In the Beginning....

Well if that is your standard then maybe you should temper posts like this


http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1568305&postcount=11

 

I am a six day, young earth creationist. The only evidence in nature that has ever troubled me is the distance to the stars. How can we see starlight from a star or galaxy that is 200,000 light years away if the Earth is only about 6,000 years old?

Now, I never let that shake my belief in a young earth whatsoever, but it did present a problem difficult to explain.

God could have created the Earth with the appearance of age. There is some basis to this argument, Adam and Eve looked like grown adults the day they were created. So God could have simply made the starlight to be here from the moment they were created. This might be the answer.

Or, another explanation that evidence has surfaced for in recent years is that light has slowed down. There is real evidence that suggests the speed of light may have been many millions, or even billions of times faster in the very recent past. This would also affect all atomic measurements, so that radiometric dating could show things to be millions or billions of years old when they were in fact only a few thousand years old.

That may be the answer, and I am inclined to lean with this explanation.

But there are also very many legitimate scientific evidences that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

Truth is, none of us can go back to the creation and observe it, so there is no truly scientific way to know exactly what happened and how long it took.

When scientists tell you they have scientific proof that the universe is billions of years old, they are blowing smoke. They do not know this whatsoever.

I really don't care what science says, the scriptures say God created everything in six days, and I believe it.

 

So what? ...

 

In other words creation was created mature.

 

It's not necessary to do all of those intellectual gymnastics about light when the Bible does not teach that the universe is young.
Many fundamentalist Christians have no problem with this interpretation. There is no need for any of us to- especially in the face of scientific discoveries.

Spurgeon believed in an old universe a hundred years ago. He's not a liberal, compromiser or heretic.

 

Which are not reliable. However, this statement seems to support Tom Bryants' conclusion about those who hold to this erroneous view.

 

Yes Luke, the distance to the stars presents a real problem to explain for creationists. But there is real evidence that the speed of light was much faster in the recent past.

Here are some an interesting articles by Barry Setterfield. Everyday, more and more physicists are coming on board and agreeing with his research and findings, many who are secular.

http://www.setterfield.org/GSRsetterfieldsimplified.html

Here is a paper specifically about the changing speed of light.

http://www.setterfield.org/000docs/cx1.html

 

I'll tell you what you ought to do. Look up Ken Hamm vs Hugh Ross on Youtube. Ken hamm is a good man who is demanding some very unnecessary things and unintentionally causing Christianity some unnecessary ridicule.

 

When you start with the premise of an old earth you are likely to see it this way. But scripture does not bear that out. God spoke of six literal 24 hour days in the Ten Commandments. You should stick with that. Scripture is also clear Adam and Eve were created mature and not born. Let's just stick with what scripture says so we do not have to engage ins theological gymnastics.

 

Self-righteous, snotty, unfair and unhelpful: Thank you for your assessment of my character.

Why did you assume that i was addressing you? It wasn't snotty. It wasn't self righteous. It was what I have determined the Bible teaches because of my own study of the original languages.

I understand that to many Spurgeon is the Baptist pope, but he doesn't speak for me. I don't really care what great Christians have taught. I take their writings like all the rest of people's teachings. I accept what they say if it agrees with what I believe the Bible teaches. If it doesn't I reject it. If that sounds arrogant, I imagine that there are also some great teachers who believe in a literal 6 day creation whom you think are wrong. Does that mean you write them off?

 

Spurgeon was not a scientist. He also lived at a period of time when the theories of evolution were at their pinnacle. Many theologians caved in and bought the evolution myth, because like you they believed true science supported it.

But if you were to ask evolutionists today about Darwin, they would tell you that he was laughably wrong in almost all of his conclusions. The Evo theory of the mid 19th century would be unrecognizable from the theory today. The only thing that has evolved is evolutionary theory. They are constantly having to alter the theory because real scientific evidence almost always contradicts it.

And I don't care how many theologians accept evolution. I believe in a God who could easily create everything in an instant. God doesn't need millions or billions of years to do anything.

As I said earlier, if God took long ages to create the world, he could have said so and I would believe it. God knows the difference between a day and billions of years.

 

It's not gymnastics. One of the greatest Hebrew scholars of all time Delitzsch explains that the language almost demands an old earth. Donald G. Barnhouse concurs. Spurgeon took the fact for granted.

None of these guys are theological gymnasts.

 

Luke

If you are truly interested in facts, you will enjoy this website. Don't dismiss it until you have given it a real look. There are hundreds of informative articles here.

http://creationsafaris.com/crev201007.htm

 

Not you; I don't know you. But your post was snotty. You accused me and those like me of letting scientists dictate to us what we believe. That was baseless and insulting.

 

It wasn't baseless at all. In fact you continued to confirm this with the below statement:

 

No, I'm not going to go into it. You don't believe it, and you may be right, it could all be wrong. But, if it interest you, just do a search and there is plenty here on the BB to see. Also, do a Goggle search and there is plenty more.

I know this is perhaps unknown to you, but there have been good, fundamental God-loving preachers and teachers and other Christians who see this different than you. Now, I will admit they are in the large minority. You will have to decide for yourself. I refuse to argue with you about it.

 

If you start with the Genesis account not being literal then where do you stop? If the Genesis account is in question then so is the rest of the Bible. After all, if one cannot believe in a literal seven day creation based on current scientific observation then how can one believe in a man, dead for three days, being raised from the dead? Any scientifically minded person will tell you emphatically that a person, truly dead for three days, does not come back to life. So, based on the reasoning of some here the whole gospel message comes under question. Mess with Genesis and you destroy the validity of the rest of the Bible.

 

How about at the Cross? The only thing we truly need to believe in literally for salvation, and hence for a relationship with God. With that relationship, God can show us truth Himself.

As for the Cross, there are many, many assertions in Scripture of the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ being literal. Four different accounts in the Gospels, one asserting that he had investigated everything himself, one from a stated eye witness (who in one of his later letters even talked about having "touched with our hands" the Truth). Paul gave a testimony of his own experience several times, plus a list of others that could testify to the reality of Jesus and His resurrection. Peter even stated that they "did not follow cleverly devices tales" when talking about Jesus. Basically saying "we didn't make this stuff up"! Is there anything else in Scripture, about which Scripture itself makes such a statement? Paul talked in 1 Corinthians about the necessity of believing in the Cross (and its meaning).

There's a huge gap between what Scripture says about Scripture in this case, and everything else.