Myths About Creationists

I read an article this week about myths regarding Old Earth Creationists. It had some good points, although it still boggles my mind how they can see the clear teaching of scripture and think there’s room for billions of years.

But it motivated me to write a short post on how people believe certain myths about biblical creationists. Only unborn children are treated worse in our culture than those who believe in the validity of the Bible…but a large portion of the mockery is because of misconceptions and strawmen arguments. So, following are the most prominent myths about biblical creationism:

myth-v-truth

  1. Myth 1 – Biblical creationists hate science. Those who would say this are not listening. Biblical creationists love science and learn about the world just like Darwinian scientists. The difference is that the evolutionists would start with the idea that there is no God, and they proceed to interpret evidence with this presupposition. A creationist will interpret evidence with the presupposition that there is a God that has revealed himself throughout history. As we read God’s special revelation in scripture, we see verification of this in the created world around us.
  2. Myth 2 – Biblical creationists are ignorant of or deliberately ignore scientific evidence. This is related to the first myth, but it attributes a little more deviousness or cognitive dissonance onto creationists. It again goes back to one’s starting point. If one starts with the idea that there is no Creator God, then one will assume that everything must be explainable by naturalistic means. But someone who believes there is a God will interpret the same evidence that an evolutionist uses to confirm his worldview, to show that God is indeed active in the physical world. An example of this would be homologous structures in animals. Reptiles (some of them), birds, and mammals have legs, so they must all have come from a common ancestor…right? The evolutionist would answer yes, but a creationist would say that the same evidence leads them to believe that it was a common Designer. Further evidence shows that it would not follow logically to attribute common features to evolution since the same structures (legs in this case) are governed by different sets of genetic code. Were evolution to be true, the same set of genes would control the same feature as shown from the picture below. GeneticHomologyDebunked
  3. Myth 3 – Dinosaurs, fossils, and the geologic column disprove the Bible. This myth is the complete reversal of the truth. If one had never dug into the soil, but had read the Bible through, one would predict that because of a worldwide flood about 4500 years ago, there should be billions of dead things buried in water sorted layers. That is exactly what is found. In fact, those who believe in billions of years are the ones ignoring the evidence (poly-strata fossils, marine fossils on mountaintops, no erosion/bioturbation between layers) left by the flood. As for dinosaurs, there are examples of artwork, sightings, and historical accounts that are evidence showing that mankind has had interactions with dinosaurs in the past…the recent past, because further scientific research shows C14 in dinosaur fossils and short-life DNA and soft tissue in un-fossilized dinosaur bones.
  4. Myth 4 – Biblical creationists care only about Genesis. Genesis is indeed foundational to God’s revelation, but scripture is a cohesive view of God’s redemptive plan throughout history. All throughout scripture we see confirmations of the validity of the Genesis account. Exodus speaks about the seven days of creation in the formation of the Jewish week and Sabbath. The Psalms confirm the creation week and God’s judgement through a worldwide flood. Jesus’ very words in the gospels show how He created mankind at the beginning of creation. The gospels also include the chrono-genealogies, and Paul’s message in Romans and Corinthians shows how death is a result of a historical Adam’s sins. Peter’s message shows how only eight people survived the worldwide flood and prophetically how people will one day scoff at the idea that there was a flood that destroyed the world. God’s revelation in scripture is cohesive throughout, and it is in perfect agreement with the general revelation of nature.

 

We can trust God’s word about history and therefore have faith that our future is in his hands.

Question Evolution Day

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

BibleScienceGuy's avatarBible-Science Guy

(2 Minute Read)

Earth

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

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

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

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Jesus did not come to make bad people good

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

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

Ephesians 2:1-5

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

Dead Kids Make the President Mad

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evidence for Evolution

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where Was Adam’s Garden of Eden?

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

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

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

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

BibleScienceGuy's avatarBible-Science Guy

(4 Minute Read)

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

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

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

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

What does the Bible say about the location of Eden?

Where Was the Garden of Eden?

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

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

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

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

SLIMJIM's avatarThe Domain for Truth

GO TO PART 29

hitler and volkswagen

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

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Creation in the New Testament

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

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

Creation in the New Testament

 

God’s Authority is Self-Attesting

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

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

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

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

pat's avatarDefense of Faith

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

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

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

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