Large-brained Apes Graduate from Penn State

In a commencement address for the College of Liberal Arts at Penn State University this year, graduates were told they were a “community of large-brained apes.” Now that these graduates understand they are just animals, I trust their university won’t be critical of any of the students if they act accordingly. After all, if we are just animals, and there is no God, then there is no such thing as morality—particularly when the commencement speaker ended with:

You may be just a bud on the tree of life, but you are a bud with attitude and power. Find your own Beagle [the ship Darwin was on] and change the world!

By the way, Hitler tried to do that, and he did use evolution to justify his actions!

Here are some excerpts from the address:

We are All Connected

Commencement Address for the Centennial Graduation of the College of Liberal Arts, The Pennsylvania State University, 16 May 2009 by Nina G. Jablonski, Head and Professor of Anthropology

Greetings and congratulations, graduates, on this your new beginning, your commencement!

When you started at Penn State you probably had no idea that you would be members of the centennial graduating class of the College of Liberal Arts. And why is it that we make so much fuss of 100th and 200th anniversaries anyway? . . . The centennial of Penn State’s College of Liberal Arts is a special enough occasion, but it happens to fall in the same year as the bicentennial of the birth of one of the most influential scientists of all time, Charles Darwin. . . . All organisms are products of a process Darwin called “natural selection,” and are ultimately united in a complex web of genealogy. You and I are buds on this tree, and we are all connected to one another by nodes, some closer, others more distant. Everyone in this vast hall is interrelated to everyone else by this web of genealogy, and we can all trace our ancestry to common group of modern Homo sapiens living in Africa about 50,000 years ago, a mere twenty five hundred generations ago. Compared to other species, we haven’t been around for very long at all. The branches and buds that make up the entire genealogy of the human lineage are only six million years old, and form a tiny cluster in the 3.8 billion year old tree of life on our 4.6 billion year old planet. . . . So just what is it that is so special about our particular species?

We not only are connected to one another by strands of DNA linking us in a genetic network of common descent, but we form communities, pay attention to kinship systems, socialize, adorn our bodies, and use complex languages to communicate with one another. We are a community of large-brained apes with a complex culture, which is propelled and glued together by sophisticated language and an insatiable appetite for communication. [Emphasis added.]

By the way, at least one department head for a research center at the Penn State campus doesn’t believe this. He is a PhD creationist who visited our Creation Museum last week.

720,000 Reached on Two-Year Anniversary Day

Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary date (May 28) since the Creation Museum was officially opened to the public. Our 720,000 visitor walked through the door! A number of news reports appeared concerning the two-year anniversary—such as this one from the news service onenewsnow.com:

Today marks the second anniversary of a unique museum that defends the Bible's account of creation.

Two years ago, the Creation Museum opened its doors. The museum, which is operated by the apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis, presents a biblical view of creation and history. Nearly 720,000 people have visited the 70,000-square-foot attraction in northern Kentucky since its opening.

Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, rejoices in the effect the museum has had on people's lives.

“We’ve seen not just Christians come here, but lots of non-Christians as well—and we’ve seen non-Christians who have been converted right here at the Creation Museum,” he shares. “So we are just praising the Lord for what he has done through this outreach that stands boldly and unashamedly for biblical authority and the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

You can read this report here.

Devotion

Charge and empower

(Luke 4:18) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised

The Holy Spirit comes to us to charge and empower us to preach the Great News that forgiveness & recovery is now open to one and all through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken