What Is Our Name?

by aoiwpadmin on February 22, 2012 in Nuttings from the Front with No comments

Nathan Nance, one of our volunteers, and Creationist in training, penned the following. Can you answer this?

One book of all of us speaks,
Our glory from every page leaks.
A man was no longer lame,
When one of us came.
Through the universe we spread our fame,
Still we are three and the same.
What is our name?

 

Dave Nutting

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Museum Deception?

by aoiwpadmin on February 21, 2012 in Johnsons from the Front with No comments

What is a fossil? The Word Web Pro 6.72 defines a fossil as the remains (or an impression) of a plant or animal that existed in a past geological age and that has been excavated from the soil. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -Fossils (from Latin  fossus, literally “having been dug up”) are the preserved remains or traces of animals (also known as zoolites), plants, and other organisms from the remote past.

At the local dinosaur museum in Fruita, Colorado, is an interesting sign, giving their definition of a fossil – fossil (fòs’ el) n. – Any evidence of life more than 7,000 years old. This sign, or one very similar to it, has a history. We first saw the sign pop up in a smaller museum in Grand Junction before they took over the museum in Fruita.

When I say pop up, I mean it just appeared one day. Ironically, this was about the time when a gentleman we know was doing a lot of volunteer tours in the smaller museum. He was an enthusiastic young earth creationist, and very open about his belief that most of the fossils in the museum were a result of the Biblical flood some 4500 years ago.

So, was this a counter by the museum to invalidate his teaching? I have no evidence to say they did it intentionally. However, it seems interesting for the sign to just appear when their viewpoint was challenged. I have visited many other museums since we first saw that sign, and I have never seen anything close to the definition used here locally.

A local college geology professor shared with one of his students in 2010, “We don’t know what happened.  Just make something up.  Get it published.  People will quote you.  It will stand for 50 years before someone will test it and find out it isn’t true.” I guess if you are a museum, you can do the same thing … make up whatever you want, put it on your wall, and don’t worry about being challenged … at least for 50 years or so.

 

Lanny Johnson

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Pass it on!

by aoiwpadmin on February 17, 2012 in Nuttings from the Front with No comments

I noticed the following article in the local Grand Junction, Colorado Gem & Mineral Club’s newsletter, the Leaverite News. It was a response to the standard, but inadequate, interpretation of the eons of time used to explain Specimen Ridge in Yellowstone National Park. That location has multiple layers containing upright standing petrified trees which are stacked on top of each other.

The traditional explanation usually refers to multiple forests having grown and each having been buried over long periods of time by successive volcanic eruptions. It is good to see that material we have been sharing in seminars is finding its way into many venues by various people.  The article read:

“Just a tidbit I learned from Mt. St. Helens and the interpretation of the upright petrified logs in Yellowstone.
    30 years after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980, a diver dared to dive under the still floating logs in Spirit Lake and discovered that many logs had “sunk” to a vertical condition! If Mt. St. Helens erupted now and the ash filled the lake, the logs would be in the same position as those in Yellowstone and with the silicic acid available to petrify them!
    Also, Mt. St. Helens created anywhere from 8 to 30 distinct layers in a matter of only 2 hours, NOT millions of years! There are a great many more factors in why layers form flat than time.
   This info leads to the interpretation of Yellowstone’s vertical petrified forest that the lake the trees were floating in had “sunk” vertically as in Spirit Lake, been covered with new ash and petrified. The level of the lake rose due to ashfall; more eruptions put more trees in the lake;  more ash covered them, then the trees were petrified, and the cycle continued to the end of the eruptions. (The trees grew back above the lake’s level – like  St. Helens has done in 30 years) That explains how there are vertical petrified trees ascending the hillside!
    If anyone quotes any radioactive dating ages, remember that lightning and static electricity is common at volcanic eruptions and gamma rays from lightning and thunderstorms induce radioactivity and that causes radioactivity to increase which in turn gives a false old age of a rock. That makes the petrified trees on the lower level have a much older age….gamma rays penetrate the ground to about 30 meters making the deeper rocks “date” even older than they are.
   The information given in the Leaverite News is the old interpretation that was posted at Yellowstone for many years. It is my understanding that the post has been removed after the discoveries at Mt. St. Helens.
    Geological interpretations are in a continuous flux.  Thanks for letting me share.” (Laverne Megee)

Thanks also, Laverne, for writing that!

I also recently received this note:

“Michael, my 10-year old, recently had a conversation with a 20-year old college student and “stumped” him by using AOI evidence of intelligent design.  Your ministry is having a great impact!  ;) Out of the mouths of babes, …“

It is always encouraging to us that the material we present through our seminars not only impacts those who attend (even when they are quite young) but also those with whom they share it with! I encourage you also to pass it on! Please share the material with as many as you can and send them to our website! Also, If you wish to have a seminar in your area, please contact us!

 

Dave Nutting

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Living Mammoth in Siberia??

by aoiwpadmin on February 16, 2012 in Nuttings from the Front with No comments

Reports are circulating on the internet and in some newspapers about video footage taken in Siberia of a living mammoth crossing a river. People have been asking my opinion. My first reaction at viewing the image was that it looked good. However, as I looked much more closely and viewed the footage over and over again, I really don’t think it is a mammoth as much as I would like it to be one.

First, the footage is rather blurry, not a good sign, which makes it look like a hoax. Second, the image looks much more like a brown bear and the “trunk” is likely that of a good size fish in its mouth.  Others have pointed to problems with the current and even suggest that the image is super-imposed. That is possible, but it may likely be a hungry bear who had a successful fishing endeavor.

According to standard evolutionary models, Mammoths were supposedly extinct about 10,000 years ago. So this would shake up old notions if it were proved to be valid. However, in an earlier blog (April 8, 2011), I wrote about and had the following picture of an Indian drawing of a mammoth on a sandstone cliff near Moab Utah. That certainly dispels the ancient extinction of mammoths.

 

Dave Nutting

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Glorious!

by aoiwpadmin on February 14, 2012 in Nuttings from the Front with No comments

I recently heard a sermon where Pastor Jim Hale referred a lot to a word which describes our God. That word is GLORIOUS! He made specific reference to having seen the northern lights in Alaska at a time when the entire sky turned a brilliant reddish maroon color. I could imagine that scene he was describing and will have to echo with him that there is only one word to describe both the scene and the Master Artist who painted that scene: GLORIOUS!

The pastor also read Psalm 8 out of 2 versions. One of which was from the Message which gave an interesting twist to the passage and which appropriately describes our God:

GOD, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name. Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble. I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings.  Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way? . . . GOD, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.

Yes, if our minds are open to the reality of God, the word GLORIOUS echoes in our ears and around the world.

 

Dave Nutting

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Snake Fossil?

by aoiwpadmin on February 9, 2012 in Nuttings from the Front with No comments

Someone brought in a couple of rocks for us to look at which have the appearance of being fossils. One looks like a skull, the other looks similar to the remains of a coiled snake.

The skull sandstone really looks to me like a pseudo-fossil (not a fossil but looking like one). (See the picture at the right.)

The “snake” is in sandstone, which usually does not preserve what is buried in it very well. Not being up on potential snake fossils - especially in sandstone - I am posting a picture of it in hopes that one of our readers might have more knowledge on this than I have.

So what do you think? Do you think it is a snake or a pseudo-fossil?

 

Dave Nutting

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Local Family Tour Dinosaur Journey Museum

by aoiwpadmin on February 8, 2012 in Johnsons from the Front with No comments

Dinosaur Journey Museum

 

 

 

 

Recently, AOI sponsored a family tour to the Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita, Colorado. We had a pre-registration of 50 children and adults, so we were quite surprised when 116 (58 kids, 58 adults, and a whole lot of babies) showed up early Saturday morning at a church in Fruita for the tour.

Kids looking at my dinosaur "props"

As I shared in Dinosaur Journey Museum Tour, October 27, 2011, the museum is very evolutionary, hands-on and noisy; therefore I always try to meet with the families ahead of time in a quieter location (in this case a local church) where I can teach a Biblical view of dinosaurs. When the museum first opened, they allowed us to us one of their conference rooms … until they discovered we were teaching a Biblical approach to dinosaurs that did NOT fit with their evolutionary viewpoint.

 

After two hours of “arming” the group to think and ask, “What’s the evidence?” we head for the museum. You can see from the photograph of the inside of the museum, that it is very compartmentalized, making it hard to talk to larger groups, especially considering the high noise level of kids at play.

 

Teenagers with their "New" dinosaur

It is not just the little kids that have fun at the museum.  Notice the new species of dinosaur that these teenagers came up with using puzzles pieces in a hands-on display. A twenty legged dinosaur that they named “Spinosaur-rannosaur-rasaur-gosaur-cerat-kylosaur-ops”! Hey … they observed a lot of artist’s imagination all through the museum, so why not use a little of their own!

 

The real blessing in these tours is to have people’s eyes opened to what is truth versus what is being taught as truth based on evolutionary conjecture. So many are thankful for these tours and express it with, “Thanks for opening our eyes.”

 

Lanny Johnson

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Kansas Meteorite Museum

by aoiwpadmin on January 31, 2012 in Nuttings from the Front with No comments

Right after speaking at Barclay College in Kansas, I had what I thought would be just a short 45 minutes to view a museum called the Kansas Meteorite Museum. I then had to be hurried away to Wichita for my plane trip back to Grand Junction.

Little did I know that the airplane which was supposed to leave at 5 PM would be 5.5 hours late!  Had I known it would be sooooo late, I would have spent another several hours at the museum.

It was fascinating to see the various assorted types of meteorites from all over the world. They had a huge number that had been collected right there on their own property in Kansas.

There were many that were cross sectioned and several polished specimens as well. What was special was learning about the meteorites from the very knowledgeable owners. Wanting to identify the composition of some meteorite specimens I had found only a week before, I was excited to see they had some almost identical to mine!

As soon as I have them analyzed, I hope to report more on them in an issue of Think and Believe. Stay tuned!

 

Dave Nutting

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Photosynthesis – Not so Simple

by aoiwpadmin on January 27, 2012 in Johnsons from the Front with 1 Comment

Photosynthesis

(Adapted from Considering God’s Creation, pg. 39)

Inside the cells of most plants are structures called chloroplasts, which are a type of organelle [a specialized subunit within a cell that has a specific function – organelles are to the cells what an organ is to the body].

Inside the chloroplasts is a green pigment called chlorophyll, which has the ability to absorb sunlight. The energy from the trapped sunlight is then used in a very complex chemical process called photosynthesis.

When sunlight falls on the green cells in the leaf, it causes chemical changes to take place within the chloroplasts. The water that is in a plant cell is split into hydrogen and oxygen, with some electrons left over. The oxygen is then released into the air (to be inhaled by animals and humans).

The hydrogen, electrons, and other ingredients are then combined with the carbon dioxide the plant has absorbed from the air (carbon dioxide that animals and humans exhale). This combination forms a sugar called glucose. Glucose is a very important source of energy (food) for animals, humans, and many other plants.

The above is a very simplistic explanation of photosynthesis. In reality, scientists have identified over 70 complex chemical reactions that take place during the process. It is so complicated that scientists have been unable to bring about the entire sequence of reactions in the lab.

It takes tremendous amounts of energy to split the very stable water molecule. Scientists are continually searching for an efficient, economical, and productive way to split the hydrogen off of a water molecule … yet, the brainless plant does it automatically!

Consider this: How did the plants survive while they tried to figure out how to harness the sun’s energy (energy that normally destroys biological processes)? At what point did a plant realize it needed a special green pigment to absorb that sunlight? How long could a plant survive as it tinkered in the chemistry lab trying to figure out a very complex 70 step process (that intelligent man has yet to duplicate) to produce sugar for food? This list of “how” could go on and on … I’ll let you ponder some of the many other problems the plant would have experienced waiting on evolution to “do its thing”.

Photosynthesis had to be working right from the beginning or the plant could never survive. That points to a master engineering designer, not the mindless chance and accident of evolution.

 

Lanny Johnson

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

Closed to the Evidence

by aoiwpadmin on January 26, 2012 in Nuttings from the Front with No comments

In 2005, Dr. John Sanford, a Cornell genetics researcher, co-inventor of the gene sequencing gun, and holder of 25 patents in genetic research, wrote a book called Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome. In it he showed how the entire modern basis for modern evolution, mutation and natural selection, is absolutely dead wrong.

One would hope that people would really want to know what this top researcher has shown from his scientific research.  However, I ran across a post on a skeptic’s forum which really shows the close-mindedness of those bent on preserving the fable of evolution:

“My office is gearing up for a pandemic exercise and management issued a memo regarding a new strain of bird flu. I have a creationist friend at work and thought it would be interesting to see his response to this formal recognition of evolution at work. A couple of days later he emailed suggesting I read John Sanford’s Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome, my friend’s anti-evolution response. I’m not familiar with the book and certainly not a geneticist so was hoping to find some information debunking the book.”

First of all a new strain of virus is not evidence for broad evolution, but notice, that the skeptic’s  response is not one of openness, but one which is very closed:  I don’t want to read the book, but quick, give me something to debunk the book!

Actually, Dr. Sanford’s work does not need to be “debunked” but really needs to be read by this individual as well as by professors all over this country. However, the mind cannot be unlocked when all the keys are thrown away!

 

Dave Nutting

If you would like to see if an AOI seminar is right for you, or you would like to help the work of Alpha Omega Institute, please visit our website events page or our donate page. Keep up to date with what AOI is doing. Thanks for your partnership.

← Older Entries