Starlight, Star bright

Stars are utterly fascinating to me. Whenever I get out into the country on a clear moonless night, I love looking up into the heavens to look at these wondrous creations. One of my favorite memories was seeing the Milky Way as clearly as I could imagine while traveling away from the city during my trip to Belize. It was so beautiful. As the Psalmist said, “The Heavens declare the glory of God.” – Psalm 19:1

stars

But there is an alternative view on the origin of the stars. Actually the most widely held view of the origin of stars is that they formed and continue to form as a result of natural forces. There are all kinds of problems with the naturalistic assumption that stars have formed on their own. To name a few of these problems, naturalists say that the original stars, Population III stars, formed with special conditions that no longer form stars. The problem is that none of this is observed. No one has ever even seen a Population III star. They are not scientific evidence; they are a required figment of the evolutionist’s mind. There’s no evidence that they ever existed, but for the evolutionist, they are necessary to have existed, so that the Population III stars could supernova and create Population II stars.

Population II and Population I stars have their own set of difficulties as they require high pressures from exploding supernova to compress debris and gases enough to trigger nuclear fusion. As of July 2014, astronomers estimate that there are an 7 billion trillion stars (7X10^22). If each of these stars were formed by the pressure of supernova explosions, why is the universe not saturated with the supernova remnants (SNR)? Instead of finding billions and trillions of SNR that would have been needed to form all of these stars, what is actually observed fits almost exactly within a biblical time frame.

SuperNovaRemnants

Even today evolutionists say that stars continue to form in stellar nurseries, but this is simply wishful thinking in order to perpetuate the deep time worldview. There is no evidence that stars continue to form.

We have historical records of the creation of the stars in Genesis 1

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day

Truly the Heavens declare the glory of God!

At no charge, I have done the math for you. If there are 7X10^22 stars, and (for the sake of argument) we accept the unbiblical age of the universe at 13.7 billion years, then every year 5,109,489,051,095 stars would have to form. That’s 9,721,250 stars every minute and 162,020 stars EVERY second for almost 14 billion years. This is completely unfathomable and beyond credibility. 

Where Do Rights Come From?

From where do our rights come? Are our rights (religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, bear arms…) granted to us by the government? If it is the government that grants our rights, then the government can take them away as well.

When we read the Constitution, it is clear that the Constitution is there to RESTRICT the government from withholding/obstructing the rights of citizens of the United States.

So, if they do not come from the government, from where do they come?

This week, CNN anchor, Chris Cuomo said that rights come from man. Again, if rights come from man, then they can be taken away by man. Well, this flies in the face of the primary historical document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence.

declarationofindependence

The Creator has endowed rights to mankind. The Constitution is written to protect these inalienable rights and to limit the power of the government to within very specific boundaries.

Vox Day takes the premise of Mr. Cuomo to its logical conclusion when he shows quite clearly that mankind tends to treat poorly those who are different or with whom they disagree.

This is why the Left is so willing to abrogate and alienate what the Declaration of Independence declared to be self-evident and unalienable rights, among them being Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. They simply don’t accept that God-given rights are not laws, or that laws that do not respect those rights are illegitimate.

Worst of all, the Left fails to grasp the obvious consequences of their ill-considered actions. If the law can legitimately permit a homosexual man to force a Christian man to bake him a cake, then it can legitimately permit a white man to force a black man to pick his cotton. If the law can legitimately deem a man to be a woman, or two men to be married, it can just as legitimately deem a Jew to be subhuman or an African to be a monkey.

Thankfully, there is a God, and all of mankind has been created in his image. We all have value and unalienable rights from the Creator. Don’t let the Left control the argument lest they follow their presuppositions to their wicked conclusions.

UPDATE: My daughter  is traveling with her class to Washington DC. She sent me this picture from the Jefferson Memorial.

God, who gave us liberty

God, who gave us liberty

If you read closely, you’ll see that it was the founding fathers of this country who understood the importance of recognizing the source of our freedoms.

Asking Tough Questions

This article appeared as a headline on The Drudge Report this morning. It intends to mock Republican presidential nominees who do not worship at the feet of atheist patron saint, Charles Darwin.

While 99.85% of American earth and life scientists believe the theory of evolution to be bedrock fact, 42% of the general public surveyed in a 2014 Gallup poll said they believed that human beings arrived on the earth in their present form.

While the belief in evolution, or lack thereof, may not directly impact whether a given candidate is qualified to become president, the question is regularly put to those who seek the White House. Why? Because some liberals believe it helps demonstrate whether a politician will be guided by evidence in making decisions

The article goes on to show some video clips of republican presidential candidates squirming in their seats when having to answer direct questions on whether they believe that the earth is 6000 years old or whether or not people come from monkeys.

Here’s what I’d like to see. I’d like a reporter to ask those candidates, who support evolution wholeheartedly, these questions about the effects of evolution in their decision-making:

  • Since you strongly believe that biological evolution is true, what intrinsic value would you place on human life? If humans are simply here because of a collection of accidents, why not kill your political enemies and take from the populace whatever you want? Only the strong survive…right?
  • As a strong believer in the success of natural selection, why do you think that the government should provide handouts, entitlements, and assistance to the downtrodden, the weak, and the victims? Are you not abandoning your strong stance of evolution for more of a Christian worldview by helping the weak?
  • There have been national leaders in the past, who were strong advocates of evolution, and because their value of human life was consistent with this belief, they made decisions that lead to the death of tens of millions of their own citizens. Should you be elected, what assurances do we have that you will not make decisions that are consistent with your belief that evolution is true?
  • Should apes and higher simian mammals receive more protections under the law since you believe that people are closer relatives to these evolved “cousins”? Where should we draw the line? Why not include the entire order of primates? Or the family of mammals? Why do you not advocate protecting the rights of bacteria…after all, they’ve been here longer and propagated more successfully? Is it because they do not pay taxes?

I give full permission for any journalist to take these questions and ask…no, press hard for answers to these questions from the presidential candidates. I also give full permission for any candidates who speak boldly to supporting biblical authority to link their campaign website to my creation manifesto, which goes into much detail about the truth of God’s Word and the emptiness of evolution.

UPDATE: Steven Meyer, who is a scientist and writer for the intelligent design movement recently posted this article that is supposed to help conservative politicians answer the question of whether they believe in evolution. The succinct answer he gives is appropriate for the campaign trail:

Reporter: “Do you believe in evolution?”

Candidate: “I believe that organisms change over time, but I am skeptical about unguided evolution.”

I’d really like to see more push-back from candidates, who are asked this question,  to expose the equivocation fallacy that many evolution-believers espouse. Does evolution mean change over time? Does it mean universal common ancestry? Does it mean naturalism’s mechanism for forming all of life?

There has most certainly been evolution…change over time, but as the Bible tells us, there is no change between kinds of animals. The coyote, fox, dog, and wolf probably all came from a common ancestor, which was a kind of dog. Canines have always borne canine pups, and this is verifiable by experimentation. To claim that sometime in the past, an animal had offspring that were of a different kind is perpetuating their naturalistic religion.

The Blame Game

Have you ever blamed the wrong person for something? When you find out the truth, and you have to apologize for your incorrectly-assigned blame, it is definitely humbling.

Not my fault

The world we live in has many problems and pains that we must all deal with. Where did they come from? Why does someone that I love have to hurt? These questions are answered by a worldview.

Many who believe the atheist/materialist worldview misunderstand the Christian worldview and incorrectly assign blame to God.

“The God who created this universe, if he created this universe, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish. We have to spend our lives on our knees thanking him. What kind of God would do that?”

“Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. Why? Why did you do that to us? It is simply not acceptable. Atheism is not just about not believing there’s a god. On the assumption there is one, what kind of God is he? It’s perfectly apparent that was monstrous, utterly monstrous, and deserves no respect.”

The blogger, Vox Day responds clearly that the blame is not God’s, but I’m not sure that even Vox Day gets it right:

Fry is clearly blaming the wrong party. The utter maniac, the totally selfish and utterly monstrous being he castigates is not the Creator God. It is the usurper who rules the world, whose name is devil, Satan, Lucifer.

While Satan has played his part in the corruption of mankind, and continues to roam about seeking those to destroy, we will all face judgement for our own actions. Satan will get what he deserves in the end. Thankful and only by the great mercy of God, the penalty that we all deserve for our actions has been paid by Jesus, who sacrificed himself on our behalf.

But we must accept this payment for our sins. At the judgement, God will punish everyone who has not recognized and repented from their disobedience and accepted Jesus’ sacrifice. We are to blame. We have all disobeyed God’s commands at some point and require help from outside of ourselves.

John says in clearly in the first chapter of his first epistle.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness…But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins…We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.