Category Archives: Book Review

Naturalism And Paganism in Modern Media

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Let me start by saying that I REALLY like the Marvel Avengers story arc (from Iron Man to the Spider-Man: No Way Home). The production quality, the humor, the coherent story arc, the heroism, the casting, the writing, the defeat of the fictional evil that is manifest in reality as the radical environmentalists – ALL are of the highest order. The Marvel movies (if they are not already) will be the defining saga of this generation, in the same way that the original Star Wars movies (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi) were the defining stories of the end of the 20th century.

Having said all of that, there are worldview assumptions buried in the midst of these movies. The worldviews are both naturalism and paganism. And with an unskeptical eye, viewers can adopt these worldviews as basic to the way one sees the universe rather than what God has revealed. My purpose in analyzing these movies for worldview implications is not to bash the stories. Instead, I want my readers to begin to watch movies with the recognition that media creators are NOT unbiased. They put out creative material, but there is always an underlying worldview through which they desire their consumers to see the world. It’s ok to enjoy modern fictional stories, but always be careful to recognize the “message” of the author. It’s not just the Marvel movies, the teaching of naturalism and paganism has become ubiquitous in modern media, but a short analysis of the stories with which most people are familiar should be a good start. As a bonus there are some extra movies/shows beyond the Marvel franchise from which I added a few thoughts.

NOTE to fathers: You are responsible for the content that enters your home. If you allow secular movies into your home, be sure to preview movies before your kids have access and make sure to point out the underlying motivations and worldviews expressed in these movies. There’s a great place for art and entertainment, but be sure that the message of the world is subjected to the revelation of God because of your influence on the messaging in your family.

Now on to the reviews. Any bold, underline or italics is not included in the original. These features are used to highlight what I recognize as the key elements in the worldview being promoted. The original quotes are in red with my thoughts in black immediately beneath the quote

The Amazing Spider-Man

  • Cross-species genetic integration. This is just a note that the authors simply assume that because humans and arachnids are related via a continuum along the “tree of life” that spider DNA can simply be added to humans to provide spider-like qualities. The assumption of a common ancestor drives the narrative
    • Tree of life – the assumption of common ancestry is now assumed by the media
    • “Many of these wonderful creatures are so brilliantly ADAPTED that they can regenerate entire limbs at will.” – Osborn
    • It’s sad that rather than properly giving credit for the design of creatures to the Almighty, movies now are attributing the integrated systems that were designed by God to random mutation and the powers of evolution
    • “This (scientific advancement) is no longer about curing ills, this is about finding perfection” – Osborn
    • This is both a pagan assumption and a naturalistic assumption. Humanity does rightly seek perfection. But because we are sinners, perfection can only be found by grace through faith in Christ alone. The modern academic paradigm (which some call science) cannot bring perfection to humanity.

Shang-Chi

  • The Great Protector deity is portrayed as a dragon. The is not JUST paganism, but Satanism and it is not an accident. The war between the Creator, Jesus, and the serpent/dragon in scripture is not just a benign allegory. For the writers of Shang-Chi to replace Yahweh with the dragon is disrespectful at best and blasphemy at worst
  • “Names are sacred. They connect us not only to ourselves but to everyone who came before”
  • There is an element of ancestor worship (paganism) in this quote
  • “We have cities…rich with culture and history. Thousands of years ago, our people lived in peace and prosperity.”
  • The assumption is that mankind lived for generations in a Utopia and that mankind is basically good. While this may sound like the Biblical story of the garden of Eden, the distinction would be that in reality the original couple (Adam/Eve) disobeyed God almost immediately. People did not live in peace and prosperity for generations. Adam’s sin brought corruption/death/suffering into the universe that God originally created as God (Romans 8), and since that time, humans have been born into sin. But thanks be to God that because of what Jesus has done (fulfilled scripture, perfectly kept the law, died for the sins of the repentant, rose again) there is hope for abundant life in Him.

Iron Man

  • There is glorification of rampant sexual immorality in the opening scene (12 for 12 with cover models) – the consistent conclusion of naturalism is either hedonism or nihilism. Tony Stark embodies both of these unholy worldviews. The soldiers in the Humvee think that Stark’s hedonism is worthy of praise
    • Glorification of gambling
    • Glorification of sexual immorality
  • “Thank you for saving me” – Tony Stark to dying assistant. Only Jesus saves
    • “I know in my heart that it’s right” – Tony Stark
    • The only way to know whether something is TRULY right is not how it feels in someone’s heart. Only by revelation from God, who is perfect and has revealed his expectations for humanity, can someone know what is TRULY right. Isaiah 45:19

Iron Man 2

  • “Technology holds infinite possibilities for mankind, and will one day rid society of all its ills.” – Howard Stark
  • Transcendent power has been attributed to mankind through science/technology. As Romans 1 tells us, if we are not thankful to God, we will inevitably worship something lesser/created…in this case: technology
  • “I will serve this great nation at the pleasure of myself. And there’s one thing that I’ve proven – it’s that you can count on me to pleasure myself.” – Tony Stark (to loud applause)
  • More glorification of hedonism
  • “If people could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him” – Vanko
  • Because the Avengers story arc is at base naturalistic, there is no God and the superheroes stand in the place of the Almighty. So in this case, when the villain is able to make the little deities bleed, he feels he has displaced the “god” of the time
  • “Everything is achievable through technology” – Howard Stark
  • More false attribution of omnipotence to human ingenuity. If the skeptical viewer extrapolates this thinking outward, Stark is deifying humans. That’s idolatry
  • In the movie, Tony Stark creates a new element with powerful lasers and some “elbow grease”. Creating a new element is portrayed as simply a “matter” of some effort and advanced technology. This is a minor point, but many people believe in naturalistic chemical evolution, and this is a just a continuation of that idea that matter/energy is all that is. And the cosmos was able to create itself in a process of continued chemical evolution
  • Secondly, Tony Stark was able to save himself from his degenerative condition. This is a common theme in today’s movies: that with enough focused effort, denial of desires (Buddhism), & extremely hard work a person can save themselves. The gospel of Jesus is that we are completely unable to pay our sin debt. But by grace through faith in Christ alone, there is forgiveness for sins and abundant life. Praise God that He does not rely on human effort to save us. If I was responsible for my own salvation, it would be an utter failure.
  • Was it a coincidence that Elon Musk, the prime advocate of uniting humanity with technology, appeared in this film that advocates the uniting of humanity with technology? While I appreciate Musk’s innovations in batteries, cars, and space travel, his goal is to achieve human consciousness immortality with technology rather than by grace through faith in Christ alone.
  • Making of Bonus Feature: “That we can imbue it (making of IronMan 2) with a sense of humanity and naturalism” – Robert Downey Jr.
  • Robert Downey admits the aim of the films is exactly what I am warning against. Watch with a skeptical eye

Thor

  • “Magic’s just science that we don’t understand yet…If there is an Einstein Rosen Bridge then advanced beings could have crossed it. A primitive culture like the Vikings may have worshiped them as deities”
  • You’ll recognize this inherent push to naturalize everything. With enough time/discovery then everything will be seen to have a naturalistic explanation. The Bible identifies God as the Revealer of mysteries (Daniel 2:47), but the Marvel universe puts technology/discovery and ultimately humans in God’s rightful place.

Captain America

  • At the end end of the movie, Captain America is “flash frozen” in Artic waters. The assumption is that because humans are simply a collection of particles, life, mind, consciousness can simply be frozen and thawed in a continuum. Rather than recognizing that humans have spirits as we are told in the Bible, the writers would have us believe that like the monster of Frankenstein, technology can revive the aggregation of human particles from death

Avengers

  • Consciousness is simply a product of the correct aggregation of matter. When Loki is “transferred” through the portal from one end of the universe to earth, it is implied that he was reconstructed particle by particle (like Star Trek’s beaming process) to retain his consciousness/memories/behavior/powers after reconstruction. This is a very naturalistic idea: “humans are just a collection of particles”
    • “The Tesseract has shown me so much. It’s MORE than knowledge. It’s truth”
    • Whether accidentally or purposefully, Jesus has been dethroned from his rightful place in the Marvel movie franchises. Jesus said “I AM the way, the TRUTH, and the life”. Colossians 2:2-3 says “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ.” Neither knowledge nor truth can be known without revelation from the One, who knows everything: God Himself.
    • “These guys are basically gods” -Agent R
    • There is only one God (Isaiah 45). On a positive note, Captain America responds: “There’s one 1 God maam, and I’m pretty sure He doesn’t dress like that”
    • “How much dark energy did the Allfather have to muster to conjure you here.” – Loki.
    • Is Loki referring to some dark energy from the Marvel Universe, or the mysterious dark energy floated around science communities as a significant component of the material cosmos? It is not clear, but it is humorous that they attempt to tie the concept of dark energy which is science fiction in the science world to science fiction in the science fiction world.
    • There are all kinds of alien life forms in the Avengers movie. The assumption is that life must have evolved all over the universe because of the assumption that life evolved on earth. As if evolution is ubiquitous even through there’s not 1 shred of evidence in favor of evolution.
    • “I thought humans were more evolved than this.” – Thor
    • Again the assumption that humans simply evolved from lower forms of life. Thor’s assumption was that humans should be more empathetic, but evolution cannot explain empathy. Evolution has never been observed, but the Marvel franchise assumes it as basic throughout

Iron Man 3

  • Without direct quotes of naturalism, there was the continuation of assumptions that evolution throughout the universe (through aliens) persists. Also the idea that humans are just a collection of particles that can be manipulated rather than body/spirit created in the image of God is a strong theme throughout

Thor: Dark World

  • “Long before the birth of light, there was darkness. And from that darkness came the dark elves. Millenia ago, the most ruthless of their kind sought to transform our universe into 1 of eternal night.”
  • There are origins stories in all sagas. This origins story further dilutes the true origins story that God revealed in the Bible: In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth

Captain America: Winter Soldier

  • 1:16:11 The consciousness of the German scientist from CA was uploaded to a primitive computer as if consciousness is simply a function of the correct assemblance of ones and zeros. This is a very naturalistic assumption. Remember Elon Musk (and his desire to upload human consciousness to the internet) appearing the Iron Man 2? Interesting
  • “I am not a recording, Fraulein. I may not be the man I once was. The captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am alive. First correction, I am Swiss. Look around you. I have never been more alive. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain.”
  • Given naturalism, brains are just an highly organized aggregation of particles, and the Marvel writers push this assumption as if it is just a lack of technology holding humanity back from experiencing eternal life through unity with technology.

Guardians of the Galaxy

  • This is not an identification of paganism, just a terrible plot hole: After 26 years of traveling around the universe, where did Star Lord find AA batteries for his walkman? And how did magnetic tapes on which the music was stored fight off the forces of friction and entropy to provide such excellent sound quality?
  • “I’m going to be totally honest with you. I forgot you were here.” – StarLord
  • Pink-skinned female is dismissed as being just a sexual tool for StarLord. Hedonism
  • 14:00 blood sacrifice (pagan). There is something about blood which pagans recognize. While the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, pagans try to dilute the meaningfulness of Jesus’ sacrifice by showing it in the context of horror and ritual
  • From Wikipedia – “Taneleer Tivan (The Collector) is one of the Elders of the Universe and is close to his fellow Elder En Dwi Gast (the Grandmaster). He apparently came to self-awareness billions of years ago”
  • “Before creation itself there were 5 singularities. Then the universe exploded into existence. Then the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots. Infinity Stones.”
  • Even naturalists recognize the need for an infinite root cause for the universe. Rather than accepting God’s revelation that He is the source of the universe, life, morality, consciousness, truth, goodness, justice, minds, beauty, information…they would rather assume an infinite universe, or self-aware stones. It’s a ridiculous origins story, but if you reject God’s word, one is left only with ridiculous origins stories and absurdity.
  • This bullet point is not so much about naturalism, but paganism: In the western world, it is not just rare but unheard of that someone be named after a villain in the Bible: Judas, Cain, Herod, Pilate, Satan…but the heroine of this story is Gamora, which sounds exactly like Gomorrah. They are de-stigmatizing the wickedness of Gomorrah by naming the heroine after that wicked place.
  • Speaking of de-stigmatizing abnormalities, we are seeing more and more abnormalities being accepted as normal. The Guardians of the Galaxy is filled with abnormal humanoid skin colors, abnormal attire, abnormal behaviors, feminization of men (Collector)…all in an effort to dilute God’s created or

Avengers: Age of Ultron

  • In the movie, one of the infinity stones combines with a computer program (Jarvis) to bring technology to life. The idea that artificial intelligence can be enveloped and/or created by the correct arrangement of atoms is naturalistic. Naturalists do not realize the abiogenesis is like a perpetual motion machine – impossible
  • The idea that consciousness could escape through the internet as if electricity defines minds is extremely naturalistic
  • “The human race will have every opportunity to improve (evolve in the face of selection pressure)” – Ultron
  • Improve? By what transcendent standard does Ultron consider improvement? Towards what eternal goal defines said improvement? Ultron has made a claim for which his limited understanding cannot account
  • “There were a dozen extinction level events before even the dinosaurs got theirs.” – Ultron
  • Assumptions abound here, but this is the worldview of the naturalist. From God’s eternal word, we know that there has been only 1 extinction-level event: The Worldwide flood of Noah’s day.
  • “When the Earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it” – Ultron
  • This is petty and sarcastic as though rather than God’s work being to restore his creation through Jesus, the naturalist views God as a mythical character of hate
    • “We have to evolve. There’s no room for the weak.” – Ultron
    • While I know that evolution is false, THIS is a consistent understanding of evolution. Those atheists and naturalists, who want to be consistent, must think like Ultron. The weak and unfit should be euthanized to protect the overall gene pool if the theory of evolution is true. This is contradictory to the Christian worldview, which holds that humans have dignity because we are created in God’s image.
    • “Who decides the weak?” – SpeedGuy
    • “Life. Life always decides” – Ultron
    • Again, naturalism is the idea that everything came about without God. And Ultron declares this fable that natural selection determines what’s right. It is a baseless claim and essentially a tautology: “the survivors survive. Whoever/whatever survives is right”
  • “I think a lot about meteors. The purity in them. Boom! The end! Start again. The world made clean for the new man to rebuild. I was meant to be new. I was meant to be beautiful. The world would have looked to the sky and seen hope. Seen mercy. Instead they’ll look up in horror because of you. You’ve wounded me and I give you full marks for that. But like the man said: What doesn’t kill you just makes me stronger (Neitzke)” – Ultron
  • Naturalists like to talk about asteroids a lot: “An asteroid collision with the earth created the moon…an asteroid collision with the earth killed the dinosaurs…” None of those things are valid, but believed on faith nonetheless.
  • “I am” – Vision
  • Taking the words of the Almighty for himself, Vision’s character is blasphemous

Antman

  • “The laws of nature transcend the laws of man. And I have transcended the laws of nature” – YellowJacket
  • It is unusual for naturalists to speak of transcendence as transcendence makes no sense in their worldview where “matter is that is or was or ever will be (Carl Sagan)”.
  • “Solenopsis mandibularis known for their bite, the fire ants have evolved into remarkable architects” – Pim
  • Again evolution is reified as if it is a creative force that can produce “remarkable architects”. In real life, evolution cannot even account for the software needed to produce anything, but the writers of the Marvel series embed their worldview into the franchise

Dr. Strange

  • “This universe is only one of an infinite number. Worlds without end. Some benevolent and life giving. Others filled with malice and hunger. Dark place where powers older than time lie ravenous and waiting. Who are you in this vast multiverse, Mr. Strange?”
  • The multiverse is an unscientific rescue device devised by those who have faith in naturalism. Because this universe exhibits obvious and irrefutable teleological fine-tuning, naturalists have postulated an infinite number of universes all with different laws and parameters. They think that we just happen to live in lucky universe where all of the laws/parameters are JUUUUUST right for life, mind, consciousness, justice, love, beauty, symbiosis, water cycles, sodium cycles, continental plate tectonics…It’s a completely unscientific proposal as it’s both unfalsifiable and unobservable. It’s a silly story
  • “The language of the mystic arts is as old as civilization. The sorcerors of antiquity called the use of this language spells. But if that word offends your modern sensibilities, you can call it a program. The source code that shapes reality. We harness energy drawn from other dimensions of the multiverse to cast spells. To conjure shields and weapons. To make magic.”
  • I realize that this is science fiction. But in an effort to push their naturalistic worldview, they pull from what they view as scientific and throw it into their story as basic. It can never be known if there were a multiverse. It is ridiculous to call it scientific
  • “But the dark dimension it’s a place beyond time. This world doesn’t have to die. This world can take it’s place along side so many others as part of the One. The great and beautiful One. We can all live forever.“
  • This is paganistic pantheism: Everything is just part of the unified deity of nature. Paganism
    • “Really? What do you have to gain out of this New Age dimensional utopia?”
    • “The same as you. The same as everyone. Life. Eternal Life. People think in terms of good and evil when really time is the true enemy of us all. Time kills everything.”
    • God defines good/evil. Naturalists do not want to recognize goodness or evil, so it’s not a surprise to see them vilify time. It’s also contradictory that although time is the hero for evolution, but here they recognize that time is an enemy for naturalists.
    • “What about the people YOU killed?”
    • “Tiny. Momentary specks in the within an indifferent universe. You see what we are doing. The world is not what it ought to be. Humanity longs for the eternal. For a world beyond time because time is what enslaves us. Time is an insult. Death is an insult. Doctor. We do not seek to rule this world. We seek to save it to hand it over to Dormammu, who is the intent of all evolution the why of all existence.”
    • To naturalists, humans are just “momentary speck” so there is no real injustice for humans to be unjustly killed. The speaker promptly switches from naturalism to paganism by honoring a false deity

Thor: Ragnarok

  • Thor praying to his ancestor: “Odin, I bid you take your palace in the halls of Valhalla. Where the brave shall live forever. Nor shall we mourn but rejoice for those who have died a glorious death.”
  • Ancestor worship is pagan.

Guardians of the Galaxy II

  • “I’m what you call a celestial, sweetheart. Like a God? Small ‘g’ god”
  • There is only 1 God.
  • “I don’t know where I came from exactly. The 1st thing I remember is flickering. Adrift in the cosmos…utterly and entirely alone. Over millions of years I learned to control the molecules around me. I grew smarter and stronger. And I continued building from there. Layer by layer the very planet you walk on now. But I wanted more. I desired meaning. There must be some life out there in the universe besides just me. I thought. And so I set myself to task to find it. I created what I imagined biological life to be like. Down to the most minute detail. I wanted to experience what it truly meant to be human. Until I found what I sought. I was not alone in the universe after all.”
  • While science fiction, this character describes what many believe happened in reality: “over millions of years, molecules organized themselves into more and more complex arrangements, until finally, some collections of particles came to life. And some of those particles began to create movies and demand justice. It is taught in schools and universities that like this “divine” character, and despite evidence & universal laws, life has evolved smarter and stronger over time.
  • “Over the millions and millions of years of my existence, I’ve made many mistakes Peter, but you’re not one of them.”
  • Like almost every nature documentary, this science fiction show shouts the mantra: “over the millions and millions of years”. It’s part of the dogma of naturalism and it is being taught as though it were fact in almost all media.
  • “Only we can remake the universe. Only we can take the bridle of the cosmos and lead it where it wants to go”
  • Both pagans and naturalists think that humans can control the cosmos and give the purposeless cosmos some sort of subjective purpose

Black Panther

  • “Millions of years ago a meteorite made of vibranium, the strongest substance in the universe struck the continent of Africa. When the time of man came, 5 tribes settled on it and called it Wakanda”
  • Most every nature documentary begins exactly the same way: “millions of years ago”. Just like above when we talked about how naturalists love asteroids…again, they propose an asteroid as the source of “meaning”. It’s more hilarious than anything
  • “Praise the ancestors” 21:50
  • Pagan ancestor worship
  • “TChaka (dead king) we call on you to come to your son”
  • More pagan ancestor worship
  • Not pagan but actual wisdom and an accidental recognition of reality: “If you let the refugees into Wakanda, they bring their problems with them, and then Wakanda is just like everywhere else.”
  • “Don’t scare me like that colonizer (to white man)”
  • Wokeness has infected everything. As if all white people are racist and colonizers, the writers added that bit of poison to the movie.
  • “Didn’t all life start right here on this continent (evolutionary Out of Africa theory), so aren’t all people your people?”
  • The evolutionary story teaches that all humans emerged from the continent of Africa after a small group of homonids evolved enough traits to make them human. That story is in direct contradiction with the Bible, which reveals that humans are all related through both Adam and Noah after being created in God’s image.
  • “Everybody dies. It’s just life around here“
  • A consistent naturalist/atheist will be a nihilist as they declare that there is no purpose or meaning in the cosmos
  • “We got spies embedded in every nation on earth. I know how colonizers think. So we’re gonna use their own strategy against them. We’re gonna send vibranium weapons out to our War Dogs. They’ll arm oppressed people all over the world, so they can finally rise up and kill those in power. And their children. And anyone else who takes their side. It’s time they know the truth about us. We’re warriors. The World’s gonna start over (Build Back Better), and this time, we’re on top. The sun will never set on the Wakandan empire (Marxism)”
  • Again, we see the same seeds that the World Economic Forum are planting: critical theory. Sadly, there is a strong movement in today’s world to kill and destroy society, so that it can be rebuilt in the image of those, who feel “repressed”.
  • “Soon it will be the conquerors or the conquered (Marxism)”
  • “I call upon the ancestors. I call upon the Bast. I am here with my son, TChalla. Heal him
  • Pagan ancestor worship
  • “Praise the ancestors! Praise the ancestors!”
  • More Paganism

Avengers: Infinity War

  • “Allfathers, let the dark magic flow through me one last time”
  • Paganism
  • “At the dawn of the universe, there was nothing. Then Boom the Big Bang sent 6 elemental crystals hurtling across the virgin universe. These infinity stones each control an essential aspect of existence. Space. Reality. Power. Soul. Mind. Time”
  • The story of naturalism is taught in this science fiction as being sparked by stones, but we recognize the same story (without the stones) being taught in universities, high schools, and media
  • “He (Vision) is more than that. He’s evolving.”
  • The assumption that matter and power can produce life and then evolve is simply religious in nature: the religion of naturalism
  • “You might have a choice. Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays. Jarvis. Ultron. Tony. Me, the stone. All of them mixed together. All of them learning from one another. You’re saying that Vision is not just the stone? I’m saying that if we take out the stone, there’s a whole lot of Vision left. Perhaps the best parts.” 
  • These lines assume that mind/consciousness is simply an accidentally aggregated and complex arrangement of particles. It is a religious (naturalism) assumption that part of the blind, pitiless, indifferent cosmos came alive, but this is exactly what the writers of this epic saga believe
  • “I’m only alive because fate wants me alive. Fate wills it so”
  • Personification of fate as having purpose and foresight is the reification fallacy. It is an expression of both Paganism and naturalism
  • “We all think that at first. We are all wrong”
  • Essentially, they are saying that truth cannot be known. This is a post modern relativistic thinking. However Truth can be known in the person of Jesus
  • “To ensure that whoever possesses it understands its power. The stone demands a sacrifice. In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. A soul for a soul.”
  • Paganism
  • “The universe judged you and you failed”
  • Reification fallacy and deification of the cosmos. It’s both pagan and naturalistic
  • “I’d watch the sun rise on a grateful universe”
  • More reification of the particles of the cosmos

Antman 2

  • “Molecular disequilibrium”
  • As if mind & consciousness are determined by an arrangement of particles rather than God’s breathing of life into a person. It’s naturalistic
  • “This place it changes you. Adaptation is part of it, but some of it is evolution”

Captain Marvel

  • “No one can look upon the Supreme Intelligence in its true form. Our subconscious chooses the way they appear to us. So it’s sacred. It’s personal.”
  • Paganism
  • “Supreme Intelligence: A. I. Leader of the Kree Civilization”
  • This assumes that AI (or bits of matter) can become conscious
  • “We must all be ready to join the Collective if that is our fate”
  • The collective is implied to be a pantheist divineness, and fate (yet again in the Marvel universe) reified as purposeful.

Avengers: End Game

  • “I know what I must do. I will shred this universe down to the last atom. Then with the stones you’ve collected for me, I create a new one – teeming with life. That knows not what it has lost, but only what it has been given. A grateful universe.”
  • While this is not specifically naturalistic or pagan, it is an affront to the LORD of glory, who HAS given breath and life to this universe. Those, who suppress the knowledge of this Creator, are ungrateful. They love darkness rather than light. 

One final note on the Marvel franchise: The real life version of Thanos is the World Economic Forum. They are the enemy, so whatever they promote should be rejected!

Fantastic 4

  • “My research suggests that exposure to high energy cosmic storm borne on solar winds might have triggered the evolution of early planetary life. In 6 weeks, another cloud with the same elemental profile will pass earth’s orbit. A study conducted in space could fundamentally advance our knowledge about the structure of the human genome, cure countless diseases, extend human life. Give kids a chance to live longer stronger healthier…”
  • The origin of life, the origin of the human genome, the origin of ALL genomes remain a complete mystery, but superhero movies like to preach that if there were just more funding, more vision that scientism could come up with the answer even though they fail to understand that the problem is like the perpetual motion machine. The only solution is the one that God already solved: His life-giving breath
  • The whole idea of the Fantastic 4 is that intense selective pressure (radiation) drives new traits of evolution…in their case super powers

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer

  • “When the universe began, it was no bigger than a marble and then bam – It exploded. And in a trillionth of a second, it expanded exponentially to what became the universe we know today.”
  • Naturalism. This quote is religious in nature as is cannot be known – only assumed
  • “I’ve been cross referencing the Surfer’s radiation through every astronomical database, Altair 7, Rigel 3, Vega 6. And now they’re lifeless. Barren. Some even shattered. Everywhere the Surfer goes, eight days later, the planet dies.”
  • As if there’s life out there in the universe somewhere. Astrobiology is a lonely fruitless search…lacking all evidence
  • The Silver Surfer appeared to have power over death to bring Storm back to life. – Paganism

Alive (History Channel show)

  • In show after show, participants feeling great emotions of gratitude, rather than thanking the Almighty Creator, thank:
    • The land
    • Dead animals
    • Rivers
    • Lakes
    • Rocks
    • Wood
    • Ancestors
  • They exhibit the exact actions one would expect since Romans 1 is true 
  • “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 foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

Halo

  • S1 E9
    • “We are born. We live and we die according to the rules of blind and unguided evolution. As a result our species are simply not equipped to survive what comes next. It is time for us to take control of our evolution, to push past our narrow ignorance and venture out into the wide unknown, where we will discover our true potential.” – Dr. Halsey
    • This is the definitive FAITH of naturalism: evolution is blind faith, but humans want to control an unguided blind process.
    • “Much has been lost and there will surely be more sacrifices to come. But I believe our species will soon spread its wings and soar to new heights, that we will rewrite what it means to be human. That we will achieve transcendence.” – Dr. Halsey
    • Do you now recognize the blending of paganism that is built upon naturalism which is being taught a fact?

The Sixth Day

  • “If you believe that God created man in his own image, then you also believe that God gave man the power to understand evolution. To exploit science. To manipulate the genetic code. To do exactly what I’m doing. I’m just taking over where God left off.”
  • The entire idea that memories and feelings can be saved to memory is materialistic. And then the assumption that memories can then be “written” to the brain of a cloned human as some sort of duplicate is materialistic as if memories and feelings are reproducible.
  • This movie promotes the idea that eternal life is achievable to the never-ending reproduction of clones
  • “We don’t have to die. I’m offering you the chance to live forever. Never aging. Perfect in every way.”
  • The faith of naturalistic paganism

John Wick

  • “There’s no rhyme or reason to this life. It’s days like today scattered among the rest”
  • The consistent naturalist is bound to see life like John Wick: through the eyes of the nihilist.

Edge of Tomorrow

  • “The thing you gotta understand is that perfectly evolved world-conquering organism. For all we know there are thousands or millions of those asteroids floating around in the cosmos like a virus. And they’re just waiting to crash land into a world with just the right conditions. All they need is for the dominant life form to attack.”
  • “eVoLutiOn!!!! eVoLutiOn EVERYWHERE! eVoLutiOn dUn iT!!!”

Robocop 2014

Jurassic Park: World Dominion

  • “Human beings have no more right to safety or liberty than any other creature on this planet. We not only lack dominion over nature, we are subordinate to it. And now here we are with the opportunity to rewrite life at our fingertips. And just like nuclear power, nobody knew what to expect with genetic engineering, but they pressed the button and hoped for the best. Just like you are doing now. Yep. You. You control the future of our survival on planet earth. According to you, the solution is genetic power. But that same power could devastate the food supply, create new diseases, alter the climate even further…In order to instigate revolutionary change, we must transform human consciousness” -Ian Malcolm
  • If ever there was a perfect ending to the teachings of paganism resulting from an assumption of naturalism, this is it. Malcolm’s character assumes that humanity is no more than a collection of particles rather than image bearers of the Almighty. And the consistent result of this irrational thinking is that nature is worthy of praise. In direct opposition to what God tells mankind to accomplish (“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”” – Genesis 1:26) Malcolm’s character tells his class that humans are subordinate to nature. It is both blasphemous and irrational. The writers of the Jurassic Park franchise couldn’t help but add their mantra of “gLobaL wArmiNg” into the Malcolm’s little diatribe. They believe that the planet (Gaia) is in danger of destruction by the activities of mankind, so the best solution (for them) is reducing the global population
  • The Jurassic Park franchise is full of naturalist teachings regarding evolution and other fanciful origins stories

What are some examples of naturalism and paganism in modern media that you’ve seen?

Book Review: The Best Religion For the Task At Hand

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This is a response to the online book, The Best Religion For the Task At Hand by Damien Harrison, whose online personality is The Tall Friendly Atheist Dad. Writing a book is a huge task and Harrison should be commended for making the effort to write and publish his book. The book can be purchased for $10.99 Australian here. Should anyone read this review, it should be noted that critiques are of ideas, application (or misapplication) of reason, and not of the author himself

This will be a strange book review as the book that Harrison wrote was in response to an article that Lita Cosner (Sanders) of Creation Ministries International wrote in response to a conglomeration of online videos by God-deniers. So, this is a response, to a response to a response.

You’ll see throughout this response that Harrison is not solely responding to Cosner. He is attacking Christianity at large. I’m not interested in defending any arguments by Cosner, but I will be pointing out throughout that Harrison has no grounds for judging others because of his assumptions on origins and his failed epistemology. There are many times Harrison purposefully mischaracterizes Christian teachings and displays no more than a surface-level understanding of the Bible. You can see his quotes from his book in red italics below with my responses in the default back text

In the Foreword Harrison begins with an uncharitable definition of creationism that only God-deniers hold. It’s not just uncharitable, before taking on her arguments, Harrison has poisoned-the-well. He’s taken Cosner and painted her with a brush of derision so his audience will see her as incompetent

“Creationism – the strand of Christianity that dismisses the findings of numerous fields of science simply because the conclusions reached by the evidence don’t line up with a literal reading of the Bible…Furthermore, creationism is wrong for the reasons it thinks it is correct.”

Those, who hold to creationism (The Bible should be interpreted contextually) do not dismiss findings as is asserted, but are skeptical of the assumptions with which naturalists interpret facts. Harrison is hypocritical and irrational in his thinking, because shortly thereafter, he falsely accuses Cosner of engaging in the poisoning-the-well fallacy

Harrison misquotes her and then falsely accuses her of a fallacy. Costner did NOT poison the well. She presented the case that atheists have no logical ground and linked to an article that explains step-by-step why. It’s not clear why Harrison would leave out that crucial bit of information in his response, but atheists have no logical ground for holding to standards of honesty. It’s not a good start (or a good look) from Harrison to lead off with poisoning-the-well fallacy and then falsely moan when he feels poisoned

This misrepresentation persists. The difference is in the presuppositions. The science is not disputed. To say that what can be known about the distant past (millions of years ago) has the same veracity as arithmetic and physics that can be measured in the present is a false equivocation. We find this conflation in many online discussions and Harrison builds his case upon this false assumption. To assert something to be “wrong”, one must have an epistemology that can justify knowledge, morality, logic…which atheism/naturalism does not. How can the accidental aggregation of stardust declare anything to be absolutely right/wrong?

“To make myself clear, the purpose of this book is not to defame, slander, belittle or impugn any particular person or organisation. Its purpose is to criticise BAD theology by demonstrating how MORALITY and governance based on socially-restrictive theology leads to DETRIMENTAL outcomes on both a personal and societal level.”

We’ll just have to stick around to see if he can indeed make sense of words BAD, MORALITY and DETRIMENTAL. If he maintains his atheistic naturalism, we can expect only an inconsistent sermon about things that he finds icky or personally distasteful since that’s all that atheism can conjure up

“However, I do hope that this book becomes one data point among many in a body of opinion that slowly turns the cultural tide away from beliefs in magic and superstition, and towards a more HUMANE approach to culture and politics.”

Magic? You mean like the naturalistic explanations of the cosmic evolution, dark matter (sciency-sounding moniker for superstition), 1st star, abiogenesis, the emergence of consciousness, the emergence of morality/altruism, the emergence of reasoning from non-reasoning source, purpose… ALL of those are magic for the naturalist since nature does not produce any of those.

Humane? I guess we’ll have to read ahead to see why one clump of cells (Harrison) thinks that other clumps of cells (Cosner) are worth protecting in a universe “that exhibits the properties one would expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, just blind, pitiless, indifference”

It’s rich that Harrison would project his own Nazi propaganda onto Cosner as if Christianity were simply “propaganda”. When in reality Harrison who dislikes the Germans for claiming that “Jews weren’t persons” literally claims that developing humans in the womb are “not really persons”. The irony is completely lost on Harrison when out of 1 side of his mouth he denounces the Nazis then with a forked tongue he uses the Nazi dehumanization of millions and millions of tiny unborn victims

Doubling down on a bad argument, Harrison then poisons the well with a false attribution of “Hitler was a Christian”. His citation of this long refuted fiction is based solely on the top half of his link. Should one venture to the second half of the link, a rational person will see that Hitler loved manipulating the church for his own Darwinistic purposes, but hated the actual teachings of the Bible and Christianity. As long as the term Christian served his propaganda, he was willing to hold the moniker. Harrison would have shown himself to be a diligent scholar rather than something of a propagandist himself by showing the actual scholarly writings of the Nazi leader by Richard Weikart. But his research was as deep as a hair’s breadth and as wide a particle from which he thinks consciousness arose. 

Darwinism in Nazi Propaganda

https://evolutionnews.org/author/rweikart/

P38 “Humanists take an active stance against slavery, genocide and torture and specifically because Humanists understand the needless harm, suffering and risk to life that these things have been shown to cause. When your goal is human well-being, when you know that certain actions result in harm and suffering, and when you have the power to reduce harm and suffering by neither participating in nor endorsing those actions, it’s simple – your morality is already superior to that of the Bible”

Defining the goal would be the appropriate place to start. He stated that the goal of humanists is to reduce harm and suffering of humans. That’s not a bad goal. In fact, most people would agree, but we have to dig a little deeper to see if there are any internal contradictions within this religion and how they handle mutually exclusive situations.

P41 “Bible actively endorses and celebrates things like slavert, genocide, and torture”

What Harrison fails to address is the slavery has existed since sin entered the world. People have treated others cruelly so long as they can get away with it. Outside of God’s revelation there are no justifiable transcendent limitations placed on humanity for how to we should treat one another. Throughout the Pentateuch limits were placed on masters that ultimately ended up being “Love your neighbor”. Outside of Israel, there were no restrictions on indentured servitude or slavery. For a more detailed understanding of the “active endorsement if slavery” see

The Bible Endorses Slavery

P45 Harrison takes the least charitable and least contextually-relevant reading of all texts to support his perpetual caricature of Christian theology

P47-48 “If a religious text happens to endorses (insert bad things) … that religious text deserves to be roundly criticised”

Using what transcendent standard should the criticism be based? If those doing the criticism hold the same view (atheism) that has caused more death, suffering, and hatred than any other view, why should that criticism be heeded?

Chapter 4 was the personal incredulity fallacy and essentially said “Since some Christians failed to keep the Sabbath, then Christianity is false.”

It’s a ridiculous chapter

Chapter 5 “Is God a Homicidal Maniac?”

With a title like that, (sarcasm font begin) there’s SURE to be no emotional or inflammatory arguments made by the author (sarcasm font end)

Cosner’s Actual argument: False Atheist Premise: That God routinely orders killing, and for arbitrary reasons”

Harrison criticizes Cosner for moving the goalposts but misquotes her argument leaving out the weightiest element of the argument

Harrison (partially) quoting Cosner “That’s a false premise. God does not routinely order killing”

Notice how Harrison (arbitrarily?) left out the word “arbitrary reasons”. God has never killed anyone for arbitrary reasons. 

I have had the privilege of having my writings critiqued by Harrison. One of Harrison’s favorite weapons is to claim: “yOu didN’t QuoTe tHe wHoLe cOnTexT!!!!!!”

It’s a shame that Harrison didn’t bother to apply that critique to himself, but do atheists even have a moral standard by which to make sure they uphold consistency or honesty?

Strawman arguments and uncharitable literalism (ignoring genre/context)  persist throughout the rest of the chapter.

In my online interactions with atheists, I hear all the time that the Bible or Scientists, who believe the Bible do not make any testable predictions. Notice how Harrison totally misrepresents Cosner’s arguments:

P73: “Parents will eat their children? Looks like God is endorsing familial cannibalism to me”

Not once did Harrison consider God’s foreknowledge of the future being revealed to Ezekiel even though that is what was clearly being communicated. God has knowledge of the future, and He’s telling Ezekiel that the impending punishment upon the rebellious Israelites will be so severe that they will eat their own family members. God’s knowledge not endorsement, but someone with only a surface-level reading of the Bible wouldn’t know the difference

On p75 Harrison tries to trap Christians on the horns of a trilemma but instead commits the trifurcation fallacy:

  1. Either the Bible does not accurately represent God (fatal to the fundamentalist cause)
  2. Christians believe genocide is morally OK (confirming you need to twist your morals to make Biblical morality acceptable)
  3. God does not actually exist (Rendering the Bible as pure mythology)

Considering that point 2 is false (Since God is the ultimate authority, He cannot commit murder/genocide) and there is at least 1 more option, even though Harrison has taken a class on philosophy, he’s clearly not putting what he learned into practice. There are any number of possible additional options, but 1 of them is 4. God has a sufficient justification to render judgment on a people group. Knowing that the Bible teaches that humans have ALL sinned and no one deserves God’s mercy, it’s not just a people group that can get righteous judgment, but ALL people have rightly earned God’s holy judgment. That ANYONE has received grace is an amazing fact and makes God worthy of praise.

Ch 6 Non-stop attack on reformed thinking. For a rebuttal on reformed thinking see https://carm.org/doctrine-and-theology/unconditional-election/

“I know two people does not a religious orthodoxy make, but if Cosner and my Methodist friend combined represent something approaching the norm of Modern Christian theology, then IT CAN ONLY BE SURMISED that not only does Christianity require you to shun more humane interpretations of morality in favour of being compelled to say nice things about God at every opportunity for the rest of your life, but Christianity also requires you to conclude that picking up sticks is treason and that babies need to be killed because they’re potentially dangerous.”

“Bottom line: If you’re not convinced that Christianity requires you to twist your morality to fit in re-read the above paragraph until you are.”

Essentially, Harrison says that if you don’t believe his atheistic caricature of Christianity, re-read his book until you’re convinced his caricature is actual Christianity.

Ch7 

Harrison starts off this chapter criticizing Jesus for upholding the laws given to Moses. But again, Harrison does so without a consistent & transcendent standard…just his temporal personal preferences.

Harrison misunderstands Cosner’s assertion that the Christian worldview justifies charity. He then proceeds to say that charity & government programs existed long before the Christian worldview became widespread. This is another of his examples of uncharitable and purposeful misreading to push his agenda. Cosner never said Christianity is the source of all government welfare as Harrison implied. But the Christian worldview is the sole ideology that can justify all human value, so that any charity would be expected. Were naturalism true, why help the weak or unfit? The humanist religion must deny one of their core tenets (survival of the fittest) or redefine it to claim to love charity

P87-88 “If Jesus endorses the Old Testament and was even around when it all happened then Jesus the son is just as answerable as God the father in all human rights violations and war crimes”

Anyone else see the problem with Harrison’s logic? Human rights violations. From where do human rights come? If not from God, then there can be no such thing as human rights! As much as Harrison hates Frank Turek, Harrison is literally stealing from the Christian worldview to argue against it. He does the same thing with the concept of war crimes…as if there is a transcendent standard of morality by which criminals must be judged for crimes. How did a cosmos made only of particles produce transcendent moral standards such that Harrison can pronounce judgment on the Almighty? It’s ridiculous of him

Since God’s nature is the source of human rights (humans are created in his image), God has never violated them. Since the transcendent moral standard comes from God’s unchanging character, He cannot criminally break them. God’s judgment for rebellion is just and since Harrison has no rational standard by which to judge the Almighty, his objection is a dismal failure

P90 Back in his early chapters, Harrison shrieked (incorrectly) that Cosner employed the poisoning the well fallacy…and then promptly poisoned the well against her. In his chapter called “What About Him?” Harrison leads off with the assertion that Jesus is a racist and implies that creationists (and by association with Jesus all Christians) are racist with his line “And let us not forget that Creationist white supremacist groups are still active today in Christian America.”

You’ll notice how Harrison insinuated that white supremacists are creationists (and followers of Jesus) so being a creationist/Christian opens you up to being a racist. He’ll hem and haw with “plausible deniability” and say that’s not what he intended, but the well is poisoned.

Ch8 Here Harrison tries to project his personal temporal preference (which he calls his religion of humanism) onto God. So, Harrison feels justified in condemning God for judging the sin of mankind in the worldwide flood. Does God not have the right to do with his creation as He wills? Why not? I covered this in a separate blog post, Stay in Your Lane. Harrison does not know how to properly do an internal critique. Should he want to correctly show why the Bible is incorrect regarding God’s morality, he must take on the Christian position (for purposes of argumentation) and show how it leads to an inconsistency or an absurdity. But as it is, his objections are just screaming at the air and stomping his feet.

On pg97, Harrison opines loudly and ignorantly about Jesus cursing the fig tree. Lost to Harrison and sadly even most Christians is what Jesus was actually trying to say. For reference, see Isaiah 5. God describes planting a garden and doing everything necessary for it to bear much fruit…to be a delight to the vinedresser. But the vineyard (Israel) fails to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49). Instead, the vineyard is impotent…worshipping false idols and prostituting itself among the nations. As Jesus enters the last week of his life, He is justly judging Israel (the fig tree) never to bear fruit again because of their wickedness and their upcoming unjust murder of the Messiah (Matt 27:25).

P101 “To sum it up, ending the life of a plant or animal for the reasonable sustainment of life isn’t a bad thing – animals eat plants and animals eat other animals all the time. But killing humans in a fit of rage is a bad thing”

Why? According to atheists, what transcendent standard proclaims this to be true? How do you know? Would it be wrong to kill Trump? Putin? Tucker Carlson? Alex Jones? Hitler?

Secondly, I’ve heard from evolutionists that humans are simply animals. “Human beings are still fish” – PZ Myers. “Human beings are animals” – Dawkins

If humans are simply animals, what’s wrong with animals killing other animals? How do you know? What is the distinction between 1 type of animal and another type of animal with regards to killing? Flush with internal contradictions, the humanist, who has a faith commitment to evolutionism, has no rational justification for calling 1 type of interaction between animals as immoral and any other type of interaction between animals as moral. Only in the Christian worldview can the murder of humans be justifiably shown as immoral.

CH9 Harrison starts ch9 with a plan to “fix” Christianity by taking out God, and simply replacing it with secular humanism. All Fixed! He proclaims that the group of people, who are responsible for building, staffing, and supporting more schools, orphanages, hospitals, charitable donations, mission organizations, and general welfare should become more like the secular religion that has done NONE of that. I did find it interesting that there is one atheist orphanage in the world. So, in all of history and throughout all civilizations, there is only 1 orphanage created in the name of atheism. I do understand that humanism and atheism are not completely synonymous, but there is near complete overlap in their Venn diagrams. The orphanage is on tenuous financial grounds. We’ll see if the humanists can rally with actual financial support rather than just keyboard virtual signaling. But it does make one wonder, if humanists are so bent on helping the suffering, why is the only measurable metric of their actual assistance almost completely missing?

Ch10 Not realizing that Christianity is the explanation for all of history, life, origins and the future, Harrison declares that Jesus or his teachings are unneeded because “It is fair to say that if numerous independent cultures came to the same principles without Jesus (in this case The Golden Rule), it indicates that that The Golden Rule didn’t need a Jesus to make it.” (duplicate “that” in original)

But as Christians, we would expect the Golden Rule to be a worldwide phenomenon since humans are all created in God’s image. All humans know what is right/wrong in general because it is written on our hearts (Rom 2:15). So, his objection stems from an ignorance of the Christian worldview or malevolence against Jesus. 

CH11

Why didn’t Jesus teach people about antibiotics? That wasn’t his purpose. Throughout, the book, Harrison’s assumption has been that secular humanism’s goal, so he asks “Is your morality focused on maximising human well-being and reducing pain and suffering by having a rational understanding of the world around you or is your morality simply focused on making sure the feelings of an infinitely great and powerful God aren’t hurt because someone ate shellfish.”

But that is not the standard. The Bible is clear that God’s purposes are to be glorified by saving unworthy sinners. Jesus’ own words tell us why He came into the word. John 12:47. Paul affirms this revelation in his 1st letter to Timothy. Chapter 1 verse 15

Ch12 Harrison leads off with a howler:

“Because Cosner’s morality is based on the will of the supreme intelligence behind the creation of the universe as revealed in the Bible, there should be no possible way I could counter any of her arguments gained from that theology and methodology”

That’s like saying, “if the speeding laws in a country truly were from the state, there would be no way to argue your way out of a ticket with a police officer”

It’s just ridiculous

Next he does do a very good thing by defining terms. Unfortunately, his conclusions end up as temporal preferences rather than actual objective morality

“In my estimation, the essence of morality should be designed by what is universal to the shared human experience – health, wellbeing and personal and economic freedoms”

It’s fine to love your neighbor, and your enemies…in fact, this is the actual Christian position as opposed to what Harrison has been on about. In fact, my article about why Empathy is arbitrary, inconsistent, and irrational for the atheist exposes the utter lack of foundation from which atheists loudly prattle-on about their virtue. So, on which foundation do they stand to prattle-on? Knowing Harrison’s hatred for Frank Turek, atheists are literally stealing their worldview from God in an attempt to make sense of their assumptions.

Getting back to Harrison’s prattling: ”Jehovah’s Witness families have died because of their parent’s belief that…it is better for their child to die…This is an abject failure of theism.”

Did anybody catch what he did there? It’s called a hasty generalization. “Because 1 theistic group did something I don’t like, then ALL theism is an abject failure”

Garrison doubles down on p133 (this is a paraphrase of Harrison’s 7 paragraphs) Westboro Baptist church says mean things, so Christianity is false

On p134 Harrison mocks the Bible as not being God’s Word because “When someone reads the Bible, they are free to interpret the text in any way they see fit”. The inferred point from him then is that if the Bible can be interpreted in many ways, then NONE of them are correct. This is a sweeping generalization, which takes the form: if there are many counterfeits then all are counterfeit. 

But Christians do not believe this and the Bible teaches against what Harrison says. The Bible is the revelation of God, and is justification for knowledge being possible at all (2 Tim 2:2, Act 17:11)

P134 Harrison doesn’t think his argument through when he opines about what he believes to be the total flexibility in biblical interpretation

“Case in point: In Isaiah 7:14, the word that is commonly translated as virgin in the verse “.,..the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son…” does not mean virgin – the original Hebrew word almah just meant a young woman of child-bearing age without ant reference to previous sexual activity” 

Harrison displays ignorance to the word he has grown to loathe – context. In what context was this Word from the Almighty spoken to Isaiah? The king of Judah, King Ahaz was worried about the imminent invasion from the most powerful army in that area of the world. He was considering a bad alliance and the LORD gave Ahaz the prophecy that the nations he feared would becomes desolate. And the sign would be that an “almah” would give birth to a son. Harrison believes it is likely that the LORD said: “a girl of child-bearing age will bear a son” as if that’s some sort of unusual state of circumstances. As if a girl of child-bearing age had ever had a son before as a sign that the most powerful army in that part of the world would be destroyed. Neither myself nor Harrison are Hebrew scholars, but Harrison’s opinion that God would give a sign that a woman would have a son as a sign from God is a lazy and ill-conceived objection. Because the Hebrew word also means virgin, the context clearly shows the word to hold the meaning that all Bible translators, all Hebrew scholars, and all Christians have known for thousands of years.

The Criteria p135

The crux of Harrison’s argument can be distilled to this 1 thing:

He has a subjective opinion that morality is “In my estimation, the essence of morality should be designed by what is universal to the shared human experience – health, wellbeing and personal and economic freedoms”

Let’s call it morality H. We’ll call Christianity morality C

Harrison claims that H > C based on H as the standard. But this is not a valid comparison. To determine TRUTH, a comparison would need to be done against a transcendent standard (T). Since atheism cannot account for unchanging, abstract, absolutes, the best Harrison can say is “My feelings are better than yours”

The strength of Christianity is that it does make a claim to be a transcendental standard. The unchanging, transcendent, absolute Monarch, who created and upholds creation, has deemed certain behaviors as moral and others as immoral. So like it or not: God’s creation – God’s rules

C = T

Therefore C > H based on the standard of T

Jesus said the greatest commandment (Matthew 22) is this “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

IN THAT ORDER. So, we as God’s creation and image bearers are to love God supremely and follow this with loving our neighbors (and even our enemies – Luke 6)

P146 “So it turns out that the best religion for the task at hand of helping inform a human-centric morality that increases well-being…is no religion at all”

While his whole book has been building a case against Christianity and for the religion of humanism, his last line of his book rejects his own premise. It’s a fitting end to a book filled with caricatures of Christianity, baseless assertions, and sloppy logic

Review: Good Night Oppy

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This isn’t a typical full review of the new content by Amazon, but I’ll include my overall thoughts about the movie

It really is stunning to me to hear God-deniers say. “The worldwide flood recorded in Genesis is impossible.” or “there’s no way the entire globe could have been flooded as recorded in Genesis” or “Noah’s flood? That’s just a fairy tale”. What does that have to do with the movie, Oppy?

At near the 9 minute mark one of the lab coats says: “The two Viking orbiters as they looked down on Mars, they saw…that’s strange. There could be signs of past water flowing. Was Mars once a green world with living things and blue oceans?“

At about 39:45 “We picked the Spirit landing site, Gusev Crater, that looked like it had a huge dried-up riverbed flowing through into it, and we went there hoping to find evidence of past water and past habitability. I mean there has to have been a lake in Gusev Crater at one time. But all Spirit found was this prison of lava rocks.”

“And it turns out that the composition of these little blueberries, was a mineral called hematite, which is a mineral that often forms in the presence of water.”

“From the minerology, from the geochemistry, everything that we needed to come to a reasonable conclusion that there was once water on Mars. It was right there in the walls of Eagle Crater. But this is a very acidic environment. Not a place where life could have developed.”

“So, yes there had been liquid water, but this wasn’t water that you or I would want to drink. It was basically like battery acid.”

“What you really want is nice, flowing, neutral-pH groundwater. And so to go and find a story of habitability, you’ve got to go on a bit of a roadtrip”

“This is a clay that has been intensely altered by relatively neutral pH water, representing the most favorable conditions for biology that Opportunity has encountered”

“Water. Drinkable neutral water once existed on the surface of Mars. And not only was there water, but it could possible sustain ancient microbial life. So that is just revolutionary.”

“It showed us that the ancient Mars was much more suitable to the origin of life.“

“This was the Holy Grail. This is the reason we had gone to Mars. Oppy discovered Mars was a wet world very much like Earth. There were oceans. Water played a huge role in its early history. It completely altered the planet.”

“And Opportunity spent years exploring Endeavor Crater, making incredible discoveries that tell that story of water. So we could go back in time to a planet that might actually have had life.“

“Mars had water. What happened to that water? And can we take the information and understand how that could happen here on Earth? And can we understand our part in that. Are we doing something that can accelerate that here on Earth. Because that’s something that you don’t recover from.”

Are you kidding me? They were able to turn this documentary about a planet with no water, no life, no humans, no fossil fuels into a global warming fear-mongering documentary…like most of the rest of them.

Their motivation was religious in nature (“This was the Holy Grail”), and it’s clear that their research was interested only in finding naturalistic origins of life.

Don’t misinterpret my critiques as a dislike for discovery or research. But what did you notice about their motivation for exploration? Extra terrestrial life. This blind search for life in lifeless places reveals their faith in naturalism. In their search for life, they recognize the need for water. So, in this video, we see over and over these lab-coats share their desire to find water. There’s not a drop of water on Mars.

But a planet (Earth) that is more than 70% covered by water could NOT have had a worldwide flood according to naturalists, and a planet (Mars) with not a single drop of liquid water is assumed to have been flooded in the distant past. The inconsistency and hypocrisy is astounding

Another level of hypocrisy among the God-deniers, is their denouncement of God’s amazing designs in biology. It was clear that the design of the robots was mimicry of the design of the human body. Same height. Same use of binocular vision. Same use of limbs and joints found in human arms. Yet I hear from God-deniers all the time, “humans are designed badly”. It’s a ridiculous claim for God-deniers to say humans are designed poorly when scientists literally mimic the incredible designs by the Almighty to achieve discoveries on other planets.

Overall, the documentary was positive and encouraged people to be involved in engineering solutions and discovery. I support finding engineering solutions and discovery, but motivations and intentions matter. There’s much better motivations for discovery and engineering solutions than the most unsuccessful career path of all time: astrobiology!

Follow-up Interview

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I was invited to be a guest on the Beyond the Basics podcast to discuss my book review of Hugh Ross’s A Matter of Days. If you haven’t yet read the review, I encourage you to do so.

As you will see the most important issue of the internal debate among Christians about the “age of the earth” is Authority. Old earthers choose to elevate the modern academic paradigm over scripture, so they are willing to redefine the words, phrases, and ideas revealed in scripture to accommodate what modern academics think about observations. However biblical creationists elevate God’s revelation in scripture as the ultimate authority, and we interpret observations based on what God revealed in his word.

One of the things I wanted to do in the interview but forgot is to mention the importance of framing the debate. Too often the debate of the age of the earth is portrayed as science vs. religion. This is NOT the case. It is interpretations of observations vs. God’s revealed Word. So, as Christians when talking about this topic, be sure that the words we use are clear to the topic. It is the Modern Academic Paradigm vs. God’s Revelation

Enjoy the interview linked below. Hint: Watch the video on 1.5X speed and then my pauses do not sound so bad 🙂

Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 23

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Tranquility through Testing

To finish his book Dr. Ross proposes a way that he thinks will bring resolution to the choice between the “creation-day controversy”. Whether you’ve been following the chapter reviews up to this point or not, you might be able to guess what Dr. Ross proposes as the solution:

Interpretations of Evidence!

Those who have been following along know that he would NOT choose the highest authority – God’s Word.

Given that various creation perspectives are readily testable, a pathway exists for peaceful resolution of creation-day controversies. With so much scientific data  and many different biblical creation accounts open for investigation, little basis remains for conflicts or disputes over creation doctrines.

Ross seems deaf to the effects of interpretations when discussing evidence, and I want to return to the last chapter’s review. Ross claimed that he won a debate with biblical astronomer, Danny Faulker because when both he and Ross presented their evidence to the panel of 13 old earthers, the old earthers determined that Ross was correct. I wonder what would happen if Dr. Ross presented his evidence for special creation of each kind of creature over periods of time to a panel of Christians from BioLogos against the evidence presented from a Biologos evolutionist. Is there any doubt that this panel would expel Ross for his heresy against biological evolution? Interpretations of evidence are used to confirm one’s worldview biases and Ross does not recognize the inherent bias that old earthism has had on him since he was very young. Dr. Jason Lisle has tried valiantly to point out the role that biases have played in Dr. Ross’s eisegesis of scripture, but those habits have been ingrained deeply in Ross’s thinking and business model.

Below is the chart that Dr. Ross includes in his book as a way to resolve the “Creation-day controversy”. He explains that if both the young and old earth predictions get analyzed as more data is discovered and interpreted, that the old earth model will win out. From the biblical creationist perspective, the data from the expected predictions have lined up perfectly to confirm the young earth model. So, while I recognize my young earth bias, I want to point out how since Dr. Ross has written his book, the predictions he makes about the big bang completely unravel

Evidences for the big bang will increase and become more compelling. Astronomers will establish the big bang model as the uniquely explanation for the origin and structure of the universe.

Over the last few years, evidence for the big bang has NOT increased or become more compelling. It has been in massive need of resuscitation and repair

The other areas of the chart have not fared well for old earthism either. 

If you’ve learned anything from the review, I hope it is that God’s Word is the authority for the life of the Christian. There’s no need to compromise with the hollow and deceptive philosophies of the world as a way to interpret scripture.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 22

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Councils Attempt to Bring Calm

Throughout Christian history, there have been ideas and theories which the church has to address as unorthodox. Dr. Ross addresses a few of them in the first few pages of chapter 22.

Circumcision. The first century church had to deal with the sign of the old covenant with regards to the gentile Christians. Should gentile Christians be forced to observe the sign of the old covenant? To help answer this question, the Council at Jerusalem convened to make sure there was a resolution that honored the Lord. Later Paul addresses this in his epistles to the churches. The conclusion – “Therefore, the promise comes by faith so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring – not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.”

Dr. Ross feels that the issue of the age of the earth is synonymous with the issue of circumcision:

The first-century church dealt with a problem roughly analogous to the dispute over the length of the Genesis creation days

While we can agree that Christians do have disagreement over the issue of the length of the creation days, this disagreement is not an issue of salvation. It is an issue of biblical interpretation and as has already been shown Dr. Ross has elevated the modern academic paradigm (which he calls the book of nature) as authoritative over the revealed and eternal word of God. Dr. Ross has exhibited the characteristics of a Christian, so I have no reason to doubt his regeneration. But his teaching regarding death, suffering, thorns, corruption, destruction being part of God’s “very good” creation because of his adherence to the Modern Academic Paradigm is harmful to biblical interpretation in this and future generations. 

Dr. Ross next gives a short recap of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) of 1982 as they discussed the creation-day controversy. They listened to presentations from a biblical creationist and an old earther. When it was complete, the ICBI presented a statement that included the following affirmations

  • We affirm that any preunderstandings which the interpreter brings to Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to correction by it.
  • We deny that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism, evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism.
  • We affirm that since God is the author of all truth, all truths, biblical and extra biblical, are consistent and coherent, and that the Bible speaks truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature, history, or anything else. We further affirm that in some cases extra biblical data have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for prompting correction of faulty interpretations.
  • We deny that extra biblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it.
  • We affirm the harmony of special with general revelation and therefore biblical teaching with the facts of nature.
  • We deny that any genuine scientific facts are inconsistent with the true meaning of any passage of Scripture. We affirm that Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the book. We deny that the teachings of Genesis 1-11 are mythical and that scientific hypotheses about earth history or the origin of human it may be invoked to overthrow what Scripture teaches about creation.

The statement from the ICBI has some merit and is generally acceptable. But as shown in the italics above, there are at least 2 phrases that could be misconstrued to accommodate any number of outside authorities over scripture.

The first “We further affirm that in some cases extra biblical data have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for prompting correction of faulty interpretations.”

What cases? Who gets to determine which cases are acceptable? Which interpretations of the extra biblical data?

You can see how there is a massive gap left for those who would like to bring their interpretation into biblical orthodoxy, and since old earthism has until the most recent of times not been included in orthodox thinking, Dr. Ross would very much like for his naturalistic interpretations to be included in orthodox teachings of Christianity. For today’s generation that has been saturated with the naturalistic assumption of billions of years, they might think the church has thought this since the beginning, but it is a very recent addition to modern thinking. Until Hugh Ross wrote his books, virtually all of the church most certainly did not think the universe was billions of years old. As confirmation, the Hebrew year from the date of creation is 5780. So, those who wrote the original text of scripture are in agreement with the biblical creation model that the world is about 6000 old.

The second, “the facts of nature” is a phrase that I have covered throughout this review that is based on a false assumption. It leaves open the question – What is a fact outside of interpretation? Whose interpretation of the “fact” is considered the right one?

Dr. Ross finishes this chapter with the claim that his debate in 2009 with biblical astronomer, Danny Faulker was a win for old earthism. He claimed that 13 astronomers (who are all confirmed old earthers) agreed that the earth is old. It would be the same as if an Armenian and a Calvinist had a debate on which view of soteriology is correct. If the judging panel was 13 Calvinists, they would all determine that the winner was the Calvinist. If the same debate were to have been done in front of 13 biblical creation astronomers, Hugh Ross’s views would have been demonstrated to be impotent in just the same way.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 21

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A Clear “Day” Interpretation

Dr. Ross sent me his book almost a year ago and I finished reading it and annotating it within a few months. So, as I have gone back and read through the chapter again for the book review, I am not really finding anything new. From beginning to end, I have found that Dr. Ross although he claims that the Bible is his highest authority, he sees the modern academic paradigm as the highest interpretive authority and conforms his reading of the Bible to accommodate it. 

In his personal testimony, we see evidence of this

I did not converse with a Christian about spiritual matters until I was 27. Studies in science consumed all my time and eventually convinced me, at age 15 that a transcendent God must exist. At the time, I doubted that a God who created a hundred billion trillion stars would care much about frail humans on an insignificant planet…In my first reading of Genesis 1, I saw indications that the creation days were long periods of time

If you teach people that the universe is billions of years old, by the time they are almost 30 years old (as Ross admits that he was) and have been indoctrinated by this mantra, they will try to fit everything they see into that worldview…including the Bible. 

These are the parts of the text that Dr. Ross felt there was plasticity which would allow him to redefine the scriptures to accommodate the modern academic paradigm

The timing of Eve’s creation

He does not explain specifically here why he thinks this allows for creation days to be very long periods, but we can infer from a paragraph on the previous page why he thinks this is plausible. “Eve was created on the same day as Adam (the sixth) but not until after Adam took care of several large tasks.”

This sounds like the easily refuted argument that he used from chapter 7, when he claimed that Adam had four careers so the text could not possibly have been talking about a single day. His personal incredulity and injection of outside influence completely discounts Ross’s wild claim

The lack of an evening and morning for the seventh day

Clearly, Dr. Ross sees the importance of the evening/morning pattern when God revealed his creative works for 85% of the creation week. What’s not clear is why Dr. Ross takes the single example of missing morning/evening pattern and creates a rule for it. Dr. Ross’s shallow reading of the text ignores the deeper context and exegesis of Exodus 20 when the days are clearly defined with unmistakable 24 hour boundaries.

The Genesis 2:4 usage of the word “day” in reference to the entire creation week

So, at best, Ross can only say that the Hebrew word for day (yom) can have the colloquial understanding of a week of time…not the billions and billions and billions of years necessary to accommodate the modern academic paradigm. Biblical creationists agree that there is flexibility in the Hebrew word ‘yom’, but exegetically, it must fit the context, and in the context of Genesis 1, we can easily conclude from the text that it is signifying days as we know them today (24 hours).

I was especially intrigued by God’s creation hiatus following the six prolific creation periods.

We should all be intrigued by God’s creation hiatus, but it would be wildly bizarre to assume there were suddenly billions of years injected into the text from that thought

Finally, here was an explanation for the fossil record enigma

There are three things to keep in mind when interpreting scripture: context, context and context. When we view the scripture in context there was unquestionably a global flood that adequately (and more correctly) explains the fossil record…so the enigma is for the old earthist, who must redefine a world-consuming flood to mean a minor middle eastern rain storm and then create epicycles to explain both the text and modern observations

Dr. Ross continues at the bottom of pg242 and top of pg243 with the strange explanation for what it means to love the LORD with all of your mind

Loving God with “all your mind” means looking beyond the most simplistic interpretation of a given text, especially if that interpretation leads to complications and convolutions of other texts…Yet, ironically, a 24-hour creation day interpretation of Genesis 1 (and 2) complicates and convolutes at least aspects of God’s creation story – the sequence of events, the meaning of Adam’s work and words, and the speed of biological development.

Speaking of irony-> Just above Dr. Ross admitted that after almost 30 years of indoctrination in the modern academic paradigm, on his 1st reading of Genesis, his simplistic interpretation was that God created over billions of years…just as he’d been taught his whole life. So, clearly he’s only against OTHER people’s simplistic interpretation of Genesis 1. 

Regarding his claim that the biblical creationist’s interpretation of Genesis 1 complicates and convolutes the aspects of the creation story, Dr. Ross AGAIN upholds the modern academic paradigm and demands that the Bible’s reading be conformed to those assumptions. 

And as was shown in Chapter 4 and chapter 5 reviews when Dr. Ross attempted to claim that ALL of church history believed in old earthism, he was WRONG. Old earthism is a modern concoction that attempts to dissolve the modern academic paradigm into biblical interpretation, but as we see, they are like oil and water with no ability to mix.

On p244 Ross asks the question 

How Did Adam Do So Much?…Similarly, for Adam to have named all of Eden’s animals within a few hours would seem to shrink not just the size but also the bounty of Eden…species

While I already covered Ross’s misunderstanding of scripture in my review of chapter 7, it doesn’t hurt to quickly address his repeated conflation of species and kinds. Kinds ≠ Species. The biblical kind is defined in Genesis 1 simply denoted a creature’s ability to reproduce at the time of creation. Since there have been many mutations, many creatures that were formerly able to reproduce lost the ability to reproduce. This does not mean they were not originally created as the same kind. But what this means is that Kind is more synonymous with the modern scientific distinction of family. 

This means that Adam did not have to name millions of species as is claimed by Ross. Adam could have take care of his divinely-appointed job of naming the animals much more quickly by naming animals in groups

At the bottom of p244 Dr. Ross says

Young-earth creationists see as the futility of attempting to integrate Genesis with the scientific paradigm arises from a subtle error in applying a basic interpretive principle “Begin by establishing [not assuming] the point of view.” The result is a scientifically implausible order of creation events”

A few of things with this quote. Dr. Ross projects his own shortcomings in interpretation onto biblical creationists. Firstly, He conflates science with the modern academic paradigm as he has done throughout his book. Young earth creationists have no interest in trying to integrate Genesis with the modern academic paradigm. The observations of today are completely in accord with what we read in scripture. It is the old earthers like Ross, who have undertaken the mission of trying to integrate the modern academic paradigm with scripture. Secondly, the error is on the side of old earthers, who inject their assumptions from the modern academic paradigm into their biblical interpretation. Biblical creationists rather start with the basic interpretive principle that what God revealed in his word is true, so what we observe today is in accord with what He revealed in the Bible. Regarding his quote about the implausible order of creation events, you can see that Ross rejects the order of creation events that God revealed in scripture in order to accommodate naturalist assumptions.

On pg247-248 Ross unsuccessfully attempts to push the inconsistencies of his biblical interpretations with the observations onto biblical creationists. 

A few purported conflicts between the Bible [old earth interpretations] and the fossil record have arisen…

The conflicts arise only for the old earther since the catastrophic worldwide flood is the only sufficient explanation for the observations. For the old earther, it is assumed that fossils were buried in the order that the soil-of-the-time was exposed as the top soil and that there were epochs when certain creatures did not exist. Dr Ross believes this imperative, but there are out-of-place (for the old earther) fossils that are discordant with those assumptions. 

Genesis 1 gives the order of God’s creative works, but in both Dr. Ross’s posted timeline, which he posted years ago and on p249 we can see that Dr. Ross tries very hard to inject the modern academic paradigm into scripture

ch21p249

There are several problems with his chart, but I want to point out a particularly grievous problem in rows 9 and 10. Ross tells us that God’s last creative work was Adam and Eve, but just prior in row 9, Ross tells us that the Australian aboriginals emerged prior to Adam and Eve. This is both a terrible assumption and racist. Now, I do not believe Ross is a racist, but his views of the modern academic paradigm as an authority over scripture has resulted in a view that has racist implications.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 20

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The Significance of Man

It was encouraging to read through the beginning of chapter 20 where Dr. Ross identifies the specific points of agreement for biblical creationists and his brand of old earthism, which he calls “day-age creationism.”

  • Both views emphasize the divinely ordained significance of the human race.

  • Both assert that humanity is the only spiritual species on Earth.

  • Both proclaim humanity’s eternal destiny.

  • Both deny the naturalistic view of humans as the random result of blind processes.

  • Both declare that all humans arise from a single couple (Adam and Eve) whom God specially created just thousands of years ago.

Sadly, the agreements with biblical creationists is sparse from here on out as Dr. Ross continues the pattern of bringing outside ideas into his biblical interpretation. The rest of chapter 20 is a summary of a book (Who was Adam?) that Dr. Ross wrote with his cohort, Fazale Rana. So, this review will now expand to review THAT book as well. Let’s see what these two have to say about the federal head of humanity
Dr. Ross points out the special creation that is mankind and I heartily agree. Humans are unique in the universe because we have been created in the image of God, and for us Jesus came to pay the penalty of sin.

Expressions of worship are the key markers of humanity’s spiritual quality. The universality of worship is evidenced in the ubiquity of altars, temples, and other religious relics.

I agree! Everyone worships something -> Either the Creator or something lesser/unworthy/perverted
In the section titled “A Biblical Calendar” Dr. Ross says

Although biblical genealogies provide little or no help in establishing creation dates for the cosmos and Earth, they do provide a rough date for the advent of humanity…Even in the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies, where the years between the birth dates of the father and the son are given, the chronology is not as tight as it might appear at first glance. Luke 3, for example, inserts at least one generation, namely Cainan, between Shelah and Arphaxad.

I have already dealt with Dr. Ross’s assumptions of “missing generations” when I reviewed chapter 2, but if he insists on continuing to misread scripture, I insist on correcting him. Dr. Ross while giving lip-service to the birth dates of the sons, seems not to understand the significance since he tries to convince the reader that Hebrew words for father and son could denote grandfather/grandson relationship rather than exclusively father/son. But since the age of the progenitor and the number of years between generations are given in the text of Genesis, then the specific relationship is not required to determine the timeline. Dr. Ross’s entire line of thinking is SOUNDLY refuted in this expert video by Dr. Kurt Wise. If you’re interested only in the topic of the trustworthiness of the chronogenealogies, start the video about 22 minutes.
What matters here is why he would try to argue with Jesus, when in Mark 10:6 it is recorded that Jesus said “But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” Dr. Ross says above that the genealogies in Genesis 5 & 11 “provide little or no help in establishing dates for the cosmos and Earth”, but Jesus clearly says that Adam was created at the beginning of creation. If by “beginning of creation” Dr. Ross means “the end of creation” then there is agreement, but if “the beginning of creation” is to have meaning at all, then Dr. Ross’s beliefs about age are discordant with those of Jesus.
The inset on pg237 includes some built-in naturalistic assumptions in place of Biblical interpretation.

Using the relatively accurate dates available for both Abram (Abraham) and Peleg to calibrate the genealogies may help guide some of the guesswork. Biblical and other historical records establish that Abraham lives about 4,000 years ago. Genesis 10:25 says that in Peleg’s time “the earth was divided.” Radiocarbon dating places the breaking of the Bering land bridge (an event that ended human migration from Eurasia to North and South America until the advent of ships) at 11,000 years ago. If life spans recorded in Genesis 5 and 11 are approximately proportional to the actual passage of time, then the dates for Abraham and Peleg would place the flood of Noah’s day roughly 30,000 to 50,000 years ago and the creation of Adam and Eve a few tens of thousands of years earlier.

Let’s look at the several levels of speculation with which Dr. Ross experiments with to see how they hold up:

  • Speculation 1 – “the earth was divided” means the land masses (Pangea) moved apart. If we look at Genesis 10, the context is describing the formation of the nations based on distinct families and languages. And what is discussed in Genesis 11? The tower of Babel where the single language of mankind is divided from a single language and the people are dispersed across the globe. So, rather than Dr. Ross’s speculation that it is the division of land masses, it fits the context better that the division is of the nations by language from a single people into distinct people groups.
  • Speculation 2 – “If the life spans recorded in Genesis…are approximately proportional to the actual passage of time” There is speculation here from Dr. Ross that the life spans recorded in Genesis are not really years or are in some way hyperbolic. This calls into question the very revelation of God. Why would he only speculate about the “actual” passage of time here and not in the other places of scripture?
  • Speculation 3 – “until the advent of ships” By his own admission, Noah built an enormous ship 20,000 – 40,000 speculated years prior to the speculated ending of the land bridge, but Ross doesn’t think mankind could make a boat during that ENTIRE time?!?!? There’s a serious contradiction in his speculation
  • Speculation 4 – “Carbon dating” I’ve had plenty to say about carbon dating in my review of Chapter 16. That was one of my favorite chapters to review as it exposed many of the cascading assumptions built into Dr. Ross’s rejection of the Bible’s account of a global flood in Genesis 6-9

In the section titled “Historical Calendar” Dr. Ross talks about cultural Big Bang events.
Anthropologists have found evidence for several cultural “big bang” events, each reflecting the difference spirit expression makes…Humanity’s arrival also launched the first clothing and jewelry industries. Dates for these cultural big bangs all cluster around 40,000 to 45,000 years ago.
It’s telling that on the previous page, he speculates that the flood of Noah’s day was 40,000 speculated years ago and now the cultural big bangs are aligned perfectly with the end of the worldwide flood & the dispersion of people after Babel…the dates are simply inflated to accommodate the imagined dates of the secularists.
From a biblical perspective, it makes much more sense that when Noah’s family exited the ark as the only humans on the planet recently flooded and a few hundred years later were dispersed throughout the planet that they took their learned cultures with them. The worldwide flood explains perfectly the dispersion of culture from a single point across the globe. This is especially obvious from the presence of ziggurat pyramids all over the world
To finish off the chapter, Dr. Ross jumps into genetics into an attempt to push the dates of Adam and Eve far enough back in time to accommodate his day-age old earthism.

By measuring DNA differences across several generations in different families, geneticists can measure the rates at which mtDNA and Y-DNA mutations occur. Such measures yield dates of 42,000 to 60,000 years ago for the most recent common male ancestor.

Of note, although Dr. Ross has claimed not to believe in the evolution of animals or humans, when we check his footnote (p359) for the source material on his claim above we see that he relies on naturalistic evolution of humans from a common ancestor with chimpanzees to get his numbers:

  • Population Growth of Human Y Chromosomes: A Study of Y Chromosome Microsatellites,” Molecular Biology and Evolution 16 (December 1999)
  • Inferring Human Population Sizes, Divergence Times and Rates of Gene Flow. In that article, the embedded assumption is prominent: “the assumed human-chimpanzee divergence of six million years to obtain the per year estimate of the neutral nucleotide substitution.”

But rather than relying on those false assumptions and then re-interpreting the Bible to match them as we have seen Ross do, we should start with the Bible as revealed history and conduct science based on the irrefutable revelation of God as Dr. Marvin Lubenow does on pg 227 of his work, Bones of Contention

MitochondrialEve_Lubenow
As we can clearly see, observations line up perfectly with what God revealed in his word, and this is the correct expectation for us as biblical creationists because God both created everything and revealed his interaction with history in his Word.
As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.
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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 19

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Narrow Time Windows

If you haven’t had a chance to see the first 18 chapters of this book review, let me encourage you to go back to the table of contents and browse your way through. 

This is a shorter chapter from Dr. Ross, and in it he makes the claim that naturalistic assumptions are necessary for the age of the universe, the age of galaxies, and the age of planets to support life. 

A universe and a galaxy must reach a particular age before they can support life. Only when a star and a moon are of a particular age is life possible near them. And only when a planet is of a particular age is life possible on it. For intelligent life, the time limitations are dramatically more constrained.

While Dr. Ross has said that he does not hold to biological evolution as taught by the likes of Richard Dawkins, his statements above endorse the naturalistic ideas of 

  • cosmic evolution 
  • chemical evolution
  • galactic evolution 
  • stellar evolution 
  • planetary evolution
  • lunar evolution 
  • terrestrial evolution 
  • environmental evolution 

As we read scripture, we see that none of these naturalistic ideas are compatible with God’s revelation. These evolutionary theories are simply naturalistic mechanisms proposed IN PLACE OF what God did with his supreme power. It’s not that God could not or has not used natural processes to produce results (He has!). The problem is that Dr. Ross has re-interpreted what God actually said He did in the creative process of Genesis 1 to mean something else.

Age Window of the Universe

For biochemical processes to operate, the universe can be neither too hot nor too cold. As the universe expands from the creation event, it cools, like any other system obeying the thermodynamic laws (the greater volume or surface area, the less heat energy there is to go around.)…These conditions must be just right for liquid water to form and remain in significant quantities in just-right locations. As a result, there are only a few billion years in history if the universe’s expansion when a suitable habitat for primitive life is even possible.

The built-in assumptions that the universe has to be a particular age keeps him from being able to view the Bible from the author’s intended message. We see him make these claims about the age of the universe, but he has no other universes or other billions of years of history with which to compare. How can he possibly calibrate his assumptions since there are no other universes when he’s bound by less than 100 years of experience?

I’m particularly critical of the statement above regarding Ross’s assumption of the formation of liquid water. In scripture we read that once God created water out of nothing, the rest of the universe was formed out of that water. But Dr. Ross assumes that water is just another one of the things that nature formed during its chemical/cosmic evolution. In the past, I’ve asked Dr. Ross about why he feels that the flood of Genesis 6-9 is a minor local flood, and he always (irrationally) points me to 2 Peter 2. Sadly, he joins the skeptics when his assumptions keep him recognizing the creative works and the worldwide judgment of those works in 2 Peter 3 “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the 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.”

So, you can see that Dr. Ross’s claims that water formed naturalistically and that the flood was just a minor local event in the middle east are NOT permitted by scripture as a whole – but particularly by 2 Peter 3:5-6

In addition to the scriptural problems with water, Dr. Ross must somehow overcome the observational problems with his assumptions about water in relation to the moon. The moon could not have formed by any of the naturalistic proposals put forth AND contain H₂O. Yet, the moon contains frozen H₂O

On p230, Dr. Ross makes claims about the chemical evolution

The fusion of most life-essential heavy elements must await the gravitational collapse of gas clouds into giant stars…In fact, two generations of such stars must burn up in order to build a density of heavier elements sufficient to make life chemistry possible.

At best, these are guesses and at worst wild claims since no one has ever observed the process of a star from birth to death let alone TWO generations of stars from birth to death or the effects on elements of these generations. 

Because of the exothermic nature of the heavy elements in chemical formation, there is not a suitable resolution for the evolution of elements with a higher atomic weight than Iron (Fe) at 26.

Notice the superlatives and uncalibrated assumptions in the quote below:

Only in galaxies can the density of heavy elements become great enough to support life chemistry. But even in galaxies the appropriate density of life-essential elements is achieved only at one particular time. When the galaxy is too young, not enough heavy elements have been made in its stars for life chemistry to be possible. When the galaxy is too old, star and planet formation have ceased, and no stars and planets young enough for life chemistry will exist. Life is possible only in galaxies older than about 10 billion years and younger than about 20 billion years.

It’s like saying Adam was too young to speak and name all the animals on the day he was created because only humans older than 2 years old can speak in complete thoughts, and only humans older than ten would be creative enough and with a vocabulary large enough to name all the animals. Ross fills his book with unjustified assumptions at the expense of revelation from God. He continues this pattern into the next paragraph

For life on a planet to be possible, the planet must be warmed by a star that burns at a near-constant brightness and color. For intelligent life to be possible, the star’s flaring activity and X-ray radiation must be minimal…In the first 50 million years after a star as massive as the Sun begins to shine, it burns far too erratically to maintain temperatures suitable for life on an orbiting planet. For the next 500 million years, the X-ray emission is too intense. After that, the flaring activity continues to subside until it reaches a minimum, when the star is 4.6 billion years old.

As if he witnessed and documented this process from beginning to end. But the scriptures tell a different story. On the fourth day God made the sun, moon, planets, and stars. So, Ross’s book is not only in conflict with the Bible, but he has ignored the scientific impossibilities of his yarn about the naturalistic formation of the Sun. The sun would not have been bright enough to provide sufficient heat on the earth a billion years ago when life is thought (by the naturalists) to have emerged. It’s a paradox for old earthists that has no coherent resolution.

Ross’s closing thoughts for the chapter on p233 reveal again his commitment to the modern academic paradigm as his interpretive authority instead of scripture being in the highest place.

A timescale for the universe and Earth of only a few thousand years also contradicts nature, which shows how and why astronomical bodies must be at least a half billion years old to be ready for life.

Ross never concerns himself with conflicts with scripture since he feels free to re-interpret the Bible’s actual text based on the fashionable paradigm that is currently accepted and promoted by the secularists.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

 

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 18

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IMG_4899Physical Reality Breaks through the Fog

Ross jumps headfirst into both the sweeping generalization fallacy and the strawman fallacy to open ch 18

Many young-creationist leaders declare that their view is reality and that virtually all of what has been discovered in the hard sciences is not what scientists think it is. This apparent antiscience position obscures physical reality in a dense fog

You will notice how Ross equivocates (again) the modern academic paradigm (MAP) with “hard science” and how the MAP is authoritative for him and his ilk.

Virtually all of what has been discovered” ?!?!?!? Ross literally said that biblical creationists have ignored virtually all of what has been discovered. Ross has virtually ignored all of what God has revealed in his word about the global flood, what Jesus said in Mark 10:6, and what Moses etched in stone from the voice of the Almighty in Exodus 20 that the days of Genesis 1 are literal days. 

Galaxies, stars, fossils, dinosaurs, Neanderthals, and many other subjects of scientific inquiry remain cloaked in mystery, supposedly lacking satisfactory explanation. This refusal to acknowledge established data causes many people to dismiss belief in creationism as either complete idiocy or downright deception.

If he had been referring to old earthism, I would agree with him. Old earthism cannot sufficiently explain 

According to geology professor Ian Plimer…Michael Ruse…Murray Gell-Mann

According to Ian Plimer’s wikipedia page: “He has been a critic of creationism…In his book Telling Lies for God: Reason vs Creationism (1994), Plimer attacked creationists in Australia.”

According to Michael Ruse’s wikipedia page: “Ruse takes the position that it is possible to reconcile the Christian faith with evolutionary theory. Ruse is an atheist.”

According to Murray Gell-Mann’s wikipedia page: “As a humanist and an agnostic, Gell-Mann was a Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism.”

Why would Dr. Ross cite these three God-haters in order to support his old earthism? Ross doesn’t say, but it does not help build a positive case for his old earthism. It is simply more of the same types of shallow attacks against which Ross has spoken. But Ross cares only that these kinds of attacks not be directed at him, not so much when the attacks are directed against his enemies: biblical creationists.

Still on the opening page of ch18, Ross continues:

The age-old power struggle between creationists and scientists began long before Galileo, but in some ways resembles the current conflict..In the early 1600s, Roman Catholic authorities refused Galileo’s invitation to look through his telescope…But the Roman Catholic prelates were afraid that laypeople might follow Galileo’s example and begin to publicly challenge biblical interpretations once taught only by priests, bishops, and cardinals. Laypeople were strongly discouraged from even reading the Bible.

Ross is correct that the struggle between biblical creationists and the modern academic paradigm continues to this day, but again, he has confused the protagonists and the antagonists. Those who hold the academic/political/cultural power are the old earthers like the Romanists of old. And those, who trust God’s Word and are willing to stand solidly thereon are the biblical creationists alongside Galileo. See, Galileo was not persecuted by the Romanists for his views on astronomy; Galileo was harassed by the (then) modern academic/religious paradigm for speaking out against the political/religious power of the day: the Pope. And in much the same way, “how DARE the biblical creationists for speaking out against the academic/cultural powers of today by questioning old age assumptions!!!” 

Of note, the Romanists of today are old earthers. They teach both old earthism and biological evolution, and while Dr. Ross does not openly support biological evolution; he has subjected himself to the modern academic paradigm and demands the same of biblical interpretation.

The idea of a long history of plant and animal decay and death is difficult for some to face. Integrating such a seemingly harsh reality with that of a loving, omniscient, omnipotent God can present a significant emotional and spiritual challenge.

Dr. Ross’s old earth assumptions of millions of years of animal suffering and death has been resoundingly dealt with in ch9 of this book review. So, Christians are not struggling with the integration of animal suffering/death and a loving God – Christians are struggling with the integration of old earthism into the Bible. 

Christian orthodoxy must, however, remain alert to this denial of physical  history and its implications

It’s rich that Dr. Ross would accuse others of denying history when his entire business model is built upon the OUTRIGHT denial of the global flood that is recorded in Genesis 7-9. Dr. Ross is even warned against denying the global flood in 2 Peter 3 when alongside his skeptic allies he is notified: “First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come…But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the 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.”

Ross whines that old earthers are “persecuted” by biblical creationists but by the comments from earlier in the chapter, he is fine with attacking those who hold God’s Word as the highest authority. By his reasoning (anyone, who claims to be a Christian should be allowed to speak/teach the Bible) we should allow Jehovah’s Witnesses, Romanists, and non-Trinitarians to teach the Bible just because they claim to be Christians?

ch18p223

Doctrine does not divide; Bad doctrine divides

On pg 224 Dr. Ross makes several errors about biblical creationists

According to young-earth creationists leaders…coal, oil, gas, and topsoil are not the remains of thousands of previous generations of life. Nor do coral bands and ice layers demark real years past. Nor does erosion of craters and mountains on Earth, other planets, and moons result from real ongoing natural processes. All these things must be illusions, according to a young-universe creationist perspective.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! These things are not illusory. All of those (except the other planets/moons) are the result of the worldwide flood as God described in Genesis 6-9. Dr. Ross shows yet again that rather than making a case against what biblical creationists actually believe and teach, he is content to build up strawman arguments of his enemies and then burn them down with acrimony all while crying that he is the victim of young earth persecution.

He then ratchets up the rhetoric and instead of insisting that young earth creationists have rebelled against just the latest scientific assumptions, he says

The fear that incites such a strong denial of physical reality and cosmic history implications must be addressed.

Now biblical creationists deny physical reality?!?!? 

On pg225 he continues:

If we take the Bible seriously and literally, not basis for such fear (fear that old earthism is true) exists.

What? Literally? He says to take the Bible literally, although he advocates billion year long days, death/disease/thorns prior to sin, a minor flood in the Mesapotamian river valley, and interpretations of the corrupted creation has authority over the eternal word of God. This is why I have trust issues with old earthers. “LITERALLY” he says.

Inigo-Montoya-Meme

Again on pg225 we find that Dr. Ross elevates the interpretations of observations above God’s Word

To question and challenge scientists’ interpretations of new findings may seem intimidating, but it can be done respectfully, on the basis of facts.

No! On the basis of God’s Word. God’s revelation through his eternal Word is the justification for knowledge (Prov 1:7, Hosea 4:6, Isaiah 33:6, Col 2:3). The facts will always support what God has revealed in his Word, but we must remember that your ultimate authority matters!

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of denying nature’s scientifically established characteristics…

Do you see again how he puts the modern academic paradigm as the authority which Ross elevates over scripture? He continues to conflate the interpretations of the modern academic paradigm with actual science.

Four examples of observations and interpretations on which the community of research astronomers and physicists agree are given as follows. Each carries enormous theological significance, which the majority of scientists also acknowledge.”

Let me acknowledge the enormous theological significance of Ross’s interpretations too. And before I share Ross’s 4 examples, let me say that even though we’ve already covered the main theological significance of Ross’s assumptions, I can’t say it enough:

Ross assumes that death/suffering/corruption/thorns are all part of God’s “very good” creation even though they most are specifically mentioned as the RESULT/CURSE of the sin of mankind. Let’s add cancer, disease, pathogenic actions of bacteria/viruses, and predation since we find all of these in the fossil record, which Ross denies is a result of the global flood as recorded in Genesis 6-9. The tragedy for old earthers like Dr. Ross is that they are willing to accept the curses of sin death/suffering/thorns as part of God’s very good character even though they are shown throughout scripture to be the opposite of good.

  1. Science says: The universe is billions of years old
  2. Science says: The universe can be traced back to a single, ultimate, simultaneous origin of matter, energy, space, and time.
  3. Science says: The universe, our galaxy, and the solar system exhibit more than 500 different characteristics requiring exquisite fine-tuning  for life’s possible existence
  4. Science says: Life in complex forms with an optimized ecology originated on Earth suddenly, UNDER HOSTILE CONDITIONS without the benefit of a prebiotic soup or a prebiotic mineral substrate. <bold, capitalization added by book reviewer>

Regarding all four of his examples, science does not say anything. This is a the reification fallacy. He’s given personal or concrete qualities to a concept or process, which is fallacious.

Item 1 cannot be true because of the arguments we have already discussed in scripture and current observations. Item 2 is a hyperbolic overstatement that disregards Genesis 1:1, since God made the Earth at the beginning. I do not have a critique of item 3, but I want you to pay particular attention to the BOLDED and CAPITALIZED phrase in item 4. This phrase is incongruous with and hopelessly opposed to Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”

It’s hard to state more clearly that Ross’s ideas and assumptions, while he claims them to in agreement with scripture, are opposed to what God has revealed in his Word.

As biblical creationists, we can praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. We do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

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