Here are the Blogs in the apologetics category.
Thursday, 27 May 2010
A Conversation Between Two Creationists
 Ken Ham is the president/CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis-U.S. and the highly acclaimed Creation Museum. He is one of the most in-demand creationist speakers in North America. Brad Harrub, Ph.D. serves as the director of Focus Press and co-editor of Think magazine. He spends 40+ weekends each year conducting Truth About Origins Seminars all across the country. They had the opportunity recently to sit down and discuss the importance of training children early, and teaching them the truth regarding the dinosaurs.
Brad Harrub: Ken, dinosaurs are huge with young people. In fact, they are often the very first introduction children get into the atheistic world of evolution. Why do you think evolutionists have been so successful with dinosaurs?
Ken Ham: Well I think dinosaurs have that monster appeal with children. There is a mystery about them as well. They don’t live today. Some of them were very, very large, and I think that fascinates kids. For that reason kids just love dinosaurs. Dinosaurs have really captured their imagination. Evolutionists have certainly capitalized on that in using dinosaurs to convince children, as well as moms and dads and others, about evolution and millions of years. They use dinosaurs to convince them the Bible is not true and to teach them evolutionary history. Really, we should be using dinosaurs to capitalize and teach our children the truth about these creatures and that there is no mystery about them.
BH: Absolutely! We are losing young people in droves because they drink the kool-aid and buy into the evolutionary myth regarding vast old ages. Evolutionists hook kids at a young age and then they grow up and can’t harmonize their beliefs with the Bible. Ken, do you believe that in some cases evolutionists are hiding or ignoring data because it doesn’t fit their theory?
KH: You know, that’s an interesting question about ignoring or hiding data. There has been some research recently by evolutionists, by people who certainly don’t believe the Genesis account of creation, showing that there are dinosaur bones that are supposed to be millions of years old, yet they have evidence of red blood cells, evidence of soft tissue—pliable—in them. These were featured recently on a “60 Minutes” program. This is interesting because this show is normally a very investigative program. Normally on this show when someone makes a claim, the reporters are asking questions, for example: “How do you know?” or “What are the implications of this?” They really delve into it. But it is interesting to note on this episode they didn’t do that. When the scientists showed the soft tissue and blood vessels to the reporter, they simply responded: “Wow, this is fantastic. Wow, this is interesting.” But the questions that should have been asked are “What are the implications? How could these be millions of years old? How could soft tissue last millions of years? This doesn’t make any sense. Can you explain this to me? How can you explain this to the world?” It is sad that they didn’t ask any investigative questions, but rather just accepted it. The implications are astonishing. When evolutionists are asked those questions, they don’t know how tissue could have lasted that long. It is not suppressed information in one sense, but in another sense, people aren’t asking the right questions. A lot of people don’t know what questions to ask, and the implications are quite staggering.
BH: Are you speaking of Mary Schweitzer’s work? I actually communicated with Dr. Schweitzer regarding this find.
KH: The main group this is coming from is Schweitzer’s group. She’s the one that discovered this under the dinosaur expert Jack Horner. That’s the main source, although I have read other reports where they are finding evidence of soft tissue in other dinosaur bones after they dissolve out the mineralization. However, as you know, Mary Schweitzer’s the one who has done most of the recorded research.
BH: In my communication with Schweitzer, the topic came up as to why this was not reported in other dinosaur fossils, and the answer was that they had never thought to look. It was almost an admission that evolutionary blinders had prevented previous scientists from making similar observations. The implication was “Why would we ever think that there would be soft tissue or blood cells in a dinosaur?”
KH: Well, that is exactly the same as when the particular group—Mary Schweitzer and Jack Horner—were asked about carbon dating. In fact, it was Jack Horner specifically who was asked—I’ve got the recording. There was a radio station personality who called them and offered to pay to get the fossils radiocarbon dated, but of course Jack Horner’s basic response was—and I heard this myself and have copies of the recording—“Well, we wouldn’t carbon date those because they are too old.”
BH: (Laughs). Of course.
KH: The point is you’ve already decided that they are too old to carbon date. Why not let them carbon date them since carbon dating can be used on tissue like that. Horner said there is no point because they are millions of years old. So there is another instance where they aren’t prepared to truly evaluate the evidence. As you know, creationists have used carbon dating on things that were supposed to be millions or billions of years old and have gotten younger dates. Carbon dating, by the way, for those who truly understand it, is only good for dating things thousands of years old, not millions of years. In fact, carbon dating should not work for dating something millions of years old because of the half-life of radioactive carbon would pretty much be gone after 100,000 years. There shouldn’t be any radioactive carbon left. So if something really was millions of years old it should not give a radiocarbon date. But the point is you do get radiocarbon dates for things that are supposed to be millions of years old which actually contradict the very notion of millions of years. That’s why some are interested in Jack Horner dating the soft tissue to see if they get a radiocarbon date indicating a much younger fossil. But he wouldn’t do it.
BH: I often have parents come up to me following a seminar expressing sadness and grief that their children have gone the way of the world. They frequently comment that they wished they would have had this information sooner. Ken, we both recognize that the earthquake in Haiti is fresh on everyone’s mind. If you were given a child from Haiti who had lost both parents—and it was your job to instill the truth about dinosaurs in that child’s mind—what would you teach them?
KH: You’ve got to start in the beginning. You start in Genesis—which means “beginning”—and teach them a history. One of the things we do with many of our books at the Creation Museum is start at the beginning. We teach them about the past, where we came from, where life came from, and where the universe came from. You must take that history and use it as a foundation for building our thinking to understand the present world. We can then do that with dinosaurs or any topic actually. For instance, we know that dinosaurs were land animals and we can find their bones. We know they were living creatures on this planet. Well the Bible tells us all land-dwelling animals were created on the sixth day of creation, alongside two people: Adam and Eve. So we know they lived with people. We know all the animals were originally vegetarian, according to Genesis 1:29-30.
BH: Ken co-authored a book recently titled Already Gone. The book focused on 1,000 young people who left denominations and have embraced the world. One of the most disturbing findings that came out of the book was that while many of the young people are physically in a church building until ages 17-18, they are already gone by age 11-12. Can you share with our readers where this disconnect is coming from?
KH: …What we found was that about 45% of the kids were already doubting and not believing the Bible in middle school, and another 45% were lost during high school. So what we found was this disconnect happened when they were young. What it came down to was homes and churches not teaching their children how to defend their faith—not teaching them general Bible apologetics or creation apologetics.
BH: Bottom line is it must start in the home. Ken, it’s always a pleasure. We spoke at the International Conference on Creationism together in Pennsylvania and I look forward to crossing paths with you again in the future. Posted on 05/27/2010 2:31 PM by Dr. Brad Harrub
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Were Dinosaurs and Humans Contemporaries?
The question over whether human beings ever saw a living dinosaur with their own two eyes has been a longstanding controversy. While many questions can have a variety of answers to choose from, the question of whether dinosaurs were ever contemporaries with humans has only two possible answers. Either humans did experience living with dinosaurs or they did not.
Most scientists and educators are convinced that dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years before humans made their entrance. They say “primitive” dinosaurs originated 230 million years then evolved into many species. They also say that mysteriously about 65 million years ago all dinosaurs disappeared from existence. Orthodox paleontologists believe that Homo sapiens did not evolve until 130,000–100,000 years ago. So that leaves almost 65 million years between the last dinosaur and the first human.
The designation of an animal as a “dinosaur” happened in 1842 when the English paleontologist Richard Owen invented the term. The first dinosaur fossils were discovered in 1815 by Oxford professor William Buckland. Today we have around thirty million fossil dinosaur bones, which have been assigned to 700 species. Many full skeletons have been discovered. As an example, paleontologists have discovered 32 skeletons of the most popular dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex.
As far as we know, all 700 species are now extinct. That is indeed a mystery, but an even more troubling mystery for paleontologists is the abrupt appearance of the first dinosaurs in the fossil record. Each of the three major groups [Thecodonts, Saurischians, and Ornithischians] enters the fossil record as fully developed representatives of their group. Neo-Darwinian evolution demands that there must have been a vast number of intermediate fossils that evolved from their supposed common ancestor “primitive” dinosaur. The fossil record is devoid of the vast number of supposed intermediate ancestors.
Of course any rational person, whether Biblical Naturalist or Scientific Naturalist, is going to learn as much as they can about nature by studying the life around them. Empirical investigation does not require much “faith.”
Those of us who believe in an all-powerful Creator God also base our understanding of nature on religious faith. It may just be me, but I think that believing God not only created single cells but also dinosaurs and humans requires much less faith. It must be awfully difficult to be a religious Methodological Naturalist and have to summon the faith to believe things happened that you know are statistically impossible by purely natural causes! It must also be difficult to be a religious Scientific Naturalist and summon the faith to believe natural evolutionary events produced dinosaurs and humans when you know that producing organisms with so much complexity by blind, undirected mistakes in copying DNA is statistically impossible!
Most “Biblical Naturalists” believe that dinosaurs and humans did live as contemporaries and they interacted with each other. Why do they have such a different understanding of dinosaurs from “Orthodox scientists”?
Perhaps subscribers to “Orthodox Science” have been examining the question through a different paradigm from their “Biblical Naturalist” brothers. In the absence of a supernatural “interference” from a Creator, there is the problem of time. Any informed person understands that, if life arose by the seemingly impossible series for fortunate natural events from chemicals to “primitive” living cells, billions of years would have been necessary. “Methodological Naturalism” requires huge spans of time. Many scientists like Carl Sagan and Frances Crick (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA) believed that earth’s history of four billion years would not have been enough time for living cells to have evolved from non-living precursor chemicals. This forced them to invent the ludicrous “panspermia” hypothesis—the idea that “seeds” of life exist in the Universe and were deposited here from outer space.
Informed people also realize that the evolution from the first self-replicating cell to dinosaurs and humans is a story of overcoming insurmountable naturalistic barriers. It must require a high degree of faith in nature devoid of any supernatural Creator to be a “Methodological Naturalism” believer. Of course any rational person is going to learn as much as they can about nature by studying the life around them.
Let us look next at the Biblical account of creation and see how humans and dinosaurs fit into that picture. A major consideration in defining our paradigm about earth’s history is how much weight we give to science and to Scripture. Which do we assign as the base from which we proceed? If there seems to be a conflict, to which do we defer? Scientific Naturalism gives no place to the Bible in interpreting the past. Biblical Naturalists use the Bible as their basis for understanding the past. Of course, many people operate from variations between these two extremes.
The Biblical Naturalism paradigm allows the belief that the Bible, as it was originally written, contained no errors. Should Genesis be interpreted as mythological tales rather than literal history? I am absolutely convinced there is no rational reason to interpret any of Genesis as mythological tales.
So what does the Bible tell us about humans and terrestrial dinosaurs? Read Genesis 1:24-25. Terrestrial dinosaurs were created on creation day 6.Well, what else happened on the sixth day? Read Genesis 1:26, 27, and chapter 3. Humans were created on the same day as dinosaurs. So what does honest common sense dictate? Humans and dinosaurs were contemporaries. But did the humans have any contact with dinosaurs? Read Genesis 2:19-20. Naming the dinosaurs is good evidence that Adam was in the presence of dinosaurs! One famous claim is the fossil footprints of humans and dinosaurs together near the Paluxy River in Texas. I believe there is sufficient controversy with this evidence that we should not use it as positive evidence for humans and dinosaurs walking together. I believe more credible evidence comes from paintings produced by artists who lived centuries before the first dinosaur fossils where discovered. Those ancient artists produced art that is remarkably similar to what modern artists paint when they illustrate what dinosaurs looked like. The difference is that modern people base their pictures on dinosaur fossils while ancient people observed the creatures with their own two eyes or got their information from other people who saw the dinosaurs. There is an excellent website where you can view the artworks for yourself— http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/ancient/ancient.htm. The Biblical account in chapters 40 and 41 of Job is the report of God to Job about the leviathan and the behemoth. The context requires that both animals are as familiar to Job as the other animals God described in Job 38 and 39. It is clear to me that the behemoth is a huge dinosaur like an Apatosaurus and the fierce leviathan was like a Tyrannosaurus.
The dragons of folk tales from cultures around the world have a close resemblance to dinosaurs. These stories, although fiction, were developed centuries before any scientist had brought to light the existence of these huge and sometimes dangerous dinosaurs. How did the originators of the folk tales know about such creatures if they never saw them? The thought that these legends grew and were embellished with time is certainly likely. On the other hand, ancient illustrated animals are unlike any modern animal but remarkably similar to how artists from the 19th century onward have depicted dinosaurs. The models for modern artists were the actual dinosaur fossils that were discovered centuries before the first dragon artists produced their art. I believe the models for “pioneers” of dragon art were dinosaurs they had observed.
The evidence is clear. What is not clear is how one will bend his interpretation to fit his preferred worldview. One can understand why some say it takes more faith to be an atheist or evolutionist. How much blind faith does your worldview require?
Bob Harsh is a biology teacher at Greater Atlanta Christian School in Norcross, Georgia. He holds a Masters of Science in Biology and has been a biology educator since 1968. Posted on 05/27/2010 2:36 PM by Bob Harsh
Thursday, 27 May 2010
The Genesis and Those “Terrible Lizards”
Did dinosaurs and men live together upon the ancient earth? Creationists answer this question affirmatively, based upon the clear testimony of the Scriptures—and no solid evidence to the contrary. The devotees of Charles Darwin argue negatively, contending that dinosaurs faded from the “geologic column” some sixty-five million years before humankind evolved from a lower form of life.
Unfortunately, many within the world community of “Christendom” have been heavily influenced by the evolutionary ideology of Darwin (1809-82). Hence while attempting to preserve a minimal level of regard for the Bible, they deny that humans and dinosaurs inhabited the early earth at the same time. They have “solved” the problem, at least to their own satisfaction, by manipulating the text of the book of Genesis, forcing it into the mold of evolutionary chronology. Hence they separate humanity and the “terrible lizards” by millions of years.
The methodology involved in this interpretative wizardry either is to: (a) contend that the dinosaurs lived in a “gap period” that mysteriously lies between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2; or else; (b) repudiate a literal view of the creation “days,” as set forth in the Mosaic literature. To contend that either of these theories is correct is to fling literal language and basic logic to the wind. The late Professor Edward J. Young, a renowned Old Testament scholar, declared, “Genesis 1 is not poetry or saga or myth, but straightforward, trustworthy history...” ( p. 105). He argued that: (a) it is in the same style as the remainder of the document; (b) it is lacking the common characteristics of Hebrew poetry; (c) the New Testament authenticates the events mentioned in Genesis 1 as having literally taken place (cf. Mark 10:6; Romans 1:20; 5:14; 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:13-14).
Those who view the Scriptures seriously must consider the following points.
Facts to Consider
(1) The so-called “geologic column” exists only on paper, not in fact. It has been assembled artificially on the subjective assumption that the more complex creatures have evolved from the simpler. Evolutionists admit that what they call the “knowledge of evolution” is the basis for identifying and correlating the “lithic [in rock] records of ancient times” (von Engeln and Caster, p. 417). The “theory” is father to the “chronological calendar.” In his popular book Biography of the Earth, Dr. George Gamow declared that the “fossils of different primitive animals in steadily increasing numbers” are employed in “establishing the ‘page sequence’ in the book of Earth’s history” (p.123-124).
(2) Hebrew grammar does not allow for a “gap” between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, accommodating a vast destruction of millions of earth creatures. First, the connective word that begins verse 2 (waw) is a disjunctive term that introduces a circumstantial clause; it is best rendered as, “Now the earth . . .” (NIV). The Greek version (Septuagint) reads: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth. But the earth....” There is no room for billions of years in the grammatical construction. Second, why would this dramatic, catastrophic era have been passed over in absolute silence when other details, of considerable lesser significance, were included? Third, if such an era of corruption transpired, how could the sacred record possibly have concluded this narrative with: “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (1:31)?
(3) There is no exegetical license to stretch the term day in Genesis 1 into billions of years. While the word day is employed figuratively occasionally, there is absolutely no justification for that rendition in Genesis 1. In point of fact, the “days” clearly are distinguished from “years” in this chapter (vs. 14). The honest expositor must have a compelling contextual reason for converting literal language into a symbolic interpretation. Such does not exist in Genesis 1.
(4) In Exodus 20:9-11, Moses (who also penned Genesis 1) indicated that the days of the creation week were the same sort of days as the Sabbath “day,” i.e., literal days—not symbolic days of millions of years. When a Bible writer provides his own definition of the creation-week “days,” it is the epitome of arrogance to substitute a different sense for the author’s.
(5) Jesus Christ Himself, who was the agent of creation (John 1:1-3, 14), declared that humanity extended all the way back to “the beginning of the creation” (Mark 10:6), which leaves no room for a sixty-five million year gap between the end of the dinosaur era and the commencement of the human regime.
(6) The claim is made that there is no mention of dinosaurs in Genesis 1, hence they must have roamed the earth long before man. The same argument could be made with reference to dogs, horses, and elephants. These creatures are not specifically named in this chapter. But the general categories under which various creatures fall are specified. For example, there were “great sea monsters” (vs. 21), as well as “living creatures,” “cattle,” “creeping things,” and “beasts of the earth” after their kinds (vs. 24-25). Hebrew scholars point out that the original terms are “capable of quite wide interpretation” (Stigers, p. 61).
These various theories and rationalizations, the design of which is to controvert the clear testimony of Scripture and forge a link between theology and pseudoscience, are widely believed in the larger community of Christendom, but they are bereft of a sound exegetical method and a reverence for the written Word of God.
Conclusion
There is no reason to reject the Biblical proposition that all of earth’s basic life “kinds” were created within the same literal week (Genesis 1:11-27; cf. vs. 31; Exodus 20:9-11). There are many reasons (both from science and Scripture) to reject the opposite evolutionary scenario, the transparent design of which is to negate the testimony of the Bible and liberate the “creature” from the moral and religious responsibility he sustains to the “Creator.”
Sources
George Gamow, Biography of the Earth, (New York: Mentor, 1959).
Harold G. Stigers, A Commentary on Genesis, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1976).
O. D. von Engeln and Kenneth Caster, Geology, (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill,1952).
Edward J. Young, Studies in Genesis One, (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1964). Posted on 05/27/2010 2:42 PM by Wayne Jackson
Thursday, 27 May 2010
The Truth About Dinosaurs and Why It Matters: Who is Being Honest About Dinosaurs and Man?
Americans have become used to the technological advances produced by science. Because of the breakthroughs in medicine, cell phones, computers, Space Shuttle, and the Internet, we have been conditioned to think scientists are extremely reliable and honest. After all, if they make a mistake, other scientists will come along, discover it, and correct the error. What most Americans do not know is that upward evolution was never a scientific endeavor. It was just another false religion (philosophy) looking for “evidence” to justify its denial of truth. Just like all false religions, evolution kept finding “evidence” that later turned out to be fraudulent, false, unverifiable, or disproven by newer evidence.
Even a fictional Hollywood movie has to seem believable on some level. Just like a movie must have its story line logically develop from one scene to another, upward evolutionists have been searching for such a believable script to make their philosophy seem to progress from one scene of history to the next. Like the Hollywood script, mankind has always come up with some theory to supposedly disprove or compromise the Bible. Darwin’s upward evolutionary theory is just another one of those attempts. What is ironic in that today we have more evidence against all the different upward evolutionary theories than at any other time in history. But our colleges and media have so bought into rejecting the Bible that they will not allow any dissent to be regularly put in front of the American public—and especially not in front of our children.
So what is the “icon of upward evolution”? What one symbol do evolutionists have that sticks in everyone’s mind? What is the number one evidence that the Bible is wrong? It is in every public school child’s curriculum. Dinosaurs! Dinosaurs are like a “poster child” for evolution. When a child sees an image of a dinosaur, he is reminded of what is taught about dinosaurs (they died out long before man came along). Our government-controlled educators ridicule any attempt to show that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. One upward evolutionist (Dr. Kitcher) even admitted in writing in 1982 that finding evidence that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time would “shake the foundations of evolutionary theory.”
Using what the Bible says, we can say that dinosaurs existed with man (made on Day 6 with man in Genesis 1:24, and described in Job 40:15), but evolutionists say they died out 65 million years ago. Christians may not realize that saying that man did not evolve until one to three million years ago and saying that dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago is calling Jesus a liar in Mark 10:6 and Matthew 19:4. Jesus based His new law on marriage on the fact that man was created at the beginning of the creation, not 63 million years after dinosaurs.
Shall Bible-believing Americans just capitulate and say, “Well I believe the Bible, but I do not know how to answer the skeptics when they bring up dinosaurs. I can’t answer my child’s questions about dinosaurs”? No! Christians are supposed to be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks them (1 Peter 3:15). If you cannot answer your child’s questions, then the school system is there to give them the evolutionary answer—the one which contradicts God’s Word. Is it possible that some Christians do not even care what their children are taught on this subject?
Parents know that a child needs direction and protection. They know that if they let children rear themselves, both they and their children will end up with miserable lives. Like a flower garden left to itself, the children become a field of weeds. The beautiful flowers become choked out by these weeds. Do Christians think their children will grow up to live healthy spiritual lives if they let them rear themselves or, even worse, let the fathers of weeds (evolutionists) rear their children?
What a shame! Our children’s education is being built on a foundation of doubt that includes skepticism of God’s Word, and their Christian parents don’t seem to do anything about it. Parents are losing over 70% of their children to someone else’s worldview. How is this happening? But more importantly, how can we immunize our children against the spiritual poison of upward evolution?
This issue of Think magazine can help you and your child stand firm on the evidences for the Bible and against allowing evolutionists to use dinosaurs as their poster child for evolution. You can see the evidence for yourself (videos, audios, and research articles – all online). Then educate your child before it is too late.
Science has never been the problem. In fact, Bible-believing scientists (who said they did their science to glorify God) were the founders of most of the disciplines of science (geology, physics, chemistry, biology, electricity-magnetism, astronomy, aerospace, etc.), and they even invented what is called the scientific method. Your child’s public school textbooks leave out these parts of the lives of famous scientists (Sir Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Matthew Maury, Michael Faraday, James Maxwell, Sir Francis Bacon, etc.). See the video Bible Believers Do Better Science online at http://www.truthaboutdinosaurs.org/ and download the transcript. (Scroll down to the 4th video link.)
Now, here is the action this article is suggesting you take. Teach your child the truth. What is the easiest way to immunize yourself and your child against evolution’s lies? There is so much evidence that a few paragraphs in this article cannot do justice to this topic. See the excellent lessons on the subject at http://www.truthaboutdinosaurs.org/ website. For details, additional articles, and technical references, be sure and check out www.focuspress.org and http://www.apologeticspress.org/.
These videos and articles will give you and your children answers to questions such as:
· Are there reliable historical, archeological, and fossil evidences for the co-existence of man and dinosaurs?
· What does the Bible say about dinosaurs?
· How could all the animals fit on Noah’s Ark—especially dinosaurs?
· If dinosaurs got on the Ark, what happened to them after the Flood?
· Did dinosaurs really die out 65 million years ago?
· Why does it seem like all the scientists believe in evolution?
See the evidence for yourself and watch what happens when your child is taught the truth. Upward evolutionists have conditioned themselves over and over to deny these evidences and to ridicule anyone who mentions creation. God said in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 that many “did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth ….” Evolutionists believe a lie because their hearts have hardened against the truth.
Although many NASA scientists agree with the conclusions reached in these video presentations, it is politically incorrect in America's present climate for NASA to officially endorse these conclusions. The first head of NASA, Wernher Von Braun (awarded more honorary doctorates than anyone in history), wrote letters to school boards strongly recommending that they teach the scientific evidences for creation in the public school science classrooms.
But, since 1962-1963, after prayer and the Bible were thrown out of the public schools, nine unelected government officials (Supreme Court) ignored the Constitution and previous legal precedent—and forced the separation of these evidences from the classrooms. These decisions resulted in our students' science grades getting worse ever since. We now rank at or near the bottom in math and science worldwide (in competition with "civilized" countries). We once enjoyed having the number one educational system in the world from the 1600s until the mid 1900s. Let us return to the great Biblical heritage that our country was founded upon. Let us present all the available evidence to our students. Then they will see what conclusion the evidence really fits. They will be able to Think for themselves and not just regurgitate the “party line.” Posted on 05/27/2010 2:45 PM by Geoffrey Rowe, Kennedy Space Center
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Overseas Indoctrination
Dinosaurs—everyone loves them (despite the fierce creatures they appear to have been). And what better to capture our children’s imagination? Whether it be through Barney, stuffed dinosaurs and other toys, or interactive displays in museums as we virtually observe dinosaurs in their natural habitats (or so we are told!). But what is the price we are paying for a child’s curiosity?
There is no doubt that children are fascinated by dinosaurs. There can also be no doubt that museums are taking advantage of this fascination by creating special dinosaur exhibits that are aimed at children. Just a quick Google search brings this to light with very little effort. But these museums are not just trying to cater to a child’s curiosity—they are using this curiosity to get children to begin to think in terms of millions of years and evolutionary theory. Notice this statement from a webpage of The Dinosaur Museum in Dorchester, England:
Although dinosaurs became extinct nearly 65 million years ago, they are very much alive in the hearts and minds of today’s children the world over. What makes dinosaurs so popular with children? Nobody really knows for sure, but children from a very early age seem fascinated by these prehistoric beasts. They quickly learn their names and all the dinosaur facts (and fantasies) associated with them. Dinosaurs have become a unique vehicle to harness the child's early interest and channel that interest to study science and other subjects on the curriculum (http://www.thedinosaurmuseum.com/html/schools.html).
Dinosaurs can be used to teach children in subtle ways, as well. As they learn what are presented as “facts,” they automatically begin to think in an evolutionary time scale, accepting that these fascinating creatures developed from an evolutionary process and that this process continued as dinosaurs evolved into birds. How can Christians who believe in the Bible as God’s Word compete with dinosaurs when it comes to teaching their children?
1. Get children’s books that examine dinosaurs in a Biblical context. Since children are fascinated with these creatures, why not use dinosaurs to present the truth found in God’s Word from the early chapters of Genesis? If the Bible is true, then dinosaurs had to have been created by God on Day 6 with the other land dwelling animals. This would also mean that dinosaurs would have been taken with Noah on the ark during the Flood. Also note the descriptions of leviathan and behemoth in Job 40 and 41 and notice that these do not match the usual footnoted animals.
2. Become aware of the possibility of dinosaurs living on the earth in recent history. Although dinosaurs are presented in the context of having become extinct 65 million years ago, there have been descriptions throughout history of dinosaur-type creatures that were alive in fairly recent times. Dinosaur depictions have been found on cave drawings, temples, and even tombs. How did the Inca civilization make accurate drawings on stones of dinosaur-type creatures? Or how did an ancient Indian tribe in Mexico make accurate dinosaur figurines? Why were dinosaur-type figures included in the brass etching depicting the plants and animals of the late 1400s around the tomb of Bishop Bell in Carlisle, England (and how were they drawn accurately if they had never been seen)? These and many more historical references would indicate that dinosaurs have lived more recently than we are led to believe.
3. Realize that dinosaur fossils don’t prove Darwinian evolutionary theory. When a fossil is found, it doesn’t come with a label attached to it telling us how old it was or what the dinosaur (or other animal) was doing at the time it died. The dates usually given for fossils are arrived at through a belief in the evolutionary theory. The fact that the majority of fossils are found in what are referred to as “fossil graveyards” with the fossils of many animals buried together and that they are preserved in sediment that was laid down by water should get us thinking in terms of what would have happened if there really was a world-wide flood. The Bible makes sense of the fossil evidence.
Dinosaurs are fascinating creatures, but they should not be feared. Dinosaurs are another example of the handiwork of God who created the earth and everything living in six days and rested on the seventh. Teach your children about dinosaurs. But teach them how dinosaurs were created by God and how they fit into the creation week.
Posted on 05/27/2010 2:49 PM by Jon Galloway, Scotland
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