Independence Day: July 2 or July 4?

On July 1, 1776 delegates of the Second Continental Congress entered what John Adams called, “the greatest debate of all.” Even after over a year’s worth of conflict against the mightiest military force on earth, declared independence from Great Britain was far from a forgone conclusion. Just weeks earlier the majority of the men in the Congress were very much hoping that some formula for peace could be found with Great Britain.

In The Light and the Glory, by Peter Marshall and David Manuel, it’s noted that these Congressmen knew very well what it would cost them personally to, “cast their votes with those few who were advocating an open declaration of independence. For the men who signed such a declaration would, in the likely event of America’s defeat, be held personally responsible. And the penalty for instigating rebellion against the Crown was death.” Declaring independence required a unanimous vote from the Congress, and as Ben Franklin soberly put it, “We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.”

During the debate on July 1, John Dickinson, representing Pennsylvania, made powerful and lengthy arguments against declaring independence. With quiet resolve, but equal conviction, Adams answered him concluding with, “All that I have and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it. And I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration…Independence now, and Independence forever!”

Shortly following this exchange, Congress voted. The majority supported independence, but it was not unanimous as required. Nine of the thirteen colonies were ready to officially declare for freedom and the war necessary to achieve it. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted no. Delaware’s two delegates were split. The New York delegates abstained. Debate was to resume the next day followed by another vote.

On the following day, July 2, the South Carolina delegates, for the sake of unanimity, were swayed to support the Declaration. New Pennsylvania delegates voted for independence. With New York still abstaining, Delaware was the key. Its two delegates remained split. With a dramatic and grueling overnight ride through stormy weather, where often he had to dismount and lead his horse, an exhausted third Delaware delegate, Caesar Rodney, entered the State House in Philadelphia around 1:00 p.m., just as the final vote was about to occur. He had come to break the deadlock among his fellow statesmen.

Barely able to speak he exclaimed, “As I believe the voice of my constituents and of all sensible and honest men is in favor of independence, my own judgment concurs with them. I vote for independence.” Therefore it was unanimously decided (New York would join with the other colonies officially on July 9^th). Thus, The United States was born on July 2, 1776.

The significance of the event and the day was such that, on the following day John Adams wrote his wife Abigail and said that July 2 “will be the most memorable…in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.” So according to John Adams, the celebration of our independence is a couple of days late.

                                                                                                 

It was two days later on July 4 that an official Declaration of Independence document was actually signed, albeit only by two members of Congress: John Hancock, the President of Congress and Charles Thompson the Secretary of Congress. Most of the rest of the Congressmen would sign the Declaration about a month later.

On July 4, 1837, in a speech delivered in the town of Newburyport Massachusetts, John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, and the 6^th U.S. President, proclaimed, “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth?” (For the full speech, see my website.)

Witnessing the events of the Revolution as a boy, and then going on to serve his country in many various capacities, John Quincy Adams saw that Christmas and Independence Day were fundamentally linked. He understood well that the Founders simply took the principles that Christ brought to the world and incorporated those into civil government.

That, my friends, is why the United States of America is the greatest nation the world has ever known, even though we may be celebrating its birthday on the wrong date.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The Creation Museum

On May 28 just minutes south of Cincinnati Ohio, in the northern Kentucky town of Petersburg, amid a flurry of media attention (everyone from The New York Times to The O’Reilly Factor has taken notice), a truly unique museum opened its doors. About eight years in the works, the Creation Museum is now available for all to see. The Creation Museum is a project of Answers in Genesis (AiG). AiG is an apologetics ministry (the largest such ministry in the world) birthed in 1994 and located in the same area as the museum. AiG describes itself as a “ministry dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith, and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively.” Their focus is particularly on “providing answers to questions surrounding the book of Genesis.”

The Creation Museum has officially been in the works since about 1999. However, the vision for it has been around for much longer. Ken Ham, a founder and president/CEO of AiG , has stated that he has had the vision since around 1980 for a museum that is “truly a world-class center of which the world would take notice. One that shouts loudly that the Bible is the true history of the world—that the Bible is history on which the gospel of Jesus Christ is based—that the Bible can be trusted and has the answer as to where we came from, (and) who we are.”

The $27 million, 60,000 square foot structure will be front and center in AiG’s mission to teach that “The Bible is true from Genesis to Revelation.” The museum was designed by former Universal Studios exhibit director Patrick Marsh, the man behind the "Jaws" and "King Kong" attractions at Universal Studios in Florida. The museum contains computer-generated visual effects, over 50 exotic animals, life-sized people and dinosaur animatronics, and a 200 seat special-effects theater complete with misty sea breezes and rumbling seats.

In addition to over 160 totally unique exhibits, the Creation Museum features exhibits found in many other museums: a planetarium, fossils of various creatures, an exhibit on the Ice Age, a scale-model of rock layers, and a model of a dinosaur dig site. However, as AiG points out, “the explanation of the exhibits (reveals) a story far different from (other museums).”

Where most museums rule out the Bible as evidence, the Creation Museum readily accepts the Bible as accurate historical evidence based on eyewitness testimony. However, they’re not talking about just any eyewitness, but the Creator Himself. AiG notes that, since “God cannot lie, it (the Bible) must tell the truth about past events. The Creation Museum will use the Bible to help interpret the very same evidences (dinosaurs, mammoths, rocks, fossils, etc.) that other museums use, but its conclusions will be different because of a different starting point.”

In other words, how we interpret the evidence of the past is directly influenced by our presuppositions. The Creation Museum begins with a biblical presupposition, allowing for the work of a Creator, where evolution starts with a naturalistic presupposition and interprets the facts devoid of God.

The fact that the Creation Museum takes the Bible so literally has many up in arms—so much so that on the day of its opening some gathered to protest the museum. One group, calling itself DefCon, even flew a plane overhead towing a banner that read, “DefCon says thou shalt not lie,” implying that the museum is giving people false ideas about science and evolution.

AiG points out that, “Contrary to what museum critics have said, AiG wants people to learn about evolution (and, in fact, you can find out quite a bit about the evolutionary timeline in the museum), but we also want them to see and understand the presuppositions that underlie that belief system and the differences between operational science (i.e., repeatable, observable science) and origins science (i.e., unrepeatable, unobservable science).”

Dr. Jonathan Sarfati of AiG says that, “operational science has indeed been very successful in understanding the world, and has led to many improvements in the quality of life, e.g. putting men on the moon and curing diseases. In contrast, evolution is a speculation about the unobservable and unrepeatable past. Thus it comes under origins science.” Dr Don Batten adds that, “Studying how an organism operates (DNA, mutations, reproduction, natural selection etc.) does not tell us how it came into existence in the first place.”

As I have pointed out many times before, there are many in all fields of science who reject Darwinian evolution and accept the biblical account of how all living things came into being. To accept the Bible for what it says does not mean one is turning his or her back on science. I believe that the Creation Museum will go a long way in showing many others that this is the case. In fact, the mission of the Creation Museum can be summed up as follows: to show all who come that they can trust what the Bible says, not just in Genesis, but throughout.

To find out more information on the museum, visit www.answersingenesis.org or www.creationmuseum.org.

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

None So Blind...

“There are none so blind as those who will not see,” wrote Jonathan Swift in Polite Conversation. In 1729 Swift wrote a satirical pamphlet entitled A Modest Proposal that was not so “polite.” Swift wrote this bit of satire as an attack on the indifference that the landlords of his day had toward their poor tenants. It is interesting, and quite shocking, to note that what Swift “proposes” in the piece is that poor Irish families sell their children, for extra income, to the rich to be eaten: “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled…”

A Modest Proposal is considered to be one of the greatest examples of sustained irony in the history of the English language. I think I know of an even greater example. What I’m thinking of, however, does not involve a silly, albeit disturbing, piece of satire. This irony is all too real and tragically, also involves the death of children.

With the fervor of a sidewalk evangelist, we are hearing from many about the imminent dangers of man-made global warming. We are told that temperatures as well as tides are going to rise and if we don’t change our behavior we could all be doomed. One can hardly watch or listen to the news without hearing about it. How do we know if what we are hearing is true? We are told that science has revealed it. Even though increasingly there are dissenters within the scientific community, those who deny man-made global warming are said to be ignoring science and the truth.

With the same fervor we are told that we share ancestors with apes, as well as all other living things. Some would have us believe that billions of years ago all life began in a primordial “soup.” (They can’t tell us who ordered the soup, but they know it was there.) Again, how do we know this is true? Because “science” tell us so. Never-mind that the fossil record does not support the theory or that molecules-to-man evolution violates many of the laws of science (namely, those governing DNA). Here also the number of dissenters is growing. However, if people deny Darwinian evolution, (and especially if they claim to believe the biblical account of creation), they are not simply labeled as ignoring science and the truth; they are ridiculed and called foolish, ignorant, or backwards.

Evolution speculates about the past. Global warming speculates about the future. But what about the science of the here-and-now? Surely those who tout Darwinian evolution and man-made global warming as fact would not ignore what they can see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears. Surely someone so reliant on and trusting of what science reveals to us would not allow himself to be led astray by elegant language, foolish logic, and downright propaganda.

Oh, but they have. I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that the majority of those who believe in man-made global warming and Darwinian evolution also zealously support the “right” of a woman to end the life of her unborn child. Notice that I’m not saying that all who support man-made global warming and Darwinian evolution also support abortion, nor did I say the converse. But what I want to know is, how, in the name of all that is reasonable, can someone who will stand behind the shaky science of man-made global warming and Darwinian evolution ignore what science has revealed about the unborn?

Life in the womb for a baby is as well documented as anything in science. With ultrasound and doppler machines, as well as other technology, one can monitor the life of a baby in the womb from very near the beginning until birth. I know about the life of the unborn not only because of what I’ve read and studied, but also because my wife and I have three small children.

At around week 8 of our pregnancies, which is not long after most women even realize that they are pregnant, we saw an ultrasound of each of our children. Every organ was in place and bones were forming. I could see and hear their little hearts beat at around 150 beats per minute. With the new (4-D) ultrasound machines, a person can see with amazing clarity the baby in the womb. The babies can be seen grasping things, sucking their thumbs, and responding to stimuli.

More and more babies that are being born early, some just past halfway in the gestation period (20 weeks), are surviving because of the march of science. Yet, according to Georgia Right to Life, legal options for abortion exist through all nine months of pregnancy, with 96% occurring for “convenience.”

To justify this, the pro-abortionists speak of the “rights” of women. Whatever “right” one might speak of, how does it outweigh the right to live? People have written into this paper talking about women who are “incapable of caring for a child,” or the “financial” burdens that children can be. One writer even implied that unwanted children might become the victims of abuse and murder. So, we kill them in the womb to spare them later from murder?! What madness!

This goes to show the level of ignorance, willful or not, that perpetuates the American public concerning the plight of the unborn. However, science (finally catching up to Scripture) is forcing us to look at the truth if only we will open our eyes.

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The Gainesville Care Center

Recently a local organization, with little or no media coverage I might add, celebrated a significant milestone. Gainesville Care Center, in late March, celebrated its 20th anniversary. To celebrate with them, about 800 folks packed the Georgia Mountains Center for a catered meal and to hear Fox News Channel’s Judge Andrew Napolitano speak.

Beginning in 1987 with a full-time staff of one and an annual operating budget of just over $13,000, the Care Center offered the services of pregnancy testing and providing maternity and baby clothing. That first year the Center’s 15 volunteer client assistants ministered to 182 often very young and very scared young ladies.

Currently the Care Center has a paid staff of seven and an annual operating budget around $240,000. There are 42 volunteer client assistants, three volunteer nurses, and five volunteer sonographers. This year they will provide services to over 1,200 individuals, female and male. The Center now offers a dozen programs and services which range from pregnancy testing and ultrasounds, to STD testing (for male and female), to post abortion support (for male and female). They also educate clients on the “adoption option” and then refer them to Christian adoption agencies in the area.

In the 20 years of the Care Center’s existence, over 25,000 clients have been helped. Nearly 1,000 children have been spared from abortion as a result of the Care Center’s work.

Estimates vary, but currently in the U.S. there are anywhere from 2,300 to 4,000 such “pregnancy resource centers.” These centers now outnumber abortion providers (just over 1,800) in the U.S. They are at the heart of the current abortion battle. According to a recent Time magazine article, “the Bush Administration has made them a centerpiece of compassionate conservatism.”

Many centers are independently operated, but typically most are affiliated with one of three national organizations: Care Net, Heartbeat International, or the U.S. National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA). Gainesville Care Center is affiliated with both Care Net and NIFLA. According to their Web site, “Care Net is the largest pregnancy center affiliation organization in North America with a network of more than 1,000 Christian pregnancy centers.”

Heartbeat International operated the first pregnancy resource centers in the U.S. and today, with just over 1,000 in 37 countries, is the largest operator of such centers worldwide. NIFLA operates around 1,000 centers spread across all 50 U.S. states.

Pregnancy resource centers have been around since just after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, which legalized abortion on demand. The vision for Gainesville Care Center was birthed in 1985. The “core group” then consisted of Don and Sylvia Delozier, Jim and Ethel Boone, and Brad and Mary Dunagan. The doors opened in 1987 with Sylvia Delozier serving as the executive director.

The current director, who has held that position for the last 13 years, is Ann Gainey. Many local churches, businesses, and individuals help support the center financially. Local nurses and physicians volunteer their time to serve at the center or on the board of directors. Mrs. Gainey adds that, “We are blessed to have so many local churches, businesses, and individuals help support the ministry financially. The Care Center could not open its doors each day to hurting people in our community were it not for the local nurses, client assistants, sonographers, and physicians who volunteer their time so faithfully. Also, we are grateful that Georgia’s current Lt. Governor and Hall county resident, Casey Cagle, who is a former board member, now serves on the honorary board.”

Along with the other services provided, since 1994, the Care Center’s abstinence educators have presented a program on sexual purity and STD education in the city, county, and private middle and high schools, as well as area colleges. The Gainesville Care Center also offers a myriad of programs and services to churches, civic groups, and other local organizations.

Those who visit Gainesville Care Center looking for help are treated with respect, compassion, and care by the 50+ volunteers and staff whose goal it is to show them the love of Jesus in real and practical ways. Call 770-535-1413 to find out how you can be a part of this vital ministry in our community.

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

From Global Cooling to Global Warming

“There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production… The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it… (scientists) are almost unanimous in the view that the (weather) trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century…The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down.”

That’s right folks, you read it right, they said we were “cooling down.” The above quotes are from the April 28, 1975 issue of Newsweek magazine. Notice what Time magazine had to say on the same subject in 1974:

“When meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. (Climatologists) are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age… Telltale signs are everywhere from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest… Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.”

So, in about 30 years we’ve gone from the threat of having icebergs in our back yard to the threat of having said icebergs all melt, and each of us wishing we had traded our SUVs in for a lifetime supply of fluorescent light bulbs.

Al Gore wants to sell us “carbon offsets”; Heidi Cullen of The Weather Channel wants the American Meteorological Society (AMS) to take away its certification of broadcast meteorologists who don’t tow the “man made” global warming line; and our own Joan King wants us to practice more birth control so we don’t expand our population “past the carrying capacity of the earth.”

The one reasonably certain fact that I have gathered in this debate is that the earth is a bit warmer than it was a decade or two ago. Beyond that there is so much hype, hysteria, and misinformation that one could find himselfs worrying that those beloved polar bears in the coca cola commercials might need to be replaced by more warm-weather loving animals, like say armadillos.

Take heart friends; there are plenty of scientists who have serious doubts about man-made global warming. James Spann, who has been in operational meteorology since 1978, recently wrote an Op-Ed piece responding to Ms. Cullen. He notes that, “For many, global warming is a big cash grab. Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up…Even the lady at ‘The Weather Channel’ probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change.”

Timothy Ball, the first Canadian to hold a Ph.D. in Climatology and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, says, “Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification.”

Alabama State Climatologist John Christy has “found almost no sign of global warming in the satellite data,” and adds that, “one finds it difficult to conclude the (sic) climate change is occurring in the US and that it is exceedingly difficult to conclude that part of that change might have been caused by human factors.”

Dr. William Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, is another man-made global warming skeptic. According to the L.A. Times, Dr. Gray “pioneered the concept of ‘seasonal’ hurricane forecasting — predicting months in advance the severity of the coming hurricane season. Gray’s prognostications, issued since 1983, are used by insurance companies to calculate premiums.” He has also served as a weather forecaster for the U.S Air Force. In a recent Denver Post article he stated that, “They've been brainwashing us for 20 years. Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was.”

I believe in the biblical principle of stewardship. We should all remember that, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Ps. 24:1). We are merely managers of His property. However, in our stewardship we must focus on the Creator and not the created.

I’m afraid that many caught up in the global warming hoopla have become foolish in the manner described by the Apostle Paul in Romans and, “Exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.”

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com