Insight on the News
Homosexuals Nixed
● Mayor George Sullivan recently refused to include the Alaska Gay Coalition in the Anchorage Blue Book. His action was ruled legal by Superior Court Judge Justin Ripley. The Coalition held that this deletion “violated its members’ Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and of association,” reported “The National Observer.” However, this newspaper quoted Mayor Sullivan as saying: “To the best of my knowledge, sodomy and incest are still against state laws. I didn’t think we should have listings like that in a municipal publication.”
Evidently the mayor considered it inconsistent with existing state laws to include a homosexual body in a city directory listing public-service organizations. But even if laws against sodomy and incest were lacking in modern-day legislation, the Highest Authority has spoken against such practices. These acts were forbidden among God’s people of ancient times. (Lev. 18:5-30) Moreover, the apostle Paul expressed Jehovah God’s standard for Christians in saying: “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men . . . will inherit God’s kingdom.”—1 Cor. 6:9, 10.
“The Greatest Catastrophe”
● Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling was a chief speaker early in April at a New York city gathering that marked 100th anniversary of the American Chemical Society’s founding. According to “Chemical & Engineering News,” Dr. Pauling said that in twenty-five to fifty years “there will occur the greatest catastrophe in the history of the world.” “But,” continued the journal, “he expects the human race to survive. And by 2076 it may have solved its problems.”
For one reason or another, informed men are not optimistic about the future of mankind. On a strictly personal basis, of course, no one knows whether he will be living tomorrow. The disciple James wrote: “You do not know what your life will be tomorrow. For you are a mist appearing for a little while and then disappearing.”—Jas. 4:14.
But with humanity in general, it is another matter. Their future is made clear in the Bible. It shows that within this very generation the whole human race will face God’s war of Armageddon, in which the wicked will be destroyed. (Matt. 24:34; Rev. 16:14-16) Nevertheless, the earth will continue to exist, as will righteously disposed ones of humankind. The psalmist declared: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.”—Ps. 37:29.
Biologists Baffled
● The “National Geographic” journal states that scientists “have created not only amino acids, but most of the other important basic molecules of life.” Yet, their knowledge is limited. Says the magazine: “Much to their frustration, however, biologists can still only speculate on how these simple organic molecules emerged through the eons as proteins and genes. More baffling still is how these proteins and genes got together in the first self-replicating cell. The odds against the right molecules being in the right place at the right time are staggering. Yet, as science measures it, so is the time scale on which nature works. Indeed, what seems an impossible occurrence at any one moment would, given untold eons, become a certainty.”
According to this argument, if you gave a group of chimpanzees pieces of metal, wire and the like and put the animals together long enough, they could build a jumbo jet airplane, complete with numbered reclining seats and all the necessary equipment. Obviously, the chimpanzees would never succeed, even if they had “untold eons” to complete the task. And, of course, the molecules of life are far more complex than any aircraft. Their marvelous design testifies clearly that supreme intelligence has been responsible for them.
Because men of science in general are inclined to ascribe the origin of such things to chance and to the passing of eons, they continue to be baffled by many of the wonders of “nature.” Much of their perplexity would vanish were they to acknowledge Jehovah as “God, who created all things.”—Eph. 3:9.