As part of my goal of breaking down the misinformation our kids are taught in public school, I have been teaching a series on creation science.
The theory of evolution became prominent in our education system in the late 1950s. Our scientific community went ballistic (no pun intended) when the Russians beat us into space. They reasoned that we were losing the technology war because our kids were being taught the old, archaic creationism in school. So they petitioned President Eisenhower for $1 Billion to change our curriculum to reflect the new, more advanced evolution theory since that was what the Russians were doing.
The effects of that that decision, along with removing prayer from our schools in 1963 have been devastating on our society to the point where I begin to ask who REALLY won the Cold War. Ronald Reagan may have given us the tactical victory, but it seems the battle for the soul of America began almost 40 years earlier and still goes on today.
If you look at graphs relating to drugs, violence, teen pregnancy and suicide you see a hockey stick that started its swift upward trend around 1963.
Why am I teaching the kids about these things? I teach it because as believers, they need to not only know the truth but know why the things they are being taught is false.
The United States Treasury Department trains their workers to spot counterfeit bills by never showing them one. All they know is the truth so that when presented with a forgery, they recognize it immediately. Unfortunately our children are exposed the the forgery on a daily basis in their schools. So we must explain why it is a forgery and help them learn more about the truth.
We have discussed evidence supporting the six day creation and the age of the earth being as young as 6000 years instead of the many billions of years that they are taught. We've been looking at many pieces of true scientific evidence that support the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
I have made it very clear to the kids every single week that my goal is not for them to go to school and argue with teachers or other students. Those arguments are pointless. It takes far more faith to believe that we all came from a rck soup that somehow got some energy inserted and developed from single-cell beings to complex humans than to believe in God and His creation account. Therefore, Big Bang and evolution theory are just as much religion as Christianity or Judaism. Therefre it is pointless to argue religion.
Instead I want them to know the truth. I share that I am certainly NOT an expert in science. But I do not have to be. If I am presented with what someone is calling science, no matter how much sense it makes, if it doesn't line up with the Word it is not the truth. So it really comes down to knowing the truth.
As an underlying theme to this entire series we have been considering the four most important questions in life:
1. Who am I and what am I worth?
2. Where did I come from?
3. Why am I here?
4. Where do I go when I die?
Whether you have a creationist worldview or a secular/evolutionist world view will radically change your answers to these four questions. You can see how an evolutionist would answer those questions and how those views have, unfortunatley, shaped our society. We need young believers to know the truth and live the truth.
This week we will look at how creation and evolution are exact polar opposites on almost every important issue.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday Nights - Our Nation's Heritage
I am very sorry for the lack of updates recently. We have had a VERY busy couple months with some major growth and the projects that go along with that growth (like trying to remodel our youth room to accommodate the increased numbers).
As part of my desire to counteract the misinformation our kids are being taught in our public schools I really felt led to teach about our nation's founding; what the founding fathers intended and what their vision for America was at the time of the Revolution and the forging of the U.S. Constitution.
I am teaching the material from a Biblical perspective and NOT a partisan or political party perspective -- paralleling the Word with the principles that make up our Constitution.
We started by looking at God working through Samuel to fulfill the wishes of His people for a physical king. What we looked at was the warnings that God gave His people in regard to man ruling man. It didn't take the kids long to realize all of the warnings He gave sounded very familiar in regards to politics today.
God never intended for man to rule man. However, He allowed His people to have what they so desired. And the results were just as God warned (the people being subject to the king's whims, your sons going to war for his causes, your income being taken in taxes, etc...)
When our founders set out to establish this country, the concepts were world-changing. When they stated in the Declaration of Independence that our rights came from our Creator, that was radical. In almost every society your rights came from the King and his whims. Those rights could be revoked or changed at any moment and were not dispensed in a uniform and impartial manner.
But God is no respecter of persons and He does not change. Rights that come from God are eternal and impartial.
Then we talked about the founders' vision for our society. They envisioned the central government having a VERY limited role in the lives of its citizens. They saw that society is made up of many pillars; among them family, church, local community, business, government and, of course, the individual. They saw that every aspect of society could be maintained through these pillars. They saw that each one of them was best-suited to handle a different aspect.
For example, welfare was best administered by those with the vision to do so. This would be namely the church. We are the ones charged by God to care for the sick, needy, widows and orphans. The problem they foresaw was that, when the wrong pillar of society is handling a problem, the job is not done correctly and the other pillars are weakened.
We have laws to, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, protect us from the heartless (I am paraphrasing). He said that laws will never change the hearts of men. So, what pillar is equipped to change the hearts of men; to instill morals and virtue? Well, our founders felt that the family, church and community would do those things -- not the government.
One of the biggest problems we have created by not following the founders' advice is that, once things are out of balance, things are very difficult to correct. No one will let the government stop providing everything it does because it would be "heartless" to withdraw the support it is currently giving. Of course this is true because for generations it has been the source for help and by doing so it has weakened the very pillars that should be providing that support so that they cannot.
Finally, this week we talked about the concept of freedom. We looked at Genesis 2:16 where God tells Adam he is free to eat of ANY tree in the Garden. But if he eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would surely die. So God actually tells Adam he is free to eat of it, but there would be consequence if he did. This is the very definition of freedom. You have the freedom in America to pursue life, liberty and happiness. You also have the freedom to not pursue them. Either way, that freedom is really about personal responsibility.
Next week we'll continue on the concepts of freedom and the pillars of society.
As part of my desire to counteract the misinformation our kids are being taught in our public schools I really felt led to teach about our nation's founding; what the founding fathers intended and what their vision for America was at the time of the Revolution and the forging of the U.S. Constitution.
I am teaching the material from a Biblical perspective and NOT a partisan or political party perspective -- paralleling the Word with the principles that make up our Constitution.
We started by looking at God working through Samuel to fulfill the wishes of His people for a physical king. What we looked at was the warnings that God gave His people in regard to man ruling man. It didn't take the kids long to realize all of the warnings He gave sounded very familiar in regards to politics today.
God never intended for man to rule man. However, He allowed His people to have what they so desired. And the results were just as God warned (the people being subject to the king's whims, your sons going to war for his causes, your income being taken in taxes, etc...)
When our founders set out to establish this country, the concepts were world-changing. When they stated in the Declaration of Independence that our rights came from our Creator, that was radical. In almost every society your rights came from the King and his whims. Those rights could be revoked or changed at any moment and were not dispensed in a uniform and impartial manner.
But God is no respecter of persons and He does not change. Rights that come from God are eternal and impartial.
Then we talked about the founders' vision for our society. They envisioned the central government having a VERY limited role in the lives of its citizens. They saw that society is made up of many pillars; among them family, church, local community, business, government and, of course, the individual. They saw that every aspect of society could be maintained through these pillars. They saw that each one of them was best-suited to handle a different aspect.
For example, welfare was best administered by those with the vision to do so. This would be namely the church. We are the ones charged by God to care for the sick, needy, widows and orphans. The problem they foresaw was that, when the wrong pillar of society is handling a problem, the job is not done correctly and the other pillars are weakened.
We have laws to, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, protect us from the heartless (I am paraphrasing). He said that laws will never change the hearts of men. So, what pillar is equipped to change the hearts of men; to instill morals and virtue? Well, our founders felt that the family, church and community would do those things -- not the government.
One of the biggest problems we have created by not following the founders' advice is that, once things are out of balance, things are very difficult to correct. No one will let the government stop providing everything it does because it would be "heartless" to withdraw the support it is currently giving. Of course this is true because for generations it has been the source for help and by doing so it has weakened the very pillars that should be providing that support so that they cannot.
Finally, this week we talked about the concept of freedom. We looked at Genesis 2:16 where God tells Adam he is free to eat of ANY tree in the Garden. But if he eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would surely die. So God actually tells Adam he is free to eat of it, but there would be consequence if he did. This is the very definition of freedom. You have the freedom in America to pursue life, liberty and happiness. You also have the freedom to not pursue them. Either way, that freedom is really about personal responsibility.
Next week we'll continue on the concepts of freedom and the pillars of society.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)