Have you ever been to one? I hadn’t before Saturday. But here at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, it is a big event! A pine car kit costs about $3.00 for our activity, and consists of a block of wood (must be pine!), four wheels, and axles. From there, parents and children get together and design it, carve it, paint it, weigh it, and perhaps even bake it, aiming for a creative design and speedy car! Then the special Pine Car Derby racing track is set up, and when race day arrives, people come from miles around to enter their cars. Each car has its own name, too! This year, friends from a church in northern Pennsylvania brought their young ones to race also. Here are some pictures of the event!
A Wide Assortment of Pine CarsPine Car Repair Area
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...complete with all the bells and whistles --AND --a distinguished lady driver with a wide-brimmed sun hat! This one won the most creative design!Not sure the name behind this one, but it is complete with three riders, and real peices of popcorn on the hood!The Twix-mobile!
Flower Power!Award TableBlack cat?Hershey's...made by a true Pennsylvanian!
I think the following cars were “antiques” made by adults either this year or even in past years…they are pretty creative!
Let me start out by saying that I am no scientist; nor am I a mathematical genius. Above all, I am a Christian–the kind of Christian that takes the Bible very literally. Along with that, I do understand the workings of nature that God has set in place, and have studied to some degree the origins of this earth, the laws that are set in place, and the utter complexity of things physical: especially biological matter.
Simply put, the point of this article is that God knew what he was doing when he created everything, and no man can ever fathom just how perfect everything has been set in motion. What has gotten me to think about this? Man’s imitation of God’s creation.
At work, I deal with probably some of the more advanced automated systems in the world. The level of imagination that dozens of highly intelligent individuals have drawn together is mind-blowing to me. Every day at work, I find new things to “wow” at: enormous mathematical algorithms, super-advanced computing, and highly precise robotics, to name a few. The whole idea behind the system is unfathomable to most people’s minds. And what is all of this? Simply a machine that tries to emulate human actions…and at times, utterly fails.
People often look at computers as highly complex pieces of machinery. In a sense they are; but truthfully, computers are very stupid. Did you know that a computer will only do what you (or the programmer) tell it to do? A computer cannot make a decision. Yes, it can be told to make a decision, or told how to make a decision, but it cannot make up its own mind. Thus, essentially, computers are highly unintelligent. Only the people who design the computers can truly be labeled as intelligent.
Photo Eye Sensors
Let me illustrate this: where I work, we have robots that have eyes–yes, I said eyes. They are unintelligent eyes, though. The photo-eye, as it is called, is a laser (not much different than those $3.00 laser pointers bought at flee markets) that illuminates a direct red beam of light to a reflector opposite the photo-eye, which reflects the light back, thus triggering a signal that says “clear” or “not clear”. The concept works great, unless that little photo eye is bumped a few millimeters; then everything goes “up in the air”, causing an exception. A robot cannot go around this exception by itself, unless it is built into the program, or a biological being (human!) tells the robot that everything is okay. The robot cannot think. True, it can run mathematical equations through its system, but it cannot make its own decision that everything is fine. It cannot say, “Okay, even though I cannot see, I know that everything is okay, so I’ll go ahead and do what I was doing before.” If it was able to think like that, some kind of utter destruction will eventually occur. Why? Because robots are unintelligent (sorry, Wall-e).
It’s the same idea when you get that dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” on your computer. What basically happened is that the computer came to a decision where it had no clue of what to do, so it shuts itself down, and requires the operator to restart it. Yes, and whatever you were working on just might be gone for good as well. The brains that created the machine might be considered intelligent, but for sure not the machine.
But can the brain behind a machine be considered intelligent compared with the Great Creator? Most definitely not. God created biological humans that can make their own decisions. God also made us with the potential to make errors because of the Fall. The potential to make physical mistakes (I am not speaking of morality) is humanity at its core. We can trip and fall because of a buckle on a sidewalk one day, which should trigger us to remember that buckle and either step over it, walk around it, or avoid it next time. A machine (human creation) cannot make these kind of decisions without being told to by something. A human (God’s creation) can make any choice that his free will desires: with the possibility of error.
Look at a tree. Could man every emulate a tree? Man can cross-breed trees. They can make look-a-likes out of plastic and rubber. But could we ever take raw matter, and craft a living, growing, reproducing, oak tree? I think not. And evolutionists think that it just happened by itself of all things!
Therefore, man can only try to emulate the creation of God. Robots and computers may seem highly complex and intelligent, but they are nothing in comparison to the miraculous creation of our Lord. He created every part of you to work in synergy. He created the universe according to his perfect plan. And at the same time, you can “error.” Perhaps after the fall we were made to physically error not just because of the curse of sin, but so we can see our helplessness, and come to Christ. He alone can make us whole! He alone that created the universe so much better than we could ever emulate!
“…Fearfully and wonderfully made!”
“For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created!”
