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CSA News
The Creation Science Association for Mid-America
Volume 30: (7)
July 2013

"It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man."
Psalm 118:8


Kansas Adopts
“New Science Curriculum”

By Doug Dexheimer

 

The State of Kansas recently adopted the Common Core Standards.

Educators in more than 73,000 schools across America are working toward the shifts in instruction required to help their students meet the academic expectations of the Common Core State Standards. However, many civic and parent leaders do not understand the need for — or the value of — the new standards and assessments.

Why did the states adopt the new standards and how will they affect day-to-day instruction in our nation's classrooms? More importantly, will the new standards and assessments lead to more students being better prepared for success in college, the workplace and life?

In this new publication, “Seeing the Future,” we provide parents and the public with the views of educators from across the country who believe in the Common Core State Standards and are working to implement them. We hope this proves to be a valuable resource as your communities evaluate the merits of these reforms. 1

Here’s a description of the new “Common Core Standards.”

http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards

The new standards are a project originated by “Governors of the States”:

http://www.nsta.org/sciencematters/checklist.aspx

On Thursday June 20, 2013, I heard Crosby Kemper say that Kansas’ previous science standards are better than the new Core Standards.  He said that:

  1. The new standards amount to “dumbing down” the curriculum to make Kansas’ curriculum as poor as the curricula of other states.
  2. Unfortunately, the Core Standards are deliberately stressing “climate change” and evolution.

The issue surfaced again the other day:

http://cjonline.com/news/state/2013-06-13/institute-old-kansas-science-standards-were-better

As far as I know, CSAMA has not been involved in the current round of changes.  (As you may know, CSAMA was involved, by invitation, in the preparation of Kansas’ previous public school science curriculum.)

For those new to the subject, the following article appeared in CSA News, Volume 17(5) Sept/Oct, 2000:

 

Kansas Science Standards

What Really Happened?
What Does it All Mean?

by Tom Willis

 

The phone rang yesterday.  I picked it up.  I heard a deep voice intoning “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake; Matthew 5:11.”  It wasn’t Jesus -- only Mike Fredlund, who prints this newsletter, calling to cheer me up after he’d read another personal attack on CSA in the Kansas City Star. I wasn’t “down,” because I don’t read “the Star,” but I did respond with the chuckle he had hoped to elicit by his call, and I had already been reflecting (often) on the scripture he quoted.

We at CSA (especially yours truly), and everyone else associated with the Kansas science standards, have certainly received lots of revilings/blessings from politicians, “educators,” and nearly every news agency in the world. It’s difficult to say what aspect of the revilings have made the deepest impression, but the stultifying ignorance, and the lies per paragraph have been exceeded only by the angry arrogance of the hollow rhetoric. That about covers it, but I’ll add some detail anyway.

Why such sustained international reviling?

Jesus explained it long ago: “If the world hates you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:18-19). Furthermore, “... Me [Jesus] it [the world] hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil” (John 7:7).

Why is such anger aimed at CSA and the Kansas State Board of Education (KSBE)? Simply put, and as Jesus made perfectly clear, it is evil to lie to children, especially to deprive them of a relationship with Him (Matt 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2). They revile us because the KSBE “spanked the fannies” of the liars, and the liars think it politically wise to blame “creationists” for that spanking.

Why is the anger sustained so long? As I told the reporter from ABC’s Nightline (John Donavan, with Ted Koppel) last Monday, every religious group believes their religion is important to the nation and the world... and they believe their religion is science (or is supported by science).

I certainly believe Christianity is important to every person and nation in the world.  Furthermore, I believe Christianity is the only religion supported by science. Of course that doesn’t mean it is absolutely proven: as both Karl Popper, the leading philosopher of science in the last century, and God, have said, nothing is ever proven by human observation and reasoning. All scientific theories -- and Christianity -- must ultimately be believed by faith. Atheists have always believed their religion is science. Lucretius wrote a 4-volume treatise over 2000 years ago on evolution, which he thought was science. Karl Marx thought all religions were harmful to society -- except atheism.

Following his lead, all communist countries adopted evolutionism as their national mythology, forcing it on children and adults alike. Darwin repeatedly called his own philosophical rambling “science.” Before I was born again, I had read Darwin, and had filled the margins with expletives about the irrational and unscientific nature of his “reasoning.”

Theistic evolutionists, including “Christian evolutionists,” believe their religion is science, and are quite willing to trash major portions of God’s Word in favor of their “science.” When I remind them that Jesus made clear that his disciples are to be sanctified (set aside) by God’s Word (“thy word is truth”), not by philosophy, the discussion usually ends.

Every culture in history has been ruled by leaders’ resorting to a mythology which supported their religion, government, and financial institutions. Even “Christian” Europe was sustained by mythology, which enabled a corrupt pseudo-Christianity to strangle society. Though God the Father and Jesus are both capitalists (they believe they actually own what they created), the capitalism adopted by “Christian” America would hardly please God.

Many scientists in ancient cultures prostituted themselves to support the mythology of the culture. The leading astronomers in the world prostituted themselves to design hundreds of sun-worship temples to provide the “evidence” needed to sell the cultural mythologies, just as scientists in “natural history museums” and “science classes” do today. Consider one familiar example, the temple at Karnac, Egypt, made famous (though severely distorted) by Johnny Carson. The temple was designed to cause the pharaoh to “burst into light” precisely when he mounted the throne. Of course, to a sane man, that was not evidence that the pharaoh descended from the sun, just as sensible people today are not deceived by the notion that fossils, or an artificially imposed sequence of fossils, are evidence that the dead rock badger on the left gave birth to the dead horses on the right.

The record of academic prostitution is endless. No less an authority than Albert Einstein testified that the academic community of Germany had prostituted themselves to Nazism (which is based on evolutionism). According to Einstein, only “the church” stood against Hitler. The same is true of much of the academic community in every communist block nation.

This brief summary explains God’s, and my, position: “It is easy to explain the sustained, ignorant, and angry international reviling aimed at all associated with the Kansas Science Standards when evolution is properly understood as apologetic religious mythology used to sustain the world’s largest religions: atheism, pantheism, deism, and pseudo-Christianity. Mythology cannot survive open, critical dialog.”

It requires monopoly control of our children to convince only half of them that the myths have merit!  Atheism is the national religion of Russia, China, Cuba, and most of Europe. Hinduism, Buddhism and New Ageism are called “pantheist” religions. Their followers generally worship ancestors, nature, or the earth, and they consider everyone part of, or capable of becoming, god. Deism is the name given to folks who “believe in god,” but one of their own design, and one who typically “retired from active duty” a few billion years ago. Of the many forms of pseudo-Christianity, not all endorse evolution, but the largest branch takes its doctrines from pop science.

Evolutionism is the origins mythology of each of these religious groups. This further explains their sustained, loud, and angry reviling of those associated with the Kansas Science Standards. Any challenge to evolutionism is an attack on the only evidence for their religions. People who base their lives on evolutionism must lie and revile loudly because they have no sound evidence or reasons for their religion.

“If they didn’t lie and revile often, they couldn’t convince themselves they believe it,” says CSA’s Glenn Kailer.

The reviling is inevitably accompanied by vile behavior, simply because evolutionism provides only subjective moral standards. Their ignorance and rage was thoroughly predicted by God (Psalm 53:1, Prov 14:16, Romans 1:22).  Their bad behavior is simply “acting out” their religion. Regardless of the merits of the evidence against them, they must continue to attack until they are willing to change their own religion!

 

Who Wrote the Kansas Science Standards? 
What Did They Really Say?

 

According to the “Mainstream Coalition,” the Kansas Citizens for Science, the Kansas City Star, and most of the rest of the media, “Tom Willis, a Missouri Creationist,” wrote them, or was very influential in their writing. I realize the “impropriety of introducing facts into the discussion” but...

 

1.   Most of the Kansas Board of Education (KSBE) are very intelligent, well-informed, diligent citizens. Only two might be ranked in the “deluded” category, one of whom, a Ph.D., demonstrated with many fellow KU faculty his devotion to real science by participating in a week-long, 24-hour “prayer vigil” on the steps of the KU Natural History Museum, by reading Darwin’s “Origin of Species - or the Preservation of Favored Races by Means of Natural Selection.” They, of course, thought this was funny, but to more stable minds, it was certainly something that not one of them would have done in support of a real scientific theory. In fact, not a single scientific theory in history could have generated the global clamor caused by this trivial tweaking of evolutionism. It truly confirmed the religious character of the evolution movement.

 

2.   The KSBE had worked for a year with a 26-member committee appointed largely by the state department of education.

When we were dragged into it, at the insistence of some Kansas citizens, no one on the board had heard of us, and exactly half of the board were committed to rejecting the “standards” proposed by this committee. We reported on these proposed “standards” in CSA News beginning in March, 1999.

The main philosophical statements in their document were lifted nearly verbatim from a publication of the “National Academy of Science,” a political action group which, according to the journal Nature, is comprised of about 517 people in the physical and biological sciences, 72% of whom are atheists. They define evolution as “transcendent to science” (the word “transcendent” was one of the few concessions they later made to sanity), thereby effectively separating from science evolution’s testability. Students are required to believe in macro evolution (i.e., the “molecules to people” notion), rather than considering only scientifically observable phenomena, such as fruit fly mutation.  Their only two alternatives would be to lie on their tests, or flunk. Evolution is defined as creator of the “form and function” of everything in the universe.  Discussion of, or evidence for any alternative to evolution, is forbidden.

The KSBE had worked with this committee for a year trying to get them to inject a little sanity, but the committee was dominated by arrogant, dogmatic evolutionists, who refused to budge.

 

3.   A group of non-board members (horrible, incompetent folks – i.e., “citizens”) met to decide what could be done. Everyone in the group who had read the proposed standards knew they were trash. One, a Ph.D., commented that they were designed to promote evolutionism at the expense of science. The group decided to write their own standards. They formed a committee with over twenty members.  Three Ph.D.’s, several engineers, two environmental specialists, biologists, chemists, and physicists were involved. As citizens of the republic, we were under the impression that it was our right to create any document that we pleased, and to submit it to a governing agency for their consideration... and that it was even legal for that agency, Motherearth forbid, to read and consider our suggestions. According to our rancorous attackers, however, it is not only fine for atheists and “I believe in God too” folks to control public policy, but it is also evil for Christians to even participate in the dialog. Of course, these folks are all unbiased scientists, and we, uneducated bigots. Did you ever wonder (since random processes have no purpose) how an evolutionist could possibly hope to define “evil,” or “bigotry”? “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness...” (Isaiah 5:20).

 

4.   Dr. Steve Abrams was the choice of the “conservatives” (a press term) on the KSBE to lead the effort to improve the proposed standards. At first he was cool to our efforts but, as any public servant should, he said he would consider them. As we developed drafts, we made them available to him, and others. Most of the drafts were extremely rough. Abrams began circulating them privately for comment. The first written comment was by a Ph.D. in the Kansas educational system, who said (paraphrasing) “If these standards were adopted they’d advance the cause of science in the state of Kansas more than anything else we’ve ever done.”

Encouraged by these, and other remarks, Abrams began paying close attention to our work, critiquing it (wisely and thoroughly), and eventually joining us for a couple very long sessions. He made two drafts public.

 

5.   Abrams was able to count only five of six required votes, but a 6th joined with the five in their resolve to eliminate macro evolution as a standard. It wasn’t that he didn’t like our standards, but that he felt it more appropriate to try to salvage as much of the state draft as possible. The KSBE formed an ad hoc subcommittee and wrote their own draft based largely on the State Committee Working Drafts 4 & 5, borrowing a few brief passages from our drafts Trail 4a and CDC/A8.

 

6.   None of the “horrible creationist” drafts, much less the one approved by the KSBE, promoted creation, or religion. They simply mandated that theories not be taught as fact, and that evidence against popular theories not be censored from the students -- positions endorsed by every philosopher of science in history, but hated by evolutionists because their “theories” will not convince children if the kids hear even a smattering of the truth. In order to document for posterity the truth of these statements, the Citizens’ Drafting Committee formed the “National Committee for Excellence in Science Education” (NCESE).

 

Conclusion

 

CSA leaders, in their proper role as citizens, are pleased to have made a modest contribution to the new science standards, but the KSBE deserves the real credit, and will probably get it, from God, and from the world. The ignorant, bitter, and angry reviling comes from a herd of poorly educated, reprobate-minded, undisciplined, anti-Christ-minded people, at all levels of the political, educational and economic spectrum.

“Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jeremiah 51:7). Only madmen would behave and argue in the manner consistently demonstrated by our opponents in this ongoing issue.

For the record, we have diligently endeavored to convince the great scientists who have opposed our efforts to join us in a public debate -- they have systematically refused. It is simple historical fact that God’s enemies have never been able to win using honest public discourse.  They have always lied and reviled, and then they proceed to kill God’s people. Throughout history there seems to have been a contest for who could kill the greatest number of God’s people.  The contest pits the atheists (“there is no god”) and pantheists (“we are god”), against the “I believe in god” group, and the “I’m a Christian too” crowd, to see who can kill the most Christians. Had they the political power, it seems obvious this bunch would, as their spiritual brethren have always done, and are now doing all over the world, just kill us, too. Probably soon, and even in the “land of the free,” they will have the power to achieve their desired goal; but do not lose heart! “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption [and their destruction, Ed.] draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).


1 http://www.ksde.org/Default.aspx?tabid=5280

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CSA Monthly Meeting

Tuesday August 6th, 2013

 “The Great Debate”

DVD  Part 1

 

Ken Ham, AiG president, is perhaps the most widely recognized creation-apologist in the world today. Ken Ham and AiG astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle engage Drs. Hugh Ross (Reasons to Believe) and Walt Kaiser (president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary), both of whom are proponents of an old earth, no-global-flood view of Bible interpretation. In this eye-opening debate, well-mannered disagreement is punctuated by intriguing confrontations as these four Christian leaders communicate their views. Ham and Lisle implore Ross and Kaiser to accept the Genesis account of history as written, while Ross and Kaiser argue for their view that the first chapters of Genesis are more symbolism than history.

 

(For time & location see box near the end of this newsletter.)

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Coming Events: 2013

Creation Safaris by CSA

 

You must register for any safari.
Please call (816) 618-3610 or visit:

to register.

  • July 20: Kansas University Natural History Museum.
  • Not Scheduled for 2013: Rock Bridge / Connor’s Cave.
  • July 27: Astronomy.
  • August 9: Astronomy.
  • August 17: Greater KC Fossil Hunt.
  • Aug. 31 - Sept. 3: Southeast MO.
  • Not Schedualed for 2013: Zoological Park Caney KS.
  • September 6: Astronomy.
  • October 18 - 19: Ha Ha Tonka.
  • Not Scheduled for 2013: KATY Bike Trail.
  • October 4: Astronomy.
  • November 1: Astronomy.
  • December 7: Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge; Eagle Days.

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Kansas University
Natural History Museum

July 20 at 9:00am

 

Start: McDonalds I-435 and 87th St Lenexa KS

End: Natural History Museum Lawrence KS

 

Is evolution an "etched-in-stone fact," as this university and others proclaim? Come with us on a tour of "Evolution's Cathedral," and we’ll show you how a worldview can affect how evidence is interpreted. Using their own displays, which they interpret with a worldview that denies a creator, we can demonstrate to you that, using a Biblical worldview, the same evidence better fits history as revealed by scripture. We’ll also gather some of our very own evidence, as we stop to hunt fossils along the way.

 

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Monthly Meetings

2013

(1st Tuesday of each month;
content subject to change;
no signup or registration necessary.)

  • August 6: “The Great Debate” DVD, Part 1,
    moderated by Bob Farwell.
  • September 3: “The Great Debate” DVD, Part II,
    moderated by Bob Farwell.
  • October 1: “The Great Debate” DVD, Part III,
    moderated by Bob Farwell.
  • November 5: “Cave Formation, & Mineral Placement,” Bob Farwell, Doug Dexheimer, and Kevin Anderson.
  • December 2: “The Star of Bethlehem” DVD,
    moderated by Bob Farwell.

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Too Far Away To Attend CSA Meetings?

Why Not Attend Via Audio or Video Tape?

Attend CSA Meetings by ordering the audio ($5) or video ($13) tape/CD. To order, request by meeting date and topic. Copies of above items may be borrowed from...

The CSA Lending Library

8904 Mastin

Overland Park, KS 66212

(913) 492-6545

 

Local and National Conferences


 

International Conference on Creationism
August 4-8, 2013

 

The board members of Creation Science Fellowship invite you to attend the 2013 International Conference on Creationism.  You may attend in person in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or via webinar. This peer-reviewed scientific conference currently has 41 research papers completing the review process which is overseen by Dr. Mark Horstemeyer, who heads up our team of editors. 

Papers will be presented in one of four lecture halls at the Pittsburgh-Greentree DoubleTree Hotel during the mornings and afternoons of August 5-8, 2013.  Each one-hour presentation will be followed with a 45-minute question-and-answer period.  A tentative speaker schedule is now posted on our conference web site and is given below.  The web site provides much more detail.

During the evenings we have special speakers whose presentations are free and open to the public.  Ken Ham, founder of “Answers in Genesis,” will open the conference Sunday, August 4th with his talk on, “Genesis, Biblical Authority & the Age of the Earth.”  Other evening speakers and topics are shown below.

 

Main Details

 

What:  2013 International Conference on Creationism.

When:  August 4-8, 2013 (Sunday evening through Thursday evening).

Where: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Greentree DoubleTree by Hilton.

Times:  Technical presentations 8:00AM to 5:00PM.  Special evening talks start at 7:00pm.

Cost:  Registration is $135 – Does not include meals or hotel costs.

Attendance Mode:  You may attend in person or via webinar on your computer.

 

Important Information can be found at the Home Page of ICC Conference Web Site: www.creationicc.org .

 

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History of Castle Rock

By Doug Dexheimer

 

Artist’s rendering: Early sketch.

 

1867

 

Very early photo of a passing wagon on Butterfield Trail.

 

(From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Castle_Rock,_Kansas,_on_the_Smoky_Hill,_385_miles_west_of_Missouri_River._(Boston_Public_Library).jpg )

 

(See also: https://www.google.com/search?q=castle+rock+kansas+history&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=MavNUZTIK4q0igKG1oG4DA&ved=0CEkQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=919 )

 

Spires: medium, two tall, short

 

Before 1992                       After 2002

 

“The Castle Rock limestone, chalk and shale formation is fragile and may not last many more years. The tallest spire fell following a thunderstorm in 2001.

 

One tall spire still standing, prior to 2001

 

Three medium high spires plus one short

From: castlerock 2009

 

Latest shot by DRD 2013

 

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Letters to the Editor

 

The wind farm “stirred  up” strong feelings in some folks.  One reader suggested the following rewrite, and comments:

 

“We paused briefly to watch their gleaming white blades spin gracefully in the wind, ‘pumping their electrons down the grid,’ and effortlessly (and also without regard to their relative populations), slicing and dicing any bird or other creature venturing too closely to those blades.” That, and the fact that those wind turbines are extremely expensive (they wouldn’t be built without forced taxpayer subsidization in one form or another), and essentially incapable of saving energy, since the old power plants must remain constantly “online” as backup, running at full capacity so they can immediately kick in any time the wind slows or dies.  Otherwise, it would take too much time and energy to get them up to operating capacity, resulting in unacceptable power outages during the wait (would you like to wait for the wind to resume at the midpoint of your emergency surgery?).  Plus new grids have to be built to transport the power.  Plus, like all machinery, they wear out.  Plus, if you think repairing ground-based machinery is expensive, wait until repairs are required on one of these monsters, at maybe a hundred feet in the air, and likely located at a distance far removed from the necessary technicians, machinery, parts, and supplies.  Plus some have caught on fire (no way to put those babies out while their raining shrapnel takes out machinery, nearby turbines, property, animals, people, etc.).  Plus…, etc., etc., etc.  In other words, except for rare circumstances (such as perhaps personal use by those who have the space, money, and power to overcome the objections of their neighbors and other environmentalists), they’re nothing but pipe dreams in the minds of environmentalists (emphasis on “mental”) and various other “misinformites.”  But alas, if the enviro-maniacs and taxpayer-subsidized industries and investors get their way, prepare for massive blackouts -- except for the elites -- who will remain connected to the few remaining reliable standby power stations, since they regard their own precious well-being as critical to the well-being of the safety, security, well-being, and happiness of Mother Earth and their (very few) selected friends (assuming, of course, they happen to be friends with their overlords, who will ultimately make the critical decisions in this “brave new world”).

PAUL FENNERN

Merriam, KS

 

(Tongue in cheek….) The concern for birds is strong among those opposed to wind farms.  However, the birds do not always get “sliced and diced” when they have an encounter with a high speed wind turbine.  A recent article1 relates the unfortunate end of a rare bird that flew head-on into the blades of a reportedly "small" wind turbine.... Ed.


1 http://www.examiner.com/article/green-energy-wind-farm-turbine-blades-kills-rare-bird

 

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CSA Monthly Meeting Location

Westbrooke Church

9777 Antioch

Overland Park, KS 66121

10 blocks east of 69 Highway (or Switzer) on 95th St. to Antioch, south two blocks on Antioch, on east side of street.

Fellowship & book table: 6:15PM - Meeting: 7:00PM (meeting entrance in back of building)

 

Are You Participating in CSA As Much as You Should?

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Are you doing all the Lord has called you to do in the war for the minds and souls of our citizens... especially our youth? CSA is not a closed fraternity. Any born-again believer who is abiding in the words of Jesus, and has been gifted in research, computers, speaking, clerical activities, writing of articles or book reviews, etc., and who has heard a call to serve in an origins ministry should consider and pray about serving with us. Write or call for more information.

 


You are invited to attend all the monthly meetings, and as many of the safaris as you can fit into your schedule. Pass the word. Tell your friends and neighbors about CSAMA and our activities. Show them how to subscribe to the CSAMA Newsletter.

Never miss an opportunity to debunk the "millions-of-years" notion that evolutionists insist is necessary for life as we know it.

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Contact & Info Link

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