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ICR Mar 2004
Notes on ACTS & FACTS -- from ICR, March 2004
1. They are very unhappy about the book banning at the Grand
Canyon Park Service bookstore.
I am in sympathy. It gave them lots of ammunition. It was in
violation of Mill's ON LIBERTY. It was a silly
thing to do. Seven professional scientific societies came out against
it. I assume ASA was not one of these. NCSE was one. names of the others were
not mentioned. The author, Tom Vail, will be running rafting trips there in
May. Imagine the discussions.
2. ICR continues with multitudes of public meetings
promoting the YEC view. A number of speakers now go forth under the ICR banner
-- into every state of the union. I do note that they tend to appear in the
smaller towns and seem to shy away (not always) from the large cities.
3. There is a report on accelerated decay of U-238 by Eugene
Chaffin.
Part of the R.A.T.E. project.The decay half-life of U-238
varies widely depending on "well depth." A small change in well depth
changes it by "more than an order of magnitude." See complete paper
at www.icr.org/research
Donations to R.A.T.E. are now above and beyond expectations.
A major report/announcement will be made in San Diego on 11-5-2005
4. ICR makes the flat prediction that "we will never
receive messages or entertain intergalactic (sic) visitors from deep space
simply because there are no such civilizations out there." As far as the
Bible is concerned, they assert, Ps 115:16 and Acts 17:20 teach without
question that the earth is uniquely the abode of humanity, and all research has
shown that when it comes to organic life outside of earth -- there is none.
5. Henry Morris has written a new book, MIRACLES, which has
a forward written by David Jeremiah and a favorable blurb from John MacArthur.
6." Every staff member of ICR is absolutely committed
to the words of God as absolute truth." I take that to mean inerrancy,
although they don’t use the word.
7. In Newsweek, 12-8-2003, Mary of Magda was said to be "actually Jesus' intimate female partner." At least that's what ICR says that Newsweek says. They call that a "blatant contradiction to God's Word." I find no mention of it, one way or the other, in scripture. In what way is it a contradiction? And did Newsweek “say” it, or simply report that someone said it? I suspect the latter.
I once published a review of an ICR book in PERSPECTIVES
that, in trying to be neutral, had a sentence or two of approval. For years the
ICR promotional material for that book included my line in the book’s blurb,
citing it as “as coming from PERSPECTIVES.” Eventually, however, they pulled
it.
8. Bill Johnson has an article (IMPACT # 369) showing that
American Indian legends are evidence of the historicity of Genesis. Usual stuff.
Persuasive to the faithful, I suppose.
9. Henry Morris has an article attacking the string theories
of Dr. Leonard Susskind of Stanford University. Henry claims that the
implications of the Bible are that our universe extends spatially without end
in all three of its dimensions and eternally forward in time.
10. Finally, John Morris trots out the same old tired
arguments that attack the idea that "evolution is as well proved as
gravity." In doing this, his claim includes "... there is another,
more scientifically robust way to understand history, i.e. that each basic type
of life appeared abruptly, without having descended from some other type, and
remained substantially the same ... until either becoming extinct or surviving
into the present."
The claim of "scientifically
robust" is particularly interesting. Whatever else the YEC claims may be,
"robustness" seems to not be one of them. I'm not sure that even
"philosophically robust" would be appropriate, although I might
apply that term to Gosse's theory.
JW Burgeson, 3-3-2004