Free Republic

In December 2011 the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (Washington) issued A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population. Some of the data were developed in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (South Hamilton, Massachusetts). The two institutions are responsible for the bulk of reliable statistical information on religion worldwide. They are directed, respectively, by Luis Lugo and Todd Johnson. I happen to know these two gentlemen quite well. They are the religious nose counters par excellence. Ask them how many Lutherans there are in Mongolia, and how many Buddhists...

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life published a demographic report this week on the size and distribution of the world's Christian population and revealed that Pentecostals and charismatics make up more than a quarter of all Christians. Using estimates from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the report also showed that together Pentecostals and charismatics make up more than 8 percent of the world’s total population. The study defines Pentecostals as members of Pentecostal denominations that teach that all Christians should seek a post-conversion religious experience called the baptism of...

In honor of Reformation Day, here are some complaints I’m nailing on the Wittenberg door. Long before there was an Occupy Wall Street, Martin Luther staged the most important protest in history. He was upset because Roman Catholic officials were promising people forgiveness or early escape from purgatory in exchange for money. So on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a long list of complaints on the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany. 1. Let’s reform our theology. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is God and He is holy. He is not an “it.”...

Dr. Alveda King to Address the Restoring Honor Rally at the Lincoln Memorial August 28Priests for Life FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date: August 20, 2010 Atlanta, GA – Dr. Alveda King, Director of African American Outreach for Priests for Life, issued the following statement today on her upcoming appearance at the August 28th Restoring Honor Rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial organized by commentator Glenn Beck. “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy, like the Lincoln Memorial itself, belongs to all Americans. I am participating in Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally not to advance any political agenda, but to advance...

__________________________________________________ AMONG MANY THINGS, ANGELS HAVE HIDDEN ROLE AT THE 'GATEWAY' OF OUR SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION We are certainly in trying times for the Church (also the rest of the world), and there have been major disappointments (as occurs with humans). But the foundation is unshakeable and mystics "observe" things at the Vatican that we usually can't -- for example, one woman who claims to see angels on a constant basis (since birth) says she witnessed angelic beings in greatest profusion at the Vatican. "In St. Peter's Basilica it was fantastic," she recently told us. "I just saw so many angels...

www.catholicnewsagency.com Prop. 8 trial witnesses make ‘troubling’ attack on religion and Catholic teaching Stanford University professor Gary Segura. San Francisco, Calif., Jan 22, 2010 / 07:17 am (CNA).- Court witnesses arguing against California’s Proposition 8 have described religious beliefs of those who believe marriage is between a man and a woman as biased and a “chief obstacle” to homosexuals’ “political progress.” The comments were part of a “troubling” attack on religion, Proposition 8 defenders say.Proposition 8, the successful 2008 California ballot issue that restored to state law the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a...

Sarah Palin, if running for President, surely will divide this Republic all the more into two definite segments-fiercely opposing segments. Already we have two primary segments: believers and secularists. Believers are those moralists who hold to the God of the Bible, particularly the New Testament God in Christ. It may be via Roman Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism, Orthodox Christians, or non-church members who hold to biblical ethics. Secularists are exampled by Joy Behar on The View. She is with conviction a non-believer who holds that this life is all there is. No deity. No hereafter. No judgment accountability. This is it;...

She is not only Christian in the biblical definition, but also “evangelical” when it comes to tags. And not only “evangelical,” but charismatic/pentecostal. That issue alone will swab the deck. The atheists, agnostics and generic secularists will warp and woof. They will holler and screech. They will write and scrawl. They will pull up the sewer tops from every evangelical and pentecostal persona in the past century. Further, they will take especially the pentecostal beliefs and strew them from coast to coast, then every continent. They will misplace them, misstate them, malign them and nail them to hell’s front door.

Nov 10, 2009 — There’s a move on to get Darwin’s ideas taught to tots. Britain is giving a “birthday present to Darwin,” wrote Andrew Copson for The Guardian, in the form of national curriculum for primary schools that will mention evolution for the first time – and prohibit teaching of creationism or intelligent design in science lessons. The addition of evolution to elementary school curriculum was in response to a letter promoted by the British Humanist Association and signed by “scientists and experts.” Copson was obviously delighted with what he perceived as a long-overdue smackdown against intelligent design –...

When history imitates game show . . . Those old enough to remember TV in the late 1950s through the 60s will recall a delightful game show, “To Tell the Truth.” As a kid I fondly recall trying to figure out along with the celebrity panelists which of the three contestants was the “real” person to be identified. It was a challenging game; the three contestants would all introduce themselves as “I am Mr./Miss /Mrs. [the generic Ms. hadn't come along yet] X” and, after the announcer read a brief description of the featured guest, the panelists would begin...

A salamander allegedly “18 million years old” is the latest fossil to produce astonishingly well preserved soft tissue. This time, it’s muscle tissue, and it is supposedly the most pristine example yet. Background—the “dinosaur connection”...

Nov 10, 2009 — When the Berlin wall fell 20 years ago, Dorothee Hubner first dared to think, “Are we allowed to leave and finally be free?” Her story and that of her parents Gerhard and Gertraude, scientists trapped in East Germany, was told by Andrew Curry, a freelance writer, in Science.[1] Dorothee was 23 years old in 1989. Her parents, also biochemists, “had spent decades struggling to do research in East Germany without compromising their personal ideals with allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.” By not pledging allegiance to the ruling Communist Party, the Hubners faced a life of...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Penguins that died 44,000 years ago in Antarctica have provided extraordinary frozen DNA samples that challenge the accuracy of traditional genetic aging measurements, and suggest those approaches have been routinely underestimating the age of many specimens by 200 to 600 percent. In other words, a biological specimen determined by traditional DNA testing to be 100,000 years old may actually be 200,000 to 600,000 years old, researchers suggest in a new report in Trends in Genetics, a professional journal. The findings raise doubts about the accuracy of many evolutionary rates based on conventional types of genetic analysis. “Some...

The ideal of the coolly rational scientific observer, completely independent, free of all preconceived theories, prior philosophical, ethical and religious commitments, doing investigations and coming to dispassionate, unbiased conclusions that constitute truth, is nowadays regarded by serious philosophers of science (and, indeed, most scientists) as a simplistic myth...

“Junk” DNA Discovered to Have Both Cellular and Microevolutionary Functions Evolutionists have long sought mechanisms for the origin of reproductive barriers between populations, mechanisms which are thought to be key to the formation of new species. A recent article in ScienceDaily finds that “Junk DNA” might be the “mechanism that prevents two species from reproducing.” Basically, so-called “junk”-DNA is involved in helping to package chromosomes in the cell. If two species have different “junk” DNA, then this prevents the proteins in the egg from properly packaging the chromosomes donated by the sperm. The organism does not develop properly. As the...

Darwin’s bulldog—Thomas H. Huxley --snip-- Huxley, although an unbeliever, was thoroughly familiar with the gospel, and had little time for Christians who compromised their position by supporting the anti-biblical belief of evolutionary naturalism. He wrote: ...

A Trunk or Treat is a Halloween event that is often church or community-sponsored. People gather and park their cars in a large parking lot. They open their trunks or the backs of their vehicles and decorate them. Then they pass out candy from their trunks. The event provides a safe family environment for trick or treaters.... (see pictures!)

I have been thinking about this for a long time. I think several people have published book reports and others have given their take on certain books. We would need to have a variety of books by different denominational authors. Not everyone would have to read every book. Whoever might be interested in that month's title could post on that month's thread. We would have to have some kind of rules such as limited discussion until the half-point of the month so that the conclusion of the book wouldn't be given away in the first ten posts. There could be...

Pastor Benny Hinn: Charlatan or Man of God? October 09, 2009 Lauren Green. Pastor Benny Hinn is being investigated by the Senate Finance Committee and was recently denied entry into the United Kingdom. The press has been bad, he says, because the media doesn't understand him. But the Texas-based faith healer, whose "Holy Spirit Miracle Crusades" pack sports arenas across the United States, is fielding questions about his controversies nonetheless. He says he needs to voice his concerns over the land of his birth, Israel, and the threat to it posed by a nuclear Iran — which he talks about...

Outer Limits Not Lively Sept 29, 2009 — One of the “cosmic coincidences” cited in the intelligent-design treatise The Privileged Planet1 is the “galactic habitable zone” – a fairly narrow region of the galaxy where planets can form and exist safely.  The outer regions of the galaxy were described as lacking the heavy elements necessary for planet formation. Score one for the authors.  New Scientist reported on a planet search by astronomers at the University of Tokyo who failed to find planets in the outer reaches of the galaxy.  “Astronomers have long doubted that life could exist there,” the article...