Posted on August 22, 2012
Heavenly Hope, Part 1
Life as a creationist can be very exciting. It is wonderful to see new scientific discoveries that line up well with the account of creation and the flood in Genesis. It’s great to see how much more sense we can make of things scientists have previously discovered when we look at them in the light of the Scriptures. Better yet is the impact our creationist assumptions have beyond science in society. But, as encouraging as all those things are, they are not the best or even the most exciting part of believing in creation. The best part of being a creationist and standing on the authority of God’s Word is the hope we have through the creation message. This is not some false assurance that everything will be alright, but hope that sticks around, no matter what happens. I think that the best way to show the hope that we have because of our belief in creation is to see first how hopeless life is without creation.
Take a look at the life of Charles Darwin, whom many think of as the father of evolution. Charles Darwin was born in 1809, the fifth of six children. When he was only eight years old, his mother died and his father sent Darwin’s brother, Erasmus, to a boarding school nearby. The next year, Charles was sent to that same boarding school. Think about what life would be like for poor little nine year old Charles Darwin. His mother is gone, his father doesn’t want him, he is in a new place without anyone who loves him besides an older brother, and he doesn’t even have his three older sisters around to give him the bit of mothering they did the year before. There is more to the sad story of Charles Darwin’s life, as well as a very important lesson we can learn from it, so be sure to look for part two of this clue series next week.
Posted on August 15, 2012
Delegating Dragons
Have you ever wondered why we find so many fairytales and legends involving ferocious dragons in historical literature all around the world? Not only do we find these medieval tales of knights and dragons, like the Beowulf manuscript, but we also find depictions of creatures in ancient artwork all over the world that seem to match the descriptions of dragons fairly well. Just take a look at how dragon-drenched Asian art and architecture are! We are also told in the book of Job about a creature that Job calls “behemoth” that eats grass like an ox, has a tail like a cedar tree, has bones like bars of iron, and cannot be killed easily with a sword (see Job 40:15-24). Job also mentions a creature called Leviathan (see Job 41) and there are several other instances where the Bible mentions dragons (e.g., Isaiah 51:9, Psalm 91:13, Isaiah 27:1, Jeremiah 51:34, and Ezekiel 29:3) and dragon-like creatures. Now scientists also find fossils of some eccentric, extinct, large reptiles that must have looked a lot like the dragons we see depicted in ancient art and literature, although primarily all we have from these strange creatures is their fossilized bones. These strange creatures were given the name “dinosaur”, meaning “terrible lizard”, by Sir Richard Owen in 1841.
Dragons are dinosaurs. Dinosaur and dragon are just two different terms for the same creature. However, I am not saying that everything in those ancient legends about dragons are necessarily true, because people usually dramatize an exciting event at least a little bit and others have likely added to and left out information from the original accounts. Dinosaurs were created on Day 6 of creation week, which was the same day that God created Adam and Eve. Of course, this inevitably means that dinosaurs and people must have lived together; how else would we get all these ancient tales and depictions of dragons? Just imagine 595 year old Noah going out to cut more wood for the ark and suddenly dropping all of his tools and running home as fast as he could because a T-Rex was chasing him. No wonder ancient literature and art are so full of tales of dragons, knights, and damsels in distress!
Posted on August 8, 2012
Pond Scum
Who in their right mind would give up his or her life for some modified pond scum? No one, of course, and most certainly not someone with a lot of power (like the God of the universe). It just does not make sense under evolutionary assumptions to believe that Jesus died to save us. Jesus is God, the Creator and King of the universe. According to evolution, people are just modified pond scum – ultimately worthless. Yes, if we take evolution to its logical conclusions people are not special, unique, amazing treasures but mere worthless pond scum. Besides, assuming evolution, there would be nothing for Jesus to save us from because death would be normal and natural, not a consequence of sin.
Have you ever noticed how much propaganda there is on self-esteem in America today? There is so much talk about self-worth that some people don’t even want to hear about sin, they want to hear about how everyone is a winner, how to find their “inner self”, and following their heart. Many people have also adopted relativistic views – everyone is right because we have to promote self esteem, and saying that something is wrong might damage another person’s self image. It’s no wonder that people have problems with depression, addictions, suicide, and abortion since most people are being taught evolution (which pretty much says that we are worthless) from kindergarten! The Bible has a solution for our “self-image” problems; It teaches us that we are specially created in the image of God and that we are fallen and in need of the redemption He so graciously offers.
Posted on August 1, 2012
Dinosaurs That Defy Millions of years
Last week I wrote about jellyfish fossils, which I believe are an amazing testimony of the world wide flood. This week, I would like to tell you about another kind of fossil that is also quite extraordinary; dinosaur fossils that defy millions of years! In 1990, Dr. Mary Schweitzer discovered some rather peculiar T.rex fossils. Much to the astonishment of evolutionists, including herself, Dr. Schweitzer discovered that parts of the bone were unmineralized (unfossilized) and contained red blood cells. There is no way these features could exist for 65 million years without decaying! However, this is not at all surprising to a creationist who believes that most of the dinosaur fossils we find are the result of the world wide flood. Unmineralized bones, soft tissue, and red blood cells could survive for a few thousand years.
Although Dr. Schweitzer’s discovery caused a lot of excitement, it is not at all the only finding of unmineralized dinosaur bones. Many other specimens that defy millions of years have been found by different scientists, both evolutionists and creationists, some of which include red blood cells and soft tissue. The book, The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventure, is about the expedition of five creation scientists (Buddy Davis, George Detwiler, Dan Specht, and John Whitmore) who searched for unmineralized dinosaur bones like these along the Colville River in Alaska during the late 1990s. The team was successful, and grateful to God for both their success in finding the fossils and survival of the many dangers they experienced. Unmineralized dinosaur bones containing red blood cells are an incredible clue that dinosaurs really did live just thousands of years ago.
Posted on July 25, 2012
Fish Fossils
Fossils. What comes to mind when you read that word? Most people think of dinosaur bones or other animal bones. But, fossils are so much more than just dinosaurs, or even bones. The majority of the fossils we find are fish, which fits quite well with the global flood account recorded in Genesis. After all, there would be no boundaries between land and sea in a worldwide flood, so it is no surprise that we find fish fossils all over the earth. Paleontologists have even discovered fish fossils on top of mountains far away from the ocean, which would be expected due to a worldwide flood that covered the mountains (see Genesis 7:18-20).
Not only does the fact that we find fish fossils all over the earth line up with what the Bible says, but the fossils themselves (all fossils, not just fish fossils) also show signs of being buried by a global flood. If the fossils we are examining are a result of the world wide flood, we would expect to see signs that they were buried very quickly in water deposited rock layers. We find fossils of one fish eating another, a small dinosaur with his head bent backwards, indicating that he was choking on muddy water when he died, and many other fossils that must have died catastrophically and been fossilized very quickly thereafter.
My all-time favorite kind of fossil is actually not any kind of dinosaur, intriguing as they are, but a kind of fish fossils – jellyfish. The term “jellyfish fossil” sounds like a contradiction in and of itself, and it would be impossible if evolution were true (which is not logically possible). How could a jellyfish, which is over 95% water and melts rapidly, survive long enough to be captured in the fossil record? The answer is clear; the catastrophic world-wide flood recorded in Genesis must have captured these jellyfish and rapidly fossilized them before they had time to melt.
Posted on July 18, 2012
Furious Flood
The thunder roared triumphantly as the stormy waves tossed the vessel mercilessly back and forth. The ship just barely missed a deadly plume of boiling, lava-heated water. Rain poured down in torrents for over a month. The sun was veiled by towering dark clouds and volcanic ash in the air. The eight people on board the ship did not set their feet dry, stable land for about a year, and when they arrived, not a breathing thing would be there to greet them. Have you ever pictured Noah’s flood like this before?
There is no such thing as a tranquil flood, and most certainly not a tranquil global flood! Water can do catastrophic damage very quickly. A few months ago, I attended a webinar on flash floods by the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) that showed many examples of rapid erosion, cars being carried many miles downstream by rapid currents, and trees and other structures being swept away. CoCoRaHS is not a creationist or Christian organization, but they do recognize as any good scientist should, that a lot of water can do a lot of damage over a small amount of time.
As Christians, we don’t need billions of years to explain all the rock layers and canyons we find because the Bible tells us about a catastrophic world-wide flood that can easily account for the geologic features and fossils we find. Do you know what evidence we would expect to see if Noah’s flood really did happen? Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. That is exactly what we find!
Posted on July 12, 2012
Glorious Granite
Granite is truly a marvelous rock. Its speckled beauty in and of itself is quite stunning, but there is so much more to its beauty than just its appearance. When people think of granite, they usually think of kitchen countertops. But, has volcanic activity and a world-wide catastrophic flood ever occurred to you as you admire its vast array of colors and sheen? It hasn’t to most people, but after studying granite a bit, a catastrophic world-wide flood is the first thing that comes to my mind when I see granite.
I have been following a series of articles about an interesting phenomenon found in granite in one of my favorite resources, Answers Magazine. But, generally speaking, what is granite? Of what is it composed and how did it form? Dr. Andrew Snelling wrote that “broadly applied the term [granite] refers to any quartz-bearing, coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock” (From Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, page 504). An intrusive igneous rock means that granite was formed by molten rock from volcanoes being forced through and between layers of rock. The key to understanding how granite formed is right there; it was formed due to dramatic volcanic activity.
After seeing how rapidly volcanoes reshape their surrounding landscape, like Mt. St. Helens in 1980, we can’t logically say that granite and its surrounding layers were formed gradually over many years. Granite must have formed rapidly during the global Genesis flood as the “fountains of the great deep” released their boiling plumes of water and lava. This merely stems from the definition of granite, and has nothing to do with the semi-technical articles I studied. The great global Genesis flood has left its fingerprints all over granite. We should keep this simple clue in mind when we see granite countertops.
Posted on July 4, 2012
Formed for Freedom
Today, July 4, 2012, is the 236th anniversary of the day our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, risking their lives for our freedom. But, no one risks his or her life without a cause that he or she truly believes in. Our founding fathers fought for freedom, but why? What makes freedom so important? We can find the answer to that in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .” They risked their lives because they believed that people are a unique creation, made in the image of God. Freedom (within limits) is a Christian concept. We should treat all other people, regardless of race, age, gender, or even fetal development as equally special because we are created in God’s image and are precious in His sight. We are worth so much to Him that He laid down His life for us, in spite of how rebellious and sinful we are.
On the other hand, if our founding fathers had believed in evolution, they would have had no reason to fight for freedom. After all, if evolution could be true, survival of the fittest would depend upon the stronger ones conquering and suppressing the weaker and “less fit”. If people were merely glorified pond scum, why worry about protecting their liberty? As you enjoy cookouts and fireworks today, keep in mind that the reason we have this freedom in America is because our founding fathers believed in creation. If we are to preserve our freedom, we must realize that creation is the reason behind it. Even if you don’t believe in creation, it is the belief our founding fathers had in creation that gives you the freedom not to believe in creation openly.
Posted on June 28, 2012
Logical Assumptions
Everyone makes some assumptions. It’s not wrong to make assumptions, as long as we know what assumptions we are making and know that they are solid, logical, and essential. Often, people misunderstand scientists as being people who are objective, unbiased, and always right, but that’s simply not the case; scientists are fallible humans who are making some pretty hefty assumptions.
For instance, let’s say that a scientist is studying gravity, so he picks up a book and drops it on the floor. He repeats this process twenty times and, since the book always hit the floor, he concludes that if a person drops an object it will fall. Now let’s make a list of some of the things he is assuming in this experiment: 1)that he is real, 2) that the book is real, 3) that his senses are basically reliable(e.g., he can see the book and hear it hit the floor), 4)that laws of nature are constant, 5) that they are universally applicable, 6) that his memory of the book falling is basically reliable, and 7) that he can use logic to come to a conclusion based on his observations.
Did you have any idea that we are making so many assumptions in even the simplest scientific experiment? I’d love to go into each of the seven assumptions I mentioned, but you probably would not read this if it was that long, so I will focus on the most important assumption I listed, assumption #7. Our scientist in question, who is studying gravity, assumes that he can use logic to come to a conclusion based on his observations (he is also assuming that other people will come to the same conclusions, based on the same laws of logic). But is this a reasonable assumption to make? Only if our scientist believes in Biblical creation is logic, well, logical!
I am fully convinced that God created the entire universe in six literal 24-hour days about six thousand years ago. But, to get my point across, let’s assume temporarily that everything evolved over millions of years like most secular scientist would like us to believe. If our gravity-studying scientist had evolved where did logic come from? Survival of the fittest cannot explain logic, because logic is universal and exists whether or not we use it. Laws of logic are constant; they can never change (that’s why they are laws). Without a loving God who created man in His image and gave us laws of logic as a reflection of the way He thinks, people could never use logic to make sense of anything in the world around them. Laws of logic are a strictly creationist concept, but every evolutionist must use them. An evolutionist must assume laws of logic (and therefore Biblical creation) in order to make a case against Biblical creation. So evolutionists must assume creation in order to argue against it. Here is your creation clue of the week – logic!
Posted on June 21, 2012
WARNING!! Foundation Under Attack!
In America today Christianity is under attack at its foundation, the first chapters of the book of Genesis. Upholding the truth of these first eleven chapters is vital to logically understanding salvation and all other Biblical concepts.
If we do not believe that God is our Creator neither could we logically believe that He has the authority to save us from our sins. If we doubt God’s special method of the creation of mankind, what reason do we have to believe that Jesus thinks we are special enough to die for? If we do not believe that suffering and death are results of mankind’s sin, we don’t have any reason to believe that there is no suffering or death in heaven. If we don’t believe that Noah’s Flood was a global catastrophe, a judgment from God on wicked people, why would we believe that God will judge the entire earth with fire in the future judging wicked people?
If we can’t trust the first eleven chapters of the Word of God, neither can we logically trust the Bible when it says that Jesus died to wash away our sins. Defending Genesis is not just about a few chapters of the Bible; it is about the future of Christianity and the eternal fate of many people. My goal is to provide Christian families with tools and clues throughout God’s amazing creation for defending Genesis and ultimately defending Christianity as a whole.
