The Rocks Cry Out
by Dave Nutting

This summer millions of people from all over the world will visit America’s National Parks and Monuments where they will be deluged with a flood of evolutionary dogma. It is disheartening, that instead of honoring and glorifying the Creator for His wonderful works, our parks and monuments have been turned into shrines of evolutionary paganism and pantheism.

Now you might say, “Isn’t that statement going a bit too far?” Maybe, but how often in the parks “educational programs” have you heard “Mother Nature,” “Time,” “Gaia,” “Evolution,” and “Natural Selection” being credited for the wonders of our world? How often have the intricate designs and amazing beauty been attributed to blind chance? How long has it been since you heard the credit going to God, the Creator?

Then again, think about the names we find on so many geologic features. Just here in the Grand Junction area we find Devil’s Kitchen, Devil’s Canyon, and Serpent’s Trail. In Colorado Springs we find Garden of the Gods (notice the plural). In Idaho and Oregon there’s Hell’s Canyon. If that’s not enough, journey to Grand Canyon, where you will find Vishnu Schist, Zoroaster Granite, Vulcan’s Throne, Devil’s Corkscrew, Shiva Temple, Osiris Temple, Isis Temple, Jupiter Temple, and Diana Temple. The list goes on and on.

But what do we find when we actually study the rocks, geologic formations, and the animals and plants of our nation’s wonderlands? We find just what we would expect to find if the account given in Genesis is true and accurate. We find intricacy and design in living things that could come only from an intelligent, powerful Creator. We find distinct “kinds” of life, not the billions of transitions that would be expected according to evolution. We also find billions of fossils buried in rock layers all over the earth. There is evidence of rapid deposition and extensive formations covering thousands of square miles, as well as huge canyons that can best be explained by lots more water — just what we would expect to find from Noah’s Flood.

Yet, with all this evidence that the Word of God is true when it speaks of Creation and the Flood, people still proclaim the glories of evolution and refuse to honor and glorify the Creator. Just like the people in the apostle Paul’s day, they worship and serve the creature, more than the Creator (Romans 1:25). Yet, the very rocks give testimony of God’s power, truth, and faithfulness. Seeing what God has made should turn our hearts and mouths to worship and praise Him! However, we are not “officially allowed” to acknowledge Him in the parks of this land. The whole situation is reminiscent of the time when the rulers of Jesus’ day tried to get the people to stop praising Him, and He told them that if the people didn’t praise Him, the rocks would cry out (Luke 19:40). The rocks are truly “crying out” in our parks and monuments. May we, too, join our voices in praise to our Creator God.

Where Do Rocks Come From?
by Mark Sonmor

Studying rocks and their origins can be overwhelming. Learning the names of the 2,500 minerals alone can be a daunting task. Simplifying the information into a few basic categories and defining some terms may help, such as:

Mineral — Non-living solid in its basic form. (Feldspar, Quartz, Calcite)
Gem — A mineral that is valued for its beauty and flawlessness. (Ruby, Emerald, Saphire)
Rock — A collection of minerals.
Rocks can be divided into 3 basic groups: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The diagram, at right, gives a general understanding of how most rocks are formed. Many aspects of the process are open to speculation since they can’t be directly observed. Processes that formed much of the sedimentary and metamorphic rock took place on an incredibly large scale under forces and conditions vastly different than those observed today.

Pet Rock Revival
by Dr. Dan Korow

[In the life of a veterinarian unusual cases are not uncommon. This is a silly, fictional story but it can illustrate the problems with determining the age of rocks and the age of the earth.]

First year veterinarian, Dr. Green, enters an exam room confident he can diagnose any problem. What he discovers throws him for a loop! A young geology student, named Bias is dejected over the contents of a battered shoe box. Expecting to see a dying pet, he opens the lid to find two pet rocks, named Helen, and Woody.

Surprised and suspicious, Green quips, “Don’t tell me; you told them to roll over and play dead.” “No,” Bias responds, “You don’t understand. This is an emergency. Helen is very, very sick. She has grown ancient almost overnight. She is unresponsive, and cold to the touch. She used to have a great personality. Fix her Doc!”

Somewhat flustered, Green asks, “Uhm, how old is she?”
“Well,” Bias replies, “21 years ago she was born at Mt. St. Helens. A scientist spotted her, picked her up, slapped her on the underside, and threw her into the back of his pickup truck.”

“Okay...so Helen is 21,” said Green, feeling foolish writing this in the medical chart.

“No!, that’s just it,” Bias cries, “I’ve been told she’s really 340,000 - 2.8 million years old!”1

“Make up your mind. How can she be that old if she was born in 1980?” Green asked.
“See,” Bias wailed, “She’s prematurely aging! Please, make it stop!”

“Wait a second; who says she’s so old?” asked Green.

“My professor said so based on radiometric dating. When lava solidifies into rock, the original radioactive material (the parent compound) begins to break down, or decay into more stable forms (the daughter forms). For example, if the original contained 100 atoms, and 4,000 years from now only 50 atoms remain, the time period would be called the half life. Scientists assume that this decay rate is always the same based on the concept of uniformitarianism. They also assume that this rate can be extended into the distant past (Extrapolation). Thus, scientists determine a rock’s age by comparing the amount of parent form to daughter form, and determine the number of half lives necessary to produce that ratio.”

“How do they know the original amount of parent compounds Helen started with?” Green questioned.

“I’m not sure. I guess it’s based on certain assumptions.”

“How do they know that the parent and daughter amounts are directly related. Couldn’t these amounts vary if these substances can move in or out of the sample.”

“I guess so. They probably have assumptions about that too,” replied Bias.

“How can they be sure that these decay rates have remained uniform over all those years?”

“I guess they just assume that as well!”

“Bias, you first said Helen was formed just 21 years ago. How can the other ages be right? They are based on some unprovable assumptions about the unobserved past,” said Green, erasing the old ages from the chart. “If we can’t trust radiometric dating on events of known age, why should we trust it on events of unknown age? Unprovable and untestable assumptions could easily lead to unreliable, inaccurate results.”

“Wow... I never thought of that,” replied Bias. “ Hey Doc, Helen is looking younger already!”

Green then looked at the second pet rock, also made of lava. It had a charred piece of wood exposed to the outside. He asked, “What’s wrong with ‘Woody’?”

“He’s in suspended animation,” Bias replied. “This wood fragment is just 45 thousand years old based on carbon 14 testing. But the lava dated by the potassium-argon method says it’s 45 million years old.” 2

“Wait a second,”probed Green. “Shouldn’t both ages agree? How do they know which date is correct, when dates are vastly different?”

“Sometimes scientists rerun their tests multiple times before they get the right birthdate. They often choose the birthdate based upon the rock layer’s position in the geologic column. This position is determined by specific fossils that are believed to have lived only in certain time periods.”

Green interjected, “So, the rock layer dates the fossil, and the fossil dates the rock layer. That’s circular reasoning!”

“Uh...I guess so. Maybe these ages aren’t written in stone after all! I’ll have to rethink this. Dr. Green, could you look at one more pet?” It’s my dog, Evolution. He won’t stop chasing his tail!

1 “The rock which formed at the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 contained much argon, even though it should have contained none. In fact, one of its minerals “dated” at 2.8 million years, when it was only 15 years old. Volcanic rock formed in the recent eruptions of Hawaiian volcanoes dates at 30 million years old.” — The Geology Book, Dr. John Morris, 2000, p. 52
2A.A. Snelling, “ Radiometric Dating in Conflict,” Creation, 20(1):24-27, Dec. 1997- Feb. 1998

They Love Me. . . They Love Me Not. . .
by Dan Korow

Contrary to Popular Belief . . . .
- an evolutionary scientist speaks out against radiometric dating methods

“Ever since...the 19th century, fossils have been and still are the best and most accurate method of dating & correlating the rocks in which they occur...As for having all the credit passed to the physicists and the measurements of isotopic decay, the blood boils! Certainly such studies give dates in terms of millions of years, with huge margins of error, but this is an exceedingly crude instrument with which to measure our strata and I can think of no ocassion [sic] when it has been put to an immediate practical use. Apart from very ‘modern’ examples, which are really archaeology, I can think of no cases of radioactive decay being used to date fossils.” — D. Ager, (evolutionist)
New Scientist, Nov. 10, 1983, p.425