Author Archives: Duane Caldwell

About Duane Caldwell

Duane has served in many different capacities including pastor, elder, project coordinator and flight instructor. He is an ordained minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ by the Evangelical Church Alliance and holds a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a Trinity International University school and a BS in Aeronautics from Parks College, St. Louis University.

Exposing the Big Magic behind the Big Bang

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Big Bang timeline, including unknown, magical origin.

 The Big Bang is full of carefully hidden magic. Have you spotted it?

The Big Bang theory has been the predominant, scientist favored theory for the origin of the universe for a number of decades. But you probably knew that already. You probably also thought that the Big Bang theory was all science, based on well established facts and observations. If so then the Big Bang magicians have you just where they want you: already believing the illusion they’re selling is 100% science. Like a person going to see a magic show believes he will see magic; a person hearing a story from a scientist believes he will hear science.  Since you already believe what you hear about the big bang is science, pulling off the illusion that it is all science with no magic mixed in is now a piece of cake. Continue Reading

The signs of an arriving king

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“The Adoration of the Shepherds”, 1622 by Gerard van Honthorst

 What kinds of events accompany the coming of a king?

A meditation for Christmas

What does one expect at the arrival of a King? Here in the America, while we have celebrities that are treated as royalty, we have no legitimate king who rules from a recognized throne. But we have a wealth of images from both history and fiction. The below painting of the arrival and reception of King George V and Queen Mary at the West Door of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, Jubilee Day, 6 May 1935 confirms common notions of the pageantry, pomp and circumstance that accompanies the coming of a king publicly to his people.

The reception of King George V and Queen Mary at the West Door of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, Jubilee Day, 6 May 1935

In such situations the long desired king is invariably accompanied by: Continue Reading

Science and the Paradox of the Unbelievable

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Artist's depiction of Earth curving space according to Einstein's theory of General Relativity while satellite GPB orbits
Artist’s depiction of Earth curving space according to Einstein’s theory of General Relativity while satellite GPB orbits		 Christians are often accused of believing the unbelievable. But are they the only ones?

Christians are often accused of believing the unbelievable. One of those “unbelievables” is the claim that the universe was created in 6 days. But is that really unbelievable? Even if it were, are Christians the only ones who believe something that’s unbelievable? Consider this: physicists also believe something once considered unbelievable. If that is true, perhaps the belief of Christians is not as wild and crazy as some think.

Physics and the Unbelievable

Consider the well known phenomenon of gravity. Since Newton published his theory of gravity in the seventeenth century, people have believed in the pull exerted by the force of gravity. Newton is widely credited with being the founder of modern science based on his law of gravity and laws of motion.  Newton’s understanding of gravity seems intuitive – of course things are pulled by the force of gravity. Yet scientists today don’t believe his model of gravity.  They say that force is not real; it’s something Newton just made up. There is no pull of gravity.

Which leaves those of us who were taught Newton’s theory of gravity as an unchanging “law” of science in a bit of a quandary. We are now told not to believe in a foundational theory of science given to us by the father of modern science.  Saying Newton was wrong was once considered unthinkable, much less believable. Yet that is precisely what scientists today are asking us to do. Do you believe them? If you do, you too believe a number of things once considered nonsense by modern scientists as demonstrated below. And if you don’t you’re at odds with modern science. Continue Reading

Weapons of warfare against atheist propaganda

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atheist propaganda - do you recognize the lies?

Do you recognize false materialist propaganda when you see it?

Christians must expose the deceit of materialist atheist propaganda 

  

 

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
The weapons we fight with1 are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
 2 Cor 10.3-5

As the above scripture illustrates, the spiritual walk of a Christian living in a secular world is often compared to warfare. Correction – it is not compared to warfare, scripture states Christians are in fact engaged in a protracted, ongoing war. We are locked in battle with an enemy intent on killing us. Failing that,  the enemy wants to cause as much damage as possible to his foe – the creator of  the heavens and the earth. Since the enemy – Satan – is powerless to harm God, he has turned his attacks on all that God loves and has created.  Thus his targets have become – first and foremost – the pinnacle of God’s creation: mankind – those created in the image of God.

It is that image the enemy tries to mar and efface by incessant attempts to get individuals to sin, and thus bring upon him or herself the soiling or preferably effacing of God’s image.  The war on mankind extends to attacks on the family (which in these days have become obvious).  The numerous attempts to redefine what “family” is, the attacks to redefine what “male” and “female” consists of, are all part of the battle. Also in the cross hairs: attacks on worship of the one true God. Judging by the many religions; that is one target with which he’s had much success at attacking.

But these targets are just means to an end, for the real goal is to deny God the glory he so richly deserves, by stealing that glory and appropriating it to himself.  Though he tried to hide his plans, Satan could not keep them secret from the Lord God who knows the thoughts of every heart:

You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
Isaiah 14. 13-14

With that in his heart it’s easy to see why Satan hates the antiphonal calling of the angels in heaven:

Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
 Isaiah 6.3

Yet being powerless to change anything that happens in heaven, the enemy has instead  put a target on the back of every Christian. The question to Christians is, do we behave like we’re in a war zone? Or do we blithely go through our existence acting as if our life is a stroll through the park; seemingly either ignorant or unconcerned about the battle raging all around us?  Continue Reading

Can the big bang explain star formation?

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Scientists do not have a feasible theory on how the sun was formed.		 Materialist cosmologists are loath to admit it, but the truth is they have no idea how stars like our sun were formed.

In my previous article on the age of the universe I stated that scientists can’t gauge the age of the universe in part because they can’t gauge one of the yardsticks they use as a comparison: the age of stars. They can’t measure the age of stars because they don’t know how stars form. Thus without being able to nail down the beginning point, they can’t know the total time elapsed between the star’s beginning and now. I provided references to a few quotes from scientists to support the contention that they don’t know how stars form such as:

“The universe we see when we look out to its furthest horizons contains a hundred billion galaxies. Each of these galaxies contains another hundred billion stars. That’s 1022 stars all told. The silent embarrassment of modern astrophysics is that we do not know how even a single one of these stars managed to form.”1

Predictably, the big bang brain washed gang don’t believe their own scientists when it comes to statements that contradict their theory, so a number responded by Googling how stars form, and pointed me, ironically enough, to an article on one of NASA’s sites that I had referenced myself. The irony being that the article specifically points out that one problem scientists have with determining the age of stars is their “ignorance” (their word) regarding stellar evolution.2  Apparently such people didn’t bother to read the article they presented as counter evidence.

But I suspect that in addition to the big bang brain washed gang,  many will find it hard to believe the above statement – that scientists don’t know how stars form.  So let me clarify that statement and provide further evidence here.

First, let’s be clear about the claim I’m making. Notice I didn’t say scientists don’t know how stars work. They’ve known how stars shine since 1920 when the brilliant English astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington:

“…argued in his 1920 presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science that Aston’s measurement of the mass difference between hydrogen and helium meant that the sun could shine by converting hydrogen atoms to helium.”3

The process is called nuclear fusion and has been confirmed by the discovery that  emanating from the sun is the by products of the nuclear reaction: the hard to detect particles called nutrinos.4 So scientists know how stars work. They know what makes them shine. What I’m saying is they don’t know how they form. Or to be more precise, they cannot come up with a naturalistic process – which the big bang requires – that would produce the conditions necessary to create a star and ignite a stable fusion process. And in particular they cannot come up with a scenario that would allow for the creation of the first star using only naturalistic processes, and without invoking hypothetical, magical entities. To understand why, let’s look first at the story currently told by scientists on how stars form.

The Current Big Bang Star Creation Story

Here is how stars form according to the big bang theory as outlined by various scientists and the narrator in “The Universe” episode Life and Death of a Star5 Continue Reading

Age of the universe: 13.75 Billion years- Fact or Faith statement?

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Scientists don’t actually measure time to determine the age of the universe. One method attempts to correlate passage of time given a certain amount of redshift in the light from a given star.
Do scientists accurately represent their ability to estimate the age of the universe?

Ever since the rebellion in the garden of Eden that sowed seeds of distrust against God and his word, there have been two groups of people: those who believe and obey the word of God and those who don’t. Among those who don’t believe it has become quite fashionable to smirk and be amused at the quaint beliefs of those bible believing unsophisticates – until of course  – evidence for those beliefs are found and confirmed. Here is the typical sequence:

1. A pronouncement is made that directly contradicts the bible – such as “King David didn’t exist because no archeological evidence can be found confirming his existence.”
2. Bible doubters jump on the band wagon and poke fun at those quaint bible believers – until evidence is found that confirms the Bible. In the case of King David, it was the Tel Dan Stele, a monument erected in the 8th or 9th century BC by one of the kings of Aram (ancient Syria) which bore the inscription “…of the House of David…”
3. An acknowledgement is made that the Bible was right (again) and off they go looking for some other part of the Bible to doubt.

In the case of King David,  all but the most obstinate doubters will agree with the myth hunters:

“When the inscription at Tel-dan was found, that put the debate to rest. It was clear that David did exist.”[1]

Today, one of the Bible truths most attacked by scientists in every field is the Bible’s proclamation that the entire universe was created in 6 days. This proclamation is strongly denied because if true, it means that neither the Big Bang nor Darwinian evolution can be true, because both of those require billions of years.  Therefore atheistic and materialistic scientists have a vested interest in keeping belief in a billions year old universe alive – it’s required for their worldview. And thus they take every opportunity to promote that godless belief. And so we regularly see such scientists either outright mocking Christian belief, or attempting to show why, according to their calculations, it cannot be correct. Here is one of those attempts made during the reboot of Cosmos, as narrated by the show’s host, Neil deGrasse Tyson:

“The crab nebula is about 6,500 light years from earth. According to some beliefs that’s the age of the whole universe. But if the universe were only 6,500 years old, how could we see the light from anything more distant than the crab nebula? We couldn’t. There wouldn’t have been enough time for the light to get to earth from anywhere farther away than 6,500 light years in any direction. That’s just enough time for light to travel through a tiny portion of our milky way galaxy.” 

“To believe in a universe as young as only 6 or 7,000 years old is to extinguish the light from most of the galaxy. Not to mention the light from all the hundred billion other galaxies in the observable universe.”[2]

This actually points to a bigger problem – the problem of distant starlight. And what the Big Bangers won’t tell you is that the Big Bang has its own distant starlight problem. I dealt with the distant starlight problem in the article “Which theory has the fatal flaw, Big Bang or Creation“, so I won’t cover that ground again here. In this article we’ll focus instead on the problems with the big bang proclamation of a 13.75 billion year old universe.[3]

As far as such scientists are concerned, people who believe in a 6,000 year old earth are like believers in a flat earth – hopelessly backwards and foolishly ignorant. But there is an important distinction to be made here. Believers in the Bible are not like believers in a flat earth. Besides the fact that the bible proclaimed the earth is round thousands of years before 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue,[4] there is direct, clear evidence that the earth is round: photographs of the earth from space being one of them. This site is about rational reasons to believe, so for those really seeking the truth, that should be the end of the matter.

Now that we’ve established Christians believe because of strong, direct, evidence supported reasons, let’s apply the same standard to the age of the earth. Let’s have the scientists present direct, clear evidence that the universe is 13.75 billion years old as they claim. Direct evidence would be something like a clock that has been running since the beginning that we could consult, or an eye witness that existed for the duration that can give testimony as to the passage of time or the time frame.

Scientists will say something to the effect “a clock running since the beginning – that’s absurd. That would require the clock to exist in the beginning before anything existed which is clearly impossible. Likewise, a testimony would require an immortal being outside of time and space – which is also impossible.”  So  scientists have no direct, conclusive evidence of a 13.75 billion year old universe. What evidence do they have? Let’s come back to that question. First, let me point out that we do have an eye witness testimony of an immortal being outside of time of space  – that of God who said:

“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.”
Ex 20.11

Scientists of course do not accept that testimony- it’s not scientific. But please note that the Bible describes God as having the needed qualities: scripture testifies that God is both immortal (1 Tim 1.17,) and existed before any created thing, and thus is outside of space and time (Gen 1.1, John 1.1-3). (Note – scientist agree that space and time were both created – though they believe they were created in the Big Bang).

So Christians have the direct evidence of the God of Creation who testifies as to how long it took him to create the universe: 6 days.  Scientists have no direct evidence of a 13.75 billion year old galaxy.  So let’s return to the question above: exactly what evidence do they have as to the age of  the universe?

How Scientists Calculate the Age of the Universe

Since scientists cannot consult clocks to determine the age of the earth, and they can’t use tools like the much abused and misused radiometric dating process as they do for materials on earth.  Since the stars they want to measure are light years away, they have no physical samples to work with. What then, do they have to work with? Continue Reading

Earth’s magnetic field: Testament to more than a young earth

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The earth is protected by a powerful but decreasing magnetic field.
Earth’s magnetic field exhibits signs of being young and part of a grand design.

Saturn has its beautiful rings. Diamonds are often photographed adorning the fingers or the necks of beautiful women.  Both Saturn and diamonds are testimonies to a young earth (which I wrote about here and here). The earth’s magnetic field is also a testament to a young earth – but it’s more than that; it’s a powerful testimony that God created it. But being invisible to the naked eye, earth’s magnetic field is at a distinct disadvantage in this visual age – requiring visual aids like the depiction of the field above. But make no mistake, the magnetic field around the earth is one of the most powerful testaments to a carefully and lovingly designed young earth  that you’re likely to find. And what it lacks in glamour, it makes up for in the power of its evidentiary support of Genesis 1.1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Here’s why:

Evidences Gleaned from Earth’s Magnetic Field

1. Young earth

Old earth proponents will tell you that the earth is about 4 1/2 billion old. That means the magnetic field should also be about 4 1/2 billion years old. If that were true you would expect to have a magnetic field that’s very stable, not changing  much over time – since we’re talking about a lot of time: not merely hundreds of years, or thousands or even millions of years, but billions with a “b”.  The problem with that supposition is that it doesn’t match the observed measurements. It has been known for some time that the earth’s magnetic field is decaying. As geologist and creationist John D. Morris put it:

“The strength of the magnetic field has been reliably and continually measured since 1835. From these measurements, we can see that the field’s strength has declined by about seven percent since then, giving a half-life of about 1,400 years.”1

Obviously that’s a problem. A field decaying that quickly will last only a few thousand years not a few billion. And it’s gotten worse for old age earth believers:  scientists have recently discovered that the field has begun to decay even faster:

“Previously, researchers estimated the field was weakening about 5 percent per century, but the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought.”2

This does not bode well for the old earth explanation of a magnetic field that is billions of years old. Their explanation up to this point has been the field is created and maintained by a “dynamo”, a natural generator. Magnetic fields are created by the movement of electrons – a current flow. Scientist posit that the rotation of the earth and convection (movement due to heat) is sufficient to produce a current from the molten iron/nickel of the earth’s outer core, which they believe would create a self-sustaining field generating dynamo. The problem with the theory is that “Scientists have not produced a workable analytic model, despite 40-50 years of research, and there are many problems.”3

Creation Theory is Better Science
 Contrary to claims that Creation Science is not really science because it makes no predictions and has no objective data that can be tested,  creationist scientist Continue Reading

Six Day Creation: Written in Stone

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The six day creation is written in the Ten Commandments by the finger of God. Exodus 20.1-17

 Was the world really created in 6 literal days?

Seven days that divide the world.1 That’s what mathematician, philosopher of science and apologist John Lennox calls the biblical account of the first seven days of the universe.  But why should that be? Compared to the text of  Genesis 3 – the account of the Eve and the serpent,  the account of the creation (Gen 1) is rather straight forward.  Yet it appears there are more interpretations of the straight forward text of the first seven days than there are of the clearly more complex text of Eve and the fall.

Even so, the account of Eve and the serpent is not so difficult that it can’t be easily  understood as I demonstrate in the previous post. Why then, is what appears to be the clear meaning of Genesis 3 not the understanding most bible believing commentators hold to today?2 Which got me to thinking of that question in context of our current section of Genesis 1 concerning the biblical creation account. Both the account of the creation and the account of the fall appear very clear and straight forward. Why then are there so many different understandings of what they mean? That is an important question to answer before looking at the account of the creation of the universe in 6 days.

Jesus asked a very similar question, and also gives us the answer:

Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.
John 8.43

Why were they unable to hear? Because they had an agenda, and they were intent on carrying it out Jesus said. (John 8.44) And as we well know, having an agenda or a priori assumptions that cannot be changed creates boundaries that circumscribe what you will allow yourself to believe, locking out of  consideration anything to the contrary.

The Hidden Agenda

What is the agenda behind people interpreting these two passages of scripture that make some so reluctant to accept the clear message of the text of one or the other (or both)? Interestingly enough it boils down to the same issue: a desire to either support, or remove support for the long ages needed for the bang bang and neo-Darwinian evolution. With regard to how to understand the serpent, a statement made by a Christian blogger3 who supports evolution and thus rejects much creation evidence makes this point crystal clear: Continue Reading

A talking snake and the alien connection

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The serpent deceives Eve. (Gen 3.1-5)		  Was there really a talking snake that deceived Eve in the garden of Eden?

‘I’m a Christian, but the Bible’s all stories1 … ’. As I write this article, that is not only the title of the lead article on Creation Ministries International website, but unfortunately it’s a sentiment shared by far too many devoted, well meaning, but dead wrong Christians; as well as by most Bible skeptics. I lay a good portion of the blame for the many misguided Christians in this area at the feet of Bible teaches and pastors who get in front of congregations or Bible classes every week, and talk about Bible “stories” (stories being typically understood as make believe) instead of Bible “accounts”  (accounts being typically understood as a recounting of something factual that happened). You may think the difference is a minor thing – but the way an idea is labeled is critically important. Why else do companies pay so much attention to branding (a form of labeling) and spend millions to promote their own brand as well as protect it? Why else are there battles over how various issues are labeled?

Why do those who support liberal border policies prefer the term “Undocumented immigrants” over the more accurate “Illegal aliens?”

Why do so many in the LGBT community insist on calling those who support one man,  one women marriage not  “traditional marriage  supporters” but rather  “homophobic” or “haters”?

Because they know how you label an idea is critical to how it will be perceived. And they want to frame how people think about those issues without even discussing it. The church has handed the adversary an easy victory on that front by allowing the historic events of the bible to be labeled as “stories”  – without raising an objection. (Please note my objection!) But terminology is just the tip of the iceberg. The root of the problem lies much deeper.  And it’s tied up with why so many in the church still call Bible accounts “stories.”  The reason: because unfortunately, for many Christians – as the CMI article points out – that is precisely what they are to such Christians: just stories. Not historic accounts, but stories – not to be taken literally. Not to be understood as actual history.

But as Bible and Hebrew scholars2 will tell you, the Genesis accounts (and biblical narratives in general) are presented not as fictional stories, but as straight forward narrative history, and are intended to be understood as such. What then are we do with things like a 6 day creation, and a talking snake?

The reason most people no longer believe in a 6 day creation is they need to squeeze in billions of years because they have embraced the godless theories of the  big bang and neo-Darwinian evolution which require billions of years. I have already devoted a number of articles3 to exposing the numerous flaws of those godless theories so I will spend no time here. Instead, we turn to the objection of a talking serpent.

Some people reason that since snakes neither talk, nor even have the physical capability to do so (no vocal chords, etc.) the “serpent” referred to in the account of the fall in  Genesis cannot be a real snake, and thus they reason, the account cannot be a true and accurate account. But like a murder mystery that seems obvious who-done-it at the beginning, you don’t come to the correct conclusion until you consider all the evidence; and the key pieces are not given until the end. So let’s take a step back,  broaden our view and consider more evidence and determine if the “it can’t be true” position is a premature jumping to conclusions before all the evidence is in.

Who or what is the serpent?

Let’s start with a review of the biblical text: Gen 3.1-4

3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.
Gen 3.1-4

There would be no question that the serpent is Satan, or the devil, except for the few who deny that, claiming the serpent is never identified as Satan in scripture4. Perhaps the serpent is not identified as Satan in this small section, but it is simply not true that the serpent is not identified in scripture. Jesus appears to be referencing the serpent when speaking of the devil in  John 8.44; and he clearly does so in his revelation to John:

The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.
Rev 12.9

Only those who don’t know their bible well or are actively trying to deny the connection can miss this clear identification of the serpent as Satan. But that’s the easy identification. Let’s press on to the deeper questions:

Who did Eve speak with? A snake, the Serpent or something else?

You may wonder what’s the difference between a snake and the serpent? Let me suggest that the term “the serpent” acts as a technical term, a code word that in many place in scripture refers specifically to Satan. We see the key to the code in Rev 12.9 (above) – the serpent=Satan (as does the dragon=Satan)5.  Now let’s go back and re-read the passage in light of that understanding – that “the serpent” refers to “Satan”. Continue Reading

The coming Big Bang fairy tale

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Like the above depiction of the Unisphere inside a ring of stars, the earth may be at a near the center of a concentric ring of galaxies.		 New evidence suggests the earth may be at the center of a huge structure in space. That contradicts the Big bang, so prepare for a new big bang fairy tale to explain it.

 

New discoveries about the organization of the galaxies in space are challenging what big bang theorists have always believed about the the structure of the universe. The new evidence challenges the tenets of the popular but disputed  big bang theory down to its core. Even though the big bang was first proposed by a belgian priest named Georges Lemaitre, it is essentially a secular theory stating only naturalistic causes are responsible for the creation of the universe. That being the case there are two essential assumptions key to the theory which are required to maintain the appearance of the creation of the universe being an entirely natural event.

Those two key assumptions are that the universe is both homogenous and isotropic. “Homogenous” refers to the supposition that the matter in the universe is evenly distributed. “Isotropic” assumes that where ever you look and from whatever vantage point you look, the universe would look the same. Or as NASA puts it:

” …if you viewed the contents of the universe with sufficiently poor vision, it would appear roughly the same everywhere and in every direction. That is, the matter in the universe is homogeneous and isotropic when averaged over very large scales. This is called the Cosmological Principle.”1

These two principles are necessary to prevent the conclusion of special creation particularly in light of Hubble’s discovery in 1929 that resulted in the law that bears his name. That discovery – based on observing the red shift of galaxies2 – is that all galaxies are moving away from us. And the further away the galaxy is, the faster it’s moving. This is true in whatever direction you look – everything is moving away from us, and the most distant ones are moving fastest. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that fact appears to put us at the center of the universe. Hubble, an atheist, abhorred that thought. Putting our planet at the center of the universe is not the expected outcome of a lifeless, careless explosion. That is more like something a loving God who wanted us to have a good vantage point would do. How to over come that and keep the appearance of a naturalistic process?

Typical depiction of expansion of the universe – as an expanding balloon.

 

 By assuming that the universe is both  homogenous and isotropic. Then the expansion of space can be described with the common balloon illustration.
Picture the universe as an expanding balloon (opposite). Like the galaxies visible on the surface – as the balloon grows larger everything on the surface moves away from each other – regardless of where you look, or where you are. 

Thus the big bang requires that the universe is both homogenous and isotropic.3

But the latest discovery by scientists indicates that the universe is neither homogenous nor isotropic. Instead of being the equivalent of an amorphous blob, scientists are discovering there is a distinct structure to the universe, and the earth appears to be in the center of it.

Regarding the structure of space, space.com reports: Continue Reading