This is all that is left of what was the Earth's fourth largest lake only 50 years ago. From NASA's Earth Observatory: Dust Over the Aral Sea. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union started diverting most of the water from the rivers that fed the Aral Sea to irrigation, primarily for cotton. This led to …
Lake Eyre, Australia
I love this picture, as only a geologist who loves streams and sediments could. From NASA's Earth Observatory site: Rare Refill of Lake Eyre, Australia's Simpson Desert. From the EO description: Waves in central Australia’s Simpson Desert usually come in the form of sand dunes. In these images, they ripple in long vertical lines across …
Conversations in progress
I've had a number of good comments in the past month on the following posts. Feel free to join in. Dr. Dino still in prison -- I consider the teachings of Kent Hovind ("Dr. Dino") to be anti-apologetics that has no place in our churches and Christian schools. Not everyone agrees. Augustine and Darwin -- …
Six bad arguments from Answers in Genesis (Part 3)
This is part three of a six-part series examining supposed evidences for a global flood that have recently appeared on the Answers in Genesis web site. The people at AiG are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I share their love for the Lord Jesus Christ, their respect for the Bible as the Word …
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Lake Powell images, 1999 to 2009
NASA's Earth Observatory has a series of images from 1999 to 2009 showing fluctuating water levels in Lake Powell in southeastern Utah. Lake Powell is formed by Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona. Earth Observatory has a "play" link to watch the images in played in order. From the description at …
Switching religions
A significant number of people move from their childhood faith to another, as shown in this diagram from Eclectic Christian and Internet Monk: Most who "change faiths" do so by age 23 or 24. After that people are mostly set in their ways. Note that we Evangelicals lose about as many of our own children …
Francis Schaeffer — 25th anniversary of his death
Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Christian author, philosopher, and pastor Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer is highly regarded in the Evangelical Christian world for his defense of the faith, his advocacy of pro-life political action, and leadership of the l'Abri community in Switzerland. Francis Schaeffer was also an advocate of environmental protection. HT: …
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Santa Barbara fires
From NASA's Earth Observatory: Jesusita Fire, California, near Santa Barbara, California, 5/8/2009. The red outline areas indicate hotspots, and represent the areas of active wildfires. Grace and Peace
Concentric circles emanating from glowing red dot
Earthquake and tsunami news from the Onion News Network: HT: Geographic travels with Catholicgauze Grace and Peace
Augustine and Darwin
Alister McGrath (DPhil in molecular biophysics, Doctor of Divinity) has an article at the Christianity Today website: Augustine's Origin of Species: How the great theologian might weigh in on the Darwin debate. St. Augustine (AD 354-430) was the bishop of Hippo, in what is now Algeria, but was then part of the Roman Empire. I …
C.S. Lewis on Progress
From Mere Christianity: We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the …
Nature’s enduring value is not in what it can provide us
I saw two bumper stickers on a truck this morning. One read: Earth First! We'll mine the other planets later The other one read: Strip mining prevents forest fires. There were other bumper stickers on the truck: NRA, Ducks Unlimited, and a few others I couldn't read (I was driving after all). It would not …
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The Map Room
The Map Room blog just put in a plug for me, so I'll return the favor. I do have a maps category over in the first column on the right. Thanks for visiting The GeoChristian. Grace and Peace
Six bad arguments from Answers in Genesis (Part 2)
This is part two of a six-part series examining supposed evidences for a global flood that have recently appeared on the Answers in Genesis web site. The people at AiG are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I share their love for the Lord Jesus Christ, their respect for the Bible as the Word …
Continue reading Six bad arguments from Answers in Genesis (Part 2)
Reading — April 2009
I only finished one book in April: Three Views on Creation and Evolution, edited by philosophers J.P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds, with contributions by eight other authors. The three Christian viewpoints presented are young-Earth creationism, old-Earth creationism (or progressive creationism), and theistic evolution (or the fully-gifted creation). The contributors are mostly philosophers and theologians, …
What Obama has done right (or at least better than the Republicans have done)
I go to a Republican church, and I vote almost exclusively Republican. When I lived in St. Louis, I also went to a Republican church, but the church next door was a Democrat church. You could tell by bumper stickers on the cars. This kind of bothers me. Would a Democrat feel comfortable in my …
Continue reading What Obama has done right (or at least better than the Republicans have done)
The BioLogos Foundation
Dr. Francis Collins, author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, has stepped down as the director of the Human Genome Project. His new project might be even more challenging. Collins is the founder and president of The BioLogos Foundation, which is seeking to span the perceived gulf between science and …
Marcus Ross review of The Bible, Rocks and Time
Christianity Today has a review The Bible, Rocks and Time, the recent book written by Christian geologists Davis Young and Ralph Stearley. I've written about this excellent book here and here. The review is by young-Earth creationist Marcus Ross, who earned his PhD in geology from the University of Rhode Island a few years ago, …
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Not quite so bright — part 2
Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse rips into the best-selling author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins: "It is not that the atheists are having a field day because of the brilliance and novelty of their thinking. Frankly --- and I speak here as a nonbeliever myself, pretty atheistic about Christianity and skeptical about all theological claims …
Montana clean
My home town of Billings, Montana is tied for being the city with the cleanest air in terms of ozone concentration in the entire United States, and is in the top 25 for cleanest air in terms of particulates. From MSNBC.com: Report lists worst, best cities for air quality Ahhh. To breathe some fresh Montana …
GeoChristian 