Friday, July 25, 2008

Creation Conference - Day 2

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The Search for Noah’s Ark

Dr. John Morris

I ran to get to the conference with a heavy laptop in my hands. I was afraid I would miss the beginning of the next speaker and I had already missed the first speaker because my boss needed me to train 8 people from Pikes Peak United Way (http://www.ppuniteway.org) on how to use their new CMS system. They were a fantastic group of people. I think people who work for non-profit organizations like that generally are a great group of people. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Now you can see their redone site at (http://dev.ppunitedway.infront.com) Once they update this site with their content, it will go live, but until then it is on our development server.

Anyway, I get there just in time to hear the last five minutes of the first speaker. I heard that he was fantastic so I will have to get his video and watch it. His teaching was on Worldview Collisions. Something I would have LOVED to hear and I am looking forward to hearing.

The first speaker that I got to hear was Dr. John Morris. His teaching was entitled "Search for Noah's Ark." I don' know about anyone else, but I think archeology is just the coolest thing since sliced bread. Archeology is a fantastic field that discovers so many cities, landmarks, etc that the Bible describes. With each discovery, it just shows how atheism is truly a faith.

The discovery of Noah's Ark would be phenomenal. The proof for the world wide flood mentioned in the Bible (not to mention the layers of fossils, rock and dirt that are so easily explained by a world wide flood).

Dr. John Morris explained that we do not know were Noah's Ark is, but we have a lot of eye witness accounts of where it is located in the Ararat Mountain Region (which when the Bible says that Noah's Ark landed on the Ararat Mountains...it really means mountains. It is a whole Mountain range like the Sierra Nevadas or Rocky mountains. HUGE area to explore. Now, the reason why this Ark has not been discovered yet, is because this is a very sensitive area. Most travel is completely restricted and only bribes will get you through. These mountains are surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Russia.

Now, the description of Noah's Ark is VERY interesting. It is nothing like the cartoon images we see today. It was built more like a rectangular barge with what looks like a lean-to that spans straight down the middle of the very long, skinny barge. This was designed to float, not to get anywhere. This is how the eye witnesses describe Noah's Ark too.

At this point, I decided that if we all got on Google Earth, we could find Noah' Ark. I'll let you all know how that experiment turns out.

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Dinosaurs and Man

Dr. Thomas Sharp

After Noah's Ark, Dr. Thomas Sharp came out to speak about Dinosaurs. At this point I was just stoked because I LOVE dinosaurs. I loved them ever since I can remember. In fact, my grandmother got me a Dinosaur adventure where I (Shanna) was the main character. Too cool for school, fool!

He started off by stating how the study of Dinosaurs is a new and evolving science. There is so much that scientists don't know about dinosaurs because the fossil record is very poor. The Intact, articulated, museum-quality skeletons are extremely very rare. Fossils fall apart and bones explode when exposed to the elements. (Check out National Geographic, March, 2004).

Also, we are learning more and more about misconceptions that we have with some dinosaurs. The T-Rex for example was probably just a scavenger. The body structure and weight would not allow the T-Rex to get much beyond 10 mph in speed. His little arms, his poor eye site, even falling down would be a serious problem. His brain, only the size of a walnut, had enough size just to give him the sense of smell.

Then Dr. Sharp said that all dinosaur questions can be summarized in 5 questions:
1.Are dinosaurs real?
2.When did they live?
3.What happened to them?
4.Were these animals on the Ark?
5.Could any of these animals be alive today?

Are dinosaurs real? My first thought was OF COURSE they are real! Science and the Bible point to dinosaurs. However Dr. Sharp pointed out that some people think they didn't exist because the word Dinosaur is not in the Bible. Ok, history lesson time. The Bible was first translated into English before the 15th century. The most well known translation was in 1611 for the KJV. The word Dinosaur came into existence in 1841 when Sir Richard Owen coined the term Deino Saurus (Terrible Lizard). Thus, we search for words in the Bible that are similar such as Tannim (which is Dragon) or Behemoth which is described to have a cedar like tail. The Super Saurus or also known as the Apatosaurus had a 5 foot think tail which could be 30 feet long or more. This describes the Behemoth well.

When did they live? OK, this question makes more sense since evolutionists and schools teach 65 million years ago. The Bible says they existed on the 6th day. It tells us that God created all things within the Universe in 6 days including the Dinosaurs (Exodus 20:8,11). Some simple proof for this is that in 1990 blood cells and soft/pliable organic material was found on a dinosaur. How is that even remotely possible? It is impossible if the Dinosaur died 65 million years ago. This dinosaur has to be only thousands of years.

What happened to them and were they on the Ark? Absolutely, Noah was smart enough to take the younger, smaller lizards on the Ark with him. After all, the bigger the lizard, the older he is. You want young, fertile animals to reproduce and not go extinct!

Sadly, the speaker ran out of time here. I will have to get some of his books and continue learning about this! Just fascinating. I love dinosaurs!

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The Floods of the West

David Nutting

As I waited for this teaching to begin, I didn't know what to think of the title or what I would learn. What of the floods of the west? Who cares? I just care about THE flood that covered the earth. Plus, there was a "teacher" right before him SO HORRIBLE that I stopped taking notes after 15 minutes. The guy was seriously the whitest, blondest Italian ever. He very much fit the TV evangelist profile of getting emotionally high and making NO DARN SENSE. I was afraid I would be disappointed with this one since I didn't grasp the title.

HOLY SMOKES I am going back to school to study rocks and become a geologist. This teaching just floored me! I love learning this kind of stuff! And what I mean by "this kind of stuff" is this below:

You know how frustrating it is when you visit the Grand Canyon and they go into their "Millions of years ago" spiel and you just want to jump of the edge? Well, we discussed the wonderful event of Mt. Saint Helens! 25 years ago or so, this mountain erupted and showed us EXACTLY how a grand canyon can be made within just a DAY. Not only that, but when this eruption is dated... it is dated at 300,000 to 2.8 million years ago! Proving that radioactive dating is inaccurate. Take that you scientifically incorrect Grand Canyon Tour guides!

Here are a few other awesome examples:
1. Dry Falls, Washington - carved out lots of land in just a few days.
2. The Top of Mount Everest has sea fossils on it. That is our tallest mountain in the world today even.
3. Milwaukee Public Museum - oldest structure in North American - must be at least 7,200 years old because of the stagnates growing in them.
4. Clams found in great numbers in limestone - they are all whole and buried alive. Also, Nautiloid - squid shells were found all pointing in the same direction in the Grand Canyon. These point to evidence of a great flood.
5. There are many examples of creatures/plants being INSTANTLY preserved.

There are some very interesting facts about the flood. One fact is that there are 270 flood legends all around the World - common event of a world wide flood with people and animals getting on board. Also, did you know that the Chinese characters that make up the the word boat are eight, mouth, and something else I forgot that I need to look up. BUT that 8 is what caught my eye. 8 - Noah, Noah's wife, 3 sons and their wives. WOW. Cultures around the world proclaim God's truth without even knowing it.

Ok time for me to look for rock schools...

Resources:
Grand Canyon a Different View - Christian view book
Of the Discover Creation Center (www.discovercreation.org). Think and Believe newsletter

2 comments:

Eric said...

On Noah's Ark:
I watched a show a shote time ago about a search for Noah's Ark in the Arrat mountains. It centered aroud a mound that was locally known as Noah's mountain. Using ground penetrating radar, they discovered the "ribs" of a very large vessel that matched the size descriptions in the Bible. I found it interesting that it was not ON Mt Arrat, but some distance away from the peak. Due to political disputes, they were unable to continue, and have not been allowed back since.
On Dinosaurs:
I don't know exactly where it is, but I have seen fossilized footprings of humans along side dinosaur footprints... funny how the scientists never discuss that.
On Floods:
Don't I seem to remember hearing about some indian legends that talk about the flood that created the canyon? And don't these legends talk about the flood being only thousands of years ago? Hmmmmmm... interesting.

Shanna said...

Genesis 8:4 - and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

The Bible doesn't say the Ark is located on Mt. Ararat, but rather within the region. It is like Saying it landed in the Rocky Mountain Range somewhere. BIG AREA to search!