If I Say it Enough It’s True

[Originally published as Triceratops vs. the Redundant Religion of Darwinism]

A recent Creation Today video featuring Eric Hovind and me in a museum of natural history became the focus of some controversy when a “friendly” internet atheist described it by saying, “Creationists Pathetically Try to Debunk a Museum of Natural History.” As I explained in my reply to his critique, (Read that here)  we weren’t trying to debunk anything, and when we pointed to the signs asserting billions of years and said, “Not True,” we were not making an argument, but merely:

Meeting One Unsubstantiated Assertion with Another

One of the points I made in reply was that these dates of millions or billions of years are simply thrown at the museum’s visitors with no scientific defense. There is no accompanying information which explains WHY one ought to accept the idea that Mt. Rushmore is truly 1.6 billion years old. The sign merely says, “Mt. Rushmore, 1.6 Billion Years ago” and we, the visitors, are left to assume that since this is hanging in a museum SOME scientists SOMEWHERE have a valid reason for asserting this age.

We are expected to have faith…Blind Faith.

It was the same at the Grand Canyon. Information about the rock layers have dates of millions or billions of years on signs and displays all around the rim of the canyon. In the four days we spent there this summer, I saw MANY such assertions of those ages, but I do not remember seeing a single reason given as to why we should accept those dates. The justification is assumed to exist somewhere else, but it is never given.

Over and over, we are assaulted with BILLIONS OF YEARS and expected to put blind faith in the evolutionary establishment’s claims.

Naturally, as we are in the business of making arguments for the Young Earth Biblical Creation position, we are also familiar with the arguments made for deep time. We are aware of radio dating methods and other uniformitarian assumptions which are proposed as arguments for those dates. Like so many other YEC ministries, we have offered the reasons why those dates are not valid scientific discoveries (as so many would assert) but rather are based on an unbiblical and illogical interpretation of data.

In short:

It requires assumptions and circular reasoning to justify the dates on the Museum of Natural History and Grand Canyon signage.

More often than not, it is merely faith in evolution being used as evidence for evolution.

My purpose in this article is not to debate the evolutionary arguments, but rather to make you more aware that the propaganda of deep time does not rely on science, logical arguments, or evidence. Like much of evolutionary theory, the deep time ages rely on the audience hearing the assumptions repeated over and over until they become a normalized background to our culture.

SPREADING LIES IS EASY

Joseph Geobbels (Nazi politician and minister of propaganda in the 1930s and 40s) is credited with having said,

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it…It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

As Satan is the father of lies (and not a very creative being) the tactic of saturating people with lies and suppressing the truth is a common one, and here once again, we see it in action. Every time the age of the earth (or anything living on it) is discussed in any capacity, we see and hear “millions and billions of years ago…” with the insinuation that somewhere else reasons to believe these dates exist. And as we have seen, there is little tolerance for those who question the dogma of the evolutionary establishment.

This is not merely a criticism of one museum of course, but of the entire evolutionary propaganda machine. The dogma of evolution is asserted, even when irrelevant, and can NOT be questioned without violent push-back.  Punishment from authorities comes down at the first hint of dissent. This is true of universities, public schools, science publications, and other organizations. For more on that, I recommend Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

“It’s 65 million years old.”

A recent, widely publicized news story once again provides examples of how these evolutionary dates are merely thrown at us with no justification. Just as in the museum and at the Grand Canyon, the media seems to have some sort of dedication to remind us over and over that “millions of years” is simply a fact we are expected to accept.

Here are two examples of what I mean from CBS and NPR respectively.

The CBS story was titled: “College student finds 65-million-year-old Triceratops skull in North Dakota.”

The text of the story includes the following quotes;

“A college student from California has been obsessed with dinosaurs since he was a young boy, but never expected to discover a 65-million-year-old Triceratops skull on a recent dig in North Dakota.”

“The two were shocked when they came across the partial skull of a 65-million-year-old Triceratops.”

We are never told why they believe the Triceratops was 65 million years old.

This is merely asserted as a fact, along with the name of the student and the state he found it in, as if it was one of the observations made at the scene of the discovery. No reason is given as to the date provided.

Similarly, the NPR article about the same story is titled, “College Student Discovers 65-Million-Year-Old Triceratops Skull.” It includes a photo of the student and fossil captioned, “Harrison Duran, 23, poses with Alice, the 65-million-year-old partial skull of a triceratops.”

The story includes the following two quotes.

“Now 23, Duran is responsible for his own fossil discovery: the 65-million-year-old partial skull of a triceratops.”

“He hopes that the 65-million-year-old skull will stimulate interest in the land before time and the world of nature.”

In this one very short article, the date of 65 million years is given in the title, a photo caption, and twice in the story, but never is there ANY explanation as to how that date was determined or why we should accept it. It is merely stated as a brute fact for us to accept, just as it was in the Origins wing of the Museum of Natural History. The age of the fossil is so disproportionately important to the NPR article’s author, that in the second quote he chooses to repeat the alleged age instead of repeating what kind of dinosaur it is.

A search for this story online finds that the majority of articles include the alleged date of the triceratops in the title of the story. Then there’s the Sacramento Bee which titled their article this way:

“UC Merced student discovers giant dinosaur skull. It’s 65 million years old.”

I don’t think you need to be a Young Earth Creationist to believe that the title should have said, “It’s a Triceratops.” Once again someone decided that assaulting the reader with these dates of MILLIONS OF YEARS was more important than even what kind of dinosaur was discovered.

Based on the emphasis of the AGE of the fossil, it seems they are the most concerned with sharing an agenda. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all of the people responsible for these articles and signage at museums and state parks are fully aware that they are doing this. I’m assuming that, like many, they blindly accept these dates and repeat them as if they are an observation, because in their minds the dates and the species of dinosaur are the same kind of fact—the ones for which they are certain someone else has proper justification. They probably never even think to ask where those dates come from, and so they repeat them to us, the readers, over and over, like a mantra, expecting us to have the same blind faith they have in these unproven assertions.

On Mantras, Religion and Intellectual Laziness

Thus, this issue is one of the complaints young earth creationists like me have with the evolutionary establishment (and their friends in the media), their doctrine being repeated over and over like a mantra. Like the prayers Muslims recite five times every day, one is expected to repeat what they have been told about evolution and are strongly dissuaded from ever questioning it. In place of Qurans and prayer rugs, public school students are given textbooks and desks where they are forced to recite the creeds of Darwin day after day in more than just their science classes.

• As kindergartners learn about dinosaurs, they hear, “Millions of years ago…”
• As students learn about history, they read, “The first humans evolved from apes…”
• As students are given plays and novels, they are given “Inherit the Wind,” a misrepresentation of the Scopes Trial intended to further indoctrinate them into the “fact” of evolution as they are told how irrational and “anti-science” those religious Bible-bangers were…
• And in textbooks, in newspaper articles, in movies, in the cartoons they watch as kids…

Evolution, cave men, Big Bang, millions of years, over and over and over.

No one questions it. The adults around them believe it, so they assume those parents and teachers have valid reasons. If they express doubt, they are met with hostility.

“There is no creator but Evolution, and Darwin is his prophet…” Repeat.

The Origins wing at the museum and these articles about the discovery of a fossil are typical in their assertion of millions or billions of years with absolutely no reasons given as to why those dates ought to be accepted. We simply hear “Millions of years” or “Billions of years,” over and over and over, until many in our culture find it ridiculous to even hear it questioned. Many who accept these dates wouldn’t be able to offer a single valid reason for accepting them.  They have been taught for years and years to simply accept these assertions as “science” and to attack disbelievers as “anti-science” or “liars.”

One of the complaints I personally have with much of the human race (myself included, if I’m being honest) is what I call intellectual laziness. We hear something and decide to blindly accept it without knowing why.

When I was a child, I heard people laugh at the notion that the Bible really meant what it said, that God made the world in six days only 6,000 years ago. I didn’t question it, I merely assumed that the people laughing at this notion must have a reason, so I mocked it too. After all, I reasoned, science had discovered that the universe is billions of years old, hadn’t it? Of course, I didn’t know why that was true, but I had watched Carl Sagan say so on his Cosmos series over and over and over. It wasn’t until much later that I began to learn the many reasons why Genesis can be trusted and why deep time isn’t based on observational science.

Always Be Prepared to Make a Defense

The Bible does not encourage intellectual laziness. We are told in 1 Peter 3:15

“…in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…” 

The lazy, blind faith in whatever is told to you is NOT the biblical definition of faith. We are told to be able and ready to make a defense. Jesus himself told his detractors to look at the observable evidence and see that it proved what he was saying was true (John 5:36, John 10:38, John 14:11).

Let me encourage you to do the homework it takes to know what you believe and why. Be able to explain WHY we can be certain that Jesus rose from the dead, and that the global flood was a real event, and that the creation week was just as Genesis says. Don’t be the other side of the coin, hearing us say “You can trust the Bible” or “Evolution isn’t true” over and over and never learn WHY. Make it your mission to know the answers, and learn how to give answers to those who ask. *

Too often we’ve heard of people who “used to be Christian,” or “used to be Young Earth Creationists,” but when they present their case, it is clear they never learned why those things were true. They did the lazy thing; they listened to parents, teachers or preachers tell them it was true and they just nodded and accepted without knowing WHY it was true. Then someone attacked their ungrounded faith and it fell apart. Biblical faith is not this mindless nodding in agreement. It is something far more, and something harder to do.

In Acts 17 we learn of the Bereans who are praised because “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” They were neither mindless skeptics nor did they mindlessly accept what they were told. They took what they were told and looked into the scriptures to see if it could be trusted. THIS is a picture of Biblical faith. Seek the truth. Know the scriptures. Examine what you are told with integrity.

When we tell you that Creation took six literal days and other organizations tell you that it took millions or billions of years, do the hard work of opening the Bible and seeing which of those things are so. Don’t put your trust in us or in scientists or in the friendly people on the internet. Don’t believe these things merely because I tell you about them. Study the Scriptures and learn the science and you will see that science and Scripture agree.

Spreading a lie is easy – tell the same lie boldly over and over and do NOT allow people to question it. This is how cults work. This is how political correctness works. This is how evolutionism works. Saturate people with the lies and ASSURE them that there are valid reasons… just never let them ask the questions. People who ASK those questions are to be mocked and hated and cast out. Like I said, Satan is not very creative.

Spreading the truth is harder. It takes thought, study, reason and logic. But when the truth we are spreading brings people to the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is worth the effort.

It is a Triceratops (and it is NOT 65 Million Years Old)

I said I did not intend to make the case against deep time, but to help you on your way to becoming a person with answers. I leave you with one study that proves that this assumption that a triceratops MUST be 65 million years old is demonstrably false.

Scientist Mark Armitage was forced out of his university teaching position, not because he did something wrong or failed at his job; but because the authority over him learned that he was not a true believer in evolution. He asked the wrong questions and was cast out. One of the things he dared to question was the age of dinosaur fossils.

His work on dinosaur fossils has been shared publicly for several years now, and it provides substantial evidence for the Biblical timeline, and against the constantly asserted millions of years. Mark Armatage is a scientist using observational science to show that the Bible can be trusted and evolution fails the test of science. Mark Armitage was persecuted for his work, but it blesses those who seek to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us. 

Mark H Armitage – Report Of Soft Tissues In A Triceratops Horn