April 6, 2006
Fossil Called Missing Link From Sea to Land Animals
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Scientists have discovered fossils of a 375-million-year-old fish, a large scaly creature not seen before, that they say is a long-sought missing link in the evolution of some fishes from water to a life walking on four limbs on land.
In two reports today in the journal Nature, a team of scientists led by Neil H. Shubin of the University of Chicago say they have uncovered several well-preserved skeletons of the fossil fish in sediments of former streambeds in the Canadian Arctic, 600 miles from the North Pole.
The skeletons have the fins, scales and other attributes of a giant fish, four to nine feet long. But on closer examination, the scientists found telling anatomical traits of a transitional creature, a fish that is still a fish but has changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals — and is thus a predecessor of amphibians, reptiles and dinosaurs, mammals and eventually humans.
In the fishes' forward fins, the scientists found evidence of limbs in the making. There are the beginnings of digits, proto-wrists, elbows and shoulders. The fish also had a flat skull resembling a crocodile's, a neck, ribs and other parts that were similar to four-legged land animals known as tetrapods.
Other scientists said that in addition to confirming elements of a major transition in evolution, the fossils were a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who have long argued that the absence of such transitional creatures are a serious weakness in Darwin's theory.
The discovery team called the fossils the most compelling examples yet of an animal that was at the cusp of the fish-tetrapod transition. The fish has been named Tiktaalik roseae, at the suggestion of elders of Canada's Nunavut Territory. Tiktaalik (pronounced tic-TAH-lick) means "large shallow water fish."
"The origin of limbs," Dr. Shubin's team wrote, "probably involved the elaboration and proliferation of features already present in the fins of fish such as Tiktaalik."
In an interview, Dr. Shubin, an evolutionary biologist, let himself go. "It's a really amazing, remarkable intermediate fossil," he said. "It's like, holy cow."
Two other paleontologists, commenting on the find in a separate article in the journal, said that a few other transitional fish had been previously discovered from approximately the same Late Devonian time period, 385 million to 359 million years ago. But Tiktaalik is so clearly an intermediate "link between fishes and land vertebrates," they said, that it "might in time become as much an evolutionary icon as the proto-bird Archaeopteryx," which bridged the gap between reptiles (probably dinosaurs) and today's birds.
The writers, Erik Ahlberg of Uppsala University in Sweden and Jennifer A. Clack of the University of Cambridge in England, are often viewed as rivals to Dr. Shubin's team in the search for intermediate species in the evolution from fish to the first animals to colonize land.
H. Richard Lane, director of paleobiology at the National Science Foundation, said in a statement, "These exciting discoveries are providing fossil 'Rosetta Stones' for a deeper understanding of this evolutionary milestone — fish to land-roaming tetrapods."
The science foundation and the National Geographic Society were among the financial supporters of the research. Besides Dr. Shubin, the principal discoverers were Edward B. Daeschler of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and Farish A. Jenkins Jr., a Harvard evolutionary biologist. Casts of the fossils will be on view at the Science Museum of London.
Michael J. Novacek, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, who was not involved in the research, said: "Based on what we already know, we have a very strong reason to think tetrapods evolved from lineages of fishes. This may be a critical phase in that transition that we haven't had before. A good fossil cuts through a lot of scientific argument."
Dr. Shubin's team played down the fossil's significance in the raging debate over Darwinian theory, which is opposed mainly by some conservative Christians in this country, but other scientists were not so reticent. They said this should undercut the argument that there is no evidence in the fossil record of one kind of creature becoming another kind.
One creationist site on the Web (emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs /evid1.htm) declares that "there are no transitional forms," adding: "For example, not a single fossil with part fins, part feet has been found. And this is true between every major plant and animal kind."
Dr. Novacek responded: "We've got Archaeopteryx, an early whale that lived on land, and now this animal showing the transition from fish to tetrapod. What more do we need from the fossil record to show that the creationists are flatly wrong?"
Duane T. Gish, a retired official of the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, said, "This alleged transitional fish will have to be evaluated carefully." But he added that he still found evolution "questionable because paleontologists have yet to discover any transitional fossils between complex invertebrates and fish, and this destroys the whole evolutionary story."
Dr. Shubin and Dr. Daeschler began their search on Ellesmere Island in 1999. They were attracted by a map in a geology textbook showing an abundance of Devonian rocks exposed and relatively easy to explore. At that time, the land had a warm climate: it was part of a supercontinent straddling the Equator.
It was not until July 2004, Dr. Shubin said, that "we hit the jackpot." They found several of the fishes in a quarry, their skeletons largely intact and in three dimensions. The large skull had the sharp teeth of a predator. It was attached to a neck, which allowed the fish the unfishlike ability to swivel its head.
If the animal spent any time out of water, said Dr. Jenkins, of Harvard, it needed a true neck that allowed the head to move independently on the body.
Embedded in the pectoral fins were bones that compare to the upper arm, forearm and primitive parts of the hand of land-living animals. The joints of the fins appeared to be capable of functioning for movement on land, a case of a fish improvising with its evolved anatomy. In all likelihood, the scientists said, Tiktaalik flexed its proto-limbs mainly on the floor of streams and might have pulled itself up on the shore for brief stretches.
In their report, the scientists concluded that Tiktaalik was an intermediate between the fishes Eusthenopteron and Panderichthys, which lived 385 million years ago, and early tetrapods. The known early tetrapods are Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, about 365 million years ago.
Tiktaalik, Dr. Shubin said, is "both fish and tetrapod, which we sometimes call a fishapod."
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Evolution--No one believes in it
Words mean something. Using the word "believe" with evolution is a signal to the "little god"
Christians that science is just another belief system, no different than their own belief system.
Science is not a belief system. It is an evidence based system. No scientist believes in evolution. Evidence is gathered and allowed to lead to conclusions. Evidence for the old age of the earth and the changes in life over time has been gathered for more then two centuries. This overwhelming amount of evidence all leads to the conclusion that evolution happens.
Science based people accept evidence. We do not discard inconvenient facts like “belief system” people do. Scientific theory must accept and account for all evidence found.
Good scientists are no different than good detectives at the scene of a crime. They gather evidence and allow the evidence to lead them to a conclusion about who the probable culprit was. The more evidence the more certain the detective is. Scientists gather evidence about the earth and its history and allow the evidence to lead them to conclusions.
If a bloody glove is found at Nicole Brown Simpson's house and at OJs house, if OJs blood is found at her house and hers at his then logical people allowed the evidence to lead to a conclusion.
Little god Christians believe first and then "fix facts" around their belief. The facts may be unrelated to each other. The facts are always carefully selected so as to leave out the greater number of facts and evidence that lead in a different direction.
Whenever any person talks about "believing" in evolution they are falling into a logic trap set up by the little god Christians.
Try saying we understand the evidence and accept the conclusion that evolution happens.
Christians that science is just another belief system, no different than their own belief system.
Science is not a belief system. It is an evidence based system. No scientist believes in evolution. Evidence is gathered and allowed to lead to conclusions. Evidence for the old age of the earth and the changes in life over time has been gathered for more then two centuries. This overwhelming amount of evidence all leads to the conclusion that evolution happens.
Science based people accept evidence. We do not discard inconvenient facts like “belief system” people do. Scientific theory must accept and account for all evidence found.
Good scientists are no different than good detectives at the scene of a crime. They gather evidence and allow the evidence to lead them to a conclusion about who the probable culprit was. The more evidence the more certain the detective is. Scientists gather evidence about the earth and its history and allow the evidence to lead them to conclusions.
If a bloody glove is found at Nicole Brown Simpson's house and at OJs house, if OJs blood is found at her house and hers at his then logical people allowed the evidence to lead to a conclusion.
Little god Christians believe first and then "fix facts" around their belief. The facts may be unrelated to each other. The facts are always carefully selected so as to leave out the greater number of facts and evidence that lead in a different direction.
Whenever any person talks about "believing" in evolution they are falling into a logic trap set up by the little god Christians.
Try saying we understand the evidence and accept the conclusion that evolution happens.
Letter to San Diego Native Plant Society--White Snail threat
Dear San Diego Native Plant Society,
I left a phone message today regarding the threat of the white garden snail, Theba pisana, to our native plants here in San Diego County particularly the lupine varieties. This email is to further explain the message.
I am concerned that all our San Diego native plant species are potentially threatened by this snail. Our natives did not co-evolve with snail predation and do not seem to have toxins necessary to discourage the snail from eating them. Our natives legumes (especially the tiny lupines) seem most at threat if the pattern of depredation of Theba pisana in my yard reflect what may be happening in undisturbed areas.
The white snails as tiny newly hatched, pea sized babies climb immediately up to the top of my bush lupines by the hundreds and started stripping leaves. I could not miss a day of hand collecting the tiny, hard-to-see, snails without losing a plant or two. A few other plants were affected as well (Rosa malva). The non-native clover weeds were eaten last. The non-natives seem to have something that discourages the snails a little bit. Whereas the native legumes seemed to be vacuumed down. The snail leaves nothing behind but the thickest stems.
These white snails seem to survive in much drier habitats than the common brown snail. I have seen them estivating by the hundreds on anise stalks in July, where in all my previous twenty years in the area, I had never seen one snail of any kind, at any time. Let alone in mid-summer. It seems it can easily estivate in an open dry field with no extant brown snail population.
It also seems to breed at a voracious rate. This past winter it had an incredibly successful breeding season. It seems to breed several times faster than the brown snail. This rainy season was the first time I have seen the white snails in my yard. Previously I had seen them 1/2 mile a way in a field. Even though they were in the midst of an initial colonization of a yard with a resident brown and collate snail population, they were so successful that I saw thousands of these snails in places where there had in previously been only few dozen brown snails.
I have never had brown snail problems (dry year or wet year) as I have a very healthy population of deccolate snails. Most of the baby browns seem to be eaten on the ground by the decollates, but the baby whites immediately crawl straight up into plants and bushes when they hatch and they stay there day and night. They do not come down to the ground during the day. From hatching and emergence they stay out of reach of the decollates.
I do not know if this concern has been discussed by your group. The county of San Diego pest control officials seem to have given up on efforts to eradicate it. Indeed without biological controls brought from the Mediterrean area, its native habitat, I see no way to control it.
I would think that an alliance of CNPS and California Farm Bureau might convince the California Ag Department to import parasitic wasps as a control for the snail. Apparently these kind of wasps do exist and are being tried in Australia as a control measure.
The white snail could be a huge threat to California's alfalfa crop if the snail makes its way to the San Joaquin Valley where alfalfa is major crop. Many San Joaquin farmers are switching from cotton to alfalfa.
If internet stories of the damage white snail have done to alfalfa crops in Australia are true, there will be a huge hue and cry when the snails reach our alfalfa growing regions. Immediately lots of money will be spent and a solution found to control the snails. But by that time many of our native local belly flowers may be gone (esp the legumes).
Just wanted to make sure that the threat of Theba pisana to our native plants is on the radar
I left a phone message today regarding the threat of the white garden snail, Theba pisana, to our native plants here in San Diego County particularly the lupine varieties. This email is to further explain the message.
I am concerned that all our San Diego native plant species are potentially threatened by this snail. Our natives did not co-evolve with snail predation and do not seem to have toxins necessary to discourage the snail from eating them. Our natives legumes (especially the tiny lupines) seem most at threat if the pattern of depredation of Theba pisana in my yard reflect what may be happening in undisturbed areas.
The white snails as tiny newly hatched, pea sized babies climb immediately up to the top of my bush lupines by the hundreds and started stripping leaves. I could not miss a day of hand collecting the tiny, hard-to-see, snails without losing a plant or two. A few other plants were affected as well (Rosa malva). The non-native clover weeds were eaten last. The non-natives seem to have something that discourages the snails a little bit. Whereas the native legumes seemed to be vacuumed down. The snail leaves nothing behind but the thickest stems.
These white snails seem to survive in much drier habitats than the common brown snail. I have seen them estivating by the hundreds on anise stalks in July, where in all my previous twenty years in the area, I had never seen one snail of any kind, at any time. Let alone in mid-summer. It seems it can easily estivate in an open dry field with no extant brown snail population.
It also seems to breed at a voracious rate. This past winter it had an incredibly successful breeding season. It seems to breed several times faster than the brown snail. This rainy season was the first time I have seen the white snails in my yard. Previously I had seen them 1/2 mile a way in a field. Even though they were in the midst of an initial colonization of a yard with a resident brown and collate snail population, they were so successful that I saw thousands of these snails in places where there had in previously been only few dozen brown snails.
I have never had brown snail problems (dry year or wet year) as I have a very healthy population of deccolate snails. Most of the baby browns seem to be eaten on the ground by the decollates, but the baby whites immediately crawl straight up into plants and bushes when they hatch and they stay there day and night. They do not come down to the ground during the day. From hatching and emergence they stay out of reach of the decollates.
I do not know if this concern has been discussed by your group. The county of San Diego pest control officials seem to have given up on efforts to eradicate it. Indeed without biological controls brought from the Mediterrean area, its native habitat, I see no way to control it.
I would think that an alliance of CNPS and California Farm Bureau might convince the California Ag Department to import parasitic wasps as a control for the snail. Apparently these kind of wasps do exist and are being tried in Australia as a control measure.
The white snail could be a huge threat to California's alfalfa crop if the snail makes its way to the San Joaquin Valley where alfalfa is major crop. Many San Joaquin farmers are switching from cotton to alfalfa.
If internet stories of the damage white snail have done to alfalfa crops in Australia are true, there will be a huge hue and cry when the snails reach our alfalfa growing regions. Immediately lots of money will be spent and a solution found to control the snails. But by that time many of our native local belly flowers may be gone (esp the legumes).
Just wanted to make sure that the threat of Theba pisana to our native plants is on the radar
Second letter to Kansas State Board Members
Dear Kansas State Board Members 2,
I wrote you recently concerning your agenda item to legitimize "intelligent design" in the curriculum as a scientific theory. My email message was called de-emphasizing evolution.
One of my concerns in that email was the real danger every Kansan and every American faces when we fail to teach all students the power of evolution. Any dilution of the message regarding the workings of natural selection leads to great societal dangers like antibiotic resistance.
We are on the verge of returning to a time when bacterial infections will again be more feared than any other form of disease including cancer. Pre-antibiotic era infections could kill perfectly healthy people in a few hours to a few days. The deaths were horrible--their bodies eaten (digested by bacteria) while they were still alive. No treatments could stop the bacteria. Failure of fellow citizens especially are elected representatives to understand evolution has directly contributed to the rapid increase in bacterial resistance to all common antibiotics.
Evolutionary theory has NOT been taught systemically in this country for over thirty years due to the intimidation of middle and high school science teachers by crusading little god Christians.*
One of the last lines of defense against resistant bacteria is the quinolone group of antibiotics like Cipro. The poultry farmers want to continue to use quinolones to treat their chickens. Why? Because the big ag corporations have bred so many strains of resistant bacteria in their factory poultry farms by routinely using feed laced with "growth promoters" (antibiotics) that those same antibiotics no longer work to cure sick chickens.
Now they demand to use one of human doctor’s last lines of defense in the treatment of sick people, quinolones, to treat chickens!
Bought and paid for Congressman are actually supporting this dangerous idea. See the following article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/29/AR2005042901349.html
Those Congressmen weren't taught the incredible power of evolution in school. They do not understand the danger they are putting themselves, their children and us in by siding with poultry corporation bean counters against the best interests of the health of humans of this country.
Please do not de-emphasize the teaching of evolution in Kansas.
The fallacy that Intelligent Design is a scientific theory is shown to be just that because ID never could predict antibiotic resistance. It has no powerful mechanism to explain change in populations of living things. Only evolution does. Natural selection is that force. It was discovered by Darwin and Wallace. It is the most powerful force in all living systems--plant, animal, or microbe. Your children and citizens need to know about it.
Sincerely,
Peter Welch—retired science teacher and born again Christian who has been a long time Sunday School teacher, Christian Scout leader, and Church Board member
*Christian members of the Board, please do not be insulted by the term “little god” Christians. I am referring to the loud and frightened Christians who demand that the earth is only 6 to 10 thousand years old. Their young earth means a young and exceedingly tiny universe. The true age of the universe is something more than 13 billion years.
That means if the true universe size (13 billion light years) of the universe could be shrunk down to the size of the earth, their little tiny 6 thousand year old universe would be about the size of marble. The god they worship is a tiny little god trapped in a marble sized universe—hence little god Christians.
You may also have noticed that these same frightened Christians are forever whipping up dissention in our local congregations but when it comes to teaching Sunday School or church work day, they are never to be seen. They are always so busy complaining about the minister, the youth pastor, the air condition/heating, or planning some grand crusade that they never have time to help with the business of running the church.
I wrote you recently concerning your agenda item to legitimize "intelligent design" in the curriculum as a scientific theory. My email message was called de-emphasizing evolution.
One of my concerns in that email was the real danger every Kansan and every American faces when we fail to teach all students the power of evolution. Any dilution of the message regarding the workings of natural selection leads to great societal dangers like antibiotic resistance.
We are on the verge of returning to a time when bacterial infections will again be more feared than any other form of disease including cancer. Pre-antibiotic era infections could kill perfectly healthy people in a few hours to a few days. The deaths were horrible--their bodies eaten (digested by bacteria) while they were still alive. No treatments could stop the bacteria. Failure of fellow citizens especially are elected representatives to understand evolution has directly contributed to the rapid increase in bacterial resistance to all common antibiotics.
Evolutionary theory has NOT been taught systemically in this country for over thirty years due to the intimidation of middle and high school science teachers by crusading little god Christians.*
One of the last lines of defense against resistant bacteria is the quinolone group of antibiotics like Cipro. The poultry farmers want to continue to use quinolones to treat their chickens. Why? Because the big ag corporations have bred so many strains of resistant bacteria in their factory poultry farms by routinely using feed laced with "growth promoters" (antibiotics) that those same antibiotics no longer work to cure sick chickens.
Now they demand to use one of human doctor’s last lines of defense in the treatment of sick people, quinolones, to treat chickens!
Bought and paid for Congressman are actually supporting this dangerous idea. See the following article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/29/AR2005042901349.html
Those Congressmen weren't taught the incredible power of evolution in school. They do not understand the danger they are putting themselves, their children and us in by siding with poultry corporation bean counters against the best interests of the health of humans of this country.
Please do not de-emphasize the teaching of evolution in Kansas.
The fallacy that Intelligent Design is a scientific theory is shown to be just that because ID never could predict antibiotic resistance. It has no powerful mechanism to explain change in populations of living things. Only evolution does. Natural selection is that force. It was discovered by Darwin and Wallace. It is the most powerful force in all living systems--plant, animal, or microbe. Your children and citizens need to know about it.
Sincerely,
Peter Welch—retired science teacher and born again Christian who has been a long time Sunday School teacher, Christian Scout leader, and Church Board member
*Christian members of the Board, please do not be insulted by the term “little god” Christians. I am referring to the loud and frightened Christians who demand that the earth is only 6 to 10 thousand years old. Their young earth means a young and exceedingly tiny universe. The true age of the universe is something more than 13 billion years.
That means if the true universe size (13 billion light years) of the universe could be shrunk down to the size of the earth, their little tiny 6 thousand year old universe would be about the size of marble. The god they worship is a tiny little god trapped in a marble sized universe—hence little god Christians.
You may also have noticed that these same frightened Christians are forever whipping up dissention in our local congregations but when it comes to teaching Sunday School or church work day, they are never to be seen. They are always so busy complaining about the minister, the youth pastor, the air condition/heating, or planning some grand crusade that they never have time to help with the business of running the church.
My Letter to Kansas State School Board Members
Dear Kansas State School Board Members:
I was a science teacher (and a Christian) at one of the leading edges of the early attacks on science in America. I taught science in Vista in1994 when the school board majority became controlled by what I refer to as "little god" Christians or "frightened” Christians.
Immediately after taking control, the new board members launched an ideological attack on evolution. The controversy stirred huge crowds. Our meetings were reported on the front pages of newspapers locally and nationally. Our district made the front page of the New York Times. We had satellite trucks parked outside the newly built middle school gymnasium where the anti-evolution board meetings were held. It was the only place potentially large enough in our district to hold the crowds. There was still an overflow listening area outside at the covered picnic table area with a loudspeaker broadcasting the comments made by school board and audience members.
Now Kansas is the recipient of the attention of the little god Christians and their wild agitating. Now it is your turn to be at the center of the controversy and media storm.
These little god Christians are frightened that someone will prove scientifically that the organizing principal of their lives, Christianity, is somehow wrong. No wild accusation, no amount of time spent organizing is too much for them if it “saves” Christianity. They will attack any board member, science teacher, or science curriculum from the pulpit and from Christian radio programs to save their misinformed views on science and their faith. The sick and hungry can wait. The great cause of fighting what they call “secularists” is all consuming and so satisfying to their need for a just cause.
The emotional attacks by little god preachers whip up congregational outrage and surprisingly also create congregational unity. Having evil doers who are outsiders and “are threatening our Faith and our children” is great for the financial security of the pastor. The pulpit attacks increase attendance and actually increase the amount of offerings.
.
Those Sunday offerings are the life blood of each minister. The little god churches do not provide any safety net for their pastors or ministers. If the offerings do not meet financial needs (largest single church budget item is ministerial staff salary and benefits) then the minister and his family are out of a job and their home—the rent free church parsonage.
The stakes could hardly be higher for the pastors of little god churches. Life is so much safer for the pastor with the congregation working together and giving above and beyond their tithes for a mighty purpose. Pastors who do not understand this are out. It is all quite Darwinian.
Even with the great fervor and chaos our little god friends in Vista provided at each board meeting, on local Christian radio, and from the pulpit; the greater Vista community rejected their message. The secular community and the Faith Christians worked together and recalled the anti-science little god board members who were causing such turmoil. We have also kept them from re-taking power in every subsequent election. You can do the same in Kansas. No matter how conservative it is there in Kansas, it is more conservative here in Vista. Our district lies next to Marine Corp Base, Camp Pendleton and we have a huge number of retired military in our community. No democrat has ever won an election here even in the seventies.
The very worse thing about the little god Christians and their philosophy is the intolerance. No one else’s view counts except their own. No attempt was ever made by our board members to value the views of others of different faiths, or even other Christians who had different take on science and Biblical interpretation.
The little god Christians seem so afraid of knowledge. Here in Vista one of their school board candidates told me "knowledge once given can never be taken back." This seems like a kind of a weird philosophy for someone who wanted to be in charge of educating all the children in a district of 40,000. Another candidate said at a videotaped forum that “anal sex was the reason for so much teen pregnancy.” She was a nurse! I suppose today she would blame oral sex instead.
Some of the knowledge they fear has to do with the true age of the earth or universe (like the following. (1)There are six million annual (yearly) layers of sediment fossilized at the Green River formation in Wyoming that can be seen with the naked eye and time permitting counted. (2) There are one hundred thousand, visible countable annual layers of snow in the Greenland icepack. (3)There are several million annual layers of sediment deposition in cores taken from the Atlantic sea floor. Similar annual layers can be seen to be deposited each year currently on the ocean bottom, on glacial snow packs and all over the earth in every lake and pond.
I talked to one of "their" board members about all the ways, rational Christians can know that the earth and universe is old. Her response is that "god" might have created the evidence to appear to be old but it was really young. Then I asked her why she was worshipping a "liar god" who makes everything appear to be old but it isn't? Apparently it is a test of her faith to believe the earth is 6 to ten thousand years old in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
Yes, I have been to the Institute of Creation Research in Santee (forty miles away). Yes, I have read their literature and been on their mailing list. All of ICR stuff was a tremendous disappointment to me as a practicing Christian because neither in their literature or in person at the museum do they ever tell the whole and complete truth. I was brought up to believe that truth telling is a fundamental characteristic of a born again Christian. The ICR message is about frightening Christians to believe their way or risk not going to heaven as a Christian. They mixed it with scientific half truths and misrepresentations. The worse affront against God and truth is all the excluded information that is not told. Staff at ICR who do not toe the little god line perfectly at all the time and in all places have been fired.
ICR and other creationist institutes like the Discovery Institute purposely mislead Christians. I am able to see the deceptions because of my training in science. Most Christian are fooled because they do not have the background information to know the tricks ICR and other creationist institutions are playing.
I debated Duane Gish, ICR’s star debater, on National Public Radio where his tactics were to attack me personally, attack my faith and ramble on and on (this tactic I later learned has been nicked named the Gish gallop by others who have “debated” him). He allowed me virtually no time for a response. His obvious goal was to make sure listeners heard only (or mostly) him and were not allowed to hear accurate information.
I was a Nazarene for many years teaching Sunday school, a member of the Board of Christian Life, and director of the Caravans (Christian scouting) program. I resent the take over of my faith by the little god and frightened Christians.
I met James Dobson when he spoke at our church. (Our pastor at that time was, Wil Spaite, his former tennis partner on the Pasadena Nazarene College tennis team. Pastor Spaite’s personal connection was enough to bring Dr. Dobson to speak at our church.) As an aside, I will tell you that James Dobson was a very different man twenty years ago than he is today. At that time he was not an arrogant, bully who threatens elected senators and Congressman with retaliation if they do not vote his way. Power and the isolation of Colorado Springs have really changed that man. He should have stayed in California and not surrounded himself with sycophant “yes” men in Colorado Springs. A couple of months ago, I was shocked to find on his website, Focus on the Family, a call for an email attack on his critics in the press. Falling into little god-ism can really change a person.
I fear for our country if science is de-emphasized. I fear for my faith if our Christian belief system rests on the lie of Creation Science or the myth of their being a valid Intelligent Design theory.
Our country's future and the future of Kansas are at stake. Below is one example of the terrible price we all are paying today because of the little god Christian attack on science.
We lose at least one hundred thousand fellow citizens a year to horrible deaths from antibiotic resistant bacteria. Thousands of tons of our most powerful antibiotics are mixed with livestock and poultry feed as "growth promoters." Of course the bacteria in the animal and bird intestines, are selected in a severe environment of antibiotic soup to become more and more resistance to these antibiotics. (All animals including us are filled with intestinal bacteria or we could not digest our food, The animals and poultry are NOT sick.) The threat is huge because there are really only six different kinds of antibiotics and all are being used as growth promoters in the United States.
The hundreds of named antibiotics we see in the Physicians Desk Reference are all just tiny variations of those six. What appear to be hundreds of different kinds are really just new names given to the same six kinds. Non-therapeutic pieces are added to current antibiotics by “research” teams at Big Pharma companies and given fancy names. This method of drug discover involves no risk and great gain. There is never a problem that the “new” antibiotic will not kill the bacteria just like the old one did. A new patent is obtained to replace the expiring one and new markets created with massive ad campaigns.
Novel antibiotics have been impossible to find. No novel antibiotic has been found in over thirty years. Those six kinds are a precious resource. We will end up back in a time of not long ago when the son of the sitting President of the United States died from an infected blister. We ignore the teaching evolution at our own risk.
Bacteria are extremely promiscuous even between widely different kinds. Completely different bacteria can and often do swap genes with each other. Helpful intestinal bacteria easily pass on genetic material to disease causing bacteria. If animals could swap genes with widely different animals, the way bacteria can, we might see something as ridiculous as an ostrich giving some genes to a crocodile. Luckily large animals cannot swap genes between widely different kinds, like bacteria do. Otherwise we might see crocodiles running swiftly across the plains of Africa on ostrich legs attacking animals and people. Bacteria use easily transferable circles of DNA called plasmids to swap genes. Animals do not have plasmids.
This naturally selected, "evolutionarily acquired" antibiotic resistance in the lumen of our livestock and poultry is transferred to the bacteria on the hands, clothes (even the intestines) of workers in livestock feed lots, poultry farms and especially slaughterhouses. The workers carry the resistant bacteria home and then their families carry resistance plasmids into our communities.
We are now on the verge of a major epidemic of MRSA (resistant staph) in this country. Not only could the death rate from MRSA easily dwarf any flu epidemic ever seen in the US, but it will mean the end of surgeries in this country.
Any surgery you have ever heard of is only possible because of effectiveness of antibiotics used to stop potential infections in the incisions after surgery. With MRSA and even more resistant varieties around, there can be no safe surgeries.
Simple appendectomies will have a 30 or 40 % death rate like they did at the beginning of the twentieth century before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. By the way due the great penetration of resistance genes into our communities already, penicillin (amoxicillin) is virtually worthless today as therapy. It is given to children by doctors more as a placebo to assuage the concerns of mothers than to stop infections.
The resistance problem is less acute in Europe and the rate of resistant infections is far lower there. Why? The European electorate and the European politicians understand evolution and the frightening implications of its power. In Europe the practice of treating EVERY animal and bird with huge quantities of antibiotics so that they grow a little faster is banned. Sick animals still get antibiotics, but antibiotics cannot be used routinely as “growth promoters”.
The above is an example of just one terrible price, we are facing as a nation because of the attack on science by the little god and frightened Christians and their supporters in school boards--locally and state wide.
Evolution has not been taught in the classrooms of America in any systematic way in over thirty years. Any teacher who tries is inundated with complaints to his site and district administrators. Even here in Vista where rationality won, my youngest son had only one day dedicated to evolutionary theory in his freshman high school biology class. Evolution is the organizing principal of biology. He should have heard about it every day. Teachers are hammered if they mention the “E” word in class. They understandable shy away unless school boards actively promote its teaching.
Instead of de-emphasizing evolution in Kansas, you should be promoting it. Every day in every life science classroom in your state, your children should hear about evolution and its driving force natural selection. They should understand its force and power. What they do not know CAN hurt them.
Christians do not need to fear science. Knowing that God is in charge does not mean that He has to be only six thousand years old in charge of a tiny six thousand year old universe (instead of the massive 14 billion year universe. (The light year rule is the more light years the bigger the universe). I cannot fathom why the little god Christians want to worship such a tiny little god in charge of a tiny, little, marble sized universe. Or why they are afraid of God's creative force in the universe today, namely the natural selection that drives evolution. Since He set up the system that Darwin discovered, we as Christians should embrace it.
Please reject the little god Christians and their phony intelligent design theory. Let us be Christians of Faith, not fear, and accept whatever we and others discover about what God has done. Let us embrace science and its theories. When we learn about how the universe and the earth, and life on earth; we are learning about our Creator and his methods. Do the right thing, reject little god interference in the teaching of accurate biology and biological principals. Strengthen the teaching of evolution in Kansas schools. You have a beautiful state with wonderful people. Do what is right for your state and your people and your country.
Yours in Christ Jesus,
Darwindad
Vista, CA
I was a science teacher (and a Christian) at one of the leading edges of the early attacks on science in America. I taught science in Vista in1994 when the school board majority became controlled by what I refer to as "little god" Christians or "frightened” Christians.
Immediately after taking control, the new board members launched an ideological attack on evolution. The controversy stirred huge crowds. Our meetings were reported on the front pages of newspapers locally and nationally. Our district made the front page of the New York Times. We had satellite trucks parked outside the newly built middle school gymnasium where the anti-evolution board meetings were held. It was the only place potentially large enough in our district to hold the crowds. There was still an overflow listening area outside at the covered picnic table area with a loudspeaker broadcasting the comments made by school board and audience members.
Now Kansas is the recipient of the attention of the little god Christians and their wild agitating. Now it is your turn to be at the center of the controversy and media storm.
These little god Christians are frightened that someone will prove scientifically that the organizing principal of their lives, Christianity, is somehow wrong. No wild accusation, no amount of time spent organizing is too much for them if it “saves” Christianity. They will attack any board member, science teacher, or science curriculum from the pulpit and from Christian radio programs to save their misinformed views on science and their faith. The sick and hungry can wait. The great cause of fighting what they call “secularists” is all consuming and so satisfying to their need for a just cause.
The emotional attacks by little god preachers whip up congregational outrage and surprisingly also create congregational unity. Having evil doers who are outsiders and “are threatening our Faith and our children” is great for the financial security of the pastor. The pulpit attacks increase attendance and actually increase the amount of offerings.
.
Those Sunday offerings are the life blood of each minister. The little god churches do not provide any safety net for their pastors or ministers. If the offerings do not meet financial needs (largest single church budget item is ministerial staff salary and benefits) then the minister and his family are out of a job and their home—the rent free church parsonage.
The stakes could hardly be higher for the pastors of little god churches. Life is so much safer for the pastor with the congregation working together and giving above and beyond their tithes for a mighty purpose. Pastors who do not understand this are out. It is all quite Darwinian.
Even with the great fervor and chaos our little god friends in Vista provided at each board meeting, on local Christian radio, and from the pulpit; the greater Vista community rejected their message. The secular community and the Faith Christians worked together and recalled the anti-science little god board members who were causing such turmoil. We have also kept them from re-taking power in every subsequent election. You can do the same in Kansas. No matter how conservative it is there in Kansas, it is more conservative here in Vista. Our district lies next to Marine Corp Base, Camp Pendleton and we have a huge number of retired military in our community. No democrat has ever won an election here even in the seventies.
The very worse thing about the little god Christians and their philosophy is the intolerance. No one else’s view counts except their own. No attempt was ever made by our board members to value the views of others of different faiths, or even other Christians who had different take on science and Biblical interpretation.
The little god Christians seem so afraid of knowledge. Here in Vista one of their school board candidates told me "knowledge once given can never be taken back." This seems like a kind of a weird philosophy for someone who wanted to be in charge of educating all the children in a district of 40,000. Another candidate said at a videotaped forum that “anal sex was the reason for so much teen pregnancy.” She was a nurse! I suppose today she would blame oral sex instead.
Some of the knowledge they fear has to do with the true age of the earth or universe (like the following. (1)There are six million annual (yearly) layers of sediment fossilized at the Green River formation in Wyoming that can be seen with the naked eye and time permitting counted. (2) There are one hundred thousand, visible countable annual layers of snow in the Greenland icepack. (3)There are several million annual layers of sediment deposition in cores taken from the Atlantic sea floor. Similar annual layers can be seen to be deposited each year currently on the ocean bottom, on glacial snow packs and all over the earth in every lake and pond.
I talked to one of "their" board members about all the ways, rational Christians can know that the earth and universe is old. Her response is that "god" might have created the evidence to appear to be old but it was really young. Then I asked her why she was worshipping a "liar god" who makes everything appear to be old but it isn't? Apparently it is a test of her faith to believe the earth is 6 to ten thousand years old in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
Yes, I have been to the Institute of Creation Research in Santee (forty miles away). Yes, I have read their literature and been on their mailing list. All of ICR stuff was a tremendous disappointment to me as a practicing Christian because neither in their literature or in person at the museum do they ever tell the whole and complete truth. I was brought up to believe that truth telling is a fundamental characteristic of a born again Christian. The ICR message is about frightening Christians to believe their way or risk not going to heaven as a Christian. They mixed it with scientific half truths and misrepresentations. The worse affront against God and truth is all the excluded information that is not told. Staff at ICR who do not toe the little god line perfectly at all the time and in all places have been fired.
ICR and other creationist institutes like the Discovery Institute purposely mislead Christians. I am able to see the deceptions because of my training in science. Most Christian are fooled because they do not have the background information to know the tricks ICR and other creationist institutions are playing.
I debated Duane Gish, ICR’s star debater, on National Public Radio where his tactics were to attack me personally, attack my faith and ramble on and on (this tactic I later learned has been nicked named the Gish gallop by others who have “debated” him). He allowed me virtually no time for a response. His obvious goal was to make sure listeners heard only (or mostly) him and were not allowed to hear accurate information.
I was a Nazarene for many years teaching Sunday school, a member of the Board of Christian Life, and director of the Caravans (Christian scouting) program. I resent the take over of my faith by the little god and frightened Christians.
I met James Dobson when he spoke at our church. (Our pastor at that time was, Wil Spaite, his former tennis partner on the Pasadena Nazarene College tennis team. Pastor Spaite’s personal connection was enough to bring Dr. Dobson to speak at our church.) As an aside, I will tell you that James Dobson was a very different man twenty years ago than he is today. At that time he was not an arrogant, bully who threatens elected senators and Congressman with retaliation if they do not vote his way. Power and the isolation of Colorado Springs have really changed that man. He should have stayed in California and not surrounded himself with sycophant “yes” men in Colorado Springs. A couple of months ago, I was shocked to find on his website, Focus on the Family, a call for an email attack on his critics in the press. Falling into little god-ism can really change a person.
I fear for our country if science is de-emphasized. I fear for my faith if our Christian belief system rests on the lie of Creation Science or the myth of their being a valid Intelligent Design theory.
Our country's future and the future of Kansas are at stake. Below is one example of the terrible price we all are paying today because of the little god Christian attack on science.
We lose at least one hundred thousand fellow citizens a year to horrible deaths from antibiotic resistant bacteria. Thousands of tons of our most powerful antibiotics are mixed with livestock and poultry feed as "growth promoters." Of course the bacteria in the animal and bird intestines, are selected in a severe environment of antibiotic soup to become more and more resistance to these antibiotics. (All animals including us are filled with intestinal bacteria or we could not digest our food, The animals and poultry are NOT sick.) The threat is huge because there are really only six different kinds of antibiotics and all are being used as growth promoters in the United States.
The hundreds of named antibiotics we see in the Physicians Desk Reference are all just tiny variations of those six. What appear to be hundreds of different kinds are really just new names given to the same six kinds. Non-therapeutic pieces are added to current antibiotics by “research” teams at Big Pharma companies and given fancy names. This method of drug discover involves no risk and great gain. There is never a problem that the “new” antibiotic will not kill the bacteria just like the old one did. A new patent is obtained to replace the expiring one and new markets created with massive ad campaigns.
Novel antibiotics have been impossible to find. No novel antibiotic has been found in over thirty years. Those six kinds are a precious resource. We will end up back in a time of not long ago when the son of the sitting President of the United States died from an infected blister. We ignore the teaching evolution at our own risk.
Bacteria are extremely promiscuous even between widely different kinds. Completely different bacteria can and often do swap genes with each other. Helpful intestinal bacteria easily pass on genetic material to disease causing bacteria. If animals could swap genes with widely different animals, the way bacteria can, we might see something as ridiculous as an ostrich giving some genes to a crocodile. Luckily large animals cannot swap genes between widely different kinds, like bacteria do. Otherwise we might see crocodiles running swiftly across the plains of Africa on ostrich legs attacking animals and people. Bacteria use easily transferable circles of DNA called plasmids to swap genes. Animals do not have plasmids.
This naturally selected, "evolutionarily acquired" antibiotic resistance in the lumen of our livestock and poultry is transferred to the bacteria on the hands, clothes (even the intestines) of workers in livestock feed lots, poultry farms and especially slaughterhouses. The workers carry the resistant bacteria home and then their families carry resistance plasmids into our communities.
We are now on the verge of a major epidemic of MRSA (resistant staph) in this country. Not only could the death rate from MRSA easily dwarf any flu epidemic ever seen in the US, but it will mean the end of surgeries in this country.
Any surgery you have ever heard of is only possible because of effectiveness of antibiotics used to stop potential infections in the incisions after surgery. With MRSA and even more resistant varieties around, there can be no safe surgeries.
Simple appendectomies will have a 30 or 40 % death rate like they did at the beginning of the twentieth century before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. By the way due the great penetration of resistance genes into our communities already, penicillin (amoxicillin) is virtually worthless today as therapy. It is given to children by doctors more as a placebo to assuage the concerns of mothers than to stop infections.
The resistance problem is less acute in Europe and the rate of resistant infections is far lower there. Why? The European electorate and the European politicians understand evolution and the frightening implications of its power. In Europe the practice of treating EVERY animal and bird with huge quantities of antibiotics so that they grow a little faster is banned. Sick animals still get antibiotics, but antibiotics cannot be used routinely as “growth promoters”.
The above is an example of just one terrible price, we are facing as a nation because of the attack on science by the little god and frightened Christians and their supporters in school boards--locally and state wide.
Evolution has not been taught in the classrooms of America in any systematic way in over thirty years. Any teacher who tries is inundated with complaints to his site and district administrators. Even here in Vista where rationality won, my youngest son had only one day dedicated to evolutionary theory in his freshman high school biology class. Evolution is the organizing principal of biology. He should have heard about it every day. Teachers are hammered if they mention the “E” word in class. They understandable shy away unless school boards actively promote its teaching.
Instead of de-emphasizing evolution in Kansas, you should be promoting it. Every day in every life science classroom in your state, your children should hear about evolution and its driving force natural selection. They should understand its force and power. What they do not know CAN hurt them.
Christians do not need to fear science. Knowing that God is in charge does not mean that He has to be only six thousand years old in charge of a tiny six thousand year old universe (instead of the massive 14 billion year universe. (The light year rule is the more light years the bigger the universe). I cannot fathom why the little god Christians want to worship such a tiny little god in charge of a tiny, little, marble sized universe. Or why they are afraid of God's creative force in the universe today, namely the natural selection that drives evolution. Since He set up the system that Darwin discovered, we as Christians should embrace it.
Please reject the little god Christians and their phony intelligent design theory. Let us be Christians of Faith, not fear, and accept whatever we and others discover about what God has done. Let us embrace science and its theories. When we learn about how the universe and the earth, and life on earth; we are learning about our Creator and his methods. Do the right thing, reject little god interference in the teaching of accurate biology and biological principals. Strengthen the teaching of evolution in Kansas schools. You have a beautiful state with wonderful people. Do what is right for your state and your people and your country.
Yours in Christ Jesus,
Darwindad
Vista, CA
StemCell Research--Calif. Prop 71
This letter was written to a leading proponent of the little god philosophy of "let them die." Fortunately in California his horrible cruel philosophy lost in the election and Prop 71 was passed. Praise Jesus!
Dear Mr. Hiltzik,
My son is one of those who might benefit from stem cell research. There are eight houses on our cul-de-sac and in four of them are people who might benefit--cerebral palsy victim, spinal cord injury victim, mentally challenged child, Alzheimer's grandparent, and autoimmune arthritis. I hardly think Mr. Klein is wrong to think that half the families in California could benefit from embryonic stem cell research except perhaps to understate its ultimate the potential.
ESC research should have started in 2000. If religious zealots had not seized control of our federal government, we would have cures now.
No matter your discontent with Mr. Klein’s attitude, Prop. 71 jumped started stem cell research in this country. Other states all across the country suddenly found money and facilities for ESC research after prop 71 passed. They did not want to lose their biotech researchers in a brain drain to California.
My wife and I lost a child to a spontaneous abortion twenty years ago. If at that time, we could have donated part of that child to research we would have. We would have a great since of satisfaction knowing our lost child's organs or tissues were alive and living in someone else or helping to find cures. Even now I grieve for that child I never knew. I would find comfort if I knew part of that child was still alive.
I imagine in vitro fertilization parents feel the same way about their frozen embryos. Better part of them is alive helping to alleviate suffering than thrown in a medical trash bin.
Our youngest son has been racked by an autoimmune arthritis for which there is no animal model to test medicines and therapies on. ESC through nuclear transfer will allow the creation of immune system components that have exactly the same arthritis as my son. These components can be used to find cures either grown in a lab setting or in the body of a specialized immune deficient mouse.
People of my faith and my political party have been so mean and so cruel to get in the way of this research. If Al Gore had been allowed to become president, those potential cures prevented by Bush and his “religious” allies might be here now. Perhaps my crippled son might never have been ravished by this disease. Eighteen months ago, he was an athletic college senior. Today he sits in a wheel chair barely able to walk a few steps, talk above a whisper or even type or play video games. Joints and tendons including his vocal cords have become swollen and hard to use. His fingers swell like painful sausages. The three years of Bush and Tom Delay have cost my son and all of us so much.
You cannot imagine how horrible it is to watch a strong young man with a bright future become a withered up invalid in constant pain. I knew intellectually such horror existed, but the difference between knowing something can happen and seeing it happen to a loved one is an agony I hope you never have to experience.
Please leave Mr. Klein alone. No matter how inept or imperious his handling of the initiative's finances, he has done far more than you or I to get cures for disease for which in the past there was no hope of a cure ever. The hope we have today because of prop 71 may not live up to our loftiest expectations or come as soon as we hoped it would. But just to have hope in the midst of emotional agony is something very precious. I thank Mr. Klein for that. You should too.
darwindad@cox.net
P.S. I have attached pictures of my son and my wife so that you might know there are real people hurt when you help the forces of intolerance and cruelty delay cures.
Dear Mr. Hiltzik,
My son is one of those who might benefit from stem cell research. There are eight houses on our cul-de-sac and in four of them are people who might benefit--cerebral palsy victim, spinal cord injury victim, mentally challenged child, Alzheimer's grandparent, and autoimmune arthritis. I hardly think Mr. Klein is wrong to think that half the families in California could benefit from embryonic stem cell research except perhaps to understate its ultimate the potential.
ESC research should have started in 2000. If religious zealots had not seized control of our federal government, we would have cures now.
No matter your discontent with Mr. Klein’s attitude, Prop. 71 jumped started stem cell research in this country. Other states all across the country suddenly found money and facilities for ESC research after prop 71 passed. They did not want to lose their biotech researchers in a brain drain to California.
My wife and I lost a child to a spontaneous abortion twenty years ago. If at that time, we could have donated part of that child to research we would have. We would have a great since of satisfaction knowing our lost child's organs or tissues were alive and living in someone else or helping to find cures. Even now I grieve for that child I never knew. I would find comfort if I knew part of that child was still alive.
I imagine in vitro fertilization parents feel the same way about their frozen embryos. Better part of them is alive helping to alleviate suffering than thrown in a medical trash bin.
Our youngest son has been racked by an autoimmune arthritis for which there is no animal model to test medicines and therapies on. ESC through nuclear transfer will allow the creation of immune system components that have exactly the same arthritis as my son. These components can be used to find cures either grown in a lab setting or in the body of a specialized immune deficient mouse.
People of my faith and my political party have been so mean and so cruel to get in the way of this research. If Al Gore had been allowed to become president, those potential cures prevented by Bush and his “religious” allies might be here now. Perhaps my crippled son might never have been ravished by this disease. Eighteen months ago, he was an athletic college senior. Today he sits in a wheel chair barely able to walk a few steps, talk above a whisper or even type or play video games. Joints and tendons including his vocal cords have become swollen and hard to use. His fingers swell like painful sausages. The three years of Bush and Tom Delay have cost my son and all of us so much.
You cannot imagine how horrible it is to watch a strong young man with a bright future become a withered up invalid in constant pain. I knew intellectually such horror existed, but the difference between knowing something can happen and seeing it happen to a loved one is an agony I hope you never have to experience.
Please leave Mr. Klein alone. No matter how inept or imperious his handling of the initiative's finances, he has done far more than you or I to get cures for disease for which in the past there was no hope of a cure ever. The hope we have today because of prop 71 may not live up to our loftiest expectations or come as soon as we hoped it would. But just to have hope in the midst of emotional agony is something very precious. I thank Mr. Klein for that. You should too.
darwindad@cox.net
P.S. I have attached pictures of my son and my wife so that you might know there are real people hurt when you help the forces of intolerance and cruelty delay cures.
James Dobson, without sin just like Jesus
I heard Al Franken talking about a conversation this morning with Steven Colbert. Colbert asked if Franken had heard that Dobson said he was without sin. Al did not remember. I do know the answer. (see below—my “church creds” are in paragraph six) . Please forward the information to Colbert. I cannot email him directly. There is no contact info at Comedy Central.
Dobson is a member of the Church of the Nazarene--a holiness church. Fundamental to their belief system is the doctrine of Entire Sanctification.
It is a second conversion event in which the members become sinless like Jesus and never sin again for the rest of their lives. If they sin even once in their lives after they are entirely sanctified then they will go to Hell when they die. They cannot be redeemed.*
Nazarenes must declare that they are Entirely Sanctified before they can take any leadership position in the church (board of Christian Life, Sunday school teacher, etc. Dobson has been THE major leader in the Nazarene church for last 30 years. He had to have declared himself entirely sanctified.
The Nazarene view is very different from the mainstream protestant views that Christians may be tempted into sin "backsliding" after conversion but as long as they confess their sin to God and sin no more they can get their sin forgiven. There is no forgiveness for sin for an entirely sanctified Nazarene. However the Nazarenes do not have as many acts that would be considered sinful as do most protestants especially evangelicals and Baptists. A Baptist can sin by having "lust in his hearts (ala Jimmy Carter) for a woman other than his wife even if he never acts on that lust in any way. No such lusting in your heart sin exists for Nazarenes. A Nazarene sin is defined differently. It has to be a willful overt act. However one has to wonder if some of the “untruths” that James Dobson has said on Focus on the Family radio would be considered willful lies if so he is eternally damned according to his own doctrine.
Also Nazarene women are encouraged not to wear makeup including lipstick, not wear jewelry including wedding bands, not supposed to ever attend any movie or be in any movie theater, may not smoke, drink alcohol and cannot be members of the masons or have any affiliation to masons. The joke my wife’s uncle (a Methodist minister) used to tell about Nazarenes was: “Baptist were so narrow that they would fit three to a bed, but Nazarenes were so narrow that they fit ten to a bed.” (Narrow being a play on words. Christians who are extremely religious are called narrow because they walk a very narrow road to salvation due to an excessive amount of rules they follow).
I know these things because I was a member of the Church of the Nazarene in Porterville Church California for nine years in the seventies and eighties. It was the largest Nazarene Church in the San Joaquin Valley. I was on The Board of Christian Life, spent eight years as a Sunday School teacher and my wife and I ran the Christian scouting program called Caravans at the Church). I was given awards for Outstanding Service Award—Children’s Ministries, Caravan Worker of the year 1978, and Outstanding Christian Service Award for Caravan Work 1978-1982. In order to hold these positions I had to declare that I was Entirely Sanctified.
Our minister during this time was Wil Spaite. He had been the College tennis team partner of James Dobson when the two were enrolled in Pasadena College ( a Nazarene college which has since moved its campus to Point Loma, CA and is called Point Loma Nazarene College.) I believe that Pastor Spaite and Dr. Dobson may have been roommates in college as well.
Pastor Spaite was able to get James Dobson as a speaker at our church in Porterville in 1982 because of his personal close and long time friendship. Even then because of his book Dare to Discipline, James Dobson had enough celebrity status that booking him at a local church (rather than a larger venue) was virtually impossible. When he spoke at our church he was still working at USC in southern California as a child psychologist. He called himself Dr. Dobson even then and talked about his work at the USC hospital leading most to the conclusion that he was a medical doctor. He is not. His doctorate is in psychology.
Dobson could not have spoken from our church pulpit unless he had declared himself entirely sanctified.
Darwindad
*The “cannot be redeemed” part can be gotten around. If there is a major sin after the declaration of Entire Sanctification, then there can be a determination that the person who sinned was never really Entirely Sanctified. Apparently the sinning person had been mistaken when he though he was given the second infilling of the Holy Spirit and gotten entirely sanctified. If the “mistaken about entire sanctification” sinner confesses in front of the Congregation and then asks for forgiveness and asks the Holy Spirit to Entirely Sanctify him (for real this time), then he can still get into heaven.
After my wife and I moved away one of our friends, a Church Board Member, was caught in an adulterous affair. He had to confess in front of the Congregation. He lost his Church Board job of course. Within a couple of years afterwards, he died of brain cancer. He was not yet forty. You can guess what some church members thought about his early death.
Dobson is a member of the Church of the Nazarene--a holiness church. Fundamental to their belief system is the doctrine of Entire Sanctification.
It is a second conversion event in which the members become sinless like Jesus and never sin again for the rest of their lives. If they sin even once in their lives after they are entirely sanctified then they will go to Hell when they die. They cannot be redeemed.*
Nazarenes must declare that they are Entirely Sanctified before they can take any leadership position in the church (board of Christian Life, Sunday school teacher, etc. Dobson has been THE major leader in the Nazarene church for last 30 years. He had to have declared himself entirely sanctified.
The Nazarene view is very different from the mainstream protestant views that Christians may be tempted into sin "backsliding" after conversion but as long as they confess their sin to God and sin no more they can get their sin forgiven. There is no forgiveness for sin for an entirely sanctified Nazarene. However the Nazarenes do not have as many acts that would be considered sinful as do most protestants especially evangelicals and Baptists. A Baptist can sin by having "lust in his hearts (ala Jimmy Carter) for a woman other than his wife even if he never acts on that lust in any way. No such lusting in your heart sin exists for Nazarenes. A Nazarene sin is defined differently. It has to be a willful overt act. However one has to wonder if some of the “untruths” that James Dobson has said on Focus on the Family radio would be considered willful lies if so he is eternally damned according to his own doctrine.
Also Nazarene women are encouraged not to wear makeup including lipstick, not wear jewelry including wedding bands, not supposed to ever attend any movie or be in any movie theater, may not smoke, drink alcohol and cannot be members of the masons or have any affiliation to masons. The joke my wife’s uncle (a Methodist minister) used to tell about Nazarenes was: “Baptist were so narrow that they would fit three to a bed, but Nazarenes were so narrow that they fit ten to a bed.” (Narrow being a play on words. Christians who are extremely religious are called narrow because they walk a very narrow road to salvation due to an excessive amount of rules they follow).
I know these things because I was a member of the Church of the Nazarene in Porterville Church California for nine years in the seventies and eighties. It was the largest Nazarene Church in the San Joaquin Valley. I was on The Board of Christian Life, spent eight years as a Sunday School teacher and my wife and I ran the Christian scouting program called Caravans at the Church). I was given awards for Outstanding Service Award—Children’s Ministries, Caravan Worker of the year 1978, and Outstanding Christian Service Award for Caravan Work 1978-1982. In order to hold these positions I had to declare that I was Entirely Sanctified.
Our minister during this time was Wil Spaite. He had been the College tennis team partner of James Dobson when the two were enrolled in Pasadena College ( a Nazarene college which has since moved its campus to Point Loma, CA and is called Point Loma Nazarene College.) I believe that Pastor Spaite and Dr. Dobson may have been roommates in college as well.
Pastor Spaite was able to get James Dobson as a speaker at our church in Porterville in 1982 because of his personal close and long time friendship. Even then because of his book Dare to Discipline, James Dobson had enough celebrity status that booking him at a local church (rather than a larger venue) was virtually impossible. When he spoke at our church he was still working at USC in southern California as a child psychologist. He called himself Dr. Dobson even then and talked about his work at the USC hospital leading most to the conclusion that he was a medical doctor. He is not. His doctorate is in psychology.
Dobson could not have spoken from our church pulpit unless he had declared himself entirely sanctified.
Darwindad
*The “cannot be redeemed” part can be gotten around. If there is a major sin after the declaration of Entire Sanctification, then there can be a determination that the person who sinned was never really Entirely Sanctified. Apparently the sinning person had been mistaken when he though he was given the second infilling of the Holy Spirit and gotten entirely sanctified. If the “mistaken about entire sanctification” sinner confesses in front of the Congregation and then asks for forgiveness and asks the Holy Spirit to Entirely Sanctify him (for real this time), then he can still get into heaven.
After my wife and I moved away one of our friends, a Church Board Member, was caught in an adulterous affair. He had to confess in front of the Congregation. He lost his Church Board job of course. Within a couple of years afterwards, he died of brain cancer. He was not yet forty. You can guess what some church members thought about his early death.
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