Dominic Statham at CMI calls our attention to a recent NAS paper that trips over the ancient free will vs. determinism controversy, proclaiming views that reflect thinking which is diametrically opposed to the teaching of the Bible. They deny any sense of the appropriateness of retribution and are a wholesale rejection of the concepts of sin and righteousness. In his paper, the author, Anthony Cashmore unequivocally asserts that we are nothing more than a bag of chemicals. Consciousness and freewill, he claims, are no more than illusions: “The reality is, not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar.” …. Such views are the inevitable consequence of the acceptance of materialism—the belief that nothing exists except matter. If this is true, then there is no place for any explanation of people and the ‘choices’ they make other than chemistry—the interactions of genes and the environment, and the random behaviour of matter. In another CMI article, Lita Cosner discusses the issue of exactly when unborn babies feel pain and whether that should be factored into the debate over abortion. In her view
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