Conference yukon::christian_v7

    Great minds of the past had no difficulty with the concept of a young
    earth shaped and reshaped by catastrophic forces, especailly the
    upheavals associated with Noah's Flood.  Today, we have been so
    thoroughly saturated with the "slow and gradual" philosophy that when
    we look at vast cliffs, landscapes and boulders we tend to immediately
    associate them with very long ages.
    
    The pictures in this article are of Surtsey, an island which was born
    in only days from a huge undersea volcanic eruption off Iceland in the
    North Atlantic in 1963.  It shows features which most people would
    think take much, much longer to form.  Of course, there never has been
    any logical (as opposed to psychological) barrier to the idea that
    large forces can do enormous amounts of geological work in a short time
    (The Bible's description of the breaking up of the "fountains of the
    great deep" implies substantial volcanic activity associated with the
    largely subterranean sources of water for Noah's Flood).  
    
    The following quote is from the official Icelandic geologist Sigurdur
    Thorarinsson writing in 1964:
    
    	"An Icelander who has studied geology and geomorphology at foreign
    	universities is later taught by experience in his own homeland that the
    	time scale he had been trained to attach to geological developments is
    	misleading when assessments are made of the forces - constructive and
    	destructive - which have molded and are still molding the face of
    	Iceland.  What elsewhere may take 1,000's of years may be accomplished
    	here in one century.  All the same he is amazed whenever he comes to
    	Surtsey, because the same development may take a few weeks or even days
    	here.  
    
    	On Surtsey, only a few months sufficed for a landscape to be created
    	which was so varied and mature that it was almost beyond belief. 
    	During the summer of 1964 and the following winter we not only had a
    	lava dome with a glowing lava lake in a summit crater and red-hot lava
    	flows rushing down the slopes, increasing the height of the dome and
    	transforming the configuration of the island from one day to another. 
    	Here we could also see wide sandy beaches and precipitous crags lashed
    	by the breakers of the sea.  There were gravel banks and lagoons,
    	impressive cliffs...  There were hollows, glens, and soft undulating
    	land.  There were fractures and faultscarps, channels and screes... 
    	You might come to a beach covered with flowing lava on its way to the
    	sea with white balls of smoke rising high up in the air.  Three weeks
    	later you might come back to the same place and be literally confounded
    	by what met your eye.  Now there were precipitous lava cliffs of
    	considerable height, and below them you would see boulders worn by the
    	surf, some of which were almost round, on an abrasion platform cut into
    	the cliff, and further out there was a sandy beach where you could walk
    	at low tide without getting wet." (Sigurdur Thorarinsson, "Surtsey: The
    	New Island in the North Atlantic," Viking Press, English translation
    	from 1967).   
    
    In a later, more popular account in "National Geographic,"
    Thorarinsson wrote:
    
    	"...in 1 week's time we witness changes that elsewhere might take
     	decades or even centuries... Despite the extreme youth of the growing
    	island, we now encounter a landscape so varied that it is almost beyond
    	belief." (Sigurdur Thorarinsson, "Sursey, island born of fire,"
    	National Geographic, vol. 127, no. 5, 1965, p. 726.)
    
    Note the repeated incredulity in the author's tone, as the observations
    of the real world conflict with deeply instilled dogma.  If you didn't
    know otherwise, how long would you think Surtsey's rounded basalt
    boulders, shown above, would take to form?  Hundreds, maybe thousands,
    of years rolling in the surf?  
    
    "Surtsey reality" shows that even much harder rock would have had ample
    time, in the thousands of post-Flood years, to exhibit all the
    erosional features we see today - especially considering that in the
    early stages of its formation, rock may still be softer and less
    consildated.
    
    {Dr. Carl Wieland, M.B., B.S., "Surtsey: The Young Island that 'Looks 
    Old'," Creation, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 10-12}

    In the early 1950's, a worker at Australia's Jenolan Caves in New South
    Wales placed this lemonade bottle in one of the area's many beautiful
    limestone caves.  The bottle sat beneath a continually active
    stalactite in what is known as the "Temple of Baal."  In the decades
    that followed, the "bottle stalagmite" became a public testimony to the
    fact that stalactites and stalagmites don't take 10's of 1,000's of
    years or more to form.
    
    In fact, by the early 1980's, a coating of calcite about 3mm thick had
    already formed on the bottle.  That's about 1mm thickness per decade. 
    But the rate of stalactite formation may have been even faster in the
    past.  Caves and their formations in tropical areas develop much faster
    than those in more termperate regions because of higher annual
    rainfall, and there are other factors too which influence growth rate.  
    
    The spectacular formations in the world's limestone caves could have
    formed in just a few thousand years - a time framework consistent with
    the view that they were formed during the closing stanges, and after,
    the worldwide Flood of Noah's time.
    
    {"Creation" journal, vol. 17, no. 2, March 1995}

Ancient Egypt is supposed to be one of the first civilizations, but the
sophistication of its achievements has long perplexed scientists.  The
mathematical precision involved in constructing the pyramids is but one such
achievement.  It was long believed that man had not developed mathematics to the
degree that would allow Egyptians to build such structures.  And the enigma of
the pyramids pales in comparison to other archaeological discoveries.

According to Dr. Colin Fink of the electro-chemistry department at Columbia
University, the ancient Egyptians copper-coated many artefacts using a form of
electro-chemical exchange (William Corliss, "Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling
Artifacts," The Sourcebook Project, Glen Arm, Maryland, 1978, p. 443).  This
involved a mixture of chemical elements which, when an object was immersed,
caused an electro-chemical charge that deposited the copper permanently on the
object.

A "Scientific American" publication referred to this technique as "a secret
later lost and not rediscovered until the last century by Faraday" (ibid).  By
Cleopatra's day, the Parthians had even developed a primitive electric battery
(Harry M. Schwalb, "Electric Batteries of 2,000 years ago," Science Digest, vol.
41 no. 4, April 1957, p. 17-19.  See also Creation, vol. 16, no. 2, March-May
1994, p. 10-13).  The battery used a thin copper disc at the base of a small
10cm (4 inch) cylinder and was used to gold-plate jewelry.  "Science Digest"
called this "man's first industrial use of electricity" (ibid).

More recent was the discovery of what some believe to be an ancient Egyptian
model glider found in a 2000-year-old tomb (Corliss, p. 454-455).  Former NASA
contractee William Corliss calls the scale model "a very advanced form of what
is called a push-glider" (ibid).  Corliss says the "plane" would have glided on
the air much like modern gliders, and would have required immense aeronautical
and mathematical precision.  Scientists who have studied the model suggest that
its proportions and design would indeed have enabled it to fly.

In neighboring Greece, the Greeks even had an extremely sophisticated device
that possibly computed planetary motions.  Some scientists have called it an
early "computer," while others suggested it was a form of clock.  But all concur
that the object displayed mechanics supposedly far ahead of its time (Derek J.
de Solla Price, "Unworldly Mechanics," Natural History, vol. 71 no. 3, March
1962, p. 8-17).

What does the Bible say about advanced civilizations?  Skeptics and many secular
scientists have long sought to refute the historicity of the Bible.  Under this
conditioning, many Christians assume that Babel was the beginning of
civilization and that Noah and his family, before the Flood, merely lived in an
area dominated by primitive tribal communities.  This view cannot be reconciled
with the Bible.  The technological complexity of building a vessel such as the
Ark may seem a problem, but a larger problem is how Noah could have built an Ark
(with a deck area the size of 36 lawn-tennis courts) with the limited resources
available to such communities.  A larger and more advanced civilization is
required.

Worldwide Array of Civilizations
--------------------------------
The Apostle Peter clearly believed that the Flood covered the whole world (cf.
2 Peter 3:5-7).  Moreover, population studies have shown that the earth could
easily have been populated by at least 1 billion people in the 1,700 years or so
from Adam to Noah (John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, "The Genesis Flood,"
Presbyterian and Reformed, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1961, p. 25-27.  At the
time of the Flood there could have been more than 3 billion people around the
globe, assuming a population growth of only 1.3% per year.  The current average
is 1.8%.  Population studies are a big problem for old-earth advocates.  There
are simply not enough catastrophes in history to keep man's population growth
low enough to allow for 100,000 years or more).  This surely suggests a
worldwide array of civilizations.

It is not surprising that science cannot find direct evidence of antediluvian
civilizations, because the Bible says the whole ancient world was destroyed by
the Flood.  Peter even compares the destruction to that which will come when the
earth is destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:5-7).  The Flood annihilated virtually all
the remains of ancient man.  Only scant traces, if any, can be found, and these
would be swept under the rug as insignificant anomalies.  Yet these anomalies
indicate that ancient civilizations might have been even more advanced than some
later civilizations.

In Florida, workers discovered the remains of an ancient city while digging a
canal between Lake Dora and Lake Eustis.  The city exists far below sea level
and was reported in "Scientific American" (Corliss, p. 83-84).  Another example
is the remains of a large city buried off the Arctic coast (Froelich G. Rainey,
"Mystery People of the Arctic," Natural History, vol. 47 no. 3, March 1941, p.
148-155).  Today this region is scarcely populated, except by scattered
Eskimos, because of the Arctic's hostile living conditions.  Yet archaeologists
speculate that the city housed a minimum of 4,000 people (ibid).  The size of
the city "amazes modern investigators" (ibid, p. 148).

Many other examples exist.  Indeed, entire volumes have been written on similar
"anomalies."  Most evolutionists have disregarded anything that threatens their
evolutionary time-scale, but ignoring the evidence is simply another way of
ignoring the truth.  These civilizations did indeed exist, and archaeologists
have discovered many curious artefacts that point to a high degree of scientific
achievement.  Perhaps the most peculiar of these consists of a strange cylinder
found *embedded* in a solid rock from ages ago.  This cylinder appears, from all
known studies, to be a mechanical apparatus with possible electrical properties,
as is evidenced by coiled copper.  Some researchers even equated it with the
modern-day spark plug, although it doubtless had a different purpose (A.L.
Rawson, "Transactions of the New York Academy of Science," vol. 11, p. 26-29, as
cited by J.R. Jochmans, "Strange Relics From the Depths of the Earth," Forgotten
Ages Research Society.  Reprinted with permission from the Bible-Science
Association, Minneapolis, 1979, p. 17).

Such evidence cannot be swept under the rug to suit Bible critics.  Man did not
need to wait for his intelligence to evolve before he could build advanced
civilizations.  He already was advanced.

Technology Unable to Save
-------------------------
In Genesis 11:6-9 God stated that mankind was to be divided by languages at
Babel or else "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to
do."  It seems that man is finally reaching the point where civilization and
communication between cultures are reaching their zenith.  Nevertheless,
technology will not save us.  Noah's generation was well advanced, but could not
ward off the wrath of God.

Peter warned the early church that "For this they willingly are ignorant of,
that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of
the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed
with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same
word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men" (2 Peter 3:5-7).  Rather than denigrating ancient man
(our ancestors), we ought to humble ourselves and learn a lesson from history
before our civilization becomes obscure relics in the ground.  What we build
will become as dust, but the Kingdom that Christ establishes will last forever.

{David Criswell, "Ancient Civilizations and Modern Man: Were Ancient Cultures
More Advanced Than Many Evolutionists Believe?" Creation, vol. 17 no. 2,
March-may 1995}

    In 1984, scientists measured the amount of salt accumulated in
    Australia's largest salt lake - Lake Eyre in South Australia.  They
    found that it would have taken about 73,000 years to accumulate,
    assuming a flood occurred every 50 years (R.H Gunn and P.M. Fleming,
    "Australian Journal of Soil Research," vol. 22, 1984, p. 119-134). 
    However, the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service in
    1991 stated that "almost all its area is covered on average once in 8
    years" ("Parkabout," National Parks and Wildlife Service of South
    Australia, vol. 1 no. 6, Winter 1991).  This reduces the time period
    for accumulation to only 12,000 years.  This has to be a maximum time
    because the fossil evidence suggests that inland Australia was much
    wetter in the past, being covered in rainforest during the Tertiary
    Period when the lake was supposedly formed.  With flooding every year,
    as could have occurred in the past, the minimum time for accumulation
    would be 1,500 years.
    
    Evolutionists date the Tertiary between 2 and 65 million years ago. 
    Even if Lake Eyre formed 2M years ago, and we assume floods every 8
    years, 99.4% of the expected salt is missing.  If we assume it is
    older, and take into account the wetter climate of the past, the
    problem becomes even greater, with up to 99.99% of the expected salt
    missing.  
    
    The scientists who did the work were puzzled by this discrepancy and
    could find no explanation for where the salt could have gone.  However,
    if only several thousand years have elapsed since the Flood of Noah's
    time, as the Bible implies, then maybe all the salt is still there.
    
    {Alexander R. Williams, B.SC., M.SC, MAI Biol., Th.C. Dip.C.S.,
    "World's Oldest Salt Lake - Only a few thousand years old," Creation,
    vol. 17 no. 2, p. 51).

    According to a recent summary of modern biological knowledge on human
    racial characteristics, the difference in human genes linked to "race"
    is only .012%.  Humans all have the cellular machinery to make them
    very white or very black.  What colour you are reflects only trivial
    genetic differences.  In transplant surgery, an organ from a white
    donor can make a more acceptable match for a black patient, and vice
    versa.
    
    {"Discover", November 1994, p. 72-73}
    
    This confronts the evolutionary belief that the races have been
    evolving separately for 10's of 1,000's of years.  Such genetic
    closeness is, however, a direct prediction from the Bible's claim that
    all people are closely related - first via Adam and Eve, and second
    through Noah's family.
    
    Mike

"The Heavens Declare..." - Astronomy/Physics Professor Donald B. DeYoung talks
with Dr. Carl Wieland.

Dr. Donald B. DeYoung (Ph.D., M.Div.) is a Chairman of the Physical Sciences
Department at Grace College, Winnona Lake, Indiana.  He teaches physics,
astronomy, electronics, and mathematics, and is a member of the Indiana Academy
of Science, Physics Teachers' Association, and the Creation Research Society
Directors Boards.  He is the author of "Astronomy and the Bible" and "Weather
and the Bible."

CW: Dr. DeYoung, could you tell me about your professional background?
DDY: My training is in physics, with a side interest in astronomy.  My career
has been in teaching physics, and has also included considerable astronomy
observation.  I also teach astronomy.

CW: You have a Master of Divinity theological qualification.  Do you think it is
possible for the Bible to be made to fit such cosmic evolutionary ideas as the
"big bang"?
DDY: No.  I think there is a basic conflict between supernatural and natural
explanations.  Once you start that kind of science compromise with Genesis,
which is clearly meant as a literal presentation, you're in trouble - you don't
know where to stop.

CW: What about the popular "big bang" idea, scientifically?
DDY: I have been in science long enough to notice that these origin theories
have a short lifetime.  Before the "big bang" there was the "steady state"
theory.  After the "big bang" we're going to have a "plasma theory," or whatever
is next in line.  And so I would be very cautious about accepting the "big bang"
and trying to fit it into the the book of Genesis.  I think it's dangerous to
read changing science into an unchanging Bible.

CW: What about the background temperature "ripples" discovered by COBE,
allegedly the "seeds" of star formation?
DDY: The "big bang" has a number of fundamental problems that we don't often
hear about.  One basic problem is how stars and galaxies could have originated.
Astronomers look for evidence of structure or lumpiness in the early universe,
to indicate possible star formation.  Although there was a lot of publicity when
the satellite COBE found evidence in that direction, actually the "big bang"
theory/model is so poorly defined - it's so general - that almost any data can
be made to fit it.

CW: I read recently that these tiny irregularities in temperature, these "seeds"
called "proof" of the "big bang" are actually too small to explain the
large-scale lumpiness of the real universe.
DDY: It depends on which version of the "big bang" is being considered.  The
measured temperature deviation was just a few parts in 100,000.  But since they
had found a deviation for the first time, some called it the "Holy Grail" and
said they had found something very important.  But, again, the "big bang" is
such a general idea that a measurement 10 times smaller or 10 times larger would
have had the same publicity.

CW: So they can simply "turn the knobs" on their model to change the end result?
DDY: That's exactly true.  Such a model is sometimes called "robust."  This
really means that it's not well defined, and so almost any data can be made to
fit the picture.

CW: Are you familiar with Dr. Russell Humphreys' new cosmological concepts,
showing how distant starlight could have reached us in a young universe?
DDY: Yes.  I know Russell and I think his material is very interesting.  The
concept needs to be explored, and he certainly has the expertise to do that.  I
would mention a caution, however.  I think that the entire Creation Week,
especially including the 4th day, was miraculous, that is supernatural.
Therefore we should be careful about using the natural laws - whether gravity or
relativity - to analyze the Creation Week itself.

CW: Nevertheless, it seems to show those who say that this is an unanswerable
scientific problem for the creationist, that in principle - using their own
accepted equations of general relativity and so on - there is a very feasible
answer.  And this is without necessarily accepting all of Dr. Humphreys'
suggestions concerning the details of Creation Week, which include supernatural
activity as well.
DDY: Yes.  That's correct.  I see relativistic cosmology as one of a growing
number of options to solve this distance-time problem, which is a basic issue.
Which approach is correct?  Well, perhaps time will tell.  With relativity you
do have different time-frames in deep space, compared with the earth.  As you
say, this is a credible explanation for light travel time.

CW: Every time comets swing around the sun they lose some of their mass.  How
long would it take before there wouldn't be any short-period comets left?
DDY: It's impossible to put an exact date on this because comets are perturbed
by planets.  Comets move around, and their orbits change.  But certainly on a
time-scale of the solar system of 5 billion years, it's very surprising that
there still would be comets.  I think comets continue to be an argument for
recent creation.

CW: What is the evolutionary response?
DDY: They like to talk about an invisible "Oort" comet cloud.  It is said to be
100,000 AU's out, far beyond Pluto, completely beyond sight and detection.  Once
in a while one or several of these comets sweep in towards the sun to keep up
the supply.  It's similar to the hidden mass idea; it is one more complication
that the long-age view requires.  There may or may not be a comet cloud - it's
optional for the creation view.

CW: Do you have any favorite astronomical evidence supporting the Bible?
DDY: Well, one basic point is the slow recession of the moon outward from the
earth.  Due to tidal friction (which would have been even greater in the past)
the moon is leaving us at the rate of 2-3 inches (5-7 cm) a year.  And if you
follow this backward in time you find that the moon would have been in direct,
catastrophic contact with earth in about a quarter of the time that
evolutionists require the moon and earth to have existed.  This is a fundamental
time problem for which astronomers have come up with no explanation.

CW: Could they argue that the moon was separately captured?
DDY: From the physics, capture simply doesn't work.  If a stray moon wandered
close to earth even today, it might be destroyed, it might disintegrate, but it
would not be captured - in fact it would gain speed.  The space probes we send
close to other planets don't get captured - unless we somehow put the brakes on,
they leave the planets quickly as in a "crack the whip" process.  In 1994 we
learned that Jupiter can capture comets, but this is because of its much
stronger gravity.

CW: Anything else about the moon?
DDY: A 5 billion-year-old object the size of the moon should be cold and dead -
and yet it's not.  There are unexpected detections of occasional vapors coming
out of the moon, and also lava flows.  There are still moonquakes that are
measured.  The moon appears to be rather youthful in many ways.

CW: How are your comments on this received?
DDY: I have found that when talking to groups, whether students, or scientists,
if I tell them I believe in a supernatural creation and I take the book of
Genesis seriously (so miracles are part of my science view) - they're willing to
listen.  And there's often good interest, because this is not part of the world
view of many people.  They seem to respect the idea and are intrigued by it.
When you're talking to practicing scientists, they usually realize the
uncertainty and the philosophy that goes into their own views and they can
appreciate the creation alternative.

CW: Have you seen anybody change their mind at all or become a Christian through
your ministry?
DDY: On the level of college students I can certainly say yes.  I continually
find individuals in my audience who are excited to find out that you can support
and defend a creation view of origins and of history.  That's what encourages me
in my science career - showing people that the creation view is not outdated -
it's still for today, it's good science.  And I find people who are becoming
committed to Christianity - after the Lord first does work in their hearts.

CW: Thank you very much.

{Creation, vol. 17 no. 2, March-May 1995}

The book mentioned in this interview by Dr. Russell Humphreys is "Starlight and
Time," Master Books, Colorado Springs, 1994.
    

    There's a PBS special currently airing (produced in Chicago) that deals
    with the creation vs. evolution controversy in public schools.  It is
    definitely biased toward evolution, but still interesting.
    
    Mike

    "The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the
    evidence of the Divine origin of the Bible, the Grand Juror and
    sublimity of God's remedy for fallen man are more appreciated, and the
    future is illumined with hope and joy." - Samuel F.B. Morse
    
    "There are 2 books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into
    error: first, the volume of Scriptures, which reveal the will of God;
    then the volume of the Creature, which express his power." - Francis
    Bacon (author of the scientific method)
    
    "We may not have all the answers yet, but I have never found anything
    to make me doubt the truth of God's Word, the Bible." - Dr. Duane Gish,
    vice president of the Institute for Creation Research
    
    {Dr. Henry Morris, "Men of Science," Master Books, Colorado Springs, CO} 
    
    "If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry,
    and biochemistry on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot
    understand how the thought of those minds should have any more
    significance than the sound of the wind." - C.S. Lewis

    I agree with C.S. Lewis on these thoughts in .8.
    
    
                                       Patricia

    "Not only do the facts of science not contradict the Bible, but they
    strongly support a recent creation and go very strongly against the
    idea of billions of years that the theistic evolutionists uphold.  So,
    both science and the Bible are on the same side and they are on the
    side of the young-earth creationist."
    
    Dr. D. Russell Humphreys, physicist at the prestigious Sandia National
    Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico and author of the new book
    "Starlight and Time."

    "What inclines me now to think you may be right in regarding
    [evolution] as the central and radical lie in the whole web of
    falsehood that now governs our lives is not so much your arguments
    against it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders."
    
    - C.S. Lewis in a letter to Capt. Bernard Acworth, of England's
    Evolution Protest Movement

    Here's an interesting WWW site that contains many articles from Lambert
    Dolphin.  Mr. Dolphin is an actual scientist as well as a Christian
    brother.
    
    http://www.best.com/~dolphin/
    
    Mike

    http://www.best.com/~dolphin/asstbib.shtml#anchor288679