Alberta Creationist Discovers Rare Fish Fossils in Basement

Are they 60 million years old as a paleontologist estimates, 

or are they more like 4,500 years as their discoverer estimates?

Fossilized fish found during excavation in Calgary suburb

An Alberta, Canada man who discovered a school of rare fossilized fish while digging up a Calgary basement believes the world was created by God a few thousand years ago.

It's for that reason Edgar Nernberg doesn't think the fossils could possibly be as old as paleontologists are estimating.

"I subscribe to the creationist position, and I believe they were laid down in Noah's flood, about 4,500 years ago. But we agree to disagree."

He's referring to Darla Zelenitsky, the University of Calgary paleontologist who was brought in to examine the five ancient fish.

She says they likely swam in waters about 60 million years ago, which is the age of the Paskapoo Formation, a sheet of rock that lies under the city.

"I would give it a 10 out of 10 for significance," said Zelenitsky.

Creationist Edgar Nernberg

"There's not very many complete fossils known in rocks of this age in Alberta," she said about the fish, which are each about the size of a wallet.

Nernberg helped build the Big Valley Creation Science Museum and said he's good friends with the owner.

According to the museum website, Nurnberg donated "one of the more favourite displays" for visitors — the Evidence from Genealogy exhibit — which features scrolls that trace the genealogy of England's King Henry VI back to Adam and Eve.

While Nernberg hasn't lobbied the Alberta government directly to include creationism in the province's school curriculum, he said he has written opinion letters about the topic and sent them to several newspapers.

Alberta homeschool convention offers creationist textbooks

Nernberg found the near-perfect fossils concealed in a block of sandstone while working at his day job, excavating the basement of a new home in northwest Calgary.

Zelenitsky said that because the fish lived in a time shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs, they could answer some questions about evolution.

The five fish fossils were encased in a block of sandstone in the Paskapoo Formation,
a 60-million-year-old rock formation that lies under Calgary. (Meghann Dionne/CBC)

"Plants and animals were actually recovering from the extinction at that time, so any fossils, particularly if they're complete, are going to help us reconstruct what was going in the environment after a major mass extinction."

Nernberg said he has come to "accept the fact that we all have different opinions."

The fossils are en route to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta., to be studied by paleontologists.

"It's quite likely that these could be a new species," said Zelenitsky.

We have the five fishes, now if we just had three loaves we would really
have something to sink our teeth into

If that's the case, Nernberg said, he won't be offended if they're not named after him.

That will be the day, when paleontologists honor a creationist, or even acknowledge his existence. We've come a long way since the Scopes Monkey trial; whether it's all good or bad I will leave up to you.

Personally, I try not to take a firm position on this issue because I could quite adequately debate either side. I don't dismiss the science that makes a recent global flood unlikely; nor do I dismiss the Bible as a source of truth; and I certainly would never put God in a box and say, "this is impossible"! I believe He has some astounding surprises waiting to be revealed to us.

9 High Budget Biblical Based Movies to Come Out in 2014

It appears that there will be at least 9 movies coming out in 2014 that will be based, at least somewhat, on the Bible. Links to the trailers are there for the first three. 

In Son of God and Noah, it is obvious, even from the trailers that the directors have taken some privileges with the Scriptures. Let's hope, and pray, that they at least get the basic gospel right. 

The movies were not inspired by a sudden revival in Hollywood, but by the unexpected success if the mini-series The Bible. It's all about the money!

Son of God will release just before Easter and will re-tell the story of the birth, life, ministry death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado has the lead role. [click on link to see trailer]

 Noah is a $125 million extravaganza starring Russell Crowe, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson will play his adopted daughter(??),  and Jennifer Connelly about the catastrophic judgment of mankind recorded in the Book of Genesis and one man and his family who are saved. It releases March 28th. [click on link to see trailer]

Heaven Is For Real will release on April 16th, based on the New York Times best-selling non-fiction book about a boy who dies, but after being brought back to life by a team of doctors tells his family that he went to heaven while he was dead and describes what he saw in vivid detail. [click on link to see trailer]

The saint-like image of a hooded woman looms out from the movie poster, her arms outstretched as a divine light bursts from the sky. A message written above is simple and unambiguous: “You Will Believe.” So goes the promotional campaign for the forthcoming Hollywood blockbuster Mary Mother of Christ....whose title character will be played by Odeya Rush, a 16-year-old Israeli-born actress, is one of a series of unashamedly Christian biblical epics due to appear next year, marking an unprecedented overture by Hollywood to America’s evangelical heartland.
It will be interesting to see if this movie is made by Catholics and deifys Mary.

Noah will be followed by Sir Ridley Scott’s Exodus, in which Christian Bale,   as Moses, will part the Red Sea. Scenes from ancient Egypt have been   reconstructed in southern Spain, with Bale wielding a bow and arrow (??) and   Sigourney Weaver playing the Pharaoh’s wife.

Another movie of Moses’s life called Gods and Kings is also planned. Steven Spielberg was due to make it but has been replaced by Ang Lee, who won the Best Director Oscar this year for Life of Pi.

Will Smith is said to be planning a film based on the story of Cain and Abel.

Brad Pitt is rumoured to be playing Pontius Pilate in a separate project.

There will also be Resurrection, in which a Roman soldier is sent to investigate Christ’s death. It has been likened to “Gladiator, with a mystery bent."

I've been waiting a long time to see a movie based on the life of Paul. Guess I'll have to wait a little longer.

My Response to an Atheist in the Manila Times

The following is my response to a columnist at the Manila Times. It is printed on their website today. The Times freely discusses spiritual themes from different points of view, unlike most newpapers/web sites which tend to avoid the subject as much as possible unless it's a defamatory story.

The columnist, Rigoberto Tiglao is an atheist and points out some interesting fact on how "Acts of God" affect people in terms of faith. Of course, he is referring to Super Typhoon Haiyan, called Yolande in the Philippines. He also quotes Epicurus, a 4th century Greek philosopher who dismissed God through his own logic. 

The entire article can be read at: http://manilatimes.net/do-acts-of-god-create-more-believers/53511/

Epicurus argument: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then, he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? The why is there? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

The first Super Typhoon - the Biblical Flood

Responses to Do ‘Acts of God’ create more believers?
Gary Wm Myers says:
November 17, 2013 at 2:31 pm

Mr. Tiglao,

Thank you for that well-written and well thought out article. You make some excellent points. However there are some gaps in your logic. For instance, Epicurus’ reasoning is very limited; he does not understand that God gave man free will and authority over the earth. Free will means the freedom to choose good or evil. The freedom to choose evil must come with the freedom to do evil, otherwise it’s just an illusion.

If God were to intervene (for instance, to stop the sexual abuse of 100,000 children in the Philippines), then man would have no free will at all. Man must have the ability to choose good or evil in order to spend eternity with God. That is why we are here on this planet – to prepare for Eternity.

God can, and does intervene at times, but He takes His authority to do so from those who pray. To do otherwise is to usurp the very authority He gave man over the earth. Then you would call him a hypocrite.

Your article ignores the question of Who Jesus Christ was (is), and it assumes that God doesn’t exist, therefore all communication with God is one way and God has never proved His existence.

God has proved Himself to millions of Christians in many, many ways. He is not part of our imagination but a very real part of our lives. That you cannot communicate with Him is because you are not willing to believe. It’s always a question of will. Once you are willing, God can begin to open your eyes to the truth. Are you willing?

Amazing Theories about the Biblical Flood

This paper (OK, so it’s digital; I’m old school) may well startle you in the ideas it presents. Most certainly, you have probably never heard some of them before. My career in meteorology has contributed at least in part to some of these ideas, otherwise they are a result of just studying the Bible with an open mind and spirit. Nothing here contradicts the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed.

The Book of Genesis describes a global flood that can hardly be interpreted any other way. Gen 7:19  The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. Bible literalists have no doubt that it occurred. Flood stories exist in ancient cultures all over the world. A global flood may explain a large part of the fossil record as well as the production of oil.

There are problems with the flood theory though; ice core samples from Antarctica reveal annual rings that go back tens of thousands of years without any break in the pattern. Does this mean that the global flood didn’t happen, or that it was regional not global? Not necessarily. A global flood could have melted many years or decades of record in the ice core and we might never know.

For the purpose of this paper we will assume that the flood did occur and that it was global in extent – pretty easy to do since that’s what the Bible says. Why it occurred is explained clearly in Genesis; man’s ways were evil only and God decided to destroy mankind and remake it through Noah and his family. Also, there were angels who were abandoning their stations and somehow having sexual relations with the daughters of men.

In this paper we are going to look at how the flood came about, that is, the mechanics involved. How and why those mechanics came about is what is so fascinating. Did God employ some natural mechanics? He usually does. During the parting of the Red Sea, He created a strong wind all night. When He fed the Israelites quail in the desert, He brought them with a strong wind.

As children it becomes obvious to us that the geographic features of the earth seem to fit together like a puzzle. Remove the oceans, do a little twisting and shuffling and presto, it’s one big continent. Most everyone is familiar with the theory of plate tectonics – that’s science’s answer to the obvious geographic puzzle. Trouble is they believe that continental drift has occurred over millions of years; I think it happened in 40 days and 40 nights, or, at most, one year.

It rained upon the earth 40 days and nights to produce the flood that covered even the tallest mountains. The Bible says that it did not rain upon the earth prior to the flood. The flora was watered from springs, rivers and dew. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve wore no clothes until after they sinned and then only to cover their shame. Consequently, there were no diurnal temperature extremes – not too hot in the day or too cold at night. We can then conjecture that there were no weather systems of any consequence.

So, how did it rain for 40 days and 40 nights without weather systems? The very stable temperature pattern could only have happened if there had been something in the atmosphere to prevent the heat from the earth from escaping. Cloudy nights are warmer than clear nights. The creation story in Genesis tells us that God separated the waters above the earth from the waters below the earth. This seems to imply that there were waters in the atmosphere. Of course, there is lots of water in the atmosphere which exists in the form of vapour. Sometimes it is visible as clouds, sometimes it is not. Even if it was not dense enough to be visible, it may have been thick enough to form the thermal canopy needed to keep the temperature comfortable.

Now we have a water source but in order to have clouds and rain we need a lifting mechanism. Air that is lifted cools and condenses forming clouds and eventually rain. Without frontal weather systems we have to look elsewhere for a lifting mechanism. This is where it starts to get really surprising.

I believe that the lifting occurred by the literal expansion of the earth. I believe that God expanded the earth as if He were blowing up a balloon. This would result in the tearing apart of the mega-continent into the current continents and their rapid movement into roughly their current positions. It also created the space for the great oceans to develop. All of that water had to go somewhere; much of it ended up in the oceans and much of it evaporated and returned to the skies but not nearly enough to produce the pleasant temperature patterns of pre-flood years.

Why would God do that? Are you ready for this? God destroyed all the people on the earth except Noah and his family, and since souls are not destroyed with our bodies, God needed somewhere to put what was probably a few million souls – He created Hell.

There is no mention of Hell in Genesis anywhere before the flood. There is a good question as to where the souls of lost people were kept before the creation of Hell; I don’t have an answer for that. But it is clear from many scriptures that lost souls go to Hell and that Hell is located deep in the earth.***

*** Matt 5:22,29,30; Luke 16:23; Eze 31:16

Eze 32:24; Num 16:30,33; Job 17:16; Job 24:19; Psalm 9:17