Today's Update: Where Are All the Human Fossils? icr.org

Today's Update: Where Are All the Human Fossils?

At a recent Institute for Creation Research event, we passed out cards so the audience could submit questions for an upcoming Q&A session. Interestingly, several folks asked the same thing: Why don’t we find human remains in all the vast rock layers from Noah’s Flood? Though it’s a popular question, it carries one big assumption. Once that’s exposed, possible answers become more clear.

Many assume that dinosaur layers should also contain human fossils. Not at all. Dinosaur fossil layers contain sea, swamp, and lake plants and animals, and mostly water birds.[1] They have virtually no remains of land-dwellers like dogs, deer, bears, or bunnies. Humans live on solid ground, not in swamps—and definitely not in pre-Flood swamps where dinosaurs might treat them as light snacks. The best places to look for fossils of pre-Flood humans would be in deposits that contain land-dwellers like pre-Flood dogs and deer.

Now we can reconsider the question. In short, three factors hinder the search for pre-Flood human remains. First, we are not sure where to look. Most Flood-friendly geologists have identified Cenozoic rocks as Ice Age layers that formed soon after the Flood. Others have recently reconsidered them to be Flood deposits.[2] So, we haven’t been looking for pre-Flood humans in rock layers we thought were deposited after the Flood. A new generation of Bible-believing fossil experts might do well to scour Cenozoic rocks for pre-Flood human remains.

Second…Dr. Tim Clarey’s new continent-wide rock layer maps have revealed that many Cenozoic deposits lie offshore since Flood waters washed off of continents and into today’s oceans.[3] It’s hard to dig for fossils in layers trapped beneath the sea. Plus, the violence of Flood runoff waters may have pulverized any human remains they carried.

A third factor is a lack of objective workers. Evolutionary scientists might not admit to a human fossil that’s out of place with their manmade view of history. In 2011, a team described a perfectly formed human foot bone—the fourth metatarsal. It came from earlier-than-expected layers. Remarkably, they decided that some kind of extinct ape had human feet.[4] 

Similarly, a 1980 report described human footprints at Laetoli in Tanzania. The evolutionary age for the track layer was over three million years—long before modern humans were supposed to have evolved. Therefore, researchers concluded that ape-like human ancestors walked just like humans.[5] They should have just admitted that people were walking before they expected. What would these kinds of scientists say about human remains in rock layers they think are 10 or 20 million years old?

Secular scientists imagine eons of pre-human creatures. Those many resulting bones, if they existed, would have blanketed Earth. Where are they?[6] The few human remains available from Ice Age cave burials [7] or older fossils [8] look like the number we expect from our few ancestors who lived right after the Flood.[9]

References

1. Clarey, T. 2015. Dinosaurs: Marvels of God’s Design. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 36.

2. Clarey, T. 2016. The Ice Age as a mechanism for post-Flood dispersal. Journal of Creation. 30 (2): 54-59.

3. Clarey, T. 2017. Local Catastrophes or Receding Floodwater? Global Geologic Data that Refute a K-Pg (K-T) Flood/post-Flood Boundary. Creation Research Society Quarterly. 54 (2): 100-120.

4. Thomas, B. 2011. “Lucy’s” New Foot Bone Is Actually Human. Acts & Facts. 40 (4): 17.

5. White, T. D. 1980. Evolutionary Implications of Pliocene Hominid Footprints. Science. 208 (4440): 175-176.

6. Thomas, B. 2015. Pre-Flood Human Fossils Revisited. Acts & Facts. 44 (11): 14-15.

7. Thomas, B. 2017. Who Were Cro-Magnon People? Acts & Facts. 46 (12): 20.

8. Thomas, B. Human Evolution Story Stumbles Over Footprints. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.orgApril 6, 2010, accessed July 16, 2018.

9. Genesis 10:32.

http://www.icr.org/article/10833/

Prospects Appear Dim for Religious Freedom in Cuba

• SOUTH/CENTRAL ASIA
  • Bangladesh
  • Bhutan
  • India
  • Maldives
  • Nepal
  • Pakistan
  • Sri Lanka
  • Afghanistan
  • Kazakhstan
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Tajikistan
  • Turkmenistan
  • Uzbekistan
  • Other South/Central Asia
• AMERICAS
  • Argentina
  • Bolivia
  • Colombia
  • Cuba
  • Mexico
  • Canada
  • Honduras
  • Nicaragua
  • Peru
  • United States of America
  • Venezuela
  • Other Americas
• EUROPE/EURASIA
  • Germany
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom
  • Belarus
  • Czech Republic
  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • France
  • Georgia
  • Hungary
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Kosovo
  • Latvia
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Serbia
  • Spain
  • Ukraine
  • Other Europe/Eurasia

Increased abuses range from arrests to enticing Christian leaders into immorality.

January 15, 2013 By Our Latin America Correspondent - Leave a Comment

On the street in Old Havana, Cuba. (Morning Star News photo)

HAVANA  (Morning Star News) – The Rev. Carlos Lamelas knows first-hand the diabolical nature of attempts by Cuban authorities to cripple Christianity on the Communist isle.

Refusing to allow government interference in the internal affairs of his congregation, Lamelas was charged with “human trafficking” (allegedly helping Christians to flee the island). He spent four months in jail and endured years of unjust treatment before leaving Cuba as a political refugee in 2011.

Like many pastors, Lamelas initially ran afoul of the government simply for effectively proclaiming Christ.

“When a religious leader attracts a popular following, the G-2 [State Security] mobilizes a team of psychologists to do a psychiatric evaluation and determine if he can be coerced,” Lamelas said. “They will launch a campaign to gather incriminating evidence against him, dispatch young women who try to seduce him or peddlers to offer him black market goods. In other words, they are going to entice him to commit some legal or moral offense.”

If a leader is impervious to such duplicity, he said, then arrest on false charges awaits him.

“The only step a church leader can take is simply to be faultless,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are very few who have managed to stand firm and maintain purity against so much pressure.”

Pressure from the international Christian community persuaded Cuban authorities to release Lamelas and eventually drop the false charges against him, but many Christians have not fared so well. One Christian aid and advocacy group found a sharp increase in violations of religious freedom by the administration of Raul Castro in 2012.

U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) counted 120 religious rights violations on the island last year, compared with 30 in 2011. Hundreds of people were affected, with some cases involving entire churches and denominations. CSW notes that the tally of religious rights violations does not include more than 200 people believed to have been incarcerated during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit in March.

Roman Catholic churches reported the highest number of violations, with Baptist, Pentecostal and Methodist churches reporting constant harassment as well, according to CSW’s report. A common tactic is the arbitrary detention of parishioners attempting to attend worship, as happened to nine women affiliated with the Ladies in White, an association of wives and relatives of jailed dissidents. Police in Holguin arrested them early on the morning of Dec. 30 and did not release them until after Sunday Mass.

Besides false charges of criminal or immoral behavior, harassment also took the form of beatings, threats to imprison pastors or destruction of church buildings. Reutilio Columbie, pastor of the Shalom Christian Center in Moa, believes the government sent the thugs that beat him unconscious last year.

Local officials confiscated a truck he had purchased several years ago to transport worshippers to services at his church, according to CSW. The former owner, who is related to a member of the central committee of the local Communist Party, had evidently decided the sale price was too low.

Columbie’s protests over the illegal seizure fell on deaf ears in Moa, so he filed a complaint with the provincial government. As he left home at 2 a.m. on Feb. 6 to catch a bus to Holguin to press his case, assailants savaged Columbie, leaving him unconscious on the street. The pastor spent several days in a coma due to brain swelling. He now suffers from memory loss, speech impairment and constant dizziness and nausea.

The attackers took only an envelope containing legal papers proving ownership of the confiscated vehicle, leaving behind cash and the pastor’s mobile phone. Local police refused to file charges and said an investigation was “impossible.”

The incident highlights the official corruption and impunity that Christians confront, and the lack of any possibility of redress. In a Jan. 3 press statement, CSW Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas noted that the Cuban government’s claims of reform and respect for human rights “cannot be taken seriously unless these violations are addressed and real protections for religious freedom for all are put in place.”

CSW this month publicly urged Castro to make protection of religious freedom – enshrined in Cuba’s constitution – a priority this year.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which has put Cuba on its “watch list” since 2004, noted in its 2012 annual report that “a number of religious leaders and followers were arrested and held for short periods of time in this reporting period, including dozens of members of the Apostolic Reformation.”

Throughout the island, religious leaders lamented increased surveillance by the government, interference in congregational matters and pressure to stop democracy and human rights advocates from participating in church activities, the report states. USCIRF urged U.S. officials to press the Castro regime to stop the arrests and harassment of religious leaders, cease interference in the activities and internal affairs of religious communities and allow unregistered religious groups to operate freely and legally.

As do many Communist governments, Cuba perceives mass adherence to a given faith as a political threat. And although there are signs that Cuban Christians are standing up to government hostility, prospects for future progress in religious rights are unclear.

“I don’t think there is an objective parameter to make predictions about the Cuban church in the near future,” Lamelas said. “Nevertheless, I would like to maintain a bit of personal optimism, believing that just as in the days of Elijah, God has saved a faithful remnant for Himself, and this remnant will become the seed that grows into a victorious Cuban church.”

###

© 2013 Morning Star News. Articles may be reprinted with credit to Morning Star News. 

Morning Star News is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation whose mission is to inform those in the free world and in countries violating religious freedom about Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith. For free subscription or to make tax-deductible donations, contact editor@morningstarnews.org, or send check to Morning Star News, 24310 Moulton Parkway, Suite O # 157, Laguna Hills, CA 92637, USA. 

Today's Update: China Rewriting Bible, Churches Must Sing Communist Anthems www.thebereancall.org

China Aid Founder Rev. Bob Fu – who led a house church in China before immigrating to the United States in 1997 to form his watchdog organization of China’s persecuted Church – warned U.S. Congress of the Chinese government’s aggressive move during a House hearing Thursday, divulging details about the plan administered by leading state-sanctioned Chiese denominations geared to “Sincize” Christianity nationwide.

"Religious freedom in China has really reached to the worst level that has not been seen since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution by Chairman Mao [Zedong] in the 1960s," Fu explained….

He said the state-sanctioned Protestant bodies are “retranslating” the Old Testament in their plan to Sinicize Christianity, while crafting new commentary for the New Testament to give socialist ideals and Chinese culture a more divine feel.

"The plan made it clear that 'Sinicization of Christianity' means to change 'Christianity in China' into 'Chinese Christianity,'" Fu made clear. “[The plan] emphasized that 'the heart and soul of Christianity's Sinicization is to Sincize the Christian theology,' – and even proposing to 're-translate the Bible or re-write biblical commentaries.'"

Giving an example of the latest outline of the plan, Fu explained that the summary consists of the Old Testament mixed with some Buddhist scripture and Confucian teachings – along with the newly devised New Testament commentary.



“Authorities in China have tightened their grip on the country's churches by ordering that children are to be banned from joining religious groups,” the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail report. “The ban also prohibits children from attending religious sermons and other activities in several provinces across the country.”

An all-out ban on youth attending services at more than 100 churches was reported this month in just one province alone.

“Earlier this month, over one hundred churches in Wenzhou – China's Zhejiang province – reportedly received a notice from government officials informing them that young people will be banned from entering churches, according to a report,” the Daily Mail’s Sophie Williams recounted. “Minors are also reportedly banned from participating in religious activities. Members of the church were told not to participate in religious activities, and churches were not allowed to organize a youth summer camp.”



(Haverluck, “China rewriting Bible, churches must sing communist anthems,” OneNewsNow Online, 9/29/1