CREATION MOMENTS: 9.19.22

Sabotaging the Works of the Devil Recall that Jesus went on a 40-day fast in the wilderness during which He faced some major temptation by the devil himself. Among those temptations, Satan took Him to a high mountain where he supernaturally showed Him …all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto Him, “All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine” (Luke 4:5-6). In resisting the temptation to power and glory, Jesus did not deny or debate what the devil said. He did not refute that the devil was able to give all the power and glory of the kingdoms of this world over to whomever he wished. Jesus said instead that we are to worship and serve God alone. The fact is that when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they delegated power in this world over to the devil. The devil became “the god of this world (this age)” (2 Corinthians 4:4). In Christ’s First Advent, He came as the suffering Savior, drawing us to come voluntarily to Himself in grace through faith. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world…” (John 18:36). But the Bible also speaks copiously of His Second Advent, in which Christ comes as Judge and King to reign over this world forever! We should not be surprised that the world is still in the hands of the devil. We are yet awaiting the “fullness” of our “adoption”, the resurrection of our bodies, the consummation of our salvation ------------------------ The Heavens Declare I often think that all Christians should be interested in astronomy. That does not mean that I think you should be experts in how stars work, or how light travels. But the Psalmist says that “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork”. So it is good to look upwards at night, and notice what God has made out there in the heavens, because this cause to stop and consider what God has done.

We are charged in Scripture never to worship anything in the heavens, because these are things that God has created, but it is right and proper to consider stars, planets, galaxies and so on, and to stand in awe at all that God has made.

In Genesis 1:14, God tells us that one of the purposes of the night sky is to mark signs and seasons for us. When night falls, it will be different stars that appear on the horizon at different times of year, because of the position of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, so we keep track of the seasons. But also, by measuring the angles of certain stars above the horizon, and above the equator, we can work out what latitude we are at. Coupled with the longitude, calculated using accurate time, we can pinpoint our position on the Earth.

With our modern technology of smartphones and satellites, we take such matters for granted today. But God provided us with time-keeping and positioning software in the sky, right from the beginning of creation. That is certainly a cause to praise His Name!

Prayer: As we gaze into the heavens, Lord, we see that they declare your handiwork. We are amazed by the beauty of the sky, and our amazement increases, as we learn more about it. We praise You, for You are great and holy. Amen. ------------------- “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” When I was a boy, there were nine planets. I remember reports in 1982 about the discovery of a tenth planet. Nobody actually saw the alleged tenth planet through a telescope. However, measurements were made of the orbits of other planets, and perturbations from where they thought the orbits should be were noted. It was assumed that these perturbations were caused by a large planet beyond the orbit of Pluto. Of course, the discovery of Pluto, being such a small planet, did not fully explain the motion of Neptune and Uranus, so further calculations in 1982 suggested the existence of Planet Ten.

Pluto was demoted from planetary status in 2006, but this did not stop speculation that there might be a ninth planet similar to the newly defined eight. In 2016, scientists once again thought that the discovery of Planet Nine was inevitable. They now had the evidence of orbits of other Pluto-size objects beyond the orbit of Neptune – the so-called Trans-Neptunian Objects, or TNOs. In 2017, all these ideas are on hold again as other scientists think that the perturbations of the orbits of Pluto, Eris and other TNOs can be explained by other TNOs.

As Bible-believing Christians, we are encouraged to stand in awe at the universe because it declares the glory of God. That so much interesting speculation can be made about small movements in the orbits of bodies within this Solar System reminds us again of the greatness of God, who made this entire universe. -------------------- Eggs and Evolution “The evolution of the amniotic egg was key to vertebrates leaving the oceans and colonizing the land and air.” So claimed a recent article on the evolution of the egg. The article noted that there are different-shaped eggs among birds. Researchers conducted a statistical study of the eggs produced by 1,400 species of bird. It was assumed that the shape of the egg was determined by the behavior of the bird, how fast it flies, what it eats, etc.

However, there are some anomalies. For example, the albatross and the hummingbird have very similar-shaped eggs, yet their life cycles are entirely different, and their genetics will be different, too. So how could these birds produce eggs that are almost exactly similar? To be fair, the study suggested a similarity between the birds; that they are both very powerful fliers. Yet, merely commenting that they are powerful fliers does not begin to recognize the difference between the way that these birds use their power in flight or how the eggs of other very powerful fliers, such as hawks, have completely different-shaped eggs.

The general evolutionary assumption is that creatures producing shelled eggs – such as reptiles and birds – evolved from creatures with non-shelled eggs, such as amphibia. Yet, the hatching of a salamander, for example, is dependent on the softness of the egg membrane. How would a salamander tadpole hatch from a partially shelled egg? Or how would the first reptile have survived when its partially enabled shells were broken by amphibian predators?

Shelled eggs are a wonder, not of evolutionary processes, but of God’s design.

Prayer: Each example we see of Your creation, Lord, reminds us of how great You are, and how insignificant we are. Therefore, we praise You again that You consider us. ------------- Whales on Land “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.” A small boy was asked in class, “What family does the whale belong to?” Nervously, he replied, “I don’t know, sir. No family on our street has one!”

What the teacher was getting at was the evolutionary idea that whales have evolved from land mammals. In London’s Natural History Museum, one display cabinet shows a mesonychid, thought to be a land-dwelling ancestor, on the left, a fossil of a modern-type dolphin on the right, and in the middle there is a supposed intermediate form – an ambulocetus.

The display is clearly meant to show the evolution of the whale from the wolf-like mesonychid, through the ambulocetus, to the modern whale. One would confidently expect, therefore, that the oldest fossil on display would be the mesonychid. And one would be wrong!

The oldest of the three fossils is actually the ambulocetus. This is a huge problem because the NHM has to justify why it has arranged these three fossils that way. Their justification is this; the ambulocetus is one of the first of its kind, so they draw an error bar accordingly. On the other hand, they have decided that the mesonychid is one of the last of its kind, so its error bar shows that the fossil displayed in the NHM is from just before the species became extinct. The reason for producing such asymmetric error bars? Well, the fossils must be in that order because that is the order in which they have evolved. In other words, they have been arranged according to an evolutionary worldview. Then, the arrangement is offered as a proof for that worldview. This is circular reasoning.

Prayer: In Your word, Lord, You were clear about how everything happened. Thank You for your great wisdom, displayed throughout creation. Amen. ------------------ Two Liquids Called Water The Science Daily website recently published an article suggesting that water is not one, but two liquids.

One would have thought that we knew everything that there was to know about water. It covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. Up to 60 percent of the human body is made up of water. It is essential for life, and we are familiar with it in our everyday life, in ponds, streams, rivers, lakes, and so many different bodies of water worldwide.

However, we are also familiar with the fact that water has many anomalous properties which set it apart from other liquids. A team of researchers at Sweden’s Stockholm University have discovered, using X-ray analysis, that there are two different arrangements for water molecules in liquid water, especially at low temperatures, just above the melting point of ice. We know that if water had a melting point consistent with the small size of its molecule alone, its melting point would be very low.

However, water molecules associate together in different formations because of the so-called hydrogen-bonding between molecules. Apparently, at low temperatures, this can cause such a high association between molecules that the liquid, or at least portions of it, can become a thick, viscous liquid just as it freezes into ice.

That such a seemingly simple material can still have properties for us to research shows something of the creativity of God. At once simple and highly complex, molecular and inter-molecular arrangements in water cause this common, yet mysterious liquid, to do so many things for us that we tend to take for granted. ---------------- Where Did All the Water Go? “There can’t possibly have been a worldwide Flood. Where would all the water have gone after the Flood?” This is a common objection to belief in the biblical account of the Flood of Noah’s time. Did the water drain away, or evaporate?

This misconception is because our society is very Western-centered. As a child, growing up in Britain, all pictures of the Earth would have London at their center. This is, after all, where the 0º longitude line is! In America, most similar images would show the United States at the center. But what if we center our image on the Pacific Ocean? Then we will see a hemisphere almost entirely made up of ocean. This reminds us that nearly three quarters of the Earth’s surface is water. What if all the existing water on the Earth could be spread out? French diver and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau used to say:

Were the crust of earth to be leveled – with great mountain ranges like the Himalayas and ocean abysses like the Mariana Trench evened out – no land at all would show above the surface of the sea. Earth would be covered by a uniform sheet of water – more than 10,000 feet deep!

This agrees with what the Bible says in Psalm 104:8:

The mountains rose, the valleys [or deeps] sank down to the place that you appointed for them.

The rising of the mountains and the lowering of the ocean deeps at the end of the Flood easily explains where all the floodwater went. It didn’t go anywhere. It is all still on planet Earth. -------------------

CREATION MOMENTS: 2.19.22

These lovable-looking animals are popular in zoos. Unlike giant pandas, they are quite easy to look after in zoos, and their cute ginger-and-white faces are very appealing to the public. Like giant pandas, they eat mostly bamboo. I have kept comparing them to the animal with which they share a name – the giant panda. But the classification of red pandas has been fraught with difficulty. At one time, evolutionists thought that all pandas were part of the same family – hence their names. However, when giant pandas were reclassified as part of the bear family, this left red pandas out in the cold. There were some who wanted to classify the red panda along with the bears, but others thought it was a raccoon due to the similarity of their tails. Nowadays, evolutionists have classified the red panda in a family all of its own. Creationist biologists agree and refer to the Ailuridae baramin (or created kind). Red pandas have sharp claws and a powerful bite. Some evolutionists have supposed that this is because the near-vegetarian red pandas must have evolved from a carnivorous animal. In fact, there is no evidence to support the evolution of red pandas. Their claws are essential for climbing trees, and their powerful bite is necessary in order to eat bamboo. God designed the red panda just the way He wanted to. ------------------------ Staying with some family members in Kentucky, I was delighted one dark evening to see little flashes of light in the air, low over the garden lawn. Although I was too far away to see the insects concerned, these must have been fireflies. Fireflies are not actually flies – they are beetles. Their light-producing organs are in their abdomens. Most species use these bioluminescent displays for courtship. The bioluminescence is caused by a type of luciferin molecule, commonly called firefly luciferin. The name has nothing to do with evil! It comes from the Latin word for light. Firefly luciferin reacts with oxygen, and the reaction is catalyzed by an enzyme, luciferase, as well as the presence of magnesium ions and adenosine triphosphate – the energy-giving molecule ATP. Luciferin first forms another highly tensed molecule called a dioxetane, which releases CO2 to form a ketone. The ketone is in a highly excited electronic state, so it “relaxes” back to normal state by releasing energy. This energy is at exactly the right frequency to be in the visible light range. The fireflies in Kentucky emitted yellow light. If one were an evolutionist, one would have to wonder – what would have been the evolutionary advantage for the beetle to produce luciferase if there was no luciferin, or vice versa? We have a lot more work to do to investigate the chemistry of the process, but we still marvel at the wonder of God’s design for these insects. ------------------------- In a previous Creation Moment, we talked about the Perseverance Mars 2020 mission, which included a helicopter named Ingenuity. Another technology demonstration taken with Perseverance is an instrument for collecting oxygen. The atmosphere on Mars is very thin; its surface pressure is only 1% of Earth’s atmosphere. Of this tenuous Martian atmosphere, 95.3% is carbon dioxide, which is only a trace gas on Earth. There is 2.6% nitrogen and 1.9% argon, with trace amounts of water vapor, oxygen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen and noble gases. Despite the rarity of oxygen, NASA engineers believe that their equipment can extract oxygen in sufficient quantities to make human exploration of Mars possible. Which brings us to the subject of life. Previous missions – and indeed photographs – have provided evidence that there was once water on Mars. Even Perseverance’s landing site – the Jezero Crater – appears surrounded by dried water channels. But water and atmospheric carbon dioxide do not make life. Says one NASA scientist, “If we found a microbe that arose on the next planet over, if lightning struck twice in this one corner of the solar system, it would suggest that our whole universe could have life on lots and lots of planets and it’s not just us alone in the dark night.” But his “lightning” did not strike once. Chemicals in lifeforms are not produced by mixtures or even simple reactions. They contain codes and information which could only have been put there by the Creator God of the Bible. ---------------------- The headline “Scientist Sees Planets with Very Large Telescope” might not excite the imagination until you realize that the Very Large Telescope, or VLT, is actually a thing! It is a huge reflecting telescope, built by the European Southern Observatory in the desert in Chile. It is actually comprised of four telescopes, each of which has a primary hyperbolic mirror about 27 feet across. The result is that the instrument can “see” objects millions of times fainter than those detected by the human eye. Recently, the VLT was pointed at a star rejoicing in the name TYC 8998-760-1, about 300 light years away. It was already known, from calculations, that the star had two planets orbiting it. So the VLT was able to take a magnificent photograph of the stellar system, clearly showing these planets. Both planets are gas giants. The one closer to the star is 14 times more massive than Jupiter, while the other is six times bigger. The planets are 160 and 320 times further from their star than the Earth is from the Sun, compared with just five and ten times the Earth-Sun distance for Jupiter and Saturn. The article describing the photo inevitably speculates on the supposed “evolution” of these planets and whether or not there may be others with evolved life. Creationists will not waste time on such idle speculation but rejoice that even more of the heavens that declare God’s glory have now been revealed. ------------------------- In any discussion on the veracity of a moral point relying on the Bible, an unbeliever is likely to retort, “Well, you shouldn’t be wearing mixed fabrics! The Bible condemns that!” Ask them where the Bible teaches this, and they are unlikely to be able to tell you. Two passages spring to mind. One is Leviticus 19:19: “nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.” Does this refer to mixing cotton with rayon, for example? Another passage is: “You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together.” Is this more specific command different? Almost certainly not. Wool, from sheep or goats, and linen, from flax fibers, were almost certainly the only fabrics that the Israelites knew. But these passages are not from the moral law. The passages do not condemn the mixing of fabrics for everyone. In Exodus 28:6, God gave an instruction for Aaronic priests to wear an ephod “of gold, of blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and of fine twined linen, skillfully worked.” The dyed yarns would have to be of wool, so we have a mixed fiber garment. Now we understand the Levitical rule not to wear mixed materials. Such garments were for the priests, and, therefore, the rule separated priests from other people. Jesus is our High Priest. Therefore, no priestly garments are required. Just as God commanded Peter to eat what had previously been considered unclean, we are to confess: “What God has made clean, do not call common.” --------------------- Ray Bradbury’s classic 1952 short story “A Sound of Thunder” featured a company called Time Safaris Inc. They took clients back in time to the date evolutionists believe dinosaurs roamed the Earth. They find a dinosaur which is about to die, then allow the clients to shoot it. During one safari, a character slips off the force-field pathway and, unknowingly, treads on a butterfly, killing it. On return to the present, they discover that the present is different from the present they left. Evolution has proceeded by a very different route because of the death of that butterfly. As a teenager, brought up to believe evolution, the story seemed plausible to me. Evolution would surely multiply such errors. But researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have suggested that quantum physics gives a different answer – that the proceeding evolution would correct itself and little overall change would occur. Bradbury’s story led to the coining of the term “the butterfly effect”. The Los Alamos researchers suggest there is no butterfly effect. Who has it right? The answer is, of course, neither. For so many other reasons, we know that Darwinian evolution, requiring increased new information, is impossible. So Bradbury’s short story was based on a false premise. But so was the Los Alamos research. Their computer model, however sophisticated, is a designed environment and can therefore never simulate random processes. Meanwhile, the revelation of God’s word in Scripture stands as the only true key to the past. ------------------------ It has always been my contention, in the sermons and presentations which I give, that talk about human evolution can be dangerous. Why so? The first problem in the discussion is the equivocal way in which evolutionists use the term evolution. In a linguistic sense, it can simply mean change. So, it could be noted that characteristics of one population of humans has changed over time. This could be described linguistically as evolution. But it is not biological evolution. To a biologist, Darwinian evolution must involve mutations which produce new and better genetic information, which, over time and natural selection, will improve the population. Such novel genetic information is not, in practice, actually seen, but this does not seem to stop biologists referring to the evolution of human beings in an unfortunate manner. Evolutionary articles are wont to describe changes in skin pigmentation as evolution. Describing such changes as “evolution” can be risky because it can easily lead to discussion of which skin pigmentation is “better” and more highly evolved. One can see how such discussion can lead to racist conclusions. Such problems do not exist in a biblical context, where we see, as a foundation to anthropology, that all human beings are descended from one man, Adam, and are therefore of one race. So the different levels of pigmentation that God has given to us can be seen as glorious and reasons to praise Him for His goodness. -Over a decade ago, British geneticist Dr. Steve Jones, of University College, London, opined that human evolution had ceased. He stated that there are three factors influencing evolution: natural selection, mutation and random change. Jones attributed the end of evolution to men becoming fathers much later in life than earlier centuries and, therefore, having a shorter reproductive period. This, he claimed, led to less deleterious mutations being removed from the population. Referring to the same three factors, researchers at New York’s Columbia University have reached the opposite conclusion. They state that human evolution continues apace. Lead researcher Dr. Hakhamanesh Mostafavi said, “If a genetic variant influences survival, its frequency should change with the age of the surviving individuals”, suggesting that harmful variants should be less common in older populations, if that deleterious mutation has led to more deaths. His team suggests that “parents surviving into old age in good health can care for their children and grandchildren, increasing the later generations’ chances of surviving and reproducing.” We should first note that such survival and selection of genetic traits is not evolution. Deleterious mutations are removed by natural selection, but any new mutation is likely to be deleterious to survival in the short term. Besides, none of this involves the creation of new genetic information, so this is not evolution. God made human beings with the genetic abilities to weed out harmful mutations. Positive generational care – a biblical concept – was God’s idea, not the result of random chance. ------------------------ In the previous Creation Moment, we saw that two recent studies were published, in an attempt to date the so-called Big Bang. These two studies differed wildly in their conclusions. Both studies could not be correct – but they could both be wrong. In fact, the Bible does not allow for the so-called quantum event known as the Big Bang – a universe coming into existence all by itself. The Bible shows that everything there is was created by God. The studies relied on two different properties of the imaginary Big Bang scenario. One is the Hubble Constant, which relates the expansion of the universe to the red shift of light from distant objects. The Bible speaks of an expansion of the universe because the Hebrew word for firmament or expanse in Genesis 1 is raqia – referring to the stretching of a substance like metal. But this mostly happened in the Creation Week and was not necessarily constant at that time. The other property is the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is an even temperature everywhere at all points of interstellar space. If the universe were 14 billion years old, energy could not have traveled more than twice this – 28 billion light years. However, the universe is much bigger than this. So neither CMB nor Hubble can explain the universe. But the Bible can! God made both the matter and the energy of the universe. He stretched it and put the physical laws in place which help us to understand it. ------------------------ As I am writing these Creation Moments, two new scientific studies have emerged by cosmologists attempting to calculate the date of the Big Bang. The problem is that the two studies do not agree. One study, led by Stony Brook University, has confirmed the traditional value of 13.8 billion years. Another study, led by the University of Oregon, prefers 12.6 billion years – a difference of nearly 10%. The Stony Brook team has analyzed the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which they assume to be the afterglow of the Big Bang. They claim that they are “restoring the ‘baby photo’ of the universe to its original condition, eliminating the wear and tear of time and space that distorted the image”. Their aging calculation requires a value for the Hubble Constant of 67.6 kilometers per second per megaparsec. A parsec is about 3.3 light years. The Hubble Constant is basically referring to the expansion of the universe. However, the Oregon study has calculated a Hubble Constant of 75.1 kilometers per second per megaparsec. Given that the Hubble Constant is indeed supposed to be a constant, this huge difference is of great significance. Even without understanding the numbers, it is obvious that both studies cannot be correct. But they could both be wrong, and they both make unsubstantiated assumptions about past events. Our next Creation Moment will show that both CMB and the Hubble Constant are better understood by assuming that the Bible is true. --------------------- We have long known that the community within a honeybee hive divides the labor among specialized workers. There are scouts who search for food. Nurses tend the young. Some bees specialized in cleaning. There are even undertaker bees who remove and dispose of dead members of the hive. Scientists have now discovered that honeybee colonies also have brigades of specialized “soldiers.” These bees often seem to be sitting around, not doing much. In fact, they have only one duty—attack large intruders. It appears that these bees are fed and cared for by the hive members while they wait for the alarm. Should a raccoon, bear or human threaten the hive, thousands of soldier bees swarm around the enemy and sting. Soldiers have been well-known members of ant and termite colonies. However, up to now, they have never been confirmed in honeybee hives. The universal need for soldiers for protection among social insects reminds us that some things are universal in this world. These soldiers are not responsible for a bear’s attack on the hive. Nor are human soldiers who follow just war principles responsible for human war. Humanity’s greed and lack of love for others cannot be abolished by getting rid of armies. Rather, greed, theft and the need for protection remind us that we are not what God intended us to be. The solution lies not in denying reality, but in returning to our Creator through the forgiveness of our sins as made possible by Jesus Christ. Prayer: Father, I must confess that even as I love You and agree that Your will is good, I still sin. Forgive me for the sake of the innocent suffering and death of Your Son Jesus Christ. May His goodness, and not my own, always be my assurance of Your love. ----------------------------- How many different scents do you think your nose is able to smell? The answer is about 10,000. How does your nose tell the difference between a rose and a skunk? Until only recently, scientists really weren’t sure. Now we know that humans and mammals detect smells by using at least 1,000 different genes. These genes are located in every cell in your body, but they are active only in your nose. This discovery, say scientists, gives them their first insight into how smell works. Before this, said one scientist, “We had almost no knowledge of the olfactory system and this really opens up the molecular study of smell in a very fascinating way.” They say that each of the different genes seems designed to respond to a small group of odors. As each group of genes does its part, the entire system is able to recognize everything we can smell. These genes pass signals from the nerve cells in the nose to a small region of the brain called the olfactory bulb. Now that smell genes are identified, researchers say they can begin to understand how odors are detected and how the brain interprets those signals. Our sense of smell relies on a very elegant and sophisticated system. Imagine, 1,000 genes lie at the heart of that system. Each one of those genes is information—a programmed code that is designed to make sense of what we smell. Information, programming and decoding are all terms that assume that we have a highly intelligent Creator who designed our sense of smell! --------------------------- Mastodons were distant relatives of the elephant. Modern science says that one of the main parts of their diet was conifer needles. Supposedly they died out at the end of the Ice Age because conifers became scarce as the world warmed. Now the discovery of the last meal of one mastodon calls this theory into question. Living bacteria have been found in a mastodon that died during the Ice Age. The bugs were found in the remains of a mastodon’s last meal, preserved with a skeleton that was discovered while preparing a golf course in Ohio. Scientists think the bacteria normally lived inside the mastodon, working as part of the mastodon’s digestive process. What scientists discovered about the mastodons’ diet could upset some theories about what drove them to extinction. The scientists said the four-ton mastodon had spent its last day eating a salad of swamp grass, moss and leaves, a bit of seed, and a garnish of water lily. What was left of these plants, as well as the bacteria, were separated from a mass of reddish-brown matter found near the mastodon’s ribs and vertebrae. Scientists who believe in evolution claim that the animal died 11,000 years ago. But how sure can we be about that? After all, evolutionary scientists were wrong about the mastodon’s diet. As a result, their theories about why mastodons became extinct seem to be wrong. The facts that the bacteria were still alive and the stomach contents were not fully decayed tells us that this evolutionary date, too, is greatly exaggerated. ------------------------------------ Could the giant flying fox be a primate? In the 18th century, scientists weren’t quite sure what to do with bats. Some wanted to classify them as primates, while others thought they should have their own category. Since 1780, all 950 known species of bats have been classified in their own category. The bat order is divided into microbats and megabats. Microbats have an average wingspan of less than a foot. Megabats are larger. The giant flying fox has a wingspan of six feet! The evolutionary link between microbats and megabats is dissolving as scientists learn more about them. Although megabats and microbats are very clearly bats, they are constructed in importantly different ways. Microbats rely mainly on echo-location to navigate. Megabats have very large eyes, so that they can see like owls in low light. The nerves that connect the eyes of microbats to the brain cross. As a result, the image from the right eye goes to the left brain and the left eye feeds its image to the right brain. However, megabats are wired with both eyes feeding into both sides of the brain. This arrangement is otherwise unique to primates If bats evolved, these new findings mean that bats must have evolved at least twice! It also means that some bats evolved from monkey-like creatures! It makes far more sense to admire God’s unlimited creativity. We can logically reason that God gave His larger bats eyesight like that of a monkey, because their needs are similar. ---------------------- The Bible itself tells us that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses. Jesus Himself calls Moses the author of the first five books of the Bible over a dozen times. Unfortunately, liberal biblical scholarship has rejected these claims. These scholars have tried to teach Christians that the first five books of the Bible were written over many generations and finally finished only five centuries before Christ’s birth Now an amazing new discovery is forcing these scholars to change their teaching and has helped to scientifically confirm what Jesus said. Archaeologists have discovered two tiny silver scrolls on which are carved important passages from Moses. The scrolls, once used as amulets, were found in the ruins of early sixth or seventh century B.C. Jerusalem. Each scroll was made of thin silver foil, no thicker than tissue paper. One of the scrolls was an inch wide and an inch and one-half long. Scientists studying the fine engraving under a microscope found what appears to be the text of a priestly blessing from the Book of Numbers. They noted that it was remarkable that the blessing is identical to modern texts, showing that the text has been accurately preserved longer than they ever imagined. True faith doesn’t require the support of science. However, we are right to expect that true science will never do less than support the Bible when they are both speaking about the same subject. Prayer: It grieves me, Lord, that so few today understand that the truth of Scripture is important because all of Scripture speaks of You. ---------------------------- This group of fish is collectively called the angler fish. The front dorsal spine in the female angler is located on her head. It is much longer than any of the other dorsal fins and has a fleshy bait on the end. When hungry, she sits very still and dangles the bait in front of her mouth. It doesn’t take long before something swims up to investigate this bait as its possible lunch. But before it can think about taking a sample, the angler has turned the tables and eaten her own lunch. Of course this system wouldn’t work very well in the pitch darkness one mile below the surface of the ocean without one other special provision. Like many other fish at such depths, the angler is able to generate her own light. In her case, only the bait lights up, so she stays invisible to her victims. The chemical method she uses to create the light is nearly 100% efficient! In His imaginative creativity, God was pleased to place creatures a mile below the surface of the sea. Yet in His mercy He has provided them with everything they need to make their living there. Likewise, you may not know why God has placed you into a particular situation right now. If He so cares for the creatures a mile below the waves, how much more does He care for You. And He has even included a light for you in His Son Jesus Christ! ------------------------------ A revolutionary design in metal-cutting blades is changing the metal-working industry. These blades don’t cut like a knife. Instead, the blade is fixed in one position while the metal to be shaped spins on a lathe. This new-style blade stays sharp six times longer than the old blade design. And where titanium used to make the old-style cutting blades dull almost the second they were used, the new blades last up to 30 minutes. This wonderful new blade was developed by two engineers who got the original idea from a rat. You see, rats’ teeth always have a sharp edge. Engineers learned that this is because their teeth are hard on one side and soft on the other. So as they wear, they always keep a sharp edge. Using this principle for metal-cutting has lowered costs and increased productivity, since the blades don’t have to be changed as often. Beginning in Job 39 God humbles Job with several chapters of questions about the wise designs found in the animal kingdom. God’s message is, “Job, if you think you’re so smart, who created all of this with such wisdom?” Even rats’ teeth are created with such wisdom that, once we learned the principle, our technology was greatly improved. In view of this, it doesn’t seem at all scientific to say that there is no Creator! -------------------------------

CREATION MOMENTS: 1.8.22

When Isaac Asimov wrote his famous robot stories, we all thought we knew what robots looked like. They looked like us. Indeed, many of Asimov’s robots began to look indistinguishable from human beings, such as the iconic R Daneel Olivaw, who partnered with detective Elijah Baley in the sci-fi crime novel. The Caves of Steel.As real-life robots began to appear in industry, making cars and operating other machinery, they did not look quite so anthropomorphic. Now in the 21'st century, self-mobile robots are not necessarily built to walk like people. For example, we have already seen tiny flying robots about the size and shape of a cockroach – and liable to be just as beloved! A more recent robotic development has seen soft robots built to imitate jellyfish. Two layers of elastic polymer are joined – one stressed and one unstressed. Between the layers, air can be pumped, reversing the stressing and enabling the robot to swim through water. A third stress-free layer provides direction, and the whole machine is able to lift and carry fairly large cargos. The video accompanying the research shows strips of this robotic material being used out of water as a prehensile grip that would have sensitivity approaching that of human hands. As with all new technologies, it is to be hoped that good uses are found for it. God has given us dominion over this world, and technological developments, such as the soft robot, are methods by which humans can operate under this divine mandate. ---------------------- In the early 1960s, some unusually blue star-like objects were observed in the universe, giving out radio frequencies along with visible light. There were a number of them. Through telescopes, they appeared to have fuzzy boundaries. They were given the name Quasi-Stellar Radio Sources – and this was quickly abbreviated to quasars. Another odd feature of these objects was the existence, in their spectra, of emission lines, similar to those of stars, but at the “wrong” frequencies. The emission lines in normal stars were known to be due to hydrogen, but the lines in the quasar’s spectrum had a wavelength about 15% longer than that of hydrogen in other stars, or in the laboratory. It was eventually realized that this effect must be due to red shift – but a red shift bigger than anything that had previously been seen. An application of Hubble’s Law – which shows that the red shift is proportional to the object’s distance – showed that the quasar 3C 273 was over 2 billion light years away and was therefore over 100 times more luminous than typical stars within the same cluster. The existence of such amazing objects once again underlines for us how true it is that the heavens declare the glory of God. So many objects have now been discovered that astronomers give them numbers like 3C 273. How interesting it is, then, that the Bible tells us that God knows the actual name of every single astronomical object! Prayer: Lord, I sometimes look up at the heavens in amazement and awe because You have numbered everything there and given every object a name – because You made them all. Amen. ------------------ Genesis 1:11 “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.” One of the criticisms of solar power is that it is so variable. Clearly, a solar plant is going to produce no energy at night and an inadequate supply when the sky is cloudy. On the other hand, a suitable size plant could over-produce when sunlight is intense. Plants have a similar problem. The rapidly changing incidence of sunlight on their leaves could, conceivably, cause problems within the plant. However, researchers have discovered that plants have mechanisms to cope with these variations, and one such mechanism could answer the old question: “Why are plants green?” Plants produce high energy carbohydrate molecules from water vapor and carbon dioxide by the well-known process of photosynthesis. This endothermic reaction requires the input of energy in the form of light, and the reaction is catalyzed by the green dye chlorophyll. What many of us have not considered is why chlorophyll is green. White light is a mixture of all three primary colors – red, green and blue – which have increasing frequency and, hence, increasing energy, in that order. The remarkable thing about plants, therefore, is that they are absorbing light energy only at either end of the visible spectrum while rejecting – and reflecting – the middle of the spectrum, which is green. Researchers have shown that this selective absorption of certain frequencies minimizes “noise” and, therefore, enables the plant to cope with rapidly changing conditions of sunshine. God has made plants with a truly remarkable mechanism for growth. Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for Your amazing provision for everything that You have made. Amen. --------------------------- “And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven. (Deuteronomy 4:19).It is over half a century since human beings first walked on the surface of the Moon. With the passage of time, and the advent of missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the ever-popular Mars probes and rovers, one might have thought that there was nothing new to learn about the Moon. So listeners might not have been aware of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2009, and still giving useful data a decade later. It had been thought that the Moon did not have a plentiful supply of metals. This is because of the deep-time theory that the Moon was formed when a Mars-size planet struck the Earth about 3.9 billion years ago. This would have explained the paucity of metals on the Moon. But radar analysis by the LRO of dust at the bottom of lunar craters shows a much higher concentration of metals than previously thought. Indeed, it now appears that the Moon’s crust has a higher concentration of metals than that of the Earth. This is a severe problem for the prevailing deep-time theories on how the Moon was formed. The traditional evolutionary theory is designed to explain how an Earth, formed from gravitationally aggregated dust, could have developed its layers of crust, mantle, and inner and outer cores. Creationists do not have such a problem. The Bible makes it clear that God made the Earth on Day One, while He made the Moon separately three days later. Prayer: Lord, You confound the opinions and schemes of people who refuse to acknowledge You. Yet, Your power has been evident from creation in the things which You have made. So we praise Your Name. Amen. ------------------ “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal” The old vaudeville song goes: “Where did you get that hat, where did you get that tile? Isn’t it a funny one or just the proper style?” One very unusual caterpillar seems to wear not just one, but a whole set of hats on its head. This so-called Mad Hatterpillar – the larva of the moth Uraba lugens – has to shed its exoskeleton as it grows bigger. However, it unusually retains its old head when it sheds an exoskeleton and appears to wear it as a hat. This strange behavior is repeated at each shedding so that, prior to cocooning itself into a pupa, the hairy caterpillar has a number of old heads on top of its living head as a stack of bizarre hats. The caterpillar molts 13 times on average but only retains heads after the fourth molting, so the final head or hat count can be as much as nine! The bizarre headwear appears to be a method whereby the caterpillar deters predators. The caterpillar, which is a resident of Australia and New Zealand, is also known as the gum-leaf skeletonizer. This is because of its voracious appetite for the leaves of the eucalyptus tree, which it strips down to its veins – an attribute not designed to endear the caterpillar to lovers of koalas, for whom the gum-leaves are the principle source of food. However, the strange caterpillar is yet more evidence of the incredible design attributed to our Creator God. ----------------------

CREATION MOMENTS: 1.8.22 - CREATION TRAINING

Creation Training: Carbon Destroys the Evolutionary Model - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-carbon-destroys.html Does Carbon 14 dating destroy the evolutionary model? We asked this question on our television show Christ in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblical discipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faith using Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. Carbon 14 Dating Nathan Jones: There are all these dating techniques like Carbon 14 that we hear about from Evolutionists who say these methods prove that the earth is millions of years old. I hear many pastors and preachers even claim that Carbon 14 dating has proven that the earth is millions of years old. How do you respond to these claims? Mike Riddle: Well, the first problem is that we have a lot of people talking about the age of the earth who have never really been to the labs to see how these dating methods really work. The first thing we need to understand is that every one of these dating methods, whether radiometric dating, or radioactivity which is what we are talking about when one element changes another, these elements change, just like when we get older we change. For instance, put a banana out there for awhile. What happens to it? It turns brown, and then it is only good for making banana bread at that point. Things change and elements do too. One element will change to another over time. Those changes are used as a measurement. The key part we must remember firstly is that every one of these dating methods is based on assumptions. Assumptions are not mentioned in the textbooks. Every one of these assumptions have been proven to be faulty and in error. So, if your premise or your assumption is false, your conclusion will also be in error. That fact's not being taught. I'll give you some examples. Lava flows in New Zealand were shown dated at 275,000 years old, when in actuality those lava flows were made in 1949. Pretty big error there! Mount Saint Helens is a very good example of these dating errors. In May 1980, rocks were formed from the lava flows that erupted out of the mountain. The eruption also created overnight a canyon that looks like Grand Canyon, proving the Grand Canyon didn't need to take millions of years to form. Anyway, these rocks created in 1980 were actually dated at over two million years old. So, even when we know when a rock was formed, we still never get the correct age. Why then should we trust the dating of the earth when we don't even know when the rock was formed? Geology labs can take one rock sample, date it by say four different methods (though there a lot of different methods that we can use), and come up with four very different ages ranging from hundreds of millions of years of differences in age. These tests then clearly are not reliable. Nathan, you mentioned Carbon 14 dating. The simple thing about Carbon 14 is that after about 80,000 years all the datable Carbon 14 has decayed out of something. If we find something with Carbon 14 in it, it means it has to be any datable Carbon 14, meaning it has to be younger than 80,000 years. Let's look at coal, for instance. The Institute for Creation Research did some studies on coal. They took coal samples which according to Evolutionists coal is millions of years old and should have no Carbon 14 in it. ICR took their coal to an Evolutionist's lab to make sure there'd be no bias. Guess what they found in every coal sample? Carbon 14. That coal in truth is not millions of years old will never get published. The ICR then did a study of diamonds. Diamonds are a very special kind of stone because they are made up of pure carbon. Diamonds according to Evolutionists are supposed to be hundreds of millions to billions of years old, so there should absolutely be no Carbon 14 in those things. But, they took these diamonds samples to the lab, and guess what they found? In every diamond sample? Yes, Carbon 14. Carbon 14 is a powerful testimony this earth has to be young. Dr. Reagan: I was also under the impression that in Carbon 14 dating one of the assumptions is there was never a worldwide flood. Mike Riddle: Right, there is that assumption behind Carbon 14 dating that creates false readings. The inventor of Carbon 14, Dr. Willard Libby, even noticed his assumption was false, but he ignored it because of his belief in Evolution. Dr. Reagan: I've also been intrigued by findings recently of dinosaur skeletons that actually contain soft matter in the bones. And yet, dinosaurs are supposed to be hundreds of millions of years old, right? Mike Riddle: Right. Paleontologists have been finding dinosaur skeletons with proteins, red blood cells, and tissue that is even stretchable, and they are finding Carbon 14 in their bones as well. Dr. Reagan: How can that be if these skeletons are hundreds of millions of years old? Mike Riddle: Simple, they can't be that old. But, here is the best explanation that we are hearing now from Evolutionists to explain the organic tissue found away - there is some unknown process that preserves soft tissue for millions and millions of years. Well, that's what you call a" rescue mechanism." It's not based on any observable science. In the eleventh and last segment of this Creation training series with Mike Riddle, he'll explain why Evolution is every bit a religion. ------------------------------- Creation Training: The Religion of Evolution - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-religion-of-evolution.html Is Evolution in truth a religion? We asked this question on our television show Christ in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblical discipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faith using Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. Authority for Faith Dr. Reagan: I want to go back to a fundamental question that we started with earlier. It's so fundamental I want to end with it. What difference does it make whether it took a billion years or 6,000 years to make the Earth? Mike Riddle: This is the best question to end on. Why does it matter? It comes back again to the authority of God's Word, the Scriptures. When do we believe it? When do we not believe it? The world looks at Christians to see if we are really consistent in our beliefs. If we don't believe in our Bibles, then how can we ask other people to believe in it? Let me give you a great example here of consistency. I love to ask this question. Do we as Christians really believe Jesus Christ died on that cross? We'll say, "Yes." But, do we believe that He rose again on the third day? And, we'll say, "Yes." My question after that is, "Why do you believe that? You were not there to observe it." The answer is when it comes to God's Word, we believe it by faith. But, let me add one more thing. Did you know according to all known Science that you cannot be dead for three days and come back to life? So, are you still willing to go against known Science and believe the Resurrection. We'll say, "Yes." But, then are you willing to believe that God created everything in six literal days as His Word says, even though our best scientists refuse to do so? The world sees this, too. They see many Christians say, "I believe the Resurrection, but I don't believe in the Creation." The world sees that inconsistency there. When we adopt an old Earth, we ourselves become as the Church a stumbling block for people accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior because we don't accept that truth ourselves. Dr. Reagan: One thing that I have taught for many years is that we need to accept God's Word for what it says, from the beginning to the end. If the plain sense makes sense, don't look for any other sense, or you'll end up with nonsense. God knows how to communicate. He wants to communicate. You don't have to have a Ph.D. in hermeneutics or imagination. You do have to have the Holy Spirit residing in you to understand all of God's Word, though. I've often made the point that there is a tremendous relationship between the beginning of the Bible and the end of the Bible. If you start off spiritualizing the story of the Creation, then you will probably end up spiritualizing what the Bible teaches about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. To me you've got to take both of them for what they say. Mike Riddle: Yes, they go hand-in-hand. What we lose in Genesis, we get back again in the book of Revelation. There's an amazing correlation between those two books. Dr. Reagan: That's right. And they need to be approached from the viewpoint that they are understandable, and that God wants you to understand. When Dr. Henry Morris, the founder of The Institute for Creation Research, wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation, he started out by saying, "I'm writing this commentary because people say that the book of Revelation is hard to understand. They're wrong. It's not hard to understand. It's hard to believe. If you will believe it, you will understand it." The same is true of the Genesis story. Choice of Religions Nathan Jones: Isn't that the same with Evolution. We base our belief in God on faith, but doesn't Evolution also believe what they are taught by faith. Evolution is a faith-based system. Therefore, Evolution is really a religion, isn't it? Mike Riddle: Ultimately, yes, both have to be accepted by faith. But, then it comes down to this matter - what does your faith have to offer you? Your faith in Evolution offers me nothing, because when I ask, "Who am I?" it answers with, "We are just a chance accident." Or, as the Bible teaches, are we made in the image and likeness of our Creator God? Nathan Jones: Evolution offers the freedom to sin, though, right? Mike Riddle: Yes, but that leads one to the ultimate question, "What happens when we die?" Do I just become nothing? Dr. Reagan: Dave Hunt put it this way, he said, "Can you stop and think for a moment about what is the greatest hope of an Atheist? The greatest hope is that there is nothing after death." The Christian's hope is that we are going to live eternally with our Lord Jesus Christ. --------------------------- Creation Training: Arguments Against Evolution - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-arguments-against.html What are the strongest arguments against Evolution? We asked this question on our television show Christ in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblical discipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faith using Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. The Argument for Origins Dr. Reagan: I love that question because it just opens up every area of Science. Mike Riddle: To start off with, a lot of people say that the battle is between God's Word the Bible and Science. No, it is not. Because, who created all the scientific principles? God did. He is not in a battle with Himself. So, true Science will always support God's Word and refute Evolutionism. Let's get to some of the favorite arguments I use. The first one is called the "Origin of the Universe." Where did the matter come from to create the universe? We all know from good science and logic that from nothing, nothing comes. That question right there is a killer to the evolutionary model, because if you can't even get the first piece of matter then you've got nothing. The Argument for Complexity Mike Riddle: Here is one of my other favorite argument I call the "Origin of Life." I love this one. Why? Let's just take the cell. Let's start with one cell, for we've got about 60 trillion of these in our bodies. The cell is more complex than any machine mankind has ever made. Sixty trillion. Did you know that is greater than the national debt right now? Nathan Jones: Not for long! Mike Riddle: Well, yes. We have 60 trillion cells and each cell is more complex than any machine mankind has ever made. But, we don't have to talk about a cell. Let's go further back in complexity and just talk about one single protein, not DNA, but just a single protein. Our best scientists in the world cannot produce one single protein. They come up with all these explanations for why they cannot. The Argument for Oxygen Mike Riddle: Here's the point - life cannot start in the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere because oxygen destroys chemical bonds. So, if there was oxygen in the atmosphere, life could never have begun. So, what Evolutionists teach in our schools is this: the atmosphere was different back then and there was no oxygen. That is a ridiculous thought, too, because if we take away all the oxygen we have no ozone, because ozone is made out of oxygen. If we don't have any ozone then those ultraviolet rays come down and fry all life, therefore everything is dead. Now what Evolutionists are saying is that life started way down deep in the oceans so the sun light could not reach the proteins. I first think, "Wow, what a wonderful idea!" But, there is a process of water called hydrolysis, with hydro meaning "water." Hydrolysis literally means "water splitting." Water is necessary for us to survive, but it is one of the worst places in the universe for life to begin. Life cannot start with or without oxygen, and it cannot start in water. That is a huge problem for the Evolutionary model. The Argument for Protein Creation Mike Riddle: Let's then look at the structure of a protein. We have hands, both left and right. Our left and right hands are made up of the same things - four fingers and a thumb. But, the hands are not quite the same, because you put one hand behind the other and you'll notice your thumb and fingers are on opposite sides. Amino acids, which are these things that make up our proteins, they also come in two shapes called left and right-handed. They are mirror images of each other, just like our hands. Here's the situation. Every amino acid in all biological proteins and in all life is left-handed. The natural tendency when we let bonding go along by itself always bonds left and right. Our best scientists in the world in every experiment they've ever done always ends up with left and right-handed amino acids. The result is like death, for such a configuration poisons life. Life requires 100% left-handed amino acids. There's a lot to point out right there from a scripture - Romans 1:19-20, "God has given us all the evidence we need for believing in a Creator and no one has an excuse." I believe protein bonding is one of the great examples right there. Life cannot start by naturalistic processes. I think that is a powerful, powerful tool for people to use in countering the Evolutionist's false claims. The Argument for Design Dr. Reagan: I'm surprised you didn't mention the argument that most people use, and that is the argument of design. Mike Riddle: Design, well cell complexity and protein bonding both come under design. We could go on for days and days on just design. Dr. Reagan: All my life I wanted to see Mt. Rushmore. All of my life! Finally on our 50th wedding anniversary, my wife and I went to South Dakota and I finally saw Mt. Rushmore. I just stood there and thought, "Isn't it amazing what can be accomplished accidentally by erosion?" No, in truth, it hits you - when you have something that is designed, you have to have a designer. Mike Riddle: Right, when you look at every creature, every animal, you see incredible design in there that defies Evolutionism. Dr. Reagan: If I were to say that Mt. Rushmore was created accidently by erosion, a scientist would say I was insane. And yet, he turns around and says the whole universe accidently happened! Mike Riddle: Right. Take a look at our computers, well we know they didn't happen by accident, and they are nothing compared to the human body. Dr. Reagan: There has to be a designer. Nathan Jones: Romans 1:20 says that, "For His invisible attributes, that is His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what has been made, as a result people are without excuse." We have no excuse for denying a Creator. Mike Riddle: Yes, exactly. Dr. Reagan: At the time that Darwin wrote his book, he wrote about the complexity of the human eye. That was before they even had good studies in microbiology and all of the discoveries that we have now. He was just sure that Science would ultimately prove Evolution. And yet, it seems the more Science we discover, the more evidence we have against Evolution. Mike Riddle: Right. Actually, the best evidence against Evolution is God's Word itself, because it has never changed. There is a lot of Science in the Bible, and it has never had to change. But, our Science textbooks, we have to keep updating them, don't we? Dr. Reagan: When you talk about a lot of Science in the Bible, that is so true. For example, the Bible talks about how the earth is round (Job 26:10; Proverbs 8:27; Isaiah 40:21-22). And yet, Evolutionists call us "flat-earth people" if we believe in the Creation. The Argument for Morality Mike Riddle: Here's another argument - morality. What's the difference between good and evil? How do you determine if something is good or something is evil? When asking the Evolutionists that, they really don't have an answer. They cannot give a universal definition of what is evil and what it good. They'll talk about how maybe it's one's own opinion. Well, everybody has different opinions. Or, they'll say morality is whatever society believes. Well, different societies have different values. Only the Bible gives a universal definition. God commands us to be perfect. But, do you know what, we're not perfect, are we? God gave us a solution on how to be perfect, and that's His Son, Jesus Christ. So, God gives us the definition for He is the One who declares what is good and what is evil. He also declares that we have to be perfect, and He provides the solution for becoming perfect - accepting Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of our souls. In the seventh segment of this Creation training series with Mike Riddle, he'll explain why DNA destroys the Evolutionary model. ---------------- Creation Training: DNA Demolishes Evolution - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-dna-demolishes.html Does the existence of DNA destroy the evolutionary model? We asked this question on our television show Christ in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblical discipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faith using Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. Computer Code for the Body Dr. Reagan: Mike, DNA is so complex as I understand it. Even Bill Gates has said DNA is more complex than anything he's ever been able to program. How can a person continue to believe in Evolution with the evident complexity of DNA? Mike Riddle: First of all, the discovery of DNA from just what we know about DNA has demolished Evolution. The problem is that this fact is not being told in the educational systems. Students are being told a whole different story about DNA and how it supports Evolution. But, it doesn't. You know the mechanism for Evolution in that how it works depends on getting random mutations. Then through a series of random mutations there is a selection process that selects only the beneficial ones. There are some problems with that theory that we are not being told. First of all, mutations do not add new genetic information. They tend to take positive traits away or maybe keep them neutral at best. But, mutations have never been known to create new information, and therefore new and superior life. In talking about information, let's take a look at just one DNA molecule. When we compare that to our modern computer hard drives, the compactness of the information in just one DNA molecule is over 5 billion (that is with a "B") times more compact than any hard drive that we have today. That's incredible! DNA Helix And, where did that vast amount of information come from? Well, let me give you one of my best examples that I think really support design and a Creator God. Let's look at the monarch butterfly. I love that creature. Monarch butterflies starts off as a tiny, tiny little worm (the technical term is larvae), and in about 20 days it grows to maturity, reaching almost two inches long. Once it reaches maturity, it finds a special leaf and builds a silk pad on the bottom of that leaf. Then it connects itself and hangs in a "J" position. After a while you can start to see this caterpillar move, and when it starts to move it's going to build a chrysalis. It builds it from the head back. And that's not yet what is amazing. What happens next is amazing! Butterfly Stages Once that caterpillar is in its chrysalis, the entire caterpillar except for the heart dissolves into a green liquid. Let me ask you a question here, this will be like a homework assignment question. Go home tonight. Turn yourself into a green liquid. What are you going to do next? That's it, you're done, unless of course somebody who is all intelligent pre-programs information into your DNA so that you can reassemble yourself. This is called "pre-programmed information." Even if Evolution worked, it can't do because if Evolution worked it can only work for the here and now, it cannot see into the future for its mutation needs. So, I think the monarch butterfly is a great case for the design and intelligence of a Creator. Dr. Reagan: Basically you're saying that the DNA has demolished Evolution as a theory, and yet people cling to it because they close their eyes to the evidence? Mike Riddle: Yes, they close their eyes. And, also because they are not being taught the truth about what DNA is all about. Dr. Reagan: It reminds me of the book that came out recently by Ray Comfort with the title, You can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think. Mike Riddle: That's true, we're not being taught critical thinking skills anymore. Nathan Jones: That reminds me of Romans 1:21, "For although they knew God, they didn't glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead their thinking became nonsense and their senseless minds were darkened." They willfully wanted to be ignorant. That's being dumb on purpose. Mike Riddle: Right. What I like to teach is critical thinking skills, which we do in my classes. I give everybody three questions to ask when they are confronted by the Evolutionists: How do you know it's true? Has it ever been observed? So then, are you making any assumptions? In the eighth segment of this Creation training series with Mike Riddle, he'll explain why the fossil record destroys the Evolutionary model. ----------------------- Creation Training: Fossil Record Destroys Evolutionary Model - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-fossil-record.html Does the fossil record destroy the evolutionary model? We asked this question on our television show Christ in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblical discipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faith using Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. Those Telling Fossils Nathan Jones: Tell us about the fossil record. Doesn't the fossil record prove Evolution? Mike Riddle: When you look in school textbooks they'll say the fossil record sure proves Evolution. Here's another critical thinking question that I just love and I train our youth to ask this question. When you look in the textbooks we see all these transitional fossils there. But, here's the question - how much of that fossil was actually found, and how much was added in by an artist based on assumptions? What we find in reality are very few fragments of a lot of these fossils. The rest is just drawn by an artist. Dr. Reagan: What amazes me is they will find just one tooth - one tooth - and then an artist will draw this entire Neanderthal ape-looking person, all from one tooth. Mike Riddle: That's right, that's been done before. It's all imagination. Nathan Jones: When I was in seventh grade, we had a guy come to our class and put all these skulls on the table. He declared, "Look, this is the progression of humankind." So, I asked him, "Are those real, genuine skulls?" He actually answered, "Yes, yes, they are. These are real fossils." But in truth, not a single one of them could have actually been a real fossil of a pre-human skull. They were merely artist's plaster castings. And yet, this Evolutionist went up in front of our class and told us that the fossil record proved Evolution. He lied to a room full of kids. In truth, there is nothing in the fossil record that supports Evolution, for there are no transitional fossils of creatures changing from one species to another. Mike Riddle: When we look at the fossils, what do we find? For example, what does the fossil turtle look like? Exactly like a turtle. There is a bat that is supposed to be millions and millions years old, this fossilized bat, well it looks exactly like a bat. Dr. Reagan: What about a dog? Mike Riddle: A dog? They look like dogs. Dr. Reagan: Have you ever found a dat? Mike Riddle: We haven't found any of those either. Evolutionists say alligators go back hundreds of millions of years. Guess what? They look like in their fossil record the same as today - alligators. Every creature that is living today, if we can find their fossil, looks almost exactly like it is today. Let's then talk about fossil graveyards. These are grave yards where we find hundreds, sometimes thousands, of different kinds of creatures all buried and mangled together. In some cases dinosaurs are buried with all different kinds of creatures. First, how are fossils formed? They have to be buried rapidly by the sediment to keep the oxygen out and the scavengers out, or you're the bones are never going to become fossils. How do you get thousands of creatures in these fossil graveyards such as fish, mammals, and reptiles all buried together? They don't all live in the same zones even. We find most of these fossil graveyards in sediments laid down by water. So, fossil graveyards are not created by long, slow processes. It takes a catastrophic event to mix all these animals together. And yet, we find these fossil graveyards all over the world. What does that tell you? It is a great indicator of a worldwide flood. Dr. Reagan: I read one time where the writer said that the fossil record isn't really a record of historical ages, instead it is a record of an event, and that event is a worldwide flood. Mike Riddle: Exactly, fossil graveyards just scream of a worldwide flood. In the ninth segment of this Creation training series with Mike Riddle, he'll explain why the earliest datings of human records destroys the Evolutionary model. --------------- Creation Training: Language Records Destroy the Evolutionary Model - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-language-records.html Does language destroy the evolutionary model and prove the Flood? We asked this question on our television show Christ in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblical discipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faith using Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. Problems with Theistic Evolution Dr. Reagan: We discussed earlier the Gap Theory and how people have tried to use that to adjust the Bible to Science. There is also another way they try to do that, and it's called Theistic Evolution. Many who believe in Theistic Evolution also believe in the Gap Theory. What exactly is Theistic Evolution and what are the problems with this theory? Mike Riddle: Theistic Evolution is the idea that God used some form or forms of Evolution during His creative process. I hear this statement a lot of times, that God could have used Evolution. It's the wrong statement to make for a Christian. It's not a matter of what God could have done, rather it is a matter of what He did do as recorded in the Bible. There are some problems common to all the Theistic Evolutionary models concerning the days of creation being long periods of time, which the Bible does not teach, nor does Science support. For example, one such falsehood is called the Framework Hypothesis, where Genesis is taken as just being poetic and is not meant to be taken as real history. There are other forms out there, but they all have one basic thing in common, and that is the idea of billions of years. If we add billions of years into the Bible, that is clearly teaching death before sin. What happens in those billions of years is death, decay and disease, and that would all have to have happened before sin. If death was already there before sin, then why did Jesus Christ have to go to the cross and shed His blood and die and conquer physical death? We lose our foundation of the Gospel. Here's another argument from Genesis 1:31. God looks back on His entire creation and calls it, "very good." If we've already had billions of years of death, decay and disease like cancer which we find in the bones, then God is calling cancer very good? That oddly enough is what Theistic Evolutionists adopt. Human Records Nathan Jones: The Bible obviously goes back some four to six thousand years. Then we go back to most human records, and all human records only go back a few thousand years. If we have millions of years of human history, why then don't we see a book from 100,000 years ago, or a cave painting, or something that is really old? Mike Riddle: Well, you answered the question, for if we really had millions of years, we would have records today. But, since humanity really hasn't had millions of years, we don't see any records older than the Bible. We can even look at just language itself, and what we call the oldest or earliest of languages, well they are very complicated. Language didn't start off as simple languages. These early people did not communicate in grunts. We only think that from watching television. When we look back at the ancient peoples, they were not dumb back then. They were very smart people. Just look at Adam and Eve the things they did. One of my studies I teach is on ancient Egyptian mathematics. The people that were building the pyramids were using Calculus. They were very smart people back then. Sure, they didn't have the modern technology that we have with our computers, but what they achieved shows that people have always been very smart and very intelligent. When life spans were much longer and people lived a long time, they accumulated a vast amount of knowledge. So, yes, the records only go back to about the time right after the Flood. What was the purpose of the Flood? It destroy all of mankind. God did that. So, our written records will only back to about the time of the Flood, which is about 4,500 to 4,600 years ago. In the tenth segment of this Creation training series with Mike Riddle, he'll explain why Carbon 14 dating destroys the Evolutionary model. ------------------ Creation Training: The Big Bang Theory - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-big-bang-theory.html Is the Big Bang Theory a viable theory for explaining the origins of the universe? We asked this question on our television show Christ in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblical discipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faith using Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. The Big Bang Dr. Reagan: Scientists say the universe began with a big bang, an explosion. What are the problems with that theory? Mike Riddle: The first problem is that nowhere do we see the Big Bang in the Bible. The next thing we have to understand is what exactly is the Big Bang Theory? Why was it invented? Well, the Big Bang Theory was originally invented to explain everything in this universe without a Creator, and that's the first big problem. The second problem is that it doesn't agree with Science. This is where a lot of people are going astray. The Big Bang does not agree with Science. There are many scientific evidences that refute the Big Bang. One of the things I like to cover in one of my teaching courses is what is being taught in the schools. Rather, what they are not teaching in the schools. What we find in our public education system is that they are teaching Evolution and not real Science anymore. For example, let's talk about the Big Bang. Where did the matter come from to create the Big Bang? What exploded? You can't have something go "bang" until you have something that can go "bang". That's just common sense and logic. A second question is, "What caused that something to explode?" Those questions are not allowed to be asked in a lot of our universities classrooms, mind you. Then we have other problems. Did you know the Big Bang does not explain the origin of the stars? Stars do not form by naturalistic processes. No one has ever observed a star come from anywhere. So, where did they all come from? We get this idea from our textbooks that these great big dust clouds called nebula rotate around and around and around. As they rotate around and around we are told the gravitation collapses inward and after a period of time they form a star. Nathan Jones: A dust cloud forming a star? Mike Riddle: I give a technical term for that theory. It's called "bologna"! Did you know that we can do this experiment in the classroom where as the gas cloud rotates around it will begin gravitation and collapse inward? But, do you know what happens as it collapses inward? It generates heat pressure, and we can measure this. That heat pressure is always stronger than the gravity and always causes the cloud to expand outward, not inward. So, we have no scientific proof for how stars are formed. It's all conjecture based on Evolutionism. Then we have things called spiral galaxies. These are galaxies rotating around out there. Our Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. But, after so many rotations, they lose their spiral shape. So, if these galaxies are billions of years old, they should not be spiral shaped. Clearly there are many problems with the Big Bang Theory that don't explain the origin of the galaxies. Nathan Jones: Planets are even spinning around the wrong direction, too, right? Mike Riddle: Right. We have planets spinning the wrong way. We have what's called supernovas, which is a fancy term for stars that exploded. They've used up all their energy and then explode. In our Milky Way galaxy alone, and this is why they don't teach this, we only find enough exploded stars for an age of about 6,000 years. Isn't that amazing? Also, the fact that we have comets shows our solar system has to be very young. The Big Bang doesn't provide for the age of comets. Dr. Reagan: Not only does the Big Bang Theory have that problem and all the problems that you mentioned, but how many explosions have you ever seen that created order? Mike Riddle: None. Order is not created from chaos. Having been in the Marines, I know that for sure! Adherents to the Big Bang Theory teach that somehow the matter got there out of nowhere. How the matter got there, we are not allowed to ask. That matter then somehow started to expand and grew into a hot fireball. It exploded and created an expansion of space and time, and yet it has no center. That's the main part proponents of the Big Bang Theory cannot explain either. Light Speed Nathan Jones: Speaking of stars and them having to be young, wouldn't it take millions of years for their light from some of these stars to reach earth? After all, light takes a long time to travel, and 6,000 years is clearly not enough time. How do you explain that? Mike Riddle: When we look at those great distances between stars, on the surface level that looks like it would be a problem for Christians to explain. Here's the situation. The Bible teaches the earth is about 6,000 years old and was created in six literal days. So, if these galaxies out there are millions of light years away, how in the world could their light reach us in only about 6,000 years? We do have possible scientific explanations that could be right, and they could be wrong. We just don't know for sure. We mustn't forget that we have a God who can do anything. We tend to limit Him too much. He could get that light here. He could have used any scientific means. He could have used some miracles. But, our God we forget is all powerful and all knowing, for after all, He created everything out of nothing, so He can get the light here in the time that is needed for us to see it. Aside from that, we do have some possible scientific explanations. Nathan Jones: Yes, what are those scientific explanations? Because people don't generally take the, "well, God can just supernaturally do it" argument. Mike Riddle: True. Without getting into all the details which people can get online from the Answers in Genesis website or the Institute for Creation website, there is a scientific explanation called Time Dilation. It's about how gravity affects time. The greater the gravitational pull, the slower time will go. We can measure that using our atomic clocks, so we know that relationship happens. If we have a greater gravitational effect here on earth, then time could be going slower here than it is out there. Those stars could have aged hundreds of thousands and millions of years in just 6,000 earth years. Now, I'm careful when I talk about that, because we can get glazed eyes talking about that kind of stuff. Nathan Jones: Oh, no, I find it fascinating. Mike Riddle: There are other possible scientific explanations for why starlight appears to be millions of years old, but what I like to point out is what Evolutionists don't teach. The Evolutionist have a bigger problem than we do with the distance of starlight. First of all, they have to get their light source from stars. Well, where did those stars come from? They just make up rescue mechanisms by diverting the question away from origins. Here is another problem Evolutionists have, and that's related to the temperature of the universe. When we look out all around this universe, it seems to be what we call a homogenous or consistent temperature. There has not been enough time in the alleged 13 billion years for the light energy from this side of the universe to have traveled over and interact with the other side of the universe. In order to get a homogeneous temperature, all the light energy has to have interacted. But, there has not been enough time. Why then is the temperature all the same? Here is what the Evolutionists do, they have their answers and explanations for these things, but I'll point out every one of their explanations are not based on observable science. They use what we call a "rescue mechanism" to rescue their philosophy. In reality, the distance of starlight both believer and non-believer ultimately have to accept is by faith. What does your faith in Evolution have to offer me? I'll tell you what my faith in Jesus Christ has to offer you. In the fifth segment of this Creation training series with Mike Riddle, he'll explain why the Gap Theory makes no sense. -------------- Creation Training: The Gap Theory - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-gap-theory.html Is the Gap Theory a biblical teaching or just bad translation? We asked this question on our television show Christ in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblical discipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faith using Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. The Gap Theory Nathan Jones: We have Dr. David R. Reagan here, but there is a Dr. David F. Reagan out there who believes in the Gap Theory. People are always getting the Dr. Reagan's mixed up. Can you explain the Gap Theory for people so they know that we here at Lamb & Lion Ministries do not believe in the Gap Theory. Please tell us what the Gap Theory is and what are the verses it applies to. Dr. Reagan: I want to say that again - I do not believe in the Gap Theory. I've never believed in the Gap Theory. So, Mike, tell us about the Gap Theory. Mike Riddle: First of all, let me explain what the Gap Theory is and why it got invented. In the 1800's, people started believing that the earth was old and that was in part from what Charles Darwin brought about. The earth has to be old to accommodate the whole idea and philosophy of Evolutionism. A lot of our theologians started to cave in by that point and declared, "Well, if they've proven the earth to be billions of years old, where are we going to put this time into the Bible?" They decided to invent something called a gap to explain the long geologic ages in the fossil record. They put a gap in between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. These verses read, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void." What these confused theologians did in between those two verses was to put a gap of time of millions of years to accommodate the geologic time. To do this they reworded the Bible just a little bit so that it says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth became (not was) without form and void." In other words, the rewording gave the indication that God created the earth and then something happened before the rest of creation was completed. There are a lot of different versions to what this something could be. Some say it had to be Satan's fall which then made a flood which destroyed everything. The earth then became without form and void. We have to look at the word "became" which is the verb hayah in Hebrew. Can it mean became? Yes it can, but only in very specific cases, and only when hayah is proceeded by a preposition. In this case it is not proceeded by a preposition, so using "become" is an incorrect translation to translate that verb "became" rather than "was". Another text these Gap Theorists use is in the King James, and that's the word "replenish" from Genesis 1:28. God told the people to go and "replenish" gives the indication that something went wrong and people have to refill the earth. We have to understand the King James is not wrong there. We have to understand that when the King James Bible was written the word "replenish" meant "to fill," not "refill." so we have to have a little study in grammar here. After the King James Bible was written that verb underwent a definition change. Today it means "to refill." So, to translate that correctly in modern English we should use "fill" instead of "replenish." There are other problems with the Gap Theory. For instance, if we put the long geologic ages with the fossil record between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 the problem here is, what was going on during that gap? Death, decay, and disease. The Gap Theory clearly teaches death before sin, and the Bible teaches death after sin (Rom. 5:12). Dr. Reagan: How does someone like Hugh Ross handle this question? Mike Riddle: Hugh Ross' ministry will say that when it comes to sin the Bible's just referring to human death. Romans 5:12 does refer to just human death. But, he forgets Romans 8:22 where it says, "all of creation groans," which includes everything including the animals all because of one man's sin. So, he misses that point. Or, he'll come up and say, "There had to be death before sin. Plants were dying. What were Adam and Eve eating from? Plants. What happens when you dig up plants and eat them? We kill them." He forgets a very important point there. God gave the breath of life to humans, and He also gives life to the animals. But, nowhere in the Bible does God give the breath of life to plants. Plants biologically have life because they have a cell structure, but biblically they are not given life. So, there really is no death before sin found anywhere in the Bible, and therefore no gap between Genesis 1 and 2. Dr. Reagan: So, the theologians who can't accept a young earth have got to come up with another theory? Mike Riddle: Right, and unfortunately they in the process discredit the authority of God's Word. They are also not using good science in doing that because good science does indeed support a very young earth. Dr. Reagan: Yes, and so does the statement concerning the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments where you earlier pointed out it says a day is a day. Mike Riddle: Here's another one. Did you know Jesus Christ Himself believed in a young earth? In Mark 10:6, Jesus makes this statement, "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female." What is Jesus saying here? Man and woman were on this planet from the beginning of the Creation, and not after millions of years. There's Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and the eyewitness Creator to all things proclaiming the earth is young. In the sixth segment of this Creation training series with Mike Riddle, he'll give us the strongest arguments against Evolution. --------------- Creation Training: The Age of theEarth - By Nathan Jones - http://www.lamblion.us/2013/06/creation-training-age-of-earth.html Is the age of the Earth old oryoung? We asked this question on our television showChrist in Prophecy of Mike Riddle, the founder and director of a wonderfulministry called the Creation Training Initiative. It's a biblicaldiscipleship ministry that teaches Christians how to defend their faithusing Genesis and the teaching of a literal 6-day Creation. Age of the Earth Nathan Jones: Mike, one question we get a lot,and I even read it posted recently on our YouTube channel, is that peopleare always bashing Christians for our belief contrary to what Scienceclaims to have proven in that the earth is millions and millions of yearsold. People want to know why we don't just get off this Young Earth beliefand accept Science's conclusion for how everything came about throughEvolution. How do you respond to people like that? Mike Riddle: That is a very big question. People dobelieve, not only non-believers unfortunately as there are many Christiansout there as well, that scientists have proven the earth is billions ofyears old. That comes from a misinterpretation or misunderstanding of thelimits of science. Scientists cannot prove the age of the earth. We divide science into two main areas. One iscalled Observational Science or Operational Science. That's how we buildour jet engines and how we make our medical technology and how we developcomputers. Those are things that we can observe. We can touch and feelthem. Then there is another area of science calledOrigins Science, or Historical Science, which covers those events thathappened in the past. People obviously were not there to observe themhappening. Therefore, we have to piece the clues together. In other words,dating the origins of anything long past is based on assumptions or ourinterpretation of the evidence. That there are different types of sciences iswhat people do not understand. The scientist cannot prove the age of theearth, because according to Science he would have to have been there toobserve it being made. Incidentally, what many scientists are not lookingat is the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence that shows the earthis very young. The real issue for believers is that they arenot starting with the Bible. When I read the Bible beginning with Genesis,it starts off telling us that God created everything in six days. God usesthe word "day" there. What God did to make sure we understand they wereliteral days is that He put a number with each day: first day, second day,third day, fourth day. I like to ask people: "How many times did Goduse a number with the word 'day' in the Old Testament?" It's 410 times,and not one of those occasions does 'day' mean a long period oftime! God even made it easier for us because Hedefined His days as each having an evening and a morning. There was"evening and morning, the first day." There was "evening and morning, thesecond day." Everywhere in the Old Testament account we see the phrase"evening and morning." Each day then could only mean one 24-hourday. But, God didn't stop there. What a wonderful Godwe have! When He wrote down the Ten Commandments, in commandment numberfour He wrote this down, "For in six days the Lord made the heaven, theearth, the sea and all that it is in them therefore..." I like that word"therefore," for if we don't accept God's days of creation as beingliteral days, then commandment number four doesn't mean what it reallysays and it becomes open to our interpretation. If commandment number fouris open to our interpretation, then how can we trust the othernine? Nathan Jones: Commandment number four being about keepingthe Sabbath day. Mike Riddle: Right. By giving up our foundation in Genesis,we now have given up a literal interpretation of the Ten Commandments.This becomes a serious issue. Dr. Reagan: There was one observer of the Creation, and Hehas told us how He did it. It is God Himself. Mike Riddle: Exactly! Dr. Reagan: But, there are no scientists who were there toobserve the earth being formed, so they really haven't proved theirorigins theories? Mike Riddle: No, they can't prove the age of the earthbecause scientifically they would have had to have been there to observethe earth being formed. What they do instead is they look for evidencethat would tell the story. We all look at the same evidence, but then weinterpret what we see. People interpret based on our own worldview. Thatbecomes our starting point. As for me, I start with God's Word as myauthority. In the third segment of this Creation trainingseries with Mike Riddle, he'll explain why believing in the Genesisaccount of the Creation should matter toChristians. ------------------