Posted on December 29, 2012
Acorns & Dreams
The gentle autumn breeze softly rustles the red and gold leaves still hanging by the branch of an oak tree and causing an acorn to drop from its place on the tree. Because God designed the acorn with a pointed end, similar to the front of an airplane, and the impact from its fall, the acorn starts to burrow itself into the soft ground bellow. Providing that no animals decide to make a meal of it, the acorn will eventually become completely buried, and when spring comes, it may sprout and someday become a mighty oak tree that can withstand even the strong winds of West Texas and children climb in. We really don’t tend to think very much about acorns and seeds, and we frequently step on them when they happen to rest in our path. Yet, God can even use something as simple as an acorn to illustrate important Biblical concepts that we can apply to our everyday lives.
Today in America, the concepts of “dreaming big” and “following your heart” are lionized and practically worshipped. However, dreams are just like acorns or seeds – dreams are just the hope of what will happen in the future, and while they may have a lot of potential, they are not the real deal. When the acorn sprouts to become a tree, the acorn itself first must be buried alone in the cold, dark, and damp soil and then break open. The acorn has to die to become a tree. In the same way, our dreams must also die before they can sprout and bloom, which sounds counter intuitive, but is actually very practical.
This author knows from experience that dreams must die. This summer, I wanted to volunteer for a week at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Kentucky, but that was not what God had in mind. Instead, I ended up helping construct a life-size model of a stegosaurus at a small fossil museum in Crosbyton, Texas and having a much more prominent and permeate place there than I ever would have had in Kentucky. I ended up getting to do everything (well, besides visit the big museum in Kentucky, which I hope to do some day in the not too distant future) I had originally dreamed of doing in Kentucky, plus some things that had never even crossed my mind before. My dream, just like the acorn, had to die before it could truly bloom. As we head into this coming year, remember to let your dreams and plans for the future die. Because God is our Creator, He plans out every minute of our lives and has a purpose for even the most trying times. Remember that God is in control of your future, and enjoy the adventures He has for you in 2013.
The inspiration for Acorns & Dreams is based off of the ideas from the book Before You Meet Prince Charming, by Sarah Mally.
Posted on December 22, 2012
Morning Prayer: A Poem
As I rise to greet the sun,
My daily duties thus to run,
I pray for God to let me be,
Useful today in His service free,
Lord help me be,
A servant to Thee!
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This world is so dark and cold,
May I be filled with light and bold,
Let me encourage a friend with a load,
And send them to You as their abode,
Lord help me be,
A blessing today!
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Though I may stumble today,
Help me continue on the blessed way,
Until I meet Thee high in the sky,
And bid this filthy world goodbye,
Lord help me be,
A pilgrim of hope!
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Posted on December 21, 2012
The Baby Creator
The crowded streets smelled awful from the many animals carrying people in and out of the little town. The steady swaying of the animal and constant stopping made the rider, a young peasant woman, feel sick. Worst of all, she was in labor, and her husband could find no place for her to stay. The sun began to set, and still, no place to rest and give birth to her first child. Finally, the young couple decided that even a barn would be better than the streets, so they pleaded with an innkeeper who gave in and allowed them to use his simple stalls, though they were already crowded with the animals of his guests. There, in the dark and crowded stall, a baby boy was born and lain gently in the animals feeding box.
This baby was not a simple peasant boy, but the Creator of the universe. He chose to come to earth in this way. He is the King of Kings and the Creator of the mysteries of science, yet He chose to be born like this and suffer insurmountable because He loves us! The baby, the perfect, pure, omnipotent baby, died because of what I have done. At any point, He could have shown His power and not allowed Himself to be tortured and mocked, yet He endured it all so that I can be with Him for eternity.
If we deny God as our Creator, or undermine what the Bible says about when and how God created, we are undermining the salvation message itself. Genesis gives us the reason for our salvation, so if a person undermines what God says here, he or she ultimately undermines God’s gift of salvation. We say that Jesus is the reason for the season, but the reason for Jesus is in Genesis. So, the truth of Genesis is the underlying reason for Christmas. Please keep in mind that I am not saying one must believe in a young universe to be saved, all I am saying is that it is not logically consistent to believe otherwise. As you celebrate God’s gracious gift this week, remember that it’s because He is our Creator that He can also be our Redeemer.
Posted on December 15, 2012
Radical Radiohalos
The depth and beauty of the granite countertop of the ice cream shop intrigued me as I slowly enjoyed my cone. There were grey, white, clear, and light pink specks, which I knew to be quartz, peachy colored specks, which were Feldspar, and most interesting of all, black or very dark green specks of biotite that played with the light in a stunning way. Granite is a beautiful rock, formed by lava that cools underground, but the biotite in granite actually holds microscopic marks with immense implications of a worldwide flood.
Biotite is a type of mica, which means that it is made up of hundreds of tiny sheets thinner than paper. Sometimes tiny zircon crystals (not the same as cubic zirconia, which is a laboratory-made substitute for diamonds) get stuck in between these layers of biotite. Now, because zirconium has a similar atomic structure to radioactive Uranium, zircon crystals often have radioactive decay happening in and around them, leaking out alpha particles into the surrounding biotite layers and leaving a mark, called a radioactive halo, or radiohalo, for short.
These radiohalos have rings, just like an onion. Each ring can be assigned to a specific step of radioactive decay by measuring the size of the ring, so scientists know that the complete decay cycle of Uranium leaves eight specific radiohalos. However, it is a well-established fact that there are some Uranium radiohalos that only have one, two, or three radiohalos, which can be identified as having come from the fastest steps of Uranium decay. RATE concluded that this means something (moving flood waters) must have moved the decaying Uranium very quickly while it was still decaying, and then left the radiohalos where they are currently found. There is no way we could find one, two, or three ring radiohalos if the granite formed very slowly over millions of years, because those steps of Uranium decay finish in less than a second or just days. So, in summary, microscopic marks in tiny bits of biotite in granite are a testament to the worldwide flood.
Posted on December 7, 2012
Carbon-14 Cries Creation & Catastrophe
Radiocarbon dating is one of my all-time favorite geology subjects, so it is with mixed feelings that I write this final Clue about it for this series. But, I have so much more information that I believe you, the reader, must hear about radioisotope dating methods before you become weary of this topic. As creationists, we have lots of information in support of a young earth in the realm of radioisotope dating today, in 2012, thanks especially to the work of the RATE project. RATE, which stands for “Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth”, was the eight-year research project of a team of seven well-trained scientists, including three physicists, two geologists, a geophysicist, and an atmospheric scientist. The book, Thousands . . . Not Billions, by Dr. DeYoung of the RATE project is a simplified, straightforward articulation of the RATE findings.
Coal is formed when vegetation like leaves and tree bark are mixed together in a bunch of water (Aka, Noah’s Flood) and squeezed down by the pressure exerted by the layers of sediment that sit above it and the water (from the flood). This is why most Billions of years advocates say that coal is formed where an ancient swamp once sat. It’s also part of the reason why they say that coal takes a long time to form. RATE decided to put this to the test with Radiocarbon dating, using the typical, advanced, scientifically accepted methods. After dating samples ranging from the Paleozoic Era (conventionally thought to be 300-311 million years old) to the Cenozoic Era (conventionally thought to be 34-55 million years old) in a variety of locations, they came up with a total average of 0.247 percent Modern Carbon. This means that about .25% of the carbon-14 proportions in the atmosphere today were present in coal tested by the RATE team. There should not be any detectable radioactive carbon in this coal if it really is 300 or even just 34 million years ago.
This wasn’t the end of RATE’s radiocarbon research though, as they discovered something even more astounding – traces of radiocarbon in diamonds. Diamonds form well below earth’s surface, and are later moved upward by magma that acts like elevators called Kimberlite Pipes. They are thought to be one of the oldest substances on earth, but as a creationist, I believe that most diamonds formed about the time of creation, approximately 6,000 years ago. These diamonds couldn’t even be one million years old because radioactive carbon can’t be detected at in less than 100 thousand years worth of decay. Always remember that radiocarbon dating does not- and absolutely cannot- prove that the earth is billions of years old and that the Bible is wrong in the creation account in Genesis. Rather, let radiocarbon remind you of how reliable and infallible the Bible is, and how trustworthy the Author of both the Bible and the universe is.
Posted on December 1, 2012
The Gift of a Moment
The rising sun; our daily tasks; others living about us; the swirling, colorful, late Autumn leaves; a monarch Butterfly; tomorrow; do we take these types of things for granted? Sure, during Thanksgiving, we talk about not taking our blessings for granted, but we seldom remember the most precious and invaluable gits God has given to each one of us – life. Every moment I live and every breath that I take here on earth is a gift from God, not to be taken lightly.
God doesn’t give us our moments on earth so that we can have a happy life and live to the fullest for our own pleasure. Some of these blessed moments that God allows us to live out can be extremely painful or difficult, and some people may think that this describes most of their moments. As Christians living on earth, our true Home is Heaven, and we are soldiers in a battlefield. Every moment is precious, not necessarialy because each one is so enjoyable, but because how we live our moments is critical to the battles at hand. I’ve been impressed recently with my own weakness and futility, just how fleeting my life is. I am like a lily of the field – here today and gone tomorrow.
Now, I know I really should have written this clue about radioactive carbon in coal (and some other exciting surprises I have in store for the radioisotope dating Clue series), but this is not entirely irrelevant to the Clue series because radioisotope dating is all about time, just like this clue is. The advocate of billions of years take moments for granted, and does not realize that we only have as much time as God has given us, and we know from His infallible Word that the universe has only been arround for about 6,000 years. Praise the Lord today for the gift of a simple moment.
Posted on November 24, 2012
Thankful Thoughts
I have enjoyed writing about radioisotope dating these past few weeks, and I still have much more information to share here about it, but because yesterday was Thanksgiving , and because I believe that this is a very important topic, we will deviate briefly from the Clue series. Gratefulness can have an enormous impact on our daily lives. It helps us realize just how blessed we really are. Everyone has blessing – many blessings – but few people recognize this. Learning to be grateful for what we have is worth far more than a world of treasures, because the attitude of gratitude can last throughout eternity: possessions will not.
When people think of their blessings, they typically think of family, freedom, jobs, and houses. Those are all incredible blessings, yet we have so much more to be thankful for – everyone does, even if they don’t have family, freedom, jobs, or houses. Have you ever thought of being thankful for the atmosphere? Not only does God use the intricately designed atmospheric system to give us the breath of life constantly, but He also uses it to protect us from harmful Ultraviolet rays with the ozone layer, provides relatively clean rainwater to grow our food, clouds that regulate earth’s temperature, transparency for studying God’s extraterrestrial handiwork, and even striking beauty for our enjoyment in the sunrises and sunsets. Yet, we take all of this (and much more) for granted. I love science because I can learn so much about God’s care for us through it. It also gives me reminders of how blessed I am in the things I take for granted.
In closing, I’d like to offer a challenge to you – this Thanksgiving season try being thankful for something that you don’t like. Yes, I know it sounds convoluted, but God uses the uncomfortable or bad things in our lives for good. Not only that, but He also suffers with us when we are in pain. Try thanking Him for it; He is doing it because He loves you. Always remember that all things will work together for good to those that love Him. Two of the things I’m immensely grateful for this year are that 1) I didn’t get to go to Kentucky this summer (even though I was practically dying to go) and 2) That I am not going to Texas Tech for college this fall. Although these things seemed to go against what I thought was God’s best for my life, God has provided amazing opportunities to do things beyond my wildest dreams because of these things. Trust God and thank Him for His incredible gifts this Thanksgiving!
Posted on November 17, 2012
Unthinkable Radiocarbon Dates
The team of five men paddled furiously along in the wind-tossed icy waters of the Colville River in Alaska. They had been slowly making their way through the Alaskan wilderness for almost a week, in spite of the ever-present swarms of mosquitos, quicksand, raft malfunctions, and a variety of other perils. Some people might think they were crazy for going through all of that – even risking their lives – just to get a few bags of old animal bones (the full account of this adventure is in The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventure, by Buddy Davis, Mike Liston, and John Whitmore). However, the fossils that these men and several others collected are the centerpiece of this week’s Clue on radioisotope dating.
Hugh Miller and his team gathered samples from the fossils that these men (John Whitmore, Buddy Davis, Mike Liston, Dan Specht, and George Detwler) and others had excavated and sent them to prominent radiocarbon labs where they were blind tested, meaning that the people doing the radiocarbon dating did not know what kind of bones they are. The people in the lab just ran the same tests they usually do in C-14 dating, even using the more advanced Accelerator Mass spectrometer (AMS) method on most of the samples. The bones that the team from Alaska “dated” at 31,050 (± 230) years and 36,480 (±560) years. What made this discovery so remarkable, at least in the eyes of billions-of-years advocates, is that these were not just any bones, but dinosaur bones, and the particular example above was a Hadrosaur, a duck-billed dinosaur. Another Hadrosaur, excavated by Joe Taylor of Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum in Crosbyton, “dated” similarly at 37,660 (±160) years. An Acrocanthosarus, an Allosaurus, two Triceratops, another Hadrosaur, and Apatosaurus were also dated, all coming up with comparable radiocarbon “dates” (for more information, read the article on http://newgeology.us/presentation48.html),
As I have mentioned before, unfossilized dinosaur bones have been discovered before, even by evolutionists, like Dr. Mary Schweitzer. Old-earth advocates tried to come up with all kinds of scenarios, like bacteria, but they really don’t fit with the evidence. However, finding radiocarbon dates of mere 10’s of thousands of years in dinosaurs, which are allegedly 65 million years old, is a blatant contradiction to the commonly held ideas about dinosaurs, the formation of geologic layers, and – at the very core – billions of years. Old-earth advocates reverence these dating methods more than God and His Word (otherwise, why would they reject the latter to embrace the former?), so this is a huge blow to all of their fundamental ideals if they accept this evidence. Yet, as creationists, we would expect to find a little bit of radiocarbon left in dinosaur bones because we believe that they lived in different atmospheric conditions than we do today and most of them were killed by the flood and buried rapidly in layers of sediment laid down catastrophically by the flood. Radiocarbon dating supports the Scriptures, not contradict God’s Word.
Posted on November 9, 2012
The Notorious Radiocarbon Dating, Part 2
Last week, I said that there are two main differences between radiocarbon dating and other radioisotope dating methods: the especially short half-life of Carbon-14, which I discussed last time, and now, where the Carbon-14 comes from. Radioactive carbon forms in earth’s atmosphere when cosmic rays (harmful particles emitted by the sun) hit particles of Nitrogen-14, which are abundant in the atmosphere, converting them into Carbon-14. Well, that radiocarbon bonds with Oxygen in the atmosphere to form Carbon-14 dioxide, and animals and plants take this radioactive carbon into their bodies by breathing. When the animal or plant dies, it stops taking in new radiocarbon, and the radiocarbon in its body starts to decay. Scientists get the “age” of the fossil by comparing amounts of Carbon-14 to Carbon-12 in the animal’s (or plant’s) body to the Carbon-14 to Carbon-12 ratio in today’s atmosphere.
In using this method, scientists have to assume that, 1) the atmosphere has always had the same C-14 to C-12 ratios that it has today, 2) that the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere is fairly constant throughout history, and therefore, 3) that earth’s magnetic field strength has remained about the same throughout history. The magnetic field around earth is like a shield, protecting us by keeping cosmic rays from entering the atmosphere. Some still do, but not enough to significantly harm life here. However, we know for a fact that earth’s magnetic field has not always remained constant because of magnetic anomalies (evidence of pole reversals, like magnet poles) we find in volcanic rock. Our magnetic field is constantly getting weaker. Before the flood, the magnetic field would have been much stronger than it is today, which means that it would give much smaller C-14 to C-12 ratios and therefore give us older “dates” than they really are. This isn’t just some wacky creationist idea either, because, according to the Journal of Radiocarbon, a group of scientists from Arizona drilled core samples from Lake Gun Nur (in Mongolia) and concluded that the inconsistent dates they got from the most advanced kind of radiocarbon dating (Accelerator Mass Spectrometer, or AMS) existed because of a strengthening of earth’s magnetic field
Finally, even evolutionists admit that the atmosphere is not at chemical equilibrium (see http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511808913&cid=CBO9780511808913A006 for example). That simply means that the proportions of different chemicals in the atmosphere are not necessarily consistently the same. This is a big problem for evolutionists, because if the atmosphere really is as old as they want it to be, it should have reached equilibrium long ago. This concludes my basic explanation of how radiocarbon dating works. Next week we will continue with some very exciting new discoveries in radiocarbon dating.
Posted on November 4, 2012
The Notorious Radiocarbon Dating, Part 1
Have you ever heard someone say that Carbon dating proves that the earth is 4.5 billion years old? Well, if you ever do, realize that they are dead wrong. Even evolutionists who know what they are talking about would agree that Carbon-14 dating definitely does not prove that the earth is billions of years old. In fact, radioactive carbon analysis provides important evidence against billions of years, but I will explain that next week.
Carbon-14 (also called radiocarbon, which is short for radioactive carbon) is just a radioactive isotope of Carbon. Now, this radioisotope (short for radioactive isotope) is different from most others, like Uranium-238, in two main ways, the first of which I will talk about now, and the second next week. Carbon-14 has a relatively short half-life of 5,730 years. One half-life is how long it takes half of a sample of a radioisotope to decay at today’s known rates of radioactive decay. Two half lives does not mean that the entire radioisotope sample has decayed, but simply that half of the existing sample has decayed. The first half life is half of the original whole sample; the second half life is simply half of the remaining half; the third life would be half of the remaining quarter, and so on until you are left with a sample so small that it can’t be detected with our most advanced instruments. Carbon-14 dating can’t prove that the earth is billions of years old because it can’t last that long.
Now, before I go any further, I want to clarify that by saying that C-14 has a half life of 5,730 years does not mean that I believe that it really takes that long for radioactive decay to occur. Always keep in mind that when any scientist says they radioisotope dated an object to be so many years old, they are unquestioningly assuming that the current rates of radioactive decay have always been the same throughout history. That’s the assumption of uniformitarianism, “the present is key to the past”, right there. Using radioisotope dating (and therefore, assuming uniformitarianism and assuming that the Bible is wrong) to prove that the earth is billions of years old (and therefore that uniformitarian assumptions are true and that the Bible is wrong), is a form of circular reasoning, which is a logical fallacy.
When thinking about uniformitarian ideas about the present being” key to the past”, stop for a minute and ask yourself one of the most important questions in the world: WHY? Why would we expect uniformitarian rates? The evolutionist relies so much on uniformitarianism, and yet, they have no reason to expect order and uniformity in nature if it was not created. They have to borrow strictly creationist ideas like order, laws of nature, and laws of logic in order to even attempt to make a case against creation. That is logically inconsistent. Now, don’t think for a minute that we believe in uniformitarianism as creationists. On the contrary, we believe that the Creator not only told us that He did create, but also that there was a global catastrophe after He created. Next week, I will tell you more about how radiocarbon dating works and about some very exciting discoveries.
