Free Republic

Today there are many different views and thoughts about just what the term “Sin” means. Just the word alone gives people the Hee-bee-Gee-bees. People do not like to think of themselves as “Sinners.” They say or think, “Well, I’m not that bad. I’ve never killed anyone. If you only knew the good I do...(and so on and so forth).” These statements and sentiments are expressed in attempting to justify their “dead works” (Hebrews 6:1; 9:14). Sin, as defined in God’s Word, the Bible, is the transgression and violation of the righteousness and perfection of Almighty God. Sin is also the...

Gang of children - some as young as TEN - caught slowly roasting puppies over bonfire (See pic in URL) By Jaya Narain 04th February 2009 A gang of children aged as young as 10 were caught trying to roast a pair puppies over a bonfire. Passerby Melanie Johnson spotted them kicking the pups and holding them over the fire on a canal bank. The youngsters fled, abandoning the dogs, when she challenged them. Ms Johnson, 32, took the puppies home, then passed them on to an RSPCA centre where staff treated the dogs and are now looking to find...

The Art Instinct by: Daniel Allen, January 27, 2009 It is hard to imagine what purpose art could have served in a world where every day was largely a struggle to survive until the next day. How did art develop among our ancestors, and what role did it play in their ability to survive and progress? In The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution, Denis Dutton seeks to answer these questions as he explores the characteristics of art in the framework of Darwinian philosophy and human evolution. Many readers will doubtless reject The Art Instinct out of hand, disagreeing...

Friday was the opening of The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly; it’s director Scott Derrickson’s remake of the 1951 Robert Wise classic. The previous Friday witnessed our panel discussion at Caltech about how science intersected with the film. Reviews thus far (of both the movie and the panel) have been mixed; personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the panel and thought the movie rose to the level of “pretty good.” (Lost amidst the excitement of aliens and CGI was the excellent acting in the film, including a great performance by Jaden Smith in the role of...

A BBC presenter has attacked coverage of Afghanistan's ongoing war, claiming TV reporters are not covering the 'humanity of the Taliban'. Lyse Doucet, a presenter and correspondent on BBC World News, was speaking at a discussion of TV reporting of the war in the country. Doucet, who has been at the BBC since 1983, also spoke out against the nature of the reports on Prince Harry's deployment in Afghanistan. The veteran correspondent and presenter, who played a key role in the BBC's coverage of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, told the Edinburgh International Television Conference: 'What's lacking in the...

"For a long time, humans were pretty dumb, doing little but make 'the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years,' says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years.

Filmmaker Andrew Stanton says his latest film isn't about the environment or obesity. It's about relationships...[said Stanton] what really interested me was the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that's not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was trying to say—that irrational love defeats the world's programming. You've got these two robots that are trying to go above...

HARTFORD, Conn. - A 78-year-old man is tossed like a rag doll by a hit-and-run driver and lies motionless on a busy city street as car after car goes by. Pedestrians gawk but do nothing. One driver stops briefly but then pulls back into traffic. A man on a scooter slowly circles the victim before zipping away. The chilling scene — captured on video by a streetlight surveillance camera — has touched off a round of soul-searching in Hartford, with the capital city's biggest newspaper blaring "SO INHUMANE" on the front page and the police chief lamenting: "We no longer...

Got word that the Palm Beach Post jolted the newsroom yesterday with a bulletin-board announcement that it is cutting costs in the next few weeks, including eliminating an unknown number of newsroom staffers through "early retirement" packages. Post management will also reduce the size of the newspaper by cutting pages, combining sections, and axing some sections altogether, according to a source. It's another chilling sign of the severe contraction of the newspaper industry, and the method used to convey the potentially life-changing cuts only added to the jarring nature of the news. The announcement was made via letter-sized memos from...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Thursday that embryonic stem cell research, artificial insemination and the prospect of human cloning had "shattered" human dignity. In an address to members of the Vatican department on doctrinal matters, Benedict said the Church had a duty to defend the "great values at stake" in the field of bioethics. The speech was the latest in a series in which the conservative Pope has told his listeners that scientific progress should not be accepted uncritically. Benedict, who headed the same department for years before his election in 2005, said the Church was not...

An almost complete human skull fossil that could date back 100,000 years was unearthed in Henan last month, Chinese archaeologists announced yesterday... The Henan find was made after two years of excavation at the site in Xuchang. Archaeologists have worked on an area of 260 sq m, merely one-hundredth of the Paleolithic site... The fossil consisted of 16 pieces of the skull with protruding eyebrows and a small forehead. More astonishing than the completeness of the skull is that it still has a fossilized membrane on the inner side, so scientists can track the nerves of the Paleolithic ancestors... The...

The successful efforts of the Human Genome Project rightfully stand amongst the greatest intellectual achievements of human history. The brilliance and diligence displayed in this research cannot be quantified or described in a way that does it all justice. However, the question now becomes what we actually do with the knowledge of the human genome? Given the previous history of human technology, the heroic industry and intelligence of the scientists who achieved this discovery will in no way guarantee that it won’t fall into the hands of evil despots or malicious haters. It becomes possible that human beings as we...

Map of Humanity by Rex Libris and Nil creator James Turner

Attacking "God" has become a lucrative book business. But there's not much substance behind the latest atheist tracts. There is nothing new under the sun," proclaims the Book of Ecclesiastes. The rise of the new new atheism confirms this ancient biblical wisdom. Of course the famous words of Ecclesiastes should not be taken in a slavishly literal sense, a technique that is all-too-common among those who think they can refute belief in God by showing that the Bible abounds in demonstrably false and self-contradictory statements.

It is not easy to be a Christian. To be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect, is a directive which should instill both awe and humility into its hearers. Likewise, commandments to love our neighbors and pray for our enemies are also tall orders, which, without the grace of God, would be almost impossible to obey. As difficult as Christian living is, it's harder still to be a Catholic. Though the Holy Church is a gift and a blessing from God and ultimately, a gateway to eternal life, its ways are never easy, nor were they promised to be....

Put it this way: if you are about to have major surgery and your only choice was a church-going doctor with a high mortality rate, or an agnostic with a high success record, which would it be?Conservative Evangelical Christian voters have come a long way in a short time. From their nearly unanimous condemnation of Bill Clinton for his extramarital affairs, a growing number of these “pro-family” voters appear ready to accept several Republican presidential candidates who do not share their ideal of marriage and faith. Among those seriously under consideration by these church-going folks is former New York Mayor...

The "Palestinian" Contributions to Humanity 1) Commit the crimes on your own kids (human bombs, human shields) and always blame the Zionist victim. 2) How to united the Arab world, bring about "Dead Arab kids", Hezbollah picked up on that very fast. 3) The bastion of (fake) excuse for Islamists' crimes against humanity. 4) The phenomenon of "brown" Arabs Kissing up to "white" Hitler, Hitlerists, never mind what one wishes the other. 5) Inventing big drama words, such as "apartheid", "racism" for those daring to stand up against Racist, Fascist terrorists. 6) The lucky invention of the 1960's, One of the 21...

Suppose for a moment that the birth in Bethlehem that Christians celebrate this week never happened --that it is, as the secularists would have it, mere mumbo jumbo, superstition, a myth. In other words, consider it not as an event but as a narrative. You want to launch a big new global movement from scratch. So what do you use? The birth of a child. If Christianity is just a myth, then it is, so to speak, an immaculately conceived one. On the one hand, what could be more powerless than a newborn babe? On the other, without a newborn...

Abortion: Should the Unborn be Considered Human? Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in America today. The reasons for this are manifold, as abortion ties into many facets of American society. In this paper, I will elaborate on one part of the debate; specifically, the humanity of the unborn. The question being asked is whether or not a fetus should be considered a living human being. Viewpoints regarding this issue vary wildly, but I aim to clarify why one should be considered human from the moment of conception. What is the fetus? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the...