Creationism - Why it is valid.

Todd

You said "I think Ken, Helen, and others within this string have done a great job of offering much scientific evidence in favor of the literal 6-24 day account of creation."

I would like to ask "Where?"

Now, I am not trying to be a smart-aleck, but I do not see where there has been ANY evidence presented for a young earth. At the bottom of page 4 ( http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/3/2037/4.html? ) I specifically asked for evidence in favor of a young earth and gave some examples of what I meant. Now, I have not re-read the entire thread, but I do not remember seeing anyone post evidence that indicates a young earth. Perhaps I have missed or forgotten one.

Now what was presented were attempts at showing problems with evolution. This is not exactly the same thing. Even at that, every example examined of potential problems with evolution were shown to be false when examined. Every claim of missing fossils was rebutted with examples of the "missing fossils." Every claim of lack of evidence was challenged with that evidence. And every supposed quote from evolutionists claiming problems was shown not to be a problem once the context for the quote was provided.

But even to give the ultimate benefit of the doubt, if everything said was completely true, all that would have been demonstrated is that the evidence for evolution is not as good as believed. Not that evolution is not possible. Not that the earth is young. Only that the data is less robust than generally asserted. Leaving the door open for further finds to bolster evolution and not providing evidence to show a young earth. And once the evidence is examined, that benefit of the doubt goes away are you are left with NO evidence for a young earth or effective arguments against an old one.

Now, as to the rest of what you said. I am not smart enough to know how it all fits together. I am not really comfortable turning very much of the Bible into allegory rather than history. I wish someone did have a good argument in favor of a young earth, it makes things easier. But, the evidence for an old earth and an old universe is overwhelming. The only conclusion I can draw is that what God gave us was meant to reveal to us Himself and His character in a way the people of the day could understand and to reveal the nature of Man and our need for salvation. The people were unable to handle to breadth of the full story and it was unnecessary. He told us all we need to know. To fill in the rest of the story He gave us our minds to be able to examine the Creation itself.

I think the insistence of God and science being incompatible only helps those who are against God. As long as people can get the Christians to back them up when saying that Christianity is incompatible with what is known about the world and the universe, they still have plenty of reason in their minds to not believe. (You want an example, read through this thread and see what non-believers think of YECers. http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=dbe402.0402210557.7395555e%40posting.google.com&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dtalk.origins%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26 hl%3Den Just go over to the left side and click on the first post and then follow down.)We could take a powerful weapon from our enemies by agreeing on a way to reconcile the two. Or by producing "creation science" that could actually explain the data. But no one is providing that. There is none.

 

UTEOTW,

Now, as to the rest of what you said. I am not smart enough to know how it all fits together. I am not really comfortable turning very much of the Bible into allegory rather than history. I wish someone did have a good argument in favor of a young earth, it makes things easier.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Faith, brother. We don't have ALL the answers. And, you know, we never will. But, in the end, we all have to make a choice, and that choice boils down to one word: faith.

Do we have faith in the thoughts and ideas of man's science? Or do we have faith in the words and works of God?

I am not bashing science. No where near it. Science was originally man's attempt to understand the laws of God's creation. It is through science that we have medicine, technology, communication, this very box through which I am connected to the internet. Science is a wonderful thing. But it is not God.

At one time, it was my god. I was very much a child of science. Evolution, the big bang, you name it. The school didn't teach enough of it for me. Then I met God. I still love science, but it is now a tool, not an idol.

Man will always attempt to figure out a way to explain how everything came to exist outside of God. But, then again, it comes down to faith.

Who do you want to invest yours in?

In Christ,
Trotter

 

You repeated one twice.

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/youngearth.html

I am at a loss as to why you included it. It is an Old Earth website and tries to show the problems, mainly scriptural, with a young earth. I might recommend that you read it yourself. (Did you recommend a site you had not read?)

I have glanced at the other two and will comment later. It is too late now and I have to work tomorrow.

Good night.

 

UTEOWT, you proved my point by finally admitting that (in your own words) you're "not smart enough" to deal with all the exegetical reasons that I have raised from the Bible. The problem is not that you are not smart enough (you're obviously very bright), you just don't want to accept by faith what the Bible has to say about the creation of the world and all that is in it. You said that you're not comfortable allegorizing the Scriptures, but that is exactly what you did when you went on to clarify your interpretation of the Scriptures. IN YOUR OPINION, you stated that God just gave us the Scriptures so that He might reveal something about Himself and the whole process to us because telling exactly how everything else was done would have been "too much to handle" and "unnecessary." That, my friend, is called allegorizing the Scriptures in an attempt to argue in favor of macroevolutionary concepts of creation. IT IS EXEGETICALLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND IT IS ROOTED IN ONE'S OWN PERCEPTIONS, AND IT WILL NOT STAND UP TO ANY FAITHFUL INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE.

This has been my point from the beginning: If you want to believe that God used macroevolution to create the world and all that is, that is your business. Just don't argue that macroevolutionary concepts of creation are biblically justifiable because I have clearly demonstrated on more than one occasion that they are not!

 

SO TODD, explain to me again why you feel free to deny the literal teaching of the bible concerning the sun going around the earth. After all, you don't want to allegorize the scriptures, and you want to be exegetically responsible, letting the scriptures speak for themselves, and no scientific evidence is apparantly ever to be allowed to overcome what the scripture plainly states.

 

Trotter

Yes faith is the most important thing. Without, we have nothing. We have no evidence for the things we believe. We take on faith the virgin birth of Christ, the miracles He performed, His death and resurrection. We take on faith that God is the Creator and one true god. We take all these things on faith. We have no hope of ever having any evidence for these things. We just God.

But in the question of how God created the universe, we do have the ability to look out at see what Creation itself says. And there is no evidence for a young earth. The evidence is overwhelming in favor of an old universe. This is not a matter of faith at all. It does not change any of the things God wanted to tell us about His role as Creator, it only means that He chose to do so in a non-literal way. I'm not going to question that choice.

Todd

When I read through the Bible, I constantly see where God chose to communicate things in a way they could understand and did not try to correct their scientific misunderstandings, even goes along with them. There are a number of places where the Bible goes along with a flat, round earth in the middle of a great ocean. It talks about the circuit of the sun. It talks of storehouses for snow and hail. I do not consider this to be errors in the Bible because I see a clear picture of God using means that people understand and not trying to give us a book of science. To think that is what we have completely misses the point of the Bible.

Now, we generally do not have a problem taking things non-literally when it suits us. On the flat earth side, you do not have a problem with the tree so high in Daniel that it could be seen in the whole world nor the mountain so high that Jesus could be tempted by being shown the whole world. I imagine you do not run out claiming the Bible is in error. But you also must pull in knowledge from outside the Bible to let you know not to take the passage as written. As Paul points out above, you do not always let scripture speak for itself, you too will allegorize where you feel it is needed. How are we to know where that is allowed?

I do not have a problem doing the same thing with creation. There is absolutely no evidence for a young earth and I do not think it is necessary for me to bury my head in sand to be a Christian.

 

In going through the various data pieces actully in the various posts we had never made it to any of the websites. That is why I qualified it with the claims that had been examined. So I will here take a look at your links with the exception of the one old earth link you posted. That must have been a mistake. But, none of the claims made to indicate a young earth hold any water.

I first went to http://www.age-of-earth.com/ and scrolled down until I found the first link which was "Natural Chronometers" and followed it. Well, the good news is that most of these were data in favor of a young earth rather than only trying to poke holes in an old earth. Sorry that I never reached these links before. I'll just briefly respond to each claim.

"Our oceans contain concentrations of Aluminum, Antinomy, ...Comparing the amounts already in the oceans with the rates at which more are being dumped, indicates the earth... [is] fairly young."

Let's look at the times actually found by dividing concentration by input. Aluminum - 100 years. Chromium - 350 years. Iron - 140 years. Thorium - 350 years. Titanium - 160 years. He doesn't list the actual ages, just asserts that they indicate a young earth. Unless he is trying to suggest the earth is less than 100 years old, the data does not match his assertion. In fact, these species are in equilibrium in the oceans. There is no way to tell the age of the ocean through this technique because there is no way to tell how long they have been at equilibrium. He also lists sodium for some strange reason which, when the same mat his applied, yields 260 million years. How does he think that supports a young earth? Or magnesium at 45 million years. Or... You get the picture. I think I now see why he omitted the ages. If you are trying to prove 6000 years and your data ranges from 100 years to 260 million years, your argument is no longer compelling.

"Sediments are being eroded into our oceans at a fixed rate. There are only a few thousand years worth of sediments on the ocean floor."

Actually I think there are quite a bit more than that. But things happen to the sediments. They get compacted. They get subducted. They get dissolved. They turn into rock. There is too much going on to make such a simple statement. You have to take all the data into consideration.

"The Earth's magnetic field ... is decaying exponentially"

The earth's magnetic field rises, falls, reverses, and then repeats. We just went through a reversal of the sun's magnetic field so there it was in action. If you look at the magnetic orientation in rocks, you will see evidence for MANY such decays and reversals of the earth's magnetic field. There is no evidence that the decay can be extended into the past as asserted and to the contrary is evidence that the field varies and reverses with time.

"Comets ... should deteriorate to nothing within 10,000 years. Why are there still Short Period Comets?"

Because there is a ready reserve of fresh comets out there. Most of the comets come from the region outside the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. Gravitational interactions can periodically send these bodies into the inner solar system where they become comets. Now some people like to claim that the Kuiper belt does not exist, but so far we have discovered over 800 objects in the region.

"Jupiter is losing heat twice as fast as it gains it from the Sun (it is five times further from the Sun than Earth). Yet Jupiter is still hot. If it is billions of years old, shouldn't it have cooled off by now?"

Let's see. Jupiter is losing enough heat to cool itself by one millionth of a degree Celcius per year. Not much and easily supplied by potential energy from gravitational collapse.

"Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, which is roughly the size of Mercury, has a strong magnetic field, indicating it is still hot. Why hasn't it cooled down?"

I would suspect because of some combination of radioactive decay and tidal forces. The two Galilean moons inside its orbit receive a great deal of tidal heating. Io receives enough to be the most volcanically activebody in the solar system.

"Saturn's rings are not stable. They are drifting away from Saturn. If Saturn is billions of years old, why does it still have rings?"

This has to do with the age of saturn's rings not the age of saturn. The rings may be recent but that does not mean saturn is.

"The Moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth. ... Approximately 1.2 billion years ago, the Moon would have been touching the Earth."

The moon is currently receding at 3.82 cm/year. So, 1.2 billion years ago the moon would have been 28000 miles closer or still a distance of over 200,000 miles away. By looking at the physics involved with the recession of the moon, you can calculate how quickly the moon should be receding under different conditions. As it turns out, the current configuration of the continents has an unusually high recession rate. We have been able to confirm this using tidally laminated sediments which show much slower rates of recession in the past. So, not only is the rate of recession not a problem for the current high rate, the rates in the past were even lower.

"Earth's rotation is slowing down. We experience a leap second every year and a half. If the Earth is slowing down, at one time it was going much faster. Besides the problem of extremely short days and nights, the increased "Coriolis Effect" would cause impossible living conditions."

First of all, the leap seconds are because the rotation rate of the earth is not exactly 24 hours. It has nothing to do with how fast the earth is slowing down and it sounds as if the source does not understand this. The slowing of the earth is caused by the transfer of momentum to the moon which causes it to recede. We have already demonstrated that the current situation leads to a higher recession rate. Even so, the high rate of the slowdown of the earth is 0.005 seconds per year. Extrapolating this backwards still only gives a 14 hour day 4.6 billion years ago.

"In 1999, the human population passed six billion. In 1985, it passed five billion. In 1962, it passed three billion. In 1800, it passed one billion. In 1 AD, the world's population, according to the censuses taken by the governments of that time, was only 250 million. At the current human population growth rate, considering wars and famines and all such variables, it would take approximately 5,000 years to get the current population from two original people."

This is always fun. It is so easy to misapply population calculations because any little tweak has huge consequences. If you look at most organisms on the planet, the populations in general are fairly steady. It does not take much growth and you very easily get the population calculations where every square foot of the planet is covered with something. Human populations would have been expected to historically been rather steady and comparitively small until our level of technology began to allow for increased food production from a given amount of land, better health to allow people to live longer, and so on. The best part is, that with current population growth, you cannot fet anywhere close to 250,000,000 people by 1 AD from 8 people. You get all these fun calculations where the world population is less than a thousand at the height of the Egyptian culture for example. Of course then people fall back on some greatly increased growth rate to compensate. Then when you get through that inflationary growth period and apply the constant rate, you calculate that there should be orders of magnitude more people alive today. This claim just ignores reality.

The second website http://www.apologeticspress.org/defdocs/2001/dd-01-16.htm is a continuation of the same. First it quotes two scientists in statements that mean nothing and then add a quote in from a creationists, not identified as such but as another scientist. Then starts into the same arguments as the other.

Population statistics - Refuted and funny in its application.

Decaying magnetic field - Refuted.

Polystrate fossils - This has gone on long enough that I do not feel the need to make a detailed defense of this one. Ask and I will later. But we have modern examples where we have watched natural processes form polystrate fossils and many of the actual polystrate fossils are hard to explain without modern geology. They actually fit an old earth not a young one.

Hydrogen in the universe - I am not sure how I see this as a problem. Most stars convert hydrogen to other elements at an extremely slow rate. Most stars are small and have tens of billions of years, some hundreds of billions of years, worth of hydrogen in them.

Atmospheric helium - This guy only uses one of the means through which He can escape the atmosphere to draw his conclusions. Once the true situation is examined, there is not a problem.

Got anything better?

 

Paul, I have already answered this objection earlier in the string, but for your benefit I will answer it once again. Just because the Bible is the literal, inerrant Word of God, that doesn't mean that it doesn't employ the use of allegory, anthropomorphic language, and many other means to teach us God's literal truths. If we were to interpret everything as you imply we should from your repeated mention of Joshua 10:13, then do you think that I should carry around a mustard seed and call it my faith (Mt. 17:20)? Are you implying that pretty soon I will sprout wings if I continue to patiently wait on the Lord (Isa. 40:31)?

The examples clearly demonstrate that God has chosen to use allegory and anthropomorphic language throughout the Bible, and that is exactly what he did in Josh. 10:13 - the sun standing still in the sky was man's perspective, and as such it was the correct perspective. Yet, what separates me from you is that you are attempting to use the fact that allegory is prevelant in the Bible to justify your adherance to macroevolution, even in spite of the multiple exegetical problems that that position encounters when one does a thorough exposition of passages related to the Scriptures.

UTEOTW, it seems quite clear to me that you know I'm right about the exegetical issues that I have presented to you from the Bible because you haven't even attempted a response to any of them. You are much closer to becoming a YECer than you think. And also, while you claim that "there is absolutely no evidence for a young earth and I do not think it is necessary for me to bury my head in sand to be a Christian," you clearly demonstrate that you have not referenced any of the sources I have mentioned throughout this string. Look at Henry Morris's work (and that of his son John) for starters - you will find there more than enough scientific evidence that supports a young earth (and that is because the Morris' are both respected scientists).

 

Thanks for the reply, Todd, its good to have your position right here before us and not have to dig back for a lot of pages.

Some things are plainly in parable form, we all know that, that is not the point here.

Here's the whole problem with your approach. You deliberately refuse to consider the passage of Joshua 10:13 as being literal, insist instead it is using allegory and anthropomorphic language, and yet you have not a shred of internal documentary evidence to support that claim. Then you make this judgemental claim:

Lets do a thorough exigesis of the Joshua passage. I use the King James here, for this particular passage it is as good as any.

Joshua 10:12 - 13 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

First of all, we note that Joshua himself asked for the Sun to stand still. Now this is a request from a man; as such, it is not evidence for the sun moving or not, because God can take our prayers and interpret them appropriately even when we do not know what we are really asking. But look at verse 13: it says, narrating directly as the inspired word itself, "And the sun stood still, until . . " plainly stating that there was a halt in its usual MOTION and that it later resumed its usual MOTION.

Now examine the form of the narrative. Does anyone think this is a poem? The form itself is quite clearly plain narrative prose, intended to express a historical fact. It is an attempt to state the literal truth.

The literal implication is plain, and was plain to our fathers when they argued vehemently against the upstart science of men like Copernicus and Gallileo, often quoting this very scripture. This is not the ONLY scripture that speaks of the sun moving in the heavens; there is NOT ONE SCRIPTURE ANYWHERE that says the earth rotates, thereby causing night and day.

And yet you tell me this is allegory and not to be interpreted literally!

I appeal to all who read this to see through the reasoning here. The sole reason Todd thinks this is not literal is because he really doesn't believe it is the Sun goes around the earth on a daily basis. It is ONLY TODD'S MODERN KNOWLEDGE that causes him to reinterpret scripture from literal to "allegorical" - his word, remember, for this passage.

This means, then, that Todd really believes that if you KNOW FOR SURE something is true, and SCRIPTURE SAYS SOMETHING ELSE, then its ok to understand that part of scripture in a non literal fashion. We can tell he really believes that's ok, because we watch him do it before our very eyes.

He did protest. He did say we must apply literal scripture when scripture is intended to be literal and only allegorize when allegory is intended.

But we then watch what he really DOES and we see he uses MODERN SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE to JUDGE when to accept a scripture as only allegory!

So because I REALLY KNOW that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and I REALLY KNOW all life on earth is of common descent from original life from more than a billion years ago, I logically should be allowed the same. And I really know these things for exactly the same reason Todd knows that it is the rotation of the earth that causes day and night, that is, because the evidence is compelling.

 

I have really enjoyed the spirited debate on this topic. It is clear that depending on which scientist is quoted there is more than enough evidence to prove this either way and it comes back to a matter of faith. We either have an ancient world or a very young creation that has been marked by a worldwide cataclysm (flood). I am surprised that more discussion on the flood has not occurred here for if you believe the literal creation (which I do) you really must also believe in a worldwide flood to account for the so called evidence of an 'old earth.'

My difficulty with the evolutionist and the old earth has to do more with our Salvation and the fall of man then it does with fossil records and oil fields. The fact is that either model must be accepted on faith because we were not there. But if you believe in an earth 4.5 billion or so years old, what do you believe about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden? If we are not all decedents of this first human couple then how did we inherit our sin nature? If I did not have ancestor who sinned then was I born in sin or not? Do I need salvation?

Of course if I was not born lost and separated from God then why did Jesus have to die? Perhaps you can help me with this Paul.

 

Hi there, NCT, thanks for your kind reply.

I can only share how I interpret these things; others have their own view, I am sure.

Somewhere back there was the First Man (Adam). Physically evolved, he was inbreathed with a Soul by God and taken to the garden of Eden. I have no problem with Eve taken from his side as well. The time was no doubt much earlier than 10,000 years ago.

The expulsion from the garden followed.

The flood of Noah was of all the world as perceived by Noah; the animals were local animals, but enough to get the local ecology jump started.

The rest of the details of our narratives, how they map into the actual history of what happened, are probably beyond our ability to untangle; we'll have to get to heaven to find out what ancestors were skipped in the geneologies, for example

 

Paul,

So, in other words, God didn't know all the facts? Or did He just lie to us?

In Christ,
Trotter

 

Trotter: neither, of course. God supplied His revelation and the evidence shows He did this with narratives that were accomodating to the ability of man to understand what He was revealing at the time He was revealing it. I dare not question His judgement for what the evidence shows He chose to do, nor would I call Him a liar for being willing to reveal Himself in any way He chose.

 

Paul, it comparing Josh. 10:13 to the creation account of Gen.1, you have committed the logical fallacy of comparing apples and oranges, and here's why:

1. Interpreting Josh. 10:13 as being allegorical and anthropomorphic in nature does not encounter ANY exegetical problems (when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still in the sky, did it not literally do that from his earthly perspective. The fact that he had no idea that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa has no bearing whatsoever upon the text - the sun literally stood still in the sky from this earthly perspective). You may not like that interpretation of the passage, but you have yet to prove that it encounters any kind of exegetical or hermeneutical problem.

2. On the other hand, it has been clearly demonstrated throughout this string that one CAN NOT explain away the details of the creation account as allegorical because there are NUMEROUS exegetical and hermeneutical problems that surface when one attempts to do so. You continue to dodge these problems as they have been listed and replied to throughout this string, and for good reason - you can't refute them! So, rather than refuting the exegetical and hermeneutical problems that I have raised with macroevolution, you simply choose to argue around them by bringing up a passage like Josh. 10:13 which has no bearing whatsoever on the issue at hand.

Therefore, either refute the numerous problems with arguing macroevolution from the Scriptures that I have listed throughout this string, or admit that you don't have a valid rebuttal - but don't attempt to dodge the issues at hand by straying to other texts. Such tactics only make your arguments look weaker (as did your interpretation of original sin two posts ago - it was all opinion and not grounded in sound exegesis.)

 

I think part of the problem with Paul of Eugene's viewpoint -- and those like him -- with othrs, is that they are more or less convinced that our more distant ancestors were illiterate, ignorant, and essentially much less than we are today.

That is the evolutionary view, and that is the reason he is figuring that it is necessary/possible that God had to write 'down' to them.

The biblical view is quite different, however. Man started out, from the beginning, 'very good.' He was created in the image of God, not ape. Thus he was extremely intelligent, had many skills, and probably a much deeper understanding of things than we do today. Evidence from Genesis 5:1 indicates he may well have been literate and write, as well. Thus, those looking at the Bible as a straightforward account of what happened, also see man in this light and do not consider it to have been at all necessary or convenient for God to present the creation account in any terms other than what really happened.

I am in the 'straightforward biblical group', if there was any question about that!

 

You may be closer than what is apparent. I would be happy to fall back into the YEC camp if I thought that is where the evidence pointed.

Well, one, I think Paul is doing an adequate job of that, better than I could do. Two, I think most of those types of points fall back on whether you take the whole category literal or not. If you take this part literally and I take it non-literally, then the same is true of the related pieces.

But I think there is a more fundemental level here and it is a reason I stay more off to the physical evidence area. Let's say you can prove your case. We can find no way to reconcile an old universe with Scripture. The two are completely incompatible. But if all the physical evidence still points to an old universe and no evidence can be found to indicate that it is really young, where does that leave us? Well, for us specifically, it is not a problem. I do not think it is meant to be taken literally anyhow so it does not affect my faith. And you deny all the evidence so it doesn't bother you. But that does not cover everyone. For some it will be a big problem. Some will lose their faith if they are told that this is the only way just ignore that all the evidence points to something else. Some will never attain faith because of it. I think having one without the other hurts us and helps the atheist by supporting the contention of the vocal ones that Christianity is incompatible with what we know of the world. So, proving your exegesis is only half the battle. There must be an accompanying better explanation for that data or I believe it is a hollow victory.

I looked back through the thread and could not find any links to Morris's work. Maybe you can help me out here in case I missed it. But my general impression of the two is that they fail to have a very good grasp of the basics of science even. One quick example. http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-003.htm Here Henry tries to make the 2LOT argument. I would have thought that a trained engineer would have a better understanding of entropy, but I guess not. I won't be able to get back to this for a couple of weeks, so I won't jump back in unless somehow this thing is still active. But, I'll look up the thread and try to read anything you give links to.

 

I'm returning to the quote from NCT because I noticed something else:

NCT, you seem to be saying we are limited to looking at evidence reported by others. What about taking a look at evidence for yourself? Direct evaluation of the evidence?

For example, take a trip to the Hawaiian islands, and look over the main island of Hawaii and the older island of Oahu. I visited there and personally observed that the mountains of the big Island show sharp, craggy contours; in comparison, the island of Oahu shows smooth, rounded contours. This is evidence that the island of Oahu is significantly older than the island of Hawaii, exactly in accordance with the mainstream science view that they were formed from the same volcanoe, one after the other as the pacific ocean plate crept over. But this is not something you have to ask some else to observe for you. Look it over yourself!

The same thing applies to the craters of the moon. At the time of the formation of the earth and moon, they were in the same solar system neighborhood. Through a telescope, observe the numerous craters. Try to imagine anybody living through an earth that was being bombarded with craters like that. You can't, can you? Then try to imagine when, in history, that bombardment occurred. In the mainstream science view, it all happened before life realy got started on earth, millions and millions of years ago.

Can you think of a reasonable creationist time for those craters to be formed on both earth and moon? Even the ark of Noah would fail to survive a pummelling of the earth akin to what we see on the moon.

Examine vestiges among the animals. Visit the Oregon Marine Science Museum in Newport and take a look at the whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling. Are these vestiges of limbs from a former land dwelling existance in the ancestry of whales?

http://www.epud.net/~richmond/science/vbones.jpg

You see, it is not JUST READING FROM AUTHORITY that matters here. And if your entire life is devoted to finding truth only from the authority of others, you might think it appropriate to say things like "depending on which scientist is quoted, there is more than enough evidence to prove this either way . .."

But we live in a real world and the evidence is really there and the evidence itself says something to those who are willing to listen.


HELEN - thank you for noticing my post and making your comments. Your replies are always interesting.

Actually, your words are a carcature of what I think about our more distant ancestors. They hadn't yet invented writing and didn't know as much as we know, of course, but I don't think less of them for that, and certainly they were not spiritually less than we are today. It just isn't appropriate to call a baby an ignorant, untamed speciman of humanity, because the conotations of those words are wrong for a baby.

Here's a link with a reality check for the level of achievement of early man:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/wxk116/axe/

Then you come up with this gem:

Regardless of how the body was formed, by evolution or by direct creation, our bodies are what they are, aren't they? How can the shape of our body, then, be any problem in and of itself?
I don't understand why you even raise the point? And the "very good" statement applies to man IN THE UNFALLEN STATE of course. It does not apply to man as expelled from the Garden of Eden.

 

Paul:

First, I think you make a very good comment on the fact that man was "very good" as originally created but not as expelled from the Garden.

I did not mean to imply that we only look at the work of others. First hand research and observations are very important but most people lack the scientific background to make valid observations. I personally hold degrees in theology and engineering and have quite a bit of classical geological and metallurgic study (GA Tech in Atlanta).

I have never been to Hawaii and don't know anything about that so I will not try to argue with you about it except to say that the severe hydraulic erosion of the world wide flood caused all kinds of geological abnormalities. Look at the grand canyon, look at the salt flats and the great salt lake. Either we have had a world wide flood to cause these things or we do have a planet that is billions of years old. The only way to believe in a young earth of 6 to 9 thousand years old is to also believe in a worldwide flood. Go to Carlsbad caverns in New Mexico and look out over the Texas plains. You can see where the water was. I really can't separate these two because every evidence that you claim points to an old earth I see as proof of a global flood.

That brings us to your craters on the moon. We do have some craters on earth. But on earth we have an atmosphere. We have the erosion of wind and rain. We have plant growth that covers and breaks up such formations. I have no problem at all with an earth pockmarked with craters before the creation of life. Also we have the seas themselves. The same meteor that causes a crater on the moon, what would it create if it hit water? Remember that the dry land did not appear until the third day of the creation week. If we were to level out the mountains of the earth so that the earth were a smooth sphere the water over the earth would be 1 1/2 miles deep. What kind of crater do you get if you have to go through that much water? I don't know, maybe you do.

There was some discussion about Henry Morris and the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I like Dr. Morris and have read all of his books but the argument for the 2LOT can only be applied to closed systems. It is a useful argument with atheists if we consider the entire universe the closed system but anyone who acknowledges the existence of God can allow Him to add energy to the system at his choosing. It certainly cannot be applied to a system like the earth that is constantly receiving energy from outside sources (like the sun). The truth is that there is no perfect closed system that we can observe. Now that does not invalidate the observation that stuff always flows downhill. It just means we must recognize God as the force behind any upward movement.

You have mentioned vestigial organs in men and animals and you mentioned the hip bones in whales specifically. Allow me to quote from Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis page at:

Http://www.answersingenesis.org/

I really love this site and I like what they say in their message where they explain:

Here is what they had to say about the vestigial organs and the whales:

 

Hi, NC Tentmaker! Thanks for continuing the discussion.

As for Hawaii, islands as we see them are obviously in a chain. All of them have soft, rounded contours to the mountains except one - the big Island, Hawaii itself.

Mainstream geogolical explanation, as you know, is that they were all created in turn, with the biggest one, Hawaii, being created most recently.

The chain goes all the way across thousands of miles of Pacific oceon to Midway Island and beyond, counting undersea mounts.

Techtonic plate movement - the solid ground on which we stand - is limited to moving inches per year, as you know. There is no time in creationist history for the trail to be formed that long in TIME - as evidenced by how long it is in SPACE.

The timing is strikingly confirmed by the independent means of radiometric dating of the formation ages of the rocks on the islands. It also indicates millions of years for the formation time, just like the same millions of years indicated by the plate creeping time. What a coincidence - or is it a coincidence?

That's an interesting dodge there, putting all the meteorite impacts into the days of creation. They would have to come on day 4 or later, of course, since the moon wasn't created in our narrative until day four. There isn't a hint in scripture about them - and the dry land appeared before the moon in our Genesis narratives, so your idea of having them come along while the ocean covered all the earth won't do.

As for the whales, there is much more to support the evolution of whales than just the one picture I took, of course.

You mentioned that these vestiges might actually have a use, and suggested assisting the whale with sex. You know, there are other whale skeletons on exhibit around the Oregon Coast, and the grey whale, for example, has absolutely no little bones there. The evolutionist view is that in this species, the removal of the vestige has reached its obvious ending. One can only speculate about the whales from a designer point of view. Is one species left with more difficulty having sex than the other? A patently rediculous question. Both species manage reproduction very well, with or without the vestigal bones. But I am not a scientist and here's a link to some solid science about whales and their vestiges:

http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales

I'm grateful you have enough background to discern the basic error of Henry Morris' reliance on 2Lot.