Another News Vacuum Free Fire Zone

We literally can’t find anything out there. There’s no creationist litigation going on. Most state legislatures are shut down and won’t convene again until the new year begins. The creationist websites we follow are just babbling away, saying even less than they usually do.

To show you how bad it is, this is the best thing we could find. Ol’ Hambo is desperately urging his drooling followers to keep the faith — see Steadfast in the Midst of Scoffers. A few bits and pieces of it should be sufficient, and no rebuttal is necessary:

It’s fascinating that nearly 2,000 years ago, Peter (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) wrote about scoffers in the last days. As we read about these scoffers, we realize that there is “nothing new under the sun” [scripture reference]. The basic sin nature of man is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago — and as it was approximately 6,000 years ago when our ancestor Adam rebelled against God.

[…]

We are then told the scoffers will reject creation, reject the Flood of Noah’s Day, and reject the coming judgment by fire: [scripture quote].

The passage [just quoted] is an apt description of those in today’s world who have adopted the religion of evolution and attempt to brainwash generations of students to deny the existence of the Creator God. In place of God they teach instead that natural processes over eons brought the universe and all life into existence.

[…]

Yes, we certainly are in the last days, and we increasingly see the scoffers all around us, but our stand on God’s infallible Word needs to remain steadfast.

That’s the “best” the creationists can do this weekend, so it’s up to us to entertain ourselves. We’re declaring another Intellectual Free-Fire Zone.

Hey — there’s a new Star Trek series starting. That’s a link to its official website. Wikipedia already has a write-up on it: Star Trek: Discovery. We’ll take a look at the first episode, which premiers tonight. It can’t be any worse than the Voyager series — nothing could be.

Aside from that, we’re open for the discussion of pretty much anything — science, politics, economics, whatever — as long as it’s tasteful and interesting. Banter, babble, bicker, bluster, blubber, blather, blab, blurt, burble, boast — say what you will. But avoid flame-wars and beware of the profanity filters.

We now throw open the comments to you, dear reader. Have at it.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Which Came First — Plants or the Sun?

This is a good one from Answers in Genesis (AIG) — the creationist ministry of Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo). Their article is Did God Really Create Plants Before the Sun?

It’s by Scot Chadwick, about whom we know nothing. We encountered only once before — see AIG: How To Teach Evolution to Kids. Here are some excerpts from his new essay, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and scripture references omitted:

The Bible states that God created the sun after he had already created plant life, but evolutionary ideas counter that plant life came after the sun. A plain reading of Genesis 1–2 yields a chronology that is incompatible with the proposed evolutionary schedule.

Quite so. According to Wikipedia’s Genesis creation narrative, this is the sequence of events:

First day:

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Second day:

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Third day:

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.
11 And God said: ‘Let the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth.’ And it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.
13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

Fourth day:

14 And God said: ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;
15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so.
16 And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

So that’s the problem. Day and night were created on the first day, and plants were created on day three. But the Sun wasn’t created until day four. Let’s find out how Scot explains this. He says:

We may learn several things about the light God created on Day One. First, it was a created light, that is, the light did not exist one moment, but it existed the next moment. …

Second, in order for there to be distinct daytime and nighttime, this light must have been localized and therefore directional (not a diffused or ambient light), and it must have been stationary relative to the earth. For “morning and evening” to have occurred successively, the earth must also have been rotating on its axis from Day One, allowing part of the earth to be exposed to the light while the opposite side was in the darkness.

Third, the light possibly also provided adequate heat to warm the earth, allowing water to exist in liquid form….. Heat from this light or another source would also be necessary for the plants, trees, and other vegetation prior to the creation of the sun on Day Four.

Fourth, this initial, temporary light was evidently replaced with the sun on Day Four.

That seems like an odd way to go about things, but Scot tells us:

We may conjecture two possible reasons why the sun was not created on Day One. First, God may have wanted to underscore the supernatural origin of life, clearly showing that life did not come from the sun but from him. … This, of course, is contrary to the evolutionary idea that the preexistent sun (and other stars) contributed to the rise of all life forms on earth. Second, God may have wanted to undermine humanity’s inclination to worship the sun as the originator of life, by which they would have regarded the sun as a deity. God specifically forbade his people from worshiping “the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven.”

That makes sense. Skipping to near the end, before final some scripture quotes and a warning about sinfulness, Scot says:

The creation account in Genesis gives us our only eyewitness testimony of the first events of the universe. A plain reading of this text shows us how God wisely crafted his work to favor life on earth, and we can see how the unfolding of his design runs contrary to manmade evolutionary and other old-earth ideas.

Now you know why plants were created before the Sun. It’s good creation science, but if you are foolish enough to disagree, the Lake of Fire awaits you.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Two Big Problems with Science

This is the second article by Clifford Goldstein that we’ve written about. He’s the editor of something called the Adult Bible Study Guide. Like his earlier article — see Seventh-Day Adventists and Galileo — this one appears in Adventist Review Online, which describes itself as “the web site of the Adventist Review magazine. In print for more than 150 years, the Adventist Review is the flagship journal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.”

Clifford’s latest is titled Why Science Gets Origins So Wrong. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis:

Why does science, which gets so much “right,” get so much wrong about origins? It’s because of two principles upon which science works and, probably, couldn’t function without.

And what are those two troublesome principles? Clifford says:

The first is that science, which studies the natural world, must look only to the natural world for answers. This notion, hundreds maybe even thousands of years old, asserts that we should not resort to supernatural causes to explain natural effects. Biologists must not explain, for instance, the extremely complicated process of blood clot formation by attributing the enzyme cascade to divine intervention. Science would not, could not, progress if everything, or anything, not understood were explained away as supernatural meddling.

That’s not an arbitrary whim of science. It’s unavoidable, because science has no way to research supernatural phenomena. We’ve discussed that before — see Bring Me An Angel Detector! Here’s Clifford’s other problem with science:

The second principle is that the laws of nature must remain constant. All things being equal (which they rarely are), what a law does today it did yesterday, and will do tomorrow, and any variations result from another law-like pattern that itself resulted from another law-like pattern, and on and on.

Clumsily expressed, but true. There’s no evidence that the laws of nature change. If they were changeable, the universe would be chaotic and science would be impossible. Clifford continues:

However reasonable and fruitful, both principles are philosophical assumptions, not itself problematic (science was called “natural philosophy” longer than it has been called “science”), except that both assumptions happen to be false.

This should be good. He tells us:

Take the first one, which requires [he probably meant “rejects”] supernatural causes for natural events. That’s fine for hurricane tracking or for analysis of whooping crane endocrinology. But it is worse than worthless for origins that start out with “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), and from there unpack a display of supernaturalism that so spectacularly transcends the thought patterns of minds (like ours) suffused with naturalism that many deny the biblical account because they can’t conceive of it.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Science must be wrong if it rejects the supernatural creation account in Genesis. Let’s read on:

And the constancy of nature? Makes sense, except that [biblical quote about the sin of Adam & Eve] presupposes a natural environment discontinuous, and qualitatively different, from anything that science now confronts.

[…]

To learn about the origins of life by studying what is here now — thousands of years after the physical changes brought by Adam’s fall (Gen. 3:17-19), Cain’s sin (Gen. 4:12), and Noah’s worldwide flood (Gen. 6-10) — would be like studying streetwalkers in Paris to learn the origins of human sexuality. [Great analogy!] Science as now constituted denies that the kind of environment depicted in Genesis 1-2 even existed; thus, how much could it teach us about that environment?

He’s right. Those rules of science make it incompatible with The Truth™ of the bible. Another excerpt:

Hence, our conundrum: two principles upon which science works are false, at least when it comes to origins (though one could argue, justifiably from a biblical perspective, that the first principle [denial of the supernatural] is false even with the present world because, at the core, God alone sustains physical reality [scripture references].

Scientists are fools! Here’s more

No wonder science gets creation wrong. It denies two crucial aspects of creation: the supernatural force behind it, and the radical physical discontinuity between original creation and what’s before us now.

He keeps saying the same thing over and over again. Anyway, here’s the end:

Science doesn’t just miss the mark, kind of; it goes disastrously astray. Yet, considering the two assumptions from which it works (and that’s all they are, assumptions), what else could it do regarding origins but go not just wrong, but so wrong?

So there you are, dear reader. Now you understand everything.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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Creationist Wisdom #801: Rev. Fillmer Hevener

We learned about today’s letter-to-the-editor from one of our clandestine operatives who is so well-placed and valuable that he doesn’t even have a code name. It appears in the Southside Messenger, a weekly newspaper located in Keysville, Virginia. It’s titled Genesis Exposes “False” Science, and the newspaper has a comments feature.

Unless the letter-writer is a politician, preacher, or other public figure, we won’t embarrass or promote him by using his full name — but today we’ve got a preacher — with a magnificent name. It’s Rev. Fillmer Hevener, pastor of Guthrie Memorial Chapel in Farmville, Virginia. According to this article, the rev died a month ago, so your Curmudgeon will be appropriately respectful. We’ll give you a few excerpts from rev’s letter, enhanced with our Curmudgeonly commentary, and some bold font for emphasis. Here we go!

Genesis 1:1 declares that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth ….” Most skeptics, including most evolutionists, reject this assertion. Darwinists quite consistently believe, for example, that chance, not intelligent design, brought about the world and all that is in it, including plant, animal, and human life. Chance becomes the god of such shallow thinkers.

Yes, dear reader, rev Hevener says you worship the god of chance. Then he brings up a familiar topic:

What is the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution?

We already know — see Common Creationist Claims Confuted. After doing the micro-macro mambo for a while, rev Hevener devotes the next few paragraphs to several more creationist favorites. We shall offer no rebuttal. He says:

Evolutionists have no answer to the question, “Where and how did life begin?” Neither can they explain life nor replicate it in the laboratory.

[…]

What about purported evidence supporting evolution in fossil records? [He quote-mines Stephen J. Gould.] Also, similarity of structure in living things and fossil records may be evidence of a common Designer rather than a common ancestor, as Darwinians hold.

[…]

Then there is the question of the second law of thermodynamics. It is well known among the scientific community and laymen as well, that chemical compounds ultimately break apart into simpler materials; they do not ultimately become more complex. … Unless evolutionists can demonstrate that this Law does not apply to macro-evolution, Darwinism is awash on a sea of confusion and error.

[…]

Language change also flies in the face of the theory of development from the simple to the complex. Just as there are physical laws, such as gravity, language change also has laws. One of these laws of language is that the longer the language lives, the more simple it becomes in its grammar and structure. … If such a law continues back to early man, it would be absurd to have a simple man-like being handling a complex language. However, such a law would fit perfectly into the Genesis account where man is created mature, marriageable, and intelligent.

The rev continues:

Is evolution a religion? What is religion? One definition of religion is: A belief, founded largely upon faith, that attempts to answer such basic questions as “Where did man come from,” “How did he get here,” and “Where is he going.” Or, one could define religion as: “a system of faith.” … [M]acro-evolution is clearly a religion. Therefore, in the public schools of Virginia, the teaching of evolution should have the same restrictions placed upon it that the teachings of Christianity and Judaism have placed upon them.

And now we come to the end:

Did the complex clock (universe and life) come about by chance or design? When the evidence for intelligent design is weighed against the evidence for chance-evolution, intelligent design wins hands-down in the minds of those who are willing to accept the abundance of persuasive evidence in real life.

That was a splendid letter from rev Hevener. He may no longer be with us, but his creationist wisdom will undoubtedly endure forever.

Copyright © 2017. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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