Comment on Hope? Slim to none by Lydian.
I recently purchased a book from Creation Miniseries entitled “The Genesis Files” Lower down on the cover it said “Meet 22 Modern-Day Scientists Who Believe in a Six-Day Recent Creation.” That fascinated me because we hear so much about “great scientists” who believe and preach evolution–and the implication is that there are no “great, reputable creationist scientists” or “scientific evidence” available. That simply is not true!
AND, sad to say, I have been very disappointed by the fact that I have been unable to find anything of much importance from US! I don’t mean to be critical–maybe it’s just me–but I can’t help but wonder just what GRI’s function is. (Frankly, I haven’t even looked at their web site recently–which I did a lot to begin with–but never could find anything of any significance on it so just quit looking.)
At any rate, I was delighted to get this book and want to introduce these men, one by one, to you. (Of course, I can’t include the actual article for it is copyrighted but I’ll do my best to let you know about them. (If you want to know more you can always order the book.)By the way, this is just the first book featuring a series of Christian scientists who wholeheartedly believe in the Genesis account–most of whom were die-hard evolutionists before they really examined the evidence FOR Creation. I understand this is only the first of a series of books on this subject.
Belief in Creation is NOT just a “blind faith only” thing–regardless of what the teachers at LSU seem to believe! There appears to be plenty of evidence “out there” that those who believe in evolution–including professors (AND Management) at LSU–simply refuse to really look at. The “wisdom” of puny mortals just cannot even begin to compare with the wisdom of our God! But, as the saying goes–“There are none so blind as those who will not see!”
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Dr. James Allen, Geneticist M.Sc.Agric, (Stellenbosch). Ph.D. (Edinburgh), retired as senior lecturer in the Department of Genetics, Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 1992. He has researched the genetics of fruit flies, snails, chickens, dairy cattle, and fish, and taught students quantitative and population genetics, particularly in its application to the breeding of animals.
He accepted evolution as a young student in college, and believed it for about 40 years. And never questioned the idea. Then he started attending a different church (doesn’t say which one) was converted when he heard the gospel of Jesus for the first time.He then started to read his Bible “really meaningfully for the first time” but did not then give up his belief in evolution.
He became very angry with his wife one day when she asked him if there was any reason why God shouldn’t have created all forms of life on the basis of a universal genetic code ode? Finally he got up and stalked out of the house.
But he started thinking as he walked and said to himself “You know, maybe she has a point.” He said he truly felt God speaking to him and he thought, “Maybe God DID create all life on the basis of as universal genetic code–why should we expect God to do things any differently?” He suddenly became aware that “the Word of God” was more important than his concept of science.
Earlier if folks bought up the idea of things being created he would shrug it off because he felt it was ‘nonsense’ and not science!” But now he began to look more critically at some of things that “seemed so logical” earlier. In the last decade he has looked at the other side of the issues and found that the creation concepts were “perfectly reasonable and intellectually acceptable.”
He now is saddened by so many “scientists” insisting on interpreting scientific findings–which are “unproven and unprovable”–as “facts.” (There is much more information in this article and anyone wishing to know more would do well to get, and read this exceptional magazine and read these articles for themselves.
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This is a man after my own heart! He was intelligent enough and honest enough to see his own mistake and change courses. Would that we were all so noble!
In closing, I wish someone would please explain to me how a person who might hear me exclaim in wonder at the “miracle” of evolution when I examined a simple mouse trap would consider me either a stupid old lady (or else demented!) then turn right around and solemnly tell me something as complex as my eyes “just evolved” with absolutely no “mind” behind them?
It obviously take a mind to build and maintain a beautiful garden or landscape–so why is it unreasonable to believe it took a mind to create the majestic redwoods, the magnificent oceans, lakes, and mountains as well as the flowers, the birds, and the animals–and people that fill our world???
If that’s what a”degree” in evolution is all about (and it appears to me that is the case) then I’m very thankful I never obtained one! When in this wide, wide world did “common sense” die off?
And I also wish someone would explain to me why we, as a church, have put up with this heresy and nonsense for decades. (And, as far as I can tell–are still“beating around the bush” in dealing with it.) Have so many “fences” been built around our conferences and institutions that the GC is incapable of doing anything positive about it? If so, we had better find some way to get rid of those ‘fences”–if it isn’t already too late!.
(While we don’t want “dictators” neither do we want “figureheads” with absolutely no power to DO something in cases like this. There must be a “happy medium” somewhere.(Is it too late to find it?)
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Lydian Also Commented
Hope? Slim to none
Dear Ken,
I haven’t felt much like laughing these days but your Dead People really set me off–and I still laugh whenever I read it. Have shared it with family and we all laugh. I know you didn’t do it on purpose but it was a great “lifter upper” for me. I’m adding it to the “posts I save.”
Lydian
Hope? Slim to none
Would someone please explain to me where the seven-day week came from? The only reason for it that I know of is Genesis 1. That these were literal, 24 hour days is shown by God saying “the evening and the morning were the 1st day, the evening and the morning were the 2nd day–and so on.
As I recall there have been a few attempts to change the number of days in the weekly cycle but all have failed.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Hope? Slim to none
Dear Ken,
Thank you so much for taking the time to send me the article on bird migration. I only wish I had the “scientific mind” to fully understanding their reasoning–but, unfortunately, I don’t.
I grew up in a time when evolution was a non-issue– at least in my church and our educational system–so never gave it a second thought until this LSU situation was called to my attention a year or so ago. Frankly, I’m thankful that was the case because it gave me the chance to develop an unshakeable, strong faith in my Bible and my God. (Not that I am such a great Bible student because I’m not. It has only been the past few years while my grand children were growing up that I “woke up” and really started to try to understand prophecy and the great significance it had in truly “knowing” God and His plans and purposes for me and for our truly “little” world. )
No, Ken, we are NOT the biggest and most advanced planet in the universe even tho we seem to think we are. But we ARE the one planet that rebelled against our Creator and bringing us back “Home” is the most important item on God’s agenda. He could have just wiped us out and started all over again, you know, but instead He loved us so much He was willing to go to any length to bring us “Home” again. Such love is simply beyond my comprehension!
But there were two sentences in the article I did understand (at least somewhat!) and here they are:
“The lack of knowledge of the molecular basis of migration is currently not only limiting our insight into the proximate control of migration, but also into its evolution.”
And:
“Despite extensive research over decades, the molecular, physiological and endocrinological mechanisms underlying the regulation of migratory movements remain largely unknown.”
From my point of view, the answer is “In the beginning, GOD….”. I accept the fact that this does take faith’ Ken, but doesn’t belief in evolution also take faith? It seems to me that some things I have heard as “proven facts” are some times later proven untrue by archaeology.
Who knows–some day maybe God will see fit to reveal the remains of Noah’s Ark–altho I am in no way saying that this will happen. There are many things that will always need to be believed by faith alone–based entirely on what God has seen fit to reveal to us and I have no problem with that.
Ken, prophecy is the ‘solid rock” on which I build my unshakable faith in the Bible. I’ll talk more about that in my next contribution.
Recent Comments by Lydian
A New Endowment Program for Adventist Education
So here I sit–a “very old lady”–totally confused and not having a clue as to whether to donate or not–or where to donate if I should.
As things stand now I think I will just continue putting my own little amount to my current “missionary out reach” of buying “Steps to Christ” and “Who Do You Think You Are?” and passing them on to the clerks in the stores where I shop or other people I meet that I think would like them.
If and when you folks decide on what, how and where to help in this very worthy project let me know and I’ll do what I can then.
A New Endowment Program for Adventist Education
I just noticed that there is such a program in place in northern California but I would want one that is nation wide. After all, if our kids aren’t already in danger here in the southern union also (as well the rest of the US) it’s most likely only a short matter of time till they will be.
A New Endowment Program for Adventist Education
I am far from a wealthy person who could and gladly would donate large sums of money to such a program but I could and would gladly donate some if such assurances were solidly in place. I’m sure there are many “old folks” like me “out there” who feel the same way. (Is there already such a program in place? If so please post all needed information.)
The God of the Gaps
While browsing my rather voluminous file of articles to “save” I ran across this jewel—I think it is worth saving and thinking about–especially the last statement by Darwin himself:
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Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
While Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is a relatively young archetype, the evolutionary worldview itself is as old as antiquity. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Anaximander postulated the development of life from non-life and the evolutionary descent of man from animal. Charles Darwin simply brought something new to the old philosophy — a plausible mechanism called “natural selection.” Natural selection acts to preserve and accumulate minor advantageous genetic mutations. Suppose a member of a species developed a functional advantage (it grew wings and learned to fly). Its offspring would inherit that advantage and pass it on to their offspring. The inferior (disadvantaged) members of the same species would gradually die out, leaving only the superior (advantaged) members of the species. Natural selection is the preservation of a functional advantage that enables a species to compete better in the wild. Natural selection is the naturalistic equivalent to domestic breeding. Over the centuries, human breeders have produced dramatic changes in domestic animal populations by selecting individuals to breed. Breeders eliminate undesirable traits gradually over time. Similarly, natural selection eliminates inferior species gradually over time.
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Darwin’s Theory of Evolution – Slowly But Surely…
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is a slow gradual process. Darwin wrote, “…Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps.” [1] Thus, Darwin conceded that, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” [2] Such a complex organ would be known as an “irreducibly complex system”. An irreducibly complex system is one composed of multiple parts, all of which are necessary for the system to function. If even one part is missing, the entire system will fail to function. Every individual part is integral. [3] Thus, such a system could not have evolved slowly, piece by piece. The common mousetrap is an everyday non-biological example of irreducible complexity. It is composed of five basic parts: a catch (to hold the bait), a powerful spring, a thin rod called “the hammer,” a holding bar to secure the hammer in place, and a platform to mount the trap. If any one of these parts is missing, the mechanism will not work. Each individual part is integral. The mousetrap is irreducibly complex. [4]
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is a theory in crisis in light of the tremendous advances we’ve made in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics over the past fifty years. We now know that there are in fact tens of thousands of irreducibly complex systems on the cellular level. Specified complexity pervades the microscopic biological world. Molecular biologist
Michael Denton wrote, “Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world.” [5]
And we don’t need a microscope to observe irreducible complexity. The eye, the ear and the heart are all examples of irreducible complexity, though they were not recognized as such in Darwin’s day. Nevertheless, Darwin confessed, “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” [6]
Footnotes:
1. Charles Darwin, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” 1859, p. 162.
2. Ibid. p. 158.
3. Michael Behe, “Darwin’s Black Box,” 1996.
4. “Unlocking the Mystery of Life,” documentary by Illustra Media, 2002.
5. Michael Denton, “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis,” 1986, p. 250.
6. Charles Darwin, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” 1859, p. 155.
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I don’t think Sean could have said it better himself!
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
Sean, I guess I “bit off more than I can chew” when I subscribed to some of your other options.
All I can handle is the ^way it used to be”–like this column still is. Please put me back to this mode of information and I will be very happy. Thanks.
