Isaiah 40:22 “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.”
‘Words can be difficult to follow because the same word can be used in a technical sense in different ways, depending on the context. To an economist, inflation refers to the rate of rising prices. To a cosmologist, however, inflation refers to a hypothetical era billions of years ago.
The relative timescales are very important to help us evaluate this concept. According to deep-time cosmologists, the universe began in the so-called Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, when a quantum event caused a singularity to come into existence. 10-36 seconds later, the universe expanded at a hugely accelerated rate. 10-36 is one over one with 36 zeros after it. At 10-32 seconds after the Big Bang, this inflation ceased, and the universe carried on expanding at what might be termed a “normal” rate for 13.7 billion years, minus 10-32 seconds.
Inflation theory is required to explain how cosmic microwave background radiation is so uniform. It is also required to explain a number of other phenomena, such as the non-existence of magnetic monopoles, or why the universe is flat.
But this rapid inflationary expansion required energy to cause it to happen. Where did that energy come from? The only model they can use suggests that other bubbles of space-time could, and probably have, opened up elsewhere, forming multiple universes, without any realistic beginning.
‘Students in public schools have no chance to hear the reasons why life cannot “emerge” from rocks and water.
The recent landing of the Perseverance Rover has ramped up talk about life on Mars (17 Feb 2021). In all cases in secular media, the assumption is made that life (if it exists) would have made itself by chance. Another common assumption is that once simple life emerges, nothing stops it from proceeding all the way to intelligent brains because of the assumed creative power of Darwinian evolution.
Advocates of intelligent design and creation are always loaded for bear to address origin-of-life issues. They never get the chance to explain the reasons, though, because Big Science and Big Media and Big Education control the messaging to students.
Mars in a Minute: Why is Curiosity Looking for Organics? (NASA/JPL). The video aimed at children argues that finding organic molecules is equivalent to finding the conditions for life. See also the classroom activity “Looking for Life” aimed at grades 4-8.
Organics are carbon-based molecules – key ingredients to life. If Curiosity finds organics in ancient rocks, there’s a better chance Mars once had good conditions for small life forms called microbes.
Curious Kids: We have been trying to contact aliens – but do they want to contact us? (The Conversation). An eight-year-old student named Sai asks if aliens want to contact us. Jacco van Loon, astrophysicist and Director of Keele Observatory steps up to the microphone in the “Curious Kids” service of The Conversation to give the official Darwinian answer. He admits that nobody knows what aliens are thinking, but he never questions the existence of aliens, and why they must be there.
The question presumes that aliens do exist. And again, because we haven’t found any yet, we don’t know if they do. It is possible they may exist, for one simple reason: we exist.Whatever made the likes of bacteria evolve into complex bodies with intelligent brains on Earth may have also occurred on another planet.
He mentions “whatever” not “whoever.” The idea of a Creator with intelligence is completely ignored. Notice, too, that he assumes that “evolution” has the power to take life from bacteria to the human brain by “whatever” – the impersonal, chance-based Stuff Happens Law.
Time is the magic wand that lets miracles happen by chance, van Loon goes on to explain, but his answer is based on ignorance, not observation.
On Earth this transformation seems to have taken place quite suddenly some 700 million years ago. At that time the Earth was already almost 4 billion years old, and had been inhabited by simple lifeforms such as bacteria for much of that time. Why did it not happen sooner? And what made it happen? Until we find the answers to those questions we cannot tell how likely it is that it also occurred elsewhere.
It is fallacious to build a case on an example of one. van Loon speculates that since humans are curious and want companionship, aliens probably want that, too.
Some aliens might simply not be interested in life beyond their own world.
On the other hand, it may be that life such as ours is actually very common. With so many worlds and civilisations to choose from, we may simply not yet have caught their eye. If that is the case, we might soon detect alien life around nearby stars for ourselves.
Poor Sai never had a chance to hear an alternative view that life was created for a purpose. He was never taught that the requirements for life preclude a naturalistic origin. He will keep looking up to the silent stars waiting for ET to phone home.
Has life existed beyond Earth? (Purdue University). This is a piece about Briony Horgan, associate professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University, who is a member of the NASA Perseverance Rover team, and how she is “going to great lengths” to find out if life ever existed on Mars. This piece is typical of NASA press releases that assume that if life ever existed on Mars, it evolved—it was not created. As for why Jezero Crater was selected for the rover’s landing site,
“… we think Jezero Crater is the best location to search for evidence that life existed on Mars, if it ever did. And what we find will help us learn more about whether or not we are alone in the universe.“
Students are inspired to be like Briony, growing up to be good evolutionists, and eventually, to become brainy scientists like Dr Horgan, who believe that water and rock are sufficient to produce living organisms and brains.
Life of a pure Martian design (University of Wien). Scientists at this university put earth life on soil from a Martian meteorite to see if it would grow. Fallacy alert: this has nothing to do with whether Mars life exists. At most, it shows how hardy Earth life is. They think it gives NASA a way to look for “biosignatures” on Mars to distinguish life from non-life. But what if Mars life (if it ever existed) is completely different from Earth life? (Fallacy alert #2).
Could game theory help discover intelligent alien life? (Phys.org). The answer is, naturally, “It could, and if pigs had wings, they could fly.” Like the previous example, this SETI article assumes what aliens are thinking.
“Soon we should have the first catalog of planets that may be inhabited by civilisations who already know something about our World. They may know just enough to be tempted to send a message. These are the worlds we really need to focus in on. If they know about game theory they’ll expect us to be listening.”
In preparing for my weekly radio program on a local station I came across the Aquatic Ape Theory.
‘The Aquatic Ape Theory (AAT) was formulated by Alister Hardy in year 1960. The theory attempts to answer a lot of unanswered questions that have plagued mankind about our heritage – why do we walk on two legs? why are we naked? why do we sweat? How come that babies automatically hold their breath under water? etc. Hardy suggested that we during the evolution have spent a considerable time on the coastlines and adapted to a semi-aquatic environment, not on the hot dry savannah or in the forest with the other primates.’ https://theaquaticape.org/human-evolution/aat/
As atheists and theistic evolutionists seek to answer their own questions I’ll stay with Genesis 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
‘ALIVE OR DEAD, THEY ARE FLIPPING GOOD AT IT! Dragonfly backflips described in articles in ScienceDaily 9 February 2021, Imperial College London news 10 February 2021, and PNAS 10 February 2021 doi: 10.1098/rspb.2020.2676. Dragonflies are noted for superb aerial manoeuvres, including flying backwards, but even the most agile flyer can be knocked off balance or flipped upside down. A group of scientists at Imperial College London studied common darter dragonflies to see how they could right themselves after being dropped in an upside-down position. They found the dragonflies righted themselves with a head-first backwards somersault. Anaesthetised (unconscious) dragonflies also did the same backflip, but were slower. Not surprisingly “dead dragonflies did not perform the manoeuvre at all”. However, when researchers used wax to fix wings of the dead dragonflies into the same position as the unconscious dragonflies the dead dragonflies righted themselves, albeit in a slightly more ungainly way. These results led researchers to conclude that the righting process is mainly a passive result, dependent on wing position and muscle tone (live or dead). Samuel Fabian of the Department of Bioengineering commented: “Planes are often designed so that if their engines fail, they will glide along stably rather than drop out of the sky. We saw a similar response in dragonflies, despite the lack of active flapping, such that some insects, despite their small size, can leverage passive stability without active control.” He went on to say: “Passive stability lowers the effort requirements of flight, and this trait likely influenced how dragonfly shapes evolved. Dragonflies that use passive stability in flight are likely to have an advantage, as they use less energy and are better able to recover from inconvenient events.” The researchers concluded: “This lesson from biology can inspire design principles for failsafe attitude recovery in micro aerial systems.” Links: Imperial College, ScienceDaily
ED. COM. If aerodynamically stable aeroplanes need to be designed so they don’t drop out of the sky, why would anyone believe that aerodynamically stable dragonflies evolved the same characteristic by chance random processes? Particularly when they are dead. Passive stability is certainly an advantage once a dragonfly has it, but, as the experiments with dead dragonflies show, there is only one chance to get both muscle tone and wing position right. Otherwise flipped over dragonflies would drop out of the air and not get any chance to evolve. These experiments are further proof that design is the only way to fly. If you ever had the misfortune to be in an aircraft whose engines failed you would give thanks to the engineers who built a failsafe glide into the design to get it safely back on the ground. Therefore, the lesson to be learned from biology is there is no excuse for failing to give thanks to the Creator Christ for designing wonderful flying creatures like dragonflies that can keep themselves flying even when flipped and dropped.’https://creationresearch.net/
‘We are saddened by the 500,000 people who have died with Covid-19 in the USA, just as we are fearful of the abject power abuse demanded by many of the politicians boasting their miracle cure will fix it. As one professor of chemistry told us he wouldn’t even trust his own research after only three – six months testing. Ten years of testing would may be help since by then he would’ve found out a little more of what was needed to show it didn’t do what it shouldn’t do as well.
This editor is old enough to remember how long it took to establish thalidomide was a culprit for deformed babies, and to prove tobacco did cancer. No wonder God’s Word advises us to test all things.
No, we are not opposed to vaccination, nor are we opposed to man exercising dominion using scientific and medical research. However, we are opposed to the gross hypocrisy amongst politicians who pretend life is meaningful when all the evidence over decades of policies in so-called enlightened countries has led to legalising the murder of over six million babies in the last two months alone (Worldometer statistics here). We sadly note the same politicians are increasingly pushing for the legalised murder of adults, in the form of euthanasia for those deemed by the medial elite and by themselves as unfit to live.’ An email from https://creationresearch.net/
Isaiah 22:11“Ye made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: but ye have not looked unto the maker thereof, neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago.”
‘Since the days of Charles Darwin, over a century ago, naturalists have generally classified living things by their appearance. A zebra and a horse are said to be more closely related than a zebra and a whale. This has been the foundation of all those evolutionary trees that claim to show that all living things have supposedly come from older, simpler living things.
In recent years, some scientists have been comparing another feature that all living things share. Today, scientists are able to look for similarities and differences among the biological chemicals – like hemoglobin. What they are finding does not agree with the evolutionary tree in their textbooks, according to Dr. Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History.
Among the examples Dr. Patterson offered to American evolutionary scientists was a comparison of alpha myoglobin among mammals, birds and reptiles. According to evolution, comparisons between mammals, reptiles and birds should show mammals and birds to be most distantly related. Reptiles should have more similarities to each. However, when humans were compared with crocodiles and birds, birds were closer to humans than were crocodiles – the opposite of what evolution predicts. Dr. Patterson asked, “What’s going on?”
Years ago my family and I visited the Grand Canyon. What a sight it is! The ‘Grand Canyon carves a 277-mile-long chasm through northwestern Arizona. Running from Lee’s Ferry to Lake Mead, the expansive landscape reveals some of the most colorful geology in the world and provides strong evidence for the global Flood.
Lateral Extent of Strata
As you look across Grand Canyon, observe the layers on both walls. The cliffs and the colors match from one side to the other. The gaps between the cliffs were once filled solid, the layers continuous, but the space in between has since been removed by erosion. The bottom flat layers are older and were deposited first; these are called Cambrian system rocks. The youngest layers are on the canyon’s rim; these are identified as Permian system rocks.An explorer carefully navigates a canyon wall trail, circa 1930Image credit: Henry G. Peabody Photographs, Greater Arizona Collection, Arizona State University Library, Tempe, AZ.
All of these layers were deposited during the rising phase of the global Flood. Powerful tsunami-like waves spread massive, continuous sedimentary layers for hundreds of miles in all directions across this part of North America. Even relatively thin layers extend across Grand Canyon.
Flat Contacts Show Little Time Between Layers
Grand Canyon’s layers are like stacked pancakes. The lowermost flat layer at Grand Canyon is called the Tapeats Sandstone. At about 200 feet thick, it makes a thin, dark brown layer from a distant view. This layer represents the first extensive Flood deposit at this location. The basal boundary of the Tapeats is a special type of unconformity1 called a nonconformity, where sedimentary rock resides on top of pre-Flood crystalline rock. This surface is also referred to as the Great Unconformity (Figure 1).Figure 1. ICR geologist Dr. Tim Clarey addresses a Grand Canyon tour group with the Great Unconformity behind himImage credit: Kevin Turley
This global phenomenon is found in countless locations where Cambrian system sedimentary layers overlie Precambrian crystalline rocks. Just below the contact, we observe metamorphic crystalline rocks that are oriented nearly vertically, but the overlying Cambrian Tapeats is horizontal. Although secular geologists claim the Precambrian rock surface here experienced over a billion years of erosion, the contact with the Tapeats is almost perfectly planar—it’s flat! Where are the gullies and chasms from billions of years of erosion?
The Redwall Limestone is Grand Canyon’s most prominent layer—a red, thick, vertical cliff that spans the middle of the exposed rock layers. It’s part of the Mississippian system. Right below it, the Muav Limestone of the Cambrian system appears a bit more grayish. The evolutionary narrative claims 160 million years of erosion occurred between these two rock units. But where are the v-shaped channel patterns that gullies and canyons should have carved on top of the Muav? Instead, one flat limestone lies flat on another nearly everywhere you look.Figure 2. Flat contact shows no erosion and thus no time between the deposition of the Muav Limestone (gray) and the overlying Redwall Limestone (red). The inset shows the Great Unconformity.Illustration by Scott Arledge
A third flat unconformity lies between the Coconino Sandstone and the Hermit Shale. If you look toward the top of the layers in the canyon, you’ll see a thin, light, tan-colored cliff on top of a dark red layer. About a million years of erosion supposedly separates these two units (Figure 2). But if they were really deposited millions of years apart, valleys and canyons should be found between each of these layers. Instead, the contact is almost perfectly flat everywhere we see it.
Badlands Topography Shows Catastrophic Carving
By examining the topography of areas that have been catastrophically restructured recently, we can estimate the effects of the Flood and compare that estimation with Grand Canyon’s topography. A mudflow following the 1982 eruption of Mount St. Helens created a steep-walled, 140-foot-deep canyon system, complete with side canyons, in a single day.2 It looks remarkably like a 1:40 scale of Grand Canyon.
And we see similar deep gorges and butte-and-basin (badlands) topography associated with the flooding that followed the bursting of Ice Age Lake Missoula. This occurred about 4,000 years ago in the American Northwest. Even secular geologists now recognize that this catastrophic megaflood created the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington and widened the Columbia River Gorge.
Today’s processes do not form broad, flat rock layers or carve such big and clean canyons. Different processes must be responsible—catastrophic processes. Therefore, it’s reasonable to conclude that early floodwaters laid down Grand Canyon rocks while the water was rising, and the receding floodwater carved most of the Canyon.
The present narrative for Grand Canyon’s formation is insufficient. Most of today’s secular scientists assume the Colorado River slowly carved Grand Canyon over a period of six million years. But today’s flow rates simply don’t have the power to push the 1,000 cubic miles of rocks and debris all the way out to the Pacific Ocean. Even after millions of years, we should see a lot more talus and debris. Talus refers to rock piles that lean against the cliff walls where they fell. The canyon’s base looks like it was swept clean. Only catastrophic water flow and water volume many times greater than what flows there today could sculpt badlands topography and wide gaps in the canyon.3
Noah’s Flood Explains Grand Canyon
Secular interpretations still cannot adequately explain why the Colorado River cuts right through the Kaibab Uplift that formed on the western flank of the Colorado Plateau. The Kaibab Uplift has warped an arch of rock about 3,000 feet above the surrounding terrain. Water should have flowed around it, not uphill and through it.4
How do Flood geologists explain this? The year-long Flood narrative in Genesis helps us understand what we see. After sediments like the Coconino, Redwall, and Tapeats were deposited in the rising phase of the Flood, the Colorado Plateau was pushed up 5,000 feet during the receding phase of the Flood. This caused the floodwaters to drain off rapidly. Grand Canyon is on the western edge of that plateau. When packed, wet sand is lifted up, it stretches and cracks. Water naturally follows the cracks and fractures. Some of those would have run through the Kaibab Uplift to create a path for lots of water to flow downhill and carve a vast canyon.
Rapid uplift and drainage of the receding floodwaters provide both the pathway and the necessary volume of water to quickly carve Grand Canyon.4 This was all accomplished before the Ice Age began. How do we know? Because there are about 150 lava flows that originated on the Uinkaret Plateau and poured down into Grand Canyon during the Ice Age. The canyon had to exist before these lava falls poured in.5
The lateral extent of the sedimentary layers, flat contacts between the layers, and vast badlands topography all point to rapid deposition and ultra-high-volume erosion. The rocks reveal the enormity of the global Flood, and the canyon exhibits catastrophic carving from receding floodwaters. Grand Canyon is a reminder of the immense power of the judgment of the Flood.
References
An unconformity is where some amount of erosion has taken place, removing a segment of the rock record. Unconformities can also occur if there was a brief hiatus in deposition. Unconformities do not imply vast amounts of time since they can form quickly as tsunami-like waves wash across the landscape, eroding the surface as they go.
Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
‘It’s a warm day on the Amazon River. A small fish swims near the surface, looking among the natural floating river debris for some food. As he looks among the occasional leaf or twig in the water, he sees no danger. At the same time, one of the floating “leaves” is waiting for the little fish to move just a bit closer. Then, without warning, the floating “leaf” comes to life, grabs the fish and eats it!
What the little fish thought was simply another floating leaf was actually another fish. The Amazonian leaf fish is carefully designed not only to look like a leaf, but to act like one as well. It has a flat body, very much like a leaf. A black line runs the length of its body, giving the appearance of the midrib of a leaf. A fleshy growth in its lower jaw looks like a leaf stem.
Beyond looking like a leaf, the leaf fish also acts like a leaf. It lies still in the water, drifting with the current. To hide its identity further, it draws its fins close to its body, removing any last hint that it is indeed a hungry fish looking for lunch.
The leaf fish combines deceptive coloring, appearance and behavior into one design so that it, too, can make its living. In this, the leaf fish shows that the Creator makes nothing without also designing a special purpose for that creature. According to the Bible, the same can be said even more emphatically for each human being He has made. Your Creator has a special purpose for you, too, and it begins with His plan of salvation for you through His Son, Jesus Christ.’ https://creationmoments.com/sermons/the-hungry-leaf-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-hungry-leaf-2&mc_cid=1d2b7b36a3&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
It is amazing (or is it) how people fall for evolution and deny the Creator. Romans 1: 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse
1 Corinthians 6:20“For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
‘Some creatures seem more wise and powerful in dealing with the problems of living than seems reasonable.
For example, when threatened with parasites, some creatures change their method of reproduction to put the parasites at a disadvantage. Several types of fungus infect some grasses, producing poisons. However, these poisons don’t harm the infected grass. Instead, they protect the grass from insects and other enemies. This makes it less likely that the fungus will lose its happy home.
When fungal parasites take over certain wild grasses, the fungus destroys the flowers of the plant so that it can only reproduce by sending out shoots from its roots. Can you figure out the fungus’s clever strategy? New shoots are genetically identical to the parent, and just as susceptible to the fungus. New plants from seeds, however, might express traits that were present, though unexpressed, in the parent, like resistance to the fungus. So it’s in the fungus’s best interest to restrict the grass to identical offspring.
A New Zealand freshwater snail can reproduce with or without fertilized eggs. However, in those lakes where the snail is threatened by a parasitic worm, the snail uses only fertilized eggs, increasing the likelihood that some of the offspring will be able to resist the parasite.
An explorer carefully navigates a canyon wall trail, circa 1930Image credit: Henry G. Peabody Photographs, Greater Arizona Collection, Arizona State University Library, Tempe, AZ.
Figure 1. ICR geologist Dr. Tim Clarey addresses a Grand Canyon tour group with the Great Unconformity behind himImage credit: Kevin Turley
Figure 2. Flat contact shows no erosion and thus no time between the deposition of the Muav Limestone (gray) and the overlying Redwall Limestone (red). The inset shows the Great Unconformity.Illustration by Scott Arledge
whatyareckon 