Everywhere you look, yellow flags emblazoned with the Royal Emblem celebrating the 60th Anniversary of His Majesty’s accession to the throne flutter in the breeze. As a special tribune to His Majesty’s long reign, let’s learn more about the meaning of this symbol.
The Royal Emblem’s design and colors are not only striking to look at, but each item and color represents something.
His Majesty’s initials, Bhor Por Ror, boldly appear in a golden color that signifies Monday, His Majesty’s day of birth. The initials are trimmed in gold on a gold and blue background, the color of the Monarchy.
The initials are encircled by diamonds, which represents His Majesty’s entourage of wise men, important authors of the court, well-known craftsmen, important elephants, valiant soldiers, graceful ladies and courtiers. The initials and diamonds sit on the Noble Throne of Bhadrapith and under the Great Crown of Victory and the King’s Insignia.
Inserted in the backrest of the Noble Throne of Bhadapith are the Sword of Victory, the Royal Whisk, the Royal Sceptre and the Royal Fan Placed on a stand at the foot of the Noble Throne of Bhadapith are the Royal Slippers. These items complete the Royal Regalia.
Below the throne on pink ribbon trimmed with gold is the inscription: “The 60th Anniversary Celebration of His Majesty the King’s Accession to the Throne B.E.2549.” Attached to the left end of the ribbon is a white monkey and on the right is a Garuda with a white face and reddish-brown body.
The green-gold background represents the day of the birth of His Majesty and the fertility of the land.
Vocabulary
EMBLAZON (v):to decorate something with a design, symbol or words so the people will notice it easily
ACCESSION (n):
the act of becoming a ruler of a country
FLUTTER (v):
to move lightly and quickly; to make something move in this way
SOVEREIGN (n):
a king or queen
SEAL (n):
an official design or mark
ENTOURAGE (n):
a group of people who travel with an important person
COURTIER (n):
a person who is part of the court of a king or queen
INSIGNIA (n):
the symbol, badge or sign that shows somebody’s rank or that they are a member of a group or an organization
His Majesty King Bhumipol Adulyadej was crowned on Coronation Day, May 5, 1950. He had been officially named the new King on June 9 four years earlier.
On the day of his coronation, His Majesty made his first declaration, promising: “We will rule the nation justly for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese people.” It is a vow that he kept throughout the decades since.
From Day One
Many factors has to be taken onto consideration in choosing the most auspicious day for the coronation ceremony, Savet Thanapradit, adviser to the Bureau of the Royal Household, said that it was determined by Brahmin priests who studied the signs before announcing the date.
Holy Water
The ceremony was held at Paisarntaksin Royal Throne Hall, with the King seated on the octagonal Adthathit Utum Phonratcha-aat throne. During the ceremony, the chief Brahmin priest poured holy water brought from 18 major chedi located all over Thailand.
This water is first divided into eight pitchers, each placed at one of the angles of the eight-sided throne, with representatives of the population standing in attendances.
While seated, the King turned to receive water presented in small vessels from each of these pitchers. Once this procedures was completed, special holy water from Bangkok was poured, bringing the total to nine.
Royal Accessories
Next, the leader of the Brahmins presented the King with a nine-tiered umbrella, called Phra Maha Sawetta Chat in the Thai royal language. After receiving the umbrella, the King moved to Phatarabit Throne located in the different part of the Paisarntaksin Royal Throne Hall to receive the crown and the fove symbolic items of the Kutthaphan, the Royal Regalia.
The Bhramin priests presented the King with the Phra Maha Phichai Mongkut, the Great Crown of Victory; the Phra Saeng Khan Chaisri, the Sward of Victory; the Than Phrakon’ the Royal Sceptre; the Phra saw Chammari, the Royal Whisk; the Phad Wala Wit Chanee, the Royal fan; and the Chlong Phrabat, the Royal Slippers.
Upon receiving the Golden Crown, the King placed it on his head. The other items were set on a table next to the throne or handed to palace staff standing nearby. Each was presented to the King on a special tray called a phaan
A Vow to Rule
After the King received the Kutthaphan, the Brahmin priest spoke in an ancient Indian dialect, saying that all of the highest angels had now come together in the person if the new monarch. The preist then spoke the King’s full name.
The King then poured water from a small pitcher called the Thaksinothok and made the vow to rule with justice for the well-being of his people.
Vocabulary
DECLARATION (N):
a written or spoken statement, especially about what people feel or believe
VOW (v):
to make a formal and serious promise to do something
AUSPICIOUS (adj):
showing signs that something is likely to be successful in the future
OCTAGONAL (adj):
having a flat shpe with eight straight sides and eight angles
PITCHER (n):
a large container with a small opening and handles that is used for holding liquid
VESSEL (n):
a container used for holding liquids such as a bowl, cup, etc.
REGALIA (n):
the special clothes that are worn or objects that are carried at official ceremony
WHISK (n):
small brush consisting of a bunch of feathers, hair etc. tied to a handle
DIALECT (n):
the form of a language that is spoken in one area with grammar, word and pronunciation that may be different from the other forms of the same language
His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, on Monday 5 December, 1927, the third and the youngest child of Their Royal Highness Prince and Princess Mahidol of Songla.
The death of his elder brother King Ananda Mahidol in Bangkok on 9 June, 1946,changes the course of the 18-year-old Prince Bhumibol’s life completely, as the Law of Succession bestowed on Him the arduous challenge as King of Thailand.
After assuming the highest and most responsible position in the land, His Majesty decided to go back to university Switzerland, where He studied Political Science and Law in order to equip Himself properly for His duties ahead in Thailand.
His Majesty returned to Thailand for the Coronation Ceremony, which actually took place on 5 May, 1950, before heading back to university one last time to complete His studies. He returned to Thailand for good in 1951.
Thailand had only been a constitutional Monarch for 14 years when King Bhumibol Adulyadej ascended the throne, but He brought a new, contemporary attitude to the special role of Head of State. His Majesty’s perceptive and imaginative mind and an inborn sense of dedication, made Him relish the task of finding the true conditions His people were living in and devising ways to ease their burden. His sense of involvement is always so complete; He never rest until the job is done.
His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Rama IX, is known to his loyal subjects as “The Light of Thailand.” As a young prince who never expected to be King, His Majesty has displayed the most remarkable wisdom and innate talent for His Role. His Majesty has spent a lifetime traveling throughout His kingdom to visit His people, speak to them and most importantly listen to their needs. His dedication has earned His Majesty the King the love and respect of not only His people but people around the world. He is the inspiration that rouses the awareness of perseverance and participation at all levels of society.
PAY YOUR RESPECT
In celebration of the 60th anniversary of His Majesty the King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand’s accession to the throne, you can be sure there will be plenty of ways can show you your love to uor King.
WRIST BAND
King Power released one million yellow wristband with the message “Long Live the King” --these limited editions with serial numbers have all sold out.
Thailand Post has released an unlimited supply of yellow wristbands with the message ‘Rao Rak Nai Luang.”
The American School of Bangkok has released red’ white’ and blue wristbands with the message “The Father Who Only Builds.”
LIMITED LAPTOP
ASUS Tek Computer Thailand has created 999 limited-edition notebook.
ART EXHIBITION
Cotto is staging a contemporary art exhibition under the title “Inspired by the King.” on display at the gallery in Playground on Thonglor, are works of art from 33 domestic and international artists.
King Arts Exhibition has an exhibition also called “Inspired by His Majesty” displaying paintings and drawings by children inspired our beloved king, in the lobby if the Arnoma Hotel throughout June.
CAMPS
High school students are invited to join the “Good Morality” project at the Ministry of Education’s Moral Centre, in celebration of The King’s 60th Anniversary Accession to the Throne.
60 selected students have been invited to join the King’s Camp at the Sufficient Economic Learning Centre in Mae Rim, Chiang Mai to learn about His Majesty’s self-sufficient economy model.
Vocabulary
arduous (adj): tiring
to relish: to bo happy to do aomething; to love a challenge
burden (adj): weight; responsibility
innate (adj): inborn; natural to rouse: to awaken
perseverance (noun): determination
07 พฤศจิกายน 2550
06 พฤศจิกายน 2550
Creation & Marriage:the Original Water to Wine Technology by Lynn Hofland
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” These are the introductory words to the Pentateuch. They provide both instruction and insight for many around the world. Seldom have they had so great an impact as when they were read by Frank Borman on Christmas Day as Apollo 8 looped around the moon. An inspiring message coming from three astronauts on board a lonely spacecraft 240,000 miles away. They found immense pleasure and awe in viewing the Earth with its distinct blue color. They had tasted of its goodness!
Earth is “The Blue Planet” and it has no equal. Scientifically it has the largest accumulation of water. Cosmologically it has the largest accumulation of life. The mission objective of Apollo 8 was to circle the moon and return to Earth for a water splash down of the fragile craft. The astronaut’s objective was to reunite friendships and accept a toast of earth’s fruit in celebration of their completed space journey. Both the scientific discoveries and the cosmological gratification embodied by such adventures find their fulfillment in the depths of humanity. The water and the “the fruit of the vine” proclaim life and love all the way back to “the beginning”.
In the second chapter of the book of John of the Holy Bible, is found the first of Jesus’ miracles where He turns water into wine at the celebration of a wedding. Not only was this a great assistance to the wedding party to extend the length of the ceremony, it also was the first demonstration of Christ’s divine power. When it was complete His disciples were compelled to acknowledge their belief in Jesus as He began his Earthly ministry. It is through the record of their eyewitness accounts, recorded in scripture, that all people today can know of the deity of God’s Emmanuel, Jesus the Christ.
The chemical composition of water is H2O. Wine is water with a high concentration of C6H12O6 sugar and an OH added to a portion of the sugar molecules to facilitate its fermentation. Scientifically, wine is water that has been converted from an abundant inorganic fluid to a specialized organic fluid. This remarkable conversion does not require any significant change in the hydrogen to oxygen ratio but it does require a 100% increase in the carbon atoms of the sugar molecules. It is this carbon bonding that makes it organic. This conversion only happens through the process of photosynthesis. Fermentation only happens with the passage of significant amounts of time. The making of sugar is monumental because everything living that does not possess the ability to convert water to sugar with the assimilation of carbon dioxide mush consume a life form that does possess this ability, in order to maintain a life existence. In other words, the plant kingdom provides the total sustenance for the animal kingdom. Planet Earth is the only known place where this miracle takes place.
The book of John is one of the most beloved accounts of the life of Jesus as he walked this earth. John begins his account of Jesus with the same words that the Old Testament begins with, “In the beginning. . . “ This statement establishes John as the only biblical writer who writes with authority to cover all of created time, from the beginning to the end, from Genesis to Revelation.
The marriage of Adam and Eve is physically completed in the Book of Genesis, chapter one, with the command to be “fruitful”. The marriage is spiritually completed through God’s ordination in chapter two. In the New Testament, the Apostle John looks at the glamour and content of a marriage, and includes how Jesus provided the remarkable “best wine” at its completion. Note that the name of the bride and groom are not mentioned. The institution of marriage was introduced by God in Genesis chapter 2, approved by Jesus in John chapter 2 and validated by Jesus in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6. The validations of marriage include reference to “the beginning of creation” signifying that marriage is an essential ingredient of creation. This is understandable because the procreation of human offspring was to take place through ordained marriage. If humankind did not procreate then creation had no significance and no completion.
A deeper look at this wedding celebration brings out much symbolism that ties this miracle to the Genesis creation and ultimately to the Genesis ordination of marriage. Jesus was at the wedding with his mother and his disciples. He quickly establishes that He is the authority of both what He does and when He does it. The flow of time during the wedding is not recorded. The wedding appears to start on the third day after He called his first disciples. Jewish weddings can take several days before the groom consummates the marriage. Toward the end of the ceremony the time “was right” that Jesus gave the command for six stone jars to be filled with water. Because these stone jars were used for ceremonial washing, they would only be filled with pure water. Obediently they were filled to the brim. They were then presented to the Lord that He might proclaim what would be done next.
The filling of the six earthen jars to the brim is symbolic of the filling of the earth in six days. Each day of creation was full, nothing was left out and nothing needed to be added. The water in Genesis chapter 1and 2 is the central element. The Spirit hovered over it, the heavens divided it, the dry land was drawn out of it and it provided the mist and the streams so that the earth could produce “the fruit of the vine”.
The water in the ceremonial jars became the central element of the wedding as Jesus commanded that a portion of it be drawn out and taken to the “governor of the feast”. The governor was responsible for all events leading up to and including the consummation of the marriage. In the Genesis account God was the “governor”, assuring that those who bore His image would procreate, or His creation would be invalid.
The New Testament “governor of the feast” is the Greek word “apciTpikhinox”. It appears only three times in scripture and is the conjunction of three Greek words. The first word is “apxn” and is the word “beginning” as found in John 1:1 and Revelation 1:8. It denotes primary authority. The second word is “Tpia” and simply means three. The last word is “Klivw” and implies resting in a very relaxed position. The accepted translation is that at a Jewish wedding the “the primary authority does rest on three pillows”. Another possible reading of this word is “three primary authorities that are very relaxed”. This would be in complete agreement with the very first wedding that was preformed “In the beginning.” The triune God of Creation was resting as He sealed His creation with the marriage of the first man and woman. He blessed it and promised that the two individuals would become one flesh. Then God announced, “It is very good”. Jesus repeated this performance in John 2 and His Jewish disciples could not ignore God’s almighty work in their presence.
To grasp the grandeur of this miracle, the changing of water to wine, the focus is to acknowledge the changing of something inorganic to something organic. Not a small thing! The bonding of created carbon atoms to the existing hydrogen and oxygen atoms without the presence of either time or enzyme-catalyzing photosynthesis is the only creation “out-of-nothing” miracle that Jesus did. All other miracles that our Emmanuel did while in the flesh were either for “restoration” as in his many healings, “multiplication” as in his feeding of the people, or “glorification” as in raising some from the dead. No other miracle was destined to affirm His power of creation, as He had done “in the beginning”.
Creation and marriage are bound together inseparably. These two “absolutes” of human existence are the foundation for humankind to believe in the God of all Life. It is therefore not surprising that the Creator Himself chose the marriage of two humble servants, Mary and Joseph, to facilitate His entry into His created order that He might become the perfect redeemer of all that was created. We celebrate this event at Christmas. It was all done properly. It was all done gloriously!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LYNN HOFLAND, B.S.E.E., is an Environmental Test Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. He and his wife home-school their three children, and started "Stiffneck Ministries" five years ago to provide a library of creationist material to other homeschoolers.
Earth is “The Blue Planet” and it has no equal. Scientifically it has the largest accumulation of water. Cosmologically it has the largest accumulation of life. The mission objective of Apollo 8 was to circle the moon and return to Earth for a water splash down of the fragile craft. The astronaut’s objective was to reunite friendships and accept a toast of earth’s fruit in celebration of their completed space journey. Both the scientific discoveries and the cosmological gratification embodied by such adventures find their fulfillment in the depths of humanity. The water and the “the fruit of the vine” proclaim life and love all the way back to “the beginning”.
In the second chapter of the book of John of the Holy Bible, is found the first of Jesus’ miracles where He turns water into wine at the celebration of a wedding. Not only was this a great assistance to the wedding party to extend the length of the ceremony, it also was the first demonstration of Christ’s divine power. When it was complete His disciples were compelled to acknowledge their belief in Jesus as He began his Earthly ministry. It is through the record of their eyewitness accounts, recorded in scripture, that all people today can know of the deity of God’s Emmanuel, Jesus the Christ.
The chemical composition of water is H2O. Wine is water with a high concentration of C6H12O6 sugar and an OH added to a portion of the sugar molecules to facilitate its fermentation. Scientifically, wine is water that has been converted from an abundant inorganic fluid to a specialized organic fluid. This remarkable conversion does not require any significant change in the hydrogen to oxygen ratio but it does require a 100% increase in the carbon atoms of the sugar molecules. It is this carbon bonding that makes it organic. This conversion only happens through the process of photosynthesis. Fermentation only happens with the passage of significant amounts of time. The making of sugar is monumental because everything living that does not possess the ability to convert water to sugar with the assimilation of carbon dioxide mush consume a life form that does possess this ability, in order to maintain a life existence. In other words, the plant kingdom provides the total sustenance for the animal kingdom. Planet Earth is the only known place where this miracle takes place.
The book of John is one of the most beloved accounts of the life of Jesus as he walked this earth. John begins his account of Jesus with the same words that the Old Testament begins with, “In the beginning. . . “ This statement establishes John as the only biblical writer who writes with authority to cover all of created time, from the beginning to the end, from Genesis to Revelation.
The marriage of Adam and Eve is physically completed in the Book of Genesis, chapter one, with the command to be “fruitful”. The marriage is spiritually completed through God’s ordination in chapter two. In the New Testament, the Apostle John looks at the glamour and content of a marriage, and includes how Jesus provided the remarkable “best wine” at its completion. Note that the name of the bride and groom are not mentioned. The institution of marriage was introduced by God in Genesis chapter 2, approved by Jesus in John chapter 2 and validated by Jesus in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6. The validations of marriage include reference to “the beginning of creation” signifying that marriage is an essential ingredient of creation. This is understandable because the procreation of human offspring was to take place through ordained marriage. If humankind did not procreate then creation had no significance and no completion.
A deeper look at this wedding celebration brings out much symbolism that ties this miracle to the Genesis creation and ultimately to the Genesis ordination of marriage. Jesus was at the wedding with his mother and his disciples. He quickly establishes that He is the authority of both what He does and when He does it. The flow of time during the wedding is not recorded. The wedding appears to start on the third day after He called his first disciples. Jewish weddings can take several days before the groom consummates the marriage. Toward the end of the ceremony the time “was right” that Jesus gave the command for six stone jars to be filled with water. Because these stone jars were used for ceremonial washing, they would only be filled with pure water. Obediently they were filled to the brim. They were then presented to the Lord that He might proclaim what would be done next.
The filling of the six earthen jars to the brim is symbolic of the filling of the earth in six days. Each day of creation was full, nothing was left out and nothing needed to be added. The water in Genesis chapter 1and 2 is the central element. The Spirit hovered over it, the heavens divided it, the dry land was drawn out of it and it provided the mist and the streams so that the earth could produce “the fruit of the vine”.
The water in the ceremonial jars became the central element of the wedding as Jesus commanded that a portion of it be drawn out and taken to the “governor of the feast”. The governor was responsible for all events leading up to and including the consummation of the marriage. In the Genesis account God was the “governor”, assuring that those who bore His image would procreate, or His creation would be invalid.
The New Testament “governor of the feast” is the Greek word “apciTpikhinox”. It appears only three times in scripture and is the conjunction of three Greek words. The first word is “apxn” and is the word “beginning” as found in John 1:1 and Revelation 1:8. It denotes primary authority. The second word is “Tpia” and simply means three. The last word is “Klivw” and implies resting in a very relaxed position. The accepted translation is that at a Jewish wedding the “the primary authority does rest on three pillows”. Another possible reading of this word is “three primary authorities that are very relaxed”. This would be in complete agreement with the very first wedding that was preformed “In the beginning.” The triune God of Creation was resting as He sealed His creation with the marriage of the first man and woman. He blessed it and promised that the two individuals would become one flesh. Then God announced, “It is very good”. Jesus repeated this performance in John 2 and His Jewish disciples could not ignore God’s almighty work in their presence.
To grasp the grandeur of this miracle, the changing of water to wine, the focus is to acknowledge the changing of something inorganic to something organic. Not a small thing! The bonding of created carbon atoms to the existing hydrogen and oxygen atoms without the presence of either time or enzyme-catalyzing photosynthesis is the only creation “out-of-nothing” miracle that Jesus did. All other miracles that our Emmanuel did while in the flesh were either for “restoration” as in his many healings, “multiplication” as in his feeding of the people, or “glorification” as in raising some from the dead. No other miracle was destined to affirm His power of creation, as He had done “in the beginning”.
Creation and marriage are bound together inseparably. These two “absolutes” of human existence are the foundation for humankind to believe in the God of all Life. It is therefore not surprising that the Creator Himself chose the marriage of two humble servants, Mary and Joseph, to facilitate His entry into His created order that He might become the perfect redeemer of all that was created. We celebrate this event at Christmas. It was all done properly. It was all done gloriously!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LYNN HOFLAND, B.S.E.E., is an Environmental Test Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. He and his wife home-school their three children, and started "Stiffneck Ministries" five years ago to provide a library of creationist material to other homeschoolers.
Consider Creation... by Paul Abramson
Consider Creation... for SKEPTICS
It is not unscientific to consider the possibility of a Master Designer behind the universe. It is completely natural to ponder our origins and destiny. We wouldn't be human if we didn't think about these things. Is there a Creator somewhere out there? What is "He" like? Is anything expected of us during this lifetime, i.e. during this time of learning and testing on Earth?
An “ant farm” - what if their scientists and philosophers got together and concurred that their ant farm is older than they remember and then in fact that it must have always been there, subsequent to an ancient "Big-ant-farm Bang". Of course, sigh, there are those ants (religious types) who wonder about the occasional appearance of the big giant head outside, and other unexplained phenomena, but they can be dismissed because the scientists all agree that their ant farm and in fact the entire universe around them must have just popped into existence all by itself. An ant farm is a finite world operating under mathematical and scientific laws which govern its physical properties. We know that it did not pop into orderly existence out of nothingness and for no reason, kind of like (creationists contend) our human world as a whole.
From science we know that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, it is scientific to claim that you can’t get something from nothing, or stated differently that matter cannot be either created or destroyed. How then did all the matter in the universe come into existence in the first place? Is the Big Bang a logical, scientific presumption based upon this understanding of the universe’s laws? Scientifically speaking, you can’t get something from nothing for no reason. Order does not coalesce from disorder for no reason.
Let’s say that we come across a Japanese minivan in a parking lot. This object appears to be composed of interlocking parts, can move when pushed, and the windows roll up and down. But wait, scientists can prove that it all happened by “accident” because they were able to forge one that looks almost the same in a local factory lab. Obviously then the minivan came about by pure accident, or did it? Is life on Earth all that different from such a minivan? Well, life is more complex on an interlocking cellular parts level, and partially self healing, and reproduces “naturally selected” copies each generation down which are almost as good as predecessors, and can adapt to different environments ... i.e. thinking about it, Earth’s organic life is significantly more complex in design than a simplistic mechanical minivan! Life on Earth was all by chance?
We are told that recorded human history started around 4,000 years ago. In China, the Middle East, and Central America technical societies “suddenly” began recording their events from about that time. That time frame concurs with the Genesis Flood story, that mankind had to start over again from about 4,350 years ago. Did you know that there are actually over 250 independent histories or legends from around the world of a past great flood? These evidences combine well with the geologic layer data and the fossil record evidence to support creationist theory that there really was a recent global flood.
Design evidences a Designer. If single celled life on Earth is many times more complex than a new minivan with all the options then it is reasonable to consider the possibility that there is a Creator (or Designer) behind the universe. And remember, “you can’t get something from nothing.” The idea that our universe just popped into existence out of nothingness for no reason is one theory, but not necessarily the only one available for logical consideration.
Consider Creation... for BELIEVERS
Playing a board game can bring out the best and worst in children (...and even for some adults). Chance plays its part, purchase decisions can be regretted, and then there is the direct interaction between players. People get upset when they’re bankrupted and left with nothing, forced out of the game. The winner may be gleeful while holding all the money and property. But it’s all temporary; when the game is over each person can move on to other things. For believers, life on Earth is like this: temporary (John 5:24, I Cor. 15:20-22).
We know that we will someday have to answer to our Maker for what we’ve done during our lives here on Earth. Chance plays its part. We make decisions that we may later regret. But our lives here are only temporary. We can get upset at unfairness, at injustice, at humiliation - yet the game (so to speak) continues - it is our character development (Gal. 5:22-23), not our bank accounts and property, which will follow us into the next life.
It is fully possible for one to believe in evolution and still have accepted God’s forgiveness for sins due to Christ’s death on the Cross (John 3:16). But believers need to know that the theory of evolution stands in direct opposition to the foundation of fearing God. Besides the fact that there is still no scientific evidence supporting this theory, evolution in practice is a societal cancer leading to sin and death. Consider this: is it “survival of the fittest” when a powerful monopolist crushes a small, innovative company? When used as an excuse for dishonorable conduct, “evolution” is clearly a destructive force.
The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, I Tim. 6:20-21, “Oh Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane [and] vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith....” Temporal scientists (based upon the Greek Ptolemy model) used to believe that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Some believers also came to accept this theory, but they like the scientists, were wrong. Other scientists, in Europe’s Middle Ages, determined that the Earth must be flat. Those scientists were also wrong. (Note that all along Isaiah 40:22 mentions, “..the circle of the earth...”) The evidence which was propped up in both of these examples was inconclusive and eventually turned out to have been interpreted incorrectly. When the Bible and scientific theories are in conflict - just give the scientists more time, but don’t compromise God’s Word!
It has been approximately 175 generations since Noah’s family left the Ark at the end of the year long global Flood. Jesus said this about Noah (Luke 17:26-27), “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” Jesus, the “last Adam” (I Cor. 15:45) paid the price for the first Adam’s initial sin which caused the first death. Genesis is as integral to the Bible’s message as a foundation is to a house. In Matt. 7:24-29, Jesus mentions the difference between a house built on sand with a house built upon a rock. Biblical faith rests upon a solid, historical foundation.
Do not be led astray by propped up “science” falsely so called. Pray about this and study as needed. Since our lives on Earth are temporary, we must labor to focus on spiritual concerns.. With Jews, St. Paul debated Scriptures, but with others he turned to logic, history, and reason. In Acts 17:18-31 he preached in Athens concerning God, the creator of all. This we must also do today! Please don’t stand “with science” and against God’s Word; instead - consider creation.
"Consider Creation" by Paul Abramson, Sept. 99, has been released to the Public Domain
It is not unscientific to consider the possibility of a Master Designer behind the universe. It is completely natural to ponder our origins and destiny. We wouldn't be human if we didn't think about these things. Is there a Creator somewhere out there? What is "He" like? Is anything expected of us during this lifetime, i.e. during this time of learning and testing on Earth?
An “ant farm” - what if their scientists and philosophers got together and concurred that their ant farm is older than they remember and then in fact that it must have always been there, subsequent to an ancient "Big-ant-farm Bang". Of course, sigh, there are those ants (religious types) who wonder about the occasional appearance of the big giant head outside, and other unexplained phenomena, but they can be dismissed because the scientists all agree that their ant farm and in fact the entire universe around them must have just popped into existence all by itself. An ant farm is a finite world operating under mathematical and scientific laws which govern its physical properties. We know that it did not pop into orderly existence out of nothingness and for no reason, kind of like (creationists contend) our human world as a whole.
From science we know that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, it is scientific to claim that you can’t get something from nothing, or stated differently that matter cannot be either created or destroyed. How then did all the matter in the universe come into existence in the first place? Is the Big Bang a logical, scientific presumption based upon this understanding of the universe’s laws? Scientifically speaking, you can’t get something from nothing for no reason. Order does not coalesce from disorder for no reason.
Let’s say that we come across a Japanese minivan in a parking lot. This object appears to be composed of interlocking parts, can move when pushed, and the windows roll up and down. But wait, scientists can prove that it all happened by “accident” because they were able to forge one that looks almost the same in a local factory lab. Obviously then the minivan came about by pure accident, or did it? Is life on Earth all that different from such a minivan? Well, life is more complex on an interlocking cellular parts level, and partially self healing, and reproduces “naturally selected” copies each generation down which are almost as good as predecessors, and can adapt to different environments ... i.e. thinking about it, Earth’s organic life is significantly more complex in design than a simplistic mechanical minivan! Life on Earth was all by chance?
We are told that recorded human history started around 4,000 years ago. In China, the Middle East, and Central America technical societies “suddenly” began recording their events from about that time. That time frame concurs with the Genesis Flood story, that mankind had to start over again from about 4,350 years ago. Did you know that there are actually over 250 independent histories or legends from around the world of a past great flood? These evidences combine well with the geologic layer data and the fossil record evidence to support creationist theory that there really was a recent global flood.
Design evidences a Designer. If single celled life on Earth is many times more complex than a new minivan with all the options then it is reasonable to consider the possibility that there is a Creator (or Designer) behind the universe. And remember, “you can’t get something from nothing.” The idea that our universe just popped into existence out of nothingness for no reason is one theory, but not necessarily the only one available for logical consideration.
Consider Creation... for BELIEVERS
Playing a board game can bring out the best and worst in children (...and even for some adults). Chance plays its part, purchase decisions can be regretted, and then there is the direct interaction between players. People get upset when they’re bankrupted and left with nothing, forced out of the game. The winner may be gleeful while holding all the money and property. But it’s all temporary; when the game is over each person can move on to other things. For believers, life on Earth is like this: temporary (John 5:24, I Cor. 15:20-22).
We know that we will someday have to answer to our Maker for what we’ve done during our lives here on Earth. Chance plays its part. We make decisions that we may later regret. But our lives here are only temporary. We can get upset at unfairness, at injustice, at humiliation - yet the game (so to speak) continues - it is our character development (Gal. 5:22-23), not our bank accounts and property, which will follow us into the next life.
It is fully possible for one to believe in evolution and still have accepted God’s forgiveness for sins due to Christ’s death on the Cross (John 3:16). But believers need to know that the theory of evolution stands in direct opposition to the foundation of fearing God. Besides the fact that there is still no scientific evidence supporting this theory, evolution in practice is a societal cancer leading to sin and death. Consider this: is it “survival of the fittest” when a powerful monopolist crushes a small, innovative company? When used as an excuse for dishonorable conduct, “evolution” is clearly a destructive force.
The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, I Tim. 6:20-21, “Oh Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane [and] vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith....” Temporal scientists (based upon the Greek Ptolemy model) used to believe that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Some believers also came to accept this theory, but they like the scientists, were wrong. Other scientists, in Europe’s Middle Ages, determined that the Earth must be flat. Those scientists were also wrong. (Note that all along Isaiah 40:22 mentions, “..the circle of the earth...”) The evidence which was propped up in both of these examples was inconclusive and eventually turned out to have been interpreted incorrectly. When the Bible and scientific theories are in conflict - just give the scientists more time, but don’t compromise God’s Word!
It has been approximately 175 generations since Noah’s family left the Ark at the end of the year long global Flood. Jesus said this about Noah (Luke 17:26-27), “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” Jesus, the “last Adam” (I Cor. 15:45) paid the price for the first Adam’s initial sin which caused the first death. Genesis is as integral to the Bible’s message as a foundation is to a house. In Matt. 7:24-29, Jesus mentions the difference between a house built on sand with a house built upon a rock. Biblical faith rests upon a solid, historical foundation.
Do not be led astray by propped up “science” falsely so called. Pray about this and study as needed. Since our lives on Earth are temporary, we must labor to focus on spiritual concerns.. With Jews, St. Paul debated Scriptures, but with others he turned to logic, history, and reason. In Acts 17:18-31 he preached in Athens concerning God, the creator of all. This we must also do today! Please don’t stand “with science” and against God’s Word; instead - consider creation.
"Consider Creation" by Paul Abramson, Sept. 99, has been released to the Public Domain
Significant “Nothings” by John Verderame
The question of extraterrestrial life has intrigued mankind for ages. More so in our day, however, as we have a better idea of the magnitude of the expanse of the universe. The common sentiment is that because the universe is so large, there simply must be other creatures, other civilizations, “out there.”
But there is more to it than that. The presupposition that life exists outside the earth’s protective shell stems not only from our seeming “insignificance” as a drop in the cosmic ocean, but is fueled by the evolutionary dogma that, if life evolved on earth, it must have evolved elsewhere, too. So there is now a frantic race toward the ultimate goal--contact with whatever civilization may have sent us a signal, or whomever might respond to our feeble efforts to send messages. Those efforts range from the bizarre plaque attached to a Voyager space vessel, which had recordings of such things as whale sounds and a baby crying on it and is now drifting in interstellar space in hopes “someone” will find it, to the current project “SETI@home” where the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence can be aided by your own computer screen saver program, as it sifts through recordings of space noise to detect an artificial signal (after earth noise interference is accounted for and subtracted) while you are busy doing other things. The incentive is that your computer has a one in umpteen trillion chance of being the one that will find the elusive signal, and you will go down in history as a footnote to the greatest discovery of all time.
Pretty exciting stuff! Especially if you have no hope. Especially if you believe we return to the dust and there is no afterlife. Or if you believe that all the answers to our problems are “out there” somewhere. Or if you think someone out there knows the secret to eternal life. The fountain of youth lies somewhere near the Pleiades--maybe. The Savior will send us a signal one day, and we’ll live happily ever after.
Will we? Let’s think through the ramifications of actually making “contact.”
First of all, scientists themselves are highly doubtful that we will receive such a signal in our lifetimes. Our technological capabilities have not yet reached the level where we can make an extensive sky search, and isolate the faintest signal with the absolute certainty that it is not a man-made aberration. Even SETI scientists do not believe we will make contact any time soon.
Secondly, suppose we did discover a new civilization. Would they be friendly? What has typically been the lesson of our own history? When a new civilization was discovered, the explorers came as--pick one: Conquerors, or Friends. If we are realistic, it should be evident to us that, if an advanced civilization did discover us, we would soon be enslaved--maybe they’d even dissect us in Science class and the like!
Finally, what is really the likelihood that a civilization went through all the evolutionary stages just like our own, then surpassed us on the evolution ladder, and now is looking to contact us to give us all the answers to our basic questions? Are we attempting to find “lower” beings so we can help them reach our level of progress? What is the basis for our belief that any beings whatsoever will be found?
Those of us who believe the Bible is God’s infallible word must ask ourselves if the question of life elsewhere in the universe is in fact addressed there. Or, are we doomed to speculation, and will we find ourselves with egg on our faces, as the church did when the geocentric universe was disproved? The Bible does in fact address the issue--circumstantially. But, let’s take a look first at the above case of geocentrism, because it does, in fact, impact on the current discussion.
A rather emphatic case is made by modern science that, because we are no longer at the center of the universe, it has now been demonstrated that we are insignificant nothings. Our world does not matter; our position does not matter; people do not matter. We are, to paraphrase Stephen Jay Gould, a lucky accident. One wonders if these scientists ever asked themselves, “If the universe is insignificant, and our galaxy even more insignificant, and our solar system and planet even more insignificant, and earth’s inhabitants still less significant, and I am only one six-billionth of that, then why should anyone even care what I have to say?!”
But does where we are really determine who or what we are?? If you have a child, is that child only important when he is in the very center of your home, or are you concerned for him no matter where he is? If he goes to a friend’s house, does that change who he is? Does it change his relationship to you? Of course not! And neither does it matter where we are in the universe. The Bible says God created man in His image, and that mankind is very important to Him! He created us to love Him, worship Him, know Him, and be with Him. But our sin has separated us from him. We might as well be floating out in the middle of nowhere if we have no relationship with our Creator. But we do! If the sin that separates us from Him has been forgiven, we have a renewed relationship with Him. If not, we are, in fact, doomed to a purposeless existence.
So, no, our location in the universe really is not important in itself. Rather, our relationship with God is what is important. But what about ET? Yes, in fact there are extraterrestrial beings in the Bible. They are called angels and demons. And they have tremendous influence over our activities and world events. They are, however, beings--not flying saucers or any such apparition. When they appear in Scripture, it is always in the form of a created being--either a person or, in the case of demon possession, possibly an animal (like pigs, for example). It may be, however, that demonic activity is behind so-called sightings of UFO’s or abductions by aliens. Why? Because anything that draws us away from God and His truth, that entices us to hope in anything other than Jesus Christ, or that leads us to search for answers as to our origins and destiny elsewhere besides God’s word, is satanic.
Thus, as far as any humanoid beings inhabiting the universe, we would have to answer an unequivocal NO. The reasons? First, the Bible says God created the universe and all that is in it in six days. So, the universe did not evolve. Second, on the sixth day, God reached the pinnacle of His work--He created man and woman and said that we are in His image. How does that truth impact the question at hand? If we are in His image, the only “higher intelligence” in the universe could be God Himself. Is it not ironic that the first sin to enter the universe was Lucifer’s rebellious desire to usurp God’s authority, and the first sin Satan used to tempt man was that if man just simply would ignore God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit, man would “be like God?” We are not satisfied with being “just” humans. We want to be super humans--like gods. We want to hear from advanced civilizations, not just anyone.
The Bible clearly indicates that Earth was chosen--for reasons only God knows--to be a proving ground for His created beings. We were given freedom of choice. Had we obeyed God, the entire universe would have been opened up to us to discover and enjoy the rest of His creation. That’s why He created it all--for US! God did not need anything. He is self-sufficient. But true love must express itself, and God wanted to express His love by creating and then sharing that creation with other beings in His image who could enjoy it. By trying to steal God’s position as Father from Him, we lost our position as His children, and became instead children of rebellion. Our original position can only be restored through Jesus Christ. Why? Because, just as God made all the other rules that govern creation, He decreed that the penalty for sin had to be paid by one perfect man’s blood, and that was the God-man, Christ Jesus. God loved His creation so much that He himself was willing to pay the price to bring us back to Him.
If you are looking for answers from outer space, they are there for the asking. God sent His living Word--Jesus, and His written word, the Bible, from Heaven, so that we might one day be in Heaven with Him by believing what He tells us--to trust Christ for our salvation. Millions or even billions of dollars will be spent; countless hours of work and research will be performed; hopes and dreams will be built and shattered looking for evolutionary answers to life’s basic questions. Even if Satan comes up with a trick so deceptive that many will be fooled into believing we have made “contact” with an advanced civilization, don’t be taken in. The savior is not “out there.” He is right beside you, waiting for you to hear His voice. If you have already believed, then you know the Savior is inside your heart and soul. Don’t you be fooled either. Stand up for God’s word! Tell the world that God created the cosmos in six days, and that He is great enough to have done so! Tell them mankind is important and that they are not monkeys’ uncles who will return to cosmic dust--accidents of materialistic caprice. Tell them about the hope that is within you, and that you found that hope not by looking to the farthest depths of space, but rather by looking toward your inmost being, and discovering the emptiness there that could only be filled by the love of God.
But there is more to it than that. The presupposition that life exists outside the earth’s protective shell stems not only from our seeming “insignificance” as a drop in the cosmic ocean, but is fueled by the evolutionary dogma that, if life evolved on earth, it must have evolved elsewhere, too. So there is now a frantic race toward the ultimate goal--contact with whatever civilization may have sent us a signal, or whomever might respond to our feeble efforts to send messages. Those efforts range from the bizarre plaque attached to a Voyager space vessel, which had recordings of such things as whale sounds and a baby crying on it and is now drifting in interstellar space in hopes “someone” will find it, to the current project “SETI@home” where the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence can be aided by your own computer screen saver program, as it sifts through recordings of space noise to detect an artificial signal (after earth noise interference is accounted for and subtracted) while you are busy doing other things. The incentive is that your computer has a one in umpteen trillion chance of being the one that will find the elusive signal, and you will go down in history as a footnote to the greatest discovery of all time.
Pretty exciting stuff! Especially if you have no hope. Especially if you believe we return to the dust and there is no afterlife. Or if you believe that all the answers to our problems are “out there” somewhere. Or if you think someone out there knows the secret to eternal life. The fountain of youth lies somewhere near the Pleiades--maybe. The Savior will send us a signal one day, and we’ll live happily ever after.
Will we? Let’s think through the ramifications of actually making “contact.”
First of all, scientists themselves are highly doubtful that we will receive such a signal in our lifetimes. Our technological capabilities have not yet reached the level where we can make an extensive sky search, and isolate the faintest signal with the absolute certainty that it is not a man-made aberration. Even SETI scientists do not believe we will make contact any time soon.
Secondly, suppose we did discover a new civilization. Would they be friendly? What has typically been the lesson of our own history? When a new civilization was discovered, the explorers came as--pick one: Conquerors, or Friends. If we are realistic, it should be evident to us that, if an advanced civilization did discover us, we would soon be enslaved--maybe they’d even dissect us in Science class and the like!
Finally, what is really the likelihood that a civilization went through all the evolutionary stages just like our own, then surpassed us on the evolution ladder, and now is looking to contact us to give us all the answers to our basic questions? Are we attempting to find “lower” beings so we can help them reach our level of progress? What is the basis for our belief that any beings whatsoever will be found?
Those of us who believe the Bible is God’s infallible word must ask ourselves if the question of life elsewhere in the universe is in fact addressed there. Or, are we doomed to speculation, and will we find ourselves with egg on our faces, as the church did when the geocentric universe was disproved? The Bible does in fact address the issue--circumstantially. But, let’s take a look first at the above case of geocentrism, because it does, in fact, impact on the current discussion.
A rather emphatic case is made by modern science that, because we are no longer at the center of the universe, it has now been demonstrated that we are insignificant nothings. Our world does not matter; our position does not matter; people do not matter. We are, to paraphrase Stephen Jay Gould, a lucky accident. One wonders if these scientists ever asked themselves, “If the universe is insignificant, and our galaxy even more insignificant, and our solar system and planet even more insignificant, and earth’s inhabitants still less significant, and I am only one six-billionth of that, then why should anyone even care what I have to say?!”
But does where we are really determine who or what we are?? If you have a child, is that child only important when he is in the very center of your home, or are you concerned for him no matter where he is? If he goes to a friend’s house, does that change who he is? Does it change his relationship to you? Of course not! And neither does it matter where we are in the universe. The Bible says God created man in His image, and that mankind is very important to Him! He created us to love Him, worship Him, know Him, and be with Him. But our sin has separated us from him. We might as well be floating out in the middle of nowhere if we have no relationship with our Creator. But we do! If the sin that separates us from Him has been forgiven, we have a renewed relationship with Him. If not, we are, in fact, doomed to a purposeless existence.
So, no, our location in the universe really is not important in itself. Rather, our relationship with God is what is important. But what about ET? Yes, in fact there are extraterrestrial beings in the Bible. They are called angels and demons. And they have tremendous influence over our activities and world events. They are, however, beings--not flying saucers or any such apparition. When they appear in Scripture, it is always in the form of a created being--either a person or, in the case of demon possession, possibly an animal (like pigs, for example). It may be, however, that demonic activity is behind so-called sightings of UFO’s or abductions by aliens. Why? Because anything that draws us away from God and His truth, that entices us to hope in anything other than Jesus Christ, or that leads us to search for answers as to our origins and destiny elsewhere besides God’s word, is satanic.
Thus, as far as any humanoid beings inhabiting the universe, we would have to answer an unequivocal NO. The reasons? First, the Bible says God created the universe and all that is in it in six days. So, the universe did not evolve. Second, on the sixth day, God reached the pinnacle of His work--He created man and woman and said that we are in His image. How does that truth impact the question at hand? If we are in His image, the only “higher intelligence” in the universe could be God Himself. Is it not ironic that the first sin to enter the universe was Lucifer’s rebellious desire to usurp God’s authority, and the first sin Satan used to tempt man was that if man just simply would ignore God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit, man would “be like God?” We are not satisfied with being “just” humans. We want to be super humans--like gods. We want to hear from advanced civilizations, not just anyone.
The Bible clearly indicates that Earth was chosen--for reasons only God knows--to be a proving ground for His created beings. We were given freedom of choice. Had we obeyed God, the entire universe would have been opened up to us to discover and enjoy the rest of His creation. That’s why He created it all--for US! God did not need anything. He is self-sufficient. But true love must express itself, and God wanted to express His love by creating and then sharing that creation with other beings in His image who could enjoy it. By trying to steal God’s position as Father from Him, we lost our position as His children, and became instead children of rebellion. Our original position can only be restored through Jesus Christ. Why? Because, just as God made all the other rules that govern creation, He decreed that the penalty for sin had to be paid by one perfect man’s blood, and that was the God-man, Christ Jesus. God loved His creation so much that He himself was willing to pay the price to bring us back to Him.
If you are looking for answers from outer space, they are there for the asking. God sent His living Word--Jesus, and His written word, the Bible, from Heaven, so that we might one day be in Heaven with Him by believing what He tells us--to trust Christ for our salvation. Millions or even billions of dollars will be spent; countless hours of work and research will be performed; hopes and dreams will be built and shattered looking for evolutionary answers to life’s basic questions. Even if Satan comes up with a trick so deceptive that many will be fooled into believing we have made “contact” with an advanced civilization, don’t be taken in. The savior is not “out there.” He is right beside you, waiting for you to hear His voice. If you have already believed, then you know the Savior is inside your heart and soul. Don’t you be fooled either. Stand up for God’s word! Tell the world that God created the cosmos in six days, and that He is great enough to have done so! Tell them mankind is important and that they are not monkeys’ uncles who will return to cosmic dust--accidents of materialistic caprice. Tell them about the hope that is within you, and that you found that hope not by looking to the farthest depths of space, but rather by looking toward your inmost being, and discovering the emptiness there that could only be filled by the love of God.
A Study on Biblical Belief in Creation by Erik Gislén
13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
This is a wonderful hymn to Christ. You can feel Paul's inspiration in his praise of the Savior. It is wonderful to glimpse the greatness of the mystery of Christ. How we would like to join more and more in this song of praise with our faith, with our words and our lives!
Anybody can realize that what stands written in this piece of scripture is closely linked together with the doctrine of God creating through His Son. Even more how intensely and even literally it is linked to the story of the Creation in Genesis you can not clearly understand until you realize that the writer was an Israelite, that he spoke from a Jewish education in interpreting the Bible, and that he was thinking in Hebrew even when he was writing in Greek.
He expected that those who would expound his words would understand his intentions and perspective:
Verse 15:
He is the image of the invisible God...
In Genesis 1:27 it stands written:
God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him...
God's own image was the Son.
Words for meditation:
No one has ever seen God, but the only begotten Son who is at the Father's side, has made him known, John 1:18.
This is the image we have of God, the image that has been portrayed before our eyes — Jesus Christ as crucified, (Gal.1:3).
Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?… Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's (Mark 12:16-17).
It is very important that it is the same Image as once in the act of creation that now in redemption shall 'coin' us. For God wants once more to make us images of God. It is not a foreign God, that intervenes in our world in order to rescue us from the dominion of darkness, it is the Creator of all mankind. He comes to his fallen creation, with redemption and restoration. He came to that which was his own (John 1:11).
The First Article of Faith is the foundational basis for The Second Article. What God has done for our redemption and salvation is of the same purpose as that of God's first creating all that there is. God of Creation and God of Redemption are not two different Gods, but He is one and the same God. He is the good God!
In the times of the old Church this was an extraordinary important point of doctrine. For the so called gnostic sects at times influenced the Church. The gnostics, for example Marcion, meant that the God whom had created matter was an evil God and that there had come to the world a good God of salvation to rescue us (= our fettered souls) from matter and body. The Savior they recognized therefore was understood to be a foreign God. The Second Article of Faith was, so to say, hanging loose in the air. It had for them no foundation upon The First Article, i.e. matter and body they regarded as something evil, that should not be saved, but that man should be saved from them.
When Christian people in our days believe in the theory of evolution, there appear some similarities to these marcionism beliefs with regard to their view of creation. For according to the theory of evolution man has come up from an evolution in which the "struggle for existence" and the stronger one's victory over the weaker is meant to have been the law of life from the beginning of the world. And as a man thinks the beginning to have been, so becomes the continuation — and the end! It does not matter, how romantically, respectfully and beautifully they try to picture evolution in films about nature. The consequences of a belief in such a beginning will show up sooner or later. The 'God' of evolutionary creation is (comparitively speaking) from a Christian ethical point of view 'an evil God of creation'. A Paradise (as described in Genesis) in the beginning could obviously not have existed. Sin and death must have been there from the beginning. A Fall could never have been. Realize what this means. See the mystery of this wickedness working secretly to break down faith and human dignity.
In such a faith system Christian moral law, human dignity, charity and salvation becomes totally foreign and unrealistic. And the thought of God as judging you for sin and as claiming anything good seems meaningless. For hasn't he himself created you as you are now?
Christ's sacrifice of himself and his act of redemption and my repentance, salvation and the last judgment — The Second and The Third Articles — really all become meaningless in that system. Christ then, as recognized by the Christian faith would in such circumstances surely not be the true image of the invisible God.
Some in fact have drawn the logical moral conclusions. For ordinary people the conclusions are not consciously drawn; but unconsciously they have absorbed arguments against repentance and a new life. Many Christians as well are influenced by evolutionary assumptions. Their Christan faith then has a gnostic touch, it becomes something mainly 'experienced', 'felt', 'religious' — outside the 'real' world. So we get difficulties in intellectually arguing for the existence of the Christian Creator and for living a respectable life according to God's commandments.
We get a better starting-point, when we listen to sober scientific analysis against faith in evolutionism and instead let this foundation present an alternative logical interpretation of the many fossils resulting from the Great Flood; and when we thus proclaim Christ, creation's Savior, He is the image of the invisible God!
In verse 15 it is also said about Christ:
…the firstborn over all creation.
In the Greek original text there is no 'over'. It stands written: …all creation's firstborn.
It is also possible to translate the words:
…every creation's firstborn.
(Greek: protótokos páses ktíseos).
This does not mean that Christ is a created being or a part of God's creation. 'The firstborn of the creation' is a phrase that describes the glory of our Savior.
Remember the importance of the rights of the firstborn in the story of Jacob and Esau (Gen. 27 etc.). Think upon the genealogical tables (Gen. 5 etc.). The firstborn was not only the person that inherited external things. A much more important aspect was that the firstborn was the person to be the bearer of the line of election, pointing forward till Christ. The firstborn is a prophetic word for Messiah!
Esau was not interested in the spiritual aspect of the rights of the firstborn. He was thinking according to the flesh: He was the first born! But God had given the promise to Jacob. God had elected Jacob before the twins were born. And now when Isaac, their father, evidently had forgotten Gods word about whom God wanted as the bearer of the spiritual tradition, both mother Rebecca and Jacob lost a bit of their trust in God. And so much later went wrong in the family. They all sinned and they severly damaged their relations with one another. And Jacob had to suffer the consequences of his deceit! But God, of course, kept His promise.
Jesus Christ is all creation's firstborn. He is the Person in God through whom God created the world — the good, sin free creation, described in the Biblical story of Creation. He is the one who has the right over everything and who fulfills everything, Col.1:15-16: …the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created… all things were created by him and for him.
Christ is also — as the words are translated — the firstborn of every creation of God: He is not only The Firstborn of the creation of this universe, but also The Firstborn of the invisible world of thrones and powers and rulers and authorities as are created by him and for him.
And He is The Firstborn of the redemption. God's work of salvation is done through the same Person as the one through whom God made the original creation of earth. He redeems, renews, recreates this fallen creation. Therefore it stands written that Christ is The Firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy (Col.1:18).
In vers 18 we read that Christ is the head, the beginning and has the supremacy (this last word is in the original simply 'the first').
The allusion to the story of Creation is still evident in modern translations when Christ here is called the beginning. The story of creation begins with the phrase: (Genesis 1:1) In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
However there is a much richer and more intensive allusion to the story of creation than that which is possible to see in our translations.
In order to understand Paul's idea it is not enough to read the original Greek. Paul must have thought in Hebrew, though he was writing in Greek. If we translate these key words into Hebrew, we can immediately see, that Paul must have had Genesis 1:1 in his thoughts:
You should be able to se, that the three Hebrew words in the third column has the same word-stem. The stem consists in this transcription of the two consonants R and SH. The vowels o, e and i together with the endings -ith and -on are forming new words from the stem.
There is a fine logic in this word-formation. The head normally comes forth first, when someone is born. Head is also a word for leader. He comes first. The one who is the head therefore is the beginning too.
The Apostle Paul here gives us a deeper interpretation of The Beginning. We usually think it means the beginning of time. But the apostle reads it as a name of Christ. Christ is mentioned first of all in the Bible. His name is the first word, that is born, from God's lips, when God begins to speak to us about the background of the salvation history. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matth. 12:34). God's heart is overflowing by love to the Son. See, how God loves his Son! This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased (Matth. 3:17). His name is the first word in God's word. It is actually possible to state this as the first word in the Bible, not the second word, for in the Hebrew the words 'In the beginning' are really combined into only one word.
We have often read the interpretation of John about Christ as the Creator's Word (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh… , John 1:1 etc.). But the New Testament doctrine about Christ is still greater in its interpretation of Genesis, chapter 1.
The teaching about Christ as The Beginning you can also find in the Apostle John's scriptures. John is using exactly the same reference words in the Greek version as does Paul. In Revelation 3:14 Christ says: These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
He really is the Beginning of the creation: He is the Beginning of the story of the creation of God. It may well be that there are other instances where the Bible uses the word beginning with an underlying allusion and in the sense of The story of creation — Genesis 1, and as a name of Christ.
Remember also the names Alpha and Omega — The Beginning and The End - The First and The Last, used about God and His Son.
Christ is holding everything from the beginning to the end in His hands. It is Him (from the beginning) whom we are longing to see in the future:
Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him… I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord. … Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. (Revelation 1:7-8, 17-18. Compare Rev.21:6 and 22:13.) What a wonderful end there can be for us, if we begin in Jesus!
God has given to His Son the first place everywhere. The apostle praises Him rejoicing. So we too may show him our love and praise him with our faith, with our words and with our lives!
"A Study on Biblical Belief in Creation", by Erik Gislén, © 1999
This is a wonderful hymn to Christ. You can feel Paul's inspiration in his praise of the Savior. It is wonderful to glimpse the greatness of the mystery of Christ. How we would like to join more and more in this song of praise with our faith, with our words and our lives!
Anybody can realize that what stands written in this piece of scripture is closely linked together with the doctrine of God creating through His Son. Even more how intensely and even literally it is linked to the story of the Creation in Genesis you can not clearly understand until you realize that the writer was an Israelite, that he spoke from a Jewish education in interpreting the Bible, and that he was thinking in Hebrew even when he was writing in Greek.
He expected that those who would expound his words would understand his intentions and perspective:
Verse 15:
He is the image of the invisible God...
In Genesis 1:27 it stands written:
God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him...
God's own image was the Son.
Words for meditation:
No one has ever seen God, but the only begotten Son who is at the Father's side, has made him known, John 1:18.
This is the image we have of God, the image that has been portrayed before our eyes — Jesus Christ as crucified, (Gal.1:3).
Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?… Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's (Mark 12:16-17).
It is very important that it is the same Image as once in the act of creation that now in redemption shall 'coin' us. For God wants once more to make us images of God. It is not a foreign God, that intervenes in our world in order to rescue us from the dominion of darkness, it is the Creator of all mankind. He comes to his fallen creation, with redemption and restoration. He came to that which was his own (John 1:11).
The First Article of Faith is the foundational basis for The Second Article. What God has done for our redemption and salvation is of the same purpose as that of God's first creating all that there is. God of Creation and God of Redemption are not two different Gods, but He is one and the same God. He is the good God!
In the times of the old Church this was an extraordinary important point of doctrine. For the so called gnostic sects at times influenced the Church. The gnostics, for example Marcion, meant that the God whom had created matter was an evil God and that there had come to the world a good God of salvation to rescue us (= our fettered souls) from matter and body. The Savior they recognized therefore was understood to be a foreign God. The Second Article of Faith was, so to say, hanging loose in the air. It had for them no foundation upon The First Article, i.e. matter and body they regarded as something evil, that should not be saved, but that man should be saved from them.
When Christian people in our days believe in the theory of evolution, there appear some similarities to these marcionism beliefs with regard to their view of creation. For according to the theory of evolution man has come up from an evolution in which the "struggle for existence" and the stronger one's victory over the weaker is meant to have been the law of life from the beginning of the world. And as a man thinks the beginning to have been, so becomes the continuation — and the end! It does not matter, how romantically, respectfully and beautifully they try to picture evolution in films about nature. The consequences of a belief in such a beginning will show up sooner or later. The 'God' of evolutionary creation is (comparitively speaking) from a Christian ethical point of view 'an evil God of creation'. A Paradise (as described in Genesis) in the beginning could obviously not have existed. Sin and death must have been there from the beginning. A Fall could never have been. Realize what this means. See the mystery of this wickedness working secretly to break down faith and human dignity.
In such a faith system Christian moral law, human dignity, charity and salvation becomes totally foreign and unrealistic. And the thought of God as judging you for sin and as claiming anything good seems meaningless. For hasn't he himself created you as you are now?
Christ's sacrifice of himself and his act of redemption and my repentance, salvation and the last judgment — The Second and The Third Articles — really all become meaningless in that system. Christ then, as recognized by the Christian faith would in such circumstances surely not be the true image of the invisible God.
Some in fact have drawn the logical moral conclusions. For ordinary people the conclusions are not consciously drawn; but unconsciously they have absorbed arguments against repentance and a new life. Many Christians as well are influenced by evolutionary assumptions. Their Christan faith then has a gnostic touch, it becomes something mainly 'experienced', 'felt', 'religious' — outside the 'real' world. So we get difficulties in intellectually arguing for the existence of the Christian Creator and for living a respectable life according to God's commandments.
We get a better starting-point, when we listen to sober scientific analysis against faith in evolutionism and instead let this foundation present an alternative logical interpretation of the many fossils resulting from the Great Flood; and when we thus proclaim Christ, creation's Savior, He is the image of the invisible God!
In verse 15 it is also said about Christ:
…the firstborn over all creation.
In the Greek original text there is no 'over'. It stands written: …all creation's firstborn.
It is also possible to translate the words:
…every creation's firstborn.
(Greek: protótokos páses ktíseos).
This does not mean that Christ is a created being or a part of God's creation. 'The firstborn of the creation' is a phrase that describes the glory of our Savior.
Remember the importance of the rights of the firstborn in the story of Jacob and Esau (Gen. 27 etc.). Think upon the genealogical tables (Gen. 5 etc.). The firstborn was not only the person that inherited external things. A much more important aspect was that the firstborn was the person to be the bearer of the line of election, pointing forward till Christ. The firstborn is a prophetic word for Messiah!
Esau was not interested in the spiritual aspect of the rights of the firstborn. He was thinking according to the flesh: He was the first born! But God had given the promise to Jacob. God had elected Jacob before the twins were born. And now when Isaac, their father, evidently had forgotten Gods word about whom God wanted as the bearer of the spiritual tradition, both mother Rebecca and Jacob lost a bit of their trust in God. And so much later went wrong in the family. They all sinned and they severly damaged their relations with one another. And Jacob had to suffer the consequences of his deceit! But God, of course, kept His promise.
Jesus Christ is all creation's firstborn. He is the Person in God through whom God created the world — the good, sin free creation, described in the Biblical story of Creation. He is the one who has the right over everything and who fulfills everything, Col.1:15-16: …the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created… all things were created by him and for him.
Christ is also — as the words are translated — the firstborn of every creation of God: He is not only The Firstborn of the creation of this universe, but also The Firstborn of the invisible world of thrones and powers and rulers and authorities as are created by him and for him.
And He is The Firstborn of the redemption. God's work of salvation is done through the same Person as the one through whom God made the original creation of earth. He redeems, renews, recreates this fallen creation. Therefore it stands written that Christ is The Firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy (Col.1:18).
In vers 18 we read that Christ is the head, the beginning and has the supremacy (this last word is in the original simply 'the first').
The allusion to the story of Creation is still evident in modern translations when Christ here is called the beginning. The story of creation begins with the phrase: (Genesis 1:1) In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
However there is a much richer and more intensive allusion to the story of creation than that which is possible to see in our translations.
In order to understand Paul's idea it is not enough to read the original Greek. Paul must have thought in Hebrew, though he was writing in Greek. If we translate these key words into Hebrew, we can immediately see, that Paul must have had Genesis 1:1 in his thoughts:
You should be able to se, that the three Hebrew words in the third column has the same word-stem. The stem consists in this transcription of the two consonants R and SH. The vowels o, e and i together with the endings -ith and -on are forming new words from the stem.
There is a fine logic in this word-formation. The head normally comes forth first, when someone is born. Head is also a word for leader. He comes first. The one who is the head therefore is the beginning too.
The Apostle Paul here gives us a deeper interpretation of The Beginning. We usually think it means the beginning of time. But the apostle reads it as a name of Christ. Christ is mentioned first of all in the Bible. His name is the first word, that is born, from God's lips, when God begins to speak to us about the background of the salvation history. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matth. 12:34). God's heart is overflowing by love to the Son. See, how God loves his Son! This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased (Matth. 3:17). His name is the first word in God's word. It is actually possible to state this as the first word in the Bible, not the second word, for in the Hebrew the words 'In the beginning' are really combined into only one word.
We have often read the interpretation of John about Christ as the Creator's Word (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh… , John 1:1 etc.). But the New Testament doctrine about Christ is still greater in its interpretation of Genesis, chapter 1.
The teaching about Christ as The Beginning you can also find in the Apostle John's scriptures. John is using exactly the same reference words in the Greek version as does Paul. In Revelation 3:14 Christ says: These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
He really is the Beginning of the creation: He is the Beginning of the story of the creation of God. It may well be that there are other instances where the Bible uses the word beginning with an underlying allusion and in the sense of The story of creation — Genesis 1, and as a name of Christ.
Remember also the names Alpha and Omega — The Beginning and The End - The First and The Last, used about God and His Son.
Christ is holding everything from the beginning to the end in His hands. It is Him (from the beginning) whom we are longing to see in the future:
Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him… I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord. … Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. (Revelation 1:7-8, 17-18. Compare Rev.21:6 and 22:13.) What a wonderful end there can be for us, if we begin in Jesus!
God has given to His Son the first place everywhere. The apostle praises Him rejoicing. So we too may show him our love and praise him with our faith, with our words and with our lives!
"A Study on Biblical Belief in Creation", by Erik Gislén, © 1999
"Mission Impossible: the Monarch Butterfly" by Ron Lyttle
The monarch butterfly, scientific name Danous plexippus, is a large, orange-and-black butterfly, common to much of North America. It is famous for its annual migrations to and from wintering grounds in Mexico and California, see National Geographic, vol. 150, no. 2, August 1976.
The monarch starts life as an egg laid by the adult female on a leaf of the common milkweed plant, Asclepias syriaca. It is about the size of the head of a pin. When the egg hatches 3 to 12 days later, the tiny yellow-, white-, and black-striped worm-like larva, or caterpillar, has eight pairs of stubby legs for crawling about, and mouth parts designed for chewing leaves, which it does, voraciously. But only the leaves of the milkweed; no other plant will do. Now the milkweed has a white, sticky sap that is highly toxic to other animals, but does not affect the caterpillar at all, except to make his body, in turn, highly toxic to predators like birds that might like to eat the caterpillar for breakfast. And the birds, being no bird-brains, know to leave him alone.
As the caterpillar eats and eats, it grows. Soon it gets too large for its skin, so the skin splits and out crawls the caterpillar with a new and larger skin with room to grow. For about two weeks this is what the caterpillar does: eats leaves, grows, sheds its skin, eats more leaves, grows more, sheds its skin. It will do this five times.
Finally it stops eating, finds a protected spot, hangs upside-down, spins a silk attachment, and sheds its skin one more time. But this time what emerges from the old skin is not a larger caterpillar, but a compact package with no legs and no eyes, and no visible body parts, called a pupa, encased in a chrysalis. It is not multi-colored like the caterpillar, but is bright green with golden-yellow spots.
No further movement is observed, but inside there is much movement. The heart still beats, but the rest of the internal organs resemble green jelly, as the entire mass reshapes itself into a completely different creature. The green color darkens, turns brown. To an uninformed observer, the package may appear dead. But gradually the color modifies as the chrysalis turns clear, and orange and black areas can be seen, the colors of the adult butterfly.
Finally, after about two weeks, the chrysalis splits open, and an adult butterfly emerges. It has six long legs, a mouth that is a long coiled-tube proboscis used for reaching into flowers to drink nectar, and two pairs of shriveled wings that rapidly expand as fluid from the body is pumped into their veins. As they expand, the butterfly slowly fans them back and forth with newly-acquired flight muscles until they are dry, so that the fully-extended wings are stiff, ready for flight.
Soon the butterfly flits off into the sky, and may be found in someone's flower garden, drinking nectar with its uncoiled proboscis, or flying overhead looking for a mate to start the whole cycle all over again.
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Your assignment as an evolutionist, should you accept, is to explain HOW the above transformation could POSSIBLY have developed by accident, by a collection of genetic mistakes, with NO PURPOSE, NO INTELLIGENCE involved, guided only by survival of the fittest, as some primitive creature without wings gradually evolved into a flying butterfly.
Which stages of the above process, called complete metamorphosis, can you put off for a while because those accidents haven't occurred yet? If even one enzyme is missing, how does the egg-to-larva-to-pupa-to-adult transformation happen? It must all be present and functional, in the right timing and sequence, or the creature dies. It all works, or none of it works.
But don't give me some "just-so" story; I want scientifically-feasible explanations that a geneticist wouldn't laugh at as ridiculous. And don't call it "Nature's miracle", unless you are willing to acknowledge intelligent, creative design in the god you call Nature. ...This article will NOT self-destruct.
The monarch starts life as an egg laid by the adult female on a leaf of the common milkweed plant, Asclepias syriaca. It is about the size of the head of a pin. When the egg hatches 3 to 12 days later, the tiny yellow-, white-, and black-striped worm-like larva, or caterpillar, has eight pairs of stubby legs for crawling about, and mouth parts designed for chewing leaves, which it does, voraciously. But only the leaves of the milkweed; no other plant will do. Now the milkweed has a white, sticky sap that is highly toxic to other animals, but does not affect the caterpillar at all, except to make his body, in turn, highly toxic to predators like birds that might like to eat the caterpillar for breakfast. And the birds, being no bird-brains, know to leave him alone.
As the caterpillar eats and eats, it grows. Soon it gets too large for its skin, so the skin splits and out crawls the caterpillar with a new and larger skin with room to grow. For about two weeks this is what the caterpillar does: eats leaves, grows, sheds its skin, eats more leaves, grows more, sheds its skin. It will do this five times.
Finally it stops eating, finds a protected spot, hangs upside-down, spins a silk attachment, and sheds its skin one more time. But this time what emerges from the old skin is not a larger caterpillar, but a compact package with no legs and no eyes, and no visible body parts, called a pupa, encased in a chrysalis. It is not multi-colored like the caterpillar, but is bright green with golden-yellow spots.
No further movement is observed, but inside there is much movement. The heart still beats, but the rest of the internal organs resemble green jelly, as the entire mass reshapes itself into a completely different creature. The green color darkens, turns brown. To an uninformed observer, the package may appear dead. But gradually the color modifies as the chrysalis turns clear, and orange and black areas can be seen, the colors of the adult butterfly.
Finally, after about two weeks, the chrysalis splits open, and an adult butterfly emerges. It has six long legs, a mouth that is a long coiled-tube proboscis used for reaching into flowers to drink nectar, and two pairs of shriveled wings that rapidly expand as fluid from the body is pumped into their veins. As they expand, the butterfly slowly fans them back and forth with newly-acquired flight muscles until they are dry, so that the fully-extended wings are stiff, ready for flight.
Soon the butterfly flits off into the sky, and may be found in someone's flower garden, drinking nectar with its uncoiled proboscis, or flying overhead looking for a mate to start the whole cycle all over again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your assignment as an evolutionist, should you accept, is to explain HOW the above transformation could POSSIBLY have developed by accident, by a collection of genetic mistakes, with NO PURPOSE, NO INTELLIGENCE involved, guided only by survival of the fittest, as some primitive creature without wings gradually evolved into a flying butterfly.
Which stages of the above process, called complete metamorphosis, can you put off for a while because those accidents haven't occurred yet? If even one enzyme is missing, how does the egg-to-larva-to-pupa-to-adult transformation happen? It must all be present and functional, in the right timing and sequence, or the creature dies. It all works, or none of it works.
But don't give me some "just-so" story; I want scientifically-feasible explanations that a geneticist wouldn't laugh at as ridiculous. And don't call it "Nature's miracle", unless you are willing to acknowledge intelligent, creative design in the god you call Nature. ...This article will NOT self-destruct.
"12 Quotes by Leading Evolutionists"Edited by Paul Abramson
Evolution is science? It is admittedly unobservable, lacking fossil evidence, dependent upon scientific consensus, and essentially a belief system about past life on Earth. The following 12 quotes are from leading and well known scientists and researchers. A larger work with 130 similar quotes is available: "The Revised Quote Book", edited by Dr. A. Snelling, PhD, pub. by: Creation Science Foundation, Australia
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"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution."
Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), "Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?" Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January 1980, p. 127
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution because it is this theory (there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory."
Ronald R. West, PhD (paleoecology and geology) (Assistant Professor of Paleobiology at Kansas State University), "Paleoecology and uniformitarianism". Compass, vol. 45, May 1968, p. 216
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein'."
Sir Fred Hoyle (English astronomer, Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University), as quoted in "Hoyle on Evolution". Nature, vol. 294, 12 Nov. 1981, p. 105
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Echoing the criticism made of his father's habilis skulls, he added that Lucy's skull was so incomplete that most of it was 'imagination made of plaster of Paris', thus making it impossible to draw any firm conclusion about what species she belonged to."
Referring to comments made by Richard Leakey (Director of National Museums of Kenya) in The Weekend Australian, 7-8 May 1983, Magazine, p. 3
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, ... the collection is so tantalizingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present. ...but ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man."
John Reader (photo-journalist and author of "Missing Links"), "Whatever happened to Zinjanthropus?" New Scientist, 26 March 1981, p. 802
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A five million-year-old piece of bone that was thought to be a collarbone of a humanlike creature is actually part of a dolphin rib, ...He [Dr. T. White] puts the incident on par with two other embarrassing [sic] faux pas by fossil hunters: Hesperopithecus, the fossil pig's tooth that was cited as evidence of very early man in North America, and Eoanthropus or 'Piltdown Man,' the jaw of an orangutan and the skull of a modern human that were claimed to be the 'earliest Englishman'.
"The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone.'"
Dr. Tim White (anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley). As quoted by Ian Anderson "Hominoid collarbone exposed as dolphin's rib", in New Scientist, 28 April 1983, p. 199
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We add that it would be all too easy to object that mutations have no evolutionary effect because they are eliminated by natural selection. Lethal mutations (the worst kind) are effectively eliminated, but others persist as alleles. ...Mutants are present within every population, from bacteria to man. There can be no doubt about it. But for the evolutionist, the essential lies elsewhere: in the fact that mutations do not coincide with evolution."
Pierre-Paul Grassé (University of Paris and past-President, French Academie des Sciences) in Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 88
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural selection is the creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies that natural selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit. Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well."
Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), "The return of hopeful monsters". Natural History, vol. LXXXVI(6), June-Jule 1977, p. 28
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"And in man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe."
Dr. Isaac Asimov (biochemist; was a Professor at Boston University School of Medicine; internationally known author), "In the game of energy and thermodynamics you can't even break even.". Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Why do geologists and archeologists still spend their scarce money on costly radiocarbon determinations? They do so because occasional dates appear to be useful. While the method cannot be counted on to give good, unequivocal results, the number do impress people, and save them the trouble of thinking excessively. Expressed in what look like precise calendar years, figures seem somehow better ... 'Absolute' dates determined by a laboratory carry a lot of weight, and are extremely helpful in bolstering weak arguments.
"No matter how 'useful' it is, though, the radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates. This whole bless thing is nothing but 13th-century alchemy, and it all depends upon which funny paper you read."
Robert E. Lee, "Radiocarbon: ages in error". Anthropological Journal of Canada, vol.19(3), 1981, pp.9-29. Reprinted in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, vol. 19(2), September 1982, pp. 117-127 (quotes from pp. 123 and 125)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling that explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results. This is supposed to be hard-headed pragmatism."
J. E. O'Rourks, "Pragmatism versus materialism in stratigraphy". American Journal of Science, vol. 276, January 1976, p. 47
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution, we do not have one iota of fact."
Dr. T. N. Tahmisian (Atomic Energy Commission, USA) in "The Fresno Bee", August 20, 1959. As quoted by N. J. Mitchell, Evolution and the Emperor's New Clothes, Roydon Publications, UK, 1983, title page.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution."
Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), "Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?" Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January 1980, p. 127
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution because it is this theory (there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory."
Ronald R. West, PhD (paleoecology and geology) (Assistant Professor of Paleobiology at Kansas State University), "Paleoecology and uniformitarianism". Compass, vol. 45, May 1968, p. 216
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein'."
Sir Fred Hoyle (English astronomer, Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University), as quoted in "Hoyle on Evolution". Nature, vol. 294, 12 Nov. 1981, p. 105
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Echoing the criticism made of his father's habilis skulls, he added that Lucy's skull was so incomplete that most of it was 'imagination made of plaster of Paris', thus making it impossible to draw any firm conclusion about what species she belonged to."
Referring to comments made by Richard Leakey (Director of National Museums of Kenya) in The Weekend Australian, 7-8 May 1983, Magazine, p. 3
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table, ... the collection is so tantalizingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmented and inconclusive, that more can be said about what is missing than about what is present. ...but ever since Darwin's work inspired the notion that fossils linking modern man and extinct ancestor would provide the most convincing proof of human evolution, preconceptions have led evidence by the nose in the study of fossil man."
John Reader (photo-journalist and author of "Missing Links"), "Whatever happened to Zinjanthropus?" New Scientist, 26 March 1981, p. 802
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A five million-year-old piece of bone that was thought to be a collarbone of a humanlike creature is actually part of a dolphin rib, ...He [Dr. T. White] puts the incident on par with two other embarrassing [sic] faux pas by fossil hunters: Hesperopithecus, the fossil pig's tooth that was cited as evidence of very early man in North America, and Eoanthropus or 'Piltdown Man,' the jaw of an orangutan and the skull of a modern human that were claimed to be the 'earliest Englishman'.
"The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone.'"
Dr. Tim White (anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley). As quoted by Ian Anderson "Hominoid collarbone exposed as dolphin's rib", in New Scientist, 28 April 1983, p. 199
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We add that it would be all too easy to object that mutations have no evolutionary effect because they are eliminated by natural selection. Lethal mutations (the worst kind) are effectively eliminated, but others persist as alleles. ...Mutants are present within every population, from bacteria to man. There can be no doubt about it. But for the evolutionist, the essential lies elsewhere: in the fact that mutations do not coincide with evolution."
Pierre-Paul Grassé (University of Paris and past-President, French Academie des Sciences) in Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 88
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural selection is the creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies that natural selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit. Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well."
Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), "The return of hopeful monsters". Natural History, vol. LXXXVI(6), June-Jule 1977, p. 28
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"And in man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe."
Dr. Isaac Asimov (biochemist; was a Professor at Boston University School of Medicine; internationally known author), "In the game of energy and thermodynamics you can't even break even.". Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970, p. 10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Why do geologists and archeologists still spend their scarce money on costly radiocarbon determinations? They do so because occasional dates appear to be useful. While the method cannot be counted on to give good, unequivocal results, the number do impress people, and save them the trouble of thinking excessively. Expressed in what look like precise calendar years, figures seem somehow better ... 'Absolute' dates determined by a laboratory carry a lot of weight, and are extremely helpful in bolstering weak arguments.
"No matter how 'useful' it is, though, the radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates. This whole bless thing is nothing but 13th-century alchemy, and it all depends upon which funny paper you read."
Robert E. Lee, "Radiocarbon: ages in error". Anthropological Journal of Canada, vol.19(3), 1981, pp.9-29. Reprinted in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, vol. 19(2), September 1982, pp. 117-127 (quotes from pp. 123 and 125)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling that explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results. This is supposed to be hard-headed pragmatism."
J. E. O'Rourks, "Pragmatism versus materialism in stratigraphy". American Journal of Science, vol. 276, January 1976, p. 47
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution, we do not have one iota of fact."
Dr. T. N. Tahmisian (Atomic Energy Commission, USA) in "The Fresno Bee", August 20, 1959. As quoted by N. J. Mitchell, Evolution and the Emperor's New Clothes, Roydon Publications, UK, 1983, title page.
"Could Life 'Just Happen'?"by Ron Lyttle
THE STORY
Millions of years ago, evolutionists will tell you, many chemicals were swirling around in lifeless seas (or ponds, or puddles) here on earth. Methane gas was in the atmosphere being bombarded with cosmic rays from outer space, and powerful lightning bolts arced through the skies, lighting up the desolate landscape. Given enough time, cosmic rays, and lightning bolts, a "primordial soup" gradually formed which contained amino acids. These in turn got hooked together to form simple proteins, the "building blocks" of life. At some point these proteins happened to get connected in just the right way, and a threshold was crossed: the proteins started reproducing themselves, and simple life was "born".
During uncounted eons, this simple life gradually became more and more complex as chance modifications of the original proteins combined with external conditions of moisture, temperature, food supply, etc., to eventually produce all the varied and complex life forms inhabiting first the oceans, then the land, and finally the air, that we see today. Homo sapiens is seen as the topmost branch in the evolutionary tree of life, but the tree is still growing, and who knows what the next branches will look like?
REALITY CHECK
While the above is an interesting story, and variations of it (with many imaginative details added) are taught in most schools and universities around the world as the scientific explanation for the origin and development of life, more and more people are asking, "Is that really how we came to be? Do those people who call themselves scientists really know what they are talking about?" After all, nobody was around millions of years ago to watch the stirring of the primordial soup, or to see the first fish crawl out onto land, or to see the first winged creature take to the air in powered flight. The story of evolution is a pretty one, but is it supported by the facts?
RNA & DNA
Every living thing, from the most simple virus to the most complex animal, contains in its cells very complex compounds called nucleic acid . There are two forms, called ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Viruses contain only one or the other, but cells contain both. While RNA controls protein production, DNA is the main component in chromosomes, which provide the blueprint or pattern of heredity. Every time a cell divides into two, the RNA in the cell body and the DNA in the nucleus must be exactly copied, with one copy going with each cell. DNA is an incredibly complex molecule, resembling a long ladder that has been twisted into a spiral. The sides of the ladder are made up of compounds called phosphates and sugars , while the "rungs" are composed of two of four possible bases in all the possible combinations. The exact make-up and order of "rungs" varies from one kind of living thing to another. Each DNA "ladder" has about 20,000 "rungs", and each chromosome contains many thousands of DNA molecules. RNA has a similar structure, but the sugar is different, and one of the four bases is also different.
Since it is the chromosomal DNA (and in some cases RNA) that provides the blueprint for each cell and individual, if any of the thousands of rungs gets damaged, or if different combinations get substituted in the copy, that cell will be defective. Contrary to popular belief, most changes in the DNA structure (mutations) at best weaken, and at worst kill the cell. Only a very few are neutral, and beneficial changes are virtually non-existent. To produce a healthy, fully-functional individual, each copy of DNA and RNA must be identical to the original, down to the last "rung".
THE POINT
That such complexity could arise from "primordial soup" by random-chance chemical reactions is statistically, bio-chemically, and thermodynamically impossible. 1) There are too many connections in a DNA molecule to ever occur by chance, no matter how long you allow. 2) When biochemists have managed to produce simple amino acids in simulated "soup", it was by carefully controlling the conditions; there was nothing "random" or "chance" about the process, and the leap from simple amino acids to a DNA molecule is astronomical . 3) The second law of thermodynamics says that order moves toward disorder, and complex moves toward simple (not the other way around), unless acted upon by a higher force . Lightning bolts (the supposed driving force behind the chemical reactions) are actually great randomizers. The notion that anything as complex as a DNA molecule could arise by accident is therefore a non-scientific absurdity!
YEAH, BUT...
For the sake of discussion, suppose that a strand of DNA did somehow come together, and suppose further that thousands united to form a functional chromosome, and many chromosomes all joined forces (and no lightning bolt blasted the whole collection apart). You still only have a blueprint, a list of instructions telling how to make a living organism. It takes a living cell to use that blueprint, but it takes that blueprint to make a living cell. (To this seeming paradox evolutionists can only mumble, "it must have happened somehow . Life exists, doesn't it?")
AN EXAMPLE
I work in a manufacturing plant. We buy raw iron and brass castings that our machine shop turns into finished parts that our assemblers put together to make pumps. The machinist gets a blueprint created by the Engineering Department that shows all the dimensions of the finished part, and special instructions like how smooth a surface has to be, what thread size for tapped holes, "start machining here," etc. You can lay that blueprint on a raw casting and watch it for a billion years and it won't make a finished part. But the machinist picks it up, puts the casting in his machine, and when he is done a part is ready for use. He needs the blueprint to tell him how to make the part, and the blueprint is worthless without the machine and operator. So it is with DNA and living cells. Each needs the other to function, and together they can make new cells.
IN CONCLUSION
Far from being a logical, scientific, provable explanation of the origin and development of life on earth, Evolution appears to be a belief system held to with as much religious faith as any other creed, with the added difficulty of being contrary to known facts. To believe in evolution, a "scientist" must throw out the scientific method, suspend his common sense, and twist or ignore the facts. That so many continue to do so, and belittle those who dare to challenge their belief, shows the strength of their faith. Far from being open-minded seekers of truth, evolutionists appear to be closed-minded, dogmatic "defenders of the faith". Did life "just happen"? What do you think?
"COULD LIFE 'JUST HAPPEN'?" is by Ron Lyttle
Millions of years ago, evolutionists will tell you, many chemicals were swirling around in lifeless seas (or ponds, or puddles) here on earth. Methane gas was in the atmosphere being bombarded with cosmic rays from outer space, and powerful lightning bolts arced through the skies, lighting up the desolate landscape. Given enough time, cosmic rays, and lightning bolts, a "primordial soup" gradually formed which contained amino acids. These in turn got hooked together to form simple proteins, the "building blocks" of life. At some point these proteins happened to get connected in just the right way, and a threshold was crossed: the proteins started reproducing themselves, and simple life was "born".
During uncounted eons, this simple life gradually became more and more complex as chance modifications of the original proteins combined with external conditions of moisture, temperature, food supply, etc., to eventually produce all the varied and complex life forms inhabiting first the oceans, then the land, and finally the air, that we see today. Homo sapiens is seen as the topmost branch in the evolutionary tree of life, but the tree is still growing, and who knows what the next branches will look like?
REALITY CHECK
While the above is an interesting story, and variations of it (with many imaginative details added) are taught in most schools and universities around the world as the scientific explanation for the origin and development of life, more and more people are asking, "Is that really how we came to be? Do those people who call themselves scientists really know what they are talking about?" After all, nobody was around millions of years ago to watch the stirring of the primordial soup, or to see the first fish crawl out onto land, or to see the first winged creature take to the air in powered flight. The story of evolution is a pretty one, but is it supported by the facts?
RNA & DNA
Every living thing, from the most simple virus to the most complex animal, contains in its cells very complex compounds called nucleic acid . There are two forms, called ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Viruses contain only one or the other, but cells contain both. While RNA controls protein production, DNA is the main component in chromosomes, which provide the blueprint or pattern of heredity. Every time a cell divides into two, the RNA in the cell body and the DNA in the nucleus must be exactly copied, with one copy going with each cell. DNA is an incredibly complex molecule, resembling a long ladder that has been twisted into a spiral. The sides of the ladder are made up of compounds called phosphates and sugars , while the "rungs" are composed of two of four possible bases in all the possible combinations. The exact make-up and order of "rungs" varies from one kind of living thing to another. Each DNA "ladder" has about 20,000 "rungs", and each chromosome contains many thousands of DNA molecules. RNA has a similar structure, but the sugar is different, and one of the four bases is also different.
Since it is the chromosomal DNA (and in some cases RNA) that provides the blueprint for each cell and individual, if any of the thousands of rungs gets damaged, or if different combinations get substituted in the copy, that cell will be defective. Contrary to popular belief, most changes in the DNA structure (mutations) at best weaken, and at worst kill the cell. Only a very few are neutral, and beneficial changes are virtually non-existent. To produce a healthy, fully-functional individual, each copy of DNA and RNA must be identical to the original, down to the last "rung".
THE POINT
That such complexity could arise from "primordial soup" by random-chance chemical reactions is statistically, bio-chemically, and thermodynamically impossible. 1) There are too many connections in a DNA molecule to ever occur by chance, no matter how long you allow. 2) When biochemists have managed to produce simple amino acids in simulated "soup", it was by carefully controlling the conditions; there was nothing "random" or "chance" about the process, and the leap from simple amino acids to a DNA molecule is astronomical . 3) The second law of thermodynamics says that order moves toward disorder, and complex moves toward simple (not the other way around), unless acted upon by a higher force . Lightning bolts (the supposed driving force behind the chemical reactions) are actually great randomizers. The notion that anything as complex as a DNA molecule could arise by accident is therefore a non-scientific absurdity!
YEAH, BUT...
For the sake of discussion, suppose that a strand of DNA did somehow come together, and suppose further that thousands united to form a functional chromosome, and many chromosomes all joined forces (and no lightning bolt blasted the whole collection apart). You still only have a blueprint, a list of instructions telling how to make a living organism. It takes a living cell to use that blueprint, but it takes that blueprint to make a living cell. (To this seeming paradox evolutionists can only mumble, "it must have happened somehow . Life exists, doesn't it?")
AN EXAMPLE
I work in a manufacturing plant. We buy raw iron and brass castings that our machine shop turns into finished parts that our assemblers put together to make pumps. The machinist gets a blueprint created by the Engineering Department that shows all the dimensions of the finished part, and special instructions like how smooth a surface has to be, what thread size for tapped holes, "start machining here," etc. You can lay that blueprint on a raw casting and watch it for a billion years and it won't make a finished part. But the machinist picks it up, puts the casting in his machine, and when he is done a part is ready for use. He needs the blueprint to tell him how to make the part, and the blueprint is worthless without the machine and operator. So it is with DNA and living cells. Each needs the other to function, and together they can make new cells.
IN CONCLUSION
Far from being a logical, scientific, provable explanation of the origin and development of life on earth, Evolution appears to be a belief system held to with as much religious faith as any other creed, with the added difficulty of being contrary to known facts. To believe in evolution, a "scientist" must throw out the scientific method, suspend his common sense, and twist or ignore the facts. That so many continue to do so, and belittle those who dare to challenge their belief, shows the strength of their faith. Far from being open-minded seekers of truth, evolutionists appear to be closed-minded, dogmatic "defenders of the faith". Did life "just happen"? What do you think?
"COULD LIFE 'JUST HAPPEN'?" is by Ron Lyttle
"Creationism FAQ" by Paul Abramson
A wide variety of questions are sent in each week.
It is our hope that this FAQ will answer the common
questions and challenges that you may have.
Are you insane?
Hmmm ... hard to tell.
How can you be so ignorant?
Have we met before? Remember that it's a person on the other end when making a (forgive me, but) ignorant statement about one of us being ignorant or stupid, please.
Isn't the crux of creationism: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."?
For some folks it is, yes. But in turn couldn't one state that for most people the crux of evolutionism is: "Scientists said it, I believe it, that settles it."?
When will you stop "standing against science"?
When will you stop - beating your wife? In other words the very question implies something which is not true. Sometimes the minority of scientific, reasonable persons proposing a theory are the ones later proven correct. We don't "stand against science" in the first place.
Please recall that the founders of modern science were all creationists, such as Newton, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Galileo and many others. Their understanding that there is a logical, Divine Creator gave them the foundation to look for the natural laws of His creation, and to try to think His thoughts after Him. We do the same today as we recognize that we live in a logically designed universe. The idea that what we see around us happened to explode itself (Big Bang) via random chance? Creationists, standing with science, would contend that the evidence strongly suggests otherwise.
What about the dinosaurs?
Simply put, they lived concurrent with man down through the thousands of years of our existence, and they appear to have gone mostly extinct prior to our modern era. Remember that the word "dinosaur" is only about 160 years old. Legends of dangerous reptilian creatures (a.k.a. dragons) have been passed down to us from our ancestors across Europe, from China and the rest of Asia, all over the Americas (North, South & Central), and they're remembered in Africa too. Why should all of these legends/histories (spanning all inhabited continents, mind you!) be trivialized and discounted just to give credence to the temporary theory of evolution? It is important in science to separate the evidence from the interpretation. The evidence is that there have been these large dangerous reptilian creatures. We have bones, recorded history and footprints; we have strong evidence. The interpretation (or belief) that they all died off millions and millions of years ago is in dispute between creationists and evolutionists. And numerous stories in recorded human history of being killed by dragons/dinosaurs and of us banding together to kill them in return (among other important evidence) is clearly on our side ... as creation theory grows stronger each year.
Didn't the dinosaurs go extinct 65 million years ago?
There is good evidence that the Earth is only thousands of years old. In BOOKS, see Dr. Ackerman's It's a Young World After All. The "65 million years" is a recent mental invention. Evolution provides a mental hiding place from our powerful Creator. Evolution claims (theologically) that our God is weak or non-existent. Right? Think about what evolution claims about our origins. Dragons (per the previous FAQ answer) were seen and sometimes fought by our ancestors on all inhabited continents. Our ancestors were honest in recording sightings of large dangerous reptilian creatures. They lived concurrent with man. Humans saw dinosaurs. Sure, stories later became embellished, but the germ of truth that humans and dinosaurs (dragons) lived at the same time remains accurate. They lived in different places ... but at the same time - until the dinosaurs were mostly driven to extinction. (There are still a few living dinos out there, by the way.)
4004 B.C. ... you can't be serious!!
There are actually several different versions of what is called "creation science." Some creationists bend strongly towards accepting most of the evolutionary interpretations but stop at the point of life falling together all by itself in the first place. These creationists argue for an "initial cause" (or "First Cause"), i.e. that "Someone" ... catalyzed early events and then evolution was the process used by this "God" after that. From www.creationism.org we link to a few of those sites, if you're interested. But other creationists, like those contributing to this web site have continued learning ... and have come to the understanding (or belief, if one prefers) that there really is no good scientific evidence supporting evolutionism at all; and there is no way that the Earth could be over 10,000 years old. This is complicated, but many of these "young earth creationists" really do believe that 4004 B.C. is probably pretty close to the original creation date. I know that this sounds utterly laughable to those who believe that the radioactive dating methods actually work, sorry.
40 Days and 40 Nights, really?
Actually, in Genesis, chapter 7 it states that the waters rose higher in respect to the land for 150 days, and went down for the subsequent 150 days. The total time of the Great Flood was about 1 year in length from when Noah's family entered till they left the Ark. That's what it has always clearly stated. Period. But it also appears to have rained pretty darned hard for the first 40 days and nights of this pivotal time (and there were strong winds, Gen. 8:1). There is clearly no evidence that rain caused the Flood and modern creationists have never contended this. Forgive me here, but only evolutionists keep this false notion propped up in order to openly distain creation theory including the Flood.
How could Noah's Ark have possibly held all of the species of big animals in the world!
The largest dragon (i.e. dinosaur) eggs that we've found to date are about the size of a football. One could fit, for example, a dozen brachiosaurus eggs in the trunk of a car, with room to spare! This also means that recently hatched dragons were not very large. Noah's mission was to preserve each kind of animal. You don't need to find the biggest of each kind. And you don't need each sub-divided species either. Did you know that most modern dog breeds are less than 100 years old? 2 healthy young mutts could preserve the genome of the entire "dog kind" of animals. The Bible uses the word "kind" for the different types of life forms. Horses and zebras can (and have) physically mated producing viable offspring; so have tigers and lions, indicating that they (according to creation theory) probably respectively diverged from the same original stock. Dogs and wolves (though considered quite different by humans today) probably originated from their same "kind" too. There are a few large animals (when fully grown) of course: giraffes, elephants, and T-rexes among them. But the average animal size is about sheep size, i.e. the 3-story Ark was plenty large enough to handle the variety of animal kinds plus lots of food for them. Speciation could descend again from original healthy "mutt" stock to start with. Thinking scientifically about this, it shows incredible variable design, huh?
Even if the whole atmosphere was 100% saturated with moisture and began raining there wouldn't be enough water to cover the continents! The Flood was impossible, admit it!
This is a common charge and relates to the answer given two questions above. The Genesis account of the Flood appears to be only what Noah saw, and may not be a full picture of all the catalyzing events. There is no mention of ice at all, we do know that the waters rising (for the first 150 days) was concurrent with the initiation of the 40 days of rain and also that the fountains of the deep broke up, which is an intriguing statement. Rain did not cause the Flood, but this symptom of the cataclysm also began at about the same time.
Salt water washing over the continents would have destroyed all of the plants anyway, right?
Have you ever added sugar to your coffee but forgotten to stir it? What did it taste like? Before the Flood the oceans "hadn't been stirred" yet. The oceans may not have been very saturated with minerals prior to the Great Flood when waters violently washed over the land masses. And we know that natural whole plant seeds (not narrow hybrids, which are much weaker health wise, just like the aforementioned split out dog breeds) are hardy and can tumble around, surviving for even months suspended in and transported by water. But from the fossil record it does look like some plant types (and many ocean creatures) did not survive the Flood and the adjustments needed for the colder environments on Earth afterwards. Cattails, for example, used to grow up to 60 feet tall in the former time, but the remnant we see today barely grow over 3 feet tall. The modern world is but a remnant of what was before.
Wasn't the Flood of Noah just a regional flood?
Impossible. Some contend this today, but Genesis is clear that God intended to flood all land; all humans, animals and birds not on the Ark would be drowned. An average human can walk at 3 MPH, correct? Over 10 hours one could then walk about 30 miles (50 km). In 100 days of walking like this it would be possible to actually walk a few thousand miles, right? (Think of American pioneers in their wagon trains, crossing North America by walking and driving their wagons westward over the course of one long season.) If God was going to send a "regional flood" then why didn't He have Noah build a "Noah's Wagon" instead? Noah could have just moved a few valleys over to escape such a regional flood. Geologically, we see deep sedimentary layers covering every continent. Most sediments are laid down by water. Deep uniformly thick layers extending laterally over hundreds of square miles indicates a one-time past event using tremendous depositional processes that we do not see in action today. Such deep layers, interspersed with coal and oil reserves (crushed former life) are on all continents, all indicating a global flood.
The Flood was a global one. It has been remembered in legends/histories from around the world, not just in the Hebrew account. What is your ultimate foundation for truth? Is it "science, falsely so-called" following the trends and beliefs of the temporary consensus?, or is it the Word of God, with the recognition that the majority of scientists are sometimes wrong...? For over 1,000 years, from Ptolemy to Galileo scientists were wrong in thinking that the universe revolved around the Earth, correct? Galileo's persecution by the Church stemmed from their support of (what they thought was) "science" taught by the scientists of the day. Church leaders supported their peers over the upstart Galileo who proposed that the Greek scientist and mathematician Ptolemy's theory (from over 1,000 years prior) may be incorrect. "Trust the majority of scientists"? for they must be right...? No, sometimes the majority is wrong. They were wrong when they contended that the whole universe revolved around the Earth and there is good evidence that they are wrong today in proposing that we are but a cosmic accident that exploded out of nothingness for no reason. Just a statistical happening with no God to answer to, so live your life for the here and now; humans make the rules; human consensus is the ultimate authority.
Didn't the Scopes Trial in 1925 (a.k.a. the Monkey Trial) show that evolution had won and creation lost - big time!
That's what the liberal media and Hollywood have consistently reported since then.
Why are you intolerant of the beliefs of others?
I link to and report on both sides of this important issue ... unlike ... the liberal media and Hollywood down through the years.
You flat-earth-creationists make me sick!
This one isn't a question, per se, but versions of this kind of comment are common. Usually they seem to come from young people who want creationists (or anyone else who disagrees with them on about anything, actually) put in their place. Oh, to be young again! :-)
You know, one thing I've freely stated before skeptical groups is that even if they completely disagree with my conclusions please consider the evidence on its merits. The folks who postulate the best new theories 10 or 20 years from now are those who can also include evidence that's quietly disregarded by the experts of this generation because the data doesn't fit their theories (see the next question below).
Radioactive dating proves that creationism couldn't have happened, right?
Creationists stand on the side of testable-repeatable science. Ahem, again, creationists are the ones standing on the side of science. Evolutionists quietly disregard science when convenient! Rocks do not come with dates stamped on them, nor has anyone witnessed them aging over (the believed) millions of years. Radiometric dating is one-third fact and two-thirds assumption, and it is unreproducible. Lava flows occuring in recorded historic times have dated radiometrically at millions of years old. This does not give us confidence in the current guesstimates of the earth's allegedly long age.
There is discernable carbon on and near many fossilized dragon bones. (By current evolutionary theory these bones must be at least 65 million years old, correct?) Creationists scrape some carbon off and periodically send samples to labs for (C14) dating; the results show the dinosaur-associated carbon to be a maximum of only thousands of years old. Science triumphs. Evolutionists have been known to fly into a rage when creationists later publish just where the dated carbon came from. A different example is the new lava dome on Mount St. Helens. It is barely 20 years old, but radioactive dating (K-Ar) shows that it is 1 million years old! ...Something is very, very wrong here. Pompeii and Hawaii also have historical volcanic flows that prove K-Ar dating does not work worth beans. Yet evolution's high priests cling to such believed ancient dates since there is no other purported "evidence" that will give them an Earth that's over 10,000 years old. All major rivers and waterfalls show the Earth to be only thousands of years old. The myth-ions of years simply never happened. This is science; testable-repeatable science we're talking about. These tests ... can be repeated, hint, hint.
What about the fossil record?
The "creationists best friend" (i.e. the fossil record) still shows a distinct lack of transitional forms. Sure, every generation of evolutionists have a few new ones, but none of them have stood the test of time so far. Lately they're trying real-hard-like to claim that "dinosaurs grew feathers" to validate temporary evolutionary theory. This will fall flat too. Wait and see. (They have good artists though, don't they?) They've got great illustrations of "probable" interim forms, without the slightest bit of scientific evidence to back them up. It's sad what they're doing to the children with such propaganda.
Human (hominid) evolution is a FACT! Admit it!
Humans alive today vary in cranial capacity from about 700 cc to 2200 cc, with no relation of brain size to intelligence. (The average is about 1300 to 1350 cc; i.e. cubic centimeters.) I used to live in Tokyo, Japan for 5 years. Their average "brain size" is much smaller than mine (as a tall Caucasian) but I can assure you that the Japanese are very smart people. If we look at computers, one could argue that circuits that are closer together are more efficient and faster, ... so a smaller brain size may not necessarily be a disadvantage, correct? When evolutionists line up old mute skulls from smaller to larger (and purposefully hide the found ancient skulls that are larger than today's average) they make false assumptions linking brain size to intelligence - neglecting reason! Plus their radioactive dating methods don't work in the first place (as stated above), so they have no idea how old each skull is in the first place.
Excuse me, but what happens to the bones of a person who doesn't get enough calcium in their diet? Or if they were lacking copper, for example, it would detrimentally affect brain development. If, in past times, many peoples only ate local foods ... (stay with me here) and the local soil in different places had a lack of selinium, or magnesium, or iron, or any number of other trace minerals ... then this would affect each person and animal in the respective area over generations, correct? When we come along now and look at the hominid fossils left behind let's consider all of the logical scientific possibilities (including potentially inbred defects), and not just use a selected dishonest evolutionary sampling of the literally thousands of found hominid remains (hiding or ignoring the vast majority of them!) in order to try to publicize and endow temporary evolutionary theory with credibility - in other words, they are proclaiming evolution at all costs in spite of the fossil evidence. There will be a high cost to us if we let them continue to deceive the public with false, doctored evidence. The fossil record (i.e. the creationist's best friend) shows that each kind has always varied within each kind, which is evidence of tremendously wise design.
What does evolution do? (Yes, I'm asking YOU a serious question!) It fills a need for our origins. It is not testable-repeatable. And when creationists show that evolution stands against scientific evidence the evolutionists get angry. Angry? Excuse me? I thought this was "science" ... the free exchange of ideas and evidence and all. We're threatening their religion. Who are we as humans? Why are we here? Where will we go? 3.5 billion base pairs for human DNA. Wow! I don't have enough faith to believe in random chance for our origins. This is different ... different than other kinds of science, isn't it?
Doesn't everyone know that "creation science" is an oxymoron?
This is the ultimate ancient history we're talking about - our origins. This makes it a contentious issue that touches us each deeply. Very deeply indeed and this makes it threatening. It is unlike other kinds of science. If there is a God out there who both created us and claims the right to judge us after this life, after this time of learning and testing, then we're mad fools if we stand strong against reality, close our collective eyes and proclaim en masse that His existence must not be. We are afterall small, finite creatures bound to a soft bluish marble in space that's off to one side of a particular galaxy; limited to only 5 senses too. And some of our "smartest" people, proclaiming themselves to be wise, assume that all that is must answer to our finite understanding or else it can't exist? "Evolutionary science" with its attendant hubris may very well be an oxymoron, but not the term "creation science" which recognizes firstly that we and our simple understanding are not at the center of all that is.
Creationists don't publish for scientific peer review, proving that they're not doing good science, right?
Well ... it is awfully convenient that the same ivory tower guardians who reject disapproved manuscripts turn right around and then blame creationists for not being allowed to publish quality research in their scientific publications.
Dr. Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research has pointed out that there are many creationist scientists working in industry or health professions, but that anti-creationist bias has become so intense in academia that no one can speak or write openly against evolutionism without being ostracized or fired. Peer review under peer pressure while in competition for respect and career advancement has its limitations. Evolutionists have decided that there is no "God" (none of any consequence) to answer to which means that human consensus is the highest state for discerning truth. How could any evolution-teaching professor break ranks and hope to keep his or her job? Breaking with such a (non-God-fearing) consensus makes one, by definition, wrong; understand that with no "God" to answer to the corruption will grow stronger unless broken from the outside (not unlike a corrupt city police department, political regime, or false religion's heirarchy).
The respected Creation Research Society currently has about 600 members, all of whom have advanced degrees in science. Many of these have published fine scientific articles. The CRS also publishes a regular scientific journal and a bi-monthly newsletter featuring a variety of science-based articles.
Evolution is science; creationism is religion
This statement of belief by scoffers is common. I usually respond only briefly to such offhand remarks. But here I'll mention that evolution is a believed process to explain our origins. In thousands of years of human farming and ranching it has never been recorded as occurring. There are still no bona fide transitional fossils; not a single one. The believed radioactive dating methods for postulating millions ("myth"-ions) of years do not stand up to testable-repeatable scientific scrutiny. And sometimes ...I'll admit here ... I like to alter the usual debate wording, for effect. I'll discuss instead the debate between "creation science vs. the religion of evolution." Macro-evolution (from molecules to man, automatically over time) is strongly believed by its adherents but it is not the only theory in town.
What is the difference between macro-evolution and micro-evolution?
Macro-evolution is the theory that one kind of life form can become another kind given enough time and chance. Micro-evolution however is the observed biological process showing descendants that are similar to (but clearly not clones of) their ancestors. (Isn't it astounding that the Creator built in such automatic adjustability within each kind!) A child usually inherits visible traits from both parents, etc. Micro-evolution is scientific. This is the way our Creator designed life to be, various speciation could occur within each preset "kind" of life form. Watch carefully--when evolutionists offer their proofs of believed macroevolution, it is ALWAYS instances of microevolution that they cite, hoping that you won't notice the difference. Mendel's laws of genetics show us why microevolution does not lead to macroevolution.
...There are many more questions and variations of questions and challenges that people ask. Hopefully this FAQ will answer some of the questions that you may have thought of concerning this important subject. If you're a God fearing person, please pray about your understanding of this foundational issue. After checking out both sides - you may come to an entirely different conclusion, but please at least consider the possibility that the reason we've written and posted all of this information on this web page is that we hope it will be edifying and informative for you.
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At the time of the Fall, when Adam and Eve sinned we lost direct contact with our Maker. This was about 6,000 years ago. In the intervening generations it has been a struggle to preserve and pass on our place in the universe and how to get back into a right place with Him. As our ancestors diverged after the Flood they passed on preserved history variations including over 250 still remembered accounts of the Flood! No culture's history claims to go back further than about 5,000 years. All over the world this is so. Yet, over the past 200 years there has been a growing push by "advanced modern man" to completely forget what's left of our true ancient history of only thousands of years in total, to be replaced by the mythical "millions" of supposed years, that we are cosmic accidents and for us to stand together against our Maker. "Aliens" (i.e. fallen angels; the familiar spirits or false gods of old in new disguises) will soon be able to step in to complete the coming anti-history falsehood. Please don't fall for the spiritual deception of evolution and all of the things that belief in evolution then leads to.
I'll close this with a prayer that even atheists and anti-theists can pray in a quiet, sincere way: "Creator, if You are there and if You can hear me, please help me." Just take that first step. We're not alone in the universe.
It is our hope that this FAQ will answer the common
questions and challenges that you may have.
Are you insane?
Hmmm ... hard to tell.
How can you be so ignorant?
Have we met before? Remember that it's a person on the other end when making a (forgive me, but) ignorant statement about one of us being ignorant or stupid, please.
Isn't the crux of creationism: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."?
For some folks it is, yes. But in turn couldn't one state that for most people the crux of evolutionism is: "Scientists said it, I believe it, that settles it."?
When will you stop "standing against science"?
When will you stop - beating your wife? In other words the very question implies something which is not true. Sometimes the minority of scientific, reasonable persons proposing a theory are the ones later proven correct. We don't "stand against science" in the first place.
Please recall that the founders of modern science were all creationists, such as Newton, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Galileo and many others. Their understanding that there is a logical, Divine Creator gave them the foundation to look for the natural laws of His creation, and to try to think His thoughts after Him. We do the same today as we recognize that we live in a logically designed universe. The idea that what we see around us happened to explode itself (Big Bang) via random chance? Creationists, standing with science, would contend that the evidence strongly suggests otherwise.
What about the dinosaurs?
Simply put, they lived concurrent with man down through the thousands of years of our existence, and they appear to have gone mostly extinct prior to our modern era. Remember that the word "dinosaur" is only about 160 years old. Legends of dangerous reptilian creatures (a.k.a. dragons) have been passed down to us from our ancestors across Europe, from China and the rest of Asia, all over the Americas (North, South & Central), and they're remembered in Africa too. Why should all of these legends/histories (spanning all inhabited continents, mind you!) be trivialized and discounted just to give credence to the temporary theory of evolution? It is important in science to separate the evidence from the interpretation. The evidence is that there have been these large dangerous reptilian creatures. We have bones, recorded history and footprints; we have strong evidence. The interpretation (or belief) that they all died off millions and millions of years ago is in dispute between creationists and evolutionists. And numerous stories in recorded human history of being killed by dragons/dinosaurs and of us banding together to kill them in return (among other important evidence) is clearly on our side ... as creation theory grows stronger each year.
Didn't the dinosaurs go extinct 65 million years ago?
There is good evidence that the Earth is only thousands of years old. In BOOKS, see Dr. Ackerman's It's a Young World After All. The "65 million years" is a recent mental invention. Evolution provides a mental hiding place from our powerful Creator. Evolution claims (theologically) that our God is weak or non-existent. Right? Think about what evolution claims about our origins. Dragons (per the previous FAQ answer) were seen and sometimes fought by our ancestors on all inhabited continents. Our ancestors were honest in recording sightings of large dangerous reptilian creatures. They lived concurrent with man. Humans saw dinosaurs. Sure, stories later became embellished, but the germ of truth that humans and dinosaurs (dragons) lived at the same time remains accurate. They lived in different places ... but at the same time - until the dinosaurs were mostly driven to extinction. (There are still a few living dinos out there, by the way.)
4004 B.C. ... you can't be serious!!
There are actually several different versions of what is called "creation science." Some creationists bend strongly towards accepting most of the evolutionary interpretations but stop at the point of life falling together all by itself in the first place. These creationists argue for an "initial cause" (or "First Cause"), i.e. that "Someone" ... catalyzed early events and then evolution was the process used by this "God" after that. From www.creationism.org we link to a few of those sites, if you're interested. But other creationists, like those contributing to this web site have continued learning ... and have come to the understanding (or belief, if one prefers) that there really is no good scientific evidence supporting evolutionism at all; and there is no way that the Earth could be over 10,000 years old. This is complicated, but many of these "young earth creationists" really do believe that 4004 B.C. is probably pretty close to the original creation date. I know that this sounds utterly laughable to those who believe that the radioactive dating methods actually work, sorry.
40 Days and 40 Nights, really?
Actually, in Genesis, chapter 7 it states that the waters rose higher in respect to the land for 150 days, and went down for the subsequent 150 days. The total time of the Great Flood was about 1 year in length from when Noah's family entered till they left the Ark. That's what it has always clearly stated. Period. But it also appears to have rained pretty darned hard for the first 40 days and nights of this pivotal time (and there were strong winds, Gen. 8:1). There is clearly no evidence that rain caused the Flood and modern creationists have never contended this. Forgive me here, but only evolutionists keep this false notion propped up in order to openly distain creation theory including the Flood.
How could Noah's Ark have possibly held all of the species of big animals in the world!
The largest dragon (i.e. dinosaur) eggs that we've found to date are about the size of a football. One could fit, for example, a dozen brachiosaurus eggs in the trunk of a car, with room to spare! This also means that recently hatched dragons were not very large. Noah's mission was to preserve each kind of animal. You don't need to find the biggest of each kind. And you don't need each sub-divided species either. Did you know that most modern dog breeds are less than 100 years old? 2 healthy young mutts could preserve the genome of the entire "dog kind" of animals. The Bible uses the word "kind" for the different types of life forms. Horses and zebras can (and have) physically mated producing viable offspring; so have tigers and lions, indicating that they (according to creation theory) probably respectively diverged from the same original stock. Dogs and wolves (though considered quite different by humans today) probably originated from their same "kind" too. There are a few large animals (when fully grown) of course: giraffes, elephants, and T-rexes among them. But the average animal size is about sheep size, i.e. the 3-story Ark was plenty large enough to handle the variety of animal kinds plus lots of food for them. Speciation could descend again from original healthy "mutt" stock to start with. Thinking scientifically about this, it shows incredible variable design, huh?
Even if the whole atmosphere was 100% saturated with moisture and began raining there wouldn't be enough water to cover the continents! The Flood was impossible, admit it!
This is a common charge and relates to the answer given two questions above. The Genesis account of the Flood appears to be only what Noah saw, and may not be a full picture of all the catalyzing events. There is no mention of ice at all, we do know that the waters rising (for the first 150 days) was concurrent with the initiation of the 40 days of rain and also that the fountains of the deep broke up, which is an intriguing statement. Rain did not cause the Flood, but this symptom of the cataclysm also began at about the same time.
Salt water washing over the continents would have destroyed all of the plants anyway, right?
Have you ever added sugar to your coffee but forgotten to stir it? What did it taste like? Before the Flood the oceans "hadn't been stirred" yet. The oceans may not have been very saturated with minerals prior to the Great Flood when waters violently washed over the land masses. And we know that natural whole plant seeds (not narrow hybrids, which are much weaker health wise, just like the aforementioned split out dog breeds) are hardy and can tumble around, surviving for even months suspended in and transported by water. But from the fossil record it does look like some plant types (and many ocean creatures) did not survive the Flood and the adjustments needed for the colder environments on Earth afterwards. Cattails, for example, used to grow up to 60 feet tall in the former time, but the remnant we see today barely grow over 3 feet tall. The modern world is but a remnant of what was before.
Wasn't the Flood of Noah just a regional flood?
Impossible. Some contend this today, but Genesis is clear that God intended to flood all land; all humans, animals and birds not on the Ark would be drowned. An average human can walk at 3 MPH, correct? Over 10 hours one could then walk about 30 miles (50 km). In 100 days of walking like this it would be possible to actually walk a few thousand miles, right? (Think of American pioneers in their wagon trains, crossing North America by walking and driving their wagons westward over the course of one long season.) If God was going to send a "regional flood" then why didn't He have Noah build a "Noah's Wagon" instead? Noah could have just moved a few valleys over to escape such a regional flood. Geologically, we see deep sedimentary layers covering every continent. Most sediments are laid down by water. Deep uniformly thick layers extending laterally over hundreds of square miles indicates a one-time past event using tremendous depositional processes that we do not see in action today. Such deep layers, interspersed with coal and oil reserves (crushed former life) are on all continents, all indicating a global flood.
The Flood was a global one. It has been remembered in legends/histories from around the world, not just in the Hebrew account. What is your ultimate foundation for truth? Is it "science, falsely so-called" following the trends and beliefs of the temporary consensus?, or is it the Word of God, with the recognition that the majority of scientists are sometimes wrong...? For over 1,000 years, from Ptolemy to Galileo scientists were wrong in thinking that the universe revolved around the Earth, correct? Galileo's persecution by the Church stemmed from their support of (what they thought was) "science" taught by the scientists of the day. Church leaders supported their peers over the upstart Galileo who proposed that the Greek scientist and mathematician Ptolemy's theory (from over 1,000 years prior) may be incorrect. "Trust the majority of scientists"? for they must be right...? No, sometimes the majority is wrong. They were wrong when they contended that the whole universe revolved around the Earth and there is good evidence that they are wrong today in proposing that we are but a cosmic accident that exploded out of nothingness for no reason. Just a statistical happening with no God to answer to, so live your life for the here and now; humans make the rules; human consensus is the ultimate authority.
Didn't the Scopes Trial in 1925 (a.k.a. the Monkey Trial) show that evolution had won and creation lost - big time!
That's what the liberal media and Hollywood have consistently reported since then.
Why are you intolerant of the beliefs of others?
I link to and report on both sides of this important issue ... unlike ... the liberal media and Hollywood down through the years.
You flat-earth-creationists make me sick!
This one isn't a question, per se, but versions of this kind of comment are common. Usually they seem to come from young people who want creationists (or anyone else who disagrees with them on about anything, actually) put in their place. Oh, to be young again! :-)
You know, one thing I've freely stated before skeptical groups is that even if they completely disagree with my conclusions please consider the evidence on its merits. The folks who postulate the best new theories 10 or 20 years from now are those who can also include evidence that's quietly disregarded by the experts of this generation because the data doesn't fit their theories (see the next question below).
Radioactive dating proves that creationism couldn't have happened, right?
Creationists stand on the side of testable-repeatable science. Ahem, again, creationists are the ones standing on the side of science. Evolutionists quietly disregard science when convenient! Rocks do not come with dates stamped on them, nor has anyone witnessed them aging over (the believed) millions of years. Radiometric dating is one-third fact and two-thirds assumption, and it is unreproducible. Lava flows occuring in recorded historic times have dated radiometrically at millions of years old. This does not give us confidence in the current guesstimates of the earth's allegedly long age.
There is discernable carbon on and near many fossilized dragon bones. (By current evolutionary theory these bones must be at least 65 million years old, correct?) Creationists scrape some carbon off and periodically send samples to labs for (C14) dating; the results show the dinosaur-associated carbon to be a maximum of only thousands of years old. Science triumphs. Evolutionists have been known to fly into a rage when creationists later publish just where the dated carbon came from. A different example is the new lava dome on Mount St. Helens. It is barely 20 years old, but radioactive dating (K-Ar) shows that it is 1 million years old! ...Something is very, very wrong here. Pompeii and Hawaii also have historical volcanic flows that prove K-Ar dating does not work worth beans. Yet evolution's high priests cling to such believed ancient dates since there is no other purported "evidence" that will give them an Earth that's over 10,000 years old. All major rivers and waterfalls show the Earth to be only thousands of years old. The myth-ions of years simply never happened. This is science; testable-repeatable science we're talking about. These tests ... can be repeated, hint, hint.
What about the fossil record?
The "creationists best friend" (i.e. the fossil record) still shows a distinct lack of transitional forms. Sure, every generation of evolutionists have a few new ones, but none of them have stood the test of time so far. Lately they're trying real-hard-like to claim that "dinosaurs grew feathers" to validate temporary evolutionary theory. This will fall flat too. Wait and see. (They have good artists though, don't they?) They've got great illustrations of "probable" interim forms, without the slightest bit of scientific evidence to back them up. It's sad what they're doing to the children with such propaganda.
Human (hominid) evolution is a FACT! Admit it!
Humans alive today vary in cranial capacity from about 700 cc to 2200 cc, with no relation of brain size to intelligence. (The average is about 1300 to 1350 cc; i.e. cubic centimeters.) I used to live in Tokyo, Japan for 5 years. Their average "brain size" is much smaller than mine (as a tall Caucasian) but I can assure you that the Japanese are very smart people. If we look at computers, one could argue that circuits that are closer together are more efficient and faster, ... so a smaller brain size may not necessarily be a disadvantage, correct? When evolutionists line up old mute skulls from smaller to larger (and purposefully hide the found ancient skulls that are larger than today's average) they make false assumptions linking brain size to intelligence - neglecting reason! Plus their radioactive dating methods don't work in the first place (as stated above), so they have no idea how old each skull is in the first place.
Excuse me, but what happens to the bones of a person who doesn't get enough calcium in their diet? Or if they were lacking copper, for example, it would detrimentally affect brain development. If, in past times, many peoples only ate local foods ... (stay with me here) and the local soil in different places had a lack of selinium, or magnesium, or iron, or any number of other trace minerals ... then this would affect each person and animal in the respective area over generations, correct? When we come along now and look at the hominid fossils left behind let's consider all of the logical scientific possibilities (including potentially inbred defects), and not just use a selected dishonest evolutionary sampling of the literally thousands of found hominid remains (hiding or ignoring the vast majority of them!) in order to try to publicize and endow temporary evolutionary theory with credibility - in other words, they are proclaiming evolution at all costs in spite of the fossil evidence. There will be a high cost to us if we let them continue to deceive the public with false, doctored evidence. The fossil record (i.e. the creationist's best friend) shows that each kind has always varied within each kind, which is evidence of tremendously wise design.
What does evolution do? (Yes, I'm asking YOU a serious question!) It fills a need for our origins. It is not testable-repeatable. And when creationists show that evolution stands against scientific evidence the evolutionists get angry. Angry? Excuse me? I thought this was "science" ... the free exchange of ideas and evidence and all. We're threatening their religion. Who are we as humans? Why are we here? Where will we go? 3.5 billion base pairs for human DNA. Wow! I don't have enough faith to believe in random chance for our origins. This is different ... different than other kinds of science, isn't it?
Doesn't everyone know that "creation science" is an oxymoron?
This is the ultimate ancient history we're talking about - our origins. This makes it a contentious issue that touches us each deeply. Very deeply indeed and this makes it threatening. It is unlike other kinds of science. If there is a God out there who both created us and claims the right to judge us after this life, after this time of learning and testing, then we're mad fools if we stand strong against reality, close our collective eyes and proclaim en masse that His existence must not be. We are afterall small, finite creatures bound to a soft bluish marble in space that's off to one side of a particular galaxy; limited to only 5 senses too. And some of our "smartest" people, proclaiming themselves to be wise, assume that all that is must answer to our finite understanding or else it can't exist? "Evolutionary science" with its attendant hubris may very well be an oxymoron, but not the term "creation science" which recognizes firstly that we and our simple understanding are not at the center of all that is.
Creationists don't publish for scientific peer review, proving that they're not doing good science, right?
Well ... it is awfully convenient that the same ivory tower guardians who reject disapproved manuscripts turn right around and then blame creationists for not being allowed to publish quality research in their scientific publications.
Dr. Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research has pointed out that there are many creationist scientists working in industry or health professions, but that anti-creationist bias has become so intense in academia that no one can speak or write openly against evolutionism without being ostracized or fired. Peer review under peer pressure while in competition for respect and career advancement has its limitations. Evolutionists have decided that there is no "God" (none of any consequence) to answer to which means that human consensus is the highest state for discerning truth. How could any evolution-teaching professor break ranks and hope to keep his or her job? Breaking with such a (non-God-fearing) consensus makes one, by definition, wrong; understand that with no "God" to answer to the corruption will grow stronger unless broken from the outside (not unlike a corrupt city police department, political regime, or false religion's heirarchy).
The respected Creation Research Society currently has about 600 members, all of whom have advanced degrees in science. Many of these have published fine scientific articles. The CRS also publishes a regular scientific journal and a bi-monthly newsletter featuring a variety of science-based articles.
Evolution is science; creationism is religion
This statement of belief by scoffers is common. I usually respond only briefly to such offhand remarks. But here I'll mention that evolution is a believed process to explain our origins. In thousands of years of human farming and ranching it has never been recorded as occurring. There are still no bona fide transitional fossils; not a single one. The believed radioactive dating methods for postulating millions ("myth"-ions) of years do not stand up to testable-repeatable scientific scrutiny. And sometimes ...I'll admit here ... I like to alter the usual debate wording, for effect. I'll discuss instead the debate between "creation science vs. the religion of evolution." Macro-evolution (from molecules to man, automatically over time) is strongly believed by its adherents but it is not the only theory in town.
What is the difference between macro-evolution and micro-evolution?
Macro-evolution is the theory that one kind of life form can become another kind given enough time and chance. Micro-evolution however is the observed biological process showing descendants that are similar to (but clearly not clones of) their ancestors. (Isn't it astounding that the Creator built in such automatic adjustability within each kind!) A child usually inherits visible traits from both parents, etc. Micro-evolution is scientific. This is the way our Creator designed life to be, various speciation could occur within each preset "kind" of life form. Watch carefully--when evolutionists offer their proofs of believed macroevolution, it is ALWAYS instances of microevolution that they cite, hoping that you won't notice the difference. Mendel's laws of genetics show us why microevolution does not lead to macroevolution.
...There are many more questions and variations of questions and challenges that people ask. Hopefully this FAQ will answer some of the questions that you may have thought of concerning this important subject. If you're a God fearing person, please pray about your understanding of this foundational issue. After checking out both sides - you may come to an entirely different conclusion, but please at least consider the possibility that the reason we've written and posted all of this information on this web page is that we hope it will be edifying and informative for you.
======
At the time of the Fall, when Adam and Eve sinned we lost direct contact with our Maker. This was about 6,000 years ago. In the intervening generations it has been a struggle to preserve and pass on our place in the universe and how to get back into a right place with Him. As our ancestors diverged after the Flood they passed on preserved history variations including over 250 still remembered accounts of the Flood! No culture's history claims to go back further than about 5,000 years. All over the world this is so. Yet, over the past 200 years there has been a growing push by "advanced modern man" to completely forget what's left of our true ancient history of only thousands of years in total, to be replaced by the mythical "millions" of supposed years, that we are cosmic accidents and for us to stand together against our Maker. "Aliens" (i.e. fallen angels; the familiar spirits or false gods of old in new disguises) will soon be able to step in to complete the coming anti-history falsehood. Please don't fall for the spiritual deception of evolution and all of the things that belief in evolution then leads to.
I'll close this with a prayer that even atheists and anti-theists can pray in a quiet, sincere way: "Creator, if You are there and if You can hear me, please help me." Just take that first step. We're not alone in the universe.
"Bats and Evolution" by Ron Lyttle
Have you ever gazed up into the sky on a warm summer's evening as darkness was enveloping the land, and seen flying creatures darting and swooping through the air? Birds, you thought at first, but as you watched, there was a fluttering, twisting, dropping motion to their flight that wasn't right for birds. Bats! you suddenly realized. And you were either pleased at the chance to observe them in action, or a little frightened as myths of Dracula and vampires, coupled with concerns about rabies, came to mind.
Through the ages, bats have been the stuff of myths and legends, misunderstood and feared. But what are bats, and where did they come from?
WHAT ARE BATS?
Bats are mammals. They are covered with fur, give live birth, and nurse their pups with nipples located on the sides, under their wings. But what makes them unique among mammals is the fact that not only are they perfectly designed for hanging upside-down, like the sloth, but they can also fly. They are the only flying mammal. Flying squirrels and flying lemurs can only glide; only bats actively fly.
Bats are not rodents, although many people think of them as mice with wings, and indeed, the members of the genus Myotis (including the common Little Brown Bat, Myotis lucifugus) are called mouse-eared bats. But they only have one pup per year (a few have twins or up to four), and live twelve toothirty or more years, depending on the species. Bats are so unique that they have been placed in their own order, Order Chiroptera, meaning "hand-wing". As the name implies, their wing consists of an arm that ends in a wrist with a thumb and four separate fingers which are webbed with skin, and form the ribs of the wing. By contrast, a bird's wing possesses a greatly-reduced number of "finger" bones. When bats aren't flying they fold their fingers back along their forearms out of the way. While the thumbs of most insect-eating bats who catch their prey on the wing are small and weak, the big fruit-eating bats called flying foxes (because of their fox-like or dog-like face) have very long and strong thumbs with curved "thumbnails" like claws, which they use for climbing around in trees and gripping fruit. Bat fingers have the same number of bones ours do, but they are proportionately much longer. The last bone of the "middle" finger of the Rodrigues bat (Pteropus rodricencis), for example, is actually folded behind the elbow when at rest. Look at your fingers and forearm; try to fold your fingers down against your arm, and try to imagine your fingers extending past your elbow. But don't forget to leave your thumb extending forward for gripping and climbing. Then there is the webbing that connects all the fingers except the thumb, and extends all the way along the arm and body to the ankle, and in most species continues to envelop all or part of the tail. When bats extend their fingers and arms, their wings are ready for flight. By shaping their "hands" they control the shape of their wings. Slow-motion photography (National Geographic Video) has actually shown insect bats scooping up insects in their wings and tail membranes, transferring them to their mouths in mid-flight. Truly they are unique mammals.
The order is broken down into two sub-orders, Megachiroptera, the "big bats", and Microchiroptera, the "little bats". All the insect bats are microbats; the old-world fruit bats, the flying foxes, are megabats. All the rest are in one or the other, mainly according to their size. The system breaks down, however, since some micros, like the little Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicencis), eat fruit, and one flying fox, the Queensland blossom bat (Syconycteris australis), weighs only half an ounce.
EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS
Since most bats eat insects, evolutionists have traditionally taught that bats evolved from primitive insectivores, as did shrews, moles, etc. Fruit-eaters merely modified their diet due to ecological pressures.
Then in the early '80s J. D. Smith (Smith pp. 347-365) suggested that megabats and microbats evolved separately, because there are many physiological differences between the two other than just size. Microbats have a complicated shoulder joint and a claw only on the thumb, for example, while megabats have a simple shoulder joint but a claw on both the thumb and first finger. Micros use echo-location, while macros mainly rely on their keen eyesight. Micro teeth are designed for prey, while mega teeth grind plant parts. Megabats can live only in the tropics, needing a year-round food supply; many microbats have the ability to hibernate through cold winters.
In 1986 Dr. John Pettigrew further proposed that flying foxes most closely resemble primates (Pettigrew p. 1), and that along with flying lemurs who also have their own order but don't actually fly, they share a common ancestor with the primates.
He based his conclusions on research that showed that primates have unique neural pathways in the brain, having to do with vision, and that these pathways were so unique that it was thought that they distinguish primates from non-primates. Dr. Pettigrew discovered that all flying foxes also have them, including the little blossom bat mentioned above, but that no microbats do. As the flying lemurs also have these pathways, he proposed that they are really all primates, sharing a common ancestor, and that powered flight in bats evolved a second time, later in evolutionary history, only coincidentally resembling that of microbats.
Since then, however, other researchers have challenged his "two-origins" idea (Gibbons p. 34). Studies with mitochondrial DNA have shown that all bats are closely related, and separate from primates. Also, there is a muscle complex in the wings of all bats that is different from birds and all gliding mammals.
Rather than saying that all the similar adaptations necessary for powered flight evolved separately in the two groups of bats, the alternative explanation is that it is actually the similar neural pathways, associated with visual acuity, that arose independently in flying foxes, flying lemurs, and primates, as all rely on their vision to find food. The microbats, in contrast, rely mostly on their hearing in echo-locating, and never developed these pathways.
EVIDENCE
In trying to understand the origins of bats, researchers can study living animals, but nobody was around millions of years ago to observe the formation of bats, so they have to rely on fossils to supply the evidence of what they propose. What, then, is the evidence? What do the fossils say? In Bioscience, May 1992, we find this quote:
"Unfortunately, the fossils available only complicate matters. They do not represent transitional morphology between quadrupedal (four-footed) animals and flying bats, and they represent animals nearly as specialized as their modern relatives" (Thewessin p. 340).
And in Bats: A Natural History, John Hill says almost the same thing:
"...all fossil bats, even the oldest, are clearly fully-developed bats and so they shed little light on the transition from their terrestrial ancestor" (Hill p. 33).
The oldest known skeleton, supposedly 60 million years old (Wilson p. 79), is a fully-formed bat which apparently could echo-locate (UCMP Berkeley).
When you ask an evolutionist to show you the ancestor of a bat, he will, in all likelihood (as does the ZooBooks volume on "Bats"), show you a mythical creature with elongated limbs connected by stretched skin gliding from branch to branch like a modern flying squirrel. It will have paws on all four limbs, and may be seen perching on a branch with skin folds hanging down (Wood and Rink, p. 6). What the evolutionist will not show you is any kind of transition between paws used for standing and running, and hand-wings used for flying. He won't show you because there is no fossil of such a creature, and he can't imagine what one would look like. He also can't explain how "survival of the fittest" would produce it. At some point elongating front toes would interfere with quadrupedal (four-footed) movement long before they could become the ribs of functional wings. And why and how upside-down? Birds perch very well right-side up. How does "survival of the fittest" turn an animal upside down, with all the physiological changes necessary for maintaining that position? Try swallowing while hanging upside-down. And what happens to your blood after a while? Yet bats eat, sleep, and mate upside down, and many also give birth in that position.
MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTION
"Survival of the fittest" is half of the standard answer when evolutionists are asked about the mechanisms of evolution. They will point to examples like Darwin's famous finches, or bacteria that become immune to antibiotics used against them. But are these examples of evolution, or of selective breeding? Is there any new information present?
In 1859 Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species, in which he presented his concept of the evolutionary development of species, based in part on his observations on the Galapagos Islands. There he observed that while there were finches on all the islands, similar to finches on the mainland of South America, the birds on each island differed in bill shape (corresponding to different diet) and in coloration, both from each other and from the "parent" form on the mainland. Similar differences were observed with species of tortoises and lizards found on the islands (Darwin p. vi). Although he admitted that fossil evidence did not support his ideas (Darwin pp 272-3, 423), Darwin postulated that the same pressures that produced such variation in birds could also account for the larger differences between species, families, and orders, and that all must have evolved from a common ancestor by an accumulation of many small changes sometime in the distant past. Most modern evolutionary thinking "evolved" from these early observations and thoughts.
Unfortunately, another famous set of observations was not published until 1866, seven years later. That's when Gregor Mendel reported his observations and experiments with the color of pea flowers (World Book Encyclopedia vol. 9 p 202). He had noted that peas in his garden had either red or white flowers, and discovered that by carefully controlling the source of pollination, he could produce peas with only white or only red flowers, or those with a mixture of the two, and that there was a regular and predictable pattern from one generation to the next. I said "unfortunately" because before this the mechanism of heredity was not understood, and people thought that characteristics acquired by one animal or plant could be passed on to its offspring, and no one knew why a red-flowered pea plant could produce peas that would have either red or white flowers (World Book Encyclopedia, vol. 9 p. 208, vol. 13, p. 398). Indeed, it was not until 1900 that the importance of Mendel's work was understood, and the concepts applied to other characteristics in both plants and animals, giving rise to the modern science of genetics. Had Darwin known about genes and chromosomes and how they affect heredity, he might have realized that as Mendel could selectively produce all red-flowered peas or all white-flowered, so "natural selection" produced finches with different bill shapes and colorations. The potential for different shapes and colors was present in the original population, and no real change or "mutation" had occurred. What Darwin saw as different species may in fact have been no more than the extreme variation between a great Dane and a Chihuahua (both are dogs) or between a miniature horse and a Clydesdale (both are horses). These extremes, while seemingly "obviously" different species altogether, are in fact genetically (if not mechanically) capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring.
So it is with the bacteria. In any "normal" population there are a few individuals who will survive drugs that will kill all the others. When only these are left to reproduce you wind up with a new population of drug-resistant bacteria, but no mutation has occurred, contrary to popular literature (Wieland p.11).
In all these examples, there has been no gain in genetic material, no increase in information. As peas that produce only red or only white flowers have lost the gene that codes for the other color, so the birds with short heavy beaks have lost the ability to produce long, slender ones, and the bacteria have lost potential that they once had. If environmental circumstances change, they are now less adaptable, not more. Evolution, on the other hand, requires a gain in information to produce new species. Otherwise amoebas remain amoebas, fish remain fish, and bats came from other bats.
"Mutation" is the other half of the standard explanation for evolution. It is assumed that over countless generations, mistakes occur in the genetic code, producing new characteristics, and that, given enough time and mistakes, a new species results. But is this good science, or wishful thinking?
Every living thing, from the most simple virus to the most complex animal, contains in its cells very complex compounds called nucleic acid. There are two forms, called ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) (World Book Encyclopedia vol. 14 pp. 602-603). Viruses contain only one or the other, but cells contain both. While RNA controls protein production, DNA is the main component in chromosomes, which provide the blueprint or pattern of heredity. Every time a cell divides into two, the RNA in the cell body and the DNA in the nucleus must be exactly copied, with one copy going with each cell. DNA is an incredibly complex molecule, resembling a long ladder that has been twisted into a spiral. The sides of the ladder are made up of compounds called phosphates and sugars, while the "rungs" are composed of two of four possible bases in all the possible combinations. The exact make-up and order of "rungs" varies from one kind of living thing to another. Each DNA "ladder" has about 20,000 "rungs", and each chromosome contains many thousands of DNA molecules. RNA has a similar structure, but the sugar is different, and one of the four bases is also different.
Since it is the chromosomal DNA (and in some cases RNA) that provides the blueprint for each cell and individual, if any of the thousands of rungs gets damaged, or if different combinations get substituted in the copy, that cell will be defective. Contrary to popular belief, most changes in the DNA structure (mutations) at best weaken, and at worst kill the cell. Only a very few are neutral, and beneficial changes are virtually non-existent (Sunderland pp 142-143). To produce a healthy, fully-functional individual, each copy of DNA and RNA must be identical to the original, down to the last "rung". "Weakened scales" in dinosaurs cannot logically and scientifically mutate into wondrously-complicated bird feathers, for example; far too much genetic information would need to be added to accomplish that, and mutations do not add information (Sunderland p 154). In a few rare instances, there has been a mutation that allows a bacterium to avoid the effects of an antibiotic, but only because the mutation blocked a normal function of which the drug was designed to take advantage (Wieland p. 12); again, this represents a loss of information, not a gain.
Thus "survival of the fittest" and "mutations" cannot logically produce the fully-functional hand-wing found in even the oldest known bat fossils, no matter how much time is allowed, but Darwin did not understand that. He blindly assumed just such a development, saying "Nor can I see any insuperable difficulty" (Darwin, p. 142) in getting from a gliding animal to a bat by many small steps, not understanding just how preposterous they are in the light of modern understanding of genetics and DNA.
THE ALTERNATIVE
A far simpler explanation is that bats, like cars and planes, are the product of very careful, intelligent design; all the varied shapes and features equip different bats to function in different ecological niches. All the anatomical details necessary to fly and to hang upside down have been thought of and "programmed" into the genetic code. Bat feet are totally relaxed when they are hanging (Dr. Blair Csuti, personal communication, October 17,1998), requiring effort to let go; how did that "evolve"? Bracken Cave, in south-central Texas, is home to some 20 million Mexican free-tail bats (McCracken pp 67-68). Each bat has to recognize the echo of its own call in the middle of millions of other echoes to avoid collisions and find its way. How did that ability develop through chance mutations?
The problem with accepting intelligent design is not that it is unscientific; as has already been discussed, it is evolution that is in fact unscientific in its suppositions. No, the real problem is that if you accept intelligent design, then you have to have a designer. Determining the nature and identity of that Designer gets into the realm of religion, and if there really is a Designer, then maybe the Bible is true when it talks about a God that claims to have created the universe and all that is in it, and maybe people have some accountability to that Creator. To many people, scientists and lay people alike, that accountability is unacceptable, unthinkable. There must therefore be an explanation that does not require a Creator (and they will go to great lengths, twist and ignore the facts, to come up with such an explanation). That is the real problem with accepting design rather than chance evolution, regardless of what the facts seem to indicate. In fact, several honest scientists insist that the facts do show evidence of intelligent design (see Dr. Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box, and Dr. Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, just to name two with books; there are many more).
Astronomers are spending millions of dollars building and using huge radio-telescopes to search for non-random radio signals from outer space. It is believed that a non-random, orderly sequence would be a sign of intelligence "out there", because it couldn't happen by chance stellar activity. But when molecular biologists turn their microscopes to the study of DNA molecules, the incredible non-random sequences they observe are seen as only chance accidents. Does this make sense? Is this scientific?
At the conclusion of his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Denton sums it up like this:
"...no one has ever observed the interconnecting continuum of functional forms [Darwin's many small steps] linking all known past and present species of life. The concept of the continuity of nature has existed in the mind of man, never in the facts of nature. In a very real sense, therefore, advocacy of the doctrine of continuity has always necessitated a retreat from pure empiricism, and contrary to what is widely assumed by evolutionary biologists today, it has always been the anti-evolutionists, not the evolutionists, in the scientific community who have stuck rigidly to the facts and adhered to a more strictly empirical approach" (Denton pp.353-354).
Did bats just evolve, or were they intelligently designed? Think about it. Be honest.
REFERENCES
Behe, Michael (1996). Darwin's Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, The Free Press, New York, N.Y.
Darwin, Charles (1872, reprint 1963). On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 6th ed. (with new preface), The Heritage Press, New York, N.Y.
Denton, Michael (1986). Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, Bethesda, Maryland.
Gibbons, Ann (1992). Is "Flying Primate" Hypothesis Headed for a Crash Landing? Science, Apr. 3, v. 256 n. 5053, p. 34.
Hill, John E., and James D. Smith (1984). Bats: A Natural History, University of Texas Press, Austin.
McCracken, Gary F., and Mary K. Gustin (1987). Batmom's Daily Nightmare, Natural History, Oct., v. 96 n. 10, pp. 66-73.
National Geographic Society (1973). Strange Creatures of the Night [Video].
Pettigrew, Dr. John D. (1986). Are Flying Foxes Really Primates? Bats, Jun. v. 3 n. 2, pp. 1-2.
Smith, J. D., and G. Madkour (1980). Penial Morphology and the Question of Chiropteran Phylogeny, Proceedings of the 5th International Bat Research Conference, Texas Tech Press, pp. 347-365.
Sunderland, Luther D. (1988). Darwin's Enigma, 4th Ed., Master Book Publishers, Santee, CA.
Thewissen, J. G. M., and S. K. Babcock (1992). The Origin of Flight in Bats, BioScience, May, v. 42 n. 5, pp. 340-345.
UCMP Berkeley (1999). Chiroptera: Fossil Record. [On-Line]. Available: http://www.UCMP.Berkeley.EDU/mammal/eutheria/chirofr.html.
Wilson, Don E. (1997). Bats in Question, Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington D. C.
Wood, Linda C. and Deane Rink (1994). ZooBooks: "Bats". California: Wildlife Education Ltd.
World Book Encyclopedia (1999). Heredity, v. 9 pp. 200-210.
World Book Encyclopedia (1999). Mendel, Gregor Johann, v. 13 p. 398.
World Book Encyclopedia (1999). Nucleic Acid, v. 14, pp. 602-603.
"Bats and Evolution" is Copyright 1999, by Ron Lyttle
Through the ages, bats have been the stuff of myths and legends, misunderstood and feared. But what are bats, and where did they come from?
WHAT ARE BATS?
Bats are mammals. They are covered with fur, give live birth, and nurse their pups with nipples located on the sides, under their wings. But what makes them unique among mammals is the fact that not only are they perfectly designed for hanging upside-down, like the sloth, but they can also fly. They are the only flying mammal. Flying squirrels and flying lemurs can only glide; only bats actively fly.
Bats are not rodents, although many people think of them as mice with wings, and indeed, the members of the genus Myotis (including the common Little Brown Bat, Myotis lucifugus) are called mouse-eared bats. But they only have one pup per year (a few have twins or up to four), and live twelve toothirty or more years, depending on the species. Bats are so unique that they have been placed in their own order, Order Chiroptera, meaning "hand-wing". As the name implies, their wing consists of an arm that ends in a wrist with a thumb and four separate fingers which are webbed with skin, and form the ribs of the wing. By contrast, a bird's wing possesses a greatly-reduced number of "finger" bones. When bats aren't flying they fold their fingers back along their forearms out of the way. While the thumbs of most insect-eating bats who catch their prey on the wing are small and weak, the big fruit-eating bats called flying foxes (because of their fox-like or dog-like face) have very long and strong thumbs with curved "thumbnails" like claws, which they use for climbing around in trees and gripping fruit. Bat fingers have the same number of bones ours do, but they are proportionately much longer. The last bone of the "middle" finger of the Rodrigues bat (Pteropus rodricencis), for example, is actually folded behind the elbow when at rest. Look at your fingers and forearm; try to fold your fingers down against your arm, and try to imagine your fingers extending past your elbow. But don't forget to leave your thumb extending forward for gripping and climbing. Then there is the webbing that connects all the fingers except the thumb, and extends all the way along the arm and body to the ankle, and in most species continues to envelop all or part of the tail. When bats extend their fingers and arms, their wings are ready for flight. By shaping their "hands" they control the shape of their wings. Slow-motion photography (National Geographic Video) has actually shown insect bats scooping up insects in their wings and tail membranes, transferring them to their mouths in mid-flight. Truly they are unique mammals.
The order is broken down into two sub-orders, Megachiroptera, the "big bats", and Microchiroptera, the "little bats". All the insect bats are microbats; the old-world fruit bats, the flying foxes, are megabats. All the rest are in one or the other, mainly according to their size. The system breaks down, however, since some micros, like the little Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicencis), eat fruit, and one flying fox, the Queensland blossom bat (Syconycteris australis), weighs only half an ounce.
EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS
Since most bats eat insects, evolutionists have traditionally taught that bats evolved from primitive insectivores, as did shrews, moles, etc. Fruit-eaters merely modified their diet due to ecological pressures.
Then in the early '80s J. D. Smith (Smith pp. 347-365) suggested that megabats and microbats evolved separately, because there are many physiological differences between the two other than just size. Microbats have a complicated shoulder joint and a claw only on the thumb, for example, while megabats have a simple shoulder joint but a claw on both the thumb and first finger. Micros use echo-location, while macros mainly rely on their keen eyesight. Micro teeth are designed for prey, while mega teeth grind plant parts. Megabats can live only in the tropics, needing a year-round food supply; many microbats have the ability to hibernate through cold winters.
In 1986 Dr. John Pettigrew further proposed that flying foxes most closely resemble primates (Pettigrew p. 1), and that along with flying lemurs who also have their own order but don't actually fly, they share a common ancestor with the primates.
He based his conclusions on research that showed that primates have unique neural pathways in the brain, having to do with vision, and that these pathways were so unique that it was thought that they distinguish primates from non-primates. Dr. Pettigrew discovered that all flying foxes also have them, including the little blossom bat mentioned above, but that no microbats do. As the flying lemurs also have these pathways, he proposed that they are really all primates, sharing a common ancestor, and that powered flight in bats evolved a second time, later in evolutionary history, only coincidentally resembling that of microbats.
Since then, however, other researchers have challenged his "two-origins" idea (Gibbons p. 34). Studies with mitochondrial DNA have shown that all bats are closely related, and separate from primates. Also, there is a muscle complex in the wings of all bats that is different from birds and all gliding mammals.
Rather than saying that all the similar adaptations necessary for powered flight evolved separately in the two groups of bats, the alternative explanation is that it is actually the similar neural pathways, associated with visual acuity, that arose independently in flying foxes, flying lemurs, and primates, as all rely on their vision to find food. The microbats, in contrast, rely mostly on their hearing in echo-locating, and never developed these pathways.
EVIDENCE
In trying to understand the origins of bats, researchers can study living animals, but nobody was around millions of years ago to observe the formation of bats, so they have to rely on fossils to supply the evidence of what they propose. What, then, is the evidence? What do the fossils say? In Bioscience, May 1992, we find this quote:
"Unfortunately, the fossils available only complicate matters. They do not represent transitional morphology between quadrupedal (four-footed) animals and flying bats, and they represent animals nearly as specialized as their modern relatives" (Thewessin p. 340).
And in Bats: A Natural History, John Hill says almost the same thing:
"...all fossil bats, even the oldest, are clearly fully-developed bats and so they shed little light on the transition from their terrestrial ancestor" (Hill p. 33).
The oldest known skeleton, supposedly 60 million years old (Wilson p. 79), is a fully-formed bat which apparently could echo-locate (UCMP Berkeley).
When you ask an evolutionist to show you the ancestor of a bat, he will, in all likelihood (as does the ZooBooks volume on "Bats"), show you a mythical creature with elongated limbs connected by stretched skin gliding from branch to branch like a modern flying squirrel. It will have paws on all four limbs, and may be seen perching on a branch with skin folds hanging down (Wood and Rink, p. 6). What the evolutionist will not show you is any kind of transition between paws used for standing and running, and hand-wings used for flying. He won't show you because there is no fossil of such a creature, and he can't imagine what one would look like. He also can't explain how "survival of the fittest" would produce it. At some point elongating front toes would interfere with quadrupedal (four-footed) movement long before they could become the ribs of functional wings. And why and how upside-down? Birds perch very well right-side up. How does "survival of the fittest" turn an animal upside down, with all the physiological changes necessary for maintaining that position? Try swallowing while hanging upside-down. And what happens to your blood after a while? Yet bats eat, sleep, and mate upside down, and many also give birth in that position.
MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTION
"Survival of the fittest" is half of the standard answer when evolutionists are asked about the mechanisms of evolution. They will point to examples like Darwin's famous finches, or bacteria that become immune to antibiotics used against them. But are these examples of evolution, or of selective breeding? Is there any new information present?
In 1859 Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species, in which he presented his concept of the evolutionary development of species, based in part on his observations on the Galapagos Islands. There he observed that while there were finches on all the islands, similar to finches on the mainland of South America, the birds on each island differed in bill shape (corresponding to different diet) and in coloration, both from each other and from the "parent" form on the mainland. Similar differences were observed with species of tortoises and lizards found on the islands (Darwin p. vi). Although he admitted that fossil evidence did not support his ideas (Darwin pp 272-3, 423), Darwin postulated that the same pressures that produced such variation in birds could also account for the larger differences between species, families, and orders, and that all must have evolved from a common ancestor by an accumulation of many small changes sometime in the distant past. Most modern evolutionary thinking "evolved" from these early observations and thoughts.
Unfortunately, another famous set of observations was not published until 1866, seven years later. That's when Gregor Mendel reported his observations and experiments with the color of pea flowers (World Book Encyclopedia vol. 9 p 202). He had noted that peas in his garden had either red or white flowers, and discovered that by carefully controlling the source of pollination, he could produce peas with only white or only red flowers, or those with a mixture of the two, and that there was a regular and predictable pattern from one generation to the next. I said "unfortunately" because before this the mechanism of heredity was not understood, and people thought that characteristics acquired by one animal or plant could be passed on to its offspring, and no one knew why a red-flowered pea plant could produce peas that would have either red or white flowers (World Book Encyclopedia, vol. 9 p. 208, vol. 13, p. 398). Indeed, it was not until 1900 that the importance of Mendel's work was understood, and the concepts applied to other characteristics in both plants and animals, giving rise to the modern science of genetics. Had Darwin known about genes and chromosomes and how they affect heredity, he might have realized that as Mendel could selectively produce all red-flowered peas or all white-flowered, so "natural selection" produced finches with different bill shapes and colorations. The potential for different shapes and colors was present in the original population, and no real change or "mutation" had occurred. What Darwin saw as different species may in fact have been no more than the extreme variation between a great Dane and a Chihuahua (both are dogs) or between a miniature horse and a Clydesdale (both are horses). These extremes, while seemingly "obviously" different species altogether, are in fact genetically (if not mechanically) capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring.
So it is with the bacteria. In any "normal" population there are a few individuals who will survive drugs that will kill all the others. When only these are left to reproduce you wind up with a new population of drug-resistant bacteria, but no mutation has occurred, contrary to popular literature (Wieland p.11).
In all these examples, there has been no gain in genetic material, no increase in information. As peas that produce only red or only white flowers have lost the gene that codes for the other color, so the birds with short heavy beaks have lost the ability to produce long, slender ones, and the bacteria have lost potential that they once had. If environmental circumstances change, they are now less adaptable, not more. Evolution, on the other hand, requires a gain in information to produce new species. Otherwise amoebas remain amoebas, fish remain fish, and bats came from other bats.
"Mutation" is the other half of the standard explanation for evolution. It is assumed that over countless generations, mistakes occur in the genetic code, producing new characteristics, and that, given enough time and mistakes, a new species results. But is this good science, or wishful thinking?
Every living thing, from the most simple virus to the most complex animal, contains in its cells very complex compounds called nucleic acid. There are two forms, called ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) (World Book Encyclopedia vol. 14 pp. 602-603). Viruses contain only one or the other, but cells contain both. While RNA controls protein production, DNA is the main component in chromosomes, which provide the blueprint or pattern of heredity. Every time a cell divides into two, the RNA in the cell body and the DNA in the nucleus must be exactly copied, with one copy going with each cell. DNA is an incredibly complex molecule, resembling a long ladder that has been twisted into a spiral. The sides of the ladder are made up of compounds called phosphates and sugars, while the "rungs" are composed of two of four possible bases in all the possible combinations. The exact make-up and order of "rungs" varies from one kind of living thing to another. Each DNA "ladder" has about 20,000 "rungs", and each chromosome contains many thousands of DNA molecules. RNA has a similar structure, but the sugar is different, and one of the four bases is also different.
Since it is the chromosomal DNA (and in some cases RNA) that provides the blueprint for each cell and individual, if any of the thousands of rungs gets damaged, or if different combinations get substituted in the copy, that cell will be defective. Contrary to popular belief, most changes in the DNA structure (mutations) at best weaken, and at worst kill the cell. Only a very few are neutral, and beneficial changes are virtually non-existent (Sunderland pp 142-143). To produce a healthy, fully-functional individual, each copy of DNA and RNA must be identical to the original, down to the last "rung". "Weakened scales" in dinosaurs cannot logically and scientifically mutate into wondrously-complicated bird feathers, for example; far too much genetic information would need to be added to accomplish that, and mutations do not add information (Sunderland p 154). In a few rare instances, there has been a mutation that allows a bacterium to avoid the effects of an antibiotic, but only because the mutation blocked a normal function of which the drug was designed to take advantage (Wieland p. 12); again, this represents a loss of information, not a gain.
Thus "survival of the fittest" and "mutations" cannot logically produce the fully-functional hand-wing found in even the oldest known bat fossils, no matter how much time is allowed, but Darwin did not understand that. He blindly assumed just such a development, saying "Nor can I see any insuperable difficulty" (Darwin, p. 142) in getting from a gliding animal to a bat by many small steps, not understanding just how preposterous they are in the light of modern understanding of genetics and DNA.
THE ALTERNATIVE
A far simpler explanation is that bats, like cars and planes, are the product of very careful, intelligent design; all the varied shapes and features equip different bats to function in different ecological niches. All the anatomical details necessary to fly and to hang upside down have been thought of and "programmed" into the genetic code. Bat feet are totally relaxed when they are hanging (Dr. Blair Csuti, personal communication, October 17,1998), requiring effort to let go; how did that "evolve"? Bracken Cave, in south-central Texas, is home to some 20 million Mexican free-tail bats (McCracken pp 67-68). Each bat has to recognize the echo of its own call in the middle of millions of other echoes to avoid collisions and find its way. How did that ability develop through chance mutations?
The problem with accepting intelligent design is not that it is unscientific; as has already been discussed, it is evolution that is in fact unscientific in its suppositions. No, the real problem is that if you accept intelligent design, then you have to have a designer. Determining the nature and identity of that Designer gets into the realm of religion, and if there really is a Designer, then maybe the Bible is true when it talks about a God that claims to have created the universe and all that is in it, and maybe people have some accountability to that Creator. To many people, scientists and lay people alike, that accountability is unacceptable, unthinkable. There must therefore be an explanation that does not require a Creator (and they will go to great lengths, twist and ignore the facts, to come up with such an explanation). That is the real problem with accepting design rather than chance evolution, regardless of what the facts seem to indicate. In fact, several honest scientists insist that the facts do show evidence of intelligent design (see Dr. Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box, and Dr. Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, just to name two with books; there are many more).
Astronomers are spending millions of dollars building and using huge radio-telescopes to search for non-random radio signals from outer space. It is believed that a non-random, orderly sequence would be a sign of intelligence "out there", because it couldn't happen by chance stellar activity. But when molecular biologists turn their microscopes to the study of DNA molecules, the incredible non-random sequences they observe are seen as only chance accidents. Does this make sense? Is this scientific?
At the conclusion of his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Denton sums it up like this:
"...no one has ever observed the interconnecting continuum of functional forms [Darwin's many small steps] linking all known past and present species of life. The concept of the continuity of nature has existed in the mind of man, never in the facts of nature. In a very real sense, therefore, advocacy of the doctrine of continuity has always necessitated a retreat from pure empiricism, and contrary to what is widely assumed by evolutionary biologists today, it has always been the anti-evolutionists, not the evolutionists, in the scientific community who have stuck rigidly to the facts and adhered to a more strictly empirical approach" (Denton pp.353-354).
Did bats just evolve, or were they intelligently designed? Think about it. Be honest.
REFERENCES
Behe, Michael (1996). Darwin's Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, The Free Press, New York, N.Y.
Darwin, Charles (1872, reprint 1963). On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 6th ed. (with new preface), The Heritage Press, New York, N.Y.
Denton, Michael (1986). Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, Bethesda, Maryland.
Gibbons, Ann (1992). Is "Flying Primate" Hypothesis Headed for a Crash Landing? Science, Apr. 3, v. 256 n. 5053, p. 34.
Hill, John E., and James D. Smith (1984). Bats: A Natural History, University of Texas Press, Austin.
McCracken, Gary F., and Mary K. Gustin (1987). Batmom's Daily Nightmare, Natural History, Oct., v. 96 n. 10, pp. 66-73.
National Geographic Society (1973). Strange Creatures of the Night [Video].
Pettigrew, Dr. John D. (1986). Are Flying Foxes Really Primates? Bats, Jun. v. 3 n. 2, pp. 1-2.
Smith, J. D., and G. Madkour (1980). Penial Morphology and the Question of Chiropteran Phylogeny, Proceedings of the 5th International Bat Research Conference, Texas Tech Press, pp. 347-365.
Sunderland, Luther D. (1988). Darwin's Enigma, 4th Ed., Master Book Publishers, Santee, CA.
Thewissen, J. G. M., and S. K. Babcock (1992). The Origin of Flight in Bats, BioScience, May, v. 42 n. 5, pp. 340-345.
UCMP Berkeley (1999). Chiroptera: Fossil Record. [On-Line]. Available: http://www.UCMP.Berkeley.EDU/mammal/eutheria/chirofr.html.
Wilson, Don E. (1997). Bats in Question, Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington D. C.
Wood, Linda C. and Deane Rink (1994). ZooBooks: "Bats". California: Wildlife Education Ltd.
World Book Encyclopedia (1999). Heredity, v. 9 pp. 200-210.
World Book Encyclopedia (1999). Mendel, Gregor Johann, v. 13 p. 398.
World Book Encyclopedia (1999). Nucleic Acid, v. 14, pp. 602-603.
"Bats and Evolution" is Copyright 1999, by Ron Lyttle
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