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Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Basilisk Jesus Lizard Frustrates Evolutionists

In deep south Mexico, and further south into Central and South America (with some appearances in Florida, USA), you might come across the basilisk lizard. It's been a bad boy as far as Darwinists are concerned, since not only is there no fossil evidence for its evolution, but the oldest fossil shows that it's virtually unchanged over alleged millions of years.

The basilisk ("Jesus lizard") frustrates evolutionists in several ways.
Greek basilisk / Photographer: Mark Sum / US Geological Survey
But wait, there's more! The basilisk befuddles evolutionists with its ability to sprint across water. It's been nicknamed the "Jesus lizard" for this reason. Guess they didn't read the part where Peter did the same thing, but I reckon that people wouldn't cotton to the less dramatic name of "Peter lizard". Not only is there no string of evidence back to the supposed common ancestor of lizards, but no way to imagine how it evolved its strange water-walking ability. Let's face it, the biblical creation makes far more sense. Let the article explain more:

. . .

They discovered that moving across water requires unique features. This lizard doesn't really crawl across water—it motors.
To read the full article in context, click on "Jesus Lizard Runs on Water, Tramples Evolution". Also, see the short video below of the basilisk running in slow motion (except for one short bit where it shows it can run five feet per second on water), with cute music.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Awe Yes!

Picture this in your mind: A cowboy is riding the range at night, and looks up at the starry sky. And keeps looking, pondering the grandeur. Seeing the stars has always had an effect on me as well. (For that matter, sitting on the couch and reading an article, Basement Cat jumps up and wants to be petted. Purrrrrrr. Sometimes I get a mite overwhelmed because her life is in my hands, but she trusts me; it's easy to show kindness and make an animal happy.) How about looking at Niagara Falls in New York, Blue Mountains in Australia, Ngorongoro Crater in Africa — you get the idea. That feeling is awe.

That sense of wonder called "awe" is unique to humans. It makes no sense for evolution, but the biblical worldview explains it.
Pixabay / Night Sky / fancycrave1
Animals don't do it. They just go on about their business, not seeming to notice the glories of creation around them, and definitely not writing symphonies or sonnets. Awe is special to humans, and does not have any evolutionary purpose or explanation. However, the biblical worldview explains it.
Psychologists are noticing that a sense of awe makes you a better person. Why is it a uniquely human trait?

Animals have some of the best views of the world: geese that sly over Mt. Everest, squirrels that gather nuts at the edge of the Grand Canyon, butterflies that travel over the continental United States to Mexico. No adventurer in a wingsuit (video) gets a more thrilling ride than a peregrine falcon gets every day. But we don’t see animals pausing to soak it all in. Birds and whales sing for communication or to attract mates, but we don’t know of any animals that vocalize music in response to the pure beauty and majesty of the earth. None of them write poetry about it. It’s a uniquely human experience to express transcendental thoughts in response to majestic sights and ideas beyond ourselves. We call it awe.

As reported in “News from Eden” (5/20/15), the American Psychological Association has recognized awe as a motivator for altruism. Expanding on that theme, Paul Piff from UC Irvine says that “Seeing awe-inspiring natural sights makes you a better person” (New Scientist). Simple experiments proved to him that “no matter who you are, awe” has the power to make us nicer.
To read the rest, click on "Why Awe Is Uniquely Human".

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

He Also Made the Stars

"God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars."Genesis 1:16, WEB

The biblical account of creation adds a phrase like "He also made the stars", or "...and the stars", or similar (depending on the translation you use), reading almost like a "by the way" remark. It's like, "Yeah, he done that, too, Pilgrim, no big deal".

There is an astounding number of stars, and a large variety of them, often frustrating "deep time" secular scientists. What is more amazing is that their Creator also created and cares for us.
Secularists will tell you that they're ancient, except the ones that don't act their age. Then we're told that they're forming, even though nobody has actually seen a star form (they're speculating through their paradigm). The vague term "stellar evolution" covers some things that creationists agree with, but atheistic cosmogony and cosmology are products of philosophy, not observable science. There is a large variety of stars (and an astounding number of them) in size, brightness, and so on. And yet, our Creator cares for us.
The Hebrew word for ‘star’ is kôkāb (כוכב). When trying to understand the Bible, the goal is to work out how the original readers would have understood it. In this case, we should work out what the ancient Hebrews meant by kôkāb, which is not identical to the meaning that modern astronomers give to the word ‘star’.

The biblical meaning of kôkāb ‘star’ is any small bright heavenly object, so it would include meteors (‘shooting stars’). It would also include what the ancient Greek astronomers called an astēr planētēs (αστήρ πλανήτης), meaning ‘wandering star’, which of course we now call a ‘planet’. Logically, this would include planets around other stars, which have proved a headache for evolutionary theories of planetary origin.

However, modern astronomers classify stars as gigantic luminous balls of plasma in hydrostatic equilibrium, where the outward radiation pressure balances inward gravity. Thus in the modern definition, but not the biblical one, our sun is a star. This means that we can use the sun as a point of comparison for the other stars.
To read the rest of the article in context, click on this overly-long title: "Stars".

Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Shattering an Atheist's Arguments

One thing that puts a burr under the saddle of atheists is to tell them that their belief system is a religion, and they really get upset when you give evidence for it. Their main objection is that they don't believe in God or any gods, but if you study on it, you'll realize that to all intents and purposes, atheism is as much a religion as other non-theistic world religions. Indeed, some Satanic religions do not believe in Satan as an actual person.

Atheists detest being told that atheism is a religion. Tim Chaffey of Answers in Genesis dismantles a misotheist's claims.
Modified from an image furnished by Why?Outreach
I reckon that I've never encountered an atheist that is not an evolutionist. After all, they need evolution to give them a mythology of origins so they can be (to borrow from Clinton Richard Dawkins) "an intellectually fulfilled atheist". To make matters worse, evolutionism is a religion as well. It's not just a systematic study of biological, geological, and astronomical origins, but also a worldview that brings us Social Darwinism, eugenics, scientific racism, and other evils.

Generally, atheists claim to believe in logic and reason. When you ask why they reject the God that they really do know exists (Romans 1:18-22), you're hit with prejudicial conjecture (such as, "The Bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders" or similar nonsense), hasty generalization, and many other logical fallacies. Fact is, they try to intellectualize their spiritual condition, which is rebellion against God.

A letter written to Answers in Genesis by a misotheist on the prod was full of logical fallacies and self-refuting statements to justify rebellion against God. (The letter is typical of many comments that can be seen on teh interwebs.) Tim Chaffey responded, you can read it by clicking on "Feedback: Is Atheism a Religion?"