Does your Hymnbook Teach Creation?

Does your fellowship sing songs glorifying the Lord as Creator of the Cosmos? Do your hymns mention Creation In Six Days (CISD)? Are there choruses that speak of the Fall and the Curse? What about the Flood or the Tower of Babel? Consider these selections that highlight creation and the early chapters of Genesis:

All creatures of our God and King

Lift up your voice and with us sing,

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou burning sun with golden beam,

Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

- St. Francis of Assisi

I'll praise my Maker while I've breath,

and when my voice is lost in death,

praise shall employ my nobler powers;

my days of praise shall ne'er be past,

while life, and thought, and being last,

or immortality endures.

- Isaac Watts

A number of Psalms emphasize creation: For a more complete list see the references here. Nicole Mullen’s tune “My Redeemer Lives” provides a strong creation message. In one performance she recited Psalm 8 before she sang this song. Answers in Genesis offers a music CD, Creation – The Story of Life featuring such artists as Mark Harris, Billy Sprague, Cindy Morgan, Larnelle Harris, Greg Long, Bob Carlisle and Lisa Bevill. Possibly the most popular song at creation conferences is “How Great Thou Art.” Consider these selections from Gadsby’s Hymns:

The spacious earth and spreading flood

Proclaim the wise, the powerful God;

And thy rich glories from afar

Sparkle in every rolling star. (#18)

When Adam by transgression fell,

And conscious, fled his Maker’s face,

Linked in clandestine league with hell,

He ruined all his future race:

The seeds of evil once brought in,

Increased and filled the world with sin. (#89)

Father, how wide thy glory shines!

How high thy wonders rise!

Known through the earth by thousand signs,

By thousands through the skies!

Those mighty orbs proclaim thy power;

Their motion speaks thy skill;

And on the wings of every hour,

We read thy patience still. (#207)

All creatures to his bounty owe

Their being and their breath;

But greatest gratitude should flow

In men redeemed from death. (#834)

The rolling sun, the changing light,

And nights and days thy power confess:

And the blest volume thou hast writ

Reveals thy justice and thy grace. (#1147) Noyes Fludde (Noah's Flood) is a 15th century “mystery play” and in 1957 Benjamin Britten turned it into an opera.

The Thirde Pageante of Noyes Fludd

I, God, that all this world hath wrought,

heaven and yearth, and all of nought,

I see my people in deede and thought

are sett fowle in sinne. …

Man that I made will I distroye,

beast, worme, and fowle to flye;

for on yearth the doe mee noye,

the folke that are theron. …

Therfore Noe, my servante free,

that righteous man arte as I see,

a shippe sonne thou shalt make thee … Homeschooler Jodi Benson (the Little Mermaid) sang a song for children about the Tower of Babel.

Keep from me Thy loveliest creature, till I prove Jesus' love infinitely sweeter – Charles Wesley

O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! (Ps. 8:1)

The Iceman Cometh (Dembski version)

Young Earth Science (YES) holds that scripture and science supports the view the this planet is thousands of years old (not billions). William Dembski, the prominent Intelligent Design (ID) advocate, is somewhat sympathetic to YES: “I myself would adopt it in a heartbeat except that nature seems to present such strong evidence against it.” [1] Is this really true? Dembski counsels, “Young-earth creationists do not merely want to show why the other side is wrong; they also want to show why their side is right.” [2] They have done so Dr. Dembski.

Dembski claims that the multiple layers in ice cores in Greenland pose a problem for the YES idea of one Ice Age after the Flood. However, the layers are not always annual – many layers can occur in one year. J. Southon writing in Quaternary Research freely admits, “… the GISP2 (Greenland Ice Sheet Project) ice contains many subannual structures which mimic annual bands …” R. B. Alley et al. stated in the Journal of Geophysical Research, “… it is almost certain that variability exists at the subseasonal or storm level, at the annual level… We certainly must entertain the possibility of misidentifying the deposit of a large storm or a snow dune as an entire year…” The Post-Flood Ice Age would have produced “hyper-canes” at the poles which would make multiple layers in the ice record each year. [3]
One wonders how much of the excellent research on the Ice Age by Michael Oard and Larry Vardiman that Dembski has read:
Dembski criticizes the “post-flood rapid ice age model,” but fails to see its power and success in predicting the reality on the ground. [4] Evolutionists cannot explain the Ice Age and over 60 theories have been proposed. J. K. Charlesworth explains that there are “… an absolute riot of theories ranging from the remotely possible to the mutually contradictory and the palpably inadequate.” [5] The Flood implies the Ice Age! Volcanic ash cooled the earth; tremendous eruptions in the seas (Ge 7:11) heated up the oceans. This combination of higher precipitation, caused by the hot seas, and cooler summers produced the Ice Age after the Flood. This is the only model that successfully predicts ice sheets where we know they existed and it only takes a few hundred years! [6] This model gives thinner ice sheets than the mainstream view, but this makes it easier to explain the no-ice regions we find in Wisconsin. Assuming the widely accepted huge glacier thickness, we would expect a significant “bounce-back” after the tremendous weight of the ice melted – this would take about 25,000 years. Ohio, Illinois and Indiana show virtually no rebound. [7] Andrew Snelling explains, “… ocean temperatures increased [based on fossil oxygen isotopes] during deposition of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata, and then decreased during Tertiary (post-Flood) deposition.” [8] This is exactly what the Post-Flood Ice Age model predicts.

Dembski has a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Chicago. Mathematicians are always Killing Lies* – that is they are challenging false assumptions. One example is the old claim that you can only fold a paper in half seven times. YES advocates are also challenging falsehoods promoted by mainstream science. Commenting on ice cores, Dembski claims that Orthodox Protestants who take Genesis as Historical Narrative (OPGHN, “opgane”) are interested in “… devising loopholes to support an otherwise untenable position.” [9] Not so, my brother; in fact, the Post-Flood Rapid Ice Age Model (PRIAM**) is the only explanation that works and fits the data in the real world.
Dembski should take a hint from former aeronautical engineer and award winning SciFi author, James Hogan who said, “A comparatively young word [Y6K] – in the sense of the surface we observe today – is compatible with unguided Catastrophist theories…” [10] Hogan states that conventional dating, “was more a product of materialism’s fight with religion than an empirical construct … [it was] manufactured to provide the long time scales that Lyell and Darwin needed.” [11] Hogan maintains that, “Mountain uplifts and other formations show indications of being younger than conventional geology maintains.” [12] One example that Hogan presents that challenges standard dating uses thermoluminescence of lunar material which was dated at less than 10,000 years. [13] If the Moon is thousands of years old, then maybe the Earth is too!

The Ice Age is apparently referenced in Job, “From whose womb comes the ice? And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth? The waters harden like stone, and the surface of the deep is frozen” (Job 38:29–30).

Evolution itself has a chilling effect and Darwinism demands depression.
Don’t mock the faith! Have you no respect for religion…
- Larry in The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill

If I have told you of things that happen right here on the earth and yet none of you believes Me, how can you believe (trust Me, adhere to Me, rely on Me) if I tell you of heavenly things? (Jn. 3:12, Amp)

Notes:
1) The End of Christianity by William Dembski (Broadman & Holman, Nashville, TN, 2009), p. 55.
2) Ibid., p. 56.
3) Earth’s Catastrophic Past by Andrew Snelling (Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, 2009, Vol. 2), pp. 778.
4) Dembski, p. 61.
5) quoted in Snelling, p. 770.
6) Snelling, p. 774.
7) Snelling, p. 776.
8) Snelling, p. 773.
9) Dembski, p. 61.
10) Kicking the Sacred Cow by James Hogan (Baen, New York, NY, 2004), p. 47.
11) Ibid., p. 175, Note: Hogan is endorsing Velikovsky’s opinion.
12) Ibid., p. 174.
13) Ibid., p. 206.

*Wilhelm Killing and Sophus Lie were mathematicians
**can you say “Troy?”

Science in Scripture

When we think of science in the Bible we often think of examples like the circuits of wind flow (Eccl. 1:6), the life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11) and the importance of hygiene (Lev. 15:13). Have you considered Isaiah 28:23-29 and 29:11-16 in this regard?

Is. 28:23-29 (NKJV)
23 Give ear and hear my voice, Listen and hear my speech.
24 Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow? Does he keep turning his soil and breaking the clods?
25 When he has leveled its surface, Does he not sow the black cummin And scatter the cummin, Plant the wheat in rows, The barley in the appointed place, And the spelt [rye?] in its place?
26 For He instructs him in right judgment, His God teaches him.
27 For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge, Nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cummin; But the black cummin is beaten out with a stick, And the cummin with a rod.
28 Bread flour must be ground; Therefore he does not thresh it forever, Break it with his cartwheel, Or crush it with his horsemen.
29 This also comes from the LORD of hosts, Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.

Comments:
v. 24: Timing is important in farming and this gives a motivation to know astronomy which helps us track the seasons (Ge 1:14). Farming has existed from the beginning (Ge 3:23, 4:2) and experiment improves agricultural methods.
v. 25: The location of where various grains are planted is important. Planting is rows is an orderly arrangement. What should be planted on the border? Trees or potatoes?
v. 26: God made man in his image and gives him wisdom and understanding (Job 38:36). The all-wise God gave us reason and the ability to discern the structure on the world. The cosmos is not random, but ordered. The Lord may have communicated the basics of horticulture to Adam during the “cool of the day” (Ge 3:8). Language and technical skill have been transmitted from father to son, parent to child for thousands of years. Some isolated people groups do not farm at all – the skill has been lost.
v. 27: Through experiment and experience we learn that we must use the right tool for the right job. You don’t kill termites with sledgehammers.
v. 28: Various grains must be treated differently. Distinct methods fit corn versus cotton. Many things in creation remind of us wheels. Design in creation can inspire human inventions. Many things are cone shaped (carrots, pine cones) and a truncated cone makes a great millstone.
v. 29: Science is possible because God gives us a sense that the Maker of the universe is a God of order and purpose. The equations of creation are not random. Consider the simplicity of Snell’s Law that describes how light bends when it hits water or some other medium (n is the index of refraction):
Design in nature exhibits the fact that God is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.” Consider the photosynthetic sea slug:
Is. 29:11-16 (NKJV)
11 The whole vision has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one who is literate, saying, "Read this, please." And he says, "I cannot, for it is sealed."
12 Then the book is delivered to one who is illiterate, saying, "Read this, please." And he says, "I am not literate."
13 Therefore the Lord said: "Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths And honor Me with their lips, But have removed their hearts far from Me, And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men,
14 Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, A marvelous work and a wonder; For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden."
15 Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the LORD, And their works are in the dark; They say, "Who sees us?" and, "Who knows us?"
16 Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; For shall the thing made say of him who made it, "He did not make me"? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding"?

Comments:
v. 11: Many evolutionists may say “I can’t read the Bible – that’s just myth.” But the Bible actually gives science its logical foundation. [1] The basis of science is biblical. God’s Word is revealed truth from the Creator of the Cosmos. If we want to know about the beginning we must go to the Bible. Scripture gives us True Truth, for God cannot lie (Num. 23:19). Jesus said that God’s truth is often sealed from the “wise and prudent” (Mt. 11:25).
v. 13: Evolutionary tradition, “commandments taught by men,” tells students to avoid research from creation organizations like CRS, ICR, AiG, CMI and others. Many are over-awed by scientific experts who pronounce the fact of evolution in the past, even though they were not witnesses to the events they describe.
v. 14: In the end, Darwinian “wisdom” will perish (2 Peter 3). The spurious speculations of the sages of science will ultimately fail.
v. 15: We can’t hide our sin from God (Num. 32:23). Could it be that the motivation for many who accept the molecules-to-man view of origins wish to explain God away to justify their ungodly lifestyle?
v. 16: Evolutionists deny their Creator – the Potter. You may have a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, but the Lord of heaven and earth knows infinitely more than you do. You can’t manipulate God. Yahweh is in control of the universe, not man.
Reflect on these quotes from G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown (fictional detective) stories:

It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense
(The Oracle of the Dog, 1923).
You hard-shelled materialists were all balanced on the very edge of belief - of belief in almost anything (The Miracle of Moon Crescent, 1924).

You may contact us through the email in our profile.

Note:
1) The Ultimate Proof of Creation by Jason Lisle (Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2009), pp. 57-66.

The End of Christianity Revisited

William Dembski blames the alleged millions of years of death and destruction before the time of Adam as a retroactive punishment for the Fall in his book The End of Christianity. Apologist Ken Ham strongly opposes this position.

Here is a short response to Dembski’s book and a longer critique is found in An Open Letter to Intelligent Designer. Thankfully, Dembski has moderated his view somewhat and now accepts a Global Flood.

Creation and the Bible

Creation or Evolution?: Consider the Evidence Before Deciding (Vol. 1) by Norbert Smith (Ph.D. Zoology) has just recently been published. Central to the book are over 1,500 Bible verses related to God as Creator and Sustainer. Evidence for and against evolution are given and details of modern religious persecution with over 3,000 professors being denied tenure or fired for doubting evolution. Here are the chapters:
Another work which compiles all scriptures on Creation and Providential Care is Who is the Intelligent Designer?, described here and reviewed here.

Ark Encounter

Answers in Genesis is building a theme park called the Ark Encounter with a full-scale reconstruction of the Ark as well as a Tower of Babel.

In 2010 Noah’s Ark Ministries International (NAMI) based in Hong Kong claimed that they have discovered Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat. Here is one response to many who have been skeptical of this exploration.

These videos highlight NAMI’s expedition:
ITN News

Exploring Inside the Ark

Description of Discoveries

Discovery of Noah's Ark supported by Ark InSight Foundation
Dutch Ark researcher Gerrit Aalten
A recently translated Babylonian text states that the Ark was circular (definitely not seaworthy). However, the NAMI team discovered a round compartment within the structure they investigated. This report of a circular Ark came from the Guardian which was at least kind enough to interview veteran Ark explorer John Morris.

Respected apologist John Warwick Montgomery reached the summit of Mt. Ararat and wrote a 384 page book containing eyewitness accounts of Ark sightings (The Quest for Noah’s Ark, Bethany Fellowship, 2e, 1974).

Fossil Order - Exposed and Explained

              *** UPDATE ***

Be sure to catch our latest video.  We tackle a potpourri of topics:  Thunder & C-14, Tree Rings & Ammonites,  Norman Macbeth (Darwin Retried), OMNI magazine & censorship ... #Rubio #NormanMacbeth #Darwin #AltMed #TreeRings

Why is there an apparent order in the fossil record from simple life to more complex? A philosophical answer to this question is in chapter 12 of Rock Solid Answers ed. by Mike Oard and John Reed, is “Fossil Distribution and the Flood” by John Reed (pp. 207-215). A good summary on fossil order is found here. John Woodmorappe has shown that much of the fossil record is random.

There are places on the earth where ALL the geologic periods overlay the Pre-Cambrian (Pre-Flood). In fact, 23.2% of the Ordovician is directly on top of the Pre-Cambrian and 18.6% of the Devonian is directly on top of the Pre-Cambrian. [1]
How do we explain the order where it does exist (e.g. Grand Canyon and correlated deposits)? Harold Clark proposed his ecological zonation theory back in 1946 in his book The New Diluvialism - animals in habitats at higher elevations would be buried later during the Deluge. [2] Andrew Snelling deals with fossil order in chapter 31 of The Answers Book 2 as well as chapter 91 of Earth’s Catastrophic Past and explains these mechanisms:

· Pre-Flood Biogeography (Ecological Zonation)
· Early Burial of Marine Creatures (95% of all fossils are shallow marine organisms)
· Hydrodynamic Sorting (diameter, sphericity and density)
· Behavior & Higher Mobility of Vertebrates (instinct and intelligence)

How do creationists predict the fossil sequence? Birds are found later in the record since they can escape a Flood more easily. Creation Geology Theory predicts the initial strata would show great diversity – that’s what the Cambrian Explosion is all about. Another important factor is that there are Pre-Flood, Deluge and Post-Flood deposits. Snelling places the start of the Post-Flood era around the KT boundary. [3]

In the evolutionary narrative, life started as a single cell so we should find the following in the fossil record:

In fact, we do not find 2-20 celled life in the fossil record.

The Cambrian Explosion, where a wide diversity of life appears suddenly, is consistent with Global Flood Theory, but is a great headache for anti-creationists – Darwin’s Dilemma. As Stephen Jay Gould (d. 2002) stated, “… if the true ancestors of Cambrian creatures lacked hard parts, why have we not found them in the abundant deposits that contain the soft-bodied Ediacara fauna?” [4]
Vertebrates have been found in the Lower Cambrian. [5] In 1969, it was thought that the first vertebrate appeared in the Middle Ordovician. [6] According to The Complete Encyclopedia of Fossils, jawless fish (Pteraspis) appear in the Cambrian. [7] Wikipedia still places them in the Devonian! In 1988, The Washington Post reported on jawless fish found in Bolivia and dated at 470M (Early Ordovician), 20 million years older than previously dated. The BBC reported on a jawless fish found in the Lower Cambrian in China! Apparent bird tracks have been found in Carboniferous strata, over 150M before Archaeopteryx! [8]

It is often claimed that primitive and complex life are not found together in the fossil record. What is meant by “primitive?” If we mean trilobites (not-primitive, e.g. their eyes), then they do coexist. The first mammal has been dated at 260M and the most recent trilobite existed 251M – so they overlap by nine million years by consensus dating. We would not expect them to be in the same rock layer since they live in different habitats.

Are there mammals in lower layers? Yes! In 1969 it was thought that the first mammals began about 170 million years ago. [9] Now it is accepted that the first mammal existed 260 million years ago – that’s a difference of 90M! Mammal footprints have been found in rocks at least 275M and, in similar fashion, horse hoofprints have been found in strata at least 350M (this would put horses at 300 million years older than previously thought). [10] Likewise, cuttlefish were found in the Lower Cambrian in 1974 thus extending their range back 400M! [11] In 1958 echinoids were thought to go back as far as the Middle Ordovician, but since then have been found in the Lower Cambrian – a change of tens of millions of years! Before 1963, it was generally accepted that Belemnoids first appeared in the Triassic. Actually, they were discovered in the Devonian in 1843. [12]
The chart above shows how fossil tracks of animals consistently appear before their body fossils. [13] During the Global Flood creatures fled the oncoming surge of destructive waters and left footprints. Later these same animals were buried during a later stage of the Deluge.
The Laetoli footprints that Mary Leakey found are clearly human. They are assumed to be an upright hominid because of the dating of the beds (3.75M).
There are many examples where the appearance or lack of fossils do not fit the evolutionary view of fossil order:

· Living Fossils (e.g. Coelacanth, Wollemi Pine)
· Lazarus species· Stratigraphic Range Extension (both older & more recent)
· Out-of-Place Fossils

Empire Mountain exhibits a reversal in the accepted order where the Permian rests on the Cretaceous (out-of-order) with no evidence of a thrust plane, but actually having an unconformity which indicates erosion:
There is even a reversal at Heart Mountain (WY) where a period repeats:

If we consider this as an overthrust, then only catastrophism associated with the Flood can explain such massive rock movements. John Morris tells how 50 large carbonate blocks moved over 30 miles at an incline of less than two degrees. Catastrophic Plate Tectonics may help power this mass movement. [14]

There are fossil reversals where we find a change from type A to type B then back to type A. Marvin Lubenow, known for his work with alleged “ape-men,” has compiled a few examples [15]:

James Beerbower, the author of a mainstream paleontology text, freely admits that Dollo’s Law (evolution has no reversals) is not valid. [16] There are also “condensed” sequences where fossils from many ages are found in a thin layer. There are examples of this for ammonites in the Alps, Bosnia, Greece, the Himalayas, Hungary and Italy. [17] In one case, seven ammonite zones (7-10 million years) are found in a deposit that is only three feet thick! The standard explanation that sedimentation was slow is not reasonable. The better explanation is that the entire layer was deposited at the same time and that the various ammonites lived concurrently. Fossil order favors the Flood and contradicts Darwinism.  Does the fossil order support ID and who actually is the Intelligent Designer?

How old is the Earth?  Is Darwinism valid?  How does the Renaissance of Catastrophism relate to the age of the world?  Is your favorite planet thousands or billions of years old?  Discover the shocking evidence in this powerful new book, YES – Young Earth Science by Jay Hall (at Amazon.com). 

Here are some cool Zazzle items on Young Earth Science (YES): 

Notes:
1) “The Essential Nonexistence of the Evolutionary-Uniformitarian Geological Column: A Quantitative Assessment” by John Woodmorappe, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, June 1981, pp. 46-71, p. 67.
2) "ecological zonation" "global flood" gets 727 hits on Google, 12-14-10.
3) Earth’s Catastrophic Past by Andrew Snelling (Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, 2009, Vol. 2), pp. 751-761.
4) Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1989), p. 59.
5) Snelling, p. 352.
6) Historical Geology 3e by Carl Dunbar and Karl Waage, (John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1969), p. 208.
7) The Complete Encyclopedia of Fossils by Martin Ivanov, Stanislava Hrdlickova, and Ruzena Gregorova (Rebo Intl., Netherlands, 2001, 2002 ed.), p. 244.
8) Snelling, p. 356.
9) Dunbar and Waage, p. 364.
10) “An Anthology of Matters Significant to Creationism and Diluviology: Report 1” by John Woodmorappe, Creation Research Society Quaterly, Vol. 16, No. 4, Mar. 1980, p. 211.
11) “Significant Fossil Discoveries Since 1958: Creationism Confirmed” by Marvin Lubenow, Creation Research Society Quaterly, Vol. 17, No. 3, Dec. 1980, pp. 155-157.
12) “The Cephalopods in the Creation and the Universal Deluge” by John Woodmorappe, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2, Sep. 1978, pp. 94-112, p. 101.
13) Snelling, p. 451.
14) “Catastrophic Superfaults and the Biblical Flood” by John Morris, Acts & Facts, April 2009, p. 23.
15) “Reversals in the Fossil Record” by Marvin Lubenow, Creation Research Society Quaterly, Vol. 13, No. 4, Mar. 1977, pp. 185-190, 230.
16) Ibid., p. 189.
17) “The Cephalopods in the Creation and the Universal Deluge” by John Woodmorappe, Creation Research Society Quaterly, Vol. 15, No. 2, Sep. 1978, p. 103.