The Evolution of a Creationist

Chapter 8 - THE COLLAPSE OF THE WATER CANOPY

What might have caused the water vapor canopy to come down as rain? Several theories exist, although, of course, God does not need a naturalistic cause; He could just sovereignly command the rains of the flood to pour down by His omnipotent power.

One proposed idea for the precipitation of the rain is that a meteorite slammed into the earth, shooting great clouds of dust up into the water vapor. The dust particles would provide the nuclei of condensation for the raindrops and down comes the canopy. Along with this idea is the suggestion that the earth tipped 23 1/2 degrees off dead center during this meteor's impact, resulting in frozen ice-caps and the four seasons.

Another theory holds that a large number of volcanoes erupted simultaneously around the earth, and the volcanic dust provided the particles for the condensation of the vapor into rain. Perhaps all of these cataclysmic events were happening at the same time -- the meteor hit the earth, fracturing the earth's crust, which in turn gave birth to multiple volcanoes.

If there were volcanic activity at the time of the flood, then volcanic ash would be expected in deep, old ice and frozen muck. In the antarctic^[1] and arctic, the oldest ice and muck is saturated with volcanic ash. The creationist position holds water.

A sudden and permanent temperature drop from pole-to-pole greenhouse warm (heaven and earth system #1) to frozen ice-caps and moderate temperature (heaven and earth system #2) would occur during the canopy collapse and Flood. In 1893, just one volcano, Krakatau,^[2] lowered the average global temperature five degrees for a year. Dust from Krakatau shot 30 miles up into the atmosphere and a series of tidal waves washed across the seas with the greatest being 120 feet high. This incredible wave pushed several miles inland on Java and Sumatra.

If the dust from one volcano could lower the temperature of the earth for an entire year, what might be the chaos and cataclysm of hundreds of volcanoes erupting simultaneously? Could it be that the Bible is describing volcanic activity when it tells us that on the seventeenth day of the second month: "...the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up,..." (Genesis 7:11)? This was the first day of a sudden and permanent temperature drop, the effects of which are in evidence to this day.
 

Science News (July 6, 1991, Vol. 140, #1, p. 7) headlines:
"VOLCANO COULD COOL CLIMATE, REDUCE OZONE."

The article states: "The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo could chill the Earth slightly for the next few years and hasten the destruction of the ozone layer over large portions of the world, say scientists...." (p. 7). Scientific literature refers to the "Ring of Fire". Several thousand years ago, volcanoes erupted simultaneously all around the world. What caused this cataclysmic ring of fire? Could this have been the "seventeenth day of the second month"?

QUICK FROZEN ANIMALS

Evolutionary science has no answer for the existence of many quick-frozen animals found in various places around the globe. Among these frozen animals are rhinoceros, hyena, oxen, sabre-toothed tigers, hippopotamus, bison, donkeys, leopards, ibex and giant woolly mammoths. What is a quick-frozen rhinoceros doing in Siberia? Is it that he was on a little summer vacation and before he could get back to Africa, got caught in a freezing blizzard? No, there were tropical animals living in Siberia before the Flood of Noah's day! The earth was pole-to-pole greenhouse warm under the water canopy. This presents an immense problem for evolutionists. What happened back then to quick-freeze tropical plants and animals in Siberia? None of these frozen "fossil" animals are transitional-form animals. All of these very ancient animals are discrete entities. They are instantly and easily classified as bison or mammoths. "Well", say evolutionists, "It must have been a slowly creeping ice age that caught up to these animals."

The frozen animal remains do not represent a slowly creeping ice age. They were caught and permanently frozen (they are still frozen today) with such incredible speed that undigested plants remained in their mouths and in their stomach's digestive juices. Giant nine-ton mammoths have been discovered with undigested buttercups in their mouths and in their stomachs which are still identifiable as to genus and species of the plant! (see Dillow, footnote #68)

What would it take to quick-freeze a happy, healthy nine-ton mammoth grazing on buttercups (and several hundred other identifiable plants which no longer grow in the frigid climate where the frozen mammoths are found)? Some scientists went to a major food-freezing company and posed this question. The answer does not fit into the known realities of heaven and earth system #2 (our present system). To quick-freeze nine tons of warm blooded animal munching on buttercups, it would take a temperature of -175°F (the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth is near -128°F), a wind-chill factor of a 200-400 m.p.h. wind, over a time of about four hours (eight hours at the outside limit). The problem is that there is nothing on earth that approaches these conditions necessary to freeze the animals -- and yet the animals are frozen. To preserve the meat and undigested plants, drastic conditions not known on our present earth would have been necessary for the quick-freeze. The freezing of these ancient plants and animals was not caused by a slowly creeping ice age. Many textbooks will show an artist's imaginary picture of a mammoth standing in a blizzard with a slowly creeping glacier moving up from behind. This is imagination, not reality. The mammoths were warm-temperature animals, eating warm-temperature plants in a warm-temperature climate that suddenly, in a matter of hours, became permanently frozen.

Another interesting fact about mammoths is documented by M. L. Ryder:

"The scarcity of hair in the modern elephant is associated with a corrugation of the epidermis, and a lack of skin glands. Although the mammoth, too,...lacked glands, the increase of the hair was associated with a loss of the epidermal corrugation....
Sections cut parallel to the skin surface revealed sparse, round, non-medullated hairs with no glands or erector muscles."^[3]

Mammoth skin has been dissected and, to the surprise of evolutionists, it contains no sebaceous (oil) glands. Why should this be a surprise? Because cold temperature animals have a plentiful supply of oil glands to oil their hair and fur. Wolves, polar bears and seals have such oily fur that the frigid northern water rolls off and does not penetrate to the skin. Cold temperature animals need a lot of oil to protect them from the wet cold. A mammoth could not last very long in a frigid climate without oil in its hair. It was a warm-temperature animal eating warm-temperature plants that was caught suddenly and frozen quickly and permanently in the distant past. Evolution provides no answer for this! A slowly creeping ice age is not a sufficient explanation for the quick-frozen animals -- but a cataclysm such as would have resulted with the collapse of the canopy at the Flood of Noah's day provides the answer and the evidence.

An animal with no oil glands in its skin cannot survive in a frigid climate. But an animal with oil glands can survive in frigid or tropical climates. Leopards have oil glands and can survive in tropical climates. Yet, their pelts have been used to make fur coats that are quite warm in winter. Polar bears survive in zoos in the intense summer heat of southern states.

These mammoths (and many other animals) were frozen so quickly that their meat can still be eaten.

"In many instances, as is well known, entire carcasses of the mammoth have been found thus buried, with the hair, skin and flesh as fresh as in frozen New Zealand sheep in the hold of a steamer. And sleigh dogs as well as Yakuts themselves, have often made a hearty meal of mammoth flesh thousands of years old."^[4]

This sudden and permanent temperature change from pole-to- pole greenhouse warm to the present perma-frost or permanent ice condition at and near the poles could have happened during the collapse of the water canopy at the Flood-judgment of God in the days of Noah. The frozen condition, since the break-up of the canopy permitted heat to escape our atmosphere, has preserved for us animal and plant life (now extinct) which existed in heaven and earth system #1. Evolution has no good answer for the sudden death of the frozen animals. The Bible would lead us to believe these things happened at the Flood destruction of system #1.

The Bible gives us a warning in Colossians 2:8:

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

Evolution is a philosophical system and an empty deception.^[5] Christians should not be taken captive by evolution -- there is no factual science (science not based on assumptions, see Dr. Kerkut's assumptions in Chapter 2, page 21) to support the molecules-to-man model of origins. In studying origins (where we came from) we must keep in mind that both evolution and creation are faith systems. We have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into believing that scientific facts prove evolution of molecules-to-man to be true. No one but God was there when the universe and life appeared. Let us not be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ! (II Cor. 11:3)

l.      Praise Ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights!
2.     Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
3.     Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.
4.     Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.
5.     Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created. (Psalm 148:1-5)

Footnotes:

[1] See Anthony Gow, "Glaciologial Investigations in Antarctica," Antarctic Journal of U.S., Vol. 7 No. 4 (1972),100-101.

[2] Cheryl Simon, "Krakatau 1893: The Shock Felt 'Round the World'," Science News, 124 (May, 1983), 138.

[3] M. L. Ryder, "Hair of the Mammoth," Nature, 249 (May 10, 1974), 190,191.

[4] G. Richard Lydekker, "Mammoth Ivory," Smithsonian Reports (1899), p. 363, as reported by Dr. Joseph Dillow, The Waters Above, p. 312. (See footnote #69)

[5] When we depart from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ (II Cor. 11:3), we accept empty deceptions. Many Christians have departed from Biblical Truth to believe in Darwinian evolution or in Punctuated Equilibrium (evolution did not happen too slow to see, it happened too fast to see). Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge promote "Punctuated Equilibria" as the mode of evolution (see: "Punctuated Equilibria: the Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered," Paleobiology, 3 (Spring 1977). The punctuated equilibria model (evolution is too fast to see) has been around for a long time even though Gould seems to accept praise as the "father" of it. Punctuated equilibria is foundational to Marxist-Leninism and was seen by Marx and Lenin as essential to move people away from Biblical Truth into the vain philosophy and empty deception of Marxist-Leninism. For excellent documentation of this and Gould's roots as a Marxist, read: The Long War Against God by Dr. Henry Morris (Baker Book House, 1989), and Understanding the Times by Dr. David Noebel (Summit Ministries, Box 207, Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829, 1991).