What I believe and why I believe it and how I got to where I am.

I will tell you my little history. I would say for the most part, I could care less about creation/evolution. On the whole, it has no impact on my life whatsoever. If, for example, I stopped posting to my blog and Ray Comfort's site and laid aside science, it wouldn't make one iota bit of difference in terms of how I live my life. I hope that makes sense. Actually, that isn't altogether true because studying these things has opened up my understanding of God in a way that I never thought possible. But I just mean, I could live and die without delving into this and probably wouldn't have to think about it.

With all that said, I am a home educator. My only understanding of creation came through homeschool materials and some tapes that were given to me by my bil from Kent Hovind's ministry. They spoke of things like a vapor canopy covering the earth to protect it from ultra violet radiation so that our dating techniques were not accurate. They were heavy duty on the Flood and how this reconciles these misconceptions of science. They spoke of the stars perhaps having a faster speed of light at one point to direct their light here and so what appears to be millions of light years away was brought here supernaturally. They explained that if God could create man whole in a day, He can do anything.

To be honest, there was always a ?? in the back of my mind but I didn't have a clue why. The majority of my friends were under the impression that this was truth and I wasn't really offered any other alternatives.

Even before this, I was given a copy of Hugh Ross's testimony. I loved it! I thought it was great the way he had attempted to disprove all holy books scientifically, historically, prophetically based on the realities of what we know. I loved the way the verse in Job on the Pleiades star cluster being bound was remarkable to him because we didn't actually know that until after the Hubble telescope brought this to light. He was also impressed with the way Moses got all the creation events in the right order. Of course, he was coming at this from a scientific perspective not even realizing there was controversy over these things and that others had interpreted those days as actual 24 hour days.

I was given a YEC book at one time. I opened it up and the first chapter was a slam on Hugh Ross. I closed the book because I simply think that if you are going to make a point about truth, a character attack is unnecessary. Just make your point.

So that was about all the input on creation that I had for many, many years and I lived my life just fine with that aspect of truth on the back burner.

Then my husband and I, through Ray Comfort, began to see that our entire understanding of the gospel message was not even in the ballpark. To be honest, I think Ray's understanding is growing as well even now. Anyway, we got really excited about the message. See, we are not rich people - on purpose. We could have a lot of money if I worked outside our home. But I don't. So we are constantly under the financial gun. Thus when we would give a message that says, "God has a plan for your life," it seemed like a rather ridiculous point. So we never shared our faith. It is funny how bad teaching muddies the waters so that you can't really see clearly what the message actually is. When your perspective is skewed, it is easy to feel that God has let you down. But when you see this thing properly, it's like every single puzzle piece fits!

Anyway, I felt God wanted me to start talking to atheists. I met a young man on Jed Smock's message board who called himself FIU student. He hammered me day and night on evolution etc for three solid months. I began looking for the answers to his questions. I bought a debate at that point from Answers in Genesis - Hugh Ross vs. Ken Ham and I have to tell you, that was a pivotal point for me. Once again, it was obvious that we were getting much bogus information and it made me mad to say the least. The point that knocked it over the centerfield fence for both Doug and me was that if this earth is only 6000 years old, then God is deceiving us when we test it as old because those stars are billions of light years away indicating billions of years. And see, I knew God. And I knew God doesn't deceive.

I began to see how many young people were walking away from God by the droves because when they innocently tried to defend their faith through YEC, they were easily shot down and made to look the fool. What made me the angriest was the fact that Ken Ham knew that his theories were full of holes where Hugh Ross was easily reconciling the biblical text to the truth of science and yet, Dr. Ham continues to talk to congregations of people about YEC as though we are crazy heretics for not believing the Bible. Hugh Ross made it clear that he believes in the Bible's inerrant truth but apparently, this point is deceitfully withheld from the general Christian public. The only way anyone could know that fact though is if they actually checked it out.

But most Christians are too afraid to see things any other way. They are scared to death of what they will find because basically, they are comfortable believing in YEC. As I said, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't make a hill o' beans difference in terms of their apparent happiness. Now I say that but actually knowing these things does make a world of difference in understanding who God is and why we are here but to them, it is not worth it to check it out because status quo is working just fine for them. That is until their children go out and try to share their faith.

The fear of science is built into the entire system. We see people leaving the faith and the assumption is that it is these mean ole scientists who are doing this. The reason they are leaving is because the scientists are holding pieces of obvious irrefutable truth that they can easily show as truth through research and repeatable testing that absolutely proves that YEC is not true. For example, the big bang was yet another thing that was held up as bogus teaching. But we were never told from science that there were other dimensions involved and we were never told from a Christian perspective the absolute accuracy that this moment produced nor that it pointed to a beginning through general relativity. "Let there be light." If scientists have a flaw it is believing that the rest of us common folk could never understand their superior teaching. So they give us a basic truth without any of the rest of the story like say gravity. And if the modern day apostate church has a flaw is that it does not uphold but about a fourth of what the Bible teaches per their favorite verses.

Creation makes a difference though in how we perceive God. Why? Because think about it. If YEC is true, then the animals didn't die before the fall, T-Rex, velociraptor, and megalodon are the result of sin and all that God created here was pleasant and happy before man sinned. But if old earth creationism is true, then perhaps God was trying to send us a clear message such as that He is terrifying at times and soft and gentle at other times since His invisible attributes are evidenced in nature through creation. Perhaps with that perspective people would see that God can and will wipe out entire races of people whom He can no longer tolerate after much patience and slowness to anger giving chance after chance to change.

I said this the other day but when we see these events in the Bible such as the wiping out of the Midianites, instead of stepping back and declaring the Book a lie because now God is not this all loving benevolent God according to Pastor All-Loving-and-No-Substance, maybe He is showing the same attributes He has shown right from the beginning in T-Rex, megalodon and velociraptor. Now these attributes are clearly seen.

See, that is one of the aspects of our lives here that is so important. God cannot reveal Himself to us overtly for several reasons. Firstly, our rebellion toward Him would assure us a place in hell's fire like it did the angels. It would no doubt force us to accept Him whether we want to or not. With faith coupled with our conscience and the power of His Spirit and our own free will choice, there is always the possibility of repentance and reconciliation to Him. Secondly, He says that His invisible attributes are clearly seen in creation so that man is without excuse. And He says in Thessalonians to test all things. So if we test something within creation, which is apparently clearly seen and it doesn't fit what we thought was being communicated through the Bible, we can't come up with a supernatural idea to make our preconceived understanding fit. See it isn't that God can't work outside of the natural world that He created as much as that He won't. He wants you to test these things to see if they are so. That is such an important aspect of why things are the way they are. The folks that do that testing are called scientists. And the Bible is the only Holy Book that contains many pages of testable truth. No other holy book comes close.

I am not sorry that the YEC movement exists only because I think we had to exhaust that hypothesis for the sake of some who would still believe, that the earth was young much like the small minority of flat earth believers in their day.

Vera