CaptainKudzu on Yahoo News! Waiting on Tornadoes in Georgia

A Texas tornado (NOAA)

VILLA RICA, Ga. -- The countdown to the violent storms that ravaged Georgia and Alabama on Wednesday started several days earlier. Weather forecasts warned that the storms would be potentially devastating to Georgia as the marched across the country.

I was scheduled to fly out of Atlanta on a business trip Wednesday afternoon, but an early band of weather hit Atlanta that morning. As local sirens warned of severe thunderstorms and a tornado watch, a coworker from Greensboro, N.C., told me his flight to Atlanta, where he was to connect with me to Wichita, Kan., was delayed three hours. Shortly after, our company emailed me and told me to stay home. Strong winds that persisted all day would have made for a bumpy flight.

Read the rest of this article on Yahoo News!

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Obama's birth certificate revealed, but may not satisfy birthers

The long-awaited birth certificate

As one of the first acts of his reelection campaign, President Obama recently released his long form birth certificate.  The controversy had followed Obama for at least three years and had continued in spite of the fact that he had released a copy of his short form birth certificate during the 2008 campaign. 

As discussed in an Examiner article from December 2009, Hawaiian government officials vouched for the authenticity of the first birth certificate released and it was sufficient to get an Illinois driver’s license, marriage certificate, to register as an attorney, and to serve as an Illinois legislator and US Senator.  A Kenyan birth certificate that surfaced in 2009 was revealed to be a fraud.  A conversation in which Obama’s Kenyan grandmother reportedly claimed to be present at his birth in Kenya was revealed to be taken wildly out of context.  The birth announcements from Honolulu newspapers for baby Barack have long been available online.

So why did Obama finally decide to release the long-awaited full birth certificate?  There are likely two answers.  First is the success of potential presidential candidate Donald Trump.  Trump, who recently polled virtually even with Obama and tied with Huckabee as a Republican frontrunner, has attempted to make Obama’s birth certificate a mainstream issue.  By releasing the birth certificate, Obama may be trying to discredit Trump as a potential opponent. 

Second, and more likely, Obama is probably responding to the “birther” bills proposed by several states.  The bills, which would require that presidential candidates prove their citizenship before they could be added to ballot, have been proposed in several states.  Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed one such bill after it passed the legislature.  Governor Bobby Jindal supports a proposed bill in Louisiana.  A similar bill has been considered in Montana.  Here in Georgia, a similar bill was proposed but did not pass before the legislative session ended for the year.

Obama lost all four of these states in 2008, but might have a chance to win some of them in 2012.  In Arizona, John McCain was running in 2008 and had the home-state advantage.  McCain’s nine point margin of victory could be closer with a different Republican candidate in 2012, putting Arizona’s ten electoral votes in play.  In Georgia, the margin was even closer.  McCain won Georgia in 2008 by only five points.  If 2012 shapes up to be a close race, Georgia’s fifteen electoral votes would be a valuable prize. 

If either state passed a birther law before the 2012 election, Obama would not be on the ballot unless he submitted the birth certificate and would forfeit those electoral votes.  Passage of the law in a few states might also encourage states with more electoral votes, like Texas or California, to pass a similar law.  By releasing the birth certificate now, Obama eliminates the threat of the birther laws.

An additional reason may be that Obama’s decision trumped the upcoming release of a new book about the birth certificate.  “Where’s the birth certificate?  The case that Barack Obama is not eligible to be president” by Jerome Corsi is scheduled for release on May 17.  Corsi is also the author of “The Obama Nation,” another book critical of Obama, and coauthored “Unfit for Command,” a book widely credited with helping to sink John Kerry’s campaign in 2004.  Beating Corsi to the punch might well have been an added incentive for Obama.

Until now it was to Obama’s advantage to keep the birther controversy going.  It provided an issue with which he could ridicule Republicans and conservatives and paint them as extremists.  At the same time, while the country was focused on the birther issue, it was not looking at the economy, the deficit, or the wars in Libya and Afghanistan, issues where Obama is far more vulnerable.

It remains an open question whether the new release of the birth certificate will satisfy die-hard birthers.  There is already speculation that the birth certificate is a forgery.  It is common knowledge that the CIA and other intelligence agencies have sophisticated forgery operations to create false papers for intelligence agents.  Of course, the forgery theory discounts all the other evidence that Obama is a native born American citizen.

If conservatives continue to push the birther theory in the wake of the new birth certificate, it will make them look even more extreme and out of the mainstream.  They will provide an easy target for the media and late-night comedians.  On the other hand, if conservatives take this opportunity to focus on the president’s record then Obama will be the one who seems out of the mainstream. 

For his part, Donald Trump seems satisfied with the birth certificate and is now pressing Obama to release his college records.  Obama has never released his transcripts or writings from Occidental College, Columbia University, or Harvard. 

“The word is, according to what I’ve read, that he was a terrible student when he went to Occidental,” Trump said. “How do you get into Harvard if you're not a good student? Now, maybe that’s right, or maybe it’s wrong. But I don’t know why he doesn’t release his records.”

Although Obama campaigned on transparency in government, secrecy has been the order of the day in his administration.  The health care reform law was conceived behind closed doors and a promise to post bills online for five days before signing them was one of the first broken promises of the new president.  Even when the president recently received an award for promoting government transparency, he excluded the media and received the award in private.

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/obama-s-birth-certificate-revealed-but-may-not-satisfy-birthers"> 

Why gas prices are going up... and how to stop them

Gas prices have risen sharply over recent weeks and are forecast to continue rising.  According to Atlantagasprices.com, local gas prices have risen by almost thirty cents in the past month and by a dollar in the past year.  Atlanta’s gas prices are about nine cents cheaper than the national average, but have risen at the same rate.  According to a forecast by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, gasoline prices could exceed four dollars per gallon this summer.

To find out when the country will get relief from these high gas prices, it is first necessary to understand why they are rising in the first place.  One reason that gasoline prices are higher is that it is almost summer.  Refiners use a different recipe in summer months to create a “summer blend” gasoline.  Cheaper additives used in winter tend to evaporate and cause pollution in the warmer summer months.  Federal and local laws require different additives in summer to preserve air quality, but more expensive additives tend to drive up the price.  Additionally, as refiners change blends shortages can result that drive up prices further.  Federal law requires the sale of the summer blend from June 1 to September 15, but some local governments have their own timeline.  To have the product in stations prior to June 1, production must start in March or April. 

One good thing about the switch is that is that most drivers will notice a slight increase in fuel economy when using summer blend gasoline.  This is because there is more gasoline in the mixture and fewer total additives than in winter gasoline.

The U.S.E.I.A. Short Term Energy and Summer Fuels Outlook (April 12, 2011) mentions two other factors in the rising price of gasoline and oil.  First, one component of rising oil prices is due to growth in demand as the world and U.S. economies finally recover from the recession.  Second, oil supplies are being reduced by the disruption of Libyan oil exports and the continuing unrest in the Middle East.

Looking back through history, it is easy to see a pattern in which oil prices rise sharply and the economy subsequently plunges into a recession.  These oil shocks have occurred several times in the past fifty years.  The Arab oil embargo of 1973 led to the first oil shock and a major recession from 1973 to 1975. A second occurred in 1979 with the Iranian Islamic Revolution and was followed by the recession of 1980 to 1982.  A smaller spike occurred in 1990 with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and another in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.  The most recent oil shock occurred in the summer of 2008.

Oil shocks typically cause a decline in the demand for oil as prices rise, but they also cause a decline in the demand for other goods and services as well.  The reason for this is two-fold.  If consumers are spending more at the pump, they have less money to spend on other things.  Second, the prices of other things are rising as well because oil and gasoline are used to manufacture and transport a large number of products.  As demand falls off, companies earn less in sales and therefore produce less.  The economy shrinks into a recession.  This was illustrated in vivid detail in 2008 as the price of oil collapsed after the economy crashed.

Conversely, the rising price of oil is an incentive for producers to produce more oil.  Oil reserves that were not economical to tap at lower prices are suddenly more attractive.  Other producers, such as OPEC countries, have historically ignored production quotas to take advantage of rising prices as well.  The increase in the supply of available oil on the market drives the price down.  Eventually, supply and demand reach an equilibrium at a lower price.

The crisis in Libya has also helped to drive up oil prices around the world.  Even though Libyan oil primarily supplied Europe, when Libyan production was lost European companies had to look elsewhere for oil to meet their needs, driving prices up.  In the ongoing struggle, Libya is estimated to have lost two-thirds of its oil production.  Prior to the war, Libya ranked 17^th in world oil production with most of its exports going to Italy and Germany.  The disruption is the eighth largest oil disruption in modern history.

There is still more unrest in the Middle East as well.  The “Arab Awakening” has spread from Tunisia and Egypt throughout the Arab world.  The uprisings have not yet reached Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, but Saudi forces have intervened militarily to support the ruling family in neighboring Bahrain.  Unrest in more oil-producing countries would have a further upward pressure on the price of oil.  As always, Iran’s nuclear ambitions also threaten the region.

There are other factors in the price of oil that are not discussed in the Energy Information Administration’s brief.  Chief among these is the Obama Administration’s moratorium on off-shore drilling.  Originally, President Obama had announced a plan in March 2010 to allow drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and parts of the Atlantic.  After the BP oil spill, Obama reversed his decision and temporarily banned offshore drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet.  He lifted the ban (which was struck down by the courts in its original form) in October, just prior to the midterm elections, and kept the ban on the eastern gulf and Atlantic. 

Even after the ban was lifted, the Administration dragged its feet on issuing drilling permits to the point where oil companies sued the Department of the Interior.  Again, the courts found in favor of the oil companies and agreed that the new rules issued after the ban was lifted imposed an informal moratorium.  The government continued its policy of delaying permits and was found in contempt by a U.S. district judge in February 2011. 

Ironically, while American oil companies are banned from drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, other countries are not.  Cuba has sold drilling rights to more than a dozen countries including Russia, Sudan, Myanmar, and Vietnam.  China is currently negotiating leases with Cuba that would allow drilling within 45 miles of Florida.

Another government policy that has a negative effect on oil prices is quantitative easing.  The Federal Reserve, led by Ben Bernanke, has been increasing the money supply by buying government bonds.  As more money enters the market each dollar is worth less because price falls as supply increases.  Each dollar will buy less because it has been devalued.  This is called inflation. 

Bernanke does not believe that his inflationary policies affect the price of oil, but logic dictates that if each dollar used to purchase a barrel of oil is worth less then the oil producers will want more of them for their product.  If a barrel of oil is sold for more dollars than before, the price of the gasoline it produces will also increase.  Essentially, Bernanke agrees that inflation is likely, but doesn’t think it affects oil prices.

One factor in oil prices that is likely not a major problem is speculation.  In another flashback to 2008, President Obama is again demonizing commodities traders as speculators who are driving up the price of oil.  A quick comparison of the current OPEC basket price for oil and recent futures prices for oil on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. 

On April 25, the OPEC basket price was $119.38 per barrel.  In contrast, the futures prices listed for the close of trading on April 26 are in the $112 to $113 range for the next year.  It seems that traders are betting that the price of oil will actually decrease slightly from its current level rather than forcing the price up.  Similarly, Oil-Price.net shows the current price of oil at $112.13 which is less than the basket price being charged by the oil-producing members of OPEC.

There are several things that President Obama could do to help alleviate rising oil prices.  The most obvious is increasing the supply of oil available to help keep prices down.  In July 2008 President Bush lifted the presidential ban on offshore oil exploration and called on Congress to rescind a congressional ban.  The effect was an immediate decrease in the price of oil even though new sites could not be drilled for years.  A similar move by Obama could reverse the trend of rising oil prices and prepare new oil fields that will help relieve the American dependence on foreign oil.  Unfortunately, Obama’s policy has been the opposite with bans on offshore drilling and a resistance to issuing new drilling permits.

Second, President Obama could take steps to secure Middle Eastern oil fields.  This might mean politically unpopular moves such as expanding the U.S. role in Libya to topple Gadhafi.  If the U.S. and NATO intervene with ground troops to break the stalemate between Gadhafi and the rebel forces, Libyan oil production could recover to full capacity.  President Obama is unlikely to commit more U.S. forces in what is already an unpopular war.  This is especially true considering Obama’s anti-war base and Democratic criticism of the Iraq War as a “war for oil” as well as the president’s indecisiveness on military matters.

Another option that could give consumers some relief would be to declare a gas tax holiday.  In June 2008, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue stopped a scheduled increase in the Georgia gas tax as prices approached record highs and suspended the gas tax entirely in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2006.  The Georgia gas tax is automatically scheduled to increase on May 1.  The increase is tied to rising gas prices.  The new rate will be an increase of 2.8 cents to a total of 12.9 cents per gallon.  The federal gas tax is even higher at 18.4 cents per gallon. 

By not collecting gas taxes, President Obama would cut the price of gasoline at the pump by almost twenty cents per gallon.  The problem is that this is a temporary fix that would do nothing to address the problems of supply and demand that drove prices up in the first place.  Many believe that a better course would be to enact broader tax reform for more permanent relief.  In any case, President Obama is unlikely to push for a tax cut of any sort.

If all else fails, Americans can still expect the price of oil to fall.  As history has shown, the price of oil generally falls when the economy enters a recession.  Oil at $100 per barrel might not be enough to cause a recession by itself, but in the current weakened economy it is far from the only negative factor.  Worries over deficit spending, the negative effects of Obamacare, the possibility of rising taxes, and new regulations that are strangling business are all combining to slow the recovery.  It seems increasingly likely that Obama’s policies and world events are combining to cause a double-dip recession that will ultimately at least give consumers some relief at the gas pump… if they still have jobs.

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/why-gas-prices-are-going-up"> 

Woman tells why she sent bloody pig foot to congressman

Jameela with Dustin Hoffman in 1996 (Courtesy of Jameela Barnette)

As a follow up to the story last week about Jameela Barnette, the Marietta woman who allegedly mailed a pig foot to Rep. Peter King and a Curious George doll to N.Y. state Senator Greg Ball, Examiner.com spoke with Mrs. Barnette to find out just why she sent the packages to the lawmakers.  In the story last week, Examiner.com detailed how Barnette was accused of sending anti-Semitic and anti-Christian letters along with a bloody pig foot and a stuffed Curious George doll emblazoned with anti-Semitic references.  The story was simultaneously published on CaptainKudzu.com, where Jameela left several comments. 

Mrs. Barnette says that her name is Jameela Barnette, in spite of initial reports that her first name was Jacquelyn.  She is married with two daughters and one granddaughter.  She is originally from California, but now lives in Marietta. 

Mrs. Barnette confirms that she did send the letters, the pig foot, and the monkey to Rep. King and Sen. Ball.  She provided copies of the letters sent to the lawmakers.  As initially reported the letters would be deemed offensive and insulting, and probably alarming as well, by most people. 

Mrs. Barnette was reportedly a blogger, but says that she does not have her own blog.  She says that she posts on anti-Muslim websites such as Jihad Watch and Creeping Sharia.  She has provided several examples of her “revelations,” some of which will be attached to this article as comments.

When asked whether she believes that her mailings broke the law, Mrs. Barnette states that she is certain that she did not.  She states that she attended law school for a semester and that one of her daughters and a son-in-law are attorneys.  She says that she does not have a prior criminal record and that she still has not been contacted by law enforcement.  She does say that she sent Rep. King an email on a prior occasion.  The congressman contacted the U.S. Capitol police, who then contacted Mrs. Barnette.  She says that the matter never went any further.  She also provided the author with a copy of a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder in November 2010 accusing Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) with treason for pledging allegiance to Israel.  This letter can also be seen in a Facebook posting.

Rep. Peter King

According to inquiries with the U.S. Capitol police and the N.Y. State Police, the matter is under investigation.  The F.B.I. declined to comment and the Marietta Police Department and G.B.I. say that they are not aware of the case.  The letters are rife with hateful speech and insults, including an invitation for Rep. King to “kiss my black, Muslim-American a--” and a prophecy that Sen. Ball will contract prostate cancer, but seem to stop short of overt threats.  She seems to have tried to avoid breaking the law, even while pushing the law’s limits to make her point. 

What was her point exactly?  In her words, “My only goal was to warn them of the coming torment of their Lord.”  Mrs. Barnette is a Hanif Muslim.  Hanif Islam’s adherents believe that it is a pure form of Islam that was originally practiced by Abraham, the Biblical patriarch.  Hanifs are neither Sunni nor Shia.  They reject the hadiths, traditions of the sayings and actions of Muhammad outside the Quran that are accepted by Sunnis and Shiites. 

Mrs. Barnette says, “There is only one branch of Islam and it is called Hanif Islam, the religion of Abraham, who was a pure Muslim. Those who break themselves into sects (i.e. Shia and Sunni) have disobeyed their Lord, Allah, therefore there is no Shia and Sunni, only disobedient wanna-be [sic] Muslims.” 

Mrs. Barnette, who typically signs her name with the terms “Messenger of Allah and Defender of Islam,” says that she does not attend a mosque because “because I choose not to be in the company of compliant and cowardly Muslims, who are not Muslims [emphasis hers] because they consider themselves ‘Moderate’ Muslims and they have compromised their religion away.” 

Interestingly, Mrs. Barnette says that she used to be Jewish.  She says that she attended Ohr Hatorah Synagogue in the Los Angeles area when she lived in California.  After reading the Quran, she became convinced that it represented absolute truth.  She says that both of her daughters still practice Judaism.  Mrs. Barnette now believes the words of the Quran when it says that Jews were transformed by Allah into “monkeys and swine” (Surah 5:60).

Mrs. Barnette answers with a simple “yes” when asked if terrorist attacks and suicide bombings are justified.  When asked whether she has any connection to groups that use violence or terror, she says,”Yes.  By virtue of my citizenship, I am a citizen of the biggest terrorist group in the annals of history, the United States of America.”

She says that she does not hate the United States, however.  “How can I hate the country that my ancestor’s slave labor built?  I consider myself to be the Last American Patriot.  Just because I don’t agree with the majority of Americans on foreign policy, doesn’t mean I hate my country.   I love the country that my ancestor’s slave labor built.  And on the Day of Resurrection, you will learn the majority was wrong about religion” [emphasis hers].

Whether she hates the U.S. or not, Mrs. Barnette would like to see it changed.  She says that she would like to see Islamic law, referred to as sunnah, imposed on the United States, although she doesn’t believe it will happen in her lifetime.  She quotes a hadith verse which says that “all mankind will be required to embrace Islam with no other alternative” (Abu Dawud 37:4310).  Her letter to Rep. King looks toward a future where “America will be a bright, Muslim-friendly America, it will be an America where white b-----s will name their sons Mohammad and those former, blond-haired, blue-eyed, bible-belt b-----s will veil their dirty-white faces and the faces of their dirty-white daughters…”  She says that America’s only option is to “accept defeat and embrace Islam.” 

When asked who she voted for in the 2008 presidential election, Mrs. Barnette says that her vote for Barack Obama was “the worst mistake I can recall making in recent history.  I miss President George Bush, as do most Americans.”

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/woman-tells-why-she-sent-bloody-pig-foot-to-congressman"> 

In defense of miracles

Statue of Jesus Christ in Carrollton, Ga.

In modern America, we live in culture in which religious thought and beliefs are often ridiculed and discarded in favor of secular thought.  All religions are commonly derided as myths.  A new generation of atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, is not content to coexist with religious believers, but seems determined to drive all religious thought from the public forum.

Yet in reality, a belief solely in logic and reason is not logical or reasonable.  Atheists must realize that, given the immense amount of available information in the universe, we cannot know everything.  Yet if we cannot know everything, how can we even be sure that we can’t know everything.  We cannot know for sure what we can and cannot know.  What we don’t know may change or contradict something that we think we know.  This is why science books are constantly being rewritten.  It is foolish to arbitrarily rule out the existence of God if we cannot know that he actually does not exist.

As Rabbi Derek Leman of Stone Mountain’s Tikvat David Messianic Congregation discussed on his podcast, naturalists, people who reject the supernatural, have a self-defeating philosophy.  Drawing on C.S. Lewis’ book Miracles, Leman notes that reasoning refutes itself:  “If reasoning is nothing more than moving particles of matter or energy in my brain, then I have no basis to trust knowledge as a valid concept...  Reasoning used to not exist, at least in the naturalist worldview and the evolutionary creationist worldview.  So we should ask the question:  how did it come into existence?  There was no designer according to this theory, and indeed until there were thinkers, there was no such thing as truth or falsehood, so thinking must have evolved by natural selection.  But how could this happen when our thoughts and sensations were subrational?  What mechanism made them capable of knowing truth and making inferences that are fact?  This is a real problem and it imposes on the naturalist the very embarrassing task of trying to show how randomly evolved reasoning could also be a power of seeing truths.  In other words, if reason developed through random means, why should we believe that anything that comes to us through reason is actually what we would call truth?”

People who reject the supernatural constitute a minority of the world’s population.  According to Adherents.com, only 8 percent of the people in the world are atheists.  That number holds true for the United States.  A USA Today/Gallup poll from 2010 reports that 92 percent of Americans believe in God.  In Georgia, deep in the Bible belt, only 2 percent do not believe in God according to Pewforum.org.  Even political partisanship doesn’t make a very big difference in belief in God.  According to Gallup, eight percent of Democrats and independents do not believe in God.  This is consistent with the national average.  On the other hand, Republicans are more theistic than average with a rate of only one percent of nonbelievers. 

What these statistics demonstrate is that naturalists exhibit a superior attitude, deriding the majority for their belief in God, without any evidence that their atheistic beliefs are correct.  In effect a small part of the population, without any additional information or evidence that the majority lacks, is taking the position that they have special knowledge and enlightenment.  In fact, more and more of this minority is feeling the need to evangelize their faith, the belief that God is nothing more than a myth and can be replace by something as contrived as a “Flying Spaghetti Monster.”  There is both an arrogance and an irony to this position, especially in light of the lack of evidence against a deity.

Christ the Redeemer in Rio (Sean Vivek Crasto)

The belief in God by an overwhelming majority of the world’s population would seem to bear out the Bible’s contention that knowledge of God is “made plain by God” and that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-23).  The people of the world may not have seen or read Judeo-Christian scriptures, but they can see the evidence of God’s existence from his creation.  Those who reject this obvious truth “claimed to be wise, [but] they became fools” (v. 22). 

Further, as Christian apologist Chuck Colson points out, naturalism and logic cannot adequately explain the four major questions of life.  Colson points out that secular naturalists cannot explain how the universe originated.  Their only answers toward how to solve the world’s problems are utopian ideals that, when put into practice by less than perfect human beings, often result in piles of dead bodies.  They view the purpose of life as self-fulfillment, but cannot explain the evolutionary purpose of altruism.  In light of Darwin’s ideal of survival of the fittest, it makes no sense to help the poor and the weak at your own expense.

On the other hand, if God does exist, then it is both reasonable and logical to believe in miracles.  If God created the world, whether by speaking it into existence as it presently appears or through the process of evolution, then it follows that he has the power to intervene in nature.  It would be a simple matter for the God who created the world to part the sea or resurrect the dead.  It would be more difficult to believe that God would be unable to effect miracles.

As John Leonard, Atlanta Creationism Examiner, recently wrote, “It makes perfect sense that a supernatural God could, and would employ explicable, reproducible natural world phenomena to confirm His awesome power by His ability to predict, control and manipulate nature.”  Because a miracle can be explained by the scientific method does not mean that it is devoid of the supernatural.  Even if we find a rational explanation, the supernatural should not necessarily be discounted.

As an example, Leonard cites scientific rationales for the plagues that God sent upon Egypt in the days of Moses (Exodus 7-12).  Each plague plus the parting of the sea (Exodus 14) can be explained and corroborated scientifically.  However, the timing of these miracles and the resulting freedom for the Israelites implies a divine hand at work for specific purpose.  The fact that God used natural phenomena to work his will does not make his control over nature any less thorough or the result any less miraculous. 

God’s greatest miracle was the sacrifice and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ, but not because of the mere triumph over death.  If God is truly the creator of life then he would obviously have control over life and death.  The difference in the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ is that it granted the gift of eternal life to anyone who chooses to accept it. 

Without Christ we are all living under a sentence of death for our sins.  The miracle of Jesus is that God has offered us a free pardon, a get-out-of-jail free card.  By accepting God’s offer and Christ’s sacrifice, we all have the chance to escape eternal death (as a few have returned to speak of).  The miracle is that God freely offers love, redemption, and salvation to us in spite of our sins.  This is the miracle of Easter.

Belief in God and science are not mutually exclusive.  Many scientists and educated people are Christians and believers in God.  In Atlanta, those who are interested in science and God can attend the monthly meetings of the Atlanta chapter of Reasons to Believe.  The group meets on the last Thursday of each month at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta.  The group is also on Facebook.

Readers not in the Atlanta area can find local chapters on the Reasons to Believe website.

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