Christian News Network reports:
Researchers at Cornell University published a study last week in which they claim that clay helped life spontaneously arise from non-life millions of years ago.
On Thursday, scientists affiliated with Cornell University released a statement detailing new research findings regarding the initial development of life—also known as abiogenesis. In the statement, the researchers suggest clay was a key ingredient when—according to the university—life spontaneously emerged from non-life in earth’s early years.
NewsMax reports:
While Pope Francis has successfully reached out to typical critics of the Catholic Church, including atheists, conservative members of his own flock feel left out, The New York Times reports.
“It seems he’s focusing on bringing back the left that’s fallen away, but what about the conservatives?” Bridget Kurt told The Times. “Even when it was discouraging working in pro-life, you always felt like Mother Teresa was on your side and the popes were encouraging you. Now I feel kind of thrown under the bus.”
LifeNews reports:
In a big victory for pro-life advocates in Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has overruled Judge Lee Yeakel of the Western District Court in Austin and restored key portions of a pro-life law in Texas that will ultimately stop abortions and could close abortion clinics.
As LifeNews reported, the judge issued an opinion striking down two parts of a Texas pro-life law that protects women from dangerous abortions.
Christian News Network writes:
A pastor who was expelled from his denomination for forming close friendships with witches took issue on Thursday with a number of evangelists who were preaching repentance on the streets of the Halloween capital of the world.
Phil Wyman and his group “The Gathering” have been attending Halloween celebrations in Salem for nearly a decade, providing live music, hot chocolate and various readings on the popular Essex Street in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem, known as “Witch City,” was the location of the Salem Witch trials of 1692 and has a long history of witchcraft and paganism that continues to this day.
The Associated Press writes:
Should children have the right to ask for their own deaths?
In Belgium, where euthanasia is now legal for people over the age of 18, the government is considering extending it to children – something that no other country has done. The same bill would offer the right to die to adults with early dementia.
Christian News Network reports:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this week that he plans to bring the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) up for a vote by Thanksgiving.
The bill, introduced earlier this year by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, seeks to protect homosexuals and those who prefer to identify as the opposite gender in the workplace, and bars employers from discriminating based on sexuality and gender identity.
According to Christian News Network:
A former Pentagon official who pushed for the repeal of the U.S. military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy has been named the next president of the Boy Scouts of America.
Robert Gates served as the Secretary of Defense under then-President George W. Bush beginning in 2006 and stayed on board for part of Barack Obama’s first term. Prior to his appointment, he served 26 years in the CIA–his latter years as Director of Central Intelligence.
According to LifeNews:
Researchers from Durham and Lancaster Universities in the U.K. recently discovered a connection between a baby’s ability to predict its own facial touching and its level of physical and psychological development. The discovery was made possible by 4D imaging technology, which shows 3D ultrasounds in real time. In later stages of gestation, namely in the third trimester, the pre-born child begins to anticipate his own actions by opening his mouth while his hand is traveling towards his face.
Life News posted this piece by Matt Yonke, who writes for the Pro-Life Action League:
Sometimes praying outside the abortion mill can be a tiring and thankless work. Sometimes it seems like you spent an hour outside, often in the freezing cold or burning heat, for nothing.
But even when we see no immediate fruit of our efforts, the world is watching. And sometimes, the simple act of standing in prayer outside the abortion facility has effects we don’t hear about for years, if ever.
According to Christian News Network:
The discovery of a fossilized mosquito has led some scientists to question the presumed age of ancient fossils and rock layers.
The National Academy of Sciences recently published a journal article written by a team of five American and European scientists. The 5-page paper details the recent discovery of a well-preserved, fossilized mosquito in northwestern Montana’s Kishenehn Formation. Remarkably, the fossil appears to contain traces of preserved blood—a feature that the discoverers describe as both “rare” and “unique.”
Life News reports:
Christian craft store Hobby Lobby today filed papers with the Supreme Court asking it to take it case against the Obama administration, which is attempting to make it comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.
In July, a federal court granted Hobby Lobby a preliminary injunction against the HHS abortion-drug mandate. The injunction prevented the Obama administration from enforcing the mandate against the Christian company, but the Obama administration appealed that ruling today. The government’s appeal makes it highly likely that the Supreme Court will decide the issue in the upcoming term.
From the Christian Post:
Billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey has drawn the ire of unbelievers online for telling atheist swimmer Diana Nyad that if she believes in “awe” and “wonder” she wouldn’t call her an atheist.
Nyad, 64, who made history last month by becoming the first person to swim 110 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, declared in a conversation with Winfrey on Oprah Winfrey Network’s “Super Soul Sunday” program that she is an atheist and “a person who is deeply in awe.”
Oprah, however found it difficult to reconcile Nyad’s position.
Christian News Network reports:
A Christian judge in Washington was recently reprimanded by the state Judicial Conduct Commission for refusing to officiate same-sex ‘weddings.’
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Gary Tabor had made met with court employees following last year’s election, which legalized the practice in Washington, and informed his colleagues that he did not feel comfortable with performing homosexual ceremonies. An attendee of the meeting leaked Tabor’s comments to reporters, who in turned contacted the judge for further explanation.
According to Christian News Network:
Voters in the state of Colorado are set to vote on a ballot initiative that would declare the unborn as persons as a mother who lost her baby in a tragic accident last year is seeking justice for other children just like her son.
As previously reported, Heather Surovick was heading home from her final prenatal appointment in July 2012 when she was struck by a drunk driver—who had been charged with DUI four other times.
When she woke up in the hospital hours later, Surovick was informed that her son Brady, who was days from being born, weighing in at 8 pounds, 2 ounces, died in the accident.
Daily Caller reports:
The CEO of Autocam, a Michigan-based manufacturer, will file a petition with the Supreme Court Tuesday requesting the high court review a lower court’s dismissal of the company’s challenge to the HHS contraception mandate.
“The HHS Mandate is forcing me and my family to choose between practicing our religion, losing our family business, or stripping our employees of benefits they need,” Autocam CEO John Kennedy said in a statement Tuesday.
USA Today reports:
Three non-profit religious organizations, including a division of the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention, are suing the federal government over a controversial contraceptives regulation that is a part of the Affordable Care Act.
The organizations Monday announced the class-action lawsuit against the federal requirement that employers cover the cost of contraceptives, including drugs that can cause abortions. The groups argue the requirement infringes on religious liberty.
World Magazine reports:
The U.S. Air Force appears to be systematically removing the phrase “so help me God” from the oaths of office taken by officer candidates and enlistees.
According to Judicial Watch, a legal watchdog organization, the United States Air Force Academy has removed the phrase from some written materials, including the oath administered to new cadets, because of a single atheist’s objections.
Christian News Network reports:
A well-known evolutionary professor stated in a recent interview that those who do not accept evolution are “fundamentally irrational” with “a kind of slightly crazy mindset,” and claimed that a Christian apologist’s evolution-challenging film is “a great example” of “Biblical porn.”
Craig Stanford is a professor of anthropology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California. Known for his outspoken evolutionary and atheistic beliefs, Stanford appeared on The No God Cast Podcast – a weekly program that, according to the show’s website, provides “a platform” from which atheists can “share their stories and speak their minds.” Though the podcast’s weekly audience is rather small, comments Stanford made on the September 20th episode have generated controversy.
Baptist Press reports:
Katherine Walton was sitting in her backyard during the Skype interview. Her 13-month-old was toddling in and out of the camera, beautiful blond hair shining in the sunlight. Voices in the background of her sons, Blaise and Ian, sometimes interrupted – once to report a scraped knee from the trampoline, other times just to ask a question.
They could have been any American family playing in the yard after school.
Just days ago, however, they were crouching in a grocery store in Westgate Mall in Nairobi, praying that God would protect them from terrorists who were shooting guns and throwing hand grenades. Walton’s 4-year-old Portia has been seen worldwide running to the arms of a rescuer.
Christian News Network reports:
The dean of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. claimed during his weekly address this past Sunday that it is a sin to oppose homosexuality.
The message was part of a weekend tribute to the homosexual youth at the National Cathedral, and a commemoration of the death of Matthew Shepherd, whose slaying sparked the passage of the federal “hate crimes” bill signed into law by Barack Obama in 2009. During his speech, Gary Hall blamed churches across the country for influencing American beliefs about homosexuality.
According to Christian News Network:
A homosexual advocacy group is recruiting volunteers to influence churches nationwide to embrace homosexuality.
The Reformation Project describes itself as “a Bible-based, Christian non-profit organization that seeks to reform church teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity.” Based in Wichita, Kansas, the organization aims to “accelerate the acceptance of LGBT people in the Church.”
Christian Post reports:
Calvary Chapel founder Pastor Chuck Smith, considered one of the major catalysts of the Jesus Movement of the ’60s and ’70s, died after a battle with lung cancer at the age of 86 on Thursday.
“My beautiful, beloved, darling Daddy is in Heaven,” his daughter Janette Smith Manderson posted on Facebook early Thursday morning. “He has heard the words, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’ Matthew 25:21.”
Smith had been undergoing treatments for cancer off and on for almost two years, but had maintained a full schedule of preaching both from the pulpit at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and on a radio talk show heard nationwide.
According to the Washington Times:
The Office of Personnel Management ruled Monday that members of Congress and their staffs will be able to buy health care plans that pay for abortions, even though the premiums are funded largely by taxpayer money — a move that conservatives say breaks federal law on abortion funding.
Under the terms of Obamacare, lawmakers and their aides are required to ditch their government-sponsored plans and buy insurance on state-based health care exchanges, though unlike most people on the exchanges, the staffers and members will have most of the costs of their premiums paid by their employer — in this case, taxpayers.