World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind

Posted in Creation/Evolution on January 26th, 2008 by dhawkinsmo

This interview happened late last year but I think it’s worth bringing up again. Notice at the end of this paragraph that Flew says it was the evidence that changed his mind. Theists like me are often accused of ignoring the evidence and clinging to our cherished beliefs in spite of the evidence. But the truth is that it is the atheists that behave this way. Someone has said that it takes much more faith to be an atheist than a theist and this is true. Here’s an extract from the interview with Flew …

“There were two factors in particular that were decisive [in changing my mind]. One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe. The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source. I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint despite numerous efforts to do so. With every passing year, the more that was discovered about the richness and inherent intelligence of life, the less it seemed likely that a chemical soup could magically generate the genetic code. The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins’ comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a “lucky chance.” If that’s the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion.
http://www.tothesource.org/10_30_2007/10_30_2007.htm

Comet or Meteor Impact Around the Time of the Flood?

Posted in Creation/Evolution, Genesis Flood on January 21st, 2008 by dhawkinsmo

Landsat Data Used in Chevron Discovery
Contributor: USGS (The Landsat Project Update)
Posted: Feb. 20, 2007
The chevrons are found within the red circles on this Landsat 7 image.

Recently a landform called a chevron was noted on a Landsat 7 image of Madagascar. These chevrons may have been formed by a mega-tsunami produced 4,800 years ago by a meteorite or comet impact with the Indian Ocean. I have included a close up Google Earth photo of the chevron on the left in the Landsat photo. madagascar_chevron.jpg You can type in the coordinates in Google Earth and go there yourself and investigate.

Discover Magazine (2007)article on this topic … “Did a Comet Cause the Great Flood?

New York Times (2006) article on this topic … “Ancient Crash, Epic Waves

This is very interesting to me because I have noted for some time how the work of Henry Morris and other neo-catastrophists has had the effect of pushing mainstream geologists ever closer to reconsidering the Global Flood as a starting point for all inquiries in historical geology.

It is also interesting because of my interest in Dr. Walter Brown’s Hydroplate Theory which postulates a catastrophic bursting open of the Fountains of the Deep. Brown says that comets and asteroids were launched during this time. Did some of them “return home” shortly after or during the Flood? Read more »

Creationism on the Rise in the UK

Posted in Creation/Evolution on January 17th, 2008 by dhawkinsmo

scicreationism.jpg“Experts call for creationism in the classroom

Anthea Lipsett
Friday October 5, 2007
EducationGuardian.co.uk

Growing numbers of pupils believe in creationism, and science teachers should be prepared to cover the topic in their classes, education experts said today.

Creationism – the belief that life came into existence thousands of years ago as described in the Bible or the Qur’an, rather than millions of years ago, which scientists believe – is on the rise in the UK.

This makes the teaching of the scientific theory of evolution a problem in some schools.

But academics from the Institute of Education in London and Valdosta State University in the US say the theory of evolution should be taught as a significant part of science lessons, with room to discuss creationism.”

Full story here … http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2184632,00.html Thanks, Dr. Monty White of AiG and others! Your work is paying off.

Oxford Provost Says Documentary Hypothesis is in “Sharp Decline”

Posted in Biblical on January 9th, 2008 by dhawkinsmo

nicholson_book.gifIn The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (1998), Ernest Nicholson says the following …

By the end of the decade [1970s], however, and continuing throughout the 1980s and into the present decade [1990s], one major study after another, like a series of hammer blows, has rejected the main claims of the Documentary Theory and the criteria on the basis of which they were argued. Winnet’s view, for which he expected few if any converts, is now in the driving-seat, so to speak, and those who adhere to the Documentary Theory are very much on the defensive. As a result, Pentateuchal research since the mid-1970s has become a mirror image of what it was in the years following the publication of Wellhausen’s study of the composition of the Pentateuch in the mid-1870s: whereas at that time the Documentary Theory which he had so persuasively argued was in the ascendant, commanding ever increasing support, today it is in sharp decline–some would say in a state of advanced rigor mortis–and new solutions are being argued and urged in its place. (p. 95-96)

This author still is an advocate of the DH, but the recent convulsions have caused him to modify his positions somewhat.

If you are a Questia subscriber as I am, you can read the book yourself here … http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=10126098

And one of those “new solutions” is some form of tablet theory. Not necessarily Wiseman’s … his has some problems. But some form resembling it.