In my wanderings around the ‘Net I stumbled upon this little page from the National Center for Science Education. Their stated purpose is “defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools”.

News to me. I was under the impression that teaching evolution in public schools was nigh unto a Holy Commandment from the Supreme Court per Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987).

Okay, okay… before someone decides to crucify someone over this… I will have to agree with the intent of this decision (but not necessarily the effects this little piece of judicial activism has had). In my opinion, the teachings of any system of cosmology or origin of life (both contained within the idea of “creationism”, and the latter expressly considered by Darwinists/evolutionists) should either be not taught at the compulsory level (i.e. primary through secondary schools funded by tax dollars) OR taught in such a manner as not to be dogmatic.

The back side of Edwards v. Aguillard is that in attempting to prevent religious doctrine from being taught in publicly funded, and therefore, secular schools - it opens the door to squelching honest academic consideration of differing viewpoints. Granted, creationism in many (if not most) of its forms is not considered to be “good science”, and has been relegated to the dark corners of superstition along with the Flat Earth and pre-Copernican geo-centric cosmography of the Middle Ages.

However (as I discussed in my post “Monkey Business”) the theory of evolution is almost as much dogma to secular humanists as creationism is to Christians. A more honest and informative discussion of the entire continuum would engage debate, and also open discussion concerning the possiblity of a Creator who had a hand in making us.

The views range from:

• Flat Earth and Geocentrism (definitely disprovable through observable phenomena such as horizon and mathematically proven curvature of the Earth’s surface, as well as orbital and gravitational observations)
• Young Earth (wishful thinking, but it is difficult to get around the preponderance of evidence for an ancient Earth) … this is probably the most popular Creationist school at present, and certainly is amongst Evangelical Christians.
• Old Earth/Ruin/Gap theories (more in line with observable data, but not necessarily proveable to exclusion of other theories) This had been the prevailing school of thought for Creationists prior to the appearance of Scofield’s Dispensations and other writings which espoused the Young Earth view, and is regaining some mind share in the minds of Christians in both mainline and evangelical/fundamentalist denominations.
• Materialistic Evolution (same as the last, except that it seeks to disprove God’s hand in any aspect or cause in biogenesis).

I am still developing my own view of the mechanism by which Life arose on the earth (biogeny) and currently lean in the direction of the idea that God created “templates with room to diversify” by way of theistic evolution (that is, evolution defined by and controlled by God with most of the inputs coded into the prime template’s DNA). In short, I can accept a form of “micro-evolution” that permits lines of adaptation and speciation - with an important caveat being that as time progresses, the lineal descendants will tend to have less of the progenitor’s original DNA information, as mutations enter the DNA, and as DNA information is lost to regional pockets (inbreeding or loss of certain varieties within a given genome).

As touching Mankind, I think Mankind is God’s special creation, made in His image as it is written in the Bible. No room left for interpretation or guesswork there.

While I am not a strict literalist (there is much in the Bible that is allegorical - Jesus Himself spoke in many parables which are themselves allegorical) I do accept and believe that all Scripture is inspired by God (2 Timothy 2:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21). The Bible is very clear on the matter of God forming man (Adam) from the dust of the earth, and breathing life into him. Science also bears this out, in that we realy are composed of the same mixture of elements as can be found in dirt, and indeed, the dusty material in space left over from the Creation of the universe.

Intertwined with this is also cosmology (study of the origins of the universe) which most scientific authority agrees is centered with the Big Bang event.

To develop my view, I start by outlining a few absolute truths which are defined by God’s word, and other assumptions which are supported by scientifically proven evidence:

1) God is, and was, and ever shall be: He exists as the Triune God (Father, Word, and Holy Spirit) and is not contained by the Time-Space continuum, but rather, is the initiator/Author of Time-Space. As such, He is able to see and control all aspects of His creation (incl. and especially the Time-Space continuum) at all times and from any angle He wishes.

2) Time-Space has a definite beginning, (Genesis 1:1) and definite ends, or dimensions - even if it is beyond our capacity to truly comprehend those limits. In particular, it has spatial limits “that were stretched out” (Jeremiah 10:12) which makes sense to our frame of reference. Scientific validation of this is apparent with stellar distances, red shift observations, and measurable distances (as measured by the time light crosses a certain distance). Limitations on Time exist where the Universe has a definite beginning point, and a definite end point where Peter wrote nearly 2000 years ago:

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

(2 Peter 3:10-12, KJV)

3) The earth and its solar system are several billion years old, with evidence of life as old as 500 million years ago (mya) - and again, God is not constrained by time. I have long embraced seven literal days of creation, but it is possible that those days are not necessarily constrained to a seven literal periods of 24 hours occuring in succession for a total of 144 creation hours (given that God rests on the seventh day).

Alternatively, the literal 144-hour creation week may well have taken place… several hundred MYA or longer, per the Gap (Genesis 1:1-2) Theory.

I do not think that the 144-consecutive hour creation week is an article of faith, since we must remember that the language used by Moses to describe the creative work of God is initially revealed to the people of Israel of approximately 3400 years ago, a civilization that had not developed a deep knowledge of natural science; it is sufficient to know that God is abundantly powerful to create the universe and all that is in it by His holy Word.

Lastly, God has probably left the exact science of how He created the Universe and all that lives in it out of the Divine Writ, in that people would be drawn to see His hand in creation, and while investigating it, give Him the glory due Him as Creator.

4) God created life in stages, according to its “kinds”: I understand this to be the relatively sudden creation of certain living beings that serve as templates for downwardly evolving, specified and differentiated beings, all according to the same general pattern as its ancestral template.

5) God specifically and specially created Adam, and placed him into the Garden of Eden; Eve was created from his tissue. This is non-negotiable, as it sets the stage for man’s eventual redemption through Christ, the Second Adam.

6) Man (through Adam and Eve) sinned and fell from innocence by disobeying God’s single commandment for them (Genesis 3:1-14)

7) God gave man a plan of redemption from the beginning (Genesis 3:15) carried it out to the cross as God the Word (God’s only begotten Son, Jesus) and shall return soon to all who believe in Him.

8) There was a global flood that destroyed all life, save for the species God selected to board the ark with Noah and his family. It is possible that many of the forms of life descended from the original DNA templates (the creatures God created in Genesis 1) were either corrupted into chimaeras or genetically altered through the science of fallen angels or thier Nephilim offspring, as well as possibly by wicked humans acting under demonic infulence. Hence it is possible that God found it necessary to destroy these corruptions in order to preserve (some smaller fraction) of the purer but limited genetic diversity which had existed between Adam and Noah’s time. This might explain the loss of certain megafauna (dinosaurs, mammalian megafauna, etc.)

It could be that some of that megafauna were the chimaera-ized hybrids of different templates and humans - extinct forms of hominids, Neanderthals, and other creatures believed to be ancestral to man; or perhaps some of the more fantastic mythological beasts that linger in collective human conscience (dragons, centaurs, basilisks and the like).

9) Extinct “hominids” and modern Great Apes are not evolutionary relations of man, nor are they templates of beasts of the same genetic stock as humans. (See point 5). Given the much-publicized “98% similarity of DNA” between humans and chimpanzees, there is still a vast gulf of a difference between the two species, enough to preclude successful, “natural” interbreeding of human/chimp hybrids. Further, it iconsistent with God’s wisdom that a creature that is so morphologically similar to the human frame would share a great deal of the same code that God used to make both of them.

Yet, chimps are designed primarily for arboreal locomotion, grasping objects with thier lower extremeties (feet/toes), and have a considerably more robust strength to weight ratio (about 7:1 against humans), give different attaching points of muscle and fascia to bones, vastly different ratios of bodily leverage, and a higher overall concentration of lean muscle mass per kilogram of muscle than humans.

Man on the other hand, is designed by His Creator to occupy a place above the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even though a little lower than angels, Redeeemed Man (by Jesus Christ) will one day judge those same angels; he is created to glorify God, and to have eternal fellowship with Him.

Other Sources of Interest:
GodandScience.org - Progressive Creation: An Overview
Christian Geology -

Oh, and lookie here.

I’ve passed my one-year “bloggiversary” (if that is what we can call it).

As much as I *try* to avoid doing cut-n-pastes of news articles, this one is probably in danger of becoming a vapour, especially if some liberal, Islamist-loving editor decides it is “politically incorrect”

Original source is the Toledo Blade, dated 1 April, 2006.

Praise be to God, who is able to redeem souls for Himself even out of hellish trap of Islam… and for using Brother Shayesteh to warn us in the West of Islam’s dangers.

Ah, the movies… where one pays upwards of $10 per head for the privilege of seeing cinema and the sport of contesting other people for meagre parking… oh, and the joy of paying $3 USD for a small coke, and $5 for a gigantic tub of popcorn laden with artery-clogging amounts of oily butter-flavoured substance? Yummy!

This weekend, the wife and I, and Baby (known around here as HRH or “His Royal Highness”) packed off to see Letters from Iwo Jima, which was playing in a cute little theatre in Brooklyn. Figuring I’d do my part to help reduce my carbon footprint (without necessarily making al-Gore the richer for it) … we decided to give Metro-North a big wad of our cash instead, and took the train into the big city (NYC).

As has become the case lately with even the simplest outings - we ran a few snags…

Now, keep in mind that since HRH the Baby has joined our happy family, any sort of outing has come to seemingly involve a level of logistical planning rivaling a NASA moon shot:

Binkies? Check.
Spare change of clothes for HRH the Baby? Check.
Stroller? Check.
Sippy cup and/or bottle with fresh nipple? Check.
Diaper Bag (with daipers and A&D ointment and emergency formula mix, and chewing toys, ad inifitum…?) Check…

Indeed, no more simply hopping in the ol’ beater and chugging off to the station. Yet, it is enjoyable to know that HRH the Baby is safe and snugly in his car seat, slumbering away.

When I get behind on a scheduled event, I tend to make up for it in ways that are not always frought with benefit. Such as speeding, or getting sufficiently scatterbrained in trying to get caught up, that I start ignoring common-sense stuff I ordinarily can keep on top of:

Things like just barely missing our scheduled train… Fortunately, we built in a fudge factor for this, since Metro North trains run roughly hourly on the weekends. The extra hour of waiting allowed us a walk in a nearby park where we spotted what I believe was a peregrine falcon:

At least, I thought it looked like a Peregrine. Mrs. Seeker noted that the bird’s plumage was quite dirty, and she thought it might be a “homeless” bird. I’m really not sure what the distribution of Peregrine Falcons are in our area, but I speculate that she might be right in that the bird definitely appeared out of her element.

Aside from missing the train, my scatterbrainedness really didn’t hit full stride until we reached Manhattan proper, where I nearly got myself and HRH run over by a cab as I attempted a crossing of a city street whilest the traffic had right-of-way. (Note to self: I am not as fleet as I used to be in dodging traffic in a NYC crosswalk, and much less so when pushing a stroller!)

And there was the getting lost in the underground caverns of the subway station at Times Square looking for my connection to the #2 Train (something I ordinarily can do blindfolded)

And when heading back home, getting on the bus going the wrong way.

And ultimately losing a $20 Metrocard (subway pass)… somebody is getting a free ride somewhere at my expense, should they find my card.

Needless to say, Mrs. Seeker was plenty cranky at my carelessness and was not at all hesitant to point it out, especially toward the end of the evening.

Lesson learned:

“The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want.”
— Proverbs 21:5, KJV

I reckon next time I’ll go out with prayer instead of complaining about my poor timing and ill-keeping of schedule… God is reminding me that for even for something mundane like an outing to see a movie, “apart from Christ, I can do nothing” (John 15:5)

As for the movie itself, it was well worth the hassle and the travel (it apparently was a limited release in the US, which surprised me considering that it was the companion film to Flags of Our Fathers).

Whereas Flags… depicted the story of the Iwo Jima flag-raisers (or their photo-opped replacements) from the US point of view, Letters from Iwo Jima (released in Japan as 硫黄島からの手紙 Iwo Jima kara no Tegami) depicted the Japanese point of view.

It covered the memes of “War is Hell” and the overall futility of it quite well, whilest showing the Japanese combatants to mirror many if not all of the same emotions that all soldiers feel when under arms, and when under fire — down to Private Saigo (played by J-Pop “Johnnies” star Ninomiya Kazunari) complaining about digging out trenches, to the squabblings of the general staff (in particular, it touched on the government’s cover up of the loss of most of the IJN Combined Fleet at Leyte Gulf and elsewhere in the Marianas, as well as the intra-service rivalry which in practice, was quite a hindrance to any coordination between the IJN and the IJA).

I’ve always been a fan of Watanabe Ken, who was notable in his role as the titular Dokuganryu Masamune, or “The One-Eyed Dragon” - a NHK Taiga Drama from 1987 about the Sengoku Period warlord, Date Masamune (1567–1636). His performances in American productions really have not brought out his full acting ability, largely due to his lack of native English fluency (although he has a very keen memory for learning lines in English, he does not currently speak fluently) until his role in Iwo Jima. I won’t touch Last Samurai, which while a cool “samurai flick”, makes for a poor representation of the event it is based on (Satsuma Rebellion of 1877) or the Batman movie he did (ugh).

Memoirs of a Geisha was also good, although his screen time was a tad limited, and his script left a little to be desired IMHO. But, he really shines in Iwo Jima, where we see him as a truly empathetic leader, especially where he butts against the “party line” thinking of a few of his staff, including Lt. Ito (played by Kabuki performer Nakamura Shidō, who played admirably as a gunnery chief in Otokotachi no Yamato, and the bumbling town fool Takimoto Sutesuke in the 2004 NHK drama Shinsengumi! ) and Admiral Ōsugi, who is a real-life IJN personality of some import (I think he survived the war and served some time as a war criminal).

Lest I give away too many details… I HIGHLY recommend seeing this movie. Well worth the $10, or if you are willing to wait another month or two, worth slating it for your NetFlix/Blockbuster delivery.

A long time ago, there was a certain female deity worshipped by some tribes in perhaps, a fit of ignorance of the workings of natural phenomena. Not unlike many humans who turn to the supernatural to help explain the natural events beyond their understanding, they would dance before her altars, or her totems, or offer up their firstborn in fires to soothe her wrath… for who could reign in the Mother’s terrible rage when she belched up firey torments from the hills and shook the ground (volcanos, earthquakes) or smashed through villages with torrents of waters (flash floods) or threw down houses with tempestuous gales (hurricanes/tornados)?

Or even the more commonplace issues of the cycles of drought and rains, which affected the harvest, and more directly, what appeared on the earliest dinner tables man could fashion?

Such dancing and sacrifices often were fervent with the desire to appease their angry mother, who at a moment’s notice, could send a devastaing hail of icy stones to shred a crop to useless stalks, or a plague of locusts to devour every living plant down to the roots.

And yet, despite Science™ and her wonders, and despite the knowledge of the True Gospel which is able to save men’s souls… Al Gore, our would-be Environmental Jesus, would hope to scare us with his Inconvenient Sham of Global Warming, or his “carbon offset trading” scam he has cooked up in the spirit and power of the DNC’s prophet George Soros.

Not since the days of John Tetzel selling his indulgences for a few coppers at Wittemberg a few centurioes ago, has anyone so assiduously peddled a “get out of jail free” program as this Carbon Offset trade. Never mind that acre after acre of Brazilian Amazon rain forest is plowed under for “ecological safe and renewable” ethanol sugar cane plantations, or that hundreds of species will continue to disappear in our lifetimes; nor the $30,000 electric bill Mr. Gore foots every year (about 10x the usage of the average American household)

Why, there is no guarantee that the offsets one buys will actually contribute back to the removeal of CO2 from the atmosphere any more than said land won’t be turned into a zinc mine.

Needless to say, I am not buying it anymore than I am willing to dance in front of an alter to Gaia.

Much is being made of the news concerning Corporal Matthew Sanchez, USMC, and his past as a gay “adult entertainment” actor, and also his past as a paid male escort.

CPL Sanchez had been recognized by the CPAC (the same one that Ann Coulter had potty-mouthed John Edwards) for his actions in speaking out at Columbia University against anti-war radicals, and was given a Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award as well as a standing ovation at the Ronald Reagan Banquet (h/t to Michelle Malkin).

As always with the interwebs, much googling and poking around with the Wayback Machine can turn up the dirt on just about anyone; and CPL Sanchez is no exception. In spite of his turn-around from his life some 15-odd years ago (having served in the USMC, and now both a full-time student and full-time partner at a marketing company, one would have to try awfully hard to dispute his willingness to strive to be the best he can).

Naturally, the pictures and links to his old escort service profile, leather paraphenalia and his porn “career” surfaced like so much flotsam dredged up by those liberal champions of skullduggery and petty vindictiveness.

It seems that the radical left — which would have us believe that it works overtime to protect the LGBTs and other oppressed minorities — were also the first to heap scorn upon CPL Sanchez for his past. In his blog, CPL Sanchez admits to his past, and also that he has long since moved on from what he described as initially a progressive, liberal leaning worldview to that of a Reagan conservative, and finding his time in the gay porn/escort industry to be quite empty and unfilling.

Excerpted from CPL Sanchez’s blog:

I don’t like porn, it reduces the mind, flattens the soul. That’s not hypocrisy talking, that’s experience. If I started off with liberal leanings, being on a gay porn set should have been heaven. In porn, everything taboo is trivialized and everything trivial is projected. How does a conservative trace his roots to such distasteful beginnings? Like all followers of a cult, it’s tough to figure out when you stopped believing in the party-line, but I can tell you that by the time I finished my summer tour of the major studios, I was pretty disgusted with myself. It was an emotional low, and the people who surrounded me were like drug dealers only interested in being with the anesthetized in order not to shake off the stupor of being high. Why did I become a conservative? Just look at what I left, and look at who is attacking me to today? Let’s face it people, you’re all cynical enough to know that if I had espoused liberal causes, spoken out against the military, got a liberal award for courage and then outed with a porn-past, you’d be clamoring for my memoir, and nominating me for a diversity ticket with Barack Obama. Instead those who complain about wire-tapping reserve the right to eavesdrop on my private life for political brownie points.

Indeed, the Left is swift to punish those who flee from their “ideological plantation” - and sadly enough, one’s sexuality - or former sexuality - is yet another weapon to use mercilessly silence their opposition. Unfortunately for the Leftocrats this time, it won’t work. I think the Corporal is not a man easily intimidated, even by the “almighty Smear Machine” of the Left.

Too bad that the Left seems all to willing to turn on its would be “protected identities” to damage the right; or just as bad, trying to downplay their fringe elements much like Edwards tossing Amanda “the Toilet Mouth” Marcotte from Pandagon, and that gal from “Shakespeare’s Sister” under the bus of political convenience.

Not that I care much for those two sites or authors’ decidedly radical talking points… but a Presidential candidate is going to hire some politically wildfired bloggers to handle your press, checking out their backgrounds to see if their personal views are in line with your target consituency first might be a good idea.

But I say “Bravo!” to CPL Sanchez. I have utmost respect for someone with the grit to admit to his past, and having moved on from a “closed chapter” in his life without the whitewashing we saw from the likes of Mark Foley or Ted Haggard…

If nothing else, even if CPL Sanchez is not a Christian, the Christian attitude to have is to accept a repentant sinner with love; since he seems to have turned his back on the gay lifestyle, I think it is only appropriate that conservatives welcome him with open arms and Christ’s attitude of forgiveness.

On Michelle Malkin’s post covering this, she references a reader who quoted 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (KJV) in reference to this attitude:

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Amen, and amen.

With Jesus, all things truly are possible, even the redemption of souls from the grasp of sin.

Following is my own commentary on An Open Letter To The ACU And CPAC Sponsors as re-printed on Captain’s Quarters and several other blogs this morning.

I’d expect slurs and curses and the frequent F-Bomb from left-wing commentators and pundits (Daily Kos and Democratic Underground being veritable mine fields of profane invective toward “the Evil Right”). The nasty brouhaha generated by Amanda Marcotte’s diatribes on Pandagon had me scratching my head as to where a single person could contain so much hate.

But the Right isn’t without sin either. Take Ann Coulter’s jab at Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards, which is now making the rounds in the blogosphere: she effectively called him a “faggot”. Now, this doesn’t bother me so much for the fact that she doesn’t like Mr. Edwards, but now her floppy attempt to pass this remark off as humour - while undoubtedly sinking the CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) down to the level of the blowhard “political stalkers” like Mike Stark of CallingAllWingnuts.com is hardly humourous indeed.

It was like feeding gasoline onto a fire, as certain folks (including Max Blumenthal of the Nation, h/t to Dan Riehl) have more than eagerly jumped on that display of utter tactlessness to paint conservatives as nothing more than racists and homophobes. And apparently Ms. Coulter (or perhaps “Mr.”, if there is any truth to the rumours circulating about her supposedly anamolous bodily features) has done this more than once at the CPAC, referring to Iranians as “ragheads”.

Calling them Persians? Yes.

Calling particular Iranian clerics “Islamists” or “terrorists” who call for the destruction of America? I’m hip to that.

But “ragheads”…? That is in poor taste at best, and patently offensive at worst.

…

Come now, Ms. Coulter. You have the appearance of being a smart lady. Please try to act - and speak - like such an intelligent lady. The “Amanda Marcotte” mode you’ve been digging on for the past few years is does not suit you. Unless of course, you only care about the few minutes of fame (or rather infamy) you can glean from the camera.

Don’t be the “Brittany Spears” of the Conservative movement, playing the camera for attention or to sell your books. (Hint: it might not work the way you’ve planned)!

I call upon you to apologize to Mr. Edwards, and repent of your immature bouts of name calling: there is more than enough material for our adversaries on the left and our external enemies to sling and toss at our efforts to build a stronger America without us stooping to thier level.