A NATION WITHOUT FAITH IS A NATION WITHOUT HOPE

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Fifty-three years back, in 1971, 87 percent of Australians identified as religious, and overwhelmingly as Christian. Now it’s just 54 percent. It is a similar decline as in the U.S.A.

And here’s the really striking feature: only five years ago, 52 percent of us identified as Christian. Now it’s just 44 percent. That’s an almost 20 percent decline in Christian belief in just five years. Some of that will be people who don’t worship regularly anymore and feel fraudulent in ticking the religion box even though their faith is still with them. For others, it represents a clear rejection of organised religion. Five years back, only 30 percent of Australians identified as having no religion. Now it’s 39 percent. That’s a 30 percent leap in just five years, making no religion the fastest-growing “creed” in the country. Why does that matter? It may not be fashionable to say so but in reality, our culture is built on a Christian foundation. Our democracy, for instance, rests on the notion that everyone is equal in rights and dignity, something that’s come down to us through the Christian gospels. Elsewhere in our culture, our justice system rests on the notion that we should treat others as we’d be treated; again that comes from Christian teaching. Our sense of community too rests on the notion that we should “love our neighbours as we love ourselves”. It’s a commandment at the heart of our volunteerism and philanthropy. Then there’s the significant matter of what religious organisations contribute to social uplift. Beyond a values-based education, they run many health and community services. To reference the largest Christian denomination, the Catholic Church, as an example, there are 80 Catholic hospitals across the country and 25,000-plus aged-care beds in Catholic nursing homes, as well as social welfare bodies and charities with a broader Christian inspiration – from the Salvation Army to the St Vincent de Paul Society, to Anglicare, to Lifeline, and Alcoholics Anonymous – all organisations that are generally thought to be serving Australians well, however, discredited the zeitgeist might find the faith which inspires their good works.

When people believe there is no God then of course they make up their own rules. It is survival of the fittest and truth is what you make it. Your truth may not be my truth. Gay marriage, homosexuality, and transgenderism are just the start. The only true reality is built on the first sentence of the Bible: “In the beginning God created”. Our Creator has given us the truth about the origins of our Cosmos and humankind. If you want answers to the big questions: Who Am I? then there is only one place to go God’s Word. Can I also suggest Martyn Isles book Who Am I?

Evolution and billions of years is the God of this World, Satan’s, greatest strategy. He has convinced even our learned scholars, our educators that the Cosmos did not need a Creator. It is absurd as nothing comes from nothing. This highly complex universe with its laws and interconnectedness had to have an omnipotent designer but, our learned scholars cannot countenance the supernatural yet, it is the obvious, in fact, the only possible solution.

If you want proof of creation versus evolution and the Biblical account of creation, then go to http://www.answersingenesis.org and http://www.creation.com.

Source of much of this information: Peta Credlin is the host of Credlin on Sky News.

FOR GEN Z, GOD AND THEREFORE HOPE ARE GONE

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Our godless schools and universities have taught this generation that this Cosmos came into existence through a Big Bang and evolution. Despite the overwhelming evidence for an intricately designed universe, they cannot and will not countenance God.

Why? “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9 and they have been blinded by the god of this world, our supernatural enemy, Satan. “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

By definition, hope is beyond us and bigger than us. True Hope is given by God. Gen Z is a generation that has no hope. It is destined for hopelessness and depression.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ… ” Titus 2:12-14

This post was inspired by my reading Martyn Iles’s book WHO AM I? SOLVING THE IDENTITY PUZZLE. I love his challenge in the book:

I challenge any reader to find me positive feedback on the human condition outside of Jesus Christ, after THE FALL OF MAN (Genesis 3), anywhere in Scripture. You and I frequently do the wrong thing because our hearts are corrupted by all kinds of sin. That has always been the human predicament after Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

Fortunately, our Heavenly Father has provided a way back into the right relationship with Him.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” John 3:16-21

IN AN INCREASINGLY GODLESS SOCIETY PEOPLE ARE BLINDED TO THE TRUTH

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The Bible tells us, that Satan has “blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel” (2 Corinthians 4:4), and the extent of this mind control is truly remarkable. The insistence that it is a fact that ‘primitive’ life emerged out of the oceans, by purely natural processes, is breathtaking, given that scientists have absolutely no idea how it could have happened. Evolutionists are hard-pressed to identify more than one or two mutations that appear to have added information to genomes,1 yet they insist that this happened billions and billions of times throughout history, to create all the interconnectedness and complexity of the living world. The dogma of an exceedingly ancient Earth, when current rates of erosion indicate that the continents would have been flattened many times over, were they really millions of years old, is nothing less than self-inflicted blindness.

In an interview on the Andrew Marr Show,3 shortly before becoming the UK Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove stated, “Well, to my mind, you cannot have a school which teaches creationism. And one thing that we will make absolutely clear is that you cannot have schools which are set up which teach people things which are clearly at variance with what we know to be scientific fact.”

Telling children that all their faculties, and all humanity’s achievements, can be attributed to a process of ‘survival of the fittest’ and ‘natural selection’ is surely fraught with danger, and the idea that such a belief system will not lead to the most selfish and violent of societies is folly of the highest order. Moreover, teaching that the different ‘human races’ arose through evolutionary processes will inevitably cause people to ask, “Have some evolved more than others?”—and denying that such a view of humanity will not give rise to a return to state-sponsored racism, is naive in the extreme. God has given people the necessary intellectual ability to think these things through, yet most scientists, educational institutions, and politicians have swallowed these deceptions, lock, stock, and barrel.

The insistence that belief in evolution is necessary for scientific advancement and medical progress is astonishing, given the difficulty scientists have in pointing to technological breakthroughs that arose from evolutionary thinking. As pointed out by Dr. Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School,

“In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all” (Peter Dizikes, Missing Links, Boston Globe, 23 October 2005. Accessed, November 4th 2010 at www.boston.com).

Godlessness leads to the suppression of the truth (Romans 1:18) and those who love evil deliberately avoid it (John 3:19,20)

The Bible, when read in a plain and straightforward manner, provides a clear framework for our faith, without which we will flounder. Only by refusing to compromise in our interpretation of Genesis can we provide a coherent message. If we believe the Bible from the very first verse, then when people ask us why there is so much suffering in the world, we have an answer: It was not part of the original creation and came into the world only as a result of man’s sin (disobeying God, his Creator). Evolution explains this death and suffering as a good thing for mankind because it supposedly led to our evolution—not a reminder to us that the Creation is cursed (Romans 8). The evolutionary view thus immunises people from realising their fallen state.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9-19

“What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 7:20-23

When people question us about whether God cares about us in our fallen state, we can tell them that, no sooner had man sinned, God announced His plan of salvation (Genesis 3:15). When they ask us why the sedimentary rocks contain billions of fossils, and billions of tons of coal and other fossil fuels, we can point them to the Noahic Flood (Genesis 6-8). When they ask us where the different ‘human races’ came from, we can point them to the dispersal at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) and explain that there is only one human race, the one descended from Adam. When they ask us how Christ could die for their sins, we can explain that just as all sinned in Adam, so all may be redeemed in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). According to Jesus, the greatest commandment is that we should love the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all our souls and with all our minds (Matthew 22:37). How can we do this if we have lingering doubts that we do not get answered? If our commitment is to be total, we must have a reference point, a clear set of beliefs and a certain path to follow. Only the Bible can provide this, through its perfect revelation of God and His ways, and His great and precious promises, which enable us to participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world (2 Peter 1:4). And making the Bible central and preeminent in our thinking will make God central and preeminent.

Taken from the article In an increasingly godless society … truth matters! by Dominic Statham on http://www.creation.com

Sorry! My WIFI was down for three days hence no posts were put up until this one on Tuesday 10/04/2024.

BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS ARE INCOMPREHENSIBLE WITHOUT TAKING GOD INTO ACCOUNT

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Hundreds of different programs are used by cells to function efficiently. Who designed and created these programs? And what about all the manufacturing units and distribution machinery in every cell the programs control?

Mass media, YouTube, and the modern form of (mis)education

Much of the indoctrination in evolution, defined as litter → LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) → Laureates, is currently being conducted through mass media and YouTubers. Very few read or are qualified to understand, the primary evolutionary literature. Middlemen produce interpretations, having a veneer of vague, conceptual plausibility, with a generous sprinkle of technical terms thrown in.

One YouTuber who has engaged in many online video debates with creation scientists and Intelligent Design supporters reviewed Maury’s paper and educated his followers with the missing details for how amyloids supposedly led to the modern genetic system. Disturbingly, more people see videos like these than are critically evaluating the primary literature.

With supreme confidence, the YouTuber explained:

“And ATP is another naturally occurring energy source near hydrothermal vents. So, we know that amyloids have ATPase activity they can utilize the energy of ATP to do work. And once you develop this interaction between amyloids and ATP, it’s only a matter of time until you start having refinements into the information storing system. The stringing of ATP and different triphosphate nucleotides together into DNA and RNA, the incorporation of lipids which are again found naturally at hydrothermal vents and which spontaneously formed bilayer membranes; as well as the creation of protein enzymes to do specific function.” 

Addressing all the errors in this one paragraph alone required a full paper (Truman, R., Amyloids and ATP fictitious chemistry)

Our concern is that careless wording by evolutionary scientists and those embellishing and passing on errors are seriously misguiding many.

Evolution theory and the influence of science fiction

Norbert Wiener, the founder of Control Theory, showed that information is a real entity and that reality can only be understood by considering the effects of matter, energy, and information. Downgrading the meaning of information instead of using well-understood concepts to describe matter leads to serious mistakes. Not only is what philosophers call a category mistake created, but a tendency is increasing in the origin of life community to replace hard scientific work with vague imagery.

If design is so readily detectable outside science, and if its detectability is one of the key factors keeping scientists honest, why should design be barred from the content of science? Why do Dawkins and Crick feel compelled to constantly remind us that biology studies things that only appear to be designed, but insist they are not designed? Why couldn’t biology study things that are designed?

The biological community’s response to these questions has been to resist design absolutely, which is absurd.

Dr. Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University, said: “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.” Ref: Todd, Scott C., correspondence to Nature 401, num. 6752 (September 30, 1999):423

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Romans 1:19-23

THE WORLD CONTINUES TO REJECT GOD AND CREATION AND TEEN MENTAL HEALTH WORSENS

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Article by Sarah Holliday in the Washington Stand, February 13, 2024.

Sarah does not mention the key factor that is impacting the mental health of teens. It is the teaching of evolution as a fact in schools, even Christian schools. The Big Bang and Evolution remove God from His creation and make the Bible a book of fables and myths. It also removes any purpose or meaning to life. There is no hope or knowledge of the God who loves His creation and has provided a way back into a right relationship with Him.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

A recent study conducted by Common Sense Media (CMS) found that America has a teen mental health crisis. Yet, with the way social media has plagued the younger generations, is anyone really surprised by this? But it goes beyond technology, as many factors contribute to the decay of younger generations and their mental health.

“The negative effects of social media on young people’s mental health is a top concern, including across party identification,” CSM reported. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a survey in 2021 that noted the roles “risky sexual practices, illicit drug and alcohol use, and bullying at school” play in this analysis. We are also seeing a rise in broken homes and fatherlessness, and many researchers suggest the pandemic worsened the mental health crisis that was already present.

And at a time in history when the world is warring over the topic of identity, how are developing youth supposed to know what to believe about anything? Marlo Slayback, national director of Student Programs at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, shared with The College Fix that over time, “the culture surrounding Gen Z [has changed]. It’s a recipe for despair, hopelessness, nihilism, disaffection.” She described it as a “decaying culture” that causes young people to “feel alienated and lost at sea.”

While many societal factors could be considered, the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University conducted a survey that found children between eight and 12 years old, preteens, are increasingly denying biblical truths. Is this a coincidence amid the growing mental health crisis? I don’t think so.

According to the results, only 21% of preteens agreed that “there are absolute truths — things that are right and things that are wrong, that do not depend on feelings, preferences, or circumstances.”

Only 27% of preteens believed “the main reason to live is to know, love and serve God, with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” And only 17% felt a successful life was connected to obedience to God.

George Barna, the director of Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center and Family Research Council senior research fellow, said these results only reflect the lack of biblical worldview present in the lives of many today. He added, “[W]e are on the precipice of Christian invisibility in this nation unless we get serious about this crisis and invest heavily in fixing what’s broken.”

Barna explained, “Children are intellectual and spiritual sponges in their preteen years. They are desperately trying to make sense of the world, their identity, their purpose, and how to live a meaningful and satisfying life.” As such, it’s obvious how toxic social media and other issues have caused mental health problems among this group. But it’s also worth emphasizing the spiritual aspect.

As Christians, we know the only true life is a life lived for Christ. Upon conversion, we are spiritually reborn into a new creation that has a desire to follow and obey Jesus and His word. Our eyes are opened to the truth of this world as laid out in Scripture. And once our eyes are opened, we can see how the world has so greatly abandoned these biblical truths. And what follows? Disorder and destruction; confusion and hopelessness.

When I was growing up, life wasn’t as crazy as it is now, but I still had to face the realities of its brokenness. And it was my biblical worldview that allowed me to persevere through any hardships growing up. Young people now are growing up in a society that believes men can become women and vice versa. They are being raised to believe that marriage has nothing to do with God and that sex (specifically outside of marriage) has no consequences. Truth is subjective, and children can carve out their own reality as they enter adulthood. This is detrimental to physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

No wonder these children feel lost and in a constant state of unrest. They’re being fed lies around every corner — physical or virtual. Approaching this crisis, Christians “should respond with brokenness and a realization that much of our discipleship efforts in the church geared towards young people has failed,” said David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview.

He explained how we are at the “highest rates of biblical illiteracy and the lowest of biblical worldview” since it’s been measured. “It’s not good,” he said, “but the writing has been on the wall for a long time.” And a lack of biblical worldview does factor into decreased mental wellness. Why? Because anything other than a biblical worldview is “a deficient worldview,” Closson noted, and sets “people up to fail very early.”

He added, “Since most people are not thinking rightly about the world, we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re not going to be thinking rightly about other things. Not just theological matters, but they won’t be thinking rightly about themselves, their place in the world, body image,” or anything under the sun. Ultimately, Closson concluded, “[W]e need to be [more] intentional in our discipleship efforts” in reaching younger generations.

For resources to reach young people go to http://www.answersingenesis.org and http://www.creation.com.

DNA DESTROYS EVOLUTION

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DNA must have been created. It is impossible it evolved. It is the instruction code for all living things.

Science continues to reveal more complexity at the smallest levels of life. As a result, the evolutionary account of life’s origins is rapidly trending toward mythology. May God receive the glory for His incredible creation!

Moreover, Jesus Christ changed history from BC to AD. No other person in history has impacted the world as this God/man did. Jesus confirmed the Torah as God’s Word revealed to man by His prophets.

“Jesus said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” Luke 16:31

The Bible gives us an accurate history of this world. Creation by God in six days was a real event. The Fall of man was a real event that brought death into this world. The worldwide flood of Noah’s day that killed all mankind except eight people (God’s judgement on a world in rebellion against Him) was a real event. It buried millions of dead things all over the world, fossils and produced all the fossil fuels not billions of years. The world is just 6000 years old. God created the nations when He confused the languages at the Tower of Babel. Jesus entered history to provide a way back into a right relationship with our Heavenly Father. He paid the price for our rebellion, He died that we might live. The Bible also tells us that Jesus is returning soon to rule and reign for the last 1000 years before God destroys this Earth and creates a new Earth where only the righteous dwell.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

What a loving God (but also Holy God) that we have that He would send His ony Son to redeem us. And how good is Jesus, God’s Son that He would come to die in our place. God requires us to repent of our rebellion against Him and His commandments and accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour to come back into His family. It’s an offer of eternal life. It is beyond me why people do not want to get back into a right relationship with their Creator and experience this new eternal life in Christ. What about you?

Related articles: The four-dimensional human genome defies naturalistic explanations (https://creation.com/four-dimensional…) Splicing and dicing the human genome (https://creation.com/splicing-and-dic…) Life’s irreducible structure—Part 1: autopoiesis (https://creation.com/lifes-irreducibl…) Related resources: The High-Tech Cell (https://creation.com/s/35-6-624)

MIRACLES AND SCIENCE

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Origins science uses the principles of causality (everything that has a beginning has a cause) and analogy (e.g. we observe that intelligence is needed to generate complex coded information in the present, so we can reasonably assume the same for the past). And because there was no material intelligent designer for life, it is legitimate to invoke a non-material designer for life. Creationists invoke the miraculous only for origins science, and as shown, this does not mean they will invoke it for operational science.

Miracles are an addition to natural laws rather than a loophole within them. This is because natural laws are formulated in isolated systems. For example, Newton’s 1st Law of Motion states that objects will continue in a straight line at a constant speed — if no unbalanced force is acting. But there is nothing in the law to prohibit unbalanced forces acting—otherwise, nothing could ever change direction!

If God exists, there is no truly isolated system. Thus there is no basis for disallowing miracles unless you could prove that God doesn’t exist, but you can’t prove a universal negative. And if Jesus really were God Incarnate as I believe (see documentation), He could certainly bring other forces into play without violating science.

C.S. Lewis applied these concepts to the virginal conception of Christ: that is the zygote was made by the Holy Spirit’s action on Mary’s ovum, i.e. an addition to the system. But after that, the embryo developed in a normal manner.

Second, this comment treats natural laws as real entities. In reality, scientific laws are descriptive of what we observe happening regularly, just as the outline of a map describes the shape of a coastline. Treating scientific laws as prescriptive, i.e. the cause of the observed regularities, is like claiming that the drawing of the map is the cause of the shape of the coastline.

The Bible explains that: we are made in the image of a rational God (Genesis 1:26–27), God is a God of order not of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), God gave man dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28), and He commanded honesty (Exodus 20:16). Applying this, as well as a correct understanding of the nature of scientific laws as description, leads to a worldview that historically led to science without jettisoning miracles, as previously stated:

These [founders of modern science], like modern creationists, regarded ‘natural laws’ as descriptions of the way God upholds His creation in a regular and repeatable way (Col. 1:15–17), while miracles are God’s way of upholding His creation in a special way for special reasons. Because creation finished at the end of day 6 (Gen. 2:1–3), creationists following the Bible would expect that God has since mostly worked through ‘natural laws’ except where He has revealed in the Bible that He used a miracle. And since ‘natural laws’ are descriptive, they cannot prescribe what cannot happen, so they cannot rule out miracles. Scientific laws do not cause or forbid anything, any more than the outline of a map causes the shape of the coastline.

C.S. Lewis pointed out that arguing against miracles based on the alleged total uniformity of nature is actually circular reasoning (from Miracles):

No, of course we must agree with the empiricist, David Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, in other words, they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we know all the reports are false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle.

Without a belief that the universe was made by a God of order and that we are made in the image of this God, the Logos, we have no basis for either an orderly universe or that our thoughts can be trusted. Atheists can treat these premises as axioms, i.e. accepted as true without proof, but they are theorems for Christians since they follow from the propositions of Scripture. Indeed, atheists can’t prove that the universe is orderly, because the proofs would have to suppose the order they are trying to prove. Similarly, they can’t prove that their thoughts are rational because the proofs would have to assume this very rationality. Yet evolution would select only for survival advantage, not rationality.

You cannot derive an orderly universe from the proposition ‘God does not exist’. Indeed, you need to accept an orderly universe as a ‘brute fact’, which ironically was actually plagiarized from the Christian world view.

This article has been adapted from an article by Jonathan Sarfati Miracles and Science on the website http://www.creation.com. First published 2/09/2006

WHY YOU NEED TO SUPPORT C.M.I.

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In many ways, we live in a culture whose thinking is similar to those first century Greeks. Claiming to be wise, our society has become foolish (Romans 1:22); we have, by and large, traded belief in the Creator for the worship of evolution (and this has infiltrated the Church too). This is why Creation Ministries International (CMI), http://www.creation.com exists.

CMI’s ultimate goal is not to turn evolutionists into creationists (although that is part of it). Our vision is to see the Lord Jesus Christ honoured as Creator and Saviour of the world, yes, outside of the churches, but first inside the churches. How will others come to enquire about faith, if Christians in the churches do not believe their own book?

Once upon a time, many Western countries had at least some basic knowledge of the Bible. Our societies used to be predominantly Judeo-Christian. That is no longer so. With the advent of evolutionary ‘preaching’ at all levels of society and the ongoing suppression of biblical doctrine, all the heritage that was built upon Christendom is being eroded. Our countries have now turned into secular societies.

Just as we like to think we are enlightened here in the West, so the Greeks thought themselves wise. However, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10). The Greeks, for all their interest in learning about new things, were blissfully unaware of who the Lord was, as we learn from the Apostle Paul’s trip to southern Greece (Acts 17:16–21).

Paul introduced Christ as the Creator and taught that all people stem from one man, Adam. Referring to statements by local poets, Paul demonstrated that all people are God’s direct offspring (Acts 17:28); not the most recent descendants from some evolutionary chain of being (compare Genesis 2:7)

Paul had to start by laying a biblical foundation for the people in Athens. They lacked the Genesis knowledge that was second nature for the Jews, Peter’s audience. Modern Christians often forget this critically important difference, so when they compare the results of Peter in Acts 2:41 (3,000 converts) with those of Paul in Acts 17:34 (“some … believed”), they wrongly think that Paul’s method and message were practically useless compared to Peter’s sermon. On the contrary. At CMI we realise that Paul’s accomplishment was an astounding result, miraculous even! Peter was sowing the seeds of the Gospel in good soil, but Paul had a huge challenge before him. He had to prepare the ground first, because, metaphorically speaking, it was hard (the Greeks had no Old Testament knowledge), overgrown with weeds, and littered with stumbling blocks (false knowledge, 1 Timothy 6:20)

Creation Ministries International is a missional Christian organisation. Their calling is to support the effective proclamation of the Gospel by providing credible answers that affirm the reliability of the Bible, in particular its Genesis history. Their magazines, website, and newsletters teach (make known) that other side. Our culture is biased when it comes to origins; everything must bow to evolution. CMI exists to try to balance the scales. You can help—by subscribing to, reading, and passing on Creation magazine.

This low-key form of (pre-)evangelism will help prepare people to be ready to receive—and understand—the Gospel. You could think of it as removing the weeds of evolutionary biology and the rocks of evolutionary geology! People need to realise that evolution and its millions of years are strongholds of false thinking that must be demolished (2 Corinthians 10:4–5). People will not readily understand the Gospel if they don’t know (and have confidence) that there is a Creator. He made a perfect world, but the universe was cursed because of Adam’s disobedience—it wasn’t full of carnivory and death millions of years before Adam’s existence. If people remain in ignorance (like the Greeks), they won’t grasp the key teachings of the origin of death and atonement for sin like the Jews did. They miss that biblical knowledge, so it’s ‘all Greek to them’!

Usually, it takes time for a firmly established (but false) evolutionary worldview to erode. It’s no good building the Gospel on top of the rubble of someone’s confused ideas—a solid foundation needs to be laid first.

Surprisingly, there are even some people who know and understand the foundation in Genesis, and believe it, but they have not surrendered their lives to Christ to be born again. They accept creation, but have not (yet) knelt at the foot of the Cross in repentance. It’s a spiritual matter. The last chapter in the Creation Answers Book explains how one can be saved. However, as the saying goes: “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink”. We can and should earnestly pray for the lost. Why not pray for someone you care about right now?

DARWIN’S ABOMINABLE MYSTERY

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In 1879, some twenty years after the publication of his famous Origin of Species, Charles Darwin wrote a letter to botanist Dr Joseph Hooker. One sentence, in particular, underscored a vexing problem for evolutionary theory:

“The rapid development as far as we can judge of all the higher plants within recent geological times is an abominable mystery.” By ‘higher plants’ Darwin had in mind the plants he viewed as being the most ‘highly evolved’, i.e. the Angiosperms—plants with flowers (with seeds produced inside the female reproductive organ). As BBC Science put it, “The famous naturalist was haunted by the question of how the first flowering plants evolved. Why are they so beautiful, many have gorgeous scents for us to appreciate

Evolutionarily ‘out-of-place’

Little wonder evolutionary theorists are ‘allergic’ to Precambrian pollen

Buggs refers to “our knowledge of the fossil record” but this has to be selective knowledge. Evolutionists have to ignore or try to explain away various ‘out-of-place’ angiosperm fossils from beneath their supposed first appearance in Cretaceous rocks. For example, fossil “pollen of the Compositae” (the daisy family), which is found all the way down in the Precambrian, is presumed by evolutionists to encompass the time that life first evolved., This would mean flowering plants preceded the allegedly ‘more primitive’ plants, such as algae, mosses, ferns, and pine trees. Little wonder evolutionary theorists are ‘allergic’ to Precambrian pollen!

Flowers from the beginning

The Bible actually places the origin of all plants—algae, mosses, ferns, pine trees, and flowering plants—on Day 3 of Creation Week; not billions of years ago, but only about 6,000. And from the Bible we can conclude the ‘fossil record’ does not display the order of evolution over long time periods, but rather the order of burial during and since the global Flood of Noah’s day, about 4,500 years ago.

How come our schools and universities that teach evolution as fact do not present the many impossible facts such as flowers and DNA (complex information that controls all the machinery in cells) that evolution cannot explain.

So, for those who despite the evidence and the Bible’s eyewitness account want to cling doggedly to evolutionary ideas, Darwin’s “abominable mystery” remains. For Bible-believing Christians, however, there is no mystery.

THREE PILLARS OF EVOLUTION DEMOLISHED

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Jerry Bergman is a well-known creationist author who has extensively published over many decades and who has taught at several universities. He has taught biology, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, genetics, and other courses for over 40 years. He has over 1,700 publications in both scholarly and popular science journals and monographs.

The three pillars of evolution identified by Bergman are abiogenesis (aka chemical evolution), natural and sexual selection, and mutations. The author of this book finds all three of these pillars defective as evidence for evolution.

Bergman has examined claims of abiogenesis, the nature of mutations, and the explanatory power of natural selection. As in the title of this book, he has thoroughly demolished them. The monopoly of the theory of evolution, in academia, is all the more irresponsible. In fact, it is puzzling.

Naturalistic origin of life assumed, not demonstrated

Bergman is especially critical of Miller–Urey ‘chemical soup’ explanations for the putative abiogenesis of life, not so much because they are grossly inadequate, but because they are not even seriously examined.

“Producing even simple amino acids and functional proteins requires highly laboratory-controlled experiments. Even under these ideal conditions, the very conditions hypothesized to create amino acids also rapidly destroy proteins” (p. 60).

Finally, ‘chemical soup’ experiments very much confuse the issue. Forming the building blocks of life, by abiogenesis, is the trivial part. The hard part is accounting for the information content necessary for even the most rudimentary form of life. Evolutionistic origin-of-life hypotheses do not even begin to do this!

Most ‘neutral mutations’ are not neutral after all

The next pillar of evolution, examined by Bergman, is that of mutations. The term ‘neutral mutation’ refers to a mutation that neither enhances nor reduces the fitness of the organism bearing it. Evolutionary orthodoxy long held that most mutations are neutral. Bergman challenges this and shows that most ‘neutral’ mutations are mildly deleterious. This creates a new problem for evolution. ‘Neutral’ mutations are not innocent, as previously believed. They do not kill the bearer outright, but, because their harm is subtle, they accumulate with other ‘neutral’ mutations in the genome. Bergman warns, “Even mutations that have ‘little effect’ on health can accumulate both in somatic and germ cells, eventually causing major damage” (p. 120)

Natural selection—an amorphous and misleading term

The third pillar of evolution is identified as natural selection. Bergman has a way with analogies. He compares the claims of natural selection with the statement, “The man is rich because he has money.” Others have characterized the natural selection explanation as a ‘survival of the survivors’ statement.

One must make a clear distinction between the arrival of the fittest and the survival of the fittest. The two, though often conflated, are most certainly not the same. The confusion goes back to the very beginning, as pointed out by Bergman:

“Darwin … portrayed natural selection as equivalent to artificial breeding, thereby making it more difficult to refute natural selection by arguing that it was a real physical force. Claiming that nature does the selecting avoids the requirement of discussing the actual factors involved in the causation events attributed to natural selection. Such obfuscation may have been excusable in Charles Darwin’s day, but is inexcusable in ours” (p. 165).

Natural selection does not even have theoretical explanatory power in many cases. Bergman comments: “Human life consists of many activities that are mentally pleasurable, none of which natural selection convincingly explains. Walking in forests, listening to music, creating poems, doing scientific research, aesthetic enjoyment of nature, and myriads of other activities are often not related to survival, or adaptation in a Darwinian sense. Some writers have struggled in vain to explain the existence by natural selection of our human ability to create music and art, all of which involve extremely complex body and brain systems” (p. 213).

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