Discerning Truth - an introduction to the Biblical Science Institute

Biblical Science Institute

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:28

Hi folks, welcome to Discerning Truth, the official podcast of the Biblical Science Institute.

00:33

I'm Jason Lyle, I'm the founder of the Biblical Science Institute, and in this first podcast of what will hopefully be many,

00:41

I'd like to give you a bit of an introduction to this ministry, kind of tell you what we're all about, and I guess

00:46

I should begin by talking about myself and what I'm all about. First of all, I am, by God's grace, a

00:52

Christian. I have been since I was very young. I knew from a young age that I had broken God's law.

00:58

I had done things that were morally wrong, and as such, I deserve punishment. And since I had sinned against an infinitely holy

01:05

God, I deserve death and hell. But by God's grace, he granted me repentance of that sin and granted me forgiveness of sin, and he took my place on the cross.

01:14

That's the whole point of the gospel message. Jesus takes my place on the cross, pays for my sins, dies, and then he rose again, proving that he is who he claimed to be, namely

01:23

God, God incarnate. As such, as a Christian, I like to honor

01:29

God by defending his word, by obeying his law. I now have a desire, a heart, to obey

01:34

God's law and to share the gospel with other people. That's the most important thing about me, really, and really about anyone.

01:42

Secondly, you should know that I'm a scientist. I'm an astrophysicist in particular. I have a

01:47

Ph .D. from the University of Colorado. I just enjoy science very much, and although my specialty field is in astronomy and physics,

01:56

I really enjoy all the different branches of science. I like genetics and biology and geology and paleontology and so on.

02:04

They're all fascinating to me, because in my mind, they reveal something about God, about his creativity.

02:11

They tell us something about his awesome power and the richness of his mind to be able to design these amazing things and speak them into existence.

02:20

It's wonderful. I'm a creationist, which means I believe that God created the universe.

02:25

I don't believe the universe is an accident or that it created itself or that it was created by another universe.

02:31

I believe it was made by the mind of God and is upheld by the mind of God. In particular,

02:36

I'm a biblical creationist, because I believe that the way in which God created is recorded for us in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, mainly chapter 1.

02:49

Sometimes I'm called a young earth creationist. I'll accept that, in that the earth is young compared to the billions of years that secularists believe to be the age of the earth.

02:59

I don't really like the term young earth creationist, because the earth isn't young. It's thousands of years old, something like 6 ,000 years old, which is hardly young, but whatever.

03:08

At any case, I prefer biblical creationist, because I believe what Genesis says about not only the mechanism that God used to create, but the time scale as well.

03:19

Now, in my educational experiences, going through school, going through college, graduate school,

03:25

I've learned that not everyone shares my understanding of science and its relationship to the biblical

03:32

God. In fact, I've encountered a number of challenges. Allegedly scientific in nature that would say, no, you can't trust the

03:42

Christian worldview. The Bible's wrong because of X, Y, and Z. You've probably heard arguments like that.

03:47

Well, you can't trust the Bible anymore, because science has demonstrated whatever.

03:52

Fill in the blank. And one of the biggest areas, if not the biggest, in which the

03:57

Bible is challenged is in the area of origins. Isn't that true? You'll find that people will say, you can't trust

04:05

Genesis, because we know from science that millions of years of evolution, that's the way life came about and diversified into all the different kinds of organisms that we see, and so on and so forth.

04:15

You see, the Bible does give us an account of origins. It tells us that God created. In the beginning,

04:21

God created the heaven and the earth. It tells us he created the various forms of life on earth, the plants, the animals, human beings.

04:28

And it tells us he did this in six days. But many people claim that that is not scientifically tenable.

04:36

And they'll claim that fossils, and genetics, and geology, paleontology, astronomy, what have you, that all these fields prove, or at least imply, a very different origin.

04:46

Namely, the universe supposedly popped into existence in a big bang billions of years ago, and then the earth sort of formed from a collapsing nebula, and then life on earth evolved as random chemicals came together, and so on and so forth.

05:00

You've heard the story, I'm sure. You can't escape it in our culture. I don't believe that story.

05:06

Many Christians get intimidated, and they think, well, there are many brilliant scientists who tell us that that's the way life came about, and that's the way the universe formed, and so on.

05:15

And I don't deny that there are many intelligent scientists who believe that. Many Christians attempt to deal with this apparent conflict between science and scripture by employing what we might call a non -natural reading of scripture, where the

05:31

Bible doesn't really mean what it says. And sure, the Bible says God created in six days, but the days aren't really days, they're actually millions of years.

05:39

And sure, the Bible says God created the various kinds of organisms, but really that means he evolved them, and so on and so forth.

05:44

The Bible doesn't mean what it says. I'm sure you've heard that story as well. Well, I'm here to tell you that position is not rationally defensible.

05:54

You cannot argue for that on good hermeneutical grounds, and that's something that we will talk about in this podcast in the future.

06:02

And by the way, people would not apply that to any other book. You don't have people having huge disagreements about what is the meaning of Tolkien's classic

06:11

The Lord of the Rings. People understand that because they read it in a natural fashion. They understand it's meant to be fiction, and they understand what the words mean, but they apply a very different hermeneutic to the

06:22

Bible. Hermeneutic is understanding what the author intended. What does the text mean?

06:28

What did the author intend to communicate? Well, in reality, the answer to the apparent conflict between science and scripture is that there is no conflict between science and scripture.

06:40

Science properly understood anyway, and the scriptures really are pretty easy to understand. I'll grant that there are some difficult passages, but the main and plain teachings of the

06:49

Bible are quite clear, including biblical creation. What I've found is that there is nothing in science, testable, repeatable, observable science, that would contradict what the

07:01

Bible says in Genesis. Nothing at all. On the contrary, I found that science confirms what the

07:07

Bible teaches in Genesis, and no scientific evidence that would conflict with Genesis. Science confirms creation, and if anyone thinks they have any kind of observational, testable, repeatable experiment that disproves

07:20

Genesis, please let me know about it. Because in my experience, there aren't any, and I've read quite a bit on this topic.

07:28

You say, okay, Dr. Lau, but why should I care about all this? Most of you watching this probably are not scientists, and maybe don't even have an interest in science.

07:37

Maybe you're not interested in Genesis, so what are we doing here? Why the Biblical Science Institute? After all, there are a lot of problems in the world, and I would certainly agree with that.

07:46

There are a lot of problems in the world. There's a lot of immorality in our culture today. There are natural disasters.

07:53

There's crime. There's murder. There's all kinds of problems in the world. But what if these problems, which seem very independent from things as trivial as the age of the earth, what if there's a connection there?

08:06

Could it be that the problems that we see in society stem from a lack of confidence in the

08:13

Bible starting in Genesis? I mean, if you think about it, a lot of people will try to justify their sin, their rejection of God's law, by saying you can't trust the

08:23

Bible. And that leads to problems. If you think about it, every problem that we have in society today, every problem in the world, can be traced back to a broken law of God.

08:34

If everybody obeyed the Bible, we wouldn't have problems in the world. You say, well, what about natural disasters?

08:39

Well, we wouldn't have those either, because God created a world that was very good. There wasn't disease and famine and hurricanes and things like that, at least things that would be destructive of life, not originally.

08:53

But when Adam sinned, God cursed the earth. He cursed the ground. He cursed the animals. And that makes sense, because Adam was given charge over that original earth.

09:04

And so when he sinned, the effects of that sin permeated throughout the world. And we now live in a cursed, fallen, broken world.

09:12

And we have people that will not obey God's law. And of course, we as Christians try to obey God's law, but we don't do it perfectly either.

09:19

But what if all these problems that we're seeing, which stem back to broken laws of God, what if people's rebellion against God is rationalized because they think the

09:28

Bible has been disproved by science? And so you see, these problems that we have are not so independent from origins, because I want to suggest to you that the number one place where people say you can't trust the

09:42

Bible is in Genesis. And a lot of Christians try to sidestep that issue and say, well, yeah, but you know,

09:49

I got bigger problems to deal with. Don't worry about Genesis. Just start believing in the

09:54

New Testament or something like that. But the fact is, if God can't get the details right in Genesis, how can you trust that he got the details right anywhere else?

10:04

Is the Bible the inerrant, infallible word of God? Or is it just a book written by men who didn't know what they were talking about?

10:12

I mean, those really are your two options. If it's God's word, it's completely true from the beginning.

10:18

And so if Genesis isn't accurate, if science really does prove evolution, which I would say it doesn't, but if it did, then there's no reason to trust any of the

10:27

Bible at all. It really can't be God's word. So it turns out the defense of Genesis is foundational to the defense of the

10:36

Christian faith in general, which is foundational to solving all of the problems in society.

10:43

If you care about society, if you love your neighbor as the Lord commands us to do, then you need to preach and defend the gospel.

10:50

That's what it comes down to. Some people say, but I'm not an apologist, Dr. Lyle. Well, if you're a

10:57

Christian, you're an apologist because the command to be ready always to defend the faith, that's not just for the elite.

11:03

It's for all of us. We all need to be able to articulate the gospel and to defend the gospel with the abilities that God's given us.

11:12

And God gives different strengths to different people. There's no doubt about that. But we all should have at least a basic ability to defend the

11:20

Christian faith. If you care about your neighbor, if you love the Lord, you need to do that. Now, what

11:25

I try to do is make it easier for people to do that. I give people information, facts, data, evidence that can be used to start a conversation, to get people to think about some of these very important issues.

11:39

I give people examples because I've had a number of, I've had a lot of conversations with critics of Christianity, and I've done a lot of apologetics.

11:48

And so I want to share my experiences with others that hopefully that'll help them as well, just as I've been helped by other apologists.

11:55

God does call a few people like myself to do apologetics as sort of a vocation, as something that we do all the time without any other, you know, side distractions.

12:06

Not everybody can do that, and I understand that. We all should do apologetics, but God calls a few of us to do it vocationally.

12:13

Most of us have other vocations. And of course, even there, you know, there's opportunities to share the gospel.

12:19

There's opportunities to engage. I've always thought about, you know, what if I was, what if I was a plumber? What would

12:24

I, you know, how would I share the faith? Well, I would do the best job that I possibly could do. I'd try to go above and beyond the call of duty.

12:31

And when people said, well, you know, you did a great job. Why do you work so hard? You're not getting paid any extra. And I'd say, well, the

12:37

Bible says, whatever thy hands find to do, do it with all they might. I try to honor God by the way that I work. You see, you can use anything to begin really a gospel conversation.

12:48

And then of course, there's going to be objections to that gospel. You're going to get the objection, well, but you don't really believe the

12:53

Bible. It's been disproved, right? Science has demonstrated evolution's the way life came about.

12:59

And then you need to be ready to defend that, to have that conversation. I want to remove any stumbling block that I can for people coming to Christ.

13:10

And I can't change a person's heart and neither can you. Only God can bring ultimate persuasion to a person.

13:16

But I can help remove intellectual stumbling blocks. And that's what we want to do at the Biblical Science Institute.

13:22

We want to help people. We want to challenge critics of Christianity to think through the issues, to recognize that their rejection of Christianity is fundamentally irrational.

13:33

It's not based on good reasons. And conversely, the Christian faith itself is rational. And in fact,

13:39

I would argue it's the only rational belief system when it comes to a foundational worldview. You have no other option than what the

13:46

Bible teaches, the worldview presented to us in Scripture. So given this information, what

13:52

I try to do is identify what are the misconceptions that people have that have led them to think that the

14:01

Bible is untrustworthy. And then I research those issues. And there's always a good answer.

14:08

And then I try to educate others so that they can alleviate these misconceptions, so that people can come to Christ.

14:15

And granted, not everyone will, but I still have that obligation to present them the information and then conversions up to God.

14:22

So that's what I do primarily is identify those misconceptions, research the solution, and then educate.

14:30

Secondly, I try to research and teach people how to think properly, how to think rationally.

14:36

That is a lost skill or nearly lost in our culture. People tend to think very emotionally.

14:43

And by the way, there's nothing wrong with emotions. Those are something God's given to us, and they're wonderful things, but they're not designed to be a replacement for rational thought.

14:52

And often a person's belief, if it's, well, always, if a person's belief is contrary to the

14:58

Christian worldview, there are not good reasons for it. But often it has an emotional source. Many times a person who believes in Darwinian evolution, a lot of times it can be traced back to an error in reasoning.

15:12

It's either an error, they have misinformation. There's some facts that they have that are wrong.

15:18

They're not truly facts. Or their facts are right, but they're not reasoning properly from them.

15:23

That's what logic is all about. It's all about how to draw correct conclusions from given facts.

15:29

And I have found that logic is very important in defending the Christian faith. I found that there is no good, rational, logical reason to believe in the

15:40

Big Bang or Neo -Darwinian evolution, the idea that, you know, that molecules eventually become people by chance.

15:49

Of course, I do believe animals change over time. The animals today are not exactly the same as they were in creation, but they're the same kinds.

15:56

Some of them have gone extinct. We don't have one kind changing into another. And again, if you're curious about, well, how do you define kind and things like that, those are things that we'll deal with in future podcasts.

16:10

Most people who believe in Darwinian evolution believe it because it's what they were taught in school and they haven't really questioned it or really thought about it or studied the alternative, not carefully.

16:22

Most people, if I ask, why do you believe in evolution? Well, they'll say, well, fossils.

16:28

Oh, okay, well, I've studied fossils. What about fossils makes you think evolution's true?

16:34

Oh, I don't know. Or which fossils specifically do you think support evolution? Well, Lucy, right?

16:41

Okay, I've studied Lucy, a three -foot tall tree -dwelling primate. What makes you think Lucy supports evolution?

16:46

And usually they can't give an answer at that point. They've been taught that fossils somehow support evolution. They don't know why or how.

16:53

They haven't questioned it. Or they'll say, well, genetics. Well, what makes you think genetics supports evolution?

16:59

Well, because there are common genes in all these different organisms. And I say, that's true. But then again, there are common traits in organisms and genes are what determine your traits.

17:09

So we'd expect that as creationists. What makes you think that supports evolution? And usually there's no answer. They haven't thought about it from the alternative viewpoint.

17:16

They haven't recognized that the evidence equally well fits a creationist perspective. I submit that if you believe in particles -to -people evolution, as Darwin taught, or the modern version, neo -Darwinian evolution, you're not being rational.

17:32

You're not being logical. You're not using your brain properly. And I don't mean that in an insulting way, because there are very intelligent people who, in their own specialty field, are brilliant.

17:43

And they use their brain masterfully to draw correct conclusions from data. But I want to suggest, if you then turn around and say, and I believe in evolution, you've departed from that.

17:53

You're no longer being rational. Again, intelligent people can be irrational at times.

17:59

Everybody does that. That's common to our species. But what I want to do is help people through that.

18:04

And to show them you're not thinking properly, that if you do use your brain properly, you need to be a consistent Christian.

18:10

And so the Biblical Science Institute, we really are a discernment ministry. We want to help people to discern truth from error.

18:20

We live in the internet age where information is available at an amazing rate.

18:26

I remember the days when if you wanted to learn a particular fact, you had to go to the library. Now you just hold up your phone and you ask it, and you have the answer in seconds.

18:35

And it's just easy. And that's great. I love the internet. And I try to use it to promote the gospel and to promote truth.

18:42

The internet has made it possible to disseminate truth at an incredible rate.

18:49

But it also has made it possible to promote error. And in the past, if you wanted to get information, you'd get it from probably a book.

18:59

And so you'd read the book and you'd have information. And that book was probably vetted. Because publishers are not, if they care about the integrity of their publications, if they care about their own reputation, they're not going to publish garbage.

19:11

They're going to make sure that the information in that book is accurate. Not necessarily perfectly, but at least there's some level of reviewing.

19:21

There's some level, there's some accuracy, some quality control going on there. On the internet, there's not necessarily any.

19:28

Anybody can post anything on the internet. And a lot of people haven't made the switch from,

19:34

I can basically trust what I read, to I need to be careful about anything that I read. I need to make sure that there's something to back it up.

19:42

And granted, some internet sites are peer -reviewed, including the Biblical Science Institute, but many are not. And you can't just read an article like that, and that's not peer -reviewed, written by who knows, maybe some 12 -year -old that has an opinion on something, and say, well, that's the way it is.

19:57

We need to be discerning. And how do we do that? How do we know who to trust? Because you can't reinvent the wheel.

20:05

You can't go back and do every scientific experiment that's ever been done in your own garage, and repeat it to make sure that it's accurate.

20:13

We do have to take some things on authority. We have to take some things on the expert. We have to rely on the expertise of others.

20:20

But how do you know who to trust? And how do we do this? Discernment. That's something that we want to cover here at the

20:27

Biblical Science Institute, and we'll do podcasts on that topic. Never before in history has society at large been in such dire need of the ability to discern truth from error.

20:43

And I often feel like never before in history has society been so inept at discerning truth from error.

20:49

So we really need discernment these days, and that's really what the Biblical Science Institute is all about. We're to help people discern truth from error.

20:57

To equip Christians to defend the faith, so that we can identify truth from error, and help others to do the same, particularly in matters of origins.

21:06

And I've already, as I've already discussed, that is just a foundational issue, because that is the most attacked area of scripture, and it's very defensible.

21:15

The science really does confirm Genesis. We want to challenge unbelievers to become Christians. That's another aspect of this ministry.

21:23

To embrace the rationality of the Bible, and to give up, to relinquish the absurdity of the non -Christian position.

21:31

And it really is an absurd position to reject the Christian worldview. It's what makes rationality possible. That's something we'll deal with in an upcoming podcast.

21:39

Now, there are a lot of other creation ministries out there. Praise God for them. And some people have said, why don't you all just come together and do one ministry?

21:46

Well, we have differences in the strengths and abilities that God has given us.

21:52

And so we defend the faith in a large sense in the same way. We're preaching the same gospel.

21:58

We're defending Genesis and so on. But we have differences in approaches. And we have differences because God's given us different passions, different desires.

22:07

That's fine. That's great. So what is it that makes the Biblical Science Institute unique?

22:13

I think we have a unique combination of qualities. I don't think there's one issue where you can't find any other creation ministries that are like that.

22:21

No, that's not the case. But I do think we have a unique combination. We have a very high view of Scripture.

22:28

Now, a lot of ministries do, but not all. There are some ministries that the way they try to get people into the kingdom is by, well, watering down God's word.

22:41

By ignoring issues like Genesis and saying, well, you know, let's just all, let's just have kind of a big umbrella approach.

22:49

And the things that we agree on, those are the things we'll talk about. And I get that, but that's not us.

22:55

Not at Biblical Science Institute. We believe that the Bible is the authoritative word of God. That the text that was written originally by the apostles and prophets and so on, the

23:06

Old and New Testament, the 66 books of the Bible are God's word. They are inerrant in the original manuscripts.

23:14

You say, but we don't have the original manuscripts. That's true, but we have very reliable copies. If you have any one of the major English translations of the

23:22

Bible, you have a reliable translation of God's word that is true to the intent of the original.

23:29

That's not to say there aren't nuanced issues about how certain words are interpreted. We have articles on that on our website.

23:34

But you have the word of God in your hand if you're holding a Bible. That's what it is. And it is inerrant in the original autographa.

23:44

We don't compromise God's word with secular ideas. Some ministries do. Some ministries will say, well, the way that you help people to deal with the big bang in the

23:53

Bible is you just embrace the big bang and then you reinterpret Genesis to match that. We don't do that at the Biblical Science Institute.

23:59

We believe that God knows how to communicate. God knows how to write a book. If he can create a universe, he can write a book that accurately describes how he did it.

24:08

Granted, the Bible uses simple language so that we can understand it. God condescends. He comes down to our level so that we can understand him.

24:16

But nonetheless, what is written in the Bible is accurate. So we have a high view of Scripture. Secondly, we are a presuppositional ministry.

24:24

Now, if you don't know what that means, don't worry. It's coming. We're going to spend a lot of time on that one. I plan to anyway, the

24:30

Lord willing. I would like to spend a great deal of time talking about what presuppositional apologetics is, what it isn't, because I have to tell you it is one of the most misrepresented views of how to defend the faith.

24:44

A lot of people will say, well, you know, you don't use evidence if you're presuppositional or you just presuppose the

24:49

Bible's true and you just assume it and go from there. None of those are accurate. That is not an accurate representation.

24:56

Presuppositional apologetics is the, I would like to call it the Biblical, but I'll refrain from that at the moment.

25:02

It's the way of defending the Christian faith that recognizes that God's Word, the

25:07

Bible, is the supreme authority in all matters of truth. It is our epistemological foundation.

25:14

It's when we talk about matters of truth, the Bible is supremely true. That doesn't mean that everything that's true is in the

25:19

Bible, but everything that's in the Bible is true. And it is foundational for our thinking in other areas.

25:26

The Bible is the supreme authority in all matters, including its own defense. Many people would, many

25:34

Christians would say, yes, the Bible is the ultimate authority, but you can't use it in its own defense. And we'll see why that is.

25:39

And that makes them non -presuppositional. That's the difference. As a presuppositionalist, a presuppositionalist does not abandon the authority of God's Word for the sake of demonstrating the authority of God's Word.

25:49

And you say, well, how do you do that? Well, we'll hit that issue. It's not something that can be addressed in like three minutes or something like that.

25:57

It takes a little bit of time, but I believe it's very biblical. I wanted to point out that we're presuppositional and that this is rather rare in, well, in general, in the

26:07

Christian faith in general, most people are not presuppositional. And that's a shame because I believe presuppositional thinking is biblical.

26:15

And that the alternatives are not. I know that'll upset some people, but I think that's true.

26:20

And I'll try to defend that in the near future. But it's rare, particularly in creation ministries, which tend to be more evidential in nature.

26:28

They tend to want to prove the Bible by some allegedly greater standard, or at least pretend that there's a greater standard.

26:33

There is no greater standard than scripture. I use a great deal of evidence when I defend

26:39

Genesis, when I challenge people to reject evolution. I tend to use a lot of scientific evidence because I'm a scientist.

26:46

I like that. But I do it in what's called a presuppositional way. And so we'll hit that again later on.

26:52

But that is something that's relatively rare. Now, there are a few creation ministries that are presuppositional.

27:00

And some of them are a little bit, they would claim to be presuppositional, but they don't quite, they don't always live up to that.

27:06

And that's, you know, there's grace for that. I understand that. And I think there's some that are presuppositional, but it's rare.

27:14

Third, we proactively engage the culture. Not all creation ministries do that.

27:21

Some mainly just interact with other Christians, and that's fine. You know, they can do what they want to do.

27:26

But I want non -believers to recognize that the Bible is true. And ultimately,

27:32

I want them to be saved. And so I interact with evolutionists. I interact with secularists who believe in the

27:38

Big Bang and so on. I respond to their arguments. I debunk their arguments. You can take a look on our website.

27:45

We have a recurring type of article that we do called Refuting the

27:50

Critics, where I will analyze an article that somebody's written that a secularist has written against Christianity, or maybe someone who's a

27:57

Christian, but he was arguing against creation. And I will respond to their claims logically and show that the

28:03

Bible really does mean what it says, and it's true from the beginning. I speak at secular universities from time to time when

28:11

I'm invited, which isn't real often, but it happens. And so I'm engaging the culture. And I think that's important.

28:17

I think it's important that we don't just live in an echo chamber where the only people we talk to are people that think exactly the same way we do.

28:24

Now, obviously, we need encouragement. And I'm very encouraged when I go to churches and get to meet people that are just solid

28:31

Christians. And that's great. I enjoy that. But we also need to interact with unbelievers and challenge them and reason with them and pray that they come to salvation.

28:42

And so we don't just respond to the latest news article and what have you. Now, we'll do some of that because that's an aspect of defending the

28:50

Christian faith. But we're also proactive, challenging the secularists with new data, new information, new ways of looking at existing data, and so on.

28:59

Have you considered this? Proactive. We have an online forum for our partners, and that's something that I'll talk about a little bit more later on.

29:09

But I think that's a unique—I'm not aware of any other creation ministries that have that, where they can have their partners chime in and chat with PhD creation scientists.

29:20

I'm the main guy at the moment, but we'll have others come on board in time. We'll have guest experts that can interact and ask questions and can be answered by other people in the forum as well.

29:31

Fourth, we embrace genuine science, peer -reviewed scientific literature.

29:38

We certainly embrace that. Not necessarily the conclusions that are drawn, but certainly all the data. And we reject pseudoscience. You will never hear us defending

29:45

Flat Earth at the Biblical Science Institute. In fact, we have some articles against that position. Not all ministries are so discerning, and I think that's a shame.

29:56

There have been some—even some creation ministries that I never thought would go downhill that have started embracing some aspects of pseudoscience, something that sounds scientific but in fact is irrational, like Flat Earth, for example.

30:09

You'll never hear that here. We're going to—we're very careful about that. We want to make sure that we embrace peer review. Peer review is—it's a very important aspect of any science institution.

30:21

If you're doing science, you need to have peer review. What peer review is, it means that anything that's published has been vetted by at least one and preferably several experts in the field, those who have a terminal degree, a

30:33

PhD, in the research of that particular field. And so, if you're going to publish a new idea in biology, if you're going to publish it on this website, it will be vetted by PhD biologists to make sure that it's accurate.

30:49

There are a lot of people who are very well -meaning, but they haven't necessarily studied an issue, and their enthusiasm sometimes gets in the way of producing an accurate article, and I don't doubt their intentions, but we want to make sure that everything is as accurate as possible.

31:04

And so, whenever I—if I write an article, especially if it's in a field that I'm not an expert in like biology,

31:09

I make sure that it's vetted by one of my PhD biologist friends, and fortunately, I know a lot of creation scientists over the years.

31:16

I've been blessed with the opportunity to meet very many of those people. The Biblical Science Institute is headed up by a

31:24

PhD scientist, myself at the moment. It might be another PhD in the future, we don't know.

31:29

The Lord plans our steps. In any case, I've come to realize how important that is because it ensures that peer review is done properly.

31:40

There are some creation ministries that have not intentionally gone down the path of pseudoscience, and you'll find in those cases that there aren't

31:49

PhDs in any position of leadership that would prevent errors from creeping into the literature.

31:55

Sometimes you'll have a very enthusiastic person come along who sounds very convincing but doesn't really know what he's talking about, and it's important that you have

32:04

PhD scientists who can vet at least the scientific topics that way. We're not a one -man band. It may seem like that because I'm the one that's primarily producing the content, but that's because I can't afford more staff at the moment.

32:14

As we get more finances, we'll try to bring on board more experts, and we can probably even now, on occasion, we'll have a guest expert who will come in and write on various topics.

32:25

Fifth, and I think this is something that's maybe not unique but rare, we at the

32:31

Biblical Science Institute don't just teach you what to think, we teach you how to think. We teach logic, and that is a lost skill in our culture.

32:40

Most people are not rigorously logical. They don't teach it in schools anymore. I personally think that was to make way for evolution because evolution is not logical.

32:50

Evolution in the Darwinian sense is not something that can be defended on logical grounds. And if people understood logic better, if they knew how to use their brains properly, they would not tend to believe in evolution, really.

33:01

And so I've found that correct reasoning, learning how to think, being able to spot errors in reasoning, it's so important in the defense of the

33:09

Christian faith. And so there will be a great deal of emphasis on that in our articles and in the podcasts that we have in the near future.

33:18

It's very important in the defense of the faith. What I'd like to do now is show you some of the resources that we have available.

33:26

We have a Facebook page. If you go to Facebook and search for Biblical Science Institute, we'll post our latest articles on there.

33:35

But those articles refer back to our website. It's BiblicalScienceInstitute .com, just one word,

33:40

BiblicalScienceInstitute .com. You go to that website, and you open it up, you will see at the top are, well, there's some tabs at the top.

33:50

Biblical Science Institute, there'll be a banner below that, a scrolling banner that has the latest articles.

33:55

And below that will be the articles in the order in which they were posted, or in inverse order, most recent at the top.

34:03

And so we've been doing a series on the solar system. So as I look at the page, as I record this, you see these different worlds of creation.

34:10

And each one of those is going to hopefully be faith building. And hopefully you'll enjoy those. We have a variety of different topics dealing with science, some dealing with scripture, some dealing with philosophy and logic.

34:24

But they're quite a mix here, really. And I think that all of those, though, will be something that's very helpful in defending the

34:32

Christian faith. So the front page lists the most recent seven articles. If you want to go back further than that, you go to the right side of the page.

34:41

There's some icons there. You go to the bottom one. It says Article Archives. You click on that. And then you will have a list of the older articles.

34:49

And if you go to the bottom page, you can click on older entries. And you'll get a list of ones that are older than that. At some point, we're going to have another page that will be topical.

34:58

And then it will select the articles by topic. So you don't have to search through them this way. At the bottom of the website, on the front page, at the bottom left, you'll see live events that are upcoming.

35:08

Now, as we do this podcast, basically everything's shut down. So we don't have live events, or very many. But in the future, hopefully, that will be repopulated again.

35:16

The center bottom will be the podcast, the latest podcast. And the bottom right will be a recent video, usually a short one that we do.

35:24

I've done a number of those on various topics. And then on the right panel, at the very bottom, there is a

35:30

Subscribe to Newsletter. Please sign up for that. It's an electronic newsletter. You'll get it in your email. So just put your name and your email address and click on the sign up.

35:39

And you will get a newsletter once a month that will hopefully be encouraging to you. And will keep you informed on what we're doing here at the

35:45

Biblical Science Institute. Another feature on the front page, if you go to the second panel on the right, it's the

35:52

Partner panel. Or you can click on the tab at the top, either one of those. If you click on that, you'll go to our

35:57

Partner page. This is a way of supporting us. Now, I have a heart for college students.

36:03

And they don't have any money. So I've decided that I wanted to make the Biblical Science Institute website free access.

36:09

So all our articles on our website, they're free. And the podcasts are free. And the videos that we produce, in terms of the little short snippets that we post on the bottom right, those are free.

36:21

And we want it to be free so we can get that information out there. But I still got to eat. And we have others that work at BSI that they need to eat too.

36:31

And so if you could support us, that would be very helpful. We have two supporter levels where you can support us for $5 a month or $10 a month.

36:38

If you contribute $20 or more, you're considered a partner. And partners will have special privileges, including access to our online forum.

36:46

And so you can see there are several partnership levels there. And there's some other little surprises I have for the partners coming up as well that will be kind of a bonus for sharing your finances with us.

36:57

We really appreciate that. Monthly support is very helpful. But you can also do one -time donations. You say,

37:02

I don't know what the future holds. But I have a little bit of money now. Hey, we appreciate that. If you do decide to become a supporter, it'll use your

37:09

PayPal account. If you don't have a PayPal account, it'll help you step through creating one. It's absolutely free.

37:14

People have said, well, can we send in money by check? Yes, you can. We have our ministry address down there at the bottom.

37:20

Biblical Science Institute, P .O. Box 60862 Colorado Springs. And the zip is 80905.

37:27

You can send us a check that way. If you sign up by PayPal and you're $20 or more, it'll automatically give you forum access.

37:34

If you send a check, you'll need to email me if you want forum access. And we can set that up for you. It's not a problem. You just need to let me know you want that.

37:41

We can do that. And if you're not in a position to contribute, don't worry about it. We understand that. That's why I made the website free.

37:47

Because I know not everybody can contribute. But everybody can certainly benefit from the articles and the information on the website.

37:55

If you are a partner contributing $20 more a month, you can click on, go back to the home page.

38:02

You can click on forum. And you will have access to our online forum.

38:07

And you can see there are a number of topics listed on the left there. Astronomy, biology, creation, theology, earth history, evolutionist claims, geology, logic, philosophy, physics, presuppositional apologetics.

38:18

We may add more in the future. I know that I'm expecting to add at least one more in the very near future. But in any case, those are places where people can post questions.

38:26

They can address them to me. And I will answer them. I try to really prioritize answering our partners.

38:32

I get a lot of emails. I can't answer all of them. But I answer all the partners if they ask me to. Or you can ask other members of the creation community.

38:40

You can say, how would you answer this? And so on. And I really appreciate the responses that have been posted there.

38:45

To log into that, you click on the forum tab. Go down to partnership logon. Click on that. You put in your username and password.

38:53

Keep me signed in. And then you'll have forum access after that. Another really important aspect of our website.

38:59

If you click on shop, you'll get access to our web store with some of the best resources available.

39:04

We have some wonderful books that will equip you to defend the Christian faith. And you say, I don't have time to read a book.

39:10

I understand. I'm busy too. We have DVDs as well. So you can pop those in. And an hour later, you're educated on a particular topic.

39:18

So there you go. Lots of different resources there. We'll add more over time. Please check those out.

39:24

And of course, Lord willing, we'll continue to produce these podcasts on a variety of different topics pertaining to science and the defense of the

39:30

Christian faith. And anything related to those issues. The frequency will depend on finances and time.

39:41

I had intended to do these podcasts weekly. It probably won't be quite weekly. I'll try to get as close to that as I can.

39:48

But it takes time to produce really good content. That's something not a lot of people appreciate. But it really does take time to research a topic well.

39:55

There's some that I know really well that I can do off the top of my head. But most of them takes a little bit of time.

40:01

Even if I know the topic, I have to organize my thoughts in a way. So that I can communicate that idea to others.

40:07

And I really try to. I make a very consorted effort to communicate clearly so that people understand these concepts.

40:15

So this is what we have for today. Mainly just an introduction to the ministry to get you sort of informed on what it is that we do at the

40:21

Biblical Science Institute and what we plan to do for the upcoming podcasts. We do this because we love the

40:28

Lord Jesus and we want to see people saved. We want the gospel to get out there. But the gospel has been obscured by unbelief.

40:36

People think they can't trust the gospel because they think the Bible has been disproved by science. And nothing could be further from the truth.

40:42

Science confirms creation. That's what we're all about. Showing people that the Bible is true from the beginning.

40:48

And we really want to focus in on science because that's an area that has been used incorrectly to attack the

40:54

Bible when it should be used correctly to confirm the Bible. Thank you so much for joining us today. Special thanks to Scott Arledge for designing that wonderful intro.