Oh man, I actually had to step back and take a 15 minute breather after I watched lesson 2. They are willing to ignore so much science if it means that they can prove that the Earth fits their cosmological model. The best part, for them, is that they can use two different numbers (4400 years since the flood, 6000 years of human history), and anything that even partially correlates to these two numbers can be used to prove they are right. Doesn’t matter how much they have to ignore, so long as they have some correlation.

Anyway, I said I would be posting the discussion questions, not the course material. I apologize.

Question 1: How do limiting factors demonstrate a young Earth?

Their answer: Natural phenomena date back fairly recently, indicating that the earth’s age cannot be much older than 6000 years. (There seems to be a missing bit of text here, because I cannot make sense of it this next part) Otherwise, these phenomena would be much older, too. Other indicators, such as current population sizes, etc, as well as the complete absence of older phenomena, clearly confirm the Bible, which gave us a 4000 year history prior to Christ.

My answer: This isn’t a discussion question at all. This doesn’t ask me to affirm my faith, or talk about anything. They just present limited historical studies, ignore most historical studies, and tell me to move on. I suppose all that’s left is for me to talk about the “Facts” in their discussion answer (which are but a small snippet of what they present in the class). First, let’s look at human history. Ancient Egyptian history dates back to about 3100 BC, which doesn’t show the Earth as older than 6000 years, but it gets more interesting for them when you realize that their history continues unbroken through the flood.

Just throwin’ it out there. Unless Noah decided to preserve some Egyptian writings, I can’t see how that goes away. Or how about there.

How about Sumeria? Same thing, their written records go back to 3500BC, though they talk about having settled the area of Sumer prior to the appearance of writing. Even ignoring that, there is unbroken history that passes trough the period of Noah’s flood.

Cave paintings may not have been writing, but they go back into the tens of thousands of years. You may argue that our dating methods are flawed in this case, but whatever you happen to believe, a worldwide flood would have washed away these paintings, which exist almost exclusively in caves that are situated where the elements would not otherwise wash them away.

Their evidence for natural phenomena is incredibly limited, and basically ignores tree ring dating and ice layer dating, as far as this course is concerned, so I guess that is all I can say about that.

As far as population evidence, they assume a constant rate of growth, which is an odd thing. Looking at uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, for example, we see that their populations are completely static. If the growth of populations was completely uniform, as they (indefensibly) believe, would seem to indicate a world where there are equal numbers of every race of human (as you may recall, as of the year 2400BC, there were only 8 middle eastern tribesmen/women left alive on the Earth). They all had the exact same number of children, for the purposes of this math.

I think that covers their answer in the discussion section, though a book could be written to stand against what they presented in the course itself.

Question 2: Why does the establishment propagate lies such as the necessity of long ages for the formation of stalactites and stalagmites?

Their Answer: Much time is needed to afford the theory of evolution. Evoltuionism requires much more time than is evidenced. Examples such as “million-year-old” stactites are necessary to overcome the embarrassing limiting factors that disprove their faulty worldview.

My Answer: Again, they took a small sample of stalactites from areas local to the United States, and then applied them to all stalactites and stalagmites in the entire world. They did the same to petrification, of course (Look, this petrified pickle obviously proves that ALL petrification can happen in the shelflife of a pickle!). It isn’t even that evolution is some wide ranging science that every scientist clamors to prove, it is just that geology, chemistry, biology, they all seem to point to similar indications. I won’t say there are no flaws, no areas that could be “shored up” so to speak, with better information, but science is constantly growing, constantly learning. If I don’t have the answer today, I don’t believe that to mean I will never happen. In the 1980s, if you said you were looking for extrasolar planets, and perhaps even extrasolar life, they would have laughed you out of the conference. Now we have found over 1500 extrasolar planets, and are searching for factors that could indicate life. This is only 30 years later. That blows my mind, and I hope it blows yours, too!

Question 3: According to the dates given in the Bible, the earth is about 6000 years old. Evolutionists claim that it is billions of years old. How does this conflict affect the lost and the faith of believers?

Their answer: It casts doubt and unbelief in the minds of the lost and unbelievers. If they cannot trust Genesis, a book to which almost every other book in the Bible refers, and a book to which Jesus himself referred, stating, “In the beginning…” then how can they trust other parts of the Word of God?

My Answer: I believe that far too much stock is placed, by YECs, in the literal veracity of certain parts of the Bible, and to the odd exclusion of others. In various other posts in this blog, I have pointed out explicit, point for point contradictions in this “perfect” book.

I am not aiming to take faith away from the faithful, I am aiming to make people think about what they believe. If you believe in the literal, perfect Bible, I can prove your beliefs false. If you believe in a loving saviour, in Jesus the Christ, I do not want to prove your beliefs false. It is only when your beliefs work to the detriment of society that I have a problem, and many, if not most, believers in the Western world are far more moderate, and I respect their God, gods, and/or theologies (as much to the extent as one such as myself can).

That’s it for the questions, but one more thing:

In their “Application” section of the lesson, where they tell you why you MUST believe the things they have taught you, they state that “As the worldview of Evolutionism continues to permeate our educational system and society, crime, sin, disease, and evil continue to skyrocket”

I’ll just leave this here.

The Challenge for lesson two is to start an argument with someone who believes the world is over 6000 years old, and challenge them with cherry picked evidence for a young Earth, and hope they have a very loose grasp of history.

I.. Uhhh… May be paraphrasing a little.