12May 2020 by Post

New Jersey’s Suicide Confusion

assisted suicide, coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, despair, District of Columbia, doctors, New Jersey, Phil Murphy, public policy, suicide prevention, Well Being Trust
New Jersey recently became one of the seven states (plus the District of Columbia) to legalize assisted suicide by statute. In effect, New Jersey sanctions suicide for some residents through its public policy. Now, with COVID-19, New Jersey officials are worried about a spike in suicide caused by the shutdown, so for them, suicide is bad. From the NJ.Com story:  On top of the more than 78,000 Americans who have already died from the fast-spreading virus, a new study from the Well Being Trust found conditions from the pandemic — including lost jobs, isolation, and fear over the future — could lead to 75,000 deaths in the nation from drug or alcohol abuse and suicide over the next decade.This comes as a number of critics say they’re worried lockdowns designed to save lives from COVID-19 could…
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06May 2020 by Post

Secularism, COVID-19, & the “Non-Essential” Church

Christianity, Church, COVID-19, Culture, FreeThinking Ministries, Laws, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Politicis, Rich Hoyer, Secularism, society, Theology and Christian Apologetics
Many have asked the question, “Why are churches considered ‘non-essential’ during the Coronavirus shutdown and places like restaurants considered ‘essential’? Why are churches closed while grocery stores and restaurants remain open (at least for carry-out orders)?” The insinuation is NOT that food isn’t necessary, but the focus of the inquiry is on why churches are not considered ‘essential.’ After all, if social distancing is practiced in the church building and if surfaces are sanitized, how is being around people in a church building any different than being around a few hundred people in the Walmart or Meijer or the grocery store (especially since most church gatherings in the US number 100 people or less)? Part of the answer lies in worldview analysis. Everyone, whether a person realizes it or not,…
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05May 2020 by Post

From Pfizer, Scientism and Self-Congratulation

art, authority, Brian Miller, C.S. Lewis, China, coronavirus, COVID-19, Creativity, Discovery Institute, Douglas Axe, economic collapse, entertainment, history, mask, medical science, Medicine, Michael Egnor, music, pandemic, Pfizer Inc., philosophy, Politics, religion, Rich Lowry, Robert J. Marks, scientism, social distancing, totem, Wesley Smith, worship, Wuhan
In the race to defeat the coronavirus, good fortune to Pfizer Inc., among others. The drug giant said last week “it will begin testing of its experimental vaccine in the U.S. as early as next week.” But this new ad from Pfizer goes over the top in its self-congratulation: They say: At a time when things are most uncertain, we turn to the most certain thing there is: Science. Science can overcome diseases, create cures, and yes, beat pandemics. Because when it’s faced with a new opponent, it doesn’t back down. It revs up, asking questions till it finds what it’s looking for. That’s the power of science. Well actually, that’s the power of creative ingenuity in general, a capacity unique to human beings, that is put to use in…
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03May 2020 by Post

Time to Make Fossil Fuel Industries “Pay”?

António Guterres, asbestos, carbon emissions, central planning, coal, coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, economic suppression, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, globalism, natural gas, natural resources, New York Times, obesity, oil refineries, polluters, regulatory control, subsidies, United Nations
Ever since the COVID-19 crisis erupted, commentators have predicted that activists would try to hitch global warming to the ongoing fight against coronavirus — not that this required true prophetic gifts. Activists think every crisis requires the dilution of national sovereignty, increased regulations, wealth redistribution, and higher taxes — including to combat the obesity epidemic. Unsurprisingly, and right on schedule, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres contributed an op-ed in the New York Times — filled with the usual global-warming bromides — arguing that the fights against the virus and climate change should be joined into one six-point “climate positive” plan. You like economic suppression? You like heavy-handed government regulatory control? You like globalism? Then, Guterres is your man. He writes: A recovery from the coronavirus crisis must not take us just back to where we…
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25Apr 2020 by Post

What COVID-19 Reveals About Us: Four Categories of People Surfaced from the Pandemic

Bellator Christi, Brian Chilton, Christianity, Christians, COVID-19, Culture, life, society, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Brian Chilton COVID-19 has brought great panic across the globe due to the rapidity of its transmission and the danger it poses to seniors and those with compromised immune systems. However, COVID-19 has done more than just bring panic. It has also catalyzed several truths about American people, revealing a more troubling underbelly of the American way of life. COVID-19 may prove to be a sociologist’s dream as it has shown what we as American people are like, what we are truly like when a crisis transpires. Because of the virus, comments on social media reveal four types of responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The comments begin to repeat over time. From the overlapping discussions, we can discover four categories of people. As a caveat, this information merely comes…
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07Apr 2020 by Post

Balancing Lives, Economics, and Public Policy in This Plague

borders, calculus, Congress, constitutional rights, coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, Economics, elderly, epidemiology, ethics, euthanasia, experts, governors, health, incubation period, Medicine, neurosurgeon, polis, Politics, President, Principle of Double Effect, probabilities, psychology, public policy, scientists, Senate, social distancing, sociology, Thomas Aquinas, triage, ventilators
I am a physician, and while I don’t treat coronavirus patients personally (I’m a neurosurgeon), I work in a regional coronavirus center and have first-hand knowledge of the medical impact of this pandemic. The danger the virus poses to life is substantial — in vulnerable people, it causes severe pulmonary compromise, often requiring the patient to be placed on a ventilator, and a substantial portion of these ventilated patients will die. The virus is highly contagious, and has a rather long incubation period, which helps it spread — people who have it continue to walk around and spread it for quite a while before they become sick and realize that they are contagious.  A Framework for the Wisest Decisions For a variety of reasons, the coronavirus plague is devastating to…
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06Apr 2020 by Post

Dr. Dan and Hope

AFR, Apologetics, app, coronavirus, COVID-19, cross examined, cross examined official podcast, CrossExamined, crossexamined podcast, Dan Eichenberger, Frank Turek, google play, iTunes, Podcast, podcasting, Radio, Radio Show, Spotify, stitcher, Weekly Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window Frank gets an update on coronavirus from Dr. Daniel Eichenberger, MD. What is he seeing in the hospitals? How are his patients doing? Why are the predictions so wildly different from model to model? (Because there are so many assumptions for which we don’t have good data. This provides another illustration of why science doesn’t say anything, scientists do). In Dr. Dan’s judgment, what’s the best way forward? (For more, and to ask Dr. Dan questions, join Frank and Dr. Dan on Monday, April 6, at 11:30 am ET on the HOPE ONE live stream at CrossExamined.org, our YouTube channel, or FB page). Frank then further investigates why God allows evil and shows where our true hope comes from. And everyone can have that hope…
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01Apr 2020 by Post

Viruses: An Intelligent Design Perspective

ACS Nano, Apollo moon landings, bacteria, bacteriophages, buckyballs, capsid, cell machinery, cell membrane, COVID-19, crystals, DNA, Elizabeth Pennisi, icosahedron, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Iqbal Pittalwala, lipid bilayer, Medicine, Michael Behe, molecular motor, nano-vehicles, polyhedron, protein, Purdue University, RNA, Roya Zandi, SARS-CoV-2, Science (journal), snowflakes, T4 virus, U.C. Riverside, U.C. San Diego, vaccine, viral genome, viruses
The COVID-19 virus is on a rampage in the world, killing thousands in the U.S. so far, shutting down whole countries’ economies, and possibly altering aspects of modern life for the future, after the virus has waned. What the complete impact will be is of course unknowable. In the meantime, though, questions arise about this and other, related sub-microscopic entities. Viruses seem so evil. What is their place in life? And like other aspects of nature, do they give evidence of intelligent design? Certainly, in a context of global anxiety, this is a subject that needs to be approached with sensitivity and humility. It isn’t the purpose of this article to adequately address great philosophical questions. That can wait for another occasion. But before such questions can even be considered,…
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31Mar 2020 by Post

Are Evangelicals “Crippling” Our Coronavirus Response?

Alabama, americans, anti-Christian bias, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chernobyl, China, churches, coronavirus, COVID-19, Darwinism, doctors, Donald Trump, Earth Day, Easter, Evangelical Christians, Evolution and Ethics, Faith & Science, Federal Government, global warming, Katherine Stewart, Medicine, New York City, New York Times, nurses, pandemic, pastors, Scientific consensus, stock boys, Thomas Huxley, truck driver, United States, Wuhan, Yan Fu
Yep, according to this New York Times op-ed by Katherine Stewart: This denial of science and critical thinking among religious ultraconservatives now haunts the American response to the coronavirus crisis. Stewart, whose disdain for evangelicals is passionate, objects particularly to the President’s invocation of Easter rather than “mid-April”: Mr. Trump’s expressed hope that the country would be “opened up and just raring to go by Easter.” He could, of course, have said, “by mid-April.” But Mr. Trump did not invoke Easter by accident, and many of his evangelical allies were pleased by his vision of “packed churches all over our country.”  “I think it would be a beautiful time,” the president said. Perhaps a Presidential wish that we will be back to business by Earth Day would have mollified Ms.…
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