The Strand Study Bible

ECCLESIASTES

ECCLESIASTES

1006

Then, for the next 300 hundred million years (or, until 13.4 billion years ago), gravity (the great sculptor of the universe) began to slam hydrogen atoms together, creating a new element ( helium )… and the first stars were formed. Inside those new stars new elements began forming–hydrogen into helium, helium into lithium, and so on and so forth, until twenty-five of the most common elements began to forge. Like a good stew, these stars over the next nine billion years (or, until 4.6 billion years ago) continued to brew, until one day they too exploded. Called supernovas, these exploding stars then created heavier elements (gold, silver, copper, etc), which in turn created planets . With the help of the great sculptor of the universe (gravity), these newly formed planets slowly began to send lighter elements to their surfaces. Then, a 100 million years later (or, c. 4.5 billion years ago), as our planet was still in its “Jell-O” stage, an object, the size of mars, smashed into the earth. Our planet swallowed the object, digested it, and then spit out a small portion of it, which became our moon . Another 100 million years after that (or, c. 4.4 billion years ago) it began to rain . It then rains for the next 600 million years (or, c. 3.8 billion years ago) until our oceans are formed. Yet life, according to them, would not occur for another 1.3 billion years (or, until 2.5 billion years ago). It appears some very special bacteria began to form within our oceans, and over time figured out how to consume the sun’s energy, creating oxygen . This oxygen then escaped from our oceans and filled our airspace. After enough oxygen was poured into the atmosphere, an ozone layer was formed, which enabled plant life to evolve. This process, according to them, took 2 billion years (or, until c. 550 million years ago). 150 million years later (or, c. 400 million years ago), amphibians began crawling out of the water. They thrived for 150 millions years (or, until c. 250 million years ago). Then the earth heated up and 70% of the life was destroyed. For the next 25 million years (or, c. 225 million years ago) life would be at a standstill until the “deck” was reshuffled and dinosaurs began appearing. For the next 160 million years (or, until c. 65 million years ago), reptiles would rule over mammals. Then, an asteroid hit the earth and destroyed all of the dinosaurs and most of the mammals. 15 million years later (or, c. 50 million years ago) primates are said to have evolved from the leftover mammals. 40 million years later after that (or, c. 10 million years ago), grass is said to have started reappearing, which made the primates come out of the trees. Seven and one half million years later after that (or, c. 2.6 million years ago), those primates (which evolved from mammals) are said to have evolved into primate man (homosapians). One million and eight hundred thousand years after that (or, c. 800 thousand years ago), man is said to have invented fire . 600 thousand years after that (or, c. 200 thousand years ago), man is said to have begun speaking . 100 thousand years after that (or, c. 100 thousand years ago), man is said to have supposedly moved out of Africa and into Asia . 50 thousand years after that (or, c. 50 thousand years ago), a mini ice age is said to have begun, and for the next 40 thousand years (or, c. 10 thousand years ago), man is said to have barely survived, so that by 10,000 B.C. man is said to have finally “got going.” 2

See what happens when you have “too much” education? Thus Solomon urges us to “learn to live” (Rom 12:1-2), not “live to learn.” Higher education may be what the world emphasizes, but it is not what God emphasizes. Remember, God used “ unlearned and ignorant men ” to change the world (Acts 4:13), not learned and arrogant men (I Cor 1:27-28 and II Pet 3:3 ). George Orwell, pen name of British novelist Eric Arthur Blair and author of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four , once noted: There are some ideas so preposterous that only an intellectual could believe them. 3 Henry M. Morris, William W. Boardman, Jr., and Robert F. Koontz in Science and Creation note:

It is not true, as some have thought, that science has proved the theory of evolution to be true or that all scientists are evolutionists. To the contrary, there are hundreds of qualified scientists today who are convinced for scientific reasons that special creation is a far more satisfactory theory than evolution, as an explanation for the origin of the universe and its various forms of life. Nevertheless the American educational curriculum is currently dominated almost exclusively by evolutionary premises, not only in biology but in most other fields as well. Although millions of Americans believe in special creation and would prefer to have this theory taught their children instead of evolution, textbooks and curricula have been structured almost entirely around evolution for many years. This discriminatory situation has been justified by many on the basis that evolution is “science” and creation is “religion”. This is a false issue, of course, since both are theories of origins and thus deal with historic events no longer accessible to scientific observation. 4 ( Gen 1:1 b )

NOTE – Remember the panic caused by the Hadron Collider experiment a few years back? The Hadron Collider, which is located in Europe, is a seventeen-mile in diameter accelerator that smashes protons together at unprecedented speeds. Along with its U.S. counterpart (the Fermi National Lab, the three-mile in diameter accelerator that smashed protons and antiprotons together, located just south of Chicago), the goal of the Hadron Collider was to try and produce the kind of heat (Big Bang) that supposedly sent hydrogen atoms throughout the universe within a fraction of a second, creating all the energy (they say) has since existed. The panic, of course, came from the public which said, “What if they succeed?” Thankfully, the only result that came from their experiment was “pictures” of the explosion. After ten billion dollars, 800 scientists, and millions of hours of intellectual research, here is what they concluded from the pictures from their experiment: They already knew that elements were made up of molecules and molecules were made up of atoms and atoms were made up of protons , neutrons and electrons and protons, neutrons and electrons were made up of leptons and quarks . What they didn’t know, and what they were trying to solve by their experiment, was what “held” all these subatomic particles together. What they discovered was an elusive subatomic particle that they couldn’t describe. So they called it the “God particle.” All they had to do was open the Word of God to Colossians 1:16-17 for the answer and they would have saved themselves a lot