Evidence for God from Science Newsletter December, 2010

Greetings in the name of the Lord! This is the latest update for the Evidence for God website. Welcome to our new subscribers.

Contents (scroll down for descriptions)


News

The Pew Forum released a religious knowledge survey of people around the United States. Surprisingly, the average American scored only 50% on their extremely general quiz. Thinking that God and Science visitors could do much better, I have reproduced the quiz online. Many have already scored 100%, so try your hand at it below.


Reviews

The Moral Landscape

The Moral Landscape by Sam HarrisSam Harris has a new book, The Moral Landscape, whose subtitle claims, "How Science Can Determine Human Values." If you buy the book because of the subtitle, you will be extremely frustrated and disappointed. Instead, Sam Harris has produced the ultimate book that "preaches to the choir" (in this case, the atheistic choir) in order to attempt to shore up what is undoubtedly one of the weakest aspects of atheism - the determination of moral values. More...

    Book Review: The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris
    http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/the_moral_landscape.html


Design vs. evolution

Goldilocks Planet?

Scientists have discovered over 500 planets outside our own solar system. However, most of these planets are quite unlike the earth, being much larger and much closer to their parent star. At least part of the reason for the difference is due to the ease of detection of larger planets, since they gravitationally disturb their parent star much more than smaller planets. Now, it has been claimed that a true "Goldilocks" planet has been discovered. The recent proclamation by astronomer Steven Vogt that "the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent" has the news media buzzing. However, there are some big assumptions that went into this claim, many of which are certainly false. More...

    Does 'Goldilocks' Planet Gliese 581g Harbor Life?
    http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/goldilocks_gliese_581g_planet.html

NASA's new life?

The main axiom of biology is that all life forms use six major atoms in their chemical designs - carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. However, NASA announced that they had "found" a bacterium that used arsenic in place of phosphorus. It was not surprising that a bacterium would incorporate arsenic into its biomolecules - even humans can do that. Arsenic lies just below phosphorus on the periodic table of elements, meaning that it is chemically similar to other elements in its column. What is surprising is that doing so did not kill the bacteria. Did NASA really expand the definition of life with this discovery? More...

    What's Wrong With NASA's Arsenic-Eating Bacteria Study?
    http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/nasa_arsenic_bacteria.html


Christian theology

Pew Forum quiz

The Pew Forum released a survey of religious knowledge among people in the United States. Surprisingly, the average level correct was only 50% on a relatively easy quiz. I took their shortened version and got 15/15 correct. Examining their survey, it was clear that the other half of the survey was no more difficult, so I have included the complete quiz in an online version. As you can see from the graph on the right, visitors of this site do much better than the average American. Take the quiz and test your religious knowledge...

    Take the Pew Forum Religious Knowledge Quiz
    http://www.godandscience.org/cgi-bin/quiztest.cgi?pewforumquestionnaire

Christian Theology Quiz

God and Science has supported a basic Christian theology quiz for nearly 10 years. This quiz is much more difficult than the Pew Forum Quiz, with the average score being ~60%. How well do you know Christian theology? Take the quiz...

    Basic Christian Theology Quiz
    http://www.godandscience.org/cgi-bin/quiztest.cgi?basicchristiantheologyquiz


Online quiz maker

Over the years, I had looked several times for better quiz making software, but have always ended up being frustrated with the difficulty of using the software or making it do what I wanted it to do. However, I finally found a free quiz script that works really well and is easy to setup - and it's been online for years! You can see the program in action here. More...

   Best Free Online Quiz Program/Script
    http://www.godandscience.org/general/free_quiz_program.html


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Those are the most recent updates and changes since the last e-mail update. If you would like to see anything in particular at Evidence for God from Science, let me know. "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!' "(Luke 2:13-14)

In Christ,
Rich Deem


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Last Modified December 21, 2010

 

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