Monday, June 28, 2010

Starlight and Time Problem

This May, 2010, a science club composed of a large number of home school groups in Tucson invited speakers from the Arizona Origin Science Association (AzOSA.org) to present lectures on Creation Science. On the last day, the teachers and students requested I add a presentation on starlight and time and answer the question: “If we can see galaxies that are billions of light years away, how can the universe be less than 10,000 years old?

First, let me give you a little background into the controversy that is raging in our classrooms on the subject of creation or intelligent design being taught alongside naturalistic evolution in our schools and colleges. The general argument against teaching creation or intelligent design in our schools is that these subjects are religious, whereas evolution is scientific. I want to show briefly here that both creation and evolution are based on faith. . I will expound on this in detail in a separate blog, but for now let’s examine the evolutionary and creation views regarding the origin of the universe.

The Evolutionary Model is based on Faith

About 16 billion years ago the universe came into being out of a big bang. Then, about 4.billion years ago the earth evolved. About 3.5 billion years ago life evolved on earth. Finally, humans evolved from ape-like creatures 1-2 billion years ago. Note here that one must take a huge leap of faith to accept that the origin of everything came from nothing, a violation of the laws of physics and causality as we know them. We also must accept by faith that life arose from non-life. We will talk about this later, so you will want to keep reading my blogs.

The Creation Model is based on Faith

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He created the stars and galaxies and all life. Note here it one must take a leap of faith and believe in a Creator God. So you really have a choice to make; put your faith in blind chance, or in God.

The Creation Model Can Explain the Starlight and Time Problem

Several creation models have addressed the starlight and time problem, and we will briefly discuss three. I will keep you updated on a new theory as more research is reported. The first and oldest theory states that light was created in transit. The problem with this theory is the light would be carrying images of events that never happened. For example, consider Supernova 1987a, visible in one of the Magellanic clouds. This theory would say the star never exploded at all. Instead God created an already-exploded dead star, and He created the image of an explosion along the path from that star to us, 6000 light-years away from us. Most astronomical data would be fiction. How then, could the "heavens declare the glory of God"?

The second theory is that the speed of light was once millions of times faster than it is today. I have worked a little with the author of this theory, Barry Setterfield and although his theory has caused controversy concerning the statistical analysis of the data, I believe his theory could ultimately provide answers to a lot of questions about red shifts, cosmic background radiation, and other problems in astronomy and geology.

The third theory was proposed by creation physicist Russell Humphries, author of the book Starlight and Time. This is the theory that uses Einstein’s theory of relativity. After all, it was God who invented relativity! Einstein merely discovered it. A certain effect of relativity allows light to travel across the universe during a single ordinary day in the earth's past, the 4th day of creation. This effect allows distant galaxies to age billions of years during the 4th day — yet if you had been on earth that day, it would have seemed to be no longer than a day is today.

This would mean that clocks — and all physical processes —ticked at very different rates in different parts of the early universe. Dr. Humphries idea is a logical consequence of putting what the Bible says about the cosmos into Einstein's theory of relativity.

Dr. Humphries takes the Bible at face value. Then he follows up the scientific consequences according to Einstein's (general) theory of relativity. The result is a theory which has a young earth rather than one billions of years old.

Perhaps our current “scientific” interpretation of what we observe is not correct and science really supports exactly what the Bible teaches – a young universe!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Refuting Evolution Arguments for Billions of Years

Statement of the Problem
There are primarily three power arguments used by evolutionists to saturate the media and educational system, and these arguments have a great deal of influence on our young people. The underlying motivation for these arguments is to destroy our faith in God. As a result, many with strong faith in God lose their faith when exposed to these "facts" disguised as science.

The purpose of this series of blogs is to refute these arguments, one by one and show that it is more reasonable to put one's faith in God rather than the so called science of evolution, which will be shown to also be based on faith in the religion of naturalism.

The Big Three Arguments in Physical Science

1. The Starlight and Time Argument
"Astronomers can observe galaxies billions of light years away from the earth. Since a light year is the distance light can travel in one year, the universe must be billions of years old."

2. The Geologic Column Argument
"Scientists find fossils in layers of rocks that are millions/billions of years old. We know these rock layers are millions/billions of years old because the fossils found in these rock layers are millions/billions of years old. We know the fossils are millions/billions of years old because they are found in rock layers that are millions/billions of years old."

3. The Radiometric Dating Argument
"Scientists know that radioactive elements decay into other elements as a result of alpha particle (a helium nucleus composed of 2 protons and two neutrons)and beta particle (an electron)decay with half lives ranging from 5700 years for C-14 (radioactive carbon) to millions of years for Uranium to Lead or Rubidium to Strontium decay, for example. Making certain assumptions, the fossils can dated using this technique and it agrees with the millions/billions of years in Argument 2.

Stay tuned as we explore in detail and refute each of these arguments!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Creation Worldviews Part 4. Biblical Creationism

Biblical Creationism

The basic tenants of Creation Science are summarized as follows:

The Bible reveals God’s creation; the Genesis account is true
Research reveals evidence for a young earth
Evidence claiming that evolution is a fact can be refuted


Creation scientists are not ashamed to make the bold proclamation that God is the Creator of all things. First of all, God has made Himself know through His creation. All you have to do is look up into the vast heavens and see all the stars, or look at the beauty of all the plants and animals on the earth, and you will see the handiwork of God.

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. Col 1:16

Creation scientists believe God’s Word is true; that He created everything in 6 days, as stated in Ex 20:11, that we are a special creation apart from the animals, created in God’s image, that man sinned and brought the curse of death upon all men, that God sent a great flood to destroy the world, but Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives were spared. Therefore we should see evidence a Noah’s flood, and we do. We should see genetic evidence that we are all descended from the sons of Noah, and we do in DNA studies. We will explore these things and much more in subsequent blogs.

We are held accountable for our beliefs
. The Bible says in Romans 1 that we are without excuse for not believing in our Creator God.

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, Rom 1:19-22

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.
Ps 33:6-9

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Heb 11:3

Why is it important to believe in Biblical Creationism? If we adopt a comprised worldview and accept evolution, we must say that the Bible is not really God’s Word , but that the Genesis account of creation is just an allegory written to ignorant men long ago who couldn’t understand the science we know today. The Book of Genesis not only tells us about creation, but about sin, death, marriage, worship, love, and many more important doctrines of the faith. If we deny creation, which is the foundation for all other doctrines, then how can we defend all the rest of the Bible? Ultimately, how do we defend the teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who affirmed the Genesis account of creation? The answer is, we can’t.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Creation Worldviews Part 3. Gap Theory

The Gap Theory

The gap theory is an attempt by Christian theologians to reconcile the time scale of world history found in Genesis with the popular belief that geologists provide "undeniable" evidence that the world is exceedingly old. The gap theory is described as follows:

“In the far distant dateless past, God created a perfect heaven and perfect earth. Satan was ruler of the earth, which was peopled by a race of "men" without any souls. Satan, rebelled by desiring to become like God. Because of Satan's fall, sin entered the universe and brought on the earth God's judgment in the form of a flood. All the plant, animal, and human fossils upon the earth today date from this "Lucifer's flood" and do not bear any relationship with the plants, animals, and fossils living upon the earth today. Some versions of the gap theory state that the fossil record (geologic column) formed over millions of years, then God destroyed the earth with a catastrophe that left it "without form and void.“ This all happened between Gen 1:1-1:2.

Some of the inconsistencies in the gap theory are as follows:

God says He created everything in 6 days and that it was good. No gap is mentioned in the Bible.

The gap theory puts sin, death, and disease before the fall of man. The Bible says that sin, death, and disease are the result of the fall of Adam.
The gap theory accepts the geologic column with the long ages of earth, extinction of the dinosaurs, etc. A literal interpretation of creation in the Bible is inconsistent with a literal interpretation of the geologic column.

The gap theory replaces Noah’s flood with a “satanic” catastrophe. Some even deny Noah’s flood was global for fear of ridicule by geologists who believe in a global flood on Mars but not on Earth!

Gap theory proponents say Gen 3:3 and Rom 5:12 refers to spiritual death, but this
Contradicts Gen 3:22-23 and 1 Cor 15. In placing on man the curse of physical death, God provided a way to redeem man through the person of His Son Jesus Christ.

Next Blog: Biblical Creationism

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Creation Worldviews Part 2. Theistic Evolution and Progressive Creation

Theistic Evolution/Progressive Creation

Those who embrace Theistic Evolution or Progressive Creationism accept the following evolutionary timescale of creation:

About 16 billion years ago the universe came into being out of a big bang. Then, about 4.billion years ago the earth evolved. About 3.5 billion years ago life evolved on earth. Finally, humans evolved from ape-like creatures 1-2 billion years ago.

Basically, the Theistic Evolution worldview is based on the acceptance of the current big bang theory and resultant stellar evolution of galaxies and planets, then biological evolution. In other words the big bang was initiated by God and then everything was left to natural processes. In terms of interpreting the scientific data, evolutionists and theistic evolutionists believe the current theories set forth by the evolution model. Therefore the Theistic Evolution worldview is a compromise because the Bible cannot be taken as the literal word of God. The creation days must be accepted as long periods of time.

Progressive Creationism also accepts the evolutionary time scale, big bang, stellar evolution, life on earth evolving up to pre-adamic apemen. The progressive creationist professes to believe in God, and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior; however, when it comes to science they accept the current evolutionary theory. Thus they deny the literal Bible account of creation, saying the stars and sun evolved out of the big bang, so the earth started out as a fiery mass, not as water and land, the stars and sun must have been created before the earth, and the birds could not have been created before the reptiles because the birds supposedly evolved from bird ancestors. They also deny the literal six days of creation and take each day as billions of years to accommodate the supposed evolutionary time scale.

Thus Progressive Creationism, in an attempt to appease the scientific community, denies what God clearly says in Genesis 1-11 and Exodus 20:11, and what Jesus affirmed in the New Testament about creation. Do you want to put your faith in the Bible, which is unchanging, or in the latest theories of science that continually change.

Next Blog: The Gap Theory

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Creation Worldviews Part 1. Intelligent Design

In today's blog we will begin to explore several creation worldviews or belief paradigms:
Intelligent Design
Theistic Evolution
Progressive Creationism
Gap Theory or Ruin-Restoration Theory
Biblical Creationism

First, we will look at the basic questions of life. You can ignore these questions and just live your life the way you want, but you are traveling down a slippery slope toward destruction. Pr 14:12 There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Who am I? An animal with higher intelligence evolved from the primordial soup? Am I made in the image and likeness of God? Am I fearfully and wonderfully made, or just a cosmic accident? Do you believe Gen 1:27, Ps 139:14 or your Biology teacher?
Why am I here? Does my existence have a purpose? Is there really a God and he loves me? Can I trust in the Bible verses John 3:16, Romans 5:8, Titus 3:4-7?
What is going to happen to me when I die? Is this all there is: struggle, suffering, maybe a few happy days, then you die? Is there any way I can know how to go to heaven? Do I need to believe in Jesus to be saved? Can I believe the Bible’s answer? Rom 3:23, Rom 6:23, John 3:3, John 14:6, 1 John 5:13

You basically have two worldview choices: creation or evolution. However many people try to mix these worldviews, but we shall see that these mixed worldviews are all compromises. The Bible says God formed man out of the dust of the earth; evolution says we evolved from apes. How can you believe in God and evolution at the same time? As we shall see, you must twist the Bible interpretation of days, add gaps, or have ape-creatures before Adam was created. Let's look at some creation worldviews. First Intelligent design:

Intelligent Design Points to Creation but not the Bible
Intelligent Design avoids bringing God or the Bible into consideration. Many intelligent design proponents do not believe in God. Most intelligent design proponents believe in some type of directed evolution.

The arguments for intelligent design are very compelling, for example the irreducible complexity of a bacterial flagellant. The complex cells could not have evolved by random chance; they must have been designed.
Scientists have trained multitudes of telescopes toward the heavens searching for signs of extraterrestrial life. If they receive a signal with a little information, for example a set of numbers in a geometric progression, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 it would prove an intelligent being sent the message.

Meanwhile, in the genetics lab, scientists find an intelligent, non-random, reproducible code in our DNA and conclude there is no intelligent design in life and fight to keep this information out of the classroom.

I attended an Intelligent Design conference at Arizona State University and at the end of the conference a student asked, “Is the Intelligent Designer the God of the Bible?” The professor said, “Oh No, we do not want to offend anyone by bringing religion into the discussion.” So we see this is a compromised worldview. We must lead people to God or all this scientific discovery will be meaningless. We can however use a lot of information from Intelligent Design to refute evolution before we present the case for creation.

My next Blog will discuss Theistic Evolution.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Why Does Your Worldview Matter?

We All Have a Worldview That Forms Our Belief System

Everyone has a worldview or belief system. We all have preconceived ideas about life, how we got here, where we are going, and what path we should take. We learned these things when we were young from our parents and teachers. When we were young we just believed what we were told without question, but when we got older and started to think for ourselves we formed our belief system. Some of us who were raised in a Christian home and believed in Jesus but went astray when we were older only to return to the faith because we knew deep down Jesus is God and He loves us and wants us to love Him.

Some of us were raised in a non-Christian home and were never taught to believe in God. And, unfortunately some were raised in a Christian home, believed in Jesus, but when we went to school or college we were taught that evolution is true, there is no God, so you might as well eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die. The indoctrination of the secular evolutionary worldview is now so strong; many of our young people are turning from the faith. The great lie today is that you can believe in both God and evolution. The truth is that if you accept evolution, you in effect call Jesus a liar; you don’t really believe the Bible is true and that God created everything. You compromise your faith.