Can we really Believe the Creator's Word?

Alcott sez:

BINGO!!!

Trotter sez:

Another BINGO!!!!

Paul of Eugene sez:

Why do you believe(?) God would have "chosen" a candidate from the "pool" and then "created woman" from this candidate? Logically, God should have just chosen a female candidate from this same "pool", right?

 

Actually, God's power is perfectly safe from my musings and your musings.

We merely seek to deduce from His world as we find and His Bible as we find it what happened in the past. The evidence from creation itself comes to us directly. The Bible is mediated to us through men. It is a matter of interpreting words.

Tsk tsk. If we accept the truth our doctrines are in jeapordy? That is not really a reason for not accepting the truth. And you exaggerate the danger for our doctrines.

That is your choice to interpret these verses as being necessarily literal. It is not the only choice available. We can also choose to believe that God allowed the creation narative to be expressed in terms the people who received it could understand, rather than a literal truth they could never accept.

So why does the world show long dead animals from times so ancient that, in this view, they never really existed? Why do the Hawiian Islands not only stand there but also a series of undersea mounts that suggest a pattern of creation of island after island over millions of years?

This argument was tried before and found wanting when Martin Luthor said Copernicus was wrong to insist the earth rotates and that explains the apparant movement of the sun across the sky.

We are not fooled. You go ahead and accept modern science's view today that the earth rotates in spite of the excellent exegesis of Martin Luthor and others in his days because - you yourself have decided to accept the ideas of men over the ideas of scripture concerning the rotation of the earth.

The very thing you say is calling God a liar when we do it regarding the age of the universe!

Why do you keep insisting these cases are different? There is no difference in these cases. The Bible says one thing, science says another; and in the one case, we all know science was right, in the other case, not everybody has caught on yet that science is right, that's all.

 

Paul of Eugene,

Actually, what does happen is kids go off to college as strong bible believing christians and are then indoctrinated by the myths, fables, lies, and concoctions of not only the evolution myth, but also the lies and falsehoods of many other forms of secular humanistic nonsense.

They come home and tell their parents they are now considering paganism, with a mix of new age gobbledegoop...except for those weekends at the buddhist retreat with Karmahansa Yogiberrahanda.

God bless,

Mike

 

D28guy

The reason you give is precisely one reason why I think YECism is a mistake. You teach your children all these things. But when they are finally exposed to the truth of an old earth, what happens? Once they have been shown that one thing they were taught was false and built on a house of cards, it is only natural for them to doubt the rest of it. If you are taught the evolution is incompatible with your religion and then find out that evolution is true, what happens. If you find out you have been misled on this, why not the Resurrection? The virgin birth? The existance of God?

By cutting this off at the roots, you eliminate a major avenue for the other things you mention getting started. The earth is ancient. You are not going to change that. The question is how do you handle it. And I think that the current course of the YECers is a dangerous one indeed.

What did you think of the transitionals I listed for you? I especially like the mammals from reptiles at http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/36/261.html? . The new fossils from China on birds are also really great. Do you still think that evidence for transitionals does not exist? Why?

Alcott

You completely missed the point. The earth is old. I gave you a very small set of things that show this to be true with the implied question of explaining why everything was so carefully made to fit a billions of years history if that history does not exist. You ignored the evidence and instead implied that those of us who accept an old earth must deny all the things you listed. This simply is not true. Do you really think any of us would be here on a Baptist Board proclaiming to be Christians if we doubted the Resurrection? God is perfectly capable of performing miracles. We all believe that as part of our faith. God is completely capable of forming the earth in a few days to look as it does now. The ignored question is why does the earth and the universe have such a carefully tuned set of indications that show an ancient history that includes billions of years of history for the earth and the universe and common descent of the life on earth if that is not really the truth? Trying to disparage our beliefs does not make that go away.

 

The contextual approach of Gensis would lead us to study the when, where, why, and by whom the book was written and so arrive at the conclusion that Genesis 1 teaches religious truths, not precise scientific data.

 

Amen, Living4Him!!! You hit the nail on the head.

 

Living4Him sez:

So, to take the approach of the evolutionists, "Why would God deliberately mislead us?"

To them, God is misleading IF creation really took only 6 days, but today's science says ole' Terra Firma is, in fact, billions of years old.

I would personally come closer to believing that God had misled us if this planet were truly billions of years old, but He told me that it was created in 6 days.

Seems to me the real problem is not the age of the earth, but where do you put your trust; in science that continually has to "up-grade" with new data emerging, or with God who CREATED SCIENCE!

 

Just want peace. Big thumbs up. God created science!!

EXACTLY!!!



Working for Jesus,

Tam

 

The same question could be asked of Creationists: Seeing as how God made the Earth and science, why would he deliberately deceive us by making the Earth look 4.5 billion years old and making it look like we have a common ancestor?

 

"I would personally come closer to believing that God had misled us if this planet were truly billions of years old,"

But God is the Creator of the Creation. The Creation itself gives overwhelming evidence of billions of years of history for the universe and the earth and of the common descent of all life on earth. I do not think that God has misled us. But you say that if it is, God has misled us. Could the problem be you are putting God in a box with the faulty interpretation of a mere human? The God I believe in is big enough to have created either way. His Creation tells me he did it over billions of years. I shall not question God's decision to tell us of the Creation in a non-literal fashion even if that is a problem for you.

 

For those who believe in an old earth, and/or some form of theistic evolution as being the mechanism for creation, at what point does the Book of Genesis transition from figurative to literal? At what point are you confident that the stories in Genesis are literal...the expulsion from Eden? the account of Cain and Abel? Noah? Abraham?

 

God is not misleading us.

The universe must come either from God who put it into being or it must come from nothing.

Genesis teaches the religious truths that we are not accidents but God's children and that he created us.

Now remember when people thought that the world was flat instead of round and they probably didn't realize that the earth was a globe spinning in space? It didn't matter that people were wrong about the Earth. The shape of the Earth wasn't necessary for our salvation.

However, the teaching that the world comes from God rather than nothing is needed for our salvation. Creation is used to point us to the Creator. The account of Gensis 1 could be seen as "setting the stage" for proclaiming the religious truth that God created us.

The Bible account of creation and scientific data is not in conflict with one another, when one realizes that Genesis points out that it was God who was responsible for creating the world.

 

New In Christ

I will try and give you an honest answer. I don't know.

The question may not even be able to be answered in its present form. I don't know that there is a line where everything before is allegorical and everything after is literal. There are non-literal parts throughout the Bible even up to the last few pages. And some of the things that are taken in a non-literal way may have some basis in actual events. Take the Creation itself as an example. I personally believe that this is not meant to be literal but at the same time I also believe the God did create this universe of ours and caused all the creative things to happen that led to us being here today. The distinction is blurry.

Let me further admit one thing. This is one of the more difficult aspects of accepting an old earth. It is not real comfortable taking things that are presented as narrative in the Bible and interpreting them in a non-literal manner. I think caution is definately required. But I also think that God's Creation is quite clear on its age. So I feel very certain about it.

Beyond the creation, I don't know. I think you get back into the idea of a blurring between actual events and giving us truths on which the rest of the Bible is based. For example, there is not any evidence for a worldwide flood and major problems with one. (Boy, I am opening a can of worms here.) But there is ample evidence for a great regional flood in the Middle East. Does it make it a non-literal interpreation to say that the world that God destroyed was the "world" they knew and not the entire globe?

IMHO, I would venture that by the time you get to Abraham that the blurry lines have become rather clear. Do I have any way to back this up? No, not really. And I expect that someone will take me through the ringer for saying that. I know that some of the other old earthers here take a different view. I also did not venture down any specific roads either, so there are a number of things left unsaid in the issue of space.

 

Bob

I am not even sure what you were trying to say, but I'll have a go at it any way.

I gave you a reference to a chart showing the ages of the various islands plotted against the distance from the currently erupting volcanoes. http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html You then went of fon some strange tirade about "Zygote Adam" and "Zygote Eve." I think your point may have been the old circular logic routine. We interpret old earth because we assume an old earth. So let's ignore the rhetoric and look at the data. You failed to do that in your wrangling.

What do we see? First, we have an island, Hawaii (the big island), tah is currently being built up by volcanic forces. It has two large volcanoes that occasionally show some activity. To the east is a smaller volcano that is continuously erupting and building the island bigger. The whole island shows evidence of being built by the volcanoes. The islands geography is hard and sharp with very little evidence of erosion. To the east, there is a very active undersea volcano building a new seamount. It has yet to break the surface, but it is building.

Now we look to the west. The next island over is Maui. Its eastern half contains another large volcano similar in size to the two large ones on the island of Hawaii. It is currently dormant but has erupted in the last few hundred years. The western end of Maui contains another volcano. This volcano is dead. Its caldera has collapsed and the land shows signs of erosion.

As you continue moving west, you find a pattern. There are over 100 volcanoes, all dead. As you move west, the volcanoes show increasing signs of erosion. The furtherest west have been completely eroded back into the sea. The volcanoes that maintain their island status grow increasingly soft and lush as you wove to the west.

Now you date each of the volcanoes. You find that there is a linear relationship between the distance from the active volcanoes a volcano is and how old it is dated to be. The nearest are young. The most distant are the oldest.

Now, without any assumptions, how do you interpret this? What do you think is shown? How do you support your conclusions? Is your conclusion different than the conclusion of the geologists? Then explain how you can interpret the data better.

"The Bible says that God stretches out the heavens as a Curtain. Science has only just recently discovered that this is true."

The catch is in the details. The details match the predictions of science as to what is expected. Do you care to get into a discussion of the CMB? I think you will find the evidence supports inflation. But, you would deny that.

"Uniformitarianism EVEN though Evolutionists THEMSELVES must now posit massive and sudden "expansion""

So, you now are taking the concept of geologic uniformitarianism and applying it to astronomy. I have never heard of this before. New concept of yours?

"Evolutionism is false EVEN if the stars are older than the earth."

Giving up your literal interpretation so quickly. "The stars are young. BUt even if they are not young evolution still did not happen!" Come on Bob, you know that if you give up the stars being old then you have given up your whole premise. Everything in six days a few thousand years ago is your premise. You give up the stars, you give up everything.

"Life on earth is ALL that is needed to disprove the beliefs of evolutionism."

Life on earth shows us that common descent binds all of the life on earth together.

"[/i]I suppose it was necesary to fool us into believing that we all came from a single crustacian since all life is carbon based[/i]"

Bob, you know good and well that you are arguing against a strawman. It is not that life is carbon based and we did not all come from a crustacian. Once again it is the details. Take the similarities between human DNA and the DNA from the other apes and primates. This is where you usually scream common designer so I take that option away from you. Look at the vitamin C evidence I have explained to you a hundred times. Why is a perfectly good machine for making vitamin C in all animals broken in both humans and apes in the exact same way, the same mutation at the same spot of the same enzyme (of four in the machine)? Common descen handles this perfectly. How do you explain ALL of the primate "kinds" including humans having this exact same mutation but no other animals? Look at long term repeats of endogenous retroviral DNA. Why do humans and the other apes share the same repeats in the same places? Common design predicts that they should. You would have to assume that in all the different primate "kinds" that each of the several virii infected a germ line cell and inserted the exact same sequence into the exact same spot and that all of these insertions were passed to all members of all the "kinds." For that matter, with the large percentage of our DNA that is made up of LTR of viral DNA, you would expect to see large variation within humans of which repeats were in which individual if all these insertions happened in recent history. That all of the LTRs are shared shows how ancient life is. You have no answer for this nor any of the other dat presented to you. You can only deny.

"with canine species for example"

Bob, your continued insistance that evolution is false because you could not breed a wolf from a poodle is another strawman. No where does evolution suggest this should be possible. It is of your own creation and has no support.

"Is that your way of saying "I guess the flood story is right and uniformitarian speculations of evolutionists are not as infallible as the Creator's Word"???"

Just how does what I said support you? That would be some stretch. You explain those varves to me with their daily and seasonal variations. You explain those yearly ice layers. Show how a better explanation of the data rules out the conventional view.

"Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA) Concluded the OPPOSITE. HE concluded that DNA PROVES it NEVER could have happened in all of time on earth - rather it must have been PLANTED HERE."

Are you now joining the ranks of those who believe life originated in another solar system and was transported here? No? Then why do you bring it up? This is like all branches of YECism. If it might go against the modern views of science then you consider it friendly. Crick thinks life originated on another planet and was transported here. Well that goes against modern science so you willingly use it. Never mind the implications that it is even more at odds with your beliefs. Intelligent design sounds like a good game so you'll consider them friends even though Behe and others accept common descent. There can never be division within the ranks. The RATE group and all thse others go out and tell blatant lies about science, but they cannot be censored or rebuked. How dare one YECers tell another he is wrong. Look at the scientists, you use every scrap of disagreement to tar the whole establishment so you cannot let their be any strife in your camp.

You called an number of my arguments "fallacious." Tell what fallacy I am guilty of and show where I made my mistakes.

You rail against "Uniformitarianism." Tell us what is wrong with it. Now no strawmen about how they do not allow for catastrophe, you know full well that modern geology understands and makes use of catastrophic events in their explanation of geology. You know full well the Uniformitarianism means that cause and effect relationships are the same today as they were in the past. If you disagree, show us that erosion by a river, or a flood of a river valley, or wind erosion ,or a landslide, or wave action, or an earthquake, or a volcano have different effects today than they did in the past. You argue against a strawman of Uniformitarianism, why don't you knock over the real thing?

 

Brett sez:

Bold/numbers Mine

1 Who said God DID deceive us?
2 Who decided that God made the earth LOOK 4.5 billion years old? That comes from man's efforts; nothing God did or said!
3 We DO have a common ancestor, four in fact, unless you discount the flood also!

 

BR - Just because there are mysteries left for science to solve as to why the universe expands and exactly how it expands does not mean you can therefore catagorically deny the things science does know.

The literal narrative of the days of creation places the creation of the stars on day four:

The Creator is not posting in this forum. Men such as you and I are expressing opinions.

You have argued for accepting the Genesis narrative as literally true, and as we see above, it states the stars were created on the fourth day of the creation week.

??? Is it your goal to merely disprove evolution and never mind supporting what the Bible literally says? I thought all along you merely disbelieved evolution because you believed the Bible instead. But if you believe stars were older than the earth, then you disbelieve the Bible AND evolution both!

Well, now at last you're starting to talk sense! -Oh, wait, that was irony, wasn't it. Oh well. . .

(sigh) God is not a being with eyes and thumbs and hairy legs; God is spirit. It is in our spirits that we reflect the image of God, not our bodies. That is elementary theology; how long have you labored under the delusion that God is of the flesh, fleshly?

It is true that once we sinned and became in need of a savior God in the second Person of the Trinity took on the form of our flesh. But that was not His state when He formed us in His image.

IF poodles were placed in an environment where a predator could get along real well AND there were no effective predators around THEN poodles would undoubtedly take up predator ways and become over a few hundred thousand years (a far longer time than all written history of mankind) an effective predator.

But I sincerely doubt it would be a wolf, any more than a hyena or a tasmanian devil is a wolf.

Today nobody knows how life got STARTED from a scientific point of view; only that once it got here it evolved. Neither UT nor anyone else in the debate has said anything else around here to my knowledge. I certainly don't reject the idea that God could have created life as a special miracle on our planet; nor do I reject the idea that God might have instead designed the possibility of life into the very laws of the universe. That's something we just don't know yet.