News to Note, December 22, 2012

1. Atheists Deny Jesus on Time Square Billboard

Times Square billboard declares “Keep the MERRY!” while portraying Christ’s crucifixion with the words “Dump the MYTH.”

2. Flood Around Black Sea Not Biblical Global Flood

Regional flood around the Black Sea was not the biblical global Flood.

3. “Homo” Diversity or “Homo” Ancestry?

Homo diversity versus Homo ancestry: asking the right question

4. Dino-Parts Emerge from Fossil Record

Deepest dino-parts emerge from the fossil record.

5. Homosexual Behavior Remains a Sinful Choice

Despite mathematical manipulation of assumptions, homosexuality remains a sinful choice, not an inherited mandate.

And Don’t Miss . . .

• A recent op-ed piece in the New York Times declared young earth creationist thinking to be “antediluvian anti-intellectualism” and predicted leaders who think that way will “go the way of the dinosaurs.” The columnist particularly mocks those who believe dinosaurs lived at the same time as man. Yet as we so often discuss, the “science” on which old-earth beliefs is based is historical science and relies on worldview-based assumptions and interpretations of scientific data rather than testable verifiable scientific observations. The columnist specifically misrepresented the Ark Encounter project planned for Kentucky. Below is a response letter that Answers in Genesis’s CCO Mark Looy sent to the New York Times. Though the letter met the length limitations specified by the newspaper, the paper has not printed the response. We therefore are posting it below.

  Editor:

  A December 8 op-ed led readers to the wrong conclusion about the proposed Ark Encounter attraction in northern Kentucky. A columnist declared that the historically themed Noah’s Ark attraction will be built “with $43 million in state tax incentives.”1

  In reality, no state money will build the Ark Encounter. Now, if the finished Ark meets attendance goals and sees tourism dollars flow into the state, it will receive rebates on sales taxes paid by its visitors. At the end of an operating year, the rebate that will go back to the completed attraction will come from those who chose to visit. No unwilling taxpayer will subsidize the Ark, and thus there is no establishment of religion. Neither is anyone being forced to visit and hear about the history of the Earth according to the Bible, including its account of the Ark and Flood.

  Sincerely,
  Mark Looy
  CCO
  AiG/Ark Encounter/Creation Museum

  (This is not the first time the New York Times has printed misleading, erroneous material about this project, falsely alleging that taxpayers’ dollars will be used to build or operate the Ark Encounter in violation of the First Amendment. Then as now the Times refused to publish our response. See Remarkable Charges by a Christian Against the Ark Encounter and AiG and News to Note, June 18, 2011.)