history to walk on the Moon. But it’s also the anniversary of the a lesser known event—the first celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the Moon. Here’s are nine things you should know about the first communion service on the Moon. 1. In 1969, Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. was an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church, a congregation just outside of Houston, Texas. He told the lead pastor of his church, Dean Woodruff, that he had “been...

BThe verdict: It’s baloney. As reported by The Washington Post, Catholic officials are declaring a “crisis” with regard to sex education, caused by “disorientation.” A new church document — — states that the idea one may choose their gender is in “direct contradiction of the model of marriage as being between one man and one woman.” And that’s all there is, the church notes — one and one. Only two sexes. And they ain’t the same: “It is precisely within the nucleus of the family unit that children can learn how to recognize the value and the beauty of the...

The pope's call to protect the environment, Laudato Si', has touched Protestants as well as Catholics. When Pope Francis released his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, it came with a call for the people of the world to take “swift and unified global action.” Now, after four years, the pontiff is seeing results and one Atlanta church is being praised for leading the effort. When Susan Varlamoff, a retired director of UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Office of Environmental Sciences and parishioner at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Lilburn, first learned about Laudato Si‘, she was excited, to...