Christmas Music

So now that Thanksgiving is past, I have allowed myself to start listening to Christmas music. I'm lovin' it. Getting ready to celebrate the biggest birthday party on earth is my favorite time of year, and music is a big part of that. That, and snow, lights, the smell of evergreens, etc.

I would recommend "Christmas" by Michael W. Smith (this is, by a huge amount, my favorite Christmas album and favorite album overall) and "The Christmas Sessions" by MercyMe. Both are available for free on Freegal, if your public library is a part of that program.

And yes, I know I have failed miserably at making regular postings here. I shall from here on out give up even apologizing, and just accept it as normal to go for a month or two between posts.

DGNC

The Desiring God National Conference is coming up in a couple of weeks - I'm so pumped! I went for the first time last year, and it was a great time of worship, fellowship, sitting under the teaching of some amazing men of God, and learning more what God's plan for His people is.

This year the topic is "Act the Miracle: God's work and ours in the mystery of sanctification". Should be good.

I'll try to remember to post some of my notes afterwards. No promises, though; I'm a busy college student and posting on my blog isn't my highest priority (gasp!).

Warren is a realist...

I know this is kind of a different topic for me, but I'm going to try to post more often, even if it's just quick snippets of what I find interesting.

The Gap Theory: Full of Holes

One version of “old earth creationism” is the Gap Theory. It is quite widely held to, and is something I feel I should address.

This is the theory that there is a “gap” of millions or even billions of years between Genesis 1:1 and the second verse.

“(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

-Gen 1:1-2

According to this theory (This is very brief, and there are variations), God created the heavens and the earth in 1:1, and all the animals, etc. Some variations even hold that there was a race of men without souls in this first world. All these creatures lived for millions of years, creating all the fossils we see today. Satan then fell, and the earth was obliterated with a global flood (not “Noah's”). Then verse two picks up with “The earth was without form, and void...”. The proponents of this theory say that the word normally translated “was” here (hebrew, “hayah”) could also be translated “became” (While this is true, context is everything here. In this context, there is no way that it could be translated became). This would now say that the earth became void and without form. God then proceeded to recreate the world, the one we know now.

The only reason for this theory is to try to fit man's idea of evolution into the God's Word. A careful reading of Genesis, and the rest of the Bible, for that matter, gives no evidence for this theory.

There are several problems with this theory. First, it requires death and suffering before the fall, and the Bible states that “...sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned...” I think everyone would agree that that “one man” refers to Adam. The Bible makes it clear in this passage, and others, that death and disease were punishment for sin. How, then, could there be millions of years of death, decay, and suffering before sin? This, in my opinion, is the biggest problem with this theory.

Exodus 20:11 says that the Lord made the heavens and the earth in six days. According to the gap theory, the Lord made the heavens and the earth in one day, then millions of years, then six more days. Since the days in that verse refer to six 24-hour days, there is not much room for millions of years there.

1 Cor. 15:45 states that Adam was the first man. This discredits any theories of a race of men in this “gap world”.

Another problem is that if the fossil record was laid down during this gap period and its accompanying flood, it leaves no room for the flood of Genesis 6-9 to leave any traces. According to them, this “second” worldwide, catastrophic flood left no trace. Odd.

And lastly, as I argued in a previous post, there is just a lot of evidence for a young earth, and not for an old one. This is evidence against the gap theory.

In conclusion, I would advise anyone holding to this theory to seriously reconsider it, weighing it with the Bible, letting the Bible be the authority, not man's opinions. If a theory contradicts the Bible, it is the theory that is in the wrong. You may think that this is not a big deal, but it is. Undermining the origin of sin is undermining the very reason for salvation. Think about it.

When the Stars Burn Down

I've been listening to the new album by Phillips, Craig, and Dean, "Breathe In". The one that stood out to me the most is the song "When the stars fall down". With all the war, politics, and violence all around us, it can be hard to lose sight of the goal. The cool thing is, I've read the end of the book, and God wins. And we will spend eternity with him in a new world that is not contaminated with sin. This song reminded me of that. It feels like a little bit of Heaven practice:


When the stars burn down and the earth wears out
And we stand before the throne
With the witnesses who have gone before
We will rise and all applaud

Singing blessing and honor, glory and power
Forever to our God
Singing blessing and honor, glory and power
Forever to our God

When the hands of time wind fully down
And the earth is rolled up like a scroll
The trumpets will call and the world will fall
To its knees as we all go home 

Star of the morning, Light of salvation
Majesty
God of all mysteries, Lord of the universe
Righteous King

There will come a day standing face to face
In a moment, we will be like Him
He will wipe our eyes dry, take us up to His side
And forever we will be His




Can't wait...

The age of the Earth (and Universe)

This is one of the major issues relating to the creation-evolution debate, so I will share some of my thoughts on it here. This is not going to be technical, just a general look at some of the points I am familiar with.


Stars go through a sort of "life cycle". They start out as a small blue star, then go to yellow and red, getting bigger as they go. they then shrink into a white dwarf star. This is simplified, but sufficient for our purposes. According to evolutionists, this process takes millions to even billions of years to go from phase to phase. 
The star Sirius is a white dwarf star. However, ancient writings (by such people as Cicero, Seneca, and Ptolemy) described it as red. This was only a couple of thousand years ago, not millions. 
All this to say that at least the theory of stars "living" for billions of years may be flawed.


Jupiter is cooling off. We can assume it has been cooling off since it was formed. If it is still cooling off and is eons old, it would have had to have been really, really, REALLY, hot to start out with.


The moon is getting farther away from the earth over time. Every year it is a little farther from the earth. Extrapolating this backwards, 1.2 billion years ago the moon would be touching the earth. Needless to say, way before that we would have some serious tidal issues, to the point of no life being possible on earth. Evolutionists claim the earth/moon is 4.5 billion years old. Do the math - something's wrong there.


The earth itself is slowing down. This means... wait for it... it used to be going faster! wow! At the rate it is slowing down, putting the earth at about 6,000 years old is no problem. However, a few billion years ago, the earth would have been spinning extremely fast.

The oceans are 3.6% salt. Extrapolating the rate that salt is being added to the oceans, they would have been fresh water about 5000 years ago. What was going on for the 4,499,995,000 years before that? Was there no salt washing into the oceans before that?

These next points don't really make an argument, but they are interesting.

The oldest living organism, a bristlecone pine known as Methuselah, is estimated to be about 4500 years old. Coincidently, that is about when the great flood is estimated to have occurred. If there was no flood and the earth is billions of years old, why aren't there any older organisms on the earth?

The largest coral reef in the world, the Great Barrier Reef, is estimated to be 4200 years old. Why isn't there an older one somewhere?

Sorry...

Wow. I really haven't posted in a while. Sorry about that. I will hereby try to post more often.

Happy thanksgiving!

I know I haven't posted in a while - I've been pretty busy recently. And I'm not really posting now, I just wanted to let the world know I haven't forgotten about this blog. I'm planning on posting on global warming sometime soon, as I just wrote a paper on it. Stay tuned! 

DG National Conference

Wow. I just got back from the Desiring God National Conference, and I'm kind of in a state of shock (in a good way). I have a lot of schoolwork to do, so I'll keep this post short. Maybe later I'll add more. Anyway, getting to hear 6 sermons in one and a half days was great. The speakers were Louie Giglio, David Platt, Michael Oh, Michael Ramsden, Ed Stetzer, and John Piper. In addition, there were two panel discussions with the speakers. So you can see why it was kind of like drinking out of a fire hydrant. But they were all speaking on the same topic - Missions - so they all complemented each other. They all brought out some great points that I hadn't really thought about all that much. They were all amazing, but I found David Platt's message especially challenging and eye-opening. The whole conference served to really bring me closer in my relationship with God and to make me realize that Jesus' "great commission" to us is not a suggestion, but a command, an invitation into His awesome, eternal, unchanging plan for the world.


The worship times were awesome. When you get 3,500 brothers and sisters in Christ together in one room just praising their God, well, you get the picture.


Update: The videos are up now! Here's the link: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/by-conference/2011-national-conference


That's all for now!

Some Problems with "Theistic Evolution"

You may have heard of "Theistic Evolution", or the belief that God used evolution to create the world and all life on it. There are variations on the idea, but most proponents believe that God created the first single-celled organism, and then guided the evolutionary process to result in man. As a result, they end up pretty much throwing out the creation account in Genesis, and thus the whole Bible, as Genesis is quoted and referred to throughout the Bible.


There are many blatant problems with this belief, a couple of which I would like to point out here. According to the theory of evolution (here meaning molecules-to-man, neo-darwinian evolution), Dinosaurs evolved into birds. The believers in this theory tout the Archaeopteryx (Archaeopteryx Lithographica) as the "missing link" in this transition. (As a side note, many biologists who specialize in birds have studied the Archaeopteryx and determined that it is 100% bird, not part dinosaur, part bird). The problem is that Genesis has a different story to tell:


20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 


Notice here that birds come before the land-dwelling dinosaurs, which, according to evolutionary thinking, were the ancestors of birds. This is a problem for those that try to mix God's word with the word of man. 


Another problem is exposed by verses 11 - 19:


11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.


Here we have the plants coming before the sun. If, as the Bible says, the plants were created on the third day and the sun came the day after, then they could have survived just fine until the sun came. But, if the plants evolved over millions of years without the sun, how would they live? Here again is an example of fallen man trying to mess with God's word - it doesn't work.

Evo·lu·tion

What is evolution? What does it mean? "Evolution", as used by most people, refers to a process of random mutations in species that, over millions of years, has supposedly resulted in all the organisms alive today. Evolution has many meanings, as can be shown by our good friend, Webster's dictionary:

Definition of EVOLUTION

1

: one of a set of prescribed movements

2

a : a process of change in a certain direction : unfoldingb : the action or an instance of forming and giving something off : emissionc (1) : a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state : growth (2) : a process of gradual and relatively peaceful social, political, and economic advanced : something evolved

3

: the process of working out or developing

4

a : the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species) : phylogenyb : a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations; also : the process described by this theory

5

: the extraction of a mathematical root

6

: a process in which the whole universe is a progression of interrelated phenomena

We can see that among all the definitions, number 4 is the one we are interested in. However, even within this definition, There are 6 major types of evolution that must have happened for the world we live in to have come from the "Big Bang". They are:

Cosmic evolution: the origin of time, space, and matter from nothing in the “big bang”
Chemical evolution: all elements “evolved” from hydrogen
Stellar evolution: stars and planets formed from gas clouds
Organic evolution: life begins from inanimate matter
Macro-evolution: animals and plants change from one type into another
Micro-evolution: variations form within the “kind”

Only this last one has ever been shown to happen, and it happens all the time. For example, that's how we have so many kinds of dogs, cats, and types of bills on finches. No scientist that I have heard of disagrees with that micro-evolution happens. However, none of the other kinds have ever been observed happening, and there is no evidence that they ever did. I mean, how does gold evolve from hydrogen? How does DNA evolve from mud? It just doesn't happen! What does happen, though, is that people are taught that micro-evolution occurs (which is true), and then told that that proves that the others occurred as well (which is just plain false). This is how all lies (not just the lie of goo-to-you evolution) are taught; mix a little truth in with the lie, and people will believe both the truth and the lie together. So when (or if) you get into a debate with someone about evolution (or any other topic, for that matter), make sure you define the terms first. In the case of evolution, once you define what kind of evolution you are talking about, it makes it much easier to make a good argument against it. Whatever you do, though, don't let them pull you into the part truth, part lie trap.

Carbon-14 Dating - Does it Work?

You have probably heard of Carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) dating, as it is one of the most widely used dating methods today. However, it has many serious flaws. I will try to summarize a few of them:

1. Radiocarbon dating cannot date old fossils. 

    Carbon-14 is a molecule that is found in every living thing on earth. In short, it is formed by the sun's rays striking Nitrogen in the atmosphere and turning it into Carbon-14. It is absorbed by plants from the atmosphere, and then absorbed by animals that eat those plants, and so on (as a side note, this means that Carbon-14 dating can only be used on things that were once living). It continues to build up in these living creatures as long as they are alive. As soon as they die, no more Carbon-14 is absorbed by the creature. What makes Carbon-14 useful is that it is radioactive, which means that it decays over time. This decay rate is measured in half-lives. A half-life is the amount of time it takes for a sample of radioactive material to lose half of its mass. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. This means that every 5,730 years, a given sample of Carbon-14 loses half of itself. How the dating method works, then, is that we can measure how much Carbon-14 is in a fossil now, and making an assumption of how much was in the specimen to start out with, we can easily calculate how old the fossil is. The problem is that after 8 to 10 half-lives, the amount of Carbon-14 in a object is practically nonexistent and cannot be measured with any accuracy whatsoever. Using 10 half-lives, to be generous, gives us a maximum measurable age of 57,300 years. Many fossils have been dated with this method and given dates of millions of years, because according to the evolutionary theory, many of these fossils need to be that old. But scientists cannot possibly come up with dates that old with this method. They are skewing the results. So never let anyone tell you that according to Carbon-14 dating, such-and-such fossil is any older than about 57,000 years old.

2. Assumptions. BIG assumptions.

    As I mentioned above, radiocarbon dating must make a few assumptions. When we have a fossil, the only thing we know about it is how much Carbon-14 it has in it now and how fast Carbon-14 decays now. We do NOT know how much it started out with, or whether Carbon-14 has always had the same decay rate. This is a major problem. Let me illustrate: Suppose I showed you a picture of a lit candle and only a lit candle. I ask you how long this candle has been burning. You can't give an answer, can you? Now suppose I tell you that this candle at this point in the picture is 5" tall. Now can you answer? Nope. Now suppose I tell you that is currently burning at the rate of 1" per hour. You still can't answer. You see, to know how long it has been burning, you have to know how tall it was to start out with, and how fast it has burned in the past. This is the same with Carbon-14 dating. We cannot know how much Carbon-14 the fossil started with. We can usually guess based on how much is in similar animals or plants today, but even that is a problem, as the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere is constantly increasing. I will expound on this further in the next point.

3. Carbon-14 proves that the earth is young

   This is a very simple truth that is conveniently quieted by evolutionists. Carbon-14 in the atmosphere is constantly increasing. This means that there used to be... drum roll... LESS Carbon-14 in the atmosphere! Wow, right! Actually, knowing the current amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere and the rate at which it has been increasing (which IS known), we calculate that there would be NO (that's right, zero) Carbon-14 in the atmosphere about 30,000 years ago. Huh! That's interesting. Even if the earth started with no Carbon-14 in its atmosphere, it could not be older than 30,000 years. Also, this means that if we assume that something that has been dead for a long time started out with the same amount of Carbon-14 in it as a similar specimen now-a-days, we get a much older age for the fossil than it really is. 

I apologize if this was a little confusing (I tend to ramble a bit), but I hope you were able to get something out of it. If nothing else, just realize that Carbon-14 dating is flawed and its accuracy cannot be taken for granted.

By the way, I will try to make most of my posts shorter and less "scientific" than this one.

Welcome!

I do here present my new blog, which I will try to keep up with as often as I have something worth while to post. I will be using this blog primarily to share interesting facts pertaining to the defense of a literal 6-day, young earth creationist view of the origins of the amazing universe we live in, which is a area of particular interest to me. I will also share any unique events in my life that may happen, as if anyone would want to know :) I do not pretend to know everything or have the correct view of everything, but I do hope this blog will be an encouragement to all. God bless!