Monday, December 30, 2019

Evidence that the Jews were in Egypt and that King David has Existed

Over 100 people in the Bible have been verified in archeology, 
see time 20:17–22:45 in the video Math And The Bible.
  • When the Jews left Egypt and crossed the Jordan, they built an altar of uncut stones, covered with plaster, on mount Ebal (Deu (5 Mos) 27:4–6). The highest peaks were reserved for the idols, but some distance from the top of mount Ebal, the altar has been found, two-thirds of the way up, by
    Dr Adam Zertal. The acoustics in that area are amazing, which was needed when they read the law (Deu (5 Mos) 27:11–13). They found 942 bones in the area from sheep, goats, and cattle, animals that the Jews used for sacrifice. Pottery was dated to the time of the Exodus by Moses out of Egypt. The discovery of this altar has major implications. This means that what is written in Deuteronomy, and at least part of what is written in Joshua, must be scientifically true.
  • Twelve standing stones have been found in the area of Gilgal, near Jericho, by Dr Adam Zertal (Joshua 4:19–20).
  • Cypriot pottery has been discovered at Jericho by Bryant Wood, pottery which should be there if it's of the time of Joshua. He also found continuous series of Egyptian scarabs with dated inscriptions from the time of the Exodus. He found storage containers that had been full of grain. The Jews came to Jericho at the time of harvest (Joshua 3:15). They burned
    Jericho with the grain (Joshua 6:24). It's confirmed that most parts of
    Jericho were burned and that the walls have fallen (Joshua 6:20). 
    Bryant Wood also found a small portion of the north wall still standing, containing a house that may be the house where Rahab lived
    (Joshua 2:15, 6:22–23).
  • Archaeological inscriptions have been found of the prophet Balaam who lived with the Moabites (Numbers (4 Mos) 22:4–6). The text is translated as "Warnings given by Balaam, the son of Beor. A Seer of the gods". This Deir Alla inscription is found in a building at Deir Alla in the Jordan, made by the Amorites (Numbers (4 Mos) 21:21–26). (The Moabites
    (along with the Ammonites) came from Lot and his two daughters
    (Genesis (1 Mos) 19:36–38)). The Bible contains a story with Balaam and a talking donkey (Numbers (4 Mos) 22:22–35), see Balaam and Balak. 
  • The people of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the tabernacle there for more than 300 years (Joshua 18:1). Shiloh was the capital of Israel at the time. The site of the tabernacle has been found during archaeological excavations. 
  • Solomon's fortified gates (1 Kings 9:15) have been found at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. The pottery found at these sites is from Solomon's time. This reinforces Solomon as a historical figure. 
  • Ketef Hinnom amulets have been found in Jerusalem from the First Temple
    period. It has inscriptions from Numbers (4 Mos) 6:24–26. By infrared technology, almost the entire chapter has been found engraved on the back of the amulets (Jeremiah 17:1). With pottery it's dated to the time of Jeremiah, 400 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. The text is accurate like the text we have today.
  • The kingdom of Israel was divided after Solomon, see 
    Rehoboam and Jeroboam, and the Division of Israel. Jeroboam, who became king of ten tribes in the northern kingdom of Israel, built altars in Dan and Bethel to prevent the people from returning to Jerusalem. The altar of Dan has been found at Tel Dan in northern Israel. The altar at Bethel was destroyed (1 Kings 13:1–6).
  • Archaeological inscriptions have been found on a stone at Dan about the House of David. It describes a battle between king Hazael of Syria and the kings of Judah and Israel (2 Chronicles 22:5). It contains the translated text "I destroyed the House of David". 
  • The City of David is the city that David concurred from the Jebusites,
    it's Jerusalem where David was given a house to live in (2 Sam 5:6–11). The City of David is today a part of Jerusalem south of the Temple Mount. 51 seals have been found in the remains of an archive building in the 
    City of David, dating from the end of the First Temple period,
    when the Babylonians came and burned everything.
    26 of the seals contain texts of people mentioned in the Bible:
  • A water shaft is mentioned in 2 Sam 5:8. The water came from
    Gihon Spring that supplied Jerusalem with water (2 Chronicles 32:30),
    see King Hezekiah of Judah. Gihon is also mentioned as the place where Solomon was anointed king (1 Kings 1:33–34).
  • King David's palace has been found by Dr Eilat Mazar. It was built by Hiram, king of Tyre (2 Sam 5:11). It has therefore a Phoenician style.
    It's at least six levels high, 200 yards (180 m) across. The pottery is dated from the time of David, tenth century BC. It's located just below the Temple Mount. The Bible text in 2 Sam 5:17 helped to locate the place.
    There are biblical texts that describe the creation of a Phoenician-style palace belonging to David high on a certain mountain, around the end of the eleventh or beginning of the tenth century BC. The palace was found when excavating that site using biblical texts and previous archaeological findings.
  • A new Egyptian chronology has been created, see the
    New Egyptian Chronology.
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Friday, December 20, 2019

Evidence for Creation

The Earth and the universe have either been created by an intelligent mind,
or have come into being by themselves by chance.

Creationists and evolutionists have different presuppositions, different ways of interpreting an observation. The reason is that a person's worldview determines
how an observation should be interpreted. The Bible is the ultimate standard for
a creationist. For an evolutionist, it's naturalism (nature is all there is, no God is involved in creation), or strict empiricism (all true statements are proven by empirical research).

There is no neutral ground where a creationist and an evolutionist can meet 
(Mat 12:30, Rom 8:7, James 4:4, Tit 1:9). Since the Bible indicates that there is
no "neutral", the claim of neutrality is itself unbiblical.

My view is that only biblical presuppositions give correct interpretations 
(Proverbs 1:7, 26:4–5, Col 2:3, Rom 1:18–20, 1 Pet 3:15). Only the Bible can understand what is necessary for knowledge. If the Bible isn't true, it would be impossible to prove anything. The Bible is the absolute foundation of knowledge:
All non-Christian worldviews must in some extent stand on the Christian worldview.

That being said, I interpret the following observations as evidence that the Earth and the universe were created by an intelligent mind:
  • The rocky planets in our solar system, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, are called the Terrestrial planets. It's not possible for these planets to form by pebbles by themselves to a size bigger than a meter. Then they would have enough matter to break apart when they collide with other matter. Things aren't big enough for gravity to take over. The pebbles will also rotate towards the sun.

    The current secular explanation is that the objects must have grown very quickly from small pebbles to 100 km large bodies, possible in a single leap. This is the best explanation they have. But it's not a scientific model. See problems with this explanation at time 9:42–15:10 in
    PhD Christian Scientist Exposes the HUGE Faults in Cosmic Evolution.
  • The gas giant planets in our solar system are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, but we know almost nothing about how it was created, if it was created by chance. Theories predict that the giant protoplanets will merge into the central star before the planets have time to form. This is the case for both Jupiter and Saturn.
  • Enceladus is a moon of Saturn. It has water geysers. The problem is that it's not a large object and is far too old according to secular scientists to be geologically active. It's not a problem if it's thousands of years old, but it's a problem if it's billions of years old. It can't be explained by gravitational forces from Saturn.
  • Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. It has a lot of methane in its atmosphere. All the methane should have been broken down by sunlight alone in only 10 million years. Titan is thought to be 4.5 billion years old.
  • Astronomers can't explain how Uranus and Neptune could be formed by chance so far away from the Sun.
  • Pluto has large terrains where it has no crater. There must have been recent volcanic activity to achieve it. This isn't a problem if Pluto is thousands of years old, but it's a problem if it's billions of years old.
  • Stars are made of gas and are the maiden building blocks of the universe. A gas cloud in space doesn't form stars, because the outgoing gas pressure is much stronger than their gravity. Once you have a star, gravity is strong enough to keep it as a star. Gravity is much stronger at short distances. But it's not like that in a gas cloud, see time 15:12–20:42 in
    PhD Christian Scientist Exposes the HUGE Faults in Cosmic Evolution.
  • The universe is logical and ordered according to laws and nature,
    which work in the same way throughout time throughout the universe,
    and our mind can understand many things about the universe, see 
    What is Information?
  • The Sun confirms creation, see Origins: The Sun.
See the basics of astronomy explained showing the truth in the Bible in 
time 29:56–40:24 in "Astronomy Reveals Creation" with Dr. Jason Lisle.

The Biblical Creation and the Fall of Man show the biblical explanation. 
Time 4:17–20:02 in Understanding Genesis || Guest Speaker Dr. Jason Lisle
shows the importance of the biblical creation in the Book of Genesis. 

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Thursday, December 19, 2019

Short Animated Videos Proving that God Exists

God and mathematics

What good is Christianity?

Did Jesus rise from the dead? - Part one: The facts

Did Jesus rise from the dead? - Part two: The explanation

Who is Jesus?

Who did Jesus think he was?

How Can Jesus Be the Only Way?

The Problem of Those Who Have Never Heard of Christ

What of Those Who Died Before Christ? (Not animated)

The fine-tuning of the Universe

What is the probability of a functional protein existing by chance?

Origin: Probability of a single protein forming by chance

Can you be good without God?

Atheists Trying to Have Their Cake and Eat It Too on Morality (Not animated)

Suffering and evil: The logical problem

Suffering and evil: The probability version

The Kalam cosmological argument

The ontological argument

Leibniz' contingency argument

Is there meaning to life?

The four great discoveries of modern science that prove God exists (Not animated)

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The Christmas Star

The Christmas star is described in Mat 2:1–12. See as background: Herod and the Magi: Political Intrigue, Mass Murder, and the Birth of Jesus | Matthew 2:1-23.
  • Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Mat 2:1). The place was prophesied
    (Micah 5:2, John 7:42).
  • Wise men came from the east and asked for the born king of the Jews
    (Mat 2:1–2). They were probably from Persia. They were respected scholars with great knowledge in astronomy. In the ancient world, astronomy was about the movement of celestial bodies. At that time,
    some scholars even had the knowledge to predict eclipses.
  • The wise men believed that the star indicated on a born king of the Jews. They might be familiar with the Old Testament. Balaam's fourth prophecy (Num (4 Mos) 24:17) mentions that a star will come out of Jacob (Israel). The Jews had been refugees in Babylon (Persia) 500 years earlier, where Daniel held a high position. The book of Daniel (Dan 9:25) may be familiar, which gave them the time when Messiah would appear, see 
    5) The 69 Weeks in the Book of Daniel in When Did Jesus Die and when Was He Born? They may therefore believe that the rising of the star at that time indicated the birth of Messiah in Israel.
  • The wise men first went to Jerusalem (Mat 2:1) (it's very close to
    Bethlehem), where they asked for the newborn king (Mat 2:2). They received the answer that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Mat 2:3–8).
  • Herod the Great and the Jews didn't know about the star (Mat 2:7), so it was probably not brighter than other stars. It was only unique in such a way that experienced astronomers like the wise men could notice it.
  • Herod killed all the male children in Bethlehem and that region that were two years old or younger, according to the time he had learned from the wise men (Mat 2:16), see time 1:09–8:00 in How a non-Jewish family ruled in Israel for nearly a century and made it into the Bible forever!
    The wise men probably came from a place in Persia, 650 miles (~1000 km) east of Jerusalem. After they saw the star, it probably took a number of months before they got to Jerusalem. Jesus was brought to the temple in Jerusalem when he was at least 41 days old according to the law, where they sacrificed two turtledoves or two pigeons because they were poor
    (Luk 2:22–24, Lev (3 Mos) 12:2–4, 6, 8). This indicates that they hadn't yet received the gold from the wise men. Herod was a very cruel man and probably wanted a significant margin when he killed all male children up to two years of age. The shepherds met Jesus when he was just born
    (Luk 2:8–20), but the wise men came a number of months later to the house where Jesus was (Mat 2:11). See When was Jesus born? in 
    When Did Jesus Die and when Was He Born?
  • The wise men saw the star on at least two occasions. First in Persia when they went to Jerusalem, and the second time when it showed them the place in Bethlehem where Jesus was. The star then moved and led the
    wise men to the house where Jesus was, where it stayed (Mat 2:9),
    see time 27:23–29:28 in Matthew 2 – Called a Nazarene. 
    They knew it was in Bethlehem, but the star showed them the house in Bethlehem where Jesus was.
In the ancient world the star meant all celestial bodies including planets and comets. A popular explanation is that the star was a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Regulus. But it isn't a star, and the wise men were probably familiar with the conjunction of 
celestial bodies. And the triple conjunction occurred after Herod died. Later there was another conjunction between Jupiter and Venus, also after Herod died.

The wise men saw the star on at least two occasions, over a period of several months. The second time the star moved to the place where Jesus was where it stopped (Mat 2:9). There is no natural celestial body that acts in that way. 

The conclusion is that the star was a supernatural manifestation of God's power. 

Why did the wise men go west? A natural star rises in the east and sets in the west, but it appears this one rose in the west. This strange behavior brought it to the attention of the wise men, trained in astronomy. That explains why only the wise men noticed it. It didn't have to be brighter than any other star. It explains Balaam's fourth prophecy (Num (4 Mos) 24:17). This star rose from Israel, west of Persia.

To summarize:
  1. The star was a supernatural source of light.
  2. It wasn't brighter than other stars.
  3. It rose over the place where Jesus was.
  4. It took a number of months for the wise men to come to Jesus' place.
  5. The star rose in the west as seen from Persia.
  6. The star moved and stopped over the house where Jesus was. 
See also Some stories in the gospels at the bottom of The Four Gospels.
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Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Evidence for a Young Earth

Content:

  • Background
  • Astronomical Evidence for a Young Earth
  • Human History Corresponds to a Young Age
  • Radiometric Dating and the Age of the Earth
  • Biological Evidence for a Young Earth
  • Geological Evidence for a Young Earth
  • The Distant Starlight Problem

Background

    The Bible indicates that the Earth and the universe are young, roughly
    less than 10,000 years according to Earth time, see time 5:14–7:52 in
    Bible Q & A With Pastor Paul │ August 2023. People who believe in an old Earth
    and an old universe, estimates the Earth to be 4.5 billion years old and the universe
    to 13.8     billions years. Quite a difference. Who is right? 

    For background, see the following videos:

    Astronomical Evidence for a Young Earth

    1. The existence of short-period comets with orbital periods of less than 200 years, such as Halley's Comet (with a lifetime of less than 20,000 years)
      is consistent with the age of our solar system being less than 10,000 years.
      Comets are made of icy material that is constantly being depleted, as solar wind and radiation blast the material into space. A typical comet can't therefore last more than 100,000 years. But we can still see short-period comets. Secular astronomers explain this as short-period comets originating
      in the Kuiper belt. There is no evidence for that.
    2. Jupiter emits twice as much energy as it receives from the Sun. Such a process can't continue for billions of years. Jupiter still has an internal heat, it hasn't cooled. The problem is the grater for Neptune, which emits 2.6 times as much as it receives from the Sun. How can it still have an internal heat if it's billions of years old? These planets have no radioactive elements that can activate heat.
    3. Jupiter has a huge magnetic field. It's too high for life. Uranus and
      Neptune have magnetic fields. They shouldn't have such strong magnetic fields if they were billions of years old.
    4. The Moon now moves 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) away from Earth once a year. Going back at most 1.4 billion years, the Moon would touch the Earth, which of course isn't possible, but can be seen as an upper limit. The secular view is that Earth and Moon are 4.5 billion years old, which isn't possible, see
      Where Did the Moon Come from?
    5. The Faint Young Sun Paradox describes the apparent contradiction between observations of liquid water early in Earth's history and the expectation that the Sun's output would be only 70% as intense in that epoch as it is in the modern epoch, if the Sun is 4.6 billion years old. This means that the Sun should have become 40% brighter (0.7x1.4=0.98) since it formed and 25% brighter since life appeared on Earth. 25% means a temperature increase of 16–18°C. Since the current average temperature is 15°C, the Earth should then have had a temperature of -2°C when life appeared. It's not a paradox
      for a young Earth.
    6. Spiral galaxies rotate faster closer to the center. It's known how fast their arms rotate, so it's possible to test it in computer simulations. The secular view is that the spiral galaxies are 10 billion years old. If the spiral galaxies are only
      a few hundred million years old, it shouldn't be possible to see the arms of the galaxies any longer. See this explained at time 21:06–23:35 in
      PhD Christian Scientist Exposes the HUGE Faults in Cosmic Evolution.

      All spiral galaxies also appear to be in mature states in the observable universe, see Explanation Model in The Big-Bang Model Revealed.
    7. The galaxies contain many blue stars. They expand their fuel quickly. The hottest blue stars can't last tens of millions of years. The secular explanation
      is that these blue stars have formed recently from a nebula collapse. The problem with that explanation is that the gravity in a nebula is much lower than the gas pressure that wants to expand the gas. A blue star is the hardest star to make. Astronomers haven't seen a star form      , see time: 

    Human History Corresponds to a Young Age

    1. Secular dating indicates the origin of agriculture around 10,000 years ago.
      At the same time, the same chronology says that modern man has probably existed for 200,000 years. If so, someone would surely have started sowing seeds of plants earlier to produce food.
    2. Lack of evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations elsewhere in our 
      Milky Way galaxy, see The Fermi Paradox.
    3. Mitochondria and Y-chromosome speak for a young origin of man, see
      The Origin of Man. It shows that t      he breakdown of the human genome due to the large number of deleterious mutations in each generation is consistent with an origin of only thousands of years ago. This has been confirmed by realistic population genetic modeling, which shows that the human genome is young on the order of thousands of years.
    4. Charles Darwin got it wrong, see How Darwin Got It Wrong.

    Radiometric Dating and the Age of the Earth

    1. Radiocarbon dating (C-14 dating) is a method of determining the age of an object containing organic matter by using the properties of C-14. The older a sample is, the less C-14 should be detected. The half-life of C-14 (the period of time after which half of a given sample has decayed) is only about 5730 years. The oldest dates that can be measured by this process are about 70,000 years. After that time there is too little C-14 left to measure. This means that if there is a significant amount of C-14 left in a material, it must be much younger than 70,000 years.

      S      ignificant amounts of C-14 have been detected in all organic materials measured with the C-14 dating method, even in bones from dinosaurs, see Dinosaurs and the Bible. C-14 has been found in fossils all the way
      back to the Cambrian period estimated by evolutionists to be
      about 600 million years old, but must then be less than 70,000 years old.
    2. C-14 in coal, oil, and fossil wood speaks for an age of thousands of years and clearly contradicts millions of years. Experiments show that oil and coal can be formed quickly by pressure and heat, see How fast can oil form?

      There is C-14 inside diamonds. The secular estimated age of diamonds is more than three billion years. When John Baumgardner sent a diamond to a laboratory for C-14 dating, the report gave an age of about 58,000 years.
    3. Dating a rock with different radiometric dating should give approximately the same date if they are reliable. They don't give that. They always give different dates. Even when using the same method, the wrong date is received, as the following examples show:
      • When dating lava from the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens using the K-Ar dating method, incorrect values were given, see
        Errors in the Radiometric Dating Methods.
      • When dating volcanic material in Sunset Crater, Arizona, known to be 900 years old, it was dated using the K-Ar dating method to be 210,000 – 230,000 years old.
      • When C-14 dating was applied to date wood found in lava in Australia, it gave the measured date 45,000 years. Another lab using the K-Ar dating method got the date 44 million years for the lava part. They should have been given the same date for both cases.
      • In 1801 there was an eruption in the volcano Hualalai in Hawaii. Three samples were dated a few years ago using the K-Ar dating
        method:
        1. 0 million years old.
        2. 12 million years old.
        3. 21 million years old.
      • An artificial copper bell was found in carbon dated to be 300 million year old.
    4. See time 31:28–49:20 in Science Confirms Biblical Creation | Dr. Jason Lisle.

    Biological Evidence for a Young Earth

    1. DNA is found in "ancient" fossils. DNA extracted from bacteria believed to be 425 million years old, can't possibly be that old because DNA can be preserved for thousands of years at most because of chemical reasons.
    2. Many fossil bones "dated" to many millions of years are barely or not at all fossilized. This contradicts the general view of the great age of the Earth.
      The record is held by tubes of sea brush worms, "dated" to 550 million years, which are soft, elastic, and originally composed of organic compounds.
    3. Hundreds of living fossils such as jellyfish, graptolites, broom fins, stromatolites, wollemitals. That several hundreds of species could remain unchanged, even up to billions of years in the case of stromatolites,
      speaks against the reality of millions and billions of years.

    Geological Evidence for a Young Earth

    1. The Earth has a magnetic field based on electrical current. Electrical current goes down in the meantime. The magnetic field is exponential decaying with the half-time of 1611 ±10 years. It's an exponential decline with fluctuations, especially during and after the Flood, as shown by historical measurements and consistent with the hypothesis of a continuous decline since creation.
      This suggests an age of the Earth of only thousands of years. If you go back in time 6000 years, it becomes 20 times stronger, which is good for life. If you go back in time 50,000 years, it will be 56 billion times stronger, and no life is then possible. If you go back 60,000 years, the magnetic field becomes stronger than a neutron star.
    2. It doesn't take millions of years to form stalactites or stalagmites. These are found formed rapidly under bridges, man-made caves, and basements.
    3. An aircraft landed in Greenland during World War II and were retrieved 
      46 years later. It was then buried with 250 feet (75 m) of snow.
      It's possible to get deep snow very quickly.
    4. It doesn't take millions of years to form fossils. There are several examples of fossils formed in just a few months, weeks, days, and even hours, see
      Evolutionists, You’ve Been Caught Lying About Fossils.

    The Distant Starlight Problem


    A question that often comes up is how we can see far away stars if the universe is young, if it takes millions of years for light to reach Earth. It's called:
    "The distant starlight problem". We know the speed of light, but it's the average of the two-way speed of light: from me to a distant object and then back to me. 
    It's impossible to measure the one-way speed of light, physicists have tried to do it for hundred of years without success. It's permitted according to the laws of nature to choose another convention. I can choose the Anisotropic Synchrony Convention (ASC) that the speed of light from me is half the average speed of light and that the light back to me is instantaneous. This gives the same average speed of light. All the law of physics work for that convention. 
    That means all I see in the sky is when that happens too. It's believed that the Bible is written according to that convention (Gen (1 Mos) 1:14–19).
    When God created the stars, the light from the stars immediately reached the Earth according to that convention. 

    See ASC explained and why it's impossible to measure one-way speed of light:
    There is a distinction between Anisotropic Synchrony Model (ASM) and ASC.
    ASM is developed by Dr. Jason Lisle. It shows that the Bible is using ASC. 
    God then created everything in a mature state during the creation week.
    See faulty attempts to falsify     ASM explained during these times in the video 
    DISTANT STARLIGHT | AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. JASON LISLE    :
    • Time 1:01:24–1:02:56. 
    • Time 1:12:35–1:15:03.
    • Time 1:17:20–1:20:15.
    • Time 1:28:52–1:30:34. 
    • Time 1:31:06–1:32:24.
    • Time 1:33:05–1:36:03.
    • Time 1:36:44–1:38:12.
    • Time 1:39:47–1:41:14.
    • Time 1:42:14–1:44:36.
    • Time 1:46:55–1:48:05.
    • Time 1:48:54–1:53:39.
    • Time 1:57:34–1:59:02.
    • Time 1:59:16–2:00:22
    That the light in one direction can come instantaneously can be an explanation for the behavior of Quantum Entanglement, see these times in the videos:
    There are other explanations to "The distant starlight problem". For example; God may have used a supernatural mechanism during creation week and allowed the current laws of nature to begin operating on the seventh day of creation week or after creation week. See the suggestion of Dasha (mature creation) explained at: 
    However, some other proposed explanations aren't plausible, see
    time     59:21–1:05:09 in "Astronomy Reveals Creation" with Dr. Jason Lisle.

    The Big-Bang model has a similar light travel problem,
    the so-called Horizon Problem, see     time 24:29–27:42 in 
    Did the James Webb Space Telescope Disprove ...? 

    See also Scientific Problems with the Big-Bang Model in 

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