Friday, October 29, 2010

Testimony of Adoptive Parents in Ukraine

"I minister as a deacon, and my wife serves as librarian in our church. For 13 years we did not have children and it was a tragedy for us. We did not understand why this happened - we blamed God.

"Now we know that we had to change our own lives before trying to influence a child's life. We were thinking about adoption, but we were not sure about it. We hesitated until our friends fostered three children through the New Hope Orphan Care ministry here in Ukraine. We decided to visit the orphanage and that day we met Ruslana there.

Orphan children
"We discovered that she ended up in the orphanage because her parents were deprived of parental rights. We decided that we could help Ruslana and she could fill the emptiness of our family.

"Today she is eight years old. She struggles with some light mental delays and defects in her speech. We love our daughter very much and we hope to raise her as a Christian and protect her from evil."

(from November 2010 newsletter from New Hope International, New Hope Orphan Care Program - Ukraine. For information on supporting foster parents in Ukraine, click here)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The Crucifixion Earthquake left its Mark

A distinctive mixed layer less than one inch thick of laminated Dead Sea sediment proves that there was a Jesus who was crucified - by the mark of the earthquake that God sent. As recorded in Scripture!

The New Testament testifies to an earthquake at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Matthew 27:50-51 recounts that "when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split."



Judean Desert Near Wadi Ze'elim
Dr Steven A. Austin, Senior Research Geologist of Logos Research Associates, travelled to Israel's Wadi Ze'elim to study sediment deposits of the Dead Sea.  As he describes in his article Great Earthquakes of the Bible:



An outcrop of laminated Dead Sea sediment can be seen at Wadi Ze’elim above the southwestern shore of the modern Dead Sea near the fortress of Masada. In this sediment outcrop is a distinctive one-foot thick “mixed layer” of sediment that is tied strongly to the Qumran earthquake’s onshore ground ruptures of 31 B.C. (see Figure 2 below).
Thirteen inches above the 31 B.C. event bed is another distinctive “mixed layer” less than one inch thick. The sedimentation rate puts this second earthquake about 65 years after the 31 B.C. earthquake. It seems that the crucifixion earthquake of 33 A.D. was magnitude 5.5, leaving direct physical evidence in a thin layer of disturbed sediment from the Dead Sea.

The Bible is confirmed yet again, by Science! Jesus was crucified - and God sealed his death with an earthquake that leaves its mark even to the present day.

Christ rose from the dead, and He leaves his mark in our lives and all over eternity. That is good news!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

The walls of Jericho really did fall in 1400BC, just like the Bible says.

Once again, the early date for the Exodus is proven, this time by earthquake records! From analysis of the uppermost 19 feet of laminated sediments of the Dead Sea. Pay attention, seminary professors...

One of the many battle lines for the truth of the Bible is the date for the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt.

In 1 Kings 6:1 the Bible states "In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD." If this construction is to be dated about 966 B.C., the Exodus would thus have taken place about 1446 B.C. The destruction of Jericho would then have occurred forty years later after the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness were completed, when Joshua led them into the Promised Land.

During the 20th century, this literal Biblical date for the Exodus was heavily disputed by Biblical critics, who instead argued that the Exodus happened some two hundreds years later. Wood (2008) explores this late date theory for the Exodus, which has now been largely discredited, but which is still taught at many evangelical seminaries:
The 13th century exodus-conquest theory was formulated by William F. Albright in the 1930s, based largely on Palestinian archaeological evidence, and promoted by him throughout his career. In the years following Albright’s death in 1971, however, evidence for the proposal dissipated and most Palestinian archaeologists abandoned the idea. In spite of the fact that the theory runs counter to Scripture, a number of evangelicals continue to hold to this view, prompting Carl G. Rasmussen to comment, “the Late-Date Exodus/Conquest Model has been abandoned by many scholars…it seems that currently the major adherents to the Late-Date Exodus/Conquest Model are some evangelicals!” A strong advocate of the theory is Kenneth A. Kitchen, who recently gave a detailed exposition of it in his On the Reliability of the Old Testament.
Old Testament seminary professors who continue to teach this late dating of the Exodus also go on to question the truthfulness of other Old Testament accounts, such as the accounts of Kings and Chronicles, Isaiah as the single author of the book of Isaiah, the prophecies of Daniel, the truth of the global flood, and the six-day creation. They also object to using the Old Testament as a source book for scientific truth...

Now, additional evidence for the early dating of the Exodus comes directly from scientists! Austin (2010), a geologist and creation scientist, evaluated the findings by Migowski et al. (2004), Agnon et al. (2006), and Ken-Tor et al. (2008). They are mainstream geologists who investigated the chronology of earthquake disturbances in the Dead Sea area. Austin took Migowski's data on the uppermost 19 feet of laminated sediment of the Dead Sea and plotted it to make a 4,000-year sediment chronology. The sediment core was drilled at the shore of the present lake near En Gedi.



Austin notes that: 
The biblical account does not specifically mention an earthquake, but the earth would have been shaken by the wall's collapse. Archaeological excavations at Jericho confirm that the massive wall made of mud bricks did collapse at the time of the conquest, about 1400 B.C. The site of the ancient city of Jericho sits directly on top of a very large fault associated with the Jordan Rift valley. Surprisingly, the Dead Sea sediment core has a distinctive mixed sediment layer at a depth of 15.1 feet that is evidence of a big earthquake at about 1400 B.C.
Actually, this is no surprise at all to those who are familiar with the early/late date controversy of the Exodus! 1 Kings 6:1 is correct, and so is the rest of the Bible.

Marko Malyj
M.S. Physics, Drexel University
M.Div. Pastoral Ministry, Westminster Theological Seminary

References

Agnon, A., C. Migowski and S. Marco. 2006. Intraclast Breccias in Laminated Sequences Reviewed: Recorders of Paleo-earthquakes. In New Frontiers in Dead Sea Paleoenvironmental Research. Enzel, Y., A. Agnon, and M. Stein, eds. Geological Society of America Special Paper 401, 195-214.

Austin, S. 2010. Greatest Earthquakes of the Bible. Acts & Facts 39(10): 12-15.

Ken-Tor, R. et al. 2001. High-resolution Geological Record of Historic Earthquakes in the Dead Sea Basin. Journal of Geophysical Research. 106 (B2): 2221-2234.

Kitchen, K.A. 2008. On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI. Eerdmans.


Migowski, C. et al. 2004. Recurrence Pattern of Holocene Earthquakes Along the Dead Sea Transform Revealed by Varve-counting and Radiocarbon Dating of Lacustrine Sediments. Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters. 222 (1): 301-314.

Wood, B.G. 2008. The Rise and Fall of the 13th Century Exodus Conquest Theory. Associates for Biblical Research.

He asked for prayer!

"Paul, that great warrior of the gospel, witness to miracles, survivor of the wrath of angry mobs, asked the believers at Ephesus to pray that God would give him boldness to preach (Ephesians 6:18-20).

"Sometimes we think heroes of the faith do not need us, that they are at some "higher level" of spiritual strength and courage. We need their testimonies to inspire us, but they all still need our prayers.

"Our persecuted brothers and sisters in the jungles of Vietnam, in the Middle East, in Africa and around the world ask us to pray for them. The body of Christ is a living entity - pain here, joy there, abundance here, poverty there, courage where needed. We all exchange strength with each other - please lift our family up in prayer this year. Paul needed it. So do they."

(Tom White, from Voice of the Martyrs, October 2010)

Friday, October 22, 2010

Similar Features Show Design, Not Descent

"Before Darwin, the common attributes shared by different types of, say, fish or birds were useful for classifying the living things of nature. But they were only that—common attributes. Just like “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest,” common ancestry is the self-apparent explanation for common features only because the thinking is circular.

"Evolutionists have effectively sold the idea that when people see similarities, they actually “see” remnants of common ancestry. If evolutionists believe a similar feature is from a common ancestor, it is due to “divergent evolution.” And if organisms share a similar feature not due to common ancestry, it is conveniently called “convergent evolution.” The main point is that explanations for the presence or absence of similar features are totally arbitrary. Evolutionists never tell us that there really are not tidy, logical threads of traits from a common ancestor down all the paths to different types of creatures—forcing them to pick and choose which traits to showcase or to make excuses.

"Given the failure of evolution to prove you are related to chimpanzees, shouldn’t you consider starting a worthwhile relationship with your Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ? For those related to Him by faith, He prayed, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory” (John 17:24)."

Randy J. Guliuzza, P.E., M.D.
(Click here for the full article from Institute for Creation Research)

Monday, October 18, 2010

Mount St. Helens Lava Dome - New is already Old?

Several lava domes that are 340k to 2.8M years old were formed at Mount St. Helens six years after it erupted. Yes, you read that right!

Selections from Can "Relative" Radiometric Dating Help Refine Biblical Chronology? by John K. Reed and Carl R. Froede Jr.

(This excerpt by Marko is from the article published in Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Volume 47, Number 1, Summer, 2010, to appear at http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts/Abstracts47-1.htm). 

Several lava domes have formed at Mount St. Helens since the May 1980 In June 1992, Austin collected and radiometrically dated a lava dome rock sample (Austin, 1996). The resulting analysis suggested a radiometric age range of 340 thousand to 2.8 million years for the six-year-old dome. Such studies demonstrate the inherent uncertainty in these radiometric methods.

Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens
(Photograph by Richard B. Waitt, Skamania County, Washington, 1982. Used courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.)

References

Austin, S.A. 1994. Are Grand Canyon rocks one billion years old? In Austin, S.A. (editor), Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, pp. 111-131. Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Why can't Evolutionists Create Fossils in the Lab?

They are failing, because they have not tried to simulate the conditions of the Biblical Flood!

Selections from Can a Laboratory Make an Authentic Fossil? by Mark H. Armitage

Marko’s summary: Creationists are skeptical of the explanations given by some scientists to explain the formation of fossilized organisms under everyday conditions. Unusual and specialized conditions are required! Certain minerals must be present, heat may be required, and that burial must be rapid and complete. In other words, you need to simulate the conditions of Noah's Flood to try to create an authentic fossil...

(These selections by Marko Malyj are of the article published in Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Volume 47, Number 1, Summer, 2010, to appear at http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts/Abstracts47-1.htm).

Fish with fossilized fleshy parts
Although rare, the soft, fleshy parts of animals and plants are found preserved within fossils. At times, the micro-anatomical structures are preserved (Zhang and Pratt, 1994; Babcock et al., 2006).

Scientists have found excellent levels of preservation of fish eye pigments in the Santana Foundation (Martill et al., 2008). That report concluded that preservation occurred within days or weeks (unlike most dated theories concluding that long periods of time were involved in fossilization).

Taphonomy is the scientific discipline of studying fossil remains in the rock record and comparing them to decaying organisms over time in order to understand how fossilization occurs. Many taphonomy experiments have been conducted in the laboratory with fish (e.g. Bass et al., 1995; Monge-Najera and Hou, 2002; Whitmore, 2003; Channing and Edwards, 2004; Soja, Sunderlin, and Close, 2004; Gupta et al. 2006; Raff et al., 2006), but none have resulted in perfectly preserved fossils such as those we find buried in the earth's crust.

Many researchers have found that fish decay quickly in water within weeks or days (Krumholz, 1950; Zangerl and Richardson, 1963; Schafer, 1972; Elder, 1985; Britton, 1988; Elder and Smith, 1988; Weigelt, 1989; Minshall et al., 1991; Parmenter and Lamarra, 1991; Schneider, 1998; Hankin and McCanne, 2000; Whitmore, 2003). Therefore, burial in sediment must have been rapid.

Fish often surface when submerged in water, leaving them available to surface predation and mechanical actions that can alter or destroy tissues. Futhermore, fish rupture due to internal gas buildup (Rupp and DeRoche, 1965; Henley, 1967; Parker, 1967; Axon et al., 1980; Whitmore 200). Yet billions of perfectly preserved, well-articulated fish exist in the fossil record.

Many different fossilized organisms display significant soft-tissue preservation (see Briggs et al., 1997, for dinosaurs; see Bartels et al., 1998, for other marine organisms; and see Morlo et al., 2004, for other organisms). However, the results of ongoing taphonomy experiments do not completely explain the extraordinary preservation of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and other organisms in the rock record.

Creationists are skeptical of the explanations given by some scientists to explain the formation of fossilized organisms under everyday conditions (i.e., slow sediment deposition, typical water action, etc.). Creationists argue that unusual and specialized conditions are required, that certain minerals must be present, that heat may be required, and that burial under these unique sedimentary conditions must be rapid and complete. Theories of fossil formation in the recent literature include the notion that preservation must be rapid if it is going to happen at all, especially at the ultrastructural level; therefore, there is good reason to believe that creationist theories of fossil formation might be the norm.

References (selected)

Axon, J.R., L. Hart, and V. Nash. 1980. Recovery of tagged fish during the Crooked Creek Bay rotenone study at Barkley Lake, Kentucky. Proceedings of the Annual Conference, Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies 33:680-687.

Babcock, L.E., S.A. Leslie, D.H. Elliot, A.L. Stigall, L.A. Ford, and D.E. Briggs. 2006. The "preservation paradox": microbes as a key to exceptional fossil preservation in the Kirkpatrick basalt (Jurassic), Antarctica. The Sedimentary Record 4(4):4-8

Bartels, C., D.E.G. Briggs, and G. Brassel. 1998. Fossils of the Hunruck Slate - Marine Life in the Devonian. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Bass, M., D.E.G. Briggs, J.D.H. van Heemst, A.J. Kear, and J.W. de Leeuw. 1995. Selective preservation of chitin during the decay of shrimp, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 59(5):945-951.

Briggs, D.E.G., P.R. Wilby, B.P. Perez Moreno, J.L. Sanz, M.Fregenal-Martinez. 1997. The mineralization of dinosaur soft tissue in the Lower Cretaceous of Las Hoyas, Spain. Journal of the Geological Society, London 154:587.588.

Britton, D.R. 1988. The occurrence of fish remains in modern lake systems: a test of the stratified-lake model. Master's thesis, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA.

Channing, A., and D. Edwards. 2004. Experimental taphonomy: silicification of plants in Yellowstone hot spring environments. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Earth Sciences 94:503-521.

Elder, R.L. 1985. Principles of aquatic taphonomy with examples from the fossil record. Doctoral diss., Univerity of MIchigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

Elder, R.L., and G.R. Smith. 1988. Fish taphonomy and environmental inference in Paleolimnology. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaoecology 62:577-592.

Gupta, N.S., R. Michels, D.E.G. Briggs, R.P. Evershed, and R.D. Pancost. 2006. The organic preservation of fossil arthropods: an experimental study. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 273:2777-2783.

Hankin, D.G., and D. McCanne. 2000. Estimating the number of fish and crayfish killed and the proportions of wild and hatchery rainbow trout in the Cantara spill. California Fish and Game 86:4-20.

Krumholz, L.A. 1950. Some practical considerations in the use of rotenone in fisheries research. Journal of Wildlife Management 14:413-424.

Martill, D.M., P.M. Brito, and J. Washington-Evans. 2008. Mass mortality of fishes in the Santana Formation (Lower Cretaceous, ?Albian) of northeast Brazil. Cretacious Research 29(4):649-658.

Minshall, G.W., E. Hitchkock, and J.R. Barnes. 1991. Decomposition of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) carcasses in a forest stream ecosystem inhabited only by nonanadromous fish populations. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 48:191–195.

Monge-Najera, J., and X. Hou. 2002. Experimental taphonomy of velvet woms (Onychophora) and implications for the Cambrian "explosion, disparity and decimation" model. Revista de Biologia Tropical 50(304):1133-1138.

Morlo, M., S. Schaal, G. Mayr, and C. Sieffert. 2004. An annotated taxonomic list of the Middle Eocene (MP 11) vertebrata of Messel. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 252:95-108.

Parker, R.O. 1967. Rotenone and fish population estimations. Masters thesis, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.

Parmenter, R.R., and V.A. Lamarr. 1991. Nutrient cycling in a freshwater marsh: The decomposition of fish and waterfowl carrion. Limnology and Oceanography 36:976-987.

Raff, E.C., J.T. Villinski, F.R. Turner, P.C.J. Donoghue, and R.A. Raff. 2006. Experimental taphonomy shows the feasibility of fossil embryos. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 130(15):5846-5851.

Rupp, R.S., and S.S. DeRoche. 1965. Standing crops of fishes in three small lakes compared with C14 estimates of net primary productivity. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 94:9-25.

Schafer, W. 1972. Ecology and Palaeoecology of Marine Environments. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

Schneider, J.C. 1998. Fate of dead fish in a small lake. The American Midland Naturalist 140:192-196.

Soja, C.M., D. Sunderlin, and S.J. Close. 2004. Using burial experiments to unscramble dinosaur egg taphonomy. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 36(5):382 (Palentology VIII Processes of fossilization).

Weigelt, J. 1989. Recent Vertebrate Carcasses and Their Paleobiological Implications. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

Whitmore, J.H. 2003. Experimental fish taphonomy with a comparison to fossil fishes. Ph.D. diss., Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA.

Zangerl, R., and E.S. Richardson Jr. 1963. The Paleoecological History of Two Pennsylvania Black Shales. Chicago Natural History Museum, Chicago, IL.

Zhang, X.G., and B.R. Pratt. 1994. Middle Cambrian Arthropod embryos with blastomeres. Science 266(5185):637-639

Saturday, October 16, 2010

His Life for Mine, by Lauren Talley, sung by Marko

I sang "His Life for Mine" by Lauren Talley, on 30-Aug-2009 at Fellowship Bible Church of Philadelphia.



If you don't see the DivShare control above, you can listen at
http://www.divshare.com/download/12659862-043

This was my very first Special Music solo performance. I hope you are blessed by it. Thank you, Jesus!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Faith? Belief based on Evidence that leads to Action...

Each person in the world exercises Faith every day.

The ingredients of Everyday Faith:

That Old Bridge...
Example: driving across a river.

Belief: you will cross the bridge and arrive safely.

Evidence: why do you believe that? The bridge was designed well and  built by trained engineers; you have crossed the bridge 100 times before and it has always held the weight of multiple vehicles, including yours.

Action: what do you do with what you believe? You drive across the bridge.

You can have the belief and the evidence, but without the action it remains merely intellectual belief, not faith. If you don't drive across the bridge (action), does believing the bridge is sound get you across the river? Of course not! Faith lived out requires action.

Saving Faith is so much more than Everyday Faith !!

The object of saving faith is Christ (not crossing a bridge, going to a doctor, sitting in a folding chair...) and it is salvation-centered.

Saving faith:

Jesus is the Bridge!
Belief: Jesus lived a sinless life, died on the cross, and came back to life. Therefore his claims to forgive my sins and give me eternal life are true.

Evidence: There is both external and internal evidence. External: the Bible says so! There is support for the linguistic and historical accuracy and integrity of the Bible and its claims to be the very word of God. Internal: the changes in my life; the changes in others' lives (many radical changes!); the continued existence of the Church throughout years of persecution, and more.

Action: Ask Jesus to forgive my sins and save me...which will lead me to God's good works "prepared in advance for us [me] to do". (Ephesians 2:10)

To God be the glory.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Creation is the Foundation, by Henry M. Morris

Without the creation, a supposed gospel would have no foundation, without the promised consummation, it offers no hope, without the cross and empty tomb, it has no saving power. The wonderful threefold work of Christ: creation, conservation, consumation! (Colossians 1:16-20)

For more, see Creation is the Foundation, also Creation, Conservation, and Consummation: Communicating the full gospel of Christ, both by Henry M. Morris, founder of Institute for Creation Research.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Facebook Profiles, Groups, or Pages?

Facebook is a jungle to the serious beginner, as you can tell from the Wikipedia article on Facebook. If you are promoting a cause, one of the key considerations is how to get your message out despite opposition. Therefore it is critical that you understand the pluses and minuses of the 3 different types of Facebook presence: the Profile, Group, and Page.

Facebook does not have mechanisms for comment moderation, which is a severe drawback for promoting a cause. At the end of this post there is a list of commercial products available for comment moderation. Unlike Facebook, they are not free!.

(I researched this post before Facebook put out its New Groups feature on October 7, 2010. See PCMagazine and Yahoo News for initial reactions.)

Here is a list of pluses, minuses, and recommendations for Profiles, Old Groups, and Pages.

Items CAPITALIZED in Red are really hard to overcome if you are promoting a cause!

Profile (+) Pluses
  1. Blog Feeds - Yes. 
    1. However, if you use Facebook's built-in Import Blog to Notes feature, as in Everything TypePad, you may end up with a feed that stops functioning and cannot be fixed, as testified to by more than 400 posts in this discussion.
    2. Also, you may have to wait 3 days for new blog posts to feed through to your Facebook Wall. The trick to manually force Facebook to re-feed given by Kevin Donahue is no longer available.
    3. Before October 2010, when the blog post finally appeared on your Wall, you had to manually click "Share" to have it published to your Friends' News Feeds, and the resulting News Feed item did not show any picture. In October 2010, when the blog post finally appeared on your wall, it automatically publishes to your Friends' News Feeds, with the first picture in the post appearing as well, but you have no control over the timing of the publish. 
    4. If you don't want to suffer the pain of this built-in Facebook feed, support, feed alternatives are SocialRSS, RSS Graffiti, and my favorite, NetworkedBlogs. But these applications post back-links to the original blogspot article, instead of creating a copy to a separate Facebook posting. In NetworkedBlogs, this means that people have to go back to the original blog post to create a comment, and the resulting comment is not a true Facebook comment. This is awkward.
Profile (-) Minuses
  1. Messaging - No. If you want to mass message friends from a Facebook Profile, create an event.
  2. EVENTS - No, according to Bluegrass, but I'm not sure this is true.
  3. Multiple Admins - No.
  4. Comment Moderation - No. "Facebook itself could badly use a comment moderating service; I've given up reading comment streams for any news or company feed, as they usually attract hateful, vile comments, often having nothing to do with the post subject." "You can delete other people's comments on your pages. However, I've never heard of comment moderation on FB."
  5. FRIENDS - 5,000 FRIEND LIMIT. When I reach the 5,000 friend limit, how hard is it to cull friends by identifying those who have not created comments recently? This is difficult, for some clues, see "How to retrieve the number of comments on a blog post?", "Comments Box FAQ", "fql.query. Evaluates an FQL (Facebook Query Language) query. For more complex queries where you want to use the results of one query in another query without making another API call, consider using fql.multiquery"
  6. DISCUSSIONS - NO. I could not find any Discussion application that works with a profile. See SearchEngineJournalSocialReflections. Without discussions, you will have to draw peoples attention to your Profile Wall for individual postings and the comments on each of them
Old Group (+) Pluses
  1. Messaging - Yes, as a Facebook message with email alert.
  2. Events - Yes, with mass-invitation ability.
  3. Multiple Admins - Yes, post under their own names. Groups are directly connected to the people who administer them, so that activities that go on there reflect on each admin personally.
  4. Blog Feeds - possible with RSSGraffiti app (per Thomas Boelskifte), or the similar Facebook applications NetworkedBlogs, SocialRSS. But these applications post back-links to the original blogspot article, instead of creating a copy to a separate Facebook posting. In NetworkedBlogs, this means that people have to go back to the original blog post to create a comment, and the resulting comment is not a true Facebook comment. This is awkward.
  5. Member Approval (Closed Groups only) - Yes. You can remove and ban a member (per April 27, 2010 at 9:39 am post). Permissions settings make it possible for group admins to restrict access to a  Closed group, so that new members have to be approved. Access to a Page, however, can only be restricted by certain ages and locations. Again, this makes groups more like a private club.
  6. Discussions - Yes. See wchingya for How To Create A Private Discussion Board On Facebook.
Old Group (=) Recommendations
  1. Monetizing - "I would encourage you to create fans pages for every group you create".
  2. How to Create a Group - see here.
  3. 5 Tips to Revive a Fading Facebook Group: Make your messages interesting, relevant, brief… and rare. “Too many messages” is the Number One reason for people leaving a Facebook Group.  Once or twice a month is usually plenty for Group mass-messaging. Throw a party by creating an event. Give a reward - adding your most active Group members as “Officers” can help to make them feel more actively involved. 
Old Group (-) Minuses
(Closed Groups are not viewable to non-Group members)
(Open Groups have no member approval mechanism)
  1. EVENTS - You will NOT be able to invite the members of a host Group to an Event if the group has over 5,000 members.
  2. MIGRATE TO A PAGE - No (as of October 11, 2009 at 10:18 pm).
  3. MESSAGING - NO, for Groups with more than 5,000 members (per June 4, 2008 at 10:30 am post), also here.
  4. Internet Search - No, only the public profile is available to external search engines such as Google.
  5. Comment Moderation - Neither Groups nor Pages have great moderation features. They can both be a little granular as to how things get posted, who can post, and what kind of media can be posted, but that’s about it. If someone posts spam on your Group or your Page, you have to remove it manually, and you can also remove specific members.
  6. VIEWABLE BY NON-GROUP MEMBERS? NO FOR CLOSED GROUPS - no one can see the activity inside the group, unless they become a member, which defeats the purpose of disseminating information openly. Yes for Open Groups, however everyone on Facebook can view the group and join. If the group is exclusive to a specific network, only the people on that network can become a member.
  7. Blog Feeds - NetworkedBlogs, SocialRSS, RSS Graffiti Facebook applications post back-links to the original blogspot article, instead of creating a copy to a separate Facebook posting. In NetworkedBlogs, this means that people have to go back to the original blog post to create a comment, and the resulting comment is not a true Facebook comment. This is awkward.
  8. MEMBER APPROVAL - NO FOR OPEN GROUPS. Anyone can join at anytime, so opponents of your group can all join up and force you to the 5,000 member limit.
Page (+) Pluses
  1. Messaging - Yes, comes as an update. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes.
  2. Fans - Can exceed 5,000 fans. There is no limit on how many fans a Page can have.
  3. Internet Searches - Yes, pages are indexed by external search engines such as Google.
  4. Discussions - Yes.
Page (-) Minuses
(Fan Approval is the Problem here)
  1. Events - Yes, but no way to invite all your fans.
  2. Multiple Admins - Yes, post under a single business name. Pages don’t list the names of administrators, and are thought of as a person, almost like a corporate entity is considered a ‘person’ under the law.
  3. FAN APPROVAL - NO - No approval mechanism for new fans. Pages are a free-for-all (per April 14, 2010at 3:49 pm post)
  4. COMMENT MODERATION - Neither Groups nor Pages have great moderation features. They can both be a little granular as to how things get posted, who can post, and what kind of media can be posted, but that’s about it. If someone posts spam on your Group or your Page, you have to remove it manually, and you can also remove specific members. Unfortunately for Facebook pages you don’t receive email updates when a new comment is posted or something you posted gets commented on… and that stinks.  
Page (=) Recommendations
  1. How to Create a Page - see Squidoo or Facebook.
Content Moderation
  1. Context Optional Social Marketing Suite, with Moderation, Applications, Publishing, Analytics modules. The Social Monitoring Console normally run $500 to $2000 per month. Click here for a review.
  2. Vitrue Publisher.
  3. Conversocial.
  4. LiveWorld.
  5. Tempero.
  6. Articles on content moderation - at RyanShell.
This blog post originally appeared at http://umarko.blogspot.com/2010/10/facebook-profiles-groups-or-pages.html.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Ancient Mars was Under Water, but Earth was not?

Signs of an ancient flood have been found on the "dry" north of Mars. Why can't mainstream scientists see signs of the ancient Flood that covered Earth?

Lyot Crater in the lowlands of Mars
with exposures (stars) of hydrated minerals
detected from orbit.
In "News from the Red Planet", Dr. Larry Vardiman reports that a group of French and American Scientists have checked 91 craters in the northern lowlands of Mars. They found rocks that were formed in the presence of water! Previously scientists thought flood conditions on Mars were down south, at Valles Marineris, the Grand Canyon of Mars, which is 2000 miles long, 400, miles wide, and five miles deep. The canyon has features typically present when water floods valleys and plains.

As Vardiman explains, the new results mean that scientists now believe that the water on Mars was global, and not just confined to the southern part of the planet.  They believe that a catastrophe or series of catastrophes removed the water from the surface of Mars.

The Bible describes the catastrophe that unleashed a Global Flood on Earth in the days of Noah. It is amazing that mainstream scientists "believe" in catastrophic floods on Mars, but categorically refuse to even consider the idea for Earth, even when our planet's surface is mostly covered by water!!

Vardiman's view is that these geological features on Mars were probably formed at the time of the Genesis Flood on Earth. If so, this would broaden the impact of the Flood to beyond Earth and other parts of the Solar System. God's mighty hand of judgement is on display, even on Mars...

References (selected)

Carter, J., F. Poulet, J.-P. Bibring, and S. Murchie. 2010. Detection of Hydrated Silicates in Crustal Outcrops in the Northern Plains of Mars. Science. 328 (5986): 1682-1686.

Friday, October 08, 2010

Did Noah's Flood make the Grand Canyon?

Absolutely! The Colorado River did not cut the canyon. The Flood waters that covered the entire world did the job, and left the Colorado as a testimony! All according to God's plan.

Selections from The Origin of Grand Canyon, Part III: A Geomorphological Problem, by Michael J. Oard

Grand Canyon is one of more than 1000 water gaps across the globe. A water gap is a deep, perpendicular cut in a ridge, mountain range, plateau, or some other transverse barrier that carries a river or stream (Douglas, 2005). There are also many wind gaps around the world. A wind gap is a notch in a ridge or mountain range that was not quite deep enough for a river or a stream to run through it. Only wind passes through.

After the peak of Noah's Flood, the floodwaters which covered the entire surface of the earth retreated. This is when water gaps and wind gaps could have been formed. Here's how.

Step A. Flood water covering the tops of all the mountains and hills flowed perpendicular to transverse ridges beneath. This formed shallow notches on the ridges as you can see here.


Step B. Notches eroded further as the water level dropped below the top of the ridge. 

Step C. Floodwater continued to drain as notches deepened.






The formation of water and wind gaps
(drawn by Peter Klevberg)
Step D. Floodwater is now completely drained. The Colorado River is now running through the lowest notch, which is the water gap. 

A wind gap is left over in the area where erosion ceased earlier.

Evolutionary geomorphologists cannot credibly explain the Grand Canyon or other water gaps. That is because their uniformitarian paradigm forces them toward low-energy, longtime explanations, usually involving the rivers currently flowing through these water gaps.

But the Colorado River did not cut the Grand Canyon! That amount of erosion demands large volumes of water with elevated current velocities, operating at a scale unknown today. Only the Biblical Flood of Noah can provide a reasonable explanation.

The stubborn refusal of uniformitarian geologists to even consider the Genesis Flood as an alternative model demonstrates how tightly they are bound to their theoretical framework - quite the opposite of the cool objectivity that they project to the public.

(These selections by Marko Malyj is from the article published in Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Volume 47, Number 1, Summer, 2010, to appear at http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts/Abstracts47-1.htm). 

References (selected)

Douglas, J.C. 2005. Criterion Approach to Transverse Drainages. PhD thesis. Arizona State University, Tucson, AZ.

Oard, Michael. 2007b. Do rivers erode through mountains? Water gaps are strong evidence for the Genesis Flood. Creation Ex Nihilo  29(3):18-23.

What does Obamacare looks like?

"Find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy" - Nancy Pelosi
"The new law creates 68 grant programs, 47 bureaucratic entities, 29 demonstration or pilot programs, six regulatory systems, six compliance standards and two entitlements.....

"One of the more illuminating remarks during the health-care debate in Congress came when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told an audience that Democrats would 'pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy'....

"To fill this vacuum, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, asked his staff to prepare a study of the law, including a flow chart that illustrates how the major provisions will work.

"The result, made public July 28, provides citizens with a preview of the impact the health-care overhaul will have on their lives.

"The Democrats’ takeover of health care creates a byzantine network of 159 new federal programs and bureaucracies to make decisions that should be between just the patient and their doctor

"Based on the administration’s own numbers, as many as 117 million people might have to change their health plans by 2013 as their employer-provided coverage loses its grandfathered status and becomes subject to the new Obamacare mandates.

"In addition to capturing the massive expansion of government and the overwhelming complexity of new regulations and taxes, the chart portrays:

  • $569 billion in higher taxes;
  • $529 billion in cuts to Medicare;
  • swelling of the ranks of Medicaid by 16 million;
  • 17 major insurance mandates; and
  • the creation of two new bureaucracies with powers to impose future rationing: the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Independent Payments Advisory Board.
"The central Obamacare mechanism for increasing insurance coverage is an expansion of the Medicaid program. Of the 30 million new people covered, 16 million will be enrolled in Medicaid. And you could end up in the program whether you want it or not.

"To pay for this expansion, the bill takes $529 billion from Medicare, with roughly 39 percent of the cut coming from the Medicare Advantage program. This represents a large transfer of resources, sacrificing the care of the elderly in order to increase the Medicaid rolls.

"For all this supposed reform, you, the American taxpayer, can expect a bill to the tune of $569 billion.

"Front and center among the new taxes is the 40 percent excise tax on those lucky people with so-called Cadillac health plans. The higher insurance costs that are driven by the government mandates will push many more ordinary plans into Cadillac territory.

"If the idea of taxing people with coverage deemed too good doesn’t bother you, maybe the new 3.8 percent tax on investment income will. That will apply even to a small number of home sales, those that generate $250,000 in profit for an individual or $500,000 for a married couple.

"In vivid color and detail, Congressman Brady’s chart captures the huge expansion of government coming under Obamacare. Harder to show on paper is the pain it will cause."

(For the complete Bloomberg commentary, see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-02/obamacare-only-looks-worse-upon-further-review-kevin-hassett.html).

Sunday, October 03, 2010

Irreducible Complexity Just Won't Go Away...

Some evolutionists have invented the idea of "Co-Option" to counter IC - cell parts that already exist can supposedly be assembled to produce new structures. But Co-option actually supports IC!!

Irreducible Complexity Is Not Refuted! by Jerry Bergman

Marko's Executive Summary: Irreducible Complexity (IC) is the concept that a certain minimum number of parts working together is required in order for life to function. Scientists who study IC have demonstrated that it is at work within organisms, organs, and cells. IC cannot have evolved, but must have been masterminded by a designer. Creation Scientists go further than IC, and recognize that the designer must have been the God of the Bible, who recorded for us that in the beginning, he created all things.

Some evolutionists have said in their peer-reviewed journals that IC is "nonsense", because IC cannot be possible according to the Theory of Evolution's principle of Natural Selection, in which "Nature" experiments with mutations one at a time over thousands or millions of years, and selects them based on the "Survival of the Fittest" mutation. They also say that IC is non-scientific, because it leads directly to the concept of a creator God. They say that modern science must be able to go beyond the old fashioned method of appealing to a God-concept when facing difficult problems. Thus Irreducible Complexity is non-scientific.

But since IC simply will not go away as an issue, some evolutionists have invented the idea of "Co-Option" to counter it. In Co-Option, cell parts that already exist as components in other structures, can then be selected and assembled in a unique way to produce a new complex structure. In this paper, Jerry Bergman  shows that the idea of Co-option does not mean that Irreducible Complexity is "nonsense", indeed, it supports it! Below is an abbreviated digest version of Bergman's paper.

(Full version of the original article was published in Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Volume 46, Number 3, Winter, 2010, http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts/Abstracts46-3.htm)
{This abbreviated version is digested by Marko Malyj. The original version of this blog post with all pictures is available at uMarko.blogspot.com. Digest comments that are not in the original published version are offset in curly braces.}

The standard evolution theory postulates that multimolecular mechanisms ... "took place, one gene at a time, under the guidance of natural section: each modification conferred at least a small selective benefit" (Harold, 2001, p.204)

Behe (1996)... documented that a certain minimum number of parts is required in order for both living organisms and nonliving things to function. He used the term IC to designate this concept.... A realistic example to explain IC ... is a television system. The first working television must have had a functional camera, a way of converting light variations into electrical signals, a method of broadcasting the signals into the atmosphere, a receiver system to pick up the signal, and a method to convert the broadcast signal into an electron gun signal in a cathode ray tube so as to paint the picture on a fluoresent screen.

The history of the television invention by Philo Farnsworth illustrates that this system would have been useless until every component was invented and perfected, which Farnsworth spent much of his life doing (Stashower, 2002).

A certain amount of complexity is required before life can exist (Anderson, 1989)..... all the components of a cell ... must fit together and be adequately assembled to function as a unit.

Criticism of the Concept of IC

Critics have proposed systems where a part that was originally believed to be required can be removed and the system will still function.... Often removing a part or two results in the unit not functioning as well. But even if it works just as well, this simply means that the number of parts required was really less than first assumed. The item is still irreducibly complex.

Criticism Based on Co-Option

The most common attempt to refute IC involves a concept called co-option. Co-option is said to occur when existing cell parts, such as proteins or glycoproteins can be selected and assembled in a unique way to produce a new structure. The bacterial flagellum, for example, utilizes ten proteins that are also used in the type III bacterial secretory system. Miller concluded from this observation that "irreducile complexity is nonsense" (1999, p. 150). He argued that since ten proteins are found in two very different bacterial devices, IC is nonsense because one structure can be built from parts used in the other structures....


{Flegella on Escherichia coli, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum}

The design, selection and assembly of existing parts requires an assembly plan to insure that the parts are designed to fit together properly, that they are assembled correctly, and that they function as a unit. Cellular proteins called "scaffold proteins" are required as sites on which to place the correct cell parts in the proper locations at the correct times. Each part must be manufactured to the required specifications and in the correct number for use at the correct time. The parts also must be moved to the suitable assembly location in the order needed. The many complex enzymes required to install the parts at the correct place are also necessary.



{Function of Scaffold Proteins, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaffold_protein}


Sanford (2005, p. 133) noted, "each part has no value except within the context of the whole functional unit, and so irreducible systems have to come together all at once, and cannot arise one piece at a time." He added that, in the case of a mousetrap, even if all the pieces are sitting neatly next to each other on the inventor's workbench... they must first come together simultaneously as a functioning system in the mind of a designer. It is in the realm of mind that deep complexity first exists and becomes integrated (Sanford, 2005)....

Co-option Supports IC

Co-option in the mechanical and electrical worlds clearly implies intelligent design.... When designing a new product, the engineer often selects parts from the millions that already exist to achieve the required function....

The mechanisms that produce most mutations are well understood, but, conversely, mechanisms that can systematically rearrange structural units in order to produce new functional structures are unknown.... It is difficult to even imagine a "just-so story" that explains how a naturalistic evolutionary mechanism could cobble together different existing parts by co-option to produce new functional structures (Sanford, 2005). Structures such as a bacterial flagellum contain thousands of proteins; each one in turn contains hundreds or thousands of parts; and each gene that produces these parts has about 50,000 component parts (Sanford, 2005)....

A single change often affects many systems. Even if a mutation improves the function of one part in a particular unit, it often will cause dysfunction in other systems. This concept called pleiotropy, is a major reason why a defect in a single gene can result in so many different body alterations, many of which are negative (Bergman, in press)....

Co-option does not change the fact that "there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculation" (Harold, 2001, p. 205 italics added)....

No evidence exists for the evolution of any of the original parts that were supposedly co-opted to explain the origin of new structures. "Among these great innovations of design, the crucial inventions of nature, the earliest have left no trace of their development in the fossil record. The organization of living material in a cell with a cell wall and a nucleus, the transmission of the blueprint of its design and its means of self-construction and the very important device of sexual reproduction, all developed in minute organisms which have left little evidence" (French, 1988, p. 19)

Conclusion

The gradualistic co-option model of evolution is accepted because of philosophical constraints, not because of empirical evidence.... To fully understand reality, science must be free to explore all research avenues, including research on IC.

References (selected)

Anderson, K.L. 1989. Prebiotic formation of the first cell. 26:55-60.

Behe, M. 1996. Darwin's Black Box. The Free Press, New York, NY.

Bergman, J. (In press). The pleiotrophy problem for evolution. Creation Research Society Quarterly.

French, M.J. 1988. Invention and Evolution: Design in Nature and Engineering. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.

Harold, F.M. 2001. The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Miller, K.R. 1999. Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. Harper Collins, New York, NY.

Sanford, J. 2005. Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome. Ivan Press, Lima, NY.

Stashower, D. 2002. The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television. Broadway Books. New York, NY.

Raids Against Chinese Christians Continue

"Chinese police raided a Christian gathering in Qi district and detained 45 people, confiscated 23 Bibles, 25 notebooks, 32 Bible photo books, 14 CDs, 3 copies of reading materials and 22 whiteboard pens. Meeting organizers were handed over to the Public Safety Department for education of laws and policies. This is according to a report on a Chinese government website (www.mldwdj.gov.cn, accessed July 8, 2010), which boasted of the raid.

"Many Americans assume there is no persecution in China. In fact, Christians do meet freely for worship in some areas of this vast country, but elsewhere Christians continue to face arrests fines and other hardships. The Chinese government places enormous pressure on churches that are not part of the state-run Three-Self Church."

(from a persecuted church bulletin, October 2010. Please pray for the persecuted church in China....)

Anna, a persecuted Christian child,
prays for her country
"The most important way to support persecuted Christians in China is through prayer. Click here to for some of the ways you can pray. 

"O our God, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you" (2nd Chronicles 20:12)

Friday, October 01, 2010

Seeing the Chains

"When Christians came to visit the Apostle Paul in Rome and saw his chains, some of them may have wept or felt defeated. Perhaps some of them stopped witnessing. But later, when they faced a hostile public, they did not back down. Seeing Paul in chains had prepared them spiritually for the fight that lay ahead.

"In Philippians 1:14, Paul writes, "Most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear."

(Tom White, from Voice of the Martyrs, October 2010)