bible

Climate Change (& friendly debate)

Climate change. Does it happen? Of course! Is it man-made? The news will tell you the science is settled. Now right off the bat that phrase should concern you. If science is settled, it’s not science. “Settled science” is anti-science as it disuades further study. Actual science welcomes new ideas and debate.

In my studies I quickly learned that when the news media reports a science story they normally quote mine for a juicy quote that will create clicks. (Click bait). The quote is normally part of the story, but when I would go to read the actual study or article the news report was based on I would find that the results did not infer the attention grabbing headline. Sometimes the complete opposite.

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The following is an exchange I had with someone on Facebook after I posted this to my personal profile.  Their comments are in bold.

Sooo because God is going to end the world and not climate change (even though lots of people die in God’s ending… Earthquakes that shake the entire planet and all) We should take care of our planet but not believe we did it because skepticism. 

I am a scientist. My work, my life is based on the physical universe God made. Did man contribute to climate change in a way that has heated the oceans and melted glaciers? Yes. That is something that science has in fact lead towards the most likely possibility. Has the planet been getting “better” since we as humans have been fighting our man-made contribution to climate change? Yes!! Check out the story of refrigerants we used to use that were messing up the molecular make-up of our atmosphere.

Does this post spur humans to act because of their mistakes? No. As much as the news bugs me because I read the studies not just listen/watch the news. Their panic sells, but also their panic that they have whipped the public into has done good things. It has informed the public/senators to do something about it. Which is a main contribution to “green” energy. Does money change the hearts and minds of politicians? Yes. It is always some seedy organisation looking to just get rich? Not always. Also if you can make money on making the planet a better place that is the whole point right. Using our natural resources costs something. It is not free. We should use our economy to save our planet. We should use our political system to help fix the molecular make up of the atmosphere when we send it out of whack with our economy and policies. 

Politics and economics are not bad things in themselves. Try not to demonize them when we talk about solutions to real problems.

I’m against the fear mongering that’s all. I’m for truth. First truth says we are not the cause of the demise of this planet. We may have done some things that have hurt the environment and we should work to fix those when we learn of them as much as possible. You say fear produces action and so is justified. I think it produces fake or short lived action. I believe truth produces the most actions. When someone believes something undoubtedly, they will stop at nothing. But…if you don’t have enough truth, fear can be a helpful seller. Again, we need a bigger government to protect us from our stupidity…and we’ll pay them more to do it to.

Just as there are studies you can cite showing man made climate change, there are studies I can cite showing the opposite. Study bashing is boring and doesn’t prove or do anything. But how can there be studies that show opposites. You know it happens all the time, right? My theory is human bias.

 I have read studies on both sides, but I also know it is not just throwing studies back and forth it is the overwhelming evidence that leads to the conclusion humans have unequivocally been a leading contribution to climate change. Did we do it alone? No. Did we do a large percentage of it? Yes. I have a deep rooted belief in our flaws as humans. Scientists believe the truth of their study. Humans on the other hand most often have apathy for the situation unless you can prove how it harms them individually because we are selfish creatures. So your belief in the goodness of man to fix their wrong when pointed out to them in my life has been proved to be wrong. Your faith in humanity is wasted. We suck. We don’t care. We would party into our own destruction. It is the job of those that fight for truth to be applied to these apathetic humans. The only way to get an apathetic human to do anything is by fear.

Also I never said if fear produces action it is justified. I said I don’t have an issue with it because I am down here fighting to fix our planet from apathetic jerks. I am too busy to fix the fear that media makes money off of. I would rather solve real problems like people losing their homes on the coast due to ocean waters increasing in temperature and height.
If you have an army of undoubting believers you can do amazing things, but just like Christianity has Christians who are apathetic to their community and only care about their personal salvation. You are never gonna find that.

Your human bias of studies is white washed out of meta studies of climate change studies that agree HUMANS ARE A LEADING CONTRIBUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE. Meta studies are a study of all the studies. They collect all the data and come their own conclusion with all the data and it is that conclusion.

I always take issue with studies and conclusions based on extrapolations. Even if man is contributing now, it requires extrapolations to come to the conclusion that it will severely harm the environment. I understand the logic of that, but reality infers that so many unknowns factors can majorly change the conclusion.

For example, the age of the Earth is calculated using extrapolations. Rocks decay at a given rate today, using that rate and extrapolating into the past we get an age of 4.5 billion years. But that extrapolation ignores any Biblical possiblities that God intervened in the process and/or created things in an aged state necessary for the immediate sustaining of life. Studies that extrapolate make sense logically, but they don’t necessarily equal truth.

Yeah your interpretation of the Bible and how God could have interacted with the physical world is not something we agree on so I don’t think it is a good point to work off of. 
I believe the Bible. I believe God created the cosmos. I also believe thata new earth creationism doesn’t make sense to what the world around us tells us. God’s world. Words can be interpreted in many different ways, but scientific constants and laws of the universe can’t really be interpreted any other way. I choose to bend language and explode my imagination and God’s power rather than limiting humans understanding of the universe God made. God is crazy awesome. I believe he is capable of interacting in our world without it having to go against what we have observed in his physical universe.

After all it says God created the universe and everything in it. Next big event garden stuff

Not God created the universe then changed the constants of his universe so some sticklers to my word that only wish to read the stories literally can age out the world.

What it says is God created in six days, made Adam on the sixth day, then gives a 4000 year geneology from Adam to Jesus who lived 2000 years ago. To come to any other conclusion is to force your own interpretation onto the text. I do not believe there is a single piece of evidence against a young earth perspective. Of course their are faulty interpretations based on extrapolations that ignore the Bible as a historical record.

That’s my point. You can ignore certain evidences and make extrapolations to give you conclusions that may not be true. I believe that happens with the age of the Earth looking backwards and climate change looking forwards.

I don’t think Genesis is meant to be literal history. That is our different perspectives. I think it is a story we can learn from. I have never thought we should take it literally because it doesn’t make sense literally. I believe God meant to make sense not to change. He is immutable.

 I am not ignoring the genealogy when I take it as a story, it just doesn’t mean as much to me as it does to you.

You don’t think Genesis is meant to be taken as literal history because of your preexisting belief in an old earth and evolution. You recognize the two are telling different stories and you side with consensus science despite the continual warnings in the scripture about siding with man. I’m not anti science, I’m pro truth and that requires looking at all angles. If you interpret the evidence in the world using Genesis as your hypothesis, then it all lines up. There is no need to interpret it as allegory.

how do you know with 100% certainty you are not forcing a perspective on the text that is just not there. Like what if God’s day in Genesis is not our day? A day is a revolution around the sun, but the sun had not been created yet so you are forcing a definition that had not been defined yet.

If Genesis is allegory it still lines up with science. There is no conflict. I didn’t have to change any definitions. I just read the text and looked at the world and made sense of it.

A day is not a revolution around the sun, it is a spinning on its own axis. A sun is not required.

Sorry let me correct myself. How can you have a day a revolution without a starting point? The sun

I can spin a ball without another ball in the room.

Evidence-based approach to origins leads to creation

The following is adopted from Come and Reason Ministries…

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Can any scientist demonstrate something coming from nothing? I can show you a world filled with evidence of new things coming from something that already exists.

Can any scientist demonstrate life coming from non-living matter? I can show you a world teeming with life coming from living matter.

Can any scientist demonstrate complexity coming from chaos by random forces without any intelligent input? I can demonstrate a world filled with complex machines, computers, and technology, all of which is a result of intelligent design and input.

Can any scientist demonstrate random genetic mutation that has added genetic fitness? I can show you millions of genetic mutations that destroy fitness.

Can any scientist demonstrate selection that removes enough genetic damage to cause a species to become more genetically fit than the preceding generations? I can show you that despite selection the accumulation of genetic damage increases with each subsequent generation thereby degrading the species.

Further, which theory is in harmony with known laws of physics? The first law of thermodynamics, energy is conserved, rules out the first premise of evolution origins. Something cannot come from nothing if energy is conserved.

The second law of thermodynamics, things tend toward disorder unless energy is put into a system, simply states that left to its own things decay over time. This law rules out the premise that complexity comes from chaos without intelligent input. It also rules out the idea that genetic mutation results in increased fitness.

Both of these scientific laws of thermodynamics support the premises of creation origins but fail to support evolution origins.

So, which theory is actually built upon testable, reproducible evidence, in harmony with known laws, and which theory is demonstrated, by the evidence, to be inconsistent with testable evidence and laws? Then which theory is more scientific?

I find it fascinating that Creationism is actually founded upon scientific premises and beliefs, and supported by testable laws, whereas evolutionism origins is founded upon “blind faith,” premises that are disproved by objective testable science. Yet, scientists refuse to follow the evidence and instead persist in proclaiming evolutionary origins are actually scientific.

How do I forgive??

Torn piece of paper with the word “Forgive” in the woman’s palms.

The following is adapted heavily from Timothy S. Lane’s article titled “Pursuing and Granting Forgiveness” which was originally published in The Journal of Biblical Counseling in Spring of 2005.  It can be read in its entirety online here:  http://www.gigr.org/uploads/Forgive.pdf

Forgiveness is such a crucial part of many people’s healing.  Unforgiveness is one of those top three factors that brings on depression.  But it is also a very difficult topic.  There are many confusions about what it is and how it happens, and why we fight it.  Timothy Lane’s article does an excellent job of detailing all of these hard to explain or understand topics.  I’ve used it with many clients, and found great results.  Below I will summarize each section and point made, and provide my insights as well.

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WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?

Before we can know how to forgive, we have to accurately define.  Lane separates out this definition into 7 sections:

1. Forgiveness cancels a debt.

When someone wrongs us, we have this feeling as if they owe us.  Forgiveness involves releasing them from that obligation.

2. Forgiveness makes a three-fold promise.

1 – I will not bring up this offense again.  (Forgiveness is not authentic if we use the offense over and over to knock the offender down again)

2 – I will not gossip or malign you because of this offense.  (No getting together with your girlfriends or buddies and knocking your spouse for it behind closed doors)

3 – I will not dwell on this offense.  (No playing the video tape of the event over and over.  No, I won’t ask you to destroy the tape, but it’s time to pop it out and put it on the shelf)

3. Failure to forgive turns victims into victimizers.

This is the concept where the real person that unforgiveness hurts is you – not them.  You are sabatoging your own future.  They are free, they’ve probably moved on.  You are stuck, and it may be eating you alive.  You may inevitably take that out on others or yourself.

4. Failure to forgive has an eternal cost.

Matthew 6:15 says “if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  Yoda says “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering” – all of which is the path to the dark side.  Unforgiveness breeds bitterness, hate, fear, and suffering.

5. Forgiveness is both and event and a process.

It is something we don’t just do once and be done with it.  It is an event, in the sense that it is an action we take, but it is also a process in the fact that we have to continue to choose a lifestyle of forgiveness.  It’s a daily choice.  It is not a simple one-and-done.

6. Forgiveness is not forgetting.

This is one that really trips a lot of people up and prevents forgiveness.  Many think they must forget that the offense ever happened.  This is simply not true.  This is a wrong interpretation of Jeremiah 31:34 that says that God will remember our sins no more.  Lane says “but the omniscient God does not have amnesai when it comes to our sins.  The word ‘remember’ in this passage does not mean ‘memory’, it means ‘covenant’”.  God chooses to not dwell on our sins anymore.

7. Forgiveness is not peace at any cost.

Many do not wish to forgive because they think that will give the offender the permission to walk all over them.  To get past this we need to understand that forgiveness is not for them, it is for you.  Forgiveness opens the door for Godly confrontation in love.  It opens the door for healthy communication and restoration.

After these seven concepts, I think we can summarize forgiveness into the following statement:

Forgiveness is treating another person not as though they deserve.

 Or you can put it towards yourself… forgiveness is treating yourself not as though you think you deserve.

Now that we know what forgiveness is or is not, we can move onto how to do it.

PRACTICING FORGIVENESS

 Lane outlines five parts of how to practice forgiveness, and you will notice quickly that most of them have to do with looking inward first and making sure you are ready to forgive.  Matthew 7:5 says “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

1. Don’t turn a blind eye to sin.

Don’t ignore your own faults.  Watch your behavior.  Learn from mistakes.

2. Love the habitual sinner wisely.

This has to do with setting appropriate boundaries.  Sometimes we don’t know exactly what to do or how to handle the situation, but God does!  This is where we entrust the person’s well being to God because we can’t be involved in that lifestyle.

3. Hold yourself to a high Biblical standard.

Here’s where we really examine ourself:  our character, our integrity.  This is where we remain open to reconciliation even in the worst of circumstances.  I think about the many times I hear people talk about marital unfaithfulness as a ‘deal-breaker’.  I understand that feeling, but I don’t think that concept resembles a high Biblical standard.  Just because divorce is justified because of unfaithfulness, doesn’t mean it has to automatically be our default position.

4. Deal first with your own heart attitude.

This has to do with making forgiveness a lifestyle, not just a choice or action we do.  Lane says “you cannot use the offender’s failure to ask for forgiveness as an excuse to hold onto your anger and hurt.”  We have a responsibility to forgive first on a vertical axis – with God before we attempt horizontal forgiveness with the offender… and there’s no excuse for not forgiving them on the vertical axis.

5. Ask for forgiveness.

And finally, after all that preparation – this is the step where we actually do it.  This is the event of forgiveness.  The process continues on afterwards.  This may be us asking for forgiveness or letting someone know we forgive them.  In my house when our kids have to ask for forgiveness it is a 4 step process:

1 – apologize.

2 – why was it wrong.

3 – what will you do differently in the future.

4 – ask for forgiveness.

Even after learning all of the above, many of us are still hestiant to forgiveness.  Why is that??  Lane outlines three more bullet points on why we don’t forgive.

WHY DON’T WE FORGIVE

1. You don’t believe that you need to be forgiven.

Ever thought this:  well, I’ve done wrong but I’ve never killed anyone.  Yeah, that’s this concept.  It wasn’t a big deal what I did.  But by who’s standard?  God’s standard is perfection.  In only took one sin for paradise to be lost in the Garden of Eden.  What’s so wrong with eating a piece of fruit?  Nothing in theory, but it was wrong because they were told not to.  Anything that God tells us not to do, but we do anyways is sin – and automatically separates us from God – and we need forgiveness.

2. You don’t think you are forgivable.

Sounding like humility, this is actually pride.  What you are saying is:

1 – My sin is too big, there is no way God’s grace can top it.

2 – I don’t want to rely solely on God’s mercy.

3 – God may forgive me but I can’t forgive myself.

This last one sounds like humility but it’s full of pride.  If God is the judge and deems you not guilty, then you sit in judgment of his judgment – what does that say about your faith?

3. The joy of His forgiveness has grown dim.

Lane says “the white hot truth of the Gospel gets lost in that monotony, and it soon becomes simply a nice, warm experience of the past.  We return to handling daily life and the provocations of others in ways similar to our pre-Christian days.”

This entire article is the roadmap to forgiveness and reconciliation.  Forgiveness is for you, for your sanity, for your future.  It is God’s plan for your life.  It is a lifestyle.  It is choosing to treat someone not as though they deserve.  God does it for us.  The least we can do is do it for others.  I know it is hard, but I promise it is worth it.  I leave you with the song and story behind the song of Matthew West’s “Forgiveness”…

Island rapidly forms before sailor’s eyes!

In 2006, a group of sailors traversing the south Pacific ocean came across an anomaly.  What appeared to be a sand barge in the middle of the ocean.

They decided to investigate.  They maneuvered their boat through the ‘sand barge’ leaving a trail in their wake.

As they moved away they noticed something strange – a plume of smoke rising out of the area.

It turned out they had just sailed over an active volcano!  Within minutes, the witnessed a brand new island being formed rapidly before their eyes!

This amazing event gives evidence to a rarely talked about phenomenon: how geologic events can and do occur very rapidly!  We get used to interpreting most geologic processes as gradual and uniform, taking millions of years to form and change.  This is not always true.

We creationists believe that the flood of Noah’s time initiated plate tectonics (“the fountains of the great deep burst forth” Gen 7:11).  We believe that was the onset of of most geologic activity such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, etc.  In fact, we believe that ongoing geologic events are technically aftershocks from the flood.  We believe the flood rearranged the continents, raised the mountain ranges, lowered valleys, and much more.

This amazing rapid island formation is evidence that although we observe most geologic events such as erosion happening very slowly over a long time, extreme catastrophic events can shape the face of the planet very rapidly.  When we see this island formation happen, it makes it more understandable how a worldwide catastrophe such as the flood could quickly reshape our planet – and that judging that past by today’s normal slow processes would lead to incorrect conclusions (old-earth/evolution).

more info:  http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/maiken.asp

How can all those scientists be wrong?

Is the photo above a man standing sideways (profile), or is the man standing forwards with half the picture cut off?  Two different people will come to two different conclusions.  Let’s keep that in mind…

The vast majority of scientists agree that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, and evolution via natural selection and common ancestry is the means by which humanity came into being.  Obviously, as a young-earth creationist, I do not agree with either of those staples of science.  But what about all the evidence, Tim??  Let me explain my position…

I believe that the scientific method requires that all evidence must be interpreted before a conclusion is drawn.  My issue is not with the evidence itself, it is with the interpretation stage.  I believe that scientists interpret the evidence through a worldview filter.  Their worldview filter includes their personal beliefs about how the world does or does not operate.  For example, if I believe there is no supernatural influence in the world and everything continues on the way and the rate at which it always has, then I am going to interpret something like radiometric decay or geology much differently than someone who believes God has intervened in this world at various points in our early history.

Let’s look at a couple examples…

If God really created Adam on the literal sixth day of creation – how old do you think he might look on day 7?  Was he a full grown man?  30… maybe 40?  But the truth is he is only one day old.  He was created fully mature and able to sustain himself.  Now apply that concept to the rest of creation.  If God really created the world in six days fully mature and self-sustaining – how might that affect the apparent age of the earth?  And how might that affect our research if we left out that concept?  Might we come to a much different conclusion?  I think so.  The point is evidence like radiometric dating the age of the earth doesn’t rule out a special creation because things still might appear older than they truly are and yet that would still be in line Biblicaly.

But isn’t that a deceptive God??  I hear this all the time.  No, it’s not.  Perhaps God never intended us to study the age of the earth while ignoring his revelation about how He did it!  Not God’s deception, human ignorance.

As for geology, we have to look at what might have happened had Noah’s flood actually covered and destroyed the whole world as the Bible seems to imply.  Take the layers at the Grand Canyon.  Two schools of thought: either a little bit of water (the Colorado River) over a long period of time (millions of years) OR a lot of water (the flood) over a little period of time.  The same evidence, different conclusions based on different interpretations that are dependent on our worldview assumptions.

But doesn’t science work to weed out the assumptions?  Yes, but it gets harder and harder when science steps outside of direct observation and repeatability.  Of course we can’t observe or repeat creation or the flood or anything from that time period.  We only have left over evidence that requires human interpretation.

But what about multiple lines of evidence all agreeing on the same conclusion??  Isn’t that correlation the nail in the coffin?  No, not if each one of those line of evidence were all interpreted under the same starting worldview assumption of uniformitarianism – the idea that present processes are the way things have always worked.  If Genesis is true and the world was created rapidly, altered following original sin, and destroyed during the flood – uniformitarainism fails, and so does all conclusions that follow from that assumption.

Keep in mind that I am NOT saying that the laws of nature change all the time and thus science is impossible.  I am being specific and citing three main events from Genesis in which things would have worked differently than the way we see them working today.  Science that puts computers on our desks and phones in our pockets are based on modern, observations that are repeatable and verifiable.  Science such as evolution and the age of the earth are much different and require much more debatable assumptions.

The conclusions of an old earth and evolution rely on the worldview assumptions of naturalism and specifically uniformitarianism being absolutly true and unchangeable.  As a Christian, I believe God does and has intervened in our world.  I also believe the Bible is a historical, reliable account of the creation of the world.  And since that is true, it contains information that makes me seriously doubt uniformitarianism.  I replace it with the assumption of catastrophism of history – that several high impace, rapid events occurred shaping our planet’s apparent history very quickly rather than gradually.

Yes, we both use starting assumptions to interpret the evidence.  It’s not evolutionists have more evidence than creationists, it’s that we interpret the same evidence differently based on a different set of starting assumptions.  So, the real question is – whose starting assumptions are more reliable?  The majority of scientists believe their assumptions are correct because the constant rates have never been observed to be different.  That actually is a pretty logical conclusion.  But that doesn’t disqualify the creationist worldview.  We believe we have additional information in the revealed word of God – therefore we see our starting assumptions as more reliable than fallible human intellect because it comes straight from God who was there, observed it, and doesn’t lie.  And thus, the debate rages on!

Twitter debate with Biologos

This week I had the pleasure of interacting with Mario Anthony Russo of Biologos.  Russo is a God-loving Christian who used to be an outspoken young-earth creation apologist and is now with Biologos, the largest theistic evolution promoting organization.  We had a debate in 140 characters or less on Twitter.

It was in response to his new article titled “Tales of a recovering Answer Addict: From young-earth apologist to Evolutionary Creationist” (http://biologos.org/blogs/brad-kramer-the-evolving-evangelical/tales-of-a-recovering-answer-addict-from-young-earth-apologist-to-evolutionary-creationist).  Here is some more background info on Russo:

The following are screenshots of our Twitter debate.  Since it is kinda confusing to go into Twitter and see everything, I tried to reassemble it in chronological order below.  Of course Twitter is not the most preferred format for a debate (and hard to screen cap – you will see a couple duplicates, etc), it certainly gets to the point quickly.

I hope you will be able to see how I believe he dodged several direct questions and was not willing to admit that he interprets the Bible through his beliefs about science…

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This entire debate can be summed up in this image: