Updated on April 11, 2018
What Glasses Do You Wear? – Creation Clues for Kids Vol. 3 No.2
Worldview Glasses
Have you ever tried on a pair of glasses with red colored lenses? Or 3D glasses? They make everything look strange shapes and colors. Every scientist, and in fact, every single person in the world uses a kind of glasses to help them see and understand the world around them, only these glasses are inside our brains, so we can’t see them. These glasses are worldview glasses – they are the lenses that help us make sense of everything around us.
Cartoon Drawn by Eliza Haley, 2012
Wrong Glasses
The problem is, just like the pair of glasses with red lenses or 3D glasses, our worldview glasses can sometimes make us see things the wrong way. If we do not have on the right pair of worldview glasses, we will believe lies and deceptions (things that seem to be true, but are not). Many scientists believe some lies, and even make up some, all because they do not have the right worldview glasses. If they did, God’s creation in the world around them would make much more sense.
The Right Kind of Glasses
You may be asking yourself by now what the right kind of worldview glasses are. What pair of glasses will help you make the most sense out of the world around you? Well, God has given us a very special pair of worldview glasses, if we are willing to put them on – the Bible. The Bible is our pair of glasses that we can see the world through, because it never changes, and is perfect because God is perfect. Because it is our pair of worldview glasses, we should never ever take what other people say over the Bible. God knows a lot more than any human, no matter how smart he or she is. In the next few sections you will see that what scientists and other people say changes all the time, but God’s Word never changes, so we can trust it to be our pair of worldview glasses.
The Milk Man
Have you ever noticed the word “pasteurized” stamped on a milk carton and wondered what it means? Well, for many years, people used to think that germs and bacteria that make food go bad and people get sick just created themselves out of nowhere. However, these germs and bacteria are living creatures, like tiny bugs. A man named Louis Pasteur did experiments to prove that these tiny creatures did not just come out of nowhere. These creatures came from their parents – the same way we do!
The Law of Biogenesis: Every living thing came from its parents! “Bio-“ just means life and “-genesis” means beginning (same word for the first book of the Bible). In other words, life only comes from life.
Confused About Caves
Have you ever visited a cave before, and seen the stalactites and stalagmites? Carlsbad Caverns is a huge network of caves in New Mexico. 90 years ago, there was a visitor’s sign that said that the cave was at least 260 million years old. But, just 26 years ago, after seeing that the stalactites and stalagmites formed much quicker than they thought, they took that sign down, replacing it with a sign saying that the cave was 7-10 million years old. For a little while, there was a sign that said the cave was 2 million years old, but now that sign is completely gone. You see, because they had on the wrong worldview glasses, they could not tell how old the cave actually was.
Stalactites and Stalagmites: Stalactites are the pointy columns of rock that seem to hang down from the ceiling of a cave. Stalagmites are similar, but they point up and sit on the floor of the cave (remember “c” for ceiling and “g” for ground). They form from minerals inside the water dripping in a cave
Properly Placing Planets
Have you ever had a chance to look at the stars, planets, or moon through a telescope? Well, for a while, people thought that the sun and all the planets go in circles around the earth. But, the math of moving planets just didn’t work out that way. Instead, the math showed that all the planets, including earth, circle around the sun. The moon is really the only thing that circles around the earth. People make mistakes in science, but God can never make a mistake.
Special Edition Note
In this issue we are celebrating the two-year anniversary of Creation Clues for Kids. Since most of the current CCK readers have never read the first issue, this two-year anniversary issue is a slightly changed version of the original issue of CCK. Thank you for making these past two years possible!
Thoughts From Readers
If you have a question or comment, please send an e-mail to our editor, Sara Bruegel at: CreationCluesForKids@gmail.com and it may get published in the next issue. Also, you can visit www.CreationClues.com to read a new clue each week or see past issues of CCK. This issue’s cartoon was drawn by Eliza Haley.
“I’m sure alien species have gotten use to the fact that they evolved, weren’t always on their planet, and will not always be there, because we on Earth are way too worried about making ourselves feel good.” ~ (Blog comment from an evolutionist)
This is a good example of a wrong worldview. The first thing I wonder when I read this is how this evolutionist can be sure that there are aliens or sure of what “facts” those aliens have gotten used to. However, our evolutionist here also makes a good point: we all tend to be selfish. This is because we are all sinners and need God’s salvation. Evolution teaches that we need to focus on making ourselves better, but the Bible teaches us to focus on loving God and others.
Originally published April-June 2014. Digitally reformatted December 2014. Copyright Sara J. Bruegel
Print friendly version here:CCK Vol. 3 No.2
Posted on December 12, 2014
Logical Living – Part 2
“Well, you better go to college and get a career you like because you’re never getting married. No man would ever tolerate you,” an exasperated theistic evolutionist declared towards the end of a drawn-out debate I’d had with him over young earth creation vs. evolution for most of the afternoon (he specifically sought me out and asked to debate me). I guess I should have been offended, but I was stuck on the idea of how irrelevant the marital status of a (then) 17-year old was to the validity of her arguments in support of the Biblical creation account. This is probably the all-time worst logical fallacy from an evolutionist that I’ve personally encountered in discussions or debates so far.
The main fallacy that this statement commits is the ad hominem fallacy – it’s Latin for “to the man” . This type of poor reasoning happens when someone attacks the person rather than his or her argument. You hear this a lot in political campaigns when candidates gather all kinds of personal “dirt” on their opponent to spread around in the media. A very common example of this fallacy I’ve encountered in creation vs. evolution debate is when a person says something like “you’re just too young to understand” or “you’ll know better when you’re older”.
Another good example of ad hominem that many Christians might hear when sharing their faith with an unbeliever is something like “you’re just a Christian because you were raised in a Christian home”. But, as Dr. Jason Lisle says in his book, Discerning Truth (pg. 48-49), this would be like saying “you just believe the multiplication table because you were taught it in school”. While being raised in a Christian home may have provided a person with a lot of information and experience about Christianity, we should all be ready to give logical reasons for the hope that is within us.
We also need to be very careful not to use this logical fallacy by saying things like “Jack’s just an evolutionist – you can’t believe what he says about science”. It’s important to have a humble heart and seriously listen to what people have to say. Don’t be afraid to say things like “I’d never thought about that before – I’ll do some more research on that topic”. People are more willing to listen to you if you are willing to hear what they have to say.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” ~ Proverbs 16:18
Updated on April 11, 2018
The World’s Most Amazing Stuff – Creation Clues For Kids, Vol. 3 No. 1
What is it?
What is the most amazing thing in the world that you can think of? Today I want to tell you about one of the most amazing things in the world that I can think of. But, first you get a chance to guess what it is (no looking ahead!). Here are some hints: this thing is all over the earth, but hard to find in outer space; you can’t live without it, but it can also kill you; it can be strong enough to knock down tall buildings; sometimes it is even invisible. What is it? It’s water!
Ice
When I was about seven I loved to play LEGO’s with my brother. If the LEGO bad guy was causing trouble, we liked to put him in jail, which really meant that we put him in a plastic zipping baggie filled with water and put him in the freezer for a day. Sometimes when we went to get the LEGO out of the freezer he would be trapped in ice but the baggie had broken along one of its edges. This happened because when you freeze water it spreads out. Water is the only thing that gets bigger when it gets solid. This is why ice floats on water. If it weren’t for the special way God designed ice, the ice in the ocean would go to the bottom of the sea, kill lots of fish, and make the ocean smell really bad. We couldn’t live if ice didn’t float.
Spectacular Snow
I like it when it snows (mostly). Do you? My favorite things to do in the snow are making snow angels and sledding. In some places they have snow on the ground all winter because it doesn’t get warm enough for the snow to melt. The snow just piles up taller and taller . . . sometimes it piles up taller than you are. Since snow is white, it works like a mirror, reflecting heat from the sun so that it doesn’t melt too quickly. If all that snow melted at once, the water would flood everything around it and destroy plants, animals, buildings, and people every year. The way snow melts slowly helps water get deep in the ground and helps plants grow in the spring.
Cool Clouds
What happens when your family car sits out in the summer heat for several hours with the windows rolled up? It gets pretty hot – even hotter than it is outside. The glass windows let the sunshine in, but keep the heat from escaping. In the same kind of way, clouds trap heat from the sun, keeping the earth warm overnight. Even though the clouds keep us warm, they also keep us cool. The bright white clouds act like mirrors, blocking some of the heat from the sun.
Can you remember a day with no clouds at all? It was probably very hot during the day, but got extra cold at night. Clouds help keep us cool in the day and warm at night.
Experiment
Do you want to try a fun, simple experiment with water at home? Here’s how to do it. All you need is a comb, your dry winter hair, and a sink. Turn on the faucet so that you have a thin stream of water (make sure it’s a stream – not dripping). Furiously comb your dry winter hair, which will actually give your comb an electric charge. Hold the teeth side of the comb close to the water stream but not touching it. You should see the water bending toward the comb. This is because water acts a bit like a magnet. Try it again!
Dangerous Water
We can’t live without water, but water is also very dangerous for us. We can drown if we breathe water. People can die from something called “hypothermia” (pronounced “hi-poe-therm-ee-a”) if we get wet and cold at the same time.
Powerful Water
Do you ever help your parents do dishes? If you just hold a dirty plate under the faucet, it will sometimes clean stuff off the plate. This is an example of erosion (pronounced “ee-row-shen”), when water pushes things out of its way. The same kind of thing happens when there is a flood, but instead of cleaning a plate, these floods tear up trees, cars, buildings, and even the ground. During Noah’s flood that the Bible talks about, the whole earth was flooded. This swept up dirt from all over the world, laid it down in layers, and carved canyons through the layers it made.
The National Weather Service tells people that water on the road only has to be 18 inches deep to sweep away a car. They tell drivers to “turn around don’t drown” if they aren’t sure how deep the water is.
Life
All living things from plants and animals to people need water to live. Our bodies are actually mostly made up of water. Our bodies do tons of chemical reactions every day, but without water, most of those chemicals couldn’t react and our bodies wouldn’t work. This is why it’s so important to drink lots of water. Jesus says that He gives us living water – we need Him in our lives if we want to live forever in Heaven with God.
Thoughts From Readers
CCK is written by Sara J. Bruegel. If you have a question or comment, please write to Sara at: CreationCluesForKids@gmail.com and it may get published in the next issue. Also, you can visit www.CreationClues.com to read a new clue each week or read past issues of CCK. Cartoon drawn by Eliza Haley.
“Does ice get harder or more frozen as it gets colder?” ~ Nathan B., age 11
Nathan: thank you for asking this thoughtful question. Ice is just solid water. It can’t really get more or less solid unless it’s melting or just partly frozen (like slush). Remember how water spreads out when it freezes? This creates spaces between the water “molecules”. Sometimes if ice and snow gets piled up, the weight pushes down on ice on the bottom, squeezing the ice and making the “molecules” stick together better.
Originally published January 2014. Digitally reformatted December 2014. Copyright Sara J. Bruegel.
Print Friendly Version Here:CCK Vol. 3 No. 1
Posted on December 5, 2014
Logical Living – Part 1
“The horsies are sad!” declared little girl I was playing with. “Why are the horsies sad?” I asked, a little confused about this sudden turn of events in our chipper game with miniature horse and cowboy figures. “Because, I’m sad” she answered, speaking for the cowgirl figure. “But, why are you sad?” My cowboy figure asked. “Because the horsies are sad with me!” She explained. Hmmm . . . I don’t think that whole explanation really helped explain how my cowboy’s sudden social dilemma came to be. My little friend’s reasoning wasn’t very helpful for my character because she started out in the same place she ended up -essentially, the horses were sad because they were sad and I had no idea why!
It’s common, and sometimes quit entertaining, for young children to use questionable reasoning like my adorable two-year-old friend did in this story. However, many highly educated and/or influential people today are actually making the same mistakes in reasoning – logical fallacies – when trying to defend their positions on controversial issues. Knowing how to recognize some of the most common logical fallacies can be very useful for discerning what is true and reliable. However, it is important not only to recognize the logical fallacies others around us are making, but also the fallacies we tend to make when defending our arguments. As Christians, it is important that we prove all things and hold fast to that which is good (see 1 Thessalonians 5:21) so that our behavior can be blameless before unbelievers.
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” ~ Ephesians 4:14-15
One common fallacy that is very easy to miss when it is used to support a conclusion we agree with is the “Straw Man” fallacy. A person is invoking the “Straw Man” when he or she misrepresents the opposing argument and refutes that misrepresentation rather than what his or her opponent actually presented. A good example of this that many Christians encounter is when an unbeliever says something like, “the Bible can’t be trusted because it’s full of contradictions”. When asked for a verse as an example of a supposed contradiction, it often becomes clear that the verse was taken out of context or misinterpreted in some way. Understanding logic is an essential tool for defending our faith and formulating Biblically sound convictions. We will explore more of these fallacies next week, and see how they are especially applicable in origins debates.
References: The Ultimate Proof of Creation(2009) and Discerning Truth (2010) by Dr. Jason Lisle. Master Books. Green Forest, Arkansas. USA.
Updated on April 11, 2018
Grand Canyon – Creation Clues for Kids Vol. 2 No. 4
The Grand Canyon
Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon before? Well, the Grand Canyon is one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. Most people visit the rim, that is, the top edge of the canyon, and a few people travel down the river or fly down the canyon in a helicopter.
How Did it Get Here?
The Bible tells us about the world wide flood that happened during Noah’s life. Because of what we know about the power of water, we can figure out that the Grand Canyon was probably formed during this world wide flood that the Bible tells us about. Figuring out where the canyon came from is a big problem for people who do not want to believe the Bible, but it makes perfect sense if you trust what God says.
A person who studies things like rocks, dirt, canyons, and mountains is called a geologist (pronounced “jee-all-o-jist), which means a person who studies (the “-ologist” part) the earth (the “geo-“ part).
Cartoon drawn by Eliza Haley, 2013
Dating Rocks
The Grand Canyon is a favorite place for geologists to use rock dating. Rock dating is where scientists look at the chemicals in certain kinds of rock to try to figure out how old the rock is. However, they usually don’t get the real age of the rocks because they don’t start with the right information. They start out by believing that earth is billions of years old, and has not changed very much through history. In other words, they start out by ignoring the Bible, so of course the answers they come up with don’t seem to match what the Bible says at first glance! This is called “circular reasoning”, which is a bad kind of thinking. Circular reasoning is just starting out where you want to end.
Deep and High?
One really quirky thing about the Grand Canyon is that even though it’s deep, it is also high. When you go to a different city and see the name of that city on the town, it often tells you how many people live in the city and what its elevation is. The more shallow part of the Grand Canyon was around 4,000 feet high, which seems pretty high when you’re in a giant hole in the ground. The reason why it is so high is because when the rock layers that the canyon cuts through were still soft, they were bent upwards. All of the layers are bent upward, and since the layers had to be soft to bend, that means there couldn’t have been millions of years between layers. If you don’t believe the Bible, these rock layers would need to stay soft for hundreds of millions of years.
Elevation is a measurement of how high a certain place is above the sea. In the mountains of Colorado, you might find an elevation of 5,000 feet, while on the beach you would have an elevation of around zero feet
Where Did it All Go?
The Grand Canyon has two things that most people notice right off – it has layers of dirt and those layers are cut by this giant hole in the ground, the canyon. If the canyon really took millions of years to be carved out of hard rock, the Grand Canyon would be one really messy place. Giant chunks of rock (rocks much bigger than a car) don’t move very fast in a little river. What really happened is that the flood laid down all those layers when they were soft. Near the end of the flood, when all the water was draining off the land (almost like a giant bath tub), the waters cut through the layers and took all the leftover rock out of the canyon while it drained.
Creation and Flood Rock
One of my favorite parts of the Grand Canyon is called “The Great Unconformity” (pronounced like: “Un-cun-form-it-ee”). It is where creation rock and the first layers of flood rock are right on top of each other. Creation rock was created by God on Day 3, when He told the dry land to appear. Later that week, God created Adam and Eve. Creation rock is there to remind you that God loves you – He created you. After Adam and Eve chose to disobey God in the garden, things changed. Eventually, the people became so bad that God had to send the flood to destroy the whole world. The flood rock on top of creation rock reminds us that God is good, and He has to do what is right, even if it means destroying His creation and His people that He loves because they are bad.
What the Grand Canyon is All About
The Grand Canyon is there to remind us that God is good and He loves us, while at the same time, He will not just let us do whatever we want and get away with it. God is going to destroy the earth again someday, but this time with fire instead of a flood. Just like He offered to save Noah and anyone else who was willing to get on the ark, He offers to save us today. Jesus said that He is the “Door”, and anyone willing to let Him take the punishment for their sin can come in and be saved from that fire to come.
Thoughts From Readers
CCK is written by Sara J. Bruegel. If you have a question or comment, please write to Sara at: CreationCluesForKids@gmail.com and it may get published in the next issue. Also, you can visit www.CreationClues.com to read a new clue each week or read past issues of CCK. Cartoon drawn by Eliza Haley. (Note: we do not necessarily endorse either kind of dating).“Are there any animals or trees in the Grand Canyon?”~ Anna B., Age 7
Anna, yes there are animals in the Grand Canyon. There are not any big, dangerous animals like bears, but you do have to watch out for scorpions there. It is pretty much in a desert, so it doesn’t have trees like most people think of. The plants there have to live for a long time without much water. Thank you for your question.
Originally published October-December 2013. Digitally Reformatted December 2014. Copyright Sara J. Bruegel.
Print Friendly Version Here:CCK Vol. 2 No. 4
Posted on November 28, 2014
Simply Blessed
You take a deep breath of air filled with a gentle floral fragrance as you watch the sun set in brilliant colors, reflected by a few graceful clouds, and the stars begin to appear. Pause! You probably don’t realize how many delicate wonders are packed into that one brief scene. The first incredible thing about this scene is that you exist! Our own existence is something we generally take for granted, but we really shouldn’t because you wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for many other details in this simple scene.
The second amazing thing is that you breathe. This is the breath of life – your every heartbeat depends on it, whether waking or sleeping, running or resting. The breath of life comes only from God, but it’s a blessing we rarely remember to thank Him for, and instead, frequently use to rebel against Him.
“And the LORD God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” ~ Genesis 1:7
And that floral fragrance you smell as you breathe? That comes from the plants around you. Those plants are using sunlight to make their own food, through photosynthesis, which actually puts the oxygen we need to breathe into the air (not to mention the fine-tuning of our senses or complexity and beauty in the existing plant life). How often do you thank God for the plants He created? Personally, I know I’m not as grateful for trees as I should be (I really don’t like pine trees – they make me sneeze!)
Above your existence and through the air you breathe, notice those clouds and the atmosphere they float in as part of your sunset. The atmosphere and clouds work together to keep us from getting too hot during the day or too cold during the night (more about those clouds here). Without them, life as we know it would not be possible. The final important detail about this scene is the stars that we can see through our amazing, transparent atmosphere. But just a transparent atmosphere is not enough to let us see the stars – we can see them because we are positioned just right in the Milky Way galaxy. Either being closer to the center or farther out toward the edge of our galaxy would be a huge threat to our existence.
We have all been given so very many blessings, regardless of our material gifts, where on our unique planet we live, or even who we have with us to love. But, many people will look at all the bad things happening in our world and the tragedies that break our hearts, and wonder how the loving and omnipotent God of the Bible could allow such terrible things to happen. I too, have said to myself, “are these God’s ‘tender mercies’?” But the question should not be “why would God allow these bad things to happen” as much as “why has God given us a second chance to live?” Maybe we don’t deserve to suffer in the specific ways we do, but we really don’t deserve to be here at all, and we certainly don’t deserve to live in such a stunningly beautiful, fine-tuned universe! It’s by God’s gracious, tender mercies that He is allowing us to live in this sin-cursed (though still remarkably beautiful!) world long enough to come to Him and be redeemed. We truly all do have a lot to be thankful for!
Updated on April 11, 2018
Age of the Earth – Creation Clues For Kids Vol. 2, No. 3
I Have a Question . . .
It’s good to be curious and ask questions. Without questions, we would never have science, because science is all about finding answers to our questions about how things work. And just as soon as we find answers to some of our questions we have even more questions. Today we are going to dig for answers to one of the most asked question in all of science.
How Old is the Earth?
The Bible does not tell us straight out that God created the universe in the year 4004BC. Instead, it gives us genealogies which can be used to figure out the age of the earth. From those genealogies, we can figure out that the earth is about six thousand years old. In the 1800’s the idea that the universe is billions of years old became popular. Today most scientists would tell you they think the earth is about 4.6 billion years old. However, there are some very good scientists who believe what the Bible says about the age of the earth, and these scientists usually call themselves “creation scientists” or “young earth creationists”.
Genealogies (pronounces “Jean-ee-all-o-gee-s) in the Bible tell us about family history. For example, they tell us how old Adam was when he had his son, Seth, how long Adam lived, how old Seth was when he had a son and on and on. Just add up the years, and we can figure out the age of the earth.
Who Do I Trust?
What the age of the earth really comes down to is a matter of who you trust. You could choose to trust what most popular scientists say, but they may figure out later that they were wrong. Scientists are people, and we all make mistakes. There are many things in the past that scientists thought they knew, but later figured out they were wrong. However, God never changes what He says. You can always rely on God’s Word. Besides, He was the One Who created it, and I should think He knows when He created it better than people who were not there.
What About Rock Layers?
Do you like to dig in the dirt? If you dig down deep enough, you will see that the dirt is actually in layers – just like a layer cake or lasagna. Most people think that it takes a long time to lay down the layers of dirt and rock, and it would normally take that long. But, Noah’s flood was not normal. The flood made most of the dirt and rock layers we see today.
Where do Fossils Come From?
Have you ever found a fossil? When you see or hear the word “fossil” dinosaurs are probably the first thing that comes to mind, but most fossils are actually sea creatures. For a fossil to get preserved well, it usually has to be buried quickly in mud. Most fossils that we find, including dinosaurs, were buried in Noah’s flood, about four thousand years ago. Some fossils were also buried or frozen in storms just after the flood as well.
Did Dinosaurs and People Live Together?
Do you think it would have been fun to ride between the plates of a stegosaurus or have a baby triceratops for a pet? Just don’t invite a T-rex over for dinner. Dinosaurs and people did live together. God created dinosaurs on the same day that He created Adam and Eve (dinosaurs are officially only land animals). Although two of each kind of dinosaur was saved from the flood, the world was very different after the flood so the dinosaurs didn’t do as well.
What About Evolution?
Evolution would never be possible in any amount of time for many reasons, but without the idea of earth being billions of years old, no one would believe in evolution. Imagine a card tower. If you take out that bottom row of cards the whole tower will go tumbling down. The same thing works for the ideas of billions of years and evolution. Evolution is built on the idea of billions of years, and if you take away the idea that the earth is billions of years old, the tower of evolution comes tumbling down too.
Why Does it Matter?
The age of the earth, rock layers, fossils, dinosaurs, and evolution are important because of the Bible. We need to know that we can trust the Bible from the very first words in Genesis 1:1 to know that we can trust what the Bible says about Jesus. Before we can talk about Jesus and how He offers to take away our sin, we need to know where that sin came from in the first place.
Thoughts From Readers
CCK is written by Sara J. Bruegel. If you have a question or comment, please write to Sara at: CreationCluesForKids@gmail.com and it may get published in the next issue. Also, you can visit www.CreationClues.com to read a new clue each week or read past issues of CCK. Cartoon drawn by Eliza Haley.“How do you know you can rely on the Bible no matter what?” ~ Comment from a blogger
Thank you for your question – it is one of my all time favorite questions to answer. There are lots of reasons why we know we can trust the Bible, but here are just a few. The Bible supports itself –it says that it is the Word of God. It has never been proven wrong on one of the many historical facts it talks about. The oldest copies we find are almost exactly the same as the ones we have today. It never changes, but it does change people.
Originally published July-September 2013. Digitally reformatted November 2014. Copyright Sara J. Bruegel.
Print Friendly Version Here: CCK Vol. 2, No. 3
Posted on November 21, 2014
Finding a Kansas Dragon Fossil
The anticipation built as I carefully chipped away at the moist, flaky rock chunk with a butter knife, knowing that after many weeks of slow progress, I had to be just centimeters away from finding a fossil. A small piece broke loose to reveal a black piece of plant root just like the many other plant roots I had encountered in my work. As I gently cleared away the plant debris with a small paintbrush, I realized that the black color was not going away, for some other black thing was under the root . . . or was it just another, bigger root? As I continued to delicately pick around the suspicious black find, I came to realize that the long awaited moment had finally come – I had found the fossil!
This spring, I was blessed to get to work on a paleontological dig in western Kansas (more about the dig here), in the Niobrara geological formation. The fossils we found there were not completely excavated on-site, but were brought back to Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum in “field jackets” with their surrounding dirt, called the matrix. Over the past several weeks, my main job at the museum has been to dig through those field jackets in the lab to completely excavate the fossils we found. This can be rather tedious, delicate work, and the gray shale matrix from Kansas is especially elusive because it has a tendency to break off in relatively big, unruly layers, making it precarious to work around delicate fossils.
We knew from the dig that the field jacket I have been working on lately has an especially interesting skull fossil in it, but we really didn’t know how much of it was still buried in the dirt. With the way field jackets work, you are usually digging upside-down on the fossil you found. The field jacket I have been working on most recently started out about 10-12 inches deep but I only found clam pieces (fossils we can learn a lot about the flood from – more on that here) and scattered fish scale fossils until about the last two inches where I uncovered an exciting fossil. We are fairly certain that this fossil is part of a Mosasaur skull.
A Mosasaur is a type of aquatic reptile – it’s a sea dragon like “Leviathan” in Job 41. This is a big problem for evolutionists who want to say that these Mosasaurs lived about 80 million years ago in the late Cretaceous “time period”. Mosasaurs, other sea dragons, and dinosaurs are not “pre-historic” creatures because we do have historical accounts of “dragons” (our word “dinosaur” was not invented until 1841) from ancient cultures all over the world. Mosasaurs and other fossilized creatures do not prove or in any way support evolution; they do not justify the faulty theories of man, but instead bring glory to their Creator. Just as Job humbled himself before the LORD after hearing the description of Leviathan, we too, should worship our Creator when we think of a Mosasaur.
“Then Job answered the LORD , and said, I know that Thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.” ~ Job 42:1-3
Updated on April 11, 2018
God’s Amazing Sea Creatures – Creation Clues for Kids Vol. 2 No. 2
Amazing Sea Creatures
From the beach, the ocean looks quiet and still as the sun sets. But, deep down in the water, the strangest most colorful creatures are showing off their incredible design. Some of these creatures, like a squid, have the ability to change their color, camouflaging them so that bigger creatures do not notice a tasty snack, while others, like an eel, can light up. Some have super-sensitive hearing, smelling, or vision. Water creatures, along with flying creatures, were created by God on the fifth day of creation week.
Jellyfish
Jellyfish use something called nematocysts (pronounced nee-mat-o-sist) on their tentacles to sting fish that look tasty to them. Fossils of jellyfish have been found both in America and in Australia. You may be wondering how in the world could a jellyfish (whose body is 99 percent water and has skin thin enough to see through) turn to rock like a dinosaur bone. If jellyfish get left on the beach by a strong tide, they basically melt and lose their distinct forms. This means that jellyfish have to be buried alive in thick underwater mudslides, called turbidity currents, to be fossilized during the world-wide flood that the Bible talks about .
What Kind of Creature is That?
A very quirky animal lives in rivers in Australia. It hunts for food in the water, but makes burrows on the shore. It breathes air like you do, but can close its eyes, nose, and ears with special flaps while it swims. It has a beak like a duck, a tail like a beaver, and lays eggs like a chicken. They sometimes fight each other with poison spurs on their ankles. Also, they feed their babies with milk, have dark, thick, bristly fur on their back while the fur on the belly is soft and grey, and even use sonar to track their food underwater. This animal is a platypus, and the existence of animals like a platypus that have features from all different kinds of animals goes against the idea of evolution.
Sonar can be used by people to figure out how deep the ocean is and what other things are underneath ships. But the platypus had sonar for finding fish underwater long before people figured it out!
Terrific Trilobites
Trilobites (pronounced “try-low-bite”) used to swim around shallow water before Noah’s flood, but the world after the flood was much harder for these creatures to live in, and the trilobites died out. However, from fossils of trilobites, we can tell that they had extremely complicated eyes, which is a big problem for evolutionists because they believe that trilobites were some of the first creatures to live on earth. Scientists have also found many fossilized tracks of trilobites, and just like jellyfish, trilobite tracks have to be buried in mud very quickly to be made into a fossil. Fossil trilobites and trilobite tracks makes sense for creationists, but they don’t for evolutionists.
Dragons of the Sea
Plesiosaurs (pronounced “Please-ee-o-sore”) are often thought of as dinosaurs, but they are not, because dinosaurs live on the land and a plesiosaurus lives in the sea. Plesiosaur fossils were formed during the flood, but a few survived to live after the flood. In Job 41, the Bible talks in detail about a creature called Leviathan, which sounds a lot like a plesiosaur. Before Columbus sailed across the sea, many people were afraid to go so far out in the ocean because they had heard about dangerous sea dragons, which could very well have been creatures like plesiosaur.
Although most of them died during and after the flood, there might still be a few sea dragons like plesiosaur deep in the ocean somewhere.
Designed to Kill?
Many water creatures and just animals in general have special ways to hunt for food. People often wonder why God, Who is good and loving, would create animals with sharp teeth and other ways of hurting other creatures. When God first created animals and people, we just ate plants, no meat, and nothing died. Over and over during creation, God said that what He had created was good, there was no hurting or sadness. But, when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, the world changed, so that people and animals die today. Jesus took the punishment that we deserve, and if we let Him change our lives, He will take us to heaven when we die. He promises that there will be no more hurting, sadness, or dying, just like it was when He first created us.
Thoughts From Readers
CCK is written by Sara J. Bruegel. If you have a question or comment, please write to Sara at: CreationCluesForKids@gmail.com and it may get published in the next issue. Also, you can visit www.CreationClues.com to read a new clue each week or read past issues of CCK. Cartoon drawn by Eliza Haley.“How does a platypus see to hunt underwater?” ~ Nathan B., Age 10
Nathan, the platypus has skin that covers its eyes while it is underwater, similar to goggles or a second eyelid. When the platypus is on land, their special eyelids go back so that they can see well. The platypus can’t see very well underwater through this special skin, so they use their beak to find food. God created the beak of the platypus so that it is very sensitive and can easily find food underwater.
Originally published April-June 2013. Digitally reformatted November 2014. Copyright Sara J. Bruegel
Print Friendly Version Here: CCK Vol. 2, No. 2
Posted on November 14, 2014
Modern Christians and Anceint Qumran
Did you enjoy reading as a child? Reading books was always one of my favorite things to do, and when I was a child the type of books I read most were historical fiction. I loved to envision what it would be like to live in different time periods and different places. One of my favorite historical fiction settings was around the time of Jesus, and today I’d like to share with you a little about the community and culture of Qumran set near the Dead Sea around that unique time period. Qumran is especially interesting because of its connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls – the hundreds of ancient scrolls found in caves near the ruins in Qumran.
The location of the Qumran ruins must have been re-occupied several times, but the main occupation is thought to have been by the Jewish sect of the Essenes around the time of Jesus. The greatest impact these people of Qumran have had on the modern Christian is through their scribing and preserving of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Though the most significant of these scrolls are the Biblical manuscripts, there were also many other writings among the Dead Sea Scrolls, including their commentaries on Biblical texts and even some of their community rules.
They had a rather sophisticated aqueduct system for bringing fresh moving water through the settlement, which ties closely with their ritual bathing practices. One especially interesting thing about the public baths at Qumran is that they separated the bath entrance and exit stairs with a partition so that the clean ones going out would not be contaminated by the people going in to be cleansed. Community meals were also very important to these people, so they had a dining hall that even had a draining system so that the entire room could be washed after a meal.
Although they were Jews, the Essenes did not agree with the Pharisees or Sadducees of their day, so they lived out in the wilderness near the Dead Sea rather than in Jerusalem near the Temple. Special dates and astronomical phenomena were very important to the Essenes, as they believed it was important to align their worship of the Creator with the rest of creation. They disagreed with Temple authorities about the dates on which Biblical feast days should be celebrated because the Essenes believed it was important to use a solar-based (rather than a lunar-based) calendar.
While the people of Qumran were mainly celibate men who would bring in orphans to train in their ways, it appears from their writing that some of them did marry and have families (at least for a time while they were living at this site). Although these people were a bit extreme and may have done some things that aren’t quite right, we should have a great respect for them because they were willing to go against the cultural norms of the Jewish Temple to live in a way that they thought was more Biblical. As Christians today, we too, should be willing to do things in a more Biblical way (e.g., accepting Biblical creation rather than one of the many compromise positions), in spite of apathy and mediocrity we might encounter in the Church.
References:
“Dead Sea Scrolls Dialogues” Public lecture series at Lubbock Christian University
Sunday, October 26, 2014
“The ‘Q’ Community” by Rodney Thomas
“Qumran, Qohelet, and the 4QInstructions” by Mark Sneed
