Insight on the News

“Anglican Lunacy”

● In explaining the recent decision by the Anglican bishops of Canada to ordain admitted homosexuals as priests, the bishop of Toronto declared that “we have faced realistically the fact that throughout the history of the church there have been those in ministry with . . . homosexual orientation.” However, in their decision the bishops said that new homosexual priests must promise to “abstain from sexual acts with persons of the same sex” in order to be ordained.

“Isn’t that nice,” remarked a Toronto “Sun” editorial entitled “Anglican lunacy.” “And how do the bishops intend to see that this is adhered to? . . . No wonder the church is losing support among the masses. Sure homosexuality is a ‘reality,’ as the church points out. So are incest, child-molesting, bestiality. Should a religion go out of its way to show broad-mindedness and awareness by inviting those suffering from strange obsessions, passions, aberrations, to be ministers? Apparently the Anglican church thinks so. Madness . . .”

Frozen Mammoths’ Testimony

● Just how thousands of great mammoths came to be frozen in Siberia’s ice has perplexed scientists for decades. In considering one new theory, Britain’s “New Scientist” magazine noted that the frozen mammoths “are evidence that the last ice age came upon the Earth very suddenly.” Professor Fred Hoyle of University College, Cardiff, and Elizabeth Butler of Oxford University “suggest that if the last ice age . . . had taken thousands of years to take hold on the Earth, the mammoths would have had time to migrate south to a warmer climate. Their excellent state of preservation is also evidence that they were quickly frozen after death​—otherwise they would have begun to decompose.”

To explain how such a sudden freeze could have come about, Hoyle and a colleague “suggested that a large mass . . . of dust from comets entered the Earth’s upper atmosphere” and reflected the sun’s light so that the earth cooled in “only a few years.”

But is such a tortuous and unlikely explanation necessary? No. The Bible account in Genesis offers a simple, clear solution that fits all the facts. It indicates the existence of “waters . . . above the expanse” of “Heaven” prior to the Flood, which could have caused a more uniformly warm climate earth wide, allowing mammoths and other life to thrive in northern reaches. The ‘opening of the floodgates of heaven’ at the time of the Flood could well have been accompanied by great temperature changes that plunged these areas into an icy deep freeze, preserving the mammoths and other life in the condition in which they have been found.​—Gen. 1:7, 8; 7:11, 12.

Adult War “Games”

● “Newsweek” magazine reports that a group called the Greater New Orleans BB Warriors “stage monthly, eight-to-twelve-hour-long war games in and around the bayous and levees of Louisiana.” Just children at play? No. “The BB Warriors are all in their 20s and 30s.” The 30 men and women who “play” try to “kill” members of the opposing team with three hits from their BB rifles, which shoot small metal balls. Hence, elaborate protective gear is worn, including plexiglass or wire face masks. A hit from a “flour grenade” or a stab from a rubber bayonet is also a “kill.” “The casualties pass on to the dead zone, where they . . . talk about their plans when, after an hour, they are born again and allowed to return to the fray,” says “Newsweek.” One 28-year-old “Warrior” said enthusiastically: “This is the only game I’ve played where your imagination gets totally involved. Mostly, though, I don’t intellectualize about it. I just like to get wasted [killed] and go out there and kill people.”

Many view with horror the attitudes conveyed by such a game. But are not worldwide preparations for war also a sinister “game” with people as pawns? The reality of the “game” often does not strike home until a bullet does. Others, though, seeing through the “game,” are now fulfilling the Bible prophecy: “They will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears . . . neither will they learn war anymore.”​—Isa. 2:4.