Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Inbreeding and Genetics - Cain's Wife


One of the most frequent questions I have heard in rebuttal to the Bible is: where did Cain get his wife? I want to address this but also address the issue of genetics, since atheists do tend to claim that inbreeding would have not created viable offspring because of a polluted gene pool.
We assume Cain and Abel were the first two children of Adam and Eve but the Bible is not clear on this. We assume Cain is the first son and the Bible says Abel was the second son, not second child. The Bible does say that Adam and Even had more children and within these births, there would have been daughters.
“The second thing one notices is Cain's seeming paranoia about being found and revenge being taken against his for killing Abel. The only way this makes sense is if the brothers and sisters of Abel were upset that Cain had killed their brother.”
In those days, the only viable wives were the sisters or nieces of Cain and Abel. Many like to point out that this creates theological problems, since marrying siblings is not allowed under Jewish law. We have to remember that these events happened before the law was given. At this present moment, Adam and Eve sinned but the law was not given until the time of Moses in Leviticus 18:6-18. “According to the Apostle Paul, when there is no law, there can be no violation of the law or sin. So, since the law against incest was not given until thousands of years later, there was no theological problem with Cain marrying his sister.” This practice is not unheard of nor is it ancient history. Remember that Abraham was married to his half-sister (Genesis 20:12). Also in more recent times, in the 1800s, it was quite customary to marry a cousin.
Now on to the genetic problems: we have to also keep in mind that these is the first and second human being: Adam and Eve. They have absolutely pristine DNA, without any mutations that would create problems amongst the siblings intermarrying and having children. Though today inbreeding does lead to the expression of detrimental recessive mutations, back then, there were no hidden or recessive mutations that could be expressed with inbreeding. Adam and Eve had no genetic defects and the defects from inbreeding would not occur until many generations later, given rise to spontaneous mutations that accumulate over time. “At that point, God instituted laws against incest to minimize the expression of genetic mutations that had developed within our species.” By the time the law was given to Moses, there would have been sufficient mutations accumulated within the population to pose a significant risk to inbreeding but of course, by that time, it was not necessary either as the Earth had been increasingly populated.

Eve is the “mother of all living” as stated in Genesis 3:20 and recent mitochondrial DNA research spectacularly supports a single maternal human ancestor. 

See references: 

Carter, R. 2007. Mitochondrial diversity within modern human populations. Nucleic Acids Research 35:3039-3045 

Carter, R, D. Criswell, and J. Sanford. 2008. The “Eve” Mitochondrial Consensus Sequence. Sixth International Conference on Creationism (pages 111–116). Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship and Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research.
It really is this simple! 

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Saturday, November 2, 2013

Celestial Music


This new Hubble telescope image reveals our beautiful Milky Way galaxy...a gigantic pinwheel that we call home. I think most of us have seen images from Hubble that are simply breathtaking. I was reading the Psalms and then came across a video that connected the dots for me. Allow me to elaborate.

There are statements in the Bible that I think most of us just dismiss as poetry...but is it really? Psalm 148 claims that everything in creation praises the Lord:


Praise to the Lord from Creation
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights!

Praise Him, all His angels;
Praise Him, all His hosts!

Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all you stars of light!

Praise Him, you heavens of heavens,
And you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For He commanded and they were created.
He also established them forever and ever;
He made a decree which shall not pass away.
Praise the Lord from the earth,
You great sea creatures and all the depths;
Fire and hail, snow and clouds;
Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;
Mountains and all hills;
Fruitful trees and all cedars;
Beasts and all cattle;
Creeping things and flying fowl;
Kings of the earth and all peoples;
Princes and all judges of the earth;
Both young men and maidens;
Old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For His name alone is exalted;
His glory is above the earth and heaven.
And He has exalted the horn of His people,
The praise of all His saints—
Of the children of Israel,
A people near to Him.
Praise the Lord!


"Most astronomers gaze at the heavens and see stars. William Chaplin hears an orchestra — a celestial symphony in which the smallest stars are flutes, the medium-sized ones are trombones and the giants are reverberating tubas. The sounds are internal vibrations that reveal themselves as a subtle, rhythmic brightening and dimming of a star, explains Chaplin, an astrophysicist at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a specialist in asteroseismology. These waves provide information that astronomers can't get in any other way: triggered by the turbulent rise and fall of hot gases on the star's surface, the vibrations penetrate deep into the stellar interior and become resonating tones that reveal the star's size, composition and mass. So by watching for the characteristic fluctuations in brightness, says Chaplin, “we can literally build up a picture of what the inside of a star looks like”. (
Article)

Different stars make different sounds and this is based on size, oscillations, etc. "A pulsar, for example, is a highly magnetised neutron star, with a radius of 10-15 km, having somewhat greater mass than the Sun which has a radius of approximately 1 million km. Radiation is beamed out along the magnetic poles and pulses of radiation are received as the beam crosses the Earth, in the same manner as the beam from a lighthouse causes flashes. Being enormous cosmic flywheels with a tick attached, they make some of the best clocks known to mankind. These sounds directly correspond to the radio-waves emitted by the brightest pulsars in the sky as received by some of the largest radio telescopes in the world." (Article)

So how does this all tie in together? When you put all these star sounds together, it literally sounds like an orchestra. I suppose the author of Psalm 148 understood that it was true...all living creatures praise the Lord.

If you want to hear what these sound like, click on the video below and prepare to be blown away.

As it was writen in Job 38:7 


"When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"




The Scientific Case Against Evolution




The theory of evolution seems to be like a highly virulent virus. You may have noticed that my Instagram page has recently become private. Although I understand this information must reach everyone, including the atheists, what I cannot and will not allow is a series of profane messages, all geared at discrediting my education. 


Some commentators on my posts have said "YOU ARE NOT A BIOLOGIST. STOP CALLING YOURSELF THAT. YOU DID NOT GO TO A SECULAR SCHOOL". Others have simply taken cheap shots with insults and others have said I am posing as a biologist. 

I will protect the identities of these individuals because its the type of respect I would like to be shown but we don't all live by the Golden Rule. I am sorry to disappoint this commentator. I did, in fact, go to secular universities. Ironically, it was during my studies that the Lord called me. This website is not private and they are more than welcomed to visit here but be warned: any profane or insulting comments that are not science related will be deleted. Simple as that. 

I don't lose much sleep over these comments. I do take them with the proverbial grain of salt. I am amused that individuals who do not have any training in science past high school would argue things they don't fully understand. This is not my ego speaking; I was never the perfect student but I did study by rear off and finished school with more than one degree. I want to make sure everyone understands that this is not MY information I am sharing. There are MANY scientists, both believers and non-believers that simply do not support the theory of evolution. I'd like to share an article I found here and I will simply post its text for simplicity. Please visit the website if you can...many interesting articles there.

One final thought: a true scientist will always try to disprove his own theory. That is how you find gaps and errors in theories. So for all the atheists that may read this, leave your beliefs aside and truly examine the information. Understand that science is not infallible. My science textbooks change every decade or so (I won't say every year because of the minor publishing edits they make and release a new edition) but for the sake of real discoveries made in science, they change every decade or so.

My Bible has not changed in over 2,000 years and continues to change lives. Also be aware that we do not know everything so to peddle a theory like this one and call it FACT like you are 100% certain it is true is not possible. One of my professors, a geneticist from UCLA, assigned us to write a paper and warned us "do not use the phrase 'this proves____' because NOTHING proves anything for certain. It can only support and with new emerging technologies that enable us to learn more about the physical world around us, we simply cannot make statements like that.

Thank you for reading. Now on to the article I found written by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D. 


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"Belief in evolution is a remarkable phenomenon. It is a belief passionately defended by the scientific establishment, despite the lack of any observable scientific evidence for macroevolution (that is, evolution from one distinct kind of organism into another). This odd situation is briefly documented here by citing recent statements from leading evolutionists admitting their lack of proof. These statements inadvertently show that evolution on any significant scale does not occur at present, and never happened in the past, and could never happen at all.

Evolution Is Not Happening Now
First of all, the lack of a case for evolution is clear from the fact that no one has ever seen it happen. If it were a real process, evolution should still be occurring, and there should be many "transitional" forms that we could observe. What we see instead, of course, is an array of distinct "kinds" of plants and animals with many varieties within each kind, but with very clear and -- apparently -- unbridgeable gaps between the kinds. That is, for example, there are many varieties of dogs and many varieties of cats, but no "dats" or "cogs." Such variation is often called microevolution, and these minor horizontal (or downward) changes occur fairly often, but such changes are not true "vertical" evolution.

Evolutionary geneticists have often experimented on fruit flies and other rapidly reproducing species to induce mutational changes hoping they would lead to new and better species, but these have all failed to accomplish their goal. No truly new species has ever been produced, let alone a new "basic kind."

A current leading evolutionist, Jeffrey Schwartz, professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, has recently acknowledged that:
. . . it was and still is the case that, with the exception of Dobzhansky's claim about a new species of fruit fly, the formation of a new species, by any mechanism, has never been observed.1

The scientific method traditionally has required experimental observation and replication. The fact that macroevolution (as distinct from microevolution) has never been observed would seem to exclude it from the domain of true science. Even Ernst Mayr, the dean of living evolutionists, longtime professor of biology at Harvard, who has alleged that evolution is a "simple fact," nevertheless agrees that it is an "historical science" for which "laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques"2 by which to explain it. One can never actually see evolution in action.

Evolution Never Happened in the Past
Evolutionists commonly answer the above criticism by claiming that evolution goes too slowly for us to see it happening today. They used to claim that the real evidence for evolution was in the fossil record of the past, but the fact is that the billions of known fossils do not include a single unequivocal transitional form with transitional structures in the process of evolving.

Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state of motion . . . it followed logically that the fossil record should be rife with examples of transitional forms leading from the less to the more evolved.3

Even those who believe in rapid evolution recognize that a considerable number of generations would be required for one distinct "kind" to evolve into another more complex kind. There ought, therefore, to be a considerable number of true transitional structures preserved in the fossils -- after all, there are billions of non-transitional structures there! But (with the exception of a few very doubtful creatures such as the controversial feathered dinosaurs and the alleged walking whales), they are not there.

Instead of filling in the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links, most paleontologists found themselves facing a situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no evidence of transformational intermediates between documented fossil species.4

The entire history of evolution from the evolution of life from non-life to the evolution of vertebrates from invertebrates to the evolution of man from the ape is strikingly devoid of intermediates: the links are all missing in the fossil record, just as they are in the present world.

With respect to the origin of life, a leading researcher in this field, Leslie Orgel, after noting that neither proteins nor nucleic acids could have arisen without the other, concludes:
And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.5

Being committed to total evolution as he is, Dr. Orgel cannot accept any such conclusion as that. Therefore, he speculates that RNA may have come first, but then he still has to admit that:
The precise events giving rise to the RNA world remain unclear. . . . investigators have proposed many hypotheses, but evidence in favor of each of them is fragmentary at best.6

Translation: "There is no known way by which life could have arisen naturalistically." Unfortunately, two generations of students have been taught that Stanley Miller's famous experiment on a gaseous mixture, practically proved the naturalistic origin of life. But not so!

Miller put the whole thing in a ball, gave it an electric charge, and waited. He found that amino acids and other fundamental complex molecules were accumulating at the bottom of the apparatus. His discovery gave a huge boost to the scientific investigation of the origin of life. Indeed, for some time it seemed like creation of life in a test tube was within reach of experimental science. Unfortunately, such experiments have not progressed much further than the original prototype, leaving us with a sour aftertaste from the primordial soup.7

Neither is there any clue as to how the one-celled organisms of the primordial world could have evolved into the vast array of complex multi-celled invertebrates of the Cambrian period. Even dogmatic evolutionist Gould admits that:
The Cambrian explosion was the most remarkable and puzzling event in the history of life.8

Equally puzzling, however, is how some invertebrate creature in the ancient ocean, with all its "hard parts" on the outside, managed to evolve into the first vertebrate -- that is, the first fish-- with its hard parts all on the inside.

Yet the transition from spineless invertebrates to the first backboned fishes is still shrouded in mystery, and many theories abound.9

Other gaps are abundant, with no real transitional series anywhere. A very bitter opponent of creation science, paleontologist, Niles Eldredge, has acknowledged that there is little, if any, evidence of evolutionary transitions in the fossil record. Instead, things remain the same!

It is a simple ineluctable truth that virtually all members of a biota remain basically stable, with minor fluctuations, throughout their durations. . . .10

So how do evolutionists arrive at their evolutionary trees from fossils of organisms which didn't change during their durations?

Fossil discoveries can muddle over attempts to construct simple evolutionary trees -- fossils from key periods are often not intermediates, but rather hodge podges of defining features of many different groups. . . . Generally, it seems that major groups are not assembled in a simple linear or progressive manner -- new features are often "cut and pasted" on different groups at different times.11

As far as ape/human intermediates are concerned, the same is true, although anthropologists have been eagerly searching for them for many years. Many have been proposed, but each has been rejected in turn.

All that paleoanthropologists have to show for more than 100 years of digging are remains from fewer than 2000 of our ancestors. They have used this assortment of jawbones, teeth and fossilized scraps, together with molecular evidence from living species, to piece together a line of human descent going back 5 to 8 million years to the time when humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor.12

Anthropologists supplemented their extremely fragmentary fossil evidence with DNA and other types of molecular genetic evidence from living animals to try to work out an evolutionary scenario that will fit. But this genetic evidence really doesn't help much either, for it contradicts fossil evidence. Lewin notes that:
The overall effect is that molecular phylogenetics is by no means as straightforward as its pioneers believed. . . . The Byzantine dynamics of genome change has many other consequences for molecular phylogenetics, including the fact that different genes tell different stories.13

Summarizing the genetic data from humans, another author concludes, rather pessimistically:

Even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access to the processes of evolution, so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination.14

Since there is no real scientific evidence that evolution is occurring at present or ever occurred in the past, it is reasonable to conclude that evolution is not a fact of science, as many claim. In fact, it is not even science at all, but an arbitrary system built upon faith in universal naturalism.

Actually, these negative evidences against evolution are, at the same time, strong positive evidences for special creation. They are, in fact, specific predictions based on the creation model of origins.

Creationists would obviously predict ubiquitous gaps between created kinds, though with many varieties capable of arising within each kind, in order to enable each basic kind to cope with changing environments without becoming extinct. Creationists also would anticipate that any "vertical changes" in organized complexity would be downward, since the Creator (by definition) would create things correctly to begin with. Thus, arguments and evidences against evolution are, at the same time, positive evidences for creation.

The Equivocal Evidence from Genetics
Nevertheless, because of the lack of any direct evidence for evolution, evolutionists are increasingly turning to dubious circumstantial evidences, such as similarities in DNA or other biochemical components of organisms as their "proof" that evolution is a scientific fact. A number of evolutionists have even argued that DNA itself is evidence for evolution since it is common to all organisms. More often is the argument used that similar DNA structures in two different organisms proves common evolutionary ancestry.

Neither argument is valid. There is no reason whatever why the Creator could not or would not use the same type of genetic code based on DNA for all His created life forms. This is evidence for intelligent design and creation, not evolution.

The most frequently cited example of DNA commonality is the human/chimpanzee "similarity," noting that chimpanzees have more than 90% of their DNA the same as humans. This is hardly surprising, however, considering the many physiological resemblances between people and chimpanzees. Why shouldn't they have similar DNA structures in comparison, say, to the DNA differences between men and spiders?

Similarities -- whether of DNA, anatomy, embryonic development, or anything else -- are better explained in terms of creation by a common Designer than by evolutionary relationship. The great differences between organisms are of greater significance than the similarities, and evolutionism has no explanation for these if they all are assumed to have had the same ancestor. How could these great gaps between kinds ever arise at all, by any natural process?

The apparently small differences between human and chimpanzee DNA obviously produce very great differences in their respective anatomies, intelligence, etc. The superficial similarities between all apes and human beings are nothing compared to the differences in any practical or observable sense.

Nevertheless, evolutionists, having largely become disenchanted with the fossil record as a witness for evolution because of the ubiquitous gaps where there should be transitions, recently have been promoting DNA and other genetic evidence as proof of evolution. However, as noted above by Roger Lewin, this is often inconsistent with, not only the fossil record, but also with the comparative morphology of the creatures. Lewin also mentions just a few typical contradictions yielded by this type of evidence in relation to more traditional Darwinian "proofs."

The elephant shrew, consigned by traditional analysis to the order insectivores . . . is in fact more closely related to . . . the true elephant. Cows are more closely related to dolphins than they are to horses. The duckbilled platypus . . . is on equal evolutionary footing with . . . kangaroos and koalas.15

There are many even more bizarre comparisons yielded by this approach.

The abundance of so-called "junk DNA" in the genetic code also has been offered as a special type of evidence for evolution, especially those genes which they think have experienced mutations, sometimes called "pseudogenes."16 However, evidence is accumulating rapidly today that these supposedly useless genes do actually perform useful functions.

Enough genes have already been uncovered in the genetic midden to show that what was once thought to be waste is definitely being transmitted into scientific code.17

It is thus wrong to decide that junk DNA, even the so-called "pseudogenes," have no function. That is merely an admission of ignorance and an object for fruitful research. Like the so-called "vestigial organs" in man, once considered as evidence of evolution but now all known to have specific uses, so the junk DNA and pseudogenes most probably are specifically useful to the organism, whether or not those uses have yet been discovered by scientists.

At the very best this type of evidence is strictly circumstantial and can be explained just as well in terms of primeval creation supplemented in some cases by later deterioration, just as expected in the creation model.

The real issue is, as noted before, whether there is any observable evidence that evolution is occurring now or has ever occurred in the past. As we have seen, even evolutionists have to acknowledge that this type of real scientific evidence for evolution does not exist.

A good question to ask is: Why are all observable evolutionary changes either horizontal and trivial (so-called microevolution) or downward toward deterioration and extinction? The answer seems to be found in the universally applicable laws of the science of thermodynamics.

Evolution Could Never Happen at All
The main scientific reason why there is no evidence for evolution in either the present or the past (except in the creative imagination of evolutionary scientists) is because one of the most fundamental laws of nature precludes it. The law of increasing entropy -- also known as the second law of thermodynamics -- stipulates that all systems in the real world tend to go "downhill," as it were, toward disorganization and decreased complexity.

This law of entropy is, by any measure, one of the most universal, best proved laws of nature. It applies not only in physical and chemical systems, but also in biological and geological systems -- in fact, in all systems, without exception.
No exception to the second law of thermodynamics has ever been found -- not even a tiny one. Like conservation of energy (the "first law"), the existence of a law so precise and so independent of details of models must have a logical foundation that is independent of the fact that matter is composed of interacting particles.18

The author of this quote is referring primarily to physics, but he does point out that the second law is "independent of details of models." Besides, practically all evolutionary biologists are reductionists -- that is, they insist that there are no "vitalist" forces in living systems, and that all biological processes are explicable in terms of physics and chemistry. That being the case, biological processes also must operate in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics, and practically all biologists acknowledge this.

Evolutionists commonly insist, however, that evolution is a fact anyhow, and that the conflict is resolved by noting that the earth is an "open system," with the incoming energy from the sun able to sustain evolution throughout the geological ages in spite of the natural tendency of all systems to deteriorate toward disorganization. That is how an evolutionary entomologist has dismissed W. A. Dembski's impressive recent book, Intelligent Design. This scientist defends what he thinks is "natural processes' ability to increase complexity" by noting what he calls a "flaw" in "the arguments against evolution based on the second law of thermodynamics." And what is this flaw?
Although the overall amount of disorder in a closed system cannot decrease, local order within a larger system can increase even without the actions of an intelligent agent.19

This naive response to the entropy law is typical of evolutionary dissimulation. While it is true that local order can increase in an open system if certain conditions are met, the fact is that evolution does not meet those conditions. Simply saying that the earth is open to the energy from the sun says nothing about how that raw solar heat is converted into increased complexity in any system, open or closed.

The fact is that the best known and most fundamental equation of thermodynamics says that the influx of heat into an open system will increase the entropy of that system, not decrease it. All known cases of decreased entropy (or increased organization) in open systems involve a guiding program of some sort and one or more energy conversion mechanisms.

Evolution has neither of these. Mutations are not "organizing" mechanisms, but disorganizing (in accord with the second law). They are commonly harmful, sometimes neutral, but never beneficial (at least as far as observed mutations are concerned). Natural selection cannot generate order, but can only "sieve out" the disorganizing mutations presented to it, thereby conserving the existing order, but never generating new order. In principle, it may be barely conceivable that evolution could occur in open systems, in spite of the tendency of all systems to disintegrate sooner or later. But no one yet has been able to show that it actually has the ability to overcome this universal tendency, and that is the basic reason why there is still no bona fide proof of evolution, past or present.

From the statements of evolutionists themselves, therefore, we have learned that there is no real scientific evidence for real evolution. The only observable evidence is that of very limited horizontal (or downward) changes within strict limits.
Evolution is Religion -- Not Science

In no way does the idea of particles-to-people evolution meet the long-accepted criteria of a scientific theory. There are no such evolutionary transitions that have ever been observed in the fossil record of the past; and the universal law of entropy seems to make it impossible on any significant scale.

Evolutionists claim that evolution is a scientific fact, but they almost always lose scientific debates with creationist scientists. Accordingly, most evolutionists now decline opportunities for scientific debates, preferring instead to make unilateral attacks on creationists.
Scientists should refuse formal debates because they do more harm than good, but scientists still need to counter the creationist message.20

The question is, just why do they need to counter the creationist message? Why are they so adamantly committed to anti-creationism?

The fact is that evolutionists believe in evolution because they want to. It is their desire at all costs to explain the origin of everything without a Creator. Evolutionism is thus intrinsically an atheistic religion. Some may prefer to call it humanism, and "new age" evolutionists place it in the context of some form of pantheism, but they all amount to the same thing. Whether atheism or humanism (or even pantheism), the purpose is to eliminate a personal God from any active role in the origin of the universe and all its components, including man.

The core of the humanistic philosophy is naturalism -- the proposition that the natural world proceeds according to its own internal dynamics, without divine or supernatural control or guidance, and that we human beings are creations of that process. It is instructive to recall that the philosophers of the early humanistic movement debated as to which term more adequately described their position: humanism or naturalism. The two concepts are complementary and inseparable.21

Since both naturalism and humanism exclude God from science or any other active function in the creation or maintenance of life and the universe in general, it is very obvious that their position is nothing but atheism. And atheism, no less than theism, is a religion! Even doctrinaire-atheistic evolutionist Richard Dawkins admits that atheism cannot be proved to be true.

Of course we can't prove that there isn't a God.22

Therefore, they must believe it, and that makes it a religion.

The atheistic nature of evolution is not only admitted, but insisted upon by most of the leaders of evolutionary thought. Ernst Mayr, for example, says that:
Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations.23

A professor in the Department of Biology at Kansas State University says:
Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.24

It is well known by almost everyone in the scientific world today that such influential evolutionists as Stephen Jay Gould and Edward Wilson of Harvard, Richard Dawkins of England, William Provine of Cornell, and numerous other evolutionary spokesmen are dogmatic atheists. Eminent scientific philosopher and ardent Darwinian atheist Michael Ruse has even acknowledged that evolution is their religion!

Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion -- a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality . . . . Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.25

Another way of saying "religion" is "worldview," the whole of reality. The evolutionary worldview applies not only to the evolution of life, but even to that of the entire universe. In the realm of cosmic evolution, our naturalistic scientists depart even further from experimental science than life scientists do, manufacturing a variety of evolutionary cosmologies from esoteric mathematics and metaphysical speculation. Socialist Jeremy Rifkin has commented on this remarkable game.

Cosmologies are made up of small snippets of physical reality that have been remodeled by society into vast cosmic deceptions.26

They must believe in evolution, therefore, in spite of all the evidence, not because of it. And speaking of deceptions, note the following remarkable statement.

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.27

The author of this frank statement is Richard Lewontin of Harvard. Since evolution is not a laboratory science, there is no way to test its validity, so all sorts of justso stories are contrived to adorn the textbooks. But that doesn't make them true! An evolutionist reviewing a recent book by another (but more critical) evolutionist, says:
We cannot identify ancestors or "missing links," and we cannot devise testable theories to explain how particular episodes of evolution came about. Gee is adamant that all the popular stories about how the first amphibians conquered the dry land, how the birds developed wings and feathers for flying, how the dinosaurs went extinct, and how humans evolved from apes are just products of our imagination, driven by prejudices and preconceptions.28

A fascinatingly honest admission by a physicist indicates the passionate commitment of establishment scientists to naturalism. Speaking of the trust students naturally place in their highly educated college professors, he says:

And I use that trust to effectively brainwash them. . . . our teaching methods are primarily those of propaganda. We appeal -- without demonstration -- to evidence that supports our position. We only introduce arguments and evidence that supports the currently accepted theories and omit or gloss over any evidence to the contrary.29

Creationist students in scientific courses taught by evolutionist professors can testify to the frustrating reality of that statement. Evolution is, indeed, the pseudoscientific basis of religious atheism, as Ruse pointed out. Will Provine at Cornell University is another scientist who frankly acknowledges this.

As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.30

Once again, we emphasize that evolution is not science, evolutionists' tirades notwithstanding. It is a philosophical worldview, nothing more.

(Evolution) must, they feel, explain everything. . . . A theory that explains everything might just as well be discarded since it has no real explanatory value. Of course, the other thing about evolution is that anything can be said because very little can be disproved. Experimental evidence is minimal.31

Even that statement is too generous. Actual experimental evidence demonstrating true evolution (that is, macroevolution) is not "minimal." It is nonexistent!

The concept of evolution as a form of religion is not new. In my book, The Long War Against God,32 I documented the fact that some form of evolution has been the pseudo-rationale behind every anti-creationist religion since the very beginning of history. This includes all the ancient ethnic religions, as well as such modern world religions as Buddhism, Hinduism, and others, as well as the "liberal" movements in even the creationist religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam).

As far as the twentieth century is concerned, the leading evolutionist is generally considered to be Sir Julian Huxley, primary architect of modern neo-Darwinism. Huxley called evolution a "religion without revelation" and wrote a book with that title (2nd edition, 1957). In a later book, he said:

Evolution . . . is the most powerful and the most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on earth.33

Later in the book he argued passionately that we must change "our pattern of religious thought from a God-centered to an evolution-centered pattern."34 Then he went on to say that: "The God hypothesis . . . is becoming an intellectual and moral burden on our thought." Therefore, he concluded that "we must construct something to take its place."35

That something, of course, is the religion of evolutionary humanism, and that is what the leaders of evolutionary humanism are trying to do today.

In closing this survey of the scientific case against evolution (and, therefore, for creation), the reader is reminded again that all quotations in the article are from doctrinaire evolutionists. No Bible references are included, and no statements by creationists. The evolutionists themselves, to all intents and purposes, have shown that evolutionism is not science, but religious faith in atheism.

References
Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Sudden Origins (New York, John Wiley, 1999), p. 300.
Ernst Mayr, "Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought," Scientific American (vol. 283, July 2000), p. 83.
Jeffrey H. Schwartz, op. cit., p.89.
Ibid.
Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on the Earth," Scientific American (vol. 271, October 1994), p. 78.
Ibid., p. 83.
Massimo Pigliucci, "Where Do We Come From?" Skeptical Inquirer (vol. 23, September/October 1999), p. 24.
Stephen Jay Gould, "The Evolution of Life," chapter 1 in Evolution: Facts and Fallacies, ed. by J. William Schopf (San Diego, CA., Academic Press, 1999), p. 9.
J. O. Long, The Rise of Fishes (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 30.
Niles Eldredge, The Pattern of Evolution (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1998), p. 157.
Neil Shubin, "Evolutionary Cut and Paste," Nature (vol. 349, July 2, 1998), p.12.
Colin Tudge, "Human Origins Revisited," New Scientist (vol. 146, May 20, 1995), p. 24.
Roger Lewin, "Family Feud," New Scientist (vol. 157, January 24, 1998), p. 39.
N. A. Takahata, "Genetic Perspective on the Origin and History of Humans," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics (vol. 26, 1995), p. 343.
Lewin, op. cit., p. 36.
Rachel Nowak, "Mining Treasures from `Junk DNA'," Science (vol. 263, February 4, 1994), p. 608.
Ibid.
E. H. Lieb and Jakob Yngvason, "A Fresh Look at Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics," Physics Today (vol. 53, April 2000), p. 32.
Norman A. Johnson, "Design Flaw," American Scientist (vol. 88. May/June 2000), p. 274.
Scott, Eugenie, "Fighting Talk," New Scientist (vol. 166, April 22, 2000), p.47. Dr. Scott is director of the anti-creationist organization euphemistically named, The National Center for Science Education.
Ericson, Edward L., "Reclaiming the Higher Ground," The Humanist (vol. 60, September/October 2000), p. 30.
Dawkins, Richard, replying to a critique of his faith in the liberal journal, Science and Christian Belief (vol. 7, 1994), p. 47.
Mayr, Ernst, "Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought," Scientific American (vol. 283, July 2000), p. 83.
Todd, Scott C., "A View from Kansas on the Evolution Debates," Nature (vol. 401, September 30, 1999), p. 423.
Ruse, Michael, "Saving Darwinism fron the Darwinians," National Post (May 13, 2000), p. B-3.
Rifkin, Jeremy, "Reinventing Nature," The Humanist (vol. 58, March/April 1998), p. 24.
Lewontin, Richard, Review of the Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan. In New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997.
Bowler, Peter J., Review In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee (Free Press, 1999), American Scientist (vol. 88, March/April 2000), p. 169.
Singham, Mark, "Teaching and Propaganda," Physics Today (vol. 53, June 2000), p. 54.
Provine, Will, "No Free Will," in Catching Up with the Vision, ed. by Margaret W. Rossiter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. S123.
Appleyard, Bryan, "You Asked for It," New Scientist (vol. 166, April 22, 2000), p. 45.
Henry M. Morris, The Long War Against God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1989), 344 pp.
Julian Huxley, Essays of a Humanist (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 125.
Ibid., p. 222.
Ibid.

Friday, November 1, 2013

David and Goliath: Factual Evidence



David and Goliath: this is one of the most popular stories of the Bible. The shepherd boy that killed the giant Philistine Goliath. 

Before going into the science of this event, I wanted to give a short background. In 1 Samuel 17, scripture tells us of the Israelites assembled in the Valley of Elah against the Philistines. The Philistines had their greatest warrior, the champion Goliath who, according to the Bible was six cubits tall. This would make him roughly 9 feet, 6 inches in height if measured by the 18 inch cubit and just over 11 feet tall if measured by the 21 inch cubit. This measurement comes from one Hebrew manuscript tradition called the Masoretic text, which is a text fixed around 100 AD by the Israelites. However, the Dead Sea Scrolls contained another version of the translated Hebrew Bible that places Goliath's height at around four cubits and one span or 6 feet, 6 inches. Regardless of these two, archaeologists have long noted that male skeletons from this biblical period had an average height of less than 5 feet, 6 inches. So, even if Goliath was on the shorter side of the interpreted text, he was still a giant in comparison to the average Israelite. He wore heavy armor that was estimated at 125 pounds in weight. 

1 Samuel 17:16 says, "For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand." but no Israelite dared to challenge Goliath, except the young shepherd boy David. Wearing no armor, David chose five smooth stones from the stream and put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and with his sling, he stepped forward to challenge Goliath. 
1 Samuel 17:45 "David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him."

I wanted to write about how story is scientifically possible and by means of an experiment, proven that one stone striking Goliath in the forehead could have killed him instantly.

The sling, though a weapon of a poor person, was incredibly effective and very often underestimated. A hand sling made of braided hemp would have been the most likely sling used by David because it gives superior accuracy to the staff sling. The stones would have had to to be smooth and oval to improve the aerodynamic nature of the projectile. It is written in scriptures how David protected his sheep if a lion or bear came to attack them so the fact he was an experienced slinger is not outside the realm of possibility.


The History Channel did in fact run this experiment with Ballearic Slinger Champion Luis Pons Livermore. They erected a 9 foot Goliath that had at the area of the forehead a load cell, which is a device that would measure the amount of impact. It was only 4.9 square inches, representing the area of Goliath's forehead that was not covered by his armor. According to trauma surgeon Dr. Mike Edwards, the force necessary to kill a human being from blunt force trauma is anything over 3,000 Newtons or 3 kilo Newtons. This force, spread over the area of 30 square millimeters would cause a shockwave. It would cause the brain to shake causing irreversibly tissue damage.

So Mr. Livermore was asked to perform the shot to access if this story was possible at all. When he releases the stone from the sling, a snap is heard. This snap from the sling is actually a sonic boom from the sheer power released...its so powerful, its breaking the sound barrier.

When he took the shot, not only did he hit the load cell with impressive accuracy, but the load cell measured the force to be 3.62 kilo Newtons. This was more than enough force to kill Goliath!

I have included the segment from the episode so you can watch Mr. Livermore in action.


Whether you believe the Biblical stories to be true or not, my aim is to show that they are, in fact, possible. You make your own conclusions. I firmly believe David was a shepherd boy that was anointed and blessed by God.

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