What’s in a name?

In some cases, a name contains words that are contradictory or incongruous, and is referred to as an oxymoron, such as jumbo shrimp or bittersweet.

In other instances a commercial brand name co-opts the actual name of something, such as an adhesive bandage being commonly identified as a "Band-Aid", a cotton swab on a stick referred to as a "Q-Tip", or gelatin dessert defined as "Jello".

Then there are misnomers that are not nearly as innocuous as the aforementioned, and are representative of deliberate mislabeling leading to a false perception of the named object. A glaring example of this is the so-called Federal Reserve Bank, which is not federal, has no reserves and is not a bank.

Even more insidious are misnomers that are not only incorrect and unsuitable, but also have been perniciously incorporated into the common vernacular to set forth deception on an existential level, effectively establishing a perverted understanding of reality.

"Prehistory"

Prehistory is a term for a period of time prior to written records, and is made a misnomer with the presumption that it covers billions of years so as to comport with the ridiculous theories of "big bang" cosmology and 'goo-to-you' evolution.

Indeed, there can be no such thing as prehistory without denying the scriptural account that history started when God created everything ex nihilo (out of nothing) around 6,000 years ago, and then the global flood wiped out everything (cf. Genesis 1-11) which is why there are no written records prior to around 2300 BC.

The global flood waters deposited thousands of feet of sediments that subsequently hardened into rock containing billions of fossils. The rock layers and fossils we see today worldwide are from the year-long global flood and are not representative of the history of the earth over millions of years as fantasized by evolutionists.

"Fossil Fuel"

Despite "fossil" being routinely used in conjunction with "fuel," fossils have no energy to transfer, which means they cannot be a source of fuel, and are, in essence, lifeless rocks with no stored energy of any kind.¹

Thus oil and natural gas do not come from fossilized dinosaurs, as we have all been told sold since 1st grade, and are not "fossil fuels", which is a misnomer continuing to be used to perpetuate the pejorative characterization of petroleum which is actually made from aquatic phytoplankton and zooplankton.²

"Race"

    A deeply ingrained misnomer which has perpetuated the corrupted understanding of mankind's origin and disastrously affected societal behavior is that of "race" as a variable among humans. God’s Word is clear: there is only one human race. We are all descendent from Adam, and from Noah.

Acts 17:26 reads, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.”

The foundational importance of the Bible's teaching on origins is manifest. We can rightly talk about people groups of various ethnicities, which Scripture refers to as “tribes” or “nations”, and people do indeed have distinct cultural heritages as well as physical traits, but we are all one blood. Even in the midst of our differences, we are all of the same "race", the one human race.

Skin tone, determined by the amount of melanin in the skin, is only one of the distinguishing characteristics among people groups. Others include straight versus curly hair, thickness of lips, and the shape of eyelids. These features developed respectively over the generations with geographic disbursement after the tower of Babel, so that there is wondrous variation in the range of appearance traits among the one and only human race, to the glory of our Creator.

The concept of separate “races”, as in different species or kinds among people, spawns from the pernicious theory of evolution, as encapsulated in the full title of Charles Darwin's book, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". Along with the hackneyed term “racism”, other derivative misnomers from this flawed worldview of multiple human "races" include "multiracial" and "miscegenation".

Instead of giving glory to God for our diversities and the combinations thereof, we fallen human beings make them a cause for divisiveness and strife. Even so, as all men everywhere stand in need of the justifying righteousness of Christ and the regenerating grace of the Spirit, the gospel brings peace. As it is written: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). The meaning is, that whatever the birth, or rank, or nation, or color, or complexion, all under the grace of the gospel are likewise reconciled to God. Thus the human race is being restored to one body of which Christ, "the second Adam", is the head.

Footnotes:

¹ 'Fossil fuels' do not exist | Bob Ryan, April 29, 2022

² Sorry, folks, oil does not come from dinosaurs | Clare Goldsberry, Apr 16, 2019

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Also see:

Seven Reasons Why We Should Not Accept Millions of Years

THIS Is Why Radioactive Dating Methods Are Flawed

The Truth About Dinosaurs

One Blood | Answers in Genesis

The Scientific Case Against Evolution | ICR