I have wanted to write the 3rd, 4th, and 5th posts in this series for some time, but it has been hard to find the time for it...

As a temporary filler for point 3 (evolution can't explain the origin of functional genetic information, for example in the Cambrian Explosion (the section of the fossil record showing a sudden increase to all the animal types we see today)), please consider reading Stephen Meyer's book "Darwin's Doubt".

I am about 2/3 of the way through it, and it is an EXCELLENT book.

Regarding Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, www.CreationSafaris.com has some great analysis!   It's worth reading every day.

Also, regarding the following quote:

Why is knowing God and embracing His sovereignty so important when we're single? We have to keep in mind that we've received this gift of singleness from the pierced hand of the One who bore all of our sins - from unbelief as singles to selfishness as marrieds. We can be like Peter who initially rebuked Jesus for His humiliating, yet glorious, plan of redemption - or we can be like Mary, who came to accept His plan and purposes, and demonstrated it in the costly outpouring of perfume in anticipation of his burial. Confident of the Lord's good plan for our lives, we can emulate Mary and spend our treasures (youth, dreams, desires) to further His purposes on this earth.
More importantly, when we are almost faint under the strain and worry of wondering if singleness is to be forever, we need to be reminded that there is an end to singleness: One day we will be at the wedding feast of the Lamb and we will be His bride. Even if we receive the gift of marriage on this side of heaven, that's not our ultimate goal. It is a shadow and a type of what is planned for eternity and, like all things on this earth, it will have its conclusion in death. Our Father knows the time when earthly gifts will be distributed and when they will be no more; He knows, as well, when the heavenly wedding feast will commence. We can blissfully rest in the knowledge that the future is better than anything we think we've missed now: Jesus is preparing us for the eternal rewards and eternal joys of a future He's told us is too inexpressible for us to understand. For His purposes, and within His covenant to always do us good (Jeremiah 33:40), He has declared for us that being single now and into the foreseeable future is His very best. He desires that we overflow with hope as we trust in him (Romans 15:13) and his sovereignty in this season -- redefining hope from hoping in a particular gift from God to trusting the God of hope unreservedly.  (http://www.cbmw.org/Resources/Articles/The-God-Who-Knows-the-End-of-Your-Singleness)

...the excellent point is made that singles have the UNIQUE opportunity to show to the world the desirability and value of God in the midst of their loneliness and heartache, just as marrieds have the UNIQUE opportunity to show to the world the desirability and value of God in the midst of the stresses of family relationships and needs... just as chronically-ill people have the UNIQUE opportunity to show to the world the desirability and value of God in the midst of their physical pain, just as.... every pain and every life-circumstance carries with it the special and unique opportunity to showcase God's glory and value...   YOU have a unique ability that no one else in the world has ever had or will ever had, in trusting wholeheartedly in God in the midst of your own unique life-situation...   in saying with David (Ps 39:7) "And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You."  ...and with Jeremiah (Lam 3:27) "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I have hope in Him."

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9)

Here's some hilarious stuff from http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/uds-first-suck-up-to-darwin-contest/#comments , in honor of the 2009 bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth and the sesquicentennial of his publication of "The Origin of Species".   Here are three of the 'odes'... the link has several more.   They're especially funny because they weave in a lot of real evolutionists' rhetoric, and expose some of the irony involved.  The second and third one especially bring out the problems atheism/naturalism/evolutionism has with reductionism and determinism... i.e. whether consciousness, morality, and free will are merely illusions or not.

 

 

Darwin lived in age of superstition and squalor yet rose above it to lead humanity into sunlight, into the promised land.

Darwin was abandoned by his mother at the age of three months after the insane King George III ordered the death of all infants named “Charles”, “Chas” or “Chuck”. The King’s daughter saw him floating in a basket amongst the bullrushes, however. His superior persona was obvious even at that age and she adopted him as her own.

Darwin grew into a comely man of great height and uncommon strength. He was known to be able to carry a full-grown cow upon his shoulders. Many respected accounts have him running a four-minute mile over a century before Roger Bannister. And in boots.

Still it is the prowness of his mind, not his body for which he is known.

Science was in a primative and unenlighted state before his birth. There was no telephone, eletric light, or aeroplane.

There was no motor car. Not a single luxury.

Darwin’s then theorized that whales might have descended from bears - swimming bears, that is — and all these things became possible.

The glories of the 20th Century would not have occurred without Charles, Chas, Chuck, Darwin.

Much has been written about Darwin, and much more will be.

It can never be enough.

He was a real man of genius. Charles Darwin, we salute you!

As we approach 200 years since Darwin’s birth, how can we go about gauging his importance to the world? When looking at the role of individuals in history, it can be easy to forget that history moves dialectically. Ideas are not the result of individuals, but material, historical processes. If Darwin had chosen a different profession in his youth, the idea of Evolution would have still emerged as a great force in the world.

Does this mean that we shouldn’t honor and revere Darwin? Absolutely not. Material reality chose Darwin to reveal the truth of evolution. By honoring Darwin, we honor the ultimate material reality. Conveniently, Evolution also molded man so that he needed heroes to look up to. Evolution, amazingly, built in a mechanism by which the idea of Evolution can spread. We can honor Darwin by celebrating him and reading his work. In doing so, we fulfill two important Evolutionary needs: the need for a hero and the need for truth about reality. Truth about reality, of course, helps humans advance as a species. Darwin’s work, by undoing the misguided superstitions that evolved for thousands of years, has done more to help us advance as a species than any other man in modern times

Listen my child and I shall tell you
Of the Prophet and His mighty works

The story begins eons ago,
Indeed in the very beginning

For in the beginning were the particles
And, lo, the particles were in motion

Eons passed
Galaxies formed
stars were born; burned for billions of years and died

And in all this time, the particles knew naught
Of themselves or anything else
There was no knowing, my child, for what can particles in motion know?

But slowly, ever so slowly, some of the burned out star stuff
Began to coalesce around a core and form a small planet

Further eons passed and still there was nothing but particles in motion
That knew nothing, for what can particles in motion know?

But then one day, in a warm pond on this little planet
Some of the particles received a surge of energy and
Formed self-replicating groups of bio particles

But still, the particles knew nothing; for what can particles in motion know?

Further eons passed.

And then, oh day of days, came a descendant
Of that first group of self replicating bio particles from that warm pond
And he looked to the heavens and declared “I know.”

This great and glorious amalgamation of bio particles we call the Prophet
Others call him Darwin.

But alas, Darwin did not really know, as he himself recognized
For what can particles in motion know?

I would call you “best beloved” but we know
That love is not real; it is just a chemical reaction in our brain.

So, I shall say, “one who is the object of
The illusory but nevertheless pleasurable chemical reaction in my brain
That I choose (alas, another illusion) to call love”
That is how we came to know that we do not know
For what can particles in motion know?