Creation and Evolution Beliefs

Creation and evolution beliefs are just that – a topic that deals with looking at the evidence and perhaps with a different conclusion. In this podcast, Felice shares her research with a creation scientist as well as her curriculum that has received inclusion in Cathy Duffy’s 100 and 101 Top Homeschool Curriculum. Jill Whitlock and Felice Gerwitz co-authored a series of curriculum for the homeschool and Christian school market. You can find our books at MediaAngelsMembership.com as well as on Amazon.

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Creation and evolution beliefs can follow you anywhere!

Felice attended a health conference for doctor’s and one talk was entitled the Embryo Defensive Human Life. And as you know, with a topic of a creation and evolution, that’s one of the big things that come up with a definition of what human life is. The talk was hosted by professor Robert George, he is a Princeton University professor. What was amazing was the fact that the discussion these days has gone to the definition of life, as a Christian, I believe that life is at the moment of conception and the human embryo is totally human. It is a humankind. It has a potential to grow into an adult. Professor George had to be transported to and from the airport by a deputy sheriff of Lee County. And it was, I’m sure for his safety, he had to be escorted because he has had death threats on his life. While we may consider that we live in a free society when you see things such as this, it is hard to believe. And right now I just praise God that there is this ability to speak frankly about the importance of the beginning of life, which is important to the future of our children! Be sure to teach your children that God created is wonderful, commendable, and should be done.

He’s written many books and was so articulate and so logical to me that much of it dovetails into this discussion of creation and evolution. Let me just preface this, talk with a couple of things and one of them is my lack of knowledge beginning any discussion on the topic. I met Jill Whitlock many years ago now and she was a scientist. She was an oil and weld geologists by degree. And when I met her she was telling me about the topic of creation and evolution.

Teaching Creation and evolution beliefs side-by-side is important.

I had just attended a conference at the state convention the year before. And I said I was left with a lot of questions. I bought a lot of books, but I didn’t know what to do with these books. She had made a ten-year study at the time and invited me over. She started out the discussion with the second law of thermodynamics and I hit pause on the recorder and I said, okay, we need to stop here. I didn’t even know there was a First Law of Thermodynamics and here you are talking about a second Law of Thermodynamics. And I said, well, what is the thermodynamics? After we stopped laughing she went on and explained and opened my eyes to the world of science and how important it was to teach both concepts to your children.

Many times in our in our homeschool world, children are taught biblical principles and are taught values, virtues, and character qualities. And all of these things are very important and very pivotal. And I do this as well in my own schooling of my children. But I want to challenge you to go one step further and I want to challenge you to consider teaching creation and evolution side by side.

And here’s the reason why. For many, many years, I’ve had friends in all walks of faith in the homeschool world and outside of it that serve the Lord, yet their children have strayed. Some even believe that it is anti-Christian because anybody who is open-minded could not possibly consider that God used the book of Genesis as fact, many consider it an allegory. I don’t argue the point anymore. What I do say is educate yourself and whatever you decide is between you and your maker, if you believed there is one or not. And it’s not anything. I can only present the information and then you can decide how you’re going to teach it.

And you know, I know there’s some wonderful curriculum available. Our books are geared with a very, very detailed outline that Jill came up with after many, many, many years of research.

My challenge to you with today is to give your children a foundation that will stay with them after they leave your home and go into adulthood. At some point, your kids will need to make a choice and hopefully, they can make a choice for God! However, they must understand the evolutionary perspective. You can’t put God in a box, however, I believe that the book of Genesis. should be taken literally, we take every word in the Bible literally. It’s not up to me to decide, everyone needs to make up their own mind.  As a Christian we discuss Genesis 12 and consider that literally because it discusses Abraham and the lineage of David, leading to Christ.

Points discussed on this podcast:

1. It is important not only for me to teach my children the Biblical truth, but also to teach them that evolution does not hold the answers.
2. Discuss with your children – when does life begin.
3. Creation and evolution are both very important. Charles Darwin is considered the father of evolutionary thought. He basically preempted another author when he wrote the book Origins of Species and it became based on some of his observations that was published in 1859 and has become the dominant scientific theory of origins amongst influential scientists.
4. Today scientists today no longer believe in evolution as proposed by Charles Darwin. In fact, they call it neo-Darwin and Neo Darwinian. Darwin said that the fossil record would prove all the transitions that he speculated about in his observations in the fossil record is still sadly lacking what in, in not sad for us to set for evolutionists.
5. When studying about creation versus evolution, there have been three things that have really shaken the evolutionary foundation.
   1. And one is the scientists claim that DNA can be traced back to one set of parents. One scientist refer to this as the Mitochondrial Eve. This is bad press for an evolutionist, because of the reference to the Bible, but totally in line with what creation! Teach that all mankind comes from one set of parents. And if you believe in the biblical principles, we call them Adam and Eve.
   2. The second amazing thing with scientists believing they can test the effects of the beginning of time. Again, a big shock to them because they believed that the big bang or rose from an eternal universe, and now if they can see a beginning, then the question becomes who started it?
   3. The third shock in the scientific community is when red blood cells were found and dinosaur bones. Now, this is impossible since it is believed that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. The blood cells should have dissipated, are fossilized — but here they were not. In fact, and we use this as a topic in our second novel in the truth seekers mystery series, dinosaur quest.
6. Everything you read about evolution teaches it as a given fact. Beware of this. They use words such as millions of years ago or we know that millions of years ago that… And so these are the things that really bother me when I read them teaching creation and evolution side by side. It says it all because your student, your child has been a constantly been be bombarded with evolutionary information from secular sources. Second, we need to teach evolution so that our children will understand the problems with the theory and learn how to counter what they see and hear in the media through science by definition is observable, repeatable, and testable.
7. We cannot go back and observe or redo creation, nor can we observe or a test evolution than they are both. Belief systems both require faith to believe.
8. There are so many scientists who are so eager to believe the lies of evolution when there’s so much evidence contrary to evolution, but it is censored. And the opinions of scientists are presented as facts.
9. We either say things are a theory, proven or a hypothesis. Science teaches the theory of evolution is a valid hypothesis based on, “all of this evidence” that is still missing.
10. Do you kids understand or could they debate a college professor who claims that Carbon14 dating is valid? My daughter did this in college and I share the details in this podcast. It is important for your children (and you) to understand the difference.
11. Teach your children to think through things logically. Children who are being taught to think logically, are able to combat those who are illogical.
12. Artifacts for example, of a fossilized beetle, are supposed to be 60 million years old, yet it is unchanged from a modern living beetle. We can point out and show our children. (My daughter and I used this topic in our third novel (http://www.TruthSeekersMysterySeries.com – Keys To The Past: Unlocked)
13. The majority of people today, including many Christians, think the theory of evolution was founded by Darwin and is supported by scientific effort. And it actually began before the ancient Greeks. And again, there is no scientific basis that really, really definitively says, you know, here’s the information, you know, we’re done with it, there’s no more discussions, you know, the theory of evolution caused from the new changes over time and allows one species to change into a totally different species over millions of years.
14. Macroevolution does not exist and there is no evidence. People try to say that microevolution has also evolved. Now micro is a change within a kind and that is not at all what we consider evolution. I have no problem with microevolution.
15. When people talk about Noah’s Ark and look at feasibility studies that had been done about it, it is astounding that each kind of animal was on the Ark. You know, even some of the dinosaur kinds. And most dinosaurs were actually very small about the size of a chicken.
16. Dr. Henry Morris was a tenured scientist who left to found the Institute for Creation Research. And he was for a sore point in the side of “real scientists” because he was a real scientist. He was a tenured scientist at a secular university.
17. James Watson and Francis Crick were scientists who recognized that nothing could have evolved by random chance or mutations over time. And this spawned the Intelligent Design debate.
18.  Intelligent Design says that our world is so complex it must have an Intelligent designer –proponents of this are across the board in their belief systems from Christian groups, Christian, Catholics, Jewish atheists were all part of this group and still are today. Many videos are available by Michael Behe on YouTube.
19. Evolution is still considered a theory. There is no law of evolution. Biogenesis states that life can only come from life. And therefore, evolution violates the Law of Biogenesis and if you try to ask a scientist that you will get every other answer, but a direct response. And to me it’s so amazing and these are the kinds of things that happen when people turn their backs to Christian principles.
20. Many students lose their states and reject the biblical teaching of their families and churches and essentially lose their fate due to evolution.

 

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Creation Matters

Does Creation Matter? Why does the discussion on how God created the world matter? Did God really create the world in six days and rest on the seventh? Does anyone really care? These questions and many more including teaching tips and great resources are presented in the Creation Science Podcast, my name is Felice Gerwitz and it is my pleasure and honor to be your host.

Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast!  Do that here:  SUBSCRIBE

Sponsored by Smash Maths

SMASH Maths provides 2 online math Practices every week for children.

Each Practice contains at least 10 bespoke questions, so that means 20+ questions a week. The program is available for pupils in Kindergarten to Grade 6. The cost is $7.50 per month. Use CODE: FELICE to receive your discount. Visit SMASHMATHS.org/homeschooling  Find out more here: https://www.smashmaths.org/home-schooling/

 

This podcast was an original work of the Creation Science Expo that I had the pleasure of hosting some years back, it is my pleasure to re-release it to you and share the importance of caring about our origins.

Many times I’ve discussed the purpose of having a creationist perspective, and people would say, “Why do you care?” The reason I care is that I want my children to grow up with a Christian worldview and share that with their children, someday. In the writing of my Truth Seekers Mystery Series book, I had a “God-incident” that I share in this episode.

In a nutshell, I was rushed during the Christmas season and wanted nothing to do with the rereading of the draft copy of one of the novels. You see, as a novelist, and co-novelist at the (along with my then, college-aged daughter, Christina), I was the one in charge of final proofreading and I kept finding mistakes. I was frustrated. I threw up a heavenward prayer, “God are you sure you have the right person doing this job?” And, I wasn’t talking about the job of editing, I was talking about the job of being the “hands and feet” of God – spreading the word about the fallacies of evolutionary claims. Which these novels demonstrate in a fun-easy to read and mystery adventure. More about the TruthSeekersMysterySeries.com here.

Heading to a store to do last minute shopping, I happened upon a calling card placed in a nativity scene I was about to purchase. (The audio includes details about this, but here is the visual — a copy of the card:

Listen to the podcast for the rest of the story!

Be sure and check out our blog, HomeforLearning where you’ll find helpful science posts:

Do I Really Need to Teach Science in My Homeschool?

Teaching Science | Unit Study 

How and What to Teach with Science

 

and visit our Creation Science Podcast page.

The post Creation Matters appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

Creation Anatomy

Creation Anatomy is a study of looking at the body through a different set of lenses, lenses with a creationist perspective. Can you see God’s creation in the human body? The answer is yes!

God’s creation is good — studying anatomy with a Biblical perspective means starting in the book of Genesis.
God created man with a purpose we are His special creation!
We are the “body” of Christ!

In our book, Creation Anatomy: A Study Guide of the Body there is a chapter on the price of the human body.
However when you add up all the parts of the human body down to its chemical composition — God created us with an eternal soul and that means we are priceless!
Our body doesn’t only operate on an elemental level — it also functions on the molecular level and the most complex of all of our molecules in hemoglobin.
Any attempt to make man has failed. There is not a biochemical company that could put it all together and not enough money in the world to buy all the elements you need for our body.

That is an amazing testament to the awesome power of God.

Our body works in the most complex way.
We have different fluids
75-trillion cells
Our cells require oxygen, burns fuel, gets hot, needs to cool, performs work and gives off exhaust — “gas”

1. Studying Creation Anatomy we delve into the miracle of the body:
2. Oxygen reaches the destination which diffuses into the cell
3. The same moment the blood carries exhaust gasses from the cell
4. The exhaust gases are tissue cells in CO2
5. C02 plus water equals carbonic acid
6. And it must be neutralized instantly
7. Naturalized red cells take it to the bloodstream
8. Bloodstream combines with salt and plasma which equals sodium bicarbonate
9. Harmless and carried to lungs
10. Lungs are not equipped to exhale waste
11. in the lungs — bicarbonate ions join with protons from hydrogen to form carbonic acid that breaks down to form carbon dioxide gas and water
12. It passes through the capillary wall to the lungs to be exhausted
13. Same instant red cells pick up another fresh load of oxygen and begin the journey again.

Listen to the podcast for more information.

The post Creation Anatomy appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

For Kids! What Happened To The Dinosaurs? Episode 7

To understand a bit about what happened to the Dinosaurs, it is best to begin in Genesis. Understanding how man sinned shows us that the Garden of Eden a haven for Adam and Eve and all the animals became a world far from perfection.

Then along came Noah! He was a righteous man and he saved the animals at the time of The Flood. While some think the flood was only in specific areas of the world, this is not true! You can find more information about Flood Geology in the book Creation Geology a Study Guide to Fossils, Formations & The Flood. The Flood was worldwide, the podcast contains information about some of the ways we know this.

The Ark design was unique (Genesis 6:14-16) There was room for 2 of each animal, food and storage, Noah and his family. The ark design is one of the most stable of any boat. When God said He wanted Noah to take two of each kind, what does it mean? A “kind” is not a “species.” For example, a “dog kind,” includes dogs, wolves, coyotes, etc.

What Happened To The Dinosaurs?

Where are the dinosaurs? Dinosaurs were believed to be on the ark. Juvenile dinosaurs were onboard and the average size of the dinosaur was the size of a small chicken. So, for all those skeptics, yes – dinosaurs were on the ark!

When the rains stopped and the flood waters receded, 150 days later the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The mountains became visible in the tenth month.

Before the Flood, the earth was warmer. It is believed there was more carbon dioxide in the air that made the plants and animals grow bigger (and people lived longer). There are many plants and animals found in the fossil record that did not survive the flood.

What Happened to the Dinosaurs? 

After the flood, many plants and animals died and the dinosaurs and other large creatures could not live in the reduced atmosphere or without some of the plants that did not survive, so they became extinct. Many plants and animals were buried rapidly which caused fossils. Fossils are often found in groups. The rocks showed the catastrophic deposits with large scale erosion into the newly deepened oceans. There was also a post-flood Ice Age.

Geologic formations formed and the rapid burial showed that many fossils found were not commonly found together in nature. The Fossils were only preserved when they are rapidly buried.

Thanks to our sponsor, Harper Collins Christian, and the Kingdom Girl’s Bible

Girls will discover the power of faith in this beautiful Bible that features women of the Bible. This is the ideal Bible for girls on their journey of faith! This special Bible is specifically crafted to highlight the stories and lessons of the inspiring, famous, and sometimes infamous women of the Bible. With over 400 engaging features, colorful illustrations, and helpful notes, this Bible is perfect for girls ages 8 to 12 as they learn about the strong and faithful women who came before them. Visit the website for more information.

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The Global Flood Episode 17

Thanks to our sponsor, A Fanthom Presents Film – The Ark and The Darkness – Movie Trailer here: NoahsFlood

In theaters March 20-21! Noah’s Flood is preserved in ancient writings from every major culture around the world. Recent discoveries confirm what the Bible has said all along. Sevenfold Films and Genesis Apologetics present: The Ark and the Darkness.

The Four Great Global Events of Genesis The Flood

As we talk about the Genesis Global Flood and its significance, it is important to, first of all, determine if it was a global or a local event. Did the Flood cover the whole earth or just Mesopotamia?

Genesis indicates that the Flood was global, affecting all of the earth. If this was not the case, then the rainbow that the Lord gave as a sign of His promise would have been a promise given just to the people of Mesopotamia and would have had no significance for the rest of the world. Why does the world need to be reminded that the Lord would never flood Mesopotamia again? This would have been a huge waste of time and space to take four chapters of Genesis to tell a story that is irrelevant to future generations.

Global Flood:

We also need to decide if the story of the Flood is anything more than a myth. It is true that the Flood cannot be proven by science, but the same is true of the uniformitarian view of our earth. Uniformitarianism also can not prove that the earth is a product of processes over millions of years. To be classified as science, it must be able to be tested, observed, and repeated. This is not possible with uniformitarianism.

Scripture is not intended to be a scientific dissertation on geology, but it is a historical record that presents the global Flood as a real historical event. The real question to address is, can the Flood explain the geological landforms, rocks, and fossils that we see today? And the answer is, yes.

Global Flood:

There are two major stages as recorded in the Scripture concerning the Flood – the filling stage, or the inundation stage. This is found in Genesis 7:23-24. The second stage, the receding stage, is found in Gen 8:1-16. Although there is no scientific terminology in either of these passages, there are quite a few geological implications in these passages.

Here are the verses and activity/geological implications:

Gen.7:4 – Extinction

Gen. 7:11 – Tectonic upheaval

Gen. 7:11 – Torrential and violent rain, massive flooding

Gen. 7:17 – Massive amounts of rock and sediment torn up and moved

Gen. 7:18 – The waters and their strength increase, causing erosion and transportation of sediments

Gen. 7:19 – The Flood was deep, covering the entire earth

Gen. 7:21 – The Flood was devastating to life, which is what the fossil record shows

Gen. 7:22 – Dead things buried in rock layers all over the earth

Ge. 7:23 – All air-breathing, land-dwelling life outside of the ark perished

Gen. 7:24 – It took 150 days for the water to reach a maximum depth

Gen. 8:1 – Water draining off the earth carved great ravines, channels, and planation surfaces

Gen. 8:2 – Wet sediments torn up by the Flood begin to settle

Gen. 8:3 – Receding flood waters would have caused rapid and catastrophic cutting and planation

Ge. 8:5 – Continued planation and channelized erosion

Gen. 8:34 – Some sediments during this time would have hardened, others would have warped during the tectonic processes of the Flood

 

And the products that we would highlight are:

Fossils and the Genesis Flood Kit The Genesis Flood for Little Eyes Kit Genesis  Flood for Kids Kit Bedrock Geology Book  Bedrock Geology Kit

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Biblical Creation Terminology

In order to have an intelligent discussion, you must understand the terms. Biblical Creation terminology is the focus of this podcast.

Thanks to Media Angels website featuring Creation Science Unit Studies for an unbelievable price~MediaAngelsMembership.com

And thank you to our sponsor, CTC Math.

Biblical Creation vs. Evolution:

A quick definition of Biblical Creation begins with the Creator God. A Creator God began the world with His Word. Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Evolution – by definition is a change over time, it is a two-step process.
1. The theory that life began spontaneously on its own
2. Darwin’s theory of simple life evolving into more complex

The terminology is confusing.
Terminology is everything. “He who defines the term wins.”

What is in a word?
Creation:
1. Creation science
2. Biblical Creation
3. Old Earth Creationist

Evolution:
1. Macro Evolution
2. Convergent Evolution
3. Darwinism
4. Neo-Darwinism
5. Old Earth
6. Theistic Evolution

God created the world with His Word. Genesis 1:1

Do you believe that God created? It is a matter of faith, evidence points to a Creator.

Intelligent Design:

An “Intelligent” Designer began the world
Science points to order not disorder
Evolution does not make sense in regard to life beginning by accident
The Designer could be:
1. God (for Christians)
2. Aliens
3. Unknown

Adaptation:

Scientists are conflicted and confused when discussing this aspect of evolution. The idea that traits are inherited by use and disuse is unscientific. The theory is that an organism adapts or alters according to certain genetic limits or due to circumstances.

Creationists do believe that adaptation does happen within certain generic limits. Adaptation happens within a kind. For example, there are different kinds of dogs, cats, finch, etc.

However, dogs remain dogs. New creatures or new features are never observed through adaptation.

Speciation:
1.Evolution of populations with species
2. Evolutionary biologists involved in the debate over what the term means
3. Based on the word “species”
4. Signifies a small step along evolution from one basic kind to another (false)
5. Variation should be used instead
6. Changes that occur with certain characteristics

Evolutionary scientists:

1. Have faith in evolution
2. Will not back down even with the lack of evidence
3. Bottom line: atheists, agnostics or Bible believers who see evolution evidence through evolutionary filters
4. Those who believe God created the world as stated in Genesis
a. take Genesis and the entire Bible in faith
b. Believe science confirms the Bible

Special Thanks to Our Network Sponsor – CTC Math

 

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Does Creation Matter?

Creation matters, yes. Why does the discussion on how God created the world matter? Did God really create the world in six days and rest on the seventh? Does anyone really care? These questions and many more including teaching tips and great resources are presented in the Creation Science Podcast, my name is Felice Gerwitz and it is my pleasure and honor to be your host.

Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast!  Do that here:  SUBSCRIBE

This podcast was an original work of the Creation Science Expo that I had the pleasure of hosting some years back, it is my pleasure to re-release it to you and share the importance of caring about our origins.

Many times I’ve discussed the purpose of having a creationist perspective, and people would say, “Why do you care?”

The reason I care is that I want my children to grow up with a Christian worldview and share that with their children, someday. In the writing of my Truth Seekers Mystery Series book, I had a “God-incident” that I share in this episode.

In a nutshell, I was rushed during the Christmas season and wanted nothing to do with rereading of the draft copy of one of the novels. You see, as a novelist, and co-novelist at the (along with my then, college-aged daughter, Christina), I was the one in charge of final proofreading and I kept finding mistakes. I was frustrated. I threw up a heavenward prayer, “God are you sure you have the right person doing this job?” And, I wasn’t talking about the job of editing, I was talking about the job of being the “hands and feet” of God – spreading the word about the fallacies of evolutionary claims. Which these novels demonstrate in a fun-easy to read and mystery adventure. More about the TruthSeekersMysterySeries.com here.

Heading to a store to do last-minute shopping, I happened upon a calling card placed in a nativity scene I was about to purchase. (The audio includes details about this, but here is the visual — a copy of the card:

Listen to the podcast for the rest of the story!

Be sure and check out our blog, HomeforLearning where you’ll find helpful science posts:

Do I Really Need to Teach Science in My Homeschool?

Teaching Science | Unit Study 

How and What to Teach with Science

 

and visit our Creation Science Podcast page.

The post Replay | Creation Matters appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

Truth Seekers Mystery Series Episode 

Join Felice Gerwitz as she interviews her co-author in the Truth Seeker’s Mystery Series, Christina (Gerwitz) Moss. Christina shares her homeschool experience and how the series evolved from an idea to three books in the series.

Thanks to our sponsor, CTCMath.com – we are pleased for their continued excellence in education and dedication to the homeschool community. It is due to sponsorships that our programs continue to come to you without cost. Please visit the website and check out their curriculum.

Christina began the idea of writing a novel and finally convinced her mom it was a good idea. When Felice, a non-fiction author with a publishing company, Media Angels, Inc., explained she didn’t know how to write a novel, her daughter shot back. “We are homeschoolers; we can figure it out!” And figure it out; they did.

First In The Truth Seekers Mystery Series

Christina’s first novel, The Missing Link Found (Book One in the Truth Seekers Mystery Series), outsold her mother’s Creation Science: A Study Guide at the convention debut. In fact, this book helped children learn about Creation science in a fun way, and in turn, they were enthusiastic about attending creation science events.

 

Encourage Your Kids to Solve Their Own Creation Science Mystery

Media Angels, Inc. offers the Creation Science Camp. Perfect for homeschool, co-op, or Christian school classroom. Each day you study one day of God’s amazing Creation! One Week of Full Activities or break it up into a longer period of time. Your choice.

This digital download is a special price right now. Save 50%!

 

If you Enjoyed this Podcast on the Mystery Series, Listen to This:

The Truth Seekers Mystery Series Perfect for Summer Reading – Keys to the Past: Unlocked

 

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Lemon Balm is a useful plant to include in any herbal garden. The benefits of lemon balm for the entire family are worth the effort. Join Julie on Crunchy Christian Podcast today as she talks about this wonderful, mild herb.

Historical Benefits of Lemon Balm

Greeks

Melissa officinalis appears in ancient texts as far back as 2000 years. People strongly associate lemon balm with bees and  sometimes refer to it as bee balm. It certainly is a “balm” for bees as they can’t seem to resist the smell. Perhaps that’s the observation from which Greeks derived their mythology.

The earliest texts place lemon balm in Ephesus, which is in modern day Turkey. Ancient Greek texts are rife with mythology around this plant. For example, in Greek mythology, Melissa was the nymph who discovered honey and nursed the infant Zeus, who later became king of the gods. Nymphs were said to be able to take the form of bees.

For the Greeks, these Melissae were priestesses serving the great goddess mother of nature. They believed that only those who lived a righteous life could become Melissae and then return to heaven, like a bee returning to the hive. And of course, the genus name, Melissa, is the Greek word for “honeybee.”

Learn more about some ancient benefits of lemon balm on the podcast.

Middle Ages

In the ninth century, Charlemagne consumed lemon balm teas and tinctures to promote health and longevity. He decreed that lemon balm should be included in all apothecary and monastery gardens in his realm.

On the podcast, Julie talks more about the monastic gardens and Carmelite water!

Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance period, people praised the benefits of lemon balm. They claimed it as a sort of fountain of life and overall tonic, using it in elixirs, liquors, ointments, and baths. They even used it as a furniture polish and room freshener. Lemon even makes its appearance in Shakespearean plays as an anointing herb and as an herb for grief.

It’s no wonder why settlers would bring lemon balm with them when they came to North America. The benefits of lemon balm over the years made it indispensable.

Benefits of Lemon Balm

Beekeepers crush the leaves to release this smell and draw worker bees to a newly-constructed hive—a technique in use since antiquity. Lemon balm contains many of the same chemicals that are found in bee pheromones, such as nerolic acid. Its actions are nervine, sedative, mild antidepressant, mild antispasmodic, carminative, diaphoretic, antiviral, antioxidant. Contains: flavonoids, tannins, rosmarinic acid, ferulic acid, caffeic acid, methyl carnosoate, hydroxycinnamic acid, and several phenols and aldehydes, including citral and geraniol, especially in the essential oil. Interestingly, a worker honeybee’s Nasonov gland also contains geraniol and citral!

Also contains vitamin C and thiamin and when added to drinks, makes a refreshing summer tea. It has also been added to jams and jellies to add a nice lemony flavor. Some people even candy the leaves!

Growing It

A perennial member of the mint family, growing up to three feet tall. Square stems with oval or heart-shaped serrated leaves. Small flowers in pale yellow, white, or pink. Has a lemony smell and flavor. Grows best in cooler climates and tolerates weather down to -20F. Dislikes hot climates. Grows best in rich, well-drained soil but will grow in almost any soil as long as it isn’t too wet. Might be good to plant it with Thyme and Lavender. Grow it near your cabbage family vegetables as it helps deter insects that like those plants. Another of the benefits of lemon balm is that it attracts honeybees, as already discussed. So, you could also plant it near fruit trees or other plants that depend on bees for pollination. Be aware that like other members of the mint family, it can become invasive if not managed well.

Modern Research

People use this herb fresh, dried, in teas, syrups, ointments, and as an essential oil. The benefits of lemon balm essential oil are similar to that of the whole plant. European studies show it is effective in shortening the healing time of cold sores and shingles outbreaks.

Other studies have shown the benefits of lemon balm to include stress relief, reduce anxiety, improve cognitive function, helps with sleep, and pain relief for menstrual cramps, headache, and maybe toothache.

Safe for children, even babies. In fact, one study showed that lemon balm combined with fennel and chamomile reduced crying time in colicky babies by half compared with babies receiving a placebo.

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Climate Change – The Real Story with Special Guest Dr. Jay Wile ~ Episode 25

We want to be good stewards of our environment, but the climate change advocates keep changing the definitions. So, today I have a noted scientist, Dr. Jay Wile who will take some of the mystery out of climate change and explain it in a way that we can understand!

*One main point near the end of the broadcast will shock you!

Dr. Jay Wile has a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in nuclear chemistry and a B.S. in chemistry from the same institution. He has won several awards for excellence in teaching and has presented numerous lectures on the topics of Nuclear Chemistry, Christian Apologetics, Homeschooling, and Creation vs. Evolution. He has articles on these subjects in nationally recognized journals and has authored or co-authored thirteen award-winning science textbooks designed to be used in a homeschool setting.  Books by Dr. Jay.

Climate Change Articles – Search Climate change of Dr. Jay’s blog – here is the search results.

Scientists created computer models of climate that were predicting warming. And as they were tracking the warming of the globe the models did not show this huge increase as per predictions and scientific models. The theory was as the years progressed the computer models and data collection would show definitely that the earth was indeed warming and it would be a huge problem for people on earth. The problem was the globe has not warmed much, so it’s been hard to convince people that it is a problem. The greatest warming took place before the 1970s.

Here are some things we know about global warming. The globe has not warmed enough so in essence the science now focuses on a new term, “climate change.” The theory is the carbon dioxide is not warming the planet but due to the carbon energy it is trapping it is causing the extreme weather we are seeing. There is evidence that the earth has warmed a little bit since the mid-1800s. Long before the build-up of carbon dioxide. The question is what has caused it, and scientifically we really don’t know. We do know that carbon dioxide traps heat.

The big question is the “equilibrium climate sensitivity” and that is a question we will address in this broadcast. It is the single most important piece of data related to climate change, and therefore the question that should be asked and is often avoided or even unknown by many of the politicians campaigning on this topic.

What is it? In Dr. Jay Wile’s own words: “Equilibrium climate sensitivity is defined as how much will global temperatures increase if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles.” And that question is completely unanswered. It is somewhere between zero degrees and 3.5 degrees. There is no trend! Some studies show a very very low equilibrium climate sensitivity so we could easily double the carbon dioxide and nothing significant would happen other studies produce a very large climate sensitivity which means everything gets really hot and bad things to happen.

The most recent studies show no one agrees. If that single more important question what is equilibrium climate sensitivity can not be answered scientifically then you can’t say scientifically that global warming is a problem. You just can’t!

Anything we do in the short term can’t produce a long term effect. It will be making a minor difference. That is just standard scientific reasoning. I can’t take a short term action and produce a significant long term effect. For example Paris climate accord. Everyone agrees in this accord that if every country followed the Paris Climate Accord the average temperature of the earth would drop by .01% and that is if every country agreed–which we know they won’t or can’t.

Extrapolated data that scares children and gloom and doom. “Anxiety caused by people who are afraid of climate change,” is actually a thing. Dr. Jay says this is not reflected in the scientific literature. If you do a search on all of the scientific literature on climate change you will find virtually no scientific literature that expects a catastrophic outcome. And for the ones that talk about a catastrophic outcome, it is an outcome for certain regions of the world.

There is nothing in the scientific literature that says the world is going to end due to climate change, not even the most radical proponents. Things published in the scientific literature are peer-reviewed and they know they can not publish something that is just conjecture.

We have weaponized science. 

That is taking science and weaponizing it to fit a political agenda. And, this is done all of the time in various ways including philosophical arguments. It just doesn’t work if you look at the true scientific findings and not extrapolated data.

Dr. Judith Curry is a favorite climate scientist. NASA climatologist for years. She had to resign due to craziness in the field of climate scientists. When reporters talked to her she told the truth. She pointed to the scientific literature. Reporters were shocked and contacted others and she would get punished for telling the truth to these reporters. She has a blog, Climate, etc. it is a balanced approach to climate science.

We have to realize this science has become ridiculously political. There are some whose livelihood depends on everyone believing there is a crisis and if there was not a crisis their job would be in trouble. Some people probably do believe there is a crisis. Dr. Jay says read both sides of the issues. And, contrast how they are looking at the data.

What we are seeing is the extrapolated data presented. We have three ways of measuring global temperature. But is the data unbiased? Dr. Jay explains the way that temperature is tracked today?

1. We have thermometers scattered across the earth that take the temperature and those numbers are averaged.
2. We have satellites that are constantly orbiting the earth tracking the microwaves and are constantly tracking the temperature of the earth.
3. We have weather balloons that use radio waves that determine the temperature.

All three ways come up with different answers. And what is bad is thermometer data is shown because they show the greatest change. What scientists don’t realize is that data is constantly “tweaked.” Even the data from the early 1900s is changed in the present. In order to do these averages, you have to be able to do a model. Every time the model changes all the past data changes as well. The scientific data is “changed.”

Blog post-2018- Does anyone really know how it is? It shows the raw data and the currently adjusted the early temperatures.  Tweaked the data to show their hypothesis.

When people look at data through the lens of assuming that global warming is happening. Climate scientists don’t even know how this data is adjusted on the fly. You never see the raw data. You see only the massaged data.

The argument is that the Paris accord is the first step and that makes sense, but unless you give me a plan to make a greater change than .01% — if you are going to make gasoline and electricity more expensive I won’t make the sacrifice. No one in the scientific literature can tell the answer. No one knows climate sensitivity.

Some changes are good: Forced auto manufacturing to put catalytic converters get rid of carbon monoxide (most of it), to pre-industrial levels but it had a good outcome.

Climate Change: we don’t’ talk about what the outcome is going to be. Every time you raise prices on electricity prices people die. 

If I know the increase the electricity prices will cause people to die because they can not afford their electricity, the correct question is: “How many old people are you willing to kill to stave off something that may not happen!” If we don’t even know it will happen — the changes — then how can we make these ridiculous (ed. emphasis here) assumptions that can cause death?

Bullet train fiasco in California – cost billions.

2020 prediction that the Glacier National Prak would disappear. Well in 2019 the sign was removed when Dr. Jay and his wife visited because they knew it was nowhere near disappearing. Also Al Gore and his false predictions that the North Pole would melt in 5 years – it has been over 10 years since his prediction and the North Pole is still incredibly icy.

The fact that the globe is warming right now still shows cooler temperatures than we have seen in the past. The Northern hemisphere was warm during the medieval period. It has been significantly hotter in the past. Studies show that in every major region the temperatures are due to a natural cycle.

 

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Junk DNA and EpiGenetics Episode 24 with Dr. Jay Wile

What is Junk DNA and how does the study in epigenetics show that scientists are still confounded as a creator God is definitely evident. Special guest, Dr. Jay Wile shares his expertise!

Visit Dr. Jay Wile, who has a Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry and he’s also the author of several different science series. Visit his website.

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What is Junk DNA?

For years, since the early seventies, junk DNA has been a staple of evolutionary thinking. Back in the 70s, we didn’t know a lot about DNA. The only stuff we really knew about DNA was parts of DNA contain these recipes for the cells. And it tells the cells how to make a particular kind of chemical called a protein. And that those recipes make up about 2% of DNA. And as far as we knew back the other 98% must be just useless junk. Evolution has had a ready explanation for why there’s junk DNA because after all, evolution is driven by mutations and mutations are random. They tend to destroy information much more than produced new information.

So if I’ve got a whole bunch of mutations, they’re mostly going to be degrading DNA. They’re not going to be improving it. So there must be a lot of DNA that got degraded from these mutations. But of course, the organism has to carry it along anyway. So the higher evolved an organism is the more junk DNA it should have. And so it’s not surprising according to evolutionists that 98% of the human genome is junk because we’re a very highly evolved species. Evolution had to make a lot of mistakes before it made us. And so a lot of those mistakes are reflected in the junk DNA. And that was a real popular view. Eventually, junk DNA became an engine for evolution because initially, evolution thought is that if you have a protein, you have a gene and a mutation occurs, maybe that mutation can make it a little better.

And if a series of mutations over a long period of time can take one gene and turn it into a completely new gene over time, evolution has found, well, the biochemical data doesn’t support that. We don’t see lots of little steps in genes and it’s extremely hard to understand how I can take a gene that the organism needs and mutate it to into something else and lose what it was originally coded for. So the thought was, well, if I’ve got all this junk DNA lying around, it’s just free to mutate, it’s not going to affect anything. And magical new genes can come out of that junk DNA. And by the early nineties, it was thought that the vast majority of evolution comes from this junk DNA.

Computer Junk DNA Simulations

A computer program called Avida is sort of the gold standard in computer simulations of evolution. In order for Avida to get evolution to happen at all, 85% of the genome of these organisms has to be junk because that’s where all the good stuff is coming from. Then a problem occurred. If the junk isn’t being used, then it’s free to mutate and eventually you’ll get something wonderful, right? In theory, all these great new genes are coming from this part of the genome that’s not used. And all this worked really well on the evolutionary view until 2012 and actually there were hints of this before then because there was a big study on the topic. But in 2012, the first big results from a study called nCode was produced now nCode was a huge study. It looked at more than 1600 data sets and had hundreds of scientists involved in it.

And basically they said, look, we have identified the cell using 80% of the human genome. So at a minimum, 80% of the human genome is functional. And in fact, the lead data analysis coordinator said that actually it’s going to be much more than that because they only looked at certain types of human cells. There are certain human cells they haven’t looked at yet. Those probably use different parts of the DNA. So in the end, he says he expects that 80% number to go up significantly.

Now, this is a real problem. If 80% of the genome is not junk and we now know that at most 20% of the human genome as junk, which means the lower evolved species have even less than 20% junk DNA. So in the end, it’s extremely hard to understand how evolution can function without a large pool of junk DNA.

A professor named Dan Grauer, who is a professor of evolutionary biology has made the statement that if nCode is right, then evolution is wrong. So what he’s saying is, if the results of this study is true, then evolution can’t happen. And he’s saying, not only do we need junk DNA to have a source for all these new wonderful genes. He’s saying it’s even worse than that because if you have the human genome, 80% of it is functional. That means natural selection has to keep 80% of the DNA from mutating significantly in order for it to work. And he said, in order for that to happen, on average, every couple would have to have 15 children and most of them would die because the mutations in their DNA would kill them.

But out of 15 children, 2.3 of them would live, which would allow the human population to continue. And so he’s saying, and code can’t be right. We can’t have that much functional DNA cause there’s no way natural selection can keep, keep it clean for millions of years. But I, and I agree with that. I agree. There’s no way natural selection is going to keep the human genome clean for millions of years. But humans have a, been around for billions of years. So it’s really easy to understand the encode results in from a creation standpoint because we know from a, a biblical standpoint that people lived longer in the past, specifically because their DNA was less mutated. And so natural selection has not been able to keep the DNA clean. It has been degrading and that’s why we have shorter lifespans than the people during Noah’s time and things like that.

So in the end, this whole idea of 80% or more of the gene of being functional perfectly fits in the young earth gracious perspective. And in fact, young-earth creationists, we’re predicting this all the way back when, when evolutionists were first talking about a junk DNA, a young earth creationist were saying, “No, there may be a little bit of junk DNA because of all of the degradation that’s occurred since the fall, but the vast majority of DNA has to be functional. And now we know that young-earth creationist prediction is correct. And the biochemical data strongly support that time. Now, a lot of times evolution just makes honest mistakes, many scientists make honest mistakes. So I never fault evolutionists for that. But when we look at the large number of fake fossils and the large number of faked experiments all trying to support the evolutionary view that to me is a real problem.

Sometimes evolutionists and some creationists both really distort science because evolutionists de desperately want their view to be true. And so they’re willing to lie in textbooks so that students are more likely to come to their view.

Dan Brower’s point is very true and I think what we’re gonna learn is the code is right and therefore evolution is wrong.

Epigenetics

The term of the prefix epi means above. So your epidermis is the top layer. Your skin. Epigenetics is something that happens above genetics. So the way we typically talk about genetics, genetics are determined by the sequence of in of nucleotide basis in the DNA. So the DNA contains these chemicals called nucleotide basis. And they act like dots and dashes in the mall Morse code. If you have this the nucleotide basis in one sequence, it means one thing. If you have them in a different sequence, it means a different thing. And for a long time, it was thought that it was the sequence of these bases that determines everything structurally about an organism. So if I look at your eye color and I find enough genes that relate to eye color, I can look at the sequence of those genes and I can tell you exactly what your eye color is going to be.

And so all of your physical characteristics can trace back to a sequence on your DNA. And we now know that’s not true because we’ve gotten really good at using animals that are genetically identical while they’re there. There are cloned animals. So we know they’re genetically identical. And yet when we put them in different situations, they end up having different physical characteristics. And this has been really well known for a long time. There’s a a cat that was cloned from another cat and the cloned cat is called copy cat, which is kinda cute. And copycat never ever looked like the original cat that it was cloned from. It had a lot of features the same, but like its markings were different. And its personality was different because these things go beyond or are on top of genetics.

And we’ve learned that it’s surprising how much goes on top of genetics. A Study: Genetically identical mice were taught to be scared of a particular color. So they trained them. Every time they saw that color, they got shocked. So they trained them to be afraid of that color. Other of the same genetically identical mice didn’t get trained that way. Then they looked at the offspring of those mice. The offspring of those mice were immediately removed from the parents at birth. So the parents never raised the baby mice. Another surrogate parent surrogate mice raise the baby mites. So the baby mice never had any contact with the parents yet. The baby mice were never trained to be afraid of that color and the baby mice are genetically identical across the board. Yet since one set of parents was trained to be afraid that somehow got transmitted and we don’t know the specifics of how that happened, we only know that it did. And so that’s what epigenetics is. It’s stuff that’s going above just the sequence of the DNA.

Now that’s a pretty high-level mechanism. It took us a long time to learn genetics. So genetics is complicated enough. Now we add something on top of genetics that makes everything even more complicated. It was thought that only higher evolved organisms would have epigenetic processes, genetics evolve first and then epigenetics evolved later. It’s a higher level of control over an organism’s traits. So it should have come later. Well, it turns out that we’ve just looked at what is considered the most primitive kinds of bacteria that live on the planet. These are called thermophilic bacteria. They’re bacteria that live in hot springs. These are supposed to be incredibly primitive. They’re actually called archaea bacteria. And archaea means outdated or old because these are the oldest kind of bacteria that ever lived. They’ve got epigenetics too. It’s been shown that two of these bacteria are genetically identical. They are completely different when it comes to the kinds of environments they can live in.

And so it has to be epigenetic. So epigenetics is supposed to be an even higher level thing than genetics and now we find it appears in the most primitive organisms. And so once again, this whole idea of evolution is we start with really simple organisms and then over millions of years we get more and more complex organisms. That’s not what we see in nature. What we see in nature is even the simplest organisms are ridiculously complex. So this whole of life getting more complicated over time does not play out when you actually look at life from a scientific perspective.

The best example of that is professor Richard Lee Walton, he’s a geneticist and an evolutionist.  He says it is not that the methods, it is the institutions of science have somehow compelled us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world. But on the contrary, we are forced by our adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of contents that produce material explanations that materialism is absolute, we cannot allow a defined foot in the door.

He’s saying it doesn’t matter what the science says, we’re just not going to let it happen.

Materialism is the idea that there’s nothing supernatural. Everything can be reduced to atoms and molecules and energy. And there’s nothing else than that. So even this concept that we call love isn’t really real. Love is just a manifestation of the way electrical stimuli run through our nervous system.

It is extremely hard to be a knowledgeable geneticist and be an evolutionist. It used to be thought that once we figured out genetics, we’d finally figure out all these evolutionary trees. We’d know what evolved for what and so forth. Well, what we found is if I try and construct evolutionary trees based on genes, if I use one set of genes, I get one evolutionary tree. I use a different set of genes. I get a completely different evolutionary tree. We’ve learned that there’s no way natural selection can, can keep the genomes clean because the genomes have a lot more stuff that natural selection has to clean. And this whole epigenetic stuff is showing that if all of these sorts of things that we’ve always thought were based on the environment –  if there’s this whole other way of inheriting that adds a completely new level to what evolution has to keep track of.

And according to this study of on a thermophilic bacteria, this has been around since the most primitive organisms. And so here’s now another thing that has to pop out of nowhere, not only does DNA have to pop out of nowhere, but now epigenetic mechanisms have to pop out of nowhere. And so the more we learned about genetics the less and less tenable evolution has become. That’s why evolution, at least nowadays in papers in the scientific literature is questioning evolution. In the early 2000’s you could say there’s not a single paper in the peer-reviewed literature that questions the validity of evolution. Now there are lots of papers in the scientific literature, the peer-reviewed secular scientific literature that’s questioning evolution because, in the end, genetics is pointing so strongly against it.

Our next episode with Dr. Jay Wile is on Global Warming.

 

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