In August, I talked about the conference I went to over this summer and how I really disliked how I was treated like a child and looked down upon for being homeschooled. 

I know I’m starting off with the bad things, but I do promise that the majority of the conference was great! You will get to hear all about the good parts, soon…but I had to share the drama with you first. 

We were back in our group of 8 researchers, just 45 minutes from the entire workshop ending. The lady in charge was mentioning OARS and how you’re supposed to use that to help navigate conversations with people who aren’t on the same page as you. Essentially, Open-ended questions, Affirmations, Reflective listening, and Summarizing. Then she gave a few examples. 

At this point, my opinion of this conference (I’d blocked out the teacher part, it was too traumatizing) was great – she’d inspired me to do some things in my own community and my boss and I were collaborating on new outreach activities. 

Has anyone ever told you never to put politics and religion in polite conversation? Well, there’s a reason for that, and she did a fantastic job of demonstrating it. 

She gave an example of how she had been invited to speak to a group of kids at a planetarium, and was told that they believed the earth to be only 6,000 years old. She told us how she thought it was ridiculous, but that some things aren’t worth it, so she changed her entire presentation to avoid that topic. I could get behind that. She’s right – some things aren’t worth mentioning, especially when you know it won’t do any good. 

But then, she said that the OARS technique is great to practice with MAGA family members and climate change deniers, since they are incorrect and using this technique will help highlight the flaws in their logic. Nearly the instant she said that, I was so disappointed. I thought she was great, she was super smart and had great insights. But then she had to go and bring politics and religion into it, and those instantly divide people, no matter the side you are on. 

Also, she probably shouldn’t have said that climate change deniers are inaccurate to a room full of scientists…me in particular. You guys know I love doing research. 

Now, I won’t give you a full spiel of why I don’t believe in global warming (but I will give you a brief one). Let me ask you this…how long ago did we get really great technology? So great, even, that we can accurately measure the earth’s temperatures?

Imagine you have an oven. And you’ve used that oven thousands of times. Now, you have an oven thermometer. You’ve used that five times. You conclude that the oven is consistently getting hotter and the gauge is off. Does it sound like there’s a potential issue in your conclusion?

NASA claims that we have been able to start measuring temperatures since 1880 (1). So if you believe in a 6,000 year old world, that’s only 145 years we’ve been able to measure the temperature of the world. Some quick math: only 2.4% of the data. If you believe in a 4.5 billion year old world…that’s only 0.00000322% of the data (2). In both scenarios, whether you believe in a Creationist earth or an Evolutionist earth, we do not have enough data to even remotely draw a conclusion. For example, what is this a picture of?

Evolutionist Earth

Creationist Earth

Were you able to tell the whole picture? Can you tell me what it is? 

Did you get it right? Now, since I didn’t want to keep you here forever with the science of if there is climate change (which, of course there is. Our climate changes all the time, but doesn’t warrant such exaggeration), I just wanted to prove a quick point to you. If you have 2.4% or 0.00000322% of the information, you are unable to draw an accurate, or even reasonable conclusion. 

And you should probably not mix politics and religion in polite (or professional) conversation. Although with everything that’s going on in the world, sometimes you do have to take a stand when no one else will. 

If you are not 100% sure that you’ll go to Heaven when you die, now is the time to repent and put your trust in Jesus Christ. If you have any questions or doubts about your salvation, click here to learn how you can be saved!

Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions below or you can contact me here! I love hearing from you! 

Sources:

1. https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/the-raw-truth-on-global-temperature-records/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Earth