Feature | Salvo 37

You Gotta Believe

Atheist or Not, You Already Have More Faith Than You Realize by James S. Spiegel

. . . You might say that your belief in the reliability of your senses is an article of faith. After all, it is something that you hold to be true without conclusive proof. Moreover, it is a conviction that has practical consequences for every moment of your waking life. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you conduct yourself according to this conviction that your senses are reliable. In short, you devoutly trust your senses. This is just one of the ways that all of us live by faith, regardless of what our particular worldviews happen to be. There are many other unprovable beliefs that we all share. Faith, it seems, is not really an option but is fundamental to the human condition. . . . ►►►

Feature: Headquarters | Salvo 44

Grounded Faith

Sinking Roots for Youth Ministry in an Age of Advanced Skepticism by Terrell Clemmons

. . . Millennials are the first generation of Americans to grow up in a culture where skepticism is the default setting. Their parents may have accepted "because my church says so," but they're not buying that. And really, why should they? Instead of aiming for "sticky faith" then, what parents and leaders need to work toward is a grounded faith. And in an environment of default skepticism, this will require beginning at the beginning: Does God exist? . . . ►►►

Department: Parting Shot | Salvo 44

Deadly Harvest

Patriarchy & the Violence of Fatherless Men by James M. Kushiner

. . . Patriarchy is about fatherhood. It is about fathers raising boys and young men to become fathers themselves. A whole generation, or neighborhood, of boys without fathers will succumb to the chaos and violence of Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. Wherever you find many fatherless young men not being trained for fatherhood, you will find most of today's violent crime. Family in Greek, patria, based on pater, is often translated as nation and is thus the root of patriotism. But where there are fewer and fewer fathers, there can be no enduring patria, no homeland, no security. . . . ►►►

Column: Headquarters | Salvo 28

Highly Creative

Three More Things Only a PhD Can Believe by Louis Markos

. . . In this essay, I will highlight three more absurdities that, despite their apparent differences, all hail from the same source. The attentive college student who takes classes in the sciences, the social sciences, or the humanities will quickly discern an unstated but unshakeable commitment to a grand scheme of cosmic evolution. Whether the subject being taught is biology, sociology, or literature, the professor will invariably proceed from an unquestioned faith in the factual truth and explanatory power of this vague, but all-encompassing evolutionary theory. And that faith, far from being confined to the laboratories of evolutionary biologists, is one that has entrenched itself at the heart of nearly all secular universities and, sadly, many Christian ones as well. . . . ►►►

Department: Logistics | Salvo 41

Deep-Seated Rights

What They Are & Why You Have Them by Steve Jones

. . . The consequence of this failure to understand what the word [rights] meant, said Maritain, would be that the Declaration would be treated as something open to interpretation. States would be free to reinterpret, limit, and eventually rescind rights recognized and detailed in the thirty articles of the Declaration. Despite its auspicious beginnings at the drafting stage, the document quickly showed itself to lack any real teeth. Maritain's concerns were not hyperbole or hysteria. His warning that the Declaration would fail to protect the rights of individuals has been played out time and again on the international stage. . . . ►►►

Department: Great Escapes | Salvo 40

The Long Red Shadow

Mike Shotwell Has a Message for Millennial America by Terrell Clemmons

. . . To most Americans today, the world of underground Communism is history little known and best forgotten. But it's a world that Mike knew well as a child and has now studied in depth as an adult. More important, it's a world that is very much alive today, just in a different guise, because the ideologies of it have taken deep root in the popular zeitgeist. Since it's only a matter of time before bad roots produce bad fruit, and in order to give Americans a clearer window into that world, he's written Immersed in Red: My Formative Years in a Marxist Household. More than just a memoir, though it is that, Immersed in Red is something of a post-mortem analysis of Cold War Communism in America. . . . ►►►

Column: Undercover | Salvo 43

Hearts at Rest

Untangling Attractions, Addictions & Other Restless Loves by Terrell Clemmons

. . . As homosexuality was becoming more the rage in the 1980s, New Zealand journalist Briar Whitehead didn't know what to think about it all. As a Christian, she was even more confused because, if God said homosexuality was wrong, why didn't he just answer the prayers of homosexuals and change them when they asked? Nothing about it made sense to her, and no one in the church seemed to have any answers either. . . . ►►►

Department: Archives | Salvo 32

Capital Losses

Nietzsche on Losing English Morality by Cameron Wybrow

. . . Nietzsche perceives that such a situation cannot last. He says "morality is not yet a problem," implying that when the English finally reach the level of self-consciousness that the Germans have achieved (or at least that Nietzsche has achieved), morality will be a problem; they will realize the groundlessness of their habits. Nietzsche was prophetic here; for eventually, certainly after 1945, the English-speaking world did begin to abandon, bit by bit, its secularized Christian morality. It had been living on old moral capital, but now that capital was spent and the religious tradition was no longer there to replenish it. Thus, the secular humanism of today, compared with earlier secular humanism, is virtually rudderless, because most people not only no longer think like Christians, but also no longer feel like Christians. . . . ►►►

Department: Camouflage | Salvo 33

Unnatural Births

Assisted Reproductive Technologies & Their Side Effects by Terrell Clemmons

. . . In 2006, Angela Collins and Margaret Elizabeth Hanson, a lesbian couple from Port Hope, Ontario, wanted to have a family. They selected a donor identified as possessing an IQ of 160, a bachelor of science in neuroscience, a master's degree in artificial intelligence, and who was working on his Ph.D. in neuroscience engineering. He had also been described as an eloquent speaker and mature beyond his years. They bought his sperm from Georgia-based Xytex Corporation, and Collins gave birth to a . . . . . . ►►►

Feature | Salvo 36

ETI In the Sky

What the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life Means for Us by Hugh Ross

. . . Whereas previous generations of astronomers lacked the telescope power needed to detect operating Dyson spheres, today's astronomers possess that capability. Four Swedish astronomers noticed that if Dyson spheres surrounded a large number of stars in a galaxy, both the apparent luminosity and the color of those stars, as seen from Earth, would change, while the galaxy's gravitational potential would remain unchanged.3 The team proceeded to search for records of such changes in the latest galaxy survey databases. But out of a sample of 1,359 spiral galaxies searched (only spiral galaxies are candidates for hosting advanced life4), the team failed to detect the existence of a single Kardashev III-level civilization. I am sorry to disappoint Stars Wars fans (or Star Trek fans), but apparently there is no faraway galaxy hosting a confederation of intelligent civilizations on thousands of planets. . . . ►►►

Column: Person of Interest | Salvo 36

Marriage Matters

An Interview with Patrick Fagan by Marcia Segelstein

. . . Patrick Fagan is the founder and director of MARRI, the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (see Allied Front). MARRI studies the impact of marriage, family, and religion on society. Once a practicing psychologist, Dr. Fagan moved into the field of public policy as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the Department of Health and Human Services under President George H. W. Bush. He recently announced the launch of Marripedia, an online social-science encyclopedia that makes research related to family, marriage, sexuality, and religion accessible to the public. Dr. Fagan spoke with us about what makes for a healthy society, the importance of what he calls "the two great loves," and what he sees as a growing crisis for men. . . . ►►►

Department: Logistics | Salvo 42

God & the Gaps

A Response to Data-Free Models for Origins by Hugh Ross

. . . By resting their case for nonbelief on Christians' inability to refute every imaginable non-empirical (non-evidence-based) hypothesis for our universe and life, some nontheists present us with an impossible challenge. What they demand would require complete knowledge not only of the physical universe but also of everything that could conceivably exist beyond the universe. The problem here is obvious. Given that our powers of investigation are constrained by the space-time dimensions of the cosmos, no human mind nor any device created by human minds can ever assemble a complete database cataloging all the properties of the universe, let alone what lies beyond. Our inability to ever gain absolute proof, however, does not mean that we cannot access adequate practical validation of the need for a Creator. . . . ►►►