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HISTORIC CREATIONISM Creation Evangelism
Dr. Stephen r. Phinney Dr. Joseph Kezele
Dedicated to: Creationists of the Generations
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THE HOLY WORD OF GOD Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1975 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Historic Creationism: Creation Evangelism Copyright © 2008, 2009 & 2013 Author’s Spotlight: Click Here
ISBN: 978-1-300-48233-? (Process) Printed in the United States of America LuLu Press, Inc. IOM America P.O. Box 71 Sterling, Kansas 67579 (602) 292-2985 www.iomamerica.org ChristAsLife@iomamerica.org Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kezele, Joseph, M.D.; Phinney, Stephen Ray Historic Creationism /by Dr. Joseph Kezele & Dr. Stephen R. Phinney.
© 2013 Exchanging Life Publishing Cover Design: Inphinnety Designs Editing: Edikat & Associate, Kathy Hill Sterling KS/Colorado Springs, CO
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HISTORY OF CREATIONISM EVANGELISM By Dr. Stephen R. Phinney The IOM E-Community has a defined burden for unveiling the Truth behind the post-modern movement of evolution, old earth and humanism. Creationism is the Biblical Worldview belief that humanity, life, the earth, and the universe (as God sees it) are the creation of a supernatural agency – the God of Abraham. In the 1900's, British geologists and other nonChristian scientists argued that the world was considerably older than they previously were taught, scripture-based calculation of less than six thousand years. In the United States the apparent discrepancies between science and Biblical Worldview were "seized upon and amplified" in a historically know "cultural war" over whether humanistic (man based) science or Biblical documentation (God Based) could provide the most accurate and provable text for education. By the early 1920s, the Christian church realized the traditional beliefs of creationism, commonly accepted by mankind, were being questioned due to their new "age of enlightenment" movement of scientific humanism. Shortly after this "wake-up call," they soon realized their view of Biblical creationism had become "the standard alternative" to humanism based "scientific� explanations of the biosphere (ecosystem) - instead of being the primary view. Critical Note: The humanistic view of "global ecological system" believes that the integration of all living beings and their relationships, including their interacting with the elements of the lithosphere (outermost planetary shell), hydrosphere (water) and atmosphere (gas planetary layer) is all based on the subjective data of evolution. The man-formed view of the biosphere postulates that it all evolved through a process they call biogenesis (life-forms producing lifeforms) and biopoesis (life-form from inanimate matter). The Truth: Creationism embraces the simple truth that the Creator (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) birthed the global ecological system by way of intelligent design - the truth that all elements of the universe, as God sees it, have been hand crafted by way of the mind of God. Since man's thoughts are not Gods and God's thoughts are not mans, the human mind of man will never embrace intelligent design (1 Cor. 2:11). But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. (1 Corinthians 2:14) The reality of man accepting the intelligent design of the biosphere will require a conversion from the mind of man into the mind of Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:1-7). This can only be done through being evangelized by the Holy Spirit - thus we have Creation Evangelism. Creation Evangelism adds one more layer to the Biblical Worldview of Creationism. Creation Evangelism belief is that the study of the creation actually reveals the gospel of leading an individual to Christ Jesus for salvation. These practitioners use the field of Creationism vs. Evolution to detail the fight between God and Satan. All well groomed (true born-again) Creationist know that it is impossible for mankind to understand, let alone embrace, creationism without a conversion to Jesus Christ.
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HISTORICAL RELEVANCE: Since the end of the 19th century, Creationism in the United States has been set in sharp oppositional contrast to "scientific" assumptive theories, such as that of evolution, which derive from earthly, naturalistic and post-modern religious observations of the universe and life. This kind of "wisdom" is certainly not the kind that comes down from a God-o-logical view (James 3:15). Strict Biblical Worldview Creationists believe that evolution cannot adequately account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth. Biblical Creationist bases their belief on a literal reading of NOT just the book of Genesis but the entire Bible, as well as the studies of the natural (natural matter that can be seen). In contrast to the Biblical Worldview Creationists, evolutionary creationists maintain that, although evolution accounts for the nature of the biosphere, evolution itself is cosmologically attributable to a Creator deity. It needs to be noted here that most evolutionary creationist are deist (God created it, then left the rest to man's reason and observation) by choice. True Biblical Creationist do not hold to the evolutionary creationist beliefs, in fact they consider them to be the violation of James 3:15. How Evolution Got the Upper Hand: Times are changing. For centuries, Christians have left the un-saved take the upper hand in world of education. Due to the provocation of the Holy Spirit, body members of Christ are "taking back the ground" lost in the cross-cultural wars over intellectualism and enlightenment. To put it quite blunt - Christians are no longer willing to be dumbed down. A resulting conclusion, men and women of God's intelligent design are stepping up to the forum and proving the Truths of Intelligent Design. Needless to say, within the world of science, the humanist has been left gasping for intelligence. In most debates, the Christian educators, and/or scientists, are winning hands down. At first, these Christian thinkers were associated with being non-thinking Christian fundamentalist in opposition to human evolution. That soon "evolved" into these Christian thinkers being an actual threat - to, they actually platform better than we do. Thanks to communicators like Dr. Joseph Kezele and others, the roles between Biblical Worldview science and human evolutionary science have completely reversed. Christian educators are now considered the "experts." How did the church get into this mess to start with? As a resident historian, I remember several U.S. states passing laws against the teaching of evolution in public schools, as upheld in the Scopes Trial. This court upholding was on the grounds of the Butler Act of 1925. Evolution was omitted entirely from school textbooks in much of the United States until the 1960s. Due to the teachings of evolution entering the back doors of our universities, international student exchange program, separation of church and state and the laziness of the church, a vigorous renewed effort stormed America with legal judgments primarily through the work of the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU (1920). By the 1980s, Christians giving way to their incompetence suffered the ramifications of their laziness of thinking. This defeat stimulated a new generation of Christian thinkers. Christians began developing a voice in history, science, politics and law. Such beliefs as Young Earth creationism, proponents of which believe that the earth is thousands rather than billions of years old - was back on the platform again. This time, Christians were putting their science where their mouths were.
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By the start of the twentieth century through propagation of assumptive education and speculations, evolution was widely accepted and was beginning to be taught in U.S. public schools - thanks to the ACLU. After World War I, popular belief that German aggression resulted from a Darwinian doctrine of "survival of the fittest" inspired William Jennings Bryan to campaign against the teaching of Darwinian ideas of human evolution. In the 1920s, the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy led to an upsurge of fundamentalist religious fervor in which schools were prevented from teaching evolution through state laws such as Tennessee’s 1925 Butler Act, and by getting evolution removed from biology textbooks nationwide. Creationism became associated in common usage with opposition to evolution. PUBLIC SCHOOL WAR: In 1961 in the United States, an attempt to repeal the Butler Act failed. Post-modern efforts began to be birthed through this assumptive “scientific” work of evolution. The Genesis Flood by the Baptist engineer Henry M. Morris brought the Seventh-day Adventist biblically literal flood geology of George McCready Price to a wider audience, popularizing a novel idea of Young Earth creationism, and by 1965 the term "scientific creationism" had gained currency. The 1968 Epperson v. Arkansas judgment ruled that state laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which prohibits state aid to religion. and when in 1975 Daniel v. Waters ruled that a state law requiring biology textbooks discussing "origins or creation of man and his world" to give equal treatment to creation as per Book of Genesis was unconstitutional, a new group identifying themselves as creationists promoted a "Creation science" which omitted explicit biblical references. In 1981 the state of Arkansas passed a law, Act 590, mandating that "creation science" be given equal time in public schools with evolution, and defining creation science as positing the “creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing,” as well as explaining the earth’s geology by "the occurrence of a worldwide flood". This was ruled unconstitutional at McLean v. Arkansas in January 1982 as the creationists' methods were not scientific but took the literal wording of the Book of Genesis and attempted to find scientific support for it. Undaunted, Louisiana introduced similar legislation that year. A series of judgments and appeals led to the 1987 Supreme Court ruling in Edwards v. Aguillard that it too violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. INTELLIGENT DESIGN BORN: "Creation science" could no longer be taught in public schools, and in drafts of the creation science school textbook Of Pandas and People all references to creation or creationism were changed to refer to intelligent design. Proponents of the intelligent design movement organized widespread campaigning to considerable effect. They officially denied any links to creation or to religion, and indeed claimed that "creationism" only referred to young Earth creationism with flood geology; but in Kitzmiller v. Dover the court found intelligent design to be essentially religious, and unable to dissociate itself from its creationist roots, as part of the ruling that teaching intelligent design in public school science classes was unconstitutional. So there you have it. That is about where the war on Evolution vs. Intelligent Design is today. We have much work to do. We are so close to shouting "victory" but it is critical that we close the gap. The enemy will not lie down and die. He might lie down and play dead but he has a unique way of showing his ugly head - all ten of them. IOM E-Community is dedicated
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through the work of Dr. Joseph Kezele, and others, to re-establish God’s view of the world, He designed with His intelligence. Enjoy their work!
Creation Science Evangelism Dr. Kezele: In this initial article about Creation Science Evangelism there are several general points that need to be well understood before discussing more specific issues. This is a battle between two belief systems, one based on man’s fallible and constantly changing opinion and the other on God’s infallible and unchanging Word. The battle is not between Scripture and science. That is a false argument put forth by evolutionists to divert one’s attention from the real issues. The Christian must remember that the author of the Word and the author of the world are one and the same, and since the God of the Bible does not contradict himself the Word and the World are consistent with each other, including genuine science. A distinction between operational science and historical science needs to be made. Operational science is based upon the scientific method, and advances due to observations made in the present. These observations are repeatable, verifiable and falsifiable. The assertions made by one person or group can be tested by others to verify or falsify the initial thought, or hypothesis. This is how we have come to enjoy the fruits of operational science such as space shuttles, computers, microwave ovens and hair dryers. This is an objective process. On the other hand, historical science deals with the unrepeatable past, which is unobservable, unverifiable and unfalsifiable. It deals totally with assumptions about the past when looking at data we observe in the present. The assumptions made depend upon the presuppositions a person uses to interpret the unobservable past. This is a subjective process. Many times people confuse observational and historical science, and transfer the well earned respect of and confidence in the objective observational scientist to the subjective historical scientist. Which presuppositions are used to make assumptions to interpret evidence makes all the difference in the world. And it all boils down to two most basic presuppositions. This first is that the God of the Bible created the universe and everything in it including planet Earth, plants, animals and people as He said He did in Genesis, with a plan and a purpose. The second is that everything somehow by random chance events came into being and became more complex so that hydrogen evolved into humans with no intelligent input, no plan, nor purpose. Historical science properly interpreted confirms Scripture. This occurs when Scripture is the starting point for looking at observable data in the present and attempting to interpret what occurred in the past. After Creation week, the event so central to interpreting everything on this planet is the Genesis Flood, the global flood of Noah. We cannot comprehend adequately how this extremely violent catastrophic onetime event totally and radically changed the planet. This event is in contrast to one of the most basic of many unstated assumptions of evolution, called uniformitarianism. This assumption is that the rate at which we observe all physical processes occur today is the same uniform rate at which they have been going on in the past. An example is that the rate of decay of radioactive elements that we observe today has always been the same in the past. In a future article this will be demonstrated to be a false assumption. IOM AMERICA | P.O. Box 71, Sterling, KS 67579 | www.iomamerica.org | sphinney@iomamerica.org | Permission for Reproduction: Classroom Use
The age of the earth is an absolutely crucial point but not the real issue. It is used to cast doubt upon the veracity of Genesis, especially Chapter One. For if the foundational chapters of Genesis are not reliable, then why bother with the rest of the Bible? The real issue is the authority of Scripture. Do you choose to believe God’s infallible Word or man’s ever changing and fallible opinions? After all, the purpose of evolution is to attempt to provide an alternative to belief in the God of the Bible, so that people can delude themselves into thinking they do not have to deal with and be responsible to Him as their Creator and Savior.
Fossil Record Let’s turn our attention to the fossil record found all over the earth. The four requirements for fossil formation are a soon to be dead plant or animal, catastrophic burial, mineral laden water and heat and pressure, but not much time. We have been taught that fossils form as the result of dead animals or plants slowly being buried over many thousands of years and then compressed by the weight of overlying sediment. The problem with this is that a dead plant or animal does not wait to decompose or somehow ward off scavengers while it is being slowly covered. Burial must be very rapid, as in Noah’s Flood, which also provided the dissolved minerals necessary for petrification. There is much evidence that confirms extremely rapid burial. Fossils of fish in the act of swallowing fish, an Ichthyosaur in the process of giving birth, even fossilized jellies (jellyfish), in spite of consisting of 98% water, as well as many fragile plant species, all testify to catastrophic burial. Clam fossils are virtually always found in the closed position. You may have noticed that clamshells on the beach wash up in the open position. An especially interesting type of fossil is the polystrate tree, buried in a vertical position, extending through many rocks layers that represent many thousands of years according to conventional geology. The widespread distribution of fossils all around the world in stacks of rock layers thousands of feet thick is mute testimony to the extent of the catastrophe of Noah’s Flood. Even more impressive are fossil “graveyards”, where millions of fossils of many species that do not live in the same ecological zones are found with marine organisms, land creatures and bird fossils jammed together in dense tangles. These cannot be the product of local floods, as the evolutionary model would have us believe. Other problems for the evolutionary model range from the existence of clam fossils at the peaks of all the world’s highest mountains to the lack of transitional fossils from one kind of organism to another. In spite of sensational headlines when, for example, claims of feathered dinosaurs are first made, careful examination by subsequent secular researchers results in a retraction of the initial claims, but with much less publicity. Archaeopteryx, taught to us as the transition from bird to reptile, turns out to be a bird with teeth. Other examples of birds with teeth are also known. An additional problem is that Protoavis (first bird) has been found in layers lower than Archaeopteryx. Coelacanth was touted as a 375million-year-old fossil that became extinct more than 65 million years ago. However, it was found in 1938, unchanged, and has been swimming ever since rather than walking on the ocean floor as evolutionists told us.
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More recently, Tiktaalik, another fish fossil that was proclaimed the transition from swimming to walking fish, was found in northern Canada in 2006. Unfortunately, for the evolutionary scenario, the announcement in January of this year of finding quadruped (four-footed) fossil tracks in Poland in rock layers that are considered to be 18 million years older removes Tiktaalik from contention as an evolutionary ancestor in the supposed transition from swimming to walking creatures. Most stunning are multiple unfossilized dinosaur soft tissue specimens in various locations. T Rex thigh bone in Montana with flexible stretchy blood vessels and intact red blood cells, announced in 1997, and Hadrosaur unfossilized muscle tissue found in Spain in 2009 confirm recent burial, only hundreds or a few thousand years ago. There is simply no way these specimens could have been preserved for 65 million years! Therefore, the fossil record demonstrates billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth, just as a global flood would bring about. The lack of transitional fossils, conservation of form, seen by comparing fossils to modern organisms, fossilized manmade artifacts and fossil production in the laboratory in a few weeks all testify against evolution and for the creation account. The paucity of human fossils confirms God’s success in wiping man off the earth, except for those on the ark. We will discuss Noah’s ark in the next issue.
THE ARK First, it is important to understand just how large and stable the ark was. In modern units of measurement, it was 450 feet long, which is one-and-a-half football field lengths from goal line to goal line. The width of 75 feet is just under half the width of a football field. The height of 45 feet is equivalent to a modern four-story building. This ratio of 6:1 of length to width is the ideal ratio for maximum stability according to modern ship building engineers. After all, the purpose of the ark was to remain floating during a violent worldwide event with tsunamis and hypercanes — hurricanes 100 times the size of modern hurricanes. The need was for stability, not speed nor direction. These dimensions yield a capacity of 522 railroad stock cars, each of which can hold 240 sheep, which is the calculated average size of all the animals on the ark including dinosaurs. So the total capacity would have been 125,280 animals. Scripture records in Genesis Chapter 7 that the animals went into the ark by pairs according to their kind. This reinforces the Biblical concept of kind given to us in Genesis Chapter 1, with each kind multiplying according to its kind. Kind does not correspond to species or genus, but many times may correspond to family, such as the dog, cat, or bear families. It is estimated that the number of kinds before the flood was 8,000. Thus the number of animals on the ark would have been 16,000, which is only one eighth of capacity. This leaves more than enough space for food, water and many more people than the eight who chose to take refuge in the ark. Regarding dinosaurs, even though some 688 species are listed, this number is greatly decreased when duplications of the same fossil uncovered in different countries and given different names are eliminated. The number of different dinosaur kinds is much closer to 30. A second factor to take into account is the size and age of dinosaurs. It is well known that most
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reptiles grow until they die. If this holds for dinosaurs as well, then it would make sense that God would have sent teenaged dinosaurs onto the ark, occupying less space and eating less food than their older and larger relatives. When did the dinosaurs become extinct, if they survived the flood on the ark? There are three lines of evidence that strongly suggest that dinosaurs died recently. The first is Scripture itself. Job Chapter 40 describes in detail Behemoth, an Apatosaurus (brontosaur) type dinosaur. Job Chapter 41 describes Leviathan, a marine fire-breathing dinosaur. Job is considered to be the first book of the Bible to be written, and references to significant cold climate may indicate the Ice Age after the Flood. The second results from the many works of art, such as Mochi pottery in Peru, temple sculpture in Burma, Roman mosaics, American Indian rock and cave paintings and brass relief in a cathedral floor in England, all of which very accurately depict different dinosaur kinds. How could these peoples accomplish this without direct visual contact with the various dinosaur kinds? The third and most concrete line of evidence is the unearthing of non-fossilized dinosaur soft tissue in multiple locations. Two examples are T-Rex intact red blood cells and stretchy flexible arteries from a thigh bone from Montana and non-fossilized Hadrosaur muscle tissue from Spain. It simply is not possible for these tissues to survive 65 million years or more. The death of those animals had to be only some hundreds or a very few thousand years ago. I mentioned that God selected the animals. Noah did not go out and round them up. I am convinced that God selected animals that had the widest range of genes in their DNA, so that their offspring would be equipped to deal with the dramatically changed environmental conditions that developed after the flood. We will take up those changes in the next issue. Noah’s Flood was an extremely violent worldwide catastrophe that totally remodeled the surface of the planet. It is so difficult for us to grasp the degree of geological upheaval caused by continental masses moving at speeds of 35 miles per hour, colliding and thrusting up mountain ranges such as the Himalayas and pushing up huge plateaus many thousands of feet. Earthquakes resulted in faulting and thousands of volcanoes erupted, laying down layers of ash and lava. Add in factors due to water such erosion by the fountains of the great deep with huge numbers of cubic miles of rock ground up into sand, tsunamis, hypercanes (hurricanes 100 times the size of modern hurricanes), and massive sheet erosion, as land masses were thrust upward and water ran off. Continental basins overflowed their rims, cutting out canyons with accelerating erosion as water cut deeper and dumped more water even faster. Then you can begin to comprehend the degree of destruction and remodeling caused by the Flood. With elevation of land masses and sinking of ocean basins, the flood waters, originating from the fountains of the deep and the opening of the windows of heaven (Genesis 7:11), collected and formed the current oceans. There are thousands of dormant submarine volcanic cones in today’s oceans. During and after the flood year they were liberating a lot of heat along with lava. That heat warmed up the oceans to a significant degree, leading to great amounts of evaporation of warm moisture into the atmosphere.
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Meanwhile volcanoes on land were liberating great amounts of ash and lava. As we have seen this year with the y af alla okul Volcano in Iceland, ash can remain suspended in air and block sunlight. Imagine hundreds of volcanoes doing this simultaneously, causing cooling of continents while the submarine volcanoes are still warming the oceans and continuing to cause the evaporation of great amounts of warm moisture into the atmosphere. As winds blew the warm moist air over the cold land masses, rain fell at the warmer latitudes and snow at the colder latitudes. With time snow accumulated and packed to form ice masses in polar regions and on high mountains in other parts of the world. Nearer the equator a tropical climate developed with lush vegetation. Temperature differences and resultant air pressure differences set up prevailing wind patterns that blow moist air away from 30º north and 30º south of the equator. This is responsible for the desert belts we see at these latitudes. These climate zones, combined with local variation due to mountains, valleys, seacoasts, lakes and plains, created a great variety of ecological habitats in the post-Flood world. This is in great distinction to the pre-Flood world, from clues we can gather from Scripture and the fossil and rock record: The climate was uniformly comfortable with no clothing, subtropical, no polar arctic conditions or tropical hot zones – Genesis 2:25, 1:28; No rain – Genesis 2:5b-6; Pre-Flood oceans were much smaller – Genesis 7:11. Most of the water in the current oceans was still underground. Large oceans would generate weather systems; Pre-Flood mountains most likely were low compared to today’s – Genesis 7:19, less water needed to cover them and high mountains would generate cold weather and rain; Much higher atmospheric levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide – Layers of sandstone, limestone and other sedimentary rocks throughout the world, as well as deposits of natural gas, coal and oil, contain vast amounts of locked up oxygen and carbon; The pre-Flood world living biomass was unimaginably greater than than now – the fossil record and fossil fuels attest to this; Gigantism in the fossil record – 6 foot beavers, dragonflies with 3 foot wing spans, 30 foot tall ferns, and many other examples would necessitate higher oxygen levels; Genealogies in Scripture – life spans of 800 and 900 years. Higher oxygen levels are consistent with infectious disease being kept under control, therefore not contributing to shorter life spans. The use of hyperbaric chambers to treat infectious diseases is consistent with this. So the contrast in living conditions before and after the Flood is quite stark. Next we will examine the effects of those changes on the animals that left the ark (and plants), multiplied and filled the earth.
Natural Selection and Speciation In the last article, changes to the entire surface of the earth and its climate were presented as a direct result of the Genesis Flood. The post-Flood world developed a wide range of climates from arctic to temperate, subtropical and tropical. Also, many variations of climate developed due to combinations of latitude, elevation, proximity to or distance from oceans, and the presence of intervening mountains blocking passage of moisture-laden air to desert regions. This is in great contrast to what is thought to be the stable pre-Flood worldwide subtropical climate, which would not have provided a stimulus for the expression of different genes contained in the genomes of each biblical kind. However, with the multitude of climates produced in the post-Flood world due to the factors presented in the last article (hyperlink?)
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great environmental challenges faced animals (and plants) as they multiplied, spread out and filled the earth after leaving the Ark in obedience to God’s command. Remembering that God, not Noah, selected the animals and sent them to the Ark, He selected the animals that possessed the widest range of genes for many different characteristics. This endowed the animals with the capability to express different characteristics derived from combinations of genes that would allow them to adapt to various living conditions. For example, let’s take the dog kind. The original pair of the dog kind, upon leaving the Ark, multiplied, spread out and filled the earth. (By the way, genetic studies by secular scientists now show that dogs originated from the gray wolf in the Middle East.) As they encountered different conditions, different characteristics would favor some individuals over others. Let’s focus on fur length and color. A pair of dogs encountering arctic conditions each possesses genes for long and short fur. Their offspring receive the combinations shown in the diagram so that one fourth will have long fur, one fourth short fur, and half medium-length fur. Those with long fur will have a better chance of survival in arctic conditions, will out reproduce the others and will become the dominant or only type that survives in those conditions. The same holds for those with white fur, for they will have better camouflage in snow than dogs with black or gray fur. This is a greatly simplified picture of what occurs, but the principles still hold true. This process is called natural selection, and creationists believe this is what happened in rapid fashion after the flood, and still occurs today at a slower pace. However, creationists differ greatly from evolutionists on the following points: 1. Natural selection occurs with the loss of information. As you can see from the diagram, the dogs with long fur no longer have the genes for short fur, because they were selected out by the cold conditions in the arctic. For many years, evolutionists have maintained that mutations plus natural selection are the mechanism for evolution to occur. We shall discuss in a future article that mutations are either neutral or lead to disease or death. They do not add information to the genome. 2. These changes in fur length or color are changes within a kind, not from one kind (dog) to another kind (cat or bear). This is speciation – the formation of species within the same original kind that came off the Ark by migration, causing isolated gene pools and loss of information through shuffling of genes as shown in the diagram. This is how the dog family formed 35 species since the Flood. The domestic dog with some 400 breeds worldwide is just one of those 35 species. 3. On the one hand, the evolutionary scenario starts with a miniscule gene pool in one initial life form branching out into a tree, which shows all life descending from that original life form, through the addition of information by mutation and natural selection. This is based on man’s changing thoughts. On the other hand, Biblical history tells us that at the beginning there was a huge gene pool made up of many different kinds forming a great creation orchard, with each tree a different Biblical kind, such as bear, cow, horse, cat, dog, etc. There was great loss of information through extinction by the Genesis Flood and additional loss of information in individuals by speciation after the Flood. This is based on God’s unchanging Word. This leads us to the question: What about people? What happened to them after the Flood?
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Natural Selection & the Ice Age In the last issue we discussed speciation and natural selection in animals as a result of the Genesis Flood and the subsequent Ice Age. Let’s turn to what happened with people after the Flood. Genesis 11 tells us that instead of obeying God’s command to spread out and multiply and fill the earth, as the animals did, people clustered at Babel, built a city, and built a tower to make a name for themselves. God saw that since they spoke one language, nothing that they set out to do would be impossible. So He confused their language, most likely by family groups, so that they would be frustrated with their inability to communicate and separate from all the other groups. This brought a halt to the building projects about 100 to 110 years after the Flood. It is striking to realize that God had to judge people again so soon after the Flood. In this way God forced people to spread out and fill the earth. As people groups spread out and multiplied, those groups became isolated from each other. This occurred not only in terms of geography, but also in terms of genetics, and people developed superficial differences in appearance, in exactly the same manner as the animals, as discussed in the last issue (hyperlink). That explains why the genes of people settling near the equator were selected to a greater extent to produce more skin pigment, called melanin, to be protected from the more intense solar radiation present there. This is why people like myself whose genes demonstrate to a great extent the Irish portion of their ancestry and who live in Arizona develop skin cancer. In contrast, people settling further north needed to have the least amount of pigment, so that the decreased amount of solar radiation could be absorbed by the skin to the maximum. Why? Because ultraviolet light penetrating through the superficial layers of skin, striking the superficial capillaries, converts the precursor of Vitamin D into its active form. Today people with darker skin living further away from the equator suffer from Vitamin D deficiency unless they receive supplementation in their diet. Vitamin D is essential for proper bone formation, which is why milk is fortified with it. Differences in hair color, curliness or straightness of hair, height, fat pad under the eyelid (altering the appearance of the eye), and other characteristics also developed among people groups with migration and isolation. Human genetic studies show that the greatest difference between any two people on the planet is 0.2% of their total genetic makeup, which is called the genome. Analysis of genetic characteristics that are considered to be “racial” in nature constitute only 0.012% of the genome. There is truly only one race: the human race. This is confirmed in Acts 17: 26 “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” There is no place for racism in the church, as there never has been a place for it in Scripture. Evolutionary assumptions about certain people groups supposedly being less advanced in the process of evolution than others was used to justify genocide . This occurred against darkskinned peoples: the aborigines of Australia, the Herero and the Nama in what was then German Southwest Africa, or light-skinned Jews in Europe, committed by nominally Christian nations.
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Where was the church then? Compromised by evolution and old-earth beliefs. Where is the church today? Compromised by evolution and old-earth beliefs. Why? To attempt to gain the respect of the world that assumes that evolution is supported by science—which is not the case since evolution is anti-science—while having salvation through the blood of Christ. In reality, they gain the contempt of the world and risk the contempt of the Lord. The Church must get back to the truth in Genesis in order to get its own house in order. Then the Church can become effective and change the direction of the culture back toward Christ. The next issue will discuss the origin of languages in the context of the Tower of Babel.
The Origin of Languages and Language Trees In the last issue (hyperlink) we discussed how migration and isolation of people after the dispersion from Babel led to the development of people groups and superficial variations in their physical characteristics. This was brought about by God’s udgment of their disobedience by not spreading out to fill the Earth. He gave them different languages, probably by family groups, so that they would be frustrated with their inability to communicate, and separate from all the other groups. In this way God forced people to spread out and fill the Earth. As people groups spread out and multiplied, those groups became isolated from each other. This occurred not only in terms of geography, but also in terms of genetics, as discussed in the last issue, and in terms of their languages as well, to the degree that subgroups of languages developed markedly distinct characteristics from each other. Linguists study characteristics such as root words in vocabulary, the use of prefixes and suffixes, vowel shifts, word order—also called syntax—and changes in verb forms, called conjugation. Changes in noun and adjective endings, called declensions, and how they are used, called cases, are analyzed as well. Each case is for a different use of a noun in a sentence. For example, one case, the nominative, is the subject of a sentence. Another case is the accusative, used for the recipient of the action of the verb. In English we call this the direct object. All of these characteristics and others are analyzed and compared, then used to classify languages into families, groups and subgroups. To give you an idea of the degree to which this happened, let’s take a look at ust one of hundreds of families of languages, the Indo-European Family of languages. It has about 125 members, some extinct, many still spoken today. They are classified into 12 groups: 1. Paleo-Balkan, Armenian and other languages 2. Anatolian 3. Baltic 4. Celtic 5. Dardic & Nuristani 6. Germanic 7. Indic 8. Iranian 9. Italic 10. Romance 11. Slavic and 12. Tocharian. Let’s look at ust one group, the Germanic languages. They are placed into the following subgroups: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, Icelandic, Low Saxon, Dutch, Frisian, Flemish, Faroese, Scotts (not Scottish) and English.
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Studies of all of these languages show that they developed from one ancestral language, called Proto Indo-European, which means the first Indo-European language. It has been reconstructed by combining the characteristics of its members. For example, modern members of the IndoEuropean family of languages that still use cases (defined above) to a significant degree have anywhere from 4 (German), 6 (Russian) or 7 (Czech and Latin). Combining all of these cases, there are actually a total of eight different cases. So Proto Indo-European is said to have had eight cases. Proto Indo-European is only one of 344 classified families of languages, 282 of which are still spoken, and 62 which are extinct. There are several hundred unclassified language families that the experts have no idea what to do with, because their characteristics are so different. Within all these families, there are some 6,800 languages still spoken today. The linguists, who think in evolutionary terms, have made multiple attempts to tie the language families into one all-inclusive tree of languages. They have been met with total failure. This point resembles is completely consistent with the biblical account of many different orchards of unrelated language trees, caused supernaturally by God at Babel. In the next issue we will take a look at some specific features of languages to demonstrate how they have changed in precisely the opposite direction from what the evolutionary model calls for.
BIOLOGY OF THE EVOLUTIONARY MODEL OF LANGUAGE In the last issue we discussed the origin of languages and some features that distinguish them. The biblical account at the tower of Babel readily explains their supernatural origin. We also discussed how languages can be genuinely grouped into families, but that these hundreds of language families cannot be connected with each other to form a single tree of all languages. This is a fundamental failure for the evolutionary model for the origin of languages. That model is based on the supposed evolutionary model of life progressing from the original one-celled organism through a myriad of intermediary forms such as the invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, until man finally emerges from the primates. This evolution is assumed to have occurred in isolated groups by random, chance events with no purpose, plan or intelligent input, with all physical processes having proceeded at a uniform rate. Applying the biological evolutionary model to languages, the following concepts are expected to have occurred in the past: 1. Change in grammar has been in the direction of increasing complexity 2. Sound shifts are random, not consistent 3. Languages change uniformly through time 4. Change in a language occurs within isolation 5. Random chance mutations to add information—vocabulary
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Let’s examine each assumption one by one. Change in grammar has been in the direction of increasing complexity. The English language is probably the one of the finest examples of all the Indo-European languages of the untruth of this assumption. As mentioned in the previous issue, the reconstructed Proto Indo-European language had eight cases. Each case is a different use of nouns and their accompanying adjectives in a sentence. For example, John took Luke’s book from Peter and said “Paul, in Rome I will give the book on that table with a note written with this pen to Mark.”
John - the subject of the sentence. Nominative case. Book - what the verb acted upon, the direct object. Accusative case. Luke’s - the possessive form of Luke. Genitive case. Paul – to whom the quoted sentence is addressed. Vocative case. In Rome – location of an object, person or place. Locative case. Mark - the person to whom the book is given, the indirect object. Dative case. With this pen – the means by which the note was written. Instrumental case. On that table – position of an object. Prepositional case. From Peter - separation or motion away from something. Ablative case.
Today, Czech and Latin use seven of these cases—but not the same ones—Russian six, and German four. English is a great example of simplification. It has combined all but the Genitive (possessive case) and Dative (indirect object) into the Nominative (subject) form. The Genitive case has been reduced to the possessive pronouns – mine, ours, yours, its, his, hers, theirs and whose – and the ‘s construction, as in “Luke’s”. “Thy” and “thine”, known only to readers of the King James Bible and singers of older hymns, are the archaic possessive forms of the singular and plural forms of “thee” and “thou”. “Thee” and “thou” are the familiar form of addressing a person, which have been supplanted by “you”, which was then the formal form for the second person (I being the first person and they the third person). The Dative case has been even more severely reduced to these pronouns – me, us, him, her, them and whom. In my lifetime the use of the word “whom” has all but ceased, and it probably will disappear in the next generation. Since English has eliminated so many forms of the cases, it must compensate in some manner in order to maintain the meaning of the sentence. It does so by making the order of the words, called syntax, critically important. Changing the order changes the meaning. Try it with the sample sentence above. It should be quite clear that changes in grammar have been in the direction of increasing simplicity, not complexity. In other words, devolution has occurred and is still occurring today.
The Devolution of Languages This is the third issue concerned with the origin of languages. The last issue addressed the first point regarding the evolutionary model’s assumptions: 1. Change in grammar has been in the direction of increasing complexity.
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We demonstrated that languages are in fact simplifying with time. Second point: 2. Sound shifts are random in the evolutionary model. However during the first millennium, B.C., a very significant change called the First Germanic Sound Shift occurred in consonants when Proto-Germanic was developing. The pattern of consonant changes: p-
f-
f-
b-
pater
father
fer
bear
piscus
fish
fract
break
ped
foot
frater
brother
g-
c-/k-
genu
knee
gen-
kin
ccan casa cord-
gnose-
know
ddecem dent-
tten tooth
duo
two
hhound house heart
ttenutres tu
ththin three thou
Then from 600 to 800 A.D., the Second Germanic Sound Shift occurred, again demonstrating consistency in the patterns. p
f
ship,
sleep
schiff, schlafen
p
pf
plough, apple, sharp, cup
Pflug, Apfel, scharf, Kopf
t
ss
eat, that, out
essen, das, aus
t
ts
time, two, cat
Zeit, zwei, Katze
k
kh
make, cake
machen, Kuchen
d
t
good, God, day
gut, Gott, Tag
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th
d
think, thirsty
denken, durstig
brother, mouth
Bruder, Mund
Then from 1450 to 1750, the Great English Vowel Shift occurred, possibly due to the Black Plague, with the long vowel sounds fairly consistently shifting in the following pattern: From dart boat
date boot
fate whose
feet house
weep
wipe
These examples demonstrate that languages shift sounds in non-random patterns. Third point: 3. Languages change uniformly through time according to the evolutionary model: Here is Matthew 6:24 in three time periods. The first is Old English from 1,000 years ago: Ne mæg nan man twam hlafordum ƥeowian oððe he soðlice ænne hatað and oðerne lufaƥ: oððe he bið anum gehyrsum. and oðrum ungehyrsum; Ne magnon ge gode ƥeowian and woruldwelan: Matthew 6:24 from 500 years ago: No man can serve two masters. For ether he shall hate the one and love the other: or els he shall lene to the one and despise the other: ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24 from 37 years ago: No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Notice the phenomenal amount of change in the 500 years between the first two, but only minimal change in the last 500 years. This is not a uniform rate of change. Next point: 4. Change in language occurs in isolation: The evolutionary biological model needs small, isolated gene pools for a new trait to become established. However people groups that remain isolated preserve their language with minimal change. History shows when peoples speaking different languages come into contact with each other, rapid changes occur. Vocabulary is borrowed in both directions, and grammar is simplified while efforts are made to establish communication. Think about what you do with a person who speaks no languages you speak: Me Tarzan – you Jane. Final point: 5. The biological model calls for random chance mutations in the four letters of the DNA alphabet to add information—vocabulary:
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In our language analogy, new words would appear by random changes of syllables. But when we look at vocabularies, new words are formed by:
Logical additions to or combinations of existing words:
Verb – to mother Adjective – motherless, mothering, mother’s Adverb –motherly Noun – mother, motherhood, mother-in-law, motherboard, mother-of-pearl, mother craft, motherland, Mom, Mommie.
By borrowing from other languages:
Kimono, kindergarten, babushka, taco, monsoon, wadi, sitar, igloo, wampum.
Or by creating acronyms:
NASA, NATO, laser, scuba, radar, snafu, Gestapo (a borrowed acronym). From these examples it should be clear that vocabulary grows through intelligent input with a plan. In summary, the evolutionary biological model fails when applied to languages. The historical account in Genesis Chapter 11 explains the supernatural origin of unrelated language family trees. Languages have been simplifying their grammar; vocabulary has been added by intelligent input. Rapid change occurs when languages come in contact with each other.
The Human Eye In the last three issues, the origin of languages was addressed. But have you considered the intricacies of the eye, ear, mouth and throat and their associated structures, and the hand, by which language is communicated? Then there is the brain, where language originates? Each in its own right is phenomenally complex, and when all of these organs and structures are contemplated as a whole, we can only be blown away by the overwhelming intelligence, creativity and artistry of our Lord God Creator confirmed in John 1:1-3. Let’s take a look at the human eye. Darwin himself said about the human eye: “to suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.”1 The eye has come under much criticism by evolutionists in past decades as an example of very poor design. Richard Dawkins, Professor of Zoology at Oxford University is currently the most
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outspoken evolutionist critic of creation science and rabid anti-Christian in the English-speaking world. In his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, he also cites the eye as the product of a poor designer. They have proclaimed this because the nerves that transmit the electrical signals to the brain are the uppermost of ten layers of highly specialized cells. The bottommost layer is where the light itself is sensed. This is called an inverted retina, assuming that the order of the cells is reversed. All vertebrates, animals with backbones, have this arrangement. Other animals, for example mollusks, which includes the squid and the octopus, may have the cells which sense light in the topmost layer of usually 2 or 3 layers of cells. This is called a verted retina. Let’s stop and think about his for a moment. The evolutionary argument is that clarity of vision is lost because of the inverted arrangement. Yet we have excellent vision. The argument put forth is that a good designer would not invert the layers of a retina, just because that would be poor design. Man has designed digital cameras with the light sensing components in front of the wires that send the signal out of the chamber. Therefore, God should have done it that way, as well. Do you see the tremendous egocentric thinking here? God, in his infinite wisdom and knowledge, placed the light sensing layers of human retinal cells next to the bottom for excellent reasons. Mollusks live in very dark environments, where their eyes are exposed to minimal light. Yet the human eye has the ability to see in blindingly bright snow conditions down to just one photon of light, the smallest measurable unit. The bright light necessitates that the light sensing cells be immediately next to the blood vessels supplying them, because of the high demand for replenishing the components those cells use and the need to be cooled by the blood. Therefore, the light sensing cells need to be at the back of the retina. Otherwise, the blood vessels would block light. It is important to note that the nerve cells on top of the retina and the other cell layers are clear and absorb negligible light. The human eye is designed for many parameters. It is a living video camera, which adjusts to the extremely wide range of light intensity discussed above. It also has a deep range of focus from very near to quite far. It cannot see as far as an eagle, for example, or sense the polarization of light which some mollusks and insects can sense, or detect the minute amounts of motion which butterflies and bees can detect, which would drive us nuts. But overall, the human eye has a wide range of abilities. In addition, we have been blessed with the mental and physical abilities to develop microscopes and telescopes, which take us into the depths of the cell and the depths of the universe. Our God is an amazing God. 1. C. R. Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 6th ed. (Senate: London, 1994), pp. 143–144.
What About So Called Ape-men? In Mark 10:6, “But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.”, Christ Himself is confirming that He made us in the very beginning. From the scriptural point of view,
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there is no place for the evolution of man from apes. For those who want to say that some kind of ape-men evolved in time before Genesis 1:2 or in the supposed gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and then were the source of a wife for Cain, there are several problems. Aside from the illogic of having time before the beginning, the following verses have to be dealt with. Genesis 3:20 “And Adam called his wife’s name ve, because she was the mother of all living.” This verse excludes any other contribution to the human race. John 1:1-3 also is very pertinent to this discussion. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” It is quite clear that God made everything. On the days of creation, God saw that what He had done was good or very good. Yet the evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record states that it represents millions of years of death, disease and suffering. How can this be God’s “good” and “very good”? To say that God used evolution is a severe insult to His character and puts into question the authority of Scripture. Let’s examine the three ways ape-men are made. Simian fossils are upgraded to appear more human like, human fossils are downgraded to appear more ape like, or outright fraud is committed. Lucy, the australopithecine is a great example of upgrading. Australopithecus simply means southern ape. Lucy is an incomplete specimen. Of the hands, only four small bones of the left hand and nothing of the right hand were present. Of the feet, nothing below the left knee joint and only the upper portion of the main bone in the lower right leg were present. The ankles and feet were totally missing. Yet Lucy is pictured with quite human hands and feet. Lucy’s ribs are horizontal, like the staves on a barrel, as are simian ribs. Human ribs slant downward as they curve around the chest. However, the reformation of Lucy’s pelvis is the most remarkable stunt. Lucy’s right pelvis is missing and the left pelvis is angled the same as a chimpanzee’s, so that the hips are thrown out more to the side, giving a wider base for the legs and feet. That is why chimpanzees have to sway from side to side as they walk, because their center of gravity shifts so much. Fractures are present in the fossilized half-pelvis. So evolutionist Dr. Owen Lovejoy decided that the pelvis had been deformed into the shape and angle of a chimpanzee pelvis by some large animal stepping on the skeleton. He made a plaster copy of Lucy’s pelvis and remodeled it to look like a human pelvis. This was filmed, shown on television, and narrated to indicate that the true shape was being restored. What colossal boldness to “doctor” the data and claim that truth is being served! Neanderthal is an excellent example of a human fossil being downgraded to semi-ape status. The first Neanderthal specimens found had changes due to rickets, a disease caused by Vitamin D deficiency, and changes due to arthritis. That is why Neanderthal was pictured stooped over and deformed. Later specimens found showed no such changes. They are the
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same as modern humans. DNA studies on Neanderthals show that they are completely human. Neanderthals were probably Ice Age people who lived in caves. The most famous case of fraud is that of Piltdown Man. The skull of a human and the jaw of an ape with filed teeth were combined, stained, and then buried so it could be “discovered” in 1920. Not until 1955 was it studied closely enough to realize fraud was committed. A review of all the supposed transitional fossils between ape and man shows they are either ape, man, fraud, or a pig’s tooth. No ape-men ever existed.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs? Evolutionists tell us that dinosaurs are still with us in the form of birds. They even refer to the dinosaurs that did not become birds as non-avian dinosaurs. Let’s take a look at the multiple problems that exist. Evolutionists tell us that Deinonychus is the dinosaur that evolved into birds. Deinonychus belongs to the group of dinosaurs whose hips are shaped like lizards (Saurischian) rather than like birds (Ornithischian). The irony of this is that the lizard hipped dinosaurs are the ones that walked upright on their hind legs. So the evolutionary model starts with the wrong kind of hip. What about walking? Reptiles and dinosaurs, like people and mammals, walk(ed) at the hip. In other words, the major component of the motion of walking takes place at the hips. But birds walk at the knee, not moving their hips. What looks like the hip in birds to the casual observer is actually the knee, and what looks like the knee is actually the ankle in birds. Certain foot bones are very elongated in birds. The evolutionary model has the wrong kind of walking. Deinonychus has three forward facing toes or claws, analogous to our thumb, index and long fingers. Birds also have three forward facing toes or claws facing forward, analogous to our index, long and ring fingers. The exceptions are the woodpeckers, with two toes facing forward and two facing backward. But the woodpecker is a subject unto itself. The evolutionary model has the wrong kind of feet. What about lungs? Reptilian and mammalian lungs are designed the same way, with air flowing through increasingly branched tubes until it gets to the tiny air sacs at the dead end, where gas exchange takes place. Then the air retraces the very same path in the reverse direction. In birds, however, air flows in a one way direction through the part of the lung where the gas exchange takes place, returning by a different path through auxiliary air sacs distributed throughout the body of the bird. These air sacs are located in the chest, abdomen, inside some bones and the neck, and the air returns through a bypass route back out another part of the lungs, so that air flow is continuous where gas exchange takes place. It takes two breathing cycles to move air completely through the system. This is critical to ensure adequate supply of oxygen for the very high energy requirements for flight. Other features which dinosaur fossils do not demonstrate are also unique to birds. The ribs are hinged in birds to allow for maximum expansion of the chest. There are extensions of the ribs
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that overlap the successive rib to ensure synchronized motion of the entire chest wall for maximum efficiency. The evolutionary model has the wrong kind of breathing. How to explain the origin of feathers? They are exquisitely designed with a hook and latch mechanism to form strong uninterrupted surfaces to withstand the rigors of flying. They also can be easily disconnected by the bird with its beak to clean and oil them with its oil glands. Microscopic examination of reptilian scales and bird feathers show nothing in common, except the protein from which they are made. That is not helpful, for finger nails, hair and cow and horse hooves are also made of the same protein, called keratin. So is Jello, from boiled down horse hooves. Enjoy! Attempts to demonstrate the existence of feathered dinosaurs have met with failure, and at least on one occasion, massive embarrassment to National Geographic. The November 1999 issue proclaimed with great fanfare the existence of the missing link feathered dinosaur, Archaeoraptor liaongensis. Several months later, other evolutionary paleontologists, not on the original team that certified the veracity of the specimen, more carefully examined the specimen and announced that the supplier had made a fool of National Geographic. Very carefully a fossil bird tail had been joined to a dinosaur body, but there was no continuity of the spine. A lot of money was paid for a fake. Joseph Kezele, M.D., IOM Honorary Board, Professor, Southwest Bible College & President, Arizona Origin Science Association. www.AzOSA.orgor or jmkezele@AzOSA.org Stephen Phinney, D.Min, IOM Founder, Exchanged Life Global Initiative, Founder & Men Mapping Outreach Ministries, Founder. www.iomamerica.org or sphinney@iomamerica.org Other materials by Dr. Phinney: Click Here Author’s Spotlight: Click Here
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