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First printing: August 2013 Copyright © 2013 by Answers in Genesis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews. For information write: Master Books®, P.O. Box 726, Green Forest, AR 72638. Master Books® is a division of the New Leaf Publishing Group, Inc. ISBN: 9780890517888 Library of Congress Number: 2013947562 Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the New King James Version of the Bible, copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Please consider requesting that a copy of this volume be purchased by your local library system. Printed in the United States of America Please visit our website for other great titles: www.masterbooks.net For information regarding author interviews, please contact the publicity department at (870) 438-5288. ® ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND SPECIAL THANKS Our many thanks to the following for the work of reviewing, editing, or illustrating this book. Dr. Jason Lisle, Dr. John Whitmore, Dr. Ron Samec, Dr. Elizabeth Mitch- ell, Dr. Tommy Mitchell, Dr. Andrew Snelling, Dr. Danny Faulkner, Dr. Terry Mortenson, Dr. Georgia Purdom, Dr. John Baumgardner, Gary Vaterlaus, Mike Matthews, Bob Hill, Roger Patterson, Troy Lacey, Steve Golden, Jeremy Ham, Buddy Davis, Randall Hedtke, Wayne Strasser, Mike Oard, Scott Chadwick, Erik Lutz, Gary Vaterlaus, Mike Matthews, Dan Stelzer, Dan Lietha, Doug Rummager, Laura Strobl, Bodie Hodge, Steve Fazekas, and Diane King. Contents Introduction: Atheistic Devices: Spotting Them . but Countering Them, Too? Ken Ham .................................................7 1. Does the Gospel Depend on a Young Earth? Ken Ham ......................17 2. Do Plants and Leaves Die? Dr. Michael Todhunter ..............................23 3. Dragons . Were They Real? Bodie Hodge .........................................27 4. Peppered Moths . Evidence for Evolution? Dr. Tommy Mitchell ......45 5. Is Evolutionary Humanism the Most Blood-stained Religion Ever? Bodie Hodge ..........................................................53 6. Was Charles Darwin a Christian? Dr. Tommy Mitchell........................67 7. Cavemen . Really? Dr. David Menton, Dr. Georgia Purdom and John Upchurch .......................................................................77 8. Should There Really Be a Battle between Science and the Bible? Roger Patterson ......................................................87 9. What Did the Reformers Believe about the Age of the Earth? Dr. Joel R. Beeke .........................................................................101 10. What Are Some of the Best Evidences in Science of a Young Creation? Dr. Andrew A. Snelling, Dr. David Menton, Dr. Danny R. Faulkner, and Dr. Georgia Purdom ........................111 11. Have People Always Been Brilliant or Were They Originally Dumb Brutes? Don Landis .........................................................131 12. What about Living Fossils? Dr. John Whitmore .................................143 13. What Is the State of the Canopy Model? Bodie Hodge ......................151 14. Are There Transitional Forms in the Fossil Record? Dr. David Menton ......................................................................163 15. Could the Flood Cataclysm Deposit Uniform Sedimentary Rock Layers? Dr. Andrew A. Snelling ......................173 16. Should We Be Concerned about Climate Change? Dr. Alan White ...........................................................................187 17. What about Creation, Flood, and Language Division Legends? Troy Lacey (with Bodie Hodge) .....................................199 18. How Big Is the Universe? Dr. Danny R. Faulkner .............................211 19. Could Noah’s Ark Have Been Made of Wood? Tim Lovett ...............221 20. What about Environmentalism? Dr. E. Calvin Beisner .....................239 21. What about Distant Starlight Models? Dr. Danny R. Faulkner and Bodie Hodge ........................................................................255 22. What Are the Tactics of the New Atheists? Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell ................................................................265 23. Were There Any Volcanoes, High Mountains, and Earthquakes before the Flood? Dr. Andrew A. Snelling ...................................279 24. What about Beneficial Mutations? Dr. Georgia Purdom ....................289 25. What about the Hebrew Language and Genesis? Dr. Benjamin Shaw ....................................................................305 26. The ecapitulationR of Recapitulation: Does Embryology Prove Evolution? Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell ...............................................317 27. Is Speciation Evidence for Creation or Evolution? Dr. Gary Parker ..........................................................................335 28. Are Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) Wrong? Dr. Andrew Fabich .....................................................................343 29. What about Design Arguments Like “Irreducible Complexity”? Dr. Stuart Burgess .......................................................................355 30. What about the Origin of the Solar System and the Planets? Dr. Danny R. Faulkner ...............................................................367 31. Did Noah Need Oxygen Tanks on the Ark? Bodie Hodge .................375 32. The mageI of God Dr. Corey Abney ..................................................383 33. Dear Atheists . Are You Tired of It All? Bodie Hodge .....................391 Contributors ..............................................................................................397 Index ..........................................................................................................403 INTRODUCTION Atheistic Devices: Spotting Them . but Countering Them, Too? KEN HAM Introduction: Atheists Using Churches to Infiltrate and Deceive id you know that many Christian leaders are doing exactly what the Datheists are encouraging them to do? It’s incredible. You see, there’s an “epidemic” that is infecting and destroying many churches around the world. It is the epidemic of Christians (including many church leaders) who are adopting man’s religion of evolutionary ideas and adding them to Scripture — thus undermining the authority of the Word of God. As we see the loss of the foundation of the authority of God’s Word in our Western nations, we are also seeing a massive decline in Christian morality in soci- ety. Even the great nation of America is on a downward spiral, as we see the abso- lutes of Christianity being eliminated from the culture (on an almost daily basis). We spoke to a prominent Christian leader recently. He is the pastor of a large church in a generally conservative denomination (though many of its churches allow for millions of years). He shared with us that within his denomi- nation, he saw the next big theological debate being whether or not Adam and Eve were literal human beings! 7 The New Book 4 Such re-writing of Scripture is sadly coming to this denomination. But is it all that surprising? Once the door was opened when many of its churches (and affiliated seminaries) began to compromise on the foundations of Genesis, as they added millions of years to Genesis, then the slippery slide into unbelief in other areas of Scripture began to escalate — even whether there was a real Adam. Right into Their Hands At AiG, we have been saying for years that as churches compromise with millions of years and evolution, eventually they will begin to compromise other parts of Scripture. They will give up on Adam and Eve and original sin — then maybe a literal hell, bodily resurrection, and virgin birth. Sadly, we are now seeing that happening more and more in the Church. Last year, Christianity Today published a cover story about the battle over a literal Adam and Eve. Yes, now even that question is beginning to infiltrate theologically conservative churches. We also hear of Christian leaders giving up a belief in a literal hell. And there are those who are beginning to question aspects of the Resurrection and so on. Yes, what is happening in the Church today is exactly what the atheists want to see happen. The atheists know that if they can get Christians to com- promise God’s Word in Genesis, eventually there will be a generational decline in the acceptance of the authority of all of God’s Word. The Trojan Horse Last year, a professed atheist, Dr. Eugenie Scott, mailed a fundraising letter on behalf of her organization called NCSE (National Center for Science Education). This group was set up primarily to oppose biblical creation organizations like AiG. In this letter, Dr. Scott told blatant untruths about what AiG is doing. But then again, you shouldn’t be surprised when atheists don’t tell the truth. After all, if they don’t believe in an absolute authority, they have no basis for truth — except for how they decide to define it as such! She is obviously greatly con- cerned about the effect of AiG in society. Well — we can praise the Lord for that! But in her letter, designed to cause alarm and raise funds for her anti-Christian organization and “motivate the secular troops” to oppose creationist organizations like AiG, Dr. Scott made a statement similar to the one she has made before on her website about how she seeks to recruit religious people to help her atheist group: Find common ground with religious communities and ally with them