Wordless Wednesday

DARWIN – The Voyage that Shook the World

Today we didn’t go to church, as it is a hundred and sixty kilometre round trip to church, and as my husband has to travel the same distance to go to the orthopaedic specialist on Tuesday, he didn’t feel that he could cope with two journeys a couple of days apart.

What to do – I love going to church and hearing the Word of God preached well, instilling it into my heart and helping me to grow into the sort of woman that God wants me to be, and to be fit to be for the Master’s use. We decided that we would watch the DVD, DARWIN, The Voyage that Shook the World,  from CREATION.com. We bought this DVD a while ago, and haven’t really found the right time to watch it, so today was it, and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie, as well as the extras!

This movie would have to be the most unbiased DVD that I have ever had the privilege of watching. It talks about Darwin as a young boy, and how he had a very enquiring mind, and he always wanted to know things – why this, why that, but that he also liked to fabricate tall tales from a very early age.

His father was a wealthy society doctor from Shrewsbury, and his mother was from the famous Wedgewood Pottery family. Charles Darwin was surrounded by a massive religious influence, but he was impacted most of all by the beliefs of his grandfather, who was a free thinking rationalist and humanist, who believed that there were going to be “chariots in the air”, that we now know as aeroplanes. Erasmus Darwin wrote the book, Zoonomia, which first theorised evolution, so the theory of evolution is not a new idea, but was simply popularised by Darwin. He also added passages from Zoonomia to his own book.

He loved enjoying himself and spent hours with his friends hunting and collecting specimens, and enjoyed discussing the wonders of nature. Darwin went to Cambridge with the understanding that he would train to become a preacher, and that he would become a country vicar with a comfortable life. However Charles started questioning some of the teachings of the established church.

In 1831, he received an invitation to join the Beagle for a five-year voyage of discovery around the world, and this was to change his way of thinking forever. It was on this voyage that the captain gave him the book, The Principles of Geology, that was written by Charles Lyell, a geologist and lawyer, and which was to have a profound impact upon Charles Darwin’s thinking, and to influence his thinking about the origins of the species. Lyell couldn’t accept the Genesis account of Creation.

Darwin studied such questions as:

• Where did the world come from?
• How was it made?

Darwin’s ideas were of uniformitarianism, influenced by Lyell’s books. Scientists have their own preconceived ideas, and this can influence the outcome. During Darwin’s day, he believed that he was seeing the results of slow, uniform change – uniformitarianism. He believed that at the mouth of the Rio Santa Cruz was an ancient sea channel, and that the ocean raising and lowering over great eons of time caused the change in landforms that he was seeing, and that the ocean had changed the coast. He attempted to travel up the river to prove his cause, but a lack of food and the fast flowing water meant that they had to turn back. Had he continued, he would have found the Perito Moreno Glacier, a large glacier that used to be a kilometre high. When the glacier broke off, there was enough water to cut all the valleys in the area, in days, not aeons of time.

Darwin encountered the people of Tierra Del Fuego, who had been trained in Britain in the manners of civilised people, but by the standards of that time, the people returned to savagery. Darwin found it difficult to believe that they were his fellow men, and didn’t believe that they could be elevated into being proper human beings, but such ideas are now considered extremely racist. The Biblical view is that all people have descended from Adam and Eve, but in 1834 his  experience, and his grandfather’s evolutionary ideas gave him another way of looking at his ideals.

Darwin also read the other two volumes of Lyell’s books and these books expounded long ages of time. He was in the third year of the voyage when he found some fossilised trees, but he believed that the trees grew there and were slowly buried over millions of years. In Argentina, you see two trees – one that has grown there, with soil and roots in place, but there was a tree stump that had no soil, nor roots, so it had to have been broken from a distant forest and buried rapidly -  then fossilised – more evidence of a great, global flood. Rapid catastrophic change is accepted today, but it may be unfair to judge Darwin by today’s standards, as science, philosophy and religion were still closely intertwined in his day.

He visited the Galapagos Islands and studied nature, but he missed vital pieces of information because he failed to document where he took certain specimens from, and it wasn’t until he returned home to England that he was asked where he collected the species. Anyone who believes in a global, catastrophic Flood would also believe that species can disperse and adapt. In Darwin’s mind, MADE BY GOD meant unchanging fixity of species, although his ideas changed later on. The Marine and Land Iguanas have hybridised, and it was an amazing occurrence. This is evidence of a species explosion, and shows that species can merge rapidly.

The beaks of birds on the Galapagos Islands rapidly change from large to small, from one generation to the next, and were affected by the food supply. Darwin couldn’t see this, as he was only on the islands for about five weeks in later 1835.

Charles journals were a sensation, and his friend published them while he was away. His writings undermined all that people believed. Charles belief that we descended from apes was very disturbing to his friends, and he became very ill. His beliefs were influenced by good and evil.

Charles couldn’t accept death and suffering as a result of the Fall. He had three out of ten of his children, who died, and this only served to make him retreat from a loving, creator God to the theory of evolution. He believed that the unfit were going to die, and that they weren’t going to go on to produce the next generation. The death of his children contributed to his theory of the natural selection of the species.
Darwin presented this theory as acceptable to people. He asked people to look at things his way, and explained some of the difficulties. By drawing on the information of his grandfather’s book and Lyell’s books, he was able to create The Origin of the Species, but he still couldn’t explain the origin of life itself. Perhaps he didn’t want to make the commitment of faith! Darwin’s theory (and that’s all that it is) of evolution is not about science – it’s all about God!

Wordless Wednesday

God’s Beautiful Creation

Last night my daughter took me for a nature walk to see something marvellous – a spider spinning its web, and when I looked at the beauty of this spider’s web, I thought of our loving, Creator God who created us ex nihilo (out of nothing), and this started me thinking about the intricacy of this spider’s web and how spectacular it is, but compared to what God did when He created us, it pales into insignificance.

The spider was extremely grateful that we had turned the floodlights on, as all of the insects hovered around the light, becoming entangled in the gossamer of its web. Wrapping the insects delicately in its sticky web, the spider saved all of these morsels for later. The poem, below, must certainly have been written by a person who loves spiders. I can see the beauty of spiders outside, but woe betide any spider that dares to call my home, home.

The Spider and the Fly

Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I’ve a many curious things to shew when you are there.”
Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”

“I’m sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the Spider to the Fly.
“There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin,
And if you like to rest awhile, I’ll snugly tuck you in!”
Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “for I’ve often heard it said,
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!”

Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, ” Dear friend what can I do,
To prove the warm affection I ‘ve always felt for you?
I have within my pantry, good store of all that’s nice;
I’m sure you’re very welcome — will you please to take a slice?”
“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “kind Sir, that cannot be,
I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!”

“Sweet creature!” said the Spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise,
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I’ve a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf,
If you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”
“I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you ‘re pleased to say,
And bidding you good morning now, I’ll call another day.”

The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again:
So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready, to dine upon the Fly.
Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
“Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple — there’s a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!”

Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue –
Thinking only of her crested head — poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlour — but she ne’er came out again!

And now dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed:
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.

Mary Howitt

Chicken Hatching

This morning, just after breakfast, my son went up to see how the Mama chook was going with the hatching of the chickens, and he captured one of God’s greatest science lessons – the hatching of a chicken. In this video, you will see the wing emerging first, and the rest of the chicken emerging as the egg cracks open. What an awesome experience, and what a great God we serve!