Global or Local Flood

Today’s mantra of global warming has grown tedious since the “evidence” turns out to show exactly the opposite of what those who would have us give up our rights are advocating.

But there are all kinds of interesting websites showing the new coastlines if the polar ice caps melted. Gone would be New Orleans, Florida, the East coast, and most of England. It would be sad to see Disney World submerged, and I so enjoy watching the English Premier League (it just wouldn’t be the same if it were the English Premier Water Polo League.) And I didn’t even mention the lost habitat of the lovable polar bears. This terrible scenario would all be as a result of the waters rising just 70 meters.

WaterLevelRise

It’s been said by the old earth movement that the flood of Noah’s day was a localized flood. They have put up reasons like, there’s not enough water, the writer of Genesis would not have known about the whole globe, and there’s no evidence of a global flood. All of these objections have been answered and shown to be false multiple times. A serious objection to the old earth theory of a local flood is God’s promise never to flood the earth again. Genesis 9:8-17 records God’s repeated covenant that he would never again flood the earth like he did when he destroyed all life and the earth. If we are to accept the old earth proposal that this was a local flood, then God would have broken his word because there have been many catastrophic local floods.

One argument that I have never heard used to counter the old earth local flood heresy is the water level above Mt. Ararat argument. Today, Mt Ararat stands almost 17,000 feet above sea level. Many volcanic eruptions have been recorded from this mountain, so it’s safe to say that this mountain has been much taller in the past. Mt. St. Helens lost over 1000 feet to its overall height when it erupted in 1980, so it’s not beyond reason to believe that Mt. Ararat would have been much taller the further back in time we go towards the catastrophic flood of Genesis 7-9. But for the sake, of argument, let’s say it was at its current height of 17,000 feet.

We know from Genesis 7:19-20 that “all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.” Some translations have cubits calculated at about 20 feet. We also know from Genesis 8:4, that the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters would have had to cover Mt Ararat to be in accordance with scripture, so what would happen to the coastlines if the seas were to rise about 17,000 feet? Our four memorialized Republican presidents on Mount Rushmore would be over 2 miles below the surface of the water. The Eiffel Tower would be three miles below the surface. And remember this is if we assume the waters to ONLY be as high as the old earth people tell us. If we take the Bible at its word, we know that it covered all of the mountains however high they were at the time. At the very least, we know that the flood covered the high mountains of Ararat, so if we take the old earth view of a local flood seriously, we have to assume that God put up some kind of imaginary boundaries at the edge of his flood area…but why would we want to do that. Why not take the words of scripture to mean what they actually say rather than trying to inject one’s pet theory into the text?

An ardent old earth advocate might say, “Well what if the ark landed at the base of Mt Ararat? The local flood waters could have just carried the ark to the base of this mountain.” Nice try, but the text says that the waters covered the mountains to a depth of fifteen cubits. So, it doesn’t matter at which point on the mountains of Ararat that the ark landed; the only highest mountain in the only range mentioned in the text is surely covered by more than 15 cubits of water. That’s a minimum of 17,000 feet.

We can trust God’s Word to be the authoritative source for interpreting evidence. We can trust what God’s Word has said about history, so we can trust what God’s word tells us about salvation and our future hope! You are valuable because you are created in God’s image, and he purchased your future with the death of his precious Son.

Hitch Your Wagon to a Star

Just make sure it is the right star. I first heard this phrase (Hitch your wagon to a star) in Kenny Tamplin’s 90’s release, Get Out of My Sun. At least now you know some of my obscure musical tastes. Anyway, the idea is that if you know someone who is rich or smart or famous, then maybe you can get something that you didn’t necessarily earn. I’m going to take this on to a logical conclusion with the recognition that if you got your riches, fame, or information based on a falling star, then you too are doomed.

If you’ve hitched up to a falling star (or foundation) then your wagon (or worldview) is also bound to fail.

Titanic_OldEarth

Old Earth Creationists have been shouting the mantra of the necessity for Christians to embrace Big Bang Cosmology and other naturalistic-based ideas (evolution, deep time…) One of the more famous groups to have done this is Hugh Ross’s outfit, reasons.org. They claim that the Bible introduced the Big Bang cosmology to the world. One of the many problems with the idea of the old earth creationists is that the Bible does not have anything at all to do with the Big Bang. As noted in Genesis 1, God created dry land on day 2, plants on day 3, stars/planets on day 4, birds/fish on day 5, and land creatures on day 6 (including mankind). But the Big Bang theory describes something totally different in a totally different order in a totally different time frame. The two creation stories are completely different.

Despite the obvious differences, the old earth creationists continue to hang onto the idea that naturalistic assumptions about the universe should form the basis by which Christians should interpret scripture, and from a cursory look at their websites, they have grown adept at this method of interpreting the Bible.

Unfortunately, for them, like phlogiston, abiogenesis, and leech-blood-letting before, the Big Bang model has been tossed aside by secular scientists. In this article, the naturalistic thinkers no longer want the universe to have a beginning because this would seem to imply that there were a Higher Power, to whom they might be responsible.

Big Bang? What Big Bang? In a new theory, researchers suggest that the start of the universe may have involved no bang at all.

There’s no need for Christians to compromise the revealed Word of God to try to accommodate naturalistic assumptions about creation…especially as they have a tendency to be discarded as more information is discovered.  You can trust God’s Word as revealed in the Bible to be true and unchanging.

UPDATE:

“The science is settled! It is beyond dispute that the Big Bang never happened.”

“What?! New evidence is in, and the Big Bang never happened?”

“The science is settled! The universe is eternal. The Big Bang never happened. Those who cling to the Big Bang are science deniers!”

http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/02/10/watch-the-big-bang-never-happened/

Life is tough for Astrobiologists

It’s got to be tough dealing with failure after abject failure to conjure up evidence for life beyond our planet. Some of the most expensive tax-payer funded equipment and space missions have yielded abundant scientific information but nothing regarding extra-terrestrial life. So, life is tough for astrobiologists. But at least they are an optimistic lot.

Wookie

Even Wookies get frustrated when evidence for extra-terrestrials is fabricated

They even have their own government-funded website. In their article on Jan 15th, they describe all of the reasons they have for hope in someday having their first success.

In a response to this article, the scientists at the Discovery Institute review the rules for astrobiologists, so that they don’t get caught up in too much optimism as to fabricate evidence for life having evolved somewhere in the universe.

  1. “Nature” to a materialist has no spirit, imagination, or goal.
  2. Inanimate matter has no “desire” to become animate; vitalism is out.
  3. “Building blocks of life” have no obligation or desire to assemble into a living thing.
  4. A lucky accident in one part of the origin-of-life scenario has no obligation or desire to join forces with another lucky accident somewhere else.
  5. A random chain of building blocks is not “information” in a biological sense, nor is a “pattern” of building blocks, nor are copies of a random chain or a pattern.
  6. Investigators are not allowed to interfere with natural processes in origin-of-life scenarios, because this sneaks information into the system.
  7. Wishful thinking is not science. One needs evidence. Putting the evidence into the future, “i.e., further research is needed,” is a cop-out.
  8. The complex functions of living cells cannot be used to infer origins in inanimate matter without begging the question raised by Rules 2 and 3.

Unfortunately, the writers of the astrobiology article break the rules over and over. Fortunately, the writers at Discovery Institute are there to referee the persistent fouls by the evolutionists:

  • “Life’s origins are a mystery, but every year scientists get a little bit closer to understanding what made life possible on Earth, and possibly on other planets or moons.” [Violates Rules 1, 4 and 7]
  • “We only have one known case study of life so far, on our own planet, but microbial life is considered possible in many other areas around the Solar System, such as on Mars, Jupiter’s icy Europa, and on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn that erupts water as geysers.” [Violates Rule 7]
  • “One large wish of scientists these days is to create artificial cells that closely mimic what biological ones do so that it would be easy to create laboratory conditions to test out how they evolve.” [Violates Rules 2, 6, 7, and 8]
  • “Researchers would be happy to create an artificial protocell, but that’s far from easy. Figuring out how inheritance work [sic] — how traits of a parent protocell are passed on to the next generation — is one of the largest problems facing scientists today.” [Violates Rules 6, 7, and 8]
  • “The researchers brought in a hypothesis from three decades ago that assumed that any sequence of polymers (chain of small molecules) can encode information, and can becopied from one polymer strand to another using a process called template directed replication.” [Violates Rules 5 and 7]
  • “When simulating information strings in the computer simulation, the researchers came up with a surprising discovery. Replication occurred as expected, with information strings duplicating themselves, but the scientists were surprised to see shorter and longer strings being created in strikingly regular patterns.” [Violates Rules 3, 4, 5 and 6]
  • “Over time, the simulation showed the information strings were occurring in equal proportions of long and short lengths in predictable patterns. While the scientists can’t say for sure that this was a step along the road to life, they said it bears further investigation as they work to create artificial protocells.” [Violates Rules 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8]

When evolutionists get too excited in their hopes for finding meaning and purpose in evolution or life on other planets, it’s beneficial to reel them back into reality.

The problem for astrobiologists is not their enthusiasm for finding life in the universe. The problem is their starting point…their foundation in naturalism. Naturalism does not have any possibility of being true, but they’ve built an entire belief system on the shaky foundation.

For the Children!

Should Christians worry about the incursion of atheism into the nursery? Finding adults and reasoning too challenging, atheists are now targeting children with their message of the non-existence of the Creator. As shown here, evolution by random mutation and natural selection is a philosophy designed to exclude God from his rightful place as the author of life.

According to the Wall Street Journal, children have a natural tendency to attribute their surroundings to intelligent design.

By elementary-school age, children start to invoke an ultimate God-like designer to explain the complexity of the world around them—even children brought up as atheists.

This is alarming to the atheists, so they have planned a strategy to indoctrinate the children with evolution early on in order to counter the children’s intuitions of a creative designer.

Dr. Kelemen and her colleagues thought that they might be able to get young children to understand the mechanism of natural selection before the alternative intentional-design theory had become too entrenched.

The secret may be to reach children with the right theory before the wrong one is too firmly in place.

It is an intentional strategy by atheists, and it is important for us as Christians to recognize the battlefield. If evolution is accepted within the walls of Christendom, then before long, the children will have no need for the Creator. Besides the obvious negative side of children embracing evolution in place of biblical creationism, there’s really no reason for anyone to be deceived since the global flood explains the evidence much better.

Creation Manifesto

Tell me if you’ve heard this before, “Could God have used evolution as his creative mechanism?”

I have had several friends tell me that the evolutionary origins story is compatible with the whole biblical narrative and that there is no need to reject the evolutionary story. I would like to take on that claim and analyze it against God’s Word and later against some scientific observations.

The purpose for writing this manifesto is this:

  1. Define evolution and look at its history / intent
  2. Look at scripture to see if (as a whole) it can accommodate evolution. If not, what are the implications of trying to dissolve evolution into the biblical narrative?
  3. Look at the scientific reasons why evolution might not be on as solid ground as we’ve been led to believe.

Introduction

  1. Disclaimer
  2. Wrong Information
  3. Definitions
  4. History of Deep Time
  5. Did Darwin embrace Christianity?
  6. Evolutionary Mechanism
  7. Quotes

Not only is the acceptance of evolutionary thought unnecessary for Christians, but it is dangerous. The acceptance of the evolutionary origins story within the Christian church will erase the conviction of the historicity/truth of God’s Word. If the foundations of scripture (established in Genesis) can be marginalized as mythical or poetic, why should we not also be able to reinterpret doctrinal and historical scriptures to match the latest cultural/societal/scientific paradigms? For example, as homosexuality becomes more and more acceptable in today’s culture, it is feasible (seeing how pliable Genesis has been redefined) to expect Christian churches to ordain homosexual ministers. This is already happening in Episcopal, Presbyterian (PCUSA), and Anglican churches. So the battle for the integrity of God’s Word is not just about Genesis, but about the historicity/veracity of the Bible.

The battle of creation/evolution has been waged on many fronts and in many forums. Can my entry into the fray make a difference? My tiny blog may not turn the tide of the many battles, but for those who get a chance to read the following Manifesto, I hope that:

  1. Non-Christians come to faith in Jesus because they see that they can trust God’s Word.
  2. Christians are encouraged to trust God’s Word as cohesive and foundational.
  3. Christians are persuaded not to compromise the clear teachings of scripture simply to accommodate the currently popular paradigm and avoid falling into apostasy.
  4. Everyone is encouraged to study God’s Word for themselves and grow closer to the Creator.

4115-1231

The intended audience of this manifesto is brothers and sisters in Christ who are unsure of the Biblical teachings regarding origins, Christians who purposefully incorporate the evolutionary story into their worldview, and non-Christians who have categorically dismissed the teachings of the Bible because of the belief that the Bible conflicts with the modern academic paradigm. I have sincerely tried to remove wording that would be inflammatory, and my hope is that this presentation will instead be persuasive in order to help bring unity to Christians.

  1. Biblical reasons to exclude evolution in preference of a biblical creation model
    1. Genesis – Writer’s intent
    2. Literal days leave no room for metaphor
    3. God called his creation good
    4. Chrono-genealogies
    5. Adam and Eve were truly the 1st humans
    6. Death came by sin not before
    7. Jesus is not mythical, so neither is Adam
    8. Is there a gap?
    9. Like the Creator did, work six days and rest on the 7th
    10. At the beginning of creation God made them male and female
    11. Worldwide Flood
    12. Deep Time in scripture? Where?
    13. Can we help?
    14. Why not question scientific principles of other miracles?
    15. Is there a better way?
  2. Scientific reasons to exclude evolution
    1. Cosmological
      1. Short term comets
      2. Decaying Magnetic fields in planets, heat on planets/moons
      3. Faint Young Sun Paradox
      4. Super nova Remnants
      5. Laws of Thermodynamics
    2.  Geological
      1. Worldwide flood
      2. Polonium halos
      3. Erosion rates
      4. Hydrogen in Zircons
    3.  Biological/Genetic
      1. Human population growth
      2. DNA in fossil dinosaur bones
      3. Human mutational decay rate
      4. Mitochondrial Eve/Y-chromosome Adam
      5. Information Theory
      6. Living Fossils/stasis
    4. Misconceptions, Misinformation
      1. Junk DNA
      2. Chimp/human similarity
      3. Radiometric dating
      4. Geologic Column
      5. Evidence for evolution
        1. Antibiotic resistant bacteria
        2. Homology
        3. Horse evolution
        4. Whale evolution
      6. Convergence
      7. Missing Links
      8. ALL scientists believe in evolution

The Problem of Evil

…is only a problem for non-Christians. It has been said countless times on internet forums (85,500,000 Google results for “Problem of Evil”) and by pop atheists that the existence of evil is proof that God does not exist.

skull

Photo by Mitja Juraja on Pexels.com

The skeptic’s argument goes something like this:

  1. God is good and all powerful
  2. God would not allow unjust suffering
  3. Evil/suffering exist

Conclusion:

  • Either God is not good
  • Or God is not all powerful
  • Or God does not exist

One of the problems with the argument is that it leaves out the fact that God originally created mankind upright and that God’s creation was originally free of evil. The original pair of humans (Adam and Eve) rebelled against God’s 1 law, and this rebellion brought death, suffering, and destruction into reality (Romans 5 & 8) and onto their descendants. Even creation was affected by sin (Genesis 3:17-18, Romans 8:19-23), therefore it is not unexpected for the Christian to endure earthquakes, famines, and disease.

In addition to this reason, those who think the problem of evil is for Christians, ignore God’s purpose. God has sufficient reason to allow temporary evil for eternal glory. All of creation is intended to honor God and God would be justified in condemning everyone for their inherited guilt as well as their rebellion against His laws. But praise God that He has chosen to give mercy to the undeserving for His ultimate glory!

Here’s the catch for the skeptic: By the very fact that humans recognize the difference between evil/suffering/sadness and good/redemption/joy we have an ultimate standard: God.

The following video helps lay this out with great clarity.

If there were no God and everything proceeded forward from the Big Bang to stellar formulation to the concretion of the earth to chemical evolution of DNA to progression of the “Tree of Life” to humans by means of natural selection acting on random mutations, would humanity even be able to recognize evil/suffering/sadness? In that scenario death, pain, theft, rape, assault, fraud, and loss would never even be noticed because that would be the natural way of things. If humans are simply the a collection of chemicals that have become highly organized over the course of billions of years of pain, death, theft, rape, assault, and fraud, then why do we acutely feel the affects of these things when they happen to us? Why do we recognize them with anger and sadness as injustice when someone assaults us or steals from us or lies to us? We immediately understand that we have been WRONGED because someone has been evil to us. Do we not all recognize that the Nazi Holocaust was the result of people being evil to the Jews? Again, if we’re only the culmination of star dust, why do we recognize this evil as something wrong?

We only recognize evil because God exists and has set the standard for behavior. He allows evil because his purposes are higher. His purpose is love and for us to experience loving Him. If we were only created with the capacity robotically do right and love God then we would be mechanic. People have chosen evil…all of us, and that is why we need the love of God. He had his own Son punished for our evil, so that we would not have to face the wrath of the Eternal Creator if only we cry out to Him in repentance. Check out Romans 10:9-10

That if you will confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.