Museum Excursion

QUOTE : "Our views on morality, justice, purpose, self-worth, humanity, obligation, and destination are all closely tied to our views on human origins."

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/creation-vs-evolution.htm

The reason I'm posting about worldviews is because we have been talking about the 2 biggies - Creation and Evolution - a lot over the past 2 weeks. We began our History lessons with a review of Creation to Noah's Flood. It was just a short overview, because we have covered these events as part of our Bible studies a number of times over the years. I personally think the Big Bang and Evolution THEORIES are fairy tales for adults, and I can't accept that the whole argument is set-up as a choice between science and faith. I think it takes a whole lot more faith to believe that the complexities and intricacies, the absolute marvels of the universe, this world, the animals and mankind itself just happened by itself and of its own accord! First of all, that the universe formed from an explosion seems stupid to me - don't explosions destroy, and not create? Then afterwards, that life evolved from some micro-organism that began in the sea and over time mutated into various other life forms, some of which crawled out of the ocean and continued to mutate and adapt to life on earth over millions of years, also seems seems ludicrous. Why aren't animals still evolving if that is the case? No fossil evidence can be found of transitional or inbetween forms of animals, and no missing links can be found between monkeys and humans - because dear friends, God created each kind of animal, and He created man in His own image! As I said, it takes a lot more faith to believe in evolution, than to believe the truth that a loving Creator God spoke everything into existence.

I wholeheartedly believe that God created the world, and everything in it - according to the book of Genesis in the Bible, and this is what I teach my children...but I also teach them the opposing viewpoints so that they can know both sides of the debate. I think it's important to have a well-rounded education, and to provide them with the knowledge to define, understand and defend their own beliefs.

So as part of her studies the week before last, Sarah had to research and write a report about Charles Darwin, and Natural Selection, which actually proved quite timely, because soon afterwards there were a few news articles about him, as it would have been his 200th birthday if he were still alive.

For the next few days after that we were all intrigued by the Great Ice Age, and read quite a bit about that; while this past week our focus has been on Dinosaurs. Daniel notebooked a couple of pages with info gathered out of books borrowed from the Library, then he chose 8 Dinosaurs and classified them into groups, drew and labelled his pictures with their scientific names, and wrote out short bullet-points of info.

(Note: there are plenty of great books about Dinosaurs at the Library - but every single one was written from an Evolutionary point of view. I'm glad we have Dinosaur books written from a Creationist point of view - which is that Dinosaurs were created on the 5th and 6th days when air, sea and land animals were made!)

Sarah, (not being as interested in Dinosaurs as Daniel) wrote a report about Fossil Fuels, then spent time on her Literature studies. I didn't think it was necessary for her to dig in as much as Daniel, given her lack of interest...which I can understand!



Anyway, our week long study of Dinosaurs culminated in an excursion to the Australian Museum in Sydney yesterday. We had a really nice day! Our primary purpose was to see the Dinosaur exhibition, but we enjoyed almost 5 hours wandering around and viewing other collections.

By definition, SCIENCE says an idea isn't really true unless you can see it, measure it, and analyse it. Besides the conflict of faiths, that is another reason why I don't agree with the Australian Museum's Statement of Faith as quoted from their website: The Australian Museum supports the teaching of evolution as the scientifically tested and verifiable theory for the origin and development of all species on Earth. In doing so, the Australian Museum's position is that creationism or intelligent design should not be taught as part of the science curriculum. ....however, I do think they have built terrific collections and displays, and the Museum is well worth a visit!

I particularly liked the Bird and the Insect displays. Daniel liked the Dinosaurs, the Skeleton section, and the Spiders collection; and Sarah liked the Butterflys and especially the whole exhibition of photographs entered into the
Wild Life Photographer of the Year Award.
Wow, awesome photos! Sarah also took a lot of photos herself, because she wants to draw them in her sketch book later.

A couple more photos





So it was a really nice day as I said, and we only left the Museum because we were hungry! We wandered across the road into the beautiful and well manicured Hyde Park, where we ate lunch in the glorious sunshine. The children both said they wished for a backyard like that (oh yes please!)
Have you walked down the Avenue of Figs? those trees are just stupendous - and would be great for climbing and treehouses, Daniel said!

Photo of children looking at the Archibold Fountain


This has turned into a rather long post, and I was sitting here considering splitting it into 2 separate entries - Worldviews and the Museum excursion, but I think I'll just leave it as is for now. Have to go live my life away from the computer! One more thing, if you want some good reading you will find lots here -

http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers

and Wiki gives a good overview of how worldviews shape our thinking here
http://creationwiki.org/Worldview