Consequences of the Fall In the Bird Kingdom

The fieldfare (Turdus pilaris). Image courtesy of Martin Olsson, Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

We can see the effects of the Fall in the bird kingdom in the autumn. A few days ago a very aggressive fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) wanted to eat all ripe hawthorn berries for himself and drove a redwing (Turdus iliacus) away.

The aggression turned out to be in vain, however. The next day, there were enough berries for Bohemian waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus) and common blackbirds (Turdus merula).

Quarrelling birds tell us that we no longer live in a perfect world. ”We know that the whole creation has been groaning”, the apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:22 (NIV).

This groaning is a consequence of the Fall. Although birds cannot sin, even they suffer from the wrong choice Adam and Eve made at the dawn of history.

Genesis and the Human Race

They all belong to the same human race. Image courtesy of G. Mützel; Nordisk familjebok (1904), vol.2, Asiatiska folk, public domain.





Joel Kontinen

How many human races are there? According to Genesis, the answer is one.

Charles Darwin and other evolutionists used to argue for several races (see quotes here and here), but recent research has indicated that they were mistaken.

The apostle Paul says that all humans originate from one man, Adam. so we all belong to the same race:

"From one man He made every nation of men, to inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands." (ACts 17:26, Berean Study Bible).

Butterfly Documentary Metamorphosis Attracts Praise and Large Audiences

Joel Kontinen

Metamorphosis, Illustra Media’s new butterfly documentary, challenges Darwinian evolution and presents a strong case for intelligent design in butterflies.

Here’s what happened when an independent journalist attended Southern California premiere of Metamorphosis:

Theistic Evolutionist Karl Giberson Takes On Ken Ham

Karl Giberson does not like Answers in Genesis. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

Karl Giberson believes that God used evolution in creating the world and that evangelical Christians should embrace his view of origins.

A decade or so ago, Dr. Giberson edited the now defunct Templeton-sponsored newspaper Science and Theology News that in effect was a forum for promoting theistic evolution. He then said that he would not let young-earth creationists defend their views in his paper.

Giberson is known for some bizarre statements, such as that a historical-literal understanding of Genesis “robs it of everything that is interesting" and for claiming that Jesus would believe in evolution.

Dr. Giberson, who is a physicist, has been involved with the BioLogos Foundation in promoting theistic evolution.

Recently Giberson wrote a blog post, attempting to discredit young earth creationism. Referring to Mark Noll’s book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans 1995), Giberson accuses evangelicals of relying on ideas that have been discredited centuries ago.

However, in reality it is Noll’s views that do not stand up to scrutiny. Contrary to what Noll claims, the Adventists did not discover young earth creationism in the 19th century. It has been the Church’s primary view since the apostolic era. The very idea of an evangelical scandal resulted from relying too much on the views of ex-Adventist Roland Numbers, who might have had an axe to grind against his former denomination.

Giberson is puzzled about “the strange preference that evangelicals have for the discredited young-earth creationism of Ken Ham over the legitimate and well-founded science of Francis Collins. The ideas promoted by Ham are so obsolete that some of them were actually abandoned by the scientific community in the 18th century!”

Ironically, scientific research shows that some of the claims of the BioLogos Foundation (e.g. “junk DNA”) that Giberson so ardently promotes are obsolete and the uniformitarianism that led to a belief in millions of years of Earth history has to some extent also been abandoned in geology.

Source:

Giberson, Karl. 2011. Why Do So Many Evangelicals Prefer to Get Their “Science” From Ken Ham Rather Than Francis Collins? Science + Religion Today (27 September).

Sceptic Plays Fast and Loose With Language

Michael Shermer uses language in an Orwellian way. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

Dr. Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine, writes a monthly column for Scientific American. Recently, for the umpteenth time he used the expression intelligent design creationists, which some Darwinians erroneously assume is a genuine term.

It is not. Using a similar analogy, one might call the English language “Anglo-Saxon German”. Try that in the British parliament.

While creationism and intelligent design have something in common, i.e., they are opposed to Darwinian dogmatism, there is a huge difference between Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute.

Shermer’s column was about “pseudoscience”. He writes that ID proponents “threaten science education in America, they breach the wall separating church and state, and they confuse the public about the nature of evolutionary theory and how science is conducted.”

As most people know, none of these reasons are valid or even true. There is an apt word for the current method of teaching Darwinian evolution in schools. It is called indoctrination.

Neither ID advocates nor creationists have a lobby group for stealthily bringing creationism into the classroom, unless, of course, one believes in conspiracy theories.

Since sceptics (or skeptics as the American spelling is) are fond of using Orwellian language, they might assume that other people are so too.

“Pseudo” is a word that to a great extent describes Shermer’s use of language.

Source:

Shermer, Michael. 2011. What is Pseudoscience?

Creation Is More Than Just a Story

Jesus regarded Genesis as history. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

Many Christians refer to the descriptions in Genesis 1 and 2 as the creation story.

The noun "story" is somewhat problematic, however. While it can mean “a true narrative, or one presumed to be true, relating to important events and famous people in the past” (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, s. v. “story"), it has a variety of meanings and connotations.

Evolutionists, for instance, often use just so stories that are merely assumptions. It might thus be better to use the term creation account instead of calling it a story.

Jesus regarded the Old Testament text as authoritative and reliable. For Him, the characters mentioned in Genesis, for instance Adam and Eve and Noah, were real people. He regarded the description of the origin of the world in Genesis as real history.

The Rainbow Shows Us That the Genesis Flood Was Global

God promised Noah that He would never again destroy all life on earth by a flood. Image courtesy of Jerry Magnum Porsbjer, Wikipedia.





Joel Kontinen


After the Flood described in Genesis, God told Noah:

”I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.” (Gen. 9:13-15, NIV).

Many progressive creationists and theistic evolutionists believe that the Flood of Noah’s day was a local deluge.

However, after the Flood God promised never again to send a watery catastrophe to destroy all life on earth. The rainbow guarantees that God will keep His word.

We have heard of many local floods in recent years. The local flood hypothesis fails to explain why they keep on occurring.

The only explanation is that the Genesis Flood was unique.