Observe the Ant, or ... Bird

«A new discovery highlighting bird intelligence, reported in Nature this week, further upsets evolutionary implications that elevate the intelligence of chimps and other primates.

Wild scrub-jays in a University of Cambridge lab have shown, for the first time, that birds have some idea of the future and can plan ahead accordingly.

The news@nature.com article explains: The birds were put in cages that were divided into three parts. In the evening they were kept in the middle section, and fed powdered pine nuts that they couldn't store. In the morning, they were kept either in the ‘breakfast room’, where they were given food, or went hungry in the ‘no-breakfast room’.

After getting used to this set-up, the jays were given whole pine nuts in the evening, which they could bury in trays of sand. The jays put three times as many in the no-breakfast room than in the breakfast room, so that they wouldn't go hungry in the morning.In another experiment, the jays got breakfast in both rooms. However, their breakfast comprised whole peanuts in one room, and dried dog food in the other. When given both foods in the evening, the birds stored each food in the room where it would be lacking the next morning.

The research, conducted by Nicola Clayton and colleagues at Cambridge, marks the first time any species other than humans has been observed to behave in such a way to indicate their awareness of time and, specifically, of the future.

Research by Clayton in 2001 showed that jays that steal from peers hide their own food more carefully. Every time an evolutionist attempts to isolate humans and apes as exclusive “intelligent animals” (and therefore imply ape intelligence confirms evolution), remember the uncanny intelligence of birds—and perhaps remind the evolutionist, too.»

News to Note, February 24, 2007: http://www.answersingenesis.org/news-to-note/

House Church: Defined

I think this is a pretty good article regarding an over all summary of House Church Theory.

"Everyone would expect a new church to begin by meeting in a home. A group consisting of only ten or twenty people would not need a larger meeting place, and the costs involved in buying or renting any sort of building would be prohibitive. So when we were a new church, and when we said that we were meeting in homes, most of our friends in other churches understood. But when they learned that it was our intention to continue meeting in homes no matter how large we got, curious eyebrows often began to raise.

The idea of the house church does not easily fit into the paradigm of American evangelicalism. For hundreds of years now, the idea of the church has been almost universally associated with a central meeting place—a church building. Even though the biblically informed Christian knows that the church is people, not a building, it remains almost impossible for some to escape the association between a particular local church and the building in which that church gathers.

We understand that when a society has grown up with an idea—a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation—a departure from that tradition can seem strange or even wrong. We do not fault those who question our practice, or those who are not convinced of its benefits, nor do we condemn the longstanding tradition of churches meeting in large central buildings. Too many examples of excellence within that tradition, both historically and currently, could be brought forth in its defense. Our intent is simply to offer several reasons why we want to continue meeting in homes, and to demonstrate that our practice is valid and biblically sound."

Click here to read the rest.

Still Here

For some reason, the blog hasn't been posting messages. I've still been posting, but they're not coming through... Click "sign up" on the right to make sure you don't miss anything. The posts are coming through fine to email for those who are on the list. They're just not posting here....

Jason