Casey's Critical Thinking A blog and collection of essays written from a conservative Christian perspective.

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45 Unasked Questions
2008-04-30 14:22:07
Kansas Bob posted 45 unanswered questions yesterday that I found interesting, so I thought I’d do it, too. 1. WHO WERE YOU NAMED AFTER? - A road sign (”Casey County”). 2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? - My Taekwondo instructor (Korean) once told me that a man is allowed to cry 3 times in life: [...] ...

Leader says Hamas ‘won’t recognise Israel’
2008-04-22 14:13:23
In case anyone actually believed that the Palestinians were interested in peace, here’s the story right from the horse’s mouth: Hamas is ready to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders but “it will not recognise Israel,” the Islamist movement’s exiled chief Khaled Meshaal told a news conference Monday. “We accept a Palestinian state within the [...] ...

The precious accident
2008-04-12 08:46:09
I was watching a show called “Alien Planet” on the Discovery channel today, and some scientist (I presume an atheist) said, “We have to realize that life is the result of a series of random accidents. Life is precious, so we must do whatever we can to protect it.” He then went into a shpiel [...] ...

Young Earth vs. Old Earth Debate
2007-05-25 23:12:00
Tonight I attended a debate between Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe and Minoru Usami of Creation Research Japan. It was called a "debate," but it was more of a presentation of views for each side to listen to the other. It was stressed that both Hugh Ross and Minoru Usami are evangelical Christians and that both Young Earth Creationists (YECs) and Old Earth Creationists (OECs) believe that the Bible is God's word. It's an important point, because we're all on the same side. We tend to let disagreements divide us, but the age of the earth/universe is irrelevant when it comes to salvation. I have never read any of Hugh Ross' books all the way through, so it was an interesting presentation. It did drive home how different one's interpretation of the Bible really is depending on whether they take Genesis literally or "literally." By "literally" in quotes, I mean that Hugh Ross claims that since the Hebrew word  "yom" can mean a long period of ...
Debate  Earth 

My testimony
2007-05-25 00:03:00
No Christian website is complete without a testimony. In particular, when it comes to an apologetics website such as this one, many people probably wonder about the site owner's background. So why did it take me eight years to put one up? No idea. I just happened across an article on the subject on rationalchristianity.net today, which I had actually read before, and decided to get to it. The full article can be found here. ...

Environmental activism is a religious experience
2007-05-16 09:47:00
Environmental activism is a religious experience. What else can explain the utter pointlessness of trying to "save" a world you believe arose by accident and is ultimately destined for destruction? The majority, or at least a very large number, of environmental activists are atheistic evolutionists who believe that life is the result of an accident that occurred billions of years ago. If life is an accident then so is the sun, and when the sun burns out a few millenia from now, all life will cease to exist. It will be as if nothing ever happened. All the environmentalists' efforts to prolong the inevitable will have been forgotten by...well, there actually won't be anyone left to remember! Apparently there really is a God-shaped hole that we all need to fill. Many people are filling this void in their lives by dedicating themselves to stopping climate change, an impossible task to accomplish on a planet that has been through several ice ages and periods of warm. At least it ...
Activism  Environmental  Experience  Religious 

Bush's Real Record On the Economy
2007-05-15 18:45:00
An editorial from Investor's Business Daily sets the record straight on Bush and the economy: Years from now, pundits and academics will surely wonder why President Bush's greatest achievement — his stewardship of the economy — got so little notice during his time in office. Yet that's how it is. Bizarrely, polls show that many people think the economy has fallen into a recession. Or that we never left the slump that began in March 2001, a bare month and a half after Bush entered office, and that ended in November of the same year. Last summer, a national poll taken by American Research Group showed 38% of Americans thought the economy was in a recession. By last month that had fallen to 28%, but it's still a big share. Of course, we weren't in a recession. Nor is it the case, as also has been asserted, that "things got worse" under Bush. What factually is true is Bush faced the greatest economic challenge of any incoming president since President Reagan. Lik ...
Economy  Record 

Conservative cartoons
2007-05-15 17:43:00
Some of these are really funny. Check out IBD Editorials for a good laugh. ...
Cartoons  Conservative 

Democrats and the Fairness Doctrine
2007-05-15 12:50:00
Knowing that they cannot compete on the merits of their ideas, Democrats love to try to silence the competition. Why is it that it is the Republicans that always get accused of censorship? Rush Limbaugh explains it this way: Bring it on! Pelosi and the Democrats are resurrecting The Fairness Doctrine to shut up Rush. The left saw their liberal radio network go down in flames, but they won't accept that they cannot compete in the marketplace of ideas. No, they're going to require local radio stations to "balance" Rush's commentary, knowing it will create hassles so thick that radio stations will drop the show. "It's a pure Stalinist tactic," Rush says. "Elected officials of government are attempting to deny private citizens access to the microphone." The focus of Democrats is to make war on Rush, not Al-Qaeda. It's not just Rush, though, it's a host of conservative radio hosts. Of course, Rush is the biggest name, but there are others. Since there are no l ...
Democrats  Doctrine  Fairness 

Bad Climate "Science"
2007-05-14 00:01:00
The subheading to Joel Schwartz's article on National Review about global warming science sums both the article and the issue up nicely: The ideology goes in before the science goes on.Assume that human greenhouse-gas emissions are causing dangerous changes in the Earth’s climate. What should we do about it? Public debate on climate change has focused almost solely on requiring large reductions in fossil-fuel energy consumption. Enter the journal Nature with a new feature article on another potential means of dealing with climate change. ...Another potential contributor is a wooly-minded romantic environmentalism that seems to have infected scientists as much as anyone else. This also comes through in Nature’s profile: Hans Feichter, a climate modeller at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, speaks for the vast majority of his colleagues when he says ‘the role of a geoscientist is to understand nature, not to change it.’ Climate scientists hav ...
Climate  Science 

Was There Death Before Sin?
2007-05-11 17:49:00
I have written a new article responding to Rich Deem's rebuttal of the young earth creationist argument that there was no death before the Fall on godandscience.org. If you're interested, the article is here. Here's a short excerpt: For many years now I have enjoyed the articles on godandscience.org. At the time of this essay they are celebrating 10 years on the Internet. Although I do not agree with their position on the issue of origins, I find much of their website very helpful, and I believe there is much common ground. I'm sure I've read through their section on young earth creationism before, but I just happened to look at it in more detail today. I would like to respond to Rich Deem's rebuttal of the young earth creationist argument that there was no death before the Fall. First of all, he claims that plant death is the same as animal death. It's hard to imagine someone actually arguing this, but I suppose there is precedent for it in religions like Buddhism (some Buddhist ...
Death 

Start calling 'em French fries again
2007-05-11 10:39:00
Maybe we've confused the French with the French media. The election of pro-America Nicolas Sarkozy to the presidency of France shows that the French people don't hate us as much as our media would like us to believe. Yep, it's time to start ordering "French" fries again (not that I ever called 'em "Freedom" fries). The election of Nicolas Sarkozy to the presidency of France has been a serious blow to those who claim that America has earned the undying hatred of Europeans. Oh, to be sure, the French media hates us, but there are a lot of people who say ours does too. Regardless, Sarkozy’s victory has sent shock waves through the world’s media centers. A French president who openly admires America is an embarrassment to those who view us as the country bumpkin cousins of the sophisticated Europeans. American pundits and politicians who say we should change our foreign policies to win the European popularity contest ought to be feeling a little embarrasse ...
French Fries  Fries 

More ingratitude
2007-05-10 17:18:00
By now, everyone knows about the thwarted terror attack in New Jersey. This is yet another example of ingratitude toward American kindness. Michelle Malkin has a column on National Review today describing some of the kindness extended to Muslims by the United States and Fort Dix, in particular: Well, here is the thanks we get. Eight years ago, America opened its arms to tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo. The first planeload landed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Military leaders worked day and night to turn the base into a child-friendly village. They coordinated medical and security checkups, mental-health and trauma counseling, and ethnic-food preparations. Soldiers from Fort Bragg traveled up from North Carolina to assist in refugee operations at Fort Dix. Then-U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mitchell M. Zais also assembled a team of about 80 soldiers from the U.S. Army Reserve Command in Atlanta. The New Jersey National Guard and American Red Cross teamed up to coordinate ch ...