Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Matt Walsh vs. Gravity (Christians Got Worldview)


 

Christians got WorldView.  What are these foundational assumptions and presuppositions based on?  The Word of God - the 66 books of the Old and New Testament.  You can hear the first book here (Max McLean).


 

Matt Walsh did a great job on his documentary "What is a Woman?"   Nevertheless, we must take note of an anti-young-earth video that Walsh put out in 2018.  Walsh, who is a Catholic, claims that the Bible does not teach a youthful world.  Alas, PJ Media has joined the havoc and promotes Mighty Matt's attack on dating according to Scripture.  Ussher's traditional starting point of 4004 BC was printed in the margins of Bibles for hundreds of years.  Matt starts off his video with how we can go to Heaven.  Here's our take on salvation.  Matt Walsh was interviewed by Piers Morgan earlier this year.


 

Now, back to the Early Earth.  Sir Isaac Newton (d. 1727) discovered the Universal Law of Gravity.  In 2005, over thirteen hundred members of the public and 345 Royal Society scientists were surveyed.  At issue was the battle between Newton and Einstein as to who made the greatest contribution to science and mankind.  And the winner is ...

          Public: 61.8% for Newton, 38.2% for Einstein

          Scientists: 86.2% for Newton, 13.8% for Einstein.

Did Newton hang with the young-earthers?  He accepted that we are all Noachians.  That is, we all come from Noah’s sons and we trace our cultural origins back to Babel.  In Newton's book on chronology, he boldly stated that, “mankind could not be much older than is represented in Scripture.” 

 

Most of Matt's challenges to the traditional reading of Genesis have been answered masterfully in Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth, edited by Terry Mortenson and Thane Ury (2008).  This includes the work of Steven Boyd, who has proven statistically that Genesis 1:1-2:3 is narrative and not poetry.  The long favored view of Genesis teaches Creation In Six Days (CISD), a Global Flood (GF) and Young Earth Science (YES): 

 

They are deliberately shutting their eyes to a fact that they know very well, that there were, by God’s command, heavens in the old days and an earth formed out of the water and surrounded by water.  It was by water that the world of those days was deluged and destroyed ... (2 Peter 3:5-7, JB Phillips).


 

Former Roman Catholic and Dentist, Anthony Silvestro was a double major in Math and Chemistry.  By a graceful providence, the Silvestro family wound up going to the Creation Museum (KY).  While there, they heard a lecture by astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle and as a result Dr. Silvestro had to rethink his entire worldview.  After the talk, Dr. Lisle spent over an hour answering Sivestro's questions.  Anthony Silvestro switched from evolution and millions of years to the biblical view of recent creation from just one visit to the Creation Museum!  Victor Warkulwiz is a Roman Catholic scholar who takes a traditional interpretation of Genesis and is pro-YES.  The Foreword to his book was written by Bishop Robert Francis Vasa (Santa Rosa, CA).


 

Over a decade ago, Michael Shermer interviewed Georgia Purdom (Ph.D. Molecular Genetics - Ohio State) at the Creation Museum.  Shermer lampooned the young earth cohort in his book Why People Believe Weird Things. [1]      

Bill Nye visited the Ark Encounter for a second "debate" with Ken Ham a few years ago.  Shermer was brave enough to go to the Creation Museum and Nye valiantly toured the Ark Encounter.  How about you Matt Walsh?  Where is your William Wallace like courage??  Some would say that the "Genesis is History" view is down for the count.  However, the Ark Encounter in Kentucky (near Cincinnati) has seen record crowds.  On some Saturdays, there are over 7K visitors.  I hereby challenge Matt Walsh to visit the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter in Kentucky and dialog with the scientists there (both adventures are on my Bucket List).


 

I would guess that Matt has not read my latest book, Biological Essentialism.  It explains how there exists Essential Types of Life (ETL's), such as bears and penguins.  Thus, organic variation has limits.  It also relates to human exceptionalism and gender issues (#WIAW).  Matt would especially enjoy the chapter, "Some Men I Know are Really Women."  Walsh's blind acceptance of the dictates from Big Science is atrocious. Biological Essentialism naturally fits with the young earth stance.

 

Walsh leans on Albert Einstein (d. 1955) as his authority figure in the age-of-the-earth controversy.  In 1946, Einstein wrote a letter to his friend Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky (d. 1979) and stated, "There is much of interest in the book (Worlds in Collision) which proves that in fact catastrophes have taken place which must be attributed to extraterrestrial causes."  Einstein was against cancel culture.  Sadly, Velikovsky was viciously persecuted for his unorthodox ideas.  Once you adopt Catastrophism, a young earth conviction is not far behind.  Einstein stated this in his book on relativity:

 

The age of the universe, in the sense used here, must certainly exceed that of the firm crust of the earth as found from the radioactive minerals. Since determination of age by these minerals is reliable in every respect, the cosmologic theory here presented would be disproved if it were found to contradict any such results. In this case I see no reasonable solution.

 


 

There actually is a contrary result, the recession of the moon.  Our Lunar friend is moving farther from the earth, thus, in the past it was closer.  This makes the earth relatively young.  In a 2012 journal article, Sung-Ho Na of the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute freely admitted that, 

 

Assuming a constant tidal phase lag during the whole geological past, it was found that the Moon should have been located near the Roche limit around 1.7 billion years ago. Since the Moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago, the discrepancy between the two - 1.7 and 4.5 billion years cannot be explained. [2]  

 

The true explanation and reasonable solution is to follow the plain reading of Genesis and support Young Earth Theory Intelligence (YETI).  Einstein, at first, held to an infinitely old universe.  As Amir Aczel (God's Equation) explains,

 

Between 1917 and 1929 ... Einstein and most scientists held that the universe was “simply there” with no beginning or end. But it’s interesting to note that creation myths across cultures tell the opposite story. Traditions of Chinese, Indian, pre-Colombian, and African cultures, as well as the biblical book of Genesis, all describe ... a distinct beginning to the universe ...  This is an interesting example of scientists being dead wrong (for a time) and primitive ancient observers having an essentially correct intuition about nature. And with the present explosion of models of the universe and sometimes outrageous “scientific speculations” about its origin and future, some commentators are clearly overstating what science has done. One recent example is the book by the physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe From Nothing, which claims that science has shown that the universe somehow sprang out of sheer nothingness.

 

So, Einstein changed his mind.  The Cosmos is not Quizillions of years old.   Would Einstein question Deep Time?  Consider this famous quote:

 

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.

 

Charles Hapgood (Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings) advocated catastrophic pole shifts for the Earth.  Hapgood’s work was the basis for the disaster film 2012  which was directed by Roland Emmerich.  Even Stephen Jay Gould suggested that this theory deserves a fair hearing and should not be dismissed out of hand.  The pole shift idea can be rehabilitated by combining it with plate tectonics which I call Rapid Plate Movements (RPM’s).  Einstein told Hapgood in a letter, “I find your arguments very impressive and have the impression that your hypothesis is correct.  One can hardly doubt that significant shifts of the crust have taken place repeatedly and within a short time."  Hapgood and Einstein actually met in January of 1955. [3]  Again, Catastrophism and a youthful world are intimately related.  If most of the rock record was deposited in a fast manner and there are no large time gaps between the layers, which seems apparent in Grand Canyon, then we must question the mainstream dating methods.


 

Paul Price has rightly corrected Walsh's UToob cacophony.  The "Tim & Eric" tag team have taken Matt to task as well.  Tim Chaffey is the co-author of The Truth Chronicles. Avery Foley also joins the fray.  I would urge Walsh to read my three latest books which challenge Darwin and Deep Time and "Do Your Own Research" (#DYOR).

 

 

Notes:

1) Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer (WH Freeman, NYC, 1997), p. 155.

2) quoted in YES - Young Earth Science by Jay Hall (IDEAS, Big Spring, TX, 2014), p. 35.

3) Ibid., pp. 149, 150.

 

#WIAW #YETI #YES #YoungEarth #OldEarth #Billions #Millions #Thousands

#Catastrophism #BiologicalEssentialism #Kentucky #Cincinnati #CreationMuseum #ArkEncounter #DYOR #CreationToday #AveryFoley #TimChaffey #TruthChronicles #MattWalsh #WhatIsAWoman #PiersMorgan

#DarwinCrumbles #DoYourOwnResearch #Genesis #WorldView #Blaze #TrueTruth #BillNye #MichaelShermer #GeorgiaPurdom #Origins #RolandEmmerich #StephenJayGould #MaxMcLean

Saturday, October 1, 2022

Speaking of Queens (Victoria Institute)


 

Do you know anyone who has a lake named after them?  Lake Victoria is our planet's second largest freshwater lake and is bordered by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. [1]  England's Queen Alexandrina Victoria (d. 1901) was fifth in line for the throne and then her father, granddad and uncles died before she was eighteen. She married German Prince Albert in 1840 ("do you have Prince Albert in a can?" ☺).  She bore nine kids!  Victoria was a great fan of Benjamin Disraeli who was Prime Minister twice.  In a speech at Oxford in 1864, Disraeli said, "The question is this, is man an ape or an angel?  My lord, I am on the side of the angels.  I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence the contrary view, which is, I believe, contrary to the conscience of mankind."  It is thought that Queen Victoria gave a Bible to Ali bin Nasr, governor of Mombasa. To the ruler of Abeokuta (Nigeria), Victoria gave Bibles in English and Arabic.  The Queen famously stated, "That book [the Bible] accounts for the supremacy of England."

 

The Victoria Institute (aka the Philosophical Society of Great Britain) was founded in 1865.  The first volume of the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute (1867-1868) had a foundational paper titled "Scientia Scientiarum."  In it we learn that in 1844, when the British Association for the Advancement of Science met at York, the late Dean of York, Sir William  Cockburn, a geologist, said:

 

You say that there are geological facts which prove the long existence of the world through many ages. I say there are no such facts. Here we are completely and plainly at issue. Produce, then, some one or more of these facts; and if I cannot fairly account for them without supposing the very long duration of the earth, I am beaten! I am silenced! But if you do not produce such facts, and retreat, like Professor [Adam] Sedgwick [d. 1873], from the challenge, confess, or let your silence confess, that the whole doctrine of a pre-Adamite world has been a mistake...

 

James Reddie, the Honorary Secretary of the Victoria Institute, had this to say: 

 

My object not being to refute the geological views of Sir Charles Lyell or Bishop Colenso [The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined] ... It is no part of my object to endeavor to prove that there are now no scientific views opposed to the Scriptures. Were that the case, had every quasi-fact and every "scientific" theory already shared the fate of the azoic ages and the "original igneous fluidity of the earth's nucleus," why then, of course, the Victoria Institute had been founded late in the day! ... I for one would never have thought of its establishment. But at the same time, I may be permitted to observe, that surely these confident appeals made by Bishop Colenso and Dr. Temple to "simple facts revealed by modern science" that contradict the statements of Holy Scripture, are put forward with an unwise effrontery so soon after such large confessions by our most eminent geologist (from whom they take their science second-hand), of science contradicting itself, and of the utterly delusive character of its former ''revelations" respecting the very foundation "facts" of geology. Surely when the scientific have been all out as regards the Creation of the world, after all the bold sneers in "Essays and Reviews" [on biblical criticism, multiple authors] as to the blunders of "the Hebrew Descartes" - a little modesty and somewhat less confidence might well become our once "deluded" teachers, when they come to speak now of the Deluge.  There are, doubtless, men of science and authors, who have already been engaged in investigating this question of the evidence of the universality of the deluge from a scientific point of view; and who have arrived at other conclusions than those of Sir Charles Lyell.


 

You may read all the articles from the Victoria Institute here (their journal is now called Faith & Thought).  JI Packer is in the house‼  Are there famous scientists that were influenced by this group?  The cactus moth loves to eat cacti.  In the early 20th Century, the prickly pear was an invasive plant in Australia and a huge nuisance ("crikey" ‼). 


 

John Mann (d. 1994) found the solution to the prickly pear problem and won international kudos in the 1930's.  With widespread distribution of the Cactus Moth (Cactoblastis cactorum), the infestation was controlled.  Mann, who was a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), had a definite opinion on Darwin since he was a young man:

 

The concept of evolution at that time (1930's) was not as universal as it is now.   There were lots of debates about it, a lot of questions asked and being answered.  In the 1920s I used to get copies of the magazine put out by the Victoria Institute in England.  They were men of high degree and they wrote against evolution.  Their magazine influenced me greatly.

 

Mann was a Bible-believing Christian and creationist.

 


 

Creationists are innovators!  Speaking of creationaries, my friend Casey Williams has a new book out, The Codes of Self Innovation.  There are Creationists who have done positive deeds for the entire globe.  Dr. Tyndale John Rendle-Short (d. 2010) was a Member of the Order of Australia for his research on infantile autism.  He was an innovator in early childhood autism diagnosis and was highly regarded around the world.


 

In the Doctor Who (David Tennant) episode "Tooth and Claw," the Doctor meets Queen Victoria.  He also wears a new moniker, Sir James McCrimmon from Balamory.  In the drama, the Torchwood Institute was a secret UFO/paranormal research organization established in 1879 by Queen Victoria after the werewolf problem was resolved.   Meanwhile, back in the actual world, the very real Victoria Institute was never mentioned in the show (if memory serves).


 

Speaking of science fiction, Martin Fichman wrote Evolutionary Theory and  Victorian Culture which was published by Humanity Books (2002).  He is Professor Emeritus at York University (Toronto).  He received his doctorate in  

History of Science from Harvard in 1969.  According to Fichman ...

 

Since the Victorian era, evolutionism has become an integral part of the debates regarding the appropriate place of science in the broader culture. The relationship between evolutionary science and religion is a critical aspect of these wide-ranging debates. ... Fundamentalist factions, such as creationists, some sects of Orthodox Jews, and increasing numbers of Islamic sects, in contrast, regard evolution as anathema. ... These issues involve not only differing concepts of knowledge and belief but competing views of cultural authority. ...  Huxley, Darwin, Spencer, and their associates had to wage an uphill battle to influence individual and institutional attitudes in government, education, industry, and society. At the start of the twenty-first century, a similar effort is being mounted by the antievolutionists. Although their crusade and that is the operative metaphor will undoubtedly fail, their tactics and their influence over certain individuals and institutions are unfortunate. [2]

 

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch (Reality), creationism is on the rise.  I hope and pray that Dr. Fichman gets red-pilled soon.  We hope to hear your feedback, pro or con (that includes you Dr. Fichman): 

   DeepTimeSkeptic@protonmail.com

BTW, David B. Kitts was my History of Science Prof ... he wrote the foundational work on the Philosophy of Geology, The Structure of Geology.  Speaking of Humanity (Fichman's publisher) ...


Notes:

1) The University Desk Encyclopedia (Elsevier, Lausanne, 1977), p. 1011.

2) Evolutionary Theory and Victorian Culture by Martin Fichman (Humanity Books, Amherst, NY, 2002), p. 222.

 

my site: https://totalyouth.us/

 

#LakeVictoria #Tanzania #Kenya #Uganda #QueenAlexandrina #QueenVictoria

#MartinFichman #VictorianAge #DavidKitts #Humanity #CactusMoth #CactoblastisCactorum #JohnMann #DoctorWho #DavidTennant #CaseyWilliams #CodesOfSelfInnovation #JohnRendleShort #Harvard #FaithAndThought #JIPacker #VictoriaInstitute #JamesReddie #PrinceAlbert

#PhilosophicalSocietyOfGreatBritain #WilliamCockburn #Lyell #Genesis #Geology #YoungEarth #RedPill