Dinosaur Debate and Other Things....

King Arthur returned from school yesterday regaling me with tales of dinosaurs and meteors and the beginning of the Earth...and I sighed. He attends a little "Christian" nursery school, but I was just struck....being labelled Christian doesn't mean that the teachers hold a Biblical world view, a correct theology or a sound doctrine at all. School allows them to be exposed to such varied world views. On the upside I get to teach King Arthur how to challenge this, and how to learn to discern. On the downside, its double the amount of work to correct what I believe has been incorrectly taught.

A few months ago I would have been unable to really enter into a debate on the subject. I personally had never been able to explain how dinosaurs fitted into Genesis, or where they were placed in Creation, until I stumbled across this website, which blew my mind. I simply typed in dinosaurs and it gave me an extensive list of articles to read. I downloaded one of the pdf files and read it avidly.

One of the points made that fascinated me was this - did you know the word 'dinosaur' only came into existence in the late 1800's? Until then, dragons were referred to in cultures all over the world. Even the Bible refers to dragons. Dragons were dinosaurs! (now I love that because I am a romantic at heart and love the stories of knights slaying dragons etc). But see the thing is, they didn't all die out before the flood, nor when ice ages were supposed to have occurred, nor when meteorites hit the earth etc. They were around a little over 150 years ago, and that makes sense to me, because I cannot subscribe to the belief that the world is millions of years old. I have loved this site, loved the questions I've been able to search and the answers I'm uncovering. They also have some wonderful magazines that don't seem too bad in terms of subscription costs if you're interested.

I am becoming more convinced that as Chrisitians in the world today we need to have answers, we need to care, and that this is what churches should be teaching  - correct ideologies about who we are, how we got here, and the truths we should know to deflect the flaming arrows sent by the enemy - take down deceptive thinking and hollow philosophies.

This is the Bombadier beetle - it has twin exhaust pipes at its tail,
and fires boiling hot noxious gases at its predators.
 Got me thinking about fire breathing dragons!
A pretty neat God huh?

On other fronts - some bullet points!

• Our potential future landlady is putting a few spanners in the works re rent, and how she expects us to look after her home. She asked me to water some plants - in spite of my recent success in the veggie garden front, I am notoriously well known for killing plants. It's true. I kid you not. And we were desperately keen to repaint the boys room, (and repaint on leaving) but she's VERY reluctant. Don't think she's ever had tenants before. We've already given notice, but now I'm just not sure where home will be!
• Braveheart shot his first live action advert on Monday night, so the kids didn't see him for 36 hours. Aragorn lost the plot. He loves his dad so much, that when our normal routine is disturbed, it unsettles him greatly. Not sure if it's a middle child thing. Got me thinking about all those people who have recently lost their husbands... and my heart just aches for them, and their little people. O God.
• Aragorn stayed home from school today (a little because he had a cough, a lot because he just seems strung out from school. I do this often, give them days off - it affirms them, centers them. Looking forward to the time when they're at home always!), and this is what we did - and I loved the pace and freedom of the morning:

Thanks to Homeschool Creations, a few crafts with lower case 'd' and capital T!

a tea party with his sister - this amused them for over one
 and a half hours. Water and kids, the simplest things!

• And for good measure, these are our alphabet crafts (capital C) from the weekend (Jolanthe over at Homeschool Creations amazes me! See my sidebar for links)

I'm trying to let Aragorn be creative...
not demand that his looks anything like mine
- a real challenge for my type A personality!

• This is another great site I've found, from an intellectual Christian man whose books I'm looking forward to using one day - although note he's left the ministry now as it sems to be going off the rails a bit. His books are still sound, and some of his other articles just get my brain churning.

Rightio then! Till another day!