By Christy Barritt

Google and Bing Block Child Porn

Child pornography will now be more difficult to find online.

Internet giants Google and Bing have both unleashed software to block sites that could host these illegal photos and videos. They’ve done this by identifying 100,000 search queries related to porn.

Google communications director Peter Barron said, “The sexual abuse of children ruins young lives. It’s why we proactively remove these awful images from our services—and report offenders to the authorities.”

Many leaders have called this “significant progress.” Others have said this won’t even begin to touch the “dark corners of the Internet” where pedophiles lurk.

Child porn, if accidentally found on the Internet, can be reported to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children (www.missingkids.com).

President Omits “Under God” from Gettysburg Address

President Barack Obama caused a stir in November when he omitted the phrase “Under God” while reading the Gettysburg Address.

The president’s rendition of the speech was part of a documentary being filmed by Ken Burns, who’s creating a Learn the Address initiative which encourages Americans to make video recordings of themselves reading the speech.

While conservatives were quick to criticize this move on the President’s part, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that Obama just read a version of the address provided by Burns. Furthermore, he said that the text Obama read was part of the earliest known draft of the speech, known as the Nicolay Copy, which does not contain the phrase “under God.”

Despite this reasoning, some analysts felt the decision was in poor taste and reflective of bigger religious issues at hand in the country.

Christianity a “Generation Away from Extinction”

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said at a recent conference that, unless the church makes a substantial breakthrough in attracting young people back to the faith, Christianity in Britain is just a generation away from extinction.

“In many parts of Britain, churches are struggling; some priests are diffident and lack confidence; a feeling of death is around,” said Carey. “The burden seems heavy, and joy in ministry has been replaced by a feeling of heaviness.”

He went on to say that the public greets both clergy and the church with rolled eyes and a yawn of boredom. Carey especially feels that the church isn’t investing enough in younger generations and that the church must give cogent reasons why faith is relevant.

Another archbishop at the conference said that Christians either needed to evangelize or fossilize.

According to reports, Sunday congregations in that country have almost halved since 1970.

Skull Discovery Raises Evolutionary Skepticism 

An ancient human skull has been discovered in the Asian country of Georgia, and the finding reportedly has some evolutionists questioning their beliefs.

Though the skull was found in 2005, scientists have just recently determined its significance. As reported by Science Magazine, the skull represents the world’s first completely preserved adult hominid skull from the early Pleistocene era.

According to naturalistic dating methods, the skull is nearly two million years old. Yet the skull is similar to today’s cranial structures. In other words, the skull doesn’t offer evidence proving that humans evolved from apes because it greatly resembles modern humans. Instead, it seems to prove that humans have varied in stature and size throughout the ages.

“This implies the existence of a single evolving lineage of early Homo, with phylogeographic continuity across continents,” the report stated.

David Lordkipanidze, lead study author for the research, said that evolutionary scientists are now “rethinking what happened in Africa.”

Christy Barritt is an award-winning author, freelance writer, and speaker living in Chesapeake, Virginia. She and her husband Scott have two sons.
www.christybarritt.com