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Feedback 2010
Bring on the hecklers?
Published: 24 July 2010(GMT+10)
Photo iStockphoto
Why should CMI be grateful for objectors who heckle at our public presentations
on creation? Because of the effect it can have on witnesses, as the
letter from our second correspondent, Shane R. (Australia), testifies.
But first, this piece of written ‘heckling’ arrived from Canadian correspondent
William C., in response to our earlier published
viewpoint re ‘global warming’. William included two website
links which we have deleted as per feedback rules; one merely explained carbon dating,
the other presented a summary of claims regarding global warming from National Geographic.
He continued:
Honestly, how can you believe something when thousands of years of science and human
ingenuity have told us again and again that THE EARTH IS NOT 10000 YEARS OLD, It
is closer to 6 billion years old. Show me the ACTUAL DATA where carbon-14 dating
is disproven, or ammended. And by ACTUAL DATA I dont meen a bible or papers written
by some 400 year old guy who thought the world was flat.
CMI’s Dr Don Batten’s
responses are interspersed throughout William’s email below:
Honestly, how can you believe something when thousands of years of science and human
ingenuity have told us again and again that THE EARTH IS NOT 10000 YEARS OLD, It
is closer to 6 billion years old.
Actually, as far as the modern era in the educated West is concerned, the idea that
the earth is old is a new idea, invented/popularized in the last 200 years. The
idea of it being billions of years old only became widely accepted in the 20th
Century. Before the mid-1800s, most people believed the earth was thousands of years
old. See for example, how the first edition of
Encyclopedia Britannica accepted a young earth. There were pagan ideas of
vast eons of time that go back a long way, but that is another matter not related
to scientific evidence (see
The long story of long ages). Also, evolutionists claim the earth is 4.6
billion years old, not six billion years.
Show me the ACTUAL DATA where carbon-14 dating is disproven, or ammended.
Carbon dating is good evidence against millions and billions of years.
This shows that you have not done much research on this matter, on our website or
even on secular websites. Carbon dating does not prove the earth is billions of
years old because it can only be used to date items that are thousands of years
old. The reason for this is that carbon-14 decays so quickly (half-life of 5730
years presently) that if something were just 100,000 years old, it could not be
dated using carbon-14 dating (there would not be any carbon-14 left in the sample).
Carbon dating is good evidence against millions and billions of years,
because if you collect any coal, even that which is supposedly hundreds of millions
of years old, you can get it carbon dated and it will therefore be ‘dated’
at thousands of years. Even diamonds that are supposedly billions of years old have
been consistently carbon
dated as thousands of years old. So, contrary to your understanding, carbon
dating is actually evidence against the belief in an old earth.
Note however, that no method applied in the present can prove the earth
is billions of years old and nor can any technique prove it is thousands
of years old. That is because all such methods involve making assumptions about
what happened in the past. How do believers in long ages (billions of years) account
for the carbon dating results that give thousands of years? They invent ad hoc
hypotheses to try to explain the addition of the carbon-14 recently, a long time
after the fossil formed (these hypotheses don’t work, but that’s another
story). See The dating game. For
a review of some significant research on radioisotope dating that turns the “billions
of years” on its head, see
Radiometric dating and old ages in disarray.
And by ACTUAL DATA I dont meen a bible
Actually, the Bible is the only eye-witness account of Creation and the history
immediately following, so it is good evidence for an age of the earth of thousands
of years. See Real
history: the timeline of the Bible.
or papers written by some 400 year old guy who thought the world was flat.
I assume you mean someone who lived 400 years ago who believed the world was flat.
Actually, you would have trouble finding such a person 400 years ago, because it
is a myth that literate people generally believed that the world was flat in the
past. The myth was
invented by anti-Christians in the 1800s.
For stacks of evidence (data) that suggest the earth is much younger than billions
of years, see Age of the earth: 101 evidences
for a young age of the earth and the universe.
I hope this helps answer your questions.
Sincerely,
Don Batten
Hecklers did unintended good
Wayne Olling [in the red shirt] makes a point to a ‘Curious Earth’ visitor.
Wayne (jointly
with Marc Kay) now has seven years’ experience of publicly displaying
‘Curious Earth’ at various events and locations, including at festivals
that attract from 3,000 to over 60,000 attendees. Wayne and Marc have met with scoffing
from some people, but most of these scoffers don’t stay around to defend their
belief. Wayne commented, “I guess that says something about the strength of
their case.” This is probably why they don’t stick around to heckle
when Wayne and Marc talk with other onlookers. In the light of the letter from Shane
R., that’s a pity.
Just before we present an encouraging letter from Australian correspondent Shane
R. about the impact of a public presentation by Dr
Carl Wieland nearly 20 years ago, here are some associated comments from
Carl to readers who have done, or are contemplating doing, public ‘creation
evangelism’. (See, e.g.
Street preacher says creation ‘is the issue’,
‘Curious Earth’—Taking creation evangelism to the streets
and Volunteers proclaim creation
at a major music festival.) Carl wrote:
All you who minister faithfully can be sure that you will only occasionally get
to hear of the impact on lives that you make, but you are making them, i.e. the
fruit is happening, whether you hear of it or not.
“Anyone who witnesses publicly re the creation/evolution issue can be encouraged
by this letter from Shane, I believe, because it is only nearly 20 years later that
I got to find out about this impact on a life. It happens from time to time just
like that, i.e. that one only gets told many years after the event. So, too, all
you who minister faithfully can be sure that you will only occasionally
get to hear of the impact on lives that you make, but you are making them, i.e.
the fruit is happening, whether you hear of it or not.
“Note, though, it is not uncommon to hear that public creation presentations
when hecklers are active generate life-changing impact in at least
one person in the audience. One guy who became a medical missionary was wavering
on Genesis and the Bible’s authority and had had a lot of correspondence with
me on that; he came to a creation seminar I did in Melbourne many years ago, heckled
by attending Skeptics
members. He came up to me on that occasion with tears in his eyes, in effect repenting
of all compromise, and has stayed solid ever since”.1
Editor’s note: Carl sent the above comments as an encouragement
to his fellow speakers, but expressed extreme reluctance about the publication of
this letter, being effusive in its praise for him. But CMI’s other editors
pressed for it to be published as an encouragement to everyone who faces hecklers
in their witness to calmly and patiently stand for the truth of God’s Word.
Here’s Shane’s letter:
Dear Carl,
Around 19 years ago you spoke at a lunch-time lecture with Q&A at [an Australian]
University.2 I was in the
crowd, near the back, arriving late from a lecture across-campus.
You sat on a chair, with a cane3
under one hand, while most of the fairly packed crowd stood around you.
You spoke calmly and with authority about the Bible’s account of history and
the evidence for its truthfulness.
You waited patiently each time a particular Physicist heckled your presentation,
then continued.
The incredible onslaught of accusations that same person leveled at you when you
asked if anyone had a question was distressing, revealing much about the heart of
that man.
(I’m pretty sure I remember him being so worked up that he was actually spitting
as he spoke!)
Your respectful and measured response, especially over deep-time dating methods,
impressed me immensely as I experienced God’s Spirit responding with joy to
your faithful witness.
I was then about 28, a mature-aged undergrad engineering student, a true believer
and in the Spirit, but very lacking in Christian-worldview-based knowledge. To that
moment I had never experienced the witness of a Christian who had a solid understanding
of the Bible as God’s plainly revealed truth.
My Christian experience to that time had been filled with compromisers and controversy-avoiders.
My Christian experience to that time had been filled with compromisers and controversy-avoiders.
No one really spoke in defense of God’s Word publically or in personal witness
to its truth.
Then along came a gentle man, who spoke so kindly, even when spoken to so rudely,
yet without compromise and with no avoiding of the BIG issues. I was changed forever
that day.
God did a work in my life all over again through your example.
I believed for the first time that I could genuinely give a reasoned account for
the hope I had in Christ Jesus.
I thank God for you often Carl.
Sincerely in Christ,
Shane R.
Comments
Andrew H. from Australia:
I suspect that I will not be the only one to respond in agreement with Shane R on Carl’s God-given humility and commitment to the Truth, for the Lord made Himself known to me through Carl in a similar way, even longer ago than to Shane (before Carl’s accident).
The development of CMI is entirely the Lord's work, but without God-given men, willing and committed, none if it would have occurred. Sometimes God’s direction in our lives seems off the wall, but He gives us so much to praise Him for.
Wildee R. from Philippines:
Thank you for presenting this article. It is a great encouragement. It only solidified my resolve. This time it won’t matter how many hecklers come if even only one bystander’s mind would be challenged and will have the opportunity to turn to the God who saves that is all that matters.
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Further reading
References
- A particularly antagonistic pro-evolutionist in public origins
debates can have a similarly positive impact (i.e. similar to that of a heckler),
as evidenced by the testimony of Dr Mark Brunacci on the DVD
Facing the fire—a documentary about the infamous creation/evolution
debate between Dr Duane Gish and Dr Ian Plimer.
Return to text.
- Identification withheld for privacy and strategic reasons—Ed.
Return to text.
- At that time Dr Carl Wieland required a walking stick, and
had to sit during his presentations, a legacy of a horrific road accident—you
can hear his testimony about it on his 2009 DVD presentation
Walking Through Shadows. Return to text.
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