Ken Ham Presents a Creationist Perspective on Earth Day

Today being the 40th anniversary of Earth Day there will be a lot of buzz in the media about the ever-increasing need for environmental awareness, and the release of films like James Cameron's Avatar will continue to press the environmental agenda to save the planet from ourselves.

How should Christians respond to Earth Day? Ken Ham presents a well-reasoned Christian perspective on the issues in his new article published here.

Chile is No Stranger to Earthquakes

In an article published on CNN.com (March 1), John van Wyhe – founder and director of Darwin Online – commented on the recent magnitude 8.8 earthquake that devastated Chile on February 27.

...A quake similar to Saturday's struck almost exactly the same part of Chile on February 20, 1835 – almost exactly 175 years ago.

On that occasion, the young English naturalist and geologist Charles Darwin was in Chile as part of his voyage on HMS Beagle....

Darwin spent the next weeks investigating the effects of the earthquake. He found that rocks lined with recent marine shells were now elevated above the tide. The island of Santa Maria was raised an average of about 3 meters (9 feet).

Combining his own observations with those of many local people, Darwin attempted to reconstruct the event and to understand why it had occurred. He found that three volcanoes had erupted along the Chilean coast at about the same time as the earthquake.

Not only did he collect widespread evidence of the uplift of the coast during the earthquake, but traveling inland and into the mountains, he discovered a series of remains of marine shells – proof that the shifting that had recently uplifted the coast by a small amount had occurred over and over in the recent geological past.

The experience convinced him that the great geologist Charles Lyell was right – mountain chains were not created by sudden immense catastrophes, but grew almost imperceptibly, the product of thousands of successive uplifts over almost endless geological time...

Read the rest of the article here –>

As Creationists we need to continually return to the subject of assumptions and worldview.

Notice how van Wyhe describes Darwin's progression of thought:

1. "He found that rocks lined with recent marine shells were now elevated above the tide."
2. "...traveling inland and into the mountains, he discovered a series of remains of marine shells..."
3. This provided "proof that the shifting that had recently uplifted the coast by a small amount had occurred over and over in the recent geological past."
4. Therefore, "Charles Lyell was right – mountain chains were not created by sudden immense catastrophes, but grew almost imperceptibly, the product of thousands of successive uplifts over almost endless geological time..."

Hopefully you can detect some of Darwin's underlying assumptions here. His observations were probably perfectly accurate, but his understanding of those observations was skewed by his precommitment to Lyell's "old earth" ideas.

You may be asking, "Couldn't gradual geological uplift actually do that? What could be wrong with Darwin's interpretation?"

My beef with Darwin's explanation is very simple. A relatively recent, worldwide flood catastrophe is just as viable an explanation (in my opinion, much more viable) for marine fossils coming to rest in high-elevation mountainous areas. Claiming that long periods of time and slow gradual change must have been responsible for this phenomena, clearly demonstrates Darwin's prejudice against the Biblical account of the Flood.

You may agree or disagree with me on this. All I ask is that you simply acknowledge the fact that we all have assumptions, and those assumptions invariably affect the way we view the world – for better or for worse.

We Have a Winner!

Ladies and gentlemen, we just had our very first drawing on Confronting Darwin... *drumroll please*

Congratulations to the Haugh family from Virginia for winning a free copy of The Mysterious Islands! I hope the film is a real blessing to your family and inspires you to explore Creation with a new wonder for the Creator!

And thank you to everyone who participated in the drawing. Stay tuned in the future, there may be more!

Contest Results Coming Very Soon

Tomorrow I will announce the winner of the drawing (see previous post). Stay tuned!

It's Darwin's Birthday, and I've got Presents!

Charles Darwin is 201 years old today! Right now there are countless people around the world celebrating - it's Darwin Day!

Perhaps though, you're not particularly excited about the "man behind the theory" and would rather let February 12 go by just like any other day. Or maybe you are reminded of the intensity of the conflict and your concern for the future of science and education has been renewed.

Whatever the case, I have a present for you.

Between now and 11:59 p.m. CST, February 14, leave a comment on this post and your name will be entered to win a free copy of Vision Forum Ministries' new film "The Mysterious Islands," an action documentary which tells the story of a father and son who journey to "Darwin's Eden" - the Galapagos Islands - to tell the true story of that remarkable place, and demonstrate how it evidences the handiwork of the Creator!


This is a completely free offer, no strings attached. Just leave a comment and let me know you want to participate. Comments are moderated, but I will be able to see them and note when they are submitted.

Want to learn more about "The Mysterious Islands?" View the official movie site and watch the trailer here.

This contest will end at 11:59 p.m. CST, February 14.

One Year Anniversary of Confronting Darwin!

Well folks, it's already been a year. Confronting Darwin was officially started on February 11/12 of 2009, the "year of Darwin," and 49 posts later it's grown slow and steady since then. I realize that my posts have been few and far between - that's the nature of trying to author 3 blogs at once, and work a full-time job and lead a normal life. I do hope that you will continue to come back, or subscribe to my RSS feed to receive updates when I post.

Here are a few of the more significant posts I've put up this past year:

What Led Darwin Astray? Part I
What Led Darwin Astray? Part II

My Research Paper Featured on Doug's Blog!

That's Not Science!

Darwin's Famous Finches: Compared

Ligers and Zorses Sure, but Orangutan-men?

The Stone Forest in the Desert

Evolution...Superfluous to Practical Science

What do we do with the Environment?

Darwin and Racism

Responding to the Judge

Mr. Darwin, about that book of yours...

The Creation Museum

Make sure you check out the headlines tomorrow. It's international "Darwin Day." You'll find statements like the following:

"Two centuries after Darwin's birth, the theory he labored over for a lifetime has never been stronger, more vibrant, nor more widely accepted."

"Religious freedom ends where professional obligations begin."

"...the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as "one theory among others" is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children."

"It would ease Darwin's oft-troubled mind to know that his ideas have not only vaulted science into the Third Great Age of Discovery but helped draw religion out of its embattled us-versus-the-heathen past and to the dawn of a new age of tolerant universalism."

You and I both know that we engaged in battle. It is certainly one of THE MOST DEFINING battles of our time, and as the rest of the church begins to succomb to pressure and apologize let us rise, unapologetic and bold, to proclaim the truth!

The Creation Museum

Last month (December), I was able to go up to Cincinnati OH for the Sufficiency of Scripture Conference, and as part of the conference package attendees got a free pass to the Creation Museum!

If you're familiar with my blog you already know that Creation science is one of my main interests, so this was a dream come true! It was far beyond what I had imagined and I'm so thankful that Answers in Genesis put this one-of-a-kind museum together to showcase the true history of the earth and the majesty of God's Creation.

I don't have time to write in-depth about my visit, but enjoy the following images I took with my new Canon 7D. (These have been lightly edited, but my computer is being cranky so I couldn't spend more time on them).

The "Tree of Life" display

"Now the serpent was craftier than any beast of the field..."

Adam, after the Fall





The construction of the Ark


Only Noah and his family were saved (this was a really neat miniature)

And the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (another neat miniature)

Noah offering a sacrifice of thanks to the Lord

Our film The Mysterious Islands, for sale in the "Dragon Hall" bookstore