schoolGood News: Student-Led Graduation Prayers are A-OK
Family News in Focus Campaign helps teens and faculty recognize their First Amendment rights.
Every year about this time, the American Civil Liberties Union and others threaten to bring lawsuits against any school that allows students to share their faith or pray at graduation. The Liberty Counsel has launched the Friend or Foe campaign to help students and faculty recognize their rights and responsibilities. “The campaign is designed to educate and, if necessary, to litigate to make sure that prayer and religious viewpoints are not censored," said Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. The ground rules are simple: Any prayer that is student-initiated and student-led is perfectly legal. Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said every case that goes through the courts only adds to the confusion. Educational campaigns like Friend or Foe are needed to clear things up, he said. FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit the Liberty Counsel Web site.
Students Encouraged to Stand Strong on Day of Truth
On Monday, students from across the country will stand together on the fourth annual Day of Truth to support honest discussions about homosexuality.
The event comes three days after GLSEN's (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) Day of Silence, which disrupts class by encouraging students to remain silent throughout the day in honor of homosexual people who feel silenced.
Mike Ensley, youth analyst for Exodus International, said the Day of Truth is about opening dialogue.
“I would encourage Christian students to brainstorm what they want to do, how they want to respond,” he said. “It’s not about being adversarial to the gay-identified students or organizations on campus. It’s about helping people understand what their attitude really is towards their fellow students.”
Students are asked to pass out cards after class and wear T-shirts that encourage honest conversation about homosexuality.
Douglas Napier, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said Christian students should not be silent.
“We’d like Christian students everywhere to understand that they have the same constitutional amendments and constitutional privileges as every other student," he said. "Their viewpoint should be accepted in the schools, like any other student's.
"The First Amendment protects their right to speak out on this, and we want to encourage Christian students to be salt and light and to speak the truth.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
http://www.citizenlink.org/FOSI/education/gais/A000002768.cfm
I know that my Redeemer lives
and He shall stand at last
on the earth
Job 19:25
12-17-2007
This Christmas, There’s Room in the Inn for Mary and Joseph
Travelodge, a British hotel chain, is promising a free night’s stay to couples named Mary and Joseph.
"The 'gift' of a free night's stay is to make up for the hotel industry not having any rooms left on Christmas Eve over 2,000 years ago when the original 'Mary and Joseph' had to settle for the night in a stable," the company says on its Web site.
The offer is good at any of the chain’s 322 hotels in the United Kingdom. Any couple able to show proof of identity will receive one free night in a family room. The offer is good from Christmas Eve to Jan. 5.
"We've had a lot of interest," hotel spokeswoman Shakila Ahmed told CNN. "I think people like the fact that it resonates with the Nativity story at a time when the actual meaning of Christmas often becomes forgotten in festive overkill."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Stuart Shepard, director of digital media for Focus on the Family Action, imagines a brand-new holiday in his Stoplight video commentary.
There is a great misconception as to what science is or means and the term is glibly thrown around without ever really defining it. The problem is that all science is automatically equated with evolution and long ages, with the average person not realizing that there is a difference between the two and not having been taught what science can and cannot do.
There are two types of science. First there is “operational” science which is defined as facts or principles gained by systematic study of the physical or material world. Also called “empirical” science, it is our attempt to observe, understand, and explain events, processes, and properties that are repeatably observable. On the basis of such theories, predictions can be made concerning related natural phenomena or future natural events. Experiments can be devised and performed to test the theory which may show it to be either right or wrong. This is the property of falsifiability and is an important element of true scientific theory. Empirical science and its theories are restricted to attempts to explain the operation of the universe and of the living things it contains. This is the science that gave us computers, MRI’s and space travel.
Theories about “origins”, whether they be creation or evolution, are very different from empirical scientific theories. There were no human witnesses to the origin of the universe and living things, and these past events are unique in that they are unrepeatable, historical events which happened in the past. With this “historical” science no one has ever seen a fish evolve into an amphibian, the big bang take place or anything else that happened “way back when”. It is also impossible to go into the laboratory and test how an ape may have evolved into a man or other such ideas.
Both creationism and evolutionism are based on circumstantial evidence - they are attempts to explain events which have taken place in the past. Evolutionism is based on the idea of uniformitarianism, developed by Hutton & Lyell, which states that the “present is the key to the past”. In other words, the way processes are occurring today is the same way they were happening in the past. Because great time spans of millions of years are required for the events to take place, no test of the theories is possible. Evolutionism therefore is an unproven hypothesis about the past which depends on the interpretation of evidence in the present. Creationism is based on the Word of God, especially the creation account as given in the first 11 chapters of Genesis and is also an interpretation of evidence in the present.
Take fossils for example: A fossil is evidence in the present. It does not come with a date of origin stamped on it, therefore no one knows for sure when it was formed. All we do know about it is that once it was living and now it is dead. Period. An evolutionist will look at that fossil and say “look what formed gradually over a long period of time” while a creationist will look at the same fossil and say “look at what rapid burial and the right conditions formed very quickly.” The same reasoning goes for other features. An evolutionist will look at the Grand Canyon and state “look at what a little bit of water and a long period of time formed” while a creationist’s reasoning is “ look at what a lot of water and a little bit of time formed.” Same evidence, two different perspectives and therefore two different scenarios.
Evolutionism cannot be tested in a lab and in the same respect no one was there when God created the universe and everything that was in it, so creationism, also, cannot be tested.
Next: What to do with the evidence in the present
