I sure think so. It is important for two reasons:

1) Most people who are already sympathetic to the creation model nonetheless would probably admit that they could use a good ‘summary case’ for why and how science is supportive of scriptural creation.

“I don’t need to know all the details, much less all of the arguments — just get me up to speed on a few of the most important questions, like: What about millions of years? What about the fossil record? What about biology – does that really support evolution? If not, how can I argue that, and what evidence speaks against it (quickly and shortly enough so I can remember it!)?”

2) While many of us feel that creation science is an amazingly coherent and explanatory model, most us recognize that one of the greatest challenges is simply finding the opportunity to communicate that evidence to others who are not sympathetic to the notion of biblical creation. Even when those opportunities arise, the window of time we have is usually very narrow. Having a single article that lays out the case for the main scientific issues is a great way to quickly communicate just how plausible — how credible and believable — the case for creation really is. It takes great effort to get past the obstacles mainstream science and society have set up. They equate our message with absurd things, like believing in a flat earth. It is great to have one power shot, one article or message, that swiftly punches through those decoys, while demonstrating just how credible our case really is. Will that be enough then to change their mind? No, but it will have removed some major roadblocks to the notion that God really might be the creator, that life cannot, in fact, evolve (‘biogenesis,’ for instance, is in every sense of the word ‘impossible’), and that the evidence from the earth can actually powerfully support our case (that, for instance, the geologic record and its fossils testify of a catastrophic flood, not of billions of years of slow processes).

Without further ado, the following article, originally written by Dr. John Baumgardner (and expanded by myself) does all of this. The first time I read it, it struck me as a superbly argued summary case for creation science. Dr. Baumgardner addresses five main questions, which roughly cover some of the biggest issues that stem from the three main fields of science: biology, geology, and cosmology:

*Can random molecular interactions create life?
*How do coded language structures arise?
*What about the geological/fossil record?
*How is geological time to be reckoned?
*What about light from distant stars?

Read the article here:
The-Los-Alamos-Origins-Debate

Cheers,
Nick

You don’t want to miss this excellent interview with him, conducted by Jim Cantelon of 100huntely.com (click for more of his interviews with Emil), entitled: Was Noah’s Flood Real? The video is in two parts below.

First some thoughts on the critical importance of the Flood to the creation model:

WITHOUT THE FLOOD, BIBLICAL CREATION CANNOT EXPLAIN THE EARTH, AND THUS WOULD APPEAR TO BE LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

WITH THE FLOOD, BIBLICAL CREATION MAKES PERFECT SENSE OF EARTH’S RECORD.

If that statement is true, then it underlines the critical significance of the flood in the creationist defense and overall paradigm.

One of the biggest questions you will be confronted with if you decide to not hide your creationist (biblical) beliefs, goes something like this (I think you will recognize it):

“How could you deny science? How could you deny what all the evidence says, and what virtually all the scientists know to be true?” That can be a hard question to answer… It’s easier to just talk about the evidence, but this question, variations of which are one of the most asked, can leave one stumped.

“That’s just an appeal to authority” is one valid response. I have been very fascinated with past cases when “Big Science” has had things radically wrong… It was not necessarily their scientific tools that was the problem, but rather the naturalist paradigm they were beholden to. One example of this is plate techtonics, which was rejected by mainstream science, ridiculed even, until as recently as I think the 1960s! I have a feeling it was their opposition to catastrophism — really anything that could shake the earth in explosive and fast ways — that was at the root of their opposition. But they were finally able to accept this, just so long as it would be “slow” and “gradual” (creationist models like John Baumgardner’s Catastrophic Plate Techtonics model toss out the “slow and gradual”). So “science” (better to say: the scientific community of the day) can be quite wrong, quite often, especially when it comes to ‘forensic science’ opposite ‘empirical science’.

But there is another reply that we should be ready with when asked that inevitable question: “How could all the scientists be wrong … “

The answer is: THE FLOOD! In the video, Emil made this important point: The Flood is critical to allowing biblical creationists to understand the earth’s formations (such as the sedimentary layers and the fossils they contain) within the context of the biblical-timeline, which of course demands a “young” earth (not that 6 millenia is all that ‘young’). The only other possible candidate for describing the earth is Uniformitarianism: the slow-laying of layers through boring, not-so-catastrophic events, which by its very nature demands millions of years.

But here is the clencher. Let’s say we creationists are right in rejecting Charles Lyell’s notion of uniformitarianism, arguing in its place that catastrophic processes formed most of the earth’s formations as we know them. That’s all fine and dandy, but we still must postulate when such a catastrophe (or catastophes) occured. Emil points out that the thickest layers of sediments in the geologic record is between the Tigris and the Euphrates, which is a whopping 26 kilometers thick! Think about that! 16 miles of layers. Since fossils occur in those layers, we can’t believe those were laid during creation week. Neither can we believe that this radical event happened while people continued to live on the earth, such as during the time of Abraham (imagine if Dayton Ohio got forever buried under 16 miles of mud and sand — obviously, whatever could do that would have had to have exterminated all human life from at least this continent). But the Flood of Noah describes just such a world altering, life destroying, catastrophic event.

Genesis 7:23-24 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

So the reply to the person asking that question is:

“It’s the Flood ma’am. Just like there was a world-wide flood on Mars, and just like Venus was completely resurfaced in one catastrophic event, so too planet earth was visited with a grand catastrophe that reshaped its entire surface. All in one swift event. The Flood catastrophe is a viable way of understanding the formation of the earth, its sedimentary layers, the fossils they contain, and so forth. As for the present day scientific community, unlike their predecessors (Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Nicolas Steno (father of geology), James Maxwell, and so on …), they by and large reject out of hand anything to do with the biblical account of world history. Thus they refuse to even entertain a catastrophic notion. They certainly do not do like those former men did — study scripture with one hand, while they study the world with the other. They are driven in fact to discredit the Mosaic account, as was their predecessor Lyell. As early as 1914, 58% of US scientists were atheists, and 61% in 1996. What is the chance that an atheist (most of which ridicule the biblical account) will ever even give a fair shake of this alternative paradigm — that of a world-wide flood that explains the earth’s formations? I think the answer is clear: very low indeed.”

Perhaps the shortest way of saying all that is (your pardon is accepted for the cheesiness!):

To Flood, or not to Flood, that is the question.

Peace, Nick

It was a week of bad news in our nation!  A trillion dollars lost in a single day, unemployment of over 9%, a lack of jobs created but here’s the GOOD NEWS, as the children of God we’re not the Have-nots … we’re the HAVES!

The Call of God upon a Believer’s life is often a contradiction of terms.

It’s prayed about, sought after, wept over, swept over, avoided, ran away from, damaged, God ordained, mistaken, rewarding and fulfilling, sometimes frustrating, sometimes questioned, life-changing, oftentimes difficult, satisfying, sacrificial, very special, very challenging, long distance, local, full-time, part-time, volunteer….