Recommended book on Creation

[coffee4u]

Science used to be mans striving to understand God’s creation - back when science owed its very existence to men who believed in God.

Science today has been hijacked by atheistic and materialistic naturalism.


But it was men with belief in God who gave us the modern scientific method, physics, genetics, magnetism and electricity, astronomy, quantum theory, and general and special relativity, and more.


Francis Bacon invented the modern scientific method:


Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1627)

Bacon was a philosopher who is known for establishing the scientific method of inquiry based on experimentation and inductive reasoning. In De Interpretatione Naturae Prooemium, Bacon established his goals as being the discovery of truth, service to his country, and service to the church. Although his work was based upon experimentation and reasoning, he rejected atheism as being the result of insufficient depth of philosophy, stating, "It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." (Of Atheism)


Isaac Newton gave us physics and calculus:


Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

In optics, mechanics, and mathematics, Newton was a figure of undisputed genius and innovation. In all his science (including chemistry) he saw mathematics and numbers as central. What is less well known is that he was devoutly religious and saw numbers as involved in understanding God's plan for history from the Bible. He did a considerable work on biblical numerology, and, though aspects of his beliefs were not orthodox, he thought theology was very important. In his system of physics, God was essential to the nature and absoluteness of space. In Principia he stated, "The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."


Mendel is the father of genetics:


Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)

Mendel was the first to lay the mathematical foundations of genetics, in what came to be called "Mendelianism". He began his research in 1856 (three years before Darwin published his Origin of Species) in the garden of the Monastery in which he was a monk. Mendel was elected Abbot of his Monastery in 1868. His work remained comparatively unknown until the turn of the century, when a new generation of botanists began finding similar results and "rediscovered" him (though their ideas were not identical to his). An interesting point is that the 1860's was notable for formation of the X-Club, which was dedicated to lessening religious influences and propagating an image of "conflict" between science and religion. One sympathizer was Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, whose scientific interest was in genetics (a proponent of eugenics - selective breeding among humans to "improve" the stock). He was writing how the "priestly mind" was not conducive to science while, at around the same time, an Austrian monk was making the breakthrough in genetics. The rediscovery of the work of Mendel came too late to affect Galton's contribution.


William Thompson Kelvin helped establish modern physics:


William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907)

Kelvin was foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped to lay the foundations of modern physics. His work covered many areas of physics, and he was said to have more letters after his name than anyone else in the Commonwealth, since he received numerous honorary degrees from European Universities, which recognized the value of his work. He was a very committed Christian, who was certainly more religious than the average for his era. Interestingly, his fellow physicists George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) were also men of deep Christian commitment, in an era when many were nominal, apathetic, or anti-Christian. The Encyclopedia Britannica says "Maxwell is regarded by most modern physicists as the scientist of the 19th century who had the greatest influence on 20th century physics; he is ranked with Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for the fundamental nature of his contributions."


Max Planck gave us quantum physics:


Max Planck (1858-1947)

Planck made many contributions to physics, but is best known for quantum theory, which revolutionized our understanding of the atomic and sub-atomic worlds. In his 1937 lecture "Religion and Naturwissenschaft," Planck expressed the view that God is everywhere present, and held that "the holiness of the unintelligible Godhead is conveyed by the holiness of symbols." Atheists, he thought, attach too much importance to what are merely symbols. Planck was a churchwarden from 1920 until his death, and believed in an almighty, all-knowing, beneficent God (though not necessarily a personal one). Both science and religion wage a "tireless battle against skepticism and dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition" with the goal "toward God”


Michael Faraday is famous for his work with electricity and magnetism:


Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Michael Faraday was the son of a blacksmith who became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. His work on electricity and magnetism not only revolutionized physics, but led to much of our lifestyles today, which depends on them (including computers and telephone lines and, so, web sites). Faraday was a devoutly Christian member of the Sandemanians, which significantly influenced him and strongly affected the way in which he approached and interpreted nature. Originating from Presbyterians, the Sandemanians rejected the idea of state churches, and tried to go back to a New Testament type of Christianity.


Albert Einstein gave us the famous formula: Energy = Mass times the speed of light, squared, plus general and special relativity:


Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Einstein is probably the best known and most highly revered scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking about time, gravity, and the conversion of matter to energy (E=mc2). Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."


And believers in God gave us astronomy:


Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)

Copernicus was the Polish astronomer who put forward the first mathematically based system of planets going around the sun. He attended various European universities, and became a Canon in the Catholic church in 1497. His new system was actually first presented in the Vatican gardens in 1533 before Pope Clement VII who approved, and urged Copernicus to publish it around this time. Copernicus was never under any threat of religious persecution - and was urged to publish both by Catholic Bishop Guise, Cardinal Schonberg, and the Protestant Professor George Rheticus. Copernicus referred sometimes to God in his works, and did not see his system as in conflict with the Bible.


Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

Kepler was a brilliant mathematician and astronomer. He did early work on light, and established the laws of planetary motion about the sun. He also came close to reaching the Newtonian concept of universal gravity - well before Newton was born! His introduction of the idea of force in astronomy changed it radically in a modern direction. Kepler was an extremely sincere and pious Lutheran, whose works on astronomy contain writings about how space and the heavenly bodies represent the Trinity. Kepler suffered no persecution for his open avowal of the sun-centered system, and, indeed, was allowed as a Protestant to stay in Catholic Graz as a Professor (1595-1600) when other Protestants had been expelled!


Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Galileo is often remembered for his conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. His controversial work on the solar system was published in 1633. It had no proofs of a sun-centered system (Galileo's telescope discoveries did not indicate a moving earth) and his one "proof" based upon the tides was invalid. It ignored the correct elliptical orbits of planets published twenty five years earlier by Kepler. Since his work finished by putting the Pope's favorite argument in the mouth of the simpleton in the dialogue, the Pope (an old friend of Galileo's) was very offended. After the "trial" and being forbidden to teach the sun-centered system, Galileo did his most useful theoretical work, which was on dynamics. Galileo expressly said that the Bible cannot err, and saw his system as an alternate interpretation of the biblical texts.


Also the Big Bang theory came from a Christian, and was originally called the Primordial Atom (or Primeval Atom) theory - so even today’s standard cosmological model, came from someone with God belief.

And you are mixing up repeatable, observable science with the something that man cannot see or experience or repeat.
"The process of the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions"
God creating the earth isn't the same as dropping a rock and observing gravity. What we have in the present may not resemble the beginning in any way. Creation was a miracle and the world was created outside of time, both of which can't be measured or tested.

Just because some well-known person of history says or writes something does not automatically make them correct, no matter how educated or famous they are. It just makes their mistakes larger because it affects more people. People make mistakes or worse they spread falsehood knowingly.

"The Big Bang theory came from a Christian, and was originally called the Primordial Atom"
God gave him a front row seat to observe and take notes of that did he? Boy how lucky we are to have guys like that to put us straight. The fact the clay thinks it can talk back to the potter and tell him what his words actually mean would be laughable if masses didn't believe them.
2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Some man's word and knowledge vs God's words and knowledge, I know who I will pick.

 

[The Barbarian]

The Big Bang theory is science catching up to the Genesis account of creation.

This is why a prominent atheist was so eager to disparage the Big Bang theory.

The Bible also said God hangs the earth on nothing, long before astronomy and telescopes were invented.

By the time of the ancient Greeks, pretty much every educated person realized the Earth was a globe in space. One of them (Eratosthenes of Alexandria) even came up with an accurate measure of its circumgerence.

The Bible isn’t a science text - it’s a spiritual guide - but it has a pretty fair amount of science and medical knowledge in it, written long before science confirmed it.

There's a lot of things therein that allude to facts of nature, that weren't recognized as such until recently. Abiogenesis is one of them. It's consistent with the Big Bang, but I don't know that it actually mentions it anywhere.

Much of the confusion comes from trying to make allegorical verses into literal histories, or taking man's extrapolations of selected verses into God's word. The age of the Earth is nowhere to be found in scripture, but men have often tried to impose their own ideas on God's word.

 

[chad kincham]

By the time of the ancient Greeks, pretty much every educated person realized the Earth was a globe in space. One of them (Eratosthenes of Alexandria) even came up with an accurate measure of its circumgerence.

Job was written long before your Ancient Greece response.

 

[chad kincham]

This is why a prominent atheist was so eager to disparage the Big Bang theory.

There’s no doubt that science knew the Genesis implications of the Primordial Atom theory, and resisted it at first - in fact the name BB came from Fred Hoyle mockingly calling it a Big Bang - to his chagrin, that name for it stuck.

 

[chad kincham]

Much of the confusion comes from trying to make allegorical verses into literal histories, or taking man's extrapolations of selected verses into God's word. The age of the Earth is nowhere to be found in scripture, but men have often tried to impose their own ideas on God's word.

The common sense approach is to take a text literally unless it’s obviously symbolic - and in fact the Bible was made easy to interpret, because the symbolism is either explained in the same text, or can be found elsewhere in the scriptures.

 

[chad kincham]

And you are mixing up repeatable, observable science with the something that man cannot see or experience or repeat.
"The process of the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions"
God creating the earth isn't the same as dropping a rock and observing gravity. What we have in the present may not resemble the beginning in any way. Creation was a miracle and the world was created outside of time, both of which can't be measured or tested.

Just because some well-known person of history says or writes something does not automatically make them correct, no matter how educated or famous they are. It just makes their mistakes larger because it affects more people. People make mistakes or worse they spread falsehood knowingly.

"The Big Bang theory came from a Christian, and was originally called the Primordial Atom"
God gave him a front row seat to observe and take notes of that did he? Boy how lucky we are to have guys like that to put us straight. The fact the clay thinks it can talk back to the potter and tell him what his words actually mean would be laughable if masses didn't believe them.
2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Some man's word and knowledge vs God's words and knowledge, I know who I will pick.

You obviously paid no attention to what I said, nor the documented proof that the ground breaking, paradigm creating scientists were not atheists, but believed in God, nor did they use a naturalistic materialistic interpretation of data, as they do today.

I correctly said science today has been hijacked by atheism, that presupposes naturalism, and is completely biased towards naturalism.

Science owes the existence of even the scientific method to a Christian named Francis Bacon, which was my first example of how atheistic science owes its existence to theistic scientists.

 

[chad kincham]

fish are the ancestors of all land vertebrates. Your OPINION of a verified scientific theory is your own and disagrees with the verifiable evidence for it ( shrug)

Scientific American:

Some time round about 165 million years ago, the group of small, feathered dinosaurs that we call birds evolved from within the theropod radiation (theropods are the so-called ‘predatory dinosaurs’: the great group that includes animals like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor as well as the birds). As anyone reasonably familiar with recent palaeontological discoveries will know, we’re now aware of a large number of fossils that blur and smudge whatever distinction there might have been between ‘dinosaur’ and ‘bird’. Archaeopteryx may or may not be one of the oldest members of the bird lineage, but it’s evident that – when it was alive – it belonged to just one of several lineages of small, long-legged, fully feathered, omnivorous or predatory theropods, all of which possessed a mosaic of ‘bird-like’ and ‘unbird-like’ characters. [T-shirt design shown below available here.]
Indeed, if we look at theropod history across the whole of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous, we see a gradual, cumulative acquisition of bird-like features, ranging from wishbones and a pneumatised skeleton to complex feathers, a reduced, three-fingered hand, an enlarged sternum (breastbone) and tiny size.

 

[Brightmoon]

Archaeopteryx is a dino bird . It’s has more dinosaurs traits than bird traits . Including gastralia, teeth , solid bones , and a long bony tail . It’s a mosaic animal with some definite theropod traits and some bird traits . This is what usually happens with transitional organisms . Btw beaks , scaly skin , and feathers are all dinosaur traits that birds also have inherited

 

[Brightmoon]

I’m not concerned about whether scientists are atheists or not as their religious beliefs have nothing to do with the science . Science only works on what we can verify . The Big Bang has been verified, common descent has been verified at this point no one cares what creationists or IDers believe especially since some of them have the bizarre idea that confirmed science information hasnt been confirmed.. We actually use the facts of common ancestry and natural selection in medical research . Anyone who has diabetes or knows a diabetic had better thank God for that otherwise they, . their friends, relatives , or acquaintances , would be dead within a few months . The original cause of and early treatments for diabetes were discovered in dogs .

 

[chad kincham]

Archaeopteryx is a dino bird . It’s has more dinosaurs traits than bird traits . Including gastralia, teeth , solid bones , and a long bony tail . It’s a mosaic animal with some definite theropod traits and some bird traits . This is what usually happens with transitional organisms . Btw beaks , scaly skin , and feathers are all dinosaur traits that birds also have inherited

Try reading what actual bird experts, like Stors Olson of the Smithsonian Institute, have to say about that.

Birds have a flow-through lung, dinosaurs have a bellows Lung - and there’s no way to have a transitional lung between the two different types.

Here’s a letter from Stors Olson to National Geographic on the controversy.

Dear Peter,



I thought that I should address to you the concerns expressed below because your committee is at least partly involved and because you are certainly now the most prominent scientist at the National Geographic Society.

With the publication of "Feathers for T. rex?" by Christopher P. Sloan in its November issue, National Geographic has reached an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism. But at the same time the magazine may now claim to have taken its place in formal taxonomic literature.

Although it is possible that Mr. Czerkas "will later name" the specimen identified on page 100 as Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, there is no longer any need for him to do so. Because this Latinized binomial has apparently not been published previously and has now appeared with a full-spread photograph of the specimen "accompanied by a description or definition that states in words characters that are purported to differentiate the taxon," the name Archaeoraptor liaoningensis Sloan is now available for purposes of zoological nomenclature as of its appearance in National Geographic (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, Article 13a, i). This is the worst nightmare of many zoologists---that their chance to name a new organism will be inadvertently scooped by some witless journalist. Clearly, National Geographic is not receiving competent consultation in certain scientific matters.

Sloan's article explicitly states that the specimen in question is known to have been illegally exported and that "the Czerkases now plan to return it to China." In Washington, in June of 1996, more than forty participants at the 4th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, held at the Smithsonian Institution, were signatories to a letter to the Director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that deplored the illegal trade in fossils from China and encouraged the Chinese government to take further action to curb this exploitation. There were a few fossil dealers at that meeting and they certainly got the message. Thus, at least since mid-1996 it can hardly have been a secret to anyone in the scientific community or the commercial fossil business that fossils from Liaoning offered for sale outside of China are contraband.

Most, if not all, major natural history museums in the United States have policies in effect that prohibit their staff from accepting any specimens that were not legally collected and exported from the country of origin. The National Geographic Society has not only supported research on such material, but has sensationalized, and is now exhibiting, an admittedly illicit specimen that would have been morally, administratively, and perhaps legally, off-limits to researchers in reputable scientific institutions.

Prior to the publication of the article "Dinosaurs Take Wing" in the July 1998 National Geographic, Lou Mazzatenta, the photographer for Sloan's article, invited me to the National Geographic Society to review his photographs of Chinese fossils and to comment on the slant being given to the story. At that time, I tried to interject the fact that strongly supported alternative viewpoints existed to what National Geographic intended to present, but it eventually became clear to me that National Geographic was not interested in anything other than the prevailing dogma that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Sloan's article takes the prejudice to an entirely new level and consists in large part of unverifiable or undocumented information that "makes" the news rather than reporting it. His bald statement that "we can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say that humans are mammals" is not even suggested as reflecting the views of a particular scientist or group of scientists, so that it figures as little more than editorial propagandizing. This melodramatic assertion had already been disproven by recent studies of embryology and comparative morphology, which, of course, are never mentioned.

More importantly, however, none of the structures illustrated in Sloan's article that are claimed to be feathers have actually been proven to be feathers. Saying that they are is little more than wishful thinking that has been presented as fact. The statement on page 103 that "hollow, hairlike structures characterize protofeathers" is nonsense considering that protofeathers exist only as a theoretical construct, so that the internal structure of one is even more hypothetical.

The hype about feathered dinosaurs in the exhibit currently on display at the National Geographic Society is even worse, and makes the spurious claim that there is strong evidence that a wide variety of carnivorous dinosaurs had feathers. A model of the undisputed dinosaur Deinonychus and illustrations of baby tyrannosaurs are shown clad in feathers, all of which is simply imaginary and has no place outside of science fiction.

The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith. Truth and careful scientific weighing of evidence have been among the first casualties in their program, which is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age---the paleontological equivalent of cold fusion. If Sloan's article is not the crescendo of this fantasia, it is difficult to imagine to what heights it can next be taken. But it is certain that when the folly has run its course and has been fully exposed, National Geographic will unfortunately play a prominent but unenviable role in the book that summarizes the whole sorry episode.



Sincerely,



Storrs L. Olson

Curator of Birds
National Museum of Natural History

Smithsonian Institution

Washington, DC 20560


Olson wrote this, above:

“This melodramatic assertion had already been disproven by recent studies of embryology and comparative morphology, which, of course, are never mentioned”

I’ve read the article about the embryology and comparative morphology study, which disproves the theropods-to-birds evolutionary hypothesis.

Archaeopteryx is a dino bird . It’s has more dinosaurs traits than bird traits . Including gastralia, teeth , solid bones , and a long bony tail . It’s a mosaic animal with some definite theropod traits and some bird traits . This is what usually happens with transitional organisms . Btw beaks , scaly skin , and feathers are all dinosaur traits that birds also have inherited

 

[Brightmoon]

When did he write that as some dinosaurs, like their bird descendants, do have pneumatic bones . It’s a recent discovery . . A lot of dinosaurs that look like birds were discovered in China after that was written . That birds are themselves featherEd flying dinosaurs is no longer in question .

 

[The Barbarian]

The common sense approach is to take a text literally unless it’s obviously symbolic - and in fact the Bible was made easy to interpret, because the symbolism is either explained in the same text, or can be found elsewhere in the scriptures.

As ancient Christians like St. Augustine pointed out, the text of Genesis itself tells you that the "days" of Genesis are not a literal history

 

[The Barbarian]

There’s no doubt that science knew the Genesis implications of the Primordial Atom theory, and resisted it at first - in fact the name BB came from Fred Hoyle mockingly calling it a Big Bang - to his chagrin, that name for it stuck.

Yep. Hoyle was an atheist, and the scientist who first proposed the Big Bang theory was a Catholic priest.

 

[Brightmoon]

I spent a few minutes reading some of this and apparently a trait that emphasizes gas exchange by preventing the lung surface from moving around shows up in all birds and does show up in some dinosaurs . This is a transitional trait and enabled better gas exchange between the lung and the blood . This wasn’t an adaptation for flight , the O2 atmosphere levels were different then and the dinosaurs needed the ability to get extra O2 into their blood . This is a photo I can’t link sorry !
Maybe you should read the scientific literature rather than a magazine ( albeit a good one ) written for laymen and slightly out of date

 

[The Barbarian]

Job was written long before your Ancient Greece response.

But people knew it was a globe long before Eratosthenes. A number of facts made it clear. Sailors approaching land, would see the tops of mountains before they saw the coastline, showing that the surface was curved. The Earth casts a circular shadow on the moon during eclipses, again, showing the spherical nature of the Earth.

 

[The Barbarian]

There is no question that many if not all dinosaurs had an "avian" respiratory system. Pneumatized dinosaur bones are well known from many different species.

And Olson seems completely unaware that all vertebrates have such a system, albeit in a very rudimentary form. Between alveoli, are channels that connect each other. These "pores of Kohn", "channels of Lambert", and "interbronchiolar channels of Martin" are connections that in cases of bronchial obstruction, allow "collateral ventilation" similar to that found in birds and dinosaurs, and provide effective gas transfer.


As dinosaurs evolved in a period of relatively low oxygen, such a flow-through system gave them a huge advantage. Birds still have a much better respiratory system than mammals do.

 

[coffee4u]

You obviously paid no attention to what I said, nor the documented proof that the ground breaking, paradigm creating scientists were not atheists, but believed in God, nor did they use a naturalistic materialistic interpretation of data, as they do today.

I correctly said science today has been hijacked by atheism, that presupposes naturalism, and is completely biased towards naturalism.

Science owes the existence of even the scientific method to a Christian named Francis Bacon, which was my first example of how atheistic science owes its existence to theistic scientists.

Ah yes that 'proof', continue to hold onto that proof so cherished by men who weren't there, who didn't see, who don't know everything. Over the the one who was there and created it, the Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent God.

 

[Brightmoon]

Since you can see that evidence with your own two eyes, what’s yer problem Coffee? You do know that scientists publish their work so that others can see it too . If they want to do further research the first thing the second scientists do is repeat the experiment or observation . Your skepticism is unwarranted and based mainly on superstitious lies you’ve been told

 

[coffee4u]

Since you can see that evidence with your own two eyes, what’s yer problem Coffee?

I see creation Brightmoon, I see grass and trees, animals, rocks and people. But more importantly, as a person I don't know everything, I have God's word to tell those things.

 

[Brightmoon]

I see creation Brightmoon, I see grass and trees, animals, rocks and people. But more importantly, as a person I don't know everything, I have God's word to tell those things.

. Your point is well made , YOU don’t know everything and yet you’ll tell people who are knowledgeable about things YOU don’t understand , that they’re wrong ! Do you know what an argument from ignorance is?