When Eli was 4, Kris and I needed to keep him occupied while we packed our house up ahead of a move… so I found a video by Answers in Genesis and put it on. Eli discovered an interest in the solar system. He liked it.
A lot.
For the next several years he studied the planets.
Made drawings of planets
Created the asteroid belt…
Made the solar system out of balls…
Made the solar system out of dinosaurs…
Represented it with Legos…
Another Lego Solar System…
Drew Orbits.
His interest in astronomy has not waned so we were excited when we found out Dr. Jason Lisle was coming to our church for a conference. It was held last Friday/Saturday and one of the best conferences I’ve attended.
Dr. Lisle is a Christian astrophysicist. Has held positions at Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research (ICR), and now the Biblical Science Institute. One of my favorite papers by him is about the Anisotropic Synchrony Convention and I’ve enjoyed his debate with Hugh Ross and read a number of Jason Lisle’s Books over the years.
His sessions covered a foundation on Genesis, Astronomy, Science, Fractals, and a few Q&A sessions (he answered Kris’s questions about the multiverse and Kuiper Belt). The conference was recorded so if you’re interested you can watch it below:
Eli’s second love is math, so his favorite part was the session on how God thinks about numbers, which spent a good deal on fractals on Day 2.
Earlier this year while attending a home school curriculum conference I was reminded that there is no subject that can be taught from a neutral perspective. You are either for God or against God. Even math. You can either teach it from a secular perspective which is to ignore God and avoid the question of where math comes from or perhaps try to come up with some explanation about why math exists and even works; or you can teach it from the worldview that that all things including abstract things like math are created by God and therefore have beauty and reflect His nature. By studying math we are discovering what God thinks about numbers and would therefore expect to find beauty in numbers. There is no neutral position. Dr. Lisle’s presentation made this more apparent.
“I was merely thinking God’s thoughts after him.” – Johannes Kepler
