By Staff, World News Magazine
PETERSBURG, KY – A Christian foundation recently gave the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., the fossil of a large predatory dinosaur similar to a Tyrannosaurus rex, which offers evidence of the Old Testament global flood.
The fossil is believed to be one of the four best-preserved Allosaurus skulls ever discovered, according to a Creation Museum press release.
The museum’s new dinosaur, affectionately called Ebenezer, probably stood 10-feet high and 30-feet long and had teeth averaging over four inches. Fifty-three of those teeth are still in place.
Unearthed in Colorado, the fossil’s well-preserved condition and the position of the skull and spine suggests it was killed under sudden, catastrophic conditions. It was on its side as though it had been knocked over and rapidly buried in mud.
The large layer of sedimentary rock surrounding the fossil indicates dispersion by flood water covering the entire continent, according to Andrew Snelling, a geologist at the Creation Museum. “This is a very remarkable find. It is unique because so far we have found very few complete skulls,” Snelling told World News.
Predictably, secular scientists scoff at the idea the skull offers proof of a global flood event. “The Creation Museum has asserted the specimen to be evidence of Noah’s flood without any actual research,” said Dan Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society.
Snelling brushed aside Phelps’ criticism, noting a geologist’s assumptions provide a framework for his or her research. “Most people don’t understand that geologists do their study based on assumptions they have made about what happened in the past,” Snelling said.
Snelling continued, “Christian geologists assume the biblical account to be true and go from there. Secular geologists assume geological processes were slow and gradual, like they are today, so interpret the earth to be very old and the Bible not relevant. Different base assumptions of the geologist doing the research will lead to different conclusions.”
The Elizabeth Streb Peroutka Foundation donated the fossil to the Creation Museum to ensure it would not be used to promote evolution but rather to proclaim the creative power of God and as evidence of the global catastrophic flood described in the Bible.
Study: Growing up in homosexual families adversely impacts kids
A new Canadian study challenges the mainstream insistence that children living with same-sex couples are “no different” than children living with married, heterosexual couples.
Using a large, nationally representative dataset, Canadian economist Douglas Allen found that young adult children of same-sex couples are 35 percent less likely to graduate from high school as young adult children of heterosexual married couples.
The study, published last month in the Review of the Economics of the Household, looked at a 20 percent sample of the 2006 Canadian census, which asked respondents to note whether they were raised by a lesbian couple, a gay couple, a married opposite-sex couple, a common law couple, a single mother, or a single father.
The Canadian data is easier to interpret than similar U.S.-based studies because Canadian respondents self-report the information. Allen then compared high school graduation rates of male and female young adults raised in each of those households
The study revealed striking differences. When compared to other groups, the children of lesbian couples have the lowest graduation rates, followed by children of common law couples, gay couples, single mothers, and single fathers, whose rates were all similar.
Children of married opposite-sex couples had higher graduation rates than any other group. In looking at the child’s gender, Allen found that girls from same-sex households have particularly low graduation rates, with girls from gay households 85 percent less likely to graduate from high school as girls from heterosexual married households.
In the past 15 years, researchers have published more than 50 empirical studies looking at the effects of same-sex parenting on children, with most concluding that there is “no difference” in outcomes. But Allen decried much of the research as biased and unscientific.
Allen applauded Mark Regnerus, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, for his 2012 study, published in the Social Science Journal, which found differences between children who grow up in same-sex and traditional households.
Regnerus’ study caused controversy with gay activist groups because it revealed that children of same-sex couples are more likely to be on public assistance, commit a crime, report being forced to have sex, and struggle with depression than children of intact biological families.
“It took almost 40 years for academics to figure out the effect of no-fault divorce on divorce rates (not to mention all the other areas of life no-fault divorce influenced),” Allen wrote in an article supporting Regnerus.
“With same-sex marriage and parenting, the issues are much more profound and more difficult to measure,” Allen said. “Rushing the work or, worse, pushing research claims beyond what the studies justify, is bad social policy.”
Allen’s recent study does what many studies before it have not been unable to do. It takes a large, random, nationally representative dataset and compares very specific factors across each category. His conclusions may encourage a new wave of sociological research defending traditional parenting as the best option for kids.
Sidelining Bibles
Gideons International, the group known for distributing Bibles all around the world, is fighting a new policy at a Michigan community college that’s keeping them from talking to students on campus.
Two years ago, the Kalamazoo Gideons passed out 3,000 New Testaments to students at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. Last year, they distributed 1,200. But then school administrators adopted a new policy that restricted non-student groups’ access to campus.
As in similar instances at other colleges, the groups must stay in an approved area in a remote part of campus, away from staff and students. The Gideons have a lawyer, and based on prior legal precedent have a good chance of winning their case.
Street evangelist wins victory
An appeals court handed a victory last month to a man who tried to hand out Bibles at the Twin Cities (Gay) Pride Festival in Minnesota.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said city officials and festival organizers had no right to restrict Christians to the festival’s outskirts while allowing other street performers and vendors to roam through the crowd unhindered.
Traditional marriage on trial in Michigan
A federal judge in Michigan declined to rule Oct. 16 on the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, choosing instead to send the issue to trial in February.
Several homosexual couples have challenged the ban, an amendment to the state’s constitution voters approved in 2004. The challengers argue the ban violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.
Although they had hoped U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman would decide the issue yesterday, gay marriage supporters say they will provide overwhelming evidence to support their position when the case goes to trial. Until then, state Attorney General Bill Schuette warned county clerks not to issue same-sex marriage licenses until the case is decided.
Michigan’s marriage challenge is just one percolating through federal courts in several states after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act earlier this year.
The nation’s high court might have bought itself some time by not ruling on whether states could ban same-sex marriage, but the justices likely will have to make that call in the near future.