Episode 256 – Competing Truth Claims About Genesis Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: (Bible quotes from the New Living Translation) “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” Job Chapter 38, verses 4 through 7, New Living Translation “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see... Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together it.” Colossians Chapter 1, verses 15 through 17, New Living Translation ******** VK: Hi! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, author, founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time interior designer. He arranges the books in the display case in the lobby. And speaking of arranging things, we have arranged a very special series on Anchored by Truth that will begin next week. Starting next week and for several weeks in a row we will doing a very special series and to help us do that we will have a VERY special guest. RD, do you want to tell us about this extra special series that we’re introducing today on Anchored by Truth? RD: I do indeed. Today we’re going to launch a series of shows I’m calling “The Truth in Genesis.” Obviously, Anchored by Truth is all about demonstrating that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. We start every show with that proclamation. But I think one of the big challenges that most Christians face today who believe that the Bible is the word of God is how to sustain that belief in a relativistic world and culture that bombards us constantly with the message that there is no such thing as absolute truth and that there is no way to know whether any book, including the Bible, can be shown to be the word of God. And certainly for Christians in contemporary culture one of the most immediate challenges that is placed before us is right at the beginning of the Bible in Chapter 1 where the Bible tells us that God created the heavens, the earth, and everything that exists on the earth including all living creatures and most especially, us. Supposedly, that claim is at odds with what contemporary science tells us about the universe and life. So, for a Christian to maintain their faith in the Bible today culture they must immediately confront the cultural challenge to the Bible’s proclamation about creation. VK: And your contention is that it is a cultural challenge more than a scientific one. Your view is that there is substantial scientific evidence that absolutely supports, as you are saying, the truth in Genesis. And that’s what this series of radio episodes is going to be about. We are going to review some of the scientific evidence that pertains to the age of the universe and earth and the origin and development of life. We believe that conducting this review listeners will be able to see how objective, scientific observations fit very well with a proper understanding of the Genesis text. And to help us do that for most of the shows we have a very special, invited guest to help. But before we provide the details about our upcoming special guest or get too much farther into our discussion about the serious stuff, we’d like to start by just reminding the folks about how the Bible tells us that God did go about creating the heavens and earth. To do that we want to play a portion of Crystal Seas’ upcoming poetic series called the Genesis Saga. For today, let’s listen to Part 1 of the Genesis Saga which we call Seven Days of Wonder. ---- SEVEN DAYS OF WONDER VK: I know I’m biased but I just love the simple beauty of the descriptions contained in that piece. The piece is visual and emotional but it also gives us a description of each day of creation that is absolutely faithful to Chapter 1 of Genesis. RD: And that was certainly our goal. In fact it’s always our goal at Crystal Sea and Anchored by Truth. We want people to always be drawn back to the Bible for their own inspiration and edification. Particularly when it comes to creation the best that we can do today is look at to evidence that can be found in the world around us and see where the evidence points insofar as origins are concerned. But the Bible provides us an eyewitness account of creation from the only One who was there when it all took place: God. Because God, in fact, was not only there, He was the One who did the creating. VK: But of course, that’s the part that’s to so much disagreement today or outright disbelief and criticism. Today, a great many people go to science to get their explanation for the origin of the universe, the earth, life, and people. RD: And in a certain sense that’s ok – provided we always remember that it’s the scientific evidence we should look to – as opposed to simply accepting certain interpretations of that evidence. Everyone – including you, me, and scientists approach the world with an established set of axioms, a lens if you will, through which we will view issues or evidence that comes before us. There is a tendency, however, in our day and age to somehow believe that - if someone calls himself or herself a scientist – that they have set aside all preconceptions and are somehow now operating in an objective, dispassionate fashion without such a set of preconceptions or axioms. While I don’t doubt that the vast majority of scientists are genuinely interested in trying to better understand the world and universe it would be a mistake to not understand that scientists are people complete with agendas, aspirations, and viewpoints that will affect how they approach evidence. VK: Can you give us an example of what you’re thinking about? RD: Sure. There are massive fossil beds - graveyards of thousands and even millions of fish, dinosaurs, and mammals that are found in North America, Europe, and Africa. The same is true of plants. From Utah-Colorado north to Alberta-Saskatchewan, Canada, thousands of dinosaurs are found in certain beds such as the Morrison Formation. These sites reveal that great quantities of animals were buried together rapidly. The rapid burial resulted in excellent preservation of the remains and the position of mammals suggests death by drowning. In Brazil there is a large plateau where fish fossils are found with the skin, muscles, organs etc. all preserved. The fish look like they had just been caught but they are petrified and hard as stone. They are abundant and distributed over several thousand square miles. The plateau where these fossils are found is well above sea level and a good 500 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. This is remarkable because experiments with fresh dead fish have shown that dead fish in water will disintegrate and their skeletons will fall apart in less than one week. Only catastrophic conditions would have enabled the preservation of such an extensive collection of animals and plants so exquisitely preserved. A world-wide catastrophe involving water is a very reasonable explanation for these observations. But a geologist or paleontologist who rejects the Biblical flood account will come to the same evidence but will provide a different explanation for the evidence. VK: Such as? RD: Well they might believe there have been catastrophic floods in the past, just not a world-wide one. They might believe in a more localized flood perhaps based on a catastrophe caused by an asteroid strike or an immense undersea volcanic eruption that caused a massive tsunami. VK: So your point is that different people can approach the same body of evidence and arrive at very different conclusions. And a part of their determination will be based on the set of axioms that they use to approach either life in general or in the practice of their profession. And we see that kind of variation in the results of decision making every day in the world around us. Two different financial analysts look at exactly the same set of financial statements or business presentations and one says a company’s stock is a buy and the other says it’s a sell. Two different forensic examiners look at the same evidence and one might say it points to the innocence of a defendant and the other believes it points to guilt. RD: Exactly. And that’s one of the reasons we wanted to do a series on the book of Genesis because so often today the only discussion people hear about the earth’s past is very one sided. Today, almost without exception, we are told that all scientific evidence points to a universe and earth that are billions of years old and that life on earth began without an intelligent cause – or as I would say God. So, we wanted to do a series of Anchored by Truth episodes that examine some of the latest scientific discoveries and see whether or not the only reasonable conclusion is that science contradicts Genesis. That’s the reason we’re calling this series The Truth in Genesis. VK: And to help us do that we’ve invited one of the premier scientists and experts on the question of origins, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, to be our guest in the studio for the next several weeks. For those who aren’t familiar with Dr. Sarfati’s work we would encourage listeners to check out his impressive body of writing. He’s written a number of widely selling books that challenge the conventional views of what chemistry, geology, and paleontology say about the age of the universe and the origin of life. Dr. Sarfati has sold hundreds of thousands of books such as Refuting Evolution, By Design, and The Greatest Hoax on Earth. Dr. Sarfati will be addressing a wide variety of topics during this series including problems with conventional dating methodologies, affirmative evidence that the universe is actually fairly young, scientific challenges to life arising from non-living chemicals, and evidence that the earth’s surface provides abundant evidence of a world-wide flood. We will even be doing an entire show just on dinosaurs and what the latest dinosaur research actually tells us about the earth’s history. RD: I think this will be a truly amazing series especially for listeners who have never had the chance to do any personal investigation into what science actually reveals about the key questions of the age of the universe and how life on the earth began. And I’d like to emphasize that while we will not be shy about discussing the Bible in connection with these important topics, this series really will be top heavy with science. Dr. Sarfati’s title is the Lead Scientist for Creation Ministries International. He has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and he is an internationally ranked chess champion. He’s well known for playing up to chess with up to 12 players simultaneously while he is blindfolded. VK: He sounds pretty impressive but what about your earlier warning that scientists are just people and that we shouldn’t necessarily accept their opinions just because they are scientists? RD: And I’m standing by that warning. I don’t think anyone should accept Dr. Sarfati’s analyses just because they come from him any more than I think that we should blindly place our trust in any human source. The point of my earlier observation is that we can and should listen to people who are acknowledged experts in their fields whether it’s a geologist, paleontologist, medical doctor, or auto mechanic. But we should always employ our own reasoning skills to examine what they’re telling us and make our own determination about whether what they’re telling us makes sense, especially if they start telling us that their point of view is the only reasonable or even possible one - which is something that evolutionary adherents have been saying for decades. VK: So what you’re saying is that when someone says, “Evolution is not a theory. It is a fact,” that what they’re really trying to do isn’t to examine the evidence for or against the evolutionary hypothesis. The real intent is shut down debate. They’re trying to avoid any need to consider evidence that doesn’t support their position. RD: Yes. All too often that’s what happens. Conventional science has embraced the evolutionary hypothesis for so long that a great many scientists, as well as their lay followers, are no longer willing to consider any alternatives. But despite these assertions, the truth is that “goo to you,” “particles to people,” “the sea to me” position on evolution is not a proven fact. So, people who believe in believe in Biblical creationism simply want to point out that since it is not a proven fact evolution as the solution for the origin of life should not be promoted dogmatically. But throughout the halls of schools and colleges everywhere as well as in the popular press and media it is. Phillip Johnson in his groundbreaking work Darwin on Trial devoted an entire chapter to discussing what Johnson called the “Darwinist Religion.” In other words, all too often today the scientific problems with evolution are simply dismissed because the evolutionary paradigm is deemed to be so sacrosanct no forms of dissent are tolerable. VK: But one of the ironies that we are going to cover during the series is the fact that some of the evidentiary elements that are often offered in support of evolution actually point in the opposite direction. For instance, the fossil record is often touted as demonstrating that there is empirical evidence for evolutionary development. But even Charles Darwin recognized that the fossil record at his time didn’t support his theory. He famously wrote, “Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.” Darwin hoped that with further exploration gaps in the fossil record would be closed and so called “intermediate species” would be identified. Yet despite the fact that over 100,000 species are now known from the fossil record there are only a handful of truly viable candidates that are known to be possible intermediates. RD: And that’s just one example of the scientific problems that plagues the evolutionary hypothesis and it’s a great example of the kinds of topics we hope to discuss during the series. And since time is running out on this episode of Anchored by Truth I’d like to cover one final point. During this series we are going to be contrasting Biblical creationism vs. “molecules to men” evolution. I am well aware that there are various positions regarding origins and biological development that try to straddle the obvious gaps between those two positions. VK: Such as so-called theistic evolution where God created life but then used evolution to form the species that we see existing today? RD: Yes. Theistic evolution is an attempt to resolve the tension between Biblical creationism and evolution. Just like the Day-Age approach is an attempt to reconcile the differences in the time scales we get from the Bible and from conventional science. I think there are significant problems with both of those approaches and other middle-of-the-road type of strategies. For instance, one of the problems with theistic evolution is that it places death before sin in the chronology of the history and I think that’s problematic given the entirety of scripture. So, because of the limited time we’ll have for addressing a large variety of topics we’re going to concentrate on how science supports the orthodox view of Biblical creationism because that’s the view that gets the least time in most discussions about these issues. VK: And one of the biggest reasons we want to that is that we want to be respectful of our listeners time. All of us have a lot going on so we want to be sure that if listeners are kind enough to tune into the show or the podcast we want their time to be rewarded with information that will help them develop in their own investigation of scripture and development of their faith. Since we’ve begun a focus on the first chapter of Genesis, how about if today we hear a prayer of adoration for the Creator? ---- PRAYER OF ADORATION FOR THE CREATOR (radio version) VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” We hope you’ll be with us next time as we are joined by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati to begin our in depth look at the truth in Genesis. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation) The Book of Job, chapter 38, verses 4 through 7 The epistle to the Colossians, chapter 15 verses 1 through 17

https://creation.com/right-perspective-interpreting-data https://creation.com/gods-days https://creation.com/how-did-dinosaurs-grow-so-big https://creation.com/3-rs-of-evolution https://creation.com/divine-engineer-sarfati-by-design-review https://creation.com/the-evolution-trains-a-comin