Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Recommend-a-blog (20)

Sarah Salviander, PhD is a physicist, Astronomer at the University of Texas, Christian apologist and writer of homeschooling curriculum and science fiction. Her blog is called SixDay Science.

She is also a former atheist, the child of socialists who were diligent about not exposing their daughter to religion in her formative years. In Sarah’s first 25 years of life, she says she met exactly three self-identified Christians.

I trust that’s not true of everyone growing up in British Columbia. Canada is most definitely post-Christian, but I hope we’re not THAT post-Christian.

Joyous, Content and Smart

Sarah tells how she was first influenced by Christian physics professors who were, in her words, “joyous, content and smart”. Their personal examples were the beginning of Sarah’s journey to faith in Jesus Christ and conviction that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, fully compatible with all genuine science. Her studies of the human mind and the precise order of the universe further eroded the barriers built in childhood. Sarah’s entire testimony is a fascinating read, and I won’t recycle it here, but her conversion was both an intellectual and emotional experience.

The blog is a treat. Whether Dr. Salviander is laying waste to the oft-repeated assertion that Genesis is merely mythology borrowed from other religious sources, or eviscerating the misconception that 93% of scientists are atheists (she says it’s actually less than half), or undressing Neil deGrasse Tyson’s claim that weight of evidence is an adequate metric for implementing political policy, Salviander is always incisive, practical and relevant, not to mention (generally) easy to read.

Six Days of Genesis

Best of all is her Six Days of Genesis slide show, in which Dr. Salviander syncs up the first six days of Genesis with the Big Bang and the 14 billion years currently posited by scientists as the age of the universe in plain English with clear illustrations. One doesn’t have to agree with everything Salviander posits (such as pre-Adamic hominids, etc.) to notice her commitment to the preservation of every word of Genesis as the literal truth of God. Definitely recommended viewing for teens interested in exploring an intelligent presentation of the creationist worldview.

The homeschooling curriculum was created in response to a perceived dearth of suitable material for students interested in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The studies are presented agnostically (presumably to maximize the potential market), but Christian homeschoolers will be interested in the (notably inexpensive) Biblical Supplement focusing on the consistency of the modern science of astrophysics with the teaching of scripture.

Dr. Salviander’s homeschooling curriculum is available from Castalia House.

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