Answers continued

What about dinosaurs? Don't archaeologists dig up all those old fossils? Did Noah's flood really happen? I thought it's been proven that the earth is like millions and millions of years old?

These are just some of the very important questions that my children were interested in asking. They came away from the talks with some great answers. Yes, dinosaurs are actually mentioned in the Bible. I recommend that you go on an exhibition in Job. Again it's important to remember that science has limits, so with that in mind- what do fossils really tell us? Many people assume that it means the objects or organisms lived and/or died together. Really all they tell us though is that the objects were at some point buried together. This is a key difference. There is also lots of geological evidence of the flood, for instance fossilized shellfish found as high as the Himilayas. Carbon dating is not reliable, although many scientists pretend it is. It is reliant on a perfectly constant rate of decay and it has been absolutely proven that many conditions have dramatically accelerated the rate of decay in the observable past alone. It also affected by atmospheric levels of carbon which are not constant either.

Evolution as a belief system is problematic. I won't even begin to go there, but would encourage anyone interested to do some reading, it's readily available. In short, there just really isn't an scientific evidence to support it. Where are all those transistional species anyway?!? Macro evolution (the kind which transforms say an ameoba into a frog over time) simply does not exist. It is true that though that micro evolution, species adapation, does occur. We can clearly see that at work in around us today, take for instance dog or horse breeding.

Finally, questions of race and family origin can sometimes be confusing for children and adults alike. Why do we have 'races' at all if we're all descended from Adam and Eve? Quite simply we are all different shades of the same color- brown. As we spread outward after the flood our skin color changed as a result of climate. It's also confusing for children to realize that we are all descended from a brother/sister pair. This did not create genetic havoc simply because the very first people were absolutely genetically perfect. God made them that way! In fact the further we are from the fall the more genetic flaws we have, making it highly dangerous genetically to marry a close relative today as this would greatly magnify our genetic imperfections.

Like with most every issue I consider this all chiefly from the mother point of view. I believe that equipping my children with these answers is so very important. It's both unkind and unwise to send them out into the world unprepared to refute the false information that will surround them. Even more importantly they came home last weekend not just excited about dinosaurs, rocks, and floods but truly on fire for God! In my opinion this area is a powerful and often overlooked evangelism tool.

Okay, enough said. I had planned to post a reading list, but won't get a chance to do so today. If your interested, drop me a line and I'll share my personal faves and do check out the answers website I linked to yesterday, they'll certainly point you in the right direction as well.