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Your CommentsScience & The Bible Your responses to scientific issues that conflict with popular and simplistic views of evolution -- and with the following articles: What Darwin didn't know | Lord of the Rings: Truth, Myth or 'Discovered Reality"? |
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From Mr Jelly:
I appreciate all your site is doing to advance the cause of
Christ. I was particularly interested to peruse your comments section, and have
some interesting discoveries I would like to share.
With respect to 'Jimmy Meyer's' challenges, I have a definite answer to his
third challenge, which was, and I quote:
"Both civilizations had astronomers during the time of Joshua and failed to
notice him stopping the Sun (I'll allow the artistic liberty to say that the
planet stopped rotating instead of taking that sentence LITERALLY, but still,
some other civilization should have noticed)... Ooops".
The fact is, Jimmy, that the evidence from pagan folklore PERFECTLY matches what
we would expect if there really was a 'long day'. The entire Eastern land mass
(Eurasia, Eastasia, and Australasia) have stories of a long day. The Americas
and Western Africa have stories of a long night. There is a very good summary of
these legends at: http://www.mbowden.surf3.net/joshld.htm
There is an absolutely stunning diagram there which shows that there had to have
been a long day/night phenomena which inspired all these legends. Although it
does not immediately prove the Bible account to be the correct one (although it
is the most coherent and naturalistic), it does show that the Bible account is
backed up by pagan legend.
For believers, however, I do not advise resting your faith on such
fables:
(1 Tim. 1:4) "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which
minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in
faith: so do."
Also see 1 Tim. 4:7, 2 Tim. 4:4, Titus 1:14, and 2 Peter 1:16.
Moving on to 'Amy Keller's response: whilst there is something about Amy's post
which leads me to believe that she is not being honest about her beliefs to mock
your ministry, I must say that after researching the issue of geocentricity vs
geokineticism (moving Earth
- heliocentricism is not the current 'scientific' model), I must support
geocentricity. The fact is that when we talk about the sun rising on a weather
report, this is a hold-over from when people really believed the Bible when it
talked about the sun literally rising.
Modern 'science' (falsely so-called, as you correctly point out - 1 Tim. 6:20)
cannot disprove a fixed earth:
If it holds to the theory of General Relativity, it is equally true to state
that the Earth is at the centre of the universe which rotates around it once
every 24 hours, as it is to say that the Earth is moving and completing a
revolution once every 24 hours. The centrifugal forces detected by scientific
experiments can just as easily be corona forces caused by the mass of the
rotating universe.
General Relativity means that all frames of reference are equally valid, even
frames of reference that require the distant galaxies to travel faster than
light (as does the Tychonian geocentric model).
Since they are all equally valid, God's Word can 'tip the balance'
(although obviously it must be our first, not our last priority) and allow us to
proclaim geocentricity to be absolutely true.
If it abandons the theory of General Relativity, it must assume an aether. Since
the Michelson-Morley experiment showed either no motion through the aether
around the Earth, or no aether, then the former must be true, and the universe
must rotate around the Earth! It's a lose-lose sitation for the secular
scientists.
To refer to Amy Keller's post: "You claim to love God, but at the same time love
science when this is directly contradictory. We do not see reality as it is, our
vision of reality and therefore science is perverted by the master of deception,
Satan. Therefore, when you study the universe, you are not studying God's
creation, but rather Satan's lies.
Only the Bible is pure of Satan's contamination. You can either trust the world
as seen through your eyes, or the World as revealed through the Bible. The two
are not the same and you should be ashamed at yourself for compromising between
them".
Amen to that. Evolutionists are guilty of doing exactly this - allowing the
Bible to be distorted by 'evidence', rather than allowing the evidence to be
interpreted by the Bible, which is self-authenticating. But Amy, how do you know
that your interpretation of the Bible is not clouded by satan's deception? What
about the new (per)versions of the Bible which show the handiwork of the enemy?
The Bible clearly states that nature can act as a limited revelation of God
(although it is totally superceded by the Word):
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork (Psalm 19:1).
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse (Rom.1:20)."
Nowhere in the Word does it state that satan still distorts the
perception of a believer. The almost Gnostic statement "we do not see reality as
it is, our vision of reality... is perverted" is nowhere to be found in my
Bible. If we study satan's lies when we study the universe, how can it possibly
declare the glory of God? How can God's eternal power and Godhead be shown by
creation? We could question whether study of the world in the hopes of gaining
spiritual insight is still appropriate for a regenerated believer, but the Bible
does not give us the Gnostic, Matrix-style message that we cannot trust our
senses.
"You have berated others for not studying the Bible, but I sense you have done
it half heartly. You should spend more time on the Word of God than anything
else. I have spent 20 years reading the Bible every day for at least 12 hours
each day. Have you done the same?"
I am sorry to say that I often invest too little time in God's word. Nevertheless, boasting of your Scriptural qualifications smacks of being lifted up with pride. I agree with your assessment of the geocentricity v. geokineticism issue, but your response to Kjos Ministries appears to manifest a spirit very different to the Holy Spirit revealed in the pages of the Scripture you claim to study every minute of your waking life.
Please read James 4:10-16. It has a very different perspective on the
accusations you bring forth against a ministry that disagrees with you. Kjos
Ministries will have to answer to God for their view of the solar system - you
will have to answer to God for yours. We are told that there is one lawgiver who
is able to save and destroy - who are we to judge another. But you brought forth
the following accusation:
"...in embracing such lies you have compromised your faith".
I agree that the
criteria for belief is 'every word' (Deut 8:3 -- Matt. 4:4), but nowhere are we
told to bring such railings. The two strongest accusations brought against
believers in the New Testament are 2 Corinthians 11:3 and 12:20). Neither
accuses the Corinthians of compromising their faith.
On the matter of the shape of the Earth (which deserves to be raised in such a
context), I agree that certain verses appear to suggest a flat circle, with the
'corners' being the four capes, but I think that the most powerful suggestion of
the same (where satan takes Jesus up to a mountain and shows him all the
kingdoms of the world) stops just short of saying that 'there was a mountain
from which you could see all kingdoms of the world'. In fact, Luke 4:5 seems to
suggest a sudden intrusive vision shown to Christ by the enemy when it says 'in
a moment of time'. Furthermore, Luke 17 suggest that at the moment of the
Parousia, it will be 'night', men will be in bed, but they will also be grinding
corn, and in the field. Unless one wishes to suggest that they will carry their
beds out into the fields to accomplish this manual labour, this is a strong
indication that Jesus believed in a globular Earth. At the time of Christ, the
Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews all believed in a round Earth. If our Lord wished to
'set us right' on this, he would certainly have preached on the issue of
cosmology. He did not hesitate to send his Apostles to preach against
superstition, old wives tales, and genealogies.
Jeff Wallace: The article on your news page, "Glimpse at Early Universe Reveals Surprisingly Mature Galaxies" brings to mind the 38th and 39th chapters of Job where God is declaring his omnipotence over all things. Some scientist have admitted that the more they know, the less realize they really do know about the vastness of the universe, the complexities of creation, etc.
I don't one needs to be a scientist though to grasp what God tells Job there, that we really have no clue how amazing the wisdom and superiority of our God is. I think deep inside everyone there is this very strong suspicion that creation is so incredibly ordered and fantastic to such an amazing degree, that we really do know in our hearts that God made it all (scripture of course somewhat states this reality as well). But in man's natural inclination to withdraw to his carnal/flesh nature, we devise ways to convince ourselves all of this majesty just randomly came together. Even apart from scripture, in our hearts, we really do know better except when we glory in our own wisdom.
Eccles 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
1 Cor 1:19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
1 Cor 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their own craftiness"
From Jimmy Meyer: I know you are busy but I wanted to make sure that you had not forgotten about me since It's been a month since you told me to remind you again. Are you going to post my questions?
I will post your questions, but neither Andy nor I will have time to answer them this week. While we could give brief answers, we want to make sure they show credible answer based on scientific evidence.
1) Sons always have the say Y chromosome as their fathers. If we all came from Adam and Eve (and Noah's Family right after the flood) we would all have share that single Y cortisone with only a minimum of changes through 10,000 years (even fewer if you date it back to the flood) worth of mutations. But we don't.
2) Egypt and China both have written histories which go right through the date of the flood. Both civilizations seemed not to have noticed the world getting destroyed... ooops.
3) Both civilizations had astronomers during the time of Joshua and failed to notice him stopping the Sun (I'll allow the artistic liberty to say that the planet stopped rotating instead of taking that sentence LITERALLY, but still, some other civilization should have noticed)... Ooops.
4) While we're at it (not in Genesis I know), the Egyptians somehow failed to mention in their chronicles that they lost a Pharaoh under the Red Sea... ooops.
5) How is it that there was no rainbows before the flood? Did the whole laws of physics change after?
6) How exactly did Noah collect all those pair of animals? And how did they migrate back to the Americas, Australia and Antarctica. I'll pick a single species and you tell me how it got there: Koalas. Where is the Eucholiptis forest it ate as the migrated through Asia down the South Asian Islands to Australia? How did they move so zonking fast? Find us that bee-line trail from northern Turkey to Australia. Find us those fossilized eucalyptus leaves, koala footprints, and koala bones. While you're at it, it would be lovely if you turned up a few kangaroos, giant moas, marsupial lions, Tasmanian wolves, and platypuses along that superhighway to the South Pacific.
7) How were the Pyramids built so soon after the flood. If we trace back the number of people starting with 6 billion today to the few that were on the arc there should have only been around 100 people in the world the time the pyramids were built. I know the Egyptians were good, but they weren't THAT good.
8) How did all the animals fit on the arc? The moment you try and limit the definition of kind you are assuming SUPER FAST mutations and (dare I say it?) speedy evolution (much faster than the scientifically accepted rate)
9) Where did all the water come from? Have you tried to simulate what the Earths atmosphere would be like with a couple million tons of water thrown in? In a word, Venus. Try living there and see how you like it.
10) Assuming the Chinese decided to keep the Great Flood a secret, we must concede it actually happened. This means that humans, and all animals, were killed off and had to start over. They started over in the Ararat region of northern Turkey. Why are the countries with the greatest populations (China and India, both with one billion+) so far away from where humanity had to start over? Since people are generally territorial, that would mean that the further away from the Ararat mountains you got, the thinner the population would be. This is not the case. Almost as far away from the Ararat mountains as you can get on the same landmass, there are more than one billion Chinese. By the way, if everyone descended from Noah and his family, why bother migrating "back" to a country (China) that you have never been a part of? Or w ould China even be known about to Noah and his family or descendants?
11) The Garden of Eden: How big was the Garden? Were ALL the plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, etc. on Earth present in the Garden? Genesis 2:19 seems to indicate so, ."..brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them." How many climates did the garden have? I can picture a lion lying down with a lamb, but I simply can't picture a polar bear sharing the same climate as a rattlesnake. And if all the sea creatures were there too, the garden must have had two big ponds, one freshwater and a saltwater one. Come to think of it, the saltwater one must have been really deep, and must have had thermal vents at the bottom...... well, you get the idea.
12) Ice Caps: Vast, colossal, great sheets of ice inhabiting the poles of our planet. The southern of the pair, the Antarctic, slides slowly off in all directions, like runny icing on an oversized cake. Things start to go south (no wait, north) when, with the aid of those pesky oxygen isotopes, the ice cap constantly fools scientist into believing that it is 25 million years old. Not only that, but during the Genesis flood it had only a limited number of options: In its absolute contempt for the laws of physics and its own density, it remained in place, sitting obediently on the (now submerged) Antarctic continent. Undoubtedly this allowed the 6 families of Notothenioid fish to live in their optimal -1.8 degree Celsius water temperature (they die in water above 5 degrees C), oblivious to the pressure of all that extra water. or Like any sensible piece of ice, given that all the Earth's surface was covered by water, it bobbed to the surface, broke up, and floated off in all directions and melted. Not only that, but all those billions of tons of ice never once crossed paths with Noah. (Maybe they did and he hauled some onboard to keep the polar bears from squabbling with the penguins.) Then, they miraculously reformed in the time since, while Satan grabbed a generous supply of isotopes and busied himself making them look much older than they actually are. When you're done with those I have a whole bunch more you need to answer. Until then, you should tell me why I should believe a book the FLYS in the face of nearly everything we know though science and history.
From Mrs. Little: I did not read the Carl Sagan thread completely, so I don't know if the website I will give you will do any good, except that it really presents a massive amount of info refuting evolution, which I know Carl Sagan was a big proponent of.
You probably already know about this website, see if it will help these teens who aren't strong enough to know and stand for the truth, because they aren't getting it.
Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted WorldThank you, Dianne. We have this link elsewhere, but I would love to add this fresh reminder both to this page and to the new page: