ASC and blindness

"World-first breakthrough" at Science Daily.

"The research team ... harvested stem cells from patients’ own eyes to rehabilitate the damaged cornea."

The Danger of Continualism

iMonk is always beset by Catholics trying to convert him. I have my occasional running battle with atheists.

Over at Pyromaniacs, they fight with anyone who isn't strictly orthodox - although there seems to be a trend towards emergents and continualists (the opposite of cessationist).

Of course, this leads to more polemical posts against them, and additional reading of books (to explore the state of the church).

Digging through my archives, I found this interesting post (from April).

This really captures the dangerous aspects of this theology. I can attest that the dangers Dan speaks of here are real - there are people who are being negatively impacted by this dangerous theology.

Multiple Universes

I think my new favorite saying should be, "People will believe anything - except the Bible". An article on Science News discusses the new theory of multiple universes.

I must investigate this notion of inflation, I thought it was much older than the article is saying:

"the anthropic implications of a multiplicity of universes, which owe their newfound importance to a popular astrophysical theory called inflation... Alan Guth of MIT, who invented the inflation idea in 1980...For a tiny fraction of a second, Guth proposed, the universe expanded exponentially, explaining why the visible cosmos is now so uniform in temperature and structure."

It was my understanding that inflation is used to explain why far objects are farther away than speed * time (that is, objects have been observed further away than the accepted age of the universe would allow). This notion of inflation explaining the uniformity of the universe puzzles me.


The other thing puzzling me is the use of averages to tell a story. I'm not sure if this is a new science thing, or a literary thing. It is most telling in Stephen Baxter's book "Manifold Time". There, he basically argues that this is the last generation, because if our population was going to expand immensely, on average, you would expect to be a part of that immense population.

This idea is actually used twice in the article:

"calculate the average temperature of space in those that remain, humans should measure a cosmic temperature that is not very far off from that average."

"If Boltzmann brains dominated the cosmos, humans would be rare, so your very existence implies that the average habitable universe must be young enough to restrain the odds of Boltzmann brain formation."

I don't understand this at all. The median name is Smith or Mohammad. Not everyone has that name. There are twelve people with my surname. Does that mean I shouldn't exist?

Postmillenialism

It's always fascinating to get the perspective of a faithful and consistent post-mil, like Doug Wilson.

Now Wilson has a response to the murder of the famous abortionist Tiller.

The first part is rock solid (and is continuing a theme he has covered many times). Vigilantism is always wrong, because government is established by God. We cannot break the laws of the government in order to "do good" (because the act is automatically evil - being a rebellion against God-given authority).

The second part is where I always get confused...

"You will get something like 995 responses to the effect that the devil is the god of this world...But this is all wrong. Jesus is the God of this world." [emphasis his]

I think it is related to the principle of "now and not yet". Yes, Jesus is Lord of all. But the world is in rebellion - sin remains. It is only when Jesus comes again that all rebellion will be put down, and Jesus will reign completely. That is what Revelation 5-7 is all about (the sealed scroll is the title deed to the Earth). It is a future event.

Wilson alludes to Matthew 28:19 ("Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:"):

"commanded us to disciple the nations, teaching them all that Jesus commanded" [emphasis his]

The word translated "nations" is "ethnos". It means a group of people related in some way (tribe, ethnic group, nation). A collection of people, not a system of laws. We cannot baptize a Constitution. A country cannot be Christian.

ASC and heart disease

Additional research into using adult stem cells to cure heart disease.

I have commented previously on two other treatments.

This one is still in the animal test phase, while the other two are in human trials.

ASC and disease

Pretty cool development reported by Science Daily.

"After taking hair or skin cells from patients with Fanconi anemia, the investigators corrected the defective gene in the patients' cells using gene therapy techniques pioneered in Verma's laboratory. They then successfully reprogrammed the repaired cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells ... The resulting FA-iPS cells were indistinguishable from human embryonic stem cells and iPS cells generated from healthy donors."

Reprogramming cells like computers - like I said, cool.

Denying Communion

In my last post, there was a statement that "the denial of communion is intimidation".

The speakers were Catholic. When they say Communion, they meaning the ceremony involving "taking of the Eucharist" - the bread transmuted into the literal body of Christ.

As a Protestant, I would speak of "communion" - fellowship and meeting with other Christians.

The Catholic version is more serious. Denying the Eucharist is denying a means of grace, potentially damaging to one's eternal state. Total eviction from the Church could be interpreted as causing one to lose one's salvation (if you believe there is no salvation outside the Church).

But, there is agreement that some form of discipline is needed, as commanded by Matthew 18:15-19.

That gets back to the meaning of love. Is it loving to deny the truth? To carry on meeting and associating with someone who disagrees with fundamental teaching? Is not the most loving thing to be truthful? Even if it is hard.

Perhaps feeling the hard consequences will bring someone to right thinking.