I don't frequently get asked why I'm a
creationist but I guess the best to
answer that I need to kind of reflect on
my story a little bit I was born into a
Christian family in fact when I was two
my parents moved us off a couple states
away so my parents could attend Bible
School and preparation for the ministry
we moved back years later about that
just for I started school where my dad
soon started a small church where I grew
up and it was about a year later in
Vacation Bible School when I was
approaching my seventh birthday when I
was born again through that Vacation
Bible School I do believe in evangelism
children at a young age then um but I
didn't give a lot of thought to a lot of
things I was too busy being a kid and
just having a good time
playing and all sorts of other things if
I don't think girls go through this
quite as much but most guys in this
country at some point in their great
school years go through a dinosaur mode
did you all go through a dinosaur mode
yeah you just read everything you could
find and play hello we have these little
nice little green dinosaurs back in the
60s you could buy in a store and play
with and everything and I remember going
is probably my I'm pretty sure is my
fourth grade I was what nine years old
and I went to our school library and
checked out all these books on dinosaurs
and before you knew it I'd read both of
them you know pretty quickly and I
remember talking with some of the some
of the kids in a neighborhood we were
all talking about dinosaurs because
we're all plugged into that and I
remember discussing with him and tell
him about some of the stuff I had read
in these books and they talked about
different kinds of dinosaurs and what
they ate and what they did but they also
told us where dinosaurs came from how
they all started in the sea they were
like a fish that crawled out on the land
and they're they're Lana they're they're
their fins turned into legs they became
in phibian and then became reptiles and
they became dinosaurs and I got real big
and then they all died they hadn't come
up with the asteroid story yet so that
was a big mystery at that point to us I
remember even taking a little clay we
have the time and making a little fish
like things and moving the fins around
and making little legs and stuff and it
never occurred to me that this was in a
bit of conflict with what Scripture
revealed we didn't discuss creation that
much in our household it wasn't really a
threat this is the early 60s
and I don't think the atheist and the
evolutionist had really geared up quite
so much it wasn't discussed in school
really and so I kind of went along
didn't really give it any thought didn't
can make the connection that this was
quite contrary to what we read in
Scripture oh no big deal I was only nine
didn't cut me some slack I hope on that
one and those two years later I'm now in
sixth grade has an accelerated class
that one year and we had a very vigorous
program that year and learned a lot
covered a lot of material for instance
we finished actually finished some of
the textbooks that year which we had
never done before and we did do a unit
on evolution that's the first time I
actually heard the word I'd seen the
word but I didn't know what it meant
and our teacher was telling us about
some of this stuff and it's at this age
of 11 it started to click and we're
gonna realize wait a minute
this doesn't quite jibe with what I
learned at home and at church and so
forth and sort of the wheels started
turning they introduced me some things
like heckles diagrams which I must admit
I wasn't the brightest kid in the class
but I had my moments at the age of 11 I
thought that was dumb I didn't think
made any sense to me at that point so I
wasn't buying now I'm a scientist as you
as you well know but you know most
scientists I found as they were growing
up they went through all the sciences
you know they had a rock collection they
were in the birds they were into
astronomy and all sorts of stuff I
wasn't science was just one of those
classes we had at school it was okay
wasn't that exciting but I really
enjoyed astronomy there's some of my
earliest I have a lot of memories back
when I was very young
people ask how I get got interested in
astronomy I can remember at the age of
four judging by where we lived in the
time of year being out in the front yard
looking up the sky and seeing stars and
being fascinated with that but at that
age I remember having a discussion with
a kid much older than me I think he was
nine knew a lot more than I did and we
were actually discussing the nature of
space does it eat is it infinite we
didn't use that word or is it finite we
didn't use that word either but we use
our own little Bell Caballero sport
imagine a four-year-old having
discussion on cosmology it just kind of
blows my mind to think about it again I
wasn't the brightest kid but I did have
my
holmen's at that points this kid
nine-year-old knew a lot more than I did
so he filled my head with some ideas I
suppose
well my parents noticed my interest
budding interested in astronomy so not
long after that my mom was in a
Christian bookstore and she saw a couple
of paperback books here dealing with
science and with astronomy and so
Christian books was pretty safe she
bought them for me I'm probably now 1/8
maybe ninth grade I'm not sure and I
started reading them and again my ideas
are formulating I'm learning more and
more and and I start reading this and
these at least two men and these books
were writing about well the earth isn't
just thousands of years old and the it's
actually millions or billions of years
old and the days of creation are are
long periods of time and and I realized
pretty quickly well what they're telling
me here isn't exactly what I understood
the Genesis account man and what my
family understood and certainly what my
people my church understood but I also
realized that that these men were
Christian men that were devout it seemed
to me and they had studied a lot that
studied Scripture a lot more than I had
and it studied science and so if that's
what they were saying it probably was
correct and maybe I ought to start
thinking that way and I started heading
in that direction so I very easily could
have become a de age or a theistic
evolutionist I must have come admit I
was kind of kind of going that direction
a couple of comments we had in a family
a couple of times I don't think my
parents picked up on it they should have
been alarmed by my attitude a couple of
times but they don't think they noticed
and then I'm in high school my sophomore
year of high school and several things
happened my sophomore year of high
school I don't want time to go into that
but at least three things happen and
that was the year I decided that was my
calling in life to be an astronomer for
God's glory so I'm always in trying to
encourage young people if you're if
you're that age and you're you have an
aptitude for science and you have an
interested in science you got to pray
about that maybe that is your calling
you need to consider that that
possibility
at any rate and when that year somebody
gave me a book by a man you may have
heard of named Henry and Morris it was
called the Bible and modern science it's
kind of a short book and I started
reading to that book and very quickly I
realized something I realized wait a
minute what he's
saying here is very different from these
other two men so they both can't be
right could they and furthermore I
realized that what he was saying made a
lot more sense scripturally to me and
that very quickly I wasn't really
completely down that road or even Allen
Road necessarily very far but I was an
entertaining day agent theistic
evolution and that really took me back
on the right path pretty quickly I'm
soon read other things by Henry Morris
as well and learned quite a bit and so I
mean if you if you take the word of God
somewhat seriously and you believe it's
authoritative and I think that's a
non-negotiable for us then it certainly
tells us about the way to salvation and
about the Lord Jesus Christ but but it
also tells us a lot of other things and
if you can't trust it on the on the
history of the world then can you trust
it on the future of the world that's the
band our futures and I think the simple
answer is no you can't so it's a
seamless whole it stands together and so
as I look back at the the de-age theory
for instance you know some people try to
say well these these days could be long
periods of time you know the word Yaman
Hebrew can mean a long period of time
and the question is can it mean that and
the answer is yes it can but the the
important question is not what can this
word possibly mean in some context the
question is what does this word mean in
the context in which it is found
and I think it's very clear people
written whole dissertations and books on
that subject but what really convinces
me is the first time the word day is
found in the day to account it says that
it says the well I guess no the day one
account first time it appears it says
God separated the light from the
darkness and the light he called day and
the dark he called night and immediat
says the evening in the morning were the
first day and right there within the
same context if you want to say that you
very clear what the first use of the
word day is in that one context that one
thought means a normal daylight period
of time and immediately then in the same
context you're going to use the word day
in a totally different different way
that's
very poor writing style very confusing
so I think that's the best argument I
have from my own mind of why I believe
the days are what I call normal day six
days there's no way of getting around
that and see once you believed that the
world was made in six days then suddenly
creation is pretty easy at that point
once you get past that sticking point on
that so I think it comes down to an
authority question it comes down to a
question of can we trust the Bible with
all matters not just salvation in
spiritual matters but all matters of
life and the world around us and it all
stands or falls upon that one principle
and so because scripture requires that I
be a creationist that's primarily why I
am a creationist and it's my job my
calling in life as an astronomer to give
people good reasons to give myself good
reasons I can share with the world and
it's been my delight over the years to
attempt to do that build a creation
model show that from from science I
think truly under interpreted with the
proper filter in a proper worldview
actually does support the biblical
account of creation thank you very much
[Applause]