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Events at In The Beginning
About...
The first 'In The Beginning' website was started by me, Les Sherlock, on 5th June 2009, in order to add to the growing number of websites that both present the truth as revealed to us by our Creator and to show that scientific observation in no way contradicts that truth. In addition, because music has been such a large part of my life, this was inevitably included. When the software that enabled me to create the site went 'pear-shaped', I was obliged to start again. Hence this new site was launched in February 2021 via the web-building company, Wix.
Who am I?
Perhaps this is a question we all need to ask and have answered! I was born in 1944 into a family where active Christianity went back at least four generations before mine. So I was brought up with an orthodox understanding of the faith, and although most, if not all, scientists I came across told me evolution was proven fact, which clearly conflicted with the teaching in the Bible, I took the view that even though I couldn't argue with them, since God knew a lot more about it than they did and the Bible was His word, then they must be wrong!
It was only in the early 1990's that I first met a scientist, Ken Ham, who told me scientific observation did not disprove the Bible and that evolution was based not on observation but speculation driven by the belief that God did not exist. He led an organisation called Creation Science Foundation, which has since 'evolved' into Answers in Genesis, and was also linked with the American Institute for Creation Research. I started to take their monthly magazine and was soon overwhelmed by the scientific information, based, not on speculation but observation, that confirmed for me the truth of everything I read in the Bible, and disproved the notion that the universe evolved from a Big Bang and that life evolved from inanimate matter and developed into every life form we see on earth today.
At the end of the 1990's, I started attending local, monthly lectures organised by the molecular biologist, Geoff Barnard, who gave some mind-boggling studies on the way living things are constructed and function, along with other scientists whom he invited to speak on their specialities, which over a few years covered pretty well everything - geology, astronomy, mechanical design, etc.
I am not a scientist - I am a retired piano technician; but since meeting Ken Ham I have collected and/or read dozens of books and magazines, along with very many web pages, written by evolutionists and creationists. I often found the books by evolutionists confirmed creation for me, rather than caused me to doubt it! Fired up with all this information, I was telling one of my clients about creation in the mid-2000's and she loaned me a book she said I needed to read. It was Massimo Pigliucci's book, Denying Evolution, published in 2002 and was written by this molecular evolutionist in order to counter the claims of creation.
About us
When I read it I was astounded - almost every key point was based on straw-man and bait-and-switch arguments.* So I read it through a second time, making notes as I did. Then I wrote a reply to the book and posted it to my client. After reading what I'd written she said, "I'll have to think again about that, obviously!"
* A straw-man argument is one that distorts the position that it is contradicting, in order to defeat it. Bait-and-switch is when evidence is given for one thing in order to prove something completely different.
So when I found some software to enable me to create a website, that was the first thing I put on it. That same year, 2009, Richard Dawkins published his book, The Greatest Show on Earth and I borrowed it from the library. I did the same thing with that, reading it once to see what it said and then a second time to make notes. That then joined my critique of Massimo Pigliuchi's book on the web site.
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From there it was a natural extension to add pages regarding the Christian faith and links to the various musical activities with which I have been involved. I hope you will find my site helpful, interesting, perhaps inspiring, but above all encouraging for you to begin and/or develop your relationship with the Creator-God who loves us and, having given us a freewill, longs for us to choose to do things His way so we can enjoy fulfilled lives empowered and enriched by His presence within us.
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