Our pastor shared a story from the Bible at Isaac's graveside ceremony today. I'll just paste it in for you:
And the LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick. David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth. And the elders of his house arose, and went to him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead? But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead. Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the LORD, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat. Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. (2 Samuel 12:15-23)
Among other reasons, one reason I haven't been posting here is that my 2-month-old son is in the Pediatric ICU on a ventilator with a rare genetic condition. I am wondering if the diagnosis is incorrect (or, more specifically, not fully correct), and if the treatment is actually causing some of his problems. Please pray for wisdom for me and the doctors. The problem of being in the hospital is that you are essentially at their mercy, and they can choose to ignore you if they want to. The medical team we are working with is truly astounding, but even the best doctors can be easily blinded to certain possibilities.
Anyway, for anyone reading this blog, please pray for me, and for the doctors, and for wisdom.
The BSG (Creation Biology Study Group) has officially opened the registration for their conference. The title of the conference is "Genesis Kinds - Creationism and the Origin of Species". It will include the set of talks they gave in the UK earlier this year, plus contributed talks by members of the Creation Biology Study Group and the Creation Geology Study Group.
With my new baby (and a lot of stuff going on at work), I can't make it this year, but it sounds like quite an event!
My wife and I just had Bartlett baby #5 this weekend! Everyone is healthy and in good shape, and we are all home now.
The Creation Research Society is hosting a conference July 10-11 at the University of South Carolina Lancaster. Registrations for the conference can be done here. Here is a semi-official list of presentations:
I'm a huge fan of Ariel Roth. Recently, he gave a presentation to the Creation Science Fellowship of Costa Mesa discussing Noah's flood and its impact on the geological record. It's kind of slow-going (it's two hours and fifteen minutes!) and he doesn't hit any real evidences until after about a half an hour. This video combined with Mike Oard's video on geomorphology presents a pretty good lay-level overview of how Noah's flood affects your outlook on geology.
Paul Garner, an excellent Creation Geologist from the UK, has a new Creationism blog out, and it is fantastic reading. He also has a new book out, which I have not yet read, called The New Creationism: Building a Scientific Theory on a Biblical Foundation. Some posts of interests from his blog:
One of the reasons I did not go into biology after high school was that I had this idea that biology was extremely boring. The reason I thought biology was boring was because the classes about biology and the textbooks in those classes were, in fact, boring, and left no reason for me to want to pursue it.
It wasn't until much later that I realized that, because of Creation, by looking into biology we are seeing God's own handiwork. Isn't that an amazing conception? How could that possibly be boring?
Charles Jackson described this in a recent debate (see full debate here):
I am suggesting that it is not inappropriate to discuss in the classroom anything that’s controversial, that’s already in the minds of the students, and that they are capable of comprehending...It will take longer to teach a unit, but the students will learn it better. Controversy–if you were a government teacher, during an election year, the discussions you could have would be fabulous. And the discussions that I had in my biolgoy and Earth science classes were wonderful during a unit when I address origins. I bent over backwards to be fair about the evolution thing. My students thought I believed in evoluiton. I had a Catholic boy get chewed out by a Muslim girl for not believing in the Garden of Eden. So we had some really good discussions. The students like this. It worked great. Whenever there’s something controversial, it boosts student interest. They get very interested.
On the whole, I homeschool, so what gets taught in public education doesn't impact me much. However, from my own personal experience, I wish that someone had interested me more in biology. His point (which there was even a more interesting part slightly earlier) was that you build from where students already are. Whether you agree with Creationism or not, it is not inappropriate to bring it up in a science context, and do discussions on it, because that's the best way of teaching - even if your purpose is to teach evolution. If you don't, it just bounces off and makes no impact. Students need to be engaged where they are, not where the evolutionists wished that they were.
Studying Creationism has ignited my passion in biology - a passion which I never knew that I had. I hope more science teachers realize that connecting God to science doesn't stop science, but instead broadens the interest base by a huge margin.
CMI has an interesting profile on paleontologist Marcus Ross. Check it out!
A new wiki is out, called SNPedia, which documents the effects of DNA variations on phenotypes. You can also check out the SNPedia blog.