Age of the Earth Poll (C-Fund)

There's a great crowd funding effort for a national survey on the age of the Earth.  Please support this worthy project.  Get more info here.

How old is the Earth?
A) 4,000 years
B) 6,000 years
C) 8,000 years
D) 10,000 years
E) more than 10,000 years

Most surveys do not focus on the age of the earth to this detail.  It is often assumed that an anti-evolution belief is linked to Young Earth Science (YES), but this is not the case.  Just consider the Intelligent Design (ID) movement.  William Dembski has accepted a Global Flood; however, to the best of our knowledge he has not adopted YES yet.  Phillip Johnson, the father of ID, is also sympathetic to YES.  ID as a movement has not rejected Old Earth Fallacies (OEF's). [1]  They should read the Wikipedia page defending a young planet from history and science.  Or better yet, get the book on Young Earth Science (YES):

Note:
1) Darwin's Doubt by Stephen Meyer (HarperCollins, NYC, 2014), p. 72.

Toledoths and Genesis

There are 10 “Toledoths” which unite Genesis and demonstrate that the entire book is consecutive history.  Toledoth means “this is the history of.”

Archaeologist P.J. Wiseman wrote New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis in 1936.  Wiseman found certain characteristics of ANE (Ancient Near Eastern) literature:   

1. Records begins abruptly with no heading   
2. Each tablet ends with a toledoth statement referring to what has been written before   
3. The name in the toledoth statement refers to the writer or owner of the tablet

Donald Wiseman has edited an updated version of his father’s work, Clues to Creation in Genesis, and has provided more evidence that the toledoths are at the end of each section and denote the author.  Here are the 10 toledoths:

Heavens & Earth (2.4)           Adam (5.1)

Noah (6:9)                              Noah’s sons (10.1)

Shem (11:10)                        Terah (11:27)    

Ishmael (25:12)                     Isaac (25:19)

Esau (36:1) [1]                      Jacob (37:2)    

Charles Taylor provides a helpful insight on the first toledoth, “Who, then, was the writer of the first record?  Was it Adam, instructed by God, or could it even be God himself, writing as he wrote the ten commandments?”  In Exodus 31:18 we learn that the Ten Commandments were written by the finger of God.

How does this apply?  Consider the account of Abraham offering up Isaac:

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah.  Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”  Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey.  He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.  On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.  He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Gen. 22:2-5)

Abraham started off toward Mount Moriah on the next morning – not millions of years later.  On the third day (3 normal 24 hour days) of Abraham’s journey he separated from his servants.  These days were not periods of undefined length where events may have been out of sequence.  According to advocates of Old Earth Fallacies (OEF’s) Genesis gives an order of events contra Big Science:

Earth before the sun           Light before the sun

Plants before the sun          Man before thorns

Fruit trees before plants     Trees before land animals

Flowers before bees          Birds before dinosaurs                   

So we must take Genesis 1-11 as real history and not inject millions or billions of years into the text.  Creation Week tells of the Lord making the heavens and earth with its plants and animals, including mankind, in 6 earth-rotation days.  Before Day1 there was no light and prior to Day4 the sun did not exist.  Stand up for Genesis – Truth Matters. 

“I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” (Jn. 3:12)

Note:

1) There is a repetition in Gen. 36:9.

ELKAN – Movie Project

Elkan must find seven keys that fit seven locks.  During his journey, history is revealed to Elkan in a powerful way as he experiences it firsthand.  This heart pounding adventure leads Elkan to know that Genesis 1-11 is authentic history.

This book (hopefully a film as well, D.V.) is endorsed by these influencers:

• Carl Kerby (Reasons for Hope)
• Buddy Davis (“Mammoth Cave” ♫)
• Roger Patterson (Evolution Exposed)
• Oswald Brothers Band
• Peggy Medberry (Biola)

Here’s the first page of the book:

Please join me in aiding the effort to get this great story turned into a first class movie.  See the last link for a video explaining the project.

If Genesis 1 to 11 is real history, then the earth is young.  Learn more about Young Earth Science (YES) here. 

Do You Mind?!

The mind exists apart from the brain – as does the soul.  Yet atheists and materialists deny it.  We are not meat machines.  Do androids dream of electric sheep?  Are we truly nothing but brain?  Is there life after death?  I’m a SOUL man not a MineCraft calculator.  Saved, Originated by God, United with Christ and Life after Death (in heaven).

John Searle (Philosophy Prof., UC Berkeley) proposed the Chinese Room Experiment.  I’m in a room and I don’t know Chinese, but I’m given a series of questions in Chinese.  I have the rules in English on how to write answers to these questions using Chinese characters.  Those who get my answers think I understand Chinese, but I don’t.  In like manner, a smart computer has no real understanding, consciousness or mind.

Norman Geisler confronts the materialists who think they can explain the mind:

Also unwarranted is the assumption that, because the mind and brain function together, they must be identical.  A corollary assumption is that I am nothing but my brain.  This is reductionist fallacy.  Things that go together are not necessarily the same, any more than ideas expressed by these words are the same as the words themselves.  Mind and brain could interact without being the same. [1]

Brain is Mind advocates fall from logic.  As Geisler reveals:

Materialist arguments are self-defeating.  “Nothing but” statements assume “more than” knowledge.  How could I know I am nothing more than my brain unless I was more than it?  I cannot analyze my brain in a test tube unless I am outside the test tube. [2]

If the nonmaterial mind does not exist, how is it that most cultures have a sense of the afterlife?  In The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul by Mario Beauregard (neuroscientist) and Denyse O'Leary (science journalist) provide empirical evidence for a nonmaterial mind.  Edward Feser teaches Philosophy at Pasadena City College and wrote The Philosophy of Mind.  He provides a number of helpful links here.

“The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out” (Pr. 20:5).

Notes:

1) Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler (Baker

Books, 1999), “Materialism,” p. 445.

2) Ibid.

**Graphic source:  adapted from Bizarro by Dan Piraro.

The Same Sex?

The Same Sex was a book published many decades ago that sought to portray homosexuality in a more positive light.  Now, those who point out the dangers of this alternative lifestyle are tagged H8RS.  As Michael Brown observes:

How far does the Gay Rights Agenda extend?  According to the Gay Rights Platform adopted in Chicago in 1972, we should support the ... 

Chelsen Vicari has a chapter on the same sex dilemma in her book Distortion and quotes Francis Schaeffer, “… the morally unthinkable becomes thinkable as the years move on.” [1]  

Children in alternative lifestyle families often have a number of issues [2]:

God’s plan for the family is the best:

The man [Adam] said,

“This is now bone of my bones,

And flesh of my flesh;

She shall be called Woman,

Because she was taken out of Man.” [Gen. 2:21,22]

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Gen. 2:23,24)

Who owns the rainbow?  The rainbow reminds us of the Lord’s promise that a global flood will not destroy the earth again (Gen. 9:11-17).  Here is a great site with info that supports the global catastrophe of Noah’s day.  Read more about rainbows here.

We also dealt with the same sex controversy in this post and this parody.

Notes:

1) Distortion: How the New Christian Left is Twisting the Gospel and Damaging the Faith by Chelsen Vicari (FrontLine, Lake Mary, FL, 2014), p. 57.  

2) Ibid., pp. 66, 67.

Go to Amazon to find A Queer Thing Happened To America by Michael Brown and use the Look Inside feature to locate the quotes. 

Good News Osmosis (What is the Gospel?)

God created the universe and you.  At one time all was perfect.  When our Creator made Adam and Eve (the first married couple) there were no police, wars, deadly tsunamis, or cancer.  Sin came when they ate the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3).  We are born sinners and we all sin.  But sin has consequences.  God is love and God is just.  Rebellion must be punished.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

 

We are all doomed to permanent judgment – Jesus spoke very strongly about those who rejected him:

“Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13).

“Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels …These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:41,46).

But, thank God, there is a solution!  Jesus is both God and Man.  He came to earth to rescue us from our sin problem.  He is the only way to heaven.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1,14).

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

क्‍योंकि परमेश्वर ने जगत से ऐसा प्रेम रखा कि उस ने अपना एकलौता पुत्र दे दिया, ताकि जो कोई उस पर विश्वास करे, वह नाश न हो, परन्‍तु अनन्‍त जीवन पाए। John 3:16 (Hindi)

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6).

Jesus lived a perfect life and committed no sin.  When Christ died on the cross he became our substitute and took the punishment for sin in our place. 

“All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” (Isaiah 53:6).

Our response is faith and repentance (turn from sin).  Jesus died for sin and rose again 3 days later.  The Apostle Paul explains the gospel (GoodNews):

“Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve.  After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep [died]” (1 Corinthians 15:1-6).

“… God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,  because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man [Jesus] whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30,31).

Salvation is not obtained by being nice, giving to charity or going to church:

“But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration [born again] and renewing by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4,5).

Once we become Christians we want to live for Jesus and obey his commands:

“For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Corinthians 5:14,15).

 

Some reject the Bible because they think evolution is a fact.

Our book Biological Essentialism tackles Aristotle, UnDarwinism, human exceptionalism, worldview & bias, renegade scientists, Dawkins vs. Dawkins, natural kinds, gender confusion and the sanctity of human life among other topics.  Have you ever been curious about the Genesis "kinds" (Gen. 1:12)?  If so, please get a few copies for you and your friends!  Also, your positive review on Barnes&Noble would be most appreciated.

The first 11 chapters of Genesis are true history from the Creator of the cosmos.  Believe the GoodNews about Jesus today – the only route to true hope and positive change.  For more about the GoodNews for now and forever click here.  You should think about tomorrow and your ultimate end – it will soon be here.

Please let us know if you have any questions about salvation and eternal life with Jesus in heaven: https://totalyouth.us/contact-us

Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. (Jude vv. 22,23)

 

I highly recommend Ray Comfort's book God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life - The Myth of the Modern Message.  We heard Ray, Kirk Cameron and Ken Ham at the same event in Fort Worth years ago.  My wife and I visited a church in Bellflower (CA) that was led by an Aussie pastor who's wife was a Filipina. 

 

#Hope #Hell #Heaven #God #Jesus #Gospel #Salvation #Soteriology  #Grace #Mercy #TimTebow #NFL #Jn316 #Man #Adam #Eve #Genesis #Darwin #Evolution

 

 

The Chicago Statement, ICBI, Walter Bradley & Henry Morris (Pt. 1)

Harold Lindsell (d. 1998, Ph.D., D.D.) was the editor of Christianity Today for over a decade.  His book The Battle for the Bible, which came out in 1978, rocked the evangelical world as it took a strong stance on inerrancy.  Journalist Larry Witham (Where Darwin Meets the Bible) makes a connection between the battle for the Bible and the inerrancy movement which led to the Chicago Statement generated by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI). [1]  Observe Article XII (Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, emphasis added):

We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.  We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.

One would think this was written by a traditional creationist (creation in 6 days, Global Flood, young earth).

The companion book to the Chicago Statement on Hermeneutics was Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible.  Walter Bradley, former Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M, wrote a very influential chapter:  “The Trustworthiness of Scripture in Areas Relating to Natural Science.”  It is available online here.  We responded to this work in 2007.  This same volume has a 12 page response to Bradley by the father of modern creationism, Henry Morris (d. 2006).

Henry Morris predicted that, “… unless the ICBI can somehow become convinced of the foundational importance of strict creationism for maintaining a consistent belief in inerrancy, its efforts will likely prove of only ephemeral effectiveness.” [2]

Morris made this comment on The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics:

The statement finally adopted by the council was so innocuous on the subject of origins that it would not even exclude evolution as an acceptable interpretation.  That was the reason I could not sign their statement on biblical hermeneutics. [3]

Morris further warned of the slippery slope syndrome:

Progressive creationism … has already, for well over a hundred years, served as the camel’s nose by which theistic evolution and eventually full-blown religious liberalism have come in and taken over … the reason why most laymen … reject the Bible is because they have been taught evolution and the great age of the earth, and they know that this presumed “fact of science” contradicts the Bible’s very first chapter. [4]

Bruce Waltke resigned from Reformed Seminary after making remarks about evolution in 2010.  Waltke makes it clear that the slippery slope is genuine:

I am not a scientist, but I have familiarized myself with attempts to harmonize Genesis 1-3 with science, and I believe that creation by the process of evolution is a tenable Biblical position, and, as represented by BioLogos, the best Christian apologetic to defend Genesis 1-3 against its critics.

Waltke wrote a chapter in Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible and according to Norman Geisler, “all the writers are in agreement with the ICBI stand on inerrancy.” [5]

Affirm the truth of Genesis 1-11 and fight Old Earth Fallacies (OEF’s).  Consider the analogy of Daniel's diet (Dan. 1:8-20).  He and his comrades were tested for ten days by eating vegetables.  He refused to compromise – we too should dare to be a Daniel!  Also notice that it was 10 days, not 10M years.  Ancient veggies don’t taste good.  Biblical authority starts with a conservative Biblical hermeneutic applied to Genesis.  Biblical inerrancy matters.

… the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.  What if some were unfaithful?  Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?  By no means!  Let God be true though every one were a liar .. (Rom. 3:3,4, ESV)

A new book defends a young earth from Philosophy, Geology, History and Biology.  A shortcut to the site is  TotalYouth.us  >> “for TOTAL truth, support earth’s YOUTH.”

You can go to Part 2 here.

Notes:

1) Where Darwin Meets the Bible by Larry Witham (Oxford Univ. Press, NYC, 2002), p. 51.

2) quoted in Already Compromised by Ken Ham and Greg Hall (Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2011), p. 29.

3) Ibid.

4) Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible ed. by Earl Radmacher and Robert Preus (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1984), pp. 346, 347.

5) Ibid., p. ix.