Creation vs.Evolution

Monday nights are Awana nights at church. I have been taking a creation vs. evolution class at church that meets at the same times the kids are at Awana. Monday's are a pretty long day for me. I tend to be on the go go go from 7:30 a.m to 9:00 p.m. So by the time I get to class, I am not always in the best place for knowledge input.

Today for example, they were talking about astronomy and the big bang. They turned off the lights so we could better see slides of galaxies and stars. I was struggling to stay awake before the lights went out. When they did, they might as well have handed out pillows.

Pillow talk not withstanding, here are a few thoughts about things I have learned or have had reaffirmed during the class:

I was brought up that evolution is fact. I shocked my mom at Thanksgiving when I told her I did not believe in it. I learned it as a theory, but it is a theory that is taught as fact. I saw a youtube video a few months ago where Matt Damon was on a talk show calling, then vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, an idiot because she did not believe in millions of years. He went on to say that he couldn't believe anyone would think of giving her nuclear codes because of it. The implication is simple: anyone who doesn't believe in this theory (aka evolution) as fact is not playing with a full deck.

What I was reminded of during this class is, that evolution is a theory in crisis. It is a theory that people believe even when the facts dispute it. I am 100% convinced that it takes much more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in a literal biblical interpretation of creation. I read so many statements written by evolutionists that dispute evolution. Last week I read a report on the age of the earth. It basically said that the study they did showed the age of the earth was approximately 10,000 years old. They went on to say that the study could not be write because we "know" the earth is millions of years old.

My creationist views have, for lack of a better word, evolved, over the last 20 years. I used to find the idea of a young earth ludicrous. I believed in what is called, "theistic evolution." Now that seems like a have your cake, and eat it too, mish mash of theories. For the past 15 years or so, I have believed in a young earth (less than 10,000 years old.) Over the past 5 years, I have learned some science that has made that faith more fact based.

So that's where I stand on beginnings. What do you think?

A Poem from a Train

I lived in Russia from late 1992 to 1994. I lived in a city in Far Eastern Russia called Khabarovsk. For about a year of the time I was there I would regularly travel by train to a neighbroing city about 3 hours away called Birobidjan. Here is a poem I wrote on the train in March of 2004.

The Melting Snow of the Infinte Plain

Written on a train from Birobidjan to Khabarovsk

Dusk inserts contrast to the endless white before me

Small patchs of forest punctuate the crystalline desolation

Brush and barren soil testify

That the Herculean winter is mortal after all

A days journey nears completion

A circuitous route

Ends like it began

Thoughts of far and near

Of important and trivial

speed through the minds eye

Occasionally stopping.

At the stops

The view becomes clear and definite

Then slowly

Movement begins again

The everyday life becomes a blur.

Night has come to the winter plain.

Morning and Spring inch closer.

And the train rolls on.

An Exciting Announcement

Last August I posted about how I was teaching a blogging class in my home school co-op. In preparing the class I decided a good class project would be hosting the Homeschool kids carnival. I contacted the person who runs the carnival and set the whole thing up for the November 30th edition.



It turns out that only my daughter signed up for the blogging class. And I decided to put it off for a semester to see if I could generate more interest. Earlier this month, the host of the host of the homeschool kids carnival contacted me to remind me of the November edition. Since I didn't really have a class I could turn to, I asked Bunny to host it. Asked or commanded, depends on your point of view.



So, come November 30th, Alice's Bunny Blog will be hosting the Homeschool Kids Carnival. If you have any children who would like to submit an entry click here. For more info on the carnival, click here.

Nothing like a cheese sandwich

You know how they say,"Nothing like a cheese sandwich?" Well, they don't mean it. Let's be completely honest (we're among friends, right?) they hardly even mean it when they say, "Time is money" or "Best friends with goldfish." But what I've got in my craw this evening is the first phrase. Nothing like a cheese sandwich. Robert Redford would say it like this, "There's nothing like a cheese sandwich." But I prefer my own way, and keep the "there's" off. Know what I mean? Now most other things I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Redford. But not this.

Pilgrim Hat Cookies

We were finally able to buy orange frosting and thus able to make some cookies that Amy read about in Working Mother magazine.



Here is what you need . . .


Fudge Striped Cookies
Cream Cheese Frosting
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Orange Frosting Tube


Step 1. Set Fudge Striped Cookies Stripe side down on cookie sheet





Step 2 spread frosting on top of peanut butter cup .Step 3 affix peanut butter cup on cookie. Enough frosting will run over to make brim for hat.


Step 4 with orange frosting, make belt buckle on side of hat.


Step 5. Voila.

You don't have to be Einstein.

To be 1 step ahead of the Holidays Half Past Kissing Time has started Friday Fragments early here are mine . . .

Our home school co-op ended this week. One of the teachers was teaching a physics class for 1st-3rd Graders. Earlier in the semester she asked me to speak the last week of the class as Albert Einstein.

So I donned a wig (cotton balls taped to a stocking cap) and my best German scientist accent and had a lot of fun with it.

It turns out you don't have to be Einstein to play Einstein. I was able to perform an experiment that illustrated what Einstein discovered about light having gravity.

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My parents came to the closing festivities for the co-op for the first time this year. I think it was the first time they ever got to see my kids in action in a true home school setting. I shared the emceeing duties with two of the speech classes. The presenters went up in pairs and they were very polished, so it had a real awards show feel to it. At the end of the evening I handed the microphone to puppy and she told this joke . . .

Who was the most important knight at the round table?Sir Cumference

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As I posted Sunday, Christmas shopping has seemed to begun in earnest all around us. If you make it out to the malls and big box stores take the sales advice with a grain of salt. I have noticed that some sales people through ignorance, poor listening skills, or just to sell more product don't always give correct product information.

For example, I wanted to buy Amy something she could listen to radio programs with when she is out and about. On several occasions we looked at ipods and we asked several associates if those ipods would play pod casts. Each time we were told no. Sometimes we were told that only a Zune would play pod casts, sometimes we were told that only an ipod touch would play them. Both those pieces of equipment cost more than what I had to spend on her birthday present. We then decided to just buy an old fashioned Walkman type radio and were told by an associate that the store no longer sold radios like that.

I walked back to where they "used to be" located anyway. They were still there and we bought out. We found out later that day through the miracle that is Facebook. That ipods do indeed play pod casts. (I mean they are called "pod" casts for a reason.)

I marched (figuratively) back to the store returned the Walkman radio, and proceeded to buy Amy an ipod; at a different store.

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Those are all the fragments I have. I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving. For More Friday Fragments click here.