Author Archives: ApoloJedi

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About ApoloJedi

Reading and healthy competition. People. Sharing the Good News!

Question Evolution Day

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I missed the official Question Evolution Day on February 12th, but I’m re-blogging a pretty good post that I think deserves some reading.

To have coherent logic, certain things must be true about the world. Presups start with God, unbelievers start with humanism. Science needs consistency and logic, neither of which can be accounted for in a naturalistic worldview. When an atheist performs science or uses logic, he is tacitly admitting that God is real (Heb. 1:3, Col. 2:3, John 1:3, Col 1:9), because they are abandoning their worldviews and standing on ours (for example, Bill Nye). A professing atheist can reason and do science stuff because of the truth of God’s Word, and because he is created in the image of God — but they cannot account for logic, morality, and so on.

The most beneficial thing that I found in the post was a link Jason Lisle’s The Ultimate Proof of Creation. I’ve read the book, and it’s fantastic, but in this link, he gets a one hour presentation, so you can hear it too.

Don’t be afraid to question evolution. It is presented in our culture as a fact, but is it? What is meant by evolution? What is the proof for evolution? Can this proof be interpreted in any other way which would necessitate a different conclusion?

 

 

6. Age of the Earth—What Did Jesus Say?

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There are many theories by Christians that would have you believe that Genesis is a collection of myths or poetic writings that simply refer to God as the Creator. They place little or no value on the historical veracity of Genesis, thereby bringing doubt to most of the rest of the Bible. Most of these Christian theories would however, trust the new testament as authoritative. Well, ok, let’s see what Jesus had to say about Creation as recorded in the new testament gospel of Mark.

“From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.”

The words of Jesus speak clearly that he believed that humans were created at the beginning of creation. Someone might argue that Jesus was just shooting from the hip, and didn’t really intend for his audience to understand the REAL beginning of creation.

Do you not think that gifted modern speakers are very careful with their words? Would not “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), the man who has “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68) have total control of his words to speak exactly what he intended?

There are many examples of New Testament writers showing a clear understanding of Genesis as historical record.

BibleScienceGuy's avatarBible-Science Guy

(2 Minute Read)

Earth

Explicit references to Creation by Jesus show that He placed the creation of man at the Beginning, not after long eras of evolution leading up to man.

When teaching on marriage Jesus asserted,
“From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female”
(Mark 10:6-9).
Thus according to Jesus, God created mankind fully formed as man and woman ready for marriage at the Beginning, not after billions of years of evolution following the Beginning.

While pronouncing woe on the Pharisees Jesus said, “…in order that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world,…from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah.” (Luke 11:50-51) Chronologically, Abel and Zechariah were the first and last martyrs of the Old Testament. We see from this that Jesus believed that Adam’s son Abel lived close to the foundation of…

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Jesus did not come to make bad people good

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Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. I can’t remember which pastor said this, but it has a catchy ring about it that’s easy to remember. We are not just bad people…we are dead in our sins.

There is a common teaching in Sunday schools and churches that instead of teaching people how to know the Giver of life better, they try to teach people how to be good. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to share God’s expectations for righteousness, but we can never get to know God by being good enough. But by knowing Almighty God, we will be compelled to righteousness.

Ephesians 2:1-5

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the way of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.

Dead Kids Make the President Mad

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And rightly so! Death is so sad. Unfortunately, the president is only mad about certain dead children. Unfortunately, he’s not so concerned with the hundreds of children, who are killed everyday in abortion.

Death (physical death, and separation from the Creator) is a result of sin as mentioned in Genesis 3. Praise God that Jesus came to re-open the way to life.

What a glorious passage is I Corinthians 15:20-26. One day kids won’t die. Abortion will end one way or another. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16-17

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks from the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” – John 11:25-26

Evidence for Evolution

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I recently found this blog and was reading a few of the previous articles about creation/evolution. It struck me as odd that this Christian blog would remark on the reasonableness of evolution and then essentially says, “Well, even though this evidence confirms atheism, I’m still gonna’ be a Christian.”

For one, the evidence (as will be shown below) was impotent in proving evolution, but most importantly, the writer did not understand the importance of our starting point being revelation from God . If God and his revelation are not the starting point from which we interpret all evidence, then there is no precondition for intelligibility. We can only know things if the Creator revealed himself as a self-authenticating authority.

We must first start with the presupposition that God exists, and to know anything for certain, he must have revealed himself. Since he revealed himself as the Creator in his Word, we can know some things (not everything as he has not revealed everything). And since his revealed word also has definite things to say about the history of the universe and mankind, we can trust those things.

The evolutionary worldview differs sharply from what has been revealed in God’s Word, so we know that they are not true, and all evidence will show this. For a more complete rebuttal of the Grand Theory of Evolution, you can check out my Creation Manifesto. But below answers, what the writer of the Isaiah53 blog says is the emperor’s clothes best evidence for evolution:

  1. DNA – The universal common genetic code is strong evidence for a single designer. Information does not coalesce by natural processes. Specified complexity requires a designer. As a database administrator, I understand the critical nature of coded information being correct, and I reject the idea that the hard work I put in to formulate thousands of lines of code could be thrown together by natural forces like gravity, erosion, or combustion. As DNA is far more complex than the most sophisticated computer code, it is beyond logic to expect genetic code to have been formulated or improved by natural processes absent a designer. As far as all genetic code being similar, it only makes sense that the code be very similar but not exactly the same since all organisms were intended to be nourished by the same food source: plants. Plants, while classified as “alive” today are really just self-replicating food sources. Genesis 1:29-30. Since all genetic code is similar, it can be nourished by the same food source. If genetic code were wildly different, the only thing that humans would be able to eat for nourishment would be ourselves.
  2. Fossils – The fossil record shows variation within the same families of animals, but any theoretical transition between kinds of animals is missing. The fossil record however, is a strong indication that the Bible is true. In Genesis 7, God brings a catastrophic worldwide flood upon the surface of the earth that killed every living thing that was not on the ark. So Christians would expect to find billions of dead things buried in water-sorted rock layers. That is exactly what is found! So, why have human remains not been found with dinosaur remains? Would you live in the vicinity of dinosaurs? Probably not. Neither did pre-flood humans. They are buried in different layers, not because they lived at different times, but because they lived in different places. As far as the existence of fossils goes, it is an insurmountable problem for evolutionists to explain. Why are the rock layers perfectly flat with no erosion markers between the layers? Surely after each layer is exposed for thousands/millions of years there would be erosion between the layers. Why is there no bioturbation (root/worm-path fossils) in the layers? Why are the layers sorted by soil type? After thousands/millions of years soil types would be mixed and jumbled. Why are there fossils across multiple layers of rock? Did these dead animals/plants/trees lay exposed for millions of years while it was waiting to be buried by multiple layers of rock? To get fossilized material at all, an organism has to be buried quickly to avoid scavenging and decomposition, so the existence of fossils is actually unexpected from an evolutionary worldview that relies on slow, destructive processes. Fossils and the geologic layers are actually strong evidence for a catastrophic worldwide flood.
  3. Genetic Commonalities – This is pretty-well covered in item 1. But to further show that this is a false indication of evolution, the most recent research of DNA is showing that the genetic code is orders of magnitude more complex than originally thought. Junk DNA has been shown to be a false prediction of evolution as the entire DNA strand is now proving to be useful for the organism…exactly as one would expect if an omnipotent Creator designed everything from the beginning. For anyone interested in doing more research on this issue, check part one of this six part issue. A great quote from the article says, “If ENCODE is right, then Evolution is wrong.” Hint: ENCODE is right.
  4. Common Traits in Embryos – This line of reasoning was disproven over 100 years ago. Let me say that again, so it sinks in: Common traits of embryos was disproven over ONE HUNDRED years ago!!!! This was based on the fraudulent drawings made by Haeckel in the 1800s and recognized for the lie that they were within years of his submission. It’s absolutely irresponsible for this line of reasoning to be used as evidence for evolution. Gill slits??? Please!
  5. Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics – This has nothing to do with microbes to microbiologists evolution. As stated, there are a few individuals present in bacterial colonies that are already resistant to antibiotics. So, in the presence of antibiotics, these mutants will thrive and be able to produce more offspring. As is required by evolution, no new information is added…only the gene pool is thinned by antibiotics, which is natural selection in action. Natural selection thins the gene pool; it does not create anything new. People have misunderstood what natural selection means, but it is an expectation that is perfectly in line with a biblical worldview. For more information on antibiotic resistant bacteria, you can check out this article.

So, as you can clearly see, these “evidences” for evolution are completely misunderstood or misrepresented. They are actually strong evidence that the Creator can be trusted in his revealed word. Since God can be trusted about the past, we can put our faith in Him completely for our future!

Where Was Adam’s Garden of Eden?

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I love this blog post, since I’ve been asked several times where the Garden of Eden might be. My answer has been a much less detailed version of this same post. Thanks Bible-Science Guy for the detailed answer.

2 Peter 3:5-6 is so true! We cannot know for certain the location of the Garden of Eden because the flood re-arranged the geography of the entire planet.

“But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word and heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.”

God’s Word can be trusted about history, and we can trust God’s Word about our future!

BibleScienceGuy's avatarBible-Science Guy

(4 Minute Read)

According to Mark Twain, the Garden of Eden was in the vicinity of Niagara Falls. In fact Mark Twain first published a version of Extracts from Adam’s Diary (1904) under the title The First Authentic Mention of Niagara Falls in 1893 in Buffalo, NY.

According to Twain’s version of Adam’s Diary, Eve re-named the Garden of Eden Niagara Falls Park.

Early Mormon leaders taught that the Garden of Eden had been situated in Jackson County, Missouri.

These two locations for the Garden of Eden are doubtful. But other locations suggested for Eden by historians and archaeologists are more possible. These include the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, and Lebanon.

What does the Bible say about the location of Eden?

Where Was the Garden of Eden?

The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had…

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Apologetic Sermon Illustration #30: Planned Parenthood services and Nazi Volkswagon fallacy

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A further argument in this type of discussion would be to ask whether Planned Parenthood does ANY good at all. As Christians, we do not have to accept that PP’s distribution of condoms and kindergarten sex education classes are good.

Thankfully, as Christians we can also share the gospel of grace and God’s ability to forgive any sin. Repentance and forgiveness. GRACE is bigger than sin!

SLIMJIM's avatarThe Domain for Truth

GO TO PART 29

hitler and volkswagen

Point: A defense that some people give to defend Planned Parenthood despite their sin of murdering the pre-born is to point to the “good services” that Planned Parenthood provides.  But is the logic of that kind of counter-argument sound?

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Creation in the New Testament

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I few years ago, I listened to the audio book trilogy from Bryan Liftin: The Gift, The Sword, and The Kingdom. I recommend them. The premise of the books is that our world is destroyed, and a remnant of people survive in a Medieval-type “new world.” This remnant of humanity only had access to the Old Testament. It’s a fun story about how they looked for the continuation of the story.

But, what if things were reversed. If we had access only to the New Testament, what would we really know about our origins or the creation account? Check out this video.

Creation in the New Testament

 

God’s Authority is Self-Attesting

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God is the ultimate authority. When people want justification for their actions or beliefs, they will have to appeal to some kind of authority. For non-Christians, they will try to appeal to their senses, but then they use their senses to validate their senses…a vicious circle.

For Christians, we appeal to the Creator as our authority. Romans 1 tells us that the God of Creation has revealed himself so that none are without excuse.

The author of this blog  entry uses a pretty good analogy…even though he says, it’s not a very good analogy.

“It’s not a great analogy, but think of parents dealing with their children. The child keeps asking “Why?, Why? Why?, and finally the parents say “Because I said so”. And now it’s become a test of parent’s authority. The child asks “Well, why do you have authority?”, and the parent replies “My authority is my authority, and I don’t have to justify it to you.” If a parent doesn’t have to justify him/herself to their child, does God? If He did, who would He appeal to to authorize His authority? Would he look beyond Himself? If He did, would He still be God?”

pat's avatarDefense of Faith

(A) 1.) A very simple and practical question to keep in mind that you can ask whenever you’re debating someone about worldviews is…

“By what authority do  you say this?”
“By what authority do you assert that?”
“By what authority should I believe what you’re telling me?”

2.) Let’s say an unbeliever claims that he believes it’s alright for him to engage in premarital sexual intercouse. I’m going to want to find from him how he made that ethical judgment, how he came to that conclusion. So I ask him “By what authority do you say that?”, and I tell him that the Bible condemns it in “this passage” and “that passage” and so on. One way or another I think this will lead him to say either (1) that there is no God, or (2) the Bible is not the Word of God. In defense of his ethical point…

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It Only Takes One Generation

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I Kings 12-14 records the steep decline of morality among God’s chosen people once King Solomon died. It was a sad time for Israel and led to their eventual destruction for breaking God’s covenant. In a single generation the chosen people of Almighty God rejected his covenant, blessing, and protection for worldliness, wickedness, and unfaithfulness.

America is NOT God’s chosen people, and it could be debated that the government of the United States has ever been Christian in nature, but the culture of the American people has been strongly influenced by the Bible and Christian morality. For generations the vast majority of Americans would have declared themselves to be Christian. Even today, polls show that about 70% of Americans identify as Christians.

The numbers continue to fall, and over this next generation, the numbers will fall precipitously. I would propose that the single biggest factor in this decline is the prominence that has been granted to evolution. The grand theory of evolution is a naturalistic origins story that purportedly replaces the Creator, and as evolution has been taught as the only viable origins story in all public schools for the past 60 years, it’s no small wonder that today’s youth find no need for the Bible or a Redeemer. Sadly, many people who claim to be Christians endorse this naturalistic tool without realizing the way it dismantles people’s faith.

Today’s article from the Slate identifies evolution as a primary reason for the decline and fall of Christianity in America:

The increase in younger people embracing evolution is “quite striking,” says Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University and an expert witness the landmark court case Kitzmiller v. Dover, which kicked “intelligent design” out of public school classrooms in 2005. “We’re moving in the right direction.”

Evolution has been used as a bludgeon to beat down belief in the Creator. Youth and adults alike fear the stigma of being identified with creationists if they are not worshiping at the altar of St. Darwin.

Sadly, as Darwinism extends its iron grip on the American culture, certain side effects are inevitable. From the same article:

To turn that cultural tide in such a short period of time, the supporters of gay marriage had to do something far more difficult: change deeply rooted attitudes and beliefs. Similarly, for the movement behind evolution to triumph, younger Americans who have been raised to believe in creationism need to be open to changing their minds. Fortunately, today’s generation is growing up in a time of greater open-mindedness and willingness to listen to evidence-based thinking, Wolfson says. Rather than being blinded by ideology, today’s young adults are open to evidence, facts, and reason.

The author hypocritically or ignorantly attributes ideology to Christianity without showing how evolutionary ideology is tyrannical in its extreme prejudice.

Romans 1 (I’ve included the text at the end) speaks clearly of this cascade of steps in which wicked people engage:

  • They suppress the Truth of God as Creator
  • Instead of thanking and glorifying God, they claim to be wise
  • This causes futile thinking and darkened hearts
  • They attribute God’s creative works instead to created things (evolution did it)
  • Therefore, sexual impurity becomes rampant and accepted

If anyone ever wondered before about the strength and prophetic power of scripture, reading Romans 1 erases doubt that the Spirit revealed to Paul how quickly a culture could be sabotaged from the inside. The Roman culture quickly crumbled once immorality became acceptable. We’re seeing the same thing in our American culture today.

Where’s the hope? Hope is in Christ alone. Our culture like every other culture that has thought it would last forever will end up in the landfill. But as Deuteronomy 6 stresses, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.”

It only takes one generation that unlike their parents, rejects God’s commands, and the culture will be irrevocably changed.

The only hope for cultures, ourselves, and our children is in the redemption that only Christ can bring. Avoid the cascade of Romans 1 by first of all giving thanks to God as Creator. Don’t let evolution corrode your faith in his creative and redemptive works.

 

 

Romans 1

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.20 Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; 21 for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.