Please, Don't Insult My Intelligence

This afternoon I was looking through this month's issue of National Geographic Magazine and came across this:

The computer makes it hard to see, but just to the left of center in the photo is a little circle outlined with a dotted white line. That portion has been enlarged in the circle you see just right of center. According to the caption, that dark-colored smudge in the enlarged circle is a remnant of "feathers up to eight inches long". At top right you'll see an artist's concept of a tyrannosaur-like dinosaur covered in furry, fluffy feathers.
Now, first of all, while I am not a paleontologist and don't claim to have any kind of expertise in this field, I think I'm smart enough to recognize a fossilized feather when I see one.
This is a fossilized feather:

This is a fossilized feather:

Sorry, but I don't see any feathers in that NatGeo photo. Those smudges are far more likely to be collagen fibers, created during the decay process of the fossilized animal's body.

The brief writeup on the photo states that the feathers were "soft down (that) may have kept the animal toasty during a Cretaceous cold spell", not rigid feathers meant for flight. It describes the dinosaur as "a supersize chick".
I'm a little confused about the idea of "soft down" eight inches long, though. The closest thing I can think of to that is an ostrich's soft body feathers, which do get that long but would, one would think, show up in a fossil as more than a smudgy spot or two, and well enough to be defined under a term a bit more precise than "filaments" (the NatGeo writeup's word of choice).

I also have to wonder how this fits together with the new theory that dinosaurs' own methane emissions (i.e. burps and gas) caused global warming. (No, I'm not kidding. That is an actual theory, and you can even read about it in the LA Times here.) If dinosaurs went extinct during the global warming they caused between 161 and 145 million years ago, how did they have the time or foresight to evolve feathers for the Cretaceous cold spell 125 million years ago? And if they were adaptable enough to evolve feathers in time to keep from freezing to death, how did they manage to go extinct in the first place?
All that aside, the most glaring problem with the downy insulation theory is the fact that dinosaurs are reptiles and therefore, we can reasonably assume, cold blooded. If their bodies are not generating their own heat, a layer of insulation is totally pointless. If anything, it's going to have the opposite effect: keeping out the warmth that needs to be coming into the animal's body from outside.
Secondly, down only works as insulation if there is a course outer layer over it. Back to my ostrich illustration, you'll notice that an ostrich's feathers are all very soft and down-like. But the ostrich lives in the desert. The feathers help it keep cool, not warm. Even a goose-down sleeping bag is covered with an outer layer to hold the warmth in. Those of you who have raised chickens know that baby chicks (covered only with soft down) are extremely susceptible to even slightly cool temperatures, because they have no outer layer of feathers to hold in the warmth. Where is T-rex's outer layer? Shouldn't that be showing up in the fossil too?

I could go on. The entire writeup (less than half a page long) is so full of items and points I could challenge, but I'll stop here. I'm sure you all get the idea, though I would encourage every one of you to look up the article at your local library or online and see it for yourselves.
I would also encourage you to learn more about these so-called feathered dinosaurs scientists have found and touted as powerful evidence confirming evolution. Answers in Genesis has a fabulous article on the very dinosaur pictured above, explaining details about it with tremendous depth and clarity. Click Here to read AiG's article. Learn the truth about these controversial fossils, so that you can always be ready to give an answer for your faith when people question you or make false statements like this.
And lastly, don't be afraid to stand up and speak out about things like this. The propagation of evolution is dependent on intelligent people keeping their mouths shut and not asking too many tough and embarrassing questions because they don't want to challenge an 'expert' opinion. You may not be an 'expert', but the people who are learned from other experts, who learned from other experts, who learned from looking at fossils and making up theories. You're an intelligent human being who can see a fossil just as well as they can. Don't let them insult your intelligence by making you feel ignorant, and don't be afraid to respectfully challenge their expertise.

Don't be afraid to call a feather a feather, if indeed it is a feather. But don't be afraid to say it isn't a feather, if it isn't.

Here in the Power of Christ, I Stand.

This afternoon I was reading an article by Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis. He was speaking about the horrible trend that has swept the church and caused many professing Christians to compromise their beliefs and allow evolutionary ideas into their worldviews. Many of these people have done so because they are insecure in their faith in the authority of God's Word. They haven't been shown the evidence that supports the Genesis account of creation exactly as it is written. Somehow, they have come to believe that scientific 'evidence' outweighs the authority of Scripture, and a tragic number of Christians have stopped speaking with authority because of this. It has become very easy for the atheists and evolutionists - who are speaking authoritatively, whether they are justified in doing so or not - to drown them out.
This is an issue that is continually on my heart, so imagine how encouraging and refreshing it was when I read the following in Ken Ham's article:

"In Mark 1:22 we read that many people were astonished with Christ's teaching, for He spoke as one having authority. Today, we can speak with this same authority, because we have the Word of God! Jesus Christ, the Creator and the Word, has given us the Bible, and He told us how He created all things."

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to read that.
Don't let them intimidate you into compromising on your beliefs, my friends. If you find an evolutionist's arguments or 'evidence' intimidating or jarring to your beliefs, don't just sit there and let it gradually erode your faith away. Make war against these lies and the Liar they came from!
Do an in-depth study of the Genesis creation account - I'm talking with a concordance and everything. Look up key words and learn exactly what they mean in the original language.
Find good books, articles, documentaries, and lectures on apologetics and go through them carefully. Answers in Genesis is a great place to start. The Institute for Creation Research is another fabulous resource. Master Books has a library's worth of resources available. (And of course, I'd be more than happy to recommend some of my favorite resources with anyone who asked. ; )
Talk to your parents, a pastor, or a friend who has not allowed themselves to compromise on their faith in light of scientific 'evidence' that supports evolution. Tell them what you're going through (don't be afraid to be honest and tell them you're confused and struggling). Ask questions. Ask them to help you study the topic that is bothering you and learn the truth about it. Ask them to pray for you. Email me and ask me to pray for you - that's what Christian brothers and sisters are for.
Above all, pray for yourself and ask God to help you learn to stand on the authority of His Word. God doesn't lie, friends. He can't lie. It's completely contrary to His nature, and He wouldn't be God if it wasn't.
Even Christian creationists don't have all the answers, and many things are still mysteries to us. But we still have the words of a God who doesn't lie, and He has told us what we need to know to stand on those words.
Like the song says:

"Til He returns or calls me home, here in the Power of Christ I'll stand."

Stand strong, my friends.

Good Friday and the Cross - Finding Beauty in Ugliness

We've all seen the beautiful, jeweled, stylized crosses hanging on the walls of people's homes, worn as jewelry, screen-printed on clothes and bags, and dangling from rear-view mirrors. Most of us probably even have one or two. We talk and we write and we sing about the beauty of the cross. But I have to wonder... do we ever stop to think about its ugliness?

Before it became the symbol of salvation and Christianity, before it was a jewelry item or wall decor, the cross was a torture device - the most brutal means of death a pagan empire could come up with. Like the song says, it was 'the emblem of suffering and shame', a synonym for cruel, agonizing death.
'Ugly' is an understatement.
If you think about it, the concept of sacrifice is the same way. The idea of someone completely undeserving being punished instead of someone who is deserving (and who then gets off scot-free) is, on its surface, ugly. Where is the justice in that? How can that be right?

I know what you're all probably thinking: Why am I asking you to look at the ugly side of things instead of the beautiful side? Well, I'll explain.

Beauty is only meaningful if we have something to contrast it with. What would the beauty of a summer rain mean if we hadn't seen the ugliness of parched, withering grass and dry, cracked earth? Would a beautiful, healthy baby mean as much if we had never seen a weak, diseased, deformed one?
Would summer rain and healthy babies still be beautiful? Absolutely. And we would still enjoy them. But we wouldn't appreciate their beauty half as much without something ugly to contrast it with.

Sacrifice and the cross are the same way. If Christ had snapped His fingers and poof! sin was paid for and death was vanquished, what would that mean to us? Even if He had died for us, but peacefully - in His sleep, free of any pain - what would that death mean to us?
He didn't, though. He loved us enough to embrace the ugliness of dying on a hideous, barbarian torture device, sacrificing His life for a stubborn, undeserving lot of ungrateful wretches. He knew the terrible, all-consuming power of the Father's wrath, and yet He was still willing to take it - all of it - on Himself, to save the creation He loved.
Yes, the idea that the Creator of the world had to die in order for His rebellious creation to be saved from their own selfish pride and stupidity is ugly. Sin is ugly. Death is ugly. The image of a completely innocent man dying the torturous death of a criminal is beyond ugly.
But the incredible, awesome love it took for Him to willingly do that... well, 'beautiful' doesn't even begin to describe it. And it becomes even more amazingly beautiful when we take a moment to look at the ugly side of it.

That's where the beauty of the cross comes from. That's the kind of God we serve: a God who can take a compilation of the ugliest concepts in existence and from them make the most beautiful outworking of love ever to take place.

And that's why we writers fill our stories with war, danger, disaster, trouble, and heartache rather than care-free stories of ease and pleasure. It's why happy endings are important: because as Christian writers, our stories are reflections on our King - a God who can take the biggest, ugliest disaster imaginable, and make it into something beautiful.

So this weekend, consider taking a few moments to look at the ugly side of Easter. It makes the beautiful side mean so much more.

Have a wonderful Easter, everyone. And here's a great Easter worship song to enjoy while you're at it.

The Joy of Writing God's Story

Those of you who know me personally will probably agree with me when I confess that I take myself way too seriously. It hurts to admit it, but it's a fact.
Another flaw I struggle with is getting way too focused on and wound up about minute details. Kind of like tunnel vision. Sometimes this can be a good thing, true. But when a situation calls for a look at the bigger picture, it can be a problem.

No, this isn't 'The Confessions of Mary', it's just a bit of intro into the thoughts I've been mulling over for the last day or two.
As I'm sure you can imagine, my tendency to take myself too seriously often attaches itself to my over-active attention to detail, and the results on my writing can be... oh, how shall I say it?... frustrating.
It's really nothing that extraordinary for me to find myself agonizing over the same section of a WIP for hours - occasionally days - because of some minor detail that really doesn't matter to the story, but that my sense of self-importance won't let slide.
Recent case in point: Should I, or should I not, give names to the different sectors of the capital city in Son of the Shield?
No, this decision will have no effect whatsoever on story or characters, it's just a detail that I had considered putting in to help flesh out my fantasy world. But I worried and stressed about it until it finally dawned on me: it doesn't matter! It has no effect whatsoever on the story, so why am I wasting valuable writing time stressing over it?
Naturally, my detail-obsessed, self-important side was quick to chime in. Isn't depth of detail important to creating a vivid, life-like fantasy world? After all, look at the kind of detail J.R.R. Tolkien built into Middle Earth - and The Lord of the Rings has been a best-seller for how long, now?
It was quite a heated little internal battle, let me tell you, but I eventually found the bottom line. It's this:
I am not J.R.R. Tolkien. I have not been tasked with building the next Middle Earth or writing the next international, multi-generational best seller.
I'm Mary Pursselley, and God has given me my own unique story to tell. My job is to do the very best I can in telling it... not to equal or even rival anyone else.
Somehow I don't really think God is all that interested in whether the sectors of the capital city have their own names. I get more of the impression that He just wants me to tell a great story about His grace and sovereignty.

So, I'm working on easing up a bit with the obsessive attention to detail and the exaggerated sense of my own importance. Sure, detail is important in building a fantasy world, and as a writer and a Christian I'm committed to always doing my best 'heartily, as unto the Lord'. But for now I'm putting away the microscope and working on just telling God's story, not building the next great fantasy world.
Interestingly enough, I'm having a lot more fun.

The Resurrection and the Wardrobe - "There are only 3 possibilities."

"Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and until any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Over the last couple of weeks my Sunday School teacher, Dave, has been talking about apologetics; specifically, evidence for the resurrection. This week's discussion focused on the five hundred+ people who saw Jesus following His resurrection, before His ascension.
Skeptics are willing to concede the fact that the disciples and others did have some kind of experience with someone they believed to be Jesus, after He had been killed. However, they don't consider the accounts to be accurate.
Dave pointed out that there are only three possibilities concerning the encounters people claimed to have had with Jesus after His death:

1. Everyone who claimed to have seen Jesus was lying.

2. Everyone who believed they had seen Jesus was either hallucinating or dreaming.

3. The people who said they had seen Jesus were telling the truth.

The notion that these people were all lying makes no sense. Look at the political scandals and cover-ups throughout history. There is always a leak somewhere. Humans are simply not good at keeping secrets under any circumstances - let alone when they're being hunted and tortured and killed as the early Christians were. If the encounters with Jesus were lies, someone would have spilled the beans.

The idea that all 500 people were hallucinating or dreaming also makes no sense. One night, a few years ago, my dad and I both dreamed that our great-aunt had passed away. It was kind of spooky, both of us dreaming the same thing on the same night. But, even though the basic dream was the same, the details were all different. And it was only two of us, not five hundred. No way are five hundred people all going to have the exact same dream or hallucination where all the details agree.

So logically, Dave concluded, we have to assume that the early Christians were telling the truth.

Hmm... I thought. I've heard that somewhere before!
While it's a well-known fact that C.S. Lewis was a theologian and apologist in addition to being a writer, we don't always notice how one bleeds into another. The Professor's conclusion that Lucy is telling the truth about finding a magical country inside a wardrobe is an essential part of the story, forcing Peter and Susan to consider for the first time the possibility of something they regarded as incredible. But it's also an example of great apologetics, a lesson to be learned.
Peter and Susan still weren't convinced by the irrefutable logic of the Professor's argument, and all the evidence and logic in the world isn't going to convince someone who isn't willing to accept the resurrection. That's the job of the Holy Spirit.
Aslan eventually convinced Peter and Susan by letting them through the wardrobe into Narnia. The Professor didn't have to convince them that it was real. He simply told them what he knew, and let Aslan do the rest. Our job isn't to convince an unbeliever, it's simply to tell them what we know and let the Holy Spirit show them the way through the wardrobe door, if they're willing to be shown.
For me, it's lessons like this - gems embedded so deeply into the story that they often go unnoticed - that set a truly great work of Christian fiction apart. For me, whose writing role model is C.S.Lewis, it's awesome to be able to see his beliefs and apologetics techniques at work even in his fiction, and it's my hope that my own writing will be influenced and sculpted by my faith in the way Lewis' was.
And the next time someone asks me how I know the resurrection really happened, I might just have to casually sit back and say "That is a point which certainly deserves considerations; very careful considerations..." (I wonder if I could pull it off without a British accent!)
Afterwards, I'll make myself a cup of tea and muse about "What do they teach them at these schools?"

What do you think sets a great work of fiction apart from the pack?
Do you have a writing role model?